A Nice Place to Die (24 page)

‘I'm Mark,' he said, ‘Mark Pearson. I live on the farm here; I was checking the fences when I found the child.'

‘I've always wanted to live on a farm,' Penny said. ‘I'm a country girl, born and bred.'

Mark was about to ask her where she came from, but then her blonde colleague, Jo, knocked at the window.

Penny opened it. ‘Are they ready?' she asked.

‘I'll go in the ambulance,' Jo said. ‘Can you go and check out where she was found?'

‘Sure,' Penny said. ‘Mark here found her, he'll show me.'

Jo nodded and hurried back to the ambulance. Mark and Penny watched it move off. They listened to the sound of the siren until it died away in the distance.

Penny smiled at Mark.

She said, ‘I'll drive you home first. You could do with a hot drink after what you've been through. There's no crime involved – I think we can skip the formalities for now. I know where to find you if I need anything more.'

‘I don't know about you,' Mark said, ‘but I'm starving. Funny that, wanting to eat now.'

Penny laughed. ‘It's probably a nervous reaction to being a public hero,' she said. ‘Ever since I joined the police, I'm always ravenous.'

She started the car and drove slowly into the lane. ‘Down here?' she asked.

Mark nodded. ‘It's about half a mile further on,' he said.

As they reached the farm and Penny parked in the yard, Mark suddenly felt nervous. It seemed all at once very important that she wasn't put off by the dilapidated buildings and the farm smells that had so horrified Jess Miller.

‘Oh, this is wonderful,' Penny said, looking about her with an expression of excitement Mark associated with Hollywood movies when the humble heroine finds herself in the bridal suite at the Ritz Hotel. ‘It's a real farm, a real live farm. Like farms used to be.'

Yes, Mark thought, and Dad's still up, so now you're going to meet a real live farmer.

He was surprised to find he didn't care. It was extraordinary that he trusted her. Whatever his Dad did or said, Mark knew it would not change what she thought of him.

So he did not try to offer explanations.

He stood back to let her go first into the kitchen.

Mark heard the panic in his father's voice as he saw Penny's uniform.

‘What's happened?' he said, ‘has something happened to Joyce?'

Before Mark could say anything, Penny had got to Bert and grasped his hand. ‘It's all right, Mr Pearson,' she said, ‘your wife and Mark are fine. Mark saved a young girl's life this afternoon and I've brought him home.'

‘It's all right, Dad,' Mark said. He was shaken by the intensity of his Dad's reaction. ‘A young girl from the estate tried to kill herself down by the river and I found her and called the ambulance. Everything's fine now. This is Penny Harrison. We got cold; we need something hot to drink.'

Bert took the kettle and filled it at the sink. ‘Of course you do,' he said. ‘Sounds as though you both deserve it.'

‘Where's Mum?' Mark asked, and then wondered what on earth had made him say that.

There was an awkward silence. Then Penny said, ‘How old is this house, Mr Pearson? I didn't know places like this existed any more. It's a real traditional farm, isn't it? How many acres do you have?'

She turned to Mark, ‘You're so lucky,' she said, ‘it's beautiful here. And so
real
.'

The kettle began to boil. Bert made the tea. ‘Here,' he said, ‘get this down you.'

He handed mugs of tea to Mark and Penny. ‘Now,' he said, ‘what about this girl you found? Is she all right?'

‘She will be,' Penny said. ‘But if Mark hadn't found her . . .'

She had to go, but still she seemed to linger.

‘I'd better start the milking,' Mark said.

‘Of course,' she said, ‘I've got to hand in my report.'

She smiled at Mark. ‘I'll pick up your anorak when I can and bring it back here,' she said. ‘Perhaps on my day off.'

‘Great,' Mark said, ‘Thanks.'

He felt like an idiot. He wanted to offer to take her for a drink or a meal, but it was impossible in front of his father.

But then Bert said, ‘You come back on your day off, Penny, and I'll show you what a real old-fashioned farm looks like.'

Mark felt furious with his Dad, who was stealing his thunder; and with his mother, because if she'd been a proper farmer's wife, she'd have been at home cooking a meal he could have invited Penny to share.

He muttered and growled at the cows, who stared at him with detached curiosity. Watching their soft puzzled eyes, he saw he was being ridiculous, childish, even. But nonetheless he felt it was unfair that his parents, even unconsciously, still dominated him.

We're all wasting so much time, he thought, and there's no time to waste.

He told himself that it was the attempted suicide of the young girl from Catcombe Mead that was making him feel like this. It had left him painfully aware that time for everyone was fragile and finite.

He went to bed to think, falling asleep immediately.

In the morning he slept through the alarm clock. When he finally came downstairs, his mother was cooking eggs and bacon.

‘I've no time for breakfast,' he said, ‘I'm late for milking. We'll miss the tanker if I don't hurry.'

‘Dad did the milking,' his mother said.

‘He did?' Mark didn't try to hide his surprise. ‘Why?'

‘Something's happened to your Dad,' Joyce said. ‘Last night we talked.'

‘God,' Mark said, ‘what the hell about?'

‘Us,' Joyce said.

‘There is no us,' Mark said, ‘not any more.'

He had not meant to sound so bleak.

Joyce started to say something, but then they heard Bert at the door, taking off his boots in the porch.

I'm not going to apologize, Mark told himself. He doesn't on all the days I cover for him.

‘Thanks, Dad,' he said. ‘You should've called me.' Where did that come from, Mark asked himself, why did I say that?

Bert sat down at the table. ‘I've had an idea,' he blurted out. ‘A terrific idea.'

Joyce put plates of bacon and eggs on the table in front of Bert and Mark. Then she sat down facing them.

‘It was that girl from Catcombe Mead coming all the way out here to find herself a quiet place to . . .' Joyce started and trailed off. She seemed excited, but doubtful, too, as though she couldn't trust what was happening. ‘It seemed so sad, a child that age wanting somewhere private and having to look for it in the country like that.'

Bert interrupted her. ‘That Penny you brought here,' he said to Mark, ‘a girl like that with a good job and everything, she couldn't believe the farm, it fascinated her. It did, didn't it? She couldn't get enough of it.'

‘Yes,' Mark agreed, ‘it did, didn't it? I'll bet she does turn up and get you to show her round.'

Bert thumped the table. ‘You've got it,' he said.

‘Got what?' Mark asked. He looked to his mother to explain, but Joyce was laughing.

‘I've been thinking,' Bert said, sounding more sober. ‘If those incomers got the chance to understand what we're on about—'

‘What are you trying to say, Dad?' Mark sounded anxious now. Had his Dad lost his reason?

‘We'll open the farm and invite them to come in and see what we're on about. All about the traditions of farming, what we do and how we do it. They can join in and learn some of the old crafts, like stone walling and thatching a rick. Parties of school children, that sort of thing. We'd do that together, you and me.'

‘You're crazy,' Mark said. ‘You know what they're like.'

Joyce got up and came round the table to put her hands on Bert's shoulders.

‘I'd run a farm shop,' she said. Her eyes were shining. ‘I could do cream teas in the summer.'

‘We'll get the farm cleared up and on its feet again,' Bert said. ‘It'll be hard work, but worth it. And then we'll invite them in.' He took a deep breath and said with an obvious effort, ‘That girl of yours, Jess, she could start by bringing her little girl.'

‘Jess is history,' Mark said abruptly.

‘Well, she might have been a hard nut to crack anyway,' Bert said. ‘That Penny will help. There's no harm visitors like those people from the housing estate knowing there's a police presence.'

Mark laughed. He couldn't help it. He and his Dad needed something like this, something to work on together.

Mark was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘If that's what it takes to bring this farm of ours – and us as a family – back to life, then yes, let's try it.'

THIRTY

N
icky had eaten a cocktail of Christmas berries – holly, mistletoe and ivy. There were traces of all three in the freezer bag Mark Pearson had picked up from the grass near her red bicycle.

By the time Terri and Jean reached the hospital, though, the doctors had pumped the child's stomach and she was out of danger.

She looked like a waxwork, lying in the stiff hospital sheets with a drip attached to her arm, her thin pale hair damp and flat against her skull.

Terri stood awkwardly by the bed and touched the child's hand.

Nicky opened her eyes and said, ‘Mum?'

Terri and Jean exchanged glances.

‘She'll be here later,' Terri said.

Helen had become hysterical when the Detective Chief Inspector told her what had happened to Nicky. She refused to listen to what Rachel Moody was saying, or to speak at all. She simply lay curled on the sofa with her thumb in her mouth, crying out if anyone tried to touch her. In the end Jean fetched the sleeping pills that had been prescribed for Peter before he died.

‘She'll sleep for hours,' Jean said when Helen had finally been persuaded to take two of them.

Terri grasped Nicky's hand. ‘Your Mum was so upset thinking she'd lost you, we had to give her some medicine. She's asleep now. You'll see her very soon. You've given us all a terrible fright . . .'

‘She should be here,' Nicky said. ‘I want her here.'

Terri leaned over Nicky and whispered, ‘It's all right, Nicky. Don't get upset. About your note . . .'

A look of terror crossed the child's face. ‘You've read it?' she said. In spite of the tubes, she put up her arms and clung to Terri. ‘You know what I did? What's going to happen now? Will I go to prison?' She began to cry. ‘I don't want to go to prison,' she wailed.

Terri used a box of hospital tissues to wipe away the tears.

‘Shhh,' she said, ‘listen to me. It's all right. We've destroyed the note. Me and Mrs Henson. It's gone. No one saw it except us. We're all going to forget it existed. It was an accident. What happened to Alice was an accident. You must forget it ever happened.'

Nicky looked from Terri to Jean as though she couldn't believe what Terri was saying.

‘What about Mum?' she said. ‘Does Mum know what I did?'

‘No, I didn't show it to her. Leave her to me,' Terri said. ‘We all want what's best for you.'

A nurse came into the room. ‘You should leave now,' she said. ‘She needs rest.'

DCI Moody was waiting in the corridor outside Nicky's room.

‘Can you give me some idea what happened?' she asked. ‘Why did she run off like that?'

Terri shrugged. ‘She wanted to practise riding her bicycle,' she said. ‘Round Forester Close the other kids laugh at her because she doesn't know how. You know what it's like, they're all like stunt riders these days. Nicky felt left out.'

Jean smiled at Rachel. ‘That's Nicky all over,' she said, ‘she's such a perfectionist, she couldn't bear to make a fool of herself in front of the others.'

‘Oh?' Rachel Moody sounded doubtful. ‘Well, I'll talk to her in the morning. Perhaps she'll be able to fill me in.'

‘She's a child,' Terri said. ‘She's confused . . . I don't think she knows what she did.'

‘No.'

The expression on Rachel's face seemed to accept this, but both Terri and Jean imagined there was a question mark after Rachel's ‘No'.

‘We'll all know more when we've had a chance to talk to Nicky in the morning,' Terri said. ‘Thank you for finding her, Chief Inspector. If the police hadn't been so quick off the mark she could've died.'

‘You've a lad from the old village to thank for that,' Rachel Moody said. ‘He found her when he was checking a fence on his farm. His name's Mark Pearson. He's the one who called the paramedics.'

Her mobile phone rang. ‘It's the station,' she said. ‘I'll have to take this.'

She turned her back and moved away from them.

Terri and Jean looked at each other like naughty schoolgirls; they fled.

They drove home in silence. Then, when Terri stopped the car outside the Henson house, Jean said, ‘How are we going to play this with Helen? She mustn't know about the note.'

Terri hesitated. Then she said, ‘Jean, it's possible Nicky's lying to protect Kevin Miller. She may be making it up. I mean, all that stuff about that book. I thought what she was reading was part of her research for her social studies class at school.'

Jean got out of the car. ‘I'll be over first thing in the morning. You go to Helen now and see how she is. We can't do anything now.'