Village of Ghosts

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “Freddie!” she called.

  “Get her out of here, Stark,” Ravyn said.

  Agnes shoved Stark to one side. He lunged back at her, grabbed her, and hustled her toward the door. In that instant of freedom, she saw Freddie sitting in a chair before the rented equipment. His head lolled to the side. He stared at her with sightless eyes. Then she saw the great chasm where his chest had been.

  “Freddie,” Agnes whimpered.

  She fainted. Stark called two constables over and together they wrestled the massive bulk of Agnes Swanner out the door and down the stairs.

  Chapter 11

  The Last Séance

  “We was just trying to make something of our village, that’s all, not trying to hurt anyone,” Agnes Swanner said. Her voice was low. “Sure, we played up lots of things, gave the people what they wanted to see in the séance, but it was all in a good cause. We didn’t gull no one, not really. There wasn’t any reason to…” Her voice faded. She seemed on the verge of a good cry, but she resisted. These policemen had not seen her cry yet, and they were not going to now. “Poor Freddie. My poor, dear Freddie.”

  “Intentions aside, Miss Swanner, someone took exception to your activities,” DCI Ravyn said. “Except for Mrs Banberry, all the victims were associated with FOG.” He paused. “However, there is another aspect to the murders about which you do not know.”

  She looked up, expectant and confused.

  “About ten years ago, there was a robbery in London,” he said. “You may have heard of it—the Hatton Garden Heist.”

  She frowned, then shook her head.

  Stark entered the room with a polystyrene cup of tea. He set it before Agnes and resumed his seat. He handed Ravyn an envelope.

  “DS Stark returns to the interview room,” Ravyn said for the benefit of the recording.

  Agnes sipped the tea, nodded her thanks. “Don’t know nothing about that robbery, Mr Ravyn. Freddie and me got…we had more than enough to keep us busy at home, him with the bookshop and me in there helping when he needed it. Plus our research.”

  “As we told you,” Ravyn said, “the man you knew as Jameson Gaites was actually Matthew Nevis. He was associated with a man named Lester Post.”

  Agnes shrugged at the name.

  “We’ve uncovered information that Lester Post was an alias,” Ravyn continued. “Actually, it seems to one of a number of aliases he used over time. We believe his birth name was Victor Boil.”

  Agnes sat up straight when she heard the old, reviled name.

  “I told you before, Mr Ravyn, I don’t know anything about the bastard,” Agnes said. “If I had seen him in Little Wyvern, I don’t think I would have recognised him after such a time, but I would have felt the darkness of his aura. After all, I am psychic.”

  “Yeah, we could tell that at the séance,” Stark said.

  She put down the cup to keep from crushing it and glared at Stark. “I am psychic…but we had to make sure. Too much riding on the outcome to leave things to the capriciousness of the spirits.”

  “Nevis and Boil committed the theft,” Ravyn said.

  “We also believe Simon Jones was a third accomplice in the robbery,” Stark added. “He gathered information which allowed his mates to commit the actual theft.”

  “As I mentioned to you and Mr Pettibone,” Ravyn said, “I am sure Victor Boil is living in Little Wyvern under yet another alias.”

  “And he killed Simon and that bloke in the woods ‘cause they knew who he really was?” she asked.

  “We think both of them had tracked him down and had come to get the proceeds of the robbery,” Ravyn said.

  Agnes raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Seventy-five million pounds in jewels, securities and cash,” Stark said. “None of it ever recovered.” He paused. “Well, almost none of it…till now.”

  Ravyn opened the envelope and upended it. Out tumbled a plastic evidence bag containing a neat bundle of banknotes. Agnes stared at it as if Ravyn had placed a poisonous viper on the table.

  “How did this money come into your possession?” Ravyn asked. “Yours and Mr Pettibone’s.”

  “Into my…” She reached for the bag, but pulled her hand back before touching it. “I never… We never had…”

  Stark smacked the tabletop with his big hand. “We found your and Freddie’s fingerprints all over the notes.”

  She jumped at the sound and looked up sharply. “Fingerprints? You can’t have our fingerprints.”

  “A little matter of vandalism some years back,” Ravyn said. “A spot of legal trouble Sir Phineas could not get you out of, for once.”

  She started to sputter another denial, but stopped and sighed heavily. Reaching across the table, she this time touched the money through the bag. Her hand lingered.

  “Freddie tried to tell me it was too good to be true,” she said. “Wanted to give it to you, he did, Mr Ravyn.”

  “You couldn’t let him, though, could you?” Ravyn said.

  “Needed it too much,” she explained. “We were stretched too thin. We owed money to the Gala vendors, and some rental money on equipment and technicians for the séance. We were working on a deadline for that. Time was needed for set up and to put equipment in Freddie’s rented flat.”

  “There are a lot of other fingerprints on the money,” Stark said.

  She nodded. “So many people bleeding us dry.”

  “Including fingerprints of Lester Post,” Ravyn said. “The man we believe to be Victor Boil.”

  She pulled her hand back as if it were burnt.

  “The numbers on the banknotes set off alarms when they were submitted for deposit,” Ravyn said. “They are part of the haul from the Hatton Garden Heist.”

  Agnes rested her elbows on the table and her head on her palms. She moaned like a wounded animal.

  “Who gave it to you?” Ravyn asked.

  She shook her head, causing her upthrust arms to sway. “Don’t know. We was in the Blithe Spirit, meeting, talking about how we were going to make everything work out when we didn’t have Gaites’ money to fall back on. Heard a sound in the dark, and there it was…a gift to FOG.”

  “Where was Michael Albertson at the time?” Stark asked.

  Agnes crossed her arms on the table and shrugged. “Don’t know. He knows better than to stick around when Freddie and me are having private words. He liked his commission too much.”

  “There’s about three thousand pounds here, Agnes,” Stark said. “How much did you receive?”

  “Five,” she said. “Five bloody thousand.”

  “Any left?”

  “Some,” she replied. “Thousand, maybe a little more. We had to keep something in reserve till the promises turned into cash.” She sighed. “Guess that’s all wormwood now.”

  Stark pushed a notepad and pencil across the table. “Write down the names of all the people you used this money to pay off.”

  She took the pad and pencil. After a moment, she started listing the names and companies. When finished, she passed them back.

  “We’ll also need the money you have left,” Ravyn said. “All of it is stolen and will be used as evidence.”

  “Figures,” she said. “Freddie was usually right. He was smarter than me, but never called me stupid. He was my friend.”

  “We really are sorry for your loss, Miss…Agnes,” Ravyn said.

  She nodded her thanks. “So, what happens now? Am I going to be tossed in the chokey?”

  “For what?” Ravyn asked.

  She shrugged. “Receiving stolen property. Fraud. Perverting the course of justice. I don’t know. Something, I guess. Usually when things go wrong everyone always looks for someone to blame. Well, here I am. I’m the only one left alive, ain’t I?”

  “There are no charges pending against you, Miss Swanner,” Ravyn said. “As far as I know, none are being considered.”

  She let out a sigh of relief.

  “But your cooperation from this poi
nt on must be absolute,” Ravyn said. “Do you understand?”

  She nodded. “Until you find the man who killed my Freddie, you have my full cooperation. Can I go now?”

  “I’d like to keep you in protective custody,” Ravyn said. “There is a killer out there, and, more than likely, you’re on his list.”

  She shuddered. “I won’t go in one of those cells.”

  “I can put you in a safe house in Stafford, or arrange for a hotel or a room at the Blithe Spirit,” Ravyn said. “You could even stay in your own home. In any case, you will be guarded by a constable.”

  “Like you protected Prudie?”

  “No,” Ravyn replied. “I hope to do better this time.”

  * * *

  “I’m surprised—shocked really—that she opted for the Blithe Spirit,” Stark said. “After what happened to Prudence, I’d be more than a little wary of staying there.”

  “It was her only real choice,” Ravyn said. “She’d never feel comfortable in Stafford and I’m sure home has too many reminders of her friend.”

  “So what do we do now?” Stark asked. “We’ve run background checks on everyone, but no joy. What next? Fingerprint every male in the village? And every woman, just to make sure?”

  “There’s some basic police work for follow-up,” Ravyn said. “We’ve had no time, but we need to analyze the movements of all who were at the Gala, then cross-reference them with the data from the séance.”

  “At least we can write off a handful of Gala attendees,” Stark said. “Limit the field.”

  “Yes, anyone who was in the vicinity of Miss Holloway and the others when we arrived,” Ravyn agreed. “Anyone we passed on the way to the house since none would have had the opportunity to kill Sir Phineas. A physical impossibility.”

  “I bet you got those faces.” Stark tapped his temple twice. “We can match them with the names we took down after.”

  “We’ll need some extra bodies to interview the locals, but you and I will take the VIPs and outsiders,” Ravyn said. “They will not like being interviewed, but they would like it less being interviewed by a constable than a sergeant or a chief inspector.”

  “Then there’s the vicar,” Stark said.

  “What about him?”

  “Well, he’s off our list of track-downs, isn’t he?” Stark replied. “We saw him heading out as we came in.” He smiled at the memory of the distraught cleric fleeing Spectre’s Haven, remnants of the buffet table staining his suit. “Running like sixty, he was.”

  Ravyn frowned. “That’s odd.”

  “What is, sir?”

  “It’s rather a long haul down that access drive, then around to the road leading into the village,” Ravyn said. “If he had cut across the lawn, he could have gone through Pooks Wood and come out in the village just down from the bridge.”

  “Probably didn’t have much else on his mind but getting away before a ham or something else got thrown at him,” Stark said.

  “Perhaps,” Ravyn said. “I don’t know why he was there at all. The attendees were all FOG supporters. He’s not a stupid man. He knew they would not be receptive to his message, would very likely be hostile, as indeed they were. Given his antagonism and his well-earned unpopularity, his presence seems inexplicable.”

  “He was being bloody minded, as usual,” Stark said.

  “I suppose that’s…” Ravyn gave Stark a piercing look. “What did you say?”

  “I mean, well, you know how the vicar comes across as…”

  “No, not what you mean, what you said—the exact words.”

  “I said he was being bloody minded,” Stark said.

  “As usual.”

  “Sir?”

  “You said, ‘He was being bloody minded, as usual’,” Ravyn quoted. “Now, why would you say that?”

  Stark shrugged in confusion. “Because he was?”

  “How well do you know Reverend Allen?”

  “More than I would like.” He smiled, but dropped it when the smile was not returned. “Not really at all, I suppose. The only times I’ve met him have been in the course of this case.”

  “When someone appends the phrase ‘as usual’ to a judgement, it generally denotes some measure of familiarity with the subject,” Ravyn explained. “Since you don’t know the vicar any better than do I, there is no justification for your use of the phrase.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, sir, if I made some grievous linguistic error or a social faux pas,” Stark said, annoyed. “I don’t have knowledge of such things, as you do, so when you wondered why he chose to show up at the Gala, all I did was say…”

  “The first thing that popped into your mind?” Ravyn asked.

  Stark stopped abruptly at hearing Ravyn steal the words from his mouth. His annoyance turned to puzzlement when he saw the chief inspector’s thin crooked smile.

  “Yes, sir,” he admitted. “You asked, and it was suddenly there waiting to be said, so I did. Say it, that is. I don’t understand what you’re getting at, sir.”

  “Memory is a funny thing,” Ravyn said, ignoring the automatic and unconscious roll of Stark’s eyes. “A few people have good memories, a lot more bad memories, but most people fall in the middle, able to recall what they need to when they have to. Often, it’s how people make it through conversations in which they are not truly invested, making automatic responses to triggering phrases.”

  “I think I follow you,” Stark said. “So, say I’m listening to some prat natter on about a ruddy test match. He mentions a ‘sticky wicket’ or some fool thing, and I say ‘imagine that’ or something just to keep him chugging to the end without stopping to give me a lecture about the rules of cricket, if there are any—that what you mean, sir?”

  “Something like that.” Ravyn, of course, recalled the situation Stark described, but chose to not mention it; he preferred to let Stark sweat a few bullets about it when he recalled, as he inevitably would, who the ‘prat’ had been.

  “Well, so what if I was just filling space?”

  “You used that phrase because you’d heard it before,” Ravyn said. “And in similar circumstances.”

  “I don’t…” Stark paused. “Yeah, someone was talking about the vicar…being interviewed…some of the first ones. Wait.” He snapped his fingers. “It was Madeline Wallace.”

  “Bravo, Stark!”

  “We were asking her about the Ghost Tour,” He paused. “No, we were asking her about the row, such as it was, between Jones and the vicar.” As Stark thought about it, memories tumbled back like water through a breached dam. “We wondered why the vicar leaped up to bar the way to the church when Jones never gave the folks any hope of going in. She said…”

  Ravyn waited, a hopeful look on his face.

  “She said he was being bloody minded…as usual,” Stark said. “She had less cause to say it about him than I did, but she said it for the same damn reason. She heard someone else say it.”

  Ravyn beamed, almost like a proud father, or a schoolmaster listening to a correct answer from a most backward student.

  “Bloody hell,” Stark breathed.

  “Exactly,” Ravyn agreed. “She spent the evening with Jones.”

  “What do we do now, sir?” Stark asked. “The only evidence we have is circumstantial. Fingerprints would only put him in the area, not fix the Mark of Cain on him. I don’t know we’d even be able to get a search warrant on what we have now.”

  “We have nothing to give Heln, much less CPS,” Ravyn agreed. “We need to draw him out.”

  “How do we do that, sir?”

  “We give him a target his nature will not let him pass,” Ravyn replied. “Come, we need to speak to Miss Swanner.”

  * * *

  “A séance?” Aeronwy Stark said. “I know strange things have been going on over at that weird village with the ghosts, but how do you make a séance police business? Are you sure you’re not just using this as an excuse to get away from me?”

  Stark sighed.
“Believe me, Aeronwy, there’s nothing I would rather do than spend time with you this evening.” He gently touched the tiny bump of her tummy. “With both of you. But I don’t have a choice. I have to go.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I have to carry this through,” he said. “We have a man who has killed six people in Little Wyvern, and who-knows-how-many before he landed there. He has to be stopped, and tonight is the only night to do it. Sooner or later he’s going to figure out we’re on to him and scarper. Once he does, we’ll never find him again.”

  “Well,” she said, “it does sound important.”

  “But it’s going to be the last time,” he told her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “After tonight, when we get everything sorted out, I’m giving this to Ravyn.” He reached inside his coat, pulled out a folded sheet of paper, and passed it to her. “I thought I could work things out, but I see now I can’t. I’m out of options.”

  Stark knew Ravyn would appreciate the information delivered as simply and directly as possible, with no wasted words or added sentiment. Even so, he could not resist a nonessential personal note at the end: My one regret, sir, is that I will no longer work with you. You have been mentor and friend, and I am a better man for having known you.

  Slowly, she refolded the paper and handed it back. When he tried to take it, she held fast.

  “What will happen to you, Leo?” she asked. “I hope it’s not custody sergeant. You wouldn’t like that at all. Traffic wouldn’t be any better.”

  “No, not custody or traffic,” he said. “Those ships sailed when I turned them down for CID. We’ll move house out of Hammershire. We have enough in savings for at least a year, but it won’t be that long, I promise.”

  “Leo, you’re scaring me,” she said. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because if things keep going like they are, I’ll lose everything I hold dear,” he said. “In CID, late nights and early mornings will never end. I fight villains and villainy keeps no time clock. Evil never takes a break. But if I keep on, I lose you.”