Peter Helton - Rainstone Fall

A case like this? ‘Two blokes talking on the way home from the pub, probably pissed. . Do you know any Alberts? Who might be nosy? Or a witch?’

‘I don’t know any Alberts but there can’t be that many, can there? It’s an old man’s name, no one’s called Albert any more,’ she pointed out. ‘But I do know an old witch. So does Cairn.’ She nodded in the boy’s direction. ‘Lots of people know about her .’

‘Do they now. And what’s her name?’

‘I don’t know her name. We just call her the Old Witch. Actually she’s not that old. More. . old like him.’ She pointed her chin at Tim, who stopped smiling at her.

‘And has she had an accident lately?’

‘Well, I don’t know, do I? I haven’t seen her for ages. So she could be dead, couldn’t she? No one would know.’ She fixed me with steady gas-blue eyes. Her friend nodded tiny nods.

‘And where exactly is her place?’

‘Give him the map,’ she instructed him.

He half stood up so he could pull a bent piece of paper from his back pocket.

I took it from him and stashed it in my jacket. ‘Next time I have a spare moment I’ll check it out.’ I was planning on not having such a moment for a long time.

The boy looked relieved for a second, then worried again. ‘So that’s it, we hired you? How much is it going to cost?’

‘What? Oh. . ehm.’ I looked at Tim for help but he just raised one eyebrow, something else I wished I could do.

‘Look, I’ll let you know,’ I said eventually. ‘Don’t worry about it, okay? What are your names?’

‘I’m Cairn, she’s Heather.’

‘There’s some kind of pattern there,’ I mused.

‘Our mum’s Scottish,’ said Heather.

‘Ah, brother and sister,’ I concluded.

‘Wow, you really are a detective then,’ she said drily.

‘No doubt about it. I’m Chris and the big woolly one’s Tim. And now, if you don’t mind. . we were in the middle of discussing another case. .’

‘Oh, okay. We come in here quite a lot,’ Cairn assured me.

‘Come on.’ Heather dragged him away.

‘So, are you going to check it out?’ asked Tim when they were out of earshot. He was hunting about for bits of crisp between the bottles on the table.

‘Are you kidding? Not until I find the morning headline screams “Nosy Albert Has Little Accident”.’

James Lane did nothing more interesting that night than visit the Gents at regular intervals. If anything, his reliance on the walking stick seemed to increase with each pint he drank. During one of his toilet breaks I walked over to his chair and pretended to warm myself by the little fire while checking out his reading material. I nudged the book off the chair with my knee so I could pick it up and read the title. The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303 . Whatever gets you through the day. .

* * *

Bribery doesn’t deserve all the bad press it’s had. Hey, bribery can be fun! That morning I bribed Annis with her favourite breakfast (hot croissant, quince jam, five-minute egg and a cafetière of freshly ground Colombian coffee) to drive me back to Larkhall where I’d left the DS in the Oriel Hall car park the night before due to a certain degree of inebriation. I’d flagged down a passing minicab and offered the driver the entirety of my cash reserves for a lift home. An expensive exercise since it’s quite a few miles from there to Mill House but anything was better than losing my licence. A private detective without a car was an impossible proposition.

I enjoyed feeding her anyway. She always attacked food as though she hadn’t seen any for a week. Her disposition invariably sweetened while she demolished what you put in front of her and she always had that is-there-any-more look at the end of it.

Annis topped up the fuel in her ancient Landy, always a good idea with a beast that drank more than its fair share of the dwindling oil reserves, then sat fiddling and mumbling behind the wheel. Eventually she persuaded the thing to start.

‘Full moon soon,’ she explained. ‘It’s always temperamental round the full moon.’

I didn’t say a word. I was long used to Annis’s firm belief that the thing was alive and needed to be treated like a slightly batty elderly relative. Secretly I thought it was just a ruse to deter people from wanting to borrow it.

I had less success with trying to talk her into going halves on the surveillance of James Lane. ‘I didn’t tell you to take the job,’ she rightly but annoyingly pointed out as we rumbled along the track.

‘The roof needs repairing. Both roofs. How am I, how are we going to pay for it?’

Annis frowned. ‘How have we always paid for stuff?’ she wondered.

‘Sold a few paintings, found some money in an old tin somewhere, that kind of thing.’

‘Oh yeah. Well, you check the old tins while I do some work in the studio, if you don’t mind. Seriously, you’re not the only one who needs to crack on with some painting. I promised the Glasshouse Gallery in St Ives four canvases for a mixed show and they only want to show new work. So do I of course. I’m afraid you’re stuck with this surveillance thing for now. How’s it look so far?’

‘Like a man walking with a stick.’

A few minutes later I waved her goodbye in St Saviour’s Road, out of view from Lane’s windows which overlooked the car park where I’d left the DS. I walked the last few yards, sauntered along the line of cars while scanning the house for signs of life. It was a dank, dark morning and I registered with relief that the lights were on downstairs.

I fumbled in my pockets for my car keys. Nothing. Not there. Then I registered first with disbelief and then with a feeling like a punch in the gut that the car wasn’t there either. Gone, disappeared. Twenty parking spaces in the row and every one of them taken. Not a Citroën among them. I clearly remembered which space I’d left it in. That one. Or that one. Next to an old mud-coloured Volvo estate. I was beginning to feel stupid pacing up and down in front of the cars carrying the essential bit of private-eye kit, my thermos flask of black coffee. A couple of shoppers walking past gave me suspicious looks. There was only one thing to do, even for a private detective.

If you ever need a demonstration of polite boredom then report your car stolen (though wait until it has been stolen, obviously).

‘You’re not going to send someone out here?’ I moaned.

‘There really wouldn’t be much point, Mr Honeysett. I’ll take your details now but you’ll still have to come into the station and fill in the form. .’

Great, just when you’re stranded without a motor. I don’t know what I had expected, a SWAT team and a vanload of technicians dusting the world for fingerprints of the nefarious car thieves and a counsellor for my post-automotive stress. . What I hadn’t expected was a load of nothing. Now completely deflated I gave the guy the details. He was unlikely to be a police officer himself and there was no telling whether he took the call from Bath, Bristol or Bogotá. ‘The DS21, that’s the one with the swivelling headlights, isn’t it? Nice. .’

Looking up from my misery I saw that I’d nearly missed Lane leaving the house. I told the guy I’d come down to Manvers Street police station later, terminated the call and followed my target left. After only a few yards he sat down on the bench by the bus stop at the Larkhall Inn. He was dressed like the night before in grey waterproof jacket, jeans and trainers and this morning was carrying a blue shoulder bag. He stood by the kerb, blearily looking at the wet tarmac. Two women were also waiting, one with a pushchair already folded up and a listless child standing snottily by her side, and a guy in a raincoat I recognized as the other reader from the pub was sitting on the bench. I went and pretended to study the timetable. Then I actually did study it and realized I couldn’t make sense of it at all. One of those small yellow buses drew up. In the corner of my eye I could see Lane shuffling forward. It suddenly occurred to me that I might have to pay hard cash to use this service. Lane seemed to have some kind of pass that allowed him to ride for free. I got on whilst hunting around for change in my pockets. Nothing. I didn’t think they’d accept plastic so kept furtling about and eventually located something promising deep in the lining of my leather jacket. I apologized to the driver while I stood, thermos between my knees, one of my arms halfway down a torn jacket pocket, clawing for the money. At last I managed to close my hand on the coins and pulled them out: two shillings.