Kith and Kin Page 11

  ‘Have you seen the papers?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve seen. And Sarah phoned. Reckons some men were sent to the camp, looking for our mam. Didn’t know she was dead. Sarah says we’re to watch our backs.’

  ‘Damned right. Malina, what do we do?’

  ‘We hold our nerve, that’s what. Look, Kem, you’ll be at sea, there’s nothing you can do and there’s nothing they can do to you while you’re out there. No one knows how to find you, no one knows you got a connection to all of this, so just calm down and hold your nerve.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘I’ll be careful, that’s what about me.’

  He had few coins left and could not keep feeding the phone box. ‘Let’s meet on Sunday, like we said.’

  ‘Of course we will. I love you, little brother.’

  ‘I love you too. You be careful, won’t you?’

  ‘I’m always careful,’ she told him.

  Ken made his way slowly back to the barge and stowed the provisions. It was just on nine in the evening and they would be slipping their moorings in a few hours and joining the other boats in the lock basin, ready to be released back into the river.

  The captain came below and checked the provisions as he always did, more out of habit than because he didn’t trust Kem to do a good job. ‘You call that sister of yours?’

  Kem was surprised. ‘Yes, I managed to get hold of her.’

  ‘I expect she was shocked too.’

  ‘She was, yes.’

  The skipper sat down and filled his pipe, tamping the tobacco gently and checking the draw before lighting it. Kem waited to see if he was going to say any more, but it seemed that the conversation was over and Kem made his way back to his own bunk for a couple of hours of peace, if not sleep, before the voyage began.

  That evening Henry and Mickey had a visit from a Sergeant Frith. He had an interesting story to tell about an incident at a gypsy encampment the night before. He had come to them, he said, via a rather roundabout route. A local situation such as a brawl at Ash Tree Lane would not normally have been of interest to Scotland Yard, but on this occasion some strange information had come to light.

  He settled with his pint in the bar at the Crown and took a gulp of beer before he started on his tale.

  ‘We’ve been on alert, you see, because of those two bodies being found and possible links to London criminal activity. I understand, sir, that you and your sergeant have been down here before on this business.’

  Henry acknowledged that they had.

  ‘Well, we was called out to the gypsy camp last night, or rather in the early hours this morning, and we were spun this tale about there being a brawl between town lads and gypsy lads which had spilled over into the camp after a drinking session. All very possible, of course, but,’ – he paused to tap the side of his nose – ‘as I’m sure you’ll agree, sir, you get a nose for this kind of thing. Especially among their sort. Gypsies always lie, so they say, and this lot certainly aren’t concerned about telling the likes of me the truth.’

  ‘And what do you think happened?’ Mickey asked him. He could see by something in Henry’s manner and the stiffness of his pose that Henry had taken an instant dislike to this man and therefore it had better be Mickey who asked the questions.

  ‘Well. There, you see. I knew there was something but I didn’t quite know what it might be and then we did some enquiring the following morning and we turned up a witness to some strange goings-on. Three cars, they said, driving in convoy to about a hundred or so yards away from the gypsy camp. Twelve men got out, armed with weapons. Guns, you see. Then, they said, all hell broke loose and there was noise and gunfire and these men came hurtling out as though the devil was behind them, got in their cars and drove away.’

  Mickey glanced at Henry, but he was concentrating on his whiskey glass and paying very little attention – or so it seemed.

  ‘And did they say much about these men? Their appearance, what weaponry they were using? Did they take the registration numbers of the cars?’

  ‘Well, no. I don’t imagine they thought about any of those things.’ The sergeant looked awkward all of a sudden. ‘Thing is, you see, my witness was just a young lad. Thirteen years old, couldn’t sleep and were sitting by his window, reading a book by the street lamp outside. He didn’t dare put his own light on because his mother would have told him he should have been in bed, but he confessed things to her in the morning and when she saw us out and about, she came out and fetched me in and the boy told me. I believe he’s telling the truth. I know it frightened him.’

  ‘And have you spoken about this witness to anyone?’ Mickey asked.

  Frith looked even more uncomfortable. ‘When we went back this morning, I took my constables and we searched the place and yes, I did mention that there might be a witness to what went on. I was hoping I might shock someone into saying something that they shouldn’t. Fat chance of that, with Sarah Cooper,’ he added in a moment of honesty.

  ‘Cooper?’ Henry questioned. It was an odd coincidence that the cart had been borrowed from Cooper’s farm. He wrote Sarah Cooper’s name in his notebook and put a question mark beside it.

  ‘You didn’t think that you might be putting your witness at risk?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘No,’ the sergeant said stoutly. ‘I’m sure I did not.’

  ‘Who is this boy?’ Henry asked.

  Frith had the address already written down and he slid it across the table towards Henry. Mickey picked it up. ‘And how close is the house to the gypsy camp?’

  ‘A couple of hundred yards away. The cars parked up close by, that’s how he managed to see the guns, I suppose.’

  ‘And he was certain that shots were fired?’

  Sergeant Frith nodded. ‘He was sure about the shotgun fire because he had heard that before. They sometimes go off after rabbits, the local farmer is glad to get rid of the vermin. But he said he heard other bangs, too, that sounded different.’

  ‘Warn the mother we’ll be calling on them tomorrow morning,’ Henry said. ‘I thank you for the information. If it’s accurate, it may be useful to us.’

  Sergeant Frith realized he’d been dismissed and he downed the rest of his pint and left with great rapidity.

  ‘Interesting,’ Mickey said. ‘We just have to hope that if this is true, Frith has not endangered a witness.’

  ‘I doubt the encampment will want to make problems with their neighbours, and it could be nothing, just an excitable child who’s seen something he does not understand, and whose imagination has filled in the rest.’

  ‘True,’ Mickey agreed, ‘but in my experience, boys of thirteen or fourteen who are interested in cars and weaponry are usually quite astute in recognizing them. He was disturbed enough to confess to his mother in the morning that he’d not been in his bed.’

  Henry conceded the point. ‘If we are assuming that these are Bailey’s men, what interest do they have in a gypsy camp? This gets more complex. And if word gets out that the boy has seen these men, and could perhaps identify them … That might be where the trouble will lie. We will speak to the boy and his mother in the morning and also visit this gypsy camp. I think it’s important that we get the lie of the land that way. There are presently too many threads, Mickey, and none of them seem to tie together, at least not in any satisfactory manner. It’s interesting that he mentioned a Sarah Cooper. The second time that surname has cropped up. I wonder if there might be a connection.’

  ‘It’s not an uncommon name,’ Mickey said. ‘But yes, it may be meaningful.’

  Constable Hargreaves arrived just as the landlord had told them that supper was ready. He brought two large logbooks and a stack of folders in a cardboard grocery box. They invited the constable to remain, suspecting that it might be useful to have him explain his own notes, and Mickey tucked them under the table while they ate. It was to be hoped that there would be something there that would help them understand the connections between Billy Crane a
nd Grigor and an encampment of gypsies and Josiah Bailey.

  After supper they retired to a corner of the snug, out of the way of the regular customers, and settled themselves to business. Constable Hargreaves was past the age when he might have retired, but replacements willing to take on the burden of such a large patch were not easy to find. And besides, it was usually quiet, local disputes that could be sorted with a word in the right ear and a reprimand in another. It did mean that he had a long memory of the place; Henry hoped that that would be useful to them now.

  The steak and kidney pie for supper had been well prepared and Mickey declared himself ‘stuffed’. Henry had eaten more modestly and the constable had been somewhat surprised when, after he’d finished what he wanted, he shoved the plate in Mickey’s direction and Mickey helped himself to extra potatoes.

  ‘Waste not, want not,’ Mickey told him cheerfully when he saw him looking. He and Henry were so familiar with one another that sometimes they forgot other people might see their relationship as odd or wantonly informal.

  ‘Did I see Sergeant Frith leaving?’ the constable asked.

  ‘You probably did. Do you know the man well?’

  ‘Used to. Before he moved on and got promoted.’

  Mickey raised an eyebrow. There was an edge of disapproval in the constable’s tone. ‘I take it you do not like him very much,’ he said bluntly.

  Constable Hargreaves coloured, his already florid nose becoming a little redder. ‘I never said that, only that he’d moved on and got himself promoted.’ He paused and thought about it for a moment and then said, ‘You could say he’s better at the political side than I would ever be.’

  Mickey laughed, and let it lie. Henry had laid the ledgers on the table. Foolscap size and leather bound and filled with the constable’s small and surprisingly neat hand. He was clearly assiduous in his note taking and the level of detail was impressive, including scraps of conversation overheard or reported or recorded, and he had followed up most of his small cases and detailed the outcome, even if the person concerned had moved elsewhere.

  Henry commented on this and was told solemnly, ‘This is my patch, my ground and my people. I grew up amongst them. I might not be the brightest and the best, but I care what happens round here, so of course I will make a note of it.’

  ‘I count that as being bright enough and best enough,’ Henry told him. ‘Now the question is, where should we begin? Your books go back thirty or so years?’

  The constable nodded. ‘I joined up as soon as I was old enough. The old constable, he saw I had a better hand than he had, so he handed the note making over to me and I’ve been doing it ever since. We tend to be autonomous here; most of the local constables tend to mind their own patch and give help only when needed. In more remote places, we might be the only law for miles round. In winter the nearest law apart from us might be days away if we get cut off, so we have to be self-reliant, you see?’

  ‘And so where do you suggest we begin?’ Henry asked.

  ‘And what’s in the box?’ Mickey added.

  ‘Now, the box contains all of my clippings and all of my additional notes. Sometimes a bit of news might come to me that has nothing to do with official channels, so I write it down anyway but don’t put it in the ledger because it’s not official, if you get my thinking.’

  ‘Indeed I do,’ Mickey said. ‘Right,’ he added, rubbing his hands together. ‘I think I’ll get another round and then I’ll take the box and my inspector here can work through the ledgers and you can give commentary on both.’

  He picked up glasses and bustled off back to the bar, leaving Henry looking at the close, cramped and detailed hand, thinking that perhaps he had the worst part of the deal.

  The Crown had filled up with local customers and a few who had travelled in from slightly further afield, seeking shelter for the night. Henry and Mickey had the best rooms but there were two kept for commercial travellers and the like who wanted cheap and cheerful and a good breakfast in the morning.

  It was as if there was a cordon around their little corner. Only feet away people chatted and shouted and played bar billiards and laughed and drank, and then there was an empty space and then the three police officers with their box and books and notes.

  Henry read the accounts of land disputes and family quarrels. Of Friday night fights and poachers brought before the magistrates. A man had shot his daughter when he’d discovered she was pregnant and unwed and her funeral had been attended by an estimated three hundred people, so many that the church could not hold them all. Henry wondered, somewhat cynically perhaps, how many would have turned up for the baptism, had her child been born, or how many would have attended the wedding, had she and her young man been able to tie the knot.

  There were wrecked boats and deaths from exposure. A man had fallen from his bicycle into a ditch and drowned. The coroner had ruled accidental death but the constable’s note said that the man had been depressed and his family reported him missing. ‘It was a kindness on the part of the coroner,’ he had added, noting also that the man was not local.

  Despite his initial misgivings, Henry found himself oddly drawn to these small narratives and he began to look on the constable more warmly. This was not a man like Frith, set on promotion; he was far too rooted in his local community for that.

  It was, though, the box that provided the first clue, in a bundle of clippings about a mysterious fire which had burned down a cottage and outbuildings only five miles from the village of Upchurch. There had been fears that the family of four had still been inside, but no bodies had been found and later there were reports of a car and a cart driving away at the time the fire was set.

  ‘What’s this?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘Ah, yes. I remember that. Strange business it was. First thought was that there was a fire with the people inside, and that they might have burned to death. Man, woman, two kiddies. Then there was the idea that they might have done a flit and for some reason set the cottage on fire, but their rent was paid up and paid in advance, and there had never been any problems with the tenancy, at least not until the man came back.’

  ‘Came back?’

  ‘End of the war; he’d been away. Only been back a short time, from what I recall. The odd thing is, the cottage was then on Cooper land. Where we borrowed the cart. They sold off that parcel only about a year later, though the farmer who bought it, a neighbour of theirs, had wanted it for a while as it gave him better access to his upper fields.’

  Henry reached for a bundle of cuttings and flicked through them, finding the family names. ‘The head of the household was Manfrid Beaney,’ he said. ‘The wife is recorded as Dalina and the children Kem and Malina. Unusual names.’

  ‘Manfrid Beaney was a hellraiser,’ the constable said. ‘I was called out there three, four times after he got back from the war. He’d get drunk and beat his wife and kids. Not so unusual, but he was a little more extreme than the norm, if you get my meaning. If I remember right, when we got to the house we half expected to find him inside and the wife and kids gone. I don’t know anyone would have blamed her and I was relieved when it wasn’t so. I didn’t want to punish a woman for what this man had done, maybe pushed her too far one day. But a crime would still be a crime, if she had done for him.’

  ‘And they are unusual names.’ Mickey returned to Henry’s comment. ‘Manfrid almost sounds German.’

  The constable shook his head. ‘Gypsy names,’ he said. And he opened his eyes wide as though something had suddenly hit him. ‘Our link to the camp,’ he said. ‘And if this Bailey chap, if he sent his men down to the encampment—’

  ‘We have a possible, if tenuous, link,’ Henry confirmed. ‘This car and cart that were seen, were they ever followed up?’

  ‘No. My notes will be in the book, but from memory I think there was only one sighting, and that by someone who was toddling home from the pub and so somewhat suspect as far as accuracy is concerned.’

  Henry flicke
d through the second ledger and found the entry for that night. It was as thorough and meticulous as all the rest, and the sighting of the wagon and the car had been added – and dated – three days after the events. ‘The witness was a man called Tobias Wilson.’

  ‘Long since passed, died of pneumonia a few winters ago. I know it, because he lived down the street from me in his final years. Moved in with his daughter.’

  ‘Nothing was heard from the Beaneys. They contacted no family members round here, no friends?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. Disappeared into the night and that was that.’

  Henry had been leafing through the pages for any further account. ‘The owner of the cottage was not best pleased and did go looking for them, and you have assumed here that he wanted to bring it all to court,’ he said. ‘But it seems they could not be found. And it seems that he was left uncompensated.’

  ‘You say you went out to the cottage, on account of Manfrid’s violence. That will be in your ledgers too?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘Of course it will. Now let me look.’ For a minute or two he flicked back through the pages and marked four incidents. ‘Each time he was given a warning, and each time he ignored it. If you look here I told the woman that she could bring him to court, that I was willing to arrest him. A man might give a woman a slap, and there are some women who give a man an odd slap, but that’s not the same as taking your fists to a woman, beating and kicking.’

  ‘So you thought she might have taken the law into her own hands. That’s a fair assumption to have made, but you looked no further for her?’

  For a moment, but only for that moment, the constable looked uncomfortable. ‘I made the usual enquiries,’ he said, ‘but there was neither hair nor hide of them anywhere.’ He paused to flick through his pages once again. ‘According to this I put out word for them at the gypsy camp, but no word came back. The woman had family there, it seems.’

  ‘And they would have closed ranks as soon as the enquiries were made,’ Mickey commented.