Scaring Crows (8 page)

‘I'm sorry, Matthew. I've another call to make.'

‘Fine.' She could hear the pent up frustration in his voice yet at the same time she knew it would be useless to apologize. It had all happened too many times before.

‘So I'll go home to the flat then.'

But he was angrier than usual. And after she had put the phone down she felt uneasy. Part guilt, part her own frustration.

That Mike was watching her with an unfathomable expression in his eyes didn't help at all.

‘So where are we going?' he asked.

‘Where do you think?'

10 p.m.

Floodlights bathed the front of the farmhouse, picking out the crevices between each stone in sharp, black lines. Even the animals were quiet but it was not the quiet of sleep. She could hear them shift restlessly, a few soft grunts. It was almost as though they were waiting. For what? Maybe it was fanciful but as Joanna picked her way along the lane she could almost convince herself that Aaron's herd of cows were silently waiting to witness justice done, for the police to leave Hardacre Farm in rural peace again.

She would have confided her fancies to Mike but she knew from experience he would not share them, so they walked away from the farmhouse in silence.

Two police had been left to guard the door, WPC Dawn Critchlow and Eddie McBrine, PC of the Moorlands Patrol. Joanna knew from experience that night vigils were usually the worst watch – cold, uneventful, cheerless and boring. But on this rare balmy night the task was almost enviable. Tonight there was a magic around, stars, and indigo sky, a red, setting sun.

Dawn spoke first. ‘Off home, are you?'

Mike answered. ‘Not yet. We're on a mystery trip.'

‘Where's that then?' she asked cheekily.

Joanna answered the question. ‘We're going to visit someone who rented a barn from Aaron Summers.'

‘A neighbour?'

‘Yes.'

‘Think he's got anything to do with it?'

Joanna searched around the dim panorama, unable to pick out even that one neighbour's light.

‘They've all got something to do with it,' she said, ‘until proved otherwise.'

Mike mopped his forehead. ‘Why does it seem to get hotter at night?' He slapped his arm. ‘And these bloody mosquitoes.'

‘Well I'd rather have mosquitoes,' Joanna said, ‘than those ghastly, repulsive flies. The way they buzzed around the bodies turned my stomach.'

‘Trouble is,' Mike said grumpily, ‘we just aren't acclimatized to this sort of heat.'

They left the two officers to their vigil and walked companionably for a few minutes before Joanna ventured to ask, ‘You don't mind coming to interview Mr Mothershaw tonight, do you?'

‘Well, I wasn't going to go home anyway. Not until later. It's my night at the gym.'

‘Bit late for that, isn't it?'

‘It shuts late,' he said shortly and she refrained from comment. But she had noticed Mike's increased irritability, put it down to the weather. She had noticed something else too, something that could not be attributed to the hot weather. Detective Sergeant Mike Korpanski had recently been wearing some very flashy ties.

They continued further in silence.

And suddenly the night dropped down from the sky, like a navy, woollen blanket. The way forward was invisible. ‘Now from what Hannah Lockley was saying the Owl Hole is somewhere beyond the milking shed through the trees.' Joanna flashed her torch ahead of them, lighting up a pair of frightened rabbit's eyes and a narrow lane which curved ahead. Either side of the lane tall trees bowed into an archway. All was still. The entire night was holding its breath for the next development. The stillness was oppressive and not for the first time since she had come to Leek Joanna was glad of Mike's bulky presence.

One of the trees was filled with squawking rooks which started quarrelling as the two police officers passed and a few of them were ousted from their perches. They flapped their heavy black wings and croaked their objections before settling back. And all was still again.

Quiet and still.

Mike spoke at her elbow. ‘Can't stand the damned rooks. Noisy bloody things, aren't they? No wonder the farmers like aiming pot shots at them. Bloody carrion.'

‘Well, it wasn't a rook someone took a pot shot at this morning,' she observed drily, “but the farmer himself. And it wasn't the rooks that did it. Mike,' she touched his arm, ‘do you think that's the place?'

Across the top of the thick trees they could vaguely make out a faint glimmer of light.

‘I suppose it has to be. There isn't exactly anywhere else, is there?'

‘Nowhere.'

The lane came to an abrupt end in a wooden stile. To the right a narrow path wound through the trees and out of sight.

A round building was vaguely silhouetted through the branches, tall and tapering towards the top.

‘It looks a bit like a windmill.'

‘A windmill that's lost its sails.'

‘What did Miss Lockley say it was? A grain store. Well, let's see what our sculptor has to reveal to us. I don't fancy getting lost in these woods with our killer still on the loose.'

‘The daughter.' Mike said the words with difficulty and she knew her apprehension had communicated to him. ‘What if it's her. What if she has flipped her lid and she's hanging around here somewhere?'

As far as we know she'll be unarmed,' Joanna said calmly. ‘Barra's taken the gun.' She couldn't resist pulling his leg. ‘Not nervous, are you, Mike?'

‘Not a hundred per cent happy,' he admitted and she walked the next few yards reflecting on how much their relationship had changed in the five years since she had taken up her post in the quiet, moorland town. Then Mike had been antagonistic, resentful, difficult. And now? Even to herself she was reluctant to admit it. Now she relied on him. They worked well together, her ideas with his practicality, her intuition with his stolid progression, ox like, moving forward. Between them they had gained results. Mike had shed his difficult reputation. But now? She peered at him suspiciously. She wasn't sure. There was something intangibly different about him. He was a bit more edgy, slightly quicker to take offence. It had been there for three, maybe four weeks. And it hadn't made him an easier person to work with.

Her musings were brought abruptly to a halt by

Mike shining a beam to the left of the path. ‘What the hell?'

The trees were gnarled and old, bent into curious shapes by neglect and the elements. With very little imagination Joanna could have convinced herself that the wood was peopled with strange beings. She gave a nervous little laugh. Trees. That was all. Misshapen, lumpy trees. The evening was all black now with a seed of red faintly visible on the horizon. They ignored the shapes and carried on along the rough path then stopped.

In front of them stood a sentinel, a man, twelve feet high with arms outstretched as though to grab them. Mike let out a sharp breath.

‘What the ...?'

‘Shine the torch on it.'

It was a tree. Again just a tree, initially conveniently human shaped before being formed into a person by someone, presumably the ‘Art Person'. Twigs at its head were unruly hair. The trunk formed a body, split at the base into two legs that ended in blackened roots. And the branches that reached down towards the path had been extended with twigs to form skinny fingers.

Joanna shivered. It was monstrously lifelike.

Mike broke the silence. ‘The face,' he said. ‘Joanna. Look at the face.'

She shone her torch upwards and was both shocked and impressed. With rough carving the sculptor had achieved a reality and expression which altered as she shifted the beam of the torch. And the strange shadows and lighting effects gave the hollow eyes a malevolent gleam. Glass, varnish? Something shone, looking evil, and yet at the same time indifferent; powerful without being conscious of its own power.

She had to admit, the man's work was good. No – not good, brilliant. Brilliant and original and despite the primary reason for interviewing Titus Mothershaw – that he was a murder suspect – she was curious to meet the man behind this creation.

Mike was not so appreciative. ‘What does he call this?'

She laughed. Mike could be as bovine as some of Aaron Summers' herd and yet ... It did her good. ‘I believe,' she said, ‘that it's a form of art.'

Mike had views of his own. ‘Why the hell can't he leave the trees alone?' He touched one. ‘It's just silly, this.'

In the darkness Joanna smiled and knew that however fascinating she might find the Tree Man's creator Mike would have nothing in common with him.

‘We'd better get a move on.' She teased Mike further. ‘Who knows what happens to monsters like these after dark.'

As they wandered along the track they flashed their torches to the left and right, picking out strange carvings in almost all of the trees. The wood carver had been busy. Some were faces so human it would have been no surprise to her to see their lips open, their eyes blink. Some were carvings in stumps, fauns, wood nymphs, grotesque animals and one round stump had been carefully carved to form a pillar box. The whole was like a children's story of some fantastic wood where everything was alive and full of character, and for the time it took them to approach the Owl Hole Joanna almost forgot about the deaths. She wondered whether the wood could hold so much atmosphere in the daylight. They were nearly at the strange building when Joanna caught sight of some objects hanging from the trees. Hannah Lockley had been right. Titus Mothershaw did use coat hangers.

A tinkle behind them made Mike swear, turn sharply and flash his torch. Titus Mothershaw had formed wind chimes from small stones, bored with a hole and hung from the branches. Another tree had had its branches bent and lashed together to form an Indian wigwam.

And then, quite suddenly, her torch picked out a finely carved face in the trunk of a tree. She studied it and felt completely attuned to the sculptor's statement. It was something to do with natural beauty enhanced by human hand. And it seemed a million miles away from the bodies they had found this morning, people made grotesque, again, by human hand. She moved her torch up and down the bark to study the face better. A knot in the wood formed a nose, a shaped branch, an ear, a gash, the mouth. And now she was doubly anxious to meet this clever
emigré
from London because the face reminded her, just a little, of Ruthie Summers. ‘Bloody crap,' Mike was muttering. ‘And I bet he cons people, charges a fortune for these bits of wood. Besides,' he objected, ‘it's out of place here. I mean this was a mucky, old-fashioned sort of farm. It just looks stupid, all this art stuff. He should have left the place alone. Belongs in London.'

‘Well I like it.' Joanna had an impulse to defend this sculptor's talent. ‘But I would love to know what old Aaron Summers must have thought of it. He must have scratched his head. Who knows. Maybe he hated it too.'

But Mike misunderstood her statement. ‘Hang on a minute, Jo. I mean I don't like the stuff. But it's hardly a motive for murder, not being appreciated.'

‘Oh, Mike,' she said despairingly.

‘Well,' he said. ‘I bet all this took him hours. And I bet he would be upset if anyone threatened to spoil them. Maybe ...'

‘Come on,' she said. ‘Let's hope this sculptor chappie keeps late hours even though he is in the country.'

He must have been watching their approach. Maybe he'd picked out their torchlight.

As they reached the end of the path the door to the Owl Hole was flung open dramatically and a small man in a brilliant, white shirt and yellow bell-bottomed trousers faced them from the centre stage.

‘Who are you?'

He had a nice voice, calm and tranquillizing, neither a deep man's voice nor high pitched.

‘It's all right, sir. We're the police.'

‘The police? Then I assume you're carrying identity cards?'

His accent was cultured. Plummy but educated and not too affected. Eton? Oxford? A public school?

‘What exactly are you doing here? It's rather late.' He was frowning.

Joanna took one step forward. ‘You've probably heard there's been a shooting up at the farm?'

He smelt nice too. Oranges, spice, soap.

‘A uniformed officer came round this afternoon and told me. You can't believe something so horrible would happen out here. And to such simple people. Quite tragic, wasn't it?'

‘As you say, sir.' Mike's voice was wooden. Naturally prejudiced against such types he was schooling himself not to display what the contemporary police force called ‘negative emotions'.

‘Tragic.'

‘May we come in?'

The sharp, blue eyes focused on Joanna appraisingly. ‘Do. Be my guests. I always have a pot of freshly ground coffee on the hob.' He laughed uneasily and Joanna suddenly realized he was nervous. Of them? For his own safety? He laughed again. ‘If you're investigating a murder I daresay you'll be needing lashings of coffee.'

‘I don't deny it.'

As they entered the converted barn she took a good look at Titus Mothershaw. He had fine, feminine features with ash blond hair that had a suspicious tinge of pink. It was shaved at the back but the front was long enough to flop across his eyes. He had tanned, smooth skin women would pay for and he was short, about five foot three, a few inches shorter than she. And Mike topped him by a foot. He had neat little child's hands with fingernails carefully shaped into ovals. That guaranteed him a hundred per cent of her attention.

Mothershaw ushered them into a tall, round room, almost the entire ground floor of the Owl Hole. A central staircase wound its way up to the gods and, she supposed, a bedroom and bathroom. The whole was painted stark white, the furniture daffodil-yellow. And from the ceiling was suspended a carving of a Barn Owl in mid-flight. He had done it beautifully, in a pale, sleek wood. But it had been slung too low and Mike bumped his head on it as he crossed the room.