Authors: Priscilla Masters
They sat in the kitchen, Joanna deliberately facing Mostyn so his face was lit up by the sunshine. It was as good as a Gestapo interrogation light.
‘When did you buy it?’
‘Just over a year ago.’ Mostyn looked shifty but
Joanna didn’t take too much notice of this. She tended to have this effect on anyone even remotely connected with a case.
‘That must have been not long after your divorce.’
Mostyn’s mouth tightened, making it look as sour as though he had just sucked a lemon. After a pause he nodded, his eyes flickering around the room.
‘I would have thought money would have been tight then,’ Joanna said conversationally.
‘It was,’ Mostyn said through clenched teeth, ‘but I had to think about my future.’
‘Quite, quite.’
Korpanski continued the line of questioning. ‘So did Mr Grimshaw offer it to you or did you approach him?’
‘He asked me.’ Mostyn looked thoughtfully at both of them in turn, patently wondering where this was leading.
‘Go on,’ Joanna prompted.
‘He saw me over the wall one day.’ Mostyn smiled and stroked his chin. ‘I was telling him about the divorce and how angry and powerless I felt. I knew his wife had walked out.’ He gave a twisted smile. ‘It sort of bonded us, you could say.’
Korpanski’s eyes flickered across the table and Joanna tightened her mouth. The story would leak out eventually.
Mostyn continued. ‘He seemed to want to do something to help and asked me if I would be interested in buying the field beyond the farmhouse.’
‘Yes?’
Mostyn seemed unsure how to continue. ‘He didn’t seem to like the fact that that slimy devil Frankwell was mopping up the whole farm.’
‘You must have commented that the field would be no good while the farm blocked access. I understand there’s a stream on the far side.’
‘He said it would be an investment.’
‘Did he also say that he was thinking of retiring from farming?’
Mostyn shook his head then sucked in a deep breath. ‘But I could tell his days in farming were numbered.’ The words came out in a rush. ‘He was always complaining about his arthritis.’ There was an unexpected twinkle in his eye and Joanna smiled. She suddenly had a vision of the old farmer, bent double, complaining. It was a nicer image than the ‘stiff’ she had viewed at the mortuary.
She and Korpanski ate sandwiches in the car, watching the peaceful-looking, select estate. Violent crime was usually a foreigner to these middle-class havens. Not for the first time, she reflected on the oil and water mix of the
twenty-first
century rubbing shoulders with eighteenth-century rural England – a more law-abiding time?
Not if you search through the history books.
She took a final swig from her bottle of Ashbourne water and opened the car door.
The smell of a rich, meaty meal wafted down the drive as they called in to see Hilary and Richard Barnes.
Hilary, it seemed, was a good cook.
She looked flustered as she opened the door and Joanna sensed she was anxious for the food not to spoil. ‘We won’t be long,’ she said. ‘I realise that you’re preparing a meal.’
This seemed to put Mrs Barnes at her ease. She relaxed and gave Joanna a warm smile.
‘Are you any nearer to finding out who did this horrible thing?’
‘Unfortunately and truthfully, no, we’re not,’ Joanna said.
No point hiding behind fiction.
‘I just want to go over your statement, Mrs Barnes. What exactly did you hear?’
Hilary Barnes did not answer straight away but looked thoughtful. ‘The trouble is, Inspector Piercy,’ she said frankly, ‘that now I wonder what I
actually
heard and what I’ve added later. I
thought
I heard a cry, sounds of a scuffle. I don’t remember when I last heard the dog barking. Oh, yes, I do,’ she said suddenly. ‘He woke me early on Sunday morning.’ Her eyes were unfocused, as though she was remembering that morning. ‘He was making an absolute racket and I wondered what on earth was happening. Then he went quiet. I don’t remember hearing him bark again,’ she mused. ‘I think he was quiet on the Tuesday. Even though the garage had come out to mend the tractor,’ she rolled her eyes, ‘again.’
Joanna’s mind was busy thinking. ‘You didn’t mention this before, Mrs Barnes.’
‘No? Well, the tractor was always breaking down.’
She didn’t seem to realise the significance of what she was saying.
‘I saw the van, didn’t see the farmer but heard the tractor spluttering away a few minutes later.’
As they came out of the Barnes’ house they caught sight of a racing green Range Rover. The Westons were back, rowing noisily as they climbed out of the car.
‘You’ve been—’
‘No. I promise you…’ There was an air of desperation in his voice.
Joanna gave Mike a swift glance. Perhaps all marital arguments are essentially the same? Accusations, denials. No resolution. A relentless hammering.
They waited a few minutes before banging on the door. Kathleen Weston opened it to them.
She looked in despair, hopeless, and it was easy to see why. Her husband was standing behind her with the guilty air of a boy who has been stealing sweets…or a man who has been found out courting a mistress. Both would deny and both were patently guilty as hell.
‘Yes?’ Even Kathleen’s voice was hopeless, colourless and flat. She looked a woman at the end of her tether.
‘We’re just checking all the inhabitants of the estate,’ Joanna said, ‘hoping to find out a little more about Mr Grimshaw. Tell me, what did you think of him?’
Kathleen Weston’s face lit up with a passion.
‘He was a dreadful man,’ she said. ‘Very, very cruel to his animals. The way he left the poor dog barking
on the end of a chain all day was positively barbaric. He shouldn’t have been allowed to keep any animals, let alone a farmyard full.’
But, Joanna thought, farmers do not neglect their animals. Sure – they don’t treat them as Poochy Pets but cows that are not cared for don’t thrive or yield milk. Sheep that are neglected contract diseases. Farm animals have to be cared for. Still, she listened.
‘He should have been shot,’ Kathleen ranted on without realising what she was saying.
Her husband, standing behind her, did though. ‘Steady on, Kath,’ he said mildly.
She turned on him then and vented her venom. ‘Steady on? What do you care, Steven? What do you care about anything except…?’
He mumbled something in reply but she simply sniffed.
Joanna fingered the smooth pearl on her finger. When, she wondered, does a loving couple turn to this? When does the marital bed become such a battlefield? When a man takes a mistress – as Matthew had. Had it been that which had soured his marriage or had it already been cold?
She tried again. ‘Is there anything else?’ she asked again.
‘No,’ said Kathleen, and her husband nodded his agreement.
She and Korpanski donned their wellies and walked right round the boundary of the farm. The weather remained dry – they were even treated to the odd patch
of blue sky – but the ground was waterlogged and full of thistles and rushes. Still, it did them good to be out of doors for a while. Returning to their desks was an anti-climax. They managed a few hours’ work before calling it a day.
‘Bugger.’ Joanna was zipping up her new jeans. Perhaps, optimistically, she had opted for the very snug fit of the size eight. Breathing in, in the shop, and without the benefit of a healthy breakfast, they had seemed relatively comfortable. But this morning Matthew had tempted her with the scent of frying bacon and shouts of ‘Breakfast, Jo.’
And although it was a Sunday morning and they were meeting Caro and Tom for lunch at one of the moorland pubs, she had succumbed. But now, struggling with her zip, she was already regretting it.
Matthew was lying on the bed, watching her, smiling at her struggle. ‘You don’t think you should have opted for the size ten?’
She turned to look at him. ‘Absolutely not – well, maybe,’ she admitted before picking up a pillow and aiming it at him. ‘Matthew Levin,’ she said with mock severity, ‘are you accusing me of putting on weight?’
‘Certainly not,’ he answered, still grinning at her.
She finally won over the zip. ‘There,’ she said, ‘ready.’
‘Ah, but can you breathe?’
‘Who needs to breathe?’ She laughed, twirled around and extended her hand to pull him off the bed. ‘Come on, Matt,’ she said, ‘we don’t want to be late.’
‘We’ve plenty of time. It won’t take longer than ten minutes to get out to Grindon.’
‘And the temporary traffic lights on the Ashbourne road?’
‘Will be green.’ He stood up, put his arm around her and planted a kiss on her mouth. ‘Plenty of time,’ he said again and pulled her down on the bed on top of him, hungry for her.
Later, she struggled for a second time with the fastener, zipped her ankle boots up – without any of the fight she had had with her jeans – whisked a brush through her hair and left the bedroom. Matthew was waiting. But at the top of the stairs she paused and peeped into the second bedroom. Waterfall Cottage was small and when Eloise came to stay, it seemed smaller still. She sighed and skipped down the stairs to see Matthew standing at the bottom. He grinned at her and she knew from the gleam in the green eyes that he was about to make another comment about the skinny jeans. She gave him a severe frown, which he ignored, simply smiling.
Matthew had a beautiful smile. She had loved it from the very first, catching sight of it in the mirror over the sink in which she was vomiting. It had been her very first post-mortem and she hadn’t expected that the cadaver’s face would be pulled down like a rubber mask. She had met his eyes and read the humour there. He was laughing at her squeamishness. Later, she
reflected that she couldn’t have been the first detective he had seen bent double over the sink and wondered, what had they seen in each other that had made them both catch their breath, stare and find themselves unable to return to their equilibrium?
She had never really found the answer except that they hadn’t. Weeks later he had bought her some sandwiches. A month down the line they had been sharing dinner and when Jane had burst in on them at a restaurant, they had made an effort to forget each other.
Except they hadn’t been able to. Something had happened. A chain of emotions.
The stuff of Mills & Boon – that much derided romantic fiction which can mean so much. Yet most romances are similarly clichéd.
Knowing he was married, she had avoided attending post-mortems when he was to be there, but even then she had constantly wondered about the tall, blond pathologist. Now, looking at his face again, so familiar, she couldn’t resist him. She gave him a light kiss, giggled and stepped back.
‘Jo,’ he said. ‘You look…’ He paused, choosing his word carefully. ‘Sexy,’ he came up with.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Thank you,’ she said archly. ‘I shall remember that. Later.’
Matthew said nothing; the light in his eyes said it all.
In spite of the delay they made The Cavalier in Grindon at precisely two minutes past one.
It didn’t take them long to locate Caro. They
could hear her voice the moment they stepped inside. High-pitched, loud and definitely not a native of the moorlands. She was busily chatting up the barman, who was staring at her as though she’d just stepped in from another planet – which, in a way, she had. Caro was Joanna’s journalist friend. She had cut her teeth on the
Leek Post and Times
before taking up a post in London. A few years ago she married another friend, a local solicitor named Tom.
Caro was always on the lookout for another story.
She rested her chin on her hand and eyed the barman up. ‘So how
do
you make the Chicken Cavalier?’
‘Well, you see,’ the barman was scratching his head, ‘we takes a breast of chicken and hammers it out flat. Then we fills it with breadcrumbs and stuffing and skewers it and then we cook it in the oven.’
‘Hmm.’ Caro sounded impressed. ‘What’s in the stuffing?’
The barman looked confused. ‘I don’t rightly know. I’ll ask the missus to write it down for you, if you likes.’
‘I would likes,’ Caro said innocently. ‘I might even give it a try. And can you also find out how hot the oven should be and how long I should cook it for?’
She turned around and caught sight of them, shrieked and threw her arms round them both. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘my very best friends in the world looking simply wonderful. Jo – how do you do it? Those skinny jeans. You look fantastic. Have you lost weight?’
Joanna smirked until Matthew supplied the answer.
‘She’s just poured herself into a smaller size.’
‘Hope you can breathe. You look good too, Matt. The States must have agreed with you.’
‘In a way,’ he said uncomfortably.
They’d hardly noticed Tom, already sitting at a table in the corner. If Caro, with her ash-blonde hair and pencil-thin figure, was someone you always noticed, Tom was the exact opposite. Quiet, soberly dressed, with thinning brown hair and large, horn-rimmed glasses, he always blended with the background – wherever he was. He blinked at them, grinning broadly, and stood up. ‘It seems ages,’ he said. ‘We haven’t been together since the wanderer returned.’
Matthew shook his hand warmly while Joanna gave him a hug. ‘Good to see you, Tom,’ she said. ‘I’ve missed you.’
Caro returned from the bar with a menu and a tray of drinks. ‘Though,’ she said airily, dropping the menus on the table, ‘I don’t think you need to look at these. The special of the day is Chicken Cavalier and it sounds very edible. Shall I just order four?’
‘Yes. May as well.’ They were all in agreement.
As Joanna had expected, it didn’t take Caro long to spot the black pearl. She looked at it, then at Joanna and Matthew, who both felt incredibly smug. Matthew’s arms stole around Joanna’s shoulders.
‘Congratulations!’ Caro said. ‘When’s the great day to be?’
They explained that they hadn’t fixed an exact date yet but that it would be soon.