Seeking the Dead

by Kate Ellis

Joe eyes met Maddy’s and he sensed a scepticism that matched his own. It seemed that the girl had developed a great deal of faith in the young actor on such a brief acquaintance. Maybe she was too trusting, Joe thought. After a few years in the police force, he found it hard to trust anyone.

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘He said Janna used to hang out with some strange people. She was into the occult. Used to go to a place called … oh, what was it? A pub. Can’t remember the name. Sorry.’

  ‘There’s a place called the Black Hen that has a bit of a reputation for that sort of thing,’ said Joe.

  ‘That’s it. The Black Hen. She used to go there but Tavy said it wasn’t his scene. He says he went there to ask if anyone knew where Janna was. But he drew a blank. Nobody had seen her.’

  ‘Has anyone reported her missing?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  Joe smiled. ‘Not my department. Unless her name comes up in one of our investigations we wouldn’t necessarily be told. But now we have this Jack Wendal connection, I’ll certainly be looking into it. We just have to keep our fingers crossed that we can find her.’

  ‘You think something’s happened to her?’

  ‘Most people who go missing turn up safe and well. And from what you’ve told me, it sounds as if she wanted to go missing. She was receiving threats from person or persons unknown and she left without paying her rent.’

  ‘She left some things. Peta, the landlady, put them up in the loft.’

  Joe looked up suddenly. ‘Did you tell Tavy this?’

  Carmel shook her head. ‘I never thought. He did ask me if she’d left a diary – anything that might help to find out what’s happened to her – but …’

  ‘She might have decided to travel light and left old stuff she didn’t want to take with her,’ Maddy suggested. ‘I don’t suppose Tavy or the landlady know anything about her family, do they?’

  ‘Nothing’s ever been mentioned.’

  ‘She might have gone back home to her parents. If things didn’t work out for her in Eborby she might have decided to cut her losses and run.’

  Carmel sighed. What Maddy was saying made a lot of sense. Janna Pyke was probably miles away being pampered by her devoted parents, taking refuge from the fallout of her walk on Eborby’s wild side.

  But as Joe took another swig of Theakstons, he found it hard to share the women’s optimism. The name Jack Wendal had cropped up again. But could there be a connection between the John Wendal lying unconscious in Eborby General and the disappearance of Janna Pyke? Wendal had certainly terrified Gloria Simpson – but had Janna been afraid of him too?

  ‘I’ll check Janna out tomorrow,’ he said softly. ‘See if anyone’s reported her missing or if her name’s cropped up in any of our enquiries.’

  That was the best he could do for now.

  All of a sudden a cold shiver passed through his body and he felt a slight pressure on his shoulder. He turned his head and caught a lightning flash of misty grey out of the corner of his eye. He picked up his beer and drank deeply, fighting the sudden feeling of sadness that was beginning to overwhelm him.

  Joe had woken up with a headache after drinking too much beer at Carmel’s flat the previous night because somehow he had felt the need to dull his senses. Being with Carmel had brought back memories – painful memories of Kevin lying in a pool of blood on the pavement beside him. But he had been reluctant to leave. He hardly liked to admit it to himself but he had enjoyed Maddy’s company and felt the old familiar thrill of a nascent sexual attraction. Perhaps he’d call her … ask to see her again. If the Resurrection Man investigation didn’t get in the way.

  There had been something unnerving about the flat on Vicars Green. Maddy had told him the story about the plague girl – making light of it but with a hint of discomfort behind the smile – and he wondered whether it explained why he had sensed despair, desolation, inside those four walls. As he had known nothing about the tragedy before, he told himself, it couldn’t have been his imagination. Or perhaps he had heard the story once and put it out of his conscious mind. He couldn’t be sure.

  When he’d arrived at the station, he’d given a pair of young constables the job of tracing everyone in Gloria Simpson’s address book before telling Emily about Carmel’s strange letters … and the fact that Jack Wendal’s name had cropped up again, seemingly making more threats to women. He wanted to find out more about Wendal – it was beginning to look as if the version given by the devoted wife was some way off the mark.

  At nine thirty they set off to visit the Eborby Permanent Building Society. The Society’s operations were directed from a purpose-built headquarters just south of the river. The impressive building, with its huge landmark clock tower, had been designed by an architect who had possessed the good taste and forethought to use materials that blended well with the local stone and the result was an impressive monument to Yorkshire financial acumen. It was well within walking distance of police headquarters for the health conscious but Emily insisted on taking the car.

  On arriving at the grand entrance, Joe pushed at the revolving door and found himself deposited in a towering, marble-lined foyer.

  ‘How may I help you?’ The young woman on the reception desk tilted her head to one side in an enquiring manner and tried to look interested.

  Joe held out his warrant card. ‘We’d like to talk to Harold Uckley’s colleagues. I believe he worked in the Home Loans Department.’

  The girl eyed him suspiciously. ‘Haven’t they been interviewed already … when he was found?’

  ‘We’re pursuing a new line of enquiry,’ Emily chipped in with a sweet but determined smile. She wasn’t going to be fobbed off. ‘I believe a John Wendal works here as well.’

  ‘Which department?’

  ‘Not sure.’ Emily spotted the internal phone directory on the desk. ‘Perhaps you could look him up for us.’

  The young woman obliged. ‘There’s a J. Wendal in Savings. Would that be the one? He’s the only one listed.’

  ‘Where can we find Savings?’

  ‘Third floor.’

  ‘Thanks.’ They made for the lift and five minutes later they found themselves face to face with Wendal’s boss. The nameplate on his door proclaimed him to be a Mr R. Huggins and he was a little man who reminded Joe of a whippet; thin, sharp and without much hair.

  ‘What can you tell us about John Wendal?’ Joe began.

  ‘About Jack? Not much really. Pleasant man. Family man. Interested in trains. Member of the Railway Society, I believe. He wasn’t what you’d call ambitious. Quite content to be one of the troops, if you see what I mean.’ Mr R. Huggins gave a smile that looked more like a leer to Emily. ‘Er … how is he? I don’t like to keep ringing his wife … bothering her.’

  ‘There’s been no change in his condition, I’m afraid.’

  Huggins leaned forward confidentially. ‘Er … I heard he was with a blonde.’ He had lowered his voice even though he was in his private office and couldn’t possible be overheard.

  ‘Word gets round,’ said Emily sharply. ‘Does that surprise you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That he was with a woman.’

  ‘Well, yes, it does. I mean Jack had us all fooled. Sly old devil. He was the last person I would have thought … Ask anybody who knows him. They’ll all say the same. Jack Wendal was honest as they come. Devoted to his wife and daughter.’

  ‘We don’t know the circumstances yet. It might have been quite innocent. He might have just been giving this woman a lift.’

  A shadow of disappointment passed across Huggins’s face. The thought of his dull underling as a sly old fox with a secret and scandalous love life had obviously brightened his day.

  Joe took the leaflet about the House of Terrors that he had found in Wendal’s garage out of his pocket and placed it on the desk in front of Huggins. ‘Has he ever mentioned this place? Ever said he’s been there or …?

  ‘No
. I wouldn’t have thought it would be Jack’s thing myself. But he was mad about railways, I can tell you that.’

  Emily stood up. ‘Thank you, Mr Huggins. We’d like a word with his colleagues if we may.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Huggins said obsequiously. ‘Anything to help the police.’

  Emily was almost at the office door when she turned. ‘By the way, did Mr Wendal have anything to do with the man who was found murdered? Harold Uckley. I believe he worked in the Home Loans Department.’

  Huggins shook his head. ‘Two thousand people work here, Chief Inspector. And Home Loans is on the other side of the building. Might as well be on the other side of the world for all we see of them. As far as I know Jack didn’t know this Uckley. Each department tends to keep itself to itself as it were. Of course he might have met him outside work. Was Uckley into railways?’

  ‘Not as far as we know.’

  They thanked Huggins for his time and made their escape. They had all Wendal’s colleagues to interview and then they intended to venture to the distant wastes of Home Loans and talk to the people who worked with Harold Uckley. They had already been spoken to but there was no harm in the belt and braces approach.

  But they came up with nothing. Wendal’s colleagues echoed their leader’s assessment of the man’s character. And they all agreed that any connection to the House of Terrors was very unlikely indeed unless it featured a steam-powered ghost train. And he would certainly have nothing to do with the occult … he was a regular at his local church. Jack Wendal was a nice, blameless man, a railway enthusiast and family man. And even the young women agreed that there was nothing even remotely creepy about him … unlike some they could mention. Emily and Joe didn’t pursue this any further. They didn’t want to be sidetracked by office gossip unless it concerned Wendal himself.

  The story in Uckley’s department was much the same. The murdered man had been an amiable family man looking forward to his retirement. He was interested mainly in fishing, a hobby he pursued with his grown-up sons, and he had never expressed any interest whatsoever in the occult or the House of Terrors. The only thing out of the ordinary about Harold Uckley was that he didn’t drive. But then some people don’t.

  They had drawn a blank. But there was one other line of enquiry they wanted to follow up.

  ‘Why do they call it Human Resources now?’ Joe mused as they took the lift down to the first floor. ‘It always used to be Personnel.’

  Emily snorted. ‘It sounds grander. And if human beings are just a resource they feel they can play God with people’s lives. Hire and fire when they feel like it.’

  ‘Have you always been this cynical, ma’am?’ Joe asked with a grin.

  ‘Not always,’ she replied in a way that didn’t encourage further questions.

  They soon found themselves at the unprepossessing double doors leading to the Eborby Permanent Building Society’s answer to Mount Olympus. Human Resources. They didn’t bother knocking.

  ‘Yes?’ The young woman at the nearest desk barked rudely, looking at them with thinly veiled hostility as though she suspecting they were there to steal the office computers. She was plump and dressed like all the other females in the building in a gaudily patterned pleated skirt and matching top, made out of some silky man-made fibre and designed to fit any figure and flatter none.

  Joe showed her his ID. ‘We’d like to talk to someone about a former employee. Someone who worked here from May 1993 to November 1995.’

  ‘That’s a long time ago,’ the young woman said accusingly before pressing a few buttons on the computer keyboard in front of her. ‘Name?’

  ‘Carla Yates.’

  The woman looked up. ‘Isn’t that the … the one who was murdered by the Resurrection Man?’

  ‘Can you look her up, please?’ Emily was standing for no nonsense. If the information was in their computer system, she wanted it.

  After a few seconds the information appeared on the screen. ‘Here she is. You were right. She worked for us from May 1993 to January 1995.’

  ‘We know that. What we’d like to know is which department she worked in.’

  ‘Savings. Clerical Assistant.’

  ‘Can you check which department John Wendal and Harold Uckley were working in at that time, please?’

  There was more tapping of keys. ‘Harold Uckley – Internal Audit. John Wendal … he was in Savings.’

  Joe kept his face a neutral mask. ‘Is it possible to have a list of everyone who worked in the Savings department at the time? Names and addresses if possible.’

  The woman scowled. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said as if he had just asked her to run round the circuit of the city walls with her computer strapped to her back.

  The drugs were wearing off and Gloria Simpson was once more aware of her surroundings. She’d heard them talking. Wendal was still there. Pretending to be unconscious. But she knew it was just a ruse. He was indestructible. Invincible. He could spring back to life whenever he chose. He was biding his time.

  And somehow she had to destroy him.

  If she pretended to take the tablets they gave her. If she could somehow fool the nurses into thinking they had her in their power – in his power for he must be controlling them – then she might be able to do it.

  It would take all her strength – all her cunning – to destroy Jack Wendal.

  *

  ‘Where do we start?’ Emily looked at the list of employees who might have come into contact with Carla Yates during her brief sojourn at the Eborby Permanent Building Society, and despaired. There were a couple of people they’d met already. Huggins, for instance. He had been a senior clerk at the time. And one of the women had been a clerical assistant – still was, as far as they knew. But the others would take some tracking down. People move on.

  But the building society was a link. It had to be. And it was all they had at the moment. That and John Wendal, the man who had apparently sent Gloria Simpson over the edge of sanity and who had vowed to collect some sort of payment from Janna Pyke.

  ‘We should go back to the Eborby Permanent to have a word with Huggins and get the team to begin tracking the others down. Something must have happened back then. That must be where it all started. And Uckley was in Internal Audit. They’d go round to all the departments, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Emily said. ‘He could have met them both. The three of them could have got together.’

  Joe sighed. There was a light in Emily’s eyes that told him that she was keen on backing this particular horse. ‘Are we sure the victims are linked?’

  Emily nodded. ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘And do you think John Wendal’s accident’s connected with the murders somehow? I keep thinking about those letters that were sent to Janna Pyke.’

  ‘Jack Wendal will collect payment? If it’s the same Wendal, it sounds as if he’s up to his neck in all sorts. Hidden depths, eh?’

  ‘Wendal’s quite a common name around these parts. I’ve looked in the phone book and it’s full of them. There’s a Wendal’s Butchers in Marigate. And there’s a firm called Wendal’s Engineering in …’

  ‘But there’s only one Jack Wendal who terrified a woman so much that she went insane and made him crash the car. He must be a scary individual.’

  ‘He was into trains.’

  ‘He had that leaflet about the House of Terrors.’

  ‘It’s a tourist attraction. They give those leaflets out like confetti.’

  ‘He’d hidden it in the garage.’

  ‘It was hardly hidden.’

  She looked at him, exasperated. ‘What are you saying, Joe? Do you think we’re getting this wrong?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  The door to Emily’s office opened and Jamilla popped her head round.

  She addressed Joe. ‘You wanted to know if anyone called Janna Pyke had been reported missing, sir. A missing persons report was filed yesterday. A couple of he
r work colleagues came into the station.’ Jamilla handed him a thin file and he thanked her.

  ‘What’s this? Something I should know?’

  ‘Janna Pyke – the woman who received the threatening letters mentioning Jack Wendal. She’s been reported missing.’

  ‘That’s all we need.’ Emily looked at her watch. It was shaping up to be yet another long day.

  The lady in charge of the flowers at St Oswald’s church in the village of Evanshaw liked to feel indispensable and she guarded her position jealously, keeping her helpers firmly in their place.

  This week she had decreed that there was to be a mass of white carnations by the font and a simple arrangement of lilies on the altar. Having examined the available blooms at the florist and made her selection, she had placed the box of flowers on the back seat of her ageing but still immaculate VW Polo and had driven to the church, parking by the lych gate as she did every week, rain or shine, the scent of the fresh blooms in her nostrils.

  With the box of flowers resting in her bare arms, she marched purposefully up the church path to the music of birdsong and a mower from a distant village garden. She stopped at the battered oak door of the small medieval church and put the box carefully on the ground before searching her capacious handbag for the church key. But as she delved into the bag’s leathery depths, she spotted something out of the corner of her eye, something out of place in her familiar churchyard.

  The birds seemed to fall silent as she turned her head to see what it was. And when the realisation dawned, she put her hand to her mouth.

  She had always prided herself on her self-control but the sight of the body lying by the church wall to her left, naked and twisted as though it had just crawled with a great deal of effort from a grave, made her abandon her habitual sang-froid and scream like an hysterical schoolgirl.

  Janna Pyke. Aged twenty-three. Five feet five inches tall. Thin. Black hair. Blue eyes. Pale complexion. Studying at Eborby University for an MA in Medieval History and employed part time on the ticket desk of the House of Terrors in Marketgate. Last known address Flat 2, 5 Vicars Green – now the residence of Carmel Hennessy. Reported missing by a couple of her colleagues at the House of Terrors who had been concerned about her absence. She’d had a boyfriend who was an actor but they’d split up several weeks before she went missing.