Death on Coffin Lane

by Jo Allen

  He nodded.

  ‘Then you have to take her to see a doctor. Because that looks to me—’ She shifted around, turning her back on Jude, shutting him out. ‘Storm. You have to trust me, for Raven’s sake. I know you hate the modern world. I know you think medicine does more harm than good. But this won’t work.’

  ‘Would someone like to let me in on the secret?’ Jude shifted round so they couldn’t ignore him and found that once again Ashleigh had found a way to make a witness talk. With Storm’s reluctance to talk overcome, she stepped back and left the interview to Jude. ‘Well?’ he asked the older man, with a sigh.

  ‘It’s a spell.’ Storm let go of the wall and took a step forward as if to take himself closer to Raven in the distant field. ‘Nothing else worked. We tried herbs and we tried diet… we tried everything.’

  Except medicine. ‘And how does the spell work?’

  ‘You need a weapon. A weapon that’s been used to kill someone. And you use it to prick the place where there’s pain, and the pain goes away.’

  Tolerance got you so far. Jude forgot himself so far as to open his mouth to protest but Ashleigh raised a warning hand to stop him. ‘Storm. You aren’t telling me you killed Lynx just to get hold of a murder weapon?’

  ‘I didn’t kill him at all.’ Storm’s face had turned the same colour as the winter sky, an even paler shade of grey than his ragged beard. ‘I found him by the woodpile in the morning, when I got up. It was just light. The knife was in the water. And that’s when I remembered someone telling me, in the summer, that that was what we should do to get rid of the pain.’ His breath rippled uncomfortably from between parted lips.

  ‘And what did you do then?’

  ‘I took the knife out of the water and I hid it behind the wall.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call someone?’

  ‘I couldn’t help him. He was dead.’ Storm turned dull eyes on Jude, then towards Ashleigh in a mute appeal for support. ‘When Raven said she was going to look for him, I knew I had to get rid of it. You’d find it and I couldn’t use it. So I took it and hid it.’

  Still fighting a losing battle against the insistent wind, Ashleigh twisted hair from her eyes again. ‘Was there ever a man in the woods?’

  ‘No. I lied about it. To you. To Raven, too. I wish to God she hadn’t found him, but I couldn’t stop that. If I had I wouldn’t have been able to hide the knife.’

  ‘Where did you hide it?’ By the most generous calculation, Storm hadn’t been away from the camp long enough to get to Rydal Caves and back. Jude’s methodical mind set to working out how he might have done it. Step by step, that would be it.

  ‘Up in Deer Bolt Woods, in some tree roots. Under some leaves. The next day I went back. I took Raven with me and we walked along to the woods. She loves that walk.’ He shook his head. ‘That was when we tried the spell. Then I took the knife to the caves and hid it up there. In case we needed it again.’

  ‘You must have known we’d find it.’ Jude sighed. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that it would be easier just to tell us about it?’

  ‘You’d have taken it away.’

  Irritation fought with sympathy and sympathy won, but it was close. ‘And do you think it worked?’

  ‘Time will tell us.’ Storm turned away, but the droop of his shoulders betrayed his lack of faith. ‘What happens now? Do you arrest me?’

  ‘No,’ Ashleigh said, before Jude could get a word in. ‘We need to check everything you’ve told us and we’ll be in touch with you. And we’ll want to talk to you again.’

  You could fight modern life all you wanted, but in the end it kept you in its trap. Storm’s understanding of that painful truth showed in his face. ‘I don’t have any choice, do I?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ Ashleigh stepped towards the stile. ‘Shall we go back? I expect you’ll want to get back to Raven.’

  ‘Will you want to talk to her?’

  ‘I promise we’ll be kind.’

  It would take Jude a lot of creativity to account for how they’d dealt with Storm and Raven in writing up the case, whatever its outcome, and he should metaphorically rap Ashleigh on the wrist for perpetuating a lack of professionalism, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Sometimes the alternative way was the only way, though he doubted the alternative approach would give a happy outcome for Storm and Raven. ‘Let’s get back. We need to get on.’ Because this episode hadn’t, in the end, got them any further forwards.

  *

  ‘So what the hell was all that about spells and witchcraft?’

  Coming round the corner to where Jude and Ashleigh stood opposed in what looked for all the world like a full-on row next to Jude’s car, Doddsy allowed himself a wry smile. Jude couldn’t help himself. He got too involved, too easily frustrated and had to sound off. There were many people who could have been intimidated by it if he wasn’t careful, but Ashleigh wasn’t one of them.

  ‘Jude. You have to understand how other people think.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Your granny was a witch as well as a fortune teller.’

  ‘She was interested in white magic, yes. And she did have a book of spells.’

  ‘A book of spells? For Christ’s sake, is this for real? It’s a police investigation and people have died.’

  ‘Yes, and tuning into other people’s wavelength got an answer that shouting at them didn’t. I’d heard the idea of a murder weapon as a cure-all. I believe the theory is that the inherent goodness in the object cancels out the evil use by humans. Obviously I don’t believe it, but it fitted with what we know of Storm and Raven. Not just their thinking but their actions. So we have to consider it. Fair?’

  ‘Chris is right to call them Flat Earthers. I’ve never seen anyone quite so benighted.’ Jude turned away from her, running his hand through his hair in frustration, but his mood wasn’t serious and he broke into a grin when he saw Doddsy. ‘Not even our detective inspector.’

  Doddsy returned the grin, saw Ashleigh shaking her head with a smile of her own and concluded that all was well. It amused him to see how hard the two of them tried to put up the front of a purely professional relationship but there were enough clues if you knew and it warmed his heart. He was an old sentimentalist who liked a happy ending, though God knew he saw few enough of them. ‘I’m guessing you’ve got something useful from our friends by the lake.’

  ‘You could call it that. Storm claims to have discovered the murder weapon in the lake, purloined it in order to use it to cure Raven of some undiagnosed illness and then hidden it up in Rydal Caves in case he needs it again.’ Jude rolled his eyes.

  ‘Good luck writing that up in the case report.’ Doddsy nodded at Ashleigh as she took herself back down to the cafe to carry on supervising the door-to-door enquiries. ‘I think I’m done here for the moment. I wondered if you were heading back up to the office, so I can cadge a lift. I came down here with the uniformed guys and they’ll be here for a while yet.’

  Jude nodded at the car and opened the door. ‘Your timing’s perfect, as always. I was just heading back.’ He turned around and waved at Ashleigh, a signal to everyone who saw it that they needn’t read anything into a professional difference of opinion.

  Doddsy went round to the side of the car and got in. As Jude headed away from Red Bank Road towards the village centre, they passed Tyrone, standing in conversation with a colleague. He looked up as they passed and smiled.

  Warmed by the sight of the young constable, Doddsy accompanied a faux-regal wave with a reciprocal smile. Jude would spot it, just as everyone else spotted the smiles he himself shared with Ashleigh but allowing a personal relationship to impinge, ever so slightly, on the working day needn’t damage your ability to do the job. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘To what?’ Jude must have seen the smile and the wave.

  ‘About who killed Fi Styles. About who killed Cain Harper. About the story about the murder weapon.’

  ‘It feels like we have three jigsaws in our
box right now, not two, but I think we’ll get the picture in the end.’ Pausing at the exit onto the A591 to let a stream of traffic pass by, Jude tapped his finger on the steering wheel. ‘We have to consider the Gordons, because they were nearby, even though we know they’re in the clear for Lynx’s killing. But our wild academic was right on the spot for both murders and doesn’t have an alibi for either.’

  ‘Why would she kill the journalist? Because she was asking too many questions?’ Cody had never struck Doddsy as the violent type. That was what he couldn’t work out. Everything he knew about her suggested that her approach was forceful but that her violence was purely intellectual.

  ‘Maybe. Or she was asking the wrong sort of question. But I’d like to know what she was doing up there at that time of the morning. I’d like to know if anyone knew she was going. And if not, could we be looking for someone who thought they were killing Cody Wilder?’

  The bobbing high ponytail had been a strange feature of Fi Styles’s appearance, as if it was intended as some subliminal compliment, intended to flatter Cody into answering questions. One way or another, the young journalist had paid a high price for her enthusiasm. ‘That might be the Gordons then.’ But he couldn’t quite believe it of them.

  ‘It might. There might be some clue on Fi’s phone, or among her belongings. Where was she staying? In the village?’

  ‘Yes. In a B&B. She told the owners she’d be out early this morning but she didn’t say where she was going or why.’

  Jude flipped the radio on and subjected them to a blast of cheesy Eighties hits as they drove up Dunmail Raise and dipped down to Thirlmere, in a contemplative silence. ‘Jude. Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Sure.’ Jude turned the radio down and swung the car confidently round a couple of corners, slowing to sit behind a minibus, driving sedately along the lakeside.

  Doddsy was a diffident man, a quiet soul who minded his own business except on the rare occasions when he chose to share it with his few close friends. Jude, the closest of them, was the main beneficiary of what passed for his secrets. ‘Did anybody ever mention the boss’s behaviour to you?’

  It was a moment before Jude replied, as if the question made him uncomfortable. ‘Not until recently. Why?’

  ‘Aditi complained to me about it.’

  ‘Right.’ The slightest frown crinkled Jude’s brow, as if he was bothered by that. Doddsy understood why. His friend prided himself on his management, on how tightly he ran his team and the fact that they could approach him for any reason. The fact that one of them had chosen not to was something he’d interpret as a failing. ‘She never said anything to me.’

  ‘It was just because she bumped into me, I expect.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘So I took it up to Professional Standards, and they gave me the impression that it wasn’t the first complaint.’

  ‘Generally speaking, people don’t complain. That’s always been the culture. Not that that’s a good thing. The opposite. We need to complain more.’

  ‘I’m glad you said that. Because I’ve made a complaint on my own behalf.’ It had been at Tyrone’s suggestion, following an appalled silence during the conversation they’d had in the pub earlier in the week. ‘About something he said to me about not wasting my time and his applying for a promotion because it wasn’t the kind of thing for people like me.’

  Silence, while Jude turned the car to the right, off the main road and up towards St John’s in the Vale. ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I never thought to mention it.’

  ‘You were quite right to complain. Let’s hope someone smacks the guy’s wrist before he gets to retirement.’

  *

  No matter how disapproving Jude might be of his boss’s behaviour there was no alternative to dealing with the devil. Groves was increasingly tetchy but there was a job to be done. As the afternoon ticked on, Jude made his way up to his superior’s office and found the door standing, as usual, ajar.

  Groves looked up when he came in and the expression of relief was swiftly succeeded by one of irritation, as though Jude weren’t the person whose arrival he’d been dreading but nor was he particularly welcome. ‘Satterthwaite. How are things going with the furore down in Grasmere? I seem to spend half of my time fending off the press. I have better things to do.’

  Jude bit back a smart remark. He himself hated dealing with the press but Groves, who enjoyed it, was always high risk. One day someone would notice, if they hadn’t already done so, that the best way to get your question answered was to find a good-looking woman to ask it. ‘I think we’re making some progress.’ Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but Groves wouldn’t accept I’ve got a suspicion as a justification for any action. What Jude really wanted was to search Cody’s cottage, but he didn’t have enough evidence to persuade a magistrate to grant him a warrant. ‘There’s something I’d like to do and I need you to submit the application to the Chief Constable for it.’

  Groves sat back. ‘Right. And that is?’

  ‘I’d like to get audio surveillance placed in the cottage where Cody Wilder and her brother are staying.’

  ‘I see.’ Groves allowed himself a moment of silence. ‘This is Dr Wilder who’s been the subject of numerous threats of physical violence and whose stay in Grasmere had caused us to spend a significant proportion of a limited budget looking out for her. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. But that was before three people died.’

  ‘Her researcher’s death was suicide. I do read the reports you people send me.’ Half a smile, half a sneer.

  ‘Right. Then you’ll know that she knew Cain Harper. The man who was murdered in the camp. She has no alibi for that time. You’ll know that she was the one who found Fi Styles and that she has no alibi for that time either.’

  Groves, at last, stirred himself to action, though not with any great enthusiasm. He flicked something up on his laptop and scowled at it. ‘No alibi doesn’t automatically mean—’

  ‘Dr Wilder told us that she didn’t know Cain Harper and she later admitted that was a lie. Maybe she lied about other things, too.’ Cody and Lynx, with so long a shared history, had two decades of potential secrets to share. ‘I have a witness who claims that he heard Harper threatening Dr Wilder. The threats were non-specific, other than that he said he had things he could tell the world about her. Now he’s dead.’

  For all his faults, Groves was a rapid processor of information and a man who came to a decision quickly. ‘And the journalist?’

  ‘Fi Styles was very keen to speak to Dr Wilder, who made certain that when an interview took place, she wasn’t alone. One of my officers sat in on it. I have a suspicion that the reason she was outside the cottage in Coffin Lane that early in the morning was that she was trying a second time to speak to her alone.’

  ‘But you’ve no evidence?’

  ‘Nothing that isn’t circumstantial, no. But as Dr Wilder has her brother staying with her and they’re very close, it’s possible that they’ll talk about it, and I’d very much like to know what she says.’

  Groves turned a heavy gold signet ring around on his little finger. ‘What could a New Age traveller and a young journalist possibly have in common? Have you established any link?’

  ‘Not yet. Except that we know the journalist had been down at the camp. I may be wrong, of course.’ Groves was always susceptible to a touch of humility. ‘But if nothing else, we may get enough to rule Dr Wilder out of the inquiry.’

  ‘It’s an unusual step, of course.’ Groves turned his big office chair around and looked out of the window, as if he could see twenty miles and through the mountains to assess Cody Wilder and the scene of two murders for himself. ‘But I grant you. It’s an unusual case.’ He spun back again. ‘Put together an outline application for me and I’ll see what I can do.’

  17

  ‘It looks like we have another visitor, honey. But this sure doesn’t look like one of your usual fancy men.’ Standing star
ing out into the grey morning, Brandon chuckled.

  In some irritation Cody joined him at the living room window, where the two of them stood twitching the net curtain like a pair of elderly spinsters. At the gate a grey-haired man in a grey overcoat over grey trousers, a grey canvas bag over his shoulder and only a pair of shiny black shoes to relieve the monotony, hesitated at the gate and strode up the path. ‘Oh, please. This is all I need.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘It’s Sebastian Mulholland. Someone else who knows too much.’ Brandon wouldn’t understand what she was talking about, but who cared? ‘What the hell is he doing here? He went back to St Andrews after the lecture.’ Cody’s nerves, over which she’d thought she had complete control, were betraying her just as everything else did. All her life she’d expected betrayal from every quarter at some stage, and only Brandon had ever shown her anything passing for fidelity, but it had come to something when she couldn’t trust herself. ‘You’d better let him in.’ Hope flared in her heart. Maybe he’d discovered something else in some dusty attic in Fife. Maybe there were more of Mary’s letters, exhumed from a long-lost archive. ‘No, I’ll do it.’ She swooped on the front door. ‘I know this will be good news. And about time too.’

  Brandon was looking suddenly and unusually anxious. ‘Just so long as this dude doesn’t try and take a pop at you too.’

  A month before – even a week before – she’d have laughed that remark off as the joke she knew it to be, but nerves still troubled her after another bad night. ‘No, he won’t. That’s one thing I can be sure of.’ Like Owen, Seb lacked the balls for that kind of confrontation.

  ‘Then we’ll roll out the red carpet for him. Or I’ll put the kettle on. Guess when I get home I can tell guys I’ve been working as your butler.’

  She wished Brandon wouldn’t keep talking about going home. When he left, as she knew he must, she’d have to find some way to cope in the chill and isolated darkness, knowing that he wasn’t within shouting distance and if she needed help he wouldn’t be able to come to her aid. Maybe he’d stay a little longer, at least until the police investigation was complete. She wrenched open the door. ‘Seb. What brings you up here like a crow looking for carrion?’ She smiled.