The Drowning Ground Page 5

  7

  It was a relief to be out of Fernsby’s stuffy living room and into the falling snow. Away from self-igniting golden retrievers and worried old men. I strode past the other homes in the cul-de-sac. It was starting to snow even more heavily now, and the December air felt raw. I turned up the collar of my coat, although it seemed to do me no good at all, and as I did so I caught a glimpse of television light reflecting against a windowpane in one of the houses.

  On the TV was a children’s programme, though it was playing to an empty room: the children were off somewhere, probably having their tea. The screen showed a crowd of plastic penguins dancing in circles around an iceberg. There was something compelling about the image, hypnotic even, and I found myself, almost against my will, watching the penguins sliding around and around, and then suddenly skidding off the ice and tumbling into a pale blue papery sea. I came to myself as soon as they hit the water and began to walk towards the car waiting for me at the end of the road. Graves looked pretty anxious as I approached, which pleased me. He leant across the front-passenger seat, pushed open the car door, and I looked in.

  ‘Any luck with those house keys?’ I said.

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir. There was blood on them, and forensics need to confirm whether it belongs to Hurst or to his attacker. No results until tomorrow and,’ Graves added nervously, ‘that’s at the very earliest.’

  This really wasn’t all that unexpected, but I was annoyed nonetheless. It was already dark, and, drumming my fingers loudly on the roof of the car, I began to consider what to do next. Should we try to break in now or was it better to wait until the morning? For a moment I just couldn’t decide. It would be easier in the morning – but, then again, I had been waiting a very long time to get back into that old house.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know the way?’ I said, more gruffly than I had intended.

  ‘To where, sir?’ Graves said.

  ‘The house,’ I said. ‘Hurst’s house.’

  ‘But why? We can’t get in without the keys?’

  ‘We’ll just have to find another way in, then. Shouldn’t be too difficult for a young fellow like you,’ I said, before clambering into the car and out of the snow.

  I gave him the directions. Graves made a face, shrugged and switched on the engine, and the flashy Peugeot estate nosed cautiously out of the narrow street and towards the village green. I had a quick look at him and shook my head. He was certainly no Powell, and I was stuck with him.

  I stared out at the water of the pond beyond the green as we drifted alongside the low wooden railings towards the pub, thinking about Powell lying in the stark surroundings of the hospital ward before his doctors decided to send him home. The Christmas lights, strung loosely along the branches of the trees, were mirrored dimly in the water, so that the water went to yellow and then to black again.

  I stared out at the pond: muddy and grey-banked, it glimmered darkly at the far edge of the village, ignored and forgotten. Lower Quinton hadn’t really changed much over the years. The pub was still there, of course, near the pond on the other side of the green.

  It seemed to be doing a good trade. A small party was heading towards the doors. The men, dressed in dinner jackets, all looked pleased with themselves, while some of the women seemed a little out of breath, as if they had squeezed themselves too tightly into their dresses. A Christmas office party, by the looks of it, and one that had got off to an early start. When the doors opened, laughter burst out, muffled by the closed windows of the car.

  ‘We’ve found a few more dog-walkers, sir,’ Graves said, as we turned a corner and left the pub behind, ‘but it seems as if there’s more than one place where people walk their dogs around here. Some take them up on Meon Hill. Others take them along to a village called Mickleton or to another nearby village called Ilmington.’

  ‘And anyone else see the argument?’ I said. ‘No one recognized the man he was arguing with up on the hill?’

  ‘No, only the young couple saw them arguing. They’ve just moved in, sir, and they didn’t know who the other man was. But it looked like Hurst and this man were really getting into it. They saw the van before they crossed the gate.’

  ‘Well, it looks like the van was gone by 5.00 and the man along with it. And, according to the old boy I’ve just been talking to, Hurst was still alive then.’

  ‘Maybe he came back.’

  I nodded. ‘Could be. And you got a description?’

  ‘Yes. Short and thin-looking. Around thirty. Black hair, kind of spiky. Bit odd for a man his age. Wearing a black coat. Leather, they think, and white trousers.’

  ‘Not much, is it?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m afraid not.’

  ‘And they can’t recall the number plate?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And no one noticed anything else out of place in the village?’

  Graves shook his head.

  ‘You sure?’ I said, surprised. ‘No strangers hanging about? Nothing at all?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing. But we haven’t been able to talk to everyone. A lot of people just aren’t back from work yet. Probably be quite a few of them later, though.’

  Graves was talking about the Lower Quinton commuters, who take the train from the nearby village of Moreton-in-Marsh direct to Paddington. I scowled to myself as we drove past some of the bigger houses sedately tucked away behind well-manicured hedges. London commuters had swooped en masse into small villages like this all over the Cotswolds and bought up all the best houses. For a second, I was almost glad of the murder on their doorstep, hoping that it would knock off a bit of the old Cotswolds charm.

  ‘We’ll have to try them again,’ Graves said. ‘But we’re nearly done. Just two more streets, sir: Fairfield Road and Bourton Close, and then a few houses at the back of the pub.’

  ‘The pub’d be a good place to try as well,’ I said. ‘Wait till it gets really busy and send a few fellows in to have a chat with the locals.’ Then I added drily, ‘That’s if there are any locals left.’

  We were leaving the village now. The road curved past a small housing estate and then finally took us beyond a few hardy-looking labourers’ cottages that clung stubbornly to the edges of the village. After that, there was no sign of anyone.

  Graves put his foot down, and we gathered speed. The black road began to race beneath us, and the snow danced frantically in the beams of the headlights. The outline of the village behind us loomed out of the darkness. The hill rose stark upon the horizon and then sloped away again, until it was lost amongst the smaller, greyer contours of the surrounding hills.

  Graves tapped the steering wheel, glancing from time to time at the countryside behind him in the rear-view mirror. It seemed as if he wanted to say something but was unsure as to whether he should go on.

  ‘There has been an awful lot of talk, though,’ he said finally.

  I had been expecting that.

  ‘It all seems odd to me,’ Graves said, shifting in his seat. ‘I mean, the poor guy’s been murdered. But nobody really seems to care. Okay, so the chap likes to keep a low profile. Keeps himself to himself. But so what? He doesn’t like the villagers walking all over his field, but who can blame him for that? It’s like the whole village seems to think that the field is there for their own benefit,’ Graves said, clearly remembering the sign by the gate. ‘But was he really all that bad? Why do they seem to have hated him so much? One of the old dears I talked to this morning literally came out and said she was glad he was dead, and that he deserved it. I couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t tell me why either. Just flat out refused. The sweetest old granny you’re ever likely to see as well.’ Graves swallowed as if he had just tasted something unpleasant. ‘It was a bit creepy, in truth,’ he said.

  I let out a long sigh. ‘I imagine it’s because they all think he murdered his wife.’ It came out as almost flippant. But I was actually horrified by the way the gossip had been festering for the past five years.

  ‘Bu
t it was an accident, wasn’t it?’ Graves said indignantly. ‘She drowned in the swimming pool. That’s what you told me.’

  ‘It was an accident all right.’

  Graves looked vaguely disappointed.

  ‘His second wife used to go swimming most days in the summer,’ I explained. ‘They had a big outside pool. And one day she just fell in. Simple as that. Happens all the time, apparently. Slipped as she was walking back towards the house and smacked the back of her head before she hit the water. It was the housekeeper … Nancy Williams … who saw her and called the ambulance. But she was dead by the time they got there.’ I folded my arms. ‘You managed to talk to her yet?’

  ‘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.