‘Okay. Will you remind her that we never got around to having that meal we talked about? Tell her the offer’s still open.’
Chapter 7: The Letter
Late Tuesday Morning
The contents of the package had all been dusted for fingerprints and carefully swiped for DNA testing. Now Sophie could go through them.
She was mildly disappointed. There was a lot less than she’d hoped for, and she wondered if the items would add anything to their knowledge. The old-fashioned library ticket was interesting. The dark blue card was made out in the name of Paul Prentice and contained two book slips. The first was for a book entitled Religious Cults: A Modern Scourge? The second was for The Commune in the Hills. She looked closely at the card. It seemed almost homemade. Hadn’t libraries computerised their issue records several decades ago? It was almost as if this card was a copy of an official library record. She picked up an old photograph, curled at the corners. It showed a young couple with their backs against a tree, arms around each other. Sophie looked at it closely. Could the young man have been their victim, Paul Prentice? It was difficult to say because the photo had deteriorated with age and use. It would need further examination with a magnifying glass. A second photo lay beside it. Another outdoor shot, it showed two men smiling at the camera. Neither of the men looked like Prentice, but it was difficult to be sure. She turned it over. A few faint words could be seen written in pencil on the back, but they were almost impossible to decipher. Could they be names?
Next, a handwritten letter taking up two sheets of paper. The writing was small, spidery and badly faded, making it difficult to read, but it started with the words Dear Paul. It looked as though it might be a love letter, but it was difficult to make out the faded wording. It ended with a simple but plaintive message: I will always love you, Katie.
The next-to-last item was a recent bus timetable for the Taunton and Bridgwater area of Somerset. Beside it lay a bus ticket, which had been found tucked between the pages.
‘Everything’s been photographed or scanned,’ Dave Nash said, anticipating her next question. ‘You’ll find all the images waiting for you in an email attachment. The letter will be easier to read on a backlit pad or screen.’
Sophie nodded and turned her attention back to the bus timetable for west Somerset — last year’s.
‘Why would he keep something like this?’ she mused. ‘Wouldn’t you replace it with this year’s?’ She looked more closely at the towns covered: Bridgwater, Taunton and the small towns in the area around the Quantock Hills. ‘Unless, of course, it has a significance beyond the mere bus times. Nothing else?’
The forensic chief shook his head. ‘That’s your lot, Sophie. Nothing’s yet shown up on the fingerprint check, and any DNA matches should be with us by early next week. Don’t hold your breath, though. The team who did the check didn’t think there was anything to find.’
‘These faint words on the back of the photo, Dave. Is there anything you can do to make them legible? If they’re names, that would be a massive boost to the investigation. Can you do what you can? And with this letter?’
He gave her one of his spine-tingling smiles. ‘Anything for you, Sophie.’
*
My darling Paul,
I’m writing this in the odd spare minute when I am alone in my room. I’m trying to keep it secret. You can guess why! God knows how I’m going to manage to post it without arousing suspicion. Maybe the woman who comes to collect the craft stuff from us to sell in her shop could post it for me.
Timothy is getting worse. He was bad enough before, but your leaving has made him paranoid. He wants to introduce a new ethos in our group. I don’t comment on any of this, so I think he wonders what my views are. I feel isolated. I sometimes feel I’m being watched everywhere I go.
One of the children was ill last week but Timothy wouldn’t get a doctor. He insisted that we rely on our so-called medical expert, but she’s not even a qualified pharmacist, just an assistant in a chemist’s shop. Luckily the child recovered but it makes me wonder what he’ll do if someone gets seriously unwell. Surely we’d have to get a doctor in then? How has it all gone so wrong? I keep thinking back to the summer before last, when we were setting the place up and everything was so perfect. We all believed what he said, that the right spirit would see us through. Even you believed it, didn’t you? So when did it all start going wrong? I don’t know. Maybe you’ve had time to think things through now you are out of it. Maybe it was always going to end this way.
I don’t know what he’s going to do next. He had a go at me again yesterday, saying that I was having negative thoughts. I was afraid that he could read my mind, but I tried to stay calm, just like you said, and didn’t reply. He was looking for a commitment from me, but I refused to give it. I wonder if that made him even angrier. He could always browbeat me in an argument and leave me feeling down. But with me staying silent he couldn’t do that. And he seems to be even more reliant on that twisted viper, Trent Baker, who’s wormed himself into a position of power.
They both really hate you, I suspect. If you do come back for me, you must take care. They could resort to violence. Are you planning something? I hope so with all my heart. I can’t bear to be here much longer without you. But you must plan it all carefully, my darling. How can I just walk away, with my responsibilities? I feel so trapped. But always remember: no matter what happens, I will love you forever after what you did for me when I needed your support.
I will always love you, Katie xxx
*
‘Well, what do you think?’ Sophie asked.
The three detectives sat in a darkened room, looking at the letter projected onto a screen in front of them.
Rae spoke first. ‘What physical state was the letter in, ma’am? That’s the one thing we can’t tell from the display. But it would help if we knew.’
‘Old, by the looks of it,’ Sophie said. ‘The paper was thin anyway, torn from the pages of a cheap notebook, and it hasn’t aged well. A sample of the paper is still away for analysis in the hope of getting an accurate date, but Dave Nash thinks it’s at least ten years old. What you’re looking at is an enhanced copy of the letter. The writing on the original is almost too faint to read.’
‘Could we be looking at a cult of some kind?’ Barry suggested. ‘The two library ticket stubs suggest so, and this adds weight, don’t you think? The mention of a group ethos, and then the leader-guy, Timothy, who’s clearly started to bully people and lay down the law about how they should behave. This Katie is clearly worried that Paul’s life is in danger. Now here we are, some ten years or so down the line, and Paul Prentice has been murdered. Could all of this be connected?’
‘What about the wording? Does it tell us anything about the writer, Katie, and her relationship with Paul?’ Sophie asked.
‘I’d guess they were lovers,’ Rae said. ‘He left for some reason but she’s still there at the time of writing the letter.’
Sophie thought for a moment. ‘That’s how it looks. But in that case, why didn’t they leave together? Wouldn’t most couples have done it that way? Why leave her behind?’
‘They could’ve had their reasons,’ Barry said. ‘Maybe she had more ties to the place than him. Maybe this Timothy guy was a relative of hers, like a brother or cousin. She mentions her responsibilities.’
‘What about the style of writing?’ Sophie asked. ‘Does that give us any clues about this Katie?’
Rae spread her hands. ‘Ma’am, you’re the expert there. I’m an engineer and Barry’s from a farming background. We’re still learning from you about behavioural stuff.’
Sophie sighed loudly. ‘Okay, point taken. It’s well written, so she’s well educated. Look at the language and the sentence structure. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was an arts graduate of some kind, or at least someone with an A level in English or history. The punctuation is near perfect, despite the letter probably being written under stress. She uses the wor
d darling at the start. To me, that implies a middle-class background, although I might be wrong there. She’s apparently in distress. Even so, she manages to keep her feelings sufficiently under control to write a letter as factually clear as this, yet carrying all the emotion you see in front of you. She’s one heck of a woman, in my opinion. Strong and usually in control. I wonder if she might have been the real threat to this Timothy character, and that’s why she felt she was being watched? It’s all conjecture, of course, but how does it sound so far?’
‘Can’t fault your reasoning, ma’am,’ Barry said. ‘I’ve been wondering why he kept this stuff all together. Maybe it was deliberate because he knew someone was likely to come after him at some point. He put it together and told Jade about the hiding place as a precaution. So if everything is linked, what could it mean? Some kind of commune maybe? It could have been somewhere in Somerset, if that bus timetable fits into the scheme. Somehow Prentice was involved with this Katie, and she was also important to this Timothy guy who might have been the leader. Do you think one of the men in the other photo might be Timothy?’
Sophie shrugged. ‘It’s possible, but that particular photo looks more recent than the other stuff. Though, if your theory is right, it must be connected somehow.’ She changed the image onscreen to the photo of the couple, then clicked over to the two men. ‘Is that Prentice in both? If it is, his age is different in the two shots. Ten years or more, don’t you think?’
Rae stared hard at the two images. ‘I’m not sure it is him. It looks a lot more than a ten-year difference to me. I know he was living rough and that would have altered him, but I’m not convinced. The other thing is, if he was in a relationship with that woman and something terrible happened to her, it would affect him, wouldn’t it? What if he didn’t manage to rescue her, something awful happened, and she died as a result? That would traumatise him, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that exactly the kind of thing that would cause someone to drop out of society and choose to live alone in the woods, just like he did? Jade told us that he drank heavily. If that had been going on for years, then he’d have aged really quickly. He might be younger than we think.’ She paused. ‘That younger guy, the one on the right, looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Kind of angelic. What do you think?’
Barry shook his head. ‘Hard to say.’
Sophie moved on to the library ticket. ‘What puzzles me is why this is in the bag at all. It’s not a real one. Is it some kind of clue, deliberately put in to tell us something? Why Taunton Library? Maybe you can follow that up, Barry. Get in touch with the library to see if they can help. Rae needs to be pursuing the commune or cult idea and trawling through any records that we have access to.’
She picked up the bus timetable. ‘This also mystifies me. Why is it here? It’s last year’s winter timetable, much more recent than any of the other items. Dave said there are some pen marks on a couple of pages, the timetables from Taunton to Bishops Lydeard and Nether Stowey.’
She opened the timetable at these pages. Each of the services had been circled in blue pen.
Rae said, ‘Do you think he might have travelled to those places?’
‘It’s a possibility. Jade said that he headed off to a hostel every winter, but what if this year he didn’t stay in Poole? What if he went to Taunton instead? Maybe we’ve been barking up the wrong tree by concentrating on the hostels in this area. Any other ideas, anyone?’
The other two shook their heads.
‘In that case, let’s get busy. Oh, and don’t forget tomorrow morning.’
Rae looked blank, so Barry reminded her. ‘It’s Lydia’s first day back at work. Remember? We’re all going to Bournemouth to welcome her. I hope Jimmy hasn’t forgotten. He’s meant to be buying the bubbly.’
‘I don’t think Kevin will have let him. He can be a bit like a mother hen at times like this,’ Sophie said, laughing. ‘I know he wants to keep this one low-key, though. She’ll be getting an official welcome back from the chief constable sometime next week, and we’ll probably be expected to be there for that, too. Why are you looking so preoccupied, Rae?’
Rae forced a smile. ‘Oh, no reason.’ In truth, she was thinking of a conversation she’d had with Lydia only a day or two before she was nearly killed by a psychotic criminal. The throwaway comment had left Rae with very mixed feelings about her.
Chapter 8: Belligerence and Bus Queues
Tuesday Evening
‘Do you fancy a week’s holiday down on the south coast, Tim? My sister has the chance of a cottage in Dorset for two weeks but can only make the first one, so it’s free the week after next. We can have it if we want, and it’s a good bit cheaper than they usually are. I know it’s less than two weeks away, but I could get the time off and your diary looks pretty clear.’
Judy Price, thirty-two years old and chocaholic, was slicing tomatoes for the salad that would accompany their evening meal of lasagne, currently cooking in the oven. The aroma was making Judy feel hungry, but she resisted the urge to nibble on a few nuts. It wouldn’t do to reveal too many of her bad eating habits to her partner this early in their relationship, especially this one. Tim Brotherton was proving rather more uptight than most of her previous boyfriends. She waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming. Had he even heard the offer? She tucked some stray locks of her chestnut hair behind her ear and turned to look at him. He was no longer in the room. He’d been there when she first started talking, she was sure of it. Maybe that was another aspect of his character, not liking things being sprung upon him out of the blue. Well, he’d have to get used to it. Judy liked spontaneity. She and Jen, her sister, had the same approach to life, of which the proposed holiday was a perfect example. Her sister’s friend had originally booked the cottage many months earlier at a discounted rate but had only recently found that she couldn’t make use of it. On hearing this, Jen had snapped up the chance of a holiday and paid for both weeks, then found that she couldn’t get the second week off work.
Judy frowned. She’d thought Tim would jump at the chance. He probably knew Dorset, having been on the south coast a couple of times recently on business. After all, hadn’t he brought her back some tasty treats as a trade-off for his absences? That Blue Vinny cheese was lovely stuff. And didn’t the area have some great pubs as well as the beaches? Come to think of it, he hadn’t actually said that he’d been in Dorset, but those cheeses were a bit of a giveaway. Why was he being moody?
‘Dinner ready in ten minutes,’ she called, and listened for a response. Should she assume that the faint grunt was an acknowledgement? There was no other sound, so she’d just have to go with it.
Judy and Tim had been together less than six months and were now living in her house, close to the centre of Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset. She was a senior ward sister in the large Weston General Hospital, and he was a graphic artist, specialising in book and magazine covers. His work took him all over the country, following up on contracts. Not only were their personalities different but their jobs were too. Hers was regular, with a reliable income, even if it was a relative pittance for the huge weight of responsibility it carried. His was erratic, with bouts of tense and frenetic activity counterbalanced by periods when he was short of work. But the relationship seemed to be working, in Judy’s opinion anyway. It was hard to pin Tim down on how he saw their future together. She had recently begun to wonder if he lacked commitment. If that was the case, she’d have to make some hard decisions, and soon. She was all too aware that the years were ticking by and she would have to start planning for babies. Was Tim the right person to be a father to her children? At first, she’d thought he was, but now she wasn’t so sure. If she brought the topic up, he’d do exactly what he’d done just now, slide quietly out of the room, leaving her talking into an empty space. They were the same age, so it couldn’t be that. Maybe he was afraid to commit. Added to all this, she still knew very little about his background. He listened attentively enough when she chattered about he
r own childhood and adolescence, but he never reciprocated by telling her about his own formative years. Nor had he mentioned his past relationships. There must have been some, surely? Was he hiding something?
She sensed his presence in the room again, so she turned and found him thumbing through a guidebook. It wasn’t for Dorset.
‘So, I take it you’re not keen on that idea?’
He looked up. ‘What?’
‘Going to the coast in a few weeks’ time? Even if it would help my sister pay the bill she’s landed herself with.’
Tim shook his head. ‘Fine, but not Dorset, not just now. I can’t explain why, but it’s just not possible for me to go there at the moment.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’
He came across and massaged her shoulders. ‘Look, don’t take it that way. It just holds some bad memories for me, things I haven’t processed fully yet.’
‘So where did the Dorset cheeses you brought back for me a couple of weeks ago come from then? Yorkshire? Come on, Tim. Don’t pretend you weren’t there.’
‘Just because I was there briefly doesn’t mean I enjoyed being there or want to go back. If you must know I hated every bloody minute of it.’ He sounded almost angry.
‘How can you dislike a place so much? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Memories. It reminds me of people that caused me pain, and I get tense and irritable, so I don’t want to be there unless I have to. Now, can we pick somewhere else to go?’ He handed her the guidebook. ‘How about the Channel Islands?’
She gave him a contemptuous look. ‘You’re seriously suggesting that we should go away the very week my sister has paid for a holiday, but not where she’s booked? Leaving her stuck with the bill for an empty cottage? Are you mad? This is my sister we’re talking about, the only close family member I have left. She’s done me hundreds of favours over the years and has never asked for anything in return. She’s been good to me, Tim, and I don’t intend to let her down. So I’m going. You can come or you can piss off somewhere else if you prefer. Honestly, I don’t understand your mind-set.’
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