I didn’t exactly spring out of bed – my joints didn’t go in for springing these days – but I got up more quickly than usual to check the power, which was mercifully back on, and the weather. It was no longer raining, even if it looked as if it might start again any moment. Though there were plenty of huge puddles, the roads no longer ran with floodwater. Good. It wouldn’t suit me to be marooned. I was showered and dressed and just thinking about breakfast when Nick tapped on my door, shaved and wearing what I took to be his work clothes. He looked more on the point of leaving than demanding a full English.
‘I was just wondering about the things in your boiler room,’ he said.
‘I doubt if they’ll be dry enough to wear yet. In any case, you’re surely not going into the office – you’ll be needing to make insurance claims and generally sorting out your life.’
‘Where better than the office? And I can buy some new clothes in Taunton.’
‘Where you can also get some breakfast, no doubt. Don’t be a fool, Nick – with a stomach like yours, you ought to eat before you do anything. I’m not much of a breakfast woman myself, but there’s what the supermarket insists is freshly-squeezed orange juice, fresh fruit and organic bread with that marg that’s supposed to reduce your cholesterol. Tea or coffee? Oh, and I eat in the kitchen, if that’s all right by you.’
He nodded, looking more daunted than grateful, and followed me, sitting down like an obedient child.
‘What you also ought to be doing,’ I said, slicing bread and slotting it into the toaster, ‘is finding out whether Bulcombe really did alter the course of the stream – it might be an insurance scam, and I’d hate to see him getting away with it.’
‘You mean I might not be the target?’ He sounded doubtful.
I turned sharply. ‘What other threats did you have apart from the dead cats? Come on, Nick: what are you hiding?’
‘A couple of headless rats. And I’m not sure the damage to the caravan was accidental.’ He mumbled as if was all his fault.
‘Damage? You didn’t say anything about damage.’ I plonked the toast rack on the table as if checkmating him.
‘It could always have been a log, I suppose – there was a lot of debris floating around. The current was pretty strong.’
I reached across to tap his skull. ‘Hello? It there anyone at home in there? Something stove in your caravan and you think it’s an accident? On top of all those other things? For God’s sake, Nick you used to be a cop. For how many years? Thirty? When we crossed swords, you were a bright young man, destined to go far. You wouldn’t make it to parking warden on today’s showing!’
He disappeared, like that cat in Alice. Not physically, of course. Just like he had in the superstore. Something switched off inside. I stared, almost as freaked out as he obviously was. I knew you shouldn’t wake sleepwalkers, should stop people in epileptic fits swallowing their tongues. But what about men holding a piece of toast in one hand, a cup in the other, staring at something horrible I couldn’t see?
At last he put down the cup, and swallowed. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
Though I couldn’t see what bit of my diatribe he was agreeing with, I nodded. ‘So are you going to get in touch with the village bobby, or am I?’
He blinked. ‘Village bobby? Is there one?’
‘Of course not. Not in these days of improved service to the community. But there’s a decent sized cop shop in Taunton. There’d be someone there you could talk to, surely to goodness.’
‘Not the most popular people, retired officers trying to tell those still serving what to do,’ he mused, sinking into officialese as if it were a pair of comfy slippers.
‘Not even when you come with evidence?’
‘I have no evidence. Not unless you want me to exhume a dead cat from Sue Clayton’s back garden.’ He changed direction with an almost audible crunching of gears worthy of Sue herself. ‘Isn’t there someone from the church who could help her with that? Dig it over, plant a few low-maintenance shrubs? It’s clear she can’t manage it on her own.’
‘Maybe you should lead the way by offering her driving lessons,’ I said, hoping he’d spot the glint in my eye.
‘I’ll dare if you dare offer to put her car through a carwash first,’ he responded, colour returning to his face. ‘Thanks for the breakfast. Look, Josie, it’s clear you’re not geared up for paying guests at the moment. But if you’re right, and there is something going on round here, it’d make some sort of sense for me to stay where I am. Would it be inconvenient? It’s not as if I want five star service, bed linen and towels changed every ten minutes. And I could eat in the bar. And I’d pay in advance, if you want.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ I said. ‘Until you find your feet, at least.’ Goodness knew what the village would say, the two of us holed up together. Half of me wanted to wave a couple of fingers in the air and tell them to count them. The other half wondered if a bit of chaperonage in the form of Tom’s pregnant Sharon might not be a good idea. I’d phone Tom when he’d had time to wake up – apart from his Sundays with me, Tom worked one of the late night shifts at an M5 service station, a job he was hopelessly overqualified for. ‘And there’s no need to pay in advance. That room of yours is so… Seventies? Sixties, even?… I don’t like charging for it.’
‘You might as well – I shall be chalking it up for my insurance claim,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘And meals, too.’
‘You shall have a bill, then – all properly receipted. That’s why I stopped buying my meat from Reg Bulcombe’s crony,’ I added. ‘No paperwork. All cash in hand.’
He laughed. ‘So you did take some notice of what I was saying about BSE, then!’
‘I had a good surf round the Internet. I came to the conclusion you had to treat this thirty month regulation with respect. And if you don’t know your steak’s birthday, you can’t send it a card, can you?’
‘It’s actually quite bad news for organic farmers,’ he mused. ‘Naturally reared cattle take longer to mature than your average commercial beast. So they’re not past their prime at thirty months – they’re well short of it, in terms of meat per carcass.’
‘The stuff I’m going in for makes up in flavour what it lacks in growth. But I couldn’t get Fred Tregothnan to give an opinion one way or another on organic food. Not in front of Reg Bulcombe, anyway.’ I paused. Had there been real needle over the vet’s bills? Enough for Fred to sit apart from his cronies?
Nick sat down again. ‘Why should you mention Tregothnan in conjunction with Bulcombe?’
‘Well, you saw them – their backs at least – round the fire.’
‘Didn’t you think it odd, a professional man hobnobbing with all those yokels?’
‘You can tell a man who boozes, By the company he chooses,’ I quoted.
‘So who got up and slowly walked away?’
‘The last meal he had here, he ate on his own. He had this little spat with Reg – something about not spending in the bar money he owed in vet’s bills.’
‘In public? Not very tactful.’
‘Not a man for tact, Fred Tregothnan. When I banned him, he gave as good as he got, believe me.’
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘I don’t.’
‘Ah, you’ve been on the receiving end of my tongue when I was roused, haven’t you. Sorry, Copper, if you took any of it seriously. No hard feelings, I hope,’ I added lightly.
He didn’t reply. My God, he had taken my foul words to heart, hadn’t he? If not in the cold light of day, at least at three in the morning when you can only think of bad things.
I sat down again. ‘What happened to you that made you think I’d really cursed you?’
‘You see a lot of things as a police officer,’ he said in a remote voice, and left the room.
It would have been better if he’d raised his voice or slammed the door.
Fred Tregothnan wasn’t your sensitive type, not like Nick. He wouldn’t have turned a hair. Surely he wouldn’t. We’d talked once or twice about my distant ancestors after I’d told him off for calling someone a bastard gyppo. I’d told him I was entitled to have a foul mouth when roused – it was my only Romany legacy. But he had to watch what he called people, I said. He’d stayed away from the bar a couple of days on those occasions too.
But he hadn’t left the villagers in the lurch.
Maybe I ought to take a trip into Taunton Police Station myself – get my word in first.
It was a good job Nick wasn’t there to see me. I was playing ‘confession is good for the soul’ with all I could give it, complete with tears and some sodden paper hankies.
‘I was very angry, Sergeant,’ I told the bored young woman who’d been landed with listening to the rants of this hysterical old woman. The fact that she was a good five foot six and no more than a size eight, if that, didn’t make her any more likeable. Even her hair was genuinely blonde. I pleaded, ‘I had to make him realise that what he was doing was completely out of order.’ God, I hated that phrase. What did it mean, for goodness’ sake? But everyone on The Bill seemed to say it, so perhaps I should try it on her.
She nodded, absently, from the way she kept fingering it apparently more interested in a stray spot on her otherwise immaculate chin than in me. ‘Are you saying a grown man would be so upset by a few hard words that he left the village and hasn’t been seen since?’
I managed a rueful smile. ‘Put like that it doesn’t make much sense, does it? I’m sorry, I’ve obviously wasted your time.’
But she wasn’t as bored or as stupid as I’d thought her. ‘On the contrary. You’ve been very helpful. Tell me more about the incident that made you so angry. It wasn’t you he was assaulting, is that right? But one of your staff. Would she have –’
‘Lindi was inclined to think the whole thing was a joke, a bit of silliness. She didn’t want me to say anything.’
‘Have you discussed it with her?’
‘Only in a motherly way. I made her practise saying “No” out loud. A bit of assertiveness training,’ I grinned. There was no answering smile.
‘It’s a close knit community,’ she began.
My ears pricked. So they hadn’t dismissed the disappearance out of hand.
‘Would anyone else have been offended on her account? A father? A brother? A boyfriend?’
‘You’d have to ask them,’ I said as blandly as I could.
‘We will, Mrs Welford,’ she smiled ominously, ‘we will.’
OK, the interview wasn’t going quite the way I’d intended – that was an exit line if ever I’d heard one – but maybe I could capitalise on my mistake. ‘People are saying the police are taking this case unusually seriously.’
‘I hope we take all our cases seriously, Mrs Welford.’ She was shuffling some papers and any moment would close the folder and pick it up to show the interview was over. She did better. She got up, just managing not to yawn.
This was the moment to tell her about the bloodstained stream and the blocked path. That would bring her up short. But a series of intelligent observations wouldn’t accord with my earlier ditzy persona, would it? Maybe I’d keep them to myself for a while longer. Until my photographs had been developed at least. First stop Boots, then, and their one-hour developing service.
I was just going back to collect my photos, having spent a miserable hour dodging low pointing brollies and those huge pushchairs with plastic covers looking like mobile intensive care units, when my phone rang.
‘Nick?’
‘I know it’s an awful cheek, Josie, and I wouldn’t ask if you weren’t a wet weather walker, but would you mind showing me exactly where the path was blocked?’
‘Not at all. Provided you’ve got the right walking gear, that is. Have you?’
‘Er …’
‘I’m in Taunton myself as a matter of fact. I’ll meet you at your office and then we can sally forth together to get you everything you need. How do I get there? I’m just outside Brazz.’
‘I could meet you there –’
‘And expose me to all those tempting calories? Not bloody likely. OK, fire away –’
Nick’s office was as soulless a place as it had ever been my misfortune to see. I stared at the blank walls and minimal furniture.
‘I’d offer you a chair, but I think the Defra folk down the corridor may have borrowed it.’
They seemed to have borrowed his kettle, too – the one I’d seen him buy the other day, when he went into one of his brown studies. Should I remark on it or keep mum? ‘I thought they were supposed to be improving farming and the environment, not nicking furniture. Shouldn’t they get their own? Or are they too busy having rural affairs?’
To my amazement, the feeble joke made him put back his head and laugh, the sound echoing round the office as if it hadn’t heard such irreverence before. ‘Not with me, I’m afraid. Yes, it’s a hole, isn’t it? It’s only when you look at it through someone else’s eyes you see how bleak it is. Never mind, I’m sure I shall find a few posters about Colorado Beetle to brighten up the place,’ he added, with an encouragingly sardonic grin. Perhaps there was still some life in him.
‘A few pot plants, some nice bright mugs – you’ll soon make it home. Not that you’re here much, are you? On the road most of the time?’
‘Apparently work comes in waves. The farm near Southampton I should have gone to today’s been cut off by floods. My predecessor was a good boy and finished all his paperwork before he left, so I’m at a loose end.’
‘You’ve spoken to your insurance company?’
‘As soon as I arrived. They’d love to send an assessor but don’t know when it’ll be: I’m not the only one to have suffered.’
‘I bet they’d love a few photos of the site.’
‘My camera was one of the things washed away.’
‘Mine wasn’t. I’ve just bought a new film. Come on – what are you waiting for?’
The razor and barbed wire tangle was just where I’d left it, but no new tripwires had been set up. None that I could see, anyway. I photographed everything again, from a different angle, and then led the way up the path that would eventually take us to Nick’s campsite. We didn’t talk much. For all he must have been five, maybe seven, years younger than me, he was distinctly out of condition, puffing and blowing and ready to stop at every convenient vantage point.
‘What happens if we go up there?’ With his walking stick – yes, I’d insisted he bought one of those, to go with his new weatherproof gear – he pointed to his left.
‘We get lost. Funny, I’d never even realised there was a stream there. I thought it was just a sheep track that was always a bit wet.’
‘It’s a bit more than a bit wet now.’
It was a full-blown torrent. How come I’d never registered it? I double-checked with the map: no, nothing. Weird.
Nick peered over my shoulder, tracing its probable route with his finger. ‘What’s that mean?’
‘Some sort of building. Look, there’s a track leading to it. From your lane.’ I turned. ‘Do you suppose the track’s wide enough for one of your unlit lorries?’
‘I’ll bet it is. But I’d rather check it by car than on foot.’
‘Yep. The scenic route would be nice on a fine day. OK. Right here, then.’
I snapped away at the campsite, no longer flooded but clearly awash, from a variety of angles. Then we dropped down to the level of the reception area. I was relieved to see that there was no sign of Reg Bulcombe. Nick’s staying at the White Hart was one thing; his walking out in the rain with his landlady was another.
Nick quite understood. While I hung back, he peered ostentatiously. ‘Maybe he’s busy contacting the owners of the late, lamented country retreats.’
‘“Retreats”? More like last stands!’
‘There’ll be some corner of an English field that is forever matchwood!’ he offered.
Cackling with silly laughter, we headed through the oozing field. I took some record shots, including some of a suspicious gash in the front of Nick’s desirable residence, stacked up out of reach on top of other victims, so we couldn’t rescue anything more. Then I took some weird ones too. Not quite Man Ray, but pleasingly abstract.
At last, the rain, no more than occasional if vicious spots while we were walking, returned in good earnest. I stowed the camera under my waterproof, patting the pregnant looking bulge.
As we trudged back, Reg’s car pulled up.
‘Leave him to me,’ I muttered, wondering, all the same, what I could say. ‘Just smile like a daft grockle.’
But no subterfuge was needed. Head down, Reg kicked the cab door shut and strode head down into his house. If he saw us through gaps in the greying net curtains, he gave no sign.