Death of a Friend (3 page)

Den made a note this time. ‘Mother-in-law?’ he repeated. ‘How old is she? Where does she live?’

‘She’s in her late sixties, a widow. She lives at Bradstone, just above the Tamar.’

The penny dropped. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘She must be the lady who took the boys away, after the accident at the hunt … their grandmother.’

‘That’s her,’ said Martha.

Den flipped his notebook closed and crammed it into his pocket. He crossed the room, then hesitated in the doorway, realising that nobody was going to see him out. Either they were in no hurry to get rid of him, or they were so sunk in misery and shock that they’d forgotten the social niceties. But he couldn’t just disappear like that.

Martha was the first to notice his discomfort. ‘Oh, sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll come to the door with you, if you think you might get lost.’

They stepped out into the dark corridor. The house felt huge, with doors opening on both sides into large, gloomy rooms. The only light came from the kitchen and the landing at the top of a long staircase. Martha went ahead and switched on a light in the small porch beyond the front door.

‘This is almost more than we can take,’ she said quietly. ‘None of us can think straight this evening. We’ll try to be more helpful tomorrow.’ Suddenly she jerked her head as if someone had called her name. ‘Dear God!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re looking for the person who killed him, aren’t you? I’m being terribly stupid. I didn’t hear everything you said when you arrived. Charlie was murdered, is that right?’

Den cleared his throat. ‘He had very severe injuries, the worst ones to his head. It seems beyond reasonable doubt that there was foul
play. But we won’t know anything for sure until the post-mortem tomorrow.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘if I was being uncharitable I’d suggest you start with our friend Gerald. Although to be honest I can’t see even him going that far. Poor Charlie! What can he possibly have done to deserve such a death?’

Den made no attempt to answer that. He took two or three steps towards his car before turning back for a moment. ‘One last thing,’ he remembered. ‘Do you keep any horses on this property?’

‘No,’ she said, wide-eyed. ‘Why? What are you thinking?’

‘I’m not thinking anything,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

He thought about the High Copse family as he drove away. As far as he could tell, everyone he’d seen was genuinely shocked and grief-stricken by the death of Charlie Grattan. The coming days were going to be gruelling. It was his first murder since joining the CID, and the fact that he knew the people involved, if only casually, gave him a central role in the investigation. He imagined he would have the task of interviewing a number of them, as well as visiting members of the Quaker group … Meeting … whatever they called it. It would mean delving into the activities of the
animal rights people. With a sigh, he remembered that Lilah was waiting for him to spend what remained of the evening with her. Murder was a real pain, he concluded. And recalling his last brush with it, he once again fingered the mark on the side of his face.

WPC Jane Nugent had taken the news of Charlie’s death to the people she too had initially assumed to be his parents. ‘Mrs Grattan?’ she had asked on the doorstep, when a woman in her sixties answered the door.

‘
Miss
Grattan, actually,’ came the reply, somewhat to Jane’s confusion. It took a few moments to ascertain that this was indeed the woman who had brought Charlie up, along with his father, Mr Bill Grattan. They were brother and sister.

‘I’m extremely sorry to tell you that his body was found this afternoon at High Copse Farm.’ Jane didn’t mind being the bearer of bad news; it made her feel essential, at the heart of things,
doing a job that could not be left undone. She had a useful knack of being both warm and businesslike; sympathetic but unsentimental. People generally demanded facts and Jane Nugent was adept at providing them.

‘He’s been taken to the Royal Devon and Exeter for a post-mortem,’ she explained. ‘And I’m afraid there will be a police investigation into who was responsible for his death. Is there anybody I can telephone for you? Anybody you’d like to have with you?’

She watched the old man, Bill, with some curiosity. Ten years or so older than his sister, he sat in a deep armchair, head bowed in silence. He had a large head, with bushy iron-grey eyebrows and thick hair of a similar colour. His eyes were framed in pleated flesh which hung loosely under his lower lids, showing a rim of red. The overall impression was of a desperate vulnerability, an almost unbearable misery. With his chin in one hand, the little finger caught between his teeth, he presented a picture of such complex layers of pain that Jane had to avert her inquisitive gaze.

The sister, however, seemed very much less disconcerted. ‘Thank you for coming, my dear, but I don’t think we need any further help,’ she said. ‘Is there anything more you want from us this evening? Will we be required to identify the body?’ Her face was pale, her hands clasped
tightly together at her waist, but her voice was steady.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Jane. ‘I believe someone from High Copse has already done that.’

‘Ah yes. Probably Mr Taverner. He’s a good man, although I can’t say I really know him.’ Her expression suddenly changed, as if something cold had brushed against her face. She frowned and gave a little shake. ‘Poor Charlie,’ she breathed. ‘He must have been terrified.’ Her frown deepened and she looked into Jane’s eyes. ‘Has this got anything to do with the accident last week?’

Jane blinked. ‘You mean what happened to Mrs Nesbitt at the hunt protest,’ she said, after a moment’s incomprehension. ‘Well, it’s too soon to say, and anyway …’

‘You wouldn’t be permitted to tell us, I expect.’ Hannah glanced at her brother. ‘And I can see that I should not have asked.’ A sharpness in this last remark caught Jane by surprise.

‘It isn’t that. The fact is, we really don’t know ourselves at the moment. Until the post-mortem …’

‘That’s all right,’ Hannah stopped her. ‘Now I’m sure you’ve got things to do. We appreciate your coming, dear, but we’ll manage. We’ve got each other. And we have friends. We’ll be well
supported by the people from the Meeting.’

‘Er …?’

‘Friends’ Meeting. Quakers is what you probably know us as. The Society of Friends is our official title. We’re very small, so I’m not surprised you don’t know of us. I happen to be the Clerk. Bill and I have been Quakers all our lives. Charlie too, of course.’

‘I’m sorry to be so ignorant,’ said Jane sincerely.

‘Don’t be. We’re not very visible these days. In fact, we’re very much a dying breed, I fear. There’s not much of the original passion left any more.’ She sighed. ‘Three hundred years ago, the Quakers were very much a force to be reckoned with.’

‘Well, I hope you’ll get all the support you need from it.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Hannah nodded slowly. ‘Oh yes. We will.’

Jane allowed herself to be ushered out, pausing only to tell the Grattans that they could expect to be interviewed about Charlie’s movements and other relevant matters. His bedroom would be examined, and other aspects of his life explored.

‘It all sounds rather intrusive,’ Hannah demurred, with another worried glance at her brother.

‘We try to avoid it feeling like that, but of
course, if we’re to understand exactly what happened, it can’t really be avoided.’

‘No,’ said Hannah cheerlessly. ‘I don’t suppose it can.’

WPC Nugent took her leave in a thoughtful mood. The only thing she could remember about Quakers was that they made a fuss about nuclear bombs and wars. She’d had no idea there were some of them living right here, on her patch.

Silas Dagg hated the telephone. His cousins had insisted he have one installed after he twisted his back and lay for two days on the floor before anybody found him, but he never used it. Very few people were given his number, so when it rang at seven-thirty that evening, the shock was considerable. Angrily he snatched up the receiver, having dumped his elderly corgi roughly on the floor from her snug place on his lap.

‘Who might that be?’ he demanded.

‘Silas, it’s Hannah,’ came the gentle reply. The voice was slow and musical, as always, but he could hear grief and trouble coming out of the grubby plastic gadget in his hand, like something tangible. Like rain in the midst of the hay harvest or a scouring disease running through the calves.

‘What?’ he said, his shoulders braced squarely for whatever she might have to tell him.

‘They found Charlie.’

‘Was he lost? First I’ve heard of it.’

‘We hadn’t seen him since Sunday, but we thought he was with the Cattermoles. He’s been staying there a lot lately. The police were here a little while ago, to tell us they found him at half past four today, in a ditch.’

‘Dead?’ The question was unnecessary; he’d already heard the answer in her voice.

‘They think he was murdered. Silas – who in the world would want to murder Charlie? When did he ever hurt anybody?’

Silas shuddered as the fact behind the words struck him. Hannah and Bill were his cousins. Together they formed the core of the Quaker Meeting – Birthright Friends, whose great-grandparents had worshipped at the little Meeting House at the end of the village street. Farmers, builders, traders: their straight dealing often leading to an affluence they found burdensome. The meeting waxed and waned, attracting occasional newcomers, but rarely numbering more than twenty or thirty members. The loss of Charlie was a great blow; the fact that his death had been brought about with deliberate malice was far worse.

‘Shall I come?’ he asked.

‘I think we should hold a special meeting.’

‘What – now? Surely that’s too quick?’ And
yet the thought appealed to him: to have his fellow Friends around him was always a comfort, even in recent times, with so much turmoil and disagreement causing divisions and unkind words. Silas always looked forward to the silent hour each Sunday morning.

‘Not
now,
’ she said, on a single breath of impatience at the suggestion. ‘On Friday. At eleven. I’m sure everyone will be able to come.’

‘Are you?
Everyone
?’ He put a world of meaning into the word; there were people who might be deeply embarrassed to be asked to remember Charlie Grattan with fondness.
Who could possibly want to hurt Charlie?
Hannah had asked. Silas could have answered with a string of names. Charlie had been a fool in more ways than one and caused many a wounded soul to curse him in their hearts for his intemperate ways. Hunting was about much more than chasing a fox across wintry fields. It went far deeper than that, as Silas well understood. To condemn it as barbaric was to ignore tradition and age-old practice. It encompassed something visceral, unspoken, to do with man’s place on the land. As a Quaker, Silas had never personally indulged in hunting, but he respected and understood those who did, and he had flinched at Charlie Grattan’s behaviour towards them.

Thursday morning was busy for Den. The pathologist had performed a post-mortem on Charlie and preliminary results indicated that he had died of a fractured skull; fractured, in fact, in no fewer than four places. The object responsible had been a horseshoe, or possibly two horseshoes. The curved shape had been distinctive and there were matching marks on his face and shoulders. The blows had been delivered with some considerable force. The time of death could get no closer than between seventy-two and forty-eight hours before he was found. And that meant he had been killed on Sunday or Monday. These basic facts were circulated to CID by eleven that morning.

‘Either someone bashed him with a horseshoe, over and over, or he was trampled to death by a very determined horse,’ summarised the Inspector, briefing Den and two others. ‘And at the moment it looks a lot like the latter, given that a horseshoe on its own is not a very credible weapon. Even if you snatched one up on the spur of the moment, it would be almost impossible to hold it at such an angle as to inflict these wounds or to wield it with sufficient force. There was substantial weight behind the shoe when it connected with his head.’

‘How bizarre,’ breathed Den. ‘Especially after Nina Nesbitt.’ The others eyed him expectantly.
‘You know – the woman protesting at the hunt. Killed by a horse. Coincidence or what?’

The Inspector remained impassive. ‘Plainly not,’ he said. ‘Same farm, as well as both involving a horse. But no suggestion of two murders. There’s not a whiff of foul play about the way the woman died. Am I right, Cooper?’

Den nodded. ‘It was definitely an accident, no question. So maybe somebody wanted to deliberately echo that death in the way he killed Charlie? As a way of making a connection. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? Somebody trying to get some sort of point across.’

‘Right. Good thinking. Now I want interviews, lots of them. All the family background you can find, plus close scrutiny of the animal rights crowd and the people who live at the place where he died. Close liaison with forensics, obviously, and take on board anything they can tell you about the churned-up ground by that ditch, hairs from horses and humans – everything. Plus – and this should come first, now I think about it – get people out to all the local riding stables and check horses’ feet for blood, or new shoes being fitted urgently, that sort of thing. It’s a faint hope you’ll find anything, all these days later, but it has to be done. We need to know who knew Grattan best. Who loved him, who hated him. Cooper, I gather your girlfriend knows the High Copse people?
That might be useful, but don’t let her cloud your judgement.’ He noticed Den’s wary reaction. ‘I don’t mean anything heavy. We’re not taking her on as a temporary WPC or anything. Just don’t waste her, if you see what I mean.’

Den nodded and relaxed. ‘All right, sir,’ he said.

After further deliberation, DI Smith decided he had enough grounds to bring Master of Foxhounds Gerald Fairfield in for questioning. DC Phil Bennett and DS Danny Hemsley were dispatched to collect him, before proceeding to an examination of local horses. Danny groaned. ‘Growth industry, horses. There are scores of the things within ten miles of here.’

The Inspector ignored him. ‘Cooper, you can help interview Fairfield. If we get anywhere with him, you might be able to forget half those people we’ve just been talking about.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The Inspector was, on the whole, an easy man to work with. His reasoning was generally sound and his demands rarely beyond the achievable. Den just wished he could like him. An occasional smile would help; a glimpse of someone with ordinary human emotions beneath the calm, wooden face that he presented to the world would work wonders. Smith’s career had not been unduly strewn with obstacles. He had never been shot or held hostage; had never
uncovered a ring of satanic paedophiles or a drug-based gang holding the town in a reign of terror. Badger baiting could be nasty, admittedly, and old ladies tended to make a tremendous fuss when they were burgled, but by and large, as far as Den could tell, the task of enforcing the law in the heart of Devon need not automatically turn you into an icy-hearted cynic.

People boxed themselves into corners: that was how Den saw it. They never meant to become criminals, never intentionally turned themselves into outlaws or reprobates. Something just got twisted inside them. Some inner failure took hold of them and they simply never found their way back up the greasy pole to conformity and social compliance. That didn’t necessarily make them likeable or easy to understand, but it kept Den himself from disillusion with the world at large. ‘The trouble with you is, you always want to be nice,’ said Lilah. ‘You want to hold on to the moral high ground and not let any of this muck stick to you.’

She was right, and he saw no reason to change.

Gerald Fairfield came willingly when invited by the police officers, who were careful not to mention Charlie Grattan. He strolled into the police station behind them, head held high, and looked from face to face with curiosity. Even at a
glance, Den sensed that this was not a guilty man. Stripped of his hunting pink, his commanding horse, his entourage of beaters and whippers and terrier men, he was still an imposing presence.

Detective Inspector Smith fought hard not to be intimidated. ‘If you would just come this way, sir, we have a few questions for you. It won’t take more than a few minutes.’

‘Delighted to be of help,’ Gerald smiled. The interview was to be taped and Den sat at a distance from the main action. Smith and Fairfield faced each other across the table, two men approaching fifty who had spent much of their lives in the area but never met before. Fairfield had gone to boarding school and then done a spell in the army, waiting to inherit his father’s estate. Smith had attended the local comprehensive, followed by police college; he lived in a three-bedroomed house in a row of others just like it. The abiding assumptions of the British class system, personified as they were in these individuals, quickly put both men at their ease. They knew what to expect from each other.

Nonetheless DI Smith’s opening words came as a surprise to Gerald. ‘We’re investigating the death of Mr Charles Grattan,’ he began. ‘His body was found yesterday. He appears to have been dead for some time.’