Good People

Overnight, the isobars had packed together and the wind was coming strong out of the northwest. And cold. The rain that stung my face as I opened the caravan door was thinking about applying for an upgrade to sleet.

I went out of town on the mountain road, climbing up to open hill country. Scrub grass, sedge and heather, with grey, lichen-splotched boulders crumbled in for texture. It was a big, scrappy geography up here.

The minibus was parked on a narrow lane beside a small arched bridge near the junction with the mountain road. There was a marked police car close by. Uniform locals. I recognized the man who was making a point of watching my approach. Sergeant Emrys Hughes. We knew each other. He didn’t like me. It wasn’t a complicated issue, just a matter of his boss detesting mine. The fact that I didn’t like my boss either didn’t seem to help.

He shouted something up at me as I parked on the splay. I ignored him. I wanted to take in an overview of the scene before I got involved in other people’s perceptions.

The minibus was parked, neatly squared off, on a patch of compacted gravel. It hadn’t been abandoned. Thought had gone into where and how it had been left.

Emrys turned away from me. He must have shouted something else, because two more uniforms appeared from behind the minibus, where they had been sheltering from the wind. Emrys issued an instruction, and one of them came over the bridge, and up the slight incline towards me. I smiled to myself, recognizing a troop movement.

He had his head lowered, and kept his face slanted away from me to keep the rain out of his eyes. I gestured for him to go round to the leeward side and dropped the passenger window. He lowered his face to the opening. Lanky and young, his eager expression overcompensating for his nervousness. ‘Sergeant Hughes told me to tell you that we’re in control of this.’

I leaned across the seat towards him and grinned. ‘Sergeant Hughes told you to tell me to fuck off?’

His face dropped. ‘No, Sergeant, not at all.’

‘Where are the people from the minibus?’ I asked before he could recompose himself. ‘Have you managed to get them down off the hill?’

He looked confused, and shot an involuntary glance at Emrys. ‘There weren’t any people.’

‘What were you doing round the back of the minibus?’

‘Sheltering.’

‘Had you checked for footprints, any other evidence, before you trampled the area?’

His brain mired on that one. I didn’t wait for an answer. I got out of the car and fought my way into my coat, the wind whipping rebellious life into the sleeves and tail. It was even colder out here. The young cop caught up with me, trying to get my attention, but not quite daring to come abreast. I ignored him.

‘Morning, Sergeant Hughes,’ I called out affably.

He glared at me stonily. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I got the call.’

He scowled. ‘There was no call. Not for you. This isn’t a CID matter, Capaldi. We’re handling it.’ As usual he put a heavy stress on my name. As if he had had a grandfather die on the Anzio beaches and I was somehow to blame. Emrys Hughes was a big man, with black, wavy hair, craggy features, and a mosaic of broken veins in his cheeks. His square bushy moustache and matching set of eyebrows looked like they might have been lifted from an identikit box.

I inclined my head towards the minibus. ‘Have you put in a request for a SOCO team?’

‘Why would I do that? This isn’t a crime scene.’

‘The minibus was stolen.’

He shrugged. ‘And now it’s here.’

‘So what’s your plan of action?’

‘I’ve put a call in to contact the owner and get him to come up here with a spare set of keys.’

‘You intend to move it?’ I deliberately pitched my tone to needle him.

He struggled to keep his temper. ‘It went missing. Now it’s been found. Happy endings.’

‘It was stolen, Sergeant.’

‘I know the owner. I’m sure he won’t want to press charges.’

‘Someone was drunk in charge of a stolen minibus last night.’

He pulled a fat face and shrugged.

‘Where are they?’ I asked.

He leaned his face in towards mine, lowering his voice. ‘I know these people, Capaldi.’

‘If you haven’t been able to make contact with the owner yet, how did you come by the passenger list?’

He flashed me a pitying smile. ‘We’re a small community. We know who the lucky bastards are who can get hold of tickets to a rugby international like that. And the operative word here is “community”. Sometimes you have to take the sensible line. I know them all, I can vouch for them personally: they’re good people. Not one of them has a criminal bone in his body.’

‘It’s still taking and driving away. Driving under the influence. Maybe more, if the driver decides to stay mean.’

‘He won’t,’ Emrys announced confidently. ‘And, after the rollicking I’m going to give them, none of them will be doing this again.’ He spread his hands, trying me out with a reasonable-man-to-reasonable-man smile. ‘Okay, they were wrong. But that would have been the drink, the excitement of having been in London. It would have been meant as a bit of fun, nothing malicious.’ He shook his head. ‘And they’ll stick together. Even I’ll never find out which one of them actually drove it away. You’re not in your city now. There’s a time and a place for the heavy-handed route and this isn’t one of them.’

It was a big speech for Emrys. This was obviously important to him. Credibility issues, perhaps. ‘Where are they?’

He tried out a grin. ‘In their beds I assume. Getting ready to wake up and realize how lousy they feel.’

I recognized that he was offering me an opportunity here. The chance to play Cottage Cop, ingratiate myself into the community, show them that I didn’t always have to be seen as an aloof and hard-ass outsider.

‘What about the woman?’

He frowned. ‘We don’t know for sure that there was one. That could just have been the driver trying to make it worse for them …’ He raised his hands to stop my protest. ‘Okay, I promise you this, if there was a woman on that minibus with them last night, she’ll have been treated with absolute courtesy and respect.’

‘So where will she be now?’

‘Wherever it is, she’ll be safe. I can guarantee that. I expect she’ll probably have been offered hospitality for the night. It’s not like the city, women don’t have to fear for their bodies or their lives.’ He smiled smugly. ‘We don’t lose or misplace our womenfolk around here.’

Womenfolk … He actually used the word. As if he was describing a separate species that could be displayed in pens for admiration and grading. I used a spluttered cough to cover my astonishment.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

I nodded. ‘I’ll make you a deal.’

He inclined his head to listen.

‘If you can convince me that everyone who was on that minibus last night is safe and sound and where they’re meant to be, I’ll walk away and leave you to wrap it up your own way.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll take that deal.’