I could barely see the water in the dark, just the barest glimmer as it slid behind the houses on Kingsbridge Lane. But I could hear it, the water babbling softly to itself as it swept over its stony bed. Then there was a gulping noise. I don’t know what it was, nothing probably, a hiccup in a drain, but it sounded too much like Cutty Dyer licking his lips for me to linger. I felt the hair prickle on the back of my neck, a cold thrill of fear shuddered through me and I hurried away, turned my steps towards the safety of home, not another soul abroad in the dark, empty streets.
I suppose I only have myself to blame that I had nightmares that night. I dreamt I was standing by the river, in town. But as in all dreams, it wasn’t quite the town, and it wasn’t quite the river. Cutty’s huge eyes were shining out from the darkness under a bridge. The effigy floated by, except it wasn’t an effigy, it was Jessie Mole: Jessie, floating on her back with a purple gash in her throat, but talking, talking all the while as she floated slowly along, trying to tell me something that I couldn’t hear. And as she floated on out of sight I turned to see Cutty’s giant hand come up from the darkness under the bridge, his fingers splayed against the stonework, the webbing between them green like frog skin and I woke up in a sweat.
I grabbed a copy of the Dartmoor Gazette early next morning and the murder of Cutty Dyer’s latest victim occupied the entire front page. ‘Serial Killer in Ashburton?’ the headline screamed. ‘Second Victim Found. Murderer Adopts Identity of Mythical Fiend.’ Sandy Thomas must be wetting herself. The victim’s name, it turned out, was Dave Bryant. He was a resident of Princetown where he served as an officer at Dartmoor prison. There was a photograph of him in uniform. A cold, sinking feeling settled in my guts. I did know the victim, after all. I’d seen him crossing in front of my shop window in the fog, seen him sitting at a bar table waiting for someone, seen him arguing with Luke outside the Silent Whistle.
I must find him. I drove up to Druid Lodge but his pickup truck was not parked in the drive. I ran down to the water’s edge to check if he was there. He wasn’t by the lake. I stared at the rain pitting the surface of the dark water, and then looked around the path. I shouted his name but there was no answer, so I called in at the house. Ricky and Morris hadn’t seen him either, although he was supposed to be working that morning.
At the shop, there was no sign of Pat.
‘Isn’t she supposed to be coming in?’
Sophie looked up from her copy of the Dartmoor Gazette, pale and serious, dark shadows under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept. ‘Yes. She’s late.’ I hadn’t got beyond the front page myself, but leaning over her shoulder I could see that the first two pages of the paper were devoted to the legend of Cutty Dyer: Ashburton’s Own Jack the Ripper! It seemed the editors of the Gazette had dredged up every version of the myth they could find and come up with some highly imaginative artwork. They had talked to various experts on Dartmoor folklore, but opinions differed on exactly what form Cutty took. In some accounts he was described as a nimble water sprite, in others a huge ogre. They all agreed that he had eyes as big as saucers, and these were well represented by the Gazette’s artist who made him look like a goblin on speed. There was also general agreement about his nasty habits: lurking under bridges and drinking the blood of those unfortunate enough to stray within his grasp.
‘Were you told about Cutty Dyer when you were a kid?’ I asked Sophie.
She shook her head. ‘No, but Mum was. My gran used to warn her to stay away from the bridges or Cutty would get her.’
The only ‘eyewitnesses’ who claimed to have encountered Cutty and lived to tell the tale were two drunks wandering home one night in the nineteenth century, who claimed to have seen the horrible vision rising from the river, and their account can hardly be considered to be reliable. As far as I could tell, there was no account of a real person ever being found dead in the river with their throat cut – until now.
‘It’s horrible, isn’t it?’ Sophie shuddered. ‘Someone who lives around here, someone we might know, has murdered two people, cut their throats. I hardly slept last night. Every little noise scared me. I kept thinking someone was trying to break in.’
‘Well, we don’t really know the facts,’ I pointed out, trying to calm her down. ‘It may be that Jessie and this man Bryant were connected in some way, that the killer had a motive for murdering them both. It doesn’t mean he’s going to kill again. It doesn’t mean there’s a serial killer on the loose, whatever the papers and the television say.’
She sighed. ‘No, I suppose not.’ She didn’t sound convinced, and the truth was, I wasn’t that convinced either. I left her and ran up the stairs to phone Honeysuckle Farm, hoping I could speak to Luke.
But it was Pat who answered and she sounded tearful.
‘I’m sorry I’ve not come in, but we’re all in a state here. Luke’s been taken to the police station.’
‘He’s been arrested?’ I asked, shocked.
‘Well, no, the police said he’d just be helping them with their enquiries.’
‘When was this?’
‘Early this morning, before breakfast. He knew this bloke, you see, the man who got murdered.’
‘In the paper it said he was a prison officer.’
‘Well, there’s a bit more to it than that,’ Pat admitted. ‘Luke put in a complaint against him, when he was inside.’
‘Against Dave Bryant?’
‘That’s right. I don’t know what it was all about. But Luke got beaten up because of it. He ended up in hospital. He was naive, I suppose …’ She hesitated. ‘What if the police think he held a grudge, that he killed Bryant?’ Her voice broke in a sob. ‘Well, they must think that, mustn’t they, otherwise why have they taken him in?’
‘Even if they do, they have to have evidence,’ I said. ‘And there won’t be any, will there?’
‘Well, no …’ Pat admitted.
‘We know Luke’s not a killer. He couldn’t cut anyone’s throat. I’m sure he’ll be home soon. Ring me later, will you? Let me know he’s back. And try not to worry.’
When I got downstairs, Sophie was still poring over the paper, turning its pages.
‘You’re not still reading about that murder?’ I was ready to snatch the wretched thing away from her.
‘No,’ she said, without looking up. ‘I’m trying to find the results of the competition I entered to win those tickets for the Spring Ball.’ She turned over another page.
‘What did you have to do for it?’ I asked.
‘Oh, just answer this really simple question.’ She looked up. ‘Where in Ashburton would you find a site for sore eyes?’ She tutted. ‘Well, everyone knows that!’
I nodded. ‘Saint Gudula’s Well.’ Saint Gudula was a patron saint of the blind and there is a tiny spring, which is supposed to have healing properties, marked by a stone cross at the western end of town.
‘The well is a site,’ Sophie explained, just in case I was too thick to get the pun.
I made a face. ‘I wouldn’t fancy bathing my eyes in that water.’
Suddenly she shrieked. ‘I’ve won!’
I bent to look over her shoulder. ‘You’re kidding!’
‘No, look!’ She pointed. ‘My name’s printed here. It says winners will receive their tickets by post.’ She turned to gaze up at me, her big dark eyes suddenly serious. ‘You will come with me, won’t you? The prize is a pair of tickets, you see.’
I should have been delighted at her offer, but my mind was still fixed on Luke. ‘Isn’t there a man you want to take?’
‘No one!’ she sighed tragically. ‘I might meet someone there, though.’ She prodded my arm. ‘We both might.’
‘Don’t you want to take your mum?’
‘God, no! She’d hate it, anyway. Oh, come on, Juno!’ she urged as I hesitated. She adopted her pleading orphaned puppy look. ‘It’ll be fun!’
I laughed. ‘Of course I’ll come.’
‘D’you think Ricky and Morris would loan
us costumes?’ she asked, gazing at me innocently. Suddenly her reason for asking me rather than any of her other friends became a little clearer. She knows I have influence. ‘They loaned us costumes when we went to Moorworthy House.’
‘Well, Morris informs me that they don’t usually loan out for parties,’ I told her loftily, ‘but I think our chances are good. Leave it with me.’
Before I left the shop, I tried to ring the police station, but I couldn’t speak to anyone involved in the investigation. The officer on the phone promised someone would return my call but couldn’t say when.
The rest of the day was taken up with clients. I didn’t mention Bryant’s murder to Maisie or to Chloe Berkeley-Smythe. There was no point in alarming them with tales of Ashburton’s serial killer. They’d find out soon enough when their copies of the Gazette dropped through their letter boxes.
I popped into the shop before closing. Elizabeth had taken over from Sophie but there had been no word from Pat. I phoned her when I got home. She was even more upset. Luke had still not returned from the police station. I phoned the station again, got the same response. Someone would return my call.
I was still waiting when my doorbell rang early in the evening. I hoped it might be Luke, or Dean Collins, but instead, Detective Sergeant Cruella DeVille was standing on my doorstep. She said she wanted a word and reluctantly I showed her upstairs.
‘Have you released Luke Rowlands yet?’ I asked, before she had a chance to sit down.
‘Mr Rowlands is only helping us with our enquiries,’ she responded primly. ‘He is free to go at any time.’
‘So, he’s not a suspect?’
She paused, giving me her iced-violet stare. She had no intention of answering my question. ‘How well do you know Mr Rowlands?’
‘Well enough to think he’s not a killer.’
There was a tiny tug at the corner of her mouth, almost a smile. ‘He’s killed before.’
‘Is that why he’s helping you with your enquiries?’ I asked. ‘Because he was convicted of manslaughter?’
‘Rowlands knew Bryant from when he was in prison,’ she responded. ‘They were recently seen arguing outside the Silent Whistle …’ She paused. I said nothing. ‘We received an anonymous tip-off,’ she added, ‘from someone who saw Rowlands get into a white van driven by a woman with long red hair. That wouldn’t be you, would it?’
I wasn’t going to lie. ‘We went for a drink.’
‘Where?’
‘The Exeter Inn.’
She wrote that down. ‘I see. And did you talk about the incident?’
I shrugged. ‘Luke didn’t want to talk about it.’
‘Did he identify Bryant?’
‘No, he just said that he was someone he’d known before, someone he wanted nothing to do with.’
‘He didn’t show any further hostility towards him?’
‘Not at all.’
‘He didn’t threaten him, swear to get even with him?’
‘No,’ I said emphatically. ‘He didn’t.’
‘You didn’t go inside the Silent Whistle yourself?’
‘I didn’t get out of the van.’
‘Were you aware of any other witnesses to the incident?’
‘No,’ I responded, giving it a moment’s thought. ‘There was no one else on the pavement, not outside the pub. I couldn’t swear there was no one further up St Lawrence Lane who might have seen what was happening. But, you know, it was hardly an incident, Luke just gave the man a shove, that’s all. It wasn’t a kerbside brawl.’
She gave me the Medusa stare again. She clearly didn’t believe what I was saying.
‘So what did you talk about,’ she asked at last, ‘in the Exeter Inn?’
‘Archaeology on Dartmoor,’ I told her, thinking back. ‘We weren’t there long. I was off to a concert at the arts centre.’
‘You didn’t know Rowlands well, yet you offered him a lift in your van?’
‘Look, he’s the nephew of a friend. I knew he’d been in prison. I could see he might be about to get into a fight, and I wanted to stop him getting into trouble.’
‘Very noble of you,’ she said and put away her pen and notebook. ‘I don’t think I need to trouble you any longer.’
Thank God for that, I thought. I wondered afterwards if I’d have been more helpful if it had been Dean Collins asking the questions, or Inspector Ford. Probably not, on balance. I hadn’t withheld anything and I’d told the truth. I hadn’t mentioned I’d gone out for a meal with Luke on Saturday evening, but I’d have told her if she’d asked me. Why was it, then, that Cruella left me with the feeling that I had either said something I shouldn’t or not said something that I should?
When the doorbell rang again it was close to midnight. I was already in bed and went downstairs tying my dressing gown around me. It was too late for visitors and I opened the door a little cautiously. Luke was on the doorstep in the rain, his hair flattened, the shoulders of his jacket sodden. As I dragged him inside, I could feel him shivering but I guessed he wasn’t trembling from the cold. Upstairs I helped him out of his wet coat and offered him the last of Elizabeth’s gin. This time he didn’t refuse. He sat on the sofa, glass in hand, peering into it for several seconds before he knocked it back. He almost choked, but nodded his head for another when I held out the bottle.
‘When did they let you go?’ I asked.
‘Couple of hours ago,’ he answered. ‘I’ve been home, seen Ken and the girls. They didn’t want me to come out again, but I needed to talk to you.’ He smiled nervously. ‘I’m sorry it’s late.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ I sat next to him. ‘The police were questioning you all that time?’
He gave the ghost of a laugh. ‘Well, they left me on my own, kicking my heels in an interview room for a few hours, but that’s the kind of thing they do. They kept asking me what Bryant was doing in Ashburton, if he had come here to meet me. Well, I don’t know, do I?’ He took another drink, his hand still trembling. ‘Wasn’t it too much of a coincidence, they kept asking, Bryant being found dead in Ashburton not long after I’d come out of prison and come to live here … ? And wasn’t it another coincidence that he’d had his throat cut when it was me found Jessie Mole like that? Is that what gave me the idea, they wanted to know.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought they were going to accuse me of killing her too.’
I didn’t know what to say. For me, the police had always been the good guys; for Luke, it seemed they had become the enemy. He had lapsed into silence, gazing into some different, darker place.
‘Pat said you’d made a complaint against Bryant when you were in prison,’ I ventured at last.
He nodded, rolling the empty gin glass between the palms of his hands. ‘He was a bully, used to beat people up − or stand by with his back turned while other cons beat them. He was into all sorts – smuggling in drugs and phones − these things can’t happen in a prison without a bent screw somewhere. And I talked about him to another prisoner.’ He shook his head at his own folly. ‘God, I must have been stupid.’
‘What happened?’
‘I had a nasty accident in the showers, didn’t I? I’d have been dead if the right person hadn’t come along.’
‘And do the police know what kind of man Bryant was?’
His mouth twisted. ‘If they do, they’re not telling me.’ He put the glass down.
The gin bottle was empty. I offered him coffee, but he shook his head.
‘So, how come the two of you were quarrelling outside the pub?’ I asked.
He held up his palms in a gesture of defence. ‘I didn’t want any quarrel. I walked into the pub thinking I’d watch a bit of the football match – you know they have those big screens in there? I thought I’d get in early, before the place filled up. Anyway, I hadn’t got as far as the bar when I saw Bryant there talking with these two blokes. As soon as I saw him, I wanted to get out of there. But he’d already spotted me and he followed me out.’
&nb
sp; ‘What did he want?’
‘Just to wind me up, that’s the kind of bastard he was. He said he was looking forward to seeing me back inside, that sort of thing.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Then you came along … and what I wanted to ask you was,’ he said, turning to look at me directly, ‘did you see either of these other men, the ones Bryant was talking to?’
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I didn’t notice anyone outside the pub except for you and Bryant.’
‘I’m sure they were standing by the windows looking out, watching what was going on. And I keep thinking, it must have been one of them that tipped the police off about the argument.’
‘I suppose anyone who was in the pub might have known that there was an argument going on outside. And once his picture appeared in the paper …’
‘But that’s just it,’ Luke objected, ‘there wasn’t anyone else. It was early, the place was deserted, only Bryant and these two blokes. And not many people in Ashburton know me, to put the finger on me …’
‘So, it must have been one of them. Did you mention them to the police?’
Luke nodded. ‘They asked me to describe them. I told them I could do better than that. I drew them a picture.’ He smiled. ‘They seemed to get a bit excited then.’
‘Have you still got the picture you drew?’ I asked.
Luke shook his head. ‘They took it away. They kept asking me if I was sure these were the men I’d seen, that I wasn’t just making them up.’ He turned to face me. ‘And I thought if you’d seen them through the windows, maybe the police would believe that they really existed.’
‘Could you draw them again?’ I asked.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Got any paper?’
I handed him a pad and a pen, watching as he began to draw. As a face began to take shape on the paper, I knew I had seen it before, in the light cast through a pub doorway. Dark and handsome, he’d stepped back to hold open the door, to ask if I wanted to go inside.
During the night I realised what had been bothering me so much. It was blood. Olly had mentioned it first, said that when Jessie had been killed there must have been a lot of blood: except there wasn’t, just a thin trickle staining the ramp. If Jessie’s throat had been cut while her heart was still pumping there would have been a lot more blood. Even if she had been killed elsewhere, her clothes would have been drenched in it. It had flowed copiously from Dave Bryant’s body. So maybe that’s not how Jessie died. Maybe whoever killed her just wanted it to look that way.
From Devon With Death Page 14