Ravens Gathering (20 page)

By dawn, the outbuildings were sealed off.  Crime scene
tape was stretched across the track from just above the gateway into the
farmyard.  The yard itself was filled with all manner of vehicles, and
more were parked further down the track, blocking off any access from the
village.  Police cars, both marked and unmarked, had arrived first. 
Because the roads were empty at that time of night, they hadn’t needed to use
sirens, so their arrival had been low-key.  The chances were that they had
gone completely unnoticed.

Even the later arrivals at the party had managed to be
discreet, a fact for which Detective Inspector Collins was grateful.  He
was in charge of the police operation, and knew that he would be the one who
had to deal with this problem locally.  The more fuss there was, the
harder his job was going to be.

Joint military and police operations weren’t commonplace,
and certainly not out in the sticks.  Dealing with the IRA was more likely
to be an issue in London or possibly the other big cities.  A small
village in North Nottinghamshire hadn’t tended to attract the attention of
terrorists.  Nor did it seem a likely place for any other military
intervention.

Two olive green
Bedfords
were
parked by the opening to the square where the outbuildings stood.  One of
them had reversed in, and from the farmyard gate you could just see the front
of it.  The other stood a little further up, its tailgate open, the canvas
flap rolled up.  Half a dozen soldiers were sitting inside.  They
looked bored and uncomfortable.  Like Collins, they were probably feeling
somewhat disgruntled at being dragged out in the middle of the night. 
Unlike Collins, he guessed they were also frustrated at having nothing to do
for the moment.

They looked to be young lads, no older than twenty-five. 
At that age, he’d have wanted action and excitement.  Saw some too when he
worked for the Met.  But that seemed like a lifetime ago.  Back in
the day when every copper he knew wanted to be Jack Regan.  And God knew there
had been plenty of opportunities to behave like that.  Certainly he’d had
his fair of share of violent exchanges with the London low-life.  Too
many.

Which was why he didn’t share the young
squaddies
’
frustration that nothing was happening.  With any luck, that’s the way it
would stay.  And if it didn’t stay that way, he definitely didn’t want to
be around when these would-be
Rambos
started letting
off steam with their assault rifles.

What was more disturbing to him was the van that was
currently hidden from view.  He had been standing outside the barn when it
arrived.  It was now parked with its back to the barn doors.  The gap
between the two sets of doors had been sealed off with heavy plastic sheeting,
but that hadn’t prevented him from seeing the suits the men inside were wearing. 
The squared-off head covering was distinctive enough to reinforce his
impression that the Army were taking this situation very seriously.

That had been several minutes ago now, and the Colonel who
was in charge had made it very clear that they didn’t want any coppers
around.  Whether that was because they were concerned to minimise
casualties, or because they had something to hide was up for debate.  But,
bearing in mind that if anything went wrong, they would only be a few hundred
yards away, Collins doubted very much that he’d be any safer in the farmhouse.

He pushed that thought aside.  It wasn’t one he wanted
to dwell on too much.  Not with a wife and teenage children waiting for
him at home.

Inside the house, his DS – Les O’Neill – had tactfully taken
over the lower floor.  The dining room was to be used for interviewing the
witnesses, who had been separated.  Fortunately, there were suitable rooms
for them to be held in until it was their turn to be seen.  Collins
couldn’t help a wry smile when he realised that Mrs McLean had been allocated
the kitchen.  No doubt O’Neill was thinking about all the mugs of tea that
would be needed before long.  He just hoped Mrs McLean was too
shell-shocked to realise what the DS was up to.

The guest, Gates, was staying in a room in the annexe, so
they’d made sure he couldn’t get anywhere near that.  Mr McLean had been
put into the small living room in the annexe, and Gates was in the house living
room.

There was nothing to suggest that any of them were involved
in this yet, but Collins wasn’t taking any chances.  The witnesses needed
to be kept apart.  If it turned out that any of them were involved, he
didn’t want to give them the opportunity to get their stories straight. 
Having said that, they’d had twenty minutes from the time of the 999 call to
the first officer’s arrival on the scene, and he had no idea how long they’d
had before they made the call, so this was damage limitation.

Predictably, the kettle was on.  Mrs McLean appeared to
be in something of a daze.  She was filling mugs from a teapot, but looked
as if she wasn’t really conscious of what she was doing.

“Cuppa,
Guv
?”

It was O’Neill.  No doubt the other witnesses were
being watched over by a couple of DCs he’d managed to drag out of bed. 
Looking at Mrs McLean, Collins understood why O’Neill had pulled rank. 
Even pale with tiredness and shock she was an attractive woman.  In times
gone by, Collins might well have acted with similar self-interest.  He
wondered if he was just getting too old.

Shaking his head, he declined the offer.  “Not
now.  Let’s get on with the statements, shall we?”

He had been going to thank Mrs McLean for her help, but
she’d barely been aware of him.  With other policemen coming and going
through the kitchen, that was hardly surprising.  Although the Army wanted
them clear of the barn, he’d insisted that his officers be allowed to move
freely outside the area surrounding the outbuildings.  He suspected it
would be impractical to cover all of it effectively, but wanted to preserve as
much as possible in case a fingertip search needed to be carried out
later.  But they’d only been out there for two hours, and the military for
three quarters of an hour, so they were still getting themselves
organised.  Using the farmhouse as a command centre, it was inevitable
that there was still plenty of activity here.  Two uniformed constables
were currently in the kitchen, apparently just waiting for their cups of tea.

Collins jerked his head, indicating that O’Neill should
follow him into the hall.  Clutching his mug, the DS did as he was told,
but not before instructing one of the PCs to stay in the kitchen.  They
couldn’t afford to leave Mrs McLean on her own.

“Who do you want to see first?” O’Neill asked when they were
beyond earshot.

This was a question Collins had been mulling over for ten
minutes or so.  Ordinarily, he’d have jumped into the interview as soon as
they’d secured the area, but the military involvement had added a new dimension
that he hadn’t anticipated, so standard procedures had been put aside until he
was forced to come back to them.  There was no obvious order for
him.  He should probably start with either of the two men who claimed to
have found the van.  In a sense, which one they chose was academic. 
Still, there was something odd about the house guest.

“Let’s have Gates in,” he said, then left O’Neill to sort
that out while he went into the dining room.

The dining room wasn’t huge.  A table for six fit in it
comfortably – dark, shiny wood and matching the drinks cabinet and sideboard
that stood against the wall opposite the doorway.  But if any other
furniture had been put into the room it would have been cramped.  The end
of the table faced him as he entered the room.  A chair stood at either
end, two on each of the sides.  A notepad and pen had already been placed
on the table.  Someone had been efficient in his absence.  Probably
O’Neill.

Moving to the right side of the table, Collins shrugged his
overcoat off and draped it over the back of a chair.  He sat down, pulling
the notepad towards him.  As he picked up the biro, he was aware that he
was already shifting into a different gear.  He’d been the Army Liaison
Officer, he’d been the
Guv
.  Now he was the
Interviewer.

O’Neill appeared in the doorway with Gates.  Collins
had seen him only briefly earlier, and then he hadn’t had an opportunity to
speak to him.  That initial glance had given him a perception that he now
realised was wrong.  It was mainly the long hair and tan, but he’d got the
impression that he was younger, probably early twenties.  There was,
though, also something about the way he walked.  An athletic, easy motion
that was certainly more common amongst the young.  Even as he came into
the room, Collins recognised that this was a man used to activity.  It was
difficult to be sure under the thick shirt he was wearing, but it also looked
as if he was quite muscular.  Not in an Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of way
- he wasn’t
that
obvious.  But it did leave Collins wondering what he
did when he wasn’t visiting Ravens Gathering.

“Mr Gates.”  He stood up and offered his hand. 
Gates’ handshake was firm, but he clearly didn’t feel the need to make an
impression with a bone-crusher.  It told Collins that he didn’t have
anything to prove.  He gestured to the chair opposite.  “Please sit
down.”  As Gates took his seat, Collins nodded to O’Neill.  “Would
you sit with us too, Les.”  First names.  Keeping it informal for
now.

“Well, Mr Gates, first of all can I thank you for contacting
us.”  He spoke naturally.  Being in the interviewer mode, he knew he
should trust his instincts, and right now they were telling him this needed to
be a chat and not an interrogation.  “And can I also apologise for having
to restrict your movements for the time being.  As I’m sure you must have
gathered, there’s more to this incident than a stolen van.”

Gates nodded his understanding, but Collins felt there was
something a little guarded about his response.

“I’m Detective Inspector Collins,” he went on.  “My colleague
here is Detective Sergeant O’Neill.  I believe your name is Martin, is
that right?”

Another nod.

“Do you mind if I call you Martin?”

A shrug this time, but accompanied by a few words. 
“Might as well.”  He sounded resigned to it rather than truculent.

“I bet when you hear people saying ‘Mr Gates’ you look over
your shoulder for your dad, don’t you?”  He smiled at his little joke, but
the look on
Gates’s
face told him he was far from
amused.  Collins made a mental note.  “Anyway, let’s move on. 
What I want to do right now, Martin, is just go over with you what happened
this morning.”

“I assumed you would.”

“So...  Would you like to go through it all from the
beginning?”

“How far back do you want me to go?”

“Well...  What made you go out to the barn in the first
place?”

Gates hesitated for a moment.  That wasn’t necessarily
a sign of guilt or of a lie coming up, but Collins was aware of it, and waited
to see how it would pan out.

As it happened, the story he told seemed realistic. 
Realistic in the sense that, although the explanation seemed plausible, it also
incorporated enough inconsistencies to suggest that, like most people, he
didn’t remember everything exactly as it happened.  The events that seemed
to occur out of sequence, the pauses as he thought carefully before going on,
even the moments when he asked aloud, “Or did that happen later?” before going
on to the next part of his story.

Nevertheless, there was something Collins didn’t feel was
right.  As Gates talked, the policeman wrote, his eyes rising and falling
between the interviewee’s face and the notepad.  He didn’t know what was
wrong, but his instinct told him to be very careful.

When Gates reached the point where he had found the van,
Collins interrupted.

“Can I ask a question?”  Not that he waited for a
response.  “From the comments you made earlier, I gather you’ve only been
in the village since the day before yesterday.”  He paused, his expression
a study in thoughtfulness.  “How did you know it was the stolen van?”

“I didn’t.  Ian did.  But one of your boys had
found tracks leading into the barn yesterday when he was round investigating
the theft.  So it would’ve seemed a bit coincidental otherwise.”

“Fair point,” Collins said amiably.  He looked over at
O’Neill.  “Who was the officer dealing with that?”

“Oakes,
Guv
.  He’s been
contacted.  We’re expecting him out here soon.”  There was a twinkle
in his eye that suggested Oakes hadn’t been too impressed at getting a
call.  Well, that was tough.  If he’d wanted regular hours, he should
have gone to work for a bank or the local council.

“I’ll have a word with him when he gets here.”  This
was said as much for Gates’ benefit as O’Neill’s.  If he’d said anything
that might contradict what Oakes had to say, now was the time to come
clean.  He turned his attention back to Gates.  “Now, where were we?”

“I was telling you that we’d found the van.”

“Ah, yes.  Go on.”

“Well, we found the van and came back to the house to phone
you guys.”

“Right.  And this would have been...?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe around four o’clock.”

“That’d fit in with our records,
Guv
.”

And yet Collins had a feeling Gates was lying.

“Then you just waited for us to arrive?” he prompted.

“Yeah.  Ian went and got Tanya up, but apart from that,
there was nothing else to do.  We’ve all seen enough telly to know you
leave crime scenes alone, so we weren’t going to go back.”

“There was also the danger of the thief coming back, of
course,” Collins added, as if the thought might not have occurred to Gates
otherwise.  There was no reaction to his words.  Gates just continued
to watch him from across the table.  It was as if he was waiting for
something.  Maybe he hadn’t asked the right questions yet.  He looked
down at the notes he’d written.  “Can I just go back to something you said
earlier?  You were disturbed by the sound of the engine.  And you got
up almost straight away.  Why was that?”