FLINDER'S FIELD (a murder mystery and psychological thriller) (3 page)

‘You moron!’ he screamed
, the two words forming a convenient conduit for his mounting, and now exploding, tension.

George Lee tried to open his crushed door, but it was so badly damaged it wouldn’t budge. He eased himself awkwardly over to the passenger door
, catching his thigh on the gear stick, and all but fell out onto the road, his legs weak with the shock, his heart racing like he’d run a marathon. He stood there with his head clasped in both hands, staring down at the crumpled wing and bonnet, the massively indented door.

‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’ piped
an alarmed voice.

‘You bloody moron!’ Lee repeated, at the moment too worked up to think of anything else
to say.

The young man looked terrified, his shoulders hunched, trying to shrink himself down to nothing. ‘
Can you fix it?’ he said hopelessly.

‘Fix it? It’s a bloody right-off!’ Lee thundered. His face went from marble-pale to plum-puce, and the young man backed off as if facing someone on the brink of murd
er. Real murder. ‘Oh, Jesus!’ Lee said. ‘I’ve only just finished paying off the loan for this thing and you right it off, you blind-arsed bastard!’

The
young man’s eyes looked like they were filling with tears. ‘I’ve only just passed my test. This is my first car… Dad’s gonna kill me. It was a seventeenth birthday present.’

Steaming water dripped from the Escort’s busted radiator. Its nose was a mess, and its bonnet bent upwards into a peak.

‘Well you ain’t going to see eighteen, you idiot,’ growled Lee.

‘Are you OK? Is anyone hurt?’ said a grey-haired man. He was rushing from the White Hart, his face a mask of concern. Two other men joined him, and a woman. ‘Steve,’ he said to the youth, ‘that your new car?’

The young man nodded and finally a tear rushed down his cheek, which he wiped away, embarrassed. ‘Dad’s gonna kill me,’ he said.

‘Christ, that’s a mess,’ said the man. ‘He glanced at Lee. ‘
Hey, are you Jeff Lee’s boy? George?’

George Lee nodded dumbly, his nerves settling. He looked himself over to make sure there was no damage done. It had been one hell of a bang. ‘Yeah, that’s me.’

‘Sorry to hear about your dad,’ the man said. ‘He held out his hand to shake. ‘Christian Phelps, landlord at the White Hart. Remember me?’

Frowning, Lee took his hand. It was warm and wet, refusing to let go. ‘Yeah, I remember you. One of dad’s friends. You used to have a farm…’ Then he let go the man’s hand and shook his head. ‘What about my bloody car? Look at the thing. You should have been watching where you were going, you idiot,’ he said to the young man, scowling. ‘I hope you’ve got insurance, because you’re gonna get stung for this,’ he added.

The young man shrank away, his puppy eyes looking up from a downcast, colourless face. ‘My insurance already costs me near-on a thousand a year. I can’t afford any more…’

Phelps stroked his chin, scrutinising the scene. ‘Technically, you’re at fault, George, pulling out before the road was clear…’

‘Like hell I’m at fault!’ Lee bellowed. ‘He was speeding!’

‘Guess we’ll have to leave it to the insurance companies, eh?’ said Phelps. ‘At least no one was hurt. Got to look on the bright side. Why not come inside, have a drink, the pair of you, exchange phone numbers, car details, that kind of thing?’

‘I don’t want any fucking drink!’ Lee burst animatedly. Then thought better of it. ‘Thanks for the offer, Mr Phelps, but I don’t drink anymore.’

The way he said it, Phelps guessed
it might have been a problem at some time.

‘You on your way to your dad’s house?’ Phelps asked.

Lee nodded, putting his hands in his pockets to stop them flapping around hopelessly. ‘Yeah, funeral and all that. Sort things out for my mother.’

‘Your sister’s already here,’ he said.

‘Great,’ said Lee dispassionately.

‘Look, I’ve got the number of Cowper’s garage
– your Uncle Gary. He’ll come and sort this out for you.’ He addressed the young man. ‘Don’t look so down, Steve,’ he said, ‘it’s a little dent, that’s all, nothing that Cowper’s can’t put right.’ He looked at Lee’s car and gave a fatal shrug. ‘Yours, I just don’t know…’ He put an arm around Steve’s shoulders. ‘You got one of those camera-phone-things, son?’ The dazed young man nodded. ‘Better take some pics then, just in case you need them for the insurance.’

Lee exchanged insurance details with the young man, who took
photos of the scene.  He eventually wandered away, disconsolate.

‘I’ve rung Cowper and he’ll be along to pick up the cars till you sort things out. Do you want a lift to your dad’s house?’ said Phelps.

Lee shook his head. He went to the boot and retrieved his case. ‘Thanks, but I’ll walk.’

‘Sure? It’s a distance.’

Half a mile was considered a distance for this lot, thought Lee acidly. ‘I’m fine, really. I’ll take a walk. It’ll clear my head, help settle me down.’

The
village of Petheram had changed little over the years. Not that he ever got back that often to notice – once a year, tops, if that. He worked out that it had been a year almost to the day since he’d last seen his parents. Nothing much changed in Petheram, ever. People came and went, but the village remained pretty much the same as it did a hundred years ago. George Lee knew this because he’d seen the photographs kept by one of those locals who act as self-appointed keepers of all things historical, Brendan Mollett, a Petheram-born man who had been using his retirement to amass a veritable archive on the history of the village and its surroundings. He’d been banging on about setting up a museum for ages, but nobody paid him any heed and said it would be a waste of time and money. But that didn’t stop him collecting recordings, notes, pictures, stories, local songs. Lee guessed Mollett had to fill in the gap between work and death some way. Then he immediately berated himself for his cynicism. That was Cameron Slade talking. That wasn’t him.

Petheram consisted of a single main street called Bristol Way, though it was as far from Bristol as could b
e imagined, and the road certainly didn’t lead anywhere near Bristol. The houses were typical rural cottages, built in huge blocks of hamstone to house the farm workers, often in horrendous conditions, according to Mollett, who revelled in the grim tales of damp and cold, of starvation and premature deaths and high infant mortality. Nowadays, on the rare occasion they came onto the market, they were highly-sought-after properties, usually by Londoners who often bought them as second homes or retired there and complained about mud on the road and noisy birds in the trees. They tended not to stay very long. Petheram was just a little too remote for many, just a little too insular. One guy he talked to said it was like trying to bed down in a clam without ever managing to get the shell open wide enough to squeeze inside. Told him there was something just a tad strange about the place for his liking, and moved back to Bermondsey within eight months.

The stone had
an attractive honey-coloured hue, especially so when the sun sank low and its syrupy light bathed the old, ivy-clad walls, and many of the cottages still possessed their topping of thatch, giving it a chocolate-box appearance, even more so now that the roses were out in full bloom and the towering old sculptural trees heavy with verdant leaf.

It was quiet. Not a soul on the street. Yet this was Saturday afternoon. When he was a kid, George Lee remembered
long summer weekends playing out on the car-empty street with gangs of childhood friends. Well, he called them friends. They never really returned the compliment as he remembered. There was none of that now. Since farming and its ancillary occupations – the sole source of work for the locals – had fallen into steep decline, with much of the land now sold off for development, there was nothing to keep the young here. For one thing they couldn’t afford to buy a house in Petheram even if they could find work, the pay being so poor and the houses attracting wealthy outsiders who were looking for idealised rural idylls, and pushed up their value till they were out of the reach of any but more wealthy outsiders. The only locals who owned properties in Petheram were those who inherited them from their parents before them. There were still a few of those, he thought. At least one day George Lee and his sister would one day inherit his parents’ house and that would fetch them a tidy sum.

One parent down, one to go, he thought.

It had become a ghost village. Beautiful, almost ethereal under the coppery evening light, but deserted, as if it had died long ago, its soul taken flight leaving behind its bones to dry and bleach in the sun.

He was almost displaying an emotional attachment and that wouldn’t do.
He shrugged it off, passing his heavy suitcase from one hand to the other. He was beginning to wish he’d taken the offer of the lift from Phelps. The sun was far hotter than he realised, and he and exercise were more casual acquaintances than good friends. To make matters worse, his polished shoes were getting dusty. He hated it when his shoes got dirty.

He passed the small shop and post office, wondering how it managed to survive when so many had closed down. He swore the window display was the same as it was a year ago; a few buns and cakes for sale with a bluebottle buzzing around them; a few tins of peaches stacked u
p, their labels fading; A4 sheets taped to the window advertising the various activities to be had down at the village hall, from coffee mornings to a bring-and-buy sale. He wondered if old Mrs Cadogan still ran the place. She must be eighty if she’s a day, he thought, but I’ll bet she’s hanging on with her nails. She always used to say they’d have to carry her out in a box. Along with those stale buns and cakes and out-of-date tins of peaches, he thought. He used to steal sweets from the counter with his friends because she was as blind as a bat, and he always thought he’d gotten away with it till she told him on his eighteenth birthday, at a poorly-attended party at the village hall, that he owed her approximately thirty-two pounds and twelve pence for all the things he’d taken over the years.

He smiled, in spite of himself. He liked Mrs Cadogan, cantankerous old biddy that she was.

The village hall sat in a few acres of land on the edge of the village. The place had not changed one little bit, he thought. Still the same old shack with a tin roof that looked about to collapse. There’d been campaigns to restore it for years, but the money was never forthcoming. Beside this was a small tree-lined road that led to the local church, Saint Andrews, and the attendant vicarage, now sold off to pay for the church’s upkeep, the parish having to share a man-of-the-cloth with neighbouring parishes these days. George Lee had been christened in Saint Andrews. Thirty-eight years ago. 1975. Christ, when you thought about it, it was such a long time ago. Nearly four decades. Another time, another world even.

He was leaving the village behind, out in front of him a road leading
out into open fields, and was surprised to see the old garden centre up and running for business.
Tredwin’s
, the new sign said at the white-painted iron gates.

He paused, set down his suitcase.

Tredwin’s. Had the Tredwins returned, too? After all this time?

It sure looked like it. He went through the gates, peeked inside the yard. It wasn’t unduly
large, but it seemed to be well-stocked with plants and other gardening paraphernalia. The old building had been repaired and painted, so too the rows of greenhouses, and there were a couple of cars parked outside, so it looked like it was doing some business in spite of being so far off the beaten track.

The Tredwins, huh? He shook his head at the thought. He never expected to see a Tredwin back in Petheram. He wondered
which one it was, exactly. He’d have to pay a visit after he got himself settled.

He took a narrow road that skirted the garden centre and cut through woodland, pausing every now and again to mop his shiny brow on hi
s sleeve. The road became even more pinched, like a waist in a corset, passing two cottages set back from the road and almost swallowed by the shrubs and trees in which they sat. A mud-splashed Land Rover was parked close to the edge of a boundary wall. The gardens were unkempt, and the windows of both cottages were in dire need of repair, indicating these cottages at least still belonged to locals and had thus far escaped the clutches of wealthy outsiders.

The Lee home – and it had been so for at least six generations, he’d often been told – was little better looked after than its cousins two hundred yards or so further down the track. If anything it might be a little worse. That’s not the way to look after my inheritance, he thought. Its condition would knock thousands off the retail value when it came to selling it.
The gate was almost hanging off its hinges, he noticed as he tried to lift it to close it. The path of stone slabs leading to the beaten old front door was uneven, many of them broken with weeds growing up between the cracks.

What a dump, he thought, pausing outside the door. Again he was beset with the feelings of dread. That indescribable urge to turn and run. Why was that? The last time he had that feeling he was hit by a runaway car. No chance of that here, he thought. But he looked up to the roof and saw a number of dislodged roof tiles balanced on the edge and looking like they might topple from their precarious perch at any moment and fracture an unsuspecting skull down below.