Death Unholy

by Phillip Strang

  ‘We intend to prove that you were a member of the group that killed Gerald Saxby,’ Tremayne said, ‘attempted to kill Michael Carter, the local butcher, and intended to kill Sergeant Yarwood, myself and two of the police officers that were with us. Do you deny this?’

  ‘I was one of those who tried to stop it,’ Grayling said. Tremayne did not believe him.

  ‘We will prove this one way or the other.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Fingerprints, DNA. There are plenty of ways to find the truth. If you’re lying, it will be discovered.’

  ‘What will happen to us?’

  ‘There is still the murder of Trevor Godwin. If any of you were in that mob last night, then you are all guilty of murder.’

  ‘You’ll not be able to prove it,’ Grayling said. Tremayne knew the man was well experienced in lying.

  ‘Are you willing to admit that you were in the mob that attempted to attack the church, and then was up at Cuthbert’s Wood?’

  ‘I was there, but I did not take part.’

  ‘I and my sergeant saw Saxby die. Everyone in that mob was involved.’

  ‘Are you going to arrest us all?’

  ‘After preliminary interviews here, you will all be charged with the lesser offence of causing an affray with an attempt to cause physical harm. Once at the police station, and after detailed forensics and further interviews, you, along with the others, will be charged with murder and attempted murder.’

  ‘This village is finished,’ Grayling said.

  ‘It was finished centuries ago.’

  ‘I will tell you what I know.’

  ‘In writing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tremayne left the room, a sergeant taking his place while Grayling wrote.

  Weary as he was, the adrenaline was keeping him focussed. He entered the bar, where a group of local men sat quietly. Four police officers were keeping watch over them. Tremayne walked out of the bar and phoned Hughes, the mobile phone network functional again. ‘Any updates?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re exhuming two more bodies. The same.’

  ‘Stabbing, hanging?’

  ‘It’s too early to be more precise, but the method of their deaths varies. Pathology will be able to tell you more.’

  ‘Your report is good enough for me,’ Tremayne said.

  Hughes realised that he had broken through Tremayne’s reluctance to accept him as an equal. ‘Yarwood?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s an excellent police officer. In time, she’ll be back.’

  ‘Not easy to take, something like that.’

  ‘That’s what being a police officer is about.’

  ‘Seeing someone you love strung up in a tree, dead?’

  ‘Not that, I suppose.’ Tremayne had seen death, anticipated his own death, but he had not felt revulsion at what had happened, only a jaundiced indifference as if he had seen all the misery that life could offer, and there was nothing more that could shock him. He was aware that he was devoid of any feeling, good and bad. He knew it was unhealthy. He knew he needed to get away from Salisbury for a while.

  Tremayne ended the call. He returned inside the pub and climbed the stairs to the room where Grayling sat.

  ‘You’ve finished?’ Tremayne asked.

  ‘I’m damned whatever I say and do,’ Grayling said. He noticed that the man had organised a cup of tea. He asked the sergeant who had sat in for him to get him one as well. He felt like a pint of beer, the type they served in Harry Holchester’s pub, but he knew that it would be a long time before it opened again, and even if it did, Tremayne knew that he would never go back there.

  Tremayne read what Grayling had written. ‘You’ve been careful to avoid implicating yourself in any of the deaths.’

  ‘I did not kill anyone. Okay, I was foolish, led astray by Wylshere, but I’ve killed no one. It was good for business, surely you understand that.’

  ‘People died, most of them violently, and you say it was good for business.’

  ‘You can’t lock me up for being a callous bastard.’

  ‘Maybe not, but we’ll be going over this place with a fine-tooth comb. If we find one piece of evidence that ties you into any of the deaths, then I’ll personally make sure that you receive the maximum sentence for murder.’

  ‘You’ll not find anything.’

  ‘The five elders: Edmund Wylshere, Gerald Saxby, James Slater, Mike Carter and Harry Holchester. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Harry Holchester came as a surprise,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘He hid it well.’

  ‘The same as you?’

  ‘Yes, but they’ll not be coming back.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The secret on how to summon the gods died with Wylshere.’

  ‘That nonsense again,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘If they were still here, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If Holchester hadn’t killed Wylshere, you’d be dead.’

  ‘Are you seriously trying to tell me that you were there, but not involved.’

  ‘Yes. I was one of those attempting to stop the drowning of Mike Carter.’

  ‘He’s the only one of the elders still alive.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘He’s in hospital, under police guard.’

  Tremayne realised that he had not slept since the events of the previous night, almost twenty-four hours. He left Grayling with one of the constables and walked out to his car. He started the engine, put the heater on maximum and fell fast asleep.

  ***

  Mike Carter was not pleased to see Tremayne. The man was confined to a secure area of the hospital out on Odstock Road, less than two miles from the centre of Salisbury. He was sitting up in bed when Tremayne arrived after a two-hour sleep in his car.

  ‘You’re only here as a precaution,’ Tremayne said.

  ‘Then why the guards? I tried to help you.’

  ‘That will go in your favour at your trial.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘You were one of the elders?’

  ‘I’ll not deny it.’

  ‘And a believer?’

  ‘In the rubbish that Wylshere spouted?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘Then why did you take part in the ceremonies?’

  ‘I wasn’t born there. I inherited the butcher’s shop and a house in Avon Hill from a relative. I never knew what they were up to when I moved there.’

  ‘And when you did?’

  ‘At first, I resisted, but Wylshere made it clear that I could not stay unless I joined with him and his group.’

  ‘Did he threaten you?’

  ‘Not in so many words, but the man could be persuasive.’

  ‘Yet you became an elder.’

  ‘It was good for business.’

  ‘How can killing people be good for business?’

  ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

  ‘Mr Carter, your defence is feeble. The reality is that you saw people killed, yet you did nothing.’

  ‘If I had come to the police and told them about what went on in Avon Hill, what do you think would have happened?’

  ‘We would have conducted an investigation.’

  ‘That’s the problem. How long would that take?’

  ‘It would not be immediate, although it would have been if you had told us there were bodies behind the church.’

  ‘How long do you think it would have been before I was dead, strung up in a tree or burnt?’

  ‘Burnt, have there been any of those?’

  ‘Only one that I know of.’

  ‘Will you give a full statement of the history of Avon Hill and all that has been going on there?’ Tremayne asked.

  ‘It’ll not do me any good,’ Carter said.

  ‘It will help.’

  ‘I’ll stil
l be convicted of murder, whether I’m guilty or not.’

  ‘You’ll be given a fair trial.’

  Tremayne left Carter to reflect on his future. The man was to be discharged from hospital that day and would be transferred in handcuffs to the cells at the police station. There he would be formally charged. Tremayne knew that for all the man’s posturing Mike Carter, the local butcher, was a mass murderer.

  Harriet Wylshere, Edmund Wylshere’s widow, still remained at large. A police hunt was under way for her. Tremayne was confident that she would be found in due course, and charged with the murder of Mavis Godwin, the kindly woman that Yarwood had liked.

  Tremayne decided to visit Yarwood again. She was staying at the Red Lion Hotel in the centre of Salisbury, and her parents were with her.

  ‘I want to see Harry before I leave,’ she said when she saw Tremayne. Her parents had smiled weakly at him as they left him and his sergeant alone.

  ‘Later today, if you’re up to it.’

  ‘I’m not. I need to see him one more time, that’s all. He tried to help in the end. That’s how I’ll remember him.’ She stood up and threw her arms around Tremayne’s neck.

  Tremayne could see that she was appreciative of his visit. Her parents had been there for her in that hotel, but only one other person understood how she felt, had experienced all that she had, and that was the lovable bear of a man, Detective Inspector Keith Tremayne.

  She saw, in the close embrace, the small crucifix around his neck. She knew then that he believed in the forces that had held Avon Hill in its grip for seven hundred years.

  Tremayne noticed that she had seen what was around his neck. He smiled at her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Come back when you’re ready, Clare. There’s always a job here with me,’ he said. She noticed a tear in his eye.

  The End

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