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

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Ravyn held silent. Penworthy took her hand from his shoulder. Andy neared, bag under one arm, aluminium stretcher under the other. At a nod from the pathologist he set the carrier aside and laid out the white plastic bag near the body.

  Penworthy kneeled to help him. “Gently with her, Andy.”

  “Respect, Doc,” Andy said. “Nothing but, as always.”

  “I know.”

  Andy glanced at Ravyn. “Cut up about this one. Odd that.”

  Penworthy’s expression made him turn back to his work.

  “Easy lifting her, Andy,” Penworthy said. “That’s it.”

  Penworthy and her assistant gently laid the remains of Annie Treadwell on the white plastic. She stood and watched Andy tuck the edges of the bag around the dead girl then zip it up.

  “You rest easy, luv,” Andy whispered. “No more worries.”

  At the sound of the plastic being zippered, Ravyn turned. He saw the cadaver pouch lifted onto the carrier and strapped into place. He called two constables over to lend a hand. They carried it toward the waiting vehicle.

  “You going to be all right?” Penworthy asked when they were again alone.

  “I’m fine,” Ravyn said. “I’m always fine. You know that.”

  “What I know is that one of these days your bloody head is going to explode,” Penworthy said.

  “A human being is not a stoppered bottle, even when held over a flame,” Ravyn said. “With an effort of will and…”

  “This is not one of your philosophical arguments, Arthur,” she snapped. “You may not be a closed bottle over a Bunsen burner, but you do have limits, acknowledged or not. Pride goeth before a fall.”

  Ravyn smiled. “I’ve no inflexible pride, Lena, not as you mean it, not as other men do, but I understand my nature. That gives me strength to withstand every sling, every arrow.”

  “All it takes is one,” she said. “Don’t be so bloody arrogant. It is only a matter of time before you succumb to…”

  “I believe you are outside your area of expertise, Doctor,” he said. “The staff psychologist has already termed me ‘a ticking time bomb.’ I don’t need you to quote Dr Lehmann.”

  Penworthy’s face flushed. She stalked away, then turned. “Fine. Then let me give you another quote: ‘Thou art only a man.’ The slave holding the laurel above Caesar’s head whispered that phrase over and over into Caesar’s shell-like ear lest he think he was a god who could not be toppled. Caesar thought he knew his own nature, thought himself invulnerable to slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Remember the ides or March? Ciao, Caesar!”

  “Caesar was deceived by misperceptions of himself,” Ravyn said. “I know my strengths and especially my weaknesses, and I know my enemies and my friends.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” Ravyn said.

  “What about Stark?”

  “What about him?”

  “Where do you class him?”

  “He has not yet fallen to one side or the other.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Reasonably so.”

  “Why don’t you ask him about his visits to Heln’s office?” she suggested. “I’ve seen him twice. I’m sure there have been others.”

  “Very likely,” Ravyn agreed.

  “Then you know that he and Heln are…”

  “I know nothing, but I have surmised many things,” Ravyn said. “Stark is young, eager and skilled as a detective, but he is not a good liar.”

  “A liar must have a good memory?”

  “Actually, Quintilian said a liar should have a good memory.”

  “Don’t quibble, it’s petty,” she said. “I take it, Stark does not have a good memory.”

  “His capacity for details is better than average,” Ravyn said. “His ability to recall… Well, he has improved considerably.”

  “But he lies?”

  “Yes, he does lie.”

  “That proves…”

  “What it proves remains to be seen,” Ravyn said, abruptly.

  “Why did he leave the Met?” Penworthy asked.

  “That also remains to be seen.”

  She frowned. “He hasn’t told you, or you haven’t asked?”

  “He has no reason to trust me, yet,” Ravyn said. “When he feels he can talk to me about it—if he ever does—he will. Until then, it does no good to ask. It would transform a fence into a wall.”

  “What about his records?”

  “You’re referring to the clarity, profundity and surfeit of accuracy found in official records, are you?”

  Penworthy sighed. “Yes, silly me.”

  “I believe Andy is eager to get started,” Ravyn said. “Must be a few innocent pedestrians in the area.”

  She touched his arm briefly. “Do be careful, Arthur.”

  Ravyn watched her depart. He smiled wistfully. He had hoped their relationship would work out, but it lasted a mere two weeks. Ultimately, he could not escape his memories, and she could not compete with them. Their friendship, however, endured.

  “It’s no use bullying me on this one, Chief Inspector.”

  Ravyn turned and saw Angus Powell-Mavins approaching. The Scotsman’s forehead was furrowed and his pushed-down eyebrows almost obscured his eyes. An unlit pipe was on the verge of being bit in two.

  “Please email me the forensics report when you can,” Ravyn said. “These things can’t be hurried.”

  The SOCO’s eyebrows nearly collided with his hairline. He almost fumbled catching his pipe when it slipped out.

  “You all right, laddie?” Powell-Mavins asked.

  “Perfectly fine, Angus,” Ravyn said. “I always am.”

  “Normally, I wouldn’t hesitate giving you a preliminary report in an hour or two, but only so much is humanly possible.”

  “I understand,” Ravyn said. “You can only do your best.”

  “First that clawed-up murderer, then the girl who wandered out of the forest.” Powell-Mavins ran his fingers through his reddish hair. “Now, this wee lass killed so cruelly.”

  “An avalanche of work,” Ravyn agreed. “You cannot perform miracles. You do not have unlimited resources. My investigation is not the only one queued up for processing.”

  “I have other work backed up for…” Powell-Mavins stopped and scowled as Ravyn’s words penetrated. “Yes, just that.”

  “Everything in its time,” Ravyn said.

  The SOCO shoved the pipe stem back between his teeth and his eyebrows returned to attack position. He was not sure what Ravyn’s game was, but damned if he was going to let himself be hurried.

  “Tell you what, Arthur,” he said. “We’ll do what we can with the portable scanners on the way back, then do a proper work-up on the rest once we reach Stafford and get things sorted out. I know the wee man will be on your back, so I’ll do what I can to help you.”

  “Yes, I expect Heln will contact me if I don’t check in with him about what’s happened,” Ravyn said. “Best to head it off.”

  “Aye, he’s trouble packed into a very small parcel.” Powell-Mavins looked around. He was sure of his team, but knew what had happened to others guilty of indiscretions. “Well, you know I’ll do what I can, Arthur.” He looked at the taped-off area, remembering the small form previously there, and what had been done to her. “You get that bastard, Arthur. You get him.”

  Ravyn nodded. “That I will, Angus.”

  The chief inspector returned to his car, leaving the Scene of Crime Officer wondering how another of Ravyn’s cases had moved to the front of a very long queue. He was sure it had come about without any of Ravyn’s usual manoeuvring. Almost sure. In the end, he left it alone, turning his attention to his team lest his pondering lead him to some awareness of culpability in the matter.

  Damn that man, Powell-Mavins thought. He’s always said that people are their own worst enemies, and damn him but that he might not be right.

  Ravyn had not planned a return to the house
on Water Street until he had search warrant in hand, but Annie Treadwell’s death forced otherwise. Policy dictated he must notify James Treadwell and his mother, but later. First, he had to talk to Ella.

  Ravyn entered the Ned Bly. Soft voices fell silent and sombre gazes followed him. Teype and Patsy, at the bar, also watched him.

  They know, he thought. They already bloody know.

  Ravyn approached Patsy. “Does she know?”

  The barmaid nodded. “She’s in her room.”

  “How?”

  “Wendell Stoneman,” Patsy said.

  Teype’s hand against the bar top was like a rifle crack. “That bloody ponce came busting in big as you please, eager to spill all he had heard from someone in his store.”

  Ravyn turned toward the stairs.

  “Is it really true?” Patsy asked. “What Morris said about Lisa?”

  Ravyn nodded.

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” Teype demanded.

  Patsy started to doff her apron.

  “By this time, she’s in Stafford,” Ravyn said.

  “Then I’ll go…”

  “Best to wait a bit,” Ravyn said. “Lisa’s in hospital, no visitors allowed other than her mum, hospital staff and police.”

  “She’s under guard then,” Patsy said. “You think she’s still in danger, even in Stafford?”

  Reluctantly, Ravyn nodded.

  “But the Beast don’t…” Teype started to say.

  “Maybe you are stupid after all,” Patsy snapped.

  Ravyn left Teype and Patsy arguing about his possible stupidity and the inappropriateness of her pointing it out. He went upstairs.

  When Ella Treadwell did not respond to his soft knock, Ravyn turned the knob and eased the door open. The lights were off. The only illumination trickled in from outside. She sat in a straight-back chair near the small window, motionless, staring, more in shadow than light. He kneeled beside her, but said nothing.

  “I hoped Annie was alive, but I knew in my heart she wasn’t,” she said after awhile. “I knew.”

  “I’m sorry for…” The official words stuck in his throat. He had to say them, but not merely to satisfy department policy. In his mind they represented the ascendancy of order over chaos, of reason over emotionalism. “I am very sorry for your loss.”

  But he also knew the hollowness of them.

  “Thank you, Mr Ravyn.” Her voice was a whisper. “They…the others all say it was the Beast.”

  “Annie was strangled,” Ravyn said.

  Ella turned her gaze to him.

  “Wounds mimicking those of the Beast were applied post…” He paused. “She never felt them, Ella. She was dead by then.”

  “Not the…” She looked out the window. “But she was found in Robbers Wood? As people say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Someone…” She paused. “Someone wants us to believe she was killed by the Beast.”

  Ravyn nodded.

  “Someone,” she repeated, the word no louder than a sigh.

  “I want to search your house,” he said. “A thorough search of both house and grounds.”

  “James will never allow it.” She paused. “You could have done so earlier. I gave my permission.”

  “For Annie’s room, yes, but for the house and grounds, for the kind of search necessary, I needed written permission and...”

  “I would have signed anything you wanted me to sign.”

  “And, more, I needed cause,” Ravyn continued. “Before, I did not have cause, not the kind that would stand up in court, but the circumstances…”

  “Annie being found?”

  He nodded. “Yes, now I have cause.”

  “Did James kill her?”

  “There’s something else I have to tell you about Annie,” Ravyn said. “She was abused.”

  Ella closed her eyes and her hands formed into fists. She shook her head.

  “The pathologist found multiple bruises indicating a pattern of physical abuse,” Ravyn said. “There is no doubt that Annie was hit and grabbed many times.”

  “When she was taken…”

  “Some bruises are recent, but others are weeks, even months old,” Ravyn explained. “It has been going on for a long time.”

  Ella opened her eyes. Her hands remained clenched. She tried to speak, but only a strangled breath emerged.

  “She was also…” Ravyn’s lips tightened, but he forced out the words Ella had to hear. “Annie was abused sexually as well.”

  Her eyes darkened. Flickers of lightning seemed to flash in them. Almost immediately, they softened and watered. Moisture seeped out the bottoms of her eyes, but true tears refused to flow.

  “My fault…”

  “No.”

  “I should have known, should have seen,” she whispered. “How could I have been so blind? Why didn’t Annie tell me?”

  Ravyn reached inside his coat pocket and withdrew the release he had prepared before heading into the village. His obsessively neat printing detailed the reasons for cause and delineated the scope of the search. It would satisfy any magistrate. He showed her where to sign. He countersigned and refolded it.

  “Do you want me to send Patsy up to sit with you?”

  Ella shook her head. “I need to be alone for awhile.”

  “I’ll ask her to bring you a cup of tea,” Ravyn said. “You can talk to her or not, as you wish.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll speak to you later.”

  “I’d like that,” she said. “You’re a very sympathetic man.”

  He headed for the door, feeling awkward and embarrassed.

  “Is it true?” she asked.

  He turned.

  “About Lisa, I mean.”

  He nodded. “She’s in shock, but alive. Her mother is going to Stafford, to be with her in hospital.”

  “I’m happy for her,” Ella said. “For them both. No mother should lose a daughter.” She paused. “But I lost Annie a long time ago, didn’t I?”

  Ravyn fled the room.

  Heading down the stairs, he met Patsy rushing up. “When you get a chance, please take Ella a…”

  “You better get over to Wendell’s store,” she said.

  “What is happening?”

  “They’ve got Mr Hardwick in there,” she explained, turning and following him down. “If someone doesn’t do something quickly, they’re bound to kill the crazy old bugger.”

  Ravyn rushed out of the Ned Bly. Even if he had not known the location of every shop on Midriven’s high street, he would have picked out Stoneman’s right off. It was the one besieged by a mob of angry villagers. At least no pitchforks or blazing torches, Ravyn noted, rushing forward.

  The chief inspector pushed through the noisy crowd and into the shop. He heard frenzied cries from Hardwick, struggling against his captors. Frankie Springer and Dennis Newmark held him tightly. The two louts roughly jerked the old man back and forth between them. Wendell Stoneman stood on a countertop, at times seeming to plead for rationality, other times urging on the excited mob. His senile father danced in the centre of the room and invoked the wrath of ancient gods.

  “Cease this immediately!” Ravyn ordered.

  Ravyn grabbed Frankie’s arm and Dennis’ shirt and pulled the men. The drunken ruffians crossed each other in flight, surprised by their upending and the chief inspector’s unanticipated strength. Freed, Hardwick staggered. Ravyn put himself between the battered historian and the crowd.

  “Shut up!” Ravyn shouted. “Shut up and back off or I’ll arrest the lot of you for assault and public disorder.” He looked at Wendell. “Get off that counter, Mr Stoneman, before I knock you off, and get your father under control.”

  Face red as fire, the shopkeeper climbed down. He grabbed the elder Stoneman’s arm and pushed him into the crowd. All glowered at Ravyn. Though they held back, they continued jostling each other and their mutterings were like the drone of disturbed hornets.

  “Now, wh
at’s this all about?” demanded Ravyn.

  The drone escalated into a roar.

  “Quiet!” Ravyn pointed at Wendell Stoneman. “All right, Mr Stoneman, tell me what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on is old Hardwick bothering girls.”

  “I’ve never so much as…”

  Ravyn whipped toward Hardwick. “You—keep quiet.” He turned to Stoneman. “Go on.”

  “Well, we’ve always known Hardwick is cracked,” Stoneman said. “You know, a bit potty. Hasn’t been quite right in the head since his sister ran off with some bloke.”

  “She never…” Hardwick fell silent at a venomous glare.

  “Ran off,” Zoriah Stoneman said with a lewd cackle. “Ran off, they say, and ran off she did. But where did she run off to, I ask? Only the elder gods know!”

  “Dad, please!” Wendell looked to Ravyn. “Young Lucy ran off with a bloke. Everyone but her daft brother knows that. Even their mum and dad knew it. It was lust that did her in, not the Beast.”

  “The Beast!” Zoriah screeched. “The Beast awakens!”

  Two of Wendell’s his cronies hustled his dad into the back. The demented old man growled and spat, tried to plant his feet to keep from being dragged away, but he was quickly moved out of sight.

  “Lucy Hardwick lusted after some boy from outside Midriven and ran off with him,” Wendell continued. “The truth drove old Hardwick mad, made him obsess about the Beast and its victims. He watches the girls walk past his cottage, takes snaps of them.”

  “How do you know this?” Ravyn asked.

  “Common knowledge,” Wendell replied. “They even see him take snaps, don’t they? We always looked the other way because he’s just a barmy old git, isn’t he? Harmless, we think.”

  “Harmless?” cried a villager. “What about Lisa Martin?”

  “And now poor Annie Treadwell is murdered,” said another.

  The crowd droned like a swarm ready to attack. They were no longer individuals, Ravyn noted. Having surrendered individuality, they now possessed a shared will. They were hornets on the verge of killing an outsider in their midst. If one rushed forward, all would, and none would feel any responsibility for consequences.