Three Mile Drove, Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT
'Forensic are on their way,' McPherson said, replacing his mobile in his coat pocket. He glanced back at Darren, who was cautiously negotiating the makeshift bridge over the dyke. 'This is the first real lead we've had,' then observing the man's bewilderment, he added, 'you see, the missing child was wearing white ankle socks on the day of her disappearance. Your stumbling over the mattress could just lead to the breakthrough we need. Now show me where you think the rock that hit your vehicle was thrown from, and then I'll leave you to check out your property.'
They hadn't gone all that far when Darren halted at the approach to the conifer-lined track that concealed the Tomblins' property. It occurred to him at once that this was the point from where the rock was thrown. He turned quickly to McPherson, 'It was thrown from here, I'm sure of it. I flashed my torch and saw this figure running along a track just like this.'
'Except that it's not the only passage through the fields in this drove,' McPherson said dubiously, then giving a smile that Darren found too smug and knowing, he added, 'there are plenty of them around these parts, you'll find that out Darren if you stay long enough.'
'Yeah,' Darren felt his temperature rising at the thought that he was playing the outsider once again, 'but this has trees both sides, right? As far as the eye can see, I don't see any more of these. I mean, it sticks out like a sore thumb, even to a newcomer.'
McPherson gave him a searching look, then shrugged his shoulders, giving him the air of remaining unconvinced, 'Fine,' he said glancing at the ground around his feet, 'but I see no trace of anything large enough to dent the bodywork of a Jeep.' He bent down and clutched a handful of gravel from the edge of the dyke as if to emphasise his point and then sighed, 'I need a word with Shaun Tumbling though, perhaps more than ever in view of his proximity to what we've just found. I hope everything turns out well with your property, thanks for your time Darren.'

* * *

McPherson watched Darren trudge back along the drove, feeling sure that their association would be short-lived. Darren Goldwater's stay in Bramble Dyke would probably be very brief indeed.
He wouldn't be disappointed at that, though he was loathe to put his finger on precisely why that was. It might have been that he felt rock musicians didn't gel too well with a small agricultural community.
McPherson trudged along the tree-lined track and through the gap in a huge overgrown hedge, which revealed an untidy farmyard littered with rusting farm machinery and an old, battered blue bus that stood beside a makeshift hanger-type barn. He walked to the front door and knocked several times, beginning to feel his patience being tested. He'd known there was somebody in the property, he could hear movement from inside but just as he was resigning himself to the fact that his call would be ignored he heard the bolts being drawn back. He stared directly into the eyes of the thickset, bearded farmer, Shaun Tomblin, whose brows he thought, narrowed in suspicion.
'Sergeant McPherson, Ely Police, Mr.Tomblin,' McPherson said bluntly, producing his warrant card. 'I wonder if I might have a word, it's a routine enquiry.'
'I know who you are,' Tomblin said equally gruffly, the depth of growth on his face failing to disguise a scowl. He reluctantly left the door open, and McPherson followed him along a hallway so dark that when Tomblin opened the door to the room at the end, the sudden blaze of sunlight momentarily dazzled him.
'I ain't likely to be much help, whatever it is you want,' Tomblin grumbled, his back to McPherson, 'I keep my nose out of everything that don't concern me. Folks around here know that, Sergeant.' He swung round, the lines of his large forehead knitting, 'Now what is this? I don't have a lot of time for talk, I'm hard pressed enough as it is.'
'This won't take a minute,' McPherson's eyes scanned the room; there was no sign of industry that he could see. The pillows propped against a worn green sofa gave him the opinion that Tomblin had been loafing on it. There were children's toys on the floor, everyday things mostly, apart from a naked doll in the form of a small boy which lay on the floor, one of its arms, McPherson noted had been torn off and lay alongside. It seemed a strange toy to choose for a child. There was no sign of the children or Tomblin's wife, though from above, infant screams mingling with a woman's raucous tones pierced his ears.
McPherson forced his gaze to travel back to the man in front of him; he was an ugly bugger. He had a long nose that seemed too thin for his broad face, and an elongated mouth that sloped from right to left so steeply it resembled a mini slide. McPherson felt Tomblin's large eyes boring into him, 'What is it then?' the man snapped impatiently in a thick accent that seemed to be delivered through his nose.
'I've been meaning to speak to you for some time, but you seem to be somewhat elusive,' McPherson said, meeting the cold stare. 'I've been investigating the disappearance of a young girl from Littleport. There was a report, some time ago now, that she was sighted in this drove. I'd nothing to go on until a few moments ago when I found an ankle sock, similar to the one the girl was last seen to be wearing, in an upstairs room of the derelict house along the drove. I wonder whether you might have seen or heard anything strange likely?'
'Nothin' special,' Tomblin brushed snot from his nose with the sleeve of his check, lumberjack shirt. He scratched his tangled black hair, tied with a ribbon at the back, 'But I've seen some gypsy types around of late, they're probably yer culprits.'
'Gypsy types you say?' McPherson arched his brows, 'Where was it that you saw them?'
'Camped at the bottom of the drove, near old Regan's place they were,' Tomblin sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve again, causing McPherson to turn away in disgust. 'A few old vans and a couple of trucks that have been up and down the drove, no more'n that. Ain't paid it too much attention, like I say I don't get involved, and I don't know anymore than I've told yer. Now can I go about my business Sergeant?'
'If you see or hear anything Mr. Tomblin, I'd be grateful if you'd report it. After all this is a serious matter.' McPherson halted on the step, his foot across the ledge preventing Tomblin from slamming the door. 'There is something else, speaking of Regan. His old place has passed on to a nephew who arrived to assess it. He claims his vehicle was stoned as he drove along this road last night and that it was here it happened. He also claims to have heard loud screams. I don't suppose you've any knowledge of this?'
'Why should I have?' Tomblin said tersely. 'Like I've told you, it's all down to gypsies.'
McPherson thought that his broad frame seemed to stiffen with his answer.
He gave a curt nod and walked away. Gypsies, travellers or diddycois, whatever you called them these days, might of course explain it. In which case he might be no closer to finding the missing girl. But Goldwater had been to Regan's place only last night and he'd mentioned nothing of any gypsy encampment. Could he have missed it in the dark? Hardly, McPherson thought.
* * *

Darren spotted the rubbish strewn across the concrete wasteland beyond the barn, a complete mess the darkness must have concealed from his eyes the night before. There were remnants of food, coke cans, discarded tyres and an abandoned baby buggy with one wheel missing, its other one hanging as though by a thread. There were also the remains of a bonfire, the acrid smell of smoke still hanging in the air despite the brisk wind. Christ, Darren thought, as if the place wasn't bad enough, he had to contend with the gypsy fraternity as well.
Darren turned, raised his head towards the heavens and made his way across the weed-infested yard to the bungalow. The signs of neglect were apparent in the light of day. The red brickwork looked chipped and ancient, the window frames had rotted to the core and the panes were practically opaque with filth. The whole place seemed to be crying out with decay.
He turned the key and stepped inside, immediately being smacked full in the face by the same disgusting odour which had made him retch the night before. He steeled himself and walked along the small passageway. The dust clotted his lungs and mixed in with a whole concoction of smells, so that he felt he was breathing in the entire contents of a chemical plant.
Open doors lead off on the left side to the kitchen, on the right side to the bedroom, while straight ahead lay the living room. That was all there was to the place really, Darren thought that when you considered the farm by its acreage, the plot occupied by the bungalow was surprisingly small. But it had potential, if you accounted for the fact that a lot of work needed doing, the place had its possibilities.
He walked into the living room; the furnishings ' an old easy chair and a settee ' were ripped and worn, and useful only for Guy Fawkes Night. Yet despite the overbearing sense of depression the place gave, the outside view through its windows of the flat fens was its single redeeming feature. The vast panorama of earth, field and sky that opened before him seemed to flood the living room with light and space. So much so, that the gloomy feel that seemed to have surrounded him since he arrived in the area was pushed into the background.
The land might be flat and boring, but just at the moment, bewildering as it was, Darren found that it was filling him with a strange ambience. It was something he couldn't put his finger on, but the strangest feeling of his attitude towards the place gently shifting, like foundations settling in drying concrete.
Darren had always considered himself as a bit of an optimist, he supposed you had to be in his position. He was visualising the place renovated and newly furnished, the yard and driveway free from weeds and diddycoi leftovers, and the farmland freely yielding its produce.
Did it really seem too bad when looked at in this respect?
He narrowed his eyes, through the window he could see the old bridge, after which the farm had apparently been named, it crossed the dyke just beyond the farm's northern boundaries. There was a figure standing on the hump back structure, leaning forward, its hands gripping the iron railings, but at the very moment he focused on it, the figure's head had turned, giving him the impression it knew he was watching.
The effect of that simple head movement caused Darren to move back a step, before the sound of footsteps behind him almost made him jump out of his skin.
He turned and saw the tall, slim figure of McPherson.
'You startled me,' Darren said, then coloured as he realised he was stating the obvious.
'So I see,' McPherson affirmed as much. 'Sorry to creep up on you like this, but Shaun Tomblin told me he'd seen gypsies at this end of the drove, and looking around your yard I reckon he's right, damn it!' McPherson shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and exhaled deeply, 'You know I thought I was on to something when we stumbled across the ankle sock, but now I'm not so sure.'
'How do you mean?' Darren asked, noting the look of frustration on the policeman's face.
'It could all be the work of gypsies after all.' McPherson shrugged and looked down the passageway to the yard. 'I'm sure forensic will analyse the sock we found in the bedroom but my guess is they'll come up with nothing. This sort of thing happens all too often Darren, you make a find that suddenly sends your spirits souring through the roof, and then just as quickly, something else happens which sends them crashing right back to the ruddy basement. I mean, the rock you said was thrown and the screams you heard, it could all be apportioned to gypsies. I suppose the only discrepancy, the only thing which doesn't quite add up, is that according to Tomblin they were camped outside of the farm, but from what I've seen, they were most definitely within it.'
'Yeah but that doesn't count for a lot really, does it? I mean you're the copper, but surely nothing's to stop them moving their stuff inside.'
'No, nothing at all,' McPherson gave that knowing, smug smile which Darren thought only slightly concealed derision, and which was increasingly beginning to rile him. 'Nothing at all,' he repeated as he led Darren into the yard and headed for the gates, 'but if what Tomblin says is right¦' he paused for a moment as they passed through them, extending a hand and indicating the rough tract of land which lay to his left, '¦come on Darren, you know what these type of people are like, they might only have been parked outside these gates for half an hour, but they'd still leave a trail of crap a mile long. Now, apart from the odd bit of paper that the wind must have carried, this part's as clean as a whistle.'
'Actually, there is something else,' Darren's mounting resentment took a downturn as he recalled something from the night before.
'What's on your mind?' McPherson frowned, noting the sudden change in Darren's tone. 'It's just that when I got here last night the gates were shut, the bolt had been drawn across them. I nearly crashed straight through the damned things. Like you've just said, they leave crap everywhere, they leave things in a mess, so why should diddycois take the trouble to close gates behind them. Does that make sense to you?'
'Not really, not at all in fact.' McPherson considered a simple statement that Shaun Tomblin had just made to him; he'd categorically told him he'd seen the gypsy camp just outside of the gates. But why should Tomblin even know that? A mile and a half down a stretch of road that led into a dead end. It was well beyond his land, how could he have been so certain? Okay, so he might have been taking a walk but somehow McPherson doubted it. Tomblin didn't strike him as being much of a rambler. So had Tomblin been lying, and if so why would he do it? McPherson sighed, he'd like to pay this isolated neck of the woods more attention and to have officers comb the land hereabouts, it might just get to the core of what had been bugging him, but unless something came up on the sock, and he had growing misgivings about that, he knew the powers that be would veto the additional expense. To coin the age-old phrase, he'd be banging his head against a brick wall.
Time would tell, and very shortly too, in all probability.
'So Darren, what will you do with the farm?' McPherson asked as he reached his car, quietly confident he already knew the answer.
'I reckon I'll keep it.' Darren felt there was no real logic behind his remark, it was altogether spontaneous.
'Really?' McPherson tried to appear as if it had been the answer he had been expecting. But it hadn't, it hadn't one little bit. 'Good luck in that case, I'll leave you to get on then, do the spade work so to speak, you'll have your work cut out here, that's obvious enough.'
'Yeah,' Darren nodded and watched McPherson drive away. He'd need friends here; he'd need people he could associate with. He needed his own time and his own space, but he wasn't a loner. But right now he wasn't certain whether McPherson could be a friend or not.
So he'd announced to McPherson his decision to stay at the farm, just like that. He'd surprised himself on that score, just what it was that caused him to override his apathy about the place he wasn't sure, but he could put his Nottingham home on the market, use the funds to turn this place into more than just a home, a going concern in fact. Suddenly he could envisage a whole new career emerging, from fading rock musician to prospering farmer. Why not, with a little thought, planning and industry?
But the place needed attention. He wasn't a builder; he didn't know a sodding thing about brickwork or plastering. His hands were so goddam clumsy that the place would have more bulges than a fat woman wearing skin-tight clothes. He'd need to employ people, and trust their abilities.
He walked back across the yard, through the cluster of willows that separated the yard from the bungalow frontage, and passed through the open door. Today he'd found something appealing about the region, although most of the people seemed either drab or weird to him, they weren't all that way.
His thoughts turned to Claire Summerby, not for the first time that day. The next time he saw her he'd ask her out. He became aware of his heart rate increasing at the thought of that.
Darren returned to the lounge window and froze. The figure was still there, its head inclined towards him. He might have thought it was some kind of statue if he hadn't seen it move.