said Filmer. ‘Try not to bleed on the seat, Ernie.’
‘This farmer, what’s his name?’
‘Creed. George Creed. He farms Crag End up there.’
He pointed to a whitewashed farmhouse set like a solitary molar in the rocky jaw of land rising to the west. The track running up to it was steep and unmetalled. Wield hoped the postman’s ribs, not to mention the car’s springs, would survive the trip.
He said, ‘Owns it, does he?’
‘Rents it from the Guillemard estate.’
‘They own most of the land round here, do they?’
‘Did once. Lot of it had to go for death duties when the Squire inherited in the ’fifties. Since then the bottom’s fell out of sheep, and there’s only three working farms left on the estate and t’other two are in a bad way.’
‘But Creed makes a go of it?’
‘Good farmer, George. Didn’t just stick with sheep. Nice herd of cows too. And pigs. Best ham in the county comes from George’s porkers.’
‘I noticed that he seemed to know all about Bendish going missing.’
It wasn’t intended as reproof but Filmer seemed ready to take it as such.
‘Most folk’ll know by now,’ he said with some irritation. ‘It’s not like the town round here with no one bothering with their neighbours. And you’ve got to know how to talk to these folk. I don’t know what your fat boss is playing at, sending a soft townie like that Pascoe out here. We’d have done better with a couple of dogs sniffing around the moor in case the lad’s lying up there somewhere with a broken leg. Yon fancypants likely wouldn’t know blood if he trod in it!’
‘I’ll pass your observations on, shall I, Terry?’ said Wield. ‘And talking of blood and fancypants, Postman Pat’s just dripped down your trousers.’
And smiling to himself, he turned and hurried after the bookseller who, forecastably, had been too impatient to wait.
‘Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?’
At this moment Pascoe’s pants were far from fancy, being of a bookmaker’s check with enough spare room around the waist and buttocks to accommodate the bookie’s runner.
The upside of things was that he was sitting in a bar lounge drinking the best beer he’d tasted in a long while.
The speed of his journey from horror to happiness was enough to give a philosopher pause. The menacing knifeman had dropped his weapon on to the table and helped him to his feet with expressions of concern and apology that had rapidly transformed him from Jack the Ripper to jolly Thomas Wapshare, landlord of the Morris Men’s Rest. The bucket of blood, he explained, belonged to a pig and was the essential ingredient of the homemade black puddings for which he claimed a modest fame. And the eyes in the bag belonged to a large buck rabbit which, along with a couple of pigeons and a duck, were destined for t’other pillar of the pub’s culinary reputation, Mrs Wapshare’s game pie.
Pascoe had started to explain who he was but, as at Scarletts, found himself treated as if expected. At this point Mrs Wapshare appeared, looking just like her husband in drag, and expressing great concern at the state of Pascoe’s trousers. Despite his modest protests, she had them off him with a speed he hoped was honestly learned and took them away to be sponged while he climbed into a pair of Wapshare’s colourful bags.
During this time the pale youth with the shotgun rematerialized in the kitchen and watched the debagging with that unnervingly unfocused stare. Pascoe felt he ought to ask him some questions but was inhibited by his deshabille and also by some legal uncertainties. Game laws didn’t play a large part in his detective life. Once he had known them, but only as examination knowledge, which sparkles like the dew in the morning and has as brief a stay. He was pretty certain the pigeons and the rabbit were OK, but he couldn’t swear to the duck. Wieldy would know. Wieldy knew everything, despite never showing the slightest interest in promotion exams.
But at least he could check the gun licence.
It was too late, he realized as he looked up from tucking his shirt into the trousers. The young man had vanished.
‘Who was that?’ he asked. ‘And where’s he gone?’
‘God knows, and He’s not telling,’ said Wapshare. ‘Name of Toke. Jason Toke. Bit strange but he’s harmless, and you’d have to walk a long mile to find a better shot. We buy a lot of stuff off him. He doesn’t work – who does these days? – and the money helps him and his mam. But what are we hanging around here for, Chief Inspector? Come through into the bar and make yourself comfortable till your trousers are ready.’
The bar was a delight, nicely proportioned and very user-friendly, with lots of old oak furniture well polished by much use, a huge fireplace with a log fire, walls completely free of horse-brass, and best of all, not a juke box or fruit machine in sight. Waspshare drew a couple of pints before he got a potion which satisfied his critical gaze.
‘There we are,’ he said, handing over a glass. ‘Clear as a nun’s conscience.’
Pascoe produced some money and when Wapshare looked ready to be offended, he placed the coins carefully on a ziggurat of copper and silver which towered up beside a notice saying Save Our School.
‘Money trouble?’ he said with the sympathy of a parent who spent so much time answering appeals that he sometimes suspected he’d been edged into private education without noticing it.
‘Aye, but not just books and chalk. Worse than that. We need enough to pay a teacher, else they’ll close the place down and bus our kids nine miles to Byreford.’
‘That’s terrible,’ said Pascoe. ‘How’s the appeal doing?’
‘OK, but not OK enough to provide an income. That takes real money. Only way we can get that is to sell something and we’ve nowt to sell except our Green. So no school or no Green. It’s what they call a double whammy, isn’t it? But you’ve not come here to talk about schools, have you, sir? Not unless it’s a school for scandal!’
‘So what do you think I have come here to talk about? asked Pascoe.
‘At a guess I’d say … Constable Bendish!’ He peered into Pascoe’s face and let out his infectious laugh. ‘Nay sir, don’t look so glummered! There’s no trick. Soon as it got round that Terry Filmer were getting his knickers in a twist about Dirty Harry going missing, I said to my good lady, five quid to a farthing some smart detective from the city’ll stroll in here afore the day’s out and start making discreet inquiries. So fire away, Mr Pascoe.’
Pascoe sipped his beer, decided that a man who kept ale as good as this was entitled to a bit of smart-assery, and said, ‘It’s a fair cop. But no big deal. It’s just that we need to get hold of Bendish, but it’s his day off and no one seems to know where he’s got to. Probably some simple explanation …’
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