Authors: Jean Rowden
Bronc tipped the glass high to savour the last drops of brandy, then he set it down beside him with a sigh. ‘That was a bit of all right,’ he said. ‘A man’s insides get a mite cold, this time o’ year.’
The inner door opened and Harry returned, carrying a thick tweed overcoat.
‘Gent left this in the bar two years ago. You remember? Mum took it into Falbrough to the lost property, but nobody ever claimed it. It’s too big for me, and Dad didn’t want it. What do you think, Bronc, reckon this’d be a good fit?’
‘Thank you Mr Bartle, Sir. You’re a real gent.’
‘Looks very fine,’ Deepbriar said, as the tramp put the overcoat on over the torn Burberry. ‘You got a place fixed for tonight?’
Nodding, the old man winked. ‘I do that. Thank you kindly, Sirs. Any chance of another drop to keep me warm before I go?’
Harry grimaced. ‘Don’t tell anyone, or Dad’ll have it out of my pay. You sure you don’t want a drink, Mr Deepbriar?’ He lowered his voice. ‘I’ve got a little package for you, if you’ve time to come into the bar. That one I told you about last week. You won’t miss much of the show, it’ll be the interval by now, you could have a quick pint and be back in time for the second half.’
Some time later Deepbriar stepped out into the night, putting his hat on. He drew in a breath of fresh clean air and looked up at the stars, enjoying the sense of solitude. The little item Harry had given him made a slight bulge under his coat, and he patted it happily. It was a shame to have to return to the village hall, but he felt fortified now, ready for anything.
Always the policeman, even when he wasn’t on duty, he glanced down the hill towards the wooded shadows at the end of Violet Lane. The glow from Minecliff’s three street lamps didn’t reach that far, but he had the impression that a shape was moving against the trees.
The constable stopped, staring into the night and wishing he had a torch with him. If that shadow had been a man he wasn’t tall, but bulky. A bit like Bronc, but the tramp was still sitting in the porch of the Speckled Goose, making the most of the drink Deepbriar had bought him. If the man wasn’t incapacitated, Deepbriar might have thought it was Bert Bunyard. Far away a dog barked, but all else was silence.
He weighed up the likelihood of finding a suspicious character loitering in Violet Lane. Apart from the footpath that set off across the fields, there were only three little cottages down there, and not one of them with anything worth stealing. It had been nothing but a shadow. He was getting as bad as Bronc, imagining things. Squaring his shoulders he headed back to face the demise of
Madame Butterfly
.
It was a cold thirty-two-degrees Fahrenheit outside, but the atmosphere at the Deepbriar’s breakfast table was a great deal chillier. Mary had barely spoken a word to the constable the night before, and her back faced him when he’d followed her to bed.
He was trying to find something to say as he drank his second cup of tea, but he couldn’t think what; Mary was normally such a peaceable soul, not given to displays of temperament. It was a relief when the telephone rang.
‘This is Ferdy Quinn,’ the voice at the other end rattled off briskly. ‘I’ve got a complaint to make. Bert Bunyard’s been on my land again. I’m giving you warning, constable, if you don’t stop him playing his tricks I’ll go down to that run-down old heap of ruins and wasteland he calls a farm and settle him myself.’
‘Perhaps you’d best calm down, Mr Quinn,’ Deepbriar said stolidly, picking up a pencil, ‘and tell me what’s happened.’
‘I’ve no time to talk now. It’s not just me, Will Minter’s involved as well. We’ve got to get our beasts sorted out. If you want to do something useful you can come and help, or better still, go and lock up Bert Bunyard!’ The phone was slammed down.
Deepbriar sighed. Obviously Quinn hadn’t heard that his archenemy was out of action, hobbling on a pair of crutches. Bunyard couldn’t possibly have walked or ridden the two miles to Quinn’s farm. He had an ancient lorry, but it was rarely in working order, and when Bunyard did manage to coax it into life it made such a terrible noise that the whole village could hear it.
‘Got to go out,’ he said, swapping his pullover for his tunic. Mary nodded, saying nothing. Deepbriar put on his cycle clips. As he reached the door the telephone rang again. ‘If that’s Ferdy Quinn …’ he began, but his wife was on her way upstairs, obviously having developed a sudden deafness.
With another sigh he picked up the phone. ‘Minecliff Police,’ he said.
The voice at the other end was quick and breathy, the accent distinctively upper-class. ‘Oh, constable, I’m so glad I found you at home. I do hope I’m not disturbing you?’
‘What can I do for you, Miss Lightfall?’
‘Well, I was wondering if you were free this morning. At eleven. Morning service at St Peter and St Paul, you know. Only Cyril Crimmon sent a message round to say he can’t come, some sort of family business I gather. Since you don’t play regularly at Minecliff now, I thought perhaps you’d be able to help us out. I don’t know what we’ll do about evensong either, if Mr Crimmon isn’t back by then. Of course there’s the Wilkins boy, but he’s only eleven, and with his legs not really being long enough to …’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Deepbriar said, cutting across the flow. ‘But I have to go out and deal with a police matter first. You’d better have young Nicky Wilkins on hand, Miss Lightfall, in case I can’t get to you by eleven.’
As he pedalled through the village Deepbriar’s thoughts wandered. The request for his services at St Peter and St Paul reminded him of another reason for his dislike of Mrs Emerson. Within six weeks of moving into the village she’d supplanted him as Minecliff s church organist, and now he had to make do with the crumbs dropped from her table. He mostly got funerals, because she didn’t care for those, saying the atmosphere interfered with her artistic aura.
Appeals from other parishes, like Possington, were welcome. St Peter and St Paul’s had one of the best organs he’d ever played on. Somehow a group of parishioners had managed to raise the huge sum of seven thousand pounds to have it repaired. The instrument was far grander than the one at Minecliff, with fifteen stops and three manuals, and a swell to great coupler. Since its refurbishment the tone was truly magnificent, with none of the unwanted noise from the tracker action. The stoppers on Minecliff’s organ rattled so much they almost drowned out the quiet passages.
If he wasn’t too long at Quinn’s farm maybe he’d reach Possington in time to play some music of his own choosing as the congregation arrived; Father Michael had eclectic tastes, and allowed his organists full rein. The thought cheered him, and he leant more heavily into the pedals.
Deepbriar almost fell off his bike when Emily Spraggs ran out of her door and into the road right in front of him. Last night her pale little face had shown signs of worry. This morning she looked positively haggard, and there were tear stains on her cheeks.
‘M
r Deepbriar.’ Emily Spraggs gulped. She was twisting the front of her bright pink pinafore tight between her hands. ‘Please. I don’t know what to do. Nobody’s seen him. And you know Joe, he wouldn’t go off without telling me …’
‘Your Joe? What’s he been up to then?’ Deepbriar dismounted and propped his bicycle against the wall, taking the girl’s elbow to lead her back into Honeysuckle Cottage. The newlyweds’ home didn’t live up to its name, being the last in a terrace of six council houses, but Emily and Joe had already given it a charm all of its own. Pots of colourful begonias filling the windows between bright yellow curtains had something to do with it, but the romantics in the village declared that the two young people’s love for each other shone from the very walls.
‘He didn’t come home last night. He said he’d be working late, and he was going to come straight to the village hall. For the show, you know. He took his best coat with him specially, to put on over his work clothes. Only he never came.’
Deepbriar cleared his throat noisily. ‘You – er – you didn’t have an argument? Yesterday morning perhaps?’
‘Of course not.’ Another tear trickled down her cheek. ‘We’ve never argued, not about anything.’ She flushed. ‘We’re still on our honeymoon. Joe promised to spend as much time as he could at home this week, because we can’t afford to go on a holiday, what with having the house to do and everything.’
‘Well, I’m sure nothing serious has happened to him. I expect that old lorry broke down and he never got back to Wriggle’s yard. Tell you what I’ll do. It’s not far out of my way, I’ll go and check.’
‘Thank you. I should have walked up there last night, but I didn’t like to, not on my own in the dark. And it was late by then …’ Fresh tears flowed.
Deepbriar was already out of the door and astride his bike. ‘You stay indoors, in the warm, and don’t you worry,’ he called reassuringly, as he pedalled away.
He glanced at his watch. Five minutes to ten. So much for being at Possington with time to spare; he’d have to ride fast to fit everything in and still reach the church in time for the service.
Deepbriar looked for the tower of St Peter and St Paul’s, just appearing above the trees; he dwelt briefly on the pleasure of playing the best church organ in the county and tried to push on a little faster. He had to see Ferdy Quinn first, and he had the disappearance of young Joe Spraggs to investigate; the thought gave him an enjoyable quiver of excitement, quickly quashed. English villages didn’t produce mysteries worthy of Dick Bland and his ilk, he mustn’t let his imagination run away with him. Still, even a little bit of a puzzle made a change. If only he wasn’t so short of time.
That led him to wonder if Joe had been reluctant to waste a Saturday night on the Minecliff Operatic Society’s latest offering; there was only so much a man could be expected to endure. Then again, he was newly married, and he’d made a promise to his pretty young wife.
Remembering his own misdemeanour of the previous night, Deepbriar was suddenly immersed in gloom. If Mary didn’t relent he could be in trouble; she might ‘forget’ to put the Sunday joint on to roast. She’d done it once, when Minecliff won the area cricket championship. He hadn’t intended to stay out quite so late celebrating, and he hadn’t realised he’d pushed her wifely patience just a little too far when he finally rolled in at four in the morning. A slight feeling of resentment lingered, even after eight years; for a man with a healthy appetite he’d always thought the punishment had far exceeded the crime.
The constable turned on to the muddy track that led to Wriggle’s Yard, which was a rather run down patch of land containing piles of bricks, wood, slates and other building materials. Deepbriar jolted slowly round the last corner then braked sharply. The wooden gates in the paling fence stood wide open. Propped against the left hand gate was a bicycle, which every soul in Minecliff would have recognised as belonging to young Joe. It sported a bright blue saddlebag, which had famously been a wedding present to the happy couple from Joe’s boss. Not a generous man, Alfred Wriggle, Deepbriar reflected, grinning as he recalled the wisecracks in the pub when Joe told them about the gift.
Wriggle’s ancient lorry was parked in its usual place, facing the outside world, ready to make its next delivery, one headlamp glass cracked right across, tyres nearly bald, the canvas cover creased and sagging. Unsurprisingly, Wriggle never replaced anything until it fell apart.
Dismounting, the constable left his machine leaning against the hedge. He advanced slowly, walking on the firmer ground at the side of the lane to avoid the puddles and preserve the shine on his boots. ‘Joe? You there, lad?’
There was no response. Deepbriar marched past the abandoned bicycle to inspect the lorry. Both the cab and the back were empty. A tea cup, white china with a pattern of pink and yellow flowers, stood precariously on the old Atkinson’s bonnet. It had several chips out of the rim and there was a smear of dirty fingerprints around the sides. By craning his neck he could see it contained a scummy residue, possibly tea.
Despite his earlier resolution to avoid speculation, something stirred in Deepbriar, belying his outwardly prosaic nature. A country bobby spent a lifetime dealing with little things; the most serious crime he’d ever encountered was a spot of black marketeering during the War, and even then the real detection work had been done by men from Falbrough. There was a part of him, hidden deep and rarely allowed to see the light of day, that yearned for something more. He peered closely at the cup with something like fondness in his eyes, noting the outline of a perfect greasy thumb print; it was just the kind of evidence you’d expect in a Dick Bland story.
The tiny hut which served as an office was locked, and the window was too filthy to see through, but Deepbriar soon located the key, hidden under a stone round the back. Inside the hut was a rickety table half covered with papers, a wooden chair, a small filing cabinet, and a cupboard which wasn’t large enough to conceal a child, let alone Joe Spraggs. Deepbriar opened it anyway, careful to touch only the outer edge of the door, but the cupboard only contained a dirty saucepan and an empty bottle, and a heap of mouse droppings. On the window ledge was a cup similar to the one that had been left on the lorry, but cleaner.
It took several minutes to make a methodical search of the site. Wriggle never threw anything away, and there were weed-covered heaps of half-bricks and broken sinks, scattered between enormous piles of wood, some of it rotting silently into dust. There were also the remains of several old vehicles, most of them so rusted as to be unrecognisable. Eventually the constable was satisfied that Joe Spraggs wasn’t hidden anywhere in Wriggle’s yard, nor was there any evidence of anything untoward having happened. Without really admitting as much to himself, he had been keeping an eye open for such things as freshly dug earth, pools of blood and spent bullet casings.
But there was Joe’s bike. Deepbriar investigated the saddlebag; it contained a few bread crumbs, scraps of cheese, the dead-spider stems from two tomatoes, and an ancient linen napkin worn thin by years of use, which had evidently been used to wrap some kind of pie. It seemed young Emily had sent her husband off to work well provided.
Despite the lack of evidence, Deepbriar was happily intrigued. He couldn’t yet be sure that a crime had been committed here, but at the very least he’d walked into the scene of a mystery. He inspected the lane outside the gate, and it was there that he struck gold. True to form, the tyres on Wriggle’s lorry were so worn that the tread had almost gone, yet tracks in the mud showed that a vehicle with much newer tyres had been in the yard. As well as the elderly Atkinson, Wriggle owned an Austin 7, but the tracks were too wide to have been left by that.
After making some notes in his notebook, Deepbriar added a drawing of the pattern left in the mud by the wheels and measured them, then he followed the tracks, and was intrigued to find they led round behind one of the large stacks of timber.
Perhaps the car or van had been hidden out of sight when young Spraggs drove in. Had he interrupted a robbery? But then why would he have stopped to make himself a cup of tea? Maybe the fingerprints on the cup didn’t belong to Joe Spraggs at all.
Reluctantly Deepbriar left the cup untouched. If a crime had been committed here then he could only hope that nobody else would arrive on the scene until he’d reported it. He noted the time in his book. Ten twenty-four. Sergeant Hubbard would want such details when Deepbriar phoned his report to headquarters.
Even the chance of missing his Sunday roast paled into insignificance beside the prospect of having discovered a major crime. This would make a change from Bert Bunyard’s poaching escapades and children scrumping or playing truant from school.
Deepbriar wheeled his bike back along the lane, checking the hedges. By the time he arrived at the surfaced road he was sure Joe hadn’t pushed through into the fields or been overcome by some illness and fallen into a ditch. The hedges belonged to the Manor and the Colonel kept them well maintained; they were thick and impenetrable, while the ditch held nothing but mud and an occasional puddle of water. It was a mystery right enough. Had Joe returned from his day’s work, and drunk a cup of tea? Perhaps. But why had he then gone off and left his bike behind, not to mention Emily?
For the moment there was nothing more to be done, but Deepbriar felt a swelling excitement as he set off towards Quinn’s Farm. He reached a sharp bend where the road turned through more than ninety degrees, following the edge of one of Quinn’s fields, and he slowed down a little, recalling the previous evening’s encounter with Bronc. The tramp had been coming from Quinn’s farm, just after dark. And this was where he’d claimed that a ‘gurt black machine’ with no lights showing, had knocked him into the ditch. Could it have been on its way to or from Wriggle’s yard?
The tyre marks were there too, imprinted in the mud on the bend. Deepbriar propped his bicycle against the hedge out of the way, and bent over them, taking out his notebook again to be sure they were the same. Bronc hadn’t been imagining things. But then, the old man wasn’t stupid, merely suffering from the loss of memory that often comes with old age. With a little gentle prodding he might well produce more information about this car. A shame it was black; any other colour would have made it almost instantly recognisable.
Deepbriar resumed his journey, cheerfully contemplating the next stage of his investigation. Then he remembered another man who went missing from the village, and his mood changed in an instant; Joe Spraggs’s disappearance was beginning to look altogether too much like the case of Ed Walkingham.
A man of independent means, Walkingham had lived in Mill House, a large and isolated dwelling on the edge of Minecliff. Three years ago he had disappeared from his home in the middle of the night; the front door had been found standing wide open, and a valuable collection of silver was gone from a cabinet in the living room. Mrs Walkingham had reported the crime, tearfully insistent that her husband must have discovered burglars and been spirited away by them. Then, as in this case, there had been evidence of a vehicle coming and going.
Deepbriar had summoned Sergeant Hubbard, fearing the worst; kidnapping perhaps, or even murder. Coming to the scene, the sergeant had duly called in the CID. What followed became the biggest manhunt Falbrough had ever known, with reports of sightings of the missing man coming in from as many as fifty miles away.
When Ed had finally been located, alive and well in a bed and breakfast establishment overlooking the beach at Brighton, it turned out he’d run away with a barmaid from the Falbrough Arms. He’d sold the silver to a local antique dealer and was living off the proceeds. His ladylove, a bright girl who had learnt to drive during the War, had brought a car, purchased in secrecy the week before, to fetch him in the middle of the night.
Members of the neighbouring constabularies, pulled in to help with the manhunt, never missed a chance to remind the Falbrough officers of the incident. Ever since then, ‘missing persons’ were dirty words as far as Sergeant Hubbard was concerned; he wasn’t going to be happy when Joe Spraggs’s disappearance was reported. Deepbriar allowed himself to descend into his customary gloom. By expecting the worst he found life rarely disappointed him.
Deepbriar opened the gate at Quinn’s farm and pushed his bicycle into the yard at exactly ten forty, only slightly out of breath.
Ferdy Quinn came dashing from the barn, a short stocky man with a florid complexion. Carrot coloured hair stuck out from under his cap and sprouted generously in front of his ears. He was followed by two of his men, old Bob, looking every one of his seventy years, and Alan the cowman, Bob’s grandson. Both men were watching their boss, like a pair of well-trained sheep dogs alert for the slightest signal from their master.
The farmer greeted Deepbriar with a flood of words, none of which was a welcome. ‘About time! I was thinking of fetching my shotgun. And don’t you go telling me this was just some harmless prank. I’ve had enough of that old rogue trying to make a fool out of me.’ He took off his cap and ran a hand over his bright red curls. ‘Bunyard’s gone too far this time.’
‘Steady on, Mr Quinn,’ Deepbriar took out his book and opened it, casting a fond glance at the notes and diagrams he’d made at Wriggle’s yard before turning to a fresh page. ‘I’ll need to know what this is all about. I’m not a mind reader.’
‘It’s my heifers. When Alan here came out this morning he found the field gate wide open. I’m telling you, constable, if you don’t deal with Bunyard …’
‘Keep to the facts, if you please,’ Deepbriar said, giving his pencil a lick and writing swiftly. He glanced at the cowman. ‘What time was this?’
‘About seven,’ Quinn said quickly, giving the younger man no time to reply.
Deepbriar sighed and turned back to the farmer. ‘And everything was as it should have been last night?’