Murder on the Commons (A Davies & West Mystery Book 4)

by Will North

  Blank faces and heads shaking but then a hand shot up at one side of the room. “Wait, I know that name. Gimme a minute…”

  Another voice: “Senility strikes again!” Laughter.

  Finally: “Got it! Cage wrestler.”

  “How’s that for erudition,” Gloria cracked. “Who says cops don’t appreciate high culture? Good on you, Albert!”

  Bert Doherty rose and shambled to the front of the room. He was a wiry, almost diminutive fellow of perhaps forty and already balding. He, too, shook Terry’s hand, but he barely looked up. The thin swirl of pale reddish hair around the periphery of his otherwise shiny skull made him look like a starving monk.

  “He’s no longer in the game, is what I heard,” Bert said, a tinge of the Irish in his accent. “Banished, I think. Year or two back. He’s dead? Would have taken one hell of a big brute to take that animal down…”

  “All it took was a bullet,” Terry said.

  She looked at Waggoner and got a nod.

  “Okay, this is your patch and I’m an interloper,” she said. “You’ve all got your own assignments. I’m asking only for whatever guidance or help you can offer at this early stage. If this Harold Lugg lived here, we need to know where. He had to have a life somewhere outside the cage world. We already know he had form in Liverpool—arrested for pub brawls mostly—so we’re assuming this is home, but that’s not certain. The British Association of Mixed Martial Arts—that was his cage wrestling promoter—says he may have had some dicey backers in his day, as well as a drugs problem that got him pitched out. I—we—would appreciate any leads you might think of or dig up in the meantime.”

  “Everyone,” Waggoner added, “if you can help our colleague here, please do it this afternoon and tomorrow while she visits. You have my leave.”

  There were both thumbs up and grumbles.

  “You come with me, lass,” Gloria said taking Terry’s arm. For starters, let’s see if we can find an address for this chappie of yours.”

  “I’VE BEEN THINKING,” Calum West said that Thursday afternoon.

  “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t,” Morgan cracked as she tossed her coat over the back of the sofa in West’s sitting room. “That always means trouble.”

  He was in his favorite easy chair, high backed and covered in forest green twill. It faced a muted television on which white-clad figures moved soundlessly. There was a bottle of Sharp’s Doom Bar ale on the side table next to him, along with an empty packet of Walker’s salt and vinegar crisps.

  “I thought the cricket was over.”

  “Not in Australia, it isn’t.”

  “Who’s playing?”

  “Besides Australia? No idea.”

  “That’s scary, Calum. The cricket’s about the only thing you care about.”

  West grinned. “That, and my girls. Where are they by the way?”

  Morgan plopped onto the couch opposite him. “It’s late afternoon, Calum. Just a guess, mind you, but I suspect they’re on their way home from school. Did your brain run dry during that heart operation?”

  West ignored her. “We have a problem.”

  Morgan made a face. “Which among the many? And, by the way, the boss wants you back at work. God only knows why.”

  “I am at work.”

  “What’s the problem, then?”

  “We have no ‘scene’.”

  “Scene is your department, not mine.”

  “Exactly. So pay attention: this poor chap ends up in the middle of nowhere in a Cornish bog. No clue as to how he got there but, according to Jennifer, he was already dead on arrival. I’ve just heard from Rafe. My SOCO boys have found no trace of transport anywhere near Rough Tor, other than our own vehicles.”

  “What about the longer route on the other side, the one from the north along that bridle path?”

  “It’s a narrow farm lane, stone hedges on each side. Rafe says it’s rutted but dry right now. The tenant at New Park Farm uses it to move his sheep among his in-bye fields but says he hasn’t been there for days. The moorland south of there, towards the mire, is covered in rough grasses underlain by thick moss as wet as a sponge. It’s the source of the River Fowey, actually. Even if someone ventured a vehicle over it, the ground would just spring back, leaving no trace, assuming the vehicle could get out. But Rafe’s team found nothing. Not even bent grasses.”

  “No ‘scene,’ then.”

  “Except that there has to be. And if not there, then where? I’m going to make a big leap and say it is unlikely that someone hauled that brute’s body all the way here from Liverpool, if that’s really where he was from, just to dump him on Bodmin Moor. Makes no sense. There’s a scene, all right; we just have yet to find it.”

  “Or, rather, I do. You’re ‘scene,’ I’m…”

  “Yes, yes, you’re ‘investigation.’ You keep saying that. Please accept my humble observations as a pro bono service.”

  “I think it’s time you went back to the office and your people.”

  “Does that mean you won’t be here anymore?”

  “Did I say that?”

  Day Five

  Ten

  BY FRIDAY MORNING, and after a fitful night at the hotel, Terry had learned, thanks to Gloria, that Lugg had lived with his mother, Hazel, in a flat in a row of council houses on Upper Pitt Street in the shadow of Liverpool’s vast Gothic cathedral. With a bit more digging, one of Gloria’s colleagues was able to discover that Lugg’s father had been a longshoreman. He’d died in a crane collapse at Salthouse Dock. Not long after, Mrs. Lugg had been taken into a care home following a stroke that paralyzed her right side and left her unable to speak. That had been three years ago, and she’d died a little over a year later. After that, Lugg seemed to have had no registered address. Nor were there any further arrests. He seemed to have vanished from the public record.

  Terry had already checked out of the hotel by the waterfront and now, early Friday afternoon, she strode through the hotel’s dim car park, her low heels rapping like gun shots on the polished concrete pavement. It would be dark before she got back to Cornwall, five or more hours away, but the sheer frustration of having learned so little from Merseyside about the late Harold Lugg had her adrenalin still pumping. She had wanted to come home with something definitive for Penwarren. Instead, she had almost nothing.

  It was DCI Waggoner who’d given her the only potential route forward. He’d asked her into his office just before she left.

  “While you’ve been working with my people, I’ve been on to our intel folks. Turns out your Mr. Lugg has appeared occasionally as a small blip on their radar. At this point I can only say he has had, in the past, troubling associations—the kind that attract intel’s attention. Could be something; could be nothing. Beyond that, I can say no more to you directly. However, we can set up a CONFI arrangement to offer more.”

  “A what?”

  “We have a Confidential Intelligence Unit here. They collect information through covert means and, by law, must keep that information secret unless an inter-force relationship is initiated by the Senior Investigation Officer at another force. Who’s your SIO?”

  “DCI Arthur Penwarren.”

  Waggoner paused and looked into the distance. “Wait…murder and kidnapping and witchcraft. Just a few years ago?”

  Bates sighed. “Yes, but I am sure that is not how he wishes to be remembered. Handled several cases since.”

  “Don’t get me wrong; these stories circulate, you know. I admire him for taking a risky course to solve that case. Takes guts and no doubt gained him few points with the brass, but good on him. So here’s the next step: have your boss set up an agreement with us to share confidential information. Understood?”

  Bates shrugged. “Don’t have much choice, do I, Ralph? But thank you; I’ll get it set up. And let me say again, your people have been wonderful to me these last two days. I’m grateful.”

  Waggoner stood and extended his hand. “Our pleasure, completely, Detectiv
e Bates.”

  TERRY STRUGGLED WITH herself as she weaved between the concrete pillars in the hotel car park toward her Corsa. She was deeply unsatisfied with the results of this trip. She’d wanted more. She’d wanted to shine. Her petite frame and gentle aspect notwithstanding, Bates had an iron resolve. She knew it stemmed from anger—at her father’s early death from a fall while rock climbing above the Atlantic near Sennen Cove, at her mother’s sale of their farm, at the death from flu of the little sister she’d cherished, at her helplessness as a girl to change any of this. None of it was right. None of it was fair. Now, above all, she strove for fairness and, she supposed, justice—although no crime had caused the loss of the people she’d loved most.

  It was Morgan Davies whom she aspired to emulate—Morgan, the irascible and intimidating bulldog interrogator, the procedural rule-breaker, the “whatever works” investigator. She understood those characteristics had held Morgan back from more rapid advancement in the force, but what mattered to her was Morgan’s absolute devotion to her job and to getting it right in the end, advancement be damned.

  It was the squeal of tires on the smooth concrete pavement that pulled her out of her thoughts. She’d barely had time to turn toward the noise when a sedan flew past her, clipped the overnight bag in her right hand, sent it flying, and spun her to the ground. Flat on her back, struggling to catch her breath, she heard the car screech again as it raced up the ramp and spun out onto Strand Street.

  Eleven

  “LUGG, YOU SAY? The hell kind of name is that!”

  The sun was already sinking beyond the low browning hills to the west on Friday afternoon. The days were getting shorter and darker. Penwarren had tasked Morgan and Adam to interview the Cuthbertsons.

  Randall Cuthbertson sat hunched in a well-worn tufted leather wing chair the color of a fine glass of claret and stared at the log fire burning in the hearth in Poldue Manor’s main sitting room. His forearms were planted on his splayed knees and there was a nearly empty whisky glass between his feet on an old but still handsome Heriz rug. The dregs in the glass glowed amber in the firelight.

  As if he’d forgotten he’d come indoors, he still wore an old countryman’s waxed coat with frayed cuffs and there were mucky green Wellies on his feet. The long sitting room ran along most of one side of the house and had a high, box-beamed coffered ceiling. A phalanx of tall French doors led to the garden and lawns beyond, still visible in the failing light. A large woven tapestry of a hunt scene—who knew how old—fell from mounts beneath ornate plaster crown moldings to cloak the wall opposite the windows, as if to bring comfort to the chilly room.

  “What’s the bastard doing on my land anyway!”

  “If you recall, Mr. Cuthbertson, he was busy being dead at the time,” Morgan Davies said. “And anyway, he was found on the commons.”

  Beverly Cuthbertson, a slender, elegantly dressed middle-aged woman, who managed somehow to seem both in charge and submissive simultaneously, had directed the detective to a straight chair along the wall. Adam Novak stood beside her, notebook in hand. Two overstuffed loveseats covered in a faded floral chintz faced each other near the fire. Mrs. Cuthbertson, wearing a cream-colored polo necked jumper and matching leggings that emphasized her still-shapely legs. sat on one of the loveseats, her legs tucked beneath her, her hands in her lap.

  “Commons is mine, too, dammit,” Cuthbertson grumbled without looking up. His hand searched the carpet between his legs absently and knocked over what remained in his glass. His wife moved to pick it up but apparently thought better and sank back into the loveseat.

  “Well yes, your lordship, it is part of your estate,” Morgan Davies said, “but it is open to others as well, is my understanding: thus the term, commons.” Davies was not used to being ignored and did not take it well. Her patience was fraying. Adam touched her arm. She shrugged him off.

  “Neighbors, tenants, the lot,” the old man rambled on. “Graze it to the nub, they do. Hard to make a living anymore. Then there’s those damned ponies! Just ask my daughter.”

  Davies had been studying the old man. He hadn’t looked up from the fire when she and Novak entered the room and had ignored his wife’s introductions. Despite the fire and the outdoor coat, she thought he looked cold. She wondered how long he’d been sitting there. There was something pinging in the back of her mind and she finally twigged it: it was a memory of her mother. After the National Coal Board was cleared of responsibility for the Aberfan disaster that killed both her brother and father, her mother descended into madness and was institutionalized. Cuthbertson’s disassociation, the mumbling, the hair-trigger irritation, were all suddenly reminiscent of her mother, or what little she remembered of her. She wondered if he even comprehended why they were there. She looked at his wife and met her eyes. The woman lifted her eyebrows and shrugged.

  Davies turned back to the nearly inert man in the chair. “Yes, as you say, sir. We should ask your daughter about the ponies on the commons. Of course we will. But help me out here. I’ve forgotten her name. She’s…?”

  “She’s called…um…she’s called…” He fluttered his right hand in the direction of his wife.

  Davies nodded to her.

  “Janette, darling,” his wife reminded, “Jan.”

  “Wasn’t my idea at all, that daughter!” he shouted to the fire.

  His wife stiffened: “Well, darling, I didn’t create her on my own!” Another hand flutter, as if shooing flies. The old man’s eyes never left the flames. Silence hung in the air like smoke. “Wood!” he barked.

  Beverly Cuthbertson rose, went to a rack that held split logs, and added two to the fire. As she passed Davies and Novak, she tilted her head toward the door. The three slipped out. The old man by the fire did not seem to notice. Novak closed the door behind them.

  Out in the black and white-tiled foyer, Beverly Cuthbertson sat stiff-backed on a low upholstered bench beneath a darkening old portrait of, given the burgundy velvet waistcoat and ruffled white collar, a much earlier Cuthbertson. Her eyes were closed, as if she were meditating.

  Morgan sat beside her, stared at the opposite wall, and waited. Finally, she heard the woman sigh.

  “How long?” Morgan asked at barely a whisper.

  The woman continued to stare ahead. “You’re very intuitive, aren’t you?” she said at last.

  Morgan patted the woman’s hand twice, then withdrew. It was a graceful hand, long fingers perfectly manicured, but with prominent blue veins. Still, she was a remarkably handsome woman, considerably younger than her husband, a woman in her prime. There was a striking shock of silver at the front of her nearly black, chin length hair and she hadn’t had it tinted. Morgan admired that.

  “No, it’s just that I had a similar experience. I recognized the signs.”

  Novak stepped away.

  “I didn’t notice at first,” the woman said. “It’s happened gradually…but then also so very quickly. I don’t really know how to explain it.”

  “When DCI Penwarren came to examine the site where the body was found a few days ago he was puzzled—put off, actually—that your husband completely ignored him.”

  “Oh yes, our dear Artie. My sister was such a stupid cow. Never had a clue what a catch he was. Tossed him aside for an estate agent, of all people. Thought it was a step up. But yes, I can understand that Artie would be put off. I honestly wonder whether Randall even recognized him. He certainly never mentioned Artie when he returned here, or I’d have gone to meet him. Randall has these blank spots, you see. I’ve had to cover for him at the Association meetings recently. He loses track, runs out of words. I have asked others to begin to take over.”

  “When was he diagnosed?”

  “He was having headaches and mood swings. I made an appointment with an NHS neurologist a month or more ago. I described his symptoms and the speed with which they have developed—over only a few weeks, really. The specialist ordered a follow-on appointment for a brain scan, but Randall re
fused to go. Adamant about it. I dragged him there anyway. After the MRI and some blood tests, the verdict was rapidly progressive dementia. It’s untreatable and fatal. He could be dead in a few weeks or, at best, months.”

  “Mrs. Cuthbertson…”

  “Beverly.”

  “Beverly. I am so sorry. This must be devastating.”

  As if she’d been holding both her posture and her breath forever, the woman exhaled and her rigid back relaxed at last. She leaned against the wood-paneled wall behind her.

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose it will be. Look, this hasn’t been exactly a dream marriage—the Lord and Lady of the Manor living happily ever after.”

  “Is there ever a ‘happily ever after’?”

  “There was for a while, a very little while.”

  Morgan changed the subject: “Does he recognize you?”

  “Sometimes. And then sometimes he doesn’t. And he has angry outbursts. He’s struck me, and then has no memory of doing so.”

  “What has your daughter said?”

  “Jan? Those two are barely civil. She’s a daughter, not a son. He’s never got over that. I couldn’t have more children and he resented that, as if I were denying him a proper heir. It’s stupid and archaic.”

  “But you asked about Jan. Maybe she’s noticed the change in him; I can’t imagine she hasn’t. But I don’t know. She hasn’t said. She doesn’t even dine with us anymore, and I understand why. He’s constantly critical of her.”

  “You haven’t discussed this with her?”

  The woman took a deep breath. “No.”

  Morgan looked at Novak and nodded. He reopened his notebook.

  “We came, my colleague and I, to talk to you and your husband about the dead man found on Bodmin Commons below Rough Tor.”

  “That Lugg person. Yes. I understand.”

  “Your husband did not seem to recognize the name.”

  She shook her head: “Not surprising these days.”