‘Vicky doesn’t approve,’ he told me as Joanne snagged a half-bottle of Bell’s off a suitably child-inaccessible shelf at the top of the cupboard. ‘But by god I need a drink right now.’
He got it in an orange drinking glass with a picture of a happy octopus on it. The Bell’s went firmly and decisively back on the shelf. Derek finished his in two gulps. Inspired, Ethan screwed up his face and started to cry until he was pacified with orange squash.
‘Where’s Andy?’ asked Joanne.
‘He was with a different party,’ said Derek. ‘I think they were down towards Bircher.’ His eyes flicked up to the cupboard where the Bell’s was tucked safely away, towards Joanne, and then back to me.
‘I don’t wish to sound rude,’ he said. ‘But I’d like a word in private with Joanne.’
I glanced at Joanne for confirmation – she gave a slight nod.
‘Of course,’ I said and offered him Ethan just to see what the reaction would be. Derek scooped up the toddler with practised ease and Ethan didn’t seem to have any objections – although he could have been distracted by the orange squash.
I could feel them waiting for me to be gone all the way down the hall and out the front door. I considered doubling back and seeing if I could listen in, but I figured that would have been a little bit too Enid Blyton – even for me.
Rushpool was situated in a side valley that ran roughly north-west to south-east following, I learnt later from an impeccable source, the line of the Rushy Brook – one of the many streams that converged further down the valley with the Ridgemoor Brook before meeting the Lugg at Leominster. Hydraulically speaking, it’s actually more complicated than that. But since I fell asleep during that part of the explanation I can’t inflict it on you. Although it was still early evening the sun had already fallen below the ridge behind the Marstowes’ house in a glare of smoky orange and the village was thrown into cooling shadow. I could hear the pub crowd murmur of the media scrum – still waiting at the entrance to the cul-de-sac – and see the glowing tips of their e-cigarettes and occasional camera flashes. I doubted Nightingale was that keen on me getting my face on the news, so I ducked sideways to guarantee that I was hidden by another box hedge. Then I called DS Cole to let her know I was out of the house.
She told me to stay close in case they called me back in. ‘Or a major domestic kicks off.’ I didn’t get a chance to ask her whether she thought that was likely. The search teams were going to be out until nightfall, but DCI Windrow would be holding a briefing for the investigation team for the next hour or so. Until then I was the man on the spot.
‘I’ll be back after the briefing to talk to the family,’ Cole said. ‘There’s likely to be a press conference tomorrow morning. If there is, I’ll deal with the family. Windrow wants you available in case some actions come up – Dominic will let you know.’
After she hung up I checked through the hedge to see if the media had eased off yet. As I watched, a shudder seemed to run through the pack, then those on the left hand edge broke away and headed up the lane – they were quickly followed by more and more of their peers until the whole herd had thundered after them. A few stragglers armed with telephoto lenses were left to guard the cul-de-sac. I slouched over in my best nothing-but-us-cockney, or at least in their case probably mockney, geezers-together manner and asked where everyone had gone.
‘Leominster,’ said a photographer with ginger dreadlocks and freckles. ‘In case the local plod make an announcement afterwards.’
They see me and they know I’m police, I thought. But it just doesn’t register with them – not really. Which I admit can be handy at times.
‘What’s the local like?’ I asked.
‘The Swan?’ he said and bobbed his head from side to side. ‘A bit foodie but a good range of beers.’
The Swan in the Rushes was not what I expected from a country pub, although it has to be said that my expectations were largely drawn from my mum’s prolonged addiction to
Emmerdale
in the 1990s. Situated at the bottom of the village, beside the pond that presumably gave the place its name – not that I could see any rushes – it was a squat late-Victorian building that had originally been built to replace the old water mill just in time for electrification to render it obsolete. It had quickly been converted to a pub misleadingly named the Old Mill before being bought and renamed by the current owner. He introduced himself to me as Marcus Bonneville and told me that he was originally from Shropshire but had made his pile doing something unspecified in London before deciding to return to the country.
People shouldn’t be non-specific about where they made their money, not in front of police. The only reason I didn’t make a note of his name to do an IIP check later was because I was fairly certain that Windrow’s mob had done that on day one – probably before breakfast. When dealing with the law, having a mysterious past is contra-indicated.
He had taste, though, and instead of decking the pub out with the usual olde worlde accoutrements he’d gone for a rather classy Art Deco styling with blond walnut dining tables with matching chairs and circular Perspex light fittings hanging from the ceiling. The mahogany bar had rounded corners and brass detailing and there were framed vintage travel posters on the walls advertising impossibly sun-kissed destinations – Llandudno, Bridlington and Bexhill-on-Sea. All it needed was a murdered heiress and Hercule Poirot would have felt right at home. The cooking was a bit fancy, and while I’m all for transparency in the food chain I’m really not that bothered about precisely which breed of cattle from what particular herd had given its life to make a six-ounce fillet steak served with peppercorn sauce, grilled field mushroom, tomato and chunky chips plus a half a cider for a twenty and change.
I was contemplating an Italian style bread and butter pudding with mocha ice cream when the press pack started rolling in the front door, so I ducked out the back with my glass of Bulmer’s in hand. This led me out into a scruffy gravel parking area with a charming view of the wheelie bins and the kitchen doors, which had been left open to let the cool air in. As I finished my cider I watched the staff, in full chef’s whites, gearing up for the post-briefing rush. Marcus would be doing well out of the crisis – it’s an ill wind, and all that.
The sun was behind the ridge by then and it was almost full dark. Over the top of the kitchen clatter and the voices in the bar I made out the thump of a helicopter travelling low and fast to the south. The search was winding up for the night.
I called Nightingale and told him where I’d be staying – he asked how long I thought I’d be there.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But West Mercia is digging in for the long haul – I don’t think they think this is going to end well.’
‘I see,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’ll arrange to have some essentials sent up.’
‘There’s a couple of bags in my room,’ I said. ‘One under the bed. The other should be in the wardrobe.’
‘I’ll get Molly to see to it tonight,’ said Nightingale, which should have set off alarm bells then and there.
We were interrupted by a call from DS Cole who said that I could consider myself off duty but on-call until dawn the next morning, when search operations would resume. Once I’d signed off with Cole I asked Nightingale if he had any advice.
‘Keep your eyes open,’ said Nightingale. ‘And do your best.’
The village had no street lamps but enough light spilt out from the houses to light my way up the hill. I slipped past the photographers still on guard at the entrance to the cul-de-sac and up to Dominic’s mum’s bungalow. The lights were on behind net curtains and I could hear the TV inside. I stumbled over something painfully solid left on the path around the side of the building and sensed rather than saw the cowshed as a block of lighter shadow in the darkness. I carefully worked my way to the front. I was fumbling for the key when I looked up and saw the sky for the first time.
When I was very young my mum headed back to Sierra Leone with suitcases full of presents and trunks filled with enough ‘as new’ clothing to keep a branch of Oxfam in stock for a year and a half. As an afterthought, and probably to secure the additional baggage allowance, she took me with her. I don’t remember much of that trip but Mum has several albums filled exclusively with pictures of me looking in turn solemn and terrified as I am manhandled by a succession of relatives. One thing I do remember is looking up at the night sky and seeing that it was crossed by a river of stars.
I saw the same thing that night, a braided stream of light arching over my head while a quarter moon cruised the horizon. For a moment I thought I smelt a sweet slightly fermented scent and the moonlight tricked me into thinking that the empty field behind Dominic’s mum’s garden was filled with trees. But as soon as I got the lights on in the cowshed they were gone.
Operational Flexibility
The sun came up before six the next morning. I lay on top of the duvet and watched blades of light pierce the gaps where the curtains met the walls. I’d left my Airwave on the pillow beside me all night and had heard the search teams up and chattering along with the dawn chorus. It was day three and the girls were still missing. I wondered what the fuck I was doing.
In the absence of coffee, I had a shower, and, by the time I was dressed, Dominic had texted me to say that he was on his way. The air was still fresh but the sun was already sucking up the moisture from the fields and you didn’t need to be chewing on a straw to know it was going to be another hot day.
Dominic tooled up five minutes later in a ten-year-old Nissan pickup truck that had been painted a non-standard khaki, dipped in dried mud up to the wheel arches and then randomly smacked with a sledgehammer to give it that Somali Technical look. I found myself checking to see if there was a mount for a fifty-calibre machine gun in the back.
‘It’s the boyfriend’s,’ said Dominic. ‘He got it second-hand.’
‘Who from?’ I asked. ‘Al Shabaab?’
Dominic gave me a blank look and then asked if I understood about ‘mates’.
I nodded. I knew about mates, people from before your attestation as a constable was even a thought in the mind of your career adviser. Some of them are going to break the law and some of those are going to expect you to look the other way. Unless you’re a total hard-hearted bastard there’ll be at least one who you think you’ve got an obligation to. Someone you’re willing to let slide, or at the very least stand them a pint when they finish a stretch inside. Every copper I know has a mate like that. They’re an embarrassment, a pain – and, if you’re really unlucky, a sackable offence.
Inside the cab the seats were patched and smelt of overheated dog.
‘Well, you see, I’ve got this mate who’s found something that might be relevant to the search,’ said Dominic as he deftly steered the massive four by four up past the village hall and onto what laughingly passes as a main road in Herefordshire. ‘Only I can’t go through the normal channels because she’s a bit of an addict.’
And a mate.
‘So if we find something?’ I said.
‘You can say it was your idea.’
‘My idea?’
‘Something suitably weird.’
‘That’s a bit presumptuous, isn’t it?’ I said.
‘Presumptuous is my middle name,’ said Dominic.
A kilometre further along we reached a crossroad where a crowd of people were assembled. Most of them were dressed in shorts or army trousers, had knapsacks slung over their shoulders and were wearing hats. I noticed that a few of them had Airwave sets clipped to their belts. Dominic slowed down and exchanged greetings with a couple before heading off again. I spotted Derek Lacey on the fringes of the group – looking grim.
‘Volunteers,’ said Dominic.
Volunteers are good news and bad news in a search. Good because they allow you to cover more ground and have local knowledge. Bad because no copper likes to take a civilian’s word that somewhere has been searched properly – we’re superstitious that way.
Another couple of kilometres further down the road we came to another crossroad, this one marked with a tall Celtic cross in grey stone – a war memorial, at a guess – where Dominic turned right into a narrow tree-lined lane that climbed towards the top of the ridge. I wondered if this was the same ridge as the Bee House had sat on, but the cell coverage was too intermittent for me to check the location on my phone.
‘School Wood,’ Dominic said when I asked where we were going. The school in question being a posh independent school we’d actually passed on the drive over. Not that they owned it anymore – it was National Trust property now, part of the Croft Castle Estate.
In places the lane was so narrow that leaves and twigs brushed the sides of the Nissan and Dominic was careful to slow down whenever we approached a blind corner.
‘Tractors?’ I asked.
‘Tractors,’ he said. ‘Minicabs, horses, Tesco vans, cows – you never know what you’re going to meet around a corner here.’
The entrance to the woods was marked by a wooden five-bar gate with a green National Trust sign on it. Dominic stayed in the Nissan while I got out to open it and let him through. I closed the gate behind him and, because I remembered my Country Code lessons from school trips, I made sure the latch was secure. Once I’d climbed back inside Dominic set off again up a rough track that curved into a forest of dark conifers. The Nissan made easy work of the flinty track bed, which explained why Dominic had chosen it for today’s trip. My new Asbo would have been scraping its axles – some of the ruts were that deep.
The track forked and Dominic took the right-hand turn for another hundred metres or so until we reached a place where the greyish brown trunks of felled trees had been stacked in a pyramid by the track. A pale face peered suspiciously around the end of the stack as we drew up.
‘That’s Stan,’ said Dominic as his friend emerged from hiding.
‘Stan?’ I asked.
‘Short for Samantha.’
Stan was about average height, but an habitual stoop made her look shorter. She had brown hair, deep-set eyes, a snub nose, thin lips and a receding chin. As well as the stoop there was a noticeable slackness to the right side of her face. Result of an accident when she was a teenager, Dominic told me later. ‘Jumped off the back of a quad bike when she was seventeen,’ he said. When I asked why she’d jumped, Dominic just said that they’d all been very drunk at the time.