Murderer in Shadow

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “Yes, sir.”

  “One more thing, Constable.”

  “Sir?”

  “I have not spoken to you; you have not contacted me.”

  “But, if I am asked...”

  “Any statement to the contrary would be a lie,” Heln said.

  She held silent, unsure what to say.

  “You do know where your loyalties reside, don’t you?”

  She hesitated. By the time she opened her mouth to reply, the link had been cut. With her words unsaid, she could not truly say what those words would have been. She stared at the dead mobile.

  Why, she wondered, had she let herself get mixed up with that queer little man? Because you are a fool, she told herself.

  It had all seemed so grand at first, becoming resident constable so she could help people, so everyone would look up to her as they had PC Dorry. She had forgotten there was a world beyond her little village, rife with complexities alien to her.

  “Well, I didn’t think they would choose you, girl, but they did,” Albert Dorry had said when the news came down. “You’ll have an uphill row to hoe, people being how they are, but better you than the strappers who applied. A village is better looked after by one of its own than some foreigner who ain’t been here five minutes. I’ll do what I can for you, young Hilly, but it’s your patch now, not mine.”

  “I’ll need all the help I can get,” she said, uttering a small self-deprecating chuckle. “If nothing else, there’s always Stafford.”

  She still recalled the look he gave her, eyes narrowed to slits beneath eyebrows like snowdrifts. She felt intimidated by his steady gaze, but tried not to show it.

  “Be wary what kelp you ask for and where help comes from, girl,” he said. “Here, people ain’t often what they appear, but in Stafford and beyond everyone wears a mask. There, you’ll find plots within plots, wheels within wheels so complex as to confound old Ezekiel by the River Chebar. Get sucked into such schemes that got nothing to do with the village, and you might never get out.”

  “I’ll be careful.” She remembered her confident tone and the look it had elicited. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Mind you keep a watchful eye on Knight’s Crossing,” the old man had said. “There’s evil enough here, black hearts and darker magic, without you going off to find it elsewhere.”

  She had heard Old Albert’s words of warning, but she had not truly listened. Had she, her head might not have been turned by the superintendent’s suggestions of better things ahead. Had she not let herself come under his influence, he might not have gotten involved in the case of a lost boy. Another string, she thought, tied to me good and tight, like a right proper puppet.

  Her personal radio squawked twice before she heard it.

  “This is Ware, go ahead.”

  “Franklin Knox here,” the tinny voice crackled. “We’ve run on a bit of a problem.”

  “I was just on my way to check on you,” she said. “Why didn’t you report in? What’s the problem, Mr Knox?”

  “The volunteers are threatening to scarper.”

  “What?” She fought back the words she wanted to unleash on the searchers. “They’re baulking?”

  “It’s the old Stryker place,” Knox said. “None of them will go near it.” He added, quickly: “I will, of course, but there is little I can do on my own.”

  “No, stay where you are; I don’t want anyone searching alone,” she said. “Your group doesn’t have many rooted villagers, none that are superstitious. What’s the problem?”

  “Stories,” Knox said. “Someone’s been telling tales.”

  “Are they still with you?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “That’s why I couldn’t answer your earlier call. I was trying to keep them from heading off. They’re sill here, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep them.”

  “I’m on my way.” She started the vehicle, gunned it off the verge and skidded back onto the road. “Keep them there. Tell them, anyone leaves, I’ll arrest them.”

  * * *

  Stark concentrated on the scenery, on making the correct turn off the river road, on anything but the silence that had settled since departing the Constabulary in Stafford. He wanted to ask Ravyn about the ACC, but he feared doing so might prompt the guv’nor to query his meeting with Heln. So far, Ravyn had not asked what happened behind closed doors, and Stark preferred it that way.

  On the other hand, the silence was unsettling. Ravyn’s habit of sharing aspects of Hammershire’s odd history and odder inhabitants was now part of Stark’s routine. Also, he yearned for a diversion from his own worries. He chided himself, for he usually sought an escape from Ravyn’s sometimes pedantic discourses.

  “How is Aeronwy?” Ravyn asked, suddenly.

  Stark started at the question, though Ravyn, as usual, asked in the mildest of tones. The timing was odd, and the subject as well. The guv’nor, as a rule, avoided personal matters. Ravyn cherished his privacy, and, so, accorded others theirs.

  “As well as can be expected, sir,” Stark said. “I watch my step around her. A little emotional, now that she’s well along.”

  “She’s not alone, is she?”

  “No, sir,” Stark replied. “She’s still got therapy for…well, she hasn’t lapsed, but we decided to keep on. The visits seem to help.”

  Ravyn nodded. Months ago, Aeronwy Stark, depressed, angry and drunk, had deluged his mobile with texts and messages, an embarrassment to Stark. It put Ravyn in an awkward situation. Had it not been resolved by their desire to save their marriage, he would have been forced to take disciplinary measures. Ravyn did not know the details, nor did he want to.

  “She’s in a new mothers group and continuing to take part in the Watercolour Society,” Stark said. “She’s fitting in. Stafford is not London, but Hammershire is not quite the back of beyond she assumed it would be. You need not worry about a repeat of…”

  “I’m not concerned,” Ravyn said. “You vowed there would be no further problems. I place a great deal of trust in you, Stark.”

  Stark’s throat felt suddenly dry and constricted.

  “Her mum is threatening to visit, but Aeronwy doesn’t want that any more than do I.” He cursed his non sequitur response, but he could not hold back the words. “Leaving the farm, putting Wales behind her, was why she said yes so quick. I chased her till she caught me, you might say, sir. I told her, when the baby is born, we’ll have to visit her folks, no matter what we want because…”

  “Sergeant?”

  Stark snapped his mouth closed, then said: “Sir?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m fine.” He thought about Heln’s comment. “Fine.”

  Ravyn’s eyebrows lifted, but he said nothing.

  “I’m fine,” Stark repeated. “I’m always fine.”

  Ravyn slightly inclined his head toward Stark. “Did Heln say anything to upset you after I left the room?”

  “No, sir,” Stark said. “He spoke of old ways of policing versus new procedures. He thinks all Hammershire is behind the times.”

  “Yes, he often goes on about it.” Ravyn nodded absently. “He thinks we are all a bit slow. Especially me.”

  But, with you, it’s personal, isn’t it? Stark recalled what he was told by Dr Penworthy and the ACC. It’s all about Catherine Mary Victoria Heln, isn’t it? The long-dead Mrs Ravyn.

  “That’s what he wanted to talk to me about, sir, maybe bringing a new perspective,” Stark said. “New ways. From the Met.”

  “I see.” After a long moment, Ravyn said: “From experience, I know that Mr Heln expects what he says behind closed doors to stay behind closed doors. I respect that.”

  Stark nodded.

  “However, his actions, his ‘games,’ so to speak, must not affect your job,” Ravyn said. “I depend upon you too much to tolerate it.”

  Again, Stark nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  “You are not the first to have a �
�private discussion’ with Heln,” Ravyn said. “I do not expect you to break any confidences or renege on your word, but I do trust you to draw upon your experience and wisdom to follow the right path.”

  Stark lowered his gaze, shook his head and sighed. “Never been accused of being wise, sir. Quite the opposite, usually.”

  “Wisdom is often found in folly.”

  Stark frowned.

  “Horace.”

  “One of the old Greek philosophers, wasn’t he?”

  “Roman,” Ravyn said. “Poet.”

  “Oh, that Horace.”

  Ravyn felt some tension easing in his sergeant’s bearing, in his voice. Humour and sarcasm often served as twin shields for Stark. It was, he knew, a common defence mechanism for many.

  “I take it, you know Heln has cornered me before?” Cautiously.

  “Yes.”

  “Yet, you didn’t say anything.”

  “Not my place to.” When Stark did not respond, Ravyn said: “I am your superior, but we’re also partners in crime, so to speak. I’ve trusted you with information I’ve not shared with many others.”

  “And I’ve not betrayed anything.”

  “That I believe wholly.” Then he added: “For which I have been called a fool.”

  Stark thought back to what he had seen when leaving Heln’s office. “By the ACC?”

  “And Dr Penworthy.”

  “I know both of them are close to you, sir,” Stark said. “I know the ACC is where she is because you got her started in CID.”

  “That’s a bit much.”

  “And, Dr Penworthy, I know…” He faltered. “Well, I’ve heard that the two of you…I mean…good friends and all…”

  Ravyn smiled. “You should believe less than half of what you ‘know,’ and almost nothing of what you hear.”

  “The point is, you’ve only known me a few months,” Stark said, a little testy. It was a strain, trying to speak without tumbling into a full confession. “I’ve every reason to trust you, but not you me.”

  “You underestimate yourself, Stark,” Ravyn said. “As I’ve told you often, probably too often for your liking, you must look beyond what people want you to see, to understand their true natures. I feel I understand what makes you tick…in general.”

  “You do go on about human nature, sir,” Stark said. “A lot.”

  “Only because what we see is a mask that hides the inner nature you are not meant to see,” Ravyn explained. “It is where we find the reality that makes them who they are, a nature they themselves may not understand. What people project is as much an illusion as the shadows on the walls of Plato’s Cave.”

  Stark smothered a sigh, but did roll his eyes.

  “It is a world allegory,” Ravyn continued, ignoring the eye-roll. “Prisoners in a cave face a wall. Light comes from behind. All they know of reality is the shadow-play on the wall. They can interpret the shadows, but cannot truly know their forms and meanings.”

  “Why don’t they just turn around, sir?”

  “That kind of thinking that will help you in Knight’s Crossing,” Ravyn said. “Keep yourself grounded. It’s that kind of place.”

  “Sir?”

  “Speaking of Knight’s Crossing, I had better contact PC Ware.” He opened his mobile. “After fifty years of Old Albert, the villagers will not make it easy for her. Hopefully, we can help.”

  * * *

  “I tell you, Constable, I don’t know what got into these silly prats.” Franklin Knox shook his head in disgust. “We were moving through the area just fine, beating the brush, so to speak, checking every little hidey-hole. Then we caught sight of the old fence-line, or what’s left of it…”

  “The Stryker Farm…”

  “That’s right.” Knox, wiry and in his late fifties, nodded. “As soon as they saw that, a few held up, then all of them. Before I knew it, I was on that dirt path by my lonesome, the rest hanging back like a flock of frightened sheep.”

  Ware glanced up a path that ran from the dirt road to a gap in a tumbled-down fence. The top edge of the abandoned farmhouse’s roof was visible beyond. She looked down the track. A few of the searchers had cut, but Knox had managed to keep the rest from scarpering under threat of being pinched by Ware.

  “They shouldn’t know or care about the old stories.”

  Ware nodded. “That’s why I gave you strappers, mostly.”

  “Or blokes like me, not believing in magic or curses.”

  “I knew this would be a problem; that’s why I gave you them.”

  “I did what I could, Constable.”

  “I appreciate you keeping them together, Mr Knox, as much as you have. I’ll try to talk some sense to them.”

  “Good luck with that, Constable.”

  She started down the old track, glad to put Stryker Farm behind her. Unlike the newcomers, she had heard stories about the place all her life. As she lay in her crib, Gran had whispered in her tiny ears stories of magic and demons, stories about sorcerer Ezekiel Stryker and the doom that had befallen him and his hellfire brood. She knew that Knox must had heard the same stories in his long ago youth, but he seemed more amused by them than alarmed. Probably from his studies, she thought. Maybe.

  “Any idea what got them riled, Mr Knox?”

  He shook his head. “Not a blessed clue.”

  A few searchers met Ware’s gaze as she approached, but most looked away or examined their dusty boots. They seemed nervous, a few afraid, but all appeared as if they wished they had left with the most timid of the lot.

  “You all volunteered to search for Harold Drinkwater,” she said, hands on hips. “He’s lost and must be found before nightfall. We must look everywhere for the lad. Everywhere means everywhere.”

  “He wouldn’t go up there,” said a man in the back.

  “No one would,” added another.

  Still another: “No one does.”

  “You should all think back to what you were like as boys.” She paused. “Before you grew into such timid old women.” A few of the men bristled at the description, but not a majority of them. “I’m sure there is not a one of you who wouldn’t have turned three times in the barn, calling Wizard Ezekiel’s name.” A few older villagers smiled, remembering the rite of passage, and a few more when she said: “Or walked through the farmhouse at the dark of the moon.”

  The number of kids who actually carried out the dares of the older children was, Ware knew, far less than those who claimed to have done so. But perhaps, she thought, young Harold Drinkwater was more like her than the men nodding before her.

  “Let’s put aside this foolishness.” Ware made her tone jocular, and shared a comradely smile that told the men she did not think them fools after all. Perhaps not even cowards. “Come on.”

  She started up the road toward the path to Stryker Farm. She did not look back. Knox, surprised by her sudden move, ran to catch up. The others, galvanized by an involuntary reaction, came after.

  “They’re all coming, it seems,” Knox said.

  “No man wants to be thought a coward.”

  “Not by a woman.”

  “By anyone.” Ware saw Knox’s expression. “Well, especially not by a woman.”

  “Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.”

  Her mobile chimed. She saw the caller’s name. “Bugger.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Constable Ware.” She listened a moment. “Yes, sir. No, we’ve not found the lad yet. Several search parties, sir. Yes, I’m with one of them now. You’re where, sir? Yes, I’ll meet you in the car park. No, no trouble at all, sir. I’ll get them started, then head back to the village. See you there, sir.”

  She returned the mobile to her pocket.

  “Bugger.”

  “Something wrong, Constable?”

  “Two detectives coming from the Stafford Constabulary.”

  “That’s a good thing.” He arched his eyebrows. “Isn’t it?”

  “Look
, Mr Knox, I have to go meet them.” She looked back at their reluctant followers. “Do you think you could shepherd them through the Stryker place?”

  Knox rubbed his chin. “Couldn’t before. Don’t think I can now. Our long-time friends are thinking Mum and Gran might have been right about wizards and wraiths, and the strappers are thinking maybe the locals aren’t as daft as they thought. Without you to put the fear of God in them, they might scarper for good.”

  “Me?”

  “Well, maybe they’re afraid you’ll grass them to Old Albert.”

  She wondered if she would ever command the same respect as did Albert Dorry. “Listen. Take them out past the farmhold, then north through the scrub and marsh. Have them sweep in a great arc that brings them to the northern limits of the place.”

  “Near the Worship Oak?”

  She nodded. “Between the tree and Braikey Pond. By the time you reach the old fence, I’ll be back.”

  “With two big city detectives to sort it out for us bumpkins?”

  “I’ll meet you there.” She liked Knox, but was in no mood for levity. “If I’m not there, wait.”

  “Once we round back they’ll be boxed in: marsh west and north, demon-haunted pond east, cursed land betwixt them and the road.” He smiled. “They will search Stryker Farm, if only to escape it.”

  When Ware told the searchers the change in plan, they were so glad at skipping Stryker Farm not a one of them gave any thought to where Knox’s leadership would land them. Ware jogged back to where she had left her vehicle.

  Big city detectives, Knox had said, come to sort out everything for the ignorant locals. If only that was all there was to it. Heart icy and settled in her stomach, she gunned the engine, sent twin plumes of dirt geysering, and headed back to Knight’s Crossing.

  * * *

  “I know it exists, seen it on the county map, but I don’t know anything about it,” Stark said. “Just another village.”

  “Aren’t you curious at all about it?”

  “Not very, sir. Everybody of any consequence has lived there at least a thousand generations, newcomers aren’t trusted because they haven’t been there five minutes, and more than half the villagers will think my name is Sergeant Strapper.” He looked to Ravyn. “Did I miss anything, sir?”