Chapter Fourteen
All morning Ramsay was aware of time passing, of seconds and minutes slipping by. In Otterbridge on his way from the Express office to the café to interview Mary Raven, he had walked so quickly that Hunter had difficulty keeping up with him. On the way to Brinkbonnie he knew he was driving too fast. It was a mild spring day and the only remaining trace of snow was a white swathe under the hedges and trees and, as he drove past at speed, what might have been a carpet of snowdrops.
As he approached the village he reluctantly slowed the car. He passed Henshaw’s palatial bungalow and turned briefly to see if Henshaw’s Rover was parked in the drive. There was no sign of it. Then he came to the high, ivy-covered wall to the entrance of the Tower drive. From there he could see the sweep of Brinkbonnie Bay and the sunlight on the breaking waves. In the centre of the village he parked behind the Castle Hotel so that his car could not be seen from the street. He did not want to give the residents warning that he was there.
The first address on Hunter’s list of lads who regularly hung around the bus shelter was a red-brick council house in a small crescent behind the smart houses that overlooked the green. The road was dark, in the shadow of the hill, and it was quiet. Ramsay knocked at the door, but there was no reply. A neighbour who must have been watching the inspector’s approach from behind thick lace curtains hurtled out into the front garden, obviously afraid that he might leave before she could find out who he was and what he wanted.
“She’s not there, pet,” the elderly lady said, then, hopefully: “Can I take a message?”
Ramsay ignored the offer. “Where is she then?” he asked.
“At work, pet,” the woman said. “ She’s a dinner nanny at the little school. She’ll be home soon. You can wait in with me if you like.”
“No,” Ramsay said. “Thank you.” She was so lonely that he knew it would take him hours to escape once he was in the house. “It was the lad I wanted to talk to.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, he’s not there. He’s at school.” She looked at him curiously. “At least he went off on the school bus this morning,” she said. “Are you from the welfare?”
She had placed Ramsay as an education officer checking on truancy.
“No,” he said. “It’s nothing like that. I’ll call back later when he’s home from school.”
Disappointed, she stood on the concrete path that divided her immaculate lawn into identical halves until he disappeared from the crescent and onto the green.
I suppose, he thought wryly, that was the neighbourhood watch in action.
The second address given to Hunter by the boys in the bus shelter was Grey’s Farm. Ramsay recognised the name. Robert Grey was the man who had been drinking heavily in the Castle on the evening after Alice Parry’s death, and Ramsay had turned into the farmyard by mistake, in the snow, when he was looking for Henshaw’s bungalow. Ramsay came to a five-bar gate and swung it open a little nervously, expecting the dogs to bark again. The house was square, built of grey stone, and had a grey-slate roof. The cobbled yard was covered in mud. By the side of the house was a barn, and approached by a track to the side of the house was a cowshed and a large, open building containing farm machinery and an ancient tractor. An empty Land Rover with the engine still running stood in the yard. As Ramsay approached the house, Robert Grey appeared on the storm porch and almost ran to meet the policeman. He was shaking and Ramsay wondered if he had been drinking again. His behaviour was erratic and bizarre.
“Come with me!” he bellowed. “Where’s your car? You can park in the farmyard and I’ll take you up in the Land Rover. You’d not make it in a car. Man, you were quick. I’d just left Celia in the house phoning the police.”
He sprinted towards the Land Rover and turned to Ramsay, expecting him to follow. Ramsay joined him, carefully trying to avoid the worst areas of muck.
“Mr. Grey,” he said. “What is this all about?”
“Didn’t they tell you then?” He had a broad accent, but he was not local. Ramsay, who had never travelled and did not have a good ear for these things, guessed that he came from Yorkshire or Cumbria. “I’ve found Charlie Elliot.”
“Where is he?” Ramsay asked.
“In my barn up on the hill. I keep spare feed up there for when the weather’s bad.”
“Does he know you saw him?” Ramsay asked.
“No!” The man looked at him as if he were mad. “He knows nothing. How could he? He’s dead.”
He pushed a lever to put the Land Rover into four-wheel drive and turned the vehicle quickly. He followed the track between the house and the shed, through two enclosed fields and out onto the open hill beyond. The land rose steeply. On the hill there was heather and bare rock and the track petered out into a couple of tyre marks. As they climbed, the patches of snow spread into each other and the sunlight was reflected from it.
The barn was at the head of a small valley, sheltered from the east winds by a fold in the hill. It might have once been a shepherd’s cottage. The solid stone walls had gaps for windows, but the slate roof had been replaced by corrugated iron. One wall had been taken down to allow a tractor inside and there was a roughly made wooden door in its place. The door had been opened as far as it would go.
“Was the door open when you found him?” Ramsay asked.
“No, I opened it to see how much hay was left.”
“Did you touch anything else?”
“I don’t think so. When I saw him, I went straight back to the house to phone you people.”
“Yes,” Ramsay said absent-mindedly. “Of course.” He turned back to face the farmer and spoke more briskly.
“I’ll not need you anymore now, Mr. Grey,” he said. “I’d be grateful, though, if you could bring my colleagues up when they arrive. If your wife phoned Otterbridge, they’ll be turning up soon. I’ll need to speak to you and your family later, so it would be helpful if you could stay around the farm today.”
He thought for a moment that Grey would argue and insist on staying, but he nodded and drove away.
Ramsay went back to the barn. There was still snow on the side of the roof that was in shadow, but it was beginning to melt and water dripped on his head and down his neck as he paused at the entrance to get an overall view of the scene inside. Most prominent was the powerful motorbike, stolen from the industrial estate in Otterbridge. The body was in a corner, poorly lit by a gap in one of the boarded-up windows. Ramsay took off his shoes and stepped carefully into the barn. He did not want to confuse the scene of crime team with the mud from his shoes or his prints, but he wanted a closer look at Charlie Elliot. He was lying, facedown, on a makeshift bed of a sleeping bag spread over paper fertiliser sacks half filled with hay. He had been stabbed in the back and the knife had been removed, so there was a lot of blood.
Had he been stabbed when he was sleeping? Ramsay wondered. If so, why was he lying on top of the sleeping bag instead of inside it?
He straightened and looked around the barn. Because it was the end of winter, most of the feed was gone. It had the domestic tidiness of a child’s den. There was a Primus stove, a saucepan, a spoon, and a tin mug. On a rough shelf nailed to the wall were neatly stacked tins of beans, soup, and beer, a box of tea bags, and small jars of coffee and powdered milk. There was even a small bucket and a bottle of washing-up liquid in one corner. He was expecting to stay there, Ramsay thought, for some time. On the floor, next to the bed, the only sign of disorder: an empty beer can. Ramsay looked more closely at the shelf and realised that most of the beer cans stacked there were empty, too. Had Charlie drunk them all himself? Or had he shared them with a guest?