by Joy Ellis
‘Because I was the murderer and didn’t want her found.’ said Scott immediately.
‘But the girl Fleur died of malnutrition.’
‘So he starved her to death,’ Rosie replaced the handset. ‘That’s murder too.’
Gary heaved in a big breath. ‘Mm, I suppose so.’
‘Or..,’ said Scott thoughtfully scrolling up and down on his computer. ‘I had to dig her up.’
Gary blinked. ‘For what reason?’
‘I was thinking of my mate’s dog actually. He’d buried his ashes in the garden, then his wife wanted to move, and he was gutted about leaving the dog behind, so he dug the urn up and took it with him.’
‘That’s possible.’ Rosie chewed on a thumb nail. ‘And thinking along the same vein, what if you had to dig her up because something was going to happen to the place she was buried?’
Gary stood up and walked around the office, stopping when he reached the evidence boards. ‘Yes, now that is a very good point indeed.’
The phone shrilled out, and Rosie picked it up. ‘It’s the lab.’ She said with her hand over the mouth piece. ‘Prickles has an urgent message for the Fox.’
‘Then I’d better take it, hadn’t I?’ said Kate, as she and Jon marched into the room.
‘Sorry, ma’am.’ Rosie handed her the phone sheepishly.
‘DCI Reynard here.’
Gary watched as her face changed. Whatever she was being told was important, and the whole team had picked up on it. When she hung up, three sets of eyes were staring at her hopefully.
‘Prickles has isolated two identical, and viable, prints from the Children’s Ward.’ Kate looked at them excitedly. ‘There is no match on our database, but from where he found them, they almost certainly belong to our killer.’
‘Where were they?’ asked Jon.
‘One on the underside of one the hospital beds; and the other on a clothes rail.’ She pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘And as Jon and I have just sent him some dabs from Toby Tanner’s house, we might have answers very soon.’ She exhaled and looked at Jon. ‘You tell them about our adventures down on the farm. My face hurts to talk.’
Gary half listened to the Sarge telling them about Asher Leyton and the hanged man, but something still niggled away in the back of his mind. He had felt very close to it, and then the DCI and the Sarge had arrived, and his train of thought had evaporated.
‘So does this mean we have to let Benedict Broome go?’ asked Scott. ‘We took his prints when we brought him.’
‘Not yet. Just because his prints weren’t in the Children’s Ward, doesn’t mean he’s not involved, and we still have to wait for forensics to tell us what occurred in that caravan.’ Kate shuddered. ‘That’s one report I’m not looking forward to reading.’
The food arrived and they ate at their desks. The initial thrill of knowing they had lifted prints from the scene had worn off. They still had to have a suspect to tie them to. And Kate was beginning to feel the effects of having been bulldozed to the ground by Micah Lee.
She had retreated to her office, simply because her mouth hurt so much that eating was almost impossible, and seeing their boss dribbling was not good for team morale. But still, she needed to eat if she was to keep her brain in gear. As she tried to force down a small piece of food, she thought about what Jon had told her about Fleur’s multiple injuries. It was almost certain that they were the result of serious abuse, but where did you start to look when the girl had been dead for two decades?
She washed down the gooey pizza topping with some coffee, and gave up on the crispy base. Apart from anything else, she couldn’t get Micah’s words out of her head. According to him, she had destroyed everything. And he had also said, “Let’s see how your family likes being torn apart.” The emphasis was on the word your, seeming to imply, that she had destroyed his family. But what family? Maybe he was referring to the dead girls? Kate thought that was probable.
A bark of laughter echoed in from the CID room. She looked through the open door and saw Gary practically levitate from his chair. Kate pushed the massacred pizza to one side and went out to see what was happening.
‘My God!’ Gary let out a shaky breath and looked at her apologetically. ‘Sorry, ma’am, but I’ve come to a terrible.., a really awful conclusion.’ He stopped, took a deep breath, and as the team watched him open-mouthed, he said, ‘It’s about Fleur, and Scott’s mate’s dog, and the onion processing plant.’
Kate blinked several times. ‘I’m not easily confused Gary, but you’ve done it with flying colours.’
Gary flopped back into his chair. ‘We were talking about reasons why you’d dig up a body, hence the dog’s ashes. Then Rosie said what if something was happening to the place where it was buried, and that’s just it! The rose arch. The place where the Sarge keeps seeing Fleur?’ Gary looked at her intently. ‘I now know where it is!’
‘It’s on the Hurn Point road.’ said a perplexed Rosie. ‘I did tell you.’
‘Yes you did, and you said that the ground has been razed, but the plans have been held up on the onion waste plant, right?’
Rosie nodded. ‘Has been for while apparently.’
Gary wrung his hands, like an angst-ridden, male Lady Macbeth. ‘Well, it’s only just come to me what used to be on that land.’
‘But I checked it, Gary. It was a riding stable. It went bankrupt.’ Rosie frowned and looked uneasy. ‘Did I miss something?’
‘No, Flower, you didn’t, but I did. It was what was there before, that I should have remembered.’ Gary looked almost sick. ‘There was a big house on the adjoining plot of land. It’s long gone, but it was called Alderfield.’
Kate stiffened. The name was familiar.
‘Alderfield was the home of Simeon and Charlotte Mulberry. Simeon, the man who killed his wife, then shot himself, in front of his children.’
Silence filled the big room, and Kate’s head danced with confusing thoughts and suppositions.
Fleur, the girl who was beaten and starved to death, was leading them constantly back to Alderfield.
And she was the oldest body in that dreadful underground burial chamber.
The first girl to be placed gently into a carefully made bed. Fleur; the first of so many innocent girls.
Suddenly Kate found her voice. ‘Were you on that investigation, Gary?’
‘Not exactly, ma’am. I was at Harlan Marsh when it occurred, but it was such a sensitive case that most of us lower ranks were kept unaware of the full details.’
Kate looked across to where Jon was sitting quietly at his desk. He hadn’t spoken a word since Gary began his out-pouring. ‘Jon? Are you alright?’
He nodded slowly, then he rolled up his sleeve to expose a pure white hand print on his lower arm. Then, just as Kate was about to speak, she saw it fade and disappear.
‘She smiled at me.’ Jon sighed with relief. ‘I don’t think I’ll see her again. We may not have the full story, but we’ve made the connection, now she can rest.’
Kate’s head was still spinning. ‘We are going to have to uncover every damned thing we can about that case, especially where the girl fits in,’ she looked at Gary. ‘Do you know anyone who’d help us? Anyone who was involved in the original enquiry?’
‘Maybe, although whether he’ll talk is another matter.’ Gary puffed out his cheeks. ‘It was a bad business, ma’am, Harlan Marsh dealt with it, well, as far as they were allowed to. Then one evening a special unit arrived, and everything was magic-ed away. Evidence, reports, statements. Everything, including the DI that was heading up the enquiry. He was moved on over night, and in a month’s time, it was like it had never happened.’
‘Why?’ asked Kate in surprise.
‘We never asked, Guv. It was made very clear at the time that it was in our own interests to let it lie.’ He shrugged. ‘We knew the powers that be weren’t messing around when the DI, the only man to ask questions, found he’d been posted a very long way away.’
‘But you know where he is now?’
‘He retired years ago, but he came back to this area last autumn. He lives at Fosdyke; got a little place on the river towpath.’
‘Why all the secret squirrel stuff?’ asked Scott. ‘What made it so sensitive?’
‘The children, Scotty. They saw Simeon blast their mother across the room, then do the same to himself. It was to protect the children.’
‘Naturally, but surely there had to be more to it than that?’ Rosie frowned. ‘Evidence and investigating officers don’t usually get spirited away unless there’s either an in-house investigation, or someone hath right royally blundered?’
‘Maybe we’d better ask your old colleague, Gary. What’s his name?’
‘Duncan Hewitt, ma’am.’ Gary ran a hand through his hair. ‘But as I say, don’t hang by your eyelashes. This case was bad news for DI Hewitt, and last I heard he was still bitter as aloes about it.’
Jon packed up the left over pizza boxes and threw them in the bin. ‘If we are to find out what Fleur wants us to know about Alderfield, we are going to have to make him to talk to us, aren’t we?’
‘Tomorrow.’ Kate tried to yawn without stretching the torn skin on her lip. ‘Gary and I will go see him in the morning. After we’ve sorted out interviews with Asher Leyton, Benedict Broome and Micah Lee, if he’s not still away with the fairies.’
‘Can I make a suggestion?’ Gary asked Kate. ‘It might be a good idea not to mention anything about Alderfield, the Mulberry deaths, or ex-DI Hewitt to the Superintendent just yet.’
Kate’s eyes narrowed. ‘Believe me, I had no intentions. Explaining the simple stuff is hard enough, but telling her that we are sniffing around a closed and highly controversial case? Contrary to popular belief, I don’t have a death wish.’
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
The morning started with a green-gold sunrise that lit up the fields with a clear warm glow.
Gary and Kate left her car in a small parking area just off the A17, and proceeded by the quickest route: on foot down the tow-path. The River Welland was wide and fast flowing at this point. Years ago there had been rickety old wooden moorings along the bank, but they had been taken down since Kate had last walked this way.
‘The kids used to love it here,’ she said softly, part of her mourning the loss of those two piping voices, and the sturdy little legs running and chasing butterflies.
The long straight path, with the river only a few metres away on one side, and wide swathes of cabbage fields on the other, stretched on ahead of them.
‘Better way to start the day than usual,’ said Gary, swatting at a small fly. ‘I assume the interviews threw up nothing?’
‘Asher Leyton is remaining silent. Micah Lee has been arrested for my assault. He’s been seen by the doctor, and although he’s calmer now, I decided to give him a little longer before we interview him.’ Kate touched her bruised face. ‘And Benedict Broome, well, I’m not sure about Benedict. He was very upset when he heard that Micah had attacked me, but he seemed even more disturbed by the fact that his house-keeper was being questioned.’
‘Do you think Broome is connected to the drinking clubs, ma’am?’
Kate kicked a stone, and watched as it rolled ahead of her. ‘I can’t see it.’
Gary watched as a cormorant flew slowly down river, its black body just feet above the greenish water. ‘My mate at Harlan Marsh said that Cade has been ‘busy with other matters’. It seems that his enthusiasm to help you out has waned.’ He gave a little snort. ‘Mind you, he was pretty pissed off to hear that Jim Salmon had tried to interview Micah Lee, but interestingly enough, he let it go when he heard that Salmon had got nothing from the man.’
‘Surprise, surprise.’ Kate looked along the path to where a small cottage sat between two big rectangular fields. ‘Is that it?’
Gary nodded. ‘Now we just need to get him to talk.’
Duncan Hewitt opened the door, and Kate knew instantly that she was going to need every ounce of persuasion that she possessed.
The man was tall, a little over-weight, and his face had a rouge-coloured toning across the nose that suggested that he liked his drink. He had retained a full head of grizzled hair, and his outfit was strictly ‘outdoors’, with dark green cargo trousers, a check shirt, and a worn khaki gilet with an abundance of bulging pockets. And he was aggressive to the point of bloody rude.
For a while Kate wasn’t certain how to tackle him. She was pretty sure that being nice would be construed as being patronizing, and she was also certain that if she adopted her version of his own belligerent attitude, he’d slam the door in their faces. She finally decided on a detective to detective approach, and endeavoured to throw him enough tempting little tasters to make his natural copper’s curiosity to kick in.
And somehow it worked. Ten minutes later she and Gary were sitting in cane armchairs and sipping strong tea in neat little three-penny bit shaped conservatory.
‘I swore I’d never talk about it again.’ said Hewitt, ‘But..,’ he gave a gruff sigh. ‘The damned memories never leave me be, so what the hell? ’
‘Our own case is harrowing.’ said Kate with feeling. ‘A body count of thirteen young women.’
Duncan Hewitt whistled through his front teeth. ‘That’s bad. So, what can I tell you?’
‘What really happened in Alderfield?’ Gary spoke softly, and Kate got the feeling that for his own benefit, the man needed to know.
Hewitt gave a derisory laugh. ‘I’d love to know!’ He drew in a noisy breath, then placed his mug on the cane table, and sat back. ‘I’ll tell you what we saw, and what I suspect, and what you do with the information is up to you, except..,’ he stared at Kate. ‘It never came from me. Is that understood?’
Kate and Gary nodded in unison.
‘Alderfield was a good-sized country house with quite a few acres of land. When we got the call, we weren’t sure what we’d find, because it was one of the children who dialled 999.’ Hewitt swallowed. ‘We found Simeon Mulberry in the entrance hall, a double-barrelled shotgun beside him, and his wife Charlotte, lying at the bottom of the stairs. They had both been shot in the head. The gun had discharged both barrels, and two shell cases were found close by.’
‘And the children?’ asked Kate, unsure if she wanted to hear the answer.
‘They were all there. Silent as the grave. White faces, and terror in their eyes. Some had blood on them.’ Hewitt shuddered as if he were back in that old house and seeing it all afresh. ‘It freaked us out, DCI Reynard. Totally freaked us out.’
‘How many were there?’
‘Six. Five boys and a girl. The oldest must have been late teens, and the youngest, little more than a toddler.’
‘So does anyone know what caused Simeon to snap and murder his wife?’
Duncan Hewitt drew his thick eyebrows together. ‘Maybe I should tell you about that man before we go on.’ His eyes darkened. ‘Simeon Mulberry, to the outside world, was rich and influential. He was an astute business man with the Midas touch, and he was clever enough to make friends with a lot of important people. But in truth, he was a perverted sadist of the first order, and he hid his vile activities behind an elaborate façade.’ He stared at them. ‘Simeon was the most evil man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.’
‘You actually met him?’ Gary sounded shocked.
‘Oh yes, at some of the formal functions that we were forced to attend. Handsome as a movie star, he could charm the birds from the trees, but he had a heart as dark and cold as a frozen cesspit. My one sadness is that he never came to court, or went to prison, because in prison he would have been justly rewarded for his actions. The inmates would have seen to that.’
Kate suddenly saw a picture in her head of blood-spattered children, and a nauseous feeling cramped her stomach. ‘What kind of sadist?’
‘The worst kind.’ Hewitt’s face was full of disgust. ‘Guess what we found when we searched the place? Bene
ath the house was a basement room with bars at the small high windows, and locks on the door that would have kept in a mad Hereford bull. And in there, we found a row of purpose built cages, DCI Reynard.’
Kate felt a jolt of memory. Jon had seen cages when he touched Tanner’s signet ring. She quickly locked the thought into her mental vault, as Hewitt was still speaking.
‘The children themselves never spoke of the abuse that they suffered, but on medical examination their scarred bodies spoke volumes. At the hands of their own father, they had suffered every kind of maltreatment in the book. It was very hard, probably impossible, to assess the depth of their trauma. On the surface they were remarkably well-adjusted and very intelligent, with the exception of one boy, who had sustained a head injury in early childhood, probably at his father’s hand.’
‘So what happened to them?’ asked Gary. ‘We were never told anything.’
‘They were taken away and protected for sometime, then given new identities and new lives. I’m told that they had psychiatric monitoring and support for years, but as they began to take responsible roles in life, it was considered only fair to allow them to move on without the stigma of their past being continually dug up.’
Kate stared out of the window, across the acres of farmland. This was not the whole story.
Duncan Hewitt looked at her and gave a knowing smile. ‘You’re waiting for the next instalment?’
Kate nodded. ‘You should never have been railroaded out of the county, just for doing your job, so it makes me think it has something to do with all those ‘important’ people that you mentioned? The ones that Simeon cultivated.’
Hewitt clapped his hands slowly. ‘Well done, well done! Oh yes, there were politicians, councillors, barristers, financiers, and policemen; Simeon had sucked them all in. And when he was about to be exposed as a monster, it was both horribly embarrassing and very dangerous for a lot of valuable careers.’ His tone was edged with bitterness. ‘I have to say, the cover-up was a major piece of people-engineering. I believed then, and I still do, that I was close to uncovering a connection between Simeon Mulberry and one of our Top Brass.’ He looked at Kate grimly. ‘There was something rotten within our ranks, and my keen nose was following a little too close to the cause of the stink,’ Hewitt pulled a face ‘…so I was eradicated.’ He paused briefly. ‘But that was not the whole reason. I was the only one to voice an opinion to my commanding officer that Simeon’s ‘suicide’ was nothing of the sort. He was ‘helped’ into the next world, as sure as we are sitting here.’