Beneath the Soil (17 page)

Nick had clearly judged that entrusting this secret even to Millie and Tom was too dangerous.

Suzie would have liked to share it with someone. They could have sworn the teenagers to secrecy. But now she must keep this dangerous truth to herself.

Did anyone else in Moortown know it, or guess?

‘Oh,' Nick said triumphantly, ‘and there's this.'

His long legs took him into the hall. He returned proudly bearing Suzie's giant cheque.

‘Hey! Not bad!' Tom cried. ‘Well done, Mum.'

‘Well, I didn't exactly pull the tractor across the moor myself. And this is just the Young Farmers' sponsor money. There was a whole lot of other stuff going on around the square, like that stall where Nick bought his fossil poo. Someone gave me a big bag of money afterwards, but I've left them to count it and put it in the bank.'

‘So,' Millie looked at Suzie thoughtfully, ‘you've raised several thousand pounds. You've put a name to that sinister guy at the funeral, and found out he had a good reason to be there. Dad's obviously enjoyed himself. Sounds like a good afternoon.'

Can she pick up the vibes about how I'm feeling? Suzie wondered. We haven't said a word about that group of farmers hemming us in at the top of Mill Lane. Or John Nosworthy's eyes going anxiously around the square. Or Bernard Summers' explosive news of the real situation between Philip and Eileen. Does she guess? Or do I look like someone who's had a successful afternoon?

Back in their bedroom, she closed the door.

‘We can't really keep this to ourselves, can we? I know Tom's right. We're probably a laughing stock at the police station. But what you found out is serious. If Philip really was sitting on a fortune, and Eileen wouldn't let him sell the rights …'

‘Then it looks bad for him.'

‘That's not a reason to keep quiet about it, is it? Nick, you have to tell the police.'

He ran a rueful hand through his wavy hair. ‘I know that. Bernard Summers said he'd kill me if I told anyone else, but I'm hoping that was just a figure of speech.'

‘We can trust him, can't we? I mean, he really does know what he's talking about with the gold? I don't think I could bear making a fool of ourselves in front of the police again.'

‘It won't be you making a fool of yourself. Well, maybe over the photograph. But what happened with Bernard Summers is down to me. And he's not going to like it if I tell them. If no one else knows about his find, except Philip, then he's going to be a key witness for the prosecution when it comes to the trial.'

‘There must obviously have been a rumour about finding something on his land. Philip fooled everyone into thinking he was against mining there. Nobody in Moortown seems to know what it was, or that it was really Eileen who was opposing it. Nobody knows except Bernard Summers. And now us.'

‘I was thinking of leaving it until Monday. Now they've charged Philip, I guess a lot of the murder squad have been stood down. Back to office hours while they put the prosecution case together. But I'm beginning to feel I'd like to get this off my chest.'

Suzie put out her hand to touch his arm. ‘You're not seriously worried, are you? About yourself? Those farmers didn't talk as though anyone in Moortown knows just what Bernard Summers told you.'

‘That's what he said. But I told you, he has a loose tongue. I couldn't cross my heart and swear that he hasn't let slip a hint to someone else. And the farmers who threatened us know I was talking to him. That I went to his house.'

‘That's small town life for you, isn't it? It's hard to keep anything secret.'

‘I've had enough of secrets anyway. I think I'll slip round to the station this evening. I don't imagine DCI Brewer will be there, but I should find someone to take a statement.' He put his hand under her chin and turned her face up to his. ‘Don't look so worried. I'm a big boy; I'll look after myself. Tell you what, I don't imagine you're feeling like cooking after a day like this. Why don't I take us all to that new Indian restaurant in town?'

Suzie accepted gratefully. It would be good to set a comfort zone between herself and the unsettling events of the day.

When she opened the bedroom door, Tom was waiting at the top of the stairs, excitement in his face.

‘Result!' he crowed. ‘I googled your man, and guess what? Clive Stroud is a director of Merlin Mines.'

After the meal, they left Tom in town and dropped Millie off at Tamara's house. In the driver's seat, Nick turned to Suzie with that boyish grin which told her he was nervous about what he was going to do, but would do it anyway.

‘Shall we get this over with?'

‘It's your call. You were the one he talked to.'

Nick drove past the avenue where they lived and turned into the police headquarters at the top of the hill.

‘Stay here. There's no need for you to get involved.'

Suzie already had her hand on the door handle, but she let him get out and slam the driver's door behind him. She watched him walk across the car park to the steps of the police station and disappear inside.

There was some activity of police cars coming and going, but it was only mid-evening. As the Saturday night wore on, the police would have their hands full of drunk and violent offenders. Just now, this civilian part of the car park was rather quieter than she might have wished. She was not usually of a nervous disposition, but tonight she regretted not going inside with Nick. She found herself watching each new arrival cautiously.

What did she have to be frightened of? She was safely back in the cathedral city, miles from Moortown. That threatening group of farmers had no reason to menace her here. Her fears about the man in the photograph had been partially allayed. There now seemed to be a good reason for Frances to end their short-lived relationship so abruptly. Philip undoubtedly did have a motive to kill his wife.

Yet she found her hand straying back to the door handle. Was it too late to change her mind and go after Nick? He might still be sitting in the reception area, waiting his turn to speak to the duty officer at the desk.

Perhaps not. The very act of going to seek the comfort of Nick's companionship would be an acknowledgement that she really did have something to be afraid of.

The minutes lengthened out before Nick reappeared.

He threw himself into the driver's seat. ‘Just what you'd expect. He listened to me with a poker-straight face, like he's heard that kind of thing a hundred times before. “Thank you, sir. I'll pass on the information to DCI Brewer. If she thinks it's of importance, she'll be in touch with you.”'

‘He didn't say when?'

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Now that Philip's safely in prison, I don't expect she's giving up her Sundays. Well, not on this case, anyway. Who knows what other crimes she's got on her plate.'

Suzie stared out at the leafy car park as he started the engine. ‘That's a strange thought. The way it must look from her angle. We get marginally involved in a murder and it seems like the most important thing on the planet. I can't stop thinking about it, and everything that's happened since seems to tie into it. But for her, it's just a job. Arrest Philip Caseley, stack up a good case against him, and juggle half a dozen other serious crimes at the same time. It must be an odd way to spend your life. It has to take you over, like you're always seeing cops on the telly having to drop a night out with their wife or girlfriend because there's been another murder. And yet they can't afford to get too personally involved.'

They were turning into their avenue already. Nick turned to smile reassurance.

‘Don't worry. We're not professionals, thank God. One murder at a time is quite enough for us.'

Suzie let the peace of the Sunday morning service at the Methodist church flow around her. When it was over, she was lapped about with the warm friendship of chat over coffee and biscuits. She walked back to the house with Nick, feeling happier.

The light was winking on the answerphone. Nick stopped to retrieve the message.

‘Inspector Brewer,' he told Suzie. ‘She'll see me tomorrow afternoon at the cop shop.'

‘Did she sound interested?'

‘You know what they're like. She wasn't giving anything away.'

Suzie had to wait impatiently for him to come home on Monday. He came breezing into the house with almost as much energy as Tom. She saw excitement in the flash of his blue eyes.

‘There's something going on! I'm sure there is. I expected her to do the usual po-faced routine. “Thank you, sir. Just sign your statement. We'll be in touch if there's anything further.” But it wasn't a bit like that. The moment I mentioned Bernard Summers' name, it was like I'd lit a fuse to a gunpowder keg. She practically exploded. Wanted to know every last thing I could remember. Exactly what he said. Where he took me. What he showed me. Everything I'd picked up about how he reacted.'

Suzie stiffened. Her hands were gripping the edge of the kitchen table. ‘You don't think she knows something about him? Something you didn't get? Is it even possible,' the thoughts were racing through her head, ‘that they think
he
could have done it? Killed Eileen?'

Nick dropped into an armchair. ‘Search me. But something's going on, that's for sure.' He ran his hand through his black hair in that familiar gesture. ‘That guy's a weirdo, I give them that. If I hadn't wanted to find out more about what's underneath Saddlers Wood, I'd have run a mile from someone as garrulous as that. But at least I thought he was harmless, just the local town bore. I was willing to put up with him, buy one of his fossils, just to get a glimpse of what might be behind all this. It's true, I got more than I bargained for. A pretty powerful reason for Philip to turn his gun on his wife. But I thought Bernard Summers was just the messenger. It never occurred to me that behind all this torrent of information he might actually be personally involved.'

‘You said he threatened you if you told anyone else what he'd said.'

That rueful grin again. ‘I did, didn't I? I took it for granted it was a figure of speech, though I have to admit that the guy did look scared that he'd said too much.'

‘Whatever it was, it sounds as though it didn't need you to tell DCI Brewer about it. She obviously knew something about him already.'

‘Yes, but she wasn't about to tell me what it was.'

Suzie frowned. ‘But why would he be scared because he'd told you Philip and Eileen quarrelled over whether to allow mining for gold on their land? That doesn't incriminate him. Just the other way round.'

‘Unless Philip promised him a percentage.'

‘That would make sense, wouldn't it?' She stared at him with new alarm.

‘Well, I've done it now, haven't I? Spilled the beans.'

‘Then, if he really is guilty of something, I hope they get on and arrest him. I don't like to think of an emotionally precarious man like him walking around knowing you told them, when he swore you to secrecy.'

He stood up and fondled her hair. ‘I'm a responsible adult. I can hack it. Are the kids in for supper?'

It was a fine evening. Nick laid the supper table out on the patio. There seemed no reason to switch on the local news indoors.

I
t was not until Wednesday, as Suzie was picking up some odds and ends in a small supermarket in town, that she passed a stand with the local newspaper. She did not buy it every week. It depended whether there was an interesting story. The banner headline this week was about the unexpected closure of one of the city's secondary schools. A quick glance assured Suzie that it was not Millie's. She turned the folded paper over to scan the lower half.

A smaller headline shouted out at her.

LOCAL GEOLOGIST FOUND DROWNED

Avidly she read on.

Bernard Summers, well-known geologist and fossil hunter of Moortown, was found dead in a stream on the moor yesterday …

There was a photograph.

Suzie added the newspaper to her basket and headed for the till.

Outside, she found a circular bench around a tree on the pavement and sat down to read more. The name
Bernard Summers
was screaming in her head with the insistence of a smoke alarm.

… Neighbours became alarmed on Monday when he failed to open his stone and fossil shop. The police are believed to have entered the premises, where the geologist lived in a flat above the shop. Yesterday two walkers out on the moor discovered the body face down in one of the moorland streams. A police source would make no comment on how he met his death, but said that investigations are ongoing. Friends of the deceased said he frequently went out on the moor or the coast, prospecting for minerals and collecting specimens.

Bernard Summers was well known to local people in Moortown. He was a respected geologist, who has several rare fossil finds to his credit, but also was a source of colourful stories.

In other words, thought Suzie, he didn't know when to stop talking.

He was in the news recently advising a group of protesters about the risks of a proposal to open a tungsten mine just outside this delightful moorland town.

There it was again, that link with mining and Moortown. It was her agricultural labourer forebears who had first drawn Suzie to Moortown, the Days who had once lived at Saddlers Wood. But delving further back, she had become deeply interested in her tinner ancestors in the town. It seemed that part of the story was not over yet.

She lifted the paper closer to study the photograph. Nick had not told her what Bernard Summers looked like. He had a shock of hair, which in the black-and-white photograph looked as if it might be turning from dark to grizzled grey. Horn-rimmed spectacles surmounted a broad, rather jowly face.