Daisy in Chains

by Sharon Bolton

  There is something portal-like about the tunnel, because to step through it is to leave the town behind and enter a medieval world of walled gardens, moated defences and impenetrable stone walls. The moon has risen and she can see its reflection in the gently rippling black waters of the moat.

  A sudden flurry on the water catches her attention. The moat attracts water birds, gulls from the nearby coast and moorhens that fly in over the meadows. There is also a resident population of swans who are fed from the gatehouse daily, summoned by the ringing of a bell.

  The homeless pair are feeding the swans from the contents of Odi’s carrier bag.

  ‘Hello, Odi. Good evening, Broon.’

  They turn slowly, as though their reactions have been dulled by the cold. She steps closer, wanting to ask them how they can spare food to feed animals, who are far from starving, but knows it will seem impertinent. She holds up a canvas shopping bag that she filled after persuading Pete to leave the house before her.

  ‘I brought you some food. I hope you don’t mind, but I cooked and I made too much for myself. It’s lamb stew and home-made bread. It’s still warm. I put it in a flask.’

  Neither of them speaks.

  ‘Odi, I really need to talk to you. Just for a few minutes. Would that be all right?’

  ‘What about?’ It is Broon who answers, placing himself fractionally in front of his partner.

  ‘I want to suggest something. Odi, I know you say you remember very little about the person you saw going into the cave that night.’

  Odi shuffles closer to Broon. ‘I don’t. It was too dark. I’m not even sure now that I saw anyone.’

  Maggie is careful to keep her distance. ‘I understand that. But if you really want to help Hamish, then I know you’ll do your best to remember anything that could be useful to his case.’

  She will have to take the absence of denial as all the encouragement she is going to get.

  ‘What I want to suggest, Odi, is that you and I, and Broon too if that will make you feel more comfortable, go to see a hypnotist. We’ll find a good one, someone highly recommended.’

  ‘Hypnotist?’ Odi says the word experimentally, stretching out the syllables, as though trying how the sound of it feels and tastes in her mouth.

  ‘Yes. They can be very good at helping people find lost memories. What she would do is put you in a sort of trance. You wouldn’t be asleep, exactly, just a bit detached from what’s going on, and she’d ask you questions about that night. It’s just possible that, in a state of trance, you would remember more than you’ve told us already.’

  ‘I don’t want you messing with my lady’s mind.’

  ‘Nobody wants to do that, Broon, of course not. Think of it this way. In everybody’s head, there are stacks of memories, most of them filed away so carefully that we can’t bring them to mind without some help. But they’re still there. Odi, you could be the only person who saw the real killer, who has a chance of telling us who he is.’

  Odi seems to shrink further away from her. ‘I’ve told you everything already and I’m not seeing any hypnotist.’

  ‘Odi, I—’

  ‘No! Tell her, Broon. Tell her I won’t. I don’t know anything.’

  Broon seems to swell, facing off against Maggie. ‘We’re leaving, Odi and me. First thing in the morning. We’ve said our goodbyes and we’re off.’

  ‘Where? Broon, this is really important, you can’t just leave.’

  ‘We haven’t told anyone where we’re going and we don’t intend to. We’ve got nothing more to say.’

  * * *

  ‘She’s frightened, Pete. She knows more than she’s saying but I have no idea how to get it out of her. She completely freaked when I mentioned hypnosis.’

  ‘I don’t blame her.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so ignorant. How can you live so close to Glastonbury and have such a closed mind?’

  ‘Are you coming up? I’ve got the kettle on.’

  From the driver’s seat of her car, Maggie looks into the passenger-side wing mirror. ‘No, they’re watching me now. Waiting for me to leave. I think I’ve upset them enough for one night.’

  ‘I spoke to the landlord, by the way. They have a very nice double room on the second floor, a long way from mine, and the locks on the door are solid. You really should not be going back to that big spooky house on your own. Especially not tonight, not with all that palaver on Facebook.’

  In the distance, Odi and Broon move out of sight. They are heading in the direction of the Town Hall portico.

  ‘Look, keep an eye on them, will you? It really is very cold.’

  ‘If you’re hinting I should offer them a bed for the night and buy them dinner, you can forget it.’

  ‘Oh, very compassionate. But they already have dinner. I put the stew you didn’t eat into a thermos flask.’

  She cuts him off mid curse, starts the engine and drives home. If she feels a sliver of regret at leaving behind the promise of something new, she ignores it. The time for weakness has passed.

  Chapter 55

  ‘MAGGIE, LOOK AT ME.’

  ‘I can’t. You don’t exist any more.’

  ‘I’ll exist as long as you do. Look at me.’

  ‘No.’

  Ignoring the voice behind her, Maggie lets the bedroom curtain fall back into place. Since the central heating switched off five hours ago, the house has grown a mid-winter chill. She lifts her dressing gown from the back of the bedroom door and wraps it around herself as she goes downstairs. On the front door the chain is in place.

  She can’t see the street from here. She doesn’t need to. She’s already seen the car in the road.

  It has become instinctive to head to the kitchen on nights that she can’t sleep. Maybe it’s the last trace of warmth that clings to the Aga that she is seeking. She places her hands flat on its hob lids, and thinks of Broon and Odi in the icy chill of the Town Hall portico. When her hands have warmed a little, she picks up the phone.

  An indrawn sigh answers. ‘Hi, Maggie.’

  ‘I told you I didn’t need protecting,’ she tells Pete.

  ‘I’ve had to send someone over. A female constable. She’ll sit in the car outside if she must, but since you’re awake, I’d really prefer it if you let her in, allow her to check your doors and windows, and then sit downstairs for the rest of the night.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’d come over myself but there’s no way I can get away right now. I’ll explain everything in the morning, OK?’

  ‘No, explain it now.’

  ‘Maggie, I really have to—’

  ‘Now, or I come to find you. I’m guessing that won’t be strictly convenient.’

  She hears a sharp intake of breath. ‘I’m in Wells, just outside the Crown. I got a call-out forty minutes ago.’

  She closes her eyes and can see him, seeking the pale light of a streetlamp to make his call. He isn’t outside the Crown, strictly, he’s outside the Town Hall. Behind him, she can see the dark arches of the portico, concealing something unspeakable.

  ‘Broon and Odi.’ She means it as a question, it doesn’t come out quite that way.

  ‘They’re both dead. Killed in their sleep, from what we can tell. Or possibly in a drunken stupor, they both reek of booze.’

  She needs time, to let the words sink in, for them to become real. ‘Well, they would, wouldn’t they? It’s how they keep the cold out. What happened to them?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to give out details. I’ll come and see you in the morning. As soon as I can get away.’

  The doorbell ringing makes her jump. If it is meant to reassure her, it does the opposite.

  ‘I think your friend’s at the door.’

  ‘OK, listen to me. Stay on the line until you can see her. She’s in her early forties, heavy build, short brown hair. Her name is Janet Owen. Open the door on the chain. Maggie, are you listening to me? Do not open the door to anyone but a female police of
ficer.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Pete. Sorry for what you have to go through right now.’

  He doesn’t answer. He is already getting on with his job.

  Chapter 56

  Daily Mail Online, Tuesday, 22 December 2015

  TWO SLAIN IN WELLS

  A brutal double murder of two homeless people has thrown doubt on the conviction of one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers, according to the support group set up to clear his name.

  The discovery, in the early hours of this morning, of two bodies in the medieval cathedral town of Wells in Somerset has led to calls for a fresh look at the evidence that convicted Hamish Wolfe, in 2014, of the abduction and murders of three women. Mike Shiven, 54, chairman of the so-called Wolfe Pack, said, ‘The savage slaying of two of our own members, people very close to the investigation, who had fresh information that could have been invaluable, proves what we’ve been arguing all along. The police took the easy way out with this case. The real killer is still out there and now two of our own have paid the ultimate price.’

  At the time of going to press, police were refusing to comment on alleged similarities between the manner in which the two travellers, currently known only as Odi and Broon, were killed and the means used by the killer of Jessie Tout, Chloe Wood and Myrtle Reid in 2013. They refused to deny, however, that the combination of head injury and throat wound could have been the modus operandi used to kill the three young women.

  Wolfe’s mother, Sandra, is in no doubt. ‘Odi and Broon were killed for what they know,’ she told our reporter at her £750k home in Somerset. ‘If they’d gone to the police when I told them to, they’d probably be alive today. As it is, even the most incompetent member of the police force has to see now that the monster who framed Hamish is still out there.’

  First detective on the scene of this morning’s murders, Pete Weston, was also one of the lead detectives in the Hamish Wolfe investigation. He was unavailable for comment today.

  Chapter 57

  BROON AND ODI LIE SIDE BY SIDE. The post-mortem examinations are over and the bodies have been covered, for decency’s sake, leaving just their heads and their feet visible.

  The only lights are the powerful, surgical ones above the gurneys; the corners and edges of the examination room blur into darkness. Modern equipment aside, the scene reminds Pete of old paintings of surgeons at work, of shadowy figures thronging a central point, the surgeon holding a lantern in one hand, a sharp knife in the other. The pathologist, an Asian woman in her mid forties, likes to work in a darkened room, with light focused only on the corpse.

  ‘It’s all about the patients,’ she explained once to Pete. ‘I find it concentrates the mind upon them.’ Privately, he suspects a different motive entirely.

  Somewhere, in the gloom that is the rest of the lab, technicians are clearing away instruments, washing dishes, recording notes with the aid of pen torches. They move around unnoticed, nothing more than undulations in the shadows. Odi and Broon lie in stark relief, like museum exhibits.

  ‘Can we get some lights on?’ Latimer has just arrived, has already phoned ahead to request the pathologist doesn’t start the briefing without him. Pete has been waiting for nearly an hour. Dr Mukerji ignores Latimer. She has her back to the viewing gallery, is finishing some notes.

  ‘Not sure she’s turned the intercom on yet,’ says Pete, although he knows she has. They’ve just had a conversation about how much longer his boss is going to be, and doesn’t he realize she has five other cases to get to today?

  Latimer peers down at the gurneys and their occupants. ‘And this happened just outside your bedroom window?’

  Down in the examination room, Dr Mukerji turns to face them. ‘Is this DCI Latimer, finally?’ she asks Pete.

  ‘Tim Latimer. Good morning. I don’t have a lot of time. What have you got for us?’

  Mukerji walks back to her notes. After over a minute, when even Pete thinks she’s pushing it, she comes back. She stands in between the two gurneys, directly in the light, her hands behind her back. She looks at Odi, then up at the gallery.

  ‘We have a white female, aged somewhere between thirty and forty – difficult to be more precise, given the conditions she’s been living in over the past few years – in relatively poor health for her age. She is known locally as Odi.’

  Mukerji’s head turns. ‘Her companion is known as Broon. He’s slightly older, somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five, and like Odi, showing signs of his lifestyle impacting adversely on his health.’

  Latimer pulls out his phone and starts flicking through text messages. Mukerji remains silent until he looks up again.

  ‘Neither victim carried ID of any sort,’ she continues, ‘so it may be some time before we have complete identification.’

  ‘We’re working on it.’ Pete meets the doctor’s eyes briefly. Getting a complete ID, tracing next of kin, won’t be easy. When people become homeless it is often for good reason. They cut all ties with the lives they leave behind.

  ‘I didn’t attend the scene.’ Mukerji steps forward, so that her face and head fall into shadow. ‘But my colleague who did estimated time of death as sometime between zero hundred and zero four hundred hours. The outside temperature last night was minus four, I understand, which, combined with the blood loss, would have hastened the loss of basal body temperature in both subjects.’

  Pete wonders how long before she realizes she no longer has the limelight. ‘Rina,’ he says, ‘there were people in and around the square until well after midnight last night. I checked with the landlord of the Crown. He went to bed at about twelve thirty, and he could still hear people milling around, getting into cars. It seems unlikely they were killed much before one o’clock.’

  Mukerji doesn’t disagree.

  ‘And the milk float arrived a few minutes after four,’ says Pete. ‘I was down there twenty minutes later. They were stone cold by that point.’

  ‘As I say, their bodies would have lost temperature very quickly last night, but I agree, twenty minutes would seem unusually fast. If you want to work to a tighter time frame, between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. wouldn’t be far out.’

  The pathologist takes a step back and light floods her face once more. ‘Both patients suffered from malnutrition,’ she says.

  ‘Seriously? She looks pretty well fed to me.’ Latimer is looking at Odi’s ample curves, covered but not hidden by the sheet.

  ‘She may have consumed a lot of calories, but they would have been in the form of cheap, fast food, with very little nutritional value. Chips, burgers, pies, pastries. Addictive food, food that made her feel better, gave her a bit of an energy boost, and all but lacking in essential nutrients. Her internal organs were not healthy. Her companion was less obese, but his lungs and liver were in a bad way. These weren’t healthy people.’

  ‘Not really in a position to fight back, you mean?’

  ‘Probably not, although just about everyone will put up a fight when their life is threatened. I mention it because, somewhat unusually, they did eat very well within a few hours of their death.’

  ‘They ate lamb stew,’ says Pete. ‘Maggie Rose gave it to them. She wanted to talk to them about a possible sighting of someone going into Rill Cavern last April.’

  ‘What?’ Latimer’s head shoots round to face Pete. ‘Why do I not know about this?’

  ‘It only came up recently, and as an eye-witness account, it holds very little credibility.’

  ‘I think that’s for me to decide, don’t you?’

  Down in the examination room, Mukerji speaks up. ‘They also drank quite a lot of alcohol. Rum, at a guess, but tests will confirm that.’

  ‘It was rum,’ says Pete. ‘We found an empty half-bottle amongst their stuff.’

  ‘They probably drank all of it. They were quite inebriated. Would have been very difficult to rouse.’

  ‘But very easy to kill?’

  Mukerji’s lips purse. ‘Odi died from exsanguination,
after her throat was slashed twice with a sharp, smooth-edged blade about seven inches long. The first incision was deepest, severing the right carotid artery and the jugular vein. The second cut through the left carotid artery and the minor veins.’

  As she speaks, Mukerji mimes the slashing of Odi’s throat, standing behind the corpse, but to one side, enabling the two police officers to see what she is doing. She makes a big, bold movement, twice, from Odi’s left ear to her right. Then she steps quickly to the other gurney. ‘Broon, on the other hand, choked to death on his own blood. His throat was slashed at least four, possibly five, times and his trachea was cut open.’ More miming. Pete thinks of the shower scene in Psycho, the repeated stabbings seen through a shower curtain.

  ‘I’m not sure this could have been done by one person,’ says Latimer. ‘Even if they were incapacitated.’

  ‘Possibly not. But you do have to take into account the head wounds.’ Mukerji moves to the top of the gurneys. ‘Both victims were struck over the head, just once in each case, but very heavily.’ She moves Broon’s hair to show them the mat of dried blood. ‘The wounds to each victim are similar and smooth in nature. I’d say they were struck with a hammer, some sort of instrument, rather than a rock or a stone. Probably one of those large club hammers. It was wielded with great force, again suggesting a hammer, something that enabled the perpetrator to get a bit of swing on.’

  She demonstrates, swinging her arm back and up, bringing it down swiftly towards Broon’s head. ‘The blow didn’t kill either of them, there’s some evidence of bleeding in both cases, but it would have been enough, especially given the alcohol they’d drunk, and the fact that they were asleep, also very cold, to incapacitate them for long enough for the perpetrator to take a firm hold on their hair and slash their throats.’

  ‘Still feels like quite a task for one person,’ says Latimer. ‘Are we looking for someone with considerable physical strength?’

  ‘That would certainly be an advantage, but what strikes me is the slick nature of it. Think about it.’