A Market for Murder (18 page)

And she was. As he pulled into the farmyard, he glimpsed her going into a barn, wearing a red-checked man’s shirt and tight jeans in a glaring imitation of Mary Thomas. Did they agree each morning on what to wear, or was it some sort of female telepathy? He didn’t know Mrs Henderson well; couldn’t even remember speaking to her, but he knew her by sight. He waited for her to notice his arrival, knowing she must have heard the car and was deliberately ignoring it until she’d done whatever she wanted to in the barn.

He sat patiently until she came back, two minutes later. Then he unfolded his considerable length from the driver’s seat and stood waiting for her.

‘You’re the ex-policeman,’ she told him, rubbing something yellow off her hands. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Den Cooper,’ he said, proffering his hand.

She looked down at hers and grinned. ‘Better not,’ she said. ‘This is fairly poisonous stuff. Some patent herbal concoction to prevent fly strike in sheep. You have to mix it up yourself. I don’t suppose it’ll work.’

‘Are you organic here?’ he asked doubtfully.

‘No, no. We’ve no patience with all that. But I’ll try anything once. I remember my grandad used to say linseed oil was about the best thing for fly strike. That’s one ingredient of this potion. Come on in, and I’ll give myself a wash.’

He followed her into a huge farm kitchen that was as different as possible from Geraldine’s stark room. There were four or five ancient hairy armchairs, some with sagging seats, prolapsing onto the floor beneath. Crocheted blankets were thrown over them, all colourless with mud and hair. Three shaggy farm dogs lay on makeshift beds around the room. The small window was closed and the Aga was obviously going full blast, even in mid May. The only similarity with Geraldine’s place was the big table. A colossal old table dominated the room. Mountains of papers had accumulated at one end, leaving about two thirds available for eating. It was covered with a flower-patterned oilcloth. Along one worktop were massed about a hundred empty glass jars. Den remembered that Hilary sold honey at the
farmers’ markets. ‘Taking your honey off soon?’ he asked.

‘I’m hoping for some in a week or two,’ she nodded. ‘They’ve had a mild winter, so I think there’ll be some. It’s always extra good this time of year, provided they haven’t found any oilseed rape, of course. I
hate
it when they bring that back. Revolting stuff. It should be banned.’

‘They’re testing some GM versions, I gather?’ he said. ‘Up in Scotland, I think. Protesters have been tearing it out.’

‘So I hear,’ she said noncommittally, before adding, ‘Bloody fools.’

‘Who? The protesters or the people who grow it?’

‘The idiots who invented it in the first place. Monsanto and their friends. People think they’ve stopped, because the media haven’t been following up the story – as usual. But they’re at it as much as ever. Trying to destroy us all for the sake of a bit of money. It makes me so
sick
.’

Den pondered the way these women were all so easily prompted to reveal their ardent feelings about food. It was as if they thought of nothing else, as if they were overflowing with zeal and commitment, and could never resist talking about it. Where, he wondered, had it all begun?

‘You obviously feel as strongly as the others do about it,’ he remarked.

‘Others?’ She was pouring boiling water into a big brown teapot, without checking whether he’d like a drink.

‘Geraldine Beech and Mary Thomas, to name two,’ he said.

She turned towards him, her expression hard to read. ‘They’re not just any two, though. They’re
the
two. With me, they’re the core of the whole thing. We started it all. We’ve known each other forever, you see.’

‘So I understand.’

‘Mary went away for a while, in her twenties. And Geraldine went to university, clever thing. But we’ve been back here together for thirty years or so now. Funny how time works.’ She gazed dreamily out of the grimy window. ‘It’s not really a continuum, you know. It’s a
package
. That’s how it feels. Everything that’s happened is still right
here
.’ She smacked herself on the chest. ‘It all still matters just as much as it ever did, and it’s all remembered. At least, between us we remember everything.’

‘And you’ve never fallen out? Three can be a very awkward number.’

‘We’ve argued – passionately at times. We’ve taken breaks from each other. But we never really fell out, no. We made the pact, you see, in 1960.
We were eighteen. We all loved the village – villages, I should say. The five villages, we called them. Anyway, we had this ideal of preserving what we loved about this whole area. Very
old-fashioned
we must have been back then. Country girls, in love with the fields and rivers and hills. We knew the wild flowers and birds and trees. We read Laurie Lee and Thomas Hardy and Agatha Christie. We didn’t hanker for the city life at all. We despised girls who wore make-up and got excited about clothes and pop music. We were above all that.’

Den tried to imagine it, and failed. ‘You were lucky to have each other,’ he realised.

‘Yes!’ She almost applauded him. ‘That’s
absolutely
right. If there’d only been one of us, it would never have stuck. But three is a powerful number anyway, and we gave each other strength. And it wasn’t really so difficult. We had all enjoyed happy childhoods, with freedom and good schooling and security. We were golden girls. We were really only unusual in realising our good fortune. And, of course, the world just confirmed our opinions, more and more, as time went by. The whole direction that society took was opposite to what we wanted. So it was easy to feel like campaigners and martyrs to the cause. We were lone voices in a great wilderness, and that’s a thrilling feeling.’

‘And now it’s turning back your way,’ he suggested.

‘Well, not really. Or only in small pockets. For most people, the powers of darkness are completely in control. They are ignorant, materialistic, miserable, city-bound morons. But locally –
here
– we prevailed. We deliberately set out to do what we did, and now, in the year we all reach sixty, we feel we can congratulate ourselves.’

‘Except that there’s been a murder. Possibly two murders,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ She plonked the heavy teapot down in front of him, as if suddenly unable to hold it. ‘Yes. And it might have wrecked the whole thing. We might yet find everything we’ve worked for crashing down.’ She blinked rapidly. ‘And we might be too old to build it all back up again.’

Den sipped the tea, and patted one of the dogs that had ambled over to him. There was something enormous in what Hilary Henderson had just told him. Something heroic, almost cosmic. Three women fighting to maintain values and attitudes from the fifties in the face of twenty-first century ways. What did they think about computers, he wondered. And there must be other modern gadgets that would cause them to feel threatened. Probably, though, they would have answers for everything. The crime rate would be due to working mothers, and the typical
family’s greed for material possessions. Pollution and levels of waste were due to ignorant and lazy lifestyles, where the connection between the source and the consumption of goods was lost. Institutions failing to provide effective services in terms of health, law enforcement, education, transport – all could be traced, he supposed, to the increased desire to acquire wealth. Everything seemed to come back to that, if you looked at life through Hilary’s spectacles.

Except Hilary didn’t wear spectacles. At sixty she looked to be in her late forties. Good skin, straight back, strong wiry hair. She could obviously see and hear and move as well as she ever could. If she was well-covered with flesh, that seemed to be all part of a general air of
well-being
.

‘So you don’t know who killed him?’ he said.

‘No, I don’t know who killed him. And I don’t know why. And I don’t know whether it was a friend or a foe.’

Den raised his eyebrows.

‘I mean, someone who thought they were doing us a favour in some way. We do attract a few oddballs, you see. Inevitably, these days, when the only groups who embrace the values we’ve been upholding are young hotheads, very inclined to take the violent path. Direct action, they call it, and in many ways I completely
approve of them. But there’s an unpredictable element. Some of them aren’t very stable, or very bright. They don’t think through what they’re doing. Still, they’re probably our best hope, so I wouldn’t dismiss them.’

‘But you think someone like that could have shot Peter?’

‘It’s the only thing I can think,’ she said.

He called in on Detective Inspector Hemsley on his way to collect Maggs from North Staverton, and tried to convey everything he felt was relevant.

‘Ah! Here comes my friendly local informant!’ Danny greeted him jovially. ‘What priceless leads have you brought me?’

Den waited until they were settled into one corner of the Incident Room, with screens on two sides. Then he summarised his day. Hemsley kept an eye on his computer, which seemed to be searching or collating. Hemsley made pencilled notes on a pad in front of him, but on the whole, Den had the impression that he was not producing anything new in his account of his day.

Except for the mention of Mary Thomas’s twin sister Simone. Hemsley narrowed his eyes at that. ‘Let’s see, then,’ he muttered, tapping at his keyboard. ‘What’s her surname, do you know?’

‘Baxter,’ Den said, trying to remain casual.

‘Good. Let’s see then … Hmmm.’ He tapped
and waited, tapped again repeatedly at the Down arrow, until the screen produced something of interest. ‘Oh, look! Mrs Simone Baxter, born 1942, Royal Victoria Hospital, Garnstone, original name of Marianne Simone Weston. Conviction in 1994 for riotous behaviour, suspended sentence. Arrested again the next year, but released for lack of evidence. Criminal damage to a grocery outlet. Retained on list of potential troublemakers regarding damage to GM crops, foodstores and similar. Well, there you are!’

Den chewed his lip. ‘Marianne?’ he queried. ‘Isn’t that a bit odd? Calling your twins Marianne and Mary?’

‘People do odd things like that,’ Danny shrugged. ‘And maybe the adopting parents named her, anyway. Can’t see any grounds for concern there, myself.’

‘See if there’s anything for Mary Weston, then. Born the same day and place.’

‘There won’t be. She hasn’t got a record. We already ran a check on her. Like we did on Mrs Beech, and the Henderson woman. And all the other stallholders.’

‘Including Karen?’ Den already knew the answer to that.

‘Including your Karen Slocombe,’ the Inspector confirmed.

Wearily, Den regaled Maggs with the whole of the day’s events. She listened with impressive attention, prompting him when he seemed to be falling asleep.

‘So you don’t think any of those three did it?’ she summed up when he finally finished.

‘I can’t see it. They all seemed so straight. Very different from each other in most ways, but with this burning
mission
. You have to admire them.’

‘And what does your friend Danny think?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t think he found me of much use really.’

‘But the best bit is the twins,’ Maggs enthused. ‘That’s wonderful.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s obviously not true,’ she laughed. ‘There’s no such person as Simone Baxter. Mary Thomas made her up.
She’s
the one who got picked up for rioting and smashing shop windows. I bet you anything.’

Den shook his head. ‘She’s on Danny’s computer as a separate person,’ he said.

Maggs raised her eyebrows. ‘Is she? I thought you told me there wasn’t anything for Mary?’

Den rubbed the side of his face, long fingers resting on the long cheek. ‘So I did,’ he said. ‘Well – I wonder …’

Drew awoke on the Saturday morning to a small voice in his ear, whispering, ‘Daddy? Daddy! Wake up.’

Frantically, as if electrocuted, he hurled himself out of bed, almost landing on top of his little daughter. ‘What? What?’ he croaked.

Stephanie laughed at him. ‘You fell out of bed,’ she mocked. ‘Silly you.’

He sat on the floor comically for a moment, enjoying her amusement. ‘Why did you wake me up? What time is it?’

She gazed at him patiently, without reply.

‘Let’s see. Quarter past eight. Goodness, that’s quite late, isn’t it? Are you hungry?’

‘Timmy is. He’s crying.’ Drew realised there was a background sound of grizzling from the children’s room.

‘We’d better sort him out then,’ Drew said, noticing that now his heart rate was slowing slightly, he seemed to be feeling rather better than he had the previous day. The wakening flood of terror about Karen was yielding to a more normal concern for his children. They had to be fed and dressed and reassured and amused. He had to phone the hospital, and plan the day. And there’d be people phoning him. Karen’s mother was threatening to come and help, which considering she’d only visited them three times in two years was a bit rich. Numerous friends and relations were making persistent offers of various kinds. Responding to them yesterday had been too much, and Maggs had done most of it. Today he felt much more ready to enlist all the support he could find.

Soon all three were dressed and making toast. ‘Is Mummy coming home today?’ Stephanie asked carefully. Drew could see the conflict going on inside her. The need to have an answer fighting with the knowledge that Drew did not like questions about Karen.

‘No, not today,’ he said. ‘I don’t know when. We’ll just have to wait and see.’

Timmy, who the day before had remained remarkably unperturbed by events, now seemed to have realised something was badly wrong. He continued to grizzle, acting like a baby, turning
his face away from all offers of food. Although irritated, Drew felt a sort of relief at the normality of the behaviour. ‘Come on, Tim,’ he urged. ‘Be a good boy.’

He knew he should phone the hospital for a report of Karen’s condition. But the fact that they had not phoned him did at least mean she was still alive, and also that no miraculous recovery had taken place. He was in no hurry to hear the flat unemotional phrase, ‘No change’.

The doorbell rang just before nine. Stephanie turned wide eyes towards the hall, and Drew understood how nervous she was, after so many shocks.

‘I wonder who that can be,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Somebody nice, I expect.’

It was, greatly to his surprise, Julie Grafton. The widow whose husband’s funeral he had so utterly abandoned halfway through. The widow who had in the end been forced to oversee the burial herself – and who had done it with total dignity, according to Maggs afterwards.

‘Drew,’ she said, her voice full of feelings, rich with emotion. ‘How are you?’

She looked composed, even strong. Clothes all straight and clean, hair nicely brushed, face free of tears or shadows.

‘I’m just about surviving,’ he said, wishing he could lean his head on her shoulder.

‘Let me come in and give you a hand,’ she ordered. ‘It must be awful for you. Is there any news about Karen?’

‘I haven’t called them yet. They’d have been in touch if there was any change.’

‘I feel terrible about it, you know,’ she said, again surprising him.

‘You do? But why?’

‘Because it seems obvious that she was shot because of Peter. I mean, she has to have known something, seen something, which the killer wanted to stop her from reporting. That is obvious, isn’t it?’

Drew blinked. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’

‘But whoever it is must be ever so clever. How did they hide the gun? How did they manage it, in the middle of a crowd of people, and nobody saw them?’

‘You didn’t see anything?’

She shook her head. ‘I was right behind the coffin. All I could see was my brother-in-law’s back, and Steve, next to him. I had my head bent, mostly, just watching the ground as I walked along. I think probably most people were the same. You do, don’t you? I mean, I’ve never done it before, but I’m sure most people fold their hands in front of them and walk with bowed heads in a funeral procession. At least
they don’t stare all around them or watch each other. It’s not the way it’s done.’

She was speaking breathlessly as if pent-up thoughts were tumbling out almost faster than she could voice them.

‘So it seemed to me that the person with the gun must have been right at the back of the line. And we should be able to work out who that was.’

‘Did you say that to the police?’

‘No, no. I hadn’t thought it through at all then. And they weren’t really listening to me, because it was Peter’s funeral. They were very embarrassed, poor things.’

‘Well, who do you think was at the back?’ His flickering attention was caught, if only for a few moments.

‘I have no idea,’ she admitted. ‘Not family. Probably not the Food Chain people. Someone who felt they were only peripheral; there were one or two I didn’t know. Hangers-on, or friends of his that I hadn’t met. But between us you and I could surely come up with a complete list. We’ll have to for the police, anyway.’

‘OK.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’ll have to think.’

‘I don’t mean now,’ she assured him. ‘I’ve come to see if I can help you with the children. I could stay with them if you wanted to go and see
Karen. If you haven’t got somebody already?’

‘Well …’ He stared helplessly at her. ‘They don’t
know
you. I was thinking, probably Della would have them. They go to her twice a week, you see. They’d feel comfortable with her. Except it’s Saturday, and I think she usually goes off to see her mother or somebody most weekends. The whole family goes. We see them driving past at about midday on Saturdays.’

‘Routines,’ Julie scoffed. ‘Surely they could give it a rest in an emergency like this. But it doesn’t matter – I’m here now. They’ll soon get to know me. I’m good with kids.’

Drew’s natural curiosity flickered into life. ‘You never had any?’

Her smile was twisted. ‘We were trying,’ she said bleakly. ‘Been trying for seven years, on and off. But I was sure it was going to work this summer. I’ve been much more relaxed about it, much healthier and … well, too late for all that now. It’s a relief in a way. I wouldn’t want to bring up a child without Peter there to help.’

‘Well come and talk to them, anyway. I’m not rushing off, if I can help it. Not unless …’

‘Not unless they phone,’ she supplied.

‘You’re being wonderfully kind,’ he blurted. ‘I don’t know what to say. I never expected …’

‘It’s a distraction for me,’ she smiled. ‘Good
therapy. But tell me to go away if I’m a nuisance.’

He looked at her, standing patiently waiting for him to assemble his thoughts. Something was too good to be true, some eagerness just below the surface, something close to hunger in her eyes. Mistrust was not a natural feeling for Drew, but he felt it now. Julie Grafton was there for some reason of her own, and he didn’t think it was anything to do with the welfare of the Slocombe children, or Drew himself.

Stephanie came out of the kitchen to where Drew and Julie were still in the hall. ‘Is it somebody nice?’ she asked Drew, as if the visitor couldn’t hear her.

‘It’s Mrs Grafton,’ he told her. Timmy had stopped grizzling, he noticed. ‘Is Timmy OK?’ he asked Stephanie.

She moved her head in an ambiguous
half-nod
. Drew went to check. ‘Hey, Tim,’ he called. ‘Finished your breakfast, have you?’

The little boy was playing glumly with some toast crusts and ignored his father. Julie squeezed past Drew and went to the child.

‘Tim? Is that your name?’ she asked, squatting down beside him. ‘I’m Julie.’

Drew closed his eyes, trying to settle the thoughts and feelings seething inside him. It was like being in the middle of a howling gale – it scrambled all your thoughts and took away
most of your autonomy. He didn’t feel capable of controlling or deciding anything. He was at anybody’s mercy.

Stephanie seemed to be feeling rather the same. She clutched his hand and gave a little tug. ‘Are we going to see Mummy?’ she asked.

‘In a little while.’ When he opened his eyes, he seemed unable to look at anything but Julie Grafton. What had she been saying, about the procession and the reason someone had shot Karen? It had all slipped his mind, in the two minutes since she’d uttered it.

He made a great effort. ‘No,’ he said. It sounded very loud in his own ears. ‘No, thanks. I think we’ll all go. Karen might respond when she hears the children’s voices. I think they need to see her.’ The realisation that he’d made a decision drained him of any further energy. He quailed at the thought of driving through the town. But there was no way he could leave his children with this woman.

She gave him a frowning stare of disbelief. ‘But …’ she began.

‘Thanks for the offer,’ he repeated. ‘It’s really kind. But they don’t know you.’ She should understand that this was all-important. Stephanie clutched his hand more tightly, giving him strength.

Of course Julie Grafton couldn’t have shot
Karen. But the thought shaped itself in his head unbidden:
Well, yes she could
. If she’d been walking alone behind the coffin, nobody would have seen if she’d directed a gun, concealed in her clothes somehow, at the garden gate as Karen stood looking over it. Nobody would have watched what she did next, as the coffin was dumped and chaos reigned. And, he admitted to himself, she might quite easily have killed her husband, jealous of his affair with Sally Dabb. Was this why he so suddenly mistrusted her? Why he knew there was no question at all of letting her watch over his children?

His mangled brain was not making rational connections. He wasn’t even trying to follow a logical thread. It was all gut feeling and an
all-consuming
need to evade any further trauma. He had to keep himself and the kids safe, for Karen’s sake. But there was a thought, nudging away somewhere on the edge. Something to do with Stephanie. He didn’t try to capture it, but it meant he was certainly not going to let the child out of his sight until things settled down again.

And that might be never, he acknowledged miserably to himself.

Den knew, if he thought about it, that he was likely to be a lot more objective than either
Drew or Maggs, because of their deep emotional involvement in what had happened. They had scarcely even started to wonder about the reasons for Karen’s shooting, while he felt he was moving steadily towards an answer to that question. He felt himself uniquely placed to produce an explanation, with his personal knowledge and professional expertise. He allowed himself some moments of complacency as a result.

He spent an hour on Saturday morning filling in several pages of a new reporter’s notebook with everything he could think of to do with the two murderous attacks. There was a separate page headed ‘Theories’ where he noted anything for which there was no actual evidence, but which might fit the known facts. This was the page Maggs found most interesting, and to which she had mainly contributed.

• Grafton killed because of selling out to supermarket
  
• Karen saw the killer without realising it
  
• Karen also saw supermarket bomber
  
• Connection with Mary Thomas/twin/police arresting her while Karen present
  
• Karen has information that would lead to the killer
  
• Grafton and Karen both present threats to the 3 witches’ plans
  
• Killer concealed gun in garment, bag, box while doing the shooting. Is this possible?
  
• Mary Thomas has no twin. It’s her all the time.
  

Maggs sucked the end of her pen as she scanned the page again. ‘This is all obvious stuff,’ she complained. ‘We haven’t really thought
laterally
, have we?’

‘Except for the twin, which I still think you’ve got wrong,’ he agreed.

‘So let’s see.’ She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, as if awaiting divine inspiration. ‘I know: what if Grafton was shot by mistake for Karen? So it was just another attempt at her on Thursday?’

Den winced. ‘Surely not?’ he spluttered.

‘Or even
worse
, but still not impossible – what if
Stephanie
saw something at the supermarket? And she was the intended victim on Thursday.’

‘Maggs, you worry me,’ Den said. ‘What a terrible idea. And daft, because Stephanie wasn’t at the farmers’ market, was she?’

‘True. But I could be right about Karen. Now, the gun. Where could it have been hidden? Where’s the last place anyone would look?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Hey! Maybe they hid it in Grafton’s coffin! Nobody looked there.’

‘I know I’ve said this before, but you really
do watch too many second rate movies, you know.’

‘No, but listen. It could be right. They haven’t found it, have they? And it would be a huge risk for somebody to carry it away with them. The police did search people once they’d got the idea of what was going on. They could have stuffed it in if they’d lifted one corner of the lid.’

‘Are you sure? Don’t you seal them down?’

‘Well, we do, yes, but not as securely when it’s cardboard. We actually run parcel tape around it. The colourless stuff. It doesn’t show too badly. And it’s better than the lid accidentally coming off. So if someone had a sharp knife, they could easily cut a section.’

‘They would have been seen, Maggs,’ he objected. ‘Surely there was never a moment when the coffin was unattended.’

‘Well, no, there wasn’t,’ she admitted. ‘But everyone was looking the other way, in the first few minutes. It’s like conjurors – they distract attention from what they’re doing. If it was all part of a plan, it would be possible. I’m sure it would.’

‘A gun’s quite a big thing,’ he said. ‘I think it would be much too risky. What a giveaway if they were caught.’

‘Hmm. So where else? The other place they
use in movies is a pram. There weren’t any prams, so that can’t be right.’