Thieves! Page 2

  Wrapped around my Wellingtons was an octopus-like creature with long, thick black tentacles. Puzzled, I gingerly poked at it and, to my surprise, realized it was a wig.

  My heart began to thump. Something felt wrong down here. I trained the flashlight over the rubbish just a few feet away. Were those curtains?

  The wind suddenly picked up and tore through the trees above, making my skin prickle. Edging closer, I lifted my foot and nudged the mound of material. It toppled over heavily with a loud splash.

  Captured in the harsh white light was the gray face of a partially bald woman. Her eyes were wide open, caught in an expression of horrified surprise.

  I would have screamed, but there was no one—no one alive—to hear. Instead I gave a muffled whimper and began to back away, falling heavily in the water with the sudden thought. Mum was right when she said, “Be careful what you wish for.”

  2

  “Glad you rang me first, doll,” said Steve Burrows, Gipping’s paramedic and my most ardent admirer. Unfortunately for Steve, the feeling was not mutual. I hadn’t “rang him first,” either. All 999 calls were routed to Emergency Services, as Steve was perfectly aware.

  “Here, let Steve help you get out of those wet jeans,” he said, holding up a gray hospital blanket. His cherubic face was etched with concern.

  “I was only in the water for seconds,” I said, although I was beginning to feel a distinct chill around my nether regions.

  In vain, I tried to shake the image of the woman’s face out of my head and shivered.

  “You’re in shock, doll. Let me give you a hug.” Steve put his arm around my shoulders.

  “I wonder who she is,” I said. “Or was.”

  “That’s for the police to find out.” Steve pulled me closer. I wouldn’t describe him as fat, but he was certainly cuddly. Inhaling his scent of Old Spice and antiseptic, I felt strangely comforted.

  “I’m a reporter,” I said. “It’s my job to find out.”

  The poor woman couldn’t have been more than forty and certainly wasn’t one of my mourner regulars. What was she doing in Mudge Lane at this hour of the night? Was it a romantic tryst that had gone terribly wrong? Had they quarreled on the bridge and she’d fallen and drowned? In a panic, he’d fled the scene in a Land Rover.

  “I really think you should sit down.” Steve gestured to the campstool he’d set up just for me.

  “No. I’m fine.” In fact, I’d never felt better. Despite being banished to the sidelines the moment Detective Inspector Stalk turned up, I was riveted by the activity going on in the stream. It was just like on the telly! The area was ablaze with lights, adding an eerie stagelike effect to the small white tent erected over the woman’s body, which still lay in the water to await the arrival of Coroner Cripps.

  I already had a couple of headlines up my sleeve. MUDGE LANE MYSTERY: A VICKY HILL EXCLUSIVE! Or better still, RIVER OF DEATH SHOCKER!

  “What’s your expert opinion, Steve?” I said.

  “To be honest,” said Steve, “when you hadn’t returned my phone calls, I thought you had given up on us.”

  Good grief! Here we were at the scene of what could be, at worst, a fatal accident or, at best, manslaughter, and all Steve could think about was us. But since he had proved to be a valuable informant in the past and would be taking the body to the morgue, I needed to be tactful.

  “You know I don’t have time for relationships, Steve,” I said gently.

  “I know, I know,” said Steve. “You want to take things slow.”

  “Not slow. Not anything. I want to focus on my career.”

  “And so you should, doll,” said Steve, patting my arm. “We’ve got our whole lives in front of us. Don’t worry so much. Steve’s not going anywhere.”

  Which was exactly my problem.

  He kissed the top of my head. A frisson of electricity shot through my body as it always did around Steve—a phenomenon that utterly baffled me every time. I did not fancy Steve Burrows.

  “Let Steve get you some hot tea,” he said. “We could be in for a long night since Stalk wants to take you down to the station.”

  “He does what?” My stomach flipped over. I had an inherent fear of police stations. “Why? I’ve already told him everything.” But even as I said it, I knew the real reason. Stalk wanted to give me the Breathalyzer test.

  “You’re right, Steve. I do feel a little wobbly,” I said, struck with one of my brilliant ideas. “Do you have anything stronger than tea? Brandy perhaps?”

  “Anything for you, doll.” Steve ruffled my hair—causing another tingle to surge through my loins—and disappeared into the rear of the ambulance, returning a few moments later with a small paper cup filled with amber liquid.

  “This is just for medicinal purposes, you understand,” he said.

  I thanked him and drank the lot.

  Several cheerful beeps announced the approach of the coroner’s metallic-red Freelander GS 2.

  Coroner Cripps flung open the driver’s door, collected his black case from the passenger seat, and strode past us with a nod of acknowledgment. Dressed in his regulation white jumpsuit and Wellingtons, Cripps exuded an aura of confident professionalism. He plunged into the ford, oblivious to hidden hazards, and vanished inside the white tent.

  Moments later, Stalk appeared, accompanied by a reed-thin, fresh-faced copper who couldn’t have been more than nineteen.

  In his late forties, Detective Inspector Stalk was built like an Aga, with a neatly clipped beard and piggy eyes. As an active member of Gipping Boxing Club, he was not a man to be trifled with. Stalk was very unpopular at the Gazette. Pete Chambers often said he’d rather spend the night with Jack the Ripper than five minutes in Stalk’s company.

  I took a deep breath and waited for the two policemen to join us. “Do you have an ID on the victim yet, Inspector?”

  “No,” Stalk snapped.

  “Could it be a romantic tryst gone wrong?” I said. “Or perhaps a hit-and-run?” I hadn’t considered that possibility. “She was on a bicycle. Maybe he didn’t see her?”

  “No comment,” he said.

  I took out a business card—I’d had some cheap ones made at Gipping Railway Station—and handed it to him. “If you find out the owner of the Land Rover, at least let me know. Not only did he leave the scene of an accident, he hit my car.”

  “We’re perfectly aware of what went on here.” Stalk studied my card and handed it back to me with a sneer. “But if I want to talk to the Gazette, it won’t be with a rookie.”

  “But I saw the Land Rover!” I protested. “I found the body.”

  “Which is exactly why Detective Constable Bond, here, will be taking you to the station.”

  “Why? I already gave you my statement.”

  “To give you a Breathalyzer test,” Stalk growled. “There is only one reason why you would be in Mudge Lane at one thirty in the morning—if you were drunk and hoping to avoid the police.”

  Damn and blast!

  “There is another reason.” Steve stepped forward and threw his arm around my shoulders once more. “This is Mudge Lane, Officer. Surely you know what that means?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “No,” said Stalk.

  “Vicky and I had a romantic rendezvous.”

  “That’s right,” I said with relief.

  “When I got here, she was in a terrible state. I remember when I saw my first body. It was a farming accident. Bloke got mangled in the thresher. Couldn’t sleep for weeks. Even hit the bottle myself for a while.”

  Good old Steve! “It was a terrible shock,” I chimed in. “I was shaking—”

  “So I gave her a medicinal shot of brandy.”

  “Just a small one. I am perfectly capable of driving home.”

  Stalk regarded us both with suspicion.

  Steve stuck out his jaw. “Ms. Hill needs to be out of those wet clothes and tucked up in bed, not hauled off to a cold police station.”

  I had to adm
it Steve was impressive when angry and, despite my feelings, was deeply touched. If only I could fall in love with him.

  “Inspector?” said a familiar voice. “A word please.”

  Startled, Stalk swung around. “Probes! What the hell are you doing here?”

  I gasped and, without thinking, shrugged Steve’s arm off. This was not Detective Sergeant Probes’s beat. He worked with the Plymouth Drug Action Squad, a good forty-minute drive away. What’s more, I hadn’t heard or seen his car arrive, and we were in the middle of nowhere.

  Mobile phones did not work down in the dell, either— as I found out when I’d had to run up to high ground to make the emergency call to Steve. Considering that Probes’s lightweight raincoat hardly covered his red-and-white-striped pajamas, it was as if Probes had simply teleported in from his bedroom.

  Wait! Why was Probes wearing his pajamas? Surely he couldn’t be the third member of the love triangle?

  With barely a nod in my direction, Probes led Stalk out of earshot, closely followed by D.C. Bond.

  “Okay, I get it. I’m not blind,” said Steve, arms akimbo. “What’s going on between you and that redheaded copper?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know what you mean,” I said, flustered at seeing Probes so unexpectedly. It had been weeks since we’d tried to enjoy a celebratory dinner over my last front-page exclusive, but that magical evening had been cut short when he got a phone call. Probes’s promise that we’d make it another time came to nothing. Frankly, it was embarrassing seeing him again, and it was obvious that he felt embarrassed, too.

  “Stalk’s right,” said Steve. “What were you doing in Mudge Lane at one thirty in the morning?” Steve’s expression darkened. “I noticed his pajamas. And yet you tell me you want to focus on your career?”

  “I was at Barbara’s hen party. For heaven’s sake, Steve,” I said. “A woman is lying dead not twenty feet from where we stand. This is hardly the time to discuss our relationship.”

  Steve brightened. “So we are having a relationship!”

  Fortunately I was saved from answering by the return of Stalk and Probes. Without even bidding a hello or good-bye, Probes stepped up onto the wooden walkway and was swallowed into the darkness as quietly as he had appeared.

  “You’re free to go, Vicky,” said Stalk, who had never addressed me by my first name before. “My colleague speaks very highly of you.”

  “Oh yes, I’m sure he does,” muttered Steve.

  “We won’t need to talk to you again,” said Stalk. “It’s clear what happened here tonight.”

  “Probes knew the victim?” I said, feeling an inexplicable stab of jealousy.

  Stalk made a strange chuckling sound. “Nothing like that. The poor woman was riding her bicycle on the walkway, slipped off, hit her head, and drowned.”

  I looked at him with disbelief. Did he think I was born yesterday? “What about the Land Rover with all those fancy lights?”

  “Coincidence,” said Stalk. “Anyway, she’s most likely a vagrant. There is a small group of gypsies camped in Upper Gipping—”

  I’d heard the rumor. “But that’s miles away!” I said. “What would she be doing down here?”

  “Frankly she’s no loss,” said Stalk. “Those gypsies are a menace to society.”

  Didn’t Mum say that her side of the family had Romany blood in their veins? Stalk’s inflammatory comments made my blood boil. “She still deserves justice,” I said coldly.

  “I’ll say it again”—Stalk’s voice hardened—“it was an accident, and that’s official. Now, you’d best get home unless you want to continue this conversation down at the station with a Breathalyzer test.”

  I mumbled that it wouldn’t be necessary. Stalk turned on his heel and left.

  “I’d offer to take you home, doll,” said Steve apologetically, “but I’ve got a body to deliver to the morgue.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m off.”

  After Steve had successfully turned my Fiat around in an impressive eleven-point turn, I headed for home.

  Let the police think what they liked, but something bad had happened here tonight. Gypsy or not, there was no way I was going to accept Stalk’s diagnosis.

  Tonight’s events had all the makings of another Vicky Hill exclusive!

  3

  Barbara was right about Gladys Trenfold’s funeral. There were only three mourners at her graveside—her brother, Bill; the Reverend Whittler; and me.

  The service was simple. There were no flowers. No hymns sung. Even Gipping’s funeral directors, Ripley and Ravish—DUST TO DUST WITH DIGNITY—had seemed to simply drop the coffin off en route to another job in Plymouth.

  Bill Trenfold shed no tears and kept checking his watch. He was a shifty-looking man in his early sixties with severe bandy legs. Dressed in his navy blue with red piping Royal Mail uniform, and black, polished peaked cap, Bill wasted no time in telling us that he was on his tea break and had to resume his postal rounds as soon as possible.

  Poor Gladys Trenfold. She may have been unpopular, but it was at times like this that I was proud to write the obituaries. If it weren’t for the Gipping Gazette, lives such as hers wouldn’t be recorded at all.

  As we returned to the car park, Reverend Whittler pulled out an envelope from the folds of his cassock. “Would you mind taking this envelope with you, Bill? It’s already stamped.”

  Bill glanced at the address on the letter and promptly gave it back, saying, “Can’t do that, Reverend.”

  I’d always been able to read upside down: WINDOWS OF WONDER, ROYAL PARADE, PLYMOUTH, PL4 9TD.

  “It’s the final deposit for our stained glass window,” said Whittler, gesturing to a five-foot placard—SAVE OUR STAINED GLASS WINDOW AND GOD WILL SAVE YOU—that had stood outside the church lych-gate for as long as I’d lived in Gipping. A crudely drawn barometer marked in thousand-pound increments revealed there was only three thousand pounds to go to make the goal of twenty thousand.

  “This Saturday’s Morris Dance-a-thon at The Grange will close the gap,” beamed Whittler. “Such a clever idea of your Barbara’s.”

  Nearly every fund-raising event in Gipping-on-Plym had been to raise money for the Trewallyn Trio. Named after its benefactor—the late Sir Hugh Trewallyn’s father—the three-paned stained glass window had stood in St. Peter’s Church for more than a hundred years until a tree fell through it during a bad storm.

  “Windows of Wonder agreed to start work on Monday,” Whittler went on, “and with all these postal problems recently—”

  “Sorry,” said Bill firmly. “It’s against company policy.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll post it, Vicar.”

  “It’s not my fault that the village post offices are closing down,” grumbled Bill. “I’ve already had my wages cut. Did you know that they’re trying to force me into taking early retirement?”

  What’s that got to do with posting a wretched letter? I wanted to say and would have done so had we not just buried his sister.

  “Come back to the vicarage for some sherry and cake. Let’s give your Gladys a good old send-off.” It was traditional in Gipping to have an after-service shindig following a funeral.

  “Can’t,” said Bill. “I’ve already taken longer than I should. Better get back to my job while I still have one.”

  We watched Bill get into his red post van—a 1973 Morris Marina, bearing the Royal Coat of Arms—and drive away.

  “Poor man.” Whittler shook his head. “I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but that sister of his left him in a bit of a financial mess. Rather too fond of snail racing, I’m told.”

  “I’d better go, too.” It was already ten, and I was anxious to get to the Gazette to see if Stalk had spoken to our chief reporter.

  Of course, I’d wasted no time in contacting Pete first thing this morning. I was worried he might give the Mudge Lane scoop to Annabel Lake—my senior by a mere three months—especially as their on-again, off-again flir
tation was back in full “on” mode.

  Consequently, I’d left a long and detailed message on Pete’s mobile phone making it quite clear that it was me who’d found the body, that it was vital we find the Land Rover, and that I suspected police corruption.

  “The Victoria sponge with homemade strawberry jam was only made this morning,” said Whittler. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”

  I hesitated. Perhaps I could just pop in for a quick slice.

  Back in the warmth of the rectory kitchen, a plate of Victoria sponge sat on the pine kitchen table. Two bone china cups and saucers and a pot of tea covered with a hand-knitted, green-and-white-striped tea cozy were set alongside a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar.

  Upstairs, a vacuum cleaner droned on over our heads. My landlady, Mrs. Evans, ran a housekeeping service called Doing-It-Daily and counted Reverend Whittler as one of her many customers.

  “Ah, Mrs. Evans must have seen us walking over from the church,” said Whittler, removing the tea cozy and feeling the pot. “Nice and hot. It’s just been made.”

  A quick survey of the kitchen showed that Whittler was a very busy man—and hopelessly disorganized. Mrs. Evans often complained that she was forbidden to touch his work area.

  Every available surface was piled high with files and papers. A wall calendar was crammed with scribbled notes and stuck with yellow Post-its. In one corner of the room was an old computer and a fax machine surrounded by a sea of paper. According to Mrs. Evans, he had been married a long time ago but after his wife died, never remarried, claiming, “Constance was irreplaceable,” which I thought very touching.

  I sat down and played mother, pouring the tea and cutting large slabs of cake that were still warm to the touch. Whittler retrieved a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream from a cupboard and two dainty sherry glasses.

  “I should think you’d welcome a quick snifter after finding that body last night,” said Whittler, handing me a glass.