LITMIR.BIZ

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blocking the road so the feed lorry can’t get up here, and now you? I’ve got work to do, not time for questions to answer.’

      ‘You were watching a movie,’ Enders said.

      ‘None of your bloody business what I was doing, lad.’ Isaacs paused. ‘Anyway, the wife was doing the watching. She likes a good war film.’

      As if to confirm what he said a figure appeared from the gloom inside and stood beside him. Mrs Isaacs had an appearance and stature not dissimilar to Mr Isaacs except her nose was dripping instead of red. She brought out a large stained handkerchief to deal with the drips and the tears running down her face.

      ‘Willem Dafoe. He just got shot to pieces by the slanties. Always affects me that bit,’ she sniffled. ‘Anyway, come in won’t you? If you wait for Gordon to ask you in you’ll be standing on the doorstep ’til Santa gets here with pigs pulling his sleigh.’ With that she turned and beckoned them in.

      Savage made a gesture for Calter to stay outside and nose around while she and Enders followed the couple into the hallway. Newspaper was strewn across the floor and she was aware of her muddy footprints as she walked in. Enders nudged her and pointed down at the papers. The Daily Mail. She smiled and mouthed a silent ‘good work’. To the left was a living room, cold and unused, the furniture adorned with white dust-covers. To the right a smaller room, a snug she guessed you would call it, was more welcoming. Two armchairs and a sofa were arranged around a hearth, the coals glowing red and orange. A corner held a little television screen, on it an explosion with the same colours as the fire was frozen mid blast.

      ‘You’ll have some tea?’ Mrs Isaacs asked.

      ‘Thank you. That would be great,’ Savage said.

      Mr Isaacs went over and slumped in the armchair nearest the fire, but made no invitation to Savage or Enders to sit. The two of them took the sofa and Savage began to ask about the discovery of the body. Mr Isaacs wasn’t interested. He had explained to the response team what had happened and was buggered if he was going to go through it all over again.

      ‘The problem is you said you discovered the body last night and yet you didn’t call us until this morning. I’m wondering why you took so long to phone us?’

      ‘Work to do. Things to sort. Animals and the like. Farm’s got to come first. Always has and always will. I still had loads of jobs to do and I thought if I called you lot I wouldn’t get the chance to finish any of them.’

      ‘The girl was dead, Mr Isaacs. Do you realise you committed an offence by not reporting the discovery straight away?’

      ‘She wasn’t going anywhere was she? I could see she was dead because I …’ Isaacs paused and huffed. ‘Well, I touched her. Had to. Didn’t know, did I?’

      ‘Didn’t know what, Mr Isaacs?’

      ‘I didn’t know if she was dead. She might have been sleeping.’

      ‘So when you realised she was dead, why didn’t you call us? It was obvious a crime had been committed.’

      ‘You’d know that, being police. I wouldn’t. I’m a farmer. Just a farmer. Anyway, I see death all the time. It’s not something alarming when you’ve got animals. Only yesterday I had to collect a ewe from down by the brook. Daft bugger had drowned herself, see? Brought her up here for disposal.’

      ‘We’ve seen the sheep carcass. It’s not legal is it? Burning them like that?’

      Isaacs huffed again and started a rant on the European Union and politicians and how they knew bugger all about anything apart from lining their own pockets. Savage wasn’t unsympathetic when it came to the government meddling in affairs they didn’t understand, but the conversation was leading nowhere so she asked Isaacs if he had seen anyone yesterday, noticed anything suspicious, something out of the ordinary?

      ‘If I had seen anyone on my land they’d have known about it, so no, I didn’t see anyone.’

      As Isaacs spoke Savage heard a tap, tap at the window and she turned to see Calter’s face beaming through. Calter motioned at Savage to come outside. Savage left Enders to continue the questioning and let herself out of the front door.

      ‘Over here, ma’am.’ Calter stood by the corner of one of the barns next to a bulging, blue fertiliser sack.

      Savage went over to join her, squishing through mud and God-knows-what on her journey across the farmyard.

      ‘Something interesting?’

      ‘Oh yes!’ Calter held the sack open for Savage.

      The sack bulged with various items of farm rubbish and at the top she could see a couple of syringes complete with needles along with an empty dispensing bottle. There were some wood offcuts, a few dirty rags, sheep daggings, bent nails, a length of rubber tubing, an old piece of rusty iron …

      ‘My eyesight must be going, Jane, I can’t see much of interest.’

      Calter grinned and took a pen from her pocket. She poked one of the rags, looped it on the pen, retrieved it from the sack and held it out in front of Savage.

      ‘Oh no.’

      The material had a bit of dirt on, but now it was free from the rest of the bundle Savage could see it was no rag, it was too clean for that. The pure white cotton wafted in the breeze as if drying on a washing line.

      ‘Girl’s panties, ma’am. Sainsbury’s own brand. The Isaacs don’t appear to have any young children and they are a wee bit small for the Mrs.’

      Savage heard a noise and looked round to see the farmhouse door open. Mrs Isaacs’s shrill voice sang out across the mud.

      ‘Milk and sugar, Inspector?’

       Chapter Six

      Harry lay on the bed feeling the alcohol slither through his veins and watching the ceiling rotate above him. The plaster ceiling rose with the bulb hanging on the twisted wire went one way and the corners of the room went the other. After a while they each slowed down and almost synchronised before going in opposite directions again. Stagecoach wheels in cowboy films came to mind. He closed his eyes to remove the dizzying effect, but that only served to make him think about what he had done and what he had become.

      Harry thought it was the blood that pushed him over the edge. The blood from Carmel had poured over his hands warm and sticky, the metallic taste still there days later when he’d absent-mindedly bitten a nail. He’d washed and washed but in the end figured memories took more than just soap to erase. He also blamed the pills. They had done evil things to him he was sure. When he stopped taking them he had flipped. And that was Mitchell’s fault.

      He opened his eyes and watched the ceiling rose spin round again. Thought of roulette. Not Russian, the other type. Where you won stuff. He’d never won anything. That really didn’t seem fair. He remembered the woman he had seen on the TV. The lawyer. She’d talked about fairness. Maybe he should try and get her phone number. He could give her a call. Maybe she could help. Maybe she even wore stockings.

       Poor Harry, do you expect me to feel sorry for you?

      Jesus, it was Trinny! Harry pulled a pillow over his head and chewed his tongue. He thought he had dumped her and shut her up for good, but somehow she was back. What the hell?

       There is no peace, Harry. Not for you and not for me.

      No, he understood that. Sunday night hadn’t worked out as it should have and Trinny wasn’t at peace because he hadn’t been able to leave her where he wanted to. There had been too many people. Cars parked around the green, a huge pyre of burning pallets, hot drinks being served from the church and children running everywhere. A stupid bonfire night being held a few days early. In the end he found somewhere nearby.

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