Deadly Thyme

by R. L. Nolen

  Jon glanced at his companion, still and quiet beside him. He had heard Newfoundland dogs were good swimmers, but the violence of the waves upon the granite shelf looked too dangerous for man or beast.

  The dog stopped and scraped at something with one paw. Jon smiled. She was obviously after a poor fish trapped in a rock pool with the tide out. Something white flashed as the dog pawed.

  “Tide ’ll come in,” muttered the old man.

  A huge wave washed up and over the rock, drenching the dog, but the animal would not give up its mission. Jon glanced at the man leaning on his stick, waiting. Surely he wasn’t going to let his dog be washed out to sea, but he budged not an inch.

  Time passed. Jon glanced again at the old man. His gaze returned to the black dog and then again to the man’s grim face. Something told him to be patient; the man was waiting for his dog. What did the dog want so badly? Jon sighed. Nothing to do but to wait with him.

  Down went the dog’s nose into the shadows and out of sight. After a tug that almost landed the dog on its haunches, the black, fuzzy creature headed back. The dog pranced across the rock, head and tail up. With some effort, she crawled and clawed her way up the steep embankment, over to the two men, and dropped her prize at their feet.

  It was a girl’s black shoe.

  15

  Jon pulled his mobile from his jacket pocket and dialed. Whilst it rang, he turned to the old man, “Your name?”

  “Gareth Wren Tavish,” came the gruff reply. He gave the dog a rough pat on the head. He didn’t touch the shoe, merely looked once again out to sea.

  His name surprised Jon. First impressions were funny things. His connection went through.

  “Tom Bakewell.”

  “Sir. Jon Graham.”

  He glanced up and down the coastline. “I’m less than a mile from Perrin’s Point.”

  “In which direction?”

  “Sorry, south.” He watched as Mr. Tavish drew pictures in the dirt with his staff. “On the cliff top and I’ve run into a gentleman and his dog.”

  “With your car?”

  “I’m on foot.” He glanced at the dog. “The dog’s pulled a girl’s shoe from the surf.”

  “Floating?”

  “It was attached to something.”

  “Have you looked?”

  Jon’s eyes went to the spot on the rock ledge where the dog had been. “No,” Jon pushed the soft, springy sod with the toe of his shoe, “I don’t think it will wait; the tide will put it underwater again.”

  “Discover what you can and ring me back no matter.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jon closed the connection and turned. “Mr. Tavish, do you know what’s down there?”

  “Tavy.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “People call me Tavy.”

  “Tavy, do you know what’s down there?”

  “Why?”

  Jon pulled out his official identification, but Tavy motioned him to stop.

  “Know yer police.” He grinned. The old man sported a toothless upper palate.

  Jon glanced again at the spot where the dog had been. “I ask because you looked as if you knew what the dog was up to.”

  Tavy studied the ground. He leaned against his staff. His hat hid his face. The white wisps of his beard shimmered in the early daylight as he gestured toward the dog sitting at his feet. “Wouldn’t a-bothered about a fish.”

  He prodded up the soft earth with the end of his staff as if there were more answers to be found in it. Coming from behind them, the sunlight burst through the clouds and sparkled like diamonds across the sea. The beach below was darkly shadowed.

  Jon shaded his eyes with his hands to try and pick out anything he could. “So you don’t know if the missing girl is down there?”

  The old man’s eyes were dark tunnels of unfathomable depths—unsettling.

  Jon started down over the side. He didn’t mind the dirt and rocks. He wasn’t inexperienced with climbing—and with that thought, his foot slipped. He began a more rapid descent than he had intended. About midway down, in the soil and turf avalanche, his foot caught on a rock and twisted him sideways so he hit the soft sand at the bottom of the steep incline, on his face.

  Spitting sand from his mouth, Jon sputtered, “I’m fine. I’m fine.” No response from above. “Hello?”

  Tavy’s face appeared over the edge, looking down on Jon with a bemused twinkle. “Fallen over the side, ’ave ye?”

  Dignity lost in one fell swoop, Jon brushed the dry sand from his face. “If you wouldn’t mind sticking around a bit …”

  Tavy made no indication to Jon that he would or would not stay.

  The waves soldiered in as the wind picked up. The sun disappeared behind a cloud and shadows disappeared. It was much easier to observe everything in this light.

  Jon climbed onto the rock. He didn’t really want to see what he knew was there. A short phrase from Macbeth came to mind: Present fears are less than horrible imaginings. Only, he believed that his fears would prove true and be worse than what he imagined. From here, the incoming swell of water towered skyward, sank down, and then splashed up around him. What awaited in a crevice closer to the end of the rock shelf was far worse than crashing waves.

  The slender, petite body was crammed into a wide crack in the rock so that it was almost entirely submerged beneath the clear-as-glass saltwater.

  It might have been the child had fallen over the cliff and into the surf, which then mashed her body into this crack, but for the fact that the head was covered with a cloth sack. One end of the string binding the sack floated free and wiggled like a white sea-worm each time a new wave deposited more sea spray into the cauldron.

  A hole in the sack over her head pulsated, and for one sick moment Jon imagined she was attempting to speak to him from inside her covering. But as he bent closer, tiny crabs crept from the hole and scattered over the rock, dropping one by one into the foamy surf. Some creature had devoured the flesh of the part of her arm that was visible above water, exposing the delicate bones of her forearm. Underwater, whatever skin he could see was washed of any color.

  Shockingly, the fully clothed body lay as if resting in the bath. One shoeless foot still had a white sock on it.

  The other foot did not have a shoe or sock because it was stripped of flesh.

  A gull dropped from the sky onto the rock. It waddled toward the body, sharp beak pointed skyward, wings flared out. The sight of that small skeletal foot filled Jon with rage. Waving an arm, he shouted, “Scat!”

  The bird screeched and launched itself into the breeze.

  Jon turned back to where the body lay. He had seen death touch human beings in many ways, but this—this horrible imagining proved fearfully real—was no good. This was no good at all. The fact that this white, torn piece of flesh had, only six days before, been a lively young girl turned his stomach. He dialed his mobile. After one ring the phone connected.

  “Yes, Jon.”

  “It’s a girl’s body,” Jon said.

  “You’ll have to ring up the police. Tell them who you are. Stay with the story, though. You’re on holiday.”

  “Right.” Jon closed the connection. He stared out to sea. “Such a holiday.”

  The doorbell rang. Sally answered. Ruth stopped brushing her teeth to listen from the next room. She could still hear her mother snoring; the noise was irksome because she couldn’t hear who was at the door. She wiped her face. The toothpaste tasted salty and artificially sweet.

  She tightened her robe and slipped into the kitchen to sit at the table with her tea. A shiver passed through her. She wrapped her freezing fingers around the warmth. Her legs had been cramping all night and had kept her awake.

  Sally entered the room followed by the same police officer who had questioned Ruth on the beach that dread morning. Constable Stark was followed by Constable Allison Craig. Each face revealed that what they needed to say would not be good news. Ruth gave a moan and fell sideways. The tea m
ug landed on her braided rag rug. The handle cracked and the tiny ceramic duck on the inside broke free and rolled out. The milky liquid soaked the rug.

  Sally knelt next to Ruth’s chair, paying no heed to the sticky mess. “They’ve found a girl’s body.”

  Ruth sat bolt upright in the chair. “No! I don’t want to hear this!” She searched Sally’s face. “Don’t look at me!” Ruth pushed her away and struggled to rise.

  Constable Stark had paled to a dead white with twin red blazes of color from cheek to ear. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Butler.”

  “What do you mean? Why did you come here? It isn’t Annie. Don’t be silly.”

  He looked at the floor. “I don’t quite know how to … The body … due to nature’s ways … They’ve moved ’er because of the tide comin’ in and all. We’re not asking you to identify the body—just to look at some of the items recovered.”

  “What do you mean?” Her breath came in gasps. “What about the tide?” Her voice strained into a higher pitch and louder volume, “Why did you say tide?”

  “Mrs. Butler—”

  “Ruth … Ruth …” Sally shook Ruth’s arm gently.

  “Are you saying she drowned?” Her voice didn’t sound like her voice. The truth of what they were saying bore through Ruth’s heart and left untellable pain in its wake. Her daughter had been in the water all this time? How could she not feel that? How could she not have detected through the deep blankness of space that her daughter had died? She could not believe it.

  Ruth’s eyes met Sally’s.

  “I’m sorry.” Sally hugged Ruth to her robust bosom, rocked her back and forth and sobbed, “I’m so sorry.”

  Ruth felt sick to her stomach. She pushed away from Sally. “You’re wrong! You’re wrong! Annie is not dead!”

  She heard her mother say, “Annie is dead?”

  Ruth couldn’t stop shaking. Her teeth clattered. Her throat was on fire. “No, Momma. She’s coming home. She’s lost. She’ll come home because she always does. She always comes home.”

  Allison Craig reached for Ruth’s mother as the stout woman slid to the floor.

  “She’s coming home!” Ruth yelled.

  The tall constable shifted from foot to foot, clawing at the brim of his hat. Constable Craig, her hair coming undone from its clasp, face puffy as if she wanted to cry, helped Sally get Ruth’s mother into a chair. Constable Craig said quietly, “Mrs. Butler, please.”

  Ruth took a breath. “What did you ask me?”

  Allison Craig said, “We need someone to look at some clothing, and well, we do need you to allow us to take a sample of your DNA.” Her voice cracked. She pushed her hair away from her eyes. “You don’t have to view anything else.”

  “But I want to see.” Her baby, her daughter … a body lay on some cold metal surface somewhere? Impossible. In a firm voice, she said, “I need to see.”

  “Me, too,” her mother sobbed.

  “No, Momma. No. I’m going. Alone.”

  Constable Stark swallowed. “There isn’t enough of the face to identify.”

  Sally took Ruth’s hands in hers. “Think what you’re sayin’ Ruth! Let me go … or Sam!”

  “I’m going to see the body. If it’s Annie—and I know it isn’t—but if it is, I … This is my fault. I brought her here. I took away all her chances. It’s God’s punishment, isn’t it? I should have done something more or different. But …” Her face set, she said in a cold voice, “I need to see.”

  Sally was shaking her head. “Have you—”

  “Thought about this? I’ve spent all these nights and days thinking about it. There shouldn’t be any more thinking.” A body. She heard a voice that sounded like someone else’s voice speaking. “I will go.” A body without feeling.

  Sally took her hand. “Let me go with you.”

  Ruth nodded.

  Her mother pushed back from the table. She looked empty, deflated—not like her mother at all. Ruth put out her hand. “Momma, you stay here. There may be a phone call.” She stood. Sally stood. One supporting the other, they followed the constables to the awaiting police car.

  16

  Friday, early afternoon

  Jon Graham drove. The road into Treborwick was narrow, the way, short. Approaching from the direction of Perrin’s Point, one had to travel east and uphill to reach the larger town thirty minutes away. An old bridge, three men wide, crossed the river alongside the newer, navigable bridge leading into town. Treborwick police station was a larger, more modern facility than the Perrin’s Point police house that dated from former times when the police station and the policeman’s home were one and the same.

  He had reported the body. The SOCO team came while he was still there. Tavy had been allowed to leave. The body had been transferred. Now he had been invited to speak to Trewe at his office. Great! He’d be face to face with the one he’d come to investigate. His hands were sweaty, his stomach full of flutter—as if he had come for a job interview. He was that nervous. The door to the police station swung opened. The boxy, sterile front room appeared deserted, and a glass-enclosed space encapsulated the front desk personnel.

  Subdued activity could be heard from the rooms in back. Nearer at hand the buzz of conversation drew him to peek around a partition. He could see no one. He dare not walk back to the adjoining room and interrupt as if he were part of the team. Jon thumped his knuckles against the scarred counter with the immediate reaction of silence.

  A uniformed constable poked his head around a corner. “May I help you, sir?”

  “Jon Graham. Here to meet with Detective Chief Inspector Trewe.”

  “Thank you for coming.” The constable conferred with someone behind him, then looked past Jon at the hard plastic chairs. “Someone will be right out.”

  “Thank you.” Before Jon could sit, a woman police constable emerged from the inner recesses and announced that Detective Chief Inspector Trewe would see him now. Should he follow her? She gave him an odd look. Then she smiled—good smile, solid woman, messy hair at odds with her perfectly creased attire.

  The large, sunless room held a gloom that had nothing to do with the weather. No one met his eyes. Uniformed police officers slumped back and forth, intent on their work. Suited detectives bent over one computer, taking notes from what was on the screen. A table stacked with papers took up the center of the room. Ringing phones, conversation, and the tap-tapping of fingers at keyboards rolled in waves of intensity—louder, then softer.

  Push bicycles lined the inside wall near a back door.

  The WPC leaned toward Jon and whispered, “Allison Craig.” She shook his hand. “Don’t misunderstand, things aren’t normally this—”

  An office door opened. Ear splitting shouts burst from within. “Take that bloody rubbish out of here!”

  Everyone froze.

  The individual receiving those words backed out, closing the door. Apparently not realizing anyone stood behind him, he turned and smashed into Jon’s chest. The papers he carried scattered across the carpeted floor.

  “Sorry.” Jon peeled the poor man from his shirt. “Sergeant.”

  A flush spread from the officer’s neck to his ears. Sergeant Perstow began stuttering his apologies. “Should be a-mindin’ where I go.” The sweating older man looked around as if not quite sure what to do with himself. He started a fresh apology. “Sorry—”

  Jon stopped him. The man had a bandage along one wrist that disappeared beneath his cuff. “You’ve hurt your arm?”

  “I’m fine, sar.” Again, Perstow’s ultra-fair skin grew red in a deep blush as he bent down to gather papers. “Sorry, sar.”

  Jon glanced over at Trewe’s secretary. Meeting his eyes, she gave him a provocative half-smile and shrugged with a shake of her head. He nodded and knocked on Trewe’s door.

  The door jerked open. Trewe proclaimed, “I said no interruptions!”

  A second or two of silence elapsed.

  Trewe huffed. “Who are you?”

/>   “Detective Inspector Jon Graham. I was asked to come round.”

  Trewe shook his hand and fumbled with the door. He marched around his desk, opened a drawer, and popped two white tablets into his water glass where they fizzed. He drank it in one go and sat down, his face a studied picture of calm. He pointed at a chair across from his desk. “Please.”

  Jon quickly scanned Trewe’s face, noting the thin, wrinkle-free skin and palest of blue eyes, the unwavering gaze—definitely the face of a determined individual. He knew it by the set of the jaw. He sat.

  Perstow seemed hesitant to enter but Trewe waved him in impatiently. Perstow sat down on the edge of his seat, still holding his papers as if he didn’t expect to stay for long.

  “Why are you here, Mr. Graham?” Trewe demanded.

  “I’m the one who found the body.”

  Trewe’s demeanor changed. He pushed his chair back. “A policeman finding the body. That’s novel.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Trewe shuffled paper. “The officers at the scene took a detailed statement. I just want to go over a few items.”

  “All right.”

  “Why are you in Cornwall?”

  Because where there’s muck there’s brass. He kept his retort and held his gaze level, hoping his face appeared honest and sincere as he lied. “Actually, I’m on holiday. Been planning to come down this way for a bit of a seaside holiday for years. I surf. Seemed a likely spot, you see.”

  “A change from …” Trewe let the question hang.

  “London,” Jon said, smiling. The fixed stare was threatening, the pale of Trewe’s eyes as disconcerting as circles of blue-white flame from hell’s bottomless pit. “The weather seems pleasant enough for this time of year.”