It was light by the time she put her daughter to bed, hanging a blanket over the window to try to darken the room.
David was still in the kitchen, making himself coffee. ‘A spare bed?’
‘My mother’s asleep in it.’ She hadn’t gone back to Arum Cottage last night; she was upstairs in the small bedroom.
‘What about the couch?’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Right. Bad idea. I’ll go. Are there any hotels? Sorry. Seaside. Of course there are.’
Checking the clock, Cupidi realised there was barely any point going to bed now anyway. She would have to be at work in three hours.
‘What a gigantic cock-up,’ said David.
‘Use my laptop. Book yourself into a hotel. Call Cathy in the morning. I’m going to go up and change.’
‘I don’t suppose there are any jobs going here, are there?’
‘Fuck off, David,’ she said. ‘Go on. Or I’ll call the police on you.’
‘You’re joking, obviously.’
‘Try me.’
And by the time she had come back downstairs, dressed in her walking gear, he had gone. She took her mobile out of the rice for a second time. This time when she pressed the button the screen lit up.
That morning she tramped up to the firing ranges, trying to add together the pieces of what she knew in a way that made some sense. In so much of this job, you could never make things better, but you could stop them getting worse. You could, at least, make things right. That was what had always been important. For the first time since she had seen the dead woman emerging from the black water, she felt sure she was on the right path. There was still so much she didn’t understand, though.
Ahead, the swallows were already dipping in the warming air, but it would be autumn soon.
She walked fast, longing for vicious storms to come sweeping up the channel, for waves crunching into the stones, for the dangerous high tides that could sweep everything away.
By the time she arrived back she was covered in sweat. Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, tapping at her laptop.
‘That man, he’s gone then?’
‘Don’t start, Mum.’
‘He’s an arse, that’s all I’m saying.’
Cupidi put her arms around her mother’s shoulders. ‘No one’s good enough for your daughter.’
‘At your age you should take what you can get, obviously,’ her mother said. ‘As long as it’s not him.’
Cupidi leaned forward and kissed her on the top of her head.
‘What was that for?’
‘You were thinking about your sister last night, weren’t you?’
Her mother nodded. She kissed her a second time.
‘I don’t think I ever realised what that had done to you,’ Cupidi said. ‘I always thought you were so hard.’
Her mother just sat, saying nothing.
The phone in Cupidi’s pocket started to buzz. She looked at the screen; a number she didn’t recognise. ‘Hello?’ she said, cautiously.
‘She didn’t come home last night,’ said a voice.
‘Jill?’
‘Yeah. Sorry. New phone.’
‘You were there all night?’
‘Pretty much,’ said the constable. ‘Do you think she’s scarpered? I’m worried about her.’
‘What are you doing? You’re supposed to be resting.’
‘I can’t,’ said Jill. ‘I’m going to come into work today. It’ll drive me nuts staying at home. Want me to pick you up?’
‘Can you drive?’
‘With a bit of swearing,’ she said.
Cupidi was going through her jackets, looking for her locker key, when her mother said, ‘Oh. Breaking news. You asked me about Greenham Common.’
Cupidi looked around.
‘Look.’ She was pointing to her laptop. ‘I just had an email from Elfie. She remembers Hilary Keen. She says she had a boyfriend called Daniel.’
‘Elfie?’ Her mum’s best friend; the hippie woman who lived in a huge, dark attic flat full of fake Tiffany lamps draped with scarves. ‘You’re kidding me.’
‘No. I have a number for him. Elfie was one of his old flames too, it turns out. This Daniel, he lives in Hertfordshire apparently. She says he’s a healer.’
‘For God’s sake.’
‘I know. But you know Elfie. All ear candles and St John’s wort. Give me your notebook.’ Cupidi pulled out her police book from her handbag and her mother wrote the number in it. ‘Elfie says he’s expecting your call,’ she said.
In the farmyard, Ferriter got out of the car, opening the back door to pull out a crutch.
‘Finest plums in the world, round here,’ she said. ‘Ripen slowly, see, on account of the Kent climate? Not like Spanish plums. They don’t get a chance for the acidity to come out.’
‘That so?’
‘So,’ she said, hobbling as she closed the door, ‘You say Zoë saw a girl who was upset about something, and that’s why we’re here?’
The farm, which had seemed so quiet last night, was alive. A group of young men sat on the grass, drinking coffee from a flask.
‘Yes. I think her mother may have been a worker on one of the farms around here.’
‘That all?’
Cupidi was tired, couldn’t face the idea of explaining every-thing she had been through last night to her younger colleague.
A tractor drove into the yard pulling a trailer full of empty plastic boxes. Cupidi left the car and called over to the driver, ‘You in charge?’
The man stuck his head out of the cab and pointed to a low brick building with a wooden sign outside: Office.
Cupidi knocked on the door. A man in his forties in a light-blue shirt looked up. His blue eyes matched his shirt, and the pale eyebrows above them made them look bluer still.
‘Kent Police,’ she said.
He frowned, holding out his hand. ‘Anything I can help you with?’
‘I had a report of a teenage girl out on the marsh last night. She was distressed, apparently.’ Standing, the man looked suitably concerned, though puzzled. So she added, ‘She wasn’t an English speaker, either.’
‘And?’
‘Everyone on your farm speak English, do they?’
‘So you think she might have been from one of the families of our temporary workers?’
‘This is your farm?’
‘I’m just the manager. So you’ll want to ask them, I suppose?’
‘Is that possible?’
‘Of course. We’ll do it right away.’ He strode back out into the morning sunlight. ‘That your car? Jump in. We can drive up to the top fields. That’s where they’re working today.’ He opened a steel gate at the far end of the yard, waited for them to drive through, then closed it again behind them as Cupidi sat, engine idling.
‘Did you ever employ a woman called Rasa Petrauska?’ she asked, when he had got into the back of the car.
‘May have done, but I never know the names. The agencies take care of that. We subcontract to them. What nationality?’
‘Lithuanian.’
‘Yep. We have plenty of them.’
‘Are there many orchards around here?’
‘Not round here. We’re the only one. Most of the big orchards are further north, the far side of the Weald. Around here it’s arable and sheep, mostly. We’re pretty new. Still getting a hold. Tough business.’
So if the girl had signalled that she was a fruit-picker, she must have meant this farm, thought Cupidi.
‘What’s the youngest age of your workers?’
‘Eighteen, I suppose. You’d have to ask the gangmasters. Everything’s legit. We have all the paperwork from them.’
Could the girl Zoë had seen have been that old?
The car bumped up a concrete track, past neat rows of young apple trees, limbs weighted with fruit.
Leaning back, Ferriter asked, ‘Any North Africans ever work here?’
‘No, wouldn’t say so. A few Poles sometimes. Never any English. Can’t get them. Would love to employ local people, but nobody turns up. Getting seasonal labour is a nightmare. Harder every year with all the new legislation. It’s killing us.’
‘Where do they all live when they’re here?’ asked Cupidi.
He waved his hand. ‘All around and about here. The agencies pick them up, bring them here. They rent houses.’
‘Which agencies?’
‘We use a few, obviously. It’s a struggle to get the numbers, this time of year. Fruit needs to get picked. Head between that row of trees there.’
Cupidi left the track and drove a little way up between the plum trees. Workers were tucked into the foliage. Some wore hats, some wore scarves or handkerchiefs tied loosely around their heads. They all had large buckets strapped to their chests supported by shoulder straps, into which they were placing the picked plums. Working steadily, they paid no attention to the approaching car.
‘Stop here.’
Further up the row, a tractor was parked with a line of trailers behind it, each loaded with plastic crates that were being slowly filled by the pickers.
‘Can I talk to them?’
‘You speak Lithuanian, Latvian and Polish?’
Cupidi was tired. She didn’t have any energy for humour. Instead she gave the man a glare.
‘Right. I’ll get one of the gangmasters to have a word.’
She sat on the hot car bonnet as butterflies and wasps circled the trees. The gangmaster was a muscular, fair-haired man in his thirties wearing a checked shirt, who smiled at Cupidi in a way that irritated her. When Cupidi explained what she wanted to know, he leaned inside the police car and blew the horn twice.
The work stopped. People turned.
He spoke briefly. When he had finished talking, the workers all just stared at him. A few shrugged, shook their heads. Then turned back to work.
‘Wait,’ said Cupidi. ‘Ask them again. She was a young girl or woman.’
The man smiled, spoke for a second time. This time, a couple of people answered out loud. Cupidi couldn’t see all their faces. Some were hidden by the heavy branches of the trees.
‘Ask them if anyone didn’t make it to work this morning.’
More people answered this time.
‘Several people, naturally,’ he said. ‘They are free to work or not work if they choose. Some people like to take a rest day.’
‘Was any of them a young woman with black hair?’
‘No.’
‘How do you know? You haven’t asked them.’
The man simply said, ‘They told me the names of everyone who didn’t make it. I know them all.’
Is that what they had really told him? Cupidi had no way of telling. ‘What about you? Do you know of a young woman who might be in distress?’
‘Of course not. I would have said if I had.’
The workers were already returning to their tasks. Without an interpreter she couldn’t even be sure that the questions had been asked properly. Nobody seemed particularly concerned about the idea of a missing girl, anyway.
‘Wait. Ask them if they knew a woman called Rasa Petrauska.’
‘Petrauska? I know her. She used to work with me last winter. Then she disappeared. She still owed me money for rent.’
‘When was that?’
‘March, maybe.’ He shouted over to a man up a ladder. Cupidi heard the name Petrauska. Without stopping picking, the man answered.
‘Yes. March he says too. Maybe February.’
‘Why do you think she stopped working?’
‘These workers move on if they find something else. Or find a boyfriend.’ Again he called out to the man up the ladder. The man said something back. They laughed.
‘What did he say?’
‘He said she probably found a better agency. One that didn’t work them like slaves. He was joking, of course,’ smiled the man. ‘I told him he was fired. I was joking too, of course.’
‘You’re registered? With the Gangmasters Licensing Authority?’
‘Of course. I can show you the paperwork if you want.’
She turned away to Martin, the farm manager, and said, ‘OK if I look around for a bit?’
‘Aren’t you done here?’
‘Would you rather I didn’t?’
‘No. Of course. Be our guest.’
‘Try a plum,’ said the gangmaster, tossing her one.
She sat on the bonnet of the car, eating it, watching the people work, aware that her continued presence was making Martin uncomfortable.
‘Don’t I get a plum?’ Ferriter called from the back of the car.
The motion in front of Cupidi was constant. As soon as the fruit from one branch was exhausted, a worker moved up the line of trees. Occasionally someone would stop, to swat away a bug, but they were focused, almost machine-like. Nobody spoke.
When she’d finished the plum, she spat out the stone and said to the farmer, ‘No other workers on the farm?’
‘One or two back at the yard.’
‘Come on then.’
He looked at his watch, impatience more obvious with every minute that passed.
She didn’t care. She was sure she was on to something. It was good to stir the pot a little and see what came to the surface.
Back below, Cupidi saw a unmarked police car pulling up. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked.
‘Looks like the boss,’ said Ferriter.
It was. As McAdam got out of his car, Cupidi was conscious that she’d been up all night; she felt old and crumpled. As always, McAdam looked well-pressed.
‘How’s he even know we’re here?’
Ferriter said, ‘I told them at the station.’
‘So what’s he want?’
But he was already striding towards them. ‘Back on duty already, Constable Ferriter?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He frowned, then turned to Cupidi. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘My daughter said she saw someone out round here last night in distress,’ said Cupidi.
‘Look, is something going on that I need to know about?’ said the farmer, irritated.
‘This inquiry wasn’t logged as an action,’ said McAdam.
‘Is this not an official inquiry?’ demanded the farmer.
Cupidi ignored him. ‘I didn’t have time to log it, sir. Listen. Hilary Keen’s body was found about two miles in that direction.’ Cupidi pointed to the east. ‘The unidentified man was about one and a half miles that way,’ this time moving her hand towards the south-east.
‘You didn’t say anything about a body,’ said the farmer irritatedly.
‘The girl my daughter saw was just south of where Hilary Keen’s body was found.’
‘So what are we doing here?’ asked McAdam.
‘Apparently the woman didn’t speak English. I reckon she may have been a migrant worker, or the daughter of one. I thought I should come straight here.’
McAdam looked around.
‘Most of the farms round here are sheep,’ Cupidi continued. ‘There’s a few arable, but not many. They don’t need migrant workers this time of year. But fruit farms do, and I think the girl Zoë saw may have worked on a fruit farm.’
‘She told you that?’
‘No. I never met her.’
‘Right. You said. Your daughter talked to her. When was that?’
‘Around midnight, I’m guessing.’
‘Your daughter was out here in the middle of the night?’
‘Yes, sir.’
McAdam frowned.
‘And you think she’s here?’
‘There’s no one of that description on this farm,’ insisted the farmer.
Cupidi pointed towards a blue metal barn at one end of the yard. ‘Ever get any rough sleepers in there?’ she asked.
‘Rough sleepers? What’s all this really about, Sergeant? Is this some kind of murder investigation?’
‘Do rough sleepers stay here?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware,’ said the farmer.
‘Mind if I look?’
‘Will you be long? This is our busiest time of the year. You haven’t properly explained why you’re on our land or why you’re looking around here.’
‘We appreciate the assistance you’re giving us, sir,’ said McAdam.
Cupidi thought of the man in the slurry; of the places he had chosen to stay. They were hidden, out of the way. Sometimes the farmers didn’t even know they were there.
‘There is nothing there,’ the farmer insisted.
‘In that case it’ll take even less time.’
He shrugged. ‘OK. Go ahead.’
‘Are you sure about this, Sergeant Cupidi?’ asked McAdam.
‘Yes, sir.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think something’s been going on here. I just don’t know what. But that girl, I swear she would have come from here.’
The barn they entered seemed to be full of equipment: fruit sprayers, trimmers, mowing attachments, all laid out on the concrete, but there was no sign that anyone had stayed here.
‘Maybe we should take this back to the office?’ said McAdam.
‘What about through there?’ She nodded towards a doorway at the far end, where she could see a second building.
‘We store apples there. We can keep them for a year or more, so we sell them when the price is right.’
‘Can I look?’
‘Why?’ said the farmer.
‘Why not?’
The farmer sighed and led them through to the far side of the barn. There was a black and yellow sign on the door: DANGER. DO NOT ENTER.
‘It’s a controlled environment. That’s what keeps the apples fresh,’ said the farmer.
‘Can I see inside?’ she asked again.
The farmer’s civility was wearing thin. ‘Believe me, there’s no one in there. And if they were, they’d be long dead. It’s a specially created atmosphere. We deliberately lower the temperature and pump nitrogen in to replace the oxygen. It stops the fruit ripening.’
‘I don’t mind the cold,’ she said.
Crossing his hands in front of his chest, the farmer said, ‘If I opened the door, we’d have to vent it, then fill it with nitrogen again. At a cost. You going to pay for that?’
Cupidi banged on the door, testing it.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ McAdam said. ‘What exactly are we looking for here, anyway?’
Cupidi said, ‘I’ll know when I see it.’
‘Jesus,’ said the farmer. He walked to the far end of the shed, where there was a second door with the same warning. ‘If you want to see, this shed’s identical. OK?’
Opening it, he stepped inside. Cupidi followed. Beyond the first door, there was a second, smaller one, set in a metal wall.
‘Go on. Look. This one’s empty right now. We’ll fill it up over the next few weeks when the apples come in.’
Cupidi looked into a bare, dark room, walls padded with insulation. Empty shelves stood ready to receive trays of fruit. Along one wall there were vents. Again, there was no sign of anyone having been in there at all. She was disappointed. She had been sure she would find something here that would make sense of what was going on, but there was nothing.
Back outside, the sunshine seemed brighter.
‘Satisfied?’ said the farmer.
‘Thank you for your cooperation, sir,’ said McAdam. ‘It’s very much appreciated.’ Cupidi was still looking at the locked apple store, wondering if she should demand he open it, when McAdam took her elbow and marched her away from the farmer. ‘In my car,’ he said. ‘Now.’
Opening the rear door, he gestured for Cupidi to get in. Instead of getting in the driver’s seat, McAdam walked around the car and got in next to her.
‘What, sir?’ said Cupidi.
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling of the car. ‘The IPCC are going to re-interview you about the Hilary Keen case. I think there’s going to be a misconduct hearing. They’ll recommend suspension, I think.’
‘They don’t have enough for that.’
‘Don’t they? The reason I called so much support for you was because of an incident two years ago that appears not to have been logged properly so it left no record. I know it happened, but they don’t believe me. They think I invented it all to justify what happened at Speringbrook House. Now they ask me where you are, and I don’t even know, and there’s nothing logged either.’
‘Sorry, sir.’ Instead of making things better for him, she was making it worse.
‘This fellow here…’ He pointed at the farmer. ‘He’ll be making a complaint about you, I’m guessing.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised, sir.’
‘At least this was something I didn’t give orders for,’ said McAdam with a wry smile.
Cupidi squinted into the sunlight. ‘Why do they want to ask me about Hilary Keen?’
‘Because I told them I knew you weren’t convinced that Stanley Eason was the killer.’
‘Why? It only gives them the ammunition they want.’
Ferriter was standing in the middle of the farmyard, leaning on her single crutch, looking into the car, as if trying to figure out what McAdam was ticking her off about.
‘Because it’s true, isn’t it? And that’s what we’re supposed to be about. Finding out the truth.’ Suddenly he looked tired. ‘They asked if they could interview you again this afternoon.’
‘Could I do it another time?’
‘No.’
‘Just… I found someone who knew Hilary Keen. I had planned on going to see him this afternoon.’
‘Really? A significant lead?’
‘I won’t know till I speak to him.’
Through the window, Cupidi could see Ferriter mouthing, ‘What’s going on?’
‘Well, I’m sure the IPCC wouldn’t want to interfere with the normal working of a murder investigation,’ said McAdam. ‘I’ll let them know you’re busy and can’t speak to them until later.’
‘Might take me a while, sir.’
He turned to her and smiled. ‘Longer the better, Alex, far as I’m concerned.’ And he opened the door.
‘OK if Ferriter catches a ride back with you?’ asked Cupidi.
‘Of course.’
Ferriter hobbled across to Cupidi. ‘What’s going on?’
‘He thinks they’re going to throw Gross Misconduct at him.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Anything we can do?’
‘Get a result for him. That’s the best thing. It’s a lot harder to argue with results. Go back with McAdam. If you can, try and track down Najiba. It’s crucial we find her now.’
As she waited to drive out into the lane she looked back in her rear-view mirror. The farmer was still there, waiting to see if she’d gone.
She gunned the car down the lane, taking a left to head for the main road.
Rounding a corner, she saw the horse too late. Panicked by the car, it reared. Cupidi watched in horror as it raised its front legs in fright.
The rider was a woman; knees tight on the horse, leaning into the horse’s mane, she was struggling to stay on, as hooves clattered back down on the tarmac.
Cupidi pulled the car into the opposite verge. She cut the engine. The horse settled.
‘You stupid idiot!’ shouted the woman.
Cupidi sighed. She would have to apologise. She had been careless.
Where had the horse come from, anyway? It had just appeared, as if from nowhere.
‘Oh. It’s you,’ the rider said. Against the sunlight, perched on the back of a grey mare, Cupidi made out the silhouette of Connie Reed.
‘I was going too fast, I’m sorry.’
‘You weren’t looking properly.’ Reed seemed to be scrutinising her. ‘No matter. No harm done. Did you find any more of those people?’
‘No. They’ve disappeared.’
‘Your friend all right? The one with the leg?’
‘Fine. No serious damage done. Like you said.’
Connie Reed nodded.
‘What are you doing all the way out here?’ asked Cupidi.
‘It’s pretty close, as the crow flies at least. I take the horses along the Royal Military Road. Give them a good run.’ A bridle-way that ran alongside the canal.
Something occurred to Cupidi. ‘The Royal Military Road, you said? You go as far as where it crosses the Hamstreet Road?’
‘Of course. Only two or three miles. Why?’
‘Just thinking aloud.’
‘I’ll be off then. Be more careful in future,’ Connie Reed said curtly, and flicked her reins. The horse trotted on. In the mirror Cupidi watched it clopping down the lane for a minute, dark tail swishing slowly from side to side. She noticed the bridleway then, on the far side of the road, almost completely shaded by leaves. The rider must have emerged from there.
Traveller’s joy, they called it, the lush creeper that covered old hedges and trees, its pale flowers turning to fluffy white balls of seeds by this time of year. It had hidden the exit into the small lane.
It hadn’t been her fault at all, she realised. It was Reed who must have emerged onto the road without looking. She restarted the car and moved off again, though more cautiously this time.