LITMIR.BIZ

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said Middlefield. ‘Just in the nick!’

      Wield didn’t want to get involved but he had to hear the tale. The blond man was Austin Greenall, Chief Flying Instructor of the Aero Club. He had been manning the launching winch to get Middlefield’s glider airborne when a pony had come wandering across the path of the accelerating aircraft and nearly caused an accident. Middlefield had come straight to the gypsy encampment closely attended by the secretary.

      ‘Ultimately it’s the council that are responsible, sir,’ said Wield. ‘They own all this land. You lease from them, I believe? So keeping fences in repair is their job.’

      ‘Thanks for nothing,’ said Middlefield. ‘If I’d got killed, you might have taken heed, is that it? Well, I’ll tell you something, these buggers need sorting out, and I’m the man to do it. They’re anti-social, dirty and dishonest. I’ve got my works on the estate not a quarter-mile from here. When this site’s occupied, I double my security staff. Double it. And that costs brass!’

      ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Wield. ‘Unless there’s been a breach of the law …’

      Middlefield snorted indignantly, turned on his heel and marched away. Greenall gave an apologetic shrug to Wield, said, ‘For God’s sake, Mr Lee, watch those animals of yours,’ and went after him.

      ‘Yorkshiremen!’ said Lee. ‘Tough buggers, they think. Always wanting to fight.’

      ‘Not me,’ said Wield. ‘I want to talk.’

      They went to sit in the sergeant’s car. Gypsies don’t invite strangers, especially policemen, readily into their caravans and though the day was balmy, Wield knew that if he talked with Lee out of doors, he would quickly inherit the circle of curious kids.

      Away from the excitement of confrontation, the gypsy’s torrential speaking style declined to a reluctant dribble.

      ‘It’s about last Thursday night,’ said Wield.

      ‘I’ve told all that.’

      ‘I read what you said,’ said Wield.

      ‘Well then.’

      ‘You said you were at the Fair from eight till eleven, mainly on the dodgems.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And you didn’t see anyone resembling the dead girl during that time.’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘You don’t sleep at Charter Park, do you?’

      ‘No. They stopped the ponies a few years back. Said they were dangerous. Like that short-arse fool.’

      ‘So you came back here to your caravan at night. How?’

      ‘I’ve a van. That’s it there. Licensed and insured.’

      ‘I never suggested it wasn’t,’ said Wield. ‘But I’ll check. I’ve done a lot of checking on you already, Mr Lee.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘So I know all about you. You’ve a nasty temper.’

      The man shrugged.

      ‘Against women too. I saw a woman today at your stall. She’d had a nasty crack.’

      ‘She’s a clumsy bitch.’

      ‘Yes. Rape too. You’ve not stopped short of that, have you?’

      This at last restarted the torrent of words, but not English. Wield said finally, ‘Shut up or I’ll pull your balls off.’

      The man subsided, then burst out again. ‘There wasn’t no rape! No conviction! Rape that slut? Stick feathers on a chicken!’

      ‘All right, all right,’ said Wield impatiently. ‘Where was your van parked?’

      ‘Behind the stall,’ he answered sullenly.

      ‘And you just drove back here? Straight back? At eleven?’

      ‘Eleven, half past. I don’t know. It started raining. We packed the stuff from the stall into the van like every night.’

      ‘We?’

      ‘My wife and me. You met her you said. Then back here.’

      ‘And no doubt she’ll confirm this? And that you then went to bed and slept peacefully all night?’

      The man didn’t bother to answer.

      ‘All right,’ said Wield. ‘Now tell me about Madame Rashid.’

      He had a sense at that moment of the gypsy’s receptivity being turned up a notch, though there was no outer physical sign.

      ‘You know her?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘In fact she’s a relation of yours, isn’t that so?’

      ‘She married a gorgio,’ he said. ‘Many years ago.’

      ‘And her niece. You know her too?’

      ‘I see her at the park.’

      Wield paused. He’d no idea why he’d introduced this line of questioning. It wasn’t going anywhere.

      He decided on the heavily significant abrupt conclusion.

      ‘All right,’ he said. ‘That’s it.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Out.’

      The big gypsy got out of the car and shut the door with a force that shook Wield. An older grey-haired man with a ruddy open face who had been hanging around close by approached Lee and exchanged words with him in rapid Romany. Wield leaned out of his window and beckoned to the newcomer.

      ‘Who’re you?’ he demanded.

      ‘Me, pal? I’m Silvester. Silvester Herne’s my name, pal.’

      ‘Are you the boss of this lot? The king or whatever you call it?’

      ‘Me, pal?’ he said again, looking amazed. ‘Just an old gypsy, just old Silvester.’

      ‘Well, old Silvester, see if you can get it into your friend’s thick skull. I’m not happy about him. I’ll be back. Meanwhile, get that fence mended, stop them ponies straying. Or you’ll all be in trouble. Right?’

      ‘Right, pal,’ said Herne, beaming co-operation. ‘Straightaway!’

      That was telling them! thought Wield as he drove away, but years of experience had taught him that telling gypsies anything was like talking to the trees. Not that he objected to gypsies as such, though the untidiness of their life made him shudder. If anything, he felt a sneaking sympathy with them as outcasts and envy of them as defiant outcasts. And perhaps there was some atavistic fear in his attitude also. He had certainly been more affected by Rosetta Stanhope’s trance yesterday than he cared to reveal.

      He should have gone back to the station but instead he found himself driving to his own flat, where he made himself a cup of tea. It was a gloomy place, he thought dejectedly. Even on the brightest of days the small north-facing windows let little light in. And it was drab and impersonal. Not many people visited him here apart from his married sister and the young nephew whose cassette recorder he had used at the seance. But the secretive element in his make-up drew him to the anonymous and noncommittal in all but the most private areas of life.

      Reacting against the thought, he picked up his phone and dialled Maurice’s business number in Newcastle. But when the phone was answered he replaced it without speaking. They had an agreement. All contact to be private except in extreme emergency. This was no emergency though somehow it felt as if there might be an emergency in the offing, like an area of low pressure over the Atlantic on the telly weather chart.

      When he finally drank his tea it was quite cold and he saw with dismay that he had been sitting

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