The Shrouded Path

by Sarah Ward

  ‘Why kill the other girls? Good question. I don’t know. It’s not a nice story but hardly earth-shattering.’

  ‘Catherine must know some of the answers.’

  ‘Which is why we need to speak to her urgently. Are you staying here?’

  ‘I think I’d better. When she comes around, if she comes around, she’ll be able to give us more information.’ Connie paused. ‘She’s our main suspect, isn’t she?’

  Sadler hesitated. ‘I think she is our prime suspect for killing Hilary Kemp. I’m not so sure about Nell Colley.’

  ‘Catherine was at school that morning and was marked in the register as present. We checked when we spoke to the school this morning. Catherine’s been missing lessons and we know she was at the hospital when Hilary died. Nell will be harder to prove if the teacher was right.’

  ‘Can the teacher remember her being there?’

  ‘No, but she’s pretty sure that if she marked Catherine as present then she will have been. The school register is a legal document, apparently.’ Connie shifted slightly. ‘I think there’s someone behind Catherine.’

  ‘I agree, but if Catherine administered the diamorphine into Hilary’s drip, she’s going to be facing a murder charge even if she’s a minor.’

  Connie swallowed and nodded. ‘There’s got to be mitigating circumstances, though. She’s being manipulated by someone.’ Sadler could feel the anger in his colleague at the thought of a vulnerable minor being manipulated into committing an act that would have devastating consequences for the girl’s life.

  ‘I agree and I’m going to get to the bottom of it whatever the personal cost.’

  Connie twisted in her seat, alert at his change in tone. ‘What do you mean personal cost?’

  ‘The photo that Mina Kemp showed you. How closely did you look at it?’

  ‘It showed a group of girls in tennis clothes. I didn’t look at it closely at all.’

  ‘Two of the girls were Ingrid Neale and Nell Colley, both now dead. The third was Valerie Hallows who died in 1963 apparently by her own hand.’

  ‘And the other two?’

  ‘One of them is Emily Fenn who owns the pub in Cold Eaton and the other …’ Sadler hesitated, ‘is my mother.’

  Connie stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘I know. I’ve just told Matthews and she’s been primed to take over the case from me after I’ve seen Llewellyn.’

  ‘Sadler,’ Connie hissed. ‘These women are in danger. What the hell are you doing here? You need to go and see your mother as soon as possible.’

  ‘There is a possibility that I have to confront that my mother may be the murderer.’

  Connie stared at him. ‘You mean she was at the hospital? Of course, you said she was sick.’ Connie’s mind was working. ‘Your mother? You don’t surely—’

  ‘No, I don’t. But I’d be a fool not to consider the possibility. I can’t talk to my mother on my own. Will you come with me tomorrow?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Sadler. Why not tonight?’

  ‘Because I need to do this properly, which means speaking to Llewellyn first. Will you come with me?’

  ‘Of course I will. But if you don’t mind me saying …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re a bit bloody calm about all this.’

  *

  Camilla looked alarmed when she spotted him outside her house. Sadler’s nephews danced around him as he got out of the car but she took one look at her brother’s face and shooed them inside.

  ‘Is everything all right? It’s not Mum?’

  ‘Not what you think. Can we have a chat on our own?’

  Camilla went into the living room and turned on the TV. ‘Sam? What was the film that you wanted to watch last week?’

  Sam appeared, looking wary. ‘Iron Man, but Dad’s got to watch it with us as it’s a 12A certificate. Ben might be scared.’

  ‘Can I trust you to fast forward if Ben gets frightened?’

  The delighted Sam snatched the handset off his mother and scrolled through the recordings to find the channel. Camilla followed Sadler into the kitchen and shut the door behind her. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Mum’s involved in the case I’ve been investigating. The murder of a patient at St Bertam’s.’

  ‘Involved? Involved in what way?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘But when you say involved, you don’t mean involved.’ Camilla stared at him in horror.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Francis!’

  ‘I’ve missed so many clues. Mina, the victim’s daughter, saying her mother refused to talk about Topley Trail, for instance. Remember Mum was the same. Refused to take us to the railway museum even though I went through a phase of loving trains as a boy.’

  ‘What? Don’t be daft, Francis. It just wasn’t her thing. You know what Mum liked to do with us. Visit churches, walk in the hills with a picnic squashed in her rucksack. Trains weren’t part of it.’

  ‘No, but she loved walking and yet we never went anywhere near that path. When I spoke to Mina, so many things she told me about her own mother echoed with ours.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Refusing to talk about school, avoiding the railway line, wary of intimate friendships. I know Mum has loads of friends but how many does she know really well, confidantes?’

  ‘I think you’ve got this wrong.’

  ‘Remember that leaflet about the tea dance that you found? Can you remember anything else about it?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It was a date in June. I remember it was odd that there was no address written on it, which made it difficult to place. You think it’s important?’

  ‘I do but I can’t for the life of me think how.’

  ‘How’s Mum involved in your case?’

  ‘She was part of a group of girls where something catastrophic happened. It appears to have blighted all their lives.’

  ‘Mum’s life hasn’t been blighted. She’s led a full and interesting life. We’ve talked about it before. She hasn’t led a blighted life.’

  ‘No. No, she hasn’t. You’re right. Camilla. You’re the person I needed to see. I’m nearly there but not quite.’

  64

  The Nettle Inn was closed when Mina got there the next morning. Curtains were drawn across the small windows and the car park was empty. The leaves that Mina had meticulously swept the previous week had been replaced by a new fall, which was swirling over the tarmac. Mina walked around to the side door and opened it. Emily was sitting in the seat that Monica had wept in the previous day. She too looked like she’d been crying.

  ‘You’re not staying?’

  Mina shook her head. ‘I’m better off back in town.’

  Emily stood up. ‘Cold Eaton’s not for everyone. It’s hard when you’re new to the village. You stand out. Not everyone likes it.’

  ‘You mean me?’

  ‘Not just you. It’s always been like this.’ Emily turned off the lights to the room. ‘I’m shutting the pub today in respect for the Kerseys. I’m not going to take any more residents either. The rooms are closed for the winter.’

  ‘Who was in that middle room when I had my accident?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘I wasn’t lying to you. The room was empty.’

  ‘It was locked when I tried the handle before I hit my head.’

  ‘Locked? But the only other person who has a key is Catherine Hallows. I gave it to her months ago so she could do her homework in peace when the weather’s bad and she wants to wait for her mother to give her a lift up to Hallows Hill.’

  ‘Catherine? It can’t have been her in that room. Catherine’s missing and has been for a couple of days. Who might she have given the key to?’

  ‘I …’ Emily pressed her lips together. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Who did you tell about the photo I had?’

  ‘I told no one.’ Emily was a poor liar and, in despair, Mina snapped.

  ‘I saw you hurry
ing up to the Neales’. Did you tell them?’

  ‘Perhaps. I think I said something.’

  Mina stood up. ‘I don’t know what you did to Valerie but I know it ruined her life. You’re not going to tell me what went on. So don’t. Keep your secrets. But I’ve come here to warn you. Nell’s dead, Ingrid is dead and my mum’s gone. Have you thought about that?’

  ‘Ingrid Neale was sick. I helped Monica nurse her. You told me your mother was ill. I don’t know anything about Nell Colley.’

  ‘What about you? Are you feeling okay?’

  ‘Me?’ Emily looked at her in astonishment. ‘I have nothing to be scared of.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I want the name of the naked man.’

  Emily looked away.

  ‘You know who I mean. When we were talking about the figure of the Guy you bring down every year for bonfire night, you mentioned that there was someone around here who didn’t like to wear clothes.’

  ‘Oh him.’ Emily laughed. ‘What the hell has he got to do with anything? If you want to know, when we were teenagers, a young lad in the village began to renounce all his worldly goods. You’d see him walking around the fields when he thought no one was looking. Naturism, isn’t it? Must have been bloody cold up here.’

  ‘But he made it into the paper? People thought he was a pervert.’

  ‘Malcolm Cox a pervert?’ Emily laughed. ‘He’s just a law unto himself. By the time the sixties came along he had his clothes back on.’

  ‘Malcolm Cox? You mean the man who lives up from the church?’

  ‘That’s the one. He’s well known around here. He inherited the cottage from his parents and has settled down. He has his clothes on these days.’

  ‘He’s not dangerous?’

  ‘He’s a loner but he’s all right, really. He went through a romantic phase as a teenager, that’s all.’

  ‘You never saw him down by the Cutting?’

  Emily’s face fell. ‘I’d stay away from that place if I were you.’

  Mina kept her eyes on her. ‘You’re not sorry for what you did? Whatever you did in that tunnel, you don’t regret it?’

  Emily stared at her, defiant. ‘You don’t understand. You don’t know what it was like then. Why don’t you just leave it be?’

  ‘It’s not finished. Whatever it was, it resulted in a death.’

  ‘Death? No one died.’

  ‘Valerie died. After the Cutting, she died after having that baby of hers. By her own hand, Harry Neale told me.’

  ‘What baby?’

  ‘Harry Neale told me Valerie Hallows died after having the baby. She took her own life.’

  Emily was staring at her. Her eyes shrouded with decades of secrets. ‘So that’s how it is, is it? You’ve gone down the wrong track, lovey. That’s all I’m saying. You took a wrong turn. Ask Malcolm Cox.’

  65

  ‘This is the end of the investigation for me.’

  Sadler sat in the passenger seat of Connie’s car watching, through the swishing windscreen wipers, the front door of his mother’s house. He remembered helping Ginnie to paint it years ago when she’d moved in. She’d chosen a pale mustard colour although he and Camilla had protested it wasn’t practical in the Derbyshire weather. They had given in to her, though. Glossed the half-paned door of the fifties semi so that it shone against the black tiled step.

  Connie, her hands on the steering wheel, turned in her seat. ‘Don’t say that. It’s not the first time something personal has encroached on an investigation. It’s what happens around here. One of the coppers looking for Catherine this week said he was distantly related to the family.’

  ‘This is my mother. Whatever happens from now on will be for someone else to decide.’

  ‘Matthews?’

  Sadler shrugged. ‘Why not? She’s a safe pair of hands and I’ve primed her to take over if Llewellyn agrees.’

  ‘Is she okay with you talking to your mother first?’

  ‘I didn’t really give her much choice.’

  They’d picked up Dahl from the station. Sadler had been resigned. ‘He might as well come with us. I’d like him to wait outside while I speak to my mother but he can come.’

  Dahl, to his credit, had asked no questions on the way over and was sitting in the back seat, silently listening to their conversation.

  ‘Did you speak to Llewellyn?’ asked Connie.

  ‘I went to his house late last night. I got his permission to talk to Ginnie. Depending on how this conversation goes, I might see him later and ask for some voluntary leave. I need to stay away from the rest of the investigation.’

  ‘We’re not going to do a formal interview, are we, when we speak to Ginnie?’ Dahl’s disembodied voice came from the back of the car. ‘When we find who doctored Hilary Kemp’s drip, the CPS will do their nut if there are any blurring of professional boundaries.’

  ‘We’re going to interview her as a potential witness. Informally.’

  They continued to stare at the door. Connie sounded near to tears. ‘She can’t have killed Hilary Kemp. She was sick in hospital with cardiac problems.’

  ‘I don’t think my mother’s a murderer but I suspect she knows a significant amount about what happened in 1957. I want to know what. I also want to find out why there was a break-in at her house.’

  ‘When you went to see Mina yesterday, couldn’t she give you any more information?’

  ‘Mina’s searches have always been in relation to finding Valerie. Once she had done that, she realised her mother couldn’t have killed Valerie Hallows despite supposedly seeing her in hospital.’

  ‘Valerie Hallows?’ Dahl leant forward.

  ‘Yes, exactly, Catherine’s grandmother. Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘That’s not right. The Hallows have lived on that farm at the top of the hill for generations.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So where does Derwent village come into it?’

  ‘Derwent?’

  ‘Hilary was rambling on about the drowned village and when one of the hospital porters asked about it she mentioned Valerie. Valerie must have come from the drowned village.’

  Sadler turned in his seat and stared at Dahl. ‘Say that again.’

  ‘Valerie came from the drowned village—’

  ‘Look.’ Connie pointed as the yellow front door opened and shut. Ginnie was still pulling on her coat as she shut the door behind her. It was a newish fawn raincoat that Sadler couldn’t remember seeing before. She buttoned it up to her neck and belted it tightly but her head had no protection from the downpour and she hunched her shoulders as she left the front garden.

  ‘Will she be all right?’ Connie sounded concerned. ‘She has heart problems.’

  ‘We need to follow her.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Dahl had opened the door. ‘I’ll call you, Sadler, if she goes away from the road so you can pick up the trail again.’

  Connie switched on the engine, letting it idle for the moment. As Ginnie reached the bottom of the road and took a left, she engaged the car and set off after her.

  ‘She’s not going to be looking around her in this rain, is she?’ asked Connie.

  ‘She’s not looking anywhere at all.’

  ‘Where do you think she’s going? She’s clearly heading somewhere specific. She can’t get to Cold Eaton on foot, can she?’

  ‘She can get to the Cutting, though, can’t she? Susan Barr told me she used to take the path from the Cutting to the new housing estate. That’s this one.’

  ‘This? This isn’t a new development.’

  ‘They were new houses once upon a time, though, weren’t they? If Susan is right, she’ll head towards the end of the fifties houses before where the estate was extended in the seventies.’

  Connie drove past Ginnie and pulled in opposite a gap between two houses, one in the fifties terrace similar to Ginnie’s and the other a newer bungalow. Between them was a green public footpath sign poin
ting down the gap. Neither of them turned their heads as Ginnie swished past them and disappeared up the path. Sadler stared after her. Dahl came over to them and opened the door, sending shards of rain into the car.

  ‘I think you should go, Connie. If she turns and sees me following her, she might change her mind. You’re smaller and, er, obviously a woman. I’ll drive.’

  Connie slid out of the car and Sadler reached over to her. ‘We’ll meet you at the Cutting. Keep your distance. It must be where she’s going. It’ll take you about fifteen minutes to walk there. We’ll park somewhere out of sight. I’m calling Camilla to meet us there.’

  *

  The rain hit Connie as soon as she left the car. She hurried down the path, ignoring the water sliding down her neck, and slowed slightly when she saw Ginnie climbing over a stile.

  She sheltered under a tree and watched the tall figure cross the field towards the raised bank that demarked the old railway line. When she had turned again and was walking alongside a drystone wall, Connie hurried after her, snagging her trousers on the stile, her shoes seeping with water as she squelched across the field.

  When she met the Topley Trail, the ground turned compact and she began to trudge after Ginnie. A few cyclists hissed past her, making her feel less alone. There was a slight bend in the tracks and the Cutting came into view. Connie tracked the old path until she reached the Cutting and saw, with a lurch, a figure standing against the skyline.

  ‘Shit.’ Ginnie might not be able to see Connie trailing in her wake but the figure would easily spot her. Connie moved off the path and got out her mobile. Sadler answered on the first ring.

  ‘We’ve got a problem. There’s someone there waiting for Ginnie on the top of the Cutting.’

  ‘We’re on our way. You’ll get there as quick as us on foot.’

  ‘But they’ll see me as soon as I leave this path.’

  ‘Go through the tunnel and walk up the embankment from the other side. They won’t be looking behind them.’ Sadler was firm but Connie could detect a quake in his voice. ‘Do it quickly and protect them both.’

  66