The Shrouded Path

by Sarah Ward

  ‘Did she?’ Jean clicked off the boiled kettle and filled up two cups. ‘She’s probably never ventured down the path. Some of the locals weren’t so keen on the spot but I think it’s really beautiful. You said you were interested in the railway.’

  ‘It’s my mother. She’s not well. I mean, really not well. And she wants me to find a childhood friend of hers who goes by the name of Valerie.’

  Jean sat heavily back in her chair, rocking slightly. ‘Valerie,’ she mused. ‘You think she was connected to the railway?’

  ‘My mother’s been saying these random words that are confusing. I have the name Valerie and she also mentioned Cold Eaton. That’s near here, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not far, although there was never any station. You have to walk a mile down the trail. It’s a lovely spot. You can cut down to the village if you want to go to the pub. Can’t remember the name. Something funny.’

  ‘The Nettle Inn.’

  ‘That’s it. Odd place. You think Valerie might have lived in the village?’

  ‘It’s possible. That’s what Mum was suggesting.’

  ‘Which school did your mum go to?’

  ‘Bampton Grammar. The thing is, the other day, she told one of the hospital visitors about a cutting. I was canoeing this morning and I heard the hiss of the train. Cutting’s a railway term, isn’t it?’

  ‘Cutting? That’s a general word for when a bit of the hill is taken away for the track to run through it.’ Jean stirred her tea with a frown on her face. ‘Mind you,’ she paused for a breath and then shouted, ‘Jim!’ Her brother appeared at the door looking no friendlier than before. ‘Isn’t there a place called the Cutting around here?’

  ‘Down towards Bampton. It’s the last bridge before the old town station. The road’s called Cutting Lane and locals call the bridge the Cutting.’

  ‘I knew it.’ Jean’s face was triumphant. ‘The Cutting. Of course. Why would your mother be talking about that cutting along with someone called Valerie?’

  Mina glanced up and saw, with a shock, that Jim’s face was pale and he was looking at her with dark brown eyes that held a warning.

  ‘Be careful down there, lass. There are stories attached to the Cutting. Don’t go there alone.’

  ‘Stories. What stories?’

  Jim was looking at his sister. ‘The railway attracts all sorts. There was one story of a man who used to walk around the fields naked, a loner really, wearing only a pair of walking boots.’

  ‘Jim! That was years ago,’ protested Jean.

  ‘The lass asked for an example and I gave her one. We tell a lot of tales around here. Just … just, be careful.’

  18

  Manor Grange was a short drive up the slope to the top end of Cold Eaton. The large house was made of White Peak limestone mixed with grit to give it a distinctive grey pallor. High hedgerows, unusual in this windswept part of the country, obscured the view of the house from the main road but, as Dahl swung into the wide gravel drive, Connie could see the house in all its miserable glory.

  ‘I feel we should be using the side entrance,’ said Dahl.

  ‘I know what these huge houses are like. Nothing in them but old furniture. Fur coat and no knickers. Don’t be overawed by the exterior.’

  ‘I’m not overawed, it’s just that I’ve met the type of people who live in old manor houses.’

  The front door opened as they approached, their arrival anticipated. A tall man stood on the threshold, his greying hair brushed back from his face.

  ‘Are you lost?’ His manner was pleasant but their presence an irritant. They showed him their ID, which he scanned and then pulled the door so that the hall was obscured.

  ‘We’re looking for Monica Neale. Is she in?’

  ‘Monica? What’s she done?’ Behind his mock guilt, Connie caught a tinge of anxiety.

  ‘Can we come in? We’d just like a quick chat.’

  ‘Of course. Come inside. I’m her husband, Harry.’ He led them into a large kitchen with a shrug of apology. ‘Hope you don’t mind slumming it. It’s the only warm room in the house.’

  Connie was right about the interior. It was clean with the smell of recently sprayed polish but was bare of furniture if the hall and the glimpse of the living room were anything to go by. An elegant woman was standing by the Aga making a hearty soup. The vegetables had been chopped into tiny cubes and the smell of warming butter assailed Connie’s nostrils. Harry’s wife was unconcerned by the chill of the house; she’d rolled up the sleeves of her polo neck jumper and was wiping her face with the back of her hand.

  As the woman turned towards them, Connie saw that she was older than at first glance. Harry must be in his late fifties and his wife around fifteen years older. What of it, she cautioned herself. Monica Neale’s face, unadorned with make-up, was lined and still attractive. Harry filled a kettle and placed it on the Aga.

  Dahl sat down at the table and, after a moment’s hesitation, Connie joined him and took out her notebook. ‘We’re following up on a few things and we wanted to talk to you about the death of your sister.’

  A look of shock crossed Monica’s face. ‘It’s just routine,’ Connie hastened to reassure her. ‘Your sister, Ingrid, lived here with you?’

  Harry glanced across at his wife. ‘She owned the house as well as us. It’s a complicated arrangement. The house has been in Monica’s family for generations but her father only had two daughters and he left the house to both of them in trust. They jointly owned it.’

  ‘And you all lived here together?’

  ‘When Monica and I got married, their parents were already dead and Ingrid was teaching in the States. So we took over the running of the house but always with the knowledge that if Ingrid came back from abroad she would also live here.’

  ‘Sounds unusual,’ said Dahl.

  Monica Neale tipped the vegetables into the soup pan and carried on stirring. ‘Unusual but not difficult. My sister and I were close and we agreed that even if we both married we would share the house. It’s big enough.’ Her voice was more girlish than Connie had expected. ‘As it was, Ingrid never married and she lived in Arizona until she retired at sixty.’

  ‘When she returned home?’

  Monica inclined her head in acknowledgement and poured a jug full of water into the pan. ‘She shouldn’t have returned, of course. Her asthma was bad when we were growing up, which was a shame as she was so sporty. The dry desert air in the States meant she had a much better life than the one she would have had here.’

  ‘She came home, anyway?’ asked Dahl.

  ‘She didn’t want to grow old in a foreign country. In any case, her health insurers were beginning to become difficult about the treatment. She was able to use the NHS here.’

  The boiling kettle hissed and Harry carefully poured hot water into a teapot.

  ‘You have the same surname as your sister? You didn’t change it when you got married?’

  Harry smiled. ‘She didn’t need to. I took Monica’s surname. She wanted it to continue and I didn’t mind. Our two sons have the Neale name.’

  ‘Who was it who found Ingrid?’ asked Dahl.

  Harry looked up surprised. ‘Me, actually. I’d been out repairing part of the drystone wall. If you don’t keep on top of these things, they accumulate. It took me longer than I expected. I was out a good five hours and ravenous when I came back.’

  ‘You weren’t in, Mrs Neale?’ Connie looked to Harry’s wife.

  ‘I wasn’t. I’d had a call from a friend in the village to say she’d run out of eggs and could I bring her some so I went and, with one thing or another, I was out for about two hours.’

  Harry brought them their tea. ‘I went into the living room as the house was so quiet and I noticed Ingrid sitting on the sofa. I went over to her and she’d gone.’

  ‘She was having to take oxygen, the report says.’

  ‘There was a console in the living room that she could wheel to her bedroom downstairs at
night.’ Harry stirred his tea, a pique of irritation in his voice. ‘We’ve been through this, you know. A detective came around to check on everything. A pretty young lass.’

  Connie kept a neutral expression at the comment, although she noticed Dahl was looking furious.

  ‘Was she in the chair she normally used in the living room?’ asked Dahl, teeth gritted.

  ‘Of course. Why do you ask?’

  ‘We’re checking details. Were you expecting something like this?’

  ‘Not particularly but with the chronic asthma she suffered from it was always a possibility. I know she was feeling the effects of the change of seasons recently.’

  ‘It’s how she died. Of an asthma attack.’ Monica’s voice was firm.

  Harry looked at his wife with concern. ‘That’s what Dr Parsons confirmed. We’d had to rush Ingrid to hospital a few days earlier because of respiratory failure. Dr Parsons said her death was connected to that attack.’

  ‘He came to the house and saw the body?’

  ‘Yes, but there was still a post mortem.’

  Connie and Dahl looked at each other. ‘Ingrid had a post mortem?’ Connie repeated.

  ‘Of course. She was ill but we didn’t expect her to die. The post mortem confirmed an asthma attack. Is there a problem?’

  ‘Not a problem as such. Your sister’s name came up in connection with another investigation,’ said Dahl. ‘So we’re checking the circumstances of Ingrid’s death.’

  ‘After all this time? We buried her months ago.’

  Connie looked to Dahl. Good question. What were they supposed to say? ‘We’re just checking on the background to a recent death.’

  ‘From asthma?’ asked Monica. She was still standing by the Aga but had moved the pan away from the heat, her attention focused on them.

  Connie sidestepped the question. ‘Does the name Nell Colley mean anything to you?’

  Harry shook his head. ‘Never heard of her. Have you, Monica?’

  Monica shook her head as well. ‘Don’t know the name.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Connie, keeping her eyes on Monica. The woman nodded.

  Connie gulped down the rest of her tea. ‘Could I have a quick look at the room?’

  ‘If you want.’

  It was Harry who took them into the living room. It was a square elegant room furnished with two small sofas and not much else. ‘No TV,’ murmured Connie. She turned to Harry. ‘Which sofa was she sitting on?’

  ‘This one.’ He pointed to the faded brocade sofa with its back to the window. ‘She’d been reading a book.’

  As they went to the car, Connie turned around and looked back towards the living room. ‘It makes sense. It’s the sofa that would give the most light. Why shouldn’t she be sitting there?’

  ‘If you’re feeling breathless, wouldn’t it be more natural to be standing up, opening a window? Anything to get air into your lungs.’

  ‘Look, she had a PM. I know Bill Shields, the pathologist. He’ll have done the job properly. We should have checked about the PM before we barged in.’

  ‘It must be a dead end. The name Nell Colley meant nothing to Monica.’

  Connie opened the car door. ‘When I mentioned Nell’s name, do you know what Monica did?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘She put her hand to her temple. She was trying to hide the twitch on the side of her eye.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘She couldn’t help herself.’

  ‘She never enquired why we were asking, did she? She asked us why we were interested in Ingrid’s death but not the connection to Nell.’

  ‘That’s nothing unusual. Police have a reputation for not giving anything away. She probably knew we wouldn’t tell her anything.’

  They got into the car and watched as the rain continued to fall, its intensity increasing. ‘If she knew Nell Colley, why not say so?’

  ‘I don’t know but the name definitely meant something to her.’

  Dahl sighed. ‘It’s not much, is it? We’ve not checked if there have been any complaints about Dr Parsons. Perhaps we should have looked through the files first.’

  Connie groaned. ‘You’re as bad as me. Act first, think later. What a stupid thing to do. I hope to God we haven’t messed things up by rushing to interview witnesses.’

  ‘We can easily check when we get back to the office but, given we’re out, why not ask Mayfield to look through the computer for us while we drive down to the surgery?’

  ‘Pay him a visit now?’

  ‘Why not?’ Dahl switched on the engine. ‘The computer search won’t take long and we can question him about any sudden deaths he’s attended recently. It’ll put my mind at rest at least.’

  19

  The Cutting was initially hard to find. Jim had given no directions, just that the escarpment was at the end of Cutting Lane. However, when Mina reached the stone bridge at the end of the narrow track, there was only a single house standing in its shadow. There was no car park and no obvious access onto the Topley Trail. With a sigh, Mina managed a tight U-turn and followed the directions to a public car park half a mile down the track. Here she was able to park next to a Range Rover with two bikes strapped to the back. The car’s occupants were eating sandwiches while the wipers swished in front of them. Feeling braver, Mina got out of the van and pulled on the manky coat she normally kept in the back for emergencies.

  The path was well maintained, compressed gravel imprinted with footprints and bicycle tyre tracks. It might have been busy in Bampton but here, much further along the trail, it was deserted. Dotted along the path were signs pointing out geological features, local landmarks and railway remains. She passed an old signal box where the path split in two, one directing her towards Bampton and the other Matlock. She took the left-hand path, making her way back towards the old Bampton station, when a stone bridge loomed up as she rounded the bend. Mina stopped and looked around her. So this was the Cutting, an old tunnel where the train would have once passed through on its way to Bampton.

  She entered the dark space, the dank smell reminding her of the canal bridges. It was lighter inside though, which allowed her to have a look around as she passed through. As she came to the other side, she noticed an iron gate pushed back against the wall. They must lock the tunnel at night, which was just as well. Jim was right. The place did have a strange feel to it. A sense of the past but not one forlornly forgotten. Instead, there was a feeling of oppression still present. Mina passed out of the tunnel and into the cold air. Her mobile reconnected with a signal and beeped a new message. Joseph from the library. She pressed redial and he answered on the first ring.

  ‘I called Carol and passed on your number. She says your mum never spoke about her school friends but she’ll happily talk to you anyway. Do you want me to give you her number?’

  ‘I’m out walking at the moment. Can you text it to me?’

  ‘Of course. She has yours anyway so she’ll probably call you.’

  ‘Great.’

  There was a silence. ‘Have you heard from anyone after you filled in the card for our noticeboard?’

  ‘Nothing. Why?’

  ‘That’s funny. When I went to look, the card wasn’t there.’

  ‘What? Did someone throw it out?’

  ‘That’s not very likely. It’s me who does all the tidying. Anyway, it was only the other day. Why would someone chuck it?’

  ‘You think someone’s removed it? That’s good news, surely. They might have something for me.’

  ‘Why not make a note of your number and leave the card there, though? Honestly, people are so weird.’

  ‘Can you do me another one? Can you remember the details?’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s allowed but why not. Yours has gone missing. I’ll stick another one up for you.’

  Mina disconnected the call and looked around her. The path ahead was deserted but, around the bend, she would be nearly at Bampton. She stopped and turned, re
ady to retrace her steps. Above her, a figure was standing on the bridge looking down. She put her hands over her eyes, trying to bring the outline into focus, but as she stepped towards it, the figure moved away from her and out of her sightline.

  Mina looked around and saw a path leading up to the brow of the bridge. With difficulty, she heaved herself up the embankment but the figure was no longer to be seen. There were fields on both sides, one leading towards the town, the other towards a post-war housing development.

  Puzzled, Mina trekked back down the Cutting and along the path to her van. The couple in the Range Rover had left, sick of waiting for a break in the weather. There was something wedged underneath her windscreen wipers, a piece of paper rolled into a flat tube to protect it from the rain. She pulled it off, and found no envelope, only a note scrawled on a sheet from a notebook.

  LEAVE VALERIE ALONE.

  20

  Catherine

  ‘I did it.’ Catherine couldn’t keep the note of triumph out of her voice. ‘I left the note on her windscreen. She’ll never know it was me. I even wrote it in capital letters.’

  The woman opposite picked up the glass full of her foul-smelling drink. She’d accepted that Catherine would never take to dandelion and burdock and given her a glass of orange squash instead. Catherine, however, could still smell the witchy odour of the drink from the other glass.

  ‘It was definitely Mina Kemp?’

  ‘Of course. I went down to the boat to watch her this morning. The address was on the library card that I took. She was dead easy to find. She came out with this bin bag and drove off in her van. So I thought I’d just go back a bit later to see what she was doing. I couldn’t follow her.’

  ‘You didn’t go into school?’

  ‘I kept thinking about what you told me, so I went down to the Cutting and she was there too. Mina Kemp was at the old railway line.’

  ‘Of course she was there. It was you who told her that Hilary had mentioned the Cutting. It didn’t take her long to work it out.’