Peter Helton - Rainstone Fall

I hid my surprise behind a gulp of coffee. ‘Yes, please.’

‘No problem.’ She dug out the keys from her jeans pocket and put them on the table, halfway between us; Annis’s most treasured possession — apart from her brushes, perhaps — and not a bribe in sight. As I tried to casually palm the keys she covered my hand with hers. She speared a mushroom and offered it up to my mouth. I closed my lips around the fragrant fungus, chewed and swallowed. She gave me a smile that barely registered before it vanished again, released my hand and returned to her breakfast. ‘Okay, you can go now.’

I climbed into the Landy’s cab and fiddled with the ignition. I wasn’t sure about the moon phase but hoped that the old diesel was oblivious to the dank weather. It was grey and damp but there was no fog this morning and the radio had promised dramatic improvements for later in the day. I didn’t share their optimism. The engine caught and the ancient contraption vibrated into life, belching a black cloud of pollution out the back. I would have another go at Grumpy Hollow, hoping somehow to get ahead of Avon and Somerset. They had the annoying habit of jumping out at me from unusual places and right now that was the last thing I needed.

As I pulled away I caught a glimpse of movement behind the hall window and raised a hand in salute. I felt guilty about my reaction last night when I found Tim in Annis’s bed and yet more guilt for being so inarticulate about loving the woman. I felt guilty for having allowed Jill’s son to be used as a lever to make me do someone’s dirty work for him. In fact my Accumulated Guilt Quotient was so high that smoking on an empty stomach hardly registered, though I was acutely aware of the stupidity of it while I fought to light a cigarette single-handedly with my temperamental lighter whilst coughing all the way up the track to the lane. Dark thoughts about how every lungful ate into my life expectancy helped to take my mind off things until I got to Lam Valley. I rattled past Chickenshit Farm, where I hoped Jack Fryer had managed some sleep, not to mention washing up, and after a couple of wrong turns found the track that led steeply down to the ford across the stream and on to Grumpy Hollow. I passed the tree where yesterday I had left the bike and ground on slowly through the mud.

In the churned-up area in front of the missing gate to the little herb farm I abandoned the Landy and walked from there. A length of rope had been strung from gatepost to gatepost, surely a purely psychological measure to reinforce the warnings on the signs to keep out. I ducked under it and walked on. Here the mists still lingered and being mindful of yesterday’s welcome I advanced cautiously. There were plenty of hiding places around here. The place was shambolic in a curiously attractive way. It had an air that reminded me of the charm of picturesque neglect the outbuildings at Mill House had acquired, though there was no sign of idleness here, quite the opposite; I’d never seen a place more densely worked and cultivated. Every corner appeared to be crammed with plants, many sheltered from the weather by bits of glass and grimy sheets of builders’ polythene. There appeared to be a couple of figures watching me from the middle of a small field of bright green foliage to my left. I waved and called hello. The figures didn’t move or answer and as I got closer I realized I’d been trying to converse with scarecrows. Very realistic ones. I was wondering if they were meant to scare more than just the birds. As I carefully advanced downhill past a zinc trough full of scummy green water, plants growing in rows of beds bordered with flimsy wooden boards, barrels, muck heaps and all kinds of junk, the structures at the centre of all this took on more definite shapes. An ancient-looking Volvo estate — it was beige , and when did they stop making cars that colour? — stood with its nose pointing uphill. Near a couple of pollarded willows sat an old-fashioned hump-backed caravan. Five feet away and at right angles to that stood a pale blue and weathered old shepherd’s hut, its wheels disappearing into the muddy grass. Connecting the two and shielding the space in between from the worst of the weather hung a home-made porch consisting of bits of wood, canvas and tarpaulin. Nests of bottles, presumably empty, had accrued beside the hut; wine bottles, beer bottles, water bottles, gas bottles. Behind the caravan stood a greenhouse, botched together from sash windows and, by the look of it, old shower cubicles, and beyond that stretched the grey caterpillar of a polytunnel far into the plantation. A couple of sheds, knocked together from old pallets and tar-paper, completed the picture. Thin wisps of grey smoke escaped from the lum-hatted stove pipe protruding at a drunken angle from the roof of the hut. Apart from the smell of wetness, of mud and dank vegetation, there was the undeniable aroma of country cooking in the air. My stomach rumbled loudly. A dim light showed in the little window of the shepherd’s hut. I splashed towards it, intending to knock on the side.

‘Hold it right there.’

I held it right there. It was a commanding female voice and it came from behind me. I turned round. She was pointing a rifle at me from the corner of the caravan. It had to be the Stone woman but it was me who felt petrified.

‘Don’t point that thing at me, there’s no need for that,’ I said in my friendliest I’m-just-a-harmless-detective voice. ‘You must be,’ I opted for neutral ground, ‘Ms Stone.’

‘Right first time. Now up the hill and back where you came from. I’ve had enough of people creeping round my place.’ She motioned with the rifle. ‘Go on.’

By now I’d had time to take a closer look. She was covered in several layers of the kind of washed-out olive drab and used-to-be-blue kind of stuff people working in the country always seemed to wear but her feet were trendily clad in pink wellies. Ms Stone tried hard to sound and look fierce, squinting along the barrel of her gun and lowering her voice, but that couldn’t disguise the fact that even in all this dripping murk she looked somehow. . sunny. Cheerful. There was sandy beach-blonde hair escaping from her multicoloured knitted hat, the unsquinting eye was a clear sea blue and her tanned face was strikingly devoid of hairy warts and other witchy accessories.

‘I’m harmless, honestly. And that’s an air rifle you’re pointing at me. It’s hardly a deadly weapon.’

‘At sixteen pounds per square inch it would certainly ruin your day if I pulled the trigger, I can promise you that much.’ But she lowered it nevertheless and pointed it at my mud-caked boots instead. ‘Start walking then.’

‘I just want to talk. I’m a private investigator.’

‘Don’t care.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘There’s enough signs up there telling you people to keep out but you just keep coming.’

‘It’s true, I did see the signs and ignored them but then there wasn’t a bell to ring or anything,’ I complained. ‘So if one doesn’t walk past the signs how does one get to see you?’

‘One gets invited. You one didn’t invite. So get lost, will you?’ A note of tiredness had crept into her voice. ‘I’ve had enough visitors to last me the rest of the year. Perhaps longer.’

‘The police?’

‘Yes, them too, though they were a joy compared with some of my other callers.’

I took out my packet of cigarettes, shook one out and lit it, mainly to buy some time. Her eyes followed my every move, as though mesmerized. I offered her one. She closed the fifteen feet of space between us and yanked a cigarette out of the packet. She had it lit so fast with her own lighter, produced from a trouser pocket, there could be no doubt that I was watching a true addict suffering from extreme nicotine deprivation.