Chapter 4

Sydney came to the wedding more out of his professional interest in the case of the missing Land Girl, rather than any sense of social intercourse. Laura chose to believe he was there to act as her companion as well even though he did his best to remain passive at best. Of course, they were completely circumspect in every word and action in front of the farm workers, but the other girls were far too well-versed in covert relationships to miss the unmistakable signals of carnal connection lurking under the surface.

Her introduction to the handsome and charming police officer’s technique of “from behind” loving was an eye-opener to Laura because she had a rather subdued background right up until her joining up in the Woman’s Land Army. She longed to find a proper bed in complete privacy to take his weight right dead on top of her because that was the way her mum told her led to lasting relationships. The “behind the barn” and “back seat” variety of carnal relations was not conducive to proposals of marriage and she was beginning to think that time was just around the corner.

When the bouquet was tossed, it almost fell into Laura’s outstretched hand, but a particularly flexible young girl from the back streets of London managed to scoop it up with a leap of impressive height for such a top heavy girl. Her heavy breasts were still bouncing after she waved the bouquet of flowers around like some trophy earned in a sporting event. Her boyfriend in training, young Lucas Moneypenny looked a bit peaked at her enthusiasm and kept looking around like he wanted to make a dash for the nearest exit. Laura was not in the least put out because she didn’t put much store in the superstitious beliefs of the working classes that tended to be more rooted in ancient pagan themes than in religious cornerstones of an organized Christian religion.

Of course, Sydney did not drink any of the hard stuff because in his mind, he was still on duty despite the fact he was not punching any time clock and he would probably not make any report to his superiors unless something turned up that would require his written comments. He was the sort of person that was always making notes in his little notebook but that seemed to be more of a “policeman” trait to assist them when their memory was unable to recall details that came at them from every direction. Sometimes, he was only able to sort out the conclusions of his investigation after reading his copious notes over and over again like it was some litany of wrongdoing or specifics that led to a definitive clue.

Since it was still early afternoon, both he and Laura wandered back to the place where the missing Land Army girl was last sighted and close to the place where her items of clothing had been discovered shortly thereafter. She thought about the cracked eyeglasses with a heavy heart because it indicated to her that foul play was definitely involved in the mysterious disappearance of the Land Army girl and she wanted desperately to tell DCI Griffin what she knew about the covert relationship between the farm owner and the contracted girl working to help produce food for public consumption during the wartime crisis.

Her only reason for not making a statement on the illicit relationship between the missing land army girl and the farmer owner was because she had spent a lot of time inside the farmhouse doing domestic duties in the lull before the hectic planting time. They had been told by higher headquarters that they were not to do such duties like mending clothes, ironing and preparing meals under the memorandum of agreement between the farm industry collective and the Women’s Land Army Headquarters, but Laura recognized the need for performing the other duties because this particular farm was short on domestic help and had no female relatives to help with the multiple chores. She did feel reasonably certain that Mike would not harm the innocent Land Army girl because he was one of those rough individuals with an inborn trait of treating all women with respect no matter the situation or the heat of the discussion. He had never made a suggestive advance to her even when they were in close proximity alone inside the farmhouse. She decided it would not be a good idea to present any of these facts to DCI Griffin because he might deduce that she was biased in favor of the farm owner and disregard her input to the investigation of the incident.

Laura did not regret her submissive reaction to the police officer’s advances during the “reenactment” exercise at the crime scene, but she suspected that he might have some personal recriminations about his behavior in playing the role of the “bad guy” in the supposed scenario. It had been preying on her mind ever since they had coupled in the heat of the moment and she decided it was best forgotten for the time being since the investigation was the top priority. She didn’t have to be endowed with great insight to realize that he was in a “minding his manners” mode and would most likely not make any moves of the romantic kind unless she purposely created the right mood for some up close and personal interaction. Suddenly, Laura realized she didn’t really know all that much about DCI Sydney Griffin and had no idea if he was married (he didn’t wear a wedding ring), or previously married and now divorced. Her worse fear was that he had a doting girlfriend stashed away with a real chance of washing his clothes and minding their children just as soon as he felt the need to take on a family for purposes of higher advancement. She could just imagine the tight-lipped bitch with her “looking down her nose” at working girls or any person with diction or vocabularies less extensive than her own. Probably with her pinkie stuck out when pouring the tea and with a caustic comment about friends or relatives behind their backs.

“Laura, do you remember if the ground was wet or damp when we were here last?”

She was brought back to reality by the question and frowned slightly as she did her best to remember the time and place. It appeared that everything was in place just as she remembered with the exception that the leaves were blowing in the breeze and still falling from the trees in the cool autumn air. Now that she thought about it, the leaves were immobile the last time. That meant that they were either damp or wet and certainly not moving about like right at the moment.

“Everything was wet the last time, Sydney!”

He looked at her and she almost knew what his next words would be,

“Those clothes and eyeglasses were bone dry, Laura. That means they were removed from her at some other location and planted here to create the impression this was the crime scene. It means we haven’t actually found the true crime scene as yet.”

Laura looked at Sydney with new respect.

His deductive powers were in high gear. She hoped that her presence was inspiring him to peak performance of his Detective skills. The evidence was all safely tucked away in the crime lab but there had been precious little analysis completed as yet because no corpse had been discovered to make it a crime of importance on their ledger. It was still a “missing persons” case and they seemed to be increasing in quantity during the dangerous time of world-wide hostilities. Sydney had already lamented to her about how the police forces were drastically cut-back because of the demands of the military services. Numbers of the younger constables were already conscripted for duty and most of them were already on the continent facing the tanks of the Third Reich. It seemed uncommonly strange that they were safer facing thugs and criminals in dark alleys with no firearms than fully armed facing the indoctrinated youth of Hitler in a foreign country.