Souvenirs of Murder (32 page)

‘I mentioned the Huggins lot,' Patrick continued, ‘And other than comments along the lines of their names always seeming to be in the local papers after being arrested for something or other there was nothing useful there.
But,
for some reason Mum suddenly remembered that the Crosbys had some rather rough-looking men painting their house not so long ago.'

‘Did they have a van with a firm's name written on it?' Carrick wanted to know.

‘No, just a battered plain white one.'

‘Who lives in the Grange, next door, now?' I enquired.

‘The Rollasons,' Patrick answered. ‘I'd forgotten about them. They always go to their house in South Africa during the worst of the winter months. They're probably still away.'

‘But surely your parents would have noticed anything going on there,' James said.

‘No, by no means. There's a high wall all the way round and a lot of trees,' Patrick said. ‘I actually know the lie of the land round there quite well because Ken Rollason asked me about security measures when they bought the place.'

‘Did he mention anything he owns that he had particular concerns about?'

‘No.'

‘It doesn't sound as though the house would be at risk from the likes of the Huggins tribe then.'

‘It depends on what anyone's been getting up to,' Patrick replied dryly. He stood up. ‘I'll phone to see if they're there.'

This he did and there was only the answering machine.

‘A little sortie?' Patrick suggested.

‘What now?' Joanna said. ‘It's freezing and really snowy out there.'

‘All the better to see any footprints that shouldn't be there. Not
all
of us,' Patrick remonstrated gently when everyone had jumped to their feet. ‘Too noisy and creating too many footprints of our own.'

He won the argument on the grounds that specialized knowledge was required and he and I ended up by putting on our boots and anoraks. James insisted that he would hang around in case anything important came to light.

There is a gate in the boundary wall between the two properties that dates back to the days when the squire and his lady took a short cut through the rectory garden to attend church in order to save themselves the mire of the lane and having to rub shoulders with the villagers. We made our way towards it now, everywhere starkly bright with the moonlight on the snow. I wondered if the Rollasons were aware that Patrick had a key to the gate, a relic from recent times when close friends of the rector and his wife lived in the house and it was useful for the ladies when popping in for coffee or a short cut to track down the family Labrador that always seemed to turn up at the rectory at mealtimes.

‘There's snow piled up against it,' I whispered as we approached.

‘It opens the other way,' Patrick hissed back in a manner that told me to stop talking.

I could not see that anything might be going on over there right now but did as I was told. The old key made hardly a sound as the gate was unlocked, proof that everything was kept well oiled. Patrick's stone-cold professionalism at such times always has exactly the opposite effect on me, making me want to giggle. The hinges did not squeak either but no one had trimmed the ivy on the wall on the far side which unloaded a pile of snow on our heads as we went beneath. Patrick turned to give me a look as a huge bottled-up chortle emerged as a faint squeak.

The garden, here a large lawned area dotted with small trees, the shadows of those above our heads, much taller, thrown across it, stretched with virginal perfection before us; no footprints, except those of birds and what might have been a fox. Across the lawn was the western side of the house: as one would have expected, all the windows were in darkness. Leaving the gate open – a pile of snow had fallen into the gap – Patrick turned right and set off along by the wall. I followed, giving him room.

Continuing along by the wall we soon arrived at another pristine area of grass, the wall bare now but for a few climbing roses growing in the border. From here we could see the drive, lined with mature trees, and the front of the house. Patrick carried on, still walking along by the boundary wall until we reached where it turned at ninety degrees at the southern limit of the property where there was a lane that gave access. Carrying on, we came to the inside of the large entrance gates, which were closed. There were plenty of footprints in the snow covering the drive itself and vehicle tracks where the postman had made deliveries. Patrick signalled to me that we should walk up the drive and from here it was possible to see that the front of the house was also in darkness.

‘There doesn't seem to be anyone around,' Patrick said under his breath when we were side by side. ‘Round the other side is a building that used to be a coach house and stables. Ken didn't say if he stored anything there but hinted they might turn it eventually into some kind of office or living accommodation. I think we should take a look at that first.'

‘What does he do for a living?'

‘Dunno. Something in the city probably.'

‘What did you make of him?'

‘Bit of a smart-arse.'

There were footprints around the side of the house too, where the drive continued, only narrower. Patrick stopped and shone his ‘burglar's' torch down at them.

‘These are recent, possibly this morning or last night. Three people coming and going. As you can see there's just a little fresh snow in the prints – it snowed again a bit last night – and they've thawed slightly and then frozen again as it chilled off tonight.'

We came in sight of the carriage house and stable block, a rather fine stone building that matched the house. There was an archway that carriages would have once been driven through into an inner courtyard. We followed the footprints; they led straight under the arch. But we did not go that way, Patrick's natural caution causing him to turn aside to follow the outside wall. There were several windows, quite high up, with bars and no other openings until we reached the rear where there was a smaller archway. Inside the arch, which did not directly face the larger one opposite, were a couple of doors, one on each side. Patrick tried the handle of the first we came to. It was locked. As was the other.

We made our way under the arch, keeping out of the moonlight as much as possible, and emerged into what would have been the carriage yard. It was quite small, enough room to manoeuvre a modest carriage drawn by two horses, and there were stable doors facing inwards where the animals would have been housed. The carriage house itself was immediately around to our right.

There was no choice now but to emerge into bright moonlight. For some reason I half expected to be shot at, especially when we discovered that the same footprints led right up to the large double doors and the padlock fastening them had been cut off. Patrick kicked a little bump in the snow nearby and found it, pushing it into a corner by a drain pipe with his toe so as to be able to find it again.

Warily, we pulled open one of the doors wide enough to enable us to enter. Once inside Patrick shone the beam of his tiny torch around. In its limited illumination there seemed to be nothing within but lumber, together with what must have been a couple of tons of logs and an old Transit van. Patrick went over to the van, which was parked close to the left hand wall, and peered around behind it.

‘Give me a hand,' he whispered.

The handbrake had either failed or had not been applied and we were easily able to roll the vehicle forward. Behind it was an old bedspread acting as a curtain. Behind that was another door. It was of solid construction and the two bolts on it plus a padlock had been either jemmied or cut off.

TWENTY-ONE

‘This would have been the harness room, surely,' Patrick murmured, thinking aloud as he hitched back the curtain. ‘And we mustn't contaminate any evidence here.'

Taking down one of several lengths of old rope hanging from a nearby rusting nail in the wall, he made a loop with it and used it to pull down the handle of the door, which opened inwards. All was completely dark within. We went in and the torch beam picked out stacks and stacks of boxes, some cardboard, most of wooden construction.

‘Better not put the lights on,' Patrick said in an undertone as the little pencil of light flicked over a couple of wall switches.

Shining the torch in other directions revealed that the damp room was about twenty feet square and that some of the boxes had been opened. Packing – tissue paper, bubble wrap and wood shavings – was scattered on the floor. We went over to one of the opened boxes that appeared to have been discarded on one side. Half buried in some hastily rammed back bubble wrap was a large silver coffee pot with a monogrammed escutcheon on it. Careful probing on Patrick's part exposed another, smaller one, a jug and, right at the bottom, a gallery tray, all solid silver.

We investigated other opened boxes, finding china packed in several, probably a whole dinner service, that was heavily decorated with gold, hand-painted country scenes and a coat of arms. We discovered Chinese pots, glass claret jugs, gold-plated and silver cutlery and Royal Worcester vases. There were cleaner areas on the dusty floor that gave every impression that some boxes had been removed altogether.

‘So is Ken a dealer or a fence?' I whispered.

‘Impossible to tell at this stage. But it looks as though someone's pinching it who has to be a fence. You notice that most of the obviously traceable stuff has been rejected. No, come to think of it, Kenny boy isn't likely to be a dealer otherwise this lot would be kept somewhere much warmer and drier.'

‘Consulting with you on a friendly basis about security was all a bit of a front then.'

Patrick chuckled humourlessly. ‘Perhaps he thought I carried local clout and was an open door to drinks parties with the upper classes and so forth. But Paddy boy doesn't like being used by crooks.'

‘My money's on the Crosbys,' I said.

Patrick's mobile rang and he muttered a few expletives for having forgotten to switch it off. I stood close when he answered it so I could listen in. It was Carrick.

‘I hope I haven't ratted anything up for you but this is important. Your father's just received a call from someone he described as a nervous lady parishioner who said there's people down on the old railway site making a real row dancing round a bonfire. She lives nearby apparently and wants to know if she ought to call the police. Naturally, he came straight through to me.'

‘For God's sake tell him to stay right away from the place!' Patrick said, not keeping his voice down.

‘Don't worry, he's not even thinking of going down there. I was wondering if it means something else is happening tonight.'

‘You might like to come over to where we are,' Patrick told him. ‘Because something just might.'

When James found us, having followed Patrick's detailed instructions, and presumably our footprints we closed the outside door, draped the curtain where it had been, shifted back the van and shut the inner door. Carrick had brought a bigger torch with him and by its light we moved a few of the boxes to give us room to conceal ourselves between them and the wall. But we could not disturb them much, not enough to be really noticeable. Our hiding places were exceedingly cramped and when the torches were switched off it became very, very dark.

About three million years went by.

I was endeavouring to rub a bout of cramp from my right calf when I heard muffled noises: feet being stamped with cold or to remove snow perhaps. Moments later the outer door was opened and people entered the coach house. I tried to guess how many of them there were; they were not trying to be particularly quiet. Three or four perhaps.

Huffing and puffing noisily they then moved the van and, after a longish pause, came through the door. Seconds later the lights were switched on. I already knew that Patrick was close to me, but Carrick was somewhere round a corner out of sight.

‘They're coming home in two days' time,' a thin reedy voice I recognized said. ‘So, as I told you earlier, this is the last run. Rip open as many boxes as you can this time and I'll take a look inside and decide what we take. Just the really good stuff.'

‘How d'you know when they comin' back?' someone asked.

‘I have my sources,' the first voice, Frank Crosby's, I was convinced, said pompously. ‘Just get on with it and stop talking or you won't get your cut.'

Patrick had already said to James that this was his, Carrick's, war so he would follow the DCI's lead. I guessed that he would wait until they had some of the booty actually in their hands before making a move and this is exactly what happened some three or so muscle-racking minutes later.

‘Police!' Carrick suddenly shouted. ‘Stay right where you are! You're all under arrest!'

Patrick and I jumped out of hiding. The first thing that became apparent was that it was two to one: there were six of them. The second was that they had no intention of being arrested. Third, five were well-built oafs.

‘Don't move!' Patrick bellowed, enough to shake dust from the rafters.

They all moved. Two threw full boxes at James and Patrick. I did not see the outcome of this having gone for Crosby. He kicked out at me, missed and ran out of attack ideas after I'd got him by his jacket lapels and slammed him into a wall a few times. I then tipped him backwards over some boxes and parked him mostly upside down in a corner where he was forced to stay.

Patrick was fighting off three of them. One came hurtling towards me after a flailing fist had caught him on the jaw so I let his momentum carry him onwards, guiding him over the boxes as well so that he thundered down in a cloud of dust on top of Crosby in the corner. Another left his original target alone when I got him by the hair and lined him up for a haymaker from Carrick who was making like the wild Scot part of him that he calls up in emergencies.