Limestone Cowboy (18 page)

“Yes,” he replied, “he’s called Brown, Damian Brown.” 

The problem with High Clough farm was that it was on the highest piece of ground for miles, so there was nowhere we could set up an observation post. The
comprehensive
school headmaster was hiking in the Dolomites, but we’d sweet-talked the school secretary into letting us have a look at the records. Damian Brown lived at High Clough farm, and the secretary wasn’t at all surprised that he was in trouble. Anything else she could have done to put him away for a long time was ours for the asking. We drove back and forth on the lane that went near the farm and eventually decided on an unofficial lay-by used as a rubbish dump by the fairies. It’s easy to blame townies for coming into the country to dispose of the odd three-piece suite, but they don’t leave the weedkiller drums and fertilizer bags.

“You can see the end of the track that leads to the farm,” Dave said.

“And a transit parked here won’t attract attention,” I added.

X-ray 99, our helicopter, was making slow passes over the moor, about a mile away, as if on a search. It worked its way towards the farm and as it passed over we heard the frantic barking of dogs over the thrum of the chopper’s blades. It banked away, the sun flashing off its sides, to resume its search on the other side. After a minute or two stooging around for the sake of credibility it turned and sped off towards its base near Wakefield.

“When will the photos be ready?” Dave asked.

“They’ve promised them for this afternoon.”

The Browns were a big, extended family, Dave had discovered, and Sebastian and Sharon were tenuous relatives. One branch still lived in the style of
travellers
, even if they were permanently settled on a council site; another had abandoned the old ways a couple of generations ago and lived in a more
conventional
manner. This side of the family was fully
integrated
with local society. Two were solicitors, some owned small businesses and a few had criminal records, including Sebastian. He’d done three months for credit card fraud. High Clough farm was the home of the latest member to come under our scrutiny: Damian.

“So Sharon was happy to talk to you?” I said.

“She came round after a few minutes. I think she’s proud of her romantic gypsy origins.”

“Except they’re not gypsies, they’re tinkers,” I said.

“Gypsies, tinkers, Romanies, travellers, they’re all the same, nowadays.”

“Whatever, she managed to break away from it and get an education.”

“That’s true.” We both knew that illiteracy was a very useful characteristic for some people when trying to negotiate their way past modern living’s more oppressive obstacles, like income tax returns, court warrants and job applications.

“Did you ask if they ever had family get-togethers?”

“Yeah, weddings mainly. She said they had great parties.”

“I bet. C’mon, let’s go.”

The pictures showed High Clough farm to be a
tumbledown
dump, falling apart after years of neglect. If it hadn’t been for the Land Rover Defender parked
outside
we’d have thought the place was derelict. Hill farmers have been encouraged to diversify to stay
solvent
, and, like so many of them in this part of the world, High Clough had diversified into rusting farm machinery and old tyres. Mr Wood came down to the CID office and we all poured over the pictures.

“You reckon this is where they hold the dog fights, do you?” he asked.

“No. I think they’re involved, but whether they stage the fights I don’t know.”

“It would be the ideal place,” Dave said.

Jeff Caton was peering at the photos through a big magnifying glass. “There’s a chicken run,” he said, “on the paved area in front of the house.”

“It’s a farm,” I told him. “They keep a few chickens.”

“There’s a big chicken run next to the barn. With real chickens. You can see them. I reckon this other one is where the dogs fight.”

“Outside?” I wondered aloud.

“Why not, especially this weather?”

“No reason. I’d just assumed it was an indoor sport.”

“The idle boasts of a retarded boy and a chicken run outside the front door are not enough for a search
warrant
,” Gilbert said, “but we might manage twenty-four hour surveillance.”

I thought about it. “No need for twenty-four hours,” I said. “Not if they hold the fights in daylight. And I
don’t suppose they have them in the early morning. Ten till ten should cover it.”

“Look at this,” Jeff said, and we all turned to him. The chopper had taken pictures as it approached the farm, from a fairly low angle, and others as it passed directly overhead. We’d concentrated on the overhead ones, to study the layout of the buildings, but now Jeff was looking at one of the oblique views.

“What is it?”

“There’s some cages, four of them,” he said, “down the side of the barn. If you look carefully you can see that whatever are in the middle two are looking at the chopper.” He passed me the magnifying glass.

I could see two pale smudges against the gloom of the cage interiors, like two faces painted by an
impressionist
with a deft dab of the brush. “Rabbits?” I
suggested
after studying them.

“No, they’re not rabbits. Look at the ears.”

Dave took over. After a few seconds he said: “They’re cats. That’s what they are: cats.”

I was in my office, clearing up and determined to go home on time, when Rosie rang.

“You sound despondent,” she said after I’d
introduced
myself.

“Hello Rosie,” I replied. “It’ll soon pass now I’m talking to you.”

“Are you working hard?”

“Not really, just musing on the behaviour of some of my fellow men.”

“The producer telephoned me a few minutes ago,” she said without further ceremony. “The coroner has
signed a warrant giving permission for my father’s body to be exhumed and the chancellor of the diocese has given his approval.”

“Oh,” I said. “And are you pleased?”

“Of course I am. Now we can do the tests.”

“Have they given you a date?”

“No, but he wants to do it as soon as possible.”

I bet he did. “So it’s all up to the DNA.”

“Yes, that’s right. It’s all up to the DNA.”

I let that thought hang in the air, then said: “If you’re not doing anything tonight, Rosie, do you fancy that Chinese?”

“Oh, yes, I’d like that. Thank you.”

“Do you mind if we make it early? I’m starving.”

“That’s fine by me.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

We didn’t bother with the banquet, that’s for special occasions, settling for a pair of dishes from the a la carte menu. Rosie was her old self: witty and
mischievous
, happy that things were moving along. She told me a few of the things that the schoolchildren had said, like the boy who thought the Atlas Mountains were stockpiles of school books, and I related a few of my own about our clients.

“One youth who was given a community service order thought he’d been given a community singing order,” I said. “He asked which church choir he’d be in.”

“One of my pupils, a girl this time, wrote in her exam paper that the European Market was held in Brussels every Wednesday afternoon.”

“It’s the quality of the teaching that does it.”

“Oh, definitely.”

I paid the bill and took her home. On the way we saw the police helicopter in the distance, its searchlight on as it quartered the ground.

“They’re having a busy day,” I said. “We had them out this morning.”

“Aren’t you going to dash over to see if you can be of any assistance?”

I glanced at her, then back at the road and at her again. “No way,” I stated.

As I parked outside her gate Rosie asked me if I was coming in for a cuppa.

“Is there any chocolate cake left?”

“There might be.”

“In that case, yes please.”

The weather was changing and the temperature had dropped. Rosie shivered and switched on the gas fire, and went somewhere to turn up the thermostat. I stood behind her in the kitchen as the kettle came to the boil, wanting to put my arms around her. She cut the remains of the cake into two uneven halves and gave me the larger one.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked when we were seated in the lounge, her on the settee, me in an easy chair. She gave me a potted history of her
movements
, first of all living in a succession of rented accommodations before splashing out, rather late in life for a first-time-buyer, on the bungalow.

“You did the right thing,” I said. “The only advice my dad ever gave me was to get on the housing ladder, as soon as possible. It was good advice.”

But a stupid thing to say, I thought, even as the
words came out. It killed the conversation for a few moments.

“I bought at a bad time,” she said, eventually. “Prices were high.”

“There’s never a good time,” I told her. Profound words straight from the financial pages. “Just think of all those grotty flats and bedsits, where your rent goes straight to pay for the landlord’s villa in the Bahamas.”

“Yes, I had a few of those.” She refilled our cups, then said: “When… when I left Gary – he was called Gary – I moved to Derby, landed a teaching job there. Supply teaching, not permanent. I had a horrible
bedsit
. Peeling paper, damp walls, the lot. Why I stayed so long I can’t imagine.”

“What was Gary’s problem?” I ventured.

“Gambling. He was a gambler. You don’t back
horses
, do you?”

I shook my head. “It was a courageous thing to do,” I told her. “Making the break like that, moving on. It’s a pity more women don’t do it.”

“They’re trapped, Charlie, that’s why. And it didn’t feel courageous at the time.” She put her cup down and sat in silence for a while. I was about to mention that we might have had a breakthrough with the dog fighting saga when she said: “I had a breakdown, Charlie. I lost the plot, completely.”

“What sort of a breakdown?”

She heaved a big sigh that said she’d let the genie out of the bottle and there was no getting it back in. “I don’t know. What sorts are there? I moved to Derby, into this awful bedsit, with nothing but the clothes I
wore and what I could stuff into a Ford Fiesta. I worked one term as a supply teacher and then it was the summer holiday. I didn’t know if I’d have a job when it was over. I was so lonely I just… gave up. I sat in that ghastly, smelly room and cried my eyes out for three weeks. I didn’t wash, didn’t eat, didn’t take any interest in the outside world. I just let everything close in on me. I wanted to die, Charlie, but wasn’t brave enough to do anything about it.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. One day, I thought, what am I doing? Nobody was going to come and sort me out, I had to do it myself. There was nothing organically wrong with me, I was fairly young, had a brain, could find work almost anywhere. I took a shower and found some clean clothes, went out and did some shopping. I telephoned the headmaster and he said he couldn’t offer me a permanent position just yet but there was plenty of work for me. I took him at his word and had an expensive hair-do, complete with silver streaks. Oh, and I put the deposit on a new car. Watch me go became my creed.”

“And eventually you moved to Yorkshire.”

“I landed a permanent post, and it was further away from him. I told you I came with baggage, Charlie. Now you know what I meant.”

“That’s not baggage, Rosie,” I assured her. “It’s what gave you those tiny little creases in the corners of your eyes when you smile, that’s all. It’s what goes towards making you a caring human being. It’s… it’s all part of the recipe that made Rosie Barraclough, and why I find her so damned attractive.”

She looked at me, her chin trembling. “Do you, Charlie?”

I moved over to her, engulfed her in my arms, held her tight. “Yes,” I said. “Yes I do. All that’s behind you. You’re with me, now.”

We sat like that for a long while as it grew dark around us. I tipped her face towards mine and kissed her on the lips. I wanted to stay the night, but didn’t ask. There was a ghost watching us, the ghost of her father. Soon we’d dig him up, do the tests and discover the truth. Win or lose, we’d come through it together. I drove home praying that he’d not done the deed, just so I could see the happiness it would bring Rosie. If he really were the murderer then it would be up to me to make her happy. I could do it, I was confident of that. It would just take a little longer, that was all.

I always go into the office on a Saturday morning, to clear up any paperwork and prioritise any jobs that came in overnight. Friday night brings out the worst in some people. I hadn’t left home when the phone rang. It was Dave.

“Have you heard?” he asked.

“Heard what?”

“About us, last night?”

“Us? Who’s us?”

“Me, Pete, Jeff and Don.”

“You went to the brass band concert.”

“That’s right, but we had a spot of bother on the way home.”

“Oh no,” I sighed. A spot of bother could only mean one thing: drinking and driving.

“It’s not that,” he assured me, reading my mind. “It’s something else.”

“Go on.”

“Well, we didn’t stay until the end. We’d heard the set piece three times and that was enough. We decided to come a bit nearer home and have a drink. Heading along the Heckley Road, towards the Babes In The Wood, Pete just happened to notice that we were
following
a convoy of four-wheel-drives. Three of them. Suddenly they all slowed and turned off into this little lane that didn’t look as if it led anywhere. We called in the Babes and had a couple of pints. When we came out Pete said ‘I wonder what they went up that lane for? Let’s go see what’s up there.’ He was driving and Don encouraged him so off we went. After about a mile we found the three off-roaders, parked and empty.”

“Aliens,” I said. “They’d been abducted by aliens.”

“You’re nearer than you think,” Dave replied. “We assumed they were poachers, but then we saw these lights in a corn field, wandering up and down. We waited for ages but they just kept on wandering up and down, so we telephoned Dewsbury and told them all about it. We thought that maybe they were looking for badgers.”