The Echo of Crows, page 5
‘Nothing obvious.’
‘So it probably wasn’t self-inflicted?’ Karen said.
‘Most likely not. Can’t be certain yet but just winning a fortune isn’t the best reason for topping yourself. This is the gun he bought hisself, but it don’t look like he shot hisself with it, do it, even accidentally. He was no rookie when it came to guns.’
Vaynor looked quizzical.
‘Mate of my son’s,’ Fiddler explained. ‘They were both in the Young Farmers’ club.’
Vaynor recalled Bliss telling him over a year ago that the veteran crime-scene boss owned a farm, looked after by his son who would eventually own a chunk of it. In this area, two sources of income were not uncommon, the safest kind of insurance.
Karen Dowell said, ‘Anything you can tell us, Slim, about what might’ve happened?’
‘His life…’ Fiddler coughed, ‘…had suddenly become a much bigger life. Been turned around. He was the second son, see? What nobody in a farming family wants to be. Good few years younger than the eldest, Len Davies.’
Karen, also from farming stock, nodded and Slim Fiddler, turning to her, added, ‘My boy said Eddy’s ole man hadn’t got round to telling him straight out not to expect anything much.’
‘While his older brother would get the main farm,’ Karen said. ‘Luck of the first-born.’
‘Way it goes, Karen. Len used to say, “Young Eddy, he got the looks, I’ll get the farm.”’
Karen Dowell peered at the body: good looks gone to waste.
‘Did Eddy ever work on the farm, Slim?’
‘Depends on what you call work.’ Fiddler looked uncomfortable, as if he didn’t want to be speaking ill of the dead. ‘As you can see, boy died with a shotgun to hand. His idea of work, and the way he’d’ve wanted to go, I reckon, if he had to. Used to be a bit of a tearaway in his teens, and later, come to that. Bit of cannabis and stuff but not a bad lad. Think it was the big win turned him around.
‘Funny that, now I think of it. You’d expect farmer-turned-playboy, not the other way round. Suppose money does funny things. Not that he went into farming big-time, but he did help some families round here get tenancies.’
‘What, like some kind of farming benefactor?’ Vaynor asked.
‘I suppose,’ Slim said, scratching his white-hooded head. He bent to put the shotgun into an evidence bag.
Vaynor was nervous. It was possible there could be a killer still nearby. Fiddler brought his left arm up, as if supporting a shotgun barrel. But it was only his black, rubber-covered torch.
‘Purdey,’ he said, indicating the bagged gun, still not far from the dead man’s hand.
‘That’s a very, very expensive one, isn’t it?’ Vaynor said. ‘Still loaded?’
‘Brand new. Bought out of his winnings, like this farm… My son, if he were yere, he’d tell you Eddy’d wanted a top-quality gun for years. Lived for it, see… the rough shootin’.’
Fiddler hadn’t been asked for a psychological assessment of the dead man, but Karen was letting him talk on.
‘Nights like this, he’d be out yere. Bag full of cartridges, pop, pop… till they was all gone. Foxes, look. Get them before they got any sheep.’
‘Did everybody here approve of that?’ Vaynor asked. ‘Shooting foxes after freezing them in powerful light?’
‘It’s quick and it don’t involve packs of hounds,’ Fiddler said. ‘You gotter make your mind up about these things – lambs with their throats torn out or foxes with their brains blown away. Nights like this, you could join the shoot with Eddy or stay in the farmhouse and learn about the local history and folklore. Hear all that from Eddy’s girlfriend.’
‘Girlfriend? Is she here?’
‘In the house, I think.’ Fiddler’s grin was lukewarm. ‘Might not’ve been his girlfriend, but you couldn’t say he wasn’t workin’ on it. He’d bought this farm – well, these few fields, with the house. That house. Normally, nobody local would want it. Price too high for a knocked-about farmhouse and not enough ground for a worthwhile farm. But with all Eddy’s dosh and this place being near his brother’s farm, where he’d lived in a caravan, it obviously suited him.’
‘I suppose that staying in the area was all that mattered,’ Karen said. ‘Surrounded by people he grew up with. That’s often the way it goes. Money can’t buy everything.’
*
Vaynor looked up at the scattered lights under the muffling pillow of the Black Mountains. Not much more than an hour ago, he’d been in Gaol Street CID room, watching Karen Dowell taking instructions by phone from the head of CID. He wondered if he’d ever become hardened to these lightning scene-changes… all the new voices, new issues, raw rural emotions competing for his attention.
He said, ‘To be honest, I’ve always been a bit wary of guns, Mr Fiddler.’
‘Not firearms-trained then, boy?’ Fiddler grinned. ‘Oxford din’t teach you how to shoot, then?’
Vaynor, who’d finally managed to stop rising to these veiled Oxford put-downs, said, ‘Is it still loaded?’
‘It’s all changing,’ Fiddler said. ‘We gotter learn new things all the time, just to stay in a job. No, en’t loaded now. Cartridges bagged up, just one spent.’
Vaynor didn’t move. The grass was up to his ankles. He could feel cold water pooling around his toes. Karen Dowell had sensibly found a pair of wellies.
‘As you can see, word spreads very quickly. You can’t escape social media. Half the caravan visitors from just over there must be here,’ she said. ‘You can tell by the absence of local accents.’
‘All from Off?’
‘Yes, and that goes for many of the residents, too. And every new generation of incomers is a lot wealthier than the last. That’s the way it’s going. If vacant houses here don’t get snapped up by Londoners or Brummies, they go for whatsit-called, Airbnb.’
‘Or to lottery winners,’ Vaynor said. ‘Nobody see or hear the shooting?’
‘Three shooters had just arrived to join Eddy for a night’s sport but uniform intercepted them before they got near,’ Fiddler said, ‘and they’ve handed over their guns. One boy didn’t have a gun but he seems to have been not far away when it happened. I asked him to wait over there.’
Vaynor and Karen both went through the gate and a few yards beyond to be greeted by a handshake from a man in his mid-twenties.
‘Whitcombe. Casey Whitcombe,’ he said nervously.
Karen took his hand first. ‘DS Dowell. You must be quite shocked. We’ll try not to keep you here much longer but if you could talk to my colleague, DC Vaynor, about how you found Eddy, I’ll see who else is here and make sure nobody disappears.’
‘They can’t.’
A bulky woman in a Day-Glo yellow police mac had stepped in front of her, Vaynor recognizing her as PC Calder, Patti, in Traffic when he’d first encountered her. Now she was part of a small road-crime team, which allowed her to drive what to him would seem insanely fast in the tight-knotted lanes.
‘We’ve had all the village access roads sealed,’ Calder told them. ‘Nobody’s going to get out driving until we’ve talked to them.’
‘Right, then we’ll see who’s in Eddy’s farmhouse. Who’s this girl who was in there?’
‘Name’s Wise, Autumn Wise,’ Patti Calder said, pointing. ‘She’s just moved into that little place over there. Death seems to be following her. Both parents were killed in a smash last year. Not far from here. Happened on a bad bend and the other car involved had a drug marker on it. Horrific. And now this.’
After a few seconds of silence, Patti Calder went on, ‘Since my divorce, I’ve lived in the same village as Autumn’s grandparents. Nice couple. She lived with them latterly and I’d see her out cycling. I passed her on the road several times. Haven’t seen her tonight yet. Casey just said she was the only one in the farmhouse.’
Karen stepped forward to open another five-barred gate and motioned to Patti.
‘Come on, we’ll find out who she had with her in the house earlier… and if anybody came out with Eddy.’
Then she turned and shouted, ‘You join us when you’ve finished, David. This could be a very long night.’
9
Folklore and stuff
CASEY WHITCOMBE LOOKED slightly older than Vaynor, stocky and muscular and with an accent from somewhere near Birmingham.
‘So what can you tell us?’ Vaynor said. ‘Where were you when it happened?’
‘In there, Eddy’s house. He lets Autumn Wise use it for her story-telling. She’s very knowledgeable about local history and folklore. Visitors who weren’t into shooting had been listening to her over a bottle of wine. I had a few questions so I think I was the last to leave.’
‘How many there? Did you know them all?’
Whitcombe looked down thoughtfully. ‘Er… seven or eight. I could jot down most of their names and contact details. All from round here or staying on holiday.’
Vaynor nodded and handed over a notebook and pen. They were on a dirt track leading from the field where the tented body lay, guarded by three police.
‘After Eddy went out, how long before you heard the shot?’ Vaynor asked.
‘Dunno. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. Wasn’t a shock or anything. He’d told us what he’d be doing. I just thought he must’ve started early because he was supposed to be getting some logs for the fire first, before the shooters got here.’
‘Started early?’ Vaynor said.
‘Going after foxes. He waits till it’s quiet and there’s nobody around who might get shot.’
‘Who went with him tonight?’
‘No idea. Didn’t see or hear anyone arrive. Don’t do shooting myself. All I heard was a shot then a silence and then some spooked crows rising from a roost nearby and making a racket. That’s when Autumn looked alarmed and I came out, grabbing a torch from near the door.’
Whitcombe looked towards the tent then back at Vaynor.
‘Oh God… It must’ve happened not that long before I got to him. I didn’t see him at first. I just called out and then went looking around. It was pretty dark and then I spotted a glint in the field and, when I got nearer, I realized it was from the silver bits on the gun and I saw him lying there all bloody and staring up to the sky. I didn’t think he could be alive but I did feel for a pulse in his wrist and then tried to phone 999 on my mobile.’
‘And then?’ Vaynor prompted.
‘Er, went up to the house to tell Autumn. Just shouted through the door that there’d been an awful accident and I needed to call 999, quick. She barely replied. Sounded dazed but, then, anybody would with that news. I told her to sit tight while I ran up the drive to get a good signal – reception’s patchy round here – and then I waited on the road for the emergency services. It’s not easy to find places like this at night so I was glad of the torch and that helped direct them down here. They were pretty quick, thank God. Ambulance must have been quite close by.’
Whitcombe looked quickly around, as if threatened. ‘I only came here for the folklore and stuff. And because it’s the Celtic festival of Samhain and Hallowe’en. I’ve never seen a dead body before and I never expected seeing something like this.’
Vaynor blinked. ‘Nobody does. Let’s hope this first one is your last. You said folklore and stuff?’
‘It’s part of the attraction to this area, shared by a good few others I’ve met, some just tonight.’
‘Why they came?’
‘You wouldn’t think that, as a policeman,’ Whitcombe said. ‘If you get what I mean. But I was into Alfred Watkins who discovered ley lines in this area – found that ancient sites were aligned with each other. You can stand on one and spot others, in straight lines. And there’s loads of ancient sites round here.’
‘Sounds interesting.’
Vaynor knew all about leys and lines of power and briefly thought he might have explained about his PhD thesis on the mystical side of the poet Wordsworth as revealed in the Wye Valley. At least it would prove he was a thinking plod. But he checked himself; this was not the time. He’d been at Oxford when he was into all that; now he was a cop on a possible murder investigation and had to focus on facts. Trying to enhance perceptions of his status was a vanity thing.
‘Did Eddy seem his normal self to you when he went out?’
‘Well yeah, far as I could tell,’ Whitcombe said.
‘And where do you come from? You’re not local?’ Vaynor asked.
‘Sort of yes and no.’ Whitcombe shrugged. ‘I’m… camping… in a barn. I’ve been doing it up for my grandparents, near their house about half a mile from here. I live in Birmingham but I’m here whenever I get time. Weekends, mostly.’
‘Who’s your nearest neighbour?’ Vaynor asked. ‘I’m trying to get my bearings round here.’
‘Er, Lynda Steen. In fact, she was with us in the farmhouse tonight, listening to Autumn, who’s now living in one of the renovated outbuildings. Just moved in.’
He turned to his right and started to point.
‘Eddy’s turning some of these outbuildings into separate homes. Autumn’s just taken that tiny cottage.’
‘Were she and Eddy an item?’ Vaynor asked. Or just part of this odd community, he thought, while waiting for a hesitant answer.
‘I’m… not sure,’ Whitcombe said, looking up from writing his list of names. ‘I’m busy working on the barn when I’m here.’
‘So, to get back to Eddy, when you came out of the farmhouse, you didn’t see or hear anyone else?’
Whitcombe shook his head. ‘No, as I said, just a few crows cawing and flying round that tree. Roost was disturbed.’
‘We’ll leave it at that for now. You should get home and try to get some sleep. Perhaps we could talk again,’ Vaynor said, taking back his notebook and turning towards Eddy Davies’s farmhouse. He definitely wanted to talk to Whitcombe again.
Two gates took him to the house. It looked old, part of the landscape’s bone structure. Karen Dowell came to the door with a serious look on her face, then grabbed his arm and pulled him to one side of the doorway.
‘Got a developing situation in there,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t know whether to call Firearms or not. Autumn Wise is sitting in a chair cradling a shotgun. She doesn’t seem all there. Whether it’s shock or not I don’t know. Don’t think she’s a threat to us or herself but Patti’s talking to her and we need to get that gun made safe. Follow me quietly.’
Vaynor saw a narrow, domestic passage: hallway with a few doors leading off it with a crack of light coming from one. He followed Karen towards it and they both stopped abruptly when they heard Patti saying, ‘Autumn, can you put that down, please?’
They stood side by side on reaching the doorway to hear Patti again.
‘Put it on the floor. Autumn, please.’
Gently, Vaynor pushed the door fully back and found he was looking over Karen’s head at a woman’s shape in a chair under a darkened window. A shotgun was enfolded in her arms. Instantly, she joined the images embossed on his memory, all of them about death. Vaynor thought he detected a movement from the gun barrel. But the woman in the chair stayed quite still.
Karen said, ‘Autumn, can you just put that shotgun down? This is David with me and we’re all here to help and find out what’s happened.’
In the greyness, Vaynor saw twin barrels ending in black holes.
From behind the black holes, he heard a lone woman’s voice, intoning one sonorous sentence.
‘Will I be hanged?’ Autumn said, sounding very, very tired.
Vaynor felt suddenly cold and disconnected. He didn’t know what she was talking about. Why ‘hanged’… and for what?
A sliver of Hallowe’en moonlight, through a small window, suddenly vanished behind cloud.
10
Amiss
LOL ROBINSON HAD awoken about two a.m. in Merrily’s bed, with Merrily still sleeping loosely in his arms and murmuring. She pushed her face into the pillow, and he found himself rolling away, mentally counting, as he guessed she would have, four possible grey hairs above her forehead. Evidence of barely dawning middle-age? She didn’t look any different to him than she had five years ago, seemed more like Jane’s sister than her mother, give or take those barely visible greyish hairs.
He pulled the duvet nearer his chin to keep out the cold.
Merrily sat up suddenly. She was wearing a long, ice-blue T-shirt with Lol’s name on it and the title of his first album, Alien. He’d given her three over the years, two blue, one pale green.
‘It’s still night,’ she said, looking at the clock.
He sat up by her side. It was the first night this week that they’d slept here together. When she’d said she wanted him to stay at the vicarage, he hadn’t exactly argued because he wanted to stay here for the foreseeable future or maybe take her into his own cottage. He wanted suddenly to have a lot of money so they could afford to be together and steady. He was thinking like this more and more often, which surely was a sign of time racing past, carrying his life along with it.
Marriage? Until recently, he’d never valued the concept of marriage. He’d needed Merrily in his life, thought he always would, but hadn’t needed to have the strength of their relationship underlined. So why did he suddenly feel it was necessary now? What had made his needs accelerate? It wasn’t that he wanted her to become Mrs Robinson, like in the song; maybe if she hadn’t already dumped her married name because of her late husband’s serial infidelity, that might have been even more desirable, but…
He rubbed his eyes. Did he want their relationship to be approved by God… by her God, who he still vaguely wanted to believe in, for her sake, but wasn’t sure he could? Did it come down to this? Did it suddenly matter, the way it never had?
Merrily said. ‘Something’s amiss.’
‘Amiss?’
Lol swung a leg out of bed, watched Merrily padding barefoot towards the bathroom.
‘Maybe more than I know,’ Merrily said. ‘I’m expecting a call in the morning from a young woman I met last evening but I feel uneasy somehow. And concerned about Huw. It’s cold, too. Back in a minute.’
