Ann Cleeves: The Crow Trap

“That’s all right. I’ve got it.”

“Has anything happened?” Now Edie was sufficiently awake to start to panic.

“No.” Vera sounded reassuring, even to her own ears. “Will she be at work today?”

“No, she’s taken a day’s leave. They’re going up to Black Law.”

“Of course.” As if she’d forgotten about that. “Do you know what time they intend to set off?”

“After lunch I think. Look, do you want me to phone them? I can find out what their plans are.”

Vera considered the idea but only briefly. Better not to interfere. No one must know she was interested in Black Law today.

“No. Don’t do that. Let them have a couple of days away without thinking about the investigation. I don’t want to spoil things for them.”

So she sat in the green, cell-like office with the map spread across her desk, planning her campaign. Aware that time was passing, that if she wanted to get in before Rachael and Neville, she’d have to move quickly, that she might already be too late.

She hit some buttons on her phone and spoke to Ashworth, who had been sitting parked in his wife’s car by the side of the road since Vera had phoned him after reading Christina Flood’s file.

“Any movement?”

“Not yet.”

“I’m going to walk in, down the public footpath from Langholme like all the other ramblers. If I dress the part no one will know any difference.”

“You’ll need back up.”

“You can organize that later when we know what’s happening. I don’t want half the force on standby without cause. I’d look a right bloody prat. There’s not enough to go on.”

“Would you rather I went in?”

“Don’t be daft. You don’t know the way. I practically grew up in these hills.” She paused. “I’m going now. I’ll call at home on the way to change. I’ll park the car near the church at Langholme. That’s what all the walkers do.”

“Bit risky, isn’t it?”

“I’ll be careful. I’ll not be seen.”

Famous last words, she thought. She picked up her bag and sailed out of the station, ignoring the officers who wanted to pass on information, and the demands to know where she was going.

“You can get hold of me through Ashworth,” she said imperiously, sweeping through the door, not even looking back to check that anyone was listening.

At home she found some walking breeches of Hector’s. Usually she never wore trousers. Anything on her legs made her eczema worse and she knew she’d suffer the next day. But in them she looked different, a completely new shape and profile. A thin waterproof anorak, boots and thick socks completed the picture. She went out of the house to check that the map was in the car and the ageing hippie, trying to round up a goat in the next field, stared at her, not recognizing her at all. Vera had intended to make a flask and sandwiches but she looked at her watch and found there wasn’t time. She took a packet of chocolate biscuits from the kitchen cupboard, filled a bottle of water and drove off. Only then did the woman in the field realize it must be Vera and gave a belated, rather startled wave.

Langholme was quiet. The church door was open and there was the buzz of a Hoover, then when that stopped women’s voices talking about flowers. She locked her car and put the keys into the zipped jacket pocket. She walked carefully past the Priory, not looking into the garden or at any of the other cars parked outside. The road ended with a five-barred gate and a fence with a stile. She crossed it and followed the well-worn path towards Black Law, walking steadily, only turning her head from time to time to check that no one was following her.

The path crossed the hill. On the lower slopes there were dry stone walls. The grass was cropped low by sheep. When she’d walked here in her childhood she’d been fit. From Langholme to the tarn had seemed a stroll. Since then she’d eaten too many curries and Chinese carry-outs. She’d drunk too much, spent too long in her car. It was another clear, hot day and soon she was sweating and dizzy with exertion. She took off the jacket and tied it round her waist by the sleeves. Already her legs were itching like crazy.

She walked through a gap in the last crumbling wall and the path climbed steeply. The ground was more uneven. Bright green bog and tufts of junco us curlew and skylark. But all she could see was the next place to put her boot and all she could hear was her laboured breathing. At the tarn she allowed herself to rest. She drank some water and ate a biscuit. As she licked the melted chocolate from her fingers she felt her pulse return to something like normal. A slight breeze rippled the water and dried the sweat on her face. From where she sat she could look down into the valley, to Baikie’s and Black Law farmhouse and the old mine. She stood up and walked on, finding the going easier because it was downhill.

She walked straight past the mine without looking inside the engine house, without showing any interest, followed the path along the burn, then took the short detour over the stile into Baikie’s garden. It was as if, suddenly, she’d stepped into a tropical wilderness. In the few days since the women had left the grass had grown and needed cutting.

The sun and the rain had brought more shrubs into flower. She walked round the house, found the key and let herself in through the back door. The house smelled hot and damp like a greenhouse. In the kitchen she peeled off the walking breeches and stood, pink-fleshed, bare-legged, desperate to scratch, waiting for the kettle to boil, hoping that there would be enough instant coffee in one of the jars to see her through.

She sat upstairs in the front bedroom because from there she had a view of the valley and the burn as far as the edge of the forestry plantation and the crow trap in one direction and the old mine buildings in the other. Connie had slept here before she had become too frail and fat to climb the stairs, in a large double bed with a brocade cover. Vera had a shadowy memory of one of the parties she’d attended as a child. She’d been sent upstairs to put the visitors’ coats on the bed and had been fascinated by the jars and bottles on the enormous Victorian dressing table, the alien female smell of perfume and face powder. Now the room looked like a dormitory in a youth hostel, the blankets folded at the end of the beds, the pillows in their striped cases.

At three o’clock Neville Furness and Rachael arrived. From the bedroom window Vera couldn’t see the farmyard, only one side of the farmhouse and the kitchen window, but she heard the car and their voices, saw them go into the kitchen carrying boxes of supplies. She ate another biscuit and hoped that Rachael wouldn’t decide to give Neville a tour of Baikie’s for old times’ sake. It wasn’t so much the collapse of the investigation which bothered her. It was the thought of being caught, sitting here, wearing nothing below the waist but a pair of knickers and some woollen socks. But there was no sign of Rachael or Neville all afternoon. As she’d suspected it seemed they had better things to do. The only people she saw were two athletic elderly walkers who seemed to cross her field of view in minutes.

Her phone rang. It was Ashworth.

“Nothing yet,” he said. “But you must be right. There’ve been preparations. The car’s been packed.”

“What with?”

“A shovel. Black bin bags.” “Ah,” she said, blew him an invisible kiss. “Thank you, God!”

“So, can I organize the back-up now?”

“No, not yet. Wait until we know exactly what’s going on.”

In the late afternoon the sun shone directly into the bedroom window and she felt herself dozing and forced herself to keep awake. At six o’clock Neville and Rachael left the farmhouse. They walked up the hill towards the tarn and returned through Baikie’s garden. They stopped for a moment under the window and Vera began to panic. She could hear them clearly but was so anxious that they’d come inside that she only took in snatches of their conversation, though it wasn’t like her to pass over gossip.