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  “That would be lovely,” I replied and went to tell my colleagues the good news. Gwen was manning the cordon tape but it appeared that Jessica had gone to the little girls’ room. In next to no time, one of the catering staff came over to ask what we wanted to drink. I opted for a coffee, Gwen requested a tea.

  “And what is your other friend having?” enquired the caterer.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged, surprised by her line of questioning. “Probably a number two.”

  Our discussion was cut short by the arrival of Jane, the crime scene investigator, or, as we like to call them, the SOCO – scenes of crime officer – just so they don’t go all Hollywood on us. We all stood back as she approached as hell hath no fury like a CSI whose crime scene has been compromised.

  “Colonel Mustard in the dining room with a candlestick,” she boldly announced as she entered the reception. My colleague and I glanced at each other with perplexed looks on our faces.

  “It’s not my professional opinion on the scene and I’ve not been playing Cluedo,” she enlightened us. “It’s just a note from Gwen’s diary from last weekend.”

  As Gwen started to colour-up and stutter a defence, Jane ducked under the cordon tape and extracted a camera from her bag.

  “And remember, Gwen,” added Jane flatly, “it’s worth laughing at my jokes because if anything bad does ever happen to you, I’ve got the chalk and I can trace your body thinner or fatter than you really are, depending on how well you and I get along.”

  My colleague looked slightly confused.

  Jane sighed and started to click away with the camera. “I see I’m going to have to start wearing glasses and tie my hair in a bun just so people will know the exact moment I lighten up.”

  “So, any good jobs recently?” I enquired. The CSIs were always good for tales of the strange and bizarre; pouring over the minutiae of every crime scene they go to.

  “Well, I’ve got a bag of something in the van that I found at the last job that would bring tears to your eyes, John.”

  “Onions?” I guessed.

  “No, butt plugs.”

  I winced and made my excuses, telling her I’d see if there was an extra cuppa going. When I returned five minutes later with a black coffee, the manager himself had arrived with a large plate of food to keep us going. I think it’s fair to say that all of us had missed out on a meal whilst we were at this incident and were ravenous. We were just about to tuck in when a young couple arrived at the outer reception cordon. They stood, transfixed, looking in on the mayhem for a few seconds: Jane, in the middle of the floor on all fours in her white paper suit, taking swabs from a pool of congealed blood, surrounded by broken glass and shattered furniture; the rest of us standing by the ‘crime scene’ tape, cups of tea in hand.

  “We’re here to book in for our wedding tomorrow,” explained the young man in a shaky voice. The girl simply burst into tears. I was about to suggest that he use the tradesman’s entrance tonight, but the manager obviously had other thoughts: ever the consummate professional and keen to prove himself after his earlier breakdown, he instantly took charge of the situation; taking my plate from me, which I had already loaded with a slice of Battenberg, he thrust it towards the young woman:

  “Girls who cry need cake!”

  Chapter 10

  Dead Cow Walking

  We left a trail of footprints in the grass, still wet with dew, as we strolled through the meadow on an idyllic summer morning. Specks of colour punctuated the lush green canvas: bright-blue cornflowers, shimmering yellow buttercups and large, brilliant-white daisies with their giant heads that seemed to follow the sun as it climbed in the sky. Elsewhere, the wild Flanders poppies danced in the gentle breeze; their delicate red petals quivering with the slightest breath of wind. We chatted about anything and everything as we walked, our carefree laughter carrying in the air, alerting the rabbits to our impending approach; their tails rising and falling as they hopped away into the distance where the green field met the blue sky.

  The sun played on our backs, its rays warming our necks, while the birds in the hedgerows provided the score to this perfect day. The fresh country air completed the feast for our senses. On approaching the opening to the next field, I glanced over at my companion and our eyes met. As I slowly placed my hand on top of the gate her hand gently came to rest on top of mine. Involuntarily, she let out the faintest of sighs. I quickly recoiled my arm in horror.

  “Don’t get any funny ideas, you nutter!”

  “It was an accident!” she replied indignantly, and then pursed her lips to make her mouth resemble a cat’s bum.

  “I’m old enough to be your dad’s younger, good-looking friend,” I told her. “And anyway, we’re on a job!” Now that the ground rules had been re-established, we continued on our way in an awkward silence. This wasn’t some aimless ramble in the countryside – we had serious business to attend to: we were here to fight crime.

  The cost of crime to Britain’s rural economy is around £50 million per year. Isolated farms and homes are particularly vulnerable to organised gangs. High-value farm machinery is often targeted and smuggled out of the country to developing nations. Pesticides are also high on thieves’ shopping lists. Illegal waste sites and fly-tipping, as well as arson and criminal damage to fences and crops, are all major issues, too. Poaching is yet another big problem, but the activity that has seen the biggest increase by far is theft of livestock. The nature of modern farming makes this a difficult problem to combat as animals are often grazed in fields far from the farmstead. It is not uncommon for police to hold identification parades in order for farmers to identify their own sheep from a group that has been recovered. One farmer even took to dying his flock bright yellow to deter would-be rustlers. Today, however, we were on the hunt for cows – but not just any old cows – Jessica and I were looking for ghost cows!

  Most people are familiar with the concept of car-ringing or car-clocking, where criminals switch details or wind back the milometer so, effectively, you don’t get the car you thought you were buying. Cow-ringing or cow-clocking is exactly the same thing – but with cows.

  Basically, all cattle should be tagged in each ear and have their own individual passports. This is to ensure that the authorities know that the animals are properly looked after and that their movements can be tracked to establish when they enter the food chain; therefore, should there be any issues, they can simply trace where a problem animal has come from and take the necessary action.

  With cow-ringing, unscrupulous farmers simply remove the tags and send them back to the authorities, claiming that the animal has died. Then, when he is actually ready to sell the animal, he’ll provide a false set of tags and documentation to certify that the cow is much younger that it actually is – and get a better price at market as a result.

  However, it’s not just a question of hard-pressed farmers trying to supplement their income; the implications of this fraudulent practice are far greater: as these ‘ghost cows’ don’t officially exist on paper, no official checks are made on their welfare; they don’t get visits from the vet and, to avoid prying eyes, many are kept well away from the farm often in appalling conditions. As a direct result, the dangers of infected animals entering the food chain are increased significantly.

  We’d been given a tip-off that a farmer was operating the scam up near Todd’s Plantation. Not wanting to make it obvious that we were onto him, we had decamped from our vehicle several miles away and were now proceeding over meadow and field on foot.

  We trudged through the next field in silence. Our approach needed to be stealthy as cows have huge brains and incredible senses. They can detect odours up to five miles away, have near panoramic vision and can hear higher and lower frequency sounds better than humans.

  I wasn’t sure whether Jess was quiet because she had done her bovine homework, or was sulking after my rebuke; either way, it suited our purpose. We weren’t that far now from where the ghost cows
were meant to be and as I carefully opened up the next gate my colleague slipped past me, shooting me a sullen glare. I put my finger to my lips, indicating that she should maintain her silence, yet she responded by flailing her arms about, shouting loudly and swearing liberally.

  I stared at her in shocked disbelief, until I realised the cause of her outburst. She seemed to have been suddenly surrounded by a squadron of angry bees, intent on harassing her; swooping and dive-bombing her in the process. I’m no expert, but bees always appear to be proud little insects with a strong work ethic and I didn’t think they’d take too kindly to being sworn at; if anything, it seemed to be making them worse! I toyed with the idea of wading in to try and assist her but decided against it, and instead opted to get my phone out – not to call for help, but to get a photo of the whirling dervish in action to share back at the office. If I framed it right, I could probably get the rows of wooden hives positioned along the edge of the hedgerow in the background of the shot. There was no use in telling Jess to stand still, so I had to compose the shot as best I could as she ran back and forth like a loon. Actually, I did try asking her to pause for a second but she subjected me to the same shocking abuse she had the bees. Very rude. Consequently, I moved in closer and was just about to capture my masterpiece when, suddenly out of nowhere, I felt a sharp pain in my left eye. It seems a kamikaze bee had disregarded my neutral stance in this confrontation and had gone in for the kill. I guess this is what the term ‘suffering for your art’ must mean.

  As my assassin injected me with his poison, the pheromones that alerted the other bees that there was a threat in their midst were released, signalling his colleagues in the vicinity to go in for the attack. As other bee-fighter squadrons were rapidly scrambled from their nearby bases, I thought discretion was the better part of valour and called to Jess to follow me in order to facilitate a tactical retreat, otherwise known as running away. Five minutes later found us on a rough country lane, panting heavily as we tried to catch our breath.

  “My God!” exclaimed Jess looking over at me. “What happened to your eye? It’s swollen up like a tennis ball!”

  “I think I’ve been stung,” I replied quietly. I could feel it starting to throb.

  “Well, you will let me know if you develop any superpowers, won’t you?”

  Before I was able to formulate a sufficiently acerbic response, I spotted someone who might actually have some sympathy for my predicament. A beekeeper in full garb, looking like a cross between an astronaut and a champion fencer, was advancing along the path carrying a smoking oil can. It might just as well have been a smoking gun!

  I was aware that beekeepers pump smoke into the hives to make the bees sleepy before they collect the honey, but I could only assume that he had carried out this task just prior to us coming across their colony, meaning that the bees had woken up to discover that they had been burgled. The angry little creatures had no doubt begun searching for the suspects, when who should innocently walk past but me and Jess. The rest, as they say, is history. I decided to ask the gentleman for assistance, believing that he’d be sure to know what to do about my now very painful bee sting. I was also certain that I’d get a far more sensible response from him than I had from my most unsympathetic and unhelpful colleague.

  “You mean to tell me that you’ve been disturbing my bees!” the beekeeper demanded angrily when I explained the situation.

  “It sounds like a question,” I ventured, “but from what I’ve just told you, I think you already know the answer. And we weren’t disturbing them… it’s not as though we’re some kind of marauding honey badgers – we were just quietly walking past.”

  “You fuckers!” This wasn’t really the wording of the apology that I was expecting. Evidently, it wasn’t only his oil can that was fuming. “I’ve a good mind to take off this suit and make you pay for it!” he yelled, throwing his can to the floor with a clatter and putting up his fists.

  “You want me to buy your beekeeper’s outfit?” I queried. My joke fell flat and only served to make him even more irritated.

  “Tit for tat!” he exclaimed as he took his big protective gloves off and threw them down. “Tit for tat! Those bees won’t settle for ages. Well, you’ve ruined my day – I’m going to ruin yours!”

  “Wait, wait. Calm down! There is no tit, there is no tat. I’ve been stung in the eye by one of your employees. I should be the angry one – not you!”

  I could see him staring directly at me, and then he lifted his helmet to get a better view. He leant in closer and then tilted his head, screwing up his eyes as he studied my face. I was sure I saw him wince.

  “Bloody hell! You need that seeing to!” Without another word, he picked up his belongings and turned and stormed off past us in the direction of his killer bees. I just stood there, more confused than ever. I always thought beekeepers would be chilled-out individuals, like Sylvia Plath or Maria Von Trapp. I never imagined them to be wound up like a spring, but I guess we all have our moments.

  “What a rude man!” Jessica broke her silence as he disappeared into the distance. “There’s nothing worse than bad manners!”

  “Well, I suppose genocide comes a close second,” I ventured. She conceded that I probably had a point.

  We continued our way down the path wondering what it was that had made the Bee Man so tetchy. Naturalists and conservationists have long been aware of the importance of bees, and it’s said that if they disappeared off the surface of the globe, mankind would only have four years of life left: no more bees would mean no more pollination which would mean no more plants, and so no more animals, and, ultimately, no more man. Moreover, for our beekeeper time is honey. Having said that, an average bee only makes a twelfth of a teaspoon of the stuff in its entire life, therefore even if my bee died after its malicious attack on me, it wasn’t going to drastically affect either the future of bee-kind or the honey harvest. Winnie the Pooh should be the one he should have a grudge against, if anybody. He’s the one who seems to think that it’s socially acceptable to just stroll into someone’s house without question and demand all their honey; but of course everyone loves that bear, so his various foibles go largely ignored, along with the shenanigans of his little pig friend and that mad, stripy bastard. If ever there was a case of double standards this was it!

  We hurried down towards the village and past a pile of household rubbish that someone had tipped at the entrance to a field. I made a mental note to report it when we got back to the office but, for now, all I wanted was to return to civilisation and have my eye seen to as the pain was increasing with every minute that passed.

  “Oh my good God!” declared a familiar voice. “It’s the start of the zombie apocalypse!”

  By now we had reached the outskirts of the village, where we were met with this less than charitable greeting by the vicar of St Augustine’s Church.

  “What on God’s green earth has happened to your eye?” he enquired as we drew nearer, finally showing some sympathy for my injury. “And you, young lady, whatever has happened to your hair?”

  “I was stung by a bee,” I replied, trying not to wince with pain as I spoke. “As for her hair – it’s always like that.”

  I explained to Jess that I had met the vicar last year when he had reported a theft at the church; another victim of rural crime.

  “Thieves broke in and stole everything that wasn’t nailed down,” he explained to my colleague.

  “So at least they left Jesus,” I added in a bid to cheer him up. He responded with a Mona Lisa smile.

  He had since turned God’s open house into Fort Knox, complete with bars on the windows, new locks and a state-of-the-art CCTV security system. Signs next to the parish notices and order of services read: ‘Someone besides Jesus is watching you… and neither that someone nor Jesus is going to be happy if you break the law.’ Above it was a pair of eyes staring out at the reader. I’m not sure if they were supposed to be the eyes of Jesus or that omnipresent ‘so
meone’. Regardless, it’s been proved that a pair of eyes peering down at a thief at a crime hotspot appears to intimidate potential criminals into moving on rather than carrying out their nefarious deeds.

  Initial trials of the scheme saw a pair of eyes on a poster overlooking an honesty box for tea and coffee in a university common room. When the posters were present, students paid up almost three times as much as when the posters weren’t there. When signs were put above cycle racks in Newcastle upon Tyne thefts fell by sixty per cent. Perhaps that is why in countries that are dictatorships there are pictures of the leader everywhere so that the population has the feeling that Big Brother is always watching them. Not that I’m suggesting that God is a dictator…

  “Where’re my manners?” declared the vicar before asking if we’d like a cup of tea and a cold compress for my eye. We sat on a bench in the graveyard at the front of the church while he called for his wife to do the necessary. Ten minutes later, a woman emerged from the vicarage carrying a tray laden with tea, an assortment of biscuits and a thick wad of damp cotton wool.

  “Jesus Christ!” she exclaimed when she saw me, before quickly putting down the tray and making a sign of the cross. She apologised profusely for her reaction and then offered me a garibaldi. At their request, I then relived the entire bee incident, almost knocking over the drinks as I portrayed Jess as some kind of raving madwoman, attempting to fight off the bees. The whole re-enactment took a distinctly sober turn when I described my encounter with the angry Bee Man.

  “I think he’s bipolar or lactose intolerant, or something,” reflected the vicar’s wife as she tried to account for his violent reaction. “He’s certainly a character!”

  “I’d actually describe him as another type of C,” volunteered the vicar thoughtfully, gazing down towards his shoes. It was perhaps a little strong for a man of the cloth, but I gave a little chuckle and nodded in agreement.