Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

"Blimey, I'm not going in there," I said. I worry about dogs.

The more Dave hammered the more demented the dog became. It sounded as if it might rip us limb from limb. "Don't make the hole too large," I pleaded. "It might leap out."

When the first board had moved a little he used the half-shaft as a lever. Nails screeched as they were uprooted. Dave knocked some bits of glass out and moved higher up the plank of wood, feeling for a new purchase.

"Let's have a look," I said. He stepped aside and I peered through the triangular gap. "It's light inside," I told them. "Looks like fluorescents, take it right out."

One minute and a ripped shirtsleeve later the plank fell to the floor.

The dog barks had subsided to a hoarse staccato, but no slavering face appeared at the gap. It must have been tied up.

"Bloody hell!" exclaimed Nigel. "Is that what I think it is?" Inside was a jungle of foliage, illuminated from above by bluish strip lights.

"I knew it!" Dave declared triumphantly. "I knew it! Cannabis!

Cannabis sativa. At a guess the variety commonly known as skunk."

"Ah," I said, 'but what's that I can see at the far end, just inside the doors?"

"Friggin' heck!" he exclaimed. "A white van."

"Of the variety commonly known as a Transit," Nigel added, and his grin made Sparky's ruined shirt completely worthwhile.

Everybody agreed that the fish and chips were superb. There was no substitute for fish taken straight from the sea. It made a big difference. We were late, but Shirley's annoyance soon evaporated when she saw our buoyant mood.

"So who caught them?" asked Daniel, Dave's son, as he pushed his empty plate away.

"I did," his father replied; "We caught one each," I said; "We bought them," Nigel confessed, all more or less simultaneously.

Nigel had left his car outside my house. He came in with me and we did some phoning. James Nelson was sixty-three years old and had no criminal record. It was different for his sons, Barry and Leonard.

They'd been in trouble all their lives, starting with shoplifting and progressing right through to burglaries, via a couple of fracas. Up to then they'd concentrated on breaking into industrial premises and shops, which is regarded as a less serious offence than burgling domestic premises, and carries a lighter sentence. They'd had the lot: cautions; probation; community service; fines; and extended holidays at the Queen's expense.

Sometimes the system doesn't work.

Or perhaps it did. They'd both kept out of trouble for over two years, which were personal bests. Alternatively, perhaps they'd paid attention to what their teachers said at the Academy of Crime, and thought they were now a lot cleverer. If so, they were mistaken. Jails are filled with the failures, the ones we catch; the smart ones we never even know about.

I rang Jeff Caton to tell him the good news, but his wife told me that he wasn't home yet.

"Not home!" I exclaimed. "Not home! We've been home hours' She agreed to tell him to phone me as soon as he arrived.

When it's on my patch I have the final say, so we met at ten on Sunday morning. Dave and myself went to see James Nelson while Nigel, Jeff and a DS from the drug squad met at the rhubarb sheds, armed with a search warrant.

Nelson lived in a run-down farmhouse just a few hundred yards from the row of terraced houses. More abandoned vehicles littered the yard and a German shepherd dog, chained to a wheel-less Ford Popular, gave an early warning of our approach. Judging from its teats it had just had pups. I moved to the other side of Sparky as we passed it.

"Are you James Nelson?" Dave asked the leather-skinned man who opened the door. He looked at least seventy, so we couldn't be sure. He wore a vest and dangling braces, and wouldn't have looked out of place in a documentary about Bosnian refugees.

"Aye," he replied warily.

"I'm DC Sparkington from Heckley CID, and this is my senior officer, DI Priest. I think you'd better let us in."

My senior officer] Dave was at his Sunday best and I was impressed.

The inside of the house was all Catherine Cookson. Not the wicked master's house, and not that of the poor girl who is left orphaned and has to dig turnips every day with only a broken button-hook to raise a few coppers to feed her six younger brothers and sisters and keep them from the lascivious clutches of the master. This belonged to the stern but kindly blacksmith who throws her the odd horseshoe to make soup with, who is in love with her but knows that she is really the master's illegitimate daughter and can never be his.

There was a big iron range, with a built-in set-pot and a fire glowing in the grate. Pans and strange implements hung from the beams and two squadrons of houseflies were engaged in a dogfight around the light bulb, which was on because the curtains were closed. The temperature must have been in the nineties. We sat down, and a black cat which I hadn't seen bolted for safety from under my descending backside.

"Are Barry and Len in?" Dave asked.

Mr. Nelson shook his head.

"Where are they?"

"They'm don' live 'ere. What they'm done now?"

"Is there a Mrs. Nelson?"

"No. She passed away, twelve years sin'."

"I'm sorry. So where do Barry and Len live?"

"Abroad. Tenerife."

"How long have they lived there?"

"Bout two year, why?"

"Do they ever come home?"

"Oh, aye, now an' agin."

"When were they last home?"

"Dunno."

"How about six weeks ago?"

"Aye, about then, I suppose."

"And about a month before that?"

"It could o' been."

"What do they do for a living in Tenerife, Mr. Nelson?" I asked.

He switched his gaze to me and clenched his hands together, squeezing and relaxing his fingers, as if milking a cow. "They'm 'ave shares in a bar, or so they'm tells me. Dunno for sure."

"When are you expecting your sons home again?" I said.

He shrugged his shoulders and glanced at his hands and back to me.

"Dunno."

"Do they write or phone to tell you?"

"No, they'm just turn up."

"Without warning?"

"Aye."

"Do you look forward to their visits?"

He didn't answer.

"You had to raise them yourself," I stated.

"I did me best."

"But they gave you a hard time?"

No answer. His fingers were long and swollen at the joints, and one nail was blackened and about to fall off. He wore a wedding ring, but it had been relegated to his pinky because of the swelling. And all the time he squeezed and relaxed his hands, as if the rhythm gave him some comfort.

"Mr. Nelson," I began. "Do you own the rhubarb sheds that back on to the M62?"

The kneading increased in fervour. "Aye," he replied, his head down.

"What do you grow in them?"

"Rhubub," he replied, looking up at me. "I grows rhubub. My boys, Barry and Len, they'm use the other 'un. Don' ask me what they'm grows in it."

"But you've a good idea, haven't you?"

He lowered his head again. "Aye, I suppose so."

"What do you think it is?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Pardon."

"Drugs, I reckon."

"So why haven't you reported it to the police?"

He looked at me as if I'd asked him if he ever sniffed when his nose dribbled. "Cos they'd do for me," he replied.

"Are you scared of your sons?" I asked.

He looked at his hands and didn't answer.

"Do they knock you about?"

He mumbled something I didn't catch. "Could you say that again, please," I insisted.

"They've given me a tap, now an' again," he said.

I looked across at Dave. He said: "Put the rest of your clothes on, Mr. Nelson. We have a warrant to search the sheds and we'd like you to come with us."

If only to hold the flippin' dog, I thought.

The other three were scattered around, looking for birds' nests or that long-lost part of the vintage car. As we pulled up they emerged from the greenery and congregated around us. Jeff and the others had arrived home from the fishing trip after midnight, and his eyes resembled the proverbial piss-holes in the snow. In the car Mr. Nelson had explained that he came every day, to feed the dog and fill the generator. There was an automatic irrigation system, so he never had to touch the plants.