Common Murder

Deborah went off to collect Cara and put her to bed, and Lindsay joined Willow and Jackie and their friends in their bender. There were a couple of guitars, and soon the women were singing an assortment of peace songs, love songs, and nostalgic pop hits. Deborah joined them, and they sat close. Lindsay felt she couldn’t bear to wrench herself away from the sisterhood she felt round her. Sentimental fool, she thought to herself as she joined in the chorus of “I Only Want To Be With You.”

Just after ten, the jam session began to break up. Most of the women left for their own benders. Lindsay and Deborah followed. “I’m going to have a word with Jane about the Holloway picket,” said Lindsay. “You coming?”

“No, I’ll see you at the van.”

“Okay, I’ll not be long.”

Deborah vanished into the darkness beyond the ring of benders to where the van was parked near the road. Lindsay headed for Jane’s makeshift surgery and found the harassed doctor sorting through a cardboard box of pharmaceutical samples that a sympathetic GP had dropped off that evening. She stopped at once, pleased to see Lindsay in spite of her tiredness and began to explain the picket plans. Although Lindsay was itching to get back to Deborah, it was after eleven when she finally set off to walk the fifty yards to the van.

The first thing that caught her eye as she moved beyond the polythene tents was bright lights. Now that the army had cleared the ground round the perimeter fence, it was possible to see the temporary arc lights from quite a distance. That in itself wasn’t extraordinary as workmen occasionally sneaked in a night shift to avoid the picketing women.

She stopped dead as she caught sight of three figures approaching the camp, silhouetted against the dim glow from the barracks inside the fence. Two were uniformed policemen, no prizes for spotting that. The third was a tall, blond man she had noticed in the area a couple of times before. Her journalistic instinct had put him down as Special Branch. She was gratified to find that instinct vindicated. She glanced around, but the only other women in sight were far off by a campfire. Most of them had already gone to bed.

Lindsay had no idea what was going on, but she wanted to find out. The best way to do that was to stay out of sight, watch and listen. She crouched down against the bender nearest her and slowly worked her way round the encampment, trying to outflank the trio who were between her and the lights. When she reached the outer ring of tents, she squatted close to the ground while the three men passed her and headed for Jane’s bender with its distinctive red cross. Lindsay straightened up and headed for the lights, keeping close to the fringes of woodland that surrounded the base. As she neared the lights, she was able to pick out details. There were a couple of police Landrovers pulled up on the edge of the wood. Nearby, illuminated by their headlamps and the arc lights, were a cluster of green canvas screens. Beyond the Landrovers were three unremarkable saloon cars. A handful of uniformed officers stood around. Several people in civilian clothes moved about the scene, vanishing behind the screens from time to time.

Lindsay moved out of the shelter of the trees and approached the activity. She had only gone a few yards when two uniformed constables moved to cut off her progress. Her hand automatically moved to her hip pocket and she pulled out the laminated yellow Press Card which in theory granted her their co-operation. She flashed it at the young policemen and made to put it away.

“Just a minute, miss,” said one of them. “Let’s have a closer look if you don’t mind.”

Reluctantly, she handed the card over. He scrutinised it carefully; then he showed it to his colleague who looked her up and down, noting her expensive Barbour jacket, corduroy trousers and muddy walking boots. He nodded and said, “Looks okay to me.”

“I’m here writing a feature about the camp,” she said. “When I saw the lights, I thought something might be doing. What’s the score?”

The first constable smiled. “Sorry to be so suspicious. We get all sorts here, you know. You want to know what’s happening, you best see the superintendent. He’s over by the Landrover nearest to us. I’ll take you across in a minute, when he’s finished talking to the bloke who found the body.”

“Body?” Lindsay demanded anxiously. “What is it? Accident? Murder? And who’s dead?”

“That’s for the super to say,” the policeman replied. “But it doesn’t look much like an accident at this stage.”