A Shroud of Leaves

by Rebecca Alexander

  ‘The animal attacks ended after Lara went missing.’

  He stopped, looked back over his shoulder, frowning. ‘Yes, Guichard did point that out. They actually stopped right before Lara went missing. His unsubstantiated theory was that killing the girl might have been the ultimate escalation after killing and injuring the livestock. But we needed facts, not theories. Be back from your wild goose chase by eleven, you should be able to get back to the shed after that.’ He walked off and Sage over to Felix.

  Felix was scratching around the memorial stone as she approached. ‘Good morning. I’ve got a couple of hours to help you, if you like,’ she said. ‘To interview your witches.’

  He looked up and smiled, squinting into the early sun. ‘What’s this stone about?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d like to dig it up but I have to get permission from the landowner first. It looks too old to be related to either girl. Look, the edges are smoothed off, and it’s limestone; many decades of acidic rain have eroded the cut edges.’

  He stood up. ‘You’re right. That lichen has been there a long time.’

  ‘It’s extensive, and slow growing, so yes, fifty years or more. And the stone fell over a long time ago.’ She looked around. ‘How are they getting on with the building in the woods? I’ve got the GPR equipment weighing down the back of my car.’

  ‘They are waiting for the forensic technicians to examine all the footprints that were identified by the drone for trace evidence. In the meantime, they want me to reinterview a couple that knew Lara Black at the time.’

  Sage nodded. ‘I’ve been talking to DCI Lenham. He’s sending us into the woods to interview the witches. Do they have a really big oven?’

  He laughed. ‘You can judge for yourself, Gretel.’

  * * *

  The contact details Felix had been given for the ‘Wildwood Coven’ led to the middle of one of the forest’s larger villages, Chilhaven. A mid-terraced Victorian brick cottage, it was covered with ivy that tapped against the guttering and crept onto the slates. It was the home of a couple in their seventies, the Parrises. Felix introduced them, and the man remembered him and shook his hand. He welcomed Sage and told her to call him Oliver. He showed them into a living room lined with books and filled with large sofas, and through to a sunny conservatory at the back of the house.

  Sage stood, looking over the walled garden. Every surface was planted, there was no lawn, just a stone path packed with pots wandering into drifts of plants in beds and covered with low trees. ‘Wow. That’s beautiful,’ she said. The brick walls were covered with climbers, some breaking into flower. ‘Everything’s so early.’ Trained apple trees were already in flower, and blossoms were opening from shrubs all around the walls.

  ‘Thank you.’ An older woman smiled at her. ‘I’m Sky. You’re Sage, the police told us to expect you. And I remember Felix, of course. How are you?’ To Sage’s surprise she kissed Felix’s cheek and showed him to a wicker chair. ‘You were so kind to us when the press were banging on our windows every day. Maybe they will finally find that lovely girl.’

  ‘I hope so,’ he answered. ‘As Sage was saying, your garden is even more advanced than when I was here before in 1992.’

  ‘We just love the plants and they love us back,’ Sky said simply, as her husband brought in a silver tray with two teapots and a stack of cups and saucers. ‘Felix said you were an archaeologist. You must be aware of the earthworks at Hound Butt, then.’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to see them. Our ancestors created so many sacred sites in the forest. Have you seen Pudding Barrow?’ When Sage shook her head, Sky’s smile grew broader. ‘It has a lovely atmosphere. The builders picked a place full of good earth energy. But I’m distracting you from your investigation.’

  Felix leaned forward. ‘I came to talk to you back in ninety-one, about the abuse of some horses. Your insights were very helpful. The police had originally explored the idea that they were ritual stabbings, which we knew was unlikely, at least from any known tradition. My conclusion was the attacks were sexual and sadistic in nature, the work of a disturbed individual.’

  ‘We always knew these were mindless assaults on helpless animals, nothing ceremonial,’ said Sky snappily. ‘The police are always very wary of the alternative, they wouldn’t listen to us. They didn’t challenge all the “black magic” and “witches in the forest” headlines.’ She softened her voice. ‘Your interviews with the press went some way to redirecting the attention back onto the crimes, and away from us.’

  ‘I wish I could have done more,’ Felix said. ‘When there is a vacuum of information then the speculation can become overblown.’ His voice was calm. ‘Did either of you know River Sloane?’

  Sky and Oliver looked at each other. ‘Not at all,’ Sky said. ‘Of course, we saw it on the news. I thought she looked a little like Lara: same age, height, both blonde.’

  ‘It would help if you could tell us again what you remember of Lara,’ Felix said.

  Sky nodded. ‘We knew her quite well. She was a school friend of my niece and had been to several meetings of our coven.’

  Felix glanced at Sage. ‘Just as an observer, I remember you saying,’ he said.

  Sky nodded. ‘A spiritual seeker, that’s all. She was passionate about nature and the environment. She helped us organise a pony watch in the forest after Oliver found one of them mutilated. Then the police arrested him and our private lives were all over the front pages of the papers—’

  ‘Questioned, I was never arrested,’ Oliver interrupted, as he stirred the tea in its pot. ‘I was walking our schnauzer one evening when I interrupted an attack,’ he said. He looked over the garden. ‘Something was screaming – it was a terrible noise. The dog kept barking. I managed to calm him down a bit, and we followed the sound. By the time I got there the pony was lying down, gasping for air, kicking out at me. She had been stabbed, dozens of times, and was terrified. The poor creature must have been in agony.’

  ‘And the stabbing was sexual in nature, which somehow made it worse.’ Sky’s mouth twisted in distress. ‘That poor animal, mutilated and in pain. The vet put it down straight away.’

  Sage noted down the details. ‘Do you remember the date?’

  ‘It was late in the year, November I think.’ Oliver put cups on saucers. ‘It was around Guy Fawkes Night, 1991. Because I was the one who called them, they questioned me very closely. They only started to talk to the Chorleighs because Alistair used to walk his dogs in the forest late at night.’

  ‘Alistair Chorleigh would have been very young, sixteen or seventeen,’ Sage said. She wasn’t sure why she was defending him, except that she had seen a vulnerability about him when he begged her to look after the dog. Hamish, that was his name.

  ‘Animal mutilations are often done by teenagers,’ Felix said. ‘They aren’t that uncommon.’

  ‘Just horrible.’ An image of the beaten-up dead body of River Sloane in his garden flashed into Sage’s mind. ‘And now he’s under suspicion again.’

  Sky nodded. ‘And it was all too easy for narrow-minded bigots to point the finger at innocent people and talk about animal sacrifices and satanism. Several animal activists were questioned and the local hunt spread rumours about the hunt saboteurs.’

  Oliver offered Sage tea: Earl Grey or herbal. She chose the latter; it was rich with chamomile and cinnamon scents and she thought it might settle her stomach. When she said so, Oliver was surprised. ‘You know your herbs.’

  ‘My mother is a medical herbalist,’ she admitted. ‘I grew up on home-grown teas.’

  The next few minutes were taken up with the familiar ritual of pouring tea. Then Felix brought out a folder of photocopied newspaper articles.

  ‘I need you to look at these,’ he said, spreading them out on the coffee table. ‘They are from 1992, after Lara went missing. I was hoping you might be able to tell me about the people in the pictures.’

  ‘It was awful,’ said Sk
y. ‘We were pilloried in the local press as devil worshippers and perverts.’

  Felix turned one article around. ‘But you stayed together as a group?’

  Oliver put his glasses on and studied each one. ‘Absolutely, although some of the group have died since. We were mostly in middle age.’ He held up a newspaper image of his younger self, carrying some shopping out of a post office with the headline ‘Forest witches suspected’. ‘Every man in the group was considered a possible threat, a suspect.’

  Felix nodded. ‘Did you have any suspicions of anyone yourself?’

  Oliver looked surprised. ‘It was hard not to suspect Alistair Chorleigh. After all, he’d been a prime suspect in the animal attacks and he was the last person seen with her alive.’

  Sky broke in. ‘There had been an odd cloud over the family. First, Alistair’s mother ran away with the daughter, then he was expelled from school. No one ever found out why. I didn’t even know he knew Lara, but they were at college at the same time.’

  Felix nodded. ‘What was she like?’

  Sky stood and went into the living room, which overflowed with books on every wall, some of the shelves bowing under the weight. ‘It’s here somewhere.’

  ‘I looked this morning,’ Oliver said. ‘I’m not sure we still have it.’

  ‘Ah, there. I knew it would come in handy, I’ve kept it all this time.’

  Sky opened a book and brought out a photograph. ‘Lara took this. She joined us at a wild camp a few months before she disappeared. That lad is her boyfriend. I didn’t know his real name, she always called him Badger.’ The picture showed a laughing teenage boy in profile, next to a younger Sky and Oliver. ‘I didn’t think to show it to the police at the time.’

  Sage leaned forward. The photograph had captured the expression of the three sitters, especially the boy. His eyes were screwed up with laughter, and he was leaning on Sky’s shoulder as if they were sharing a joke.

  Felix took the picture. ‘She wasn’t living with her parents, if I remember.’

  Sky sat back, picked up her herbal tea. ‘Her mother shouted at her all the time to get a job.’

  ‘I remember they interviewed the boyfriend but he had an alibi.’

  ‘He would never have hurt Lara.’ Sky shrugged. ‘They were madly in love, hoped to live together in a community of animal activists. I know he and Lara did fall out over the fox hunt. She was passionate about banning hunting, but he wasn’t. He loved horses and worked as a groom. At one time he even worked for the Chorleighs. He thought it was too dangerous for her to go out as a hunt saboteur.’

  Felix nodded. ‘He was right, a few of them were badly injured in the eighties and nineties.’

  Oliver handed the folder of newspaper clippings to Sage. ‘These make me sick,’ he said. ‘That’s how we were all characterised at the time.’

  Sage leafed through the clippings. They were savage and ranged much wider than Lara’s disappearance, claiming drug use, sexual abuse and animal torture.

  Oliver topped up Sage’s tea. ‘This was the era of the Rochdale and Orkney inquiries, rumours of satanic abuse and hysteria.’

  Felix took the folder and flicked through to a large article at the back. ‘This is the only story that mentions the Chorleigh family outside of the police interrogation. She was seen, by a motorist, waiting for a bus at the stop down the road from Chorleigh House. She was talking to Alistair Chorleigh.’

  Sky managed a dry chuckle. ‘No one from the local press would dare write about the family. That was in a big newspaper, they could take the risk.’

  Sage scanned the first few lines. ‘And this was the reason he was interviewed? He was seen talking to her?’

  ‘No one saw her alive after that, as far as we know.’ Oliver sat back. ‘Well, he’d been interviewed before, about the horse attacks.’ He half laughed. ‘They talked to that old scoundrel, Jansen, too. He was the closest thing we had to a satanist at the time. He was the leader of the hunt saboteurs; I know Lara helped him a few times. He once walked a rescued fox right through Chorleigh’s garden and grounds late at night. The next day, twenty hounds trampled straight through his land and the horses followed.’

  Sky smiled at him. ‘She and Badger had a huge fight over it – he probably had to clear up the mess. He was working there as part-time gardener as well as groom. He was questioned too, all her friends were, but he had an alibi.’

  ‘There were always rumours about Alistair Chorleigh, he was awkward with people,’ Oliver said. ‘Then Lara disappeared opposite their property. That boy was hounded; he became a bit of a recluse.’

  ‘Did you see him after Lara disappeared?’ Felix asked.

  Sky frowned. ‘The strange thing is, we didn’t, not for a while. There was a rumour that he was unwell, in a hospital somewhere. I knew the vicar’s wife in Fairfield. She and her husband tried to offer support to the family, but Alistair’s father was such a bully he pushed everyone away. He got a good lawyer, of course, but he acted as if he thought the boy had killed Lara. There was never any evidence that he had, of course. It was a quiet road, anyone in a car could have picked her up. But most of us thought something had happened to her – she wouldn’t have lost touch with her boyfriend.’

  ‘Well, thank you for talking to us,’ Sage said, looking again at the picture. ‘It’s a great photograph. She’s caught the moment beautifully.’

  ‘She was a lovely girl,’ Oliver said. ‘A compassionate spirit, just a little wild. She was drawn to the coven because we shared her love of nature and natural magic.’

  ‘Natural magic?’ Sage asked.

  Oliver waved at the garden. ‘That’s natural magic,’ he said, smiling. ‘Plants flowering months early, because they know they are loved and needed. We know they will protect us, and we nurture them in return.’

  Sage struggled not to reveal her scepticism but Sky had picked it up. She smiled at Sage as if she was ten years old. ‘I have advanced breast cancer. I was diagnosed as terminal eleven years ago. A lot of herbs and a complete change of lifestyle, but here I am. I call that magic.’

  Felix looked at the garden. ‘I don’t doubt it. I’ve seen things I can’t explain. And your garden is amazing.’ He picked up the picture. ‘Can we take this? I’ll make sure it gets back to you.’

  ‘Of course.’ Sky looked from Felix to Sage. ‘Be careful, won’t you? The forest looks beautiful but it’s easy to get lost in it.’

  * * *

  It was almost eleven by the time Felix drove Sage back to Chorleigh House, so she could examine the wooden building in the grounds. Trent had already texted her to say he was on his way.

  ‘There are footprints leading right to the side of the building,’ she explained to Felix. ‘It’s a garage or a stable, it’s too big to be a shed. Whoever buried the body may have got the leaves from there.’

  ‘Could they be Chorleigh’s footsteps?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. They don’t appear to come from the house. I’m sure they’ll find out what size shoe he wears.’

  A police officer lifted the tape to let them enter. The press had dwindled to a couple of people with cameras, who snapped a few shots as the car passed them.

  ‘He may have mutilated a dozen horses and a few cows, remember, and possibly killed Lara.’ Felix pulled up in a space on the verge near the house. He grabbed his bag from the back seat as they got out. ‘But I have to admit the shallow grave does suggest someone wants to put the blame on Chorleigh, the local scapegoat. I’ll come with you to look at this outbuilding, I’m interested.’

  As they went through the gate, Trent appeared with a group of police officers. ‘Ah, Sage! Where’s the GPR equipment?’

  ‘It’s in the boot of my car, and it weighs a ton,’ she replied, nodding to DCI Lenham. ‘This is Felix Guichard, Trent.’

  ‘Professor.’ Trent acknowledged Felix before turning to Sage. ‘The police are just making sure the decrepit structure isn’t going to collapse on us.’

  Sa
ge looked at him. ‘What about the other case? You went to see a body in a sleeping bag.’

  Trent grimaced. ‘Probably unlawfully buried but it doesn’t look like murder. Benefit fraud, as I suggested. Grandma dies and the family keep collecting the pension. I’ll go back to the grave once the pathologist has had time to have a look at the skeleton. River’s murder comes first at the moment, not to mention Lara’s disappearance.’

  ‘Shall we concentrate on this building?’ snapped Lenham, leading the way down a narrow path made of crushed scrub and brambles. ‘I’ve got to get back to interviewing River’s boyfriends – the current one and the ex. We think we’ve shored up the front wall enough to risk opening the door and I’d like you to have a look inside.’

  The door to the large structure had a padlock on it, a pair of young officers working on it with a bolt cutter. Sage could see the front left-hand corner of the roof was sagging onto the top of the door. The whole thing was covered with ivy, and spindly holly trees leaned over the back. She peered around the side, where someone had already cordoned off an area of long grass and small gorse shrubs. Stacked all along the right-hand wall of the building were leaves, piled almost a metre high. She could see how the leaves were funnelled in by the wind, how they could swirl around and settle in the lee of the wall. Along the top were some areas of fresh holly leaves, just yellowed or blackened but still shiny. Between them were three areas where the deposits had been removed almost halfway to the ground.

  ‘That must be where he got the covering layers from.’ She pointed, and Lenham, who had followed her, nodded.

  ‘They must have known the building was here, and that the leaves pile up this way. It’s nowhere near the road and on private woodland. Who would know that?’

  Sage remembered something. ‘There were gardeners here in the nineties, and grooms for horses. Lara’s boyfriend Badger was one of them.’

  ‘We’re following that up, but we’re struggling to identify all of them. Chorleigh paid badly and fired a lot of people.’ Lenham folded his arms. ‘Let’s have a look inside. They had planning permission for a stable in 1989, so it would have been quite new in 1992.’ He shivered, shrugging himself into his coat. ‘I just hope we don’t find Lara’s remains tucked somewhere inside. We’ll look like idiots.’