Ring of Guilt (14 page)

It was hard to fake a clearly Victorian pendant. So . . . ?

All the same, apart from the étui and one or two other items Griff had bought from X – and a couple of things in our top secret safe, our rainy-day insurance – every single thing we dealt with had documentation. Provenance. Receipts. We had a reputation for absolute openness and honesty. Except when my so-called grandfather drew people's attention to a libellous piece about me. And we took historic rings to an expert.

The more I thought about it, the less I knew what to do. And although Tim the Bear told me nothing could be solved by worrying, and it would seem better in the morning, I found it very hard to believe him.

I
f I didn't do something, Griff would be on to my anxiety like a shot. So I did something I'd always tried to avoid – I involved a third party. Shrugging on my dressing gown, but missing one slipper, I tiptoed down to the office and emailed Morris, the policeman with whom I might, if he hadn't discovered his ex-partner was pregnant, have had a relationship. I told him what I'd done and why, and asked him to print off the email and keep it, just in case. I even sent a photo of the pendant. I didn't want or need a reply, except to acknowledge that he'd received it. In any case, since most people weren't checking their in-boxes at something before four in the morning, I didn't expect one.

That done, I returned to the comfort of Tim the Bear's paws and was dead to the world before I even realized my foot was thawing out.

Morris had once surprised me by saying I ought to have more friends my own age. Mostly I didn't need them, but today I really did. First of all I needed someone to pretend I was going for a girly day out with. Second I needed someone to go with me on a not very girly trip: I wanted to tramp through the woods near where I'd found the body and see what was going on. Taking Griff was absolutely not an option – he wouldn't have approved, and in any case I wasn't going to march someone his age out in the rain on to land where people would much rather not see us. Which ruled out my father, not that he was ever ruled in, and Mrs Walker, despite her surname.

I probably wasn't in Will's good books, because I'd not called him back immediately and had only left a couple of words on his voice mail when I'd eventually got round to it. In any case, breaking the law (possibly) wasn't something you could invite a policeman to do. As for the Rev Robin, he probably had his head in the Good Book, and it wasn't exactly an option for him, either.

So any exploring had to be done on my own. OK, it would be risky. But there was one thing I could do to reduce the risk a bit, if only I could get clear of Griff. Even that was difficult. He got it into his head I was looking peaky, and was inclined to fuss me, with offers of hot chocolate and comfortable chairs.

He wasn't pleased when I had a phone call from my father, claiming he'd run out of all sorts of essentials. He dictated a list of things he needed.

‘Anything we want?' I asked Griff, as I gathered the hessian shopping bags we always used these days.

‘Waitrose?'

‘Sainsbury's.'

‘In that case, I don't think so.'

The old snob. As for me, I actually liked the Sainsbury's run, and often ran bargains to earth. Today wasn't one of them, so I just bundled up the items on the list and headed to Bossingham Hall.

‘No sign of the ring yet,' my father said by way of a greeting.

‘Any news of Nanny Baird's descendants yet?' I asked foolishly.

Blocking my ears against his pleas that I should help with the search, I stowed the shopping.

‘Lina, am I ever going to use all these lavatory rolls?'

‘They were on offer. Twelve for the price of nine.'

‘But recycled: does that mean—?'

‘Recycled from newspapers or something,' I said, not wishing to go down that particular road, not with a man who thought you should be able to get full wine bottles out of bottle banks, not throw away empty ones.

I found a couple of items to sell for him, putting the receipts I always gave him in a folder I'd bought for the purpose, and left him glued to a new quiz.

Maybe I should nip down to Hythe – not all that far, after all – and buy Griff some Waitrose goodies as a little treat. But as I headed south, I realized I was going to be going very near the spot where my presence had so annoyed the 4x4 driver. I pulled over on the Minnis, the common land which gives Stelling Minnis its name.

‘I'm going to do something daft, Titus,' I told him, down the phone. ‘I'm going to go and look round where I found that body. And if I don't call you back by four, I want you to call the police.'

‘Got the wrong man, doll. Me phone the filth? Hand'd drop off if I tried dialling 999. Besides, they'd ask questions.'

‘You could call the AA – say you'd seen an abandoned van and thought you might have heard a scream.' For good measure I gave the map reference.

‘And you don't think they might wonder why I wasn't phoning from near this here wood? They know all about where you make these calls, doll. Like you say, even mobiles,' he added with a sigh. ‘I thought they couldn't track them, but you were right.'

‘Well, I'm going in anyway. So if I die it's your fault.'

‘It's bloody yours, doll. Nothing to do with me.' He cut the call.

He was right, wasn't he?

At least I could drive slowly past, as I'd done before. Just to see.

What did I see? I saw a mud-covered Fiesta, same as every other mud-covered Fiesta, parked deep under a droopy tree. The driver checked carefully in his mirrors before he emerged, cap down over his eyes, filthy Barbour collar turned up. He'd got a pair of wellies in one hand.

‘Just got a few minutes to spare, doll. Your dad'd go doolally if anything happened to you. Not that he isn't, anyway. Now, shut up squeaking and get back in your car. We'll leave mine here. One doesn't attract attention, two might. Torch? Bloody hell, don't you know anything?'

Eventually Titus, with his wellies, two torches, some rope and a large scale OS map, joined me in the van. ‘We're going round the far side, see. Then we walk through the woods, eyes peeled. And then you get in my car and I run you back to yours. Easy-peasy.'

‘Easy-peasy it is,' I said, setting the van in motion. At least Titus wouldn't want mindless chatter. This was good, because I was actually quite scared. Very few people liked Titus; many feared him. All sorts of rumours sloshed round about his past, and I don't think he'd have hesitated to use violence if anyone crossed him. I dare say he'd taken every care not to be linked to the area in any way, and could have raped and/or murdered me – why did he want that rope, for goodness' sake? – and got away with it. But I trusted him. For one thing he needed my father's skills, and without me to keep an eye on him, Lord Elham would be back on the Pot Noodles and champagne diet and the shakes within a month. For another I think he quite liked the old reprobate, and wouldn't want to have him upset, as he would be if I disappeared. And maybe – this was a very shaky maybe – he quite liked having me around to spar with.

While I drove, he fastened the rope into a noose – quite a small one, certainly not big enough to go over my head.

‘Anyone asks, lost our dog, see.'

‘Bit of a basic lead,' I sniffed.

‘Bit of a basic dog. Lot of mongrel in him.'

I didn't argue.

The rain might have eased a bit, but the light was poor. I parked under a convenient tree but with two wheels firmly on the road, and pulled on my wellies. He did the same. I zipped up my waterproof and pulled up the hood, shoving my hands in my pockets and wondering why I never thought to bring gloves.

Without speaking, we set off.

‘I don't even know what I'm looking for,' I said, a couple of hundred yards down an almost liquid track.

‘Me neither. But you wanted to look, so we're looking.' He stopped dead, and pointed with his torch at something. When I stood peering blindly, he switched it on, a fierce narrow beam picking out disturbed undergrowth.

‘Thing is, badgers or night hawks?' He widened the beam. There were a lot of lumps and hollows. ‘Badgers. Only sometimes they dig things up. And sometimes they dig them after the filth have been over the place with their fine tooth combs.' He played the beam to and fro. At last, shaking his head, he moved forward a few more yards.

‘Ought to separate and zigzag, but not in this light. Have you getting yourself lost, and then where would we be? More badgers.' He narrowed the torch beam again.

‘Looks like an old milk bottle top.' I pointed.

‘And since when did the milkman deliver out here?' He headed off; I followed.

‘Lucky old badger,' he said, picking up a bright disc and wiping it on his trousers. ‘Late Roman. Anything else? Apart from a nice dose of bovine TB?'

Swallowing a suggestion that something as precious as a gold coin should be reported to the Coroner, I shone my torch into the sett, proud I'd remembered a word I don't have much call for. And screamed.

‘For God's sake, doll – just a few roots!'

‘Looked like a hand. Skeleton of a hand.'

‘Or do you mean hand of a skeleton? Come on. Shift yourself.'

It was hard to move quickly, but Titus set a cracking pace, especially when we picked up a track reinforced by some hard core.

‘Recent, if you ask me. Needed to get people in here without getting bogged down.' He waved his torch backwards and forwards.

I did the same. No idea what we were looking for, but it looked good. And it lit something up. I'd seen enough blue and white tape in my life to recognize police activity when I saw it.

Titus stopped short. ‘OK, that's it, doll. We take that path over there and go back to my car that way. Don't want to tangle with the Old Bill.'

No derring do there, then. But I shouldn't have expected it. Titus didn't do drugs, never drank while driving, observed speed signs as if they were Holy Writ and was generally so damned law-abiding you'd never have dreamed he spent his whole life committing serious fraud.

I nodded and fell into step. ‘At least we know they're treating where I found my body – or near enough – as a crime scene,' I said. ‘Hang on, what's that lot over there? Looks like a building site or something.'

We struck off on a feeble track leading towards it. At last we came upon another, much better path, again reinforced with hard core.

‘Knew this old bird once. Had to get rid of a lot of rubble from her old outhouse. Advertised it in the local rag as hard core. Had all the pervs in the county beating a path to her door.'

We took the track. Titus started fiddling with his rope.

If I'd been scared before, now I was terrified.

My mouth was too dry to say anything. Why should he be playing with the end, fraying it and picking at it? Why should he be looking at the trees, which now loomed over us?

He went right up to one and seemed to wipe it with the rope. And then he set off down what was really only a rabbit run, dabbing trees at intervals.

‘Want to get left behind, doll? Going the right way about it.'

My legs didn't want to move. At all.

But his weird route led us round to chained up gates, festooned with barbed and razor wire. We played our torches over high stakes covered in thick plastic-covered wire mesh. A nice impenetrable fence. For good measure it was lined with more mesh, the fine plastic sort, like they put round the village tennis courts to reduce the wind.

‘Bloody gulag. All it needs is a few high towers, a searchlight and an Alsatian or two.'

I didn't argue.

Titus shone his torch in great arcs in front. ‘Looking for the Welcome mat. No? Someone must have nicked it. And see that sign there, doll? Private security? That means dog patrols, and I for one can't abide the creatures.'

‘Not even mongrels?'

‘Especially fucking mongrels.'

‘It also means cameras. Those are the people who do our security. Cameras where you don't expect to see them.'

‘So pull your hood down a bit more.' He set off for a brisk walk round the fence.

‘Gap there.' I pointed. His eye-height, not mine.

He peered. ‘Bloody hell. Looks like a load of Eskimos have landed. Plastic igloos everywhere,' he explained.

‘Like police put over crime scenes?'

‘Here.' He put a key in the tear and dragged it downwards. ‘Nothing like a spot of vandalism.'

‘I wonder if it's an archaeological site . . . I'd expected it to look like the Somme, all flooded trenches. But I suppose they have to protect something from all this rain.'

‘Question is, what?'

‘We've been spotted – camera on your left.' I turned right and hunched my shoulders. ‘And do I hear—?'

‘You do. Fucking run. Now. No, that way!'

I ran. And fell.

I caught male voices. No baying, no barking. But that didn't mean –

Titus grabbed me as I tripped. ‘Stupid bitch. Got to keep up, got to keep quiet. Get it?'

I got it. Couldn't do otherwise since he'd got a hand clamped over my mouth and was using the other to lever me up. Then I was dragged along, willy-nilly. We reached the trees he'd dabbed with the rope and veered off sharply. I suppose there might have been a path – I certainly couldn't see it.

We stopped suddenly. I didn't so much as squeak this time. Like him I listened for – goodness knows what. At last he pointed. ‘Road's that way.'

By now it was almost dark. He stopped suddenly, used a craft knife to slice the end off the rope and threw the cut piece as high as he could into a tree. He stowed the knife, and wrapped the remaining rope round his waist. Then he grabbed my wrist and ran hard back not towards his car but to the van.