Path of Needles

by Alison Littlewood

  And lo and behold, they had found another body, the proof that Alice was right once again, proving her the expert. They had found the body because Alice had led them to it. She hadn’t even done it through deduction or clues; no, she’d gone straight there, inventing that wild story about the bird, as if it would explain everything.

  Cate frowned. That dreamy look on the girl’s face – making her seem dazed, overwhelmed by everything – was that for real? Did she really live so deeply in her fantasies, or was she just making herself appear stupid when she was in fact very clever?

  She shook her head. She knew some murderers would try to insinuate themselves into an investigation, follow everything that happened, but Alice hadn’t done that: it was she who’d dragged Alice into it. When Alice had first seen a crime-scene photograph, the shock had been genuine. It certainly wasn’t something she’d wanted to look at. Was it?

  Cate took a deep breath. She had to get herself together. She opened her eyes, let them slip out of focus and saw the hazy memory of a dead girl lying on the ground: Teresa King. She remembered the photograph sitting in pride of place next to the television, a mother and her daughter wearing the same dress and almost the same smile. A husband crying for his wife, for a child who would never be born. She owed it to all of them to think.

  And then she saw something else lying on the ground, something that might have been waiting for her to find it. She stepped forward, crossing the imagined line where the crime scene had begun.

  There was a dead bird lying in front of her. It was large and black, its feathers still shining. It was a crow or a rook, Cate wasn’t sure which. It looked intact. There was no spray of feathers to show where a predator had caught it, no injuries that she could see. There was a low buzzing though, and a fly rose from the body before settling again, crawling in amid the gloss-dark feathers. The bird had huge claws, the skin dry and wrinkled, closed on nothing.

  It was always about the bird.

  She stared at it; then she roused herself, rubbed her eyes and turned in a slow circle, looking at the trees that stood around her. It felt as if there was something else she should see, something she should understand, but there was nothing. She turned and began to walk away, towards the car park and normality and traffic and houses and paperwork, things that made sense.

  She stopped. There was another dead bird in her path. This one was a robin, its claws tight and delicate as a dead spider. Like the crow, there was nothing to show how it had died. Ignoring her distaste, she took out an evidence bag and slid the creature into it. It must have been dead for a while, was cold in her hands, its body a small centre of firmness beneath soft feathers.

  *

  Cate pulled out of the Newmillerdam car park and on to the road, where she quickly picked up speed. She turned left, in the opposite direction to the police station; they wouldn’t miss her for a while yet.

  Soon she was on an open road with woodland on one side and fields spreading away on the other. She opened the window, gasping in the scent of wheat, the harsher tang of oilseed rape. The route to Ryhill felt familiar, as if it was somewhere she was supposed to be. It wasn’t long before she saw the row of red-brick houses at the edge of the village and slowed for the turning that led in the direction of the Heronry. It was both a lifetime and no time at all since she’d been there last.

  The road dipped and she glanced into the trees, shadows flickering across her vision. The clearing came up on her left. There were no other cars, no one here that she could see. The area had been cleared since the body was taken, and not only of Chrissie’s remains; there was no sign even to show it had been used for fly-tipping except a well-trodden area scabbed with bare earth.

  She got out of the car. This wasn’t like the woods, a place where she could almost sense the life running through the trees. Here they looked more like survivors, clinging to their sorry bit of ground.

  She stepped off the path and onto the hard soil. She felt a little like Alice. The girl had been caught up in a fantasy, half lost in the stories she told, and now Cate was doing it too: she hadn’t even let anyone know where she was going. She reached for her mobile, brushed the smooth surface with her fingertips and let her hand fall. What on earth would she say, that she had come here following – what? A bird? She bit back a laugh.

  The branches were still, the air calm, as if nature was holding its breath. There was nothing here except brambles spreading their tendrils across the spaces, their thin fingers meeting and clasping.

  It was only when Cate turned back towards the car that she saw the flowers.

  She couldn’t think how she’d failed to notice them before. They were massed together in a line, still wrapped in plastic, the contents damp and browned with recent rain or dew. Some specks of colour held on, splashes of pink or blue or yellow amid the petals that had been washed colourless. There was a single bunch that were fresh, little yellow roses, and Cate thought of the photograph she’d seen, the girl in a yellow dress, her mother in white.

  That couldn’t be all. There had to be something else.

  She started to search, walking in as straight a line as she could to the far end of the clearing and into the trees, where undergrowth made progress impossible, and back again, a little to the side of her previous route. When she reached the car she repeated her actions, covering the whole area as best she could. There was nothing. Once she found a few feathers, fluffy and grey, but there was no bird; perhaps they had fallen from some nest, or been carried here on the wind.

  There was no other place to look, except one. She went to the flowers, wrinkling her nose at the sour scent. She didn’t want to touch them, though another part of her wanted them gone, all signs removed, leaving this place to forget what could be forgotten and letting Chrissie be what she now was – a smiling girl in a picture. She picked up the first, the plastic crackling under her fingers, and replaced it a short distance away. Then the next. When she’d moved them all she crouched down and looked at the space she’d created. The flowers had been hiding nothing; there was no dead bird, nothing there at all. What had she expected? This area had been searched and searched again, SOCOs crawling all over it. Of course they would have found a bird, if there was anything to be found.

  But birds fly.

  Cate pushed herself up and went back towards the car, but instead of getting inside she went past it and into the lane. She started to walk the narrow, rutted path with trees growing along its edge. She caught glimpses of water between the trunks, a stretch of lakeside. The fishermen who had found the body might be there now, hunched over the water, staring into it and trying not to think of what they’d seen.

  Down this lane and the next, if she kept going long enough, was the Heronry. How far would she go? How far before anything she discovered became meaningless? She sighed. She should go back. This was useless, and there was paperwork to be done; she could be helping Dan, learning from the team. She put a hand to her face and found it sheened with sweat, not from exertion but the frustration radiating from inside her. She turned into the cool air that was blowing off the water, and that was when she heard a low buzzing.

  She stepped off the tarmac and onto uneven tussocks of grass and listened. Now she couldn’t hear it at all, but she thought she knew where it had come from. She went further in among the trees, stepping from hollow to hollow between their roots.

  The bird was lying at the base of a large birch that was greened with moss. It was small, some kind of finch, she guessed. Its feathers were damp and clinging to its body, its beak closed in a neat isosceles triangle. She took a bag from her pocket, and when she headed back to the car, she carried it with her.

  *

  The hill where Sandal Castle stood was brighter, but markedly cooler than the woods had been. Cate felt a sharp breeze on her arms, watched as it ruffled the field below and skimmed the lake with shades of dull zinc. She stood on the cropped grass at the far edge of the ruin. The castle was behind her, its withered finge
rs accusing the sky.

  She had seen flowers here too, as soon as she stepped out of the car. They lay along the banking, a mass of plastic and dying leaves. She had walked past them and around the path that skirted the castle, glancing at the plaque that told of the adjacent battlefield and the death of Richard of York; she had wondered how long the memory of this girl’s death might last.

  She could see the rest of the path from here, and it was empty. She retraced her route and turned, went deeper into the ruin itself, until she stood at the bottom of the steps leading up to the motte. Even in daylight they looked steep, hard-going; in its day, with a stone keep rising from the top, this place must have been impossible to breach. There was little wonder Ellen Robertson hadn’t been carried to the summit. She had been slightly built, as had all the victims, but trying to get up there with her dead weight … even if she’d still been alive, her body would have been paralysed by the hemlock. She started up the steps, looking back over her shoulder at the line of houses along Manygates Lane. Dumping a body at the castle was a huge risk to take, even without coming up here. Someone had been dogged, persistent: driven.

  The platform at the top of the motte was empty, nothing there but the bare wooden planking. Spreading away below were fields, clusters of houses, the flat grey shine of the boating lake. There was a windsurfing lesson in progress down there, and she saw a brightly striped triangle flop into the water, heard a distant wordless cry. White specks rose and passed above the water: gulls, circling. Up here, at the castle, there were none.

  Cate scanned the rest of the site; she couldn’t see any irregularities, not so much as a stray crisp packet among the grass and stone. She went back down the steps and walked around the remains of the barbican, peering across the inner moat to the rough pile of rocks in its centre; into the moat itself. Then she checked around what remained of the curtain wall. There was nothing, no birds, living or dead.

  She turned and headed towards the entrance.

  The visitors’ centre was open, yellow light spilling from its windows. Cate pushed open the door and saw ranks of books, gift-wrapped soaps, jars of jam. There were displays that echoed the things she’d seen outside – aerial views of the site and battlefield, reconstructions of what life in the castle would have been like. There were no visitors, not today.

  The woman behind the counter greeted Cate and she smiled back. She ran her hand over a display of souvenirs meant for children, pencils, notepads, erasers, all with the familiar outline of the castle printed on them. She roused herself and went to the counter, identified herself, and asked her question.

  ‘Yes,’ the woman replied, ‘it’s all looked after quite regularly, since they built the centre, anyway, and decided to put a bit more into the place. There’s the grass to look after, and litter, all sorts of things. ’Course, he had to break off, after they found that girl: how awful. I can’t bear to look out of the window any more.’

  ‘Has he been back since then?’ Cate asked. ‘I wondered if he’d found anything unusual.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so, love. He didn’t like to come back at all after what happened, but of course he’d have reported it if he found anything. He knew the situation. We had the police come and talk to us, you know.’

  ‘We appreciate your help.’

  ‘Of course, love. Anything we can do. That poor thing. I’ll tell Martin you were asking. We hope you catch them. Martin was ever so upset. He hasn’t seen anything, though, like I said. Well, not apart from the birds.’

  Cate had been edging towards the door. She stopped and looked round. ‘Birds?’

  ‘Yes, he found some dead, you know, around the castle. That upset him, too; he said to me he almost packed it in after all that, except he needs the job, you know. Three children, he’s got.’

  ‘You said he didn’t find anything unusual – but there were birds? Dead birds, on this site? When was this?’

  She looked worried. ‘I haven’t said anything wrong, have I? It wasn’t anything to do with that girl. It was afterwards that he noticed them. And it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, really, just some dead birds.’

  ‘Could he see what had killed them?’

  ‘I don’t think so, love,’ she said uncertainly. ‘He didn’t say so. He took them off to the incinerator – I hope that was all right. And it’s all been fine since—Miss?’

  But Cate didn’t look back. She was already heading towards the door.

  *

  Cate retraced her journey to the main road, but again she found herself turning away from the police station and back in the direction of Sandal. She still didn’t quite know what she was doing, only that she could feel something happening, cogs slipping into place and beginning to turn.

  After a time she turned off the road and on to a housing estate, driving alongside a row of bungalows, each appearing much the same as the last. She found the one she was looking for and scanned the frontage. Nothing appeared to have changed that she could see, but it felt empty: there was something about the way the curtains were half closed, half open, and anyway, the car was missing from the drive.

  She went up to the front door and knocked, unsurprised when there was no answer.

  She turned away from the door and walked down the drive. After a moment’s hesitation, she eased around the corner, squeezing past the bins and into the back garden. She was effectively trespassing, but she could say she was only looking for Levitt where she’d found him before, couldn’t she?

  There was the aviary clinging to the side of the shed, the bird feeders strung in rows along a line like lumpen washing. Beneath them, on the neatly mowed lawn, lay a dead magpie.

  Cate walked towards it, feeling as if she were dreaming. Its black feathers flashed green and blue; its breast was a slab of pure white. She could not see what had killed it.

  One for sorrow, she thought.

  ‘Oh, hello. Are you all right there? I thought I heard something.’

  Cate jumped. She turned to see a head balanced on the fence, surrounded by a cloud of curly grey hair. It nodded at her.

  ‘I’m quite all right, thank you. I was just – looking for Mr Levitt. I’m a police officer. I have a couple of questions he might be able to help us with.’

  ‘Oh.’ The woman’s eyes grew round. ‘Goodness.’ She seemed impressed.

  Cate straightened, stood tall. She thought of adding, It’s fine, there’s nothing to worry about, but decided not to. Anyway, the woman wasn’t looking at her any longer. Her eyes were fixed on the dead bird at Cate’s feet.

  ‘Oh, shame,’ she said, ‘another one. Why is it always his garden? He blames my cat, you know, but it’s not her. I got a collar with a little bell. It’s always his place, though – and him so keen on birds. Sod’s law, I suppose.’

  ‘Really? Does it happen a lot?’

  ‘I’m afraid it does. Not everyone is as fond of birds as Bernard. Or me, of course. Not everyone’s cat has a collar like my Pippin.’

  Cate looked down. The bird didn’t appear to have been mauled by a cat. She poked at it with her toe.

  ‘It’s a pity you won’t catch him, love.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Bernard. He won’t be around for a while, I don’t imagine. He went out earlier; I happened to hear the gate. He had an awful lot of things with him. That great big tent of his, I think.’

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’

  ‘Oh no, not to me. I didn’t see him to talk to. Anyway, I’d better be getting on. The washing won’t do itself.’ She gave a sudden smile and her head disappeared over the fence.

  Cate left the magpie where it was and went to examine the aviary. The structure had a double layer of fine mesh, so that her vision blurred when she looked inside it. There was one large cage and a smaller one, just big enough for a person to stand inside. Of course, that’s what it was: one cage for the birds, another for the man. He would open the first door and secure it behind him before opening the second, to pre
vent the birds inside from flying away. For now, though, there were no birds.

  Cate looked around once more, ran her hand over the metal frame.

  ‘Clever, isn’t he?’ Grey Curls was back in her place at the fence. ‘He makes it all himself. Has a workshop, you know. I asked him to fix my grandson’s bike, and he did ever such a good job. Such a nice man.’

  ‘A workshop, you say? That’s here, is it, in his garage?’

  She shook her head. ‘Ooh, no, he’s very considerate. He doesn’t like to hammer away near people’s houses. No, it’s’ – she scrunched up her face until her eyes were almost lost to view – ‘it’s out near the woods somewhere, I think. Some place it doesn’t bother anyone at all.’

  *

  Cate burst out of the lift and into the offices. Several people looked up, but when they saw her they looked away again, down at their desks or into their computer screens. Was there something studied about the way they refused to catch her eye? She didn’t have time to think about that. She crossed the room, knocked hard on Heath’s office door. Then she saw Stocky sitting at his usual desk, a cup of coffee raised to his lips. He shook his head – just slightly – as the door opened.

  ‘Cate.’ Heath did not look pleased, but she didn’t care. She slipped past him into the room, relieved to see it empty. She set the things she was carrying down on his desk.

  He closed the door behind her, each movement deliberate, as if carefully considered, or as if he were trying to remain calm. He returned to his desk and stared down in distaste at the things she had brought.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ His voice was low. Somehow that was worse than if he’d shouted.

  ‘Sir, I found this in Newmillerdam Woods, near the Little Red site.’ She indicated the robin, curled and dead and out of place on his desk. ‘It was near there, anyway. It didn’t die at once, though, or the SOCOs would have found it. We have to get it tested. I think it’s been poisoned.’ Her words spilled out in a rush. She felt suddenly breathless, as if she’d been running. ‘We have to hurry.’