Breakfast was a stilted affair with Eloise appearing, yawning, pushing the blonde hair out of her eyes, wrapping herself tightly in a dressing gown over a pair of pink pyjamas. She looked very young, much younger than her eighteen years, almost the small girl Joanna had first met when she had visited Matthew’s farm once to question him about the murder of a nurse. Eloise accepted some cereal and fruit juice and swigged away at an enormous mug of coffee Matthew had brewed.
‘Well,’ Joanna said awkwardly, standing up and clearing her dishes into the dishwasher. ‘I have to go now. Good luck,’ she said to Eloise. ‘I hope you get your place.’ She gave a sly peek at Matthew. ‘Your father will love to see more of you.’
Eloise’s green eyes gave her a look so transparent Joanna could read their message: Not you, though.
The two women smiled at each other and Matthew looked happy, taken in by the charade.
Joanna kissed his cheek, then, feeling a wave of affection at the scratchy bristles, his mouth. ‘Bye, darling,’ she said. ‘See you later.’
He nodded. She ran upstairs to clean her teeth and minutes later was on her bike, which Mike had managed to stow in the back of his Volvo last night.
As she cycled across the moors her mind was as furiously busy as her legs. Question after question presented itself. Who was the friend who had recognised Mrs Grimshaw? she wondered. Because this supposedly chance encounter had set in motion a train of events. If Mrs Grimshaw was telling the truth, her discovery, living under an assumed identity, had been the key that had led to her return home. What bearing might this have had on her husband’s murder? There was one way to find out.
Even though Joanna shared one characteristic with most other police officers – a mistrust of anyone’s statement – the answer was inescapable. Ask her.
Mike almost groaned when she put her suggestion to him. His dark eyes rested on her with a look of impatience. ‘I don’t see where that’s going to lead us, Jo,’ he said grumpily. ‘The murder was committed here, not abroad. It’s a local thing. A squabble about land, resentment about the intrusion of a farm on a posh housing estate, a false claim of murder of our victim’s wife, a daughter who stands to benefit from her father’s death. It all happened in Leek. So it’s here that we need to look for motive and method. Not some bar in Eastern Europe. Grimshaw had never even been out of the country. So why would there be a foreign connection?’
She was surprised at Korpanski’s outburst. Whatever her line of inquiry, he generally went along with it. Not opposing. He tended to trust both her judgement and her decisions. Unbidden, a vision of the inside of the barn at Prospect Farm swam in front of her eyes. Plastic sacks of animal feed, the rope, dangling free, the oblong bales of hay, neatly stacked. ‘There is a foreign connection,’ she said stubbornly, ‘but we won’t know what it is unless we probe a bit more.’ She attempted to retrieve Korpanski’s missing good humour. ‘You know how I hate loose ends, Mike.’ She picked up the phone.
Mrs Grimshaw was in an equally negative mood when Joanna put her question to her. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ she snapped.
‘Mrs Grimshaw,’ Joanna said. She was getting fed up with all this. ‘Just give me the name and let me decide what, if any, bearing this has on your husband’s death.’
There was a long pause, so long that Joanna was on the point of asking the question again, but Mrs Grimshaw finally grunted and provided the name. Reluctantly. Joanna had the impression that she had caught Grimshaw’s widow on the hop. Whatever questions she had expected, this had not been one of them. Ergo, she did not have an answer prepared.
‘Brian Young,’ she said, the name being dragged out of her. ‘He was an old school friend of mine, years and years ago. He wandered into the bar where I was employed and – well – he recognised me. I knew then that the game was up, that he would soon spread the gospel.’ The bitterness in her voice was a puzzle to Joanna. Avis Grimshaw could easily have moved on to another city, another country, even, and vanished again even if her cover had been blown. It would have taken the police years to catch up with her; she would have been a low priority on the long list of criminals.
Avis continued. ‘He never could resist being the centre of attention and seeing me there, going under the name of a neighbour he knew to be dead – well – I didn’t have a chance, did I?’
‘His address?’ Joanna repeated, unwilling to be deflected. Sulkily, Mrs Grimshaw gave it to her. ‘I don’t know the actual address,’ she said, ‘but he owns a garage on the Ashbourne road. He lives above it – on his own – in a flat. He and his wife split up years ago. I don’t know who his current partner is. When he was in Bratislava, he came alone.’
Joanna thanked her and put the phone down. ‘Brian Young,’ she said thoughtfully to Mike. ‘Now why does that name ring a bell?’
Korpanski supplied the answer. ‘He came out of prison eight months ago.’
‘What was he in for?’
‘Drugs. Quite the little baron. He had a ring that extended down to the south of Spain, using the back door of Morocco, smuggling in marijuana. Made a nice packet out of it right up until he got busted by the Drugs Squad.’ Korpanski nibbled the top of his pen. ‘Now, I wonder what he was doing in the Czech Republic.’
‘Right.’ Joanna was thoughtful. ‘What did we discover about this end of the operation?’
‘Not a lot,’ Korpanski said, then added, ‘not enough really. We tracked down some of his accomplices but never felt we had the full story. And he wasn’t telling. In the end they banged him up for eight years. He was out after three.’ He gave a long, heartfelt, regretful sigh. Had it been up to Sergeant Mike Korpanski, the entire parole system would have been scrapped.
Joanna stood up. ‘Well, Korpanski, let’s go and visit this Mr Young.’
They tracked Young down to the workshop at the side of a very busy and prosperous-looking site. Queues of cars were waiting to fill up with fuel. There was a rumour of yet another price hike in the oil industry so customers were taking no chances. Young was standing with his head under the bonnet of a blue Honda Jazz and looked up warily at the two police, recognising them instantly. It’s a talent most ex-cons have – the ability to recognise police personnel at forty paces – even if they’ve never met before. It’s a useful instinct in the criminal fraternity.
He didn’t even question their identity or wait for them to flash their ID cards before speaking. ‘I’ve done my time,’ he said. ‘You’ve nothing on me now.’
Joanna decided to play him along.
‘Your visit to Bratislava,’ she began.
Young looked instantly even more wary. ‘So, what of it? I’m allowed a legitimate holiday, aren’t I?’
‘Of course,’ Joanna said soothingly. ‘I’m only really interested in someone you met over there. An old school friend?’
Young looked bemused.
‘A Mrs Grimshaw.’
‘Oh.’ His brow cleared. ‘Her. What of it?’
‘You didn’t know she was there?’
Young wiped his hands on an oily rag. ‘Not only did I not know she was there,’ he said. ‘I understood she’d vanished. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I walked into the bar and there she was, serving at tables. She’d walked out on her husband years ago. No one knew what had happened to her. Like most people round here, if I thought about it at all I just assumed she’d gone off with a man. She always was a feisty sort of woman. Not your typical farmer’s wife. It gave me a shock to see her. And I don’t think she was too pleased to see me either. She started off asking me not to say anything to anyone at home.’ His eyes were pale blue and surprisingly shrewd with tiny, sharp pupils. He smiled with his teeth without it even grazing his eyes and Joanna guessed that he had not reassured Mrs Grimshaw that he would keep quiet. He was more likely to have tried to blackmail her. She returned the smile, noticing that he had omitted to mention that his old school friend was living in a foreign country under an assumed name. ‘Next thing I knew,’ Young finished, ‘I heard she was back. And then—’
‘Her husband gets bumped off,’ Korpanski supplied.
And that, Joanna thought, was that.
She decided to rattle Young. ‘And how did you enjoy your…’ her pause was deliberate, ‘holiday, Mr Young?’
Young scowled.
She tried one more tack. A blind leap. ‘What was the name of the bar? Where exactly was it? Who owned it?’
‘It’s called Posh.’
Joanna couldn’t resist a smirk at Korpanski.
‘It’s in the Old Town just behind the main square. Fantastic place, it is. Must be worth a fortune. It was packed every night I was there. Heaving.’
Now Joanna was curious. ‘What sort of a place is it?’
Young shrugged. ‘Bit of everything. Music, cabaret, food, drinks. And round the back is a sort of motel extension. Must be twenty or thirty rooms. And the grounds. Well…’ He narrowed his eyes.
‘Who owns it?’
Young looked surprised. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Avis does,’ he said.
This was food for thought. Joanna and Mike exchanged startled glances. It wasn’t exactly how Avis had portrayed her missing years. ‘Really?’
They left Young to his mechanics then and returned to the station.
As soon as they were safely back in their office, Joanna began to speak. ‘Not quite the penniless barmaid then, was she?’
She continued. ‘What bearing this’ll have on our investigation I don’t know, Mike. But it is significant.’ She met his eyes. ‘Where did she get the money from, Mike? How did she make so much?’ She hesitated for a moment before adding a question. ‘Do you smell a rat, Mike?’
‘Property’s probably done well over there since the mid-nineties. She could have done it legitimately.’
Joanna said nothing.
He tried again. ‘She’s obviously a good businesswoman. She could have borrowed the money and made the whole thing work.’
‘Under a false name. Open to blackmail,’ she continued. ‘But if her business over there was legitimate except for her assumed name, she could still have continued. She’d have to have come back here, assumed her own identity, had her wrists slapped. But if on the other hand she was up to something more…’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘There’s something else, Mike. Something we’ve missed out on.’
For no apparent reason the image of the barn was still in front of her eyes, nagging for her attention. The neat bales of hay, the plastic sacks of animal feed, the rope swinging, almost beckoning her to follow.
She knew the clue was there. Right in front of her eyes.
When she looked up, Korpanski was watching her with a strange, almost worried expression in his eyes.
‘There’s something in this that intrigues me, Mike,’ she said.
He perched on the corner of the desk, swinging his muscular legs to and fro. ‘What exactly?’
She met his eyes with a hard, confident stare. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said slowly, ‘except coincidence. Mrs Grimshaw remains hidden for years, a fellow from Leek finds her. She returns and the next thing her husband’s dead. She openly tells us she was on his premises on one of the days that he could have died. This knowing she would be chief suspect. Why? Why? All along I’ve felt time of death was significant. A false trail was laid deliberately to lead us to believe that Jakob Grimshaw died on the Tuesday, in which case Avis could have spoken to him. But we’ve surmised that the Tuesday was a false trail.’ She frowned. ‘Why? To give Judy an alibi? One we could never break – a list of patients waiting to see her. Did mother and daughter have contact in the intervening years? Is their apparent hostility nothing but a clever device to make us believe they could not have worked together, covered for each other? How did Avis Grimshaw make all that money? A lot of evidence leads us towards Jakob’s wife and daughter but it isn’t the entire story. The farm is encircled by a ring of hostile neighbours who all have their own reason for wishing the place off the map. The Westons, for animal rights reasons; Mrs Frankwell, to get a good price for her property; Mostyn, who stands to gain if his land beyond the farm is granted planning permission; Frankwell, who is desperate to sell his house and has been deceived by the old farmer.’ She couldn’t resist a smirk, remembering the deep scratch that had scored the side of the Porsche. ‘I can’t see Gabriel Frankwell being too pleased at being made a fool of by Grimshaw, can you? Then there is the wild card, that after years, generations, of clinging on to the farm, Grimshaw may have been about to sell up. And we have more. A daughter who has believed her mother dead for eight years, that her father murdered her and disposed of the body in a most barbaric way. If her story is true, Judy Grimshaw held this story to her heart for more than a year before she divulged it to Dudson, the neighbouring farmer, the man she’d believed her mother might have had an affair with but who fairly obviously had not eloped with her.’ Her eyes met Korpanski’s. ‘I don’t have to tell you; these are all powerful ingredients for catastrophe. But did one event cause the next, were they a sequence of events, a pack of cards, and if so, which circumstance is the most significant?’
She reached for the phone again. ‘Mrs Grimshaw.’ The snappy tone of the returning voice made Korpanski wince.
‘I just wondered whether you’d met up with your daughter yet?’
‘I don’t see that it’s any business of yours, Inspector,’ Avis replied acidly. ‘It has no bearing on the murder of my husband.’
‘I simply wondered what her response to you might have been.’
Avis’s response was swift and unmistakable. ‘Mind your own bloody business.’
Joanna replaced the phone and gave a wry smile at Korpanski. ‘Friendly as ever,’ she said. ‘Nice family.’
Korpanski simply grinned. ‘Flea in the ear, Jo?’
‘If I wasn’t such a lady,’ she said, ‘you’d be getting the two-fingered salute, Sergeant. Now concentrate.’
She frowned. ‘We’re still missing something, aren’t we?’
Korpanski nodded glumly. ‘The whole bloody lot if you ask me.’
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 10th, 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.