‘Who was that?’ he asked when she finished the call.
Erika tapped the phone against her teeth. ‘Camilla Brace-Cosworthy, the Assistant Commissioner. She wants me to come in for a chat on Monday morning.’
‘A chat? Interesting choice of words.’
‘That’s what she said. A chat. Apparently there are some loose ends to tie up about Sparks’s death.’
‘Loose ends? It was suspicious?’ asked Peterson.
‘She didn’t elaborate… She’s just left me to stew over the weekend. She wants to see me in her office at New Scotland Yard.’
Erika thought back to when Sparks had believed he was being followed, and she wondered exactly what he had got himself involved in.
Chapter Sixteen
Darryl woke early on Saturday morning. The snow was tapping against the dark windows, and he heard through his bedroom wall the groan of bedsprings as his father got out of bed, and said a few short sharp words for his mother. Darryl couldn’t make them out, but the barking tone he recognised. The doors in the farmhouse all had latches instead of handles, and when his father left to do his rounds, he heard it lift and fall before he stomped down the hall, the floorboards creaking.
When the footsteps had faded, Darryl heard the ominous sound of his mother rolling over in bed, and the squeak of the small door in the base of her bedside table. This was when she took her first drink of the day, usually vodka, although like most alcoholics she wasn’t picky. His mother’s drinking was something he’d grown up with. It had intensified since the death of Joe, his younger brother, eleven years before.
Darryl turned over in bed, heard the cupboard squeak again, and decided to get up. He still occupied the same bedroom from his childhood, with high ceilings, wooden floors, and dark heavy furniture which seemed sinister against the Winnie the Pooh wallpaper. It was still dark when he padded downstairs in his slippers, and the kitchen was deliciously warm. Grendel lay in the shadows in front of the Aga, soaking up its heat. When he switched on the light, she blinked and got up, sniffing at his feet.
As long as you kept your wits about you, Grendel was good, but you couldn’t make any sudden movements. This was when she would panic and attack. Last summer she’d attacked a young excitable Polish girl working on the strawberry fields. She’d needed seven stitches and had nearly lost an eye.
‘Thank God Grendel went for the Polak, and not one of the locals,’ his father had joked after returning from the hospital. The girl had been working illegally, so pressing charges hadn’t been an option. John let him keep Grendel because she was a good guard dog. Just like he kept Morris because he was a good milker. Darryl mused that Morris and Grendel were probably both the result of too much inbreeding.
Darryl ate a bowl of cereal and fed Grendel, then they left the house. It was just starting to get light as he emerged from under the carport, Grendel bouncing along beside him on the compacted snow. He passed the huge straw barn, its corrugated roof thick with snow, and the other outbuildings. The air was crisp and cold, and underneath the freshness was the ever-present farm smell of manure mixed with rotting straw.
The milking sheds were brightly lit and busy with the sounds of mooing, hooves stomping, and the rhythmic suck of the milking machines. Two of the farm workers gave him indifferent stares as he passed, and Grendel raised her pale pink nose at the smell and the sound of the cattle. They passed John coming out of the shed housing giant silver tanks for the milk. He nodded curtly at Darryl, and his eyes passed over the pristine winter jacket he wore, and he shook his head. It had been a gift to himself, and Darryl resisted the urge to muddy it up a bit.
At the bottom of the yard, the farm buildings ended at a wide gate looking out over fields. Once they were through, he let Grendel off the lead. She ran along ahead along the track, delighting in disturbing a flock of birds huddled in the snow. She barked as they rose up into the sky, cawing.
Half a mile down the track they passed a long low building with a circular tower, topped off with a roof like a bent funnel. The dawn was just beginning to break, and it made a sinister black outline against the blue sky. It was the old Oast House. It had been built in the 1800s for drying hops, when this was the farm’s main crop. It had been abandoned for as long as Darryl could remember, and growing up it was a great place to play. He and Joe had spent many summer evenings climbing up the inside, through the three slatted wood levels where hops had been laid out to dry. The base of the tower had housed a furnace, and above it were beams where you could perch and peer through the spouted chimney and see across the countryside for miles. In the winter months, it was eerie, and took on a desolate air. On a winter’s night, when conditions were right, you could hear the wind groaning through the ventilation system from the farmhouse.
It was also where his brother Joe had hung himself, aged fifteen.
Darryl slowed and came to a stop outside the large brick building. A gust of wind disturbed the dry powdery snow, and gave a high pitched whine as it blew over the spout of the tower.
‘Joe,’ whispered Darryl. He moved off, passed the large brick building, and then picked up pace, walking another mile or so across snow-covered fields and past a bank of bare trees. As the horizon turned from light blue to pink a vast frozen lake came into view. Darryl called for Grendel, who came loping back, tongue lolling to one side. It started to snow again, fast twirling flakes, and an ice crystal landed on one of her black eyes and made her blink. He scratched her ears, and gave her a dog treat. She trotted obediently alongside him as they picked their way down the track to the edge of the lake. A concrete barrier lined the water where it met the footpath. The ice was thick, and dusted with snow. The footprints of geese and small birds dotted the surface. Grendel leapt up onto the concrete barrier, and landed on the ice with sure paws, looking back as if to say the coast was clear. Darryl tentatively followed, stepping out slowly, listening for the tell-tale squeaking sound of weakness, but the ice was like concrete. He walked out to where Grendel was barking and circling a giant tree trunk which emerged through the ice.
‘It’s okay girl,’ said Darryl, reaching out carefully. Grendel froze with her teeth bared and shot him a wild-eyed look, but he slowly moved his hand closer, until she let him rest it on her soft furry head. ‘It’s just a tree. It was floating the other day, remember?’
She let him pat her, then cocked her head, rolled over onto the ice and let him tickle her belly. He sat on the frozen trunk and ate a chocolate bar, watching Grendel race after birds at the edge of the ice, and checking his emails and social media on his phone.
* * *