I hadn’t expected a lodger, so breakfast was frugal. We’d agreed that Annabelle would stay at my house for the weekend, so we visited the supermarket to stock up. Old habits die hard. I headed straight for the single portions, before the OAPs could hit them, then remembered we were catering for two. It was fun. I could get used to this, I thought. Unfortunately, her friends, Marie and Toby, were coming to stay with her on Monday, so she’d have to go home then. I reluctantly agreed that she’d be safe with them in the house with her.
Nigel told me, when I rang him, that everything was running smoothly. It was a warm autumn day, so after lunch I took Annabelle to the Sculpture Park. The trees were turning colour, their shadows striping the cropped grass as we headed for the first piece.
‘Oh, Charles, this is wonderful,’ she declared. ‘Why haven’t you brought me here before?’
‘I didn’t know it was here until last week,’ I fibbed.
‘So what is that one? A Henry Moore?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, that’s one of our ‘Ennery’s famous ones, from his, er, Industrial period. It’s called…oh, Spindle Piece, or something, I think. I studied Moore at college, but it was a long time ago.’ I turned away, so she couldn’t see my facial contortions. Annabelle walked over to read the little plaque, while I stood well back, admiring the view.
‘Spindle Piece,’ she confirmed. ‘I’m impressed.’
I got the next one right, too. It was called Hill Arches, but I couldn’t resist showing off when we reached 2-piece Reclining Figure no. 2, by telling her the material, number of copies made and the date.
Annabelle came back from reading the nameplate with her lips pursed, casually scanning the sky. As she reached me she said, ‘You’re a fraud, Priest,’ and thumped me in the chest. I fell over backwards, partly from the blow, partly because my legs collapsed with laughter.
We had a look round the shop and bought some postcards, and wandered amongst the temporary exhibits. Most striking of them was a crowd of life-size rough bronze figures, standing to attention. They were all headless. Slowly, subconsciously, I steered us towards the far side of the park, adjacent to where K. Tom Davis’s home lay.
‘Right, Clever-clogs,’ Annabelle said, ‘what is that one called?’
It was the last statue between us and the fence, beyond which was Davis’s paddock. I remembered it, tall and spiky, with a bicycle wheel on top. It was the first one I’d seen when I climbed over the fence, and I hadn’t known about the name tags.
‘Er, don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘It’s not a Moore. I specialise in Moores.’
‘Well, have a guess. What image does it convey to you?’
‘Mmm. Long and skinny,’ I said. ‘Bit like you. Is it called Mrs Wilberforce, balancing bicycle wheel on her nose?’
She wandered over to it. I could see the house through the trees, and the garage where I’d hidden. Beyond them, through the gap, was what looked like his Range Rover, but I couldn’t be sure. I should have brought the binoculars.
‘No, it is not that,’ she called back to me.
‘Right,’ I shouted. ‘How about…Tour de Force?’
‘No, but you are close.’ She was back with me now.
‘Tour de France?’
‘Ha ha! Well guessed. What are you staring at, Charles?’
‘Er, pardon?’
‘I just asked you what you were staring at. Something has caught your attention.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I, er, just remembered something Nigel told me, a few days ago. You see that house, through there.’
She turned and nodded.
‘Well, we think it belongs to a villain. If possible, I’d like to watch it for a while, a few minutes, see if I can get a bit closer and read the number of the vehicle.’
Annabelle rolled her eyes in a here-we-go-again expression. I couldn’t blame her, and I realised I was lying, breaking my resolution. I knew the number; it was written in my reports. What I’d remembered, coming off Great Gable, was that Nigel said he’d almost left a bullbars poster behind the wipers, but decided it might not be appropriate. Why would he want to do that? When I’d seen the vehicle, a few days earlier, it hadn’t been fitted with bullbars.
The park was busy with people enjoying the fine day, Michael Angelo was in jail and I was certain we hadn’t been followed. Tailing another car without being noticed in a city centre is fairly straightforward, but it’s nigh impossible on country roads. We were safe enough. I put my arm across Annabelle’s shoulders. ‘Quarter of an hour,’ I said. ‘It is rather important. You have a coffee, while I sit on that fence and watch for a while.’ I gave her the keys to the car. ‘I’ll see you in fifteen minutes,’ I promised. ‘Either in the cafe or the car.’ I pecked her cheek and watched her walk away. If she was disappointed she didn’t let it show.
I didn’t sit on the fence. That’s never been one of my failings. I leapt straight over it and crossed the paddock, veering off to the right in case they were having drinky-poos in the conservatory. At the other side I sneaked along the fence until I reached the corner of their garden. They didn’t appear to be in there, having a post-prandial swim or sipping pina colada while swatting the odd passing humming bird.
It was definitely the Range Rover. I let myself in through the gate and put the garage between me and the house windows. I listened for a while before peeping round the end of the garage. He might have been washing the cars, or decoking his barbecue, but he wasn’t. The Golf — I always thought it a daft name for a car until someone told me it stands for Goes Like Fuck — was there, so they were probably both in. Thinking about it, it’s a daft name for a game, too.
Fortunately, the big Range Rover was nose-up to the garage. Nigel was right. I squeezed between the front of it and the up-and-over door and ran my fingers over the bullbars that I was certain hadn’t been there before. If anyone came out, I’d be caught. ‘Just happened to be passing, Mr Davis. Thought I’d pop in to see how you are.’ Feeble, but it’d do.
Unless he shot me, and asked questions afterwards. There was a precedent, where a detective had been killed as an intruder, and the householder, a known villain, was unconditionally discharged and given fifty pence from the poor box for the cost of the cartridge. I made a mental note to check if Davis was a shotgun licence holder.
There was something fishy about the bullbars. When I ran my hands over them the feel of the paint was inconsistent. The ends, which curl over the headlamps and are designed to mash the kidneys of any pedestrian who gets in the way, were coated in what felt like enamel, or maybe even some sort of epoxy paint. A good solid finish. What you’d expect on a vehicle of this quality. But the horizontal tubes across the front of the radiator, put there to break femurs, spinal columns or children’s skulls, were different. They were just spray-painted with black cellulose. The sort of job you could do yourself with a couple of aerosols from Halfords. I tried to remember if I’d seen any in the garage, and felt that I had.
Trouble was, they were welded in. The ends fitted into vertical pieces, and a seam of welding locked them in place. It wasn’t good deep welding, though. It was what my mate Jimmy Hoyle would call chicken shit. I wondered if the insurance company had been to look at the Jaguar yet.
A good shake might have dislodged the tubes, but that would probably trigger the alarm. I picked at the welding with my thumbnail, without success. One time, I never went anywhere without my Swiss Army knife, but they were now considered offensive weapons, so I didn’t even have that. I found a twopence piece in my pocket and attacked the welding with it as best I could.
A big flake fell away, revealing how the tube was loosely slotted into the uprights. I found the flake on the floor and examined it. Plastic Padding has a thousand uses, and Davis had created another one. It’s good stuff. I spat on the piece and fitted it back where it came from, but you could see the join as a white line where the paint had cracked. It’d have to do.
A voice shouted, ‘Please your bloody self! I’m washing the car,’ and a door slammed. I forgot my rehearsed lines and bolted round the end of the garage. It was Davis. I couldn’t see a hosepipe at this end, so I might be safe. He wasn’t at the back when I peered round the corner, and when I calculated he was busy I tiptoed down his garden, breaking into a nonchalant stroll as distance gave me confidence. A minute later I was heading across the neat grass of the park, in Annabelle’s wake. With luck, he’d dislodge the piece of Plastic Padding with his brush and think he’d not made a good job of it. With a bit more luck, they’d serve apple pie in the cafe. I deserved a piece.
On Monday morning I returned Annabelle to the Old Vicarage and still made it to the office before Mr Wood did. It was a pleasant way to start the week.
My good mood didn’t last long. Gilbert hadn’t read a paper or listened to the radio for two weeks, so news of a murder, the rhubarb run and his senior officer on a fizzer came as a succession of shocks to him. After the early morning briefing we deployed the troops and Inspector Adey and myself returned to Gilbert’s office for a policy discussion. That meant budgets. While we were there the assistant chief constable rang Mr Wood to say that Bramshill had been delighted with my talk.
‘He said it was down to earth and provocative,’ Gilbert growled. ‘I bet it was.’
‘I want some time to concentrate on Lisa Davis’s murder,’ I told him. ‘I’m sure it’s tied up with the bullion robbery.’
‘I thought you said Superintendent Isles had arrested Mr Watts junior,’ he replied.
‘He has, but Michael Angelo didn’t do it. I’m sure of that.’
‘OK. No doubt Sergeant Newley can cope.’
‘Just what I thought.’
Mr and Mrs Davis were in when I knocked on their door. The Range Rover was in the garage, so I couldn’t see if K. Tom had done a repair job on the Plastic Padding I’d disturbed. He was in his shirt sleeves, spectacles hanging round his neck on a lanyard, and he didn’t look pleased to see me. Not many people are.
‘DI Priest,’ I said. ‘Can I have a word?’
They sat me on the same shiny seat as before, after removing a selection of the morning papers. They had mugs of coffee, the real stuff, liberally dosed with brandy from the smell of it, but they didn’t offer me one. If this was how the wealthy spent a typical Monday morning, it hardly seemed worth the hassle.
‘Your sergeant came to see Ruth on Friday,’ K. Tom told me. ‘I’d gone for a round of golf, but I can’t add anything to what she said.’
‘Fair enough. Have you heard from Justin?’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Davis replied. ‘He arrived back on Thursday, and rang me Friday morning.’
‘But you haven’t seen him?’
‘No. He said he was spending some time with Lisa’s parents.’
‘How did he sound?’
‘Shocked. How would you expect him to sound?’
Her hackles were rising. Good. It’s always more interesting when there’s a note of antagonism in the answers, and it saves a lot of misdirected sympathy. I turned to her husband and said, ‘Mr Davis, do you think I could have a word with your wife in private, and then perhaps the same with you?’
He looked perplexed for a few seconds, then shrugged and rose to his feet, saying, ‘If it helps. I’ll be in the snooker room, when you want me.’
As soon as he’d gone I opened with, ‘Why don’t Justin and his stepfather get on with each other, Mrs Davis?’
She fingered the material of the mohair cardigan she was wearing. ‘They do get on,’ she assured me. ‘There were a few difficulties a while ago, just, like, growing pains, when Justin resented Tom, but they patched it up. Now Tom follows him all over the place. Helps him in his career. He says he’s Justin’s number two fan, after…after…’ Her voice trailed off. She looked pale and upset, but I noticed that she’d been reading Hello! magazine when I came in. It jarred with her apparent demeanour, but I don’t suppose there is a publication called Grieving Mother-in-Law Monthly.
I said, ‘I believe your husband knew Lisa before Justin did. What exactly was their relationship?’
‘You mean did they have an affair?’ she snapped.
I waved a hand in assent.
‘Of course not,’ she retorted. ‘Lisa worked for K. Tom for a while as a temp. She had ideas above her station. He helped her start up in business and she repaid him by trying to wreck our marriage, steal him away. She was a gold digger, but Tom wanted none of it. Then she met Justin and changed her target.’
‘So you didn’t approve of her marrying Justin?’
‘That’s putting it mildly, Inspector.’ She moved the newspapers again, looking for something. Her handbag was alongside her easy chair. She lifted it on to her knee and found a long, gold cigarette case in it. Her hands were shaking as she lit up and puffed clouds of smoke towards the chandelier.
‘When did you last see Lisa?’ I asked.
‘July twenty-third.’
I blinked in surprise. ‘That’s, er, a very precise answer,’ I commented, inviting an explanation.
‘It’s my birthday. Justin always buys me a present. They called round with it, stayed about ten minutes. Anything else?’
‘No, that’s all for now,’ I said. ‘Which way is the snooker room?’
K. Tom was crouched over the table when I walked in. He played a shot without looking up and balls clicked against each other. None went down. The table was probably half-size, and there was a bar in the corner of the room, with a proper hand pump. The walls were lined with high chairs, so his cronies could watch the action.
‘Nice room,’ I told him, looking round.
‘Do you play?’ he asked, wandering round, studying the pattern of the balls.
‘No.’
‘You should try it. It’s a good way of relaxing.’ He saw whatever he was looking for and played another shot. The black ball cannoned into the cushion alongside a pocket and sped away. The white one trickled towards me and fell into the net bag. Even I knew that this was bad. Maybe the gold bracelet was interfering with his swing. I lifted the ball out and placed it on the baize, at my end of the table, to signify that his little game was over. He straightened his back and placed the cue in the rack.
‘Did you have an affair with Lisa?’ I asked.
For a second he did not know how to answer. He reached across and started rubbing the muscle of his left arm, a pained expression on his face. ‘Who told you that?’ he asked.
‘I get paid to ask questions.’
‘Did Ruth tell you?’
‘Did you?’
‘No, of course not. What did Ruth say?’
‘Same as you.’
‘So who told you I’d had an affair with Lisa?’
‘She did.’
‘Lisa? You knew Lisa?’
Full marks to K. Tom. We were supposing that Lisa told him about me in the second phone call.
‘Mmm.’
‘So why did she tell you that?’
‘Why would she lie? She rang you, twice, the night before she was murdered. What did she want?’
‘Just someone to talk to. She was drunk. She said it was about her VAT returns, but that was just a pretext.’
‘And the second call?’
‘I’d asked her for some figures. She rang me back with them.’
‘What were they?’
‘I don’t remember. I didn’t even write them down. I only said it to get her off the phone. Like I said, she was drunk,’
‘So late Friday night this drunk woman finds her accounts books, extracts some figures from them to do with her VAT returns and rings you back with them. Sounds unlikely, to me.’
He was rubbing his arm again and looking disgruntled. ‘Well, it’s the truth,’ he declared. In other words, prove otherwise, if you can.
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Months ago. Sometime in the summer.’
‘When exactly?’
He shook his head. ‘Can’t remember.’
‘What was the occasion?’
He picked up a blue ball, rotated it in his fingers and put it down again. ‘That’s right,’ he stated. ‘Ruth’s birthday. They came round with a present for her. So it would be…June…or July.’
‘And when did you last see Justin?’
‘Same time.’
‘And you haven’t seen him since?’
‘No.’
‘I thought you were his number two fan, his mechanic, followed him all over the Continent.’
His face turned red and his arm was troubling him again. Some people pull their ear lobes or scratch their heads. He rubbed his upper arm. ‘I, er, might as well tell you,’ he sighed.
‘Go on.’
‘All that…going over to the Continent, with Justin’s bike and some spares. It’s just a ruse. I don’t go to watch him.’
‘So why do you go over there?’ I couldn’t believe he was going to tell me about smuggling gold. He didn’t.
‘It’s, er, Ruth. We, er, don’t have much of a, er, relationship, you know.’
‘You mean, sex.’
‘That’s right. I have a friend, in Amsterdam. I go over to see her as often as I can. You’re a man of the world, Inspector. I’m sure you can imagine how it is.’
Why do they always throw it back at you? I didn’t have a bloody clue how it was to have a street full of friends in Amsterdam. Someone once told me that the tour guides always recommend the girl in number 42 as the most beautiful. Presumably she was the one to avoid, unless you fancied catching the Japanese strain of HIV.
It was blowing cold outside, threatening rain. I glanced at the garage as I climbed into my car, and wondered about the bullbars. It would be easy enough to raise a search warrant, and that might tell us if he was smuggling gold inside them but we’d not find the rest of it. So far he didn’t know we were interested in the gold, unless Jimmy the Fish or the Wattses had tipped him off. I decided it was best to keep on playing it softly-softly.
The next call was the one I wasn’t looking forward to. Normally, I don’t hang about when I drive, but everything overtook me as I wound reluctantly up the old back road between Heckley and Oldfield, towards Broadside, home of Justin Davis.
He was digging the garden, working furiously, oblivious to the knife-edged breeze flattening the cottongrass on the moors. I closed the gate and walked towards him as he straightened up. Long hair blew across his face. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans with ripped knees. I stopped about five yards from him, not sure what to expect. He only stood about five feet six tall, but was wiry with it. Proper muscle, not the false stuff you see on TV freak shows.
‘I came to say how sorry I was — about Lisa,’ I shouted to him, across the patch of newly dug earth.
He placed his foot on the spade and drove it into the ground. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he suggested, and walked towards the house, leaving the spade standing there as if marking a grave.
‘Just give me a minute,’ he said, ushering me into the front room. ‘Sit down, please.’
The parrot wasn’t there. I stood and looked out of the window, down towards the Peak District and what I imagined to be Mam Tor. Big drops of rain dashed on to the glass and slid diagonally away.
‘Take a seat,’ he told me when he returned. He’d changed into a clean version of the same outfit, but was barefoot. His hair was back in a ponytail and his face freshly washed.
‘Thanks.’ I sat in silence for a long time, looking at some object on the floor, like a Buddhist monk contemplating a candle flame. ‘I rang Lisa, Thursday night,’ I began. ‘I wanted to ask her about K. Tom — your stepfather. There are certain suspicions about him smuggling. Gold, we think. I wondered if your falling out had anything to do with it, so I made an appointment to talk to Lisa Friday morning. That’s why I was here. The papers made it sound… They tried to make something out of it. You know what they’re like.’
He nodded. His face was white and lined beyond that caused by an unhealthy lifestyle, his eyes bloodshot and twitching. Fifty hours in a jumbo jet wouldn’t have helped. Fingers with chewed-down nails drummed on the arms of his chair and his feet beat a rhythmless tattoo on the carpet. He badly needed another fix of whatever kept him going.
‘Has the doctor seen you?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. I think the police must have asked him to call.’
‘Did he give you anything?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t like pills. Reality is scary enough. The thought of not being in control terrifies me.’
‘That’s a good philosophy,’ I agreed, ‘but the odd pill might help you sleep, or something.’
‘No, I’m OK.’
‘Is anybody calling to see you? Friends, anybody?’
‘Team mates, and their wives. One or two. I guess it’s awkward for them.’
‘You’re right. They want to do whatever is best, but don’t know what that is.’
We chatted on, me letting him do most of it. He suggested coffee and we drifted into the kitchen.
‘When will I be able to…?’ he began. ‘When will they let me…?’
‘The funeral? When will they let you arrange a funeral?’
‘Yes. That’s what I meant.’
We perched on high stools round what I supposed was a breakfast bar. ‘Usually,’ I said, ‘in a situation like this — a murder case — we have to leave the body in the mortuary after the post-mortem, for the defence to arrange their own PM, if they require it. I can’t see that being necessary. I’ll have a word with the coroner, see what we can do.’
‘I’d be very grateful. So would Lisa’s parents.’
‘I know.’
I asked him if he’d go back to Australia, but he hadn’t thought about it. Said he might eventually settle over there, make a fresh start.
‘Where’s the bird — Joey?’ I wondered. ‘He’d be some company for you.’
‘Lisa’s parents are looking after him. I’ll have a ride over to collect him, this afternoon.’
‘I should. He, er, was on the floor, near the front door when I came. I picked him up. It was the bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life.’
Justin gave the briefest of smiles. ‘He was probably scared. He wouldn’t hurt you.’ He looked in his coffee mug, realised it was empty and reached out for mine. ‘Another coffee?’
‘Please.’
With his back to me, as he waited for the kettle to boil again, he said, ‘Lisa loved Joey. And he loved her. He was a present for her tenth birthday. She used to take Joey in the bath with her. He’d stand on the taps, and after she’d rinsed her hair with the attachment she’d give him a shower. He enjoyed that.’
‘He did look a bit straggly,’ I said.
He slid the full mug across to me and climbed on to his stool. ‘Did Lisa suffer, Charlie? That’s the question I need answering, most of all.’
I finished stirring in a couple of spoonfuls of sugar, touched the tip of the spoon on the surface of the coffee to remove the last droplet and deliberately placed the spoon alongside my mug, equidistant from it and two edges of the tabletop. ‘It was quick,’ I told him. ‘And she didn’t struggle. She had no time to struggle. That’s all I know, but that much, I guarantee.’
‘I appreciate what you say. Will you catch…whoever it was?’
‘I’ll catch ’em, Justin. That I vow.’
The visit I’d been scared of making lasted two and a half hours. I promised to call again and told him he could ring me any time, night or day. At the door I said, ‘Sooner or later, Justin, it’s going to occur to you that if I hadn’t been nosing into various people’s affairs, this might not have happened. I’m aware of it, and it bothers me.’
He shook his head, saying, ‘No. You were only doing your job. Two years ago a rider crashed while trying to get past me. He’s in a wheelchair, now. If I hadn’t been so determined not to let him through he’d still be walking about. I won an extra point and twenty quid. He got that.’
The car was facing in the wrong direction, but I didn’t bother turning it around. I drove to the highest place on the moors and just sat there for half an hour, safe and warm, with the wind buffeting the car and the view slowly turning to a khaki smudge as a wall of bad weather blew in from the west and the first sleet of the season built up on the windscreen.
I knew Gilbert wouldn’t be in, so I used the back stairs and sat in his office while I rang Superintendent Isles. He couldn’t see any reason why Lisa’s body shouldn’t be released. Sometimes, with cut throats, great weight is put on the angle of the attack, and whether it was done by a left- or right-handed assailant, but we’d made no conclusions about this. He promised to have a word with the coroner. After that I waited in the gathering gloom until it was time to go home.
I wasn’t hungry, so instead of tea I settled for listening to a Joan Baez CD. The first song on it was ‘Diamonds and Rust’, straight out of my desert island selection. After that I typed my ethics paper.
At eight o’clock I rang Annabelle. ‘Have you finished eating?’ I asked, when she answered.
‘Yes, thank you. I wish you’d been able to be with us.’
‘I, er, thought I might be working late. Did your friends find you OK?’
‘Yes, but…’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I think they expected you to be here, too.’
‘You mean, living with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m open to offers.’
After a pause she said, ‘Maybe that is something to discuss another time.’
‘Right,’ I replied. I liked the way this was going. ‘Have you been anywhere?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, brightly. ‘Marie and Toby didn’t arrive until nearly two, so we couldn’t go too far. Would you believe I took them to the Sculpture Park? They enjoyed it immensely.’
‘Good. I bet they didn’t guess as many as I did.’
‘Well, they wouldn’t, would they, never having been before?’
‘I’d never been before,’ I protested in my hurt voice.
‘Ha, I’ll believe you. They didn’t even make a passable attempt at poor old St Sebastian.’
‘At who!’ I exclaimed, sitting up.
‘St Sebastian. Surely you remember him.’
‘No, you’ve lost me.’
‘The tall one, with the bicycle wheel on his head. That is his halo. He was martyred by being shot with arrows, hence the spiky bits. Didn’t I tell you who he was?’
‘No,’ I mumbled. ‘You never mentioned it.’
‘Well, now you know. Are you coming for supper, tomorrow?’
‘Er, yes, I’d like that.’
‘Good. Any requests?’
‘No, er, Annabelle, I, er, won’t keep you from your guests any longer. See you tomorrow, eh?’
We said our goodbyes and I rolled on the floor, holding my head. The martyrdom of St Sebastian. Five yards in, at five yard intervals. That’s where the gold was buried, just over the fence from Davis’s paddock.
Sparky was at home when I rang. ‘Does Daniel own a metal detector?’ I asked him.
‘No. Why?’
I explained.
‘Task force have them,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘I could collect one from HQ and meet you there.’
‘What, now?’
‘Why not? If we did a search in daylight we’d end up with every gold-hungry nut in the country converging on the place. I could meet you there in less than an hour.’
‘Right,’ I agreed. ‘Pay and display car park. I’ll take a spade. See you there, quick as you can.’
I’m not sure what the courting couple thought when these two dark-clad figures unloaded their cars and set off across the park, but nobody rang the police. Maybe their attention was elsewhere. I led the way across the big field, hoping to find a short cut through the temporary exhibits.
‘Waaah!’ Sparky yelled, dropping the detector and throwing his arms around my neck. We’d reached the crowd of headless men.
‘Be quiet,’ I hissed. ‘Security will hear you. They’re only statues.’
‘Scared the living daylights out of me,’ he gasped.
The short cut wasn’t such a good idea and we had to retrace our steps.
‘What’s that one supposed to be?’ he hissed.
‘It’s called Spindle Piece, by Henry Moore.’
‘What’s it worth?’
‘Oh, about half a million.’
‘Jesus. We’re looking for the wrong guy.’
‘You’re a Philistine.’
There were no lights coming from the direction of Davis’s house. ‘This is the one we’re looking for,’ I whispered. ‘It’s St Sebastian.’
‘Could’ve fooled me.’
‘And the fence is about fifty yards that way. I’m presuming they mean five yards in from that.’
‘Makes sense.’ He lowered the metal detector to the ground, placed the headphones over his ears and shone a little torch on the controls.
‘Do you know how it works?’ I asked.
‘They gave me a crash course. It’s set to detect anything metallic, so if I get a buzz in the headphones, you have to dig it up.’
‘OK. Let’s go.’
I paced five yards in from the fence and Sparky wandered away, skimming the head of the machine from side to side, just above the ground.
Nothing.
‘Maybe it doesn’t work,’ I suggested.
‘Well, let’s try it on something.’
I took a coin from my pocket and dropped it on the grass. Sparky found it straight away.
‘Did it make a buzz?’
‘Mmm. Loud and clear.’
‘What’s it like with something bigger?’ I asked, pushing the head of the spade under the business end. He jumped about a foot in the air.
We tried again, in the opposite direction. Nothing. Then we climbed the fence and tried five yards that side of it, in Davis’s paddock. We found two ring pulls from drinks cans, from the days when they came away in your fingers, an old key and a horse shoe.
‘This is fun,’ Sparky confessed. ‘I might convince Daniel that he ought to have one.’
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Have you tired of his train set, and the radio-controlled aeroplane, and the fishing rod and the mountain bikes and the…’
‘OK! I get the message. It’s just that — Charlie! There’s something here! Something big! I think we’ve found it!’
‘Where!’
‘There! It’s nearly blowing my head off.’
He pinpointed the spot and I started digging. I removed a square of turf and waved him to have another go.
‘It’s still down there,’ he said.
The world started to revolve around me, as if seen from a carousel.
‘They’re back!’ Sparky hissed.
I turned as the headlights of the Range Rover swung across the paddock, sweeping the shadows of trees and fence before them.
‘They can’t see us,’ I said.
A security light came on, headlights were extinguished, doors slammed. We sat on our heels until all was dark again. ‘Right, where were we?’ I wondered.
I dug deeper and Sparky checked the hole again. Still there. I widened it and removed several more spadefuls of soil.
‘It’s still down there.’
‘I’m not happy with this division of labour,’ I puffed as I pushed the spade further down. It came to an abrupt stop.
‘I’ve hit something!’ I exclaimed.
And it was metallic, I quickly discovered, as the spade scraped across it. I removed soil with my hands, revealing a square object, exactly the size I imagined we were looking for. The spade down the side and some applied leverage eventually freed it from its hiding-place. I rose to my feet, holding the heavy metal block as if it were a piece of the true cross.
‘Shine the torch on it,’ I suggested.
‘I’ve been trying. It’s duff.’
‘There’s something embossed on the side.’
‘You’d expect that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yeah, and it’s heavy enough. Bring the stuff, young Jim, lad; we could be in business. Let’s get back to the cars.’
Stuart Pawson
Last Reminder