‘I committed adultery this afternoon,’ she said. ‘Christ, I’m talking to the bloody sky because there’s no one else I can tell.’
She walked through to the bedroom and put on a tangerine cotton dress, grimacing slightly at the suggestion of tautness across her hips. It didn’t matter. Tomorrow evening they would be able to take their time, have space to stroke, explore and arouse. What a very short distance it was between obedience and daring, between captivity and the excitement of freedom.
‘And will I start feeling guilty about this, Mr Randall Jowett?’ She smiled at the question. ‘Not that I give a damn at the moment.’
*
In the cottage Jowett stared at the laptop screen, what he had written unseen. It had not been lust but a reaching, a recognition of loneliness; she had granted him kindness. And she had known them, been their friend, loved them. She was a bridge to where he might find absolution. For a few ecstatic seconds in that room the rope had snapped and the still bleeding albatross had fallen away; now it was back, but he had fleetingly known the sensation of not bearing it. He began to write again.
They walk with me constantly, those whom I never met, but know. They no longer accuse, but ask why, and I can give no answer. Sometimes I feel they wish to forgive — that they even have forgiven — but I cannot hear them saying it. Remorse is like a wilderness that has no visible horizons beyond which you can travel … unless you find someone to lead you there.
Chapter Nine
Stark black jacket and white blouse rigid as a chastity bodice gave Christine Sheaffer the appearance of a highly trained and methodical secretary, an impression reinforced by the silver propelling pencil poised to take shorthand notes, pad balanced on one slender knee. Fair, silky hair inherited from an Austrian father was wound like a scarf across the back of her head and she wore minimal pale make-up; she masked her Saxon beauty, as though it were a gift she chose not to use. Opposite her, across the desk, were Inspector Peter Haggard and the disturbing bulk of Sergeant Harry Pugh, examining a grubby handkerchief as he dabbed his chin to see if a shaving cut had stopped bleeding. His name was a pronounceable corruption of Iorwerth, which actually translated as Edward.
‘How much do you know about the case?’ Haggard asked.
‘It’s among the most serious murder inquiries this force has ever conducted — and we didn’t get a result. Some of the team have told me about it — it’s still talked about, of course — but I don’t know any operational details.’
The response was typical; no false affected knowledge in an attempt to impress. Newly arrived from a successful two years with drugs, she listened to experienced officers, accepted as much as she dismissed, appreciated it when she received the right sort of treatment. Resistance to women still lingered in CID — especially to a woman with a sociology degree who could write a thesis on sexual harassment — but Sheaffer defied it. And she was hungry for metaphorical stripes, further rungs on her career ladder.
‘I’ll fill you in on the basics,’ Haggard said. Her pencil began to scamper as he continued. ‘There were about seventy officers involved at the height of the investigation, but we all ended up running down blind alleys. The Godwins were good people, churchgoers, well liked, no known enemies. We couldn’t find motives among any members of the family, and most of them had alibis anyway. The only thing that ever looked like a lead was a chap called Billy Marsh, who came up when we checked for anyone with form in the area. He’d done eighteen months for aggravated robbery and GBH and the rural patrol officer reckoned he was mixed up in drug dealing on Finch council estate. But he had an alibi as well. After we pushed him a bit, he admitted he’d been fishing illegally that afternoon with a couple of mates and they backed him up. We had nothing to place him at the scene and we didn’t find anything when we searched his house. Otherwise, we had no positive suspects. There was one set of fingerprints we never eliminated, and impressions of two pairs of trainers on the sitting-room floor — so we know there were at least two of them. I can’t think of any line we didn’t pursue, but finally we ran out of TIEs.’
Sheaffer glanced up. ‘TIEs?’
‘Trace, implicate, eliminate,’ Pugh grunted. ‘What do they call them in drugs?’ Sheaffer said nothing.
‘Anyway, the press got bored when we didn’t pull anyone in, so the publicity dried up and the inquiry inevitably ran down,’ Haggard continued. ‘The last thing that happened I’m aware of was in 1993, but that turned out to be nothing more than an outbreak of neighbourly vindictiveness.’
‘Wasn’t there a confession?’ Sheaffer queried.
Haggard laughed. ‘How long was it before Bertie Kerridge turned up, Harry?’
‘An hour after we announced it — said he’d wanted to finish his dinner first. Bertie comes with the territory, Chris. He started his hobby by swearing he’d shot Kennedy.’
Haggard sat back. ‘And that’s the guts of Suffolk Constabulary’s biggest failure. Several boxes of files and God knows how much computer space will finally tell you the same thing. Questions at this stage?’
Sheaffer flicked back a page of her notebook, resting the pencil tip against a line of hooks and circles that ended with a question mark, a small cross where the dot would normally have been.
‘Are we absolutely certain this was a robbery that went wrong? Or could it have been a murder and the stuff was taken to disguise the fact?’
‘Good point.’ Pugh sounded faintly surprised. ‘We looked at that, but you still come back to motive. These were good people. Who’d want to kill them?’
‘Who benefited?’
‘Ben Godwin had left money to various relatives; quite a lot in some cases. And of course Trevor inherited Tannerslade.’
‘Where he’s still living.’ Sheaffer shook her head. ‘I’ve always thought that was seriously weird.’
‘So did we at first,’ Haggard said. ‘But you’ve got to remember the Godwins have been at Tannerslade since the Flood. It’s always been handed down to the eldest son. Trevor said he wasn’t going to let a couple of savages with a gun destroy that.’
‘So he lives in the house where his parents, his sister and her children were killed?’ Sheaffer still sounded disbelieving.
‘Somehow. It can’t have been easy for him.’
‘It still could have been a motive.’
‘But it collapses the moment you look at it. Apart from the fact that everyone told us how much he cared for his parents, he ran a successful market garden business in Stowmarket and wasn’t on his beam ends. He reckoned it could be years before he got Tannerslade — old Ben was healthy enough — and he was building up the business for his younger son to inherit when his brother got the farm. They were only schoolkids at the time. Tim must be about twenty now.’
‘What about professionals?’
‘Another blank. We asked for unofficial inquiries to be made in Essex, the Met, West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Glasgow … you name it. The fact that two children had died might have made someone talk, but nobody knew anything. Personally, I never thought they were full-time villains. There was too much intelligence behind Tannerslade, Chris. Virtually no clues at the scene and no prints on those shotgun cartridges. All from the same weapon, so five shots meant it must have been reloaded twice. Normally, you’d expect to find a thumbprint on the metal end where they were put in the barrels. OK, so they wore gloves at the time of the killings — but none of those cases had anything on them. Which meant they were even careful enough to wear gloves when it was loaded beforehand. Then they just disappeared. Somebody planned this bloody well.’
‘But why Tannerslade?’ Sheaffer asked. ‘There must be dozens of other potential targets in that area.’
‘A county magazine had run a piece about the Godwins a few months earlier,’ Pugh said sourly. ‘What was in the house; the fact they lived alone. All a villain needed was a couple of quid for a copy.’
‘Irresponsible.’
‘A free press …
’ Haggard commented. ‘And Ben and Annie co-operated with them. They were too trusting to think what it might lead to. Perhaps we should be relieved there are still people with enough faith in goodness to think like that.’ His mouth twisted slightly.
Sheaffer hesitated. ‘You say all the family had alibis, but we held the daughter’s husband for questioning. David Hood, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Haggard agreed, ‘but —’
‘We didn’t push that bastard hard enough.’
‘He was in the clear, Harry. No motive, and he was in York at the time. Two canons at the cathedral confirmed that.’
Haggard had known it would only be a matter of time before Pugh’s resentment at their failure surfaced. Hard as the rock out of which his valley fathers had hacked coal, blacksmith-broad, forearms like pigs’ thighs, the Welshman had been the angriest of them all at Tannerslade, yelling at Preston, who led the inquiry, when he had been ordered to take a couple of days off to get some sleep. Haggard had been worried that Pugh would be the one to find the killers and what those terrible hands would have done. But it had been bad for all of them. It was Mandy, who had looked so agonizingly like his niece, whom Haggard remembered most vividly. But this little girl had not been laughing, demanding that Uncle Peter show her his handcuffs; her dead eyes had been staring at sky she would never see again, her face like a child playing some game in which you were out if you moved. And nobody in that farmyard had made any of the usual protective jokes about murder; Jack Gotobed had turned his back so that the press pack could not take a picture of him weeping.
‘Any more questions, Chris?’
‘Not at this stage, sir — except why you wanted to talk to me about it.’
‘I’ll come to that in a moment, but first you should know there’s been a development.’ Haggard opened a file. ‘A weapons collector in Somerset has contacted us. He bought a seventeenth-century German headsman’s sword from an antiques dealer in Bristol — sort of thing they used for executions — and was showing it to somebody who remembered the alert we put out after Tannerslade. The police down there have checked it at our request and it’s definitely the one Ben Godwin owned. A nick in the blade matches the description he put on the back of one of the photographs we found.’
‘How did the dealer get hold of it?’
‘Somebody walked in off the street sometime last December with a story that he’d inherited it. He asked for cash.’
‘Any description?’
‘Not much of one after all this time. Late thirties, possibly older, well-spoken — certainly not local, possibly London or the Home Counties — five ten … He might remember more when we talk to him. Mike Davenport’s gone down there.’
‘So they’ve finally started selling?’
‘We finally know they are,’ Haggard corrected. ‘A lot of the stuff from Tannerslade wasn’t that identifiable. I’m no expert, but I imagine one Dresden shepherdess looks much the same as another. They could have been shifting stuff for years, but something’s only just been spotted. We’re putting out another warning to the trade to see if anything else turns up.’
Sheaffer wound out another few millimetres of lead from the pencil. ‘And where do I come in, sir?’
Haggard closed the file, tapping the contents into place on the desktop. ‘We’ve heard you’ve just moved to Finch. Where exactly?’
Sheaffer began to understand. ‘A cottage on The Street — at least that’s what it said in the estate agent’s bumf. Most people would call it a rabbit hutch in the middle of a terrace. It needs a lot spending on it, which is why I got it cheap.’
‘Met Dave Truman at the Shoulder of Mutton yet?’ Pugh asked.
‘I think I’ve seen him, but we’ve never spoken. Why?’
‘He used to be in traffic. Remember me to him.’
‘I’ll do that.’ She turned back to Haggard. ‘But what do you want me to do, sir?’
Haggard leant forward across the desk. It was nearly twenty years since he had been the police national bantamweight champion, but, less than half the width of Pugh, he remained all compacted strength.
‘Tannerslade still rankles around here, Chris. You must know that. We want it cleared, and not just to close the books and have some judge compliment us at the end of the trial. This one was personal for a lot of us. So anything that might give us a lead we’re prepared to try.’
‘And now I’ve moved to Finch …’ She left it for him to continue.
‘Precisely.’ He tapped the file. ‘There isn’t enough in this Bristol business to justify us going back to the village and asking questions at this stage. It would raise people’s hopes and all we’ve managed to do so far is disappoint them.’
‘But you want me to make inquiries?’
‘Inquiries is a bit strong … but keep your ears open.’
‘Do we have any reason to think they came from Finch?’
‘No — we don’t know where they came from. But you might hear about somebody who’s … I don’t know. Bought themselves a new car when everyone thinks they’re broke.’
‘If they were as intelligent as you say, would they be that stupid?’
Haggard remembered what Bingham in drugs had told him; Chris Sheaffer thinks fast on her feet and remembers everything you tell her.
‘Fair point, but something might surface. Maybe you’ll hear about someone who’s been going away regularly without any obvious reason. It’s a long shot, but sometimes they get results.’
‘How much authority do I have?’ The question was sharply interrogative. Sheaffer always wanted clear orders.
‘You’re an officer in this force. That’s your authority. So use your intelligence … but this needs instinct as well. You grew up in a village, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. East Soham.’
‘Then you know what it’s like. After a while you become part of the community. You can’t hide the fact of your job, but eventually they’ll just accept you as someone who lives there.’
Sheaffer looked dubious. ‘Villagers keep newcomers at a distance. It takes time to be accepted.’
‘We’re not in a hurry, Chris. You might not come up with anything, but we wanted to brief you. All right?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Sheaffer closed her notebook and slipped the pencil into an inside pocket. ‘I assume you know I’m starting three weeks’ leave on Friday? I want to get the place straight and decorate it.’
‘Yes, I know. It will be a good opportunity for you to meet people.’
‘I want to read the files as well.’
‘You won’t get through them all in two days,’ Haggard warned. ‘But you can fillet out the important parts. You can skip most of the statements from the locals. They won’t tell you anything.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ She stood up. ‘Harry.’
Pugh took out a pipe charcoaled with use as he watched her pass the window of Haggard’s office on her way back to CID operations room; Sheaffer would have complained if he’d lit it while she had been in the room and the Chief, newly converted to the anti-tobacco lobby, would have supported her. There was a faint hissing crackle as he sucked the thick flame of an old-fashioned petrol lighter into the bowl as though trying to drag the fire into his mouth.
‘What makes you think she’ll crack it?’ The words emerged through an acrid cloud of impatient smoke.
‘I’m not saying she will,’ Haggard replied. ‘But we didn’t crack it, Harry, and we don’t lose anything by bringing her in.’
‘What’s she going to do? Get someone to talk by flashing her tits at them?’
Haggard laughed. ‘You never change, Harry … but perhaps you’ll think better of her if she does come up with something.’
‘Money on it?’
‘No thanks.’
‘So how much faith have you got in her?’
‘Enough to let her try.’ Haggard looked straight at him. ‘I want them as much as you do, boyo. You ought to know that.’ Pugh stared back, then nodded. ‘
OK, Peter. No bet, but there’s five pints for you from me if she does it.’
‘And what does she get?’
‘I’ll teach her all the dirty versions of every rugby song I know.’
Teeth clamped on the stem of the pipe, Pugh grinned, then left in pursuit of the comfort of hops.
Chapter Ten
Joyce found the complications of deceit amusing. Dozens of people in Finch would recognize her Honda Accord, so how could she leave it parked outside the cottage for several hours? But her plans for the evening demanded it. She wanted to take food — cold salmon, asparagus and baby new potatoes, fresh strawberries — to eat with the Piesporter, quieter appetites satisfied in easy companionship before hungry devouring. And it mattered that he should see her in soft satin and high heels, that she should look desirable. So it meant using the car, even if … Sod it. The more blatantly she parked, the less suspicious it would be — assuming that anyone would suspect Joyce Hetherington, voluntary teacher for slow infant readers and former Mother’s Union president, of rolling naked with a handsome young man, delirious and sinfully gasping. She felt a slight chagrin at the thought that probably no one would imagine it; but she would feel shameless satisfaction if they ever found out.
Perhaps he’d left the front door open to allow a breeze through the cottage; but perhaps it was a welcome.
‘Hello? Where are you? It’s me.’
‘Oh … sitting room.’ Surprise in the tone? Relief? Apprehension? But sitting room was right for what other visitors called the lounge, suggesting a good family, people who behaved well. He did not come out to greet her and she found him lying on the sofa under the twilight-washed window, arm resting along its back, bare feet again, lavender chinos, woven cotton sports shirt. Joyce was instantly conscious of how the late tawny sunlight and pale shades emphasized his black hair and tinted skin, and of looking at a man in that way again after so many years.
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