Cut to the Bone

by Roz Watkins

  ‘Focus on your police work,’ I said. ‘We don’t know for sure that this is part of an ongoing pattern. Don’t assume it’s about the abattoir, or meat, or even that it’s connected to Violet. Cover all bases. At least we have a body. Forensics. Some chance in hell of finding who did this. We even have his phone, although it’s locked and we’re not in it yet.’

  ‘But it is starting to look more like somebody making … a point,’ Fiona said. ‘A body eaten by pigs, a body with a pig’s head mask on.’

  ‘And both people who supported the meat industry,’ Jai said.

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘The way they’ve been killed, if indeed Violet is dead, does seem to make a point.’

  ‘It is about meat, surely?’ Fiona said. ‘The Animal Vigilantes are protesting outside another abattoir today. Loads of them. All wearing meat suits and carrying placards with pigs’ heads on them.’

  ‘Oh God,’ I muttered.

  Craig said, ‘Are you happy it’s not Gary now?’

  ‘This isn’t about point-scoring, Craig. It’s about finding whoever did this.’

  ‘Do you think they’re picking off people from that Great Meat Debate website?’ Fiona said. ‘Could Anna and Kirsty be in danger? And Daniel?’

  ‘Talk to them about protection,’ I said. ‘And we carry on investigating. We don’t assume Violet’s dead, although it’s probable. We don’t assume that Gary Finchley’s death is connected to Violet’s disappearance, although we accept it’s likely. Okay? And let’s crack on, because if someone is making a point, I doubt they’re finished.’

  Gary Finchley’s wife, Mandy, was staying with a friend while her house was being taken apart. An elderly woman pulled open the door of the terraced cottage. ‘You’d better come in.’ She was wearing two pink cardigans despite the heat.

  Walking into the cottage was like entering a fridge, and I heard Jai sigh with relief as we made our way into a dark hallway. Cardigan-woman’s attire started to make more sense. She ushered us into a tiny living room and disappeared.

  Mandy was slumped on a worn green sofa in her dressing gown, so drained of life it looked like she might disappear. The child, Kelly, lay with her head on Mandy’s knee, face turned away from us, sobbing quietly. The dog was leaning into her, its upper lip curling whenever Jai or I made any movement.

  We sat on a matching sofa opposite them. It was so small that Jai and I were squished together, thighs forced awkwardly close.

  ‘Is someone killing people involved with that website?’ Mandy whispered. ‘First Violet, now Gary. Animal rights people. And oh my God …’ She wrapped her arms around Kelly’s ears as if shielding her. ‘A pig’s head!’

  ‘I’m sorry you saw that,’ I said. ‘I’d advise you to stay off social media and please don’t discuss this with anyone. It could jeopardise the investigation.’ I wished we could shut down the whole of the internet, so people could tell us what the hell they actually knew, rather than parroting some crap they read on Facebook.

  ‘But why?’ Mandy said. ‘Why would they do that to Gary? He’s not a bad person.’

  ‘Do you know anything else that makes you think this is aimed at people on the Great Meat Debate website, other than what you’ve seen on social media?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Gary saw the Pale Child too. I told you. He saw her on Monday night in the woods.’ I remembered Fiona’s comment. If anything happens to Gary, we freak the hell out. Should we be freaking the hell out? We hadn’t looked into the Pale Child myth in any detail. It had seemed like nonsense. Just an unhappy coincidence that Violet had seen her and then gone missing. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  ‘What do you know about the Pale Child, Mandy? Who is she?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Mandy cried. ‘I don’t know who she is!’

  ‘Okay. This must be very difficult for you.’

  I let her cry for a moment, and indicated to Jai that he should carry on. He kept his voice soft. ‘Why did Gary go to the abattoir on Sunday night?’

  ‘He said he was doing extra work.’

  Jai frowned, but in a friendly way. ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She looked down at Kelly.

  ‘You need to tell us, Mandy. Don’t worry if you’re not sure if it’s relevant.’

  Mandy fiddled with a strand of Kelly’s hair. ‘I suppose you may as well know. What does it matter now? I think Gary had taken some money from the abattoir business.’ She looked up, and shifted herself upright. ‘We should have been entitled to it anyway. Why should Anna have been left everything instead of Gary? And Tony Nightingale – Kirsty’s dad – gives money to the abattoir as well, but even then Anna can’t make it profitable. She’s not capable of running it. She spent all that money doing the place up, just for some pigs that were going to die anyway. Gary was sure he could have done a better job.’

  I exchanged a look with Jai. ‘Did Gary take the money for anything specific?’ Jai said.

  Mandy sighed. ‘Gary wanted to buy Anna out. It should always have been his anyway. Most parents leave a business to the older sibling, or the boy. It was never fair.’

  ‘Gary was stealing money from the abattoir, because he wanted to buy the abattoir?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why it wasn’t really stealing. He took some money and then invested it to get more. And he changed the people who took the waste away to one who did it for free, and kept the money. Why pay someone when another company will do it for free?’ So that made sense of Maggot Mick. Mandy was watching us, silently acknowledging that she knew exactly why you might pay a reputable company to take away your diseased and discarded animal matter. ‘He did sometimes lose a bit on the horses. You must have noticed all our decent stuff’s gone.’

  And there was your clue as to why the business might have been left to Anna.

  ‘Why does Tony Nightingale give money to the abattoir?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. He wants everything in the village to be nice, I suppose. Like those Victorians used to with their villages. His family’s been in charge here for a long time.’ I pictured Tony Nightingale in his old-fashioned kitchen, the dog’s laser-like focus on the biscuit tin, the roses going wild outside.

  ‘And did Gary see Violet at the abattoir on Sunday?’ Jai asked.

  ‘He didn’t tell me. But he was in a funny mood yesterday.’

  As we waited for Mandy to elaborate, Kelly sat up and nestled herself into her mum’s side, back still to us, drawing Flossy to her. I thought of the bright kid asking us to watch TV with her, and my heart broke a little. Even if Gary had been a dodgy bugger, he’d loved his daughter.

  ‘On Monday night, he went out and met Anna, Kirsty and Daniel in the woods. That was when he saw the Pale Child. I knew …’ Mandy wiped away a tear. ‘I knew something awful was going to happen. The Pale Child is back because of the drought. The old village has come to the surface again.’

  The drowned village. The Pale Child. I shook my head. How could it possibly be relevant?

  ‘And they met in the woods to discuss Violet?’ I said.

  Mandy hit us with her hollow-eyed look. ‘Yes. They thought the animal rights people had hurt Violet and they would be next. But then yesterday evening, Gary told me all our troubles were over.’

  ‘All your troubles were over? Did he tell you what he meant by that?’

  She shook her head and looked down again. ‘I thought he must’ve come on some cash.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t ask him?’

  She sighed. ‘I assumed it was a win, so he wouldn’t have told me – he’d sworn he wouldn’t gamble any more. Besides, I didn’t expect to see much of it.’

  How depressing. I could imagine why Mandy might not feel like getting dressed most days. But had it been a win, or something else?

  ‘Did Gary meet anyone else yesterday?’ I asked.

  ‘He went to work. Apart from that, I don’t know.�
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  ‘Last night, what time was it when he went out?’

  ‘About midnight. He never said where he was going.’

  ‘Do you know what prompted him to go?’

  Mandy reached an arm around the child and pulled her closer. ‘No. He went off without telling me. I had a bad feeling but I didn’t stop him. I should’ve stopped him. But Gary never seemed that scared. Not like he thought he was going to be killed.’

  ‘Why would Gary not have been scared?’ I said. ‘If he thought the Animal Vigilantes were after him?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  I had a theory. What if Gary knew who’d killed Violet and it wasn’t the Animal Vigilantes? He could have seen someone at the abattoir on Sunday night and been planning to blackmail them. But who had he seen?

  ‘What the actual fuck is going on?’ Hannah was sitting at a cramped table in Gritton’s only tea room, looking extremely hot. The place was packed full of people who I suspected were not there for the catering. Outside were more people, milling about and rubbernecking their way around a shocked Gritton, mobile phones held aloft.

  ‘Hi, Hannah, good to see you too,’ I said. Jai had grabbed a lift back with one of the cops who’d been doing the interminable house-to-house enquiries, leaving me free to meet Hannah.

  She grabbed my arm, pulled me close and whispered. ‘Is it true? Violet’s been fed to pigs. That other bloke had a pig’s head mask on. Have the Animal Vigilantes gone completely mental?’

  ‘Let me get you a drink.’

  ‘Thanks, yes. It’s not the most disability-friendly spot. And it’s hotter than the actual bowels of hell.’

  I couldn’t argue with her assessment. The place didn’t appear to have been modernised in about thirty years and was cluttered, doily infested and chintzy, festooned with notices telling you not to do things. No Muddy Boots PLEASE! Dogs NOT Allowed. Please keep your children under CONTROL!!

  ‘Makes you want to turn up with six large dogs and a feral pack of children in muddy boots,’ I said.

  Hannah shifted on her wooden chair. ‘It doesn’t even have a proper coffee machine. And that woman over there gave me the evils when I managed to lever myself out of my wheelchair to shift onto a chair. She thinks I’m faking to get a good table.’

  ‘Oh dear. Bad choice of eatery.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m used to it. Get us another crappy coffee and a gallon of water will you?’

  I battled my way to the counter and bought a tea for me, a coffee for Hannah, and a couple of cakes covered in butter-icing that looked like it could cause death on contact.

  I squeezed myself in opposite Hannah. ‘Anyway, good to see you. What did you want to show me?’

  ‘Is it true though?’ Hannah said. ‘I can’t believe what I’m reading.’

  I sighed. ‘Don’t believe everything you hear, but … there have been some worrying developments which I can’t discuss—’

  ‘You sound like a politician, but I’ll take that as a yes. My God.’

  ‘It’s quite challenging. I can’t be long.’

  ‘I know, I know, but I do need you to tell me how it’s going with your dad and the rare parental visitation.’

  ‘I’ll give you a full run-down, Hannah, but not right now. It’s going okay though.’

  ‘Did you find out why he’s suddenly visited you, after all these years of total silence?’

  ‘He wants to see me.’

  Hannah raised her eyebrows.

  ‘And he’s split up with Pauline.’

  ‘And I bet you’ve totally forgiven him for being such a shit dad for so long, haven’t you?’

  I felt a spark of irritation that she’d speak about him like this. I was allowed to slag him off, but she wasn’t. It was in the official friend rules. ‘He’s being lovely. Making me food, buying nice gin and wine, asking me about stuff.’

  ‘Well, be careful. I know what you’re like.’

  ‘Christ, you’re as bad as my mum. Now what did you want to show me?’

  She fished her phone out of her pocket, tapped the screen, and passed it to me. ‘I know I could have emailed you this, but I wanted a look around the village and I thought you’d be coming up here. See this video I found. I’ve been researching Violet and I saw her video about having seen that Pale Child. I thought it was a bit creepy, so I had a look for more Pale Child stuff and found this. I don’t know how relevant it is, but it’s called “Pale Child Sighting”.’

  I shielded the screen so nobody else could see it. A video played. A rocky moor at dusk, the camera sitting low and at a slight angle as if it was resting on a makeshift tripod. A glimpse of white in the distance. A girl, clambering away over the rocks. She stopped. Turned to face the camera. I felt a jolt of unease. She was wearing an old-fashioned white dress and a doll’s face mask, just like Violet had reported in her video. The girl turned and ran away through the heather.

  ‘I think it was filmed above the reservoir,’ Hannah said. ‘Near Gritton, below the gritstone edge. I had a drive around to look, and I’m pretty sure I’m right.’

  ‘When was it posted?’

  ‘Last week. Which is interesting, isn’t it? It was before Violet went missing. I’m sure the thousands of views are more recent, but someone was posting videos about the Pale Child before Violet put it in the public eye.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll get our tech people to have a look at it. Trace who posted it. Because that’s no ghost, so who the hell is it?’

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. I grabbed it and answered.

  ‘It’s Daniel. Daniel Twigg.’ He sounded as if he’d been running. ‘They’re coming for me next.’

  30

  I dropped my death-by-cake and pressed the phone to my ear. Hannah looked at me wide-eyed.

  ‘They’ve … it’s horrible …’ Daniel’s voice was shaking. ‘They’ve put … stuff on my caravan. My friend’s called the police and they’re on the way, but I thought … after what they did to Gary …’

  ‘I’ll come to you. I’m in Gritton. Get yourself somewhere safe with other people.’

  I phoned to check that uniforms were on their way, gulped down a glass of water, grabbed my stuff, and said a hurried goodbye to Hannah.

  I pushed through the tea room door, and my phone rang again. Jai. I answered while running to my car.

  ‘I just finished talking to Violet’s friend, Izzy,’ Jai said. ‘Remember we both had a feeling she wasn’t telling us the whole story? Well, we were right. There was a secret relationship. Violet made Izzy promise on her mother’s life not to tell anyone, but eventually my charm was too much for her.’

  ‘All right, Jai,’ I gasped. ‘We all know about your charm. Who the hell was it?’

  ‘To be honest, I’m not sure if it was my charm or the fact she’s totally bloody terrified because he’s now dead with a pig’s head mask on him.’

  ‘Gary? But we think he’s Violet’s father! She was having an affair with him?’ I tried to imagine Violet’s feelings if she’d discovered that the man she’d been having a relationship with was not only her father but had raped her mother. And what about Gary? How must he have felt if he found out the girl he was sleeping with was his daughter?

  ‘Not sure you’d call it an affair,’ Jai said, ‘but she hooked up with him, according to Izzy.’

  ‘God.’

  ‘There’s more. Gary told Violet a secret. He made her swear never to tell anyone.’

  I arrived at the car and clicked it unlocked. ‘A secret? Do we know any more than that?’

  ‘Violet told Izzy it was a secret about the Pale Child.’

  I hopped into my car, opened all the windows and drove rather too fast up the main road through the village. A secret about the Pale Child. Everything kept coming back to the Pale Child. But it made no sense. Who was the girl in Hannah’s video? Wasn’t the Pale Child supposed to be a ghost?

  I drove down a side road. A sign for a school hung from a red-brick building, and a couple of
children stood on the grass outside. They were oddly still. I looked again. Not children. Bollards in the shape of children, positioned firmly in the uncanny valley. Like the sinkhole in the road into the village, they were presumably intended to slow drivers down and prevent accidents, but I nearly crashed into a railing, freaking out at how sinister they were.

  I called Jai back, and talked over his attempt at a greeting. ‘What the hell is it with this village? All the railings and gates and ways to make you slow down. We’ve been sidetracked by the whole meat thing and the Animal Vigilantes. I think this is about something else completely. It’s about this weird village and the bloody Pale Child.’

  ‘All right. I’m getting the message. I’ll find out what I can about the Pale Child.’

  I thanked Jai for putting up with me, ended the call, and drove through Lower Gritton, before pulling into the campsite and parking by the sat-down caravan. I shouldn’t have been going alone but this was me, and anyway uniform had been called. I got out of the car and headed for Daniel’s caravan. The rock-balancing art had been kicked over, the stones lying forlornly on the dry grass. On the side of the caravan, daubed in red paint, were the words PIG TORTURER. YOU’RE NEXT.

  The door of the sat-down caravan crashed open and Daniel jumped out. ‘Look what they did! They’re coming for me!’

  ‘Did you see them?’

  ‘No. Dotty saw. She’s called the normal police, but I thought you should see. She said they were dressed in those horrible meat suits. Went right up and did it. She set the dog on them and they ran off.’

  ‘Did they get inside your caravan?’ The edge of the door was dented as if someone had tried to lever it open.

  He shook his head. ‘No. No they didn’t.’

  I looked more closely. ‘It does look like someone’s broken in, Daniel.’

  ‘No. It was already like that. But someone’s going to come and kill me in the night. They fed Violet to the pigs. They put a pig’s head on Gary’s corpse. What are they going to do to me? This is so wrong. I do my best for the animals. Why are they targeting me? I love animals!’