Grave Stones (22 page)

She smiled. ‘Optimistic as ever,’ she mocked. ‘Have faith. It’s like peeling an onion,’ she said. ‘Strip one bit away; it might sting your eyes but underneath you find something further, more complex. This looked like the most parochial, the simplest of cases but search underneath and there is another dimension. We started with neighbours and local motives. And look what happens?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘We end up with a European case, a drugs connection. What next, Mike?’

‘It is like peeling an onion,’ he repeated. ‘It makes your eyes sting and water so much you can’t see a damned thing.’

She was silent, waiting for Korpanski to turn the corner as she knew he would – eventually.

‘I’ve been wondering, Jo,’ he said slowly, ‘why did she go off like that in the first place? Why not just leave, get a job somewhere, write to her daughter and explain? That would be more normal. Why leave the whole thing open so Grimshaw could tell that horrible lie about where her mother had gone, plant the letter in a place he knew his daughter would one day find?’ Korpanski was scowling and scratching the back of
his neck – a well known gesture when he was both irritated and confused. ‘Why are we concentrating so hard on the wider part of the story? After all, we don’t think Jakob Grimshaw had anything to do with foreign climes – or drugs, do we? He was never off the farm, Jo.’ Korpanski’s voice was tight and raised. He was almost shouting at her.

Joanna ignored his aggression and continued calmly. ‘So was it a coincidence that his wife heads abroad, makes a lot of money and just
happens
to bump into and be recognised by one of our local drug dealers just out of clink? Come on, Mike,’ she said. ‘Leek is a tiny place. Avis had never lived anywhere else until she left.

The coincidence of her bumping into a fellow native, a criminal at that, is not high. Think,’ she appealed. They worked in silence for a few minutes, then Joanna looked across at Korpanski. ‘Mike,’ she said slowly, her face worried, ‘what if…?’ She didn’t complete the sentence but realised her mind was working furiously now. Grimshaw had stumbled on something – or someone. It had been that that had caused his death. And why was the image of the barn where the animals had died persistently snagging at her consciousness? She stood up, knocking a file onto the floor. Korpanski picked it up. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Don’t get overexcited now, Jo.’

But she was feeling impatient, every cell in her body straining. ‘When Avis called at the farm on Monday the 10
^th
, we assumed that Jakob was already dead? Correct?’

Korpanski paused before adding. ‘The only problem with that is, what about the dog?’

‘Alive? Asleep? Or dead?’ she said. ‘Stretched out was what she said. All she said was that it didn’t bark. And that is if she was telling the truth.’

They looked at each other for further minutes before Joanna spoke.

‘She’s playing us on the end of a string,’ she said softly, stretched out her hand and picked up the telephone, tucking it under her chin. ‘Feeding us…’ she couldn’t resist it, ‘little porkies.’

Even Korpanski was surprised at the question she asked when she was connected.

‘Tell me, does your garage service tractors?’

She met Korpanski’s eyes. ‘The ones at Prospect Farm?’

He strained to hear the answer.

‘Did you get a call out to there on Tuesday the 11th of September?’

Korpanski guessed the reply was in the affirmative because Joanna’s next question was, ‘Can you tell me who you sent?… Ah. I see.’

She looked pleased with herself as she replaced the handset.

‘Guess who paid a little visit to Prospect Farm on that Tuesday morning, Mike?’

Without waiting she said softly, ‘Young.’ Then, ‘We have to go back to the farm,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Now.’

He studied her for a moment, knowing there was
more she was not telling him, knowing he’d always mocked her
instincts
. When she remained silent he tried to prompt her. ‘Any explanations? Am I going to be in on this?’

‘No,’ she said flatly, ‘because I may be wrong, but tell Fran you might be late tonight. I’ll leave a similar message for Matthew.’

‘Are we telling anyone where we’re going?’

She shook her head.

‘Not even the duty sergeant?’

‘No.’

He picked up his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘You expect a lot of me, Joanna Piercy,’ he said, a smile lifting the corner of his lips.

For some reason she flushed and touched her ring. ‘I know,’ she said, frowning to cover her discomfort. ‘Believe me, Mike, I know.’

‘OK,’ he said steadily. ‘I’ll drive.’

It was dusk by the time they drew up to the gate that led to the farmyard. In some ways it was a perfect time and place for a stakeout. Misty, rainy, dull, mysterious. Colourless. Uninspiring, in a way. Abandoned now that the scenes of crime team had left. Instinctively, Joanna knew that at last she was walking along the right track. It was like the game of hot and cold. Each step towards the property felt a degree or two warmer.

‘Put the car round the back,’ she instructed Korpanski. ‘Out of sight.’

He did little but raise his eyebrows at her but did as she’d asked, hiding the car round the side of the
farmhouse, out of sight from the approach. To all intents and purposes, the farm appeared deserted.

‘The barn,’ Joanna said next.

The creak of the huge doors was as eerie as the sound effect in a Hammer House of Horrors movie

The place was equally gloomy inside, the scent of the dead cattle fading behind the fusty but not unpleasant scent of hay.

A fresh wind blew in through the cracks in the barn door and up through the opening in the hayloft. Without a word Joanna started climbing the ladder, Korpanski close behind her. They had worked together enough times to make verbal communication hardly necessary.

Mike spoke softly in her ear. ‘How long do you think we’ll have to stay?’

‘All night if we must,’ Joanna said, equally quietly. ‘We watch. The police guard only left this morning. There’s been no opportunity till now.’

‘For what?’

In the gloom, Joanna faced Mike. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

He stared at her, his nod hardly more than a twitch of his head.

‘Do we really believe Judy Grimshaw didn’t know her mother was still alive?’

Korpanski shrugged. ‘They’re a weird family,’ he said. ‘It’s possible.’ Then, ‘Well, if I’m staying I’d better make myself comfortable. Take a hay bale, Joanna.’

It was minutes later before he spoke again. ‘Is this a stake out?’

‘Possibly not. I might be wrong, Mike.’

‘Ah,’ Korpanski said. ‘So that’s why the secrecy.’ He paused. ‘That’s why no back-up.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Was that wise?’

In the growing darkness Joanna smiled to herself. ‘Can you imagine a dozen clumsy-footed coppers hiding around this place?’

Korpanski said nothing.

More minutes passed in silence. ‘Your phone’s on silent, Mike?’ she whispered.

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Mine too.’

The silence was now icily penetrating, chill and fresh and heavy. The wait was growing longer. ‘It’s getting bloody cold in here,’ Mike grumbled.

‘Sit against me,’ she suggested. ‘I’m freezing too.’

More silence.

‘And if they don’t come tonight?’

‘My guess,’ Joanna said softly, ‘is that they’ll be in a huge hurry to get their stuff and get the hell out of here.’

‘What stuff?’

It was at that point that she realised her eyes and mouth had worked together. ‘The animal feed sacks, Mike,’ she said. ‘Look where it comes from.’

‘The Czech Republic,’ he said. ‘So what?’

‘My guess is fake cigarettes,’ Joanna answered.

‘Where do you get that from?’

‘More money than drugs these days with the high
taxes, an Eastern European connection, a sudden return when the safe storage place looks like being threatened.’

‘Is that what this is all about then?’

‘Not quite,’ Joanna said softly. ‘But nearer to the truth than we’ve been so far.’

‘If you’re talking about Judy,’ Korpanski said, almost to himself, ‘she’s no dope. She’ll know something’s going on.’

‘I
know
she’ll know what’s going on. That’s the trick!’

They heard a car leave the Ashbourne road and pull up a few hundred yards away. The engine was switched off. They heard no voices, no footsteps, yet they knew their quarry was near. Alone?

A figure skulked around the barn.

There was a soft mutter as someone realised the barn door was ajar. Joanna cursed herself. They should have shut it tight after them. The worst thing was that she knew
why
she hadn’t insisted they close it and shut out the last of the light: a terrible claustrophobia in this place of death. This dreadful atmosphere.

She almost
felt
the stiffening of hairs on their quarry’s neck.

‘Is anyone there?’

He or she, like them, was spooked by the interior of the barn. ‘Is anyone there?’

It was a frightened whisper.

They heard rasping, irregular breaths, in, out, in, out. Heard the sound of feet stepping across the crisp,
dry hay, a waft of damp when the floor was moist. Slowly. Slowly, getting nearer. Joanna felt Mike stiffen against her. There was a loud clatter as whoever it was bumped into one of the farm implements, followed by a soft curse.

Neither Joanna not Mike moved a single muscle. Their quarry must have reached the bottom of the ladder because they heard the slap of shoes against the rungs, the gentle creak of the wooden tread.

Then came the unmistakable click of a shotgun being adjusted.

‘Don’t move,’ Joanna mouthed. ‘Stay still.’

Korpanski was breathing hard. Behind the panic they were both aware that they had broken all the rules. Who knew they were here? No one. They had staked out a crime scene without sharing their knowledge at all. Joanna was cursing herself for the way she had followed her own instincts, broken a cardinal police rule: you don’t work alone. And now she had put herself and, worse, her sergeant’s safety at risk. She tugged her mobile phone out of her pocket and fingered it, pressed triple nine and let it run as a head appeared over the top of the ladder, silhouetted against the dim lights outside. She saw him raise the gun and steady it on the top rung. ‘Police,’ Joanna managed in the same instant Korpanski moved in front of her and they heard the blast of a shotgun. She felt the hot wind against her face as Mike slumped across her. Then she felt the warm stickiness of his blood on her hands.

Literally and metaphorically.

She heard the gun click again and moved, shoving Mike’s body off her. She grabbed the rope and swung, heard a shout, and their assailant toppled off the ladder. She braced herself but nothing more happened. She heard soft moaning on the floor beneath them and felt a moment of grim satisfaction, swiftly followed by a feeling of blind panic. Korpanski was silent.

She felt sick with guilt. What had she done?

She spoke into her mobile. ‘Ten-nine,’ she said. ‘
Ten-nine
. Officer shot. Prospect Farm in the barn.’ She repeated the phrases over and over again, feeling for a carotid pulse and, thank God, finding one. Better, a strong, steady pulse hammering away in Korpanski’s thick neck.

She didn’t move again until she heard the welcome scream of police cars and saw the blinding flash of blue lights filling the floor of the barn.

At the same time her phone flashed a call.

‘Where are you?’

It was Detective Constable Alan King. Steady, worried, in control. ‘In the barn,’ she managed, ‘in the hayloft. Korpanski’s been shot. We need an ambulance.’ At the same time she was wondering how it would reach them, with an armed man beneath them. She tried to give them the information they needed. ‘An unidentified man climbed the ladder. I pushed him off it. I’ve had no response since.’ She was aware she was speaking almost incoherently. But her mind struggled to be sane and steady.

So this is what shock is like, she thought. And felt
a strange, floating detachment, as though this was happening in a film. That was when she knew she was in danger of losing it.

DC King spoke again. ‘Ma’am,’ he said. ‘The man with the gun. What state is he in?’

She crawled away from Korpanski, heard him groan with a feeling of exhilaration; he was alive.

She peered over the side of the hayloft. The man was sprawled beneath, the gun a few feet from him.

‘He appears to be lying still,’ she whispered. ‘The gun is three – four yards away from him.’

‘You know the rules,’ King said softly. ‘We cannot risk another officer being hurt.’

The word
another
stung her.

She hardly noticed the barn door open. All she felt was a rush of cold air and the softest of creaks. An officer was moving forward, bulky in Kevlar. He reached the gun and spoke into his mouthpiece.

‘Safe,’ he said.

Joanne felt tears fill her eyes and sank back against Korpanski’s body.

The cuffs were on their assailant. Then suddenly all was activity and light, the barn filled with police. Her colleagues. Ambulances backed against the barn and the slim man was carted off, Korpanski strapped to a stretcher and taken gently down to a second waiting ambulance. She climbed down the ladder and followed the stretcher, watched the paramedics slide a drip into Korpanski’s arm, clamp an oxygen mask over his face. His eyes were closed and he looked white and
vulnerable. It was a picture that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

She touched his hand. ‘Thanks, Mike,’ she said. ‘I owe you one. I won’t forget this. Ever.’ Then the ambulance drove off, lights flashing, siren screaming. She listened as the sound faded into the distance and the light was no longer visible.

Someone threw a blanket around her shoulders, asked her if she was all right, if she needed medical attention.

Yes to the first, no to the second. She wanted to write down her report in detail before she forgot.

They took her back to the station.

She rang Matthew and told him she was safe but would not be home tonight. And now she had her own demons to deal with. How to tell Fran and her children that she had placed her husband deliberately in the path of danger. She hadn’t needed to do this with just him as back-up. She could have done it properly, taken a full team, suitably armed and equipped. At the same time, she knew that Fran Korpanski was fully aware that her husband would have followed Inspector Piercy anywhere – into the jaws of…

No not there. She wouldn’t go there. Not death. Nor hell.

The reason she hadn’t followed procedure had been because she had really known so little and she had worried she would never know, that nothing would be proven and that Jakob Grimshaw’s murder would remain a mystery.

The gunman was admitted to hospital with a police guard. Initially incognito. It was PC Bridget Anderton who identified him as Tim Bradeley, employee at Farrell’s Animal Feeds. And so the link had been uncovered but not the entire story. That would come later. For now she had to face up it. She was responsible. Colcough would hold her responsible. But not as responsible as she would hold herself.

She recalled Korpanski’s moving in front of her, shielding her from the blast of the gun.

Every man wants to be a hero.

Every man wants to be a hero. It would comfort her later when she had to recount every single event that had led up to that terrible night.

Worse, she had to admit to herself that she had made the decision to bring Korpanski along because she was
used
to having him at her side. He was a powerful physical presence that she had used, and whatever she said to the subsequent inquiry, everyone at the station would know it. It was indefensible. Somewhere deep inside her was a fact she did not want to face. She had always known that if she stared down the barrel of a shotgun and Korpanski was by her side, he would risk his own life to save hers. Korpanski would shield her. She had known it and taken advantage of it. That had been why she had brought him along tonight.

But back to that night.

It was seven in the morning when they took her to the hospital where she ran the gauntlet of Fran
Korpanski’s cold stare. ‘I won’t forgive you for this, Joanna,’ she said. ‘He would have followed you to the ends of the earth. Your opinion of him mattered more than anything. Even his life, his family. You wilfully took advantage of him. We could have lost him. I could have lost him. Ricky and Joss could have lost their father. We all still could. The doctors are waiting for his condition to stabilise before they operate.’

Joanna began to apologise but got no further than, ‘I’m so—’ before Fran Korpanski cut in.

‘No apology can make up for this,’ she said, her eyes drifting down to her husband’s still face. ‘Nothing.’ Then, ‘You can have a couple of minutes alone with him. I’m going to ring the children.’

When the door had closed behind the furious woman, Joanna sat down by the side of the bed and touched Korpanski’s hand. ‘Mike?’ she appealed. ‘Mike.’ But he did not respond and she felt nothing but a cold silence that seemed to isolate her from the rest of the world.

She tried her old sarcasm. ‘Come on, Korpanski, don’t try and swing the lead with me. No more sickies.’ But the humour had gone from the old teasing.

She heard Fran’s shoes clipping back towards the room and stood up. It was time to leave, time to go home, face Matthew’s wrath and then…

It was much much later that she could at last do what she had wanted to do for hours, drop her head into her hands and cry.