The Food Detective (26 page)

‘I know. He put my husband away for life. I’d better go and talk to him.’

‘Josie – he’s not making a lot of sense.’ He seemed about to add something, but thought better of it. ‘I’ll get someone to go with you.’

Chapter Twenty-Seven

‘You ask me, they’ll section him,’ the male paramedic was saying, his green overalls glowing in the still flashing lights of the
ambulances
and police vehicles crammed into the dusk-dark yard.

Over my dead body they’d section him. Sectioning meant losing your human rights. Drugs? ECT? I didn’t know what they’d use, but I’d bet it wouldn’t be as good as home cooking and home TLC.

I surged forward. ‘Josie Welford,’ I announced, as if the name should mean something. ‘I’m here to talk to your patient. Mr Thomas. Is he sedated?’ Without waiting for an answer – what did I know about any pharmaceuticals they might have shoved into his arm? – I stepped up into the ambulance, to find Nick in steady tears.

‘Come on, let’s get you out of those dirty things,’ I said. One of the police or forensic team would have a spare paper suit, for goodness’ sake, and it was better for anyone to be cold than be dirty and wet.

As if he were a child, he let me strip him off, mopping him with paper tissues and swathing him in a blanket. Why the hell had no one got round to this basic kindness? I yelled from the ambulance for a paper suit. One appeared as if by magic.

‘And an evidence bag for his clothes,’ I snapped. ‘What planet are you people on? Come on, more blankets here.’ Yes, I liked a bit of round-eyed, if tight-jawed, respect. ‘Isn’t it time we headed off to A and E? I’d like him checked over. Now. And one of you –’ I summoned a PC with apparently little to do but hang round nattering to his mates ‘– tell DCI Evans where I’m going. We’ll need to talk later. Here are my car keys. The car’s parked outside the yard, a hundred yards to the south. Get someone to bring it to the hospital.’ In my experience, if you assumed people would do things, they did.

I sat beside Nick on the long journey to Exeter, holding him till his sobs subsided and he fell into a silence I didn’t dare break. From time to time the female paramedic checked his vital signs, largely, I suspected, because she liked to look busy and efficient.

‘Any problems?’ I prompted, nodding sagely when she reeled off a set of figures – I’d watched enough hospital dramas, after all.

‘You saved my life, you know,’ I told Nick at last. ‘Without you I’d be dead. No doubt about it. None at all.’

There might have been a twitch of interest.

‘It must have taken a lot of doing,’ I continued, ‘to pick up one of those guns and load it and fire it, knowing you’d got no time at all to do it.’

‘It just came back. And it was easy. Wasn’t so easy, seeing the girl die.’

‘Girl?’

‘The one attacking you.’

‘It was a bloke, Nick. A bloke. One of the guys from the rending plant. The ones holding you prisoner. The one trying to kill me. And he didn’t die.’ Though I wouldn’t give much for his chances.

‘I think I must have had one of my blackouts. I saw it all this time, Josie. I was in the Kings Heath nick canteen, just eating a sarnie for lunch and watching the TV. There was this news programme about CCTV, with this guy sitting in front of a whole bank of them. And then the shout went up. This emergency. It was spitting distance from the station. There was procedure in place. The team was scrambled. But we got there first. It was supposed to be a watching brief. No action, just containment. But the guy heard us arrive. And he brought this girl down the stairs using her as a shield, we thought. Not that we had any guns, anyway – we were waiting for the Armed Response Unit. I had to do something. I was in charge, remember – the inspector. All the responsibility but none of the experience. That’s the trouble with being a high flier. Well, I was being groomed for higher management, not a lifetime on the beat. That’s what they said. So there I was, wet behind the ears, a couple of sergeants with twice my experience taking my orders. Supposedly. Orders. I couldn’t have ordered a burger in McDonald’s. So we all just stood there looking at him and this pregnant girl. And I started to tell him to put the knife down and let her go. And he moved his hand – I thought he was going to give me the knife. So I reached forward
to take it. But he laughed, and shoved it into her belly. And all her guts –’ He started to sob again.

What should I do? I was like him all those years ago – quite out of my depth. Perhaps if I engaged his brain it would be easier for him.

‘The first time I saw you black out was when you were in Comet or whatever. It looked as if you might be buying a TV. But you just stood there, frozen, clutching an electric kettle.’

‘Don’t remember it at all.’

‘Or the first time you saw young Lucy in church? Apparently you gave everyone a wobbly.’

‘Not that. Nor any of the brown studies you lambasted me for. I didn’t mean to put you at risk, Josie – I’m sorry.’

I squeezed his hand. ‘Forget it. Whoops!’

‘Not the best thing to say in the circumstances,’ he said, producing a pallid grin. ‘I’ve felt that parts of me have been missing, Josie. Great chunks.’

‘Post-traumatic stress disorder,’ I intoned solemnly, ‘I should imagine.’

He nodded. ‘The police do things much better these days, apparently. You get properly de-briefed, offered support, that sort of thing. There’s an ex-policeman who’s a real expert in the subject living down here. I might just get in touch with him.’

‘Sounds a good idea. Looks like we’ve arrived.’

‘Where?’

‘A and E in some Exeter hospital.’

‘Why? We’re both OK, aren’t we?’

So he wasn’t as up to speed as I’d hoped. ‘Physically, yes. But they weren’t at all sure about your – your mental state.’

He picked at his paper suit. ‘I suppose I must have had another …moment.’

‘A pretty major one, I’d say. Nick, there was talk of …hospitalising… you.’

‘Why? My God, I was that bad, was I? Did I hurt anyone? Apart from the guy I shot?’

‘No,’ I said carefully.

‘In that case, they’ll have to section me,’ he said. ‘I’m not going
voluntarily, believe me.’

Now was not the time to talk about the paramedics’ earlier theory. I stared down this one lest she shove in a helpful oar.

‘I think you might need some therapy, though,’ I ventured.

‘Bucketfuls, I should imagine. But not as an in-patient, thank you very much. Will you wait for me?’ he asked ambiguously.

‘Of course. They might even want to cast their beadies over me, since I seem to have blood all over my clothes. I’m fairly sure it’s not mine, though. And I shan’t weep for the guy whose it probably is. How on earth do you do that job of yours, Nick? It fair turned my stomach, that yard. I might even become vegetarian for a bit.’

He threw his head back and laughed. ‘You! Vegetarian! Oh, Josie – please don’t. It’d tie your culinary hands far too tight.’

It was in this vein we continued to natter until we were parked in the waiting area of A and E. He was summoned almost immediately, thanks, no doubt, to the paramedics’ reports. His hand fastened convulsively on mine. ‘You won’t let them section me!’

I returned the squeeze. ‘Over my dead body! Whoops!’

So at least he went off laughing.

The sound rang out unnaturally in a place as cheerless as an undertaker’s waiting room, and I choked my responding chortle immediately. What, more specifically who, was emitting such palpable misery?

‘My God, Lucy! What are you doing here?’ I darted over, hardly realising that there was a middle-aged woman sitting protectively beside her.

‘Oh, Mrs W! It’s Dad!’ She turned to me her face so washed with tears it seemed to be melting.

I sat down, putting my left arm round her shoulder to pull her into my embrace. ‘What’s happened?’ I waited while she collected herself. Some sort of drunken accident, no doubt. I always thought he shouldn’t be trusted with anything more lethal than a can opener.

The woman – on reflection she probably wasn’t even as old as I was, just more resigned to her years – shook her head in a minatory way.

Lucy ignored the warning. ‘Blew himself up, didn’t he?’

‘“Blew himself up”? How?’

‘Fertiliser, of course. Blew himself up. Didn’t even have the sense to do it in the outhouse. Did it in the kitchen!’ She sounded more outraged than distressed.

This time the woman spoke. ‘You shouldn’t be saying anything yet, Lucy. It’s a legal matter now.’

I leaned across Lucy, extending my hand. ‘Josie Welford. I’m a friend of Lucy’s. She works for me at the White Hart. The village pub,’ I added, still waiting for the woman to introduce herself and shake my hand.

Lucy beat her to it. ‘This is Ms Barnet, Mrs W. She’s supposed to be my social worker.’

Supposed to be?
Something amiss there, by the sound of it. Time for a social smile as a flaccid paw barely touched mine. I responded by crunching its bones. Painfully. I was wrong, of course. I knew social workers had impossible jobs and that however they toiled against insuperable odds they were always blamed by the red-top press for all society’s ills. But every single one detailed to me while Tony had been doing his bird had had the self-same handshake. I knew I was stereotyping, that I was prejudiced, that I was doing all the things I loathed myself for. I even knew I was getting angry with her so I didn’t put my head against Lucy’s and weep with her – not for her death-wish of a dad but for all that had happened this afternoon, to me and to a decent man I’d bullied into mortal danger. I swallowed and made myself smile.

‘How do you do? How much are you allowed to tell me?’ There, adult to adult, woman to woman.

She didn’t respond. All she granted me was a thin-lipped sketch of a smile. ‘It’s all
sub judice
.’

‘Lucy too?’

‘Very much so.’

Lucy lifted her head. ‘Too much so! She’s only threatening me with Care, Josie. I mean, Mrs W.’

Another hug, this one even more maternal. ‘You mean Josie. Come on, what’s this about Care?’ I gave it the same meaningful
capital as she did.

‘Care. All of us. Split up and shared between foster homes. All because I’m not old enough!’ she raged.

‘To be a responsible adult,’ Ms Barnet explained. There was sufficient note of apology in her voice to make me soften towards her. ‘In any case,’ she continued, almost giving me a hint, ‘the family home’s in no fit state … If you could see the kitchen … And possible damage… We don’t know the state of the structure…’

Almost a hint? Josie, you stupid woman, each and every one of these half-finished sentences is a hint!
‘So whatever we mustn’t talk about has made a good deal of mess. And the children can’t stay at home?’

‘No way.’ The youthful cliché came oddly from that tired mouth.

‘And we’re too many for Auntie Pen down Falmouth way, or Uncle Dave in Sidmouth.’

Because we are too many
. Where had I heard that before? Wherever it was, it tugged so angrily at my chest, I couldn’t stop the words coming out. ‘If it’s a matter of room and an adult, I can offer both. I’m geared up for bed and breakfast accommodation, currently unused, and can offer myself and an ex-policeman as temporary guardians. I know you’ll have to vet us properly. Oh, and there’s a barman you’ll need to look up too. Robin Somethingorother.’ I slapped my forehead. ‘Hang these senior moments! I’m getting quite hopeless with names.’

We talked practicalities nine to the dozen, me because I didn’t want Lucy to have time to get emotional with gratitude and Ms Barnet, I suspected, because that was what she did best. OK, for another reason, too: Nick was being kept suspiciously long and I was having to work very hard at not storming up to the kid on reception and demanding instant access to him. It was far easier to think about turning the pub into a temporary orphanage – hell, it had better be temporary, or what would happen to my bijou restaurant? – than worrying about how to fight against the Mental Health Act on Nick’s behalf, not to mention how to deal with Nick if he stayed on at the White Hart. The implications
were beginning to overwhelm me. I dug in my pocket for a few coins, which I thrust at Lucy. ‘Be an angel and find a machine. I reckon we all need a good fix of chocolate.’

She stood, gazing at me steadily, adult at irresponsible teenager. ‘Me and Ms Barnet, maybe. But what about you, Josie? Shouldn’t you be sticking to that diet of yours?’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Mike Evans, accompanied by a very subdued-looking Scott Short, waved away the chilled Villa Maria Reserve I was offering. Nick didn’t, raising his glass in what seemed to be a general toast. He didn’t make the mistake of singling me out: I’d made it clear that we had a lot to talk about before the word relationship even entered the general arena, let alone the bedroom. He would stay where he was, Robin too, provided the expedited vetting of his background threw up nothing untoward. The Gay family would be disposed in pairs – they were terrified by the thought of single rooms – either side of Lucy’s room. She’d insisted that she would retain responsibility for the family, even to paying bills. She conceded that Nick might deal with her probably non-existent insurance matters, adding their file to his own. ‘Don’t know why I should bother you,’ she’d said, ‘seeing as I’ve had to do everything ever since Mum passed on.’ She didn’t add, but the implication was clear, that her father’s death would actually mean she could carry one fewer burden. Back at the hospital Sue had suddenly evinced an interest in washing and ironing; after a moment’s consideration, Lucy had accepted the offer, perhaps seeing it, as I was tempted to do, as conscience-salve.

For Sue hadn’t arrived in Exeter till it was too late – for Mr Gay, at least. He’d done a very thorough job of blowing himself up, and it was truly a mercy he’d not survived long, even though Lucy would have loved him to receive the Last Rites. She might have refused confirmation for herself, and thought the kids’ time better spent on homework than at Sunday school, but after the mess that her father had always been she’d wanted something as a full stop if not an opening to Eternal Life. And Sue had let her down. Her car, according to Sue herself. But Lucy had the same views of car maintenance as she did of family maintenance and I doubted if she’d bought the excuse any more than Nick had. A modern car not starting, indeed.

‘When did she last have it serviced?’ she’d muttered to me as we hung round in the hospital waiting area.

Sue, dragging me into the ladies’, had been quite stern with me.
‘Are you sure this…this hospitality…of yours isn’t just an attempt to rehabilitate yourself in the village?’ she’d asked in a stage whisper. ‘Molly told me she’d had to spell things out to you this morning.’

‘At the moment the only thing I care about is that the kids need to live where they’ve always lived,’ I hissed back. ‘As for the villagers, the narrow-minded –’ I let out a stream of profanities that had shocked her as much as it would have shocked Tony. ‘Bloody motes and sodding beams,’ I concluded, my inventiveness having dried up.

Sue had swallowed and disappeared. It would be hard for her to get back from Exeter to the village, but just at the moment I didn’t care. I’d make it up to her in the next Benefice Sunday collection.

Now from my living room we could just hear the sounds of Lucy organising the children into bed, her routine being even more rigid in view of their father’s death. She’d locked the en suite bathrooms, not trusting any of the kids alone with water lest it overflow into the rooms below. I’d been more afraid of their drowning.

There was no noise from the bar, of course. Lucy had put up a large sign on the door: CLOSED – FAMILY BEREAVEMENT. I didn’t comment. Everyone would know what she’d meant, after all.

So now it was just the four of us: the two police officers, Nick and me. I sensed we were all walking on conversational eggshells, but wasn’t entirely sure why. To my mind, we’d not done a bad day’s work between us.

Nick, disconcertingly relaxed, opened the batting. ‘What I can’t understand is why my predecessor said the rending plant – Wetherall’s – was up to standard. I’d have closed down the place on the spot.’

Evans regarded him limpidly. ‘Are you sure you’ve no idea, Mr Thomas?’

Nick shrugged, miming the passing of money.

‘I’m sure you’re right. Was any such approach made to you?’

‘Not by the rending plant people. But Fred Tregothnan, the
missing vet, talked about…activities…which shouldn’t be too closely looked into. I said I’d been as straight as a die all my life and didn’t intend to change now.’

I nodded. ‘Ah – that Friday morning conversation I saw you two having.’

Nick nodded. ‘It was clear after that we weren’t going to become best buddies. There was something else about the guy I didn’t like, too – can’t quite put my finger on it.’

‘He put his finger on Lindi, all right. A whole handful of fingers. What’s happened to her, by the way?’ It was clear from the others’ blank looks I was going to have to explain.

‘You’re talking twenty-first century England here! Jesus Christ!’ Short exploded.

‘You’re talking about a community with roots older than we townees can imagine,’ Nick corrected him.

Evans nodded. ‘Quite: I wouldn’t be surprised if that Ted Gay’s funeral involved all sorts of things you don’t get at the average crematorium.’

‘Nothing too
outré
, I hope – I’m holding his wake here! I promised Lucy,’ I added, aware of a frisson passing between the two officers.

Before I could say anything, Evans said, ‘Maybe some sin-eating? It’s where you get someone to eat some cake passed across the body. That way the corpse is absolved of its sins, which go to the one eating the cake. They used to do it up your way. Hereford, Forest of Dean, round there.’

Knowledgeable maybe, but geographically-challenged, certainly.

‘Brummies,’ Nick said with finality. ‘Both of us. City folk.’

‘This Lindi,’ Short said, referring to his notes. ‘You’re sure you don’t know what eventually happened to her?’

‘Lucy’ll know. She’s probably smuggled her out of the county to a stray cousin in Newton Abbot or Ottery St Mary or some other polysyllabic place.’ I got to my feet. And then sat down again. I didn’t want to disturb the kids’ bedtime and Lucy knew the police wanted to talk further to her.

‘We’ll need to interview her –’ Short chimed in.

‘Yes.’ Evans agreed. ‘Though I can’t imagine she’d dare make a complaint. She’s still got to live in the place when we’ve gone home. Assuming she ever comes back, of course.’

‘I can give names,’ I said. ‘And those I can’t name I can identify their faces.’

‘But you’ve still got to live in the place too,’ Evans said. ‘Assuming you’re going to. And I wouldn’t blame you if you packed up and left tomorrow.’ Again he seemed to change the subject with some abruptness.

Perhaps it was the booze, but I felt we were getting nowhere fast. If I was hungry, what was Nick’s stomach doing? Grabbing my phone pad, I scrawled a checklist.

‘OK. Now, that abattoir is illegal. Yes? So it’ll be closed down?’

Hijacked, Evans had the grace to laugh. ‘Yes. But may spring up again in another village at the back of beyond. It’s a combination of ill-explained legislation and genuine hardship. Plus a desire to make money out of vulnerable people.’ His voice hardened.

‘In my book those who make money out of the vulnerable tend to be the rich and the most powerful,’ Nick put in. ‘Josie’s had dealings with the landowning family round here – the Grevilles. Luke Greville, as I’m sure you recall, resigned with no explanation from one of the safest seats in the country and shot off to become an MEP. We also saw him emerging from Fred Tregothnan’s house first thing on Sunday morning. The stream that runs through the village rises on his land. It ran pink the other week. Complaints to the water company from a member of the public failed to make any difference –’

Evans smiled grimly. ‘Let me guess – Ms Josie Welford.’

‘I prefer Mrs. I was married long enough.’

‘– so I put my official hat on this morning and demanded action,’ Nick concluded. ‘I think after this afternoon we have a very good idea why the water turned pink. The rending plant was dealing with far more carcases than it was licensed for and spillage from those vats entered the water table.’ He stared at the floor swallowing hard in what looked like an effort not to vomit.

He wasn’t the only one trying to keep their stomach under
control. I chipped in quickly. ‘Mrs Greville knew about the pink water because I mentioned it when I was helping arrange flowers in church. Almost before you could say “flood” I saw Reg Bulcombe in water gear heading off with a large spade. Within twenty-four hours the village stream was reduced to a mere trickle, despite the rain. What had been an ordinary steep path had become a torrent and – by coincidence! – the field on which Nick’s mobile home was parked became a lake. His home – like the others – floated away. Unlike the others, his was stove in first.’

‘So you’re saying the Grevilles and a lout like Bulcombe are somehow connected!’ To my amazement Short sounded
outraged
. Surely a young urban officer like him wouldn’t still be a forelock-tugger!

‘Since when did the rich hesitate to get their tenants to do their dirty work?’ Nick again. ‘I’d be knocking on the Grevilles’ door first thing tomorrow. Sorry.’

Evans grinned. ‘There may still be time this evening.’ He shook a resigned head as he checked his watch. ‘Funny – you’d think nothing of charging into a council maisonette at nine at night, but that long drive and that imposing front door demand a civilised hour.’

Short clearly didn’t know what his boss was on about.

‘Not to mention the fuss their brief would make,’ Nick added,
sotto voce
.

‘On to Wetherall, then, if I may,’ I said, in full chair-of-meeting mode. ‘I don’t suppose we know who actually owns it?’

‘It’s a subsidiary of a Midlands based company registered in the Isle of Man. All of which may well be a tax dodge I’m not up to,’ Nick began. A smile he’d not quite managed to suppress surfaced. ‘I do know the name Luke Greville when I see it, however – and he’s a major shareholder. As is his mother.’

‘I’d hoped she’d be on the side of the angels,’ I said. ‘She’s
anti-hunting.’

Evans snorted. ‘Not her! She’s big in the Countryside Alliance. She was one of those promising civil disobedience if the government ever gets round to banning hunting.’

‘So why should she bother to tell me she wasn’t? I know, I know – so I’d think she was kosher. Silly me. And there I was sorry for her dog when she couldn’t find Fred Tregothnan to treat it. OK. I know we touched on Fred Tregothnan, but there’s no actual evidence that he did end his days at Wetherall, I suppose?’

Evans shook his head. ‘Not yet. It can only be a presumption of death at this point. The SOCO team, poor buggers, will have to give it the going over of its life in the hope of finding human as opposed to animal tissue. I don’t envy them the task, especially as I reckon it’s hopeless. But before we close the case, I’d like a reason for him to disappear – and/or his vehicle.’

‘You said you’d seen Mr Greville coming from Tregothnan’s house,’ Short said slowly, to be rewarded with the sort of stare you give a child you thought was asleep. ‘Why were you there, Mrs Welford?’

I beamed. ‘I was going to use the key under the flowerpot to let myself in. I wanted another sniff round. In his surgery in particular.’

Short spluttered but Evans held up a calming hand.

‘There has to be some reason for the whole Tregothnan thing,’ I continued. ‘I know vets aren’t well paid, but look at his house, for goodness’ sake. No mortgage – it was his family home; not a penny spent on it in all the years he’d had it. He dresses like a tramp. His Land Rover’s one that Noah sent to the scrapyard. What does he spend his money on?’

‘So how would trespassing on Tregothnan’s property have helped?’ Short pursued.

‘I was looking for evidence, same as you people. But sort of thinking sideways. Anyway, I gave up because Mr Greville pocketed the key when he left,’ I added with a rueful smile. I had a nasty feeling I was going to have to involve Sue in all this.

‘What would you have been looking for?’ Evans had joined in.

Heavens, I was so hungry. What was the etiquette of producing sandwiches in what seemed to be a cross between a debriefing and parlour game? ‘Gentlemen, if I don’t eat soon, I shall drop. Why don’t we adjourn till at very least I’ve made us a plate of sandwiches?’

Nick looked like a dog promised a muddy walk followed by a marrowbone. Even Short perked up. But Evans abandoned his laidback style and leaned forward, raising a warning finger. ‘Just a minute, Mrs Welford. Answer my question, if you don’t mind. What would you have been looking for? After all, you must have guessed that we’d take everything we thought relevant.’

‘Yes,’ I mused, ‘like bank statements and so on. Truly, I was going to think on my feet. But I’d have looked where I couldn’t before, because it was locked – the surgery. Things in locked cupboards.’

‘Poisons!’

I shook my head. ‘I was thinking more of restricted drugs – won’t a vet use things like morphine? Pethidine?’

‘Maybe even ketamine,’ Evans mused. ‘Are you thinking he was a user? Were there any signs?’

‘Not physical ones, I don’t think. No tracks up his arms, things like that. Not that I ever saw. But wouldn’t he have to keep a record of what he bought and what he dispensed and make sure the two balanced?’