by Jo Allen
‘Not over the Wordsworth letters.’ Chris spoke with certainty. ‘Aditi followed that one up for me, and as far as I can tell the only people who’ve suggested they aren’t genuine are people who dislike Cody Wilder intensely. Anyone who’s in any way impartial accepts them.’
‘Fi may not have known that.’ Doddsy took his turn. ‘My guess would be that she saw that as a way to make a name for herself and was still following it up. If she came up Coffin Lane to try and catch Cody by surprise – as she did to get the interview, if you remember – and bumped into her, then Cody may have lost her temper and hit her with whatever came to hand.’ He waved a hand at the photo of the stone. ‘As you say, the choice of weapon suggests opportunism. But even if the meeting was arranged it doesn’t mean the murder was premeditated.’
That hadn’t been the case with Lynx. ‘And down at the New Age camp? Lynx was murdered by someone who wanted something. That’s why they searched the place.’
‘If it was the letters, then it wasn’t Cody who did it.’ Doddsy, this time. ‘She had them. But she said she’d asked him about taking them.’
‘Raven and Storm told us Fi Styles had spoken to Lynx.’ Chris flicked back through a thick notepad. ‘What had he told her? We’ll never know, of course. But does that point to Cody after all?’
Most of the evidence did, but evidence often pointed to more than one possible culprit. It was a question of finding enough to prove one of them guilty. ‘Or her brother. He strikes me as hard as nails, and we haven’t really considered him.’ Not for the first time, Jude wished he had the benefit of Ashleigh to offer some insight into Cody’s or Brandon’s mindset. ‘But he has no reason to kill Lynx that I’m aware of.’
Chris ran a hand through his hair. ‘Maybe he thought he was protecting his sister. He’s that he-man type, isn’t he?’
‘I’d say she can look after herself. He claims to have been asleep in his bed when she found Fi Styles and she confirms that. She says she saw his bedroom light go on. And Fi was very recently dead. But who else would kill Lynx?’
Chris’s face set in a stubborn line. ‘I know who I think did it. You don’t need to look any further than those Flat Earthers.’
Doddsy, forgetting himself, waved an amused hand in the constable’s direction. ‘Chris, those guys have had a dozen accusations levelled at them in the past year, and they’ve never been proven to have done anything wrong.’
‘They lied to the police.’
In Chris’s eyes, that was almost the ultimate sin. Once more, Jude allowed himself to see the hippies through their own eyes rather than through the eyes of others. ‘Their philosophy is to do no harm.’
‘Except for lying to us, and stealing the murder weapon and concealing it. And all that nonsense she tried to sell Ashleigh over the tarot cards. We know what all that was about – pointing the finger at someone else. All that stuff about the non-existent stranger in the woods. It was a lie, and for my money that means we can’t afford to believe anything else they say.’
Storm and Raven had every reason to lie, thinking they’d never be believed if they told the truth, but if there were untold truths about their relationship with Lynx there was no apparent reason why either of them might choose to turn their vengeance on Fi Styles. ‘I want to know more about them. I’d like to know more about Lynx, too. How he came to be here and why. Is there any other reason why they might have something against him?’
‘I’ll get someone to go back to it.’ Chris made a note, though Jude knew he’d already covered every possible avenue.
Doddsy had ticked off the names on his list of suspects as Jude had gone through them until only the Gordons were left. ‘Next up. Graham and Eliza Gordon. They blame Cody’s attitude – they say Cody herself – for the death of her daughter. Cody clearly can’t be responsible, but that shows a twisted view of things.’
Twisted enough to allow them to try and wreak revenge on Cody for something she hadn’t done? ‘And they were the second people on the scene after the deaths of both Lynx and Fi. Coincidence?’ Everybody who worked with Jude knew he didn’t believe in coincidence.
‘I can see that they might have had a swipe at Fi Styles thinking she was Cody,’ said Doddsy, thoughtfully. ‘But I think they’d have admitted it. Guilt if they hadn’t meant to, triumphant if they did. And why kill Lynx? You’d hardly mistake him for Cody. And don’t forget. When Lynx was killed the Gordons were out walking their dog at the other end of the village, and we have a witness who spoke to them.’
‘No, that’s fair enough.’
‘We’re clear that we think Owen killed himself, aren’t we?’ Chris stole a guilty look at the incident board, from where Owen’s poet’s face looked down on them.
‘Yes.’ Still nominally in charge of this part of the investigation, Doddsy frowned. His tone showed that there was one thing, at least, about which he had no doubt.
And yet, Jude reflected with a sigh, there was something so convenient about Owen’s suicide, so neat. He’d spoken to Fi. Who else had he spoken to and what had they said? Or was it possible that they were dealing with three separate causes of death — that Owen’s suicide had been followed by Cody killing Lynx for reasons of her own, and that Storm had killed Fi thinking she was Cody, and it was revenge for Lynx’s death?
It was possible, but whether it was believable was another matter entirely. ‘Okay. We’ll leave it there and see what else we can find out.’
*
‘How are you getting on, Tyrone?’ Inside the cafe, Ashleigh was running through the questionnaires the door-to-door officers had returned to her, looking for any detail that might shed some light on the mystery of two violent murders. No one had seen anything. That was what happened when you operated in the dark, in the winter, but nevertheless she’d hoped for some crumb of comfort.
‘Fine. Or not fine, from your point of view.’ He gave her his best smile, the one she’d noticed him bestowing freely on Doddsy, and slipped another sheaf of paper onto the table in front of her. Barely six months into his probation period, he was already organising officers who’d been in the force for years. Some of them wouldn’t like it. ‘This is the lot from the team up along Easedale Road. Apart from the Gordons, nobody was out along Red Bank Road yesterday morning and nobody saw anything suspicious in the village.’
She sighed, glancing at her watch. It was nearly lunchtime. ‘You’d better take a break, then. How many more places do you have to cover?’
‘I’ll find out and get back to you.’ He turned and headed back towards the door.
She watched him go, deep in thought. On the pavement outside, a man in early-middle age was stumbling along the pavement as if he were drunk. Her attention caught, Ashleigh looked more closely, even as Tyrone closed in on the man. There was something familiar about the grey hair and the glasses.
Of course. She knew him from the press coverage of Cody Wilder’s lecture. He’d been the master of ceremonies, the man who’d discovered Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal in a box of old books in St Andrews. There had been a photo of him in an article, sitting behind Cody as she stood at the lectern.
Strange. She thought he’d left Grasmere as soon as the lecture was over.
The man lurched forwards. Tyrone caught him by the arm and, holding him up, looked to the cafe for help. Seeing panic in the constable’s face, she sprang across to open the door. ‘Tyrone. What’s happened?’
‘This gentleman isn’t well.’
Holding the door open with her foot, Ashleigh grabbed the man’s other arm. Sebastian Mulholland. That was his name. His skin had faded to grey and his body was shaking. ‘Let’s get him inside.’
Graham Gordon, once again on the spot, leapt to the rescue. ‘Is he ill? Shall I call an ambulance?’
‘Yes.’ And almost before they were inside the cafe, Sebastian Mulholland’s legs gave way beneath him. Between them, Ashleigh and Tyrone lowered him to the floor where he twitched and lay still.
18
>
‘Dead by the time the ambulance got here.’ Ashleigh was walking up Coffin Lane at Jude’s side while behind them Grasmere went once more through the motions of dealing with a major incident – the sirens, the police cars, the blue tape. ‘We gave him CPR, but there was nothing we could do.’ She shivered. ‘I could feel him slipping away. It was awful.’
‘The post-mortem report will be interesting on this one.’ Jude’s expression was grim. It might be natural causes or it might, at a stretch, be accidental death but both Ashleigh and Tyrone had been struck by how quickly the man had been taken ill. ‘Sebastian Mulholland. Another contact of Cody Wilder’s.’ That was why he’d targeted so many resources on what would normally have been treated as routine.
‘Yes. Either she’s completely lost the plot and is killing everyone around her, or someone’s completely incompetent when it comes to killing her.’
Neither of these options presented a particularly comforting option, nor offered any prospect of an easy solution. ‘I wish I could lock the woman up, either for her own safety or for everyone else’s, but she doesn’t seem to care.’
‘Do you think she did it?’
Gravel crunched underfoot as they headed up Coffin Lane and mist wreathed around the shoulder of Silver How above them. ‘Do you?’
She hesitated. ‘No.’
‘Any reason?’
They were almost at the cottage, just at the spot where Fi had met her brutal and untimely end, and they paused there. Overnight rain had sluiced away the last of her blood. ‘She’s scared and she’s nervous.’
‘Not that scared and nervous.’
‘Oh, but she is. Can’t you see? She’ll always come out fighting but she’s scared. She’s always looking over your shoulder when you’re talking, as if she’s afraid of something.’
‘You need to ask the tarot cards.’ He was rewarded by her smile, the recognition that it was a joke.
She dug him in the ribs. ‘It isn’t the cards I asked about this. It was my own eyes. It’s obvious.’
Jude was sceptical but not closed-minded and her hobby amused him more now that it had done when he first came across it. Now at least, he was beginning to grasp that she didn’t let it guide her. ‘I’ve been reading up. Cody would make a fine High Priestess.’
‘Ha!’ She shook her head at him. ‘I’ll make a fortune teller of you yet.’
‘I prefer to keep to scientific evidence.’ Ashleigh had begun to shuffle her way up to the cottage but he stayed put. ‘I disagree with you on Cody. I think she’s the clear main suspect.’
‘But there’s no evidence.’
‘Not yet. This isn’t public, but I’ve asked the boss to authorise audio monitoring of the Wilders’ cottage, and he’s agreed. Because I think that’s going to be the most likely source of information.’
‘Is it set up yet?’
‘Who knows?’ He shrugged. Once the request had been authorised, it would be the last he’d hear of it until the recordings had made their way back to Groves and he’d decided whether the information within them was worth acting on. ‘Those intelligence guys don’t keep us foot soldiers in the loop.’
‘You’re so snooty about them,’ she said, affectionately. ‘You talk about them just the way the uniformed lot talk about us.’
He was smiling as they moved on again, past the spot that Fi’s ghost might one day haunt and up the path. Cody arrived on the doorstep just as they arrived, tucking the ends of her scarf down into her jacket against the brave breeze and flicking her ponytail free of the collar. ‘You again, Chief Inspector? You don’t seem able to keep away from here. And I see there’s another furore down in the village. Is our mad knifeman about his dastardly work again?’
‘It may not be significant.’ Cody was the one who always seemed to seek drama, and there was nothing Jude could do to tone down the blue lights and the increased police presence. ‘Unfortunately, a gentleman was taken ill down in the village and an ambulance was called.’
‘Oh, I see. And every time a sparrow falls from a tree you feel the need to come up and make sure I’m all right? You people do like a bit of drama, don’t you? I’d have thought you have better things to spend taxpayers’ money on.’ She turned back to the door and called in. ‘Brandon! Where are you?’
‘I wouldn’t normally bother you, but as the person taken ill is someone you know, I thought I’d better check on you. And now I know you’re well and safe, I’d like a word with you.’
‘Someone I know?’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Who is it this time? One of those lunatics in the cafe who think I’m to blame for their flabby parenting?’
‘No. It’s Sebastian Mulholland. And I’m sorry to say he’s dead.’
That stopped her. She swung back to face him, squinting into the low winter sun. ‘Seb? That’s impossible. He was here earlier this morning and he was perfectly fine. Brandon and I were just going down to the village to meet him. He has some letters for me.’
‘May we come in?’
She stepped back in, already unbuttoning her coat. As it seemed he always did, Brandon materialised behind her in the hallway, fastened up in a heavy-duty fleece that was too thick even for a Cumbrian winter. ‘The police are back. It’s Seb. He’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ His face was a mask painted in appropriate measures with shock and respect. ‘But that’s impossible. He—’
‘I’m sorry. He collapsed in the village and the paramedics declared him dead, despite Sergeant O’Halloran’s attempts to save him.’
‘I’m most grateful to you.’ Cody almost snapped at Ashleigh and her voice shook in fury, Jude thought, rather than shock. ‘I can’t believe that happened. He had some letters. I was going to buy them.’
‘I think this is a little more important than letters, don’t you?’
She paused for a moment, then raised her eyes to challenge him. ‘Of course. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m like a rattlesnake. If you poke me with a stick, I’ll bite. And now, of course, you want to ask me the same old questions and I’ll give you the same old answers. Because I’m not stupid. You think the death is suspicious, or you wouldn’t be here.’
‘We treat every death as suspicious until it’s proved otherwise.’ That was what they drummed into you. If in doubt, think murder. ‘You say you were about to go and see him, and that he’d been to see you. That’s what I’d like you to talk me through.’
He could never read Cody Wilder. She always gave the impression that what she presented – bold and brash, like a child’s painting in gashes of primary colours – was simple and straightforward. That might be what she wanted him to believe, even what she herself wanted to believe, but the glimpse she’d given him into her soul when she’d talked about her father hinted at something much more complex. Even someone as smart as she unquestionably was could almost reach her forties and still be in denial about what made her tick.
‘Come and sit down.’ She turned, smartly, and marched into the living room.
Following her, Jude tried not to look too obviously to see where someone might have stowed a listening device, but there was nothing. He’d have to take it on trust that the intelligence team were as smart and efficient as they liked to think they were. ‘Mr Wilder. Perhaps you’d join us.’
‘Sure.’ They sat in the living room and this time neither Cody nor Brandon moved to offer coffee.
‘Let’s get this done, shall we?’ Cody tossed her head at them. ‘Seb appeared at the door this morning at about ten o’clock. There, Chief Inspector. I’m getting good at statements now, aren’t I? We invited him in and Brandon made tea. Seb was on his way to London, though he didn’t say what for and I didn’t ask. He’d come with a proposition for me.’
She had her hands flat on her lap and the tips of her fingers whitened as she pressed down. ‘And?’ Jude prompted, as she seemed hesitant to continue.
‘He’d found what he thought were letters from Dorothy Wordsworth to her sister-in-law, and he offered
to sell them to me. The price he was asking was high, but the documents obviously have a significant value, especially within the context of my work.’
‘How much was he asking?’
Another fractional pause. ‘Fifty thousand pounds. For half a dozen letters.’
Jude whistled.
‘Exactly.’ She shot him a hard look. ‘I asked for proof and he gave me one letter to look at. I told him I’d think about it and that if he gave me an hour or two, I’d make a decision. After that, he left.’
‘And he left you the letter.’
‘Yes.’ She got up and crossed to the desk, unlocking the drawer and taking out the folded sheet, carefully nurtured between two pieces of paper. ‘You’ll likely want to take it.’ Her voice quivered with doubt.
The paper was frail, so much so that even Jude, so accustomed to handling artefacts with the utmost care, was terrified of damaging it. He handed it to Ashleigh who, with equal care, sealed it into an evidence bag as if it were dynamite. ‘Yes.’
‘Will I get it back?’ She was regarding him with the anxiety of a parent with a sick child. ‘He gave me the letter. I was going to go down and offer to negotiate over the price, but if he hadn’t budged, I would have paid him what he asked.’
‘Yes, if you can prove he gave it to you.’
‘I can vouch for that,’ chimed in Brandon. ‘And everything else my sister has said.’
‘You made him tea, Dr Wilder said.’ Jude turned his attention away from his fascinated contemplation of Ashleigh as she labelled the bag containing the promise of Cody’s heart’s desire. ‘Anything else? Biscuits?’
‘Chocolates,’ Cody turned a cold eye on him. ‘So maybe someone’s trying to poison me. You didn’t do much to prevent that, did you?’
What was he supposed to do? Personally taste every morsel of food before she ate it? Disbelieving Cody’s profession of victimhood, Jude was still getting his breath back at such effrontery when Ashleigh, looking up from the bag, took over. ‘Where did the chocolates come from?’