Tragedy at Two Read online

  He knocked at the back door, and Edwina Smith answered it. “Hello, Derek!” she said, surprised because Alf had not said an electrician was needed.

  “No, I’ve not come on business,” Derek said. “Is Alf about? I’d just like a word. Parish council stuff an’ that.”

  Edwina’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, then I know what it’s about,” she said. “You’ll not get him to evict the gypsies, you know. He’s practically one of ’em! Spends hours down there listenin’ to their stories. They’re on their way to Appleby this time. Alf’s thinking of goin’ with them again, but I don’t reckon they’ll want him.”

  “Right,” said Derek. “Still, I’d like a word if he’s around.”

  “Up in Junuddle,” she said. “With the sheep.”

  Fortunately Derek knew that Junuddle was a field on the way to Waltonby. The origins of the name were lost in the mists of time. A historian who had lived in the village had been keen to research field names and had come across others for the village farmland. None of these were subsequently used by farmers or villagers, but they continued to talk about Junuddle without having the faintest idea what it meant.

  Derek found Alf checking the water troughs, and was greeted warmly. “Good God, boy, it must be urgent for you to come trekking up here!” he said.

  “Yeah, well, it is really,” Derek said. He carefully avoided saying it was parish council business this time. “You got ten minutes for a chat?”

  Alf frowned. “You don’t fool me, Derek Meade,” he said. “I know there was a parish council meeting last night, and I saw the agenda on the notice board outside the school. Item eight: illegal travellers.”

  “Clever bugger,” Derek said, and they both laughed. “I drew the short straw and here I am to talk about it.”

  “Well, first of all, they’re not them New Age travellers. They’re gypsies, or tinkers. Second, they’re not illegal, because they’re on my land and I like them being here. And thirdly, what were these so-called complaints? They been coming through this village for generations, and haven’t hurt a fly. Except maybe a few rabbits and hares, and they got my permission. So you can report that back to the old bag up at the hall. Now,” he added, “why don’t we go back to the house and try my missus’s primrose wine, and forget all about my gypsies. Blimey, Derek, if you go back far enough, you’d be evicting me, too!”

  They walked back to the house, and Derek tried to explain that the laws on eviction were not as simple as that. Health and safety could be involved. They had no clean water, no sanitary arrangements. And none of the children went to school.

  Alf exploded. “Health and b-b-bloody safety!” he stuttered. “We’re living in a police state, Derek boy. Those families in caravans are more healthy than we are. Fresh air, fresh food, hygienic in their own laws, that’s why. Mind you, Athalia was telling me the new generation eat all kinds of ready-m ade rubbish from supermarkets. As for school, they learn all they need to know from the old ones.”

  Derek sighed. “You don’t really believe that, Alf,” he said. “Education is important. But on top of all that, there could be danger from some of the village people. You know as well as I do there’s some as would take the law into their own hands.”

  “Let ’em try,” Alf said, frowning, and he opened the door and called for his wife.

  “Some of your primrose, me duck,” he said. “There’s a lad here as needs some lead in his pencil.”

  “Speak for y’ self,” said Derek, and sipped the wine that tasted like nectar. He knew he was defeated, and did not particularly care.

  AS DEREK WALKED OUT TO HIS VAN, HE LOOKED TO ONE SIDE INTO the scrubby wood. He could see long caravans clustered in a semicircle, with one small, dingy one off to one side, deeper into the wood. There were school-age children playing with a puppy on a string round the ashes of a fire in front of the caravans. He could see they were teasing it with a dead mouse, throwing it and then picking it up before the puppy could reach it. Derek smiled. The kids were having a good time, and the puppy was wagging its stumpy tail. Not a bad life, he thought, but then reconsidered. These kids would grow up ignorant and resentful, fearful and exiled from what was now reckoned to be a decent life.

  On an impulse he walked along a path at the back of the caravans, listening and looking, and found himself approaching the one set apart. Two dark-faced men with caps pulled down over their eyes were sitting on the caravan steps, and one held a straining brindled bull terrier, all muscles and sharp teeth. It growled menacingly when it saw Derek.

  One of the men stood up and glared. “What d’ya want? This is private land.”

  “But not yours,” Derek said bravely. Perhaps he could have a conversation with these men and gain some insight into the situation. He was soon disabused of that idea.

  “Bugger off, before I set this ’ere dog on ya!”

  The other man stood up, and the menacing threesome began to walk towards Derek. No point in being a hero, Derek convinced himself rapidly. He turned around and walked rapidly back towards his vehicle, uncomfortably aware of loud mocking laughter as he went.

  GRAN AND LOIS WERE SITTING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE PORING over the local paper. “Look at this,” Lois said to Derek as he came in. “Somebody’s been putting pressure on our brave boys in the constabulary.”

  Derek looked at the fuzzy photograph of a couple of lads with their faces shielded being escorted away from what looked very like Farnden playing field and bundled into a waiting police van. The headline, “Guilty of Highway Violence?” spread in large letters across the photograph, and the story beneath said that two young persons had been taken in for questioning in the case of Rob Wilkins, murdered on his way home to Long Farnden village.

  “Cops wrong as usual, if you ask me,” Gran said. “It’s as clear as daylight them gypsies did it. It’ll be difficult sorting out which one. They all stick together like fish glue. But it certainly wasn’t those kids. One of them comes from a good home. His mother belongs to the WI.”

  “That clinches it then,” said Lois acidly.

  “Has Josie heard about this?” Derek said.

  “We don’t know. Only just seen the story,” said Lois. “If she hasn’t heard nothin’, then it’ll take some explaining.” She gave Derek a kiss on the cheek. “Time I had a word with Cowgill,” she said.

  Derek sighed and Gran frowned, but Lois ignored them and went off into her office to make the call.

  THIRTEEN

  HELLO, LOIS!” HUNTER COWGILL HAD A HARD DAY, AND HE brightened when he heard Lois’s voice. He motioned away the young policewoman who had just arrived in his office and signalled to her to shut the door as she went.

  “I expect you’ll be able to explain,” said Lois without preliminaries.

  “Explain what, my dear?”

  “You know perfectly well. The story in the local. Two kids dragged away from the playing fields, suspected—”

  “Not suspected of anything,” interrupted Cowgill briskly. “Merely taken along to the police station for questioning. Their parents were, of course, with us.”

  “How come we didn’t know?” Lois had checked with Josie before telephoning Cowgill, and discovered that the first her daughter had heard of it was when she opened the local paper on the counter in the shop.

  Cowgill did some rapid thinking. This was only a very early stage in questioning, and the newspaper as usual had made a meal of it. He would like to know who had tipped off the photographer. At the same time, the last thing he wanted to do was alienate Lois, his Lois, and he prepared to eat humble pie.

  “I do apologise, my dear,” he said. “I should have had a reassuring word with Josie. And you know, Lois, I tell you everything in due course.”

  There was silence from Lois. Cowgill was alarmed. He could not lose his contact with her, firstly from a professional point of view, and secondly, well, that as well.

  “I’ll meet you at the shop at eight o’clock.” Lois said finally, looking at her watch. “You c
an clear up a few cases and still get there in time. Then you can fill us in with what’s been happening. ’Bye.”

  She put down the phone, sadly aware that he had her over a barrel—inamanner of speaking. This crime had invaded her own family and there was no possibility of her giving up. Her usual weapon had lost its power this time. This time it was possible that she needed him more than he needed her. But nothing would induce her to admit it.

  JOSIE SAW HER MOTHER MARCHING DOWN THE STREET, AND opened the door to greet her, but Lois spoke first.

  “Is he here? No, don’t answer that question. I can see he’s not. His car’s not here.”

  “Well, actually, I am here,” said Cowgill, appearing from the dilapidated car park round the back of the shop. “I thought it might be better to park away from prying eyes.”

  “No need for that!” Lois said sharply. “This is a purely official visit from a police detective to the victim of a family tragedy. Nothing else.”

  Josie stared at her mother. “Am I permitted to offer the officer a cup of coffee, then, Mum?” she said. Cowgill smiled. Young Josie was a chip off the old block.

  “Of course you are,” he said, “and I’d be very happy to accept. Shall we go in, Lois?”

  It was on the tip of Lois’s tongue to say her name was Mrs. Meade, and would he kindly not forget it. But then she realised she was being ridiculous, and meekly followed the other two into the shop. They climbed the stairs up to the tiny flat, and Lois said she would make the coffee while the other two chatted. She would be able to hear from the galley kitchen.

  “And you can begin by explaining what’s going on with those kids in the paper,” she said to Cowgill.

  Cowgill explained that there had been a complaint from Farnden about a gang of no-goods meeting every night at the back of the village hall on the playing fields. Substances had been mentioned. They had threatened the vicar, who had tried to clear them off the premises, and he had reported the incident to the police.

  “So the newspaper put two and two together and made five, as is their custom,” he said, patting Josie’s hand. “Only possibly connected to the sad demise of your Rob,” he added.

  “If that was all it was,” Lois said crossly, handing round mugs of coffee, “your lot wouldn’t have moved in and bundled them off to the police station. A warning to them and their parents would have been a first step, surely. Are you keeping something from us, Hunter?” she added, using his name to annoy him. Well, if he could use hers. . . .

  “A violent threat to an innocent citizen is a police matter, Lois,” he answered.

  “I think we’ll have to accept that, Mum, for the moment,” said Josie. “It is nice of you, Inspector, to come and explain. I did want to ask if you’ve had any other leads?” She smiled at him winningly, and Lois scowled. Surely Josie wasn’t taken in by his switched-on charm?

  Cowgill looked at Lois. “Well, yes,” he said reluctantly. “There have been the usual anonymous messages to us in Tresham.”

  “Like this one?” Josie said, producing the creased note she had shown Hazel.

  “What’s that?” Lois said, taking it from her, reading it and then passing it on to Cowgill.

  He sighed. “I am afraid we have had one or two like this. Looks like the same handwriting. Would you mind if I kept this, Josie?”

  “No, of course not,” Josie said.

  At the same time, Lois chipped in firmly. “And we’d like a copy, please. Here,” she added, taking it from Cowgill and giving it back to Josie. “Go and photocopy it on your machine.” Josie obediently left the room, and Cowgill’s face dropped the official expression.

  “You look lovely when you’re angry,” he said, and Lois practically spat at him.

  “Do you want my help or not?” she said.

  He reached out and touched her shoulder. “What do you think, Lois?” he said, serious now. “I’ll get the villain who murdered Rob if it’s the last thing I do. And it may be exactly that,” he added. “Don’t think I underrate the possible dangers.”

  Lois shivered. The sight of Cowgill’s calm, confident face smashed into a pulp flashed in front of her eyes, and she gulped. “Okay, then,” she said. “Let’s be friends, if only for Josie’s sake.”

  “What’s for my sake?” Josie said, returning with the letter and its copy.

  “Everything we can possibly do to help,” Cowgill said smoothly.

  “Could we talk about the gypsies?” Lois said. “If all these anonymous notes are blaming that lot camped in Alf Smith’s wood, I suppose you’re going to do something about it?”

  “Of course we must, Lois,” he said. “But if you could give us any help on that, we’d be most grateful. Perhaps drop in and see Athalia Lee again? She’s a good soul, and nothing that goes on in their encampment escapes her notice.”

  “What d’you mean, go and see her again?” Lois snapped.

  Cowgill answered obliquely, annoying Lois even more. “I am good at my job, Lois, just as you are at yours. Now, I must be going.” He turned to Josie. “I’ll do my best to keep you up to date with how we are proceeding,” he said. “And any help you can give your mother will also be most welcome.”

  He negotiated the narrow stairs with admirable agility, and was gone almost immediately.

  “He’s quite nice really, Mum,” Josie said thoughtlessly.

  FOURTEEN

  ATHALIA LEE WAS WASHING CLOTHES IN A TUB OF RAINWATER at the back of her caravan. She was happiest without four walls around her, and along with the others preferred to sit outside round a fire, eating and drinking and telling stories. Skinning rabbits, plucking chickens, chopping vegetables, all were best done outside in the open air and the sun, or in the bender tent when it rained. She stuck to the old ways of housekeeping, washing and rinsing her clothes in rainwater collected for the purpose, never using tap water to wash the children’s hair, or her own, and loving the silky shine of it when it dried in the sun. Not that there was any alternative in the old days, or even now. They had no available tap water, except on designated sites, which were much disliked by many true gypsies. Running streams and springs were good water, and the traditional camping places located accordingly.

  Lois rounded the corner of the caravan and smiled. It was like a painting. Athalia with her hair screwed into a knot at the back of her head, her brown arms bare in the task of washing, scrubbing and squeezing. Her long skirt was splashed with water, and her old shoes muddy from the ground around the tub. Her eyes were bright when she saw Lois.

  “So you come back, did ya? That’s the girl. Come and help me lay out these clothes to dry and then we’ll have a cup of tea. You liked my tea, I recall.”

  The clothes were spread out on bushes round the camp, and then Athalia and Lois sat in rickety chairs on the scrubby grass outside the caravan, holding mugs of steaming tea.

  Lois was painfully aware of suspicious eyes on her from the gypsies who passed. A small group of children stood and stared, unashamed. Athalia clapped her hands and said something in their own language, and they flew away like startled sparrows.

  “So you come to ask me some questions,” Athalia said comfortably. “I reckon you didn’t want my recipe for stew. It was your daughter’s man who was killed, wasn’t it.” These were statements, not questions, and Lois nodded. This was a woman after her own heart. Straight to the point and no messing about.

  “You know what they’re saying in the village, then,” she said, looking Athalia in the eye. “Them as don’t like gypsies are blaming one of your lot. Meself, I’m not so sure. But I do know that nobody in Farnden is going to speak up for you if it comes out that it could’ve been one of your men.”

  “So why are you any different?”

  “I’m not interested in whether the bloke what killed Rob was black, white or rainbow coloured. Nor whether he was a yobbo, an Irish traveller or a gypsy. All I want to know, and pretty damn quickly, is what coward attacked a man on a dark, lonely road for no reason.”
r />   “Might not have been a he,” Athalia said, shooing away a skinny cat twining around her ankles. “Could’ve been a woman. An’ there must’ve been a reason.”

  Lois stared at her. She’d not once thought of a woman. “Have to have been a strong woman,” she said.

  “Like yerself,” said Athalia. She watched Lois’s face and burst out into throaty laughter. “We get to be canny, Lois Meade,” she said. “We been on the run for generations. No good believin’ anybody. Go on, then,” she added, “ask me a question.”

  Lois settled back in her chair, which lurched violently to one side. She had trouble righting it, and could not help smiling at the giggling children who were back on watch.

  “How much do you know about this whole nasty business?” she asked, finally upright. “Any of your number got reason to have a go at Rob? What about those two working for Thornbulls? My Derek was in the pub when they came in asking for work, and he said they weren’t exactly welcomed.”

  Athalia answered the questions with one of her own. “Who’s that Sam Stratford? He don’t live in Farnden, do he. Is he a friend of your man?”

  “All the men in the pub are mates, more or less,” Lois replied. “Except the vicar, maybe. He’s a bit out of kilter in there, bless him, with his half a shandy and a packet of plain crisps.”

  Athalia laughed again. “At least we don’t go a-l ookin’ for recruits,” she said. “It ain’t easy to get to be a gypsy, y’ know. Very particular, we are. Some of us are Christians, o’ course. But not his churchy kind.”

  “So they told you about the pub, did they, those two?”

  “O’ course. We know everything that goes on, Mrs. Meade. We have to. Now, don’t look round, but there’s a couple of our men as you must steer clear of. No good sending a posse of villagers down here to tackle them! Leave ’em well alone. Ask your Derek, an’ he’ll tell you I’m saying the truth.”