Chapter 48
FORTY-EIGHT
Matt watched it later, on the train. If anything, he was even angrier than she’d been.
To be openly besmirched like that, in front of their neighbours – lie after lie – even as Paul’s body lay in front of them, spoke to something atavistic in him, the tribe turning on its own.
Or perhaps it was simply his fundamental sense of decency.
‘He’s gone too far this time,’ he kept repeating. ‘He’s going to pay for this.’
But exactly how Jamie Finch was going to pay for it was still eluding them. His very lies had made him untouchable, the grieving son of the wronged king. Anything they did or said now was going to be seen as pure spite.
‘What did he mean, about Rosemary having health issues too?’ Matt asked.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Kate said, baffled. ‘She did mention that she’s been feeling her age, but so far as I know there’s nothing specific, just some rheumatism and creaky bones.
I’m not sure she’d have told me if there was something, though.
She didn’t even tell me they’d lost a child.
’ At the thought that Jamie, the prodigal son, might have more access to Rosemary’s private thoughts than she did, she felt a visceral pang of jealousy.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he was making it up.
It suits his version of events to portray her as a helpless old lady. ’
There were already masses more flowers and cards outside The Old Tennis Court’s front gate, Matt told her. ‘And the Pelham Arms is heaving – cars parked down both sides of the road, right to the end of the village.’
‘Oh, God.’ If the funeral had been bad, she could only imagine how viciously tongues were wagging at the wake, fuelled no doubt by copious amounts of free Pol Roger. She felt a great weariness descend on her. ‘I’m going to bed. Perhaps things will look better in the morning.’
She found it hard to sleep. Images kept coming back to her: the villagers’ faces, the lip-smacking gusto with which they’d bellowed out that song; Jamie at the lectern, dapper in his expensive suit, angrily spinning his web of lies .
. . But eventually she must have drifted off, because she was asleep when she felt a hand shaking her shoulder and heard Tilly whispering anxiously, ‘Mummy, Mummy, wake up.’
Instantly, she was fully alert. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘There are people outside. At the front. I’m frightened.’
‘Get into bed with Daddy. I’ll go and take a look.’
Tilly started to protest fearfully that she didn’t want her to go, so Kate added, ‘Just through the window. Is Will awake?’
‘I don’t think so.’
That frightened her – the scaffolding at the front of the house effectively gave access to both children’s bedrooms. She waited until Tilly had climbed into bed, then woke Matt up. ‘People outside,’ she whispered as he rolled over. ‘Don’t worry – I’ll be careful.’
She went downstairs, leaving the lights off.
She could immediately see why Tilly had been woken up.
There were two Land Rovers outside, headlights on and engines running.
Voices were shouting instructions. Somehow, the fact they were making absolutely no effort to conceal their presence made it even more frightening.
For one awful moment, she thought they might even have come to torch the place – Trade Cottage’s old walls, all that wooden panelling, would go up in minutes.
But they were doing something else, she realised. There were more shouts, then the unmistakeable beep-beep of a large vehicle reversing – a lorry or tanker, perhaps. A clanking sound, the revving of a diesel engine, some strange squelching noises.
The noises stopped, and the lorry drove away. Moments later, car doors banged and the Land Rovers sped after it.
She waited until she was absolutely sure they’d gone. Then, tentatively, she opened the door.
It was dark, and she couldn’t immediately see what they’d done. But she didn’t need to. The acrid stench of human sewage hit her nostrils, and with a cry of disgust she slammed the door shut.
It turned out, when dawn finally broke, that a stinking pool of human slurry had been pumped over their gravel.
At least, this time, the police took it seriously.
Matt called the non-emergency number and was told someone would come out that morning.
Sure enough, shortly after nine a.m., a police car turned up and two uniformed officers got out.
Kate recognised one as Phillipa Dickinson, the female officer who’d come to The Old Tennis Court after Paul’s suicide and who’d later taken Kate’s statement.
It soon became clear, though, that the reason for the speedy response had little to do with the harassment of Kate and her family.
It was because improperly disposing of human waste – or ‘sewage sludge’, as Kate discovered it was called in legalese – was an offence under the same environmental laws that were necessitating a new drainage field at Trade Cottage.
Still, Sergeant Dickinson and her colleague listened sympathetically as Kate explained what had been happening. She showed them the most recent poison-pen letter, and the two officers exchanged a glance.
‘Did you take photographs of the liquid that was thrown at your door?’ Sergeant Dickinson asked.
Kate shook her head. ‘We wanted to get it off before it stained.’
‘Well, make sure you record that and all the other incidents in a logbook. And, in future, photograph everything, including what’s happened now, and keep any letters.’
Anwar had said much the same thing, Kate recalled, back in the days when the worst that was being done to them was some rogue lavender pruning. She resolved that, from now on, every attempt at intimidation was going to be documented in full.
‘Given that there’s nothing to identify anyone, it doesn’t reach the threshold for involving a detective,’ the sergeant added. ‘But if it escalates, or an ID becomes clearer, it’ll be useful to have all the evidence.’
‘What do we do next? About the slurry, I mean?’
‘Your drainage contractor can deal with that. He’ll need to test the pond, too, to see if it’s been contaminated. If it has, it’ll have to be drained and refilled. From the look of it, that effluent’s biosolids – that’s human waste that’s been minimally treated, so farmers can use it as manure.’
‘There’s a farmer involved in the harassment,’ Kate said. ‘He’s been setting off gas guns. And he’s holding motocross competitions in the wood beside our garden, which he never used to.’
Sergeant Dickinson made a note. ‘I’ll have a word. Obviously, if there’s no proof he was responsible, he’s unlikely to admit it, but sometimes just knowing the police are asking questions is enough to make people think twice.’