The Drowning Ground (7 page)

‘Only on the phone. She's moved … to Brighton. Said she hasn't heard from him in years. Didn't seem all that bothered, when I told her.'

That didn't surprise me either. I watched the snow swirling out over the grey horizon, remembering Hurst slumped on a sofa in the grand surroundings of his house, and the fading sun slanting through the French windows. It had been the first of many visits to Dashwood Manor.

Graves still looked confused. ‘But if it was an accident, why do they automatically assume that he killed her? It doesn't make sense. Shouldn't they all be feeling sorry for him?'

‘Believe me,' I said, ‘Hurst was not the kind of man who invited pity. And for some reason he seems to have locked himself away in his house and turned recluse. Villagers probably took it for a sure sign of a guilty conscience.' I lowered my voice, as if I were just about to impart a juicy piece of village gossip myself. ‘The thing is, it was his second wife, like I said. Villagers never thought much of her. Thought she'd set her sights on him for his money, and in the end she proved them right. It didn't take her long either. Ended up having an affair with some chap.' I frowned. ‘God, I can't remember who now. Lived locally, I think. A builder. She wasn't exactly discreet about it. Used to meet him before she picked up her kid from school. She was late the whole time – you know, keeping the poor kid waiting.

‘Somebody must have tipped Hurst off about it. Hurst tracked him down and made a big scene in a pub. Beat him up pretty badly and threatened to do it all over again and a lot worse. And he could have done, if he'd wanted to: Hurst was no walk in the park, believe me. A few weeks later, and she's lying face up in the swimming pool. So now you can see how it all looked.'

‘But you checked it?' Graves said, with a great deal of caution. ‘His alibi checked out, sir?'

I nodded. I had checked it all right. ‘He was out buying a pony for his daughter. His foreman on the farm went along with him to help him choose the right one – big old guy called Sam Griffin. It might be worth talking to him too.'

We drove on. The farther we went, the narrower the lanes became, and they took us deeper and deeper into the folds of the fields.

‘A lot of the newer villagers don't even know who he is,' Graves said. ‘And one of them told me he'd gone round to Hurst's house and the old man had set the dog on him.'

‘One of the commuters, you mean?'

‘An advertising exec from London. Didn't know any better. Wanted to buy the house.'

I grinned happily in the warm darkness of the car and crossed my arms, liking Frank Hurst for that and hoping that Hurst's dog had bitten the advertising executive, no doubt a commuter and yuppie of the first order, right in the arse. Then my eyes caught what looked to be a lane branching off to the right through the falling snow.

Graves drew to a stop by the sign, which stood by the side of a battered-looking wooden gate. Etched into a tall column of grey limestone were the words
DASHWOOD MANOR
.

Graves undid his seatbelt, ran out into the snow and dragged open the wooden gate. It snagged on a stone, and he had to lift it up; then he drew it back and left it snug against some bushes. We drove on.

Branches arched across the lane, forming a long, dark tunnel. There were no longer any points of light visible on the horizon; ahead of us lay a solid darkness, broken only occasionally by the flashing lights of cars glimpsed through the woods. The village suddenly seemed very far away, as the lane led us inevitably to the house that could now be seen rising above the tops of the trees.

‘You know what I think,' Graves said, ‘I think we need to talk to everyone who was around when Hurst's wife died – those who think that he murdered his wife and got away with it.'

‘So you think it was revenge, then,' I said, interested. ‘Revenge for his dead wife.'

‘Well, maybe. But I don't think it really went like that.'

‘So how did it happen?'

Graves paused, uncertain. For a moment it looked as if he had changed his mind, and he slowed down as we drew close to a steep bend in the lane. ‘Well, okay,' he began a little sheepishly, ‘let's say I'm one of the villagers, right, and I'm out walking my dog – just as I do every afternoon – and there right in front of me is our man Hurst. I haven't seen him for years and years, and suddenly there he is. And, as I'm walking my mutt along that field, I start thinking about Hurst's dead wife, and this big old house of his, and all the fields he owns, and the way people like him always seem to get away with it. So I decide to have a little word with him now that I've got the chance – let him know that people like him don't fool me. So I go and tell him – tell him I know what he's done.'

‘You tell him he's a murderer?' I said bluntly.

‘Yes, right to his face. Hurst obviously doesn't like that and so –'

‘And so there's a fight. Our indignant villager finds he's on the losing end, grabs the pitchfork, panics and heads for the hills.'

‘Yes. That would make sense, wouldn't it? And it doesn't even have to be a dog-walker. Word might easily have got round the village that Hurst was out in that field. Someone getting their groceries in the village shop overhears a conversation. Or it could even be a dog-walker's husband,' Graves said, gaining enthusiasm. ‘The missus gets back home and she's like, “You'll never guess who I just saw.” Killed because of stupid gossip,' Graves said, before adding, without much sincerity, ‘tragic really.'

I didn't say anything for a while. I had considered this myself. ‘I'm afraid you're forgetting about the dog,' I said, not unkindly. ‘Whoever killed Hurst seems to have strung the poor thing up. Why do something like that?'

‘Oh,' Graves said, put out.

I gave him a hard sideways look and said, ‘But you might not be that far off. There's something else. Something the village doesn't know about.'

There was a patrol car standing in front of the black wrought-iron gates that led to the gravelled driveway. It had slipped my mind that I had ordered a squad car to be sent out here first thing that morning, and for a second I wondered what the hell it was doing there. Then I remembered. The inside lights of the car were on, and, with automatic annoyance, I recognized a PC called Cleaver. Cleaver was slumped in the front seat, drinking out of a flask as if he had happened upon the house and had stopped to admire the view. When Cleaver saw our car, he got out and cupped his hand over his face, peering at us through the snow.

I stared at the house rising in front of us. ‘A long time ago,' I said, ‘Hurst might have been involved in something else. Nothing was ever proven, mind, and we had to keep it to ourselves in case anybody got wind of it.'

‘Got wind of what, sir?'

‘Well, it was a lot, lot worse than a dead wife.' I paused and then said very quietly, ‘Two girls went missing.'

‘What? Around here?'

‘Yes,' I said.

Graves swung around in his seat.

‘Two of them,' I said. ‘In just two weeks and in broad daylight too.'

‘Jesus,' Graves said.

It seemed to take a while for it to sink in, because a few seconds later Graves drew to a sudden stop: the gravel flew up in the air, and I was pitched forward in my seat.

‘But you didn't say anything about any missing girls,' Graves said.

I smiled. Of course Graves had an absolute right to be angry. I should have told him, but had quite deliberately decided not to. I took another long look at him, very carefully gauging his reaction. He didn't look bored or resentful any more. No, Graves was furious. Good.

‘I wanted to wait until we'd got to the house,' I said. ‘You'll know why when you get a better look at it. Anyway, they were both local, like I say. Names were Gail Foster and Elise Pennington.'

‘Runaways?'

‘No,' I said. ‘Too young.'

‘How young?'

‘Gail was thirteen. Elise was even younger. Twelve.'

‘And they never found them?'

I shook my head. ‘No. Whoever did it was quick, and they didn't leave a single trace. Did it twice and never again.'

‘That's unusual,' Graves said thoughtfully. ‘Hurst?'

I undid my seatbelt and took a long look up at the house before opening the car door. I didn't answer straightaway.

‘But what did Hurst have to do with it?' Graves repeated.

‘I'm not sure,' I said. ‘Tell Cleaver over there that we're going to have a look inside. Then I'll tell you what I think I know.'

8

Dashwood Manor had been built in the eighteenth century, and the tiles on the roof now looked grey under the wide sweep of dark sky. Its neoclassical design was unusual around here: most of the larger manor houses were often hundreds of years older and characterized by the yellow Cotswold stone of the walls and roofs. The façade of Dashwood Manor was a very dark grey interspersed with patches of rust-coloured brown, especially near the windows of the upper floor. Leaves had piled up along the base of the stone walls on either side of the driveway, and there was an earthy smell of rotting vegetation together with the smell of smoke. Someone, somewhere, must have tried to light a bonfire despite the snow.

Though the house was not vast, by English country-house standards, it was big enough; neat and compact and nearly symmetrical, it seemed to cower behind the guard of two enormous yew trees, which stood on either side of its grey limestone front. Dwarfed by Meon Hill, the house almost seemed to be receding towards it, as if merging with the hill's overpowering mass.

It cast a long, cold shadow on the gravel driveway. Hurst's old, battered and apparently immortal Land Rover was parked at the front, which meant, as I had thought, that yesterday Hurst had simply hopped over his garden wall at the back and then climbed up the hill to the other side.

I turned away and walked towards the gates, where Cleaver and Graves were looking through the bars. Cleaver was gesturing to the house as if he owned it, but it was Graves – younger, aristocratic-looking – who appeared more in keeping with the sedate surroundings of Dashwood Manor.

Graves moved his head closer, so that his forehead was touching the flaking black-painted metal bars, and squinted as he tried to look further in at the house. ‘I still can't see what you're talking about,' he was saying. ‘And I really don't see why you just can't tell me, Cleaver.'

Cleaver was in his mid-forties, wiry and ruddy-faced, and at the best of times surly and bad-tempered. I always had the impression that the moment I told Cleaver to do something, he'd be rolling his eyes like a teenager in disgust behind my back. But Cleaver seemed relatively cooperative right now and even eager to please, despite the peculiar guessing game he appeared to be playing with Graves.

‘There,' he said, putting his hand as far as it would go through the bars, ‘and there,' he said, pointing to the bottom of the house. Then he slowly moved his finger upwards towards the second floor. ‘And there,' he said finally.

‘Oh, for Christ's sake, Cleaver,' Graves said, losing patience, ‘will you stop playing silly buggers and bloody well tell me or…' Graves stopped and began to press his face even closer to the bars of the gate. ‘All of them, you say?'

Cleaver nodded and poured out a cup of something hot from his flask and offered it to Graves as if he had just won a prize. Graves took it, looking doubtful while Cleaver wasn't watching, but then taking a polite sip when Cleaver turned towards him.

‘What is it?' I said. ‘What's the big deal about the house?'

Cleaver wisely did not play the same guessing game with me. ‘Hurst's only gone and barred all the windows, sir. All of 'em. Noticed it first thing this morning.'

I looked. I hadn't noticed either on first inspection. But now that Cleaver had pointed it out, I realized immediately that he was right. Thick black bars spanned every single window. The original front door also appeared to be barred from the outside.

‘How very odd,' Graves said quietly.

‘Maybe this isn't going to be so easy after all,' I said. ‘Maybe we could try round the back?'

‘I don't think that's going to help much, sir,' Cleaver said, sounding pleased with himself.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, when they sent me out this morning' – Cleaver looked vaguely resentful at the thought – ‘to guard the house, I had to check to see if there was any sign of a break-in, didn't I? So of course I had to go round the back. You're not going to believe this, but he's only gone and bricked up some of the windows in the back and put bars on all the others. Looks bloody horrible.'

‘Bricked some of them in?'

Cleaver nodded. ‘He's bricked in the big old French windows at the back, and he's barred all the others. Didn't do a great job of it either. It looks sturdy enough, but there's cement everywhere.'

I briefly considered this. ‘Does it look recent?' I asked.

Cleaver scratched at the back of his neck. ‘Hard to tell, really. But no. Looks like it's been that way for a while – few years at any rate.'

‘What is it, sir?' Graves said quickly.

‘Well,' I said, not all that sure myself yet, ‘the only place where you can get a glimpse of the back of the house is from the top of that hill over there. We've been hearing all day about how much he hated people rambling through his field.'

‘So you think he wasn't really bothered about the field at all?'

I shrugged. ‘Maybe he just didn't want people to know what he'd done to the back of his house.'

‘Yes,' Graves said, ‘there must be laws against that kind of thing. You can't just do whatever you want to a house, even if you do own it.'

Cleaver said bitterly, ‘Took a year before the council gave me permission to build a conservatory for the missus.'