The Midden (25 page)

'To tell him about Timothy, of course. Apparently she knows the Minister personally. Fergus
seemed to think she had an affair with him...In fact he's certain she did.'

As she broke down and began to cry, Bletchley took the decanter in his hands and poured
himself a stiff whisky. 'If you're seriously telling me that Aunt Boskie who is ninety had an
affair with a man who at best reckoning can't be more than forty-three, you must be mad. She'd
have been in her sixties when he hit puberty. It's a positively filthy thought. She'd be older
than you are now, for Christ's sake. Don't be silly.'

The taunt was too much for his wife. 'I'm only telling you what Fergus said. And why is it so
silly? You think it's silly for a woman my age to want to be made love to by a young healthy man
with real feelings and the body to express them with? You're the one who's mad. Mad, mad, mad,
mad.'

As she dashed from the room and her words reached him distantly from the corridor, Bletchley
Bright looked sorrowfully round the great room and let his mind, such as it was, roam back
through the centuries to the time the first Bright, old Bidecombe Bright who was known as
'Brandy', had stood there and had been proud of the achievements that had culminated in the
building of Voleney House. And now, thanks to the criminal lunacy of his damned son, he,
Bletchley Bright, directly descended from old Brandy, was going to have to sell the house he had
been born and brought up and had led such a wonderfully idle life in. It was an unbearable
prospect. He poured himself another Scotch and went into the gun room.

Miss Midden was entirely a different person when she arrived in Fowey. She had had to change
trains to get to Plymouth and had had very little sleep. Looking at her face in the mirror of the
station lavatory, she thought it was suitably careworn for the role she had chosen for herself.
She went out and bought a round hat and a blue coat at a charity shop and put them on. She also
bought a large canvas hold-all. Then she went to a car rental office, hired an Escort for the
day, and drove to Pud End. She intended to arrive at lunchtime when Mr Gould would be too busy or
hungry to want to bother asking too many awkward questions.

He hardly asked any at all. He didn't want to know about bloody Timothy Bright. He was still
seething over Bletchley's rudeness on the phone.

'I'm from the hospital,' she told him. 'I've come for Timothy Bright's things. He's ever so
much better now he's off the drip and he's asked for them.'

Victor Gould said he was glad to hear it, though whether he was glad Timothy Bright was off
the drip or in hospital or simply because he didn't want the bloody lout's things in his house it
was impossible to say. He went to fetch them and Miss Midden bustled along behind him chattering
about how busy she was and how she had to go over to Bodmin because old Mr Reavis needed his
insulin and...

Victor Gould watched her drive off before realizing he hadn't asked which hospital his damned
nephew was in. Not that he cared. He was expecting Mrs Gould back next day and wasn't looking
forward to her return. He decided to say nothing about Timothy or his things. Silence, where the
Bright family was concerned, was golden, and anyway he was going to have enough of her
forgiveness without getting further into guilt.

By two o'clock Miss Midden was back on the train. She had phoned the Major and told him to
pick her up at eleven that night.

By that time Inspector Rascombe's investigation into any unusual activities in the Stagstead
area had unearthed the anonymous phone call.

'Came in on Monday morning at 11.12 a.m.,' the WPC on duty told him. 'Man's voice. Wouldn't
leave his name or address. Using a public phone booth. It's written down here.'

The Detective Inspector looked at the message.' "Boys being buggered Middenhall," repeated
twice. Interesting, very interesting. That's where that awful woman lives, isn't it?' he said.
'Gave us a lot of trouble some years back.'

The WPC didn't share his dislike. 'Miss Midden. Very respectable lady by all accounts. Middens
have been up there for yonks.'

'That's all very well, but who are the people at the Middenhall?' said Rascombe, and went on
to check out two car thefts at Pyal and a break-in at Ratfen and finally some sheep stealing over
on Loft Fell Moss. Nothing added up to a definite lead to paedophilia.

He had more luck on the computer file of sex offenders and was particularly struck by the name
MacPhee who had done time in 1972 for 'cottaging' and whose address in 1984 had been the Ruffles
Hotel, Stagstead. MacPhee had also been arrested and charged on four charges of being drunk and
disorderly over the years. 'You'd better check that fucker out,' said the Inspector. 'Yes, I'd
like to know a bit more about this Major MacPhee.'

But in fact the Major came fairly far down the Inspector's list of interesting sex offenders
and the area had a sufficient number to keep him busy for some time. It was only when he came
back to his office and found that the same Major MacPhee's present address was The Midden Farm
that he took notice of him again. 'We get a call from a hoaxer about some boy being buggered at
the Middenhall and we find this bloke living up there with a record for D and D and cottaging.
This smells dirty to me, don't it just. What else do we have up there, Sergeant? I want to
know.'

'There, or down the road at the Middenhall as well?' the Sergeant asked.

'The Middenhall? What's that?'

'Don't know how to describe it,' said the Sergeant. 'It's not exactly a guest house or a
nursing home. At least I don't think it is. It's some sort of community place people come and
stay in.'

'Really? A community place? What sort of people?' said Rascombe, whose nose for dreadful dirt
was now firmly fixed on the Middenhall.

'Well, I don't know exactly. I heard someone say Miss Midden she's the old biddy who owns the
place Miss Midden had told this person that they were all family and entitled to live there for
free.'

'Really? Family? What sort of family? Got kids, have they?' said the Inspector. 'I want to
know about this family.'

'I'll get the names from the council offices, the names for poll-tax purposes. Could get a
lead that way.'

'Follow that up, Sergeant. I want to know everything there is to know about this Middenhall
place and the people up there. Send someone over to the Council. Oh yes, and make sure the
enquiry is discreet. This could be a very important case indeed.'

As a result of this instruction a plainclothes man visited the Community Charge offices with
such awesome discretion that the news that the police were interested in Miss Midden and the
goings-on at the Middenhall was guaranteed to spread rapidly through Shire Hall and thence to the
general public in Stagstead.

That afternoon the Inspector brought in some of his men from Tween and set up a special unit
to watch the Middenhall. 'I've called you here,' he told them, 'because this could be a big one
and if it's as big a one as I think it is we've got to play dead cagey. We get this one right
we're going to give our public image the car-wash it needs. What we are about to uncover is
something the media's going to love us for. And considering the shit they've flung fanwise at us,
this time they're going to lick arse and love it.' He paused to let the point sink it before
going on. 'Only thing is we're up against people with a lot of influence and political pull.
That's why I've called you in. You're not locals and you aren't known in the district. We can't
afford any slip-ups. Right? Right. Any questions?'

A detective sergeant in the front row put up his hand.

'Yes, Bruton, what is it?'

'I'm local,' he said

'Yeah, well, we need you because you know the area. That's why you're here.'

'Could we know the area where all this is taking place, sir?'

'In due course, yes, of course you can. I'm just trying to set the scene in your heads so we
don't blow the case. And the way we can do that is by being too nosy. In fact the moment these
people get a whiff of copper in the air they're going to go to ground so fast we won't know they
was ever there. So it's long-range surveillance all the way, which of course doesn't make it any
easier for us. Right? Right.' And having answered his own question the Inspector asked if there
were any from the floor.

And again the Sergeant in the front row put up his hand. 'When you say long-range
surveillance, sir, what exactly had you got in mind?'

Rascombe looked at Bruton doubtfully. He was beginning to wonder if it was wise to have such a
troublemaker on the team. In the Inspector's mind questions equalled trouble. The fewer anyone
asked the better he liked it. And them. He was beginning to dislike the Sergeant.

'By long-range surveillance, Sergeant,' he said, going into official patter, 'we mean the
avoidance of any line-of-sight contact with the suspect or, as in this case, suspects; the use of
audio-visual auxiliary equipment in a non-observable context for the maintenance of continuous
monitoring of said suspects' modus vivendis and operandis, the assessment of the material so
obtained by trained officers with a view to building up a comprehensive and in-depth
psychological profile of the suspect's psychology. I hope I've made myself clear, Sergeant.'

For a brief moment Sergeant Bruton looked as though he were going to give a truthful answer.
But discretion prevailed. 'Sure, sir. I just wanted to know,' he said. 'Very clear, I'm
sure.'

Inspector Rascombe checked the corridor outside, then shut the door with a furtive caution
before turning back to the team. 'When I tell you the area of our investigation I think you will
all appreciate the need for absolute discretion,' he said in a hushed tone, and unfolded a
large-scale map of the fell district to the north. There was a sudden look of interest on the
detectives' faces. They all knew who had a place up there.

Inspector Rascombe's pointer moved over to the Middenhall. 'As you can see from this map the
particular target is not one that can be easily approached. That's almost certainly the reason it
was chosen for these horrible activities. And it makes surveillance bloody difficult. Over here
we have open fell country stretching away for several miles until you get to the Parson's Road
and Six Lanes End here. No cover on that side except for one or two drystone walls and a number
of sheep which as you can see is not a lot of help. Up here is the Midden Farm which is to be
under surveillance at all times. Right, then over here down the road is the place called
Middenhall. That is a major target, the major target in fact. And again as you can see there is a
lake to the south and round the back here through these here woods is the quarry garden. Beyond
them there's the river Idd with good cover along the banks and the water meadows in the valley
here. That is as far as I can tell the only feasible route for the surveillance teams to take and
that being the case we aren't going to take it. Anyone here tell me why?'

'I don't suppose it could have anything to do with the fact that Miss Midden might expect us
to use it?' said Sergeant Bruton in the front row.

The Inspector looked at him with fresh interest. "That's very smart of you, Bruton,' he said,
'working that out for yourself. And may we know how come you know who I've been talking about all
this time?'

Sergeant Bruton looked down at his knees and then up again. 'Well, sir, you said the
Middenhall was to be kept under surveillance at all times and Miss Midden owns the Middenhall and
the Midden Farm so I just reckoned she might be involved or something.'

'Very good. Glad to see you're taking an interest. Anyone else got any comments?'

'If we're not going to use the cover along the river to go in, where are we going to go?'
asked a detective in the third row.

Inspector Rascombe smiled. 'Here,' he said and pointed to the open fell to the west. 'By
coming up this way we will avoid doing the obvious which is what they'll be looking for. The last
place they'll expect us to come is over the fell. So that's the way we'll take.'

'But I thought...nothing, sir,' said Sergeant Bruton and refrained from pointing out that, if
what Inspector Rascombe had said just now was correct and the suspects at the Middenhall would go
to ground the moment they got a whiff of copper, they would already be well away and wouldn't be
seen for dust because everyone in Stagstead knew Miss Midden was being investigated. It seemed
safer not to say anything. In any case he had been involved with Miss Midden on several charity
money-raising committees and he couldn't see her being involved in a paedophile ring. Still, if
the idiot Inspector wanted to go ahead there was no way he could be stopped. Best to keep his own
nose clean.

The Inspector was drawing up the various units and giving them their duties. 'Unit A is
assigned to traffic identification,' he said. 'Symes, Rathers, Blighten and Saxton.
Round-the-clock observation of all vehicles moving along this road here.' The pointer moved along
the line of the road to the Middenhall and the farm. 'I want every vehicle number and, if there
is anything unusual, you will call in to base here where Unit B will do the tracing and in the
event of an outgoing vehicle needing trailing or intercepting they will do it.'

As the orders went out it became clear just how comprehensive the operation was. 'There will
be no radio communication unless there is an absolute emergency,' Rascombe went on.
'Communication between Units A and B will be by direct telephone line. I have made arrangements
with the telephone authorities for a line to be available as soon as possible. In the meantime
Unit A will use the phone box at Iddbridge to report to Unit B. On the other side of the same
surveillance coin this road at the back across the Idd valley will be watched by Unit C with men
here on one side of the river and here on the other and a mean time of travel between the two
watches will be established. Any vehicle which fails to emerge within the mean time and which may
therefore have dropped off or alternatively picked up someone from the surveillance object will
be noted with particular interest and if need be intercepted here.' He pointed to the crossroads
three miles to the north.