Lynda La Plante - Backlash

Anna looked around the yard. The last building was the barn, and she plodded through the mud to get to it. The old wooden door was ajar and through it she could hear the sound of a tinny radio playing Bruce Springsteen.

‘Hello? Is anyone here?’

She peered inside: it was huge. Both sides were stacked with sacks of peat and soil reaching the ceiling. Then her gaze fell on a mass of gardening equipment – rakes and brushes and shovels – all piled in a square wooden pen. Wheelbarrows were propped against each other in a row and beyond them was a stable. A horse’s head stuck out, chewing straw, and the closer Anna got the more she could smell the overpowering stench of manure. A large second pen held bales of straw and sacks of horse feed. Propped above an old carpenter’s bench were saddles and riding equipment, and hard hats balanced on pegs.

The second stall was empty but Anna was drawn by the sound of water and clanging buckets.

‘Hello?’ she called.

There was a girl wearing jodhpurs, a green padded jacket and a cloth cap. She had rubber riding boots on and was using a hose to wash down the walls.

‘Excuse me. Hello,’ Anna tried again.

The girl turned and gasped with shock as Anna had surprised her. She pulled out an earphone.

‘Christ, you scared the hell out of me.’

‘I’m so sorry. I’ve been calling out for ages.’

‘What do you want?’

Anna showed her ID and the girl pulled off a thick padded leather glove.

‘Shit, this isn’t that bloody farmer having a go at us again, is it?’

‘No, but if you could spare me a few minutes I’d like to talk to you. I am Detective Anna Travis.’

‘I’m Mari. Here, take the keys and go into the caravan and I’ll finish in here. Only the other horse will be back any minute and I want it clean before he’s here.’

Anna opened up the caravan and got into the warmth. An old Calor gas heater made it feel like an oven. There was a decrepit floral sofa with the stuffing hanging out, two equally old armchairs, a large desk, and filing cabinets that were new and covered one wall. There was also a small kitchen with rows of chipped mugs and instant coffee jars and boxes of tea bags with names taped to them.

It was about fifteen minutes before Mari banged into the caravan, making it shake.

‘That man is making our lives a nightmare. We are not allowed to put up a decent sign on the road, so we don’t get any passing customers – not that we really need them – but it’s a constant battle. I hope to Christ you shut the gate when you came in.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good, because God forbid it’s left open. That bastard comes down the lane like something out of a Gothic nightmare. Trouble is, Andrew was left this patch of land by his father and he, the so-called farmer, wants him to sell up, which Andy refuses to do unless he’s paid a good price. He just wants his bloody cows to use our path.’

Mari took off her cloth cap and a cascade of wild golden ringlets came loose. She was an exceedingly pretty woman. Devoid of any make-up, her skin was like a young child’s with ruddy cheeks and she had freckles dotted over her small neat nose.

‘So what’s this all about then?’

She plonked herself down on one of the worn armchairs, indicating for Anna to sit in the other.

‘Well my full title is DCI Anna Travis from the Met murder team.’

‘Wow. Well my full name, believe it or not, is Marigold Summers – bane of my life. My sisters are also named after flowers; theirs are Daisy and Violet. Hippy parents, obviously, but everyone calls me Mari.’

Anna smiled. Mari was a character, albeit it a very attractive one, with her skinny frame beneath an old man’s shirt, jodhpurs and rubber riding boots. She also had tiny slender hands.

‘Do you smoke?’

‘No I don’t.’

‘Mind if I make a roll-up?’

‘No.’

‘So why are you here? I think Daisy said she took a call from some detective about contacting Andy, but he’s in Thailand, due back this weekend.’

Anna watched as Mari fished in her pockets and took out a small square tin, pinched some tobacco out of it and very professionally rolled a thin cigarette. Licking the paper and twisting the end tightly, Mari then got up and fetched a lighter from the desk.

‘So what is this all about then?’

She sucked at the thin roll-up and flicked the lighter on a couple of times before the tobacco caught.

‘It’s about a missing teenager; a girl called Rebekka Jordan.’

Mari gave no reaction to the name as she leaned forwards to listen.

‘Mr Markham did some work on a property in Hammersmith for a Mr and Mrs Jordan. It’d be over five years ago.’

There was still no reaction from Mari as she puffed at her roll-up.

‘Do you have documents here that could give me a list of the people Mr Markham employed on that specific job?’

‘I can have a look. I wasn’t around then. His filing system is a bit of a mess, his accountant goes mad, he’s always behind, but half the time it’s not his fault. You’d be surprised how late people pay their bills. The posher and richer they are, the worse they are. He’s forever sending off invoice after invoice.’

Mari began to pull open drawers in one of the filing cabinets and turned to Anna.

‘Sorry, I’ve forgotten what I’m looking for?’

‘Mr and Mrs Jordan from Hammersmith.’

Mari banged open one drawer after another. ‘It’d be a help if he put them in alphabetical order.’

‘Tell me about Mr Markham?’

Mari turned and grinned. ‘He’s fabulous. I adore him. I was in love with him from the age of seven as he knows my parents. I was always obsessed with horses and he used to be part of the local hunt. In fact the two hunters we’ve got are sort of a charity case as they’re ancient, but he won’t let them be sent off to the glue factory. We give the local kids riding lessons and-’

‘Is he married?’

Mari was now sitting on the floor with a stack of folders, skimming them and putting them to one side.

‘He has been twice, but with him working all hours here they didn’t last. He lives in his mother’s house now, but you’ll often find him kipping on that old sofa. Ah! Hang on…’

Mari had a thick file filled with papers and drawings and pictures of greenhouses cut from magazines. She carried it to her chair and sat balancing it on her knee.

‘I think this is it. Gosh, it was quite a big job. There’s loads of invoices. What do you want to see?’

‘Did he use regular workers? Can you see if there is a list of people he employed to do the job?’

Mari skipped through the pages and then passed the file over to Anna.

‘I can’t really tell you. It was quite a long time ago. He used to work part-time at Kew until he got this place up and running.’

Anna smiled as she tried to sort through the mess of documents.

‘How many people work for him on a permanent basis?’

‘Well there’s me, my sister Daisy, two old blokes that he uses for the heavy lifting, and William who does the deliveries and buys any plants we don’t grow here.’

‘Have you ever seen this man before?’

Anna passed Henry Oates’s photograph to her. She looked and wrinkled her nose.

‘No, don’t know him.’

‘When Mr Markham does a big job, say like the Jordans’, does he bring in extra help?’

‘Yeah, if he needs to. I mean the two old guys live locally and they don’t go out on jobs as they’ve got their work cut out here. William sometimes helps out, and me and Daisy, but the commissioned work is always handled by Andy. If he needs muscle he’ll get self-employed casual labour.’

‘Cash in hand, would that be?’