by Lee Weeks
‘I have a son, yes, Towan. He mainly works here on this farm with Mawgan or he runs the shop.’
‘Is this Mawgan’s main job?’ asked Willis.
‘She does a few jobs. She cleans for folks. She works in the farm shop. She helps out here and there.’
‘It’s a busy farm, isn’t it?’ said Carter, looking around.
‘We do a bit of everything here, we supply a couple of farm shops with the pork and beef. We have a couple of fields of veg. We have a hundred longhorn cattle – good for eating.’
‘We saw some barns that belong to you, further up the road.’
‘Those will be the old ones. I keep meaning to get around to emptying them.’
‘It’s dangerous, apparently, a fire risk?’ said Willis.
‘Hay, that is, not straw. Hay ferments. Anyway, those bales have been stacked up there for the last twenty years at least. If they were going to cause harm they’d have done so by now.’
Mawgan eyed them up suspiciously as she walked towards them. She had on an oil-skin green jacket, caked in mud. She was a strong-looking woman with a square jaw and piercing blue eyes. She had short red hair.
‘Hi, Mawgan.’ Carter introduced himself and Willis to her. ‘I expect you’ve heard that a little boy has gone missing, Jeremy Forbes-Wright’s grandson, Samuel.’
‘I heard.’
‘We’d like to ask you about when you went up to Jeremy Forbes-Wright’s funeral.’ Stokes was watching her. ‘How did you get there?’ Willis asked.
‘I caught the train up.’
‘From here?’
‘There’s no station here. I went to Bristol on the Sunday and stayed there with friends. I caught the train up Monday morning.’
‘Which station in Bristol did you go from?’
‘I don’t know – Bristol Temple Meads?’
‘What time was your train?’ Willis had her notebook open and she was writing down the answers to her questions.
‘Uh . . . I had to get there by half eleven so it was about nine.’
‘You’re not sure?’
‘No.’
‘Where’s your ticket?’
‘I threw it away.’
‘How did you pay for it?’
‘Cash at the station.’
‘How much was it?’
‘I don’t remember. About twenty pounds.’
‘Did your brother go up by train?’ asked Carter.
She glanced at her father, who was watching her closely.
‘Towan went with me,’ said Stokes, still glaring at Mawgan.
‘After the funeral, what did you do?’ Willis asked her.
‘Went into Greenwich, had a look around. Walked along the Thames looking at places, really. Saw the Shard. Walked across a bridge or two. Don’t ask me where – I’m not familiar with any of it.’
‘On your own?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about Towan?’
‘Towan took off to see some mate or other: don’t ask me what he did. As for Dad here – I don’t know where you went.’ She looked at her dad with a hint of a smile.
‘Oh, I just stayed near the car most of the day. I had a good look at the cemetery, then went for a coffee. I had a meal. I just stayed around the area until people were ready to go home. Towan came back with me and so did Mary-Jane Trebethin.’
‘How did you get back, Mawgan?’
‘I got a train back.’
‘Why didn’t you come back with the others?’
‘I didn’t feel like it.’
‘Why did you go up for the funeral?’ asked Willis.
She looked at her father and shrugged. ‘I was told to, I suppose.’
‘Well now, that’s not strictly true,’ her father interrupted, riled. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Mawgan since she started talking. ‘You said you wanted to go. You told me.’ She didn’t answer her father.
‘Did you know Jeremy Forbes-Wright very well?’ asked Willis.
‘I knew him,’ Mawgan answered. Her dad sighed and rolled his eyes as if everything she said was a lie.
‘Did you like him?’
‘Course she did – we all did,’ Stokes interrupted again.
Mawgan looked down at her feet and pushed the mud with her toes. ‘Not much.’
‘Mawgan, for Christ’s sake – I don’t know why you’re talking like this.’
‘Why did you go, then?’ Willis asked.
‘The Sheriff said we all had to. It was a matter of respect, even if we didn’t much like him.’
‘Don’t take any notice of her.’ Stokes glared at her. ‘It has nothing to do with like or dislike. We owed him respect – that’s all.’ Mawgan listened to her father but kept her eyes on the ground.
‘Is it possible to speak to your son Towan, Mr Stokes?’ asked Carter.
‘He’s here somewhere. Mawgan, go and fetch him.’
‘I’m here.’ A voice came from behind them.
‘Where you been?’ Stokes said angrily. ‘Me and Mawgan have had to get the herd in to be checked this morning.’
Towan grinned at them as he walked past the detectives’ car, looking inside it and nodding approvingly. He was dressed for a night out – clean jeans, clean blue checked shirt. He looked like his father. He was medium build and height with dark blond hair and a swagger in his bow-legged walk.
‘Been out and about. I’m here now.’ He came up and patted Stokes on the back hard. ‘Doubt if you did any of it anyways – you lazy old bugger.’ He slapped him again and Stokes laughed, embarrassed.
‘Well, that’s as may be, but you’re needed now.’
‘I’m going out.’
‘Can we have a word first?’ said Carter. ‘Where were you an hour ago?’
‘These are detectives from London, want to know about Monday, when we went up for the funeral,’ Stokes explained to Towan.
‘When they buried the great man?’ Towan became mock-serious and crossed himself. ‘I can’t tell you much. I got hammered and had to be looked after by my lovely sis here.’ He put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. He held on to her until she elbowed him hard in his ribs.
‘Get off.’ She looked angry, but her father laughed. Towan caught her again and drew her back to him. She tried to shake him off but he held her tightly, squashed against him, his arm around her.
‘I wouldn’t have looked after you, I’d have left you in the gutter,’ she said.
‘Oh well, it was someone anyway. Some maid.’
‘Where have you been the last couple of hours?’ asked Willis.
Towan looked at her and grinned. ‘I’ve been taking care of a couple of commitments in Penhaligon. One’s called Tracy and the other is Shannon.’
‘One of the vehicles registered to this farm was seen parked up above Garra Cove an hour or so ago. Was that you?’
‘Nope. Couldn’t have been.’
‘We’ll need to contact your friends in Penhaligon. We need addresses, please,’ said Willis, getting out her notebook ready.
‘No problem.’ He grinned again and took out his phone, then read off the numbers and addresses from his contacts. Willis wrote them down.
‘Did you come back with your dad the day of the funeral?’ asked Carter.
‘I don’t know, did I?’ He laughed and looked at Stokes as he put his phone back in his pocket.
‘Yes, he bloody did. I had to listen to him snoring in the back for six hours.’
Towan turned to Mawgan and pressed his face against her cheek. ‘And what about you, sis? Did you listen to my snoring?’ He laughed.
Mawgan tipped forward and freed herself. She stepped quickly out of reach and gave Towan a kick in the back of the leg.
‘You wait, missy. We’re talking to you,’ Stokes called after her as she started walking away towards the house.
‘They know where I am if they want more,’ she shouted back.
Chapter 19
‘Is she allowed to just kill a pig?’ Wil
lis asked as they drove towards the nearby town of Penhaligon, thirty minutes away up the coast. Willis was checking on the price of rail tickets and times of trains from Bristol to London.
‘No, you have to have a licence, be an abattoir or something like that. She was joking.’
‘Didn’t look like it. She seems pretty pissed off with life.’
‘Yes. She looks like she works harder than any of them.’
‘Why would she stay there?’ asked Willis.
‘Maybe she wants the farm when the old man goes? I didn’t see a wife, did you?’ asked Carter.
‘Not unless the pigs have eaten her,’ replied Willis.
Carter laughed. ‘It was a bit like that there, wasn’t it? Not a biscuit-tin photo of a farm.’
‘Harsh reality, I suppose. It looks like she’s well off with her costs of tickets.’ Willis read from her screen, ‘The cost would have been about forty pounds, not twenty, and she’d have had to leave well before nine to make it.’
‘If we don’t find any CCTV of her on the platforms at that time, or we can’t get her story verified, we’ll bring her in for questioning,’ said Carter. ‘I’m not going to be given the run-around here. What did you think of Stokes?’
‘Odd: a bully but also very creepy,’ replied Willis. ‘He had a habit of looking me over – a lot. Not something people usually do when you’re there to talk about a case of an abducted child.’
‘Fresh blood in the village,’ Carter laughed. ‘Human sacrifices and all that.’ He laughed till a coughing fit stopped him. ‘What about Towan?’
‘He’s like his dad – creepy.’
‘I have the feeling Mawgan will be getting it in the neck now from Stokes. He seemed quite surprised to hear her talk like that. Towan’s weird with his sister too – too touchy-feely,’ agreed Carter.
‘I feel sorry for Mawgan,’ Willis said as they sat staring ahead at the sky. The sun was setting behind the Penhal headland and its lion’s head silhouette was black against the wispy purple streaks of cloud and drifts of deep orange. The sky was ablaze. ‘Looks like there’s no mother on the scene.’
‘She may have lived like this her whole life,’ Carter said. ‘Do you think you’re similar?’
‘If I lived like her,’ Willis contemplated, ‘I’d be tempted to kill more than the sow.’
‘I know you would.’ Carter grinned. ‘So,’ he resumed, ‘they all had a kind of relationship going with Jeremy Forbes-Wright.’
‘Stokes as a letting agent just doesn’t work,’ added Willis. ‘Can you imagine him doing meet and greet with a bunch of foreign dignitaries?’
‘It was a personal arrangement with JFW then?’
‘Had to be. What’s his angle?’
‘I think it’s the house again, after all, we know he’s trying to buy it with Raymonds.’
‘That house must have something very special about it.’ Willis checked her phone. ‘That’s Lauren, she’s ten minutes away. What do you want her driver to do?’
‘Tell him we’ll arrange a pick-up from Penhaligon police station and then ring Pascoe for me. The driver can stay the night in Penhaligon. I don’t want to swamp the place with Met officers unless we have to. I’ll drop you at the house. I’ll go and book in at the hotel.’
‘Guv, I need to file a report about the incident today. Someone tried to kill you.’
Carter pulled up at the gate and switched off the engine.
He nodded. ‘I’ll ring Robbo when I leave you.’ Willis got her bag out of the boot.
‘I’ve got the times of everything in my notebook.’ Willis came round to talk to Carter at his window. ‘We can’t ignore it.’
‘No, but I don’t want it to get in the way of things. I don’t want it to be a distraction. But you’re right; we’ll file a report on it. We’ll start asking questions.’
Willis lingered at the driver’s side. ‘I think it’s safe to say we’re not wanted here.’
Carter shook his head and looked non-committal. ‘Could have been a local loony, Eb, who knows?’
‘Local loonies tend to hang around and laugh at you,’ she smiled.
‘Yeah, you’re right. Talk to you later, Eb.’
Willis watched Carter drive away and pulled the gate back ready for Lauren. She phoned Pascoe. He told her to send the driver down towards the car park and he’d be picked up from there.
Willis stood on the driveway, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, listening to the sounds of the countryside. There were no houses visible, no streetlights. She could not see the shops below, or the common that lay behind the house and to the back of the shops. A high wall marked the edge of the property to her left. The evergreen pines all around were an effective screen. Now that the sun had set it was just her and the house that stood eerily quiet. She knew as soon as she saw the house that it reminded her of a children’s home she had been in. And the darkness completed her memory of one home in particular – in Wales. There had been isolation there, the countryside all around. This was the same kind of darkness. She breathed in the smell of the sea to centre herself, to remind herself how far she’d come from those days.
She listened to the waves crashing on the beach below. A noise at the left side of the house drew her attention. The sound of something moving there. She strained to see what it was. As she took a few steps towards the sound and shone her phone torch into the area, the bin storage, a badger reared onto its hind legs and Willis took a step backwards. She looked around her for a stick or something to scare it off with, but headlights in the driveway were enough and it was gone.
The police driver pulled in and switched off the engine. Lauren got out of the car and seemed grateful to see Willis. Willis had a chat with the driver. He took out his bag from the car and said his goodbyes as he walked off, closing the gate behind him. Lauren stood looking at the house, her bags and the dog cage on the ground beside her.
‘Do you want a hand to bring anything in?’ Willis asked, as Lauren seemed hesitant.
No, it’s okay, thanks, I can manage.’ She looked apprehensive.
‘It has already been searched,’ Willis said, and instantly regretted the way it sounded.
Lauren nodded her understanding. She stood by her car and looked around her in a daze.
‘Not how I imagined it. It’s big – very grand, but not very pretty.’
‘It’s lovely in the day. Well, it’s less stern anyway. You brought the dog?’ Ebony was pleased to see Russell.
‘Yeah, I felt sorry for him. He doesn’t know what’s going on any more than we do.’
Lauren clipped the lead on the dog’s collar and lifted him out onto the driveway; he went for a wee. When he’d finished he started shivering.
‘Let’s get inside.’ Willis picked up her bag and the dog cage and followed Lauren. A security light came on as they approached the house. There was a white veranda over the porch and a statue of Pan was perched just inside. Either side of the porch were two large bay windows with ornate brickwork patterns around the window, their own slate roofs.
Lauren unlocked the door. ‘There’s no alarm, I take it?’ She turned to Willis.
‘It’s not working any more, according to Stokes.’
She walked on into the hallway. It had dark wooden panels on the walls, a herringbone red and green tile on the floor, and a large carved newel post at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Do you want me to set Russell up in the kitchen?’ asked Willis.
‘Yes, please.’
Willis headed down the hallway to the kitchen, and put Russell’s cage on the floor beside the long oak table that had benches either side. The place was a sturdy mix of original features and prettied-up plush interior design. She found his bowls in a bag and gave him some water, then she put the kettle on.
Lauren came into the kitchen. ‘The wood-burner is all made up, ready to go. I’ve never used one, but I guess we can figure it out. It’s strange being in this place. It feels like we’re int
ruding. It’s a pretty overbearing place.’
‘I think we just need to get used to it. Let’s have a look around,’ said Willis. ‘We’ll light the wood-burner first.’
‘It’s in here.’
Lauren led the way into one of the three rooms at the front of the house. It had dark wood flooring and dark red walls with panels of flock wallpaper. Ornate mirrors and heavy brocade curtains made it dark.
‘Do you think we’re going to sit in here?’
‘Probably not, but let’s light it anyway.’ Lauren waited while Willis got the fire lit and then closed the wood-burner when it got going.
They walked around the lower floor, which had been given a makeover but still had a Victorian feel.
Willis was imagining what Carter would say once he saw the interior of Kellis House. It wouldn’t matter that it wasn’t a glass and chrome chalet. It would be added to his list of ‘houses I have fallen in love with’. It would keep Cabrina in raptures.
‘Shall we check out the bedrooms?’ Lauren asked.
Russell followed them as they walked up the first flight of stairs and onto a landing that had a small library space, a sitting area and a desk. The bathroom was to the left – an enormous roll-top bath with gold feet and a walk-in wet room.
‘Boy – he seems to have spent a lot of money on this place,’ said Lauren as she stepped into the first of the bedrooms. It was all heavy dark wood and red velvet, silk curtains and gold swag. ‘Not exactly country chic, is it?’
‘He liked his bling – we saw that in the place in Canary Wharf,’ answered Willis. ‘He liked things to look and be expensive.’
‘How strange,’ Lauren said as she walked around the room looking at it all, bemused. ‘That’s just so different to Toby. Toby likes no clutter, no colour. No mess of any kind. This place looks like it would be a nightmare to clean. It has so many nooks and crannies.’
‘At least these next two rooms are simply furnished,’ said Willis as they looked at the other bedrooms on that landing, which were done out in more simple cottons and patchwork bedspreads. There was a pretty pattern of small rosebuds on the curtains and the furniture was white and French.
‘This is much more like it,’ Lauren said as she followed Willis into the second of the rooms on the landing. They went on up the stairs to what would have been the servants’ quarters in the original house and found one massive suite.