by Lee Weeks
‘Jago brought them over, asked me to keep them for Marky. I don’t mind. I don’t know what’s in them, they’ve put a padlock on them. Special stock to bring out at the beginning of the season, apparently.’
Raymonds walked across, picked up one of the bags and weighed it in his hand, and then he rested it on a box.
‘Give me a knife.’
‘You can’t cut it open, for goodness’ sake, that’s a perfectly good bag. It’s none of our business.’
‘Pass me that knife, now.’
She passed him one from the draining board. He slit the stitching next to the zip and pulled the bag open, snapping the stitches. He reached in and pulled out a bag of white powder.
‘I will fucking kill them.’
Chapter 42
‘Mrs Raymonds, is your husband about?’ asked Willis.
‘No, he’s gone out.’
Carter took a step back from the doorstep and looked towards the garage.
‘Has he driven?’
‘Yes, I expect so.’
‘Any idea where he went?’ Eileen Raymonds had the shakes, badly.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Raymonds, can we assist you?’ asked Willis.
‘The door has come off the cupboard – it’s so heavy, I can’t lift it. It fell on me.’
‘We can help,’ said Willis. ‘Can you find me a screwdriver?’
Eileen looked nervous but then nodded and stood back to let them in. She went off to find a screwdriver kit and came back and handed it to Carter. He handed it straight over to Willis.
‘Ebony’s my apprentice.’ He winked at Eileen.
‘Yeah . . . taught me all he knows,’ Willis joked, ‘then I had to start from scratch with someone who actually knew something about DIY.’
Eileen smiled.
‘Please, Mrs Raymonds, sit down.’ Carter eased her into the kitchen chair while Willis propped a small stool under the drooping door. Carter sat down opposite Eileen while Willis set about mending the cupboard.
‘We were told that you were a nurse at one time in your life?’
‘Yes. A long time ago now.’
‘Was there ever a hospital here in Penhal?’
‘No, I was a district nurse mainly but before that I worked in Penhaligon.’
‘This house keeps you busy and I suppose now that Mr Raymonds has retired – there’s probably plenty to do here?’ Eileen didn’t answer. Willis glanced over at Carter and was wondering if he was going to give any examples of things to do – she was amused to hear what they’d be. Once when they were working on a job Ebony had tried to engage Carter in a game of Scrabble but he was hopeless and even lost when he cheated; she’d found four vowels under the seat after he left.
‘I’m staying at the Penhal,’ he said, ‘and Ebony here is staying at Kellis House.’
‘The Penhal Hotel is nice.’
‘I haven’t seen you in the bar yet,’ Carter joked.
‘Oh my word, no, that’s more for the men here. I’ve got better things to do than drink all evening.’
Again, Willis was all ears, wondering what she was going to say.
‘Ebony, how is it over at Kellis House?’ he asked.
Eileen seemed to perk up and be interested to hear the answer. She turned in her chair and watched Willis tightening the screws on the hinge.
‘It’s not my cup of tea.’
‘It wouldn’t be mine either,’ Eileen said, suddenly quite keen to talk. ‘I only went in there the once but I thought it very dour.’
‘It is; it’s dark and heavy and the opposite of what you’d want on holiday I’d have thought – and yet it was always booked up, apparently.’
‘Jeremy Forbes-Wright loved staying there,’ said Eileen.
‘Did you know him well?’ asked Carter.
‘I knew him a long time . . . but I don’t think I ever knew him well,’ answered Eileen.
‘It must be quite lonely here for you in the evenings,’ suggested Carter.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t think of it like that.’
‘Mr Raymonds is just as busy now as when he was a serving police officer, by the look of it.’
‘He’s been having affairs for years. That keeps him busy.’
‘Oh?’ Carter was stunned.
Willis stopped her work. Oh shit, she thought, now he’s going to ask her how she feels about that.
‘And how do you feel about that?’
The door opened and some keys slammed down on the side table in the hallway.
‘Carter?’ Raymonds stood in the kitchen doorway. Carter stayed where he was. Raymonds looked around. He took the screwdriver set from Willis. ‘You’ve no right to come into my house when I’m not here.’
‘They helped me with the cupboard.’
‘I told you I’d fix it when I got home.’
‘It fell off onto my leg. It was dangerous.’
Raymonds held up his hand for his wife to stop talking. He was breathing heavily with anger but kept a fixed smile on his face. Carter stood, slowly pushing the chair back.
‘We won’t keep you long. We need DNA samples,’ said Carter.
‘DNA? What for?’
‘Because everyone has to and you’re no exception.’
‘This is intolerable that you come into my home distressing my wife when you can see she’s ill.’
Willis opened her forensic kit and got out her DNA tester.
‘Ready?’ she asked. He nodded but he was fuming.
‘Mrs Raymonds, you’ll need to give a sample too.’
‘Why does my wife need to?’
‘Because there are only so many people living in this village and everyone gets a turn at the DNA.’
‘No, my wife is ill. This is ridiculous.’
‘You find this a bit much, do you, Mr Raymonds?’ Carter asked as Willis finished taking the tests. ‘Yet, you have the stomach for helping a fifteen-year-old give birth without medical help in a caravan in February?’
‘She was cared for – I looked after her,’ said Eileen. ‘I promise you I got to her as soon as I knew.’ Eileen looked from one detective to the other. ‘The baby was too small, so premature, it could never have survived. We didn’t have time to get her an ambulance.’
‘Oh, I see, Cam’s had his little say, the ungrateful bugger.’ Raymonds raised his eyes and shook his head slowly. ‘Now, unless you have proof on that I’d watch what you’re saying.’
‘I think you’re a big fat liar, Raymonds. And I’m only beginning to touch the surface here. I think you’re missing the end of the rape story. You’re covering for someone. That person would have to mean a lot to you. What was Marky doing that night?’
‘Marky?’ Eileen said, shocked. ‘My Marky involved in that night? It can’t be. That Jago is more like it – Marky’s so sensitive inside, he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He may have had trouble with drugs in the past, but that’s all behind him.’
‘Be quiet, Eileen, you’ve said enough. They have nothing on Marky, because there is nothing.’
‘We are beginning to find out lots of things about you, Raymonds. You had quite some business arrangement going with the late Jeremy Forbes-Wright. Who was the main pimp, you or Stokes? Stokes abused his own kids and you never stopped him. Plus there’s the case of the missing teenage girl Ella Simmons, the case that you investigated and, surprisingly, it was never resolved. I’m going to make it my personal business to find Ella.’
Raymonds did not take his eyes off Carter. The two men squared up to one another and Willis kept her eye on Raymonds. She was wondering if she would be able to take him down if he made a lunge for Carter.
Eileen pushed back her chair and stood awkwardly. Raymonds went to assist her but she pushed him off.
‘Why am I not surprised at all of this? You smell like that woman. I can smell her perfume a mile off.’ He tried to help her again. ‘Don’t. Don’t . . . I’ve had enough. I want to make a statement about the night you delivered Kensa Cooper’s
baby and other things.’
‘Don’t do this now, Eileen, it’s not just me involved in this, is it?’
‘No. I’m done with talking. I want to be free of it. That girl deserves help.’
‘Mrs Raymonds, would you like me to take you down to the station to make a statement?’ asked Willis.
‘Yes, I would.’ She stepped out towards the hall and went to reach a coat down from the peg.
‘Think what you’re doing, Eileen. Marky needs our support. Don’t betray him.’
She glanced back at Raymonds and then turned to Willis and shook her head.
‘No . . . I’m sorry, I can’t.’
‘Would you prefer me to take your statement here?’ asked Willis.
She shook her head. ‘No. I have nothing to say. I’ve changed my mind.’
Chapter 43
Sandford stood and stretched his aching back. He wasn’t built for the work, he told himself. He stopped to listen to the weather outside the window. The clatter of rain pellets on the tin roof meant that he knew the score; he was waiting for the weather to clear and he would be going back outside. Meanwhile he was having a nose through the farm-shop store next to Marky’s workshop, where all the produce for sale in the farm shop was kept. It was all neatly packed on three-feet-deep shelves. Sandford had shelf envy. He wished the shelves in the evidence room back at Fletcher House were this well constructed. He could never find a thing on them. He went back to searching through Marky’s workshop. So far all Sandford had found was Marky’s prints. He wanted to get this finished this evening to start afresh on Kellis House first thing in the morning.
The relentless rain filled the pit where Misty lay. The horse’s limbs were twisted under him where Stokes had tipped him from the digger.
Then rain soaked his mane and collected in the bite wounds on his neck. The crows hopped around over his body as his intestines began to fill with gas. As the soil slipped and moved around him, the side of the pit collapsed and rolled down to lie across his neck and head so only his muzzle and his bared teeth were visible above his shoulder.
The soil swept down and mud began to cover him. He began to bury himself.
The skeleton of a baby boy was curled on its side, turned towards the open jaw of Misty’s last squeal of pain and crush of Brutus’s hooves.
As one was buried so one arose.
Sandford paused, listened: Good – no noise on the roof; he needed to get outside, the smell of the fibre-glass was making him light-headed. He looked down towards the farmhouse and saw the lights on in the lower half of the house. His team were working their way outwards now. The last time Sandford had looked he’d seen Mawgan out feeding the animals, putting the rugs on the horses for the night. Marky was in his cottage with Jago and Towan was in the village at the police station. Sandford watched Mawgan as she took an hour to see to the animals and settle them for the night. From the doorway of Marky’s workshop he could see the stables, and Bluebell had come to watch Mawgan as she passed by. Mawgan took her time to rest her head on the horse’s neck and talk tenderly to her. He waited until she was back inside the house before walking down the lane and into the field where the crime scene tents stood so white and alien on the dark soil.
He walked across to the tractor and the pit where the horse was lying and stooped to enter the tent. He switched on the battery-powered light, moved onto the stepping plates and walked around to the far side of the pit to continue his search of the area. He wouldn’t do a lot more tonight. He just wanted to make sure he had protected things as well as he could from the elements to continue tomorrow. It was then he noticed that the mud was slowly collapsing in on Misty.
Damn . . . need to get a move on, he thought to himself. The elements were against him. As he was about to flick the switch on the light he nudged it with his leg and the beam of light bounced and rocked to illuminate the horse’s wide-open jaw and broken teeth, and Sandford stepped forward onto the furthest plate and squatted beside the pit. It was then he saw the skeletal hand of a baby reaching out from the dirt.
By the time Carter and Willis reached the farm Sandford had begun the excavation of the body. He’d placed more lights inside the tent and was gently scraping the soil and collecting it for analysis.
‘How old do you reckon?’ asked Carter.
‘This baby boy is newborn,’ answered Sandford. ‘The medical examiner can’t come out tonight but we’ll excavate the body in case we get badgers or foxes getting too interested in the night. I can’t tell you how it died.’
‘The horse seems to have sunk into the ground,’ said Willis.
‘Yes, it’s quite a weight and the ground is slowly giving way to it. But the pit is basically collapsing, that’s what it is.’
Willis nodded her head. She stared at the infant.
‘We may have found Kensa’s baby, then?’
‘We need a DNA match done as fast as we can now,’ said Carter.
‘Okay, I’ll start that off,’ said Sandford.
‘If I were Kensa I would feel glad that at least he could be given a proper burial now,’ said Willis.
‘Yes, but someone, probably Raymonds, committed an illegal act burying it here on the farm.’
‘Why here, I wonder?’
‘Things can resurface from the sea, I suppose.’
‘But Stokes couldn’t have known it was here, otherwise he wouldn’t have decided to bury the horse here.’
‘Could have just forgotten, I guess, forgotten where the baby was buried – whosever it was – it’s been here a long time. It’s thirteen years since Kensa lost her baby.’
‘What are you going to do with him tonight?’
‘I’ll finish excavating him then I’ll bag him and take him with me.’
‘What, into your hotel room?’
‘It’s either that or leave him in the car, and what if it gets broken into? Plus, it seems disrespectful.’
‘We can take it back to the police station; it’s all sorted in there. We still have to interview Towan tonight.’
‘Do any of the family know about this find yet?’ asked Carter.
Sandford stood and lifted the baby’s body bag.
‘No, no one yet. Mawgan and Kensa are in the house, plus a male friend – Cam Simmons? Jago and Marky were here but I heard a jeep taking off about an hour ago and there’s no lights on in the cottage now.’
‘I’ll go and have a word with Mawgan,’ said Willis, walking off towards the farmhouse. She knocked at the inner door and pushed it open. The kitchen was dark. There was a television on in a room off to her left. She knocked at that door and walked in. Mawgan was sitting on her own.
‘Hello. I just wanted to see how you and Kensa were doing. Where is she?’
‘Upstairs. Cam’s up there talking to her.’
Willis moved further into the room. ‘Are you okay, Mawgan? There’s a lot to cope with. Has Cam come to help?’
She nodded. She had the television on but she wasn’t really focused on it. ‘Is Towan coming back later?’ she asked. ‘After you take him in, that’s all.’
‘It’s just for an informal interview; we’ll be talking to all of you in the next day or so.’
‘So you’re not charging him then?’
‘No, we haven’t got far enough in the investigation.’
‘You should.’
‘Are you scared to be here with him, Mawgan?’
‘No, I’m a better shot than him.’ She turned back to the television and flicked the channels. ‘Cam will stay with us, anyway.’
‘Do you know why your dad was murdered, Mawgan?’
She shrugged. ‘Because he deserved it? He’d done so many wrong things to so many folk and, in the end, he got what he deserved. Wait . . .’ She got up and handed something to Willis.
‘What is this?’
‘It’s a contact book that my dad kept on the people who stayed at Kellis House and the deals he did.’
Willis opened the book, which was a
simple ledger, but inside were the names of guests. Besides the dates that they stayed, there were dots and numbers.
‘What does all this mean?’
‘It means these were the times he had to provide escorts for these people. Their names are written in the back.’
‘Why are you giving this to me?’
‘Because Raymonds and Towan are going into business. They intend to contact these people from the book and make demands. Maybe, if they get the house, then nothing will change here. It will all continue as it did when Dad was alive and I can’t bear that. Things happen at that house and people go unpunished. Towan will take over where my dad left off. He’ll be twice as bad. That’s why he’s always going off into Penhaligon; he picks up young girls in there, schoolgirls, he grooms them, brings them back, they end up in Kellis House, out of their skulls on stuff. The private parties and the VIPs that come down and abuse them, they think they’re untouchable. That’s not right.’
‘No, it’s not. I can help you, Mawgan. Tell me what’s gone on in the house, make a statement. I can get help for Kensa, too.’
‘No one can help erase the past. No one can give us back our childhood. I don’t want your help. I don’t want it to continue, that’s all. I don’t want other people to suffer.’
‘And what about Samuel? He shouldn’t have to suffer for other people’s mistakes, should he?’ Mawgan didn’t answer. ‘Where is he, do you know?’
She looked at Willis and said nothing. ‘Mawgan?’
Cam Simmons appeared at the doorway to the stairs.
‘Cam?’ Willis looked behind him to see if he was alone. ‘Is Kensa all right?’
‘Not really.’
‘Has she said anything about Samuel?’
He shook his head. ‘But she’s talking about seeing Toby.’
‘I think he’s coming down tomorrow.’
‘She may talk to him.’
‘If she took Samuel she couldn’t have done it alone.’ Willis looked at Mawgan, who was back staring at the screen.
‘Neither of us know anything about it. Do we, Mawgan?’
She shook her head.
Willis went back to talk to Carter. She showed him the ledger.