Good People

Who to brace?

I could probably forget the three with partners. The McGuire brothers and Les Tucker. They would now have backtracked with enough explanations and excuses to make them as virtuous as Mother Teresa. Paul Evans, the big one, would either be dumb or belligerent. I didn’t relish tackling either persona.

I called David Williams at The Fleece.

‘Trevor Vaughan, the hill farmer. How do I find him?’ I asked.

I wrote down the directions. As usual I marvelled at how complicated it was trying to find anywhere in the countryside.

‘Anything else you can give me on him?’

‘Quiet. Nice man. Inoffensive.’ He went silent.

‘Am I hearing hesitation?’

‘I don’t like spreading unsubstantiated rumours.’

‘Yes, you do – so give.’

‘There’s talk that he’s done this before. Visited prostitutes.’

‘Am I missing something in Dinas? Is there a local knocking shop?’

He laughed. ‘No, Sandra wouldn’t let me set it up. I’m not talking about Dinas; it’s trips away, to London or Cardiff, rugby games, agricultural shows, stuff like that.’

I thanked him and hung up. So the talk was that Trevor Vaughan wasn’t a virgin. So why did the rest of the group use him and Paul as an excuse for the presence of the girl? Probably to wrap themselves in sanctity, and preserve them from the wrath of their partners. Or was it their intention to test the truth of the rumours?

Some friends.

The road to Trevor Vaughan’s farm followed a small river, which had receded to an alder-lined brook by the time it arrived. The hills were steeper here, the land poorer; sessile oaks, birch, and hazel clumps in the tight dingles, monoculture green pasture on the slopes where the bracken had been defeated, and glimpses of the wilder heather topknot on the open hill above.

A rough, potholed drive led off the road past an empty bungalow and a large new lambing shed to the farmhouse. No dogs barked. An old timber-framed barn formed a courtyard with an unloved, two-storey, whitewashed stone house, raised above the yard. Its slate roof was covered with lichen, and the old-fashioned metal windows were in need of painting.

I’d been around these parts long enough to know not to let the air of neglect fool me. These people could probably have bought a small suburban street in Cardiff outright. They just didn’t waste it on front, or what they regarded as frippery. They saved it for the important things in life: livestock and land.

I parked in the courtyard and got out of the car. Still no dogs. Just the sound of cattle lowing in one of the outbuildings. A woman appeared from around the side of the house wiping her hands on an apron. Small-framed, short grey hair, spectacles, and an expression that didn’t qualify as welcoming.

‘We don’t see representatives without an appointment,’ she announced in a surprisingly firm voice.

‘I’m not a rep,’ I said, opening my warrant card. ‘I’m a policeman – Detective Sergeant Glyn Capaldi. Are you Mrs Vaughan?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is Trevor around?’

She scowled. ‘I thought we were finished with that business. Emrys Hughes told Trevor that it was over.’

I smiled. ‘I just need to ask a couple more questions.’

‘You’ll have to come back another time.’ She inclined her head at the hill behind the house. ‘He’s busy up there with the sheep.’

‘I could go up and see him.’

She gave my car a sceptical appraisal. ‘You won’t get up there in that.’

‘I could walk.’ She looked askance at my shoes. ‘It’s all right, I keep some boots in the car,’ I told her. She sucked in her cheeks, her face tightening into mean little lines as she suppressed her natural inclination to tell me to get off their land. I was glad that she wasn’t my mother.

Following her instructions, I took a diagonal line across the contours, steadily rising towards the open hill, making a point of shutting all the gates behind me. I came to a collapsed stone field shelter with an ash tree growing through the middle of it. According to the woman’s directions I was spot on track.

And I would have kept on going like a naïve and trusting pilgrim, onwards and upwards to the open moor, if a fluke of the wind hadn’t brought the sound of sheep to me. From the wrong direction. I followed the sound to the crest of a rise. The ground dropped into a cwm, and, where it levelled out, I saw a Land Rover in a field beside a pen of sheep. The old crone had deliberately misdirected me.

The dogs were the first to see me traversing down the steep side of the cwm. Two of them. Black-and-white sheepdogs circling out at a scuttling run to flank me, practising dropping to their bellies, preparing to effect optimum ankle damage. The sheep, sensing the dogs on the move, started to make a racket.

Trevor Vaughan, in the pen, looked up from the ewe he was inspecting. He raised his voice and called the dogs in. I waved. He watched me descending for a moment, and then waved back, any welcome in the gesture held in reserve.

He was wearing a grey tweed flat cap, an old waxed jacket worn through at the creases, and green waterproof overtrousers. I had checked, he was twenty-four, but he looked older. A mournful, triangular-shaped face, which, for a man who spent his life outdoors, was remarkably pale.

‘Mr Vaughan,’ I shouted, as I got closer, ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Capaldi.’

‘I know who you are, Sergeant. Emrys Hughes told us.’

The dogs, sensing a distraction, made a move towards me again. He checked them with a series of short whistles, and with a couple of clucks and a gesture he got them on to the open tailgate and into the back of the Land Rover. I was impressed.

‘I have nothing more to say about Saturday night.’

‘I’m not here to ask about that.’

He looked surprised. ‘You aren’t?’

‘No, I want to know where – what’s her name? Magda? – where is she now?’

He wasn’t a good actor. He shook his head and feigned surprise, but he wasn’t used to it. ‘I don’t know anyone called Magda. I don’t know who you’re talking about.’

I gave him a con cop smile. ‘Who decided to call her Miss Danielle?’

‘That’s what she called herself.’

‘You’re lying, Mr Vaughan.’

He didn’t protest. He looked away from me. I thought I had him. And then I heard it too. I followed his line of sight. A late model, grey Land Rover Discovery was coming up the cwm towards us. I stuck myself in front of him. ‘I need to know, Trevor. Has anything happened to that woman?’

He shook his head. Almost imperceptibly. It was aimed at me. As if he didn’t want whoever was driving the Discovery to see that he had communicated.

‘Trevor …’ The yell came out of the open window as the Discovery pulled up. The driver pretended to only then recognize me. ‘What are you doing here?’ his voice registering surprise. Ken McGuire was a better actor than Trevor Vaughan. The old crone had not just misdirected me, she had call in reinforcements.

‘Afternoon, Mr McGuire,’ I said cheerily. I sensed that I had got close to something with Trevor Vaughan, but instinct warned me not to let Ken McGuire suspect it.

He got out of the Discovery playing it puzzled, looking between the both of us. ‘I came over to borrow a raddle harness, Trevor. You’re Sergeant Capaldi, aren’t you? I’ve seen you in The Fleece.’