‘Yes. . yes, that’s a fair thing to say. He was very good to the village. . he’ll be missed.’
‘So we understand. So, the question is, what difficulty would a man or men have in getting a body on to the estate, from the public highway right up to Bromyards and depositing it in the kitchen garden, and do that about once a year for about ten years?’
‘Ten bodies?’
‘Nine. .’
Dick Fallon glanced at the soil he had turned, creating neat lines of deep trenches in the ground, opening it in good time to let the first of the frost in, when autumn arrives. ‘That is a question because not a lot goes unseen here. Like all villages, you can walk for miles without seeing anybody, but you can put good money on the chance that someone will have their eyes on you at any one time.’ Fallon looked around him. ‘Bad weather would be a good time. . less game about in the winter; the trout pond will have frozen over. .’
‘Good point.’
‘But poachers set snares and will go and check on them all year round.’
‘Yes, but less so in the winter?’
‘Yes. . and a rainy, stormy night, that sort of weather keeps the game well down and the poachers well at home.’
‘That’s a good point. Weekends or weekday?’
‘Weekday. . too many of the village children exploring the grounds at weekends, especially in the summer, but they wouldn’t go near the house for fear of disturbing Mr Housecarl, they were very well warned about that.’
‘I see,’ Yellich nodded, ‘that is another good point.’
‘He or they wouldn’t go near the estate in the snow.’
‘You think not?’
‘I think not. They’d leave tracks and there’d be the danger of getting stuck in a snow drift. The drive is a mile long and not kept clear of snow.’
‘Again. . useful.’ Yellich’s eye was caught by a yellowhammer which alighted a nearby fence post, one of a number of black pitch pointed staves which separated Dick Fallon’s garden from the adjacent field. He had not seen an example of that species in many, many years and the sight of a relatively rare bird uplifted his spirits.
‘You know, if I were up to no good I’d go on the estate in the forenoon come to think of it.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, poachers don’t like staying out all night; they like to go to bed. . some have jobs to go to. If they don’t, they’ll sleep late. So about seven, eight, nine a.m. that would be a good time to drive on to the estate with headlights off and dump a body in the kitchen garden and drive away again, and if the rain was really siling down and the wind was blowing it sideways then, that would be a very good time to do it with little risk of being seen, and if you didn’t drive through the village, if you approached from the south and left by the south, you wouldn’t have to go through Milking Nook.’
‘This has been very useful.’
‘I’ll put the word round the village. If anyone knows anything, they’ll contact you.’
‘A tall, well-built man was seen, a “townie”. Could be unconnected but we’d like to trace him, though it was about ten years ago that he was seen on the estate. .’
Fallon smiled a wry knowing smile, ‘About when it all started, like he was checking the place out? I’ll say you want to talk to him. . but, yes. . tall, well-built townie. I’ll put the word out for you about him as well, though it’s probably out already if you’ve talked to other villagers, but I’ll mention it this lunchtime. I take lunch at the pub you see.’
Crestfallen. It was the only word Ventnor could think of to describe David Prebble. He seemed utterly crestfallen. ‘I did wonder, you couldn’t help but wonder.’ Prebble looked down at the ground and seemed unable to take his gaze anywhere else. Ventnor saw him as a short, sturdy man with receding grey hair and who was casually dressed in khaki shorts, leather sandals and a white tee shirt with, somewhat incongruously, Ventnor thought, ‘Hawaii’ emblazoned upon it in eye-catching blue. He seemed to Ventnor to dress like Ventnor did when off duty, sleepily grabbing the first clean item of clothing which came to hand each morning and caring nothing about the image he presented. ‘You’d better come in, sir.’ He stepped aside to allow Ventnor to enter his house. Ventnor found the interior of Prebble’s house to be untidy and poorly ventilated and as such, having a musty smell. Ventnor counted three flies buzzing against the window pane and saw a further two contentedly walking across the glass. ‘See me,’ Prebble smiled meekly, ‘I’m just not the best housekeeper in the world.’ He spoke with a distinct Scottish accent of the Western Isles, softer than the harsh sounding accent of Scotland’s Central Belt. ‘I let things go a wee bit after Angela disappeared and,’ he indicated the room, ‘this is tidy, sir. I mean, I keep things clean, as clean as I can, but I let things lie where I drop them. I know where everything is though. I mean, see that pile of clothes there?’ Prebble pointed to a collection of outer garments which occupied an armchair. ‘In that lot, about halfway down is a pair of binoculars. I haven’t used them since spring time two years ago when I took them to the Dales to look for the peregrine falcon that was reported to be there, and they’ll stay there until I need them again. My wallet’s in my other pair of shorts. This is how I live but our Angie, she couldn’t bear anything out of place. Fussy she was and I did wonder if she was one of the women that had been found. Milking Nook. . what a name for a village, eh?’
‘You are Mr Prebble?’ Ventnor spoke firmly. ‘I’m sorry but I have to be certain as to whom I am talking.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Prebble answered promptly, sharply, deferentially. He was significantly older than Ventnor. ‘David, “Davy”, Prebble. . railwayman all my days, ticket office clerk. It pays our. . my, it pays my mortgage. As you see, the house is no fancy mansion.’
‘It’s very cosy,’ Ventnor smiled. It was, he thought, a fair description of the Prebble household, at the back of the railway station, clearly conveniently close to Davy Prebble’s place of work. ‘These are solid houses. There’s a lot to be said for houses of this vintage. I would not buy a modern house. . nothing later than 1939 for me. I have an inter-war house.’
‘Good for you, sir. As you say, solidly built, it did me and Angie all right.’
‘Good. So. . I read the missing persons report on Angela. You are. . you were Mr and Mrs Prebble?’
‘No, sir. We were Mr and Miss Prebble, brother and sister. We used to live in a small town, a village really on the Isle of Lewis, it was very Free Church of Scotland, which is really anything but free in its attitude. . Sabbath observation, no alcohol on Sundays, all amusement is sinful and then when our Angie fell pregnant to a local boy. . well, the shame was too much for her to bear, so she allowed the bairn to be put up for adoption and she grew to regret that decision so she did, and she especially regretted it after moving to England where folk don’t think the same. . not having a wedded parent is not seen as being so bad.’
‘No, it’s not shameful at all,’ Ventnor agreed, ‘not any more at least.’
‘So, well, I’d been out. . out of the “Wee Free’s” influence. I joined the RAF and did three years with them, just the minimum service. . the air force regiment. . guarding air fields with my rifle and Alsatian, but it did what I wanted it to do, it freed me from the “Free’s”, it got me out of Stornoway, got me away from all that attitude. So, when Angie said she couldn’t go to the Kirk and be made to stand up in front of the congregation to be named along with all the other fallen women of the town and so was going to leave the island, I said I’d go with her. We pooled our money together, so we did, and worked out how far we could get to, and the answer was York. That was twenty years ago, about that sort of time. We rented accommodation and then got jobs, got a mortgage on this wee house and we moved in and let the neighbours think we were man and wife, until they got to be friends and then we told them the truth, but emphasized we had separate rooms. There was nothing like that going on, sir, not ever, nothing untoward at all.’