A Market for Murder (7 page)

‘No,’ Karen said. ‘Definitely not. There wouldn’t be a way through. But the alleyway would make a good escape route on foot.’

‘Risky,’ said Helen. ‘Too many people coming and going. And it wouldn’t be easy to hide a crossbow.’

‘What about parked cars?’ Doug managed to get a word in. ‘Someone might have been lying on the back seat, or kneeling on the floor, and fired out of a window.’

‘It’s a thought,’ said Karen, feeling weary. ‘There were a few cars about. The local shopkeepers try to obstruct us by putting their cars just where we want to set up the stalls. Geraldine won’t let that stop her, though. We just box them in.’

‘So a person could have been hiding in one of the cars?’

‘I imagine so,’ Karen agreed. ‘Do you know what the range was? I mean, how far away must the killer have been?’

Doug spoke with authority. ‘Not more than thirty yards or so. Crossbows are fairly difficult to aim, unless you’re an expert.’

‘How do you know this wasn’t an expert?’

‘We’ve been through all the members of the local club, and they’ve all got very good alibis. There are only eight of them. It’s not a very popular activity these days.’

‘But a person can still be an expert, without belonging to a club,’ Karen objected. ‘Surely the range is a lot more than that?’ She squinted across the square, and up the whole length of the High Street, trying to imagine herself aiming a crossbow. ‘Don’t they have telescopic sights and things, as well?’

Helen gave a warning cough and Doug flushed. ‘We can’t discuss this in any further detail,’ he said stiffly.

‘Well, I hope I’ve been of some help,’ Karen said, in another attempt to excuse herself. ‘It’s all very bizarre. Surely somebody
must
have seen who did it.’

Helen nodded. ‘That suggests it was someone above suspicion,’ she remarked. ‘Someone you all just took for granted. When they popped the crossbow into a bag and strolled away, nobody would even have noticed.’

‘What a nasty thought,’ Karen replied shakily.

Den observed the Incident Room set up in the old Town Hall, as he walked from the car park to the office on Thursday morning. He knew the signs: the police cars parked outside, the human traffic in and out of the big open door, carrying boxes and various pieces of equipment. And the television crew on the pavement with a reporter speaking to camera. Den sidled closer to listen.

‘Less than forty-eight hours ago, a shocking killing took place only a few yards from here, in the peaceful market town of Bradbourne,’ chirped the pretty young woman, by way of introduction. ‘Detective Inspector Danny Hemsley, who is in charge of the investigation, has promised to give us a few words …’ she turned towards the Town Hall, and sure enough, there was Danny, Den’s old comrade from when they’d worked together in West Devon, appearing right on cue. ‘Thank you, Inspector, for giving us your time. Now, could you update us on how it’s going?’

Danny faced the camera, looking flushed and apprehensive. ‘Well, as you know, a Mr Peter Grafton was killed here on Tuesday morning. We have ascertained that the weapon used was a crossbow. This is unusual, and not many people are in possession of such an item.’ He paused, and let his gaze wander. Too late, Den tried to step out of his line of sight. Recognition dawned in Danny’s eyes. But the reporter returned him to the matter in hand.

‘So you’d like the public to assist?’ she prompted.

‘Yes. Yes, indeed. If anybody knows of anybody with a crossbow, we’d obviously be very pleased to hear about it. You can call us here at the Incident Room, anonymously if preferred. This was a
cold-
blooded
killing of a young man, and it’s up to the whole community to apprehend the killer.’ His voice was gaining volume and confidence, just as the reporter must have received a signal to wind things up.

‘Thank you, Inspector,’ she purred, before turning back to camera herself. ‘So there we have the latest news. The police are following up this particular kind of weapon, as well as asking the general public to bring them any information they can. This Incident Room—’ she gestured behind her, ‘—has been set up in Bradbourne’s old Town Hall, and will be manned twenty-four hours a day. The telephone number will appear on your screen in a moment. This is Gail Hollywell, BBC South West News.’

Hemsley did not return immediately to his desk. Instead he stepped out of camera range, straight towards Den, who had known he would.

‘Cooper,’ came the curt greeting. ‘Not seen you for a while.’ The Inspector had taken Den’s resignation from the Force badly. For a while he treated it as a personal insult, cold-shouldering his colleague at every opportunity.

‘First murder in this part of Devon since I left,’ Den remarked.

‘S’pose it must be. Missing us now, then? Now it’s getting exciting again?’

‘It feels odd,’ Den admitted. ‘Especially as I’m on the spot.’

‘Say again?’

‘I work just round the corner there,’ he pointed. ‘And I know the woman who saw the killing. My girlfriend works with her husband. It feels … local.’

‘Like last time,’ Hemsley said, eyes narrowed.

‘Time before last, actually. And that was quite a while ago now.’

‘Back in the good old Okehampton days,’ the Inspector added, his tone a notch lighter.

‘You’re liking it over here then?’ Den asked. ‘I didn’t know they’d moved you. Where’re you based now?’

‘Tiverton. Much bigger outfit altogether. They didn’t move me – I put in for a transfer. The marriage came apart …’ A ripple of misery crossed his face. ‘Same old story, eh.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Den said, meaning it. He’d only met Mrs Hemsley two or three times, not enough to judge her or the marriage. But it was a curse that lay on the majority of police officers, which only made it worse somehow, when the break-ups happened. It was, if he was honest with himself, one big reason for his own defection. Rightly or wrongly, he’d attributed his lack of success with women to the demands of his work.

‘Anyhow, tell me more about your involvement
here. With this Grafton thing, I mean. Have you got anything that might be useful?’

Den’s heart leapt a little at the invitation. It couldn’t have worked out better if he’d planned every move. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘I might have a bit of background for you.’

Drew and Maggs ate a snack lunch together in the Peaceful Repose office, as usual. It was a tradition that seemed to increase in importance with every month that passed. Maggs brought her own sandwiches from home, and Drew made his before work, sometimes with Karen hovering at his shoulder telling him he ought not to cut the cheese so thick, or put so much mayonnaise on the lettuce. The result was an escalating competition between Maggs and Drew as to who could produce the most flavoursome and original meal, at the lowest cost.

‘It’s not fair – you’ve got all the raw materials just there for the taking,’ Maggs complained.

‘You can have anything you like from the garden, you know that.’

‘Yeah, but I don’t know what Karen wants to take to market. I don’t like to just help myself.’

‘You refuse to get to grips with the system,’ he said. ‘It’s simple enough. I don’t understand your problem.’

‘Honestly, Drew, I can never remember which box is which. Neither can Den. And that’s another thing – I’m never sure whether he’s already taken something. It’s embarrassing.’

‘All down to communication,’ Drew chewed comfortably, resisting any temptation to take the repetitive conversation further. It wasn’t his business, anyway, which partly explained why it never really worked. Without Drew as liaison between Karen and the other two, the unease would continue.

‘This avocado’s very good,’ she remarked. ‘With lemon and basil and a smear of garlic. Try some.’ She broke off a corner and proffered it. Drew took it delicately.

‘Not bad,’ he approved. ‘But I think my nut paté with sliced radish and Little Gem lettuce beats it.’ He held out a reciprocal mouthful.

‘Is the nut paté home made?’

‘Yes, but not by Karen. Someone at the farmers’ market does it.’

‘What sort of nuts?’

‘Cob, I think. Picked in the wild, I’m sure.’

‘It can get silly,’ Maggs said, not for the first time. ‘We’re turning into food faddists.’

‘Too late. It happened years ago. We just didn’t notice at first.’

‘I definitely prefer the avocado,’ she decided. ‘Now, what’s on for this afternoon?’

‘Not a lot. I did think that journalist from the
Farmers’ Weekly
might show up, but nobody’s phoned.’

‘Didn’t they do us last year?’

‘No, that was some other farming magazine. This sounds a bigger item, with costings and so forth. I’m not sure how much I should tell them, actually.’

‘Our prices aren’t secret.’

‘No, but it might be a mistake to spell out just what cardboard coffins or willow baskets cost. Some of the others in the business like to keep all that rather close to their chests.’

‘Especially the traditional lot, who just dabble in ecological funerals as a sideline. Their charges are extortionate. I think we should expose them. It’d be a public service.’

‘I know.’ Drew licked his fingers, and rubbed them on his trousers. ‘But it’d be a distraction. The point isn’t really money, is it?’

‘Some people think it is. Some of these farmers think it’d be an easy option, and would make much more profit from their land than growing corn or hay or something.’

‘Well, I’ll be as straight as I can. In any case, they might not show up. Something more interesting probably came along instead.’

Maggs opened her mouth, insistent as always on having the final word, when someone knocked
on the office door. The two partners looked at each other in surprise. Normally the sound of a car arriving gave them plenty of warning of an impending visitation. This time, there’d been no engine noise.

Maggs opened the door, obscuring the person outside with her body, so that Drew couldn’t see anything. ‘Yes?’ The tone of her voice revealed that she didn’t recognise the visitor.

‘Oh, hello,’ came a breathy voice. ‘Sorry. This is the right place isn’t it? The natural cemetery, or whatever you call it. I did see the sign …’

‘Come in,’ Maggs invited. ‘And tell us how we can help you.’

Drew remained in his chair, behind the desk, hurriedly folding the paper bag that had contained his sandwich. An apple still sat on the desk. He watched as a woman came into the room, ahead of Maggs, who closed the door before following her. Drew could see that she was intrigued.

And no wonder. The newcomer’s hair was unbrushed and tangled; her face streaked with multi-coloured marks; her eyes bloodshot and her clothes ill-assorted. She looked like a refugee from a battle zone – or a wife fleeing from severe domestic violence.

Drew got up. If this was a newly bereaved daughter or wife or mother, she had certainly
been taking the death badly. And if she wasn’t newly bereaved, why in the world would she come to an undertaker’s office?

‘So there you have it,’ Sally Dabb concluded, fifteen minutes later, looking worriedly from Drew to Maggs and back again. ‘I know I shouldn’t have come, by rights. It’s Julie’s place, not mine. I
know
that. I just wanted to make sure … well, I’ve told you already, haven’t I? Do you believe me?’

Maggs pressed even closer, from her position only inches away. She had been alternately rubbing the upper arm and patting the hand of the distressed woman, as the story tumbled out. ‘Of course we do,’ she said.

‘It isn’t really any of our business,’ Drew mumbled, still trying to work out his own role in the matter. ‘Mrs Grafton has already contacted us. It’s all in hand.’

Maggs glared at him and sighed. ‘Drew, you haven’t been listening. Sally isn’t worried about that.’

‘No, no. I do understand,’ he assured them both. ‘And you have been through a terrible experience.’

Sally had made some token attempts to improve her appearance as she talked to Drew and Maggs. ‘I must look dreadful,’ she said. ‘I
didn’t sleep a wink, and never even thought of brushing my hair this morning. I must have scared poor little Robin.’

‘Robin?’ Drew queried.

‘My little boy. Archie had to take him to school for me. I was in too bad a state to drive.’

‘But didn’t you drive here?’ Drew was disbelieving. ‘Don’t you live in Lumstone? That’s five miles away.’

‘I did, actually, though I almost decided to walk. Walking’s good for thinking. I parked down the road, near Della Gray’s house.’

‘Drew,’ Maggs checked him again. ‘Never mind all that.’ She turned to Sally. ‘It’s all right. You don’t have to worry. We won’t spread any false rumours.’

Sally sat back in her chair, and rubbed a finger beneath both eyes. ‘Oh, thank you! I know it must have sounded rude, to accuse you of indiscretion. But I had to start somewhere. I had to make
someone
believe that Peter and I weren’t having an affair.’ She gazed earnestly at Maggs. ‘You
do
believe me, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Maggs solemnly. ‘We believe you.’

‘You believed her then?’ Drew said, when the visitor had gone. ‘I could see you did.’

Maggs rubbed her cheek, consideringly. ‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘I told her, and I’m telling you. I definitely believed her.’ 

‘There’s a bit more to it, though, isn’t there?’ Drew went on, having made coffee for himself and Maggs and answered the phone to a journalist wondering about Grafton’s funeral. ‘Hmmm?’

‘This business between Julie Grafton and Sally Dabb. There’s something I don’t really get.’

‘What? That two women can be friends?’

‘That one is the wife, and one is a close friend of the same man. Everyone would assume they’d be bitter rivals,’ he said.

‘Not all women feel a need to fight over a man, you know. Maybe Julie’s got a life of her own? And Sally’s got a little boy. She might have lost interest in men, in the way you mean.’

‘OK. But it still feels odd. Wasn’t there something below the surface she wanted us to understand?’

‘Drew – she wanted us to help her scotch the rumours, that’s all. She wanted neutral, respectable people like us to take her side and treat her with proper esteem. She’s probably right that if we do that, other people will follow. We should be flattered.’

‘Maybe,’ he agreed slowly. ‘But I couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was scared of something. That she had more to worry about than her reputation.’

‘Of course she has. Her marriage, for a start. And don’t forget …’ she fixed her dark gaze on him, ‘she was standing inches away from him when that bolt whacked through his neck. I think even I might be a bit scared after that.’

As she walked up the path to Geraldine Beech’s house, Karen realised she’d been waiting impatiently for this meeting, ever since she’d been told of it. The number of cars parked untidily along the verge outside the house suggested that it was to be very well attended. If all the stallholders from all three farmers’ markets showed up, there could be fourteen or fifteen people. Some brought their partners, too. She was conscious of an urgent need to exchange observations with those who’d been at Bradbourne on Tuesday, and to see if any more sense could be made of Peter Grafton’s death.

The door was on the latch and she went straight in. A babble of conversation came from the living room, and she joined the group unselfconsciously, immediately catching the eye of Hilary Henderson. The jam-and-honey supplier patted a small area on the couch next to her, and Karen squeezed herself in. Geraldine had brought a motley assortment of chairs and stools into the room, and arranged them in a rough circle. She herself was perched on an incongruously high kitchen stool, almost in the fireplace, surveying the gathering like a Victorian schoolteacher.

Karen had apparently been the last to arrive. Glancing round the room, she met the eye first of Maggie Withington and then of Oswald Kelly, before encountering two women she knew less well, who only took stalls at other markets. The option existed to participate in one, two or three markets, which operated according to a complicated timetable through the month. Only Maggie, with her highly popular bread, availed herself of all three.

‘Thank you all for coming,’ Geraldine began, before Karen could finish assessing the turnout. ‘I know it’s quite a long drive for some of you, and I do appreciate you making the effort. Those of you who weren’t at Bradbourne this week will have heard, of course, that our friend Peter was
killed there. It’s partly to give you a chance to talk about this dreadful event that I called this meeting.’

Sally Dabb wasn’t present, Karen soon realised without surprise. Drew had described her visit to him and Maggs, and she’d been as interested as he was in the woman’s intentions.

‘Several of us have been questioned by the police, needless to say,’ Geraldine went on. ‘I don’t suppose any of us have been involved with a murder enquiry before, and it isn’t a very comfortable experience, I’m sure you’ll agree.’ She looked at Maggie and Hilary and Oswald, one by one, leaving Karen feeling she’d been deliberately left out. Could Geraldine be aware that Karen had indeed been involved in murder enquiries before?

‘It’s certainly a first for me,’ Oswald agreed, trying to look calm about it. ‘Poor old Peter; never did anybody any harm. Terrible thing to happen.’

Squashed onto the sofa beside her, Karen heard Hilary give a low
tut
of irritation.

Joe Richards, on a narrow spindly looking chair in a far corner, cleared his throat. ‘We must all be suspects, don’t you think?’ he said quietly. Karen gazed at his unruly chestnut hair and threadbare clothes. He might charge the earth for his organic meat, but he never
looked as if he had change for 50p about his person. She’d wondered, now and then, just what to make of Joe. On the face of it, he was the most charismatic of all the stallholders, in a romantic, tormented sort of way. Well under forty, with craggy features and abundant hair, he seemed to take the business of food production extremely seriously. He could talk fluently on the injustice of the system which made his prices seem artificially high, when in fact it was the supermarkets who sold meat for unfairly low sums. Karen had often been swayed, listening to him, only to think about it afterwards, and find a number of flaws in his argument. He was also said to be a cheat in a small way. Some of the more challenging regulations associated with organic status could be fudged, and Joe Richards fudged them, by all accounts.

But what he said now was a shock. ‘No!’ she said, impulsively. ‘It couldn’t have been one of us.’

Everybody looked at her. ‘Why not?’ Geraldine asked, as if she really wanted to know.

‘Because.’ Karen stopped to think. ‘Well. I’m just sure it wasn’t. I
saw
it.’

‘You didn’t see a person with a crossbow, did you?’ Geraldine already knew the answer to that one.

‘No,’ Karen admitted. ‘But it was someone in the street, behind my stall. I worked it out with
the police this morning. They might have been hiding in the public lavatory. There are windows facing the right way.’

‘Ladies or Gents?’ asked Oswald with a snigger.

‘Both,’ said Karen.

‘We shouldn’t be discussing this,’ Hilary Henderson said, rather loudly.

‘That’s right,’ Joe endorsed, with uncomfortable emphasis. ‘We’ll be accused of influencing a material witness.’

Too late, thought Karen unhappily. Although she liked the loo theory, she’d already allowed a picture into her mind, where one of the stallholders had managed to fire the bolt from the shadowy shrubs, drop the weapon in the foliage, saunter back to their stall, and collect the crossbow later. Anybody apart from Sally Dabb could have done that, if they’d been bold enough. And so could any of the people in the street. The suspect list seemed hopelessly long to her at the moment.

The police were probably ahead of her. They’d be messing about with trajectories and measuring distances and angles of entry, mainly on the basis of what she’d told them, and the nature of Peter’s wound. And, it hit her now, with a terrible pang, they must include her on their list of possible killers.

‘This isn’t really what I wanted to talk about this evening, anyway,’ Geraldine went on. ‘Obviously it’s at the forefront of your minds, and we can’t pretend it didn’t happen, but there is another very urgent matter we need to discuss. Some of you won’t have heard very much about it, and it was in order to ensure that you’re all properly informed that I asked you to come.’

Karen watched Geraldine closely, suddenly aware that she was one of those still in ignorance. She had no idea what the woman was talking about, but it seemed reasonable to assume that it had a lot to do with the strange secretive utterances of Tuesday evening, when Geraldine had come to her house.

‘Don’t tell me SuperFare want to build a new outlet in one of the villages,’ Maggie Withington said, with a forced laugh. Karen was disproportionately pleased to realise that Maggie too was unaware of the mystery.

Geraldine shook her head. Her untidy hair with the curly ends made her seem girlish. Her weathered skin was flushed a sort of salmon colour. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That particular nightmare hasn’t struck us yet.’

‘Then what is it?’ Karen demanded impatiently. ‘What’s all the mystery?’

‘Patience,’ murmured Hilary at her shoulder. ‘Don’t spoil her fun.’

The three people directly opposite Karen, on a row of kitchen chairs, all fixed their attention on Geraldine. A man and two women, none of them very well known to her, all betrayed inside knowledge, in their complacent expressions. ‘They know!’ Karen complained. ‘Evan and Gillian and Freda – look, it’s obvious.’

‘Yes, they do,’ Geraldine admitted. ‘They’re all directly affected. In fact it was Evan who first drew my attention to what was happening.’ The man bowed his head in acknowledgement.

Karen mastered her tongue, and waited. Geraldine clearly needed to control the way the information was disclosed, and impetuous questions were not going to influence her in a favourable direction.

Maggie Withington had been bouncing on her seat for the past minute or two. ‘It’s about GMO, isn’t it!’ she said excitedly.

There was a silence for at least three heartbeats. Then Geraldine laughed. ‘Well guessed, Maggie. Clever old you.’

Karen leant back, with a sense of anticlimax. Was that all? It wasn’t even something new; there’d been genetically modified crops of corn popping up all over the country for years, as the scientists endeavoured to demonstrate that these crops had no effect on the surrounding environment.

‘Where is it this time, then?’ Maggie demanded. ‘Where do we meet to grub it all out? I’m game. The idea stinks, however you look at it.’

‘It’s not corn this time,’ Evan said.

‘That’s right,’ Geraldine nodded. ‘You haven’t managed to guess the whole story. I doubt if anyone could. I only came across it by accident myself. I couldn’t believe it, to begin with.’

‘Come on, for heaven’s sake,’ Karen burst out. ‘Stop being so circumspect.’

Geraldine pursed her lips. ‘It’s not that easy,’ she reproved. ‘There’s a lot of implications we haven’t properly explored. We really don’t know quite how to tackle it.’

‘Tell the press,’ said Oswald. ‘That’s the way to do it. Feed them the worst-case scenario and let them have their heads. The whole population’ll rise up and follow us then.’ Karen looked at him with amusement. He was given to poetic turns of phrase that she often found entertaining.

‘I agree that publicity would probably be good for us,’ Geraldine said. ‘But I do need to protect my sources, and without disclosing how I know about it, they might not listen.’

‘So how
do
you know about it?’ asked Maggie.

‘A friend of a friend, who’s been developing some of the computer software for the people involved. He suddenly realised what some of the
data meant, and emailed it to my friend, and she phoned me about it.’

‘Sounds very machiavellian,’ remarked Hilary, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet so far. ‘I still think you need much more proof before you take any action.’

‘You know what it’s all about then, do you?’ Karen turned awkwardly to meet Hilary’s eye.

‘It concerns me,’ Hilary said shortly. ‘Anyone working with fruit needs to be worried.’

Karen scanned the room quickly. Evan produced apples and plums; Hilary her jams and honey; Gillian had a large holding that grew strawberries and currants.

‘Not quite,’ Geraldine corrected Hilary. ‘Only really apples, as far as we know.’

‘Peter Grafton made apple juice,’ Karen said, with a sense of foreboding. ‘And Sally uses a lot of apple in her pickles.’

‘And I make apple jelly,’ Hilary said. ‘That’s right.’

‘OK,’ Karen nodded. ‘So we’re talking about genetically modified apple trees, are we? And you’re all worried that pollen from them will contaminate your own orchards. But wouldn’t it take ages for these new trees to get going and produce fruit? And aren’t apples already modified in every sort of way, with all that grafting and so forth? And there are all those hundreds of
varieties to choose from. Why would they bother? What’s the point?’ She was into her stride now, knowing enough to ask sensible questions, but far from expert on the growing of fruit.

Geraldine answered carefully. ‘We’re not entirely sure about what they think they’re doing, but you can bet it has money at its core.’ Oswald snorted at the pun, which nobody else but Karen seemed to notice. She gave him a comradely giggle, to show she’d spotted it too. Geraldine made a show of forbearance, before continuing. ‘There are various possibilities: getting them to fruit earlier, or for a longer season; slowing the rate of decay; forcing them to inter-pollinate more freely – it could be any of those, or something quite different. And actually, Karen, it only takes a couple of years for a tree to start bearing fruit.’

‘And do we know
where
this is happening?’

‘Not exactly.’ Geraldine’s expression was wary, and Karen didn’t believe her. She remembered her visit to the suddenly inhospitable Mary Thomas in Ferngate.

‘If I had to guess,’ she said, ‘it would be somewhere not a million miles from Ferngate.’ She watched Geraldine closely for a reaction.

‘Guess as much as you like, Miss Clever,’ the woman responded sharply. ‘This is too important to play games with.’

Karen refused to be crushed. ‘So why are we

‘As I said, partly it’s a chance to go over Peter’s death, and air our feelings about that. However you look at it, it was a terrible thing to happen. Poor Julie – her life’s never going to be the same again. And we gather that your husband’s going to be doing the funeral, so that makes you even more closely involved in a way.’

‘Closer than actually seeing it happen, you mean?’ Karen grimaced sceptically. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, of course that’s true. And it’s all rather soon after the event, I realise now, for any considered reaction.’

Karen had a sense of the people in the room growing restless. Gillian and Freda, flanked on either side of Evan, had said scarcely a word between them. She thought Gillian sold ordinary vegetables, as well as soft fruit; she didn’t know Freda’s line of business at all. She doubted whether they’d known Peter Grafton very well.

‘There’s another reason, then,’ Karen insisted. ‘Something to do with this GM apple business. But instead of just telling it straight, you’ve been beating about the bush and making us guess. Me and Maggie and Oswald and Joe, anyhow. Everyone else seems to be in on the secret.’