Free Guardians Of The Haunted Moor by Harper Fox Page A

Gideon breathed. “Right. I’m going out to try and make
things right with him, and then all of us—you included, Lee—are
going to sit back down and finish our breakfast.”
     
    ***
     
    The
officers stationed at Carnysen field were more used to crowd
control after football matches and at Golowan when the fire-dances
got out of hand. To his dismay, Gideon encountered the first of
them frog-marching old Mrs Waite down the lane. “Michael,” he
called, recognising the young constable. “What’s going on here?
That’s our village shopkeeper.”
    “ So she tells me, Sergeant Frayne, but she kept trying to get
under the tape. We can’t seem to make any of them understand...” He
paused at the sound of further ruckus beyond the stile. “That this
is a crime scene. Soon as we chase one of them away, half a dozen
of the others are trying to climb the fence.”
    “ Gideon!” Mrs Waite gave an improbable wriggle and escaped the
constable’s grasp. She shot to Gideon’s side. “I’m trying to tell
him, I have to be in there. I’m godmother to young Dev Bowe, and
he’s in there, crying and sobbing over John—what’s left of him, God
rest him—with no-one to comfort him.”
    “ That’s the problem, Sergeant! We try to keep ’em out, but
they’ve all got reasons for being in.”
    “ That’s because they all know each other,” Gideon said, dusting
Mrs Waite off and straightening the straw bonnet she’d assumed for
her mercy mission. “Now, you listen to me, Elsie. It’s terrible to
hear Dev crying, but there will be somebody on the scene to help
him, somebody professional. Michael, tell me there’s a counsellor
in there.”
    “ There is, but he can’t get started because of all the
fuss.”
    “ You hear that? You’re hindering the police, Elsie. Obstructing
the course of justice. The penalties for that are heavy, and what
would Dark do for its groceries if you’re in the nick?”
    “ Oh, Gideon.” She gave him a painful jab in the ribs. “You’re
such a joker.”
    “ Am I? You try me and see. Someone will look after Dev, I
promise. Now go home.” He watched her bustle off down the track,
then turned back to the constable. “Right. Next?”
    Next
were the Prowses, of course, Darren and Bill and a handful of
ne’er-do-well cousins from Bodmin. They were variously engaged in
harassing the officers trying to guard the stile, and ducking over
and under the uniformed arms to snap photos with their mobiles, no
doubt for a quick sale to the local gutter press. Gideon, freshly
showered and uniformed himself—heartbreak on temporary hold—waded
in. He jumped onto the stile, straightened his cap and made a quick
assessment. “Right, you lot,” he called, and the various well-known
faces, Prowse and Kemp and Priddy, turned like odd flowers to a
familiar sun. “What do you mean by crowding around here and making
a nuisance of yourselves? A man’s lying dead in that
field.”
    Jack
Wilson stopped his efforts to break through the hedge. He was one
of Dark’s more sober citizens, his presence here an indicator of
general emotional pressure. “We know that, Constable,” he said, and
Gideon as usual ignored the slip: he’d been their constable for so
many long years before his promotion. “It’s John Bowe, and
something appalling’s happened to him. Why isn’t anyone telling us
what’s going on?”
    “ Because nobody knows yet, Jack. Simple as that.”
    “ The Prowse kid says he was dismembered. That some kind of
beast tore him apart.”
    Nothing
worse than half a story, unless it was half a limb. Gideon thought
he could see one now. He gestured to the plain-clothes officer
frowning over the coroner’s shoulder. “Detective Inspector
Lawrence? Could I have a word?”
    Lawrence
had worked with him on the Lorna Kemp case. She gave Gideon a look
that suggested he had cornered the market in weirdness, and made
her way gingerly out through the corn. “Morning, Sergeant. I gather
you had the