Peter Helton - Rainstone Fall

It was mid-afternoon yet the daylight could not have been described as broad. The buildings were substantial and satisfyingly old, apart from a huge modern brick and corrugated asbestos shed that, judging by the smell, was home to a large number of poultry. A no-nonsense wooden sign, hand-painted in black letters, proclaimed this to be Spring Farm. The big metal gates were open on a cluttered yard containing enough old farm machinery to start a museum of agriculture but mercifully there were no dogs in evidence (did I mention I was terrified of dogs?) so I rode straight in. The unusual exhaust note of the Norton served as a bell. A bulky bloke in black jumper, filthy yellow plastic dungarees and black wellies appeared from the far end of the shed, holding what looked like a broad broom devoid of bristles. I left the bike next to a square concrete tank of some sort and walked the twenty yards to the waiting man. At first, judging by his way of moving and the tightly curled hair, he appeared to be youngish but every yard I covered put a year on him until I came to stop before a man in his fifties. His square face was badly let down by a thin irregular nose and a small disapproving mouth. He lent on his muck-scraper and barked his greeting. ‘Yeah?’ He somehow managed to make the word sound like ‘Get back on your bike and ride out of here while you still can.’ Or perhaps it was just the fog getting to me.

I explained who I was and began by asking about the Citroën in the field but he interrupted me. ‘Ask the farmer.’ This was accompanied by a jerk of the head towards the farmhouse proper.

‘You’re not the farmer?’

‘He’s in the house.’

‘Okay. Did you by any chance see — ’

‘Ask the farmer.’

‘Okay, thank you so much.’

He waited until I was halfway towards what I took to be the front door, then called after me.

‘He’s busy!’

I turned but he was already disappearing round the corner of the shed. I knocked at the iron-shod door of the farmhouse and waited. For a while nothing happened. I knocked again. In mid-knock the door was snatched wide open by a man somewhere in his forties, who stepped forward and filled the old doorframe completely with his broad shoulders. He actually had to stoop to get out, where he straightened up and sniffed as though the all-pervading smell of chicken shit was somehow a new phenomenon. His face was pale and unshaven and could have done with some sleep. About a week’s worth. His checked shirt and cords had seen better days.

I pointed over my shoulder. ‘The man said — ’

‘Brian? Where is the bastard?’

‘He’s gone round that — ’

‘Who are you, anyway?’

I introduced myself. ‘I’m a private investigator, and I wondered if I could ask — ’

‘Ha!’ It was more a challenge than a laugh. Challenge to what, I didn’t know. He turned round and disappeared inside again but left the door open. ‘Private investigator. Yeah, just what I need,’ he grumbled over his shoulder.

I followed him through a wide corridor, its floor darkly tiled and cluttered with boots and wellies, into a big, cold, dysfunctional kitchen.

‘Private secretary is what I need, actually.’ His sweeping arm gesture invited me to appreciate the chaos of paperwork on the table, the chairs and the floor. An old-fashioned electric typewriter and a big-buttoned calculator stood half-buried amongst the papers, books and booklets, lists, maps and notepads. Adding to the chaos were the teetering piles of dinner plates and other crockery waiting to be washed everywhere and the stacks of used pots and pans. Some of those had also found space on the chairs and floor. More than anything he needed a housekeeper. It was my turn to sniff: there was more than a hint of decay here and someone had been hitting the bottle.

‘You any good with paperwork? Perhaps you could investigate this little lot for me. It’s certainly criminal. Thought up by the evil geniuses in Brussels, I’ve no doubt. Care for a drink? Hope you don’t mind if I do,’ he said when I shook my head. ‘Not that I really give a shit. About anything much.’ He picked up a bottle of supermarket gin from under the table and poured himself a generous measure into a glass blind with grime. Then he waggled the bottle towards me in a way that was meant to be tempting.

‘No thanks, really, I’m driving.’

‘No shit. I thought you came in a biplane. You look like a barnstorming stunt pilot in that get-up.’ He let himself drop heavily on to the only chair that wasn’t covered in paperwork or dirty kitchenware. ‘Siddown, make some space for yourself and call me Jack ’cause that’s my name. Jack Fryer. Small fry. Cheers.’ He raised his glass in salute. Here was a man who had been drinking steadily for hours and handled it with a depressing and frightening tautness that balanced precariously on top of a barely suppressed rage.

I carefully cleared a chair for myself and gestured at the papers festooning the table. ‘So, what’s all this?’ I asked. Anyone can make a mistake.

‘This is called a SUBSIDY APPLICATION FORM,’ he said in capital letters. ‘The new subsidy, of course.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you, fuck! But hey, let me enlighten you. Used to be that we received payments based on the number of animals we reared. Aha? Made sense? No more. From now on subsidies will be based on number of acres farmed, no matter how many animals on them. What could be simpler? Suicide, that’s what. Let me show you. These,’ he flung them in the air one by one, ‘are the ex. . plana. . tory. . booklets. Two, three, five. . about ten of them. And then there are the maps. And the lists. Every acre needs to be registered with the Rural Payments Agency and they manage to miss half of your fields off the lists and if you call their fucking helpline you get some twelve-year-old twit telling you the payments have been put back by three months. The bank’s already said they won’t play ball any more which means I could easily lose the farm. And even if I don’t, the new subsidies will amount to only half of what we used to get which means we’ll no longer make any profit at all. I don’t know why I bother with this fucking crap. If I had the money I’d sue the minister for agriculture for destroying my livelihood. And driving me to drink. Are you sorry you asked yet?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘Well, that makes you a right weirdo. So what do you want? If you can’t calculate acreage or repair dishwashers then you’re no fucking use to me at all.’ He waved a hand at the piles of furry dishes in and around the sink.

‘You can wash these things by hand, you know?’

‘Bollocks. I tried it once. It can’t be done. Did you say private investigator? What might you be investigating on my farm?’

Botulism, I nearly said, looking at spoons stuck in half-eaten tins of food, but asked about my DS instead. Had he noticed it across the valley?

‘Of course I did. And the police already asked me a lot of dumb questions about it on Sunday.’

‘What kind of dumb questions?’ I was hoping to get the answers without having to ask dumb questions myself.

Jack obliged. ‘When had I first noticed there was a black car in the middle of the field? I noticed it when I looked out the window Thursday morning. Why didn’t I report it then? Because it’s not my bloody field, that’s why.’

‘Whose bloody field is it?’

‘Tony bloody Blackfield’s bloody field. Bought it for Lane End Farm some ten years ago from the Fairchilds. And Blackfield’s just the kind of bloke to leave an old wreck in it, if only to piss everybody off. Either that or bloody joyriders dumped it there, I thought at the time. Then they told me about the dead guy in the car. Was anyone missing, did I know anyone fitting the description? What, a bloke with half his brain seeping from his ears? No, can’t say I do, officer. And so it went on. Did I know someone called Honeysomething?’