Where Death and Danger Go Page 4

  ‘I’ll tell you something else, Clement, that doesn’t quite add up. The farmworkers who found Jakobs said they had to wade, their word, through the mud to get to him. The deceased was found about a hundred yards away. Ignoring the absence of a parachute, if our murdered man was another parachutist, why aren’t his boots and trouser legs more caked in mud? Walking through mud would mean the whole boot, socks, trousers and all would be filled with mud. But not this man’s. And, did you notice, on the corpse? There is no bruising either to the abdomen or thighs that would indicate our man had ever been wearing a parachute.’

  Chapter 4

  Morris pulled off the main road into a narrow unsealed track to the east of the village of Wistow. They drove about a mile along a low ridge, the road twisting and descending through groves of trees and hedges before opening to a wide open space. Below them, a vast brown field stretched away in all directions. Morris slowed, and parking the car on the verge, switched off the engine. Clement stared at the scene before him. ‘Is this where Jakobs landed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can see why.’

  In the middle distance he could see a tractor working the land about half a mile away, the soil turned and rich, ready for sowing. From where he sat in Morris’s car Clement couldn’t see anyone else in the fields. He opened the door and got out and breathed in the wholesome smell of farming country. Morris joined him.

  ‘That’s the copse where our man was found,’ Morris said pointing to their right. Several hundred yards away to the south and adjacent to a narrow dirt track were two large oak trees surrounded by some lower growth. ‘Jakobs was found just about there,’ Morris said pointing to a spot in the field some hundred yards north of the copse. ‘You have a look about on your own, Clement. I’ll wait in the car. Take as much time as you need.’

  Clement stood surveying the landscape. Turning around, he saw the low hill with the thickets of trees they had driven through. In front was a panorama of almost three hundred degrees of flat land laid to pasture or being prepared for sowing. To his left and about a mile distant, three rooftops surrounded by trees dotted the rural scene, but other than the tractor, the fields appeared deserted. Directly in front of him and some way from where Jakobs had landed was a barn. It was large and had a double door opening onto an intersection with another dirt road. The door was closed.

  Clement walked down the hill, his gaze on the track beneath his feet. On a fine day, and in the warmer months, the unsealed track presented no difficulty to anyone walking but on a wet, wintery night, the dirt ground would be a slippery quagmire. No problem for a tractor but not a car. At the intersection he turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees. While the view from the hill had allowed him to see the whole area like a diorama at the museum, once on the flat land, things were not so obvious. The sound of the far-off tractor was the only noise in the pristine air. Clement turned his gaze south, to the copse, and began to walk towards it.

  The barn door opened. Clement stopped. A short, robust man with a broad, weathered face and lively eyes came out and walked towards him. He wore a heavy tweed jacket and cap and his boots bore testimony to a lifetime of farming. From what Clement could tell, the man didn’t seem at all surprised to see him standing in his field. At least not until the man’s eyes saw the clerical collar.

  ‘Help you with something, Vicar?’ the farmer said, his darting eyes taking in the police vehicle parked on the hill.

  ‘Mr Chisholm?’ Clement asked.

  ‘Yes. You with them?’ Chisholm nodded in the direction of the parked car.

  ‘Assisting with their enquiries.’

  The farmer’s eyebrows rose. ‘Didn’t think it would be long.’

  ‘Do you mind going over once more what you found the day the German landed in your field?’

  Chisholm shrugged. ‘Found him there,’ he said, pointing to the field off to his right.

  ‘How long ago?’ Clement asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you to the minute. First day of February, at exactly twenty minutes past eight in the morning. I was outside my backdoor, there,’ Chisholm said, pointing towards the rooftops half a mile away and in the opposite direction from the copse. ‘I was giving instructions to my three farmhands about the work for the day when we heard the shots. I got my rifle from the house and we went to investigate. Found him, bold as brass, lying on his back, his parachute over him like a blanket in the middle of my south pasture.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I sent Ben back to call the Home Guard. I kept my rifle on him. He’d broken his ankle so he wasn’t going anywhere.’

  ‘How long before the Home Guard arrived?’

  ‘At least an hour. Then almost another hour for Ramsey Police to come. And another for them to decide who was in charge.’

  Clement stifled a smile. ‘That seems a long time.’

  ‘Yes. That’s what I said at the time,’ Chisholm said pursing his lips. ‘But I’m just a stupid farmer so who listens to me?’

  Clement heard the sarcasm and decided not to pursue that line of questioning further. ‘Why do you think the second pistol wasn’t found earlier?’

  Chisholm looked back over the fields, as though re-living the day. ‘Too far away from the blighter, I suppose.’

  ‘You never saw it while tending your fields?’

  ‘How could I when it was buried under mud and melting snow? Besides, I was told then they had removed everything.’

  Clement nodded. He knew what had been found with the man they now knew to be Josef Jakobs. Further to what Morris had already told him, during the drive from Cambridge Clement had read both reports from the local Home Guard and Ramsey Police from the time of Jakobs’s capture. They said that a German spy had landed in the field and broken his ankle. Jakobs had fired his own pistol three times into the air at first light to attract the attention of some nearby farmworkers. And, as Jakobs had been injured, he was taken immediately into custody and no further investigation of the area had been deemed necessary. Jakobs had had in his possession a Mauser automatic pistol, close to five hundred pounds in cash, a partly damaged code book, a small torch with a flashing device and maps of Upwood and Warboys airfields along with two forged identity cards, a ration book and a black bread sandwich. And, if these were not enough to convict the man, Jakobs had attempted to bury an attaché case containing a wireless transmitter under his body using a small trenching shovel later found at the scene.

  ‘It’s a mystery, though,’ Chisholm said, his hands in his pockets.

  ‘How so, Mr Chisholm?’

  ‘Why he had two pistols. They took the one they found in his helmet. I suppose they didn’t think he would have two. But it doesn’t surprise me.’

  ‘Why would that be, Mr Chisholm?’ Clement asked.

  ‘I heard four shots. I told that Captain Thew of the Home Guard at the time, but he said I was mistaken; only three bullets missing from the chamber he kept telling me, and some nonsense about echoes in fog. I never touched the gun, of course, so I can’t swear to how many were missing from the chamber. They took him away after that. I heard they shipped him off to London.’

  ‘Did you see anything else unusual that morning?’

  ‘By mid-morning the place was swarming with Home Guard and police trampling all over my land. If anything else happened that day, I didn’t notice it.’

  Clement looked away over the fields, his gaze settling on a low wooden bridge-like structure adjacent to where they were standing. It was flat, the sturdy timbers resembling railway sleepers laid sideways and sufficiently wide enough for a tractor to cross. He walked towards it. The wooden platform forded a ditch of about four to six feet in depth which extended the full length of the paddock and was half filled with water. ‘Is this a natural stream?’

  Chisholm shook his head. ‘Drainage ditch. There’s hundreds of them in this part of Cambridgeshire. This is fenland. Not from around here, are you?’

  Clement smiled. ‘Not highly visible,
are they?’

  ‘No. Well, if that’s it?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Chisholm. For now.’

  Chisholm grunted and turned to leave.

  Clement looked up at the sky. During a full moon, the wide fields would be bathed in moonlight but the water trenches would barely be visible to anyone walking there. And with little nocturnal light, the ditches would be invisible hazards for both vehicles and anyone on foot. He glanced back to where Morris had parked the car then to Chisholm who had left him and was just opening the barn door. ‘How many such channels are in these fields, Mr Chisholm?’ Clement called.

  Chisholm turned. ‘They border every field, that’s why the roads zig-zag around the pastures. Most have crossings like this one. It’s how the tractor gets from one paddock to another,’ he said, pointing to the wooden platform. ‘But you need to know where they are. Or you’ll break your leg, or worse, damage the tractor.’

  ‘Could a car cross them?’

  ‘If they’ll take the weight of a tractor, they’ll take a car. But it would be a damn-fool thing to do in winter. It would be bogged within seconds.’

  ‘But it is possible?’

  ‘I suppose. The driver would have to know where to cross.’

  ‘Do you employ itinerant workers?’

  ‘Used to. Can’t get them now.’ Chisholm pulled a large handkerchief from his pocket. There was something about the gesture that made Clement feel he was not only trespassing on Chisholm’s land but also on his time. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Chisholm.’

  ‘Not just a stupid farmer after all, was I?’ Chisholm said, his hand on the barn door handle.

  Clement took the opportunity to question further. ‘Thinking back to that morning, would you say there was anything different about the fourth shot?’

  ‘As I told Captain Thew at the time, it seemed quieter than the others.’

  ‘Were the shots fired in succession?’

  ‘The first three came quickly then there was a delay for the last. That’s why Thew said it was an echo. Total rubbish.’

  ‘How long between each of the shots, would you say?’ Clement said ignoring the slur on Captain Thew’s judgement.

  ‘A second or two between the first three then about five to ten seconds to the fourth.’

  ‘Could it have come from a different direction?’

  Chisholm left the barn door and walked towards Clement. ‘From the copse, you mean? Possibly. I just don’t remember. It was four months ago.’

  Clement smiled. ‘Do you recall seeing any cars on the roads that day?’

  Chisholm shook his head. ‘Can’t see the main road from here. I see the occasional lorry passing from time to time over there,’ he said, pointing across the fields at least a mile distant. ‘The hedges are too high to see cars. Besides, it was winter, and as I said, no one in their right mind would drive a car into these fields and expect to drive out.’

  ‘Well, thank you again, Mr Chisholm.’

  Chisholm turned and without further discussion disappeared into the barn.

  Clement started walking towards the copse. The large oak trees there were already in leaf, the vibrant green of new foliage intertwined above the bushes. Once level with the copse, Clement turned back again to see Morris’s car. The black police vehicle was barely discernible against the dark green foliage on the hill. He frowned. He knew, of course, that it was there but he couldn’t see it that well. He paused. If the dead man had not jumped as he and Morris had speculated, but had, in fact, driven there to meet someone who did parachute down, did he know a car parked there wasn’t easily visible? Had he walked to the copse to meet someone who didn’t know where the car was parked? The limited amount of mud on his trousers suggested it. Did it also imply that he knew it was unwise to drive across the fields? That, surely, would suggest local knowledge. Clement stared into the ditch before him. It lay between where he stood and the copse. He lifted his gaze to the boundary hedge that separated Chisholm’s land from the neighbouring farmer’s land, a man named Ward.

  Clement jumped the trench, scrambling up the grassy slope to the other side. In front of him was a hedge. He pushed his way through the foliage to a clear space surrounded by mature trees. It was cool. Much cooler than the open fields. Underfoot were rotting leaves and damp, decomposing branches and twigs but the space was larger than Clement had expected. He stood there, slowly turning, taking in everything. He saw the disturbed earth and shallow grave where the body had been discovered, the soil still heaped to one side. Even with the trees devoid of leaf in mid-winter, anyone in this copse would be completely unobserved. The cover of night had meant that no one had witnessed either Jakobs’s descent or anyone else’s. Moreover, if the fourth shot was the one that killed the man in Morris’s mortuary, it stood to reason that anyone in the fields that morning would be attending to Jakobs, never suspecting that someone else was there. Clement stood beside the shallow grave and tried to imagine what had happened that morning. He knew Jakobs had had a hand shovel with him so perhaps it was standard equipment for Nazi spies. Even so, the shallow grave would have taken little time to dig in the moist soil of the copse. A man had parachuted into England and made his way to the copse to rendezvous with someone. Had that someone been the man wearing the turn-ups? Or had he gone there at first light to meet someone who’d then killed him? Clement rubbed at his furrowed brow. Surely if his death was a straightforward case of murder, the man’s body would have been found by the road or in one of the ditches near the tracks, not half-buried in a copse a mile distant from the main road.

  Clement turned again, his steady gaze on the copse. Under some of the hanging branches he saw a narrow track leading away from the copse. It led in the opposite direction from where he had entered. Clement pushed his way through the foliage. The path followed the boundary hedgerow on the neighbouring property’s side. Taking it, Clement walked a few hundred yards, the hedge concealing him from anyone on Chisholm’s land. He crossed a wooden platform then walked on to where the track rejoined the unsealed gravelled road not fifty yards from Chisholm’s barn. Clement stared at Morris’s car parked on the ridge above the barn. If someone had landed then killed the man sent to collect him, how did he know about the path or that a car was parked on the ridge? How did whoever jumped even know where he was in England? Clement shook his head. Perhaps car headlights had been flashed? If that were true, then another person had sat waiting in the car. So why send the man to make the rendezvous at all? Clement strode back up the hill towards Morris.

  ‘Anything?’ Morris asked as Clement closed the car door.

  ‘Interesting.’ Clement told Morris what Chisholm had said and about the ditches that criss-crossed the fields and the track on Ward’s land.

  Morris switched on the engine and turning the car around, headed back up the hill towards the main road. ‘Chisholm said you can’t see any cars on the roads from the fields because of the height of the hedges. Do you know, Arthur, while I could see this car today from the copse, I’m not so sure I would at dawn on a winter’s morning, unless I knew where to look or had some binoculars or perhaps seen flashing lights. Was anyone found here waiting to collect Jakobs?’

  ‘No. But that’s not to say no one was here. If Jakobs failed to make a rendezvous with anyone sent to collect him, that person would leave the area and quickly, I would’ve thought. Especially if he’d seen the Home Guard and police cars arriving.

  ‘Was there any moonlight on the night Jakobs landed?’

  ‘Little. Four days into the new moon.’

  ‘Too dark to travel across farmland but not too dark to jump,’ Clement said half to himself. He looked across at Morris. ‘Assuming two people did land that night, and assuming Jakobs didn’t know about another jumper, why did the killer wait until Jakobs fired his pistol before shooting our man? How did he even know Jakobs was still in the field and not far away? Was it purely opportunistic?’

  Morris waited before responding. ‘Perhaps the killer assumed J
akobs was well away. So when Jakobs fired his weapon, the killer took advantage of the situation.’

  ‘Or did they know Jakobs was injured?’ Clement suggested. ‘Was Jakobs’s parachute examined for sabotage?’

  ‘I’ll get that checked.’

  ‘What do we make of all this?’ Clement went on, the question rhetorical which Morris seemed to understand. ‘Whoever jumped stayed in the copse till first light it being too dark and too dangerous to travel at night. I’ve seen those ditches. You could be seriously injured if you fell into them. Then they waited till first light to shoot the person who came to the rendezvous. Why?’

  ‘No further need of him?’

  ‘So our man came by car to collect him from the copse and believed he was to lead whoever landed back to the car. Instead he was shot in the copse. A one-way walk. The clothes would bear this theory out.’

  ‘So either whoever landed knew exactly where he was and could drive himself or a third person was in the car waiting?’

  Clement bit into his lip. ‘But it does mean one thing, Arthur; Jakobs knew nothing about the second jumper or that someone else was there. If Jakobs had, he would never have fired his pistol into the air to attract those workers.’

  ‘It also explains the delay between the third and fourth shots.’

  Clement was deep in thought. ‘Could we speak to Mr Ward?’

  ‘Of course,’ Morris said. ‘It is unlikely he can add anything as he was in Ramsey the day Jakobs landed. But he may have remembered something unusual now he’s had time to reflect.’

  Morris drove about five miles south along the main road before turning left. Ward’s house was close by. Morris drove in and switched off the engine. Within seconds a grey-haired man with deeply furrowed skin and a long flat nose came from an outbuilding at the side of the house. A spaniel dog was beside him.