Beast of Robbers Wood (DCI Arthur Ravyn Mystery Book 3)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Et stabit in limine tenebrarum, he thought. But even the old Roman never encountered a darkness as deep as this. Or as ancient.

  “Chief Inspector,” called Dr Lena Penworthy. “Arthur.”

  Ravyn turned at the pathologist’s voice. She stood within a ring of yellow caution tape. Near her, Stark was speaking to a couple of constables and a sergeant. Scene of Crime Officer Angus Powell-Mavins and his forensics technicians were wrapping up their portion of the investigation and heading back to their vehicle.

  “One moment please, Doctor,” Ravyn said.

  Penworthy made an exasperated sound midway between a snort and a sigh. Hands on her hips, she watched Ravyn catch up with the departing SOCO team.

  Stark finished briefing the patrol sergeant and his men. With this taken care of, they could return to the slow and laborious search for some trace of Lisa Martin or Annie Treadwell. He glanced at the county pathologist.

  She’s a tad peeved, Stark thought. Nothing new about that.

  Despite several months in his new job, Stark had yet to figure out the relationship between Dr Penworthy and DCI Ravyn. Some of the lads had gossiped about a brief romance, all of three weeks of dating, but that was obviously over. If it had ever been, he reminded himself. Certainly he had never witnessed anything to give that rumour legs. They were civil, even courteous, but encounters were usually accompanied by liberal doses of snarkiness and caustic wit. They debated medical opinions and points of law, but they also argued about subjects that defeated Stark’s comprehension, from killer apes to determinism, from books Stark had never heard of to the best temperature at which to serve saki. He went to Ravyn.

  “All right, Arthur, I’ll do my best, but you know I don’t like to be rushed,” Angus Powell-Mavins was saying. “Mind you, it’ll just be a preliminary report, so don’t get your knickers in a twist if I find something important after your talk with that wee man.”

  “I’ll make sure Superintendent Heln understands,” Ravyn said. “If there’s a cock-up and it’s a choice between me or you…”

  “Aye, that’s true enough,” Powell-Mavins admitted.

  “Besides, I have every confidence in you, Angus,” Ravyn said. “You are at your best with a close deadline, the tighter the better. I think of it as helping you.”

  The flame-haired Scotsman walked away grumbling, unlit pipe gripped tight between his teeth.

  “I’m keeping two around to assist Dr Penworthy and her driver, if necessary, and to keep gawkers at bay,” Stark said. “Everyone else is returning to the search.”

  “Very good, Stark.” He glanced at Penworthy. “Come. I have kept the good doctor waiting long enough.”

  “Maybe a bit longer than that, don’t you think, sir?”

  Ravyn sighed. “I fear you’re right, Stark. ‘Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our English dead’.”

  “Shall I cry, 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George,’ sir?”

  Ravyn suppressed a chuckle but allowed a slight smile. “Well done, Stark. From reading or from Olivier’s rendition?”

  “An English instructor’s favourite quote,” Stark said. “If an unlucky lad could not correctly finish what Mr Folger started, a most unhappy lad was he, but he was never me.”

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Doctor,” Ravyn said. “I needed a word with SOCO before he headed back to…”

  “I know exactly what you wanted, Chief Inspector,” Penworthy said. “You bullied a hasty report from Angus. Again.”

  “I asked for an expedited copy,” Ravyn said. “When I talk to the superintendent, he’ll want to know everything right away.” He glanced to Stark. “You know how he is.”

  Stark managed to look blank, or hoped he did.

  “What you want, really, is to minimize contact with Heln,” she said. “Understandable, but must you make us co-conspirators?”

  Ravyn kneeled beside the body. “So, do you think the cause of death is as obvious as it appears?”

  Penworthy looked angrily to Stark. “See what I bloody mean, Sergeant? He knows I won’t know for sure till I get the body back to Stafford, on the slab and open it up. And yet he asks.”

  “An opinion is not binding,” Ravyn said. “I trust your instincts about these things.” He looked to Stark. “Haven’t you found the doctor’s opinions extraordinarily accurate?”

  “Well, I…”

  “Please do not encourage him, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He looked down at the mortal remains of Billy Tremble, whose last place of residence had been Irongate Prison. “But it looks pretty obvious to me.” He bit his lip, but he had already committed himself. “He got himself ripped up by…”

  “Careful, Stark,” Ravyn said, smiling.

  “By some animal that was not the bloody Beast everyone is on about,” Stark said. “Look at those gashes. Claws, right?”

  “They do appear to be claw marks,” Penworthy said, hating herself and silently cursing Ravyn. “The lacerations are uniform, but display enough variation, both in spacing and depth, to suggest an organic source rather than something artificial.”

  “Such as a gardener’s hand fork?” Ravyn asked.

  “Quite,” Penworthy agreed. “Such an instrument might leave wounds superficially similar, but gaps between lacerations would remain constant, as would the depth of penetration.” She could almost hear the cracking of the limb onto which she had crawled. “The wounds were made before death and they were not made with a tool of some kind. That’s as far as I go without a postmortem.”

  “And that he put up a fight,” Stark said.

  “Yes, bruising indicates defensive wounds,” Penworthy said. “A coarse fur is present on his clothing and there is some foreign material under the fingernails. I took scrapings. It appears to be organic.” She held up her palm. “No. Don’t ask.”

  “But you’d rule out something as small as a housecat?” Ravyn asked. “Even a large one?”

  Penworthy sighed. “Yes, even a feral feline seems unlikely.”

  “Panther?” Ravyn suggested.

  Penworthy closed her eyes, counted to five, then opened them. “With all due respect to Mr Fort…no.”

  Ravyn sensed he had pushed her as far as even he dared. “Time of death?”

  “Actually, yes, that’s why I wanted to talk to you,” she said. “Given local variables—no less than thirty-six hours, no more than forty-eight. Given the second girl, I thought that important.”

  “Yes.” Ravyn stood. “Yes, it is.”

  “He’s still in the frame for Lisa Martin, but out of it for Annie Treadwell,” Stark said. “For that, I still like the dad.”

  “I do as well, but there’s a definite lack of proof,” Ravyn said. “His alibi is less than flimsy, but so is that of everyone in that house. Even Ella Treadwell’s.”

  “But she came to…” Stark halted, thinking of all the cases he had worked where guilt had come to rest on whomever had first found the body or reported the crime. “Okay, I can see that, I guess. I suppose I could make a case for the grandmother, but…” He shook his head, remembering his earlier comparison of the villages of Hammershire to cankers. “God! What a family.”

  “Is it possible one disappearance has nothing to do with the other?” Penworthy asked.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Ravyn said. “If so, then we may have two suspects with separate motives and probably unknown to each other. What ties them together is this forest.”

  “Everything seems to come back to Robbers Wood,” Stark said. “The first girl, maybe the second come looking for her friend; even that damned Tremble making his way to Stafford.” He glanced at the body. “Well, it didn’t turn out too bloody well for him.”

  “I’ll leave you two to it then.” Penworthy motioned to her aide to zip up the body bag. “I want to get Mr Tremble on a table and see what I can discover. I’m especially keen to analyze whatever was under his fingernails. I’m planning on opening him
up after lunch. I suppose it’s a waste of time to hope either of you will attend?”

  “We’re very busy here, and it’s not really our case, except tangentially,” Ravyn said. “I’m sure the authorities at Irongate would be interested in the welfare of their former boarder. You might ask Superintendent Heln to attend on their behalf.”

  “Not bloody funny, Arthur.” She bent down to help lift the body onto a gurney. “I’ll e-mail you the report.”

  “Permit me, Doctor.” Stark took her place at the feet. Once the assistant had the body strapped down, Stark looked to the constables who were being as useful as shop mannequins. “Oi, you two! Get over here and help.”

  The two constables and Penworthy’s assistant freighted the body out of the thick tangle of woods to the road. Ravyn, Stark and Penworthy followed. Once the body was in the van, Stark returned the constables to their duties.

  “I’ll see you two later,” Penworthy said. “I have to keep my eye on Andy, see that he doesn’t run anyone down.”

  “Always room for one more.” The driver closed the van’s rear door and climbed behind the wheel. “Besides, we’re already headed for the morgue, ain’t we?”

  Stark leaned close. “He’s pulling it, isn’t he, Doctor?”

  Penworthy shrugged. “Not sure. Pedestrians can move awfully fast when they have a reason.”

  The detectives watched the van leave Flintlock Lane.

  “I should get back to the search, sir,” Stark said. “We’ll keep at it till night forces us to stop. Maybe we’ll get a break by then. So far, not even a scrap of cloth. Do you really think it’s wise to put so much of our resources sweeping through the woods?”

  “The answer is in there someplace, Stark,” Ravyn said. “The link is tenuous with Annie Treadwell, but solid with Lisa.”

  “It could be a coincidence,” Stark said. “The girls’ relationship might not mean a thing. The two disappearances might not have anything to do with each other. Billy Tremble probably watched Lisa Martin from the woods—remember what both Annie and Hardwick said—then took her when the opportunity presented itself. He would have seen there was a blind spot between Hardwick’s cottage and the start of Autumn Lane, the exact moment and place to strike. She was just his type—blonde and young.”

  “All possible, Stark, all very believable,” Ravyn said. “You know how I feel about coincidences, but I do realise they happen from time to time. However, you heard Dr Penworthy’s time-of-death estimate. There’s also a chance he died about the time Lisa was taken or slightly before.”

  “Occam’s razor, sir.”

  “I’m pleased to know you listen to me occasionally,” Ravyn said with a gentle smile. “Yes, faced with two possibilities, the most simple of the two is usually true. If not Tremble, then we have to set up another predator, either human or animal. Not only does it raise the spectre of the Beast, it eliminates James Treadwell as a suspect since there is no way he could be involved with Lisa.”

  “I’ll allow he’s out of the frame for Lisa, but I won’t toss him out for Annie,” Stark said. “He’s well in the frame for that.”

  “Many unlikable people are not criminals,” Ravyn said. “Being unsociable is not a crime, for which I, personally, am thankful.”

  “If we peg Tremble for whatever has happened to Lisa, then all we need do is run to ground whoever is responsible for Annie going missing,” Stark said. “Then, it doesn’t matter whether there’s a relationship or not. Seems pretty simple to me. Occam’s razor is satisfied for both.”

  “And Tremble?” Ravyn asked.

  “Tell you the truth, sir, I don’t much care,” Stark said. “He got what he deserved. Call it the Beast, call it a ghost-panther, call it a herd of mad landscapers with garden forks. However you look at it, he’s brown bread and good riddance. Death by misadventure or malice aforethought, no one is going to shed any tears over his departure from this life.”

  Ravyn nodded thoughtfully. “Dr Penworthy’s final report will no doubt conclude a human agency was not involved in Tremble’s death, despite her reluctance to speculate.”

  “We don’t arrest animals, sir, even legendary ones.”

  Ravyn smiled thinly. “No, we don’t.”

  Stark beamed at having won a point.

  “If we eliminate Tremble from the frame, we might have one suspect for both crimes. Or do we?” Ravyn frowned. “Tremble out, but that might not mean a single hand at work. One crime might be opportunistic, the other a crime of cunning planned to capitalize on the first. We might yet have two suspects, two motives.”

  Stark groaned.

  “One crime to mask the other?” Ravyn pursed his lips. “If so, the crimes are separate, yet still linked; the relationship between the girls again becomes important. Since we can tie the woods to one crime, we can tie it to both. Occam’s razor, Stark.”

  “It’s doesn’t seem simple, sir,” Stark said. “And I don’t like it.”

  “Why?” Ravyn asked. “Because linking Annie’s disappearance to Robbers Wood tends to eliminate Treadwell from the frame?”

  “Yes, mostly,” Stark admitted. “But also because linking either of the disappearances to this blasted forest also brings the so-called Beast in as an explanation. It’s what of the villagers are saying, and I don’t like feeding that superstitious mindset, not at all. It’s the Twenty-bloody-first Century!” He added, more quietly: “Sir.”

  “We need not bring in the Beast for either case,” Ravyn said. “I would rather we did not, actually. If Treadwell is out for Lisa, we still have the possibility of Hardwick.”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Stark said.

  “I thought that would please you.”

  “I’ve had second thoughts,” Stark said. “I mean, I still think he’s a twisted old geezer with a perverse fascination that has nothing to do with either the Beast or a missing sister, but… Well, you’ve seen him. If he tried anything with any of the girls, they would push him over and run like the wind.”

  “Point taken,” Ravyn said. “He is rather frail.”

  “And more than a little poofy.”

  “Possibly,” Ravyn said, his tone cautious. “That would make him an even less likely suspect, don’t you think?”

  Stark felt a measure of disappointment. He did not feel, now, that Hardwick was a strong suspect in either girl’s disappearance, yet he was reluctant to drop him entirely from consideration, if only for the need to charge him with some sort of malfeasance.

  “If separate crimes,” Stark said, “no one is totally out.”

  “Yes, but we don’t have to settle on anyone just yet, either for one or both,” Ravyn said. “And we can’t, not until we know the fates of both girls. So far, they are merely missing.”

  Stark gave Ravyn a doubting look. “The longer it goes on…”

  “Yes, especially since I am more certain than ever that neither girl is a runaway,” Ravyn said. “Then there is the matter of Delbert Vainglory’s absence.”

  “That prat?” Stark had completely forgotten about the resident constable. As far as he was concerned the missing man could stay missing. “How does he fit in?”

  “I am not sure,” Ravyn said, “but we must find out where he went after leaving the Ned Bly in such a hurry.”

  “At least we know he didn’t go back to Water Street.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because Gail Treadwell would have seen him return,” Stark said. “If he had, she could not have missed it, especially with the state her son was in. Besides, having spirited Ella Treadwell out of that house, would even he have been so stupid as to go back?”

  “No, she could not have missed him,” Ravyn said. “Going back might be unwise on his part, but it would depend upon the reason for his return. Unfortunately, we have no evidence he did return to Water Street. Given his recent performance, one could easily make a case that he scarpered for parts unknown rather than be hauled up on charges of incompetence. If he cannot be found,
he cannot be punished, and his reputation in the village remains intact.”

  “More or less, I suppose,” Stark said. “It’s daft reasoning.”

  “It’s village logic,” Ravyn said. “They don’t trust us outsiders’ opinions when it comes to one of their own.”

  “As I said, daft.”

  Ravyn nodded, but his gaze was on the cottages. “They may not have paid any attention to events in the lane before, but they are now, all of them.” He glanced down the lane. “Maybe some more than others.”

  “I don’t trust him, sir,” Stark said. “Even if we can’t peg him for something to do with Annie or Lisa, it’s more than creepy, him watching the woods, taking snaps of girls going by in case one gets snatched by that Beast of his. He may not have anything to do with it, but I bet he practically wet his trousers when he heard Lisa was missing. Watching for the Beast my foot!” He snorted in disgust. “If there is a ‘Beast’ around here, it may be him, no matter how frail or poofy he is. That whole story about the sister is dodgy, don’t you think? He knows the seriousness of what’s happened, knows a bloody sight more than that, but plays his little word games when he’s asked about the girls, makes the constable think he hasn’t seen anything when he has. We only have his word that Lisa passed by without him stopping her, that she actually went past that tree and out of his vision. Who knows what really happened?”

  “You can’t have it both ways, Stark,” Ravyn said, hoping his calm tone would transfer to his sergeant. “He can’t simultaneously be a suspect and not be a suspect.”

  “No, he can’t,” Stark said after a moment, his voice lower and more even, his cheeks slightly flushed. “Yes, I know that.”

  “But you are correct,” Ravyn said. “Hardwick deliberately hid behind, as you say, ‘word games,’ and he still hasn’t told us all he knows. He has a secret, perhaps many.”

  “I think we should nick him for something, anything,” Stark said. “I don’t care what it’s for as long as he gets tossed in jail. It might make the old nutter rethink his story.”

  “Possibly,” Ravyn said. “But, again, village logic. He’s been here forever and we haven’t. He may be a nutter, but he’s their nutter. They will protect him…until they decide they won’t.”