A Market for Murder (12 page)

There were also other urgent matters on her mind, primary of which was Mary Thomas and her behaviour on Sunday. It infuriated Karen that her testimony should be so flatly contradicted, and despite Drew’s interpretation, that there could be a good and important reason for it, she couldn’t shake off her anger. Threading itself amongst the fury was a worry that she might have unwittingly got Mary into trouble by revealing her presence at the supermarket when the bomb went off.

She’d got through Monday, busy in the afternoon with four small children, without giving the matter much sustained thought, which only meant that now it came back in full force. She had to find out whether Mary was still being kept by the police. Surely that couldn’t possibly be the case? They’d have had to have charged her by now, and the news of that would have got round by this time. She gave herself a rest
from tending the vegetables and rang Geraldine Beech’s number.

There was no reply on the home line, so Karen rummaged for the mobile number. Why are they always so difficult to remember, she asked herself irritably. Normally she had people’s phone numbers firmly in her head.

Eventually, Geraldine answered. There was traffic noise in the background. ‘Where are you?’ Karen asked, before introducing herself.

‘Who’s that? Della? Is that you?’

‘No, it’s Karen. Can you hear me?’

‘Perfectly. What do you want?’

‘I wondered whether you’d heard what’s happened to Mary. I was there on Sunday when the police came for her. It was all rather shocking in a way. I wondered.’

‘There’s nothing to worry about. She was only there an hour or two. They had no right to take her in like that. She’ll probably sue them.’

‘So she’s all right, is she? I’ve been wanting to have a talk with her for ages now. Somehow I never seem to get the chance.’

‘Leave it, Karen.’ The voice was hard and cold. ‘Why are you so intent on interfering?’

‘I’m not!’ Karen’s heart was thundering. This wasn’t at all like the Geraldine she thought she knew. ‘I just—’

‘Yes, yes, I’m sure your motives are pure. But
you’ve done enough damage already, blundering about. If we need you, we’ll contact you, all right? I thought we had made that clear already.’

Karen felt ridiculously upset. She could feel tears gathering behind her nose. She swallowed. ‘What about Friday?’ she asked, trying to sound grown up and unscathed. ‘Is the market still on?’

‘Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?’ The organiser’s tone was less abrasive now, despite the abrupt words.

‘Because …’ Karen’s voice rose uncontrollably, ‘because, you stupid woman, that’s the day after Peter Grafton’s funeral.’

‘Calm down, for God’s sake. Life has to go on. Nobody would expect us to abandon the routine like that. We can’t just cancel the market. We’d lose credibility – and customers. Garnstone’s tricky enough without any interruptions like that. I’ll expect you to be there.’

‘And Sally? Is she coming, too?’

‘As far as I know, yes. She seems to be functioning fairly well. After all, she’s not really in a position to display too much naked grief, is she?’

‘Poor Sally,’ said Karen softly.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. I’ll see you on Friday then.’ And she slammed down the receiver, her hands shaking.

Den was another person with plenty to think about on the drive from North Staverton to Bradbourne. He and Maggs had scrambled out of bed, both knowing they’d be late for work, but neither much caring. The weekend away had taken their relationship a giant stride forward, and both were still glowing. They had even, in a very oblique and jokey fashion, mentioned marriage as something that could conceivably happen one day.

The idea of acquiring a farm had come out of nowhere, as far as Den could see. And it was completely crazy. Farms cost vastly more money than he and Maggs had earned in their combined lives so far. Unless they both found well paid professions instantly, he didn’t see that there was the
slightest chance of putting the idea into practice. And if they were both working fulltime, what would be the sense in having a farm anyway?

At least that had been his initial position. Maggs had clearly done some homework, and bombarded him with facts and figures about special loans, subsidies, grants, discounts all available to people wanting to act as ‘stewards’ of the land.

‘They won’t be called farmers for much longer,’ she asserted. ‘The whole thing’s in a state of flux. It’s all going to be very exciting.’

‘But what about Drew?’ he had asked, several times. ‘It sounds as if you want to abandon Peaceful Repose.’

And she hadn’t satisfactorily answered that. She’d frowned and changed the subject, scuffling a toe in the dry mud of the yard they were walking round at the time. All she would say was, ‘I’m happy enough working with Drew, but there isn’t enough for both of us to do. The quiet times drive me mad.’

He wasn’t sure he believed in all these grants and subsidies that Maggs thought could make her dream feasible. Land was expensive, everyone knew that. When he was growing up, farmers had been the élite. Their children had all gone to private schools and they drove large ostentatious Discoveries and the like. Despite the past six
or seven years when things had deteriorated so catastrophically for agriculture, he couldn’t even begin to think of himself as belonging to that class of person. The idea was so new and strange, it made his mind go numb.

And yet, it wasn’t as if he’d never known farm life. His first serious girlfriend had been a farmer’s daughter, and he had spent time helping her with the animals. He had investigated two farm-based murders, which involved, among other things, some close experience of dairy cows. He was a country boy – so why the bewildered reaction?

Because, he concluded, there was a world of difference between living in a rural area, eating locally grown produce and listening to conversations about the weather, compared to getting onto a tractor and trying to plough a straight furrow. If Maggs had her way, Den would spend his weekends ditching, hedging, weeding, cutting grass for hay, applying for government subsidies, filling in a million forms and trying to justify the drastic change of lifestyle. No, no, he mentally shook his head. It just wasn’t him. No way.

It was, though, undeniable that he was in a very unsatisfactory phase of his life, and something would have to change. He couldn’t piddle about as a dogsbody for Social Services indefinitely. It was mildly interesting, but there
was no sense of progress or even any feeling that he was significantly helping anybody. Better to apply for jobs with big charities, or get a more focused position as a probation officer or team leader, than what he was currently doing.

He’d known this point would come, but had tried to ignore it. He knew, too, what had precipitated it: the murder of Peter Grafton. Until then, he had managed to quell any stirrings of dissatisfaction. But he still couldn’t work out whether the murder was in any way connected with Maggs’s farm idea. The processes behind Maggs’s thinking were almost always obscure to him – and he often thought they were to her, as well.

She phoned him during the morning, breathlessly, telling him how busy she and Drew were, all of a sudden. She sounded happy. ‘Don’t come for me at the usual time this evening,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have to stay a bit late. I’ll call you when I’m ready to leave, OK?’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll pop in and see if Danny’s still around, when I finish here.’

‘I hope he’ll be pleased to see you,’ she said cheerily.

Den hoped so too. He’d be a lot more welcome if he could provide some new information about the murder. It was unrealistic to assume that the police had missed the connection with genetic
modification of plants, but maybe the snippet about the ‘three witches’ he’d gleaned from Karen’s friend Della would count for something.

‘Den? Are you with us?’ He looked up, startled. Tony Gibson, the Chief, was frowning down at him, and had evidently been there for some time.

‘Oh, sorry. I was thinking.’

‘I won’t ask you what about. I gather you were late this morning. And I can’t help noticing your socks.’

Den’s long legs, as always, stretched under the desk and protruded on the other side. People had routinely tripped over his feet until a new arrangement of the office furniture had been organised. He couldn’t see his own socks without considerable effort. ‘Are they odd?’ he asked miserably.

‘One blue, one brown,’ Gibson confirmed.

‘Maybe nobody will look,’ Den said feebly.

‘It isn’t professional, is it? What would your Chief Superintendent have said?’ Gibson harboured an undisguised resentment at Den’s change of career, for reasons that were not too hard to ascertain. To an ambitious career man like himself, aiming for no less a post than the Head of Social Services, anybody casting doubt on the desirability of enterprise and
ladder-climbing
was understandably unsettling. Jibes 
such as this were commonplace, and Den was mostly successful in letting them fall harmlessly to the floor without retort.

‘It’s sloppy,’ he agreed, swallowing the
semiautomatic
sir
. People in this office never said
sir
.

‘Well, don’t let it happen again. Now, here’s a job for you. Sounds quite interesting for once. More than you deserve, really.’

Den started to get up, genuinely keen to get out into the sunny streets of Bradbourne.

‘Wait for it. Jenny’ll come for you when she’s ready. It’s a family thing, by the sound of it. Kids of all ages. One of them hasn’t been seen for weeks – and when it
was
last seen, it had bruises of a suspicious nature. The school called us yesterday, saying he’s absent without any explanation.’

‘So why wasn’t he seen?’ Den asked boldly.

‘Not for want of trying, I can tell you. This’ll be the fifth attempt. If it fails this time, we’ll call for reinforcements. It’s a boy, seven years old.’

Den didn’t need to ask any more. Boys, rightly or wrongly, were not protected with such vigour as girls. And a child of seven, although vulnerable, was regarded as less urgent than an under-five. Seven-year-old boys could generally stand up for themselves, at least to some extent. This was the pragmatic state of affairs; far from ideal, but true just the same.

He and Jenny drove off to investigate the case, each trying to reassure the other that there was no need for much concern. ‘People very seldom hurt their own kids,’ Jenny said. ‘It’s more usually step-parents or someone a bit more removed.’

‘Right,’ Den agreed. ‘Although …’

‘Yeah. Sometimes it’s the mother who bashes the brains out of a month-old baby. Or tortures it with cigarette burns. Some people are too sick to be allowed near their own children.’ Jenny was thirty-one, fair-haired and nervy. To Den’s eyes, she wasted a lot of time trying in vain to get organised. She lost files, left the office without important documents, and panicked easily. One of Den’s regular tasks was to keep her calm and find things for her.

‘I did try to see this little chap, you know.’ She turned to him with a frown. ‘I even got into the house and had a look for him. His mother said he was playing with his friends on the rec.’

‘He probably was, then.’

‘Well, I couldn’t see him in the house. I mean – what’re we supposed to
do?
’ It was a familiar howl of frustration at the impossible role society was asking them all to play.

‘We do what we can,’ he said soothingly. ‘It’ll be OK.’

And, rather to his surprise, it was. The woman who answered the door to them was tidily dressed,
not unduly defensive, and even came up with a smile.

‘He’s at school,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you checked?’

‘He was away yesterday,’ Jenny said.

‘Well, he’s there today. I took him right into the classroom. He had a cold yesterday. Really, he’s fine now.’ She stood in the doorway, neither inviting them in nor obstructing their way. ‘Go and see for yourselves. Though try not to make him feel an idiot in front of his mates. There’s been enough of that already.’

Jenny was gracious. ‘Well, sorry to bother you,’ she said.

‘It’s no bother. I’m glad to see you’re doing your job. But I’ve got nothing to hide, believe me. I can see it must have looked a bit odd, when he got those bruises, but Harry’s not one for your register. I look after my kids, even if there are a lot of them.’

They went back to the car. ‘Wasn’t she a bit too good to be true?’ Den queried.

‘Maybe. We’ll go to the school then, shall we?’

‘Couldn’t we just phone them? They ought to have let us know he was in today. If the teacher says he’s OK, couldn’t we leave it at that?’

Jenny chewed her lip. ‘Gibson said I had to personally view him. Preferably without clothes on.’

‘He knows that’s out of order.’ Den was indignant. ‘You need a doctor for that.’

‘Yeah, I know. He wasn’t being serious. Let’s go back, and phone the school, then.’

Jenny spoke to the child’s teacher, and was assured that he was energetic, cheerful, noisy and clean. As far from an abused or neglected child as anyone could be, the woman said. The file was signed, closed and placed in Jenny’s OUT basket.

It was one of many such inconsequential visits, which Den always found unsettling. Police work had often been the same, of course, which only made him feel more strongly that he’d dived into a cul de sac, and needed to find some direction for himself as a matter of urgency. At least he’d been paid a decent salary in the police.

All of which took Den up to within half an hour of his lunch break, with nothing accomplished, no sense of purpose or satisfaction, and a growing desire to get outside and do something to assist the investigation into Peter Grafton’s murder. He came to a decision.

‘Mr Gibson?’ He put his head around the door to the boss’s partitioned-off cubicle. ‘Do you think I could have the rest of the day off? I can’t see that I’m needed here at the moment. Actually, it might be as well to have the rest of the
week. Would that be possible, do you think?’

‘Paid or unpaid?’ The man fixed him with an unresponsive stare.

‘I do have some leave owing. I’d assumed it would be paid.’

‘Supposed to give notice for that.’

‘Yes, I know. But nobody else is away this week. It’d probably suit you better for me to be off now.’

‘Don’t tell me my job. Go on, then. But I’ll expect you back here first thing Monday morning.’

‘Right you are.’ Again the ghostly
sir
hovered in the air.

He made directly for the Town Hall, where the fact that they were now a full week on from the murder was causing some concern. Den found Hemsley running his fingers through his thinning hair and shouting at a female Detective Constable. There was little sign of activity, and Den thought he detected signs that the Incident Room would shortly be dismantled and removed, leaving Bradbourne to resume its bric-a-brac markets and charity coffee mornings in peace.

‘Den!’ The Inspector’s enthusiasm was born more of desperation than genuine pleasure. ‘Got any breakthroughs for us?’

Den shook his head ruefully. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘This is not good,’ Hemsley grumbled. ‘A man gets himself struck down in the open street, broad daylight, peaceful little market town, and nobody sees a thing. It’s bizarre.’

‘Whoever did it has to have been in one of the buildings,’ Den said. ‘Or possibly in a passing car. Has anybody thought of that?’

‘We’ve
thought
of everything,’ Danny said crossly. ‘It’s not
thinking
that’s the issue. We need witnesses, proof, motive. We need the weapon. We need cooperation. We haven’t got anything. And the longer it goes on, the more pointless it’s all beginning to seem. We’re just sitting here pretending to be busy. Even the press has lost interest.’

Den sighed sympathetically.

‘So why are you here?’ the Inspector asked.

‘I thought I might help. I was bored. I’ve taken the rest of the week off.’

‘And what help are you offering? I do have officers, you know. Paid and trained. You’re not on the payroll, you’re not covered for injury or misdemeanours. I can’t give you any commissions of any sort.’

‘But I know some of the people,’ Den persisted. ‘And I can talk to them informally without making them suspicious. Which I’m going to do, whatever you say. It cuts both ways, you know.’

Hemsley nodded his concurrence. ‘Be my guest,’ he said.

Den’s eyebrows rose. ‘Mellow!’ he remarked. ‘Is this the new Danny?’

‘Maybe it is,’ came the reply, with a small shrug.

‘So I’ll start with Mary Thomas, shall I?’

‘Cooper,’ Danny gave a weary warning, ‘you don’t work for me any more, remember. You can go along and chat to anybody you please, but don’t so much as mention the police, or you’ll be charged with impersonation. You’re free to come and tell me anything you learn – or not. Just as you feel. If you impede our investigations, or compromise them in any way, you’re in trouble. But – and this is between the two of us – we can’t really do any worse than we are already. It’s a total blank up to now. And you’ve just about got the sense not to smudge any prints or trample on anything forensics might find useful. Be my guest,’ he said again. ‘And enjoy yourself.’

‘You took Mary Thomas in for questioning,’ Den said carefully.