by Rebecca King
“You have to know my brother-in-law. I know for a fact that Curtis only ever goes into town on market days and spends most of the afternoons after market in the tavern. It is a weekly ritual he has done since the day he became connected to our family,” Vanessa replied.
“What’s so odd now then?” Justin asked. “Why would you believe he has killed her?”
“It wasn’t market day and he went into the pawn shop. I waited outside until he had gone and then went in and spoke to the shop keeper. My brother-in-law had pawned this. It was my sister’s prized possession, and something she wore daily. There is no earthly possibility she would ever sell it because it belonged to our mother. It has a lot of sentimental value and is something she could never bring herself to even take off.”
“But you have it, so she must have taken it off,” Justin challenged.
“Yes, I know,” Vanessa replied. “But she wouldn’t do so willingly. She has worn this every day since our mother gave it to her nearly four years ago. It is why it looks so old and worn. My sister never took it off. It has to have been taken off her for some reason, and only by her husband.”
“I can see your reasoning,” Justin replied thoughtfully.
“What else?” Oliver prompted the young woman who had now engaged even the stalwart reticent: Justin.
“Like I have said, I was close to my sister. We spoke daily, even though Curtis didn’t like it and often interrupted us to remind her how much work there was to do on the farm. To begin with, their marriage was fine. Geraldine seemed content. Everyone was pleased to see her settled and in a happy relationship. The first year, everything was fine. In the second year, though, cracks started to appear. Geraldine seemed to retreat into herself whenever he was nearby and was almost wary of him. Then she started to make noises about being unhappy. The sparkle disappeared from her eyes and she told me once or twice she regretted marrying him. It wasn’t the farm life she objected to. We have grown up in the country and farming was something she was adamant she wanted to do. It was her marriage she was unhappy with.”
“Once the newness had worn off and the stark reality of having to share her life with someone else began to strike, your sister realised it wasn’t all that great,” Justin snorted, fully appreciating her sentiments.
Another good reason never to marry, he thought with relish, and swiftly blotted out the nagging voice that prompted him to consider why he should need to reiterate his decision not to marry now, in the magistrate’s study, whilst sitting right beside someone so completely marriageable.
“It isn’t just that. She made noises that Curtis wasn’t who she thought he was. I couldn’t understand it at first, and like you, thought it was the reality of life on a farm, and her struggling to get used to married life that was the problem. Then, several weeks ago she began to look nervous. She said quite firmly to me that she couldn’t stand life in the house with Curtis a moment longer, that he was stifling her and trying to tell her what to do all the time. Curtis had taken to criticising her for everything she did. My sister paints, but he had even tried to stop her doing that and had attempted to ban her from going into town to purchase more supplies for her artwork. She adamantly refused to stop. She told me it caused great discord between them.”
“Did he ever hurt her?” Justin demanded.
“She didn’t tell me,” Vanessa replied.
“Would she have told you if he had?” Justin asked.
“I would like to think she would, but I don’t know,” Vanessa said honestly.
Justin nodded. “Did she do as he asked and stopped painting, even for a little while?”
“No. She told him it was none of his business and he wasn’t going to control her that much. I think it was my connection to her that stopped him from going any further than making her life difficult. Who knows what he is capable of?”
“I understand you do not have a very good relationship with your brother-in-law,” Angus interrupted.
Angus knew from the honesty in her eyes when she looked at him that she was telling him the truth. She was almost painfully honest and, while that was a good thing for the Star Elite, it would put her in considerable danger if Curtis had murdered his wife.
“To begin with everyone was pleased she had made a good match,” Vanessa began. “Curtis was charming, if a little gruff at times. My father liked him too. Neither of us considered questioning his reluctance to join us for social functions given his family farm and the responsibilities that come with it. While we are going out, he is heading off to bed, so he can be up at dawn to milk the cows. It is a different lifestyle to other people’s and we understood we needed to accept that. However, as time went on and we found several visits to the farm actively blocked by Curtis, we realised there was a problem.”
“Wait a minute, what do you mean ‘actively blocked’?” Justin interrupted.
“Both my father and I called at the farm, together and individually, only for Curtis to tell us Geraldine was not around or was busy with chores out in the fields or something. Neither of us saw fit to question him. When we mentioned our calling upon her to Geraldine, she looked puzzled and told us quite categorically that she had been in the farm house the entire time. Curtis had lied to stop us seeing her,” Vanessa replied.
“You suspect your brother-in-law might have had something to do with her disappearance because of this?”
“It isn’t like Geraldine to disappear like this.” Vanessa’s voice broke as she spoke when the now horrifyingly familiar grief began to settle over her. It was so heavy it was almost suffocating. So much so, she struggled for breath for a moment.
“Why? I mean, if they were unhappy why kill her now, especially with all these kidnappings going on? It just doesn’t make sense,” Weeks snorted disparagingly.
“Because any killer could use the kidnaps to blame someone else for their crime,” Aaron retorted firmly. “It won’t do to discount any possibility until you have proof otherwise.”
Weeks looked about the group, as though silently seeking support, but found none in the implacable faces of the men from the Star Elite. Together they made it clear that Weeks was in the wrong, and Weeks, it appeared, didn’t like it one bit.
CHAPTER FIVE
Justin was suddenly glad he and his colleagues had decided to stay in the local tavern. He suspected the magistrate would throw them out on their ears for defying him if he could. Still, they were there to do a job, not make social connections with the man. It was inevitable they were going to step on many toes in a village like this. Whether the magistrate had sent for them or not, they had to do whatever was necessary, even if it offended people.
“May we keep this for a while?” Oliver asked, pointing to the jewellery she held.
Vanessa looked at the locket.
Justin saw her hesitation. “We will keep it safe. You will have it back, we just need to keep it for the time being, especially while we are making our enquiries.”
Vanessa reluctantly handed the locket to Oliver, who carefully wrapped it in a handkerchief and slipped it into his pocket.
“What else can you tell us?” he prompted.
Vanessa sucked in a deep breath. “Geraldine told me, about a week before she disappeared, that she thought Curtis was seeing someone else.”
“Any ideas who?”
“I asked, but Geraldine said she needed to find out for definite before she said anything. I think she may have found out and possibly challenged him, and something went wrong,” Vanessa said quietly.
“But you don’t know for definite,” Justin countered.
“No, I don’t know if Geraldine found anything out.”
Justin was relieved she was prepared to admit she didn’t know something. It indicated Miss Clarkson was considerably less arrogant and judgemental than Weeks, even if she did prove a distraction he could well do without.
“Go on, Miss Clarkson,” Justin prompted when he sensed she was holding something back. “There is more, isn
’t there?”
“You need to tell us everything if we are to help you,” Oliver prompted.
“Your confidences won’t leave this room, will they Weeks?” Aaron added, his voice hardening challengingly as he looked at the magistrate.
Weeks jerked and looked at him blankly. Justin wondered if the man was even listening. He knew his colleagues felt sympathy for Miss Clarkson given the magistrate’s rudeness; it was unprofessional, pure and simple.
“Oh, no, of course not. Miss Clarkson already knows everything she tells us will be kept in the strictest confidence,” Week replied eventually.
“My sister and brother-in-law didn’t share the same bed chamber. When things started to go wrong about a year ago, Curtis moved into one of the spare rooms. He didn’t move back in,” Vanessa replied.
“They couldn’t be considered close then,” Justin sighed. “It is entirely possible he may have taken to seeing someone else.”
He didn’t expand because he knew everyone in the room understood. It didn’t bode well for either party’s commitment to the marriage if Curtis was prepared to allow such an arrangement. He would indeed be more inclined to find succour in the arms of someone else. It did indeed hint at there being deeper problems in the marriage that neither Geraldine or Curtis were prepared to deal with. Would that lead to murder, though? He wasn’t sure.
“Do you think your brother-in-law would know the other victims who have vanished of late?” Justin asked.
Vanessa looked at him blankly.
“Do you not read the broadsheets?” Oliver asked when it became clear she had no idea what he was talking about.
“I know there have been four taken so far,” Vanessa replied. “But, I don’t know if Curtis is likely to know any of them. We didn’t know him well enough to find these kinds of things out because like I said, he rarely socialised with us.”
“How long have his family been on the farm?” Angus asked. “Do any other family members live and work there?”
“The farm actually belongs to my sister,” Vanessa replied. “She received an inheritance and decided to purchase a farm with it about the same time that she met Curtis. He used to work on his family’s farm over in Kenworthy. That’s why most of us felt it was a perfect match. He could work the farm, and Geraldine could live the life she had always wanted.”
“Was it a life Curtis wanted, do you think?” Aaron asked.
“Curtis loves farming. The only time he leaves the farm is to go to market and tavern on a Thursday,” Vanessa replied honestly.
“Some people are born and bred to be farmers,” Weeks muttered.
Vanessa rarely agreed with the magistrate about anything but nodded. “There is nobody who fits the nature of a farmer more than Curtis.”
This time, Weeks nodded.
“I can’t see him leaving the farm,” Weeks added. “It is his life, after all.”
“It was Geraldine’s life as well,” Vanessa countered.
The room grew solemn as everyone considered that.
“Who inherits if Geraldine dies?” Niall asked quietly.
Vanessa sighed. “About a fortnight before she disappeared she went to the solicitor, at my father’s suggestion, and changed her will. Everything goes back to my father on her demise. I don’t know if she has told Curtis or not, but at the moment he is carrying on as normal.”
“How do you know?” Justin asked.
“Because I call by daily to see if she has returned,” Vanessa replied, seeing no reason to lie to him.
“Even though he might have had a hand in your sister’s disappearance, you go to his farm and challenge the man on his wife’s whereabouts?” Niall demanded incredulously.
“I am not afraid of him. Many people know I am going to the farm. If I disappear the culprit can only be Curtis,” Vanessa replied.
“Or the kidnapper who keeps snatching young women, just like you, off the streets without anybody seeing him,” Justin snapped.
Vanessa wanted to say that the streets were safe, but she now knew they weren’t.
“First Geraldine and then Felicity,” she whispered. “Do you think they are connected? I mean, Felicity is dead but Geraldine isn’t.”
Justin hesitated and threw a dark look at Weeks when he opened his mouth to argue. Weeks closed it again with a snap.
“We don’t know,” Justin replied. “I would caution you not to go anywhere near the farm right now, though.”
Vanessa was already shaking her head. “I refuse to hide. Curtis has made it quite clear I am not welcome at the farm, even though it is not his. I refuse to be bullied away from the place. That farm belongs to my sister, not him, so he doesn’t get a say in what my father and I, her relatives, do there. I know he resents me going anywhere near, but I refuse to be cowed by him so will continue to visit daily to see if Geraldine has returned. I don’t care what anybody thinks. I am going, and that is that.”
“But Curtis is her husband, so has a legal claim on the land,” Weeks burst out clearly affronted at being told to keep quiet.
“Not necessarily,” Justin replied coldly. “If Geraldine has made a will since the marriage, and has left her belongings, in this case the farm, to her family rather than her husband then the will is legally binding. It overtakes any moral arrangement the marriage puts into place. I am afraid the will has to be respected. If Geraldine says the farm goes to her father or sister in her will then the farm goes to her father or sister, and that is that. Curtis can of course challenge it in court if he wishes, but I don’t stand his chances much.”
“Have you looked around the farm?” Niall asked cautiously, wondering if the husband had killed his wife to make room for a lover. It was entirely reasonable, therefore, to look at the possibility that Geraldine’s body might be hidden on the farm somewhere.
“No,” Weeks snapped.
Niall nodded and looked at Justin.
“Why not?” Justin challenged.
Weeks sighed. “Because I don’t think it is necessary. I cannot waste the manpower searching farms. That place is huge. Besides, the search parties looked in all the fields and found nothing. There is nothing to suggest Geraldine is there.”
“But she might be, and you didn’t search for her,” Justin countered flatly.
“She isn’t there, I tell you,” Weeks thundered.
“But you didn’t search for her there,” Justin replied, his voice hard.
“No,” Weeks admitted eventually.
“So she could be there, you just haven’t found her,” Justin countered. He didn’t know why he was pushing so hard. There was something about the magistrate’s belligerence that was annoying. His colleagues thought so too because none of them made any attempt to stop him challenging the man.
Weeks didn’t speak. It was clear he was outnumbered and so lapsed into disgruntled silence.
Vanessa shook her head. “You think she is dead, don’t you?”
“I am not saying that. Don’t put words into my mouth or make assumptions. We just have to rule out every possibility,” Justin warned. “It is highly unlikely you would know where to look if you did decide to search for her. If Curtis has done anything to your sister and you alert him to your discovery before you notify the authorities-” He shook his head.
Vanessa paled and nodded.
“It’s foolish,” Justin warned.
“He might move the body if he thinks you are likely to find her,” Aaron interrupted. “You can’t search a farm in a day. If he does move her he will hide her a bit better the second time, and we might never find her.”
“You would also be highly unlikely to reach the authorities before he struck again,” Jasper added.
Vanessa sighed. “I refuse to simply sit at home and sew while I wait to learn the fate of my sister. All I am doing is going to my sister’s farm to see if she is there. What harm could there be in that?”
“None, as long as Curtis isn’t the one who has killed your sister,” Justin warned.
“If this disappearance is out of character for your sister, and you were as close as you say you are, there is no reason for your sister not to contact you even secretly, is there?” was all Oliver said.
Vanessa blinked at him and allowed that thought to sink in for a moment before she nodded slowly.
“He needs to be put behind bars,” she whispered.
“We will do that – if, and only if, he is responsible,” Niall warned.
“You are not to get yourself involved in our investigation,” Justin added.
“I am going to continue to visit the farm,” she assured them all, not caring who they were or how powerful they seemed. She refused to stop until she knew for definite what had happened to Geraldine.
Justin bit back a curse.
“Look, how about we assign Justin to help you then?” Oliver smothered a smirk when Justin jerked and lifted his brows. There was an angry glint in his colleague’s eye that warned Oliver he would be having sharp words with Justin later, but it was too late to take the offer back now.
“We are here to try to find out who is behind the kidnaps. Thank you for what you have told us today. For the time being, I think we still need to assume that your sister is one of the kidnapped.” Oliver lifted a hand when he saw the young woman looked about to object. “I am not saying your brother-in-law isn’t guilty, please don’t misunderstand. It is just that we have had several other disappearances. As you say, your brother-in-law is dedicated to the farm. It is highly unlikely he would put it all at risk to kill your sister. After all, he knows you were close. You would know instantly if Geraldine disappeared. Why would he risk being suspected of murder if he wants to keep the farm? We will, of course, investigate his potential involvement in Geraldine’s disappearance but, for the time being, we will add your sister to our list of kidnapped young ladies who have been taken from this area. We will leave no stone unturned and will ensure that the culprit is stopped as soon as possible. Meantime, I want you to think about the times you have met Curtis and write down anything you think is unusual. I want to know everything you know about him; his family, his past, his friends. Who he is most likely to turn to. He has to have had a history before he married your sister. I want to know what he has said to you, and your father, when you have met him.”