Bright Young Things Page 8

  ‘This must be a hard land to make a living,’ Henry said.

  The man nodded. It seemed that he had paused in some task or other, not immediately discernible to Henry, in order to speak to them, and every attitude of his body informed the strangers that he wanted to get back to his work.

  ‘I heard the crash. I guessed what had gone on. Stupid young fools, take that bend too fast, it’s a wonder more of them have ended up in the hole.’

  ‘So you and your son-in-law went straight down there?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘Sent the boy across fields to fetch the doctor. Me and Owen went down to take a look. On fire it was, stink of petrol all round every which where. Fire were out by the time doctor arrived. The woman were dead before we got there.’

  Carter shifted from foot to foot, so impatient to be off. He must have told the story many times, Henry thought. Privately he doubted that the farmer could add much to their pool of knowledge. The son-in-law spoke for the first time. He cast a look that was a mix of determination and anxiety at his father-in-law and received a nod in return. It was clear, Henry thought, that these two men had decided what they were going to tell the strange police officers from London. He waited, feeling a little impatient now. The weariness was growing in his bones, his muscles ached and frankly he’d had enough of the day.

  ‘She didn’t die in the fire,’ Owen Blake said. ‘I’ll tell you that for nothing. She was dead before the fire started.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Mickey asked him.

  ‘Her face, her head. Bashed and broken they were. Oh, ay, you’ll be telling me it happened when the car rolled down the hill.’

  ‘That would seem likely,’ Mickey pressed.

  ‘And barely a mark on her elsewhere?’

  Henry frowned. ‘How could you tell that? She was on fire.’

  ‘And we took a good look once the fire was put out. True, she was burnt, burnt badly, but you could see the marks on her face, like someone had taken something hard and heavy and taken care to bash in her mouth and nose and cheeks and eyes. Her hands too, broken up and twisted and not from the fire.’

  ‘Did you mention this to anyone else? What did the doctor think?’

  ‘Dr Craddock lost interest once he discovered she was dead and paid more attention to the young man. After all, he was still living. But he knew we had a point. We talked about it after. We tried to tell that inspector when he came up but he didn’t want to know. Even when Dr Craddock talked to him, he didn’t want to know.’

  ‘We need to speak to Dr Craddock,’ Henry said.

  ‘You’ll be lucky,’ Carter said. ‘Died last November. Heart attack. Damned fool should have retired long since, we were all telling him. He was a good man was Dr Craddock. Not uppity like some, didn’t think he was better than the rest of us. Grew up in the village.’

  ‘And his replacement?’ Mickey asked innocently.

  ‘Come from Sheffield,’ Carter said, as though that was explanation enough.

  They left the Carters and Burton drove them back to the inn where they were staying. Henry was aware of Mickey regarding him somewhat anxiously. ‘You need to rest tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow we go and see the family of Malcolm Everson,’ Henry reminded him, but he had fallen asleep in the car and didn’t object when Mickey demanded that he get into a hot bath once they arrived back at their lodgings at the inn. The hot water had done something to relieve the aches, but the idea of traipsing downstairs for dinner seemed too much. He was profoundly relieved when a little later Mickey arrived with sandwiches and soup and hot tea, having sweet-talked the landlady into allowing them to eat in their rooms.

  ‘Sometimes being a police detective from London has its advantages,’ he told his boss cheerfully.

  Sometimes, Henry thought, it was just an advantage to be Mickey Hitchens. He had a talent for dealing with members of the public, and for charming landladies.

  ‘I am bone tired,’ Henry confessed. ‘Even my brain is bone tired.’

  ‘You’re sure to be,’ Mickey told him. ‘But we’ve had a good day, a day of uncovering more of this mystery, and we have our first little inkling as to who this young woman in the car might have been.’

  ‘If the powder compact was indeed hers.’ Henry as usual felt the need to play devil’s advocate.

  ‘And the likelihood of some other young woman having lost her compact in that steep valley?’

  ‘Small, I agree, small. What is in play here, Mickey? None of it makes a hap’orth of sense.’

  Mickey had set the tray with sandwiches and soup on Henry’s bed and a tea tray, brought in by an accompanying barmaid, on the chest of drawers. ‘Eat,’ he said. ‘Feed that brain of yours. The ham is good, the soup is not bad from the smell of it and I don’t know about you but I am well in need of tea.’

  He had to agree with that, Henry thought. He picked up his soup and began to eat. It was more stew than soup, thick with vegetables and served in a deep, rounded bowl that felt comforting in the hands. He watched as Mickey dipped a slice of sandwich into the broth and then tried it himself, deciding that it was an excellent combination, and slowly felt some of the weariness ebbing away and a little of his usual alertness returning.

  ‘I was impressed with the constable,’ Mickey said.

  ‘He’s a good man,’ Henry agreed. ‘Observant. For that matter, all the witnesses were observant. I’m not surprised that DI Shelton ignored them all. Any one of them could have run rings round him in terms of intelligence. Experience too. That would have hurt his pride. So how does this move things forward?’

  Mickey took another bite of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully before saying, ‘I think they’re right – it seems to centre around this young woman. In fact, around the two young women. The car went off the road and rolled down the hill. Whether it dived nose first or not initially is a moot point. The fact is it rolled and ended up in the stream. It spilt fuel, but not as much as it could have done. There was, it seems, a crack in the fuel tank, but not a complete break, so enough to smell strong but not so much that the fire spread. And it seems to me that in the June heat, the smell would be stronger especially trapped in that tight space at the valley floor.’

  ‘It’s a good point,’ Henry agreed. ‘But the woman was on fire, and if not set ablaze by the crash then what? A woman on fire would scream, if she was conscious, of course, but from what we have heard of the head injuries it’s likely she was not. It is likely that either as a cause of the crash or some other means she had already lost consciousness and I suppose that is some mercy.’

  ‘It is definitely possible she was even dead already,’ Mickey agreed. ‘I’m inclined to believe Carter and his son-in-law. That the injuries may have been inflicted prior to the crash, that the fire was intended to cover everything up. That perhaps nobody expected Carter and his son-in-law to arrive as quickly as they did, or at all. According to their initial statements, and from what they confirmed today, they were down the track and down the hill in very swift order. There was a blaze, the car was ablaze, or at least the front seat was and the rest soon would have been. They thought quickly and acted quickly and the fire was put out. It seems to me that no one could have anticipated their presence. That the two of them were proverbial spanners in the proverbial works.’

  ‘And even had anyone been aware of the possibility of Carter and his son-in-law turning up, I doubt any account of them would have been taken. A farmer and his son-in-law, common men according to the thinking of many, not blessed with intelligence and observational skills or courage.’

  Mickey laughed and then was silent while he finished his soup and sandwiches. Henry, realizing that he was in fact very hungry, demolished his share and then poured them both more tea, topping up the pot from the hot water jug on the tray.

  Mickey had fished the powder compact out of his pocket and it now lay on top of the paper bag he had used to house it. It was a brass compact, rounded and of the size to fit in a woman’s pal
m, a band of engine turning was the only decoration and it had a certain elegance to it even though it had been cheaply made. The mirror was broken, the sifter and pad lost, though there were still traces of the loose powder under the rim. Henry sniffed at it; the familiar violet scent of orris root still clung faintly even after all this time and weathering. The compact had landed upside down under a bush and that no doubt had sheltered it from the worst of the environment.

  ‘The hinge had been broken,’ he said, noting a little patch of rust against the brass. ‘Look, a piece of wire, a pin perhaps, has been pushed through and the end curled over to make the repair. Whatever was used, it has rusted.’

  ‘So a treasured item but a makeshift repair. Mind you how many of us have done that same thing? We have fixed something to make it secure and usable and perhaps taken months before we have fixed it better.’

  ‘And no handbag,’ Henry said. ‘Unlike our poor unfortunate Faun Moran, the rest of this girl’s most personal possessions seem to have been taken away. Though I suppose anything else she had might have been removed with the car.’

  He doubted that, though. She had been discarded. Henry felt this instinctively. Discarded in such a way that nobody would be able to identify her. Conversely, someone wanted to be certain that when it came to Faun Moran’s turn to be cast aside, it would not be without her name.

  As though Mickey had been following his thoughts, which knowing Mickey he probably had, his sergeant said, ‘Even in death there is no equality, whatever your average preacher might say. At least we know who our body on the beach is. This poor little scrap is totally anonymous.’

  ‘So we will have to give her name back to her,’ Henry said.

  EIGHT

  Faun, October

  The first thing I remember was waking up in this room and not knowing where I was. I felt so sick. There was a young girl sitting beside my bed. She looked as scared as I felt, even before I remembered what had happened.

  She stood and slipped an arm around my shoulders and put a glass to my lips. Drink this, miss, she said, it will make you feel better. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t even ask her what it was. Then she laid me down again and tucked the blankets up to my chin and I remember thinking that she was just a child. Why was a child looking after me? Why did I need looking after anyway? I must have muttered something because she told me, ‘You’ve been poorly, miss, very poorly and the master says you need rest and quiet.’

  I saw her looking round this little room as though she was momentarily surprised that I should be here and not in one of the many guest rooms, but then she said, ‘Master said this was the quietest place in the house. You’ll not be disturbed here, miss, and no one can hear you if you have bad dreams and cry out, so you’re not to be worried about that.’

  I must have slept again and when I woke up she was no longer there. Pat, I have never felt so alone or so afraid. Not even when I saw that poor broken body in the car and I realized that might just as soon have been me.

  I got up off the bed and I tried the door and I realized I could not get out. I was a prisoner here. And Pat, I was so very afraid.

  Saturday 11 January

  Henry woke and stretched, feeling desperately stiff and appallingly uncomfortable. His shoulder ached and so did his head and the thought of another busy day stretching out in front of him filled him with a kind of despair.

  Shaking himself out of the mood, he washed and dressed and went down to breakfast. Mickey was already there, sitting in a corner of what would be the public bar later in the day, his legs stretched out before the fire, a steaming cup of tea on the table beside him and the local newspapers piled high close at hand. Henry was unsurprised to see that their presence had been the cause of headlines. The link to Faun Moran had been made, of course, and Henry was amused to find that he had apparently ‘come out of retirement’ in order to lead the investigation.

  Breakfast arrived – eggs and bacon, sausage and fried bread. Henry ate slowly; Mickey did not. Mickey dived in with abandon and when his boss seemed likely not to need his other slice of fried bread he helped himself to that too.

  ‘Are you leaving that bacon?’

  ‘No, I’m merely making it available to you.’

  ‘Good of you,’ Mickey said, folding the rasher between the last slice of fried bread and eating it with obvious relish.

  Amused, Henry sat back and watched him. He was aware that this level of familiarity was frowned upon by many of their colleagues, particularly the senior ones, but the relationship he and his sergeant had went far beyond that of chief inspector and sergeant. Henry counted Mickey as at least his equal both as investigator and as man. ‘So,’ he said, ‘today we go out to visit the family of Malcolm Everson to see if we can ascertain what happened to the car and the luggage after it was taken from the crash site. And why it was taken from the crash site. And we demand to be allowed to see Malcolm Everson. I don’t frankly care how ill the young man is. He is a key witness and his family can only protect him for so long. Two young women are dead and for my money both have been murdered.’

  ‘You will find no argument from me,’ Mickey told him. ‘If the family don’t cooperate then we must appeal to a judge, see if we could be granted an order to speak to Malcolm Everson. He must know something. His amnesia, or whatever it is, is far too convenient.’

  He reached over to the stack of newspapers and produced a map. ‘I borrowed this from the landlady,’ he said. ‘I found myself lost in all the twists and turns yesterday and I had no clear image in my mind of the relationship between the crash site and the Belmonts’ house or of how far it might be, how long it would have taken to drive.’

  Henry nodded. He’d been wondering the same thing. He took out his notebook and examined the notes he had taken – elements that had particularly struck him from the reports he had read. ‘According to the witnesses at the house, Malcolm Everson and Faun Moran left the party at around four thirty on the Saturday afternoon. The house party had begun on the Friday evening, then begun again in earnest after lunch on the Saturday. Everson had arrived that morning and Faun Moran been a guest since the night before.’

  ‘So, they left at four thirty, they drove to the crash site, the car went off the road and plummeted into the valley. Though I’d like to call it a ravine, considering how much my legs and back still hurt from clambering down and then up again.’

  ‘Ravine it is, then. And Carter and Blake, our father and his son-in-law, they reckon to have heard the crash at around a quarter to six in the evening, just as they were preparing to go in to eat.’

  ‘So, that means it took them over an hour to get from the Belmonts’ house to the crash site.’ Mickey cleared their plates from the table, taking them and the map across to the bar where their landlady was preparing for the business day. They spoke for several minutes and when he returned Mickey had marked the map with a pencilled cross. ‘I doubt either you or I could work out where the Carters’ farm might be,’ he said. ‘But Mrs Cross knows all about the crash and the Carters and was able to help us out. Now, the Belmonts’ house is here.’ He jabbed at the page with his finger. ‘The crash site is hereabouts. There are three ways of leaving the estate: the private station, which is where we arrived, and two tracks or driveways. Look, you can see them on the map, but only one apparently is paved and used for motor vehicles. As our chauffeur told us yesterday, they would have taken this route out on to the main road, such as it is.’

  Henry studied the map, following the route with his finger. ‘The road to the crash site is, as we discovered yesterday, twisting and steep, but it’s not more than five miles from the house. The Aston Martin Everson was driving is a vehicle built for speed, and I cannot imagine that a young man like Malcolm Everson would have driven slowly. He would have seen the steepness and the twisting road as a challenge. What young man does not wish to show off his driving prowess to a young woman he admires? So why did it take them over an hour to reach the spot where the car left th
e road?’

  ‘That is if the witnesses remember correctly,’ Mickey reminded him. ‘Eyewitnesses are notoriously bad at remembering times unless they have reason to look at their watches.’

  Henry thought about it for a moment and then said, ‘Witnesses from the party remember the young couple being in the hallway and leaving by the front door. From what I remember of yesterday there is an impressive longcase clock standing in the hall. Presuming it was working, and it certainly was yesterday, it would have chimed the half-hour. So it is quite possible that our witnesses at the Belmonts’ house party were accurate in their statements. Carter would have been used to doing everything at certain times of the day. Farmers, I imagine, are creatures of routine with livestock to feed and tasks to attend to. There would be a rhythm to their lives. He and his boy would know when they usually go in to eat supper. I doubt their recollection of time would have been much astray either.’

  ‘You make a good case,’ Mickey told him. ‘Everson and the girl could have stopped somewhere on the way, of course, but there would not have been enough time to have a picnic, if that was their intention. And we drove that road yesterday – there were few suitable stopping places if that had been their intention. I noted a few small laybys, carved into the rock, to allow for easy passage should two large vehicles meet, but not much else. It is not a road that invites a pause on a journey. From what I saw there was not even what you’d call a view. Just a steep slope, cliffs on one side going up and another equally steep going down.’