The Final Curtain (21 page)

‘Oh.' Timony's tone was even more guarded.

‘We wondered if it might have some connection with the burglary,' Joanna said. ‘Perhaps the thieves were …' police jargon wouldn't go amiss here, ‘… casing the joint.'

‘Oh?'

‘We have the registration number of the vehicle and have checked it out,' Joanna continued.

There was silence on the other end.

‘It seems it belongs to a Stuart Renshaw.'

If the visitor was bona fide this
was Timony's chance, but she did not respond. ‘Do you know someone of that name? Is he a friend of yours? He's an accountant who comes from Monmouth.'

‘I don't think so.' Timony sounded very hesitant.

Surely either you know or you don't
, Joanna thought, but didn't press the matter. ‘He isn't someone you know?'

Timony gave a delicate laugh. ‘Wait a minute,' she said. ‘I do remember now. I know who he is. He's the … the son of a friend,' she came up with impressively quickly. And then as her story gathered detail, she added, ‘He's done a bit of accountancy work for me. He was in the area and thought he'd pop by.'

‘Oh, there we are then,' Joanna said. ‘Not a suspect at all. Well, that's helpful.'

There was an awkward silence before Timony made an attempt to shut the conversation down. ‘Was there anything else, Inspector?'

‘No. Not at the moment. Thank you.' She couldn't resist adding, ‘Oh dear – a dead end.'

There was no response on the other end of the line.

Joanna put the phone down thoughtfully, still uncertain what she'd learnt from the brief phone conversation. Should she follow this lead up or drop it? She glanced across at Korpanski. His chin was jutting out, his eyes drinking in the screen of his computer. He was making little thrusting movements with his head – a sure sign of excitement. He was completely absorbed. In a world of fast cars, exciting chases and every officer's favourite word. Arrests. On the screen she could see registration numbers of cars. No chance he would want to break off his investigation. Then she looked at the mountain of work ahead of her. Crimes generated nothing but paperwork, it seemed. Audits and number crunching, a whole ton of stuff fed to successive governments to prove that they were doing a great job on law and order and thus should be re-elected and re-elected. But as Joanna started filling in the online forms and paper versions she knew the heart was being drained out of policing. She'd loved the job so much she wanted it to return to the exciting life it had been. But for now Butterfield would have to sit on the back burner, behind other, more important crimes that were targeted for attention. This month's included car crime and drugs to minors. Maybe next month it would be burglary and then they could concentrate on retrieving Timony's jewellery.

But something happened that felt as strange as a stormy sea suddenly gone millpond calm.

Just like the fortnight before the burglary, the daily contacts stopped and as the days went by there were few developments, except that a ruby and opal ring that fitted the description had turned up at a London Antiques Fair, only to be denied by Timony as being hers. Timmis and McBrine called round to Butterfield a couple of times and reported that the farm was quiet and that there had been no further disturbances. Perhaps Timony was too busy with her memoirs to be ringing the police.

In those interim days only one thing happened to draw her attention back to Butterfield Farm. It seemed puzzling but insignificant. Roderick Beeston, the vet, rang her up on the twenty-third. After a brief preamble he came to the point. ‘Fask asked me if I'd take a peek at your Burmese who met such a miserable end.' He forestalled her. ‘Don't worry,' he said, ‘I won't be billing you for the PM. I just did it out of interest really. I don't know if this fits in with your case,' he continued, ‘but I ran a few toxicology tests on Tuptim.'

For a moment Joanna struggled to remember who exactly Tuptim was. Then she remembered. The cat. ‘Go on,' she said. Surely as everything in this case was so puzzling one more twist couldn't make it more baffling?

‘The cat was drugged,' he said, puzzled. ‘Heavily. She would have been stuporous at the time of her, umm …' He struggled to find the right word and, as is so often when it is a struggle, found the wrong one. ‘Demise,' he finally came up with.

‘What was she drugged with?'

‘A barbiturate. Plenty of it, too. She wouldn't have known a thing. She was practically anaesthetized.'

When Joanna didn't comment, he added: ‘Don't know where this fits into your case, Jo, but it was a totally unexpected finding, I can tell you. I thought I'd better let you know.'

‘Yes, thanks.'

After a bit more chit chat – Beeston was curious about the newly appointed chief superintendent – he rang off.

Leaving Joanna staring at her desk. Where did this fit in?

It was the first warm day of the year, sunny as the South of Spain, the temperatures equalling the Algarve thanks to the wind which breathed softly and warmly up over the entire British Isles. Taking advantage of such a beautiful day was a pair of hikers who had decided to explore part of the Staffordshire moorlands. And the route took them right past Butterfield Farm. Roger and Betsy Faulkener were a successful couple from London who had recently bought a holiday cottage in nearby Hartington, one of the prettiest villages around. They'd got up early that morning, had a hearty cooked full English breakfast and packed their rucksacks with ham and tomato sandwiches and a vacuum flask. It should have been a perfect day.

But as the farm they passed looked so pretty, quiet and the water well looked so picturesque, they made a mistake. They decided that their picnic spot should be just there, sitting on the step of the well, using the stone wall to support their backs. Strictly speaking, they knew perfectly well that they were off the footpath but the step made a comfortable seat, leaning against the wall, and most times no one really minded trespassers provided they took their litter home. The worst that could happen, they decided, was a hostile wave of a walking stick and a snarl from a dog. Or so they thought.

They were halfway through their picnic when Roger Faulkener remarked to his wife that there was a strange smell in the vicinity. Was it possibly the stagnant water in the well, he wondered, or had an unfortunate animal fallen down and drowned, and with the advent of the unseasonably warm weather its body was now slowly decaying? They both peered over the rim to investigate. It was a very deep well; they could not see the bottom, only an oily black sheen which looked ominous. But the smell now was overpowering. And unmistakable. Something was rotting down there. Roger found his torch and shone it down. He picked up what looked like the top of a head with red hair, something which was still and only moved with the gentle swell of the water. He took a step back. ‘I can't be sure,' he said in a shaky voice, ‘but I think there might be a person down there.'

‘What?'

Betsy took the torch from him and shone it down. There definitely was
something
there. And to her it looked like human hair. ‘If we're wrong I'm going to feel a right fool,' Roger said.

They glanced across the yard at the farmhouse. It looked still and abandoned, one car outside. ‘Do you think we should …?' But neither of them was anxious to knock up the inhabitants and ask if they knew about the body down their well. The words sounded too melodramatic and unreal. Besides … They looked at each other. For all they knew …

And suddenly the isolation of the spot had caught up with them so they were uneasy.

Roger pulled out his mobile phone. ‘Damn,' he said. ‘No signal.'

They looked again at the pretty farmhouse, packed up their sandwiches and without communicating walked quickly back up the track until Roger had a service signal on his mobile.

‘We could be wrong,' Betsy said just before he dialled. ‘It could have been a – oh, I don't know, an old rug someone's thrown down.'

‘We'll let the police sort out what it is,' Roger said sensibly and dialled 999. Something he'd been dying to do all his life, but the opportunity had never presented itself.

Until now.

Joanna listened to the desk sergeant's words and made her decision. For once she would not go haring round there. The sensible approach was to find out whether PCs Timmis and McBrine were in the vicinity. Luckily they weren't far away when the call came. They looked at one another and wondered. They'd been keeping an eye on the place ever since the first incidents had been reported back in January. They'd dropped by and introduced themselves to the inhabitants and left their contact details. They'd done drive-bys a couple of times a week, checked the comings and goings of the occupants and generally done good community police work. Their surveillance had been escalated following the burglary but they had never seen anything suspicious. No one from Butterfield had ever rung them. So gradually the two moorlands police had loosened their watchfulness, but the burglary had worried them. Although the entrance had been clumsy the thieves must have known that the occupant was away and that meant they had staked out the place. Was this the beginning of what the press called a crime spree? It looked that way.

Butterfield wasn't the sort of property that was usually targeted by a casual thief. It was too isolated, with only one way in and one way out. Too easy for the police to block an exit if a nosey passer-by happened to see them. And it was overlooked from the road. But if there was a gang targeting isolated country properties they'd be back if they weren't caught. If not to this property then to others in the area. Which affected them. This was their patch. And so they were wary. In the end both Josh Timmis and Saul McBrine, chewing through their sandwiches, sitting in the car and keeping an eye on the farm, had failed to decide which it was – amateur or professional. But they had agreed that only someone with local knowledge would have known that Timony Weeks kept jewellery at the farm. So when the hikers' story was relayed to them they listened with interest, turned the blue light on and screamed along the moorlands road.

Saul McBrine eyed his colleague, unable to resist a smile. ‘Nasty smell,' he said, ‘coming from the well?' They exchanged amused glances. This was typical of the sort of panic call that came from Butterfield Farm.

Josh Timmis was already thinking. ‘The well's not even on the walking track, is it? It's more than a hundred metres away. So what were they doing near enough to pick up a bad smell?' He pondered for a moment. ‘They shouldn't have been on the property. They could have fallen in.' They both found this so hilariously funny that they chuckled intermittently all the way along the road.

The two hikers were waiting for them at the top of the track, sitting on a drystone wall, apparently not feeling cold and looking expectantly in their direction as the squad car slid to a halt. They were easily identifiable in their khaki shorts, huge boots and rucksacks, and worried expressions. They had waited at the top, the officers surmised, not wanting, apparently, to descend back into the valley. They were unmistakably of the breed of hardy hikers who frequented the moorlands most of the year round, but even they had been spooked. As they drew close the man held up a large mitten to stop them.

Josh McBrine rolled down the window. ‘Mr and Mrs Faulkener?' This drew vigorous nods from the pair of them.

Timmis made an attempt to bring normality to the scene. ‘Now what's this you think you've seen?'

‘We can't be sure,' Betsy said, more dubious now than she had been initially, ‘but we think there's something down the well.'

‘It looked like a person,' her husband put in. ‘The top of a head. I could see hair. Red, or maybe gingery.'

McBrine was alert. He watched carefully as Betsy Faulkener wrinkled her nose up and said, ‘And it stinks. Awful. Awful.' She flapped her mittens in front of her nose as though to waft away the recalled smell.

‘OK. Let's take a look, shall we? Want a ride?' Saul McBrine threw open the back door and the hikers scrambled in. Josh Timmis swivelled round in his seat. ‘Better just clear it with the owner.'

‘I don't think anyone's in.' Roger Faulkener spoke guiltily, his trespassing conscience pricked. McBrine glanced at him sharply in the rear-view mirror. The man was flushed with embarrassment. He could guess why. They hadn't knocked on the owner's door not only because they were trespassers but also because they had been frightened they would be alerting an axe-wielding murderer. He smothered a smile. In his opinion people watched too many of these horror movies. All the same, it was a good job they didn't know about the batty, hysterical woman who really lived there. That would have spooked them even more. And, of course, city dwellers – he took in the posh and little-used hiking gear, the big polished boots and expensive, Alpine mittens – were always uneasy in this underpopulated environment, however much they tried to pretend they liked it in ‘The Wilds'. Well, well, well. He eyed the man. ‘Londoners, are you?'

It was Betsy who answered for both of them. ‘Yes,' she said, adding proudly, ‘but we've bought a holiday cottage in Hartington.'

Thought so.

But McBrine said nothing. They'd reached the farm.

Josh Timmis banged on the front door. At first it appeared that the farm was deserted.

Then the door was pulled abruptly open by Diana Tong, who looked at the four of them with patent disapproval. ‘Yes?' she said.

‘These people,' McBrine managed, ‘thought they saw something down your well.'

Diana's eyebrows were raised and she asked the obvious question. ‘What were they doing peering down the well?'

Roger Faulkener stepped forward. ‘We're really sorry,' he said. ‘It looked so pretty.'