A Very British Witch Boxed Set Read online

  The farmer brushed the dirt from his backside then led his dog to the cab of the tractor. He got his cell phone from off the seat and dialed nine-nine-nine.

  When a lady answered, Robert said as calmly as he could, “There’s a dead person buried in my field.”

  +++

  Two miles outside of Bicester Town Center, England

  By the time Tim arrived at the crime scene, it was nearly dark. The sun was low on the horizon and getting lower. Driving up to the farmer’s field, he saw a lot of police activity. The entire field had been cordoned off. He parked on the side of the road near a pair of police cars and got out.

  There were a dozen uniformed officers securing the grounds. Tim was wearing his uniform and he flashed his ID to the nearest bobby. “Tim Clarke. I’m looking for DS Boyle.”

  The officer pointed to where the mobile forensics team had set up. “Tan jacket.”

  The man in the tan jacket was heavyset but carried his weight well on a tall frame. He wore a tweed flat cap over a balding head. His ruddy face was set with a grim, determined expression of a man who’d seen too much. When he saw Tim approaching, he did not offer a smile but only a hand. “You’re the man from the garrison?”

  Tim took the hand and shook it. “Tim Clarke,” he told him. “I came as fast as I could.”

  “DS Boyle. I’m told you’re trying to find a missing person.”

  “Alive, if possible.”

  “Can’t help you there.” Detective Boyle turned from him. “Let me show you what we’ve got.”

  Beyond the policeman who secured the perimeter, the crime scene investigators had set up a staging area in the small parking lot. They worked out of a pair of vans, crossing back and forth between areas of investigative interest and their mobile forensics lab. Some carried evidence bags, a few took photographs, and others dusted the gate for fingerprints or made plaster casts of footprints.

  Detective Boyle led Tim through the maze of activity. The crime scene investigators and technicians worked carefully and efficiently. Every movement had a sense of calm urgency. Time was of the essence, yet nothing could be rushed. One careless mistake might let a killer escape or render a piece of evidence inadmissible in court. These were professionals at the top of their game.

  Tim opened his notebook and started taking notes.

  Boyle stopped by the shallow grave that had been dug up. “The farmer called it in at eleven forty-six this morning. He’s the one who found the victim. It’s his farm. Family inheritance. Fallow for years, but he started tilling it this morning. That tractor and plough over there. That’s how the body turned up. His name is Robert Johnson–the farmer, not the corpse.”

  “Where is he now?” Tim asked.

  “Inside the house, with one of ours. We took his statement. He’s cooperating. He’s the current owner of the property, showed us the papers and he signed off on the search.”

  The legal issues weren’t Tim’s concern. He was less concerned with how things would hold up in some future court proceeding than he was in getting to the facts on the ground.

  “I’ll need a transcript of that interview,” Tim said.

  “You’ll have to file a formal request, but I don’t think it’ll be an issue.” The detective did not seem enthusiastic about the prospect of more paperwork. “Captain gave the marching orders. He said to show you around.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “You have any SOCO training?” When Tim didn’t answer, the detective explained, “Scene of Crime Officer training.”

  “Not formally, no.”

  “You’ve worked a crime scene, though?”

  “Of course.”

  That seemed to satisfy the detective for the moment. “Rule number one, don’t touch anything.”

  Tim nodded. “I’d like to talk to the witness myself.”

  The detective hesitated. “I have to tell you, this is a bit unusual for us. With the military, I mean. I’m used to jurisdictional cooperation, coordination, that sort of thing, but you soldier boys tend to keep to yourselves. Mind if I ask what your interest is in this?”

  “Missing persons case.”

  “Besides that,” he pressed.

  Tim gave his stock reply. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  The detective took that in stride. “Fair enough. I’ll give you the tour.”

  Tim followed Boyle to the gate, where technicians were casting footprints and tire tracks.

  “This area here by the gate,” said Boyle, “was heavily trafficked. We’ve got the farmers footprints all over. Robert Johnson. And as you can see from the condition of the field, that tractor and plough did some serious damage to the burial site and the immediate surroundings, at least on the side that was ploughed. But we’ve found more than one set of footprints on the property, so that’s something. And we found this.”

  He pointed to a flag on the ground. The flag marked a faint set of tire tracks. The tracks were too thin to be from a car or a tractor.

  Daylight was fading fast, so Boyle turned on his torch and shone it on the tire tracks.

  “What do you make of it?” he asked.

  Tim considered it. “Too thick to be a bicycle tire. Motorbike?”

  The detective smiled for the first time. “Wheelbarrow.”

  “Ah.”

  Tim understood immediately.

  “We’re pretty sure the body was moved in a barrow,” said Boyle. “They wheeled the corpse out into the field to bury it. It was a vacant lot and looked completely unused. They weren’t expecting a farmer to start plowing it up so soon. Of course, most the tracks were lost with the tillage, but we’ve got enough to go on. If we can match that tire print to the right tire, and to the right barrow, and to the right owner, it might just break the case wide open.”

  They moved on.

  When they reached the examining table, the detective said, “Let me introduce you to John Doe.”

  A table was set up next to one of the mobile units. On the table was a human body, the victim’s corpse, still dressed in slacks and a torn button-up shirt. One brown shoe was missing. A scene-of-crime officer was removing clumps of soil from his clothing, then bagging and marking it for evidence, while a police photographer took evidence photos of the victim’s head and neck.

  The victim’s face was grotesque, swollen, purpled with blood. The cadaverine smell of rotting flesh was intense wafting off the corpse. Fortunately, there was a light breeze coming from across the field, so they were able to stand upwind. Tim felt grateful for the familiar pasture smells of old manure and freshly turned earth.

  “He’s been dead for a while,” Tim observed. “Few days, at least, I’d say.”

  Boyle nodded. “The coroner was here earlier. You just missed him. He went back to prep the lab. We’re shipping this boy out within the hour, god willing.”

  “Did he make any determination yet?”

  “Preliminary. Time of death is Thursday night. The man appears to have died of blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”

  “We’re sure it’s a male?” Tim asked.

  With the body this disfigured and swollen, the sex wasn’t obvious at first sight. Though the clothes were masculine, that meant little these days.

  The detective checked his notepad, quoting from it. “Male, Caucasian, five feet ten inches, approximately fifty years old.”

  Tim said, “That fits the guy I’m looking for.”

  “Name?”

  “Bill Knight.”

  The detective jotted the name down in his notepad.

  “We’re calling this one John Doe, unless you can positively ID him.”

  Tim studied the disfigured flesh. The face was a balloon, purple and turning black. The skin of his hands was mottled with splotches of green. “Not sure. But the brown hair, that looks right. Color and length.” He remembered that Bill wore a pinky ring. Checking the swollen fingers, Tim found a ring very much like the one he remembered. “That ring. It could be him.”<
br />
  “How sure are you?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Scale of one to ten?”

  “Seven, maybe.”

  “Good to know,” the detective said. “And what’s his story? This Bill Knight fellow.”

  “Former professor. Stubborn gadfly. Occasional drunk. Writer, journalist, amateur historian.”

  “Journalist,” Boyle echoed, considering it. “Anybody want him dead?”

  Tim had his suspicions but kept them to himself. “That’s what I intend to find out.”

  The detective measured him with a look, but let the matter go. For now. “Did you know the victim?”

  “Yeah,” Tim said. “Met him once.”

  “In that case, I’d like to get a statement. Ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Good. It’ll be easier to talk inside. There’s coffee and tea. Be more civilized. There’s a chill coming in.”

  In his mind, Tim replayed his memories of Bill Knight. The writer had come to the garrison asking questions. Too many questions. He seemed to know a lot about what went on at the base. Things the public had no right to know. Bill had given him a firm if eager handshake, and Tim had noticed the pinky ring. They had only talked briefly. Tim had deflected his questions. Then Bill had mentioned his plans to grab a drink in the village, asking Tim to join him. Tim had declined.

  That was Thursday.

  “Sure,” Tim told the detective. “I could use a coffee.”

  They went inside together, as Tim rehearsed in his head what exactly he would say to the police, and what he would have to keep secret.

  +++

  Bicester Vintners, Bicester, England

  Scarlett was alone in the wine shop reading a mystery novel she’d brought from home. It was the latest in a new series set in medieval London. It had been a quiet afternoon, and she was almost through the book already, reaching the point in the story where the detective was about to do the Poirot-like showdown and announce the real culprit.

  Just then, the door of the wine shop chimed as the door swung open.

  Looking up, she saw a familiar face. Her chest fluttered before she even registered who it was. It was the soldier, Tim Clarke. The one who had come in on Friday. Her heart leapt. She felt nervous and excited at the same time.

  “Well, hello again!” she cooed from her perch, relieved that this time she was at least able to find her voice. The smile came easily to her face. “Tim Clarke, right?”

  He stepped up to the counter. “That’s right.”

  Scarlett closed her book. “It’s good to see you again. I wasn’t sure I would. How is your investigation coming along?”

  Yes, keep it going Scarlett, stay cool. You’ve got the right balance of friendly and…. Not crazy!

  “I’ve made some progress,” he told her.

  His tone seemed measured, almost calculated. She couldn’t tell his mood, but he seemed to be here on business not pleasure.

  “Well, that sounds excellent.”

  That came out more cheery than she’d intended.

  Shit!

  She heard a tightness in her own voice that betrayed her anxiousness. Tim was quite handsome, and it wasn’t uncommon for her voice to rise when talking to someone attractive. In fact, she sometimes mimicked the tone with customers to make them feel liked.

  But this wasn’t the time.

  Tim was looking at her intently. There was a gravity to the way he carried himself. This was serious somehow, and she could feel the tightness not only in her voice, but in her hands as she clutched the book.

  She set it aside. “I love mysteries, you know. Following clues and getting to the bottom of things,” she rambled. “Righting wrongs, bringing criminals to justice. I think it’s the puzzles, though, that intrigue me most.”

  Shut up, Scarlett. Shut up!

  “It must be very exciting,” she concluded.

  Ok good. Now stay quiet. Let the poor man speak, you loon!

  He held her gaze. “Sometimes. Mostly, it’s just a job.”

  She shuffled off her stool and moved towards the counter that separated them. “So, what’s the news, then? You’ve had some progress, you say?”

  He nodded. “I found the guy I was looking for.”

  “Bill Knight,” she said, remembering.

  “I thought you didn’t know him?”

  She heard the accusation in his tone.

  “No, but you told me his name on Friday. I have a good memory for names. It helps in a job like this, in retail. Customers like it if you remember who they are. Like I remembered your name when you walked in. Tim Clarke from the garrison. Flight Lieutenant. Looking for a missing person, Bill Knight the writer.”

  You’re talking too much, Scarlett. Abort. Abort!

  An image of an old-fashioned fighter plane flicked across her mind’s eye. It was on fire, and plummeting down to earth. She tried to push the picture from her thoughts and concentrate on what was going on.

  Tim seemed perfectly fine with letting her ramble. He was listening. He seemed like a good listener, but that was probably just part of his job, as a detective or whatever he was officially.

  His silence made her even more nervous. She could feel her heart pounding harder now.

  “So, you found him,” she added, to fill the silence. “That’s great.”

  “Not so great. He’s dead.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence.

  Scarlett didn’t know what she felt about that, or what she should say.

  “That’s terrible,” she said eventually.

  Tim nodded. “He was buried in a field just a mile out of town.”

  Scarlett felt herself sweating a little. Her shirt felt sticky and she wondered if the air conditioning might not be working properly.

  “Not a suicide, then?” she conjectured, trying to make light of it. Trying like hell not to look guilty. Why would she feel guilty though? This had nothing to do with her.

  Tim’s demeanor didn’t improve. “Not likely, no. He was probably murdered.”

  “Well, that changes everything for you, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Tim took out a small notepad from a pocket in his uniform. In another pocket he found a pen, and clicked it, preparing to write. “How well did you know the victim?”

  Scarlett sensed that this was very serious indeed. “Are you interrogating me?”

  He jotted today’s date at the top of a fresh page. “Interviewing. Like I said on Friday, I’m talking to a lot of people in the neighborhood. Standard procedure.”

  “Standard procedure,” she repeated, wondering what he really thought of her. “How many people have you interviewed, then?”

  “You’re my first today,” he said.

  “The first since you found the body, you mean.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I don’t see why you’d come to me first.”

  Don’t sound so defensive, Scarlett. You’re not a suspect. He just wants to ask you a few questions. It’s standard procedure.

  He looked up from his notepad and fixed her with a calm but curious gaze. “It might be because I like you, Scarlett.” There was only a trace of charm in that. “Or it might be because a witness told me on Friday that he saw a girl matching your description talking with Bill Knight in the White Hart on the evening that he disappeared.”

  So there it was.

  She had read enough mystery novels to know how easy it was for innocent bystanders to say the wrong thing and get accused of terrible crimes. Some of them even went to prison for it before the plot got sorted out and the true villain was unmasked. But this wasn’t one of her midnight reads in bed. This was her life. In real life, she knew, the plots didn’t always work out so neatly.

  “Am I a suspect, then?”

  He smiled disarmingly, but she knew she couldn’t trust it. His expression seemed rehearsed. It was a mask, and she couldn’t be sure w
hat was beneath it.

  “No, not at all,” he said. “In fact, I don’t have any suspects. I have a victim, a body. Probably a crime. Improper burial at the very least. Maybe murder. There’s a lot I don’t know. But I was going through my notes from last week, and it occurred to me you might have talked with Bill Knight shortly before he died. I have a witness who places him at the White Hart. The witness says you were there and spoke to him. It’s possible he spoke with a lot of people. It was a Thursday, a good night for the pub, I’m sure. Not everyone is a suspect, Scarlett. But they’re all potential witnesses. I need to talk with anyone who might have seen him that night. Which is why I came to you. Plus, the fact that I like you.”

  If that last bit was meant as charm, it wasn’t having its effect. Alarm bells were going off in her head, and she wasn’t sure why. She was innocent, and she knew it. Which meant there was really nothing to worry about. But Tim didn’t know if she was innocent, and Scarlett wasn’t sure she could convince him. He seemed the stubborn sort.

  “I wasn’t at the pub Thursday,” she said. The words came easily, because she knew it was true.

  He jotted that down. “Good to know.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t be of any more help to you.”

  Tim finished writing and stared at her again, but not at her eyes. She thought maybe he was staring at her chest, but then he said, “Anything else you want to tell me, Scarlett? Like how you got that scratch on your face?”

  Her hand went to her chin. She had completely forgotten about the scratch. She had put some make-up over it this morning, so she knew it was difficult to see now. But she hadn’t noticed the scratch Friday morning. Tim must have seen it when he first met her and said nothing.

  He continued. “I noticed it was there Friday morning. Looks like it’s healing nicely, though.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  She felt trapped and didn’t know why. She wanted to get out of this conversation and didn’t know how. This was her job, and she couldn’t just walk out or kick him out. She wondered what time it was. Maybe it was time to take her break now. She didn’t dare look at the clock on her phone. That would make her look guilty. And it wasn’t nearly lunchtime, she realized.