Tainted Ground (11 page)

Patrick obviously had not told anyone that I was a real whizz with a sub-machine gun.

‘You didn't ask
me
if I was interested in helping you,' I said to Patrick when we were alone.

He feigned shock. ‘I thought you went and beat James to a pulp because he hadn't called me out.'

‘Thank you for the lovely things you said just now.'

‘It's true, though, isn't it?'

It looked as though I was in. Ye gods, what had I done?

Patrick got out of the car and stretched luxuriously. We had left James at the nick and driven back to Hinton Littlemoor ostensibly on the case of thefts of horse tack and trailers but actually to talk to the residents about the Manleys and Keith Davies. I was quite surprised that Carrick himself had not suggested it, Patrick supposed to be off the case notwithstanding, as someone with family connections in the village was likely to get better results than an outsider.

‘We know none of them were churchgoers so that rules out quite a few possible sources,' I said. ‘They must have gone in the pub though surely.'

‘Almost certainly. I suggest we leave that until later, concentrate on the village shop before it closes and then talk to people who don't tend to go in pubs.'

I already knew that the members of the walking group who had found the bodies were not from the immediate locality but from Bath U3A and had already been questioned. Nothing they had said had provided any leads. The shop cum post office might be more fruitful. It was run as a cooperative by volunteers, the result of a ‘buy-out' by local people when it had looked as though the village would be left without a shop at all when the previous owners retired.

It was to be expected though that recent events would have left everyone subdued and this was the impression I received after we had entered, the conversation among the three or four people present muted and strictly to do with the business in hand. There was a good range of health and organic foods but I have a notion that folk who have suffered personal trauma do not necessarily feel better for munching on pumpkin seeds. I chose some chocolate ginger for John and a box of crystallized fruit for Elspeth.

There was no one being served at the post-office counter, behind which stood Norman, an employee of that organization and not part of the cooperative. He was one of the church wardens and although only in his early fifties possessed the gravitas of a much older man. It amuses Patrick that Norman and his wife Brenda always treat him as though he is still in short trousers.

‘How is your father?' Norman asked him. ‘Such a dreadful thing to happen.'

‘Fine, thank you,' Patrick answered. ‘No damage done at all.'

‘I hear you're a policeman now. No doubt you're investigating the vandalism.'

Perhaps it was not general knowledge yet that a coffin had been stolen.

‘No, not really,' Patrick told him. ‘I'm after information about the Manleys and Keith Davies – the murder victims.'

I approached the shop counter to pay for the sweets but it was close to where the men were talking so I could hear what was being said.

‘Outsiders,' Norman said dismissively. ‘Brought their own nemesis with them from the city, no doubt. Folk round here are more interested in catching those who ruined our lovely churchyard.'

‘Well, the dead might have been disturbed a bit but these people you so lightly dismiss as being of no account were living and breathing when someone slashed their throats for them,' Patrick said, not bothering to lower his voice. ‘Did they come in here? Buy stamps? Post parcels? If so, where to? Did you bother to pass the time of day with any of them? Ask them how they were? Whether they'd settled in all right and were enjoying living in the country?'

There was rather a heavy silence and the young woman who was handing me my change gave me a thumbs-up sign, eyeing Norman with distaste.

‘I never meant they were of no account!' the man exclaimed resentfully.

‘Think,' Patrick went on inexorably. ‘Did they use this post office?'

‘Yes – well – yes, I seem to remember the woman did,' Norman blustered. ‘But I didn't know their names. I was never given a credit card or anything like that. Just stamps I think she bought. No parcels. I never saw her husband or whoever he was.'

‘And the younger man?'

‘He might have been the one who asked if he could renew his tax disc here. Yes, I'm fairly sure it was him from the pictures in the paper – horrible pictures that you know were taken of the bodies. But I said no, he'd have to go to Bath. He looked at me in the most unpleasant way and then shouldered his way out.'

The woman serving behind the shop counter spoke, but not to Patrick, to another woman searching through a rack of birthday cards. ‘Didn't your Tina go out with that chap, Doris?'

The woman bridled. ‘She did
not
! She met him for a drink in the Ring O'Bells on a couple of occasions, that's all. Not her sort at all, I assure you. She soon broke
that
off.'

Patrick regarded her with gentle gaze. ‘Where might I find Tina?'

‘My daughter had nothing to do with that man!' shrilled her mother.

‘No, but he might have mentioned the names of a few of his friends.' When there was a continuing silence Patrick added, ‘A little chat with me now might be preferable to one at the police station later.'

‘She's at home,' Doris said grudgingly. ‘Between jobs at the moment.'

She plonked the money down for the card she had chosen and stalked out.

Another woman peered around a revolving stand holding postcards of local views. ‘Has Tina ever worked?' she ventured cautiously to no one in particular.

‘Left school with a GCSE in bullying and bunking off,' said a younger voice and a girl came into view, carrying a pile of small boxes from a side room.

‘My daughter Sarah,' Norman announced proudly. ‘She helps in here for an hour after she gets home from college. There's nothing like encouraging a community spirit.'

Sarah had rather too close-together eyes to be attractive and a mouth that tended to purse disapprovingly like her father's.

Patrick said, ‘Sarah, can you tell me anything about the Manleys or Keith Davies? Did you ever serve any of them? Did you ever see them with anyone else in the village?'

‘No,' said Sarah with a shake of her head. ‘I think I once sold the woman some bread and a couple of other things. Not a chatty sort of person. Besides, I wouldn't have anything in common with a woman like that.'

‘A woman like what?' Patrick asked, clearly puzzled.

‘Well, you know … from the city. Living shut away from everyone in a posh flat.'

‘D'you know where Tina lives?'

‘In Rose Street – on the council estate. It's the one with the plant things made out of old car tyres in the front garden.'

There was no mistaking the sneer on her face.

‘Remind me to write a novel set in a rural idyll,' I said when we were back in the street.

Tina did not appear to have been warned of our imminent arrival so I could only assume that her mother had taken herself elsewhere.

‘Keith?' she said, glancing at Patrick's warrant card. ‘He was a just a bloke I chatted to in the pub.'

‘May we come in?' Patrick asked.

The girl shrugged. ‘S'pose.'

Tina led the way into the living room and turned off the TV. She was thin, anorexic-looking even, and unless I have lost my skill in evaluating people's state of mind, very unhappy.

‘You're the vicar's son, aren't you?' she said when everyone had sat down.

‘That's right,' Patrick answered, not about to explain the difference between vicars and rectors.

‘I thought you were. You look like him. He came round when Dad died. I was surprised really as we never go to church. What do you want to know about Keith?'

‘Anything you can tell us that might lead to his killer.'

Tina was sitting bolt upright on the edge of her chair. ‘Look, I only sat and talked with him in the pub a couple of times. We never actually went out together. I wouldn't have done. He wasn't very nice really. I suppose I felt sorry for him.'

‘Did you actually meet him in the pub?'

‘No, outside when I was walking past to go to the postbox. I wouldn't have the nerve to go in the pub on my own anyway.'

‘Not many people your age in the village?' I queried.

‘No, and the ones that do don't speak to me.'

‘Why did you feel sorry for Keith Davies?' I went on to ask.

‘All three were like fish out of water. They—'

‘You met all three?' Patrick interrupted.

‘Just the other two once. We talked for a little while – the couple were quite pleasant really – and then they moved to another table as they were having a meal.'

‘Do you mind telling me what you talked about?'

‘Just ordinary things. The weather, how quiet the village was in the winter – things like that.'

‘When was this?'

‘Last month. Keith really started to chat me up after that but I backed off. Although he could be quite fun to talk to he was rough – started rows with people when he'd had a couple of pints. I had an idea he'd been in trouble with the law.'

‘Some girls might find that glamorous in a dangerous sort of way,' Patrick commented with a disarming smile.

‘Not me. I went a bit off the rails with stupid boys at school, got in with the wrong crowd. It seemed a real hoot at the time but where has it got me? Nowhere. No qualifications. I'm stuck in this snobby dump and can't even get a job in the Co-op in Radstock.'

‘You're very young, plenty of time yet,' Patrick told her, probably feeling that it was not his place to give her any more advice on the matter.

‘I can't get over it,' Tina whispered, staring at nothing. ‘Those people, those poor people that I spoke to, sat with at that table for a few minutes, are all dead. The other bloke even bought me a drink. They were miserable, you could tell that. Hated living here. Keith had already said to me that he hated the countryside. Cow muck all over the roads, he said. Idiots on horses with no regard for motorists. No proper street lights. I didn't agree with him but I could see his point. And now they're all dead and—'

Astoundingly, Tina then burst into tears.

Even more astoundingly, after we had done our best to comfort her, I found myself asking her if she would like to visit us in Devon and help Carrie look after the children to see if she would be interested in training as a nanny.

In the middle of all this Carrick rang asking us to be present when he questioned Brian Stonelake shortly.

S
tonelake had been told about the desecration of his father's grave. It was impossible to gauge any reaction, his face giving nothing away, with its usual dour expression as he sat next to his solicitor, who had grey hair, suit, tie, face and teeth and who, after new tapes had been put into the recorder and it had been switched on, objected to the fact that there were three of us about to tackle his client during this second interview.

‘Miss Langley is a trainee,' Carrick explained, introducing us to him. ‘She won't ask questions, or if she does, it will only be in order to clarify matters in her own mind.'

This seemed to satisfy the man, whose name Carrick had just told us was Mr O'Malley.

‘Would you mind if she took notes?' Carrick went on to enquire of him.

I was given an all-over glance. ‘As long as they roughly match what is recorded on tape,' he drawled sarcastically. ‘And I would like to point out that it is normal for notes to be made at the first interview, any salient points being clarified at the second.'

‘That is standard procedure,' Carrick agreed urbanely. ‘And if you remember, another of my colleagues sat in and endeavoured to do just that. Perhaps this time though you might encourage your client to reply in more helpful fashion to some of the questions than by saying, “No comment,” and then something worthwhile can be achieved. If Mr Stonelake still refuses to cooperate I shall apply to a magistrate for a warrant for further detention.' Then to Stonelake, ‘But hear this: you're not going to be bailed even if you agree to answer our questions about the finding of a knife on your premises which we now know was a murder weapon. I shall have you remanded in custody.'

Whereupon acting Superintendent Gillard looked upon the detained person with malicious cheerfulness. Carrick, still perhaps nursing a few grievances, then bounced him into cautioning Stonelake and he calmly did so, without having to resort to any scraps of paper upon which he had written it down. Sometimes I love Patrick to
bits
.

‘So,' Carrick said, making himself as comfortable as the bolted-to-the-floor chairs permitted, ‘after three people were murdered on your farm we found a bloodstained knife among a pile of stolen horse tack in the old cart shed by the house. It's a large knife, the sort of thing used by chefs for cutting up meat, and the blood on it is human. Can you explain how the knife might have got there?'

I knew that DNA testing would take longer.

‘No,' Stonelake said sullenly. ‘I don't have cooking knives. I don't cook. The killer must have chucked it in there.'

‘But it's hardly close to the scene of the crime.'

‘No comment.'

‘We've traced the owners of all the saddlery and harness, by the way,' Carrick continued. ‘Except for a matching American saddle, bridle and—'

O'Malley butted in with, ‘There's nothing to connect my client with the thefts of the horse tack except where it was discovered. The farm's not lived in now. Anyone could have hidden it there.'

‘If you'll kindly allow me to finish,' Carrick said. He resumed, ‘And all of these people, again with one exception, had bought logs, kindling or hay from you in the past twelve months. Now, I know we're not talking about that charge right now but it seems to me that if you've concealed your ill-gotten gains in the cart shed you might very well hide a weapon with which you'd murdered three people there as well.'