Fethering 02 (2001) - Death on the Downs Read Free

jostling for prominence in her mind.
    She was briefly tempted to delay contacting the police. The famed waterproofing of her Burberry had proved inadequate to the deluge and she was soaked to the skin. Also they looked to her like old bones. The fact that they had lain uninvestigated for years meant that another twenty minutes was not going to make a great difference in the cosmic scheme of things.
    But Carole couldn’t allow herself to be persuaded by such casuistical reasoning. She’d had a previous run-in with an unsympathetic policeman about delaying the provision of information.
    Stronger than that, though, was an unease that her grisly discovery had started in here. Not fully denned, and she didn’t yet want to probe into it too deeply, but she knew there was something wrong.
    The bones had not been in the barn for long. The fertilizer bags were relatively unsoiled, and little dust or moss had accumulated inside them. Whoever had found that makeshift hiding place beneath the planks had been taking a temporary measure—perhaps a panic measure. It happened to be Carole Seddon who had found the bones, but someone else would have got to them very soon. The barn was remote, but not that remote. Someone owned the land it stood on, and that someone might well still use the space to house machinery, or have a system of regularly checking in case of vandalism.
    So Carole knew that whoever had left the bones in the barn must have intended to return fairly soon to move them on. Indeed, she might have met the person. That thought sent down her spine a trickle much colder than rainwater.
    She drove into the centre of Weldisham, though in a village of some thirty houses she didn’t have far to go. There was a small grassy area, surrounded by a low railing, which she felt sure would be called ‘The Green’. A noticeboard displayed a few dampish posters behind glass. There was a map for walkers, a reminder that Weldisham was a Neighbourhood Watch Area, a faded orange flyer for line-dancing on Wednesday evenings in the Village Hall.
    And, sure enough, beside the board, was a public phone box. One of the old red ones—no doubt the Village Committee had rejected as unsightly any plans to replace it with a modern glass booth.
    Carole dialled 999 and was very calm when asked which Emergency Service she required. The police voice at the other end was a woman’s, solicitous, motherly. She took down the details Carole gave her, asked where she was and said how much it would help if she could stay there until her colleagues arrived.
    “I’m sorry it’s so wet,” the woman said. “Is there somewhere you could go to wait out of the rain? The church perhaps.”
    “I’ve got my car. And actually the rain’s stopped for the moment. I’ll stay parked by the phone box.”
    “Very well. If you’re sure you don’t mind. It would help enormously if you could wait for our officers.”
    Carole gave a grim inward smile. Her last encounter with the police had been with the Bad Cop. Now she’d got the Good Cop. It was disorienting.
    The car was cold, so with a mental apology to the environment Carole switched on the engine to try and get some heat into her sodden body. The windows soon steamed up and, though she couldn’t be said to be comfortable, she felt strangely peaceful. There was an inevitability about what was happening now. Carole had no decisions to make. Everything was in the hands of the police.
    At one point she became aware of someone close by the car window. She swept a little circle in the condensation to reveal the face of an elderly woman with a beaky nose and a purple woolly hat pulled too far down her face. Carole smiled. The old woman continued to look at her with undisguised hostility. So much for the myth of everyone in the country being friendly.
    Doing her bit for the Neighbourhood Watch, Carole decided. A strange car parked, engine running, in the middle of Weldisham. It must belong to some burglar planning his