Tragedy at Two (7 page)

DEREK HAD GONE INTO TRESHAM TO PICK UP SOME SPARES, and decided to call in on Alf Smith on his way back. He and Sam Stratford had had an argument about the gypsies last night in the pub. It had always been the custom to carry on important discussions away from the despotic chairmanship of Mrs. T-J. Nothing like a pint in the hand to sharpen the wits, Derek had said to Sam. But this time no agreement had been reached. Sam had been adamant. Gypsies were thieving vagrants, lawless and alien, and the sooner they were moved on the better. Derek had pointed out that they would be gone soon anyway. They were on their way to Appleby for the horse fair.

Now, as he pulled up slowly in Alf’s farmyard, he remembered his gaffe. Sam had asked him how he knew they were going soon, and he had floundered about, not mentioning Lois and her old gypsy woman. He knew from Sam’s face that he had been suspicious, though the conversation had been interrupted by the campaigning vicar and they had not returned to it.

He knocked at the back door, and Edwina Smith answered it. “Hello, Derek!” she said, surprised because Alf had not said an electrician was needed.

“No, I’ve not come on business,” Derek said. “Is Alf about? I’d just like a word. Parish council stuff an’ that.”

Edwina’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, then I know what it’s about,” she said. “You’ll not get him to evict the gypsies, you know. He’s practically one of ’em! Spends hours down there listenin’ to their stories. They’re on their way to Appleby this time. Alf’s thinking of goin’ with them again, but I don’t reckon they’ll want him.”

“Right,” said Derek. “Still, I’d like a word if he’s around.”

“Up in Junuddle,” she said. “With the sheep.”

Fortunately Derek knew that Junuddle was a field on the way to Waltonby. The origins of the name were lost in the mists of time. A historian who had lived in the village had been keen to research field names and had come across others for the village farmland. None of these were subsequently used by farmers or villagers, but they continued to talk about Junuddle without having the faintest idea what it meant.

Derek found Alf checking the water troughs, and was greeted warmly. “Good God, boy, it must be urgent for you to come trekking up here!” he said.

“Yeah, well, it is really,” Derek said. He carefully avoided saying it was parish council business this time. “You got ten minutes for a chat?”

Alf frowned. “You don’t fool me, Derek Meade,” he said. “I know there was a parish council meeting last night, and I saw the agenda on the notice board outside the school. Item eight: illegal travellers.”

“Clever bugger,” Derek said, and they both laughed. “I drew the short straw and here I am to talk about it.”

“Well, first of all, they’re not them New Age travellers. They’re gypsies, or tinkers. Second, they’re not illegal, because they’re on my land and I like them being here. And thirdly, what were these so-called complaints? They been coming through this village for generations, and haven’t hurt a fly. Except maybe a few rabbits and hares, and they got my permission. So you can report that back to the old bag up at the hall. Now,” he added, “why don’t we go back to the house and try my missus’s primrose wine, and forget all about my gypsies. Blimey, Derek, if you go back far enough, you’d be evicting me, too!”

They walked back to the house, and Derek tried to explain that the laws on eviction were not as simple as that. Health and safety could be involved. They had no clean water, no sanitary arrangements. And none of the children went to school.

Alf exploded. “Health and b-b-bloody safety!” he stuttered. “We’re living in a police state, Derek boy. Those families in caravans are more healthy than we are. Fresh air, fresh food, hygienic in their own laws, that’s why. Mind you, Athalia was telling me the new generation eat all kinds of ready-m ade rubbish from supermarkets. As for school, they learn all they need to know from the old ones.”

Derek sighed. “You don’t really believe that, Alf,” he said. “Education is important. But on top of all that, there could be danger from some of the village people. You know as well as I do there’s some as would take the law into their own hands.”

“Let ’em try,” Alf said, frowning, and he opened the door and called for his wife.

“Some of your primrose, me duck,” he said. “There’s a lad here as needs some lead in his pencil.”

“Speak for y’ self,” said Derek, and sipped the wine that tasted like nectar. He knew he was defeated, and did not particularly care.

 

 

AS DEREK WALKED OUT TO HIS VAN, HE LOOKED TO ONE SIDE INTO the scrubby wood. He could see long caravans clustered in a semicircle, with one small, dingy one off to one side, deeper into the wood. There were school-age children playing with a puppy on a string round the ashes of a fire in front of the caravans. He could see they were teasing it with a dead mouse, throwing it and then picking it up before the puppy could reach it. Derek smiled. The kids were having a good time, and the puppy was wagging its stumpy tail. Not a bad life, he thought, but then reconsidered. These kids would grow up ignorant and resentful, fearful and exiled from what was now reckoned to be a decent life.

On an impulse he walked along a path at the back of the caravans, listening and looking, and found himself approaching the one set apart. Two dark-faced men with caps pulled down over their eyes were sitting on the caravan steps, and one held a straining brindled bull terrier, all muscles and sharp teeth. It growled menacingly when it saw Derek.

One of the men stood up and glared. “What d’ya want? This is private land.”

“But not yours,” Derek said bravely. Perhaps he could have a conversation with these men and gain some insight into the situation. He was soon disabused of that idea.

“Bugger off, before I set this ’ere dog on ya!”

The other man stood up, and the menacing threesome began to walk towards Derek. No point in being a hero, Derek convinced himself rapidly. He turned around and walked rapidly back towards his vehicle, uncomfortably aware of loud mocking laughter as he went.

 

 

GRAN AND LOIS WERE SITTING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE PORING over the local paper. “Look at this,” Lois said to Derek as he came in. “Somebody’s been putting pressure on our brave boys in the constabulary.”

Derek looked at the fuzzy photograph of a couple of lads with their faces shielded being escorted away from what looked very like Farnden playing field and bundled into a waiting police van. The headline, “Guilty of Highway Violence?” spread in large letters across the photograph, and the story beneath said that two young persons had been taken in for questioning in the case of Rob Wilkins, murdered on his way home to Long Farnden village.

“Cops wrong as usual, if you ask me,” Gran said. “It’s as clear as daylight them gypsies did it. It’ll be difficult sorting out which one. They all stick together like fish glue. But it certainly wasn’t those kids. One of them comes from a good home. His mother belongs to the WI.”

“That clinches it then,” said Lois acidly.

“Has Josie heard about this?” Derek said.

“We don’t know. Only just seen the story,” said Lois. “If she hasn’t heard nothin’, then it’ll take some explaining.” She gave Derek a kiss on the cheek. “Time I had a word with Cowgill,” she said.

Derek sighed and Gran frowned, but Lois ignored them and went off into her office to make the call.

HELLO, LOIS!” HUNTER COWGILL HAD A HARD DAY, AND HE brightened when he heard Lois’s voice. He motioned away the young policewoman who had just arrived in his office and signalled to her to shut the door as she went.

“I expect you’ll be able to explain,” said Lois without preliminaries.

“Explain what, my dear?”

“You know perfectly well. The story in the local. Two kids dragged away from the playing fields, suspected—”

“Not suspected of anything,” interrupted Cowgill briskly. “Merely taken along to the police station for questioning. Their parents were, of course, with us.”

“How come we didn’t know?” Lois had checked with Josie before telephoning Cowgill, and discovered that the first her daughter had heard of it was when she opened the local paper on the counter in the shop.

Cowgill did some rapid thinking. This was only a very early stage in questioning, and the newspaper as usual had made a meal of it. He would like to know who had tipped off the photographer. At the same time, the last thing he wanted to do was alienate Lois, his Lois, and he prepared to eat humble pie.

“I do apologise, my dear,” he said. “I should have had a reassuring word with Josie. And you know, Lois, I tell you everything in due course.”

There was silence from Lois. Cowgill was alarmed. He could not lose his contact with her, firstly from a professional point of view, and secondly, well, that as well.

“I’ll meet you at the shop at eight o’clock.” Lois said finally, looking at her watch. “You can clear up a few cases and still get there in time. Then you can fill us in with what’s been happening. ’Bye.”

She put down the phone, sadly aware that he had her over a barrel—inamanner of speaking. This crime had invaded her own family and there was no possibility of her giving up. Her usual weapon had lost its power this time. This time it was possible that she needed him more than he needed her. But nothing would induce her to admit it.

 

 

JOSIE SAW HER MOTHER MARCHING DOWN THE STREET, AND opened the door to greet her, but Lois spoke first.

“Is he here? No, don’t answer that question. I can see he’s not. His car’s not here.”

“Well, actually, I am here,” said Cowgill, appearing from the dilapidated car park round the back of the shop. “I thought it might be better to park away from prying eyes.”

“No need for that!” Lois said sharply. “This is a purely official visit from a police detective to the victim of a family tragedy. Nothing else.”

Josie stared at her mother. “Am I permitted to offer the officer a cup of coffee, then, Mum?” she said. Cowgill smiled. Young Josie was a chip off the old block.

“Of course you are,” he said, “and I’d be very happy to accept. Shall we go in, Lois?”

It was on the tip of Lois’s tongue to say her name was Mrs. Meade, and would he kindly not forget it. But then she realised she was being ridiculous, and meekly followed the other two into the shop. They climbed the stairs up to the tiny flat, and Lois said she would make the coffee while the other two chatted. She would be able to hear from the galley kitchen.

“And you can begin by explaining what’s going on with those kids in the paper,” she said to Cowgill.

Cowgill explained that there had been a complaint from Farnden about a gang of no-goods meeting every night at the back of the village hall on the playing fields. Substances had been mentioned. They had threatened the vicar, who had tried to clear them off the premises, and he had reported the incident to the police.

“So the newspaper put two and two together and made five, as is their custom,” he said, patting Josie’s hand. “Only possibly connected to the sad demise of your Rob,” he added.

“If that was all it was,” Lois said crossly, handing round mugs of coffee, “your lot wouldn’t have moved in and bundled them off to the police station. A warning to them and their parents would have been a first step, surely. Are you keeping something from us, Hunter?” she added, using his name to annoy him. Well, if he could use hers. . . .

“A violent threat to an innocent citizen
is
a police matter, Lois,” he answered.

“I think we’ll have to accept that, Mum, for the moment,” said Josie. “It is nice of you, Inspector, to come and explain. I did want to ask if you’ve had any other leads?” She smiled at him winningly, and Lois scowled. Surely Josie wasn’t taken in by his switched-on charm?

Cowgill looked at Lois. “Well, yes,” he said reluctantly. “There have been the usual anonymous messages to us in Tresham.”

“Like this one?” Josie said, producing the creased note she had shown Hazel.

“What’s that?” Lois said, taking it from her, reading it and then passing it on to Cowgill.

He sighed. “I am afraid we have had one or two like this. Looks like the same handwriting. Would you mind if I kept this, Josie?”

“No, of course not,” Josie said.

At the same time, Lois chipped in firmly. “And we’d like a copy, please. Here,” she added, taking it from Cowgill and giving it back to Josie. “Go and photocopy it on your machine.” Josie obediently left the room, and Cowgill’s face dropped the official expression.

“You look lovely when you’re angry,” he said, and Lois practically spat at him.

“Do you want my help or not?” she said.

He reached out and touched her shoulder. “What do
you
think, Lois?” he said, serious now. “I’ll get the villain who murdered Rob if it’s the last thing I do. And it may be exactly that,” he added. “Don’t think I underrate the possible dangers.”