Scar Tissue

The July day was very bright, the window reflecting like a mirror, so I might have been mistaken. I blinked hard,
shading
my eyes with my free hand – there was no way I’d let go with the other, not this high off the ground – and peered again. It was a body on that bed, all right. A dead body, if the rope round the neck meant anything. It was our rope, too. Paula’s Pots’ rope. Some of the strong blue plastic stuff we use to hold back climbing plants and roses – especially roses – from parts we need to paint. The sort we use to tie the back of the van securely, or lash the ladders on top. I’d left a coil with our other gear, in a lock-up garage the owner let us
decorators
use. As luck would have it I was working on my own today – the others were over near Tenterden tackling a big urgent job that the July rain had delayed. I opened my mouth to let rip with a few appropriate words, the sort that Paula, the Boss, so disapproved of. Well, she wasn’t anywhere round to hear.

But that wasn’t the sort of thing ladies did round here, was it? Not nice well-brought up young ladies. Though that didn’t apply to me, anyway. I was one of the Lower Orders, a working girl, paint all over my hands and trainers to prove it. And an accent that everyone down here had decided was pretty well foreign.

I came down my ladder rather quicker than I’d gone up, not easy with a brimming paint can in one hand and a brand new paintbrush in the other. I didn’t want to put one in the other because that would mean I had to clean it. Paula was
very keen on clean brushes. Halfway down I saw sense and shoved it in my bib for safe-keeping.

Damn it, a body on a bed wasn’t the sort of thing you’d expect in the country. I mean, back where I used to work, up in Birmingham, where there were turf wars between drugs barons and battles between rival pimps, you got used to seeing the odd body that hadn’t died of old age in its bed. I wiped my hands on my dungarees and fished out my mobile. Only to find we were in a black spot. That’s the trouble with rural life. All those things you take for granted aren’t there. Like mobile phone masts and round-the-clock supermarkets and big anonymous pubs. Well, anonymity in general. Which is how I knew that when I turned up at a police station with my big news they’d have heard a few rumours about me: someone’s mother or cousin would have whispered to someone’s father or nephew. So I’d be lost in the credibility stakes before I’d even started.

I always was a sucker for civic duty, though – a proper little Girl Guide without the uniform, me, and always had been. Litter, old ladies needing the far side of the road, motorists needing directions, old men needing a helping hand – that sort of good deed. I ran to the end of the road, still trying to provoke a spark of life from the moribund mobile, before realising this wasn’t going to get me anywhere. So I ran back – not sensible in the summer sun, which in Kent can shine quite convincingly, especially at midday – and shoved my stuff in the lock-up garage. If I could get what Paula insisted on calling Trev, and I preferred to think of simply as the Transit, to start, I’d do my civic duty in person. For once he – or in my terms, it – coughed into
life on the second try, and we bundled off down an archetypal leafy lane in the direction of Lavange, the nearest village of any size. I knew where the police house was – I’d driven past it a couple of times. And found it with only three false starts. You see, a city girl’s used to big reflecting road signs, not
discreet
little finger-posts, readable only if you’re going at the rate of a pony and trap, and though the Transit was never going to win at Le Mans, it wasn’t that slow. Anyway, there it was – except it was no longer a police house, any old police house, that is, but Peel House, its architectural inadequacies hidden under bristling scaffolding. A chippy was just carrying his box through what would no doubt be turned into a noble false front aspect quadrupling its real estate value.

‘Nah. Closed a few weeks ago. A couple of days after the post office and a month before the pub.’

‘So where’s the nearest cop shop?’

‘You could try Halham: that’s open during the week, I think.’

By now, what with the heat and the maze of roads going nowhere, I was thoroughly rattled. If I’d had any sense, of course, I’d have tried my mobile again. But I was now on a quest, a mission. And missions inevitably mean blinkers.

Half an hour later I found the police station at Halham. Someone had made an effort with hanging baskets and tubs, which made my heart sink – another spot of privatisation by the look of things. No. There was an official-looking front door, complete with entry phone. But not one to admit me. I was your hoi polloi, wasn’t I? If I wanted to talk to the forces of Law and Order I could press a button or two and be put through to the main station in Ashford. I pressed. I
pressed again. And nothing happened. I did the obvious thing. I banged the door and the adjoining window and yelled blue murder.

OK. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man, as my gran used to say. It was clear I had to head for Ashford. I was on piecework, I had a house to paint in the brief interval of fine weather before the rain inevitably returned and here I was, driving to one of Kent’s less inspired country towns. Another day I’d have gasped at the beauty of the Downs I was driving across. Another day I’d have thought it charming to be held up by a little train chugging slowly across the road by a quaint old pub called the Tickled Trout. Today I’d have swapped the lot for Spaghetti Junction. Not to mention a motorcycle patrolman in his gorgeous leathers to whom I could have poured out all my woes.

Ashford has an irritating ring-road, which always traps me in the wrong lane. It’s got plenty of car parks, but you have to pay for those and I was parking simply as a helpful citizen, not as a mean shopper. There must be a spot for helpful Josephine Publics by the police station. There was. By the library. Jealously guarded by a parking warden, puce with the heat – or with anger: a motorist was just skidaddling out of the way. If I’d been in a linen dress in a Volvo, I might have got away with a smile and a nod and a point at the police station. Overalls and a Transit? Hardly. I ended up paying. Perhaps my honesty – OK, my cowardice – would stand me in good stead at the nick.

I’ve never felt comfortable in police stations – well, who does, apart, I suppose, from the folk who work there? But I squared my shoulders and breezed in, ready to confront an
impregnable desk sergeant. Relief: the woman at the front desk was a civilian about my age and casual with it, at least about her mascara, some of which was melting into her sweat. She looked like those white-faced clowns I saw when I was very, very small and at my first and last circus. What was it the shrink on the detox programme had said: revisit your inner child? Well, there were flyers for a circus out Great Chart way early next week: I might take myself along if I have the time. I passed her a rather seedy Kleenex from my back pocket – in my panic I’d forgotten to peel my dungarees off, so I was even hotter than I needed to be. She rang through for an officer, and assured me, while I waited, that he was an absolute pussycat and I mustn’t be put off by his fierce face. I’m glad she had, or I’d have been absolutely
terrified
, whatever he looked like. The Filth had that effect on me. But I mustn’t think of the police as Filth or Busies or anything derogatory, I told myself, standing at best Girl Guide attention as he materialised on the far side of the desk.

‘DS Marsh,’ he said, his eyes a completely smile-free zone.

I nearly quipped that I knew his brother Romney, but thought better of it. It was his eyebrows that were the trouble: tangles of ginger, like Brillo pads left to rust on the draining-board. They were much thicker than his age suggested – brows apart, I wouldn’t have put him at much more than forty, about five nine tall and weighing in at about ten and a half stone.

‘Caffy Tyler,’ I said. ‘Except I’m not a Tyler, but a painter.’

‘Caffy Tyler?’ His brows quivered disapproval.

‘When I was little I couldn’t say “th”,’ I explained. ‘The name stuck. What I’m here for, Sergeant,’ I continued,
thinking it was time I grabbed the initiative, ‘is to report a body. The body of a man in his fifties, I’d say. Big, heavy – lots of rings. In the guest bedroom of the house I’m painting at the moment.’

You’d think he heard such announcements every day. ‘And where might that be?’ He almost yawned.

‘Crabton Manor. Near Lavange.’

‘Full address?’

‘That is its address. It’s a big house – doesn’t need common things like a house number or a street. But it’s not a proper manor.’

‘No?’ For a moment he seemed almost interested.

‘No. Nothing medieval about it. Not like the one out Singleton way. Just a Victorian status symbol – you know the sort of thing: I can afford to waste more wood than you can afford to waste.’

‘Lots of –?’ His index finger described turrets and curlicues.

‘All the better for my pay packet. Until this afternoon. I’ve already lost two hours’ wages coming over here.’

Without meaning to, I had his entire attention: ‘Do you mean to tell me you’ve taken two hours to report a death?’

I reflected on my epic journey and found my chin
hardening
. ‘Not quite. But it’ll take me at least half an hour to get back. Now, would you like the details or not?’

The interview room he ushered me into wasn’t too bad – I’d certainly seen far worse. And while I’d rather expected him to radio for an immediate investigation, he seemed quite keen to get the details down as quickly as possible. After a
moment or two towering over me, just to establish who was boss, no doubt, he sat down opposite me.

‘Now, the owner of this Crabton Manor is –’

‘A Mr van der Poele,’ I said, spelling the last bit. ‘A South African gentleman, if he deserves the term.’ He’d beaten Paula, my boss, down to a profit margin thinner than a coat of paint. ‘He’s not around much, which is good, because he’s got these huge dogs he lets run free. He thinks it’s funny if the ugly great brutes trap you up the ladder just when you need your pee-break.’

‘Tea break?’

‘You heard what I said. He has a lot of visitors, whether he’s there or not – a lot of coming and going.’

‘And where is he now?’

‘He told my boss, that’s Paula Farmer – she lives out Folkestone way.’ I burrowed in my bib and produced one of her business cards. She was very keen on us handing out cards, was Paula. But she might not have wanted him to clean under his nails with it. ‘He told Paula that he’d be in London for a couple of days. She may have his number.’ She was very efficient on contact details, too.

‘Women painters!’ He wouldn’t be asking for a quote for his house, would he? No, he inspected the proceeds of his ad hoc manicure and dropped the card on the table.

‘Yes. We do all sorts of jobs, large and small. One week it’ll be a pensioner’s bungalow, the next a big place – not just the Manor, but we hope to get the contract for a proper restoration job down at Fullers. We’re doing the outside at the moment.’

‘That place on the Isle of Oxney? Hmm.’ He nodded a
couple of times, and pulled himself to his feet. ‘I’ll get on to my colleagues, Miss Tyler.’

I decided not to remind those eyebrows I was a Ms.

‘Would you like a cup of tea while you wait?’

Though I’d rather have had water, I was too astounded by the offer to tell him so. I’d never known policemen to be so generous with refreshments.

While I drank whatever he – or more likely, Melting Mascara – had brewed, he took a short statement asking me exactly what I’d seen and done. I was happy to tell him,
especially
as he hadn’t shown any signs of asking why I’d left my home city and come to Kent to work. He was as affable as Mascara had said he’d be.

Until she called him out of the room for a moment, and he came back in, his face like thunder.

‘I take it you’ve never heard of the offence known as wasting police time, Miss Tyler? I have to inform you that my colleagues have found no signs of the body you allege was at Crabton Manor. So would you like to tell me what kind of game you think you’re playing?’