Witchmoor Edge (4 page)

"You didn't report this?"

"No." Mrs. Evans hesitated. After a pause,
which was a prolonged hesitation, she added, "It doesn't pay to see
too much where young toughs are concerned. They'd be round here
throwing bricks through the window and bothering Rusty, if they
thought I'd told the police. Anyway, he might have just fallen in
or something."

"Did you think the youth was connected with
the fire?" Tommy asked.

"When I saw the fire later and reported it, I
thought then he might have started in on purpose, but the building
was all boarded up and they were going to demolish it anyway.
Besides it wasn't my business."

Tommy thought it had been very much her
business, but he was tactful enough to realise that this elderly
lady had to live alone in her community and said nothing.

"Did you recognise him?" Tommy asked.

"It was too dark."

The answer came so quickly this time that
Tommy was sure she had a very good idea who was involved. They
could probably get a name from the dead boy's family, so he didn't
pursue the matter. Not yet, anyway.

"Would it be possible for you sign a
statement about this?" Tommy asked. "DC Goss will type up what
you've said to us and you can sign to say that it's what you told
us."

The old lady nodded. "When shall I come in to
the station?"

Tommy thought about. "We won't be back before
5 or 5.30 at the earliest," he said. "If you ring this number any
time tomorrow morning we'll fix a time." He handed her a card with
the number of the direct line to the CID divisional office.

"Down by the Market Square?" the old lady
asked.

"That's right," Tommy said. "You give us a
ring and well send an unmarked car to fetch you."

He stood up. "Now, we must be off," he
said.

"Would you like a cup of tea before you go,"
Mrs. Evans asked.

"No, thanks all the same," DC Hammond
replied. "We've more calls to make before we report back to the
boss."

"All right, dear," said Mrs. Evans, and rose
to let them out.

As they walked back to the car Tommy said, "I
reckon she knew who it was climbed out of the canal. At least she
had a pretty good idea."

Gary Goss nodded.

"What d'you say we find a decent pub with
food and have a late lunch, then you go get a statement from Joe
Davis, the bloke who found the first body, while I go and talk to
the dead boy's family and see if I can find out what he was up to
and who he was up to it with. Try and get our names the other
way."

"Why didn't you just press the old lady for
some names?" Goss asked.

"Come on, Gee Gee, she has to live here after
we've gone and we can probably get the names easily enough anyway.
We can always come back again if we draw a blank."

DC Hammond, straightened his tie, unlocked
the car and they climbed in.

Chapter 3: Monday 13th August (evening)

The moors might have been woodland far back
in the stone age, but there are not many trees there now. Still,
there are a few places, in hollows around reservoirs and the like,
where there are clumps of trees, and there are plenty side roads
which meander into areas where a family picnic could be held in
pleasant surroundings or a lovers' tryst completed in comparative
secrecy.

Shirley Hunter guided them without much
hesitation along the road from Bingley over the top to Menston, but
when Lucy turned off onto a side road towards East Morton she began
to hesitate.

"I'm fairly sure this is the right road," she
said, "but slow down because I've got to look for the track up onto
the moors. It isn't this tarn here because there aren't any trees
around and the picnic tables were under some trees."

Lucy slowed the police car down to just over
30 and Mrs. Hunter watched.

"There's loose gravel for about 20 or 30
metres," she said. "There, I think that's it!" She pointed
excitedly to a gravel track leading into the woods just ahead.

"Take it easy, Lucy," Millicent said,
thinking that this sounded like remembering rather acting, but
reserving judgment. "We don't want to wipe out any tracks that
might be left."

"The gravel runs out after a bit," Shirley
Hunter said.

"P'raps we'd better stop on the gravel and
walk the rest of the way, if it isn't far," Lucy suggested, turning
the car onto the gravel track. "How far is it?"

"I'm not sure, but not far from the end of
the gravel."

"I never asked, but what sort of a car were
you in?" Millicent asked.

"Simon's Porsche," Mrs. Hunter replied.

"Here’s the end of the gravel," Lucy
announced, pulling to side of the track, though it was unlikely
that there would be another vehicle.

The three of them walked on the grass at the
side of the dirt road, gradually dwindling to no more than a wide
path. There hadn't been rain for a few days, but the ground had
been soft on Saturday from rain a couple of days before. Up ahead
Millicent could see three wooden picnic tables under the trees.
They were of the type frequently found in country parks,
rectangular with bench seats and built all in one piece, so nobody
could move or walk off with a bench.

"Where were you parked?" Millicent asked.

"Over here, on the right, just at the edge of
the clearing. We used that nearest table."

Millicent looked at the ground and could make
out some car tracks, but not clearly. She thought the scene of
crime team might make something more of them, and avoided walking
over them.

"What did you do first?" the detective
asked.

"I put a cloth on the table and Simon brought
a basket of things from the luggage thingy in the front of the
car."

Millicent remembered that a Porsche has an
engine at the rear. "A proper picnic basket?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And then?"

"I'm not certain the order things happened
in," said Shirley Hunter. "I know I started to unpack some of the
items. Then Simon got cross because a mosquito bit him and he
started criticising things I was doing. I answered him back, which
was asking for trouble really and he threw something at me. A jar
of jam or something."

"Did it hit you?

Nearly," Shirley said. "It sort of brushed
through my hair."

"Has he hit you before?" Lucy asked.

'Yes," Shirley said.

"Give us an example,". Lucy persisted.

Millicent did not really think it was an
appropriate moment to bring this up, or a suitable place either,
and determined to have a word with Lucy later. However, her
Sergeant had started now and Millicent listened with some interest,
wondering whether the man's behaviour amounted to provocation for
murder.

"I told you," Shirley said, visibly
distressed, "He could be violent". She paused, and then said in an
embarrassed rush, "A couple of weeks ago he was in such a rage
about something quite trivial that he took a stick and held me down
while he pulled my knickers down and caned my bottom."

Lucy looked angry and was about to say
something more when Millicent stepped in.

"Okay," she said, "I think we get the
picture. He started throwing things at you?" It was a statement but
there was a questioning tone.

"I told you, I jumped in the Porsche and
locked the door. Simon went to pick up a heavy post to break in.
I've seen him angry before, but this was a much worse rage than
usual, so I just started the engine and drove the car at him. I
wasn't thinking about anything but his violent temper. I was afraid
he was going to go too far this time."

"The keys were in the ignition?" Millicent
asked.

"Yes."

"And you knocked him over?"

"Yes, but I wasn't going very fast. He went
down and I thought I'd injured him seriously, so I got out of the
car. I should have guessed he was all right. Anyway, he got up
madder than ever, so I ran off. I must have hurt his leg because he
soon gave up the chase."

Shirley Hunter was getting close to
hysteria.

"Lucy, take Mrs. Hunter back to the car and
call up the scene of crime team. Then try and calm Mrs. Hunter down
a bit," Millicent said.

After Lucy and the Hunter woman had gone,
Millicent continued her look around. She thought that most of the
story was plausible enough and that Simon Hunter sounded an
obnoxious and violent tempered man, but she tried to suspend
judgment until she had some evidence. The story didn't feel
entirely true and at this point there was only Shirley Hunter's
version of events. While the overall picture could be more or less
as she told it, Millicent needed evidence before assuming the woman
had not put her own gloss on events.

As she looked around the site, something
glittered in the bushes. Whatever it was turned out to be rather
hard to reach, but closer inspection showed it to be a full jar of
jam. She didn't touch it, leaving it to the scene of crime
officers, but it did possibly support the story. A brief search of
the same sort of area turned up two unopened tubs of yogurt. These
too she left for a properly equipped team. Although she tried to be
open, Millicent couldn't escape an inner certainty that the story,
if not completely untrue was, at least, incomplete. Admittedly
Shirley Hunter could have invented a better story if she was
fabricating the whole thing, but it bothered her psychic side all
the same.

Millicent wandered over to the hardened dirt
track. The ground had been softer Saturday, a couple of days after
a significant rain. The detective examined the ground: it may have
been softer on Saturday, but it was rock hard now. There were
several car tyre tracks. Judging by the way in which different
treads appeared over the top of others, it was possible to make out
a sequence of events. First a bicycle had come through. Then had
come something with very wide tyres, probably a sports car and
possibly the Porsche. After that had come two vehicles which had
stopped on the track itself. One was another widish tyred vehicle
and the other had a narrower tread. The second vehicle had turned
round at that point but the third appeared to have reversed out.
Then came the that which might have been the Porsche and finally
the bicycle again.

The bicycle tyre prints looked identical in
both cases, but there was no guarantee they had anything to do with
the events of Saturday, or even that both sets of prints were from
the same bike. In fact, it was very far from certain that any of
the treads were related. However, if the wide tyres really were the
Porsche, it had left after the other two vehicles, which might be
significant. It was clearly urgent to trace Hunter's car and she
made a mental note to get the details from Mrs. Hunter and put out
an interest report straight away.

Millicent concluded there was little more to
be learnt from just looking and decided they would leave as soon as
the scene of crime staff arrived. If they could find the car it
might be possible to pick out the Porsche tread marks.

She took another look at the tread marks as
she left. If they could be certain the wide tyres belonged to
Simon's car there was a puzzling sequence of coming and going. What
were the other two vehicles and what were the drivers doing? Had
Simon Hunter been alive to drive his own car away? Was the bike in
any way connected? Shirley hadn't said where Ellen Barnes had
picked her up, so that question needed an immediate answer.

Lucy was sitting in the rear of the car with
Mrs. Hunter when Millicent returned. She got into the driving seat,
but before they set off back she asked, "Where did Ellen Barnes
pick you up?"

"I walked out to the main road, you know, the
one from Bingley to Menston," Shirley said. "Ellen picked me up at
the corner of the two roads. She backed into the side road to turn
round."

In that case, Millicent thought, none of the
treads would be from Ellen's car, since she hadn't been within half
a mile of the picnic site.

"Did you call SOCO team?" she asked Lucy.

"They're on their way," she said, "but I
don't know whether they'll find us that easily.

"I'll drive down to the start of the track,
so they'll have less chance of missing the turning," Millicent
said, and started the car.

It was more a seven point turn than a three
point turn and Hampshire was regretting not just reversing out
before - car unscathed but driver shredded - they eased out onto
the road. Millicent parked the car, switched off the engine and
waited.

* * *

Kevin Musworth lived, or rather had lived, in
a walk-up block of mixed flats and maisonettes on a council estate
up towards the Bradford Road from the canal. To be precise, it had
been a council property and had been passed to a Housing
Association which was trying to improve the properties.
Unfortunately it wasn't having much luck improving the
residents.

Stairs, lifts and hallways were more
frequently washed and rubbish cleared more effectively, but youths
still urinated in stairwells and walls were still covered with
graffiti as soon as they were painted.

In the sunshine the place didn't look too bad
and some of the trees were big and solid enough to survive the
younger kids. Off street parking had been improved by inserting
lockable posts into the tarmac and charging rent for spaces. This
meant fewer abandoned vehicles and a tidier overall appearance. It
might still be a depressing area on a wet day in November, though,
Tommy thought.

The detective found the right floor and the
right flat - number 307 - and knocked at the door. A slovenly
looking youth in jeans and a dirty T-Shirt opened the door.

"Is this the home of Kevin Musworth?" he
asked.

"He ain’t in," the youth said, "He ain’t been in
since Saturday."