Foresight Saga

Where roads and railways cross old established ground, there are bound to be odd triangles left over, too small or too ill-favoured for development. This one was bounded in steel, concrete and noise, by the railway, Wood Lane and the A40 flyover.

Along one side of the plot was a motor repair workshop, occupying some old wooden buildings that seemed once to have been stables – three loose boxes, what had probably been the tack room, and a larger structure with big double doors, perhaps formerly a fodder store, now fitted out with a lube-pit and car lift. Beyond them were two crude concrete garages with up and over doors. Above the door of the tack room, now the office, was a board bearing a name painted in faded, peeling letters: E. Sampson.

On the side bounded by the high steel security fencing of the railway, two ancient, derelict car-body shells lurked under a vigorous overhang of buddleia. Rosebay willow herb and cow parsley, ghostly now at the season's end, sprouted through a muddle of metallic debris in the corner beyond them. It must have looked quite festive in midsummer.

Access to the yard was down a narrow track off Wood Lane, running between windowless rail depot buildings. The first few yards were tarmac'd, but beyond that it was bare earth. After several days of rain, track and yard alike were sodden and muddy.

The SOC unit had laid boards for safe passage, but multiple feet had muddied these too. Detective Sergeant Atherton picked his way delicately like a cat through broken glass, grumbling. He was wearing rather natty grey shoes. Detective Chief Inspector Slider, a country boy by birth, always had wellingtons in his car boot. He stepped more confidently, but he grumbled too.

'No CCTV cameras, no overlooking houses, no passing traffic or pedestrians. That means no witnesses.'

'Lots of tyre tracks,' Atherton offered.

Slider would not be comforted. 'Too many. Let's hope deceased is clutching a scrap of paper with the name of the murderer on it.'

Atherton nodded. 'It's always wise to write the name of your worst enemy on your cuff before going out. That's foresight.'

Slider smiled reluctantly. 'Cuff! You dear old-fashioned thing.'

The man who had found the body was squat and swart, probably in his fifties, though so weathered it was hard to tell. His expression was dour, his mouth a hard line, and he spoke tersely, in a roughened voice, never making eye contact, giving the impression that he did not often have call to communicate with other members of his species.

He was dressed in workman's dungarees, liberally streaked with oil and mud, over a chunky green sweater with a surprisingly cheery motif of red reindeer and white snowflakes. Slider suspected it had not originally been bought for him. The elbows were worn through, revealing some kind of grey undergarment. His hands, scarred and broken-nailed, were swollen and stiffened by hard work into the appearance of wooden clubs. Still, they were nimble enough while constructing a skinny roll-up, which he inserted into his prow and lit. It clung there, smoking sulkily, waggling as he spoke.

'Mr Sampson?' Atherton enquired. It didn't do to make assumptions.

Sampson scowled, nodding minimally. He poked his tongue out of the opposite side from the roll-up and removed a shred of tobacco from it.

'What does the "E" stand for?' Atherton wanted to know.

'Eli,' he acknowledged, with a look that said, Go on, then, make something of it. Give me an excuse.

With regard to the corpse in his yard, he was sullen. 'I don't know nothing about it,' he said. 'Ask me, someone's playing a joke on me.'

'A joke?' Slider said, pained.

'Trick, then. Having a go at me. Tryna get me into trouble.'

'Do you know who he is?'

'Never seen him before in me life.' He brooded a moment, then added, gratis, 'He's not from round here.'

'How do you know that, if you don't know him?' Atherton asked.

'Look at his close,' he said succinctly.

Slider admitted he had a point. The corpse was wearing a good-quality charcoal wool overcoat over a two-piece black suit and white shirt, tieless and open at the neck. His shoes were black leather, highly polished. His dark, grey-speckled hair, kinky like wire wool, was cut short. He was clean-shaven and gave off a faint aroma of expensive aftershave.

'Dressed up like he's going up the West End,' said Sampson.

'How long have you had this place?' Slider asked.

'Been here twenty year,' said Sampson. 'Ask my satisfied customers.'

It was his way of offering his credentials. Slider did not really suspect him of having put the body there. To call the police would be a bold double bluff, but it was rare even among professional criminals to find anyone willing to try it. On the whole they liked the more basic defence of being as far from the scene as possible. Being a good twenty miles away at the time was a lot simpler than arguing, 'If I was guilty, I wouldn't have called you, would I?'

That didn't mean he didn't know the deceased, or have anything to do with the death, of course.

He answered Slider's questions tersely, resentment bristling in every word. His business was servicing and repairing cars, his clients the unlucky souls who did not have the luxury of a warranty. The cars were mostly old bangers and rust-buckets, which he kept limping along for the owners, who relied on them for their own precarious livings. He was here most days, working, or tinkering about with his own motors – he bought old MGs and restored them as a sideline. He had been here until six last night, give or take, and had arrived at seven this morning to find the unwelcome visitor lying in the mud at the side of the yard.

'Took you long enough to call it in,' Atherton remarked. It was logged at seven twenty.

'Didn't know what to do. I knew you lot'd look at me suspicious. As if I'd plant a body in me own yard!'

'Did you touch him, or move him?' Slider asked.

'Never went near him,' Sampson said, 'only to see he was dead and not drunk or whatever. I could see he was dead all right, without touching him. So I went in me office and had a fag while I thought what to do. I was shook up. Then I rung you lot.'

He hadn't seen any strangers hanging around lately. And the only people who'd been in his yard in the last week had been his customers coming and going, all people known to him. 'Why'd anybody come down here, unless they was looking for me?' he said logically.

Another point, Slider allowed. The opening to the track was unobtrusive, and didn't look as if it led...