Murder in the Goblins' Playground

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “To avenge or protect the Lord of the Woods,” Ravyn replied.

  “But Miss Nettle,” Stark protested. “She’s her own mother for God’s sake!”

  Ravyn nodded. “Who abandoned her among dead things to be raised by Marion, who betrayed the Lord of the Woods.”

  They leaped over the brick wall separating Lillian’s cottage from Hob’s lane. Ravyn hit the ground running. Stark, burdened by the bagged sharpening rod, landed wrong, fell, but was up again in a moment. They tore through the plants and flowers, ignoring the winding paths.

  “Around front,” Ravyn instructed. “Be careful. Do not attempt to reason with her.”

  “Yes, sir,” Stark said. “I imagine she’s a bit beyond that.”

  Stark vanished around the corner of the cottage. Ravyn ran to the rear entrance. Only when he hit the back door full force did he realise it was unlatched. It banged open. He stumbled, but quickly regained his balance. He heard another door banging open, so quick upon the sound of the rear door it could have been an echo, but the splintering sound preceding it told him it was Stark breaking through. He bounded out of the kitchen.

  Stevens was on the floor, Stark kneeling by her. Blood stained the carpet. Lillian Nettle was crouched behind a high-back chair, face etched with terror. Stevens struggled to sit, but Stark restrained her, kept his hand pressed against her wound.

  Ravyn called for an ambulance.

  “Take it easy, luv,” Stark said. “You’ll be all right. Got you good, but she missed the vital stuff.”

  “Hang in there, Stevens…Anna,” Ravyn said. “Ambulance will be here in just a few minutes.”

  “Came through the back, sir, just as Sergeant Stark rang off,” the constable said, her voice weak but even. “Stabbed me. I hit her. Knocked her back. She dropped…” Her voice faded as she pointed toward a blood-stained rod. “…dropped it.”

  Stark started to reach for it, but Ravyn motioned for him to let it stay where it was. They looked back to the policewoman.

  “Even then, she went after Miss Nettle,” Stevens said, her voice waxing stronger. “I pushed her behind the chair, got between them.” She forced a smile. “She did not pass, sir.”

  Ravyn patted her shoulder. “Well done, Stevens. Well done. Be quiet now and rest.” He looked to Stark. “Stay with her and bring forensics in. Process the crime scene.”

  “What about her?” Stark asked, gesturing with his chin toward the woman behind the chair.

  Lillian cowered where Stevens had propelled her. Her hands gripped the edges of the chair till they were squeezed bloodless. Her face seemed frozen, caught between revelation and revulsion.

  “Have the ambulance crew take her, under restraint,” Ravyn said. “If she tries to leave, arrest her.”

  “Under caution, sir?”

  “If you want, but I don’t think it makes any difference.” Ravyn turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Stark said.

  “After Gwen,” Ravyn replied. “To bring her back, if I can.”

  “If she gets into those woods, it’ll take an army to get her out. If she heads out of Hammershire, we’ll have to…”

  “It won’t come to that.”

  “But she could go anywhere,” Stark protested.

  “No,” Ravyn said. “There’s only one place she can go.”

  Stark called after Ravyn, but the chief inspector was already out of the room. Moments later, Ravyn hopped the wall into Hob’s Lane and struck out for the darkness of Red Cap Woods.

  * * *

  Gwen Turner ran through the yards, cutting between cottages. She knew humans were watching, but she did not care. She barely saw through curtains of tears, but she did not need to see. She only had to follow the music, follow the tiny voices and laughter, follow the Lord of the Woods as he called her name.

  She had not fulfilled the task set for her. When she came before the Lord of the Woods, blinded by his crown of fire, it would be as a failure, a stupid girl, a poor little mooncalf. Perhaps she would not be allowed to see the Lord. The elves might slice her, filet her and dip their caps in her flowing blood.

  The path into the woods spiralled around her. Sky and land changed places as she repeatedly fell and rose.

  The sun shone, but little light penetrated the forest. The trees embraced her. If the woods did not reject her, there was yet hope she would be taken to the land beyond pain and tears. There, she would laugh and dance and never be called stupid.

  She wiped her eyes, struggled not to fall.

  Hope, faint as it was, surged once more in her heart. She had killed all but one. Auntie Lillian was the worst of them, but perhaps the Lord would look upon her with favour for all the others. If there was even the barest hope of pleasing the Lord, she would seize it and not run away.

  The voices became more distinct…

  Melodious, unearthly music waxed stronger, clearer…

  Come away, O human child…

  She veered toward the sweet sounds…

  To the waters and the wild…

  She would splash in the silvery currents…

  With a faery, hand in hand…

  She would have friends forever who loved her…

  The world's more full of weeping than you can understand…

  She would be safe and she would be cared for. She would no more be among the dead things. There would be no one to tease her, to hurt her. She would no longer be a poor little mooncalf.

  Most importantly, she would be forever with the Lord of the Woods, be forever with her father. She sensed him drawing nigh.

  * * *

  Detective Chief Inspector Arthur Ravyn made his way carefully through the tangled vastness of the primeval woods. Branches tore at his clothes and roots seem to reach for his feet, as if trying to take him to earth. From time to time, he stopped and listened for sounds of frenzied flight, but all that came to him was a soft and mossy silence, almost as if the woods conspired to hide his quarry.

  The forest was widespread and there were thousands of hidey-holes, but Ravyn doubted any army of men would be required to arrest Gwen Turner. In her state of mind, she could have but one goal in all of Red Cap Woods—the Goblins’ Playground.

  Ravyn knew where the megalithic structure was, knew every step it took to attain it, but the path resisted him. More than once he found himself turned aside, heading away from the stones rather than toward them.

  Finally, after a much longer journey than it should have been, the ring of stones hove into sight. The midmorning sun cast their misshapen shadows across the ground. He stopped, listened, then turned toward a rustling sound.

  “Gwen!” he called. He shielded his eyes against the light as he peered into the darkness. “Gwen, where are you? It’s me, Inspector Ravyn. I want to help you.”

  “I don’t need any help,” she whispered from the darkness. “Not any human help.”

  At first he did not see her. She seemed to rise from the earth, dirt and leaves falling from her. Her pale face, now smudged with soil and mould, seemed almost luminous. Her eyes glowed.

  “Come back with me, Gwen,” Ravyn said.

  “So you can hurt me?” she challenged. “So you can kill me?”

  “So you can be helped.”

  “The only reason I would return to the human world would be to finish the task I failed at,” she replied.

  “We both know that is not going to happen.”

  “Then there’s no reason to go back.”

  “Having failed to do what the Lord told you,” Ravyn said, “you cannot stay here. You will not be accepted.”

  “I may have done enough.”

  “You know you haven’t,” he said. “One is left alive.”

  “Maybe I have,” she said. “Everyone feels sorry for a poor little mooncalf…everyone makes allowances.”

  “Not this time, Gwen,” Ravyn said. “You know the Lord of the Woods is not like other men.”

  “Yes.”

  “He is m
ajestic…”

  “Yes.”

  “His shadow encompasses all…”

  “Yes.”

  “He is without mercy.”

  “He will be merciful,” Gwen said. “He will look with kindness upon his daughter.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Gwen sank to her knees. For a moment, it seemed to Ravyn that the leaves around her seethed and roiled as if something were rising from the depths of the earth. He realised the motion of the leaves was caused by her own frantic movements as she searched among them for something long hidden.

  “A father always loves his daughter.”

  With both hands, large and powerful from years of taking apart dead things, Gwen wrenched something pale and round from the earth’s grip. She held it aloft. Dirt, leaves and decayed shreds of flesh fell from the skull.

  “A father will always forgive his daughter!” she screamed. She stood and thrust the skull high. “Behold the Lord of the Woods!”

  Ravyn started for her, but the thick carpet of leaves slipped beneath him. He fell. Gwen rushed past him, easily evading his grasp. Still clutching the skull, she ran to the nearby Goblins’ Playground and clambered up the tallest of the stones.

  “Come to me, My Lord!” Gwen invoked. “Come, Father.”

  Ravyn regained his footing and rushed after her. He called to her, but she was past hearing. She was totally enthralled by a world in which she mattered, in which she was wanted.

  “I see them!”

  She began to dance to music unheard.

  “Watch out!” Ravyn called.

  Gwen missed her footing and fell. Ravyn was too far away to do anything. Her expression revealed neither pain nor concern. The crack of her neck as she hit the ground was loud in the silent glade. After a moment, the skull rolled out of her dead grasp and came to rest facing Ravyn, grinning.

  Weary and discouraged, Ravyn sat next to Gwen’s small body and stroked her brow.

  “Rest,” he said. “Be at peace.”

  He pulled out his mobile and called Stark. After a moment, he took the recorder from his pocket and switched it off. He had forgotten completely about it.

  Chapter 12: Family Plot

  “The powers-that-be are pleased,” Ravyn said, putting down the telephone. “Not at the number killed or the dark secrets of a village laid bare, but that Oscar Lent’s murder has been put to rest so quickly and, more importantly, cleanly.”

  “Yeah, I imagine several bad boys in Stafford and London are breathing a bit easier now,” Stark said. “No investigation to dig up all their naughty secrets.”

  “And that the murderer was not one of their own,” Ravyn said.

  “No one important, as far as they’re concerned.”

  Ravyn sighed. “Just a poor little mooncalf.”

  Stark, who had listened to the unedited recording from Ravyn’s pocket recorder, remained silent.

  “If there was a pool running,” Ravyn said, “the widow and orphan fund will receive a cheque. It appears I’ll not be sacked, not this time.” He jerked his thumb at the telephone. “Chief Constable himself wanted to put my mind at ease, though I think he might have feared Heln would choke to death on the words.”

  “I don’t think anyone will be profiting off me either, sir,” Stark said. “I’m sticking around awhile.”

  “Glad to hear that, Stark,” Ravyn said. “I was impressed. You still have much to unlearn, but you’re coming along nicely. I take it, you’ve reconciled yourself to the boondocks.”

  “The sticks, not as boring as I thought they would be,” Stark said. “Makes parts of the East End seem quite tame. at times.”

  “What about your wife?” Ravyn asked.

  “We had a long talk,” Stark said. “I think she’ll be all right. We are going to spend more time together. She’s going to join some interest groups, keep occupied. She’s really quite a good artist, so we thought being active in the Hammershire Watercolour Society would be a good thing. We cleaned out her stash of bottles and she will seeing a therapist once every fortnight.”

  Ravyn nodded. “Well, I hope it all works out, for both of you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Ravyn picked up a bound report and handed it to Stark.

  Stark looked at the cover page. “Dr Penworthy’s postmortem on the remains exhumed from the grave near Goblins’ Playground.”

  “Mostly skeletal by this time, but still instructive.”

  Stark read the report, frowning time to time as he came across an unfamiliar anatomical word or a fact that ran counter to what he expected. He read the paragraph containing final conclusions twice.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Lillian told us Dylwyth killed Trentmoore by accident, pushing him, or that he died by mishap, falling over his own feet while drunk.” He looked back to the report and tapped the paragraph twice. “This denies that claim.”

  “Trentmoore fell and hit the back of his head on something,” Ravyn said. But the depression in the occipital bone is very slight and there is no sign of any fracture in the cervical bones.”

  Stark looked at the report. “She says death was due to massive fracturing of the temporal region, the sphe…” He stumbled over the unfamiliar word.

  “The sphenoid bone and the zygomatic arch,” Ravyn said as he touched the corresponding places on the side of his own head,

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Stark remarked. “How can a bloke fall back, knock himself out, then…” He shook his head. “I can’t see Dylwyth Mayhew as a stone-cold killer. Become upset and push him over, yes, especially if he were drunk. But bash his face in while he’s unconscious? Can’t square it.”

  “No doubt she did push him down during an argument,” Ravyn said. “But in her distraught state, it’s more likely she ran away in fright after he was knocked unconscious.”

  “Someone else was there,” Stark said. “With those beefy arms Marion could have coshed him well and good.”

  “Lillian,” Ravyn said.

  “Lillian?”

  “She knew what the argument was about, though she tried to couch it in conjectural terms,” the chief inspector explained. “It was about her own pregnancy, she said, that that was the only reason that made sense. Given the complex relationships between those four, it could have been about anything, but Lillian knew it was about her. She knew because she was hiding nearby, listening.”

  “So, when Trentmoore was knocked out and Dylwyth ran away, she came and finished the job.” Stark shook his head. “Why?”

  Ravyn shrugged. “She’ll never tell and we’ll never find out on our own unless something like a diary comes to light, which I very much doubt.”

  “It’s not anything we could prove in court.”

  Ravyn shook his head. “Even if she had not been sectioned, she would never have seen the inside of a courtroom.”

  “Not even for conspiracy to obstruct justice?” Stark asked. “He was murdered and his body was hidden.”

  “Lillian was just helping a friend, that would be her defence,” Ravyn pointed out. “If it had been Lillian or, especially, Marion, the others might night not have helped. Dylwyth was the weakest of the three, and people always rush to help the weak, to make allowances for them that they would not extend to the strong.”

  “Poor muddled Dylwyth,” Stark murmured. “Carrying a burden of guilt all this time for nothing. And only Lillian knew the truth.”

  “Gwen knew,” Ravyn said. “That was why she saved Lillian to last. She wanted Lillian to see all the others die first.”

  “What? How could she know? The bun was still in the oven!”

  “Raymond told her.”

  “But…” Stark sputtered as he tried to find words of protest. He looked at the faint smile tugging at Ravyn’s lips and forced himself to calm down. “How can that be? He was all of…what? Four? Five? He might have figured out where the grave was, but…” He gave up. “Tell me.”

  “He was a precocious
child,” Ravyn explained. “He was all over those woods from early on. He saw Lillian go in the caravan and kill Trentmoore. Later, he saw where they buried him. He knew he was their father, a fact he shared with the other children when they grew up.”

  “That was why Allan turned his back on them?”

  “Quite likely,” Ravyn agreed. “And it was such knowledge as poor Gwen could not live with. It warped her mind and led her to create a fantasy world in which her murdered father was the Lord of the Woods, who would one day come for her.”

  “She was warped enough, I bet, by being raised in a butcher shop,” Stark said. “I can’t believe a mother would condemn a child to a life like that.”

  “Lillian had no love for her,” Ravyn said. “Giving birth does not instil maternal instincts. She also expected Gwen to be smart. The tragedy was that Gwen was quite intelligent.”

  Stark gave him a disbelieving stare.

  “She could not learn the lessons they tried to teach her, but that was not a lack of intelligence,” Ravyn explained. “Every tenet of paganism had to pass through the filter of Gwen’s own knowledge, of her own beliefs about the return of the king.”

  “Return of the king? Sounds like something out of Tolkien.”

  “It’s a common theme in mythology,” Ravyn said. “Arthur did not die but sleeps in Avalon, awaiting a time when England needs his return. Messiahs, harvest kings, prophets…they live among us, are killed, often at the hands of their followers, then return when the stars are right. In this case, it was the Lord of the Woods.”

  “AKA Douglas Trentmoore, drunkard and serial womanizer.”

  “And a man who could set up a caravan in the woods and not be killed by the Red Cap Elves,” Ravyn reminded. “No matter what his faults were, he was a man who had lease to be there. They made him into the Lord of the Woods because it reinforced the mythos the three young girls had constructed around themselves.”

  Stark said, “Like mother, like daughter after all.”

  “Raymond told the others who their father was, told them what happened to him, but not where he was buried,” Ravyn said. “Allan ran off and Gwen retreated even deeper into her fantasies. When Allan returned from wherever he was—given the lack of info, I think he either left the country for awhile or fell in with some criminal organisation—he took up residence in Trentmoore’s old caravan out of spite, an act of rebellion.”