Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

I noticed that the salmon was only ten pence dearer than the cod. "I think I'd prefer a piece of salmon," I said.

Dave turned on me. "You can't have salmon. We've supposed to have caught it."

"Well, I caught a salmon."

"They don't catch salmon."

"Of course they catch it. Where do you think it comes from?"

"It comes from a farm. They farm it."

I turned to the fishmonger. "Was the salmon wild?" I asked him.

"It wasn't too pleased," he replied. Everybody's a stand-up comedian these days.

We couldn't find a rhubarb shop so we joined the others in the pub and let them have a smell of our fish. Dave and Nigel had a couple of pints and I settled for halves because it was my turn to drive. They talked about the job most of the way home while I concentrated on staying awake. "So were you two on the Ripper case?" Nigel asked.

"On it's putting it a bit steep," Dave replied. "We were there, that's all."

"So what were you doing?"

"Stopping cars, mainly. Anybody out late at night got used to being stopped. Other crime fell dramatically."

"And how long did it go on for?"

"Oh, about two years. I'm not proud of it, but the Ripper paid the deposit on my first house."

"We worked hard, Dave," I said. "Some paid for their entire houses and did a lot less than us."

"Mmm, I know."

"You were lucky, weren't you, when you caught him?" Nigel asked.

"Dead jam my Dave agreed.

"It was good policing," I argued.

"We could do with a bit more luck like that," Dave said.

After a silence Nigel asked: "So why haven't you ever gone for your stripes, Dave?"

Dave didn't reply. "You're on a touchy subject, Nigel," I warned.

"Why?"

"I don't know, but he has his reasons, daft as they probably are."

"So why haven't you?" Nigel persisted.

"Leave it," I told him. Dave has fluffed his sergeant's exam several times, but I don't know why. He claims he just freezes in the exam room, but I don't believe him. I've seen him take on more than one whiz kid barrister and do all right.

We were passing a sign saying the next services were ten miles ahead.

"Wouldn't mind stopping for a pee," Dave said.

"Me too," Nigel added.

Nigel was explaining to Dave how J.J. Fox gained control of various companies even though he had less than fifty per cent of the shares.

"He has a reputation second to none for making companies profitable," he said. "OK, so he sacks people and asset-strips, but the shareholders don't mind if they are reaping the benefits. If he has, say, thirty-five per cent of the shares, he can attract the proxy votes of the smaller shareholders who can't be bothered to vote themselves.

This might give him, say, a sixty per cent holding, so he's effectively in control."

"Shareholders want to see their investments doing well," I said as I cruised past the slip road to the services. "You can't really blame them for ignoring the man's ethics."

"Not only that," Nigel added. "Most of the investors are probably pension schemes. They're obliged to strive for the best available for their members, so they can't afford to be choosy."

"Aargh! You've passed them!" Dave complained.

Five minutes later we were back in the rhubarb triangle. "How desperate are you?" I asked.

"Quite," Nigel said.

"Bloody," Dave added.

Away to my left I could see a pair of sheds, side by side in the middle of some allotments, with a Land Rover standing outside them. "Right,"

I said. "In that case we'll kill two birds with one stone." I pulled across into the slow lane and indicated that I was leaving at the next exit.

"Where are we going?" Nigel asked.

"To some rhubarb sheds," I replied. "There was a Land Rover outside.

You can have a pee and I'll see if he'll sell me some rhubarb."

I took left turns until I was driving back alongside the motorway, and turned left again down a cobbled street that looked promising. We were between two rows of terraced houses, left isolated for some reason when the area had been cleared. They were occupied and looked tidy, with clotheslines across the road and some children kicking a ball about.

We'd stepped back in time.

The cobbles gave way to a dirt track that led through the allotments, fenced round with a mishmash of old doors, wire netting and floorboards. Blue smoke drifted up from a pile of burning sods and a piebald pony tied to a stake reached for fresh grass outside the bald circle it occupied.

"There they are," I said, nodding towards the rhubarb sheds. There were two of them at the far side of an area of uncultivated ground, backing against the motorway embankment. More gypsy ponies were tethered nearby, but the Land Rover had vanished.

"He's gone," I said. "Never mind." I drove up to the sheds and stopped. We all got out and Dave and Nigel wandered round the back to relieve themselves.

Several abandoned cars were strewn down one side of the buildings, like wrecks on the seabed, slowly returning to nature. A Morris Minor had almost rotted away, its oil-soaked engine putting up the only resistance. Tall grass and willow-herb grew through tyres that were scattered around, left where they fell. I kicked one and two goldfinches flew up from a patch of thistles.

The door at the front of the first shed was wide enough for a trailer to be backed through, and written on it in cream paint that had dribbled was the name J. Nelson and Sons, with a telephone number. The padlock on the door was a big Chubb made from some exotic steel that must have cost about a hundred pounds, and a picture of a Rottweiler's head bore the legend: Make my day. Rhubarb's a valuable crop, I thought.

I heard Dave call my name so I walked round the side. He emerged from behind the building, at the far end, and shouted: "Come and look at this."

I picked my way through the nettles and debris and joined them at the back of the sheds, up against the embankment. "What have you found?" I asked.

There was a post-and-rail fence marking the boundary of the motorway, and Dave pointed at a rail. "See that," he said.

The rail was sawn through, almost all the way, close to the post.

"So?"

"And here, and here." All three rails were similar. "It's the same at the other end," he told me.

I walked the four yards to the next post to see for myself. "What do you make of it?" I asked.

"Someone might want to get away in a hurry," Nigel said. "They could charge straight through the fence and up the bank on to the motorway."

"Now why would they want to do that?" I wondered. There was a junction five hundred yards away, with a choice of five different directions for them to flee down.

"Come and listen," Dave said, adding: "But mind the wet grass."

I followed him to the boarded-up window in the back wall.

"What can you hear?" he asked.

"Traffic'

"No, from inside. Listen."

I cupped my hand around an ear and put it close to the window, sealing the other with a finger. There was a low hum coming from inside. "Sounds a bit like a generator," I said.

"Why would he want a generator?"

"Lighting?"

"Rhubarb grows in the dark. So do mushrooms."

"Heating?"

"It's the hottest summer on record, and generators are not that powerful."

"Right," I said. "So maybe we should take a closer look. The lock on the front door looks as if it came from Fort Knox."

"Leave it to me," Dave said, and wandered off to rummage amongst the wrecks. He came back in less than a minute carrying a half-shaft.

We were in a secluded spot behind the buildings, out of sight of the traffic or the nearby houses. What we were doing was illegal, there was no excuse for it, but we did it just the same. Every pane of glass in the window was broken but it was boarded up on the inside. Strands of barbed wire were stapled around it as a further deterrent. Dave took a swing at the end board and a dog inside started barking. It sounded big, and fierce, and very angry.