‘Seems like we have little common ground, then.’
‘None at all, I’d say.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘But if you’re in any way curious, I’m well over you, Henry. I might miss you, but that’s all, and that’s receding nicely. It would be silly to rake over old coals.’ She sniffed and glanced at the remnants of the stables and tack room. She looked back at Henry. ‘Ironic, eh, that we should meet again and be talking over something that’s been destroyed?’
‘Highly.’ Henry was suddenly distracted. He cocked his head to one side and listened intently, his face screwed up as he concentrated.
‘What is it?’
‘Approaching helicopter.’ He lifted up a finger for hush. The noise, faint at first, increased steadily. He looked east towards the rising sun, squinting and shielding his eyes. The noise grew to a throb.
A helicopter appeared over the horizon, the sun behind it.
At first Henry thought it was the Force helicopter, but it wasn’t. It was too small.
It buzzed overhead and in one flash of sunlight across the fuselage he made out the words ‘Wickson Industries’.
‘John Lloyd Wickson,’ Jane shouted over the sound of the rotor blades.
‘Daddy’s come home. . that’s nice.’
The helicopter swooped and dropped gently to the heli-pad on the other side of the main house. It hovered, then came to rest. Two figures climbed out, heads low, running towards the house.
‘I’m going to go and meet him,’ Jane said, adding, begrudgingly, ‘Come if you want.’
‘How kind.’
They set off together.
‘Oh, got some news for you, Henry.’
‘What would that be?’
‘We’re getting a new Chief Constable. Have you heard?’
‘No.’
As they walked, Henry could actually feel a rift between them which seemed insurmountable. It was a mistake for him to have turned out, he realized, but then again, how could he have known he would be bumping into Jane Roscoe, someone he hadn’t seen or spoken to for such a long time? If it had been any other detective inspector, there might have been fewer problems.
Henry — unknowingly — grunted in frustration.
‘What?’ Jane asked.
He gave her a look of query. ‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You did.’
‘Nothing, it was nothing.’ As he looked at her, something caught his eye in the distance behind her — on the hillside, maybe a quarter of a mile away. He thought nothing of it. Just his eyes playing tricks or just the early dawn sun catching something. Then it was there again. He stopped, stared, thought better of it and caught up with Jane, who had not paused.
‘I think we’re being spied on.’
‘Paranoid as ever.’
‘No — someone’s watching us from up there.’ Jane started to turn. Henry snapped, ‘Keep going, don’t look.’
When he reached the house he said, ‘I’m going to have a look. I’m curious.’
Jane shook her head sadly. ‘It’ll be nothing. Just hens.’
‘Hens?’ The reply puzzled him, then he shook it off. ‘Maybe it is hens, or maybe it’s the person who set fire to the place, noseying about what’s going on. . returning to the scene of the crime. One of life’s true cliches, I know, but one that’s served me well in the past. People come back to gloat. Human nature.’
‘Lecture over? And, anyway, what would you know about human nature?’ she said harshly.
Without a further word he walked off to his car, giving a little wave, and saying, ‘Hens?’ under his breath. Jane watched him, wanting to tell him to be careful, but could not bring herself to say the words which would betray her true feelings for the man who had dumped her, the man she yearned for.
She stood rooted to the spot, seeing Henry drive all the way off the property, only turning to the house when his car went out of the gates. She went to the open front door. From inside she could hear the sound of raised voices. Before knocking, she glanced over her shoulder and her stomach churned as her eyes also caught something bright on the hillside. Not a hen, she thought stupidly, not unless it’s wearing shiny jewellery.
Henry was glad of any excuse to get away from Jane, happy to retreat from an interaction that was starting to confuse and worry him. He thought that he was over her, but seeing her again had rekindled the feelings and jumbled up his mind, and he did not like it at all. He was trying not to do emotion anymore.
He drove down a country lane and pulled in close by a roadside hedge, about a mile and a half away from the house. He calculated that if he walked back to the Wickson house across the countryside and fields from where he was, he should, somewhere along the line, pass the point where he saw the glint of reflected light. That was his theory, anyway.
The sun was creeping nicely up the sky. It would be a crisp, clear day. There was a nippy chill in the air and his breath was clearly visible. He locked the car and trotted down the road a hundred metres or so. He was about to hop over a five-barred gate, when he saw a car parked just off the road, in some bushes opposite. It was a strange place for a vehicle at any time. He walked over to it and gave it a once over. Then he returned to the gate and clambered over it. On landing, his trainers sank with a squelch into the ground. He muttered a curse, eased his feet out of the muddy patch and picked his way carefully across the grass. Cows grazed in the field, or just stood there doing whatever cows did with the cud. Henry steered clear of them. He was wary of their herd instinct. He had once dealt with the death of a man who had been trampled by cows which had chased him and his dog and cornered them. It had been a gruesome, muddy death. Ever since then Henry had gladly applied his stereotype to all big, four-legged creatures: don’t trust the bastards.
The cows watched him with suspicion, all of them. But none made a move towards him. Much to his relief he made it unscathed to the opposite side of the field, where he mounted a stile which deposited him in the next field, this time populated by sheep. He had more time for sheep, never having had to deal with a murder by a gang of them. They saw him and ran away bleating with fear, all gathering together in a corner, staring accusingly at him. He liked to have that sort of power over animals.
‘Mint sauce,’ he said under his breath and made it to the opposite side of the field, where there was no stile to be found, just a drainage channel and a barbed-wire fence separating the field from a wooded copse. Henry’s feet were soaking wet, as were his legs up as far as his knees. Even though he had managed to avoid deep mud, the ground was soft and the going hard.
The channel in front of him was at least six feet wide, the fence beyond about four feet high. The channel was not doing a particularly good job as it was filled with water. The folly of what he was doing now struck him and he thought about retracing his steps. But it should not now be too far from where he had seen the reflection. Through the trees, out the other side, up the hill and down the other side should put him there. He hoped.
‘Bugger.’ He decided to take a run at the channel. He went back a few steps, accelerated and launched himself across the ditch. He lost his footing on the mushy grass as he pushed off, slipped and only just managed to reach the other side, where he totally lost grip. In an effort which required a great degree of physical exertion, he grabbed for a fence post. He missed. Went slap-down into the ground and slithered into the channel.
He lay face down for a few, very pissed-off moments, before struggling to his feet and dragging himself up to the fence with a slurp. He held on and looked down at himself with a sneer of annoyance. He was now wet through from waist to foot, covered in slime and mud and probably now carrying that infectious disease that rats passed in their urine which was fatal to humans. He clambered over the fence, catching his jeans on a barb and ripping them. His best — and only — pair of Levis.