Dead on Dartmoor

by Stephanie Austin

  ‘No! I told you, there wasn’t any grandson, just the girl.’

  I gave up after a couple more minutes, still unable to sort out the Knollys’ family tree.

  Fortunately, there were other people I could ask, and I’d be seeing them that afternoon.

  Jamie Westershall was waiting in Old Nick’s when I popped in at lunchtime, standing behind Sophie, admiring the progress of her portrait of the Old Thunderer, whose magnificent head was emerging from the white background of the thick watercolour paper like a ghost through the mist: his staring dark eye, the moist pinkness of his nose. His horns and curls were as yet unpainted, just faint strokes of Sophie’s pencil, the background of field and woods a hazy wash of green.

  There was something almost proprietorial about the way he was leaning over Sophie’s shoulder, as she sat smiling up at him. But Sophie brings out the protective instinct in men.

  I don’t seem to have the same effect, possibly because I’m tall enough to look most of ’em in the eye and spit in it if necessary. They both looked up as I came in, spell broken.

  ‘Ah, the gorgeous Juno!’ Jamie came swiftly forward to give me a hug. ‘Just wanted to see how you girls were after that terrible business the other day.’ He sighed. ‘Of course, I blame myself,’ he added sadly.

  ‘Why on earth should you?’ It was looking more and more as if the only person to blame for what had happened was Gavin himself.

  ‘I wanted to get the whole wood fenced off years ago, when we first discovered there were rare bats in the old mineshaft, but there was a lot of fuss from local ramblers about the right of way through the woods being kept open. In the end we came to a compromise, just fenced off part of it, but now I wish I’d stuck to my guns.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Jamie,’ Sophie assured him solemnly. She gave him a long-lashed blink, her dark eyes turned on him, full beam.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ I added. ‘Gavin shouldn’t have been messing about with a lethal weapon. The police seem convinced it was an accident.’

  ‘Of course it was an accident!’ Jamie’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘What else could it have been? But listen, that’s only part of the reason I came. I’m hoping that you haven’t been put off Moorworthy House altogether. As you know, this portrait is a present for Sandy’s birthday. Quite a big birthday, the old devil is seventy this year and we’re throwing a party. I was hoping that you, Sophie, as the artist, would come along. And you too, Juno, of course.’

  Sophie glanced at me, taken aback and uncertain. ‘That’s wonderful, thank you,’ I put in hastily, before her little mouth had a chance to open. I knew she was reluctant to go back there again, but I didn’t want her to blow my chances of taking another look around.

  ‘We’ll both be delighted. This could be very good for business, Soph,’ I added. ‘You might pick up another commission.’

  ‘Just what I thought,’ Jamie agreed. ‘So you’ll come? It’s the 29th of October.’

  ‘We’ll be there,’ I promised.

  ‘Excellent.’ He strode to the shop door.

  ‘By the way,’ I called out to him, ‘I saw Mr Moss at the fete. I tried to thank him for getting my van taken to the garage, but he didn’t give me the chance.’

  ‘Moss?’ he laughed. ‘He’s a bit of an oddball. He’s worked on the estate for years. Believe me, he wouldn’t bother about being thanked, especially by a young lady. He’d be covered in embarrassment, I expect. He barely ever speaks. Anyway,’ he looked at his watch, ‘must dash. Oh,’ he paused as he opened the door, ‘nearly forgot to say, this party is fancy dress.’

  ‘Any particular theme?’

  ‘Oh, hell, now, what is it? Emma thought it up.’ Jamie frowned, drumming his fingers on the edge of the door. ‘I know!’ He snapped them, remembering. ‘Legends of the Silver Screen. That won’t cause any problems, will it?’

  ‘None at all,’ I told him, as Sophie grinned at me. ‘That’s absolutely perfect.’

  Autumn had really arrived. In the distant woods bronze had mellowed to gold, acorns were dropping, rusty flakes of leaves falling on pavements; there was smell of woodsmoke, and any gust of wind was likely to bring down a painful shower of conkers, still in their spiky green jackets. But mostly what alerted me to the changing season was the increasingly chilly air blasting through my bathroom window. I called in at Sunflowers, when I came away from Old Nick’s, to speak to Adam, my landlord. I could see his bearded figure through the window as I crossed the road. He spotted me and tried to hide behind the counter.

  As the cafe was empty, I felt I could be direct. ‘I’ve got just two words to say to you, Adam,’ I told him as he lurked beardily behind the cake cabinet. ‘Bathroom window.’

  He held up his hands in apology. ‘I know, Juno, I’m sorry. I’ll get round to it.’

  I reminded him that I’d heard this before. ‘There’s a bloke who advertises repairing sash windows in the Ashburton magazine. Shall I just call him in and send you the bill?’

  ‘No, I’ll do it,’ he insisted. ‘I promise.’

  ‘This week?’

  He sighed, rubbing his face with weariness. ‘This week,’ he promised reluctantly.

  ‘Thank you.’ I turned to go but he stopped me.

  ‘Do me a favour,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘only Kate’s not here.’ He pointed to an empty table, where a copy of The Times lay open at the crossword page, a woman’s padded jacket slung over the back of the chair. ‘That customer went into the ladies’ loo a good half-hour ago. You wouldn’t pop in there, check she’s not been taken ill or something?’

  ‘Perhaps she’s wriggled out the back window,’ I told him, grinning. ‘Done a bunk, left you her jacket in lieu of payment.’

  ‘Well, brilliant! She only had a coffee.’

  I marched up to the ladies’, opening the door a little cautiously. Standing in the tiny space occupied by the basin was someone I recognised immediately. I’d only seen her once, at night in a dimly lit car park, but she’d been difficult to forget. In the light of day her face was even more striking, with large, shrewd grey eyes, high cheekbones and a thin, slightly prominent nose. Her hair turned out to be more blonde than grey, and she seemed to be in the process of putting it up, arms raised, a hairpin pressed between her lips. On the edge of the basin was a washbag with a toothbrush sticking out of it, a pink towel, and a smaller zipped bag that I guessed contained make-up. There was a smell of expensive perfume.

  ‘Excuse me.’ I pretended I wanted the toilet and wriggled past her. She smiled pleasantly as I closed the door, but if she recognised me, she didn’t reveal it. As I slid the bolt, I could hear her hastily zipping up her washbag, gathering up her things. I decided I might as well use the loo after all, and by the time I came out, the mystery lady had gone. Back in the cafe, I found the padded jacket had been taken from the chair and Adam was picking up three pound coins that she had flung on the counter in payment for her coffee as she left.

  ‘She was all right, then?’ he asked me. ‘She certainly left in a hurry.’

  ‘She was just having a wash and brush-up.’ I frowned. I was willing to bet she’d left in a hurry because she had recognised me; she obviously didn’t wish to be engaged in conversation. Who cleans their teeth and does their hair and their make-up in the cramped space of a cafe toilet except someone who has no access to better facilities? Like someone sleeping in a car? The good leather handbag and the expensive perfume suggested someone with money. Was this elegant, respectable-looking woman really living rough? And why was she hanging around Ashburton? Curiouser and curiouser. I was intrigued.

  ‘I suppose you want a coffee now?’ Adam offered ungraciously.

  ‘Only if it’s free,’ I answered sunnily, ‘and there’s a raisin flapjack with it.’

  He muttered something inaudible as he turned to the coffee machine.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘So, we’ll be all right for costumes, then, me and Sophie, for this party?’

  �
��I expect we can find you a couple of old rags,’ Ricky muttered, his fag pursed between his lips as he sat at the breakfast-room table.

  ‘After the last hour I’ve spent up that rickety ladder, scouring your loft for a box of spats you were so convinced was up there, and turned out to be down in your spare bedroom, you’d better come up with something fabulous.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Juno,’ Morris passed me a cup of tea, ‘you leave it to us. You’ll be the belles of the ball.’

  ‘Damn right,’ I told him, helping myself to a biscuit.

  ‘No news on poor Gavin?’ he asked.

  I shook my head, mouth too busy with biscuit to respond.

  ‘The police must be satisfied it was an accident,’ Ricky said.

  ‘Well, there’s still the formality of the inquest, but yes, I suppose they are.’

  There were a few moments of thoughtful silence as we all sipped our tea and munched. Ricky’s fag lay untouched in the ashtray.

  ‘You don’t know someone called Creeping Ted Croaker, I suppose?’ I asked.

  They had never heard of him but there are circles not even Ricky and Morris mix in. Then, of course, I had to explain who he was.

  ‘You don’t think he was involved in Gavin’s death somehow?’

  ‘Difficult to see how,’ I admitted, ‘unless he knew Gavin was going to the fete and followed him into the woods. But Inspector Ford says Croaker is just a small-time drugs pusher, not a violent character.’

  Morris shook his head solemnly. ‘You can never tell, not when drugs are involved.’

  ‘It’s funny you going up to Moorworthy House again,’ Ricky said, ‘for this party. Maurice and I have been asked to do another concert there in a few weeks.’

  ‘You mentioned you’d done one there before.’

  ‘We’ve been there a couple of times,’ Morris put in, ‘fundraising events.’

  Ricky laughed mirthlessly. ‘They could do with a few funds themselves. That place is falling apart. It’s got dry rot, needs a new roof. I remember the old man telling me.’

  ‘Jamie’s uncle?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘Very strapped for cash, they are.’

  ‘They don’t behave like it.’

  ‘That’s your landed gentry for you,’ he said, picking up his cigarette, ‘fur coat and no knickers. They gave us a grand tour of the house once, didn’t they, Maurice? It’s all very lovely on the ground floor, but the further up you go, the shabbier it gets.’

  Morris was nodding. ‘They’ve got a real damp problem, the ceiling in one bedroom was grey with mould.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about mouldy ceilings, you should see the state of my kitchen.’ Another thing I had to tackle Adam about. Stoically I resisted taking a second biscuit from the packet Morris was waving about under my nose. ‘I wanted to ask you something. I’ve met a young friend of Gavin’s, Olly Knollys. Did you ever know anyone called Knollys?’

  Morris took off his specs and began cleaning them on a corner of the tablecloth, frowning thoughtfully. ‘The name rings a bell.’

  ‘Course it does!’ Ricky poked him with his fag fingers as if to wake him up. I suddenly felt like Alice at the tea party: Ricky was the Mad Hatter and Morris was the Dormouse. ‘Abigail! Our Princess Jasmine!’

  ‘Princess Jasmine?’

  ‘We were putting on Aladdin,’ Ricky explained. ‘Abigail Knollys was playing the princess. Only seventeen, she was—’

  ‘Pretty girl,’ Morris interrupted, shaking his head sadly, ‘pretty girl.’

  ‘There was a lot of fuss when we cast her. Some people felt she was a bad example. She’d got herself knocked up the year before, had a baby boy. She was still at school, in the sixth form, wouldn’t say who the father was.’

  ‘When was this?’

  Ricky shrugged. ‘Ten years ago?’ He glanced at Morris for confirmation. ‘Twelve? Anyway, poor maid never got to play the part because she and her mum went out Christmas shopping in Exeter and got wiped out in some pile-up on the A38.’

  ‘Shortly afterwards, her father killed himself,’ Morris added sadly. ‘Couldn’t cope with the loss of his wife and daughter, I suppose.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘So, in a short time, this baby boy, who I assume must be Olly, had lost his mother and both grandparents. His father is absent, unknown. So, who was left to look after him?’

  ‘His great-grandma,’ he answered. ‘Dorothy.’

  ‘Dolly Knolly?’

  Morris chuckled. ‘That’s what they used to call her.’

  Ricky frowned. ‘Is she still alive? She must be over ninety.’

  So, Olly’s nan was really his great-grandmother, ninety-something years old, bedridden and left alone all day whilst he was at school. His neighbour was right to be concerned.

  I glanced at my watch. Olly wouldn’t be home yet. But if Gavin could find out where he kept his spare key, I was damn sure I could.

  It was underneath a small stone tortoise in the back garden. Not the most original of hiding places. Fortunately, Gavin had replaced the key there after he’d borrowed the drone. I’d parked the van way down the road, where I was sure no one would see it, and managed to creep up the path without being observed by Olly’s neighbour. There was washing blowing on the line, a different nightdress this time, pink, and a pair of large floral knickers, plus two school shirts and grey socks. Olly had been busy with the laundry. I fitted the key into the lock and it turned with a satisfying click.

  I let myself into the kitchen and looked around. An upturned cereal bowl and a spoon lay on the draining board, otherwise the room looked exactly as I had last seen it. The house was quiet as a grave, no sound, not even the ticking of a clock. It felt strange. I softly opened the door into the hall and then into the living room. The curtains were pulled back, but grubby nets filtered the light from outside, turning it grey. There was sheet music on the music stand, and an instrument case, lined in red plush, lay open on the floor, the bassoon, disassembled into its various parts, placed inside in tidy compartments. The drone must have been put away somewhere, and the laptop. On the mantelpiece I noticed some family photographs and went in for a closer look. A pretty blonde teenager smiled back at me, a baby in her arms, a man and woman, her parents I assumed, on either side. There was also a photo of a woman wrapped in a floral pinafore, a basket of washing on her hip: a woman with strong, tanned arms and thick, iron-grey hair that looked as if she’d chopped it short with shears, the front held back by a single hairgrip. She faced the camera boldly, an indomitable face but not without humour. Could this be Dolly Knolly, I wondered, Olly’s nan? Well, it was time I met the lady. Feeling a little as if I might be in the Bates Motel, I quietly climbed the stairs. I hesitated for a moment outside the closed bedroom door, before I called out Mrs Knollys’ name, and knocked.

  Fifteen minutes later, Olly came home. He stopped in the doorway at the sight of me sitting at the kitchen table and his face blanched white.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ His voice rose in panic. ‘You can’t just …’ His eyes flicked beyond me to the stairs. ‘My nan—’

  ‘You haven’t got a nan, Olly,’ I told him flatly. ‘Putting her washing on the line is a clever touch, but no one has slept in that bedroom for a long time.’ Her bed was stripped, blankets folded, the room cold, unlived in. But I’d known before I’d knocked on the bedroom door, as I’d climbed the stairs, felt that sense of nothing alive in the house, nothing breathing under that roof at that moment but me.

  He stood transfixed, staring, blue eyes wide with terror, mouth hanging open in shock.

  ‘There’s no one in this house but you, Olly,’ I carried on remorselessly. ‘Your nan is dead. And I want to know what you’ve done with her body.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I didn’t expect him to faint. I thought he might start yelling, attack me, or panic and run away, but I did not expect the kid to pass out in a dead faint, flat on the kitchen floor.

  It was only momentary. He sta
rted to come round almost immediately and I was able to help him up onto a kitchen chair. I felt dreadful. My stupid remark about where his nan’s body was buried had only been a joke. I’d assumed she was safely tucked up in a care home somewhere. ‘Take some deep breaths,’ I told him as I fetched him a glass of water and placed it in front of him. He glared at me across the table, his face white, his body shaking.

  ‘I’m not going into a children’s home,’ he vowed, his eyes brimming. ‘I won’t. I’ll run away!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I told him softly. ‘There’s no need to be afraid.’

  ‘What are you doing here, anyway? I never asked you to come.’

  ‘Olly, you shouldn’t be living here alone. You’re not old enough.’ I was wondering how on earth he’d managed to slip through the net. When his great-grandmother had been taken into care surely someone in social services would have picked up on the fact that there was no one at home to take care of him.

  ‘You got no right,’ he went on, ‘breaking into my house—’

  ‘Listen, Olly. My mum died when I was a baby, just like yours. I don’t remember her at all. For a while, I was in care—’

  ‘Was it bad?’

  ‘I don’t remember much about it,’ I admitted. ‘I’m sure nothing terrible happened to me. But I’m also sure that once I’d left it behind, I wouldn’t have wanted to go back again. All I’m trying to say is, I understand how you feel. You can trust me.’

  He gazed at me silently, eyes wide, like a frightened animal. At any moment I felt he might bolt, make a run for it. ‘So, what happened to you?’ he asked.

  ‘My mother died of a drugs overdose. I must have been two or three at the time. I was taken into care. Like I said, I don’t remember much about it. Then my cousin found me and sent me to boarding school.’

  ‘Boarding school?’ he repeated, horrified.