Ann Cleeves - The Crow Trap

Though in Anne’s opinion that was hardly an excuse for making a show in public, and she’d been glad when Bella had rushed away straight after the service so she’d not be forced to speak to her.

When they got to Baikie’s Anne forgot all about Bella for a moment.

Rachael was waiting for them. She looked exhausted, as if she’d slept in her clothes. The fire hadn’t been lit so there was no hot water.

Anne looked at her with irritation.

“God,” she said. “You look dreadful!”

Rachael wiped her face with her sleeve like a snotty lad and announced to them both that Bella was dead, that she’d hanged herself in the barn. The image of the middle-aged woman in tears at the back of the church returned to Anne, and though she wasn’t usually superstitious she did think it was a bit spooky that she’d pictured her so clearly on the way to the farm and wondered if it was some sort of premonition.

She didn’t rush into the field the next day. She’d never been at her best in the morning and it wasn’t like birds. The plants weren’t going anywhere.

She’d looked at the large-scale maps and knew approximately where she wanted to site her hundred-metre squares. Peter had provided satellite landscape surveys, but they needed ground-truthing. She loved the idea of ground-truthing, the thought of bending close to the soil, of getting things right.

She walked through the farmyard quickly she wasn’t squeamish but she didn’t want to be reminded of Bella swinging from a rope in the barn and went up the track towards the ford. In the sheltered bank by the side of the track there were primroses in bud and violets and the sun felt warm on her back. From a rise in the land she had a view of the old lead mine and thought it would be interesting to survey a square close to there. Old lime spoil could encourage quite a different sort of vegetation. But today she wanted to find the area of peat bog which Peter had marked on the map as being worth surveying. She left the track and walked over the open hillside. She was out of sight of the road and the mine and the farmhouse. She couldn’t even see any electricity pylons.

There was a specific way of going about the survey. It wasn’t a matter of wandering over the hill with a trowel and a magnifying glass.

When she’d first got involved in this business she’d scorned the rules, thought they’d been put together by empire-building scientists who wanted to keep the amateurs out. Then Peter had sent her on a course about National Vegetation Classification and she’d started to see the point.

Each survey area was a hundred-metre square, and within that five wooden frames, each two metres square, known as quad rats were randomly placed. You ensured a random distribution by standing in the middle of the large square and throwing the first quadrat, going to where it landed and throwing the next until all five were on the ground. The five frames provided the area for study.

Today she wouldn’t have time to do more than mark out the hundred-metre square with the poles she was carrying in her rucksack but that was what she liked best, the detailed investigation, identifying the plants within the frames, recording their abundance. She loved teasing through the sphagnum moss for plants like cranberry, bog rosemary, bog asphodel, squatting so close to the ground so she could smell the peat, feel the insects on her fingers. And always hoping for something unusual, something perhaps which she’d have difficulty in identifying.

Something which would put the bloody scientists in their places.

Not that there was much chance of that on this contract, she thought, pushing a pole into the ground, putting all her weight behind it because she didn’t want it blowing away in the first gale. This bit of bog might be of interest but from what she knew of the rest of the estate she wasn’t expecting any dramatic finds. Most of the mires had long been drained and the land farmed by the Holme Park tenants had been grazed so close by sheep and rabbits that it was as smooth and green as a billiard table. She wasn’t sure why the project needed a botanist at all. But perhaps that had been Godfrey Waugh’s idea.

As she straightened, the valley was filled with noise as a fighter plane from R. A.F Boulmer screamed overhead, so low it seemed that if she’d reached up she would have been able to feel the air move across her fingertips.

Anne Preece first saw Godfrey Waugh, Chairman of Slateburn Quarry Ltd, at a meeting held in St. Mary’s Church Hall, Langholme. It had been called by the developers to explain their scheme. There had, they said, been a lot of wild speculation in the press and when the villagers appreciated the real nature of the new quarry, they might actually be in favour of it.

Anne had been asked by a number of people in the village if she would attend. They seemed to feel she would have some influence in the decision-making process. Perhaps this was because she had a reputation for being lippy and standing up for herself. Perhaps it had something to do with her uncanny resemblance to Camilla Parker-Bowles. The similarity was so striking that occasionally there were rumours that she was indeed the prince’s lover, incognito. Of course the idea was ridiculous. She had lived at Langholme Priory with her husband since they were married. Anne herself had always been irritated by the comparison. She could give Camilla almost ten years.

She attended the meeting, not to please her acquaintances in the village, but out of self-interest. What she loved most about the Priory was the garden and the view over the Black Law Valley. That was where the proposed quarry would be. She saw from the beginning that what was planned was essentially an industrial development. There would be new roads, arc lights, the constant sound of machinery. The noise alone would madden her. Then there was the effect on the garden.

She imagined a fine silt of lime dust settling over her plants and her flowers, her raspberry canes and her vegetables, killing them slowly despite her efforts.

She tried to persuade Jeremy to go with her to the meeting. “Think what it’ll do to the value of the house,” she said. But Jeremy had decided that he had an important meeting in London so she went alone.

She sat in the front seat in the body of the hall. Although she arrived late, a chair had been left free for her because it was expected that she would speak for everyone.

The meeting was chaired by a local councillor, a solicitor from Kimmerston. Anne recognized him and gave a little wave. He ignored her and she thought his wife was probably there, sitting at the back.

From the start he pushed the line that any industrial development would be good for the area because jobs were so urgently needed.

“We are losing our young people,” he announced.

Pompous prat, she thought.

She could tell from the beginning that he was trying to win the meeting, while appearing to remain impartial by mentioning vague environmental objections. At last she couldn’t stand it any longer.

She had come prepared. She raised her hand, a diffident gesture, and stood up, smiling sweetly.

“I wonder if I might put a question to the Chair?”

Councillor Benn looked nervous, but he could hardly refuse.

“Could you tell me where you live, Councillor Benn?”

He stuttered before replying, “I don’t think that has much bearing on this case.”

Anne looked at him. He was balding, slightly shortsighted. She thought it was just as well that he specialized in property and employment law. He would be torn apart in a criminal court.

“All the same. Humour me.” She turned slightly to face the crowd for a moment. She had always known how to play a crowd. There was a murmur of expectation. He stared back at the hall, blinking.