Death on the Downs Read online

  The Downs, lacking the steep gradients of mountain ranges, still performed the same kind of trickery, not peaks hiding higher peaks, but mounds hiding higher mounds. Carole, after some half-hour’s walk, had reached what she thought to be a summit, from which she would be able to look down over the flat coastal plain, with its shining threads of glasshouses, to the sulky gleam of the English Channel.

  But when she got there, another level shut off her sea view. In front of her, the track rolled downwards to a declivity in which trees clustered like hair in a body crevice. At the bottom stood an old flint-faced tiled barn, structurally sound but with an air of disuse. One of its doors was gone, the other hung dislocated from a single hinge. Outside an old cart lay shipwrecked in waves of grass.

  Past the barn the track climbed up again to the top of the new level, from which the sea might perhaps be visible. Or from which only another prehistoric hump of Downs might be revealed.

  Carole decided she’d walked enough. Forget the sea. She could see it from Fethering, if she was that desperate. When she got back to the car, she’d have been out an hour. That was quite long enough. Anything that needed to be proved would by then have been proved. She could get back to the comfort of her central heating.

  Even as she made the decision and turned on her muddy heel, it began to rain. Not a rain of individual drops, but a deluge as if, in a fit of pique, some god had upturned a celestial tin bath.

  Within seconds water was dripping off her woollen hat, insidiously finding a route inside the collar of her Burberry to trickle down her neck. It cascaded off the bottom of the coat, quickly seeping through the thick fabric of her trousers.

  She was in the middle of the Downs, half an hour from the car. The barn offered the only possible shelter in the bleak winter landscape. She ran for it.

  The inside of the building was fairly empty, though tidemarks of discoloration up the high walls bore witness to the crops that had once been housed there. And, though the roof looked in need of maintenance, it was surprisingly watertight. Here and there the shingles had slipped and water splashed down vertically into hollows made by previous rain. These irregular spatterings provided a rough melody to ride above the insistent drumming on the roof.

  The thought struck Carole that she had put herself into a West Sussex minority. She was one of the few who’d actually been inside a barn, as opposed to the many who’d been inside barn conversions. The idea amused her.

  She waited ten minutes before looking for somewhere to sit. But the deluge showed no signs of abating. The relentlessly sheeting water had made the day dark before its time. She checked her watch. Only quarter past three. She could give the rain half an hour to stop and still in theory get back to the Renault in daylight. Assuming of course that daylight ever returned.

  So Carole sat on the pile of planks. And the pile collapsed. And the blue fertilizer bags were revealed.

  Once she had identified the human femur, taking a large swallow of air and holding her breath, she leaned forward to look inside the sacks.

  The bones were free of flesh, a greyish white and, when Carole did have to take another gulp of air, appeared not to smell at all. A cursory glance suggested that she was looking at the remains of one complete human body.

  Inside the two stridently blue sacks, the bones had been neatly stacked and aligned like a self-assembly furniture kit.

  Chapter Two

  It was when she got back to the car that Carole realized she couldn’t just drive straight home and phone the police from there. Human bones were not like other bones, particularly when they had so clearly been moved by another human agency. There could not be an entirely innocent explanation for their presence in the barn. At the very least, sacrilege had been committed. And at the worst . . . Carole didn’t like to pursue that thought. All she knew was that the police had to be informed as soon as possible.

  Pity she didn’t have a mobile phone like Jude. Pity Jude wasn’t there. Carole wanted to talk to her, throw at Jude some of the ideas jostling for prominence in her mind.

  She was briefly tempted to delay contacting the police. The famed waterproofing of her Burberry had proved inadequate to the deluge and she was soaked to the skin. Also they looked to her like old bones. The fact that they had lain uninvestigated for years meant that another twenty minutes was not going to make a great difference in the cosmic scheme of things.

  But Carole couldn’t allow herself to be persuaded by such casuistical reasoning. She’d had a previous run-in with an unsympathetic policeman about delaying the provision of information.

  Stronger than that, though, was an unease that her grisly discovery had started in here. Not fully defined, and she didn’t yet want to probe into it too deeply, but she knew there was something wrong.

  The bones had not been in the barn for long. The fertilizer bags were relatively unsoiled, and little dust or moss had accumulated inside them. Whoever had found that makeshift hiding place beneath the planks had been taking a temporary measure – perhaps a panic measure. It happened to be Carole Seddon who had found the bones, but someone else would have got to them very soon. The barn was remote, but not that remote. Someone owned the land it stood on, and that someone might well still use the space to house machinery, or have a system of regularly checking in case of vandalism.

  So Carole knew that whoever had left the bones in the barn must have intended to return fairly soon to move them on. Indeed, she might have met the person. That thought sent down her spine a trickle much colder than rainwater.

  She drove into the centre of Weldisham, though in a village of some thirty houses she didn’t have far to go. There was a small grassy area, surrounded by a low railing, which she felt sure would be called ‘The Green’. A noticeboard displayed a few dampish posters behind glass. There was a map for walkers, a reminder that Weldisham was a Neighbourhood Watch Area, a faded orange flyer for line-dancing on Wednesday evenings in the Village Hall.

  And, sure enough, beside the board, was a public phone box. One of the old red ones – no doubt the Village Committee had rejected as unsightly any plans to replace it with a modern glass booth.

  Carole dialled 999 and was very calm when asked which Emergency Service she required. The police voice at the other end was a woman’s, solicitous, motherly. She took down the details Carole gave her, asked where she was and said how much it would help if she could stay there until her colleagues arrived.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s so wet,’ the woman said. ‘Is there somewhere you could go to wait out of the rain? The church perhaps.’

  ‘I’ve got my car. And actually the rain’s stopped for the moment. I’ll stay parked by the phone box.’

  ‘Very well. If you’re sure you don’t mind. It would help enormously if you could wait for our officers.’

  Carole gave a grim inward smile. Her last encounter with the police had been with the Bad Cop. Now she’d got the Good Cop. It was disorienting.

  The car was cold, so with a mental apology to the environment Carole switched on the engine to try and get some heat into her sodden body. The windows soon steamed up and, though she couldn’t be said to be comfortable, she felt strangely peaceful. There was an inevitability about what was happening now. Carole had no decisions to make. Everything was in the hands of the police.

  At one point she became aware of someone close by the car window. She swept a little circle in the condensation to reveal the face of an elderly woman with a beaky nose and a purple woolly hat pulled too far down her face. Carole smiled. The old woman continued to look at her with undisguised hostility. So much for the myth of everyone in the country being friendly.

  Doing her bit for the Neighbourhood Watch, Carole decided. A strange car parked, engine running, in the middle of Weldisham. It must belong to some burglar planning his or her next incursion. She tried another smile, her most unburglar-like one, and was about to wind down the window for reassurance when the woman abruptly walked away, dragging an unwilling black
and white spaniel in her wake.

  Soon after, the police arrived. A liveried Range Rover with two uniformed officers in the front and a plain-clothes man in the back. Carole felt obscurely disappointed. She’d expected more. A full Scene of Crime team with all their paraphernalia. And yet why? No one knew that a crime had been committed. Even she couldn’t be sure. All the police had to go on was a call from a middle-aged woman who claimed to have found some human bones in a barn. She’d probably got it wrong, they got enough calls from cranks and the confused. Turn out to be sheep bones, cow bones, possibly even chicken bones left from someone’s picnic.

  The plain-clothes man got out of the Range Rover to greet Carole, profuse in his apologies for keeping her waiting on such a disgusting day. He introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Baylis. A thick-set man with short brown hair and a nose surprisingly small in his broad face, he had an avuncular manner beyond his thirty-five years. It should have been patronizing, but to Carole it felt immensely reassuring.

  After her Bad Cop experience, she now felt like the subject of a Good Cop charm offensive. Was it just down to individual officers, or had one of those Home Office directives about the police becoming more user-friendly really had an effect?

  DS Baylis checked the location of her find. ‘Sounds like South Welling Barn, Hooper. Go and see what you can find.’

  As the Range Rover set off towards the barn, Baylis squinted up at the louring sky. It wouldn’t be long before more rain fell. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Seddon, but I would like to check a few details with you.’

  ‘Of course. Would you like to come and sit in my car?’

  ‘Very kind, but I think I can do better than that.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Ten to five.’ He produced a mobile phone from his pocket. ‘Will Maples from the Hare and Hounds owes me the odd favour. I’m sure he can find us a warm room.’

  In case any visitor did not know what the small alcove by the bar was called, the word ‘Snug’, carved on an authentically rustic shingle, hung over the doorway. Will Maples, an efficient slender young man in a sharp suit, ushered them in and switched on the log-effect gas fire. Though its initial flare was blue and cold, it soon emanated a rosy flickering glow, rendered suspect only by the fact that the logs never changed their outline or diminished in size. Carole knew about fires like that; she had a similar, smaller one at home in Fethering.

  ‘Anything I can get for you?’ asked the manager. He seemed over-anxious about their welfare, almost subservient, as if DS Baylis had some hold over him.

  The nature of that hold was quickly revealed. ‘Mrs Seddon’s soaked to the skin,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’m sure she could probably do with a nice warming brandy. That is, Will, if you could see your way to bending the law a little and serving drink out of your licensing hours?’

  Even without the sergeant’s wink and the young man’s blush, the implication would have been unmistakable. The Hare and Hounds had indulged some out-of-hours – probably after-hours – drinking and DS Baylis had turned a blind eye to it.

  ‘Certainly.’ Will Maples bustled behind the bar. ‘Is brandy what you’d like, madam?’

  It was a drink she rarely touched but, lagged in dampness, Carole couldn’t think of anything she’d like more. ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Just on its own?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And will you take something, Sergeant?’

  ‘Not while I’m on duty – that’s the line the coppers always use on the telly, isn’t it?’ Baylis chuckled. ‘I’ll have a large Grouse, thank you, Will. Same amount of water.’

  The manager placed a large brandy and the whisky on the table in front of them. ‘Leave you to it then,’ he said, and discreetly left the room.

  DS Baylis took a gratifying sip from his whisky and nestled back into the settle. ‘So, Mrs Seddon, if you wouldn’t mind just taking me through precisely what you saw . . .’

  It didn’t take Carole long. At the end of her account there was a silence. She waited, anticipating further questions, or even disbelief. Like most people, from schooldays onwards she had always felt absurdly guilty in the presence of an authority figure, even one nearly twenty years her junior. She felt ready to confess to all kinds of things she hadn’t done.

  ‘Well, that’s fine,’ said DS Baylis easily. ‘Let’s wait and hear if Hooper and Jenks have found anything else on the site. Must’ve been a nasty shock for you, Mrs Seddon.’

  And that was it. No further probing, no suspicion, no recrimination. Baylis moved on seamlessly to talk about his former ambitions as a footballer and how he still turned out, shift patterns permitting, every Sunday morning for his old school side. ‘I was brought up round here and there’s a bunch of us’ve kept the football up. Waddling old men now, though, I’m afraid. I used to be quite fast. Now I’ve got all these younger kids running circles round me. They still let me in the team. Don’t know for how much longer, though.’

  Carole realized that DS Baylis was rather good at his job. His apparently inconsequential chat was a kind of counselling. She was, as he had said, in shock, and his easy conversation masked an acute observation of her state. He was deliberately relaxing her, distancing her from the horror in the barn.

  It was nearly six when his mobile rang. ‘Yes, Hooper? Really think it needs a SOCO? OK, call them.’ He listened to a little more from his junior, then switched off the phone and turned apologetically to Carole. ‘Sorry, Mrs Seddon. I’ll have to go. Ring me on the number I gave you if there’s anything else.’

  ‘There’s hardly likely to be anything else, is there?’

  ‘I meant if you had any adverse reactions to what you saw, Mrs Seddon. We could put you in touch with a counsellor if you like.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine, thank you very much.’

  ‘Well, you just take it easy.’ Good Cop had become Extremely Caring Compassionate Cop. What was happening to the police force?

  There was a tap on the door behind the bar and Will Maples appeared with a tentative cough. ‘Sorry, Lennie. I’m afraid we’re going to have to open up.’

  ‘Of course, Will. Can’t keep the good people of Weldisham from their pints, can we? Could you do the lady another large brandy, please?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘On my tab.’

  There was another unmistakable wink from Baylis. And an embarrassed look from the manager. Whatever the hold Baylis had over him, Will Maples would rather it didn’t exist. Carole felt certain that the tab which had been alluded to did not exist. But she did not feel the righteous anger such an arrangement might normally have fired in her. DS Baylis was a kind man, a good policeman. A few free drinks to ease relations with the public couldn’t do much harm.

  ‘You just relax, OK, Mrs Seddon.’ He stopped at the door. ‘Let’s hope we meet again one day . . . in more pleasant circumstances.’

  ‘Yes, I’d like that,’ said Carole, as the latched door clattered shut behind him.

  But she didn’t relax. All she could think was that a SOCO was being called up to the barn. She knew ‘SOCO’ stood for ‘Scene of Crime Officer’.

  Which meant that the police thought there was a crime to investigate.

  Chapter Three

  Left on her own, Carole had an opportunity to look around the interior of the Hare and Hounds. Another carved shingle over a doorway the far side from the Snug announced that that way lay the restaurant. More rustic notices over doors beside the bar identified the toilets.

  The atmosphere being sought after in the pub was that of a comfortable country house. There were pairs of riding boots and the odd crop, metal jelly moulds, blue and white striped milk jugs and cat-gut tennis racquets in wooden presses. Wooden-shafted golf clubs and antiquated carpenters’ tools leaned artlessly against walls. Books were randomly scattered, without dust-jackets, their covers faded reds, blues and greens. Names like John Galsworthy, Warwick Deeping and E. R. Punshon gleamed in dull gold on their spines. To the wall of the Snug an ox yoke and a
n eel trap had been fixed. Behind the bar loomed a stuffed pike in a glass case.

  All of these artefacts were genuine, but bore the same relationship to reality as the log-effect gas fire did to real flames. They had no natural affinity with their environment; they had been carefully selected to create an instant ambience.

  Some of them also raised logical anomalies. For a start, everything that wasn’t firmly screwed to the wall was in a glass-fronted cupboard or on a shelf out of reach. Suppose someone came into the pub and fancied reading a chapter of E. R. Punshon? They couldn’t do much about it while the volume remained three feet above their head.

  The piscatorial exhibits prompted the same kind of questions. The Hare and Hounds was a good five miles from the nearest river, the Fether, which reached the sea at Fethering. So it couldn’t really be counted as a fisherman’s pub. The eel trap looked quaint and out of place. There probably were eels in the Fether, but Carole wondered whether they had ever, at any stage in history, been caught by the contraption fixed on the wall. And, though she didn’t know much about fish, she thought it unlikely that a pike would ever have lived in such a fast-flowing tidal river.

  On the dot of six, Will Maples unlocked the pub’s one exterior door, and was only just back behind the bar before his first customer of the evening arrived. Red-faced, in his fifties, ginger hair turning the colour of sand. Everything about the man seemed self-consciously to breathe the words ‘pub regular’, from his bottle-green corduroy trousers, deceptively clumsy shiny brown brogues, Guernsey sweater and over-new-looking Barbour to his cheery, ‘Evening, Will, old man. Pint of the usual.’ It was a voice that had been to the right schools, or learned to sound as if it had been to the right schools.