The door at the front of the first shed was wide enough for a trailer to be backed through, and written on it in cream paint that had dribbled was the name J. Nelson and Sons, with a telephone number. The padlock on the door was a big Chubb made from some exotic steel that must have cost about a hundred pounds, and a picture of a Rottweiler's head bore the legend: Make my day. Rhubarb's a valuable crop, I thought.
I heard Dave call my name so I walked round the side. He emerged from behind the building, at the far end, and shouted: "Come and look at this."
I picked my way through the nettles and debris and joined them at the back of the sheds, up against the embankment. "What have you found?" I asked.
There was a post-and-rail fence marking the boundary of the motorway, and Dave pointed at a rail. "See that," he said.
The rail was sawn through, almost all the way, close to the post.
"So?"
"And here, and here." All three rails were similar. "It's the same at the other end," he told me.
I walked the four yards to the next post to see for myself. "What do you make of it?" I asked.
"Someone might want to get away in a hurry," Nigel said. "They could charge straight through the fence and up the bank on to the motorway."
"Now why would they want to do that?" I wondered. There was a junction five hundred yards away, with a choice of five different directions for them to flee down.
"Come and listen," Dave said, adding: "But mind the wet grass."
I followed him to the boarded-up window in the back wall.
"What can you hear?" he asked.
"Traffic'
"No, from inside. Listen."
I cupped my hand around an ear and put it close to the window, sealing the other with a finger. There was a low hum coming from inside. "Sounds a bit like a generator," I said.
"Why would he want a generator?"
"Lighting?"
"Rhubarb grows in the dark. So do mushrooms."
"Heating?"
"It's the hottest summer on record, and generators are not that powerful."
"Right," I said. "So maybe we should take a closer look. The lock on the front door looks as if it came from Fort Knox."
"Leave it to me," Dave said, and wandered off to rummage amongst the wrecks. He came back in less than a minute carrying a half-shaft.
We were in a secluded spot behind the buildings, out of sight of the traffic or the nearby houses. What we were doing was illegal, there was no excuse for it, but we did it just the same. Every pane of glass in the window was broken but it was boarded up on the inside. Strands of barbed wire were stapled around it as a further deterrent. Dave took a swing at the end board and a dog inside started barking. It sounded big, and fierce, and very angry.
"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?"