Down in the Woods

by Gary Philpott

  The horse needed no further instruction. He carried Felicity back to the stagnant pool where Hercules and a perturbed looking Phillip were waiting.

  “What’s the matter?” he shouted as they drew close.

  He took hold of Lester as Felicity climbed off without uttering a word.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “It’s horrible,” said Felicity, burying her head into his chest and wrapping her arms around him. “Let’s go home.”

  Phillip let her hug him for as long as she wanted to. Two minutes later she started to sob into his chest. He rubbed her bare back.

  “Come on, let’s get you dressed.” He took out his handkerchief and wiped several splashes of vomit from her chest.

  It was slow and laboured, but eventually Felicity got back into her clothes.

  “Now, tell me. What was that all about?”

  “Go and look. It’s on the right near where Lester pulled up.”

  “You wait here.”

  Phillip approached slowly. He had no reason to believe something might jump out on him, but he prepared himself for such an event nonetheless. And then he saw her.

  She was naked, but she was anything but an attractive sight. A rope was tied round her neck, securing her to the tree. Tattered flesh was hanging from her arms which were tied around the trunk of the tree. Her body was a horrible mix of black, purple and red flesh. The head was bowed, and her long manky hair draped over her chest.

  Phillip was struggling to take it in. His eyes dropped to her feet. Only then did he realise both legs were severed at the knee. A slug of acid tasting bile shot into the back of his throat. His diaphragm convulsed against his stomach. He just about fought back the urge to vomit.

  It was the woman’s eyes that haunted his mind as he stumbled back towards Felicity. In fact, she had no eyes.

  “Tie Lester up, we don’t want him running off.”

  “We should go.”

  “We can’t just go, Felicity. We need to think about this.”

  “We are wasting time. We should go.”

  “Do as I say, tie Lester up. We are not going anywhere until we have thought this through.”

  Felicity did not question him again. She secured Lester to the next strong looking tree past where Hercules was tied.

  “Don’t look so edgy. She’s been there long enough; another half-hour or so will not make one jot of difference.”

  “We should let someone else find her. How will we explain this to our families?”

  “And meanwhile her killer has more time to escape. We chose this spot for the very reason that very few people come here. Presumably that is also why the killer chose the same place.”

  “You go. I will wait thirty minutes before I phone the police.” Felicity was already reaching inside her jacket pocket for her mobile. “Look, I have a strong signal.”

  “You are not staying here on your own.”

  “You get us all back out on the track, and then I will wait there.”

  Phillip’s lack of response told her he was thinking about it. Felicity started to put together what she hoped would be a plausible story.

  “Phillip. My family know I was out riding today. If I gloss over your presence here, no one will be any the wiser.”

  “Sarah knows I came out riding today. The police will come knocking on my door eventually,” Phillip grimaced.

  “I don’t see the problem. You often ride alone.”

  “Not when I am at a meeting in Birmingham I don’t.”

  “Ah, is that where you told Katherine you were going today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, all the more reason for you not to be the one to report it.”

  “What a mess,” sighed Phillip. “I don’t mind kissing goodbye to Katherine, but I certainly don’t want to kiss goodbye to her inheritance.”

  “You don’t need to. Whatever happens, the police will only want to talk to you. Make sure you do it quietly down at the police station, and neither Katherine nor her father will know anything about it.”

  “Are you strong enough to do this?”

  “I wobbled, I was sick. I am still shaking a little but I can do it. We both have too much to lose if this gets out. I have to do it.”

  “Okay. Which way did we come in?”

  Felicity panicked. Riding around in circles had totally disorientated her.

  She breathed more easily when Phillip said, “It’s okay, you can see our trail. Look, over there.”

  Felicity looked to see a trail of darker leaves that had been ruffled up by their horses on the way in.

  Ten minutes later she was standing on the track watching Phillip ride away. The next thirty minutes was the longest thirty minutes of her life. She extended her ordeal another five minutes, just to ensure Phillip was not driving down Paddock Lane just as the police were driving up it.

  For the first time in her life, Felicity pressed three nines in succession on her phone.

  “Police please. I have just found a dead body in the forest.”

  Chapter 2

  It was almost three-thirty in the afternoon when Detective Chief Inspector George Collins of the Metropolitan police arrived at Miller’s campsite. A temporary incident room had been set up in the site’s small cafeteria.

  Collins squeezed in through the door as two uniformed officers were coming the other way. “Can anyone tell me where I can find DCI Chadwick?” he shouted.

  “Over here,” a deep Somerset accent penetrated the bodies filling the room.

  After much shuffling of feet, a blue walled pass opened up towards a desk at the far end.

  “I’m guessing you must be Collins,” said the tall, grey haired officer.

  “You guessed right.”

  Chadwick held out his hand as Collins approached. Both men gripped each others’ hand firmly. The unwritten law was to never show weakness when greeting an officer of equivalent rank with another force.

  The Berkshire officer stepped round his desk. “Let’s go for a little walk, I’ll get you up to speed on the way.”

  They were on the narrow track when Chadwick eventually started to tell Collins what they had. He started by explaining the geography of the land.

  “Fifty yards behind us is Miller’s campsite. This track sweeps round in a wide arc until it comes out on a wider bridle path. Then it’s left to the stables or right to a World War Two airfield. It’s well overgrown and begging for property developers to start bidding on it. Another ten minutes and we will be close to the crime scene. I tell you, she’s not a pretty sight. The crows have taken her eyes and foxes have been at her lower limbs.”

  “Have the badgers gnawed her as well?”

  “No. I’ve seen a lot worse. Our best estimate is that she has been there less than six days. I have an ecological forensic scientist on the way. Hopefully she’ll narrow down the window for us.”

  “It’s not old Dr Marshman, is it?”

  “It is. You sound dubious.”

  “Oh, she’s good at her job. She’s quite a whiz when it comes to fungal spores and the like. Just a bit posh and too full of her own importance for my liking. One of my officers nearly threw a cup of tea over her once when she instructed him to take it back and put more milk in it. We were in the middle of nowhere examining the remains of a body in a ditch at the time. Cusack had cadged the tea from the flask of another officer. Marshman may well be an expert on flora and fauna, but I don’t think she knows where pasteurised milk comes from.”

  “Huh, I like it. I know just the man to assign to looking after her. That’ll teach him.”

  “Have you any idea of the victim’s age?” asked Collins.

  “Mid-twenties. Does that fit with your Epping Forest woman?”

  “Aye, it does. She’s on record as dying at the grand old age of twenty-nine. But without identification, we can’t be sure.”

  “That’s what worries me about this one. Our pathologist thinks she’s south-eastern block. Kazakhs
tan, somewhere like that. Am I right in thinking you thought yours could be an illegal immigrant?”

  “I can see you’ve done your homework. But I would advise against jumping to any conclusions.”

  “Oh, I don’t usually, but I will be surprised if the Met’s Serious Crime Unit doesn’t take this one off my hands.”

  “I’ll let you know the likelihood of that just as soon as I’ve seen the victim.”

  Collins kept outside the inner circle of police tape as he walked round the tree in an anti-clockwise direction. Chadwick stayed to his right all the way round. Scenes of crime officers in head-to-toe white outfits paused their swabbing and photographing as he did so.

  “Was she alive when she was bound to the tree?” he asked.

  “Yep, she was indeed. And then she was left there to die.”

  “Did she have surgical cotton wool in her mouth?”

  “I told you that you would be adding this to your investigation.” Chadwick looked smug.

  “We haven’t got an investigation. It hit a brick wall over a year ago.”

  “Well, I think you have another line of enquiry here.”

  Collins shouted to the taller of two forensic officers. “Is there any sign of a needle puncture on the neck?”

  The officer looked quickly at both sides of the woman’s neck. He then had a second slower and closer look at each side.

  “Possibly one on the left here, but there are so many insect bites, it’s hard to tell. Hang on a mo, there’s two close to the jugular, about three centimetres apart.”

  Collins turned to Chadwick. “Once you’ve done the scene of crime formalities here, I want the body shipped up to London. I would like to get the same pathologist to take a look at her.”

  “Sure. I am hoping to be wrapped up here before nightfall.”

  “Do you have any clues?”

  “We haven’t found anything to point in any particular direction. The rope around her wrists could lead us somewhere. It is good quality stuff, the sort used by windsurfers.”

  “Have preliminary interviews with campsite staff or people who work at the stables thrown up anything? I assume the footpaths and riding tracks are managed by someone.”

  “I’ve got officers investigating all those angles and more. The guy in the checked shirt back at the campsite is the chairman of a local conservation group. He is always prowling around these parts in the dead of night.”

  “You’re not suggesting he is a suspect, are you?”

  “No, I’m not. But the guy has a lot of local knowledge. He may not have seen anything suspicious himself, but he may know someone who did.”

  “What time was the body discovered?”

  “She was stumbled upon just before twelve. I have a slightly different line of enquiry going on there.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The youngest daughter of a well-to-do family found her while out riding here. You may have seen her in a magazine or two, Lady Felicity Victoria Wilkinson. She had told the stable girl she was going for a ride around the airfield, but she ends up here. What’s more, she wasn’t alone, as she said she was.”

  Collins shot him a look that said, ‘Explain’.

  We found a pre-paid mobile over by that pool of water there. It’s only ever phoned two numbers. One used to check the balance and the other…” He paused and looked Collins in the eye.

  “Lady Felicity’s I presume.”

  “Correct. There are also a lot of filthy text messages on it, they were all sent either to or from her mobile. The number matches the one she phoned us on. Also, you may have noticed we have that trail of horseshoe marks taped off. To my amateur eye, it looks like there was more than one horse here. I’ll know for certain when I can shift some manpower that way. I am also hoping Dr Marshman can identify the entry route for whoever brought the victim here. I’m quite intrigued to know if she walked to this tree, or if she was carried.”

  “Carried while unconscious and left to wake up to discover her predicament would be my bet. Have you conducted a full interview with this Lady Felicity yet?”

  “Not yet, but she’s waiting for me at our nick in Reading.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “Of course you can. You’re not thinking she’s involved, are you?”

  “No. But stranger things have happened. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how many times there is a link between the person who discovers a body and the murderer.”

  “Domestics yes, but not bodies dumped in the middle of nowhere.”

  “This lady was not dumped. She was left to die a slow and agonising death.”

  “But still…” Chadwick squeezed his lips together. “Okay, shall we get going then? Have you seen enough?”

  “I haven’t, but your scenes of crime officers will have. I will just have to wait and read all about it in the morning edition of your report.”

  “If I have something, you’ll have it in under an hour. Don’t you worry about that.”

  As they walked back to the campsite, Chadwick told Collins everything he knew about the preliminary witness statements.

  On the way over to Reading, Collins phoned Detective Inspector Stuart Doyle and set the wheels in motion for the body of the woman to be received sometime later that evening. He also asked Chadwick if he had any objection to him leading the questioning of Lady Wilkinson. Chadwick’s mouth said no, but his face said yes. Collins did not give him an opportunity to go back on what he had said.

  As the two senior officers walked into the interview room, Felicity immediately went on the offensive. She had been stewing a long time and decided to be Lady Wilkinson rather than giggly Felicity.

  “At last, I have been waiting almost two hours.”

  “And you will wait another two hours if I need you to.” Collins sat down in the farthest chair on their side of the table and then added, “Unless you want to spend a night in a cell that is.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Obstructing a criminal investigation for starters. Now would you like legal representation?”

  “If by that you mean do I want my solicitor present? No.”

  “Good. Let’s try not to waste any more of your time then. Who did you go down to the woods with?”

  “I was riding alone.”

  “You set off alone. You returned alone. But you were not alone.”

  “Yes I was.”

  “Do you always go riding soaked in expensive perfume and with no knickerline visible under your riding pants?”

  “Ah, Sarah?”

  “Yes, Sarah.”

  “Is what I wear of relevance here?”

  “Only when it leads me to believe you may not be telling the whole truth. I need to trust people I interview as part of a murder investigation.”

  Felicity gulped. “I was riding alone.”

  “And is that what Rosemary Pericard will tell me when I interview her?”

  “Rosemary? What has Rosemary got to do with this?”

  “I would prefer you to tell me.”

  The penny dropped. She stared at Collins with wide, unblinking eyes. “Good Lord. Rosemary may well be a dyke, but I am not.”

  Collins believed her, but calculated that pretending not to would be a shortcut to getting everything out in the open. “You often rode with Ms Pericard, did you not?”

  “Well, yes. But that does not mean we are anything more than just good friends.”

  “She left the stables only twenty minutes before you. And you did say you would go the same way as her.”

  “As far as I know, she went round the airfield.”

  “If Rosemary was with you in the forest, we will find out eventually. Your sexual orientation is not of any concern to me.”

  “I am a married woman, I am not a lesbian,” shouted Felicity.

  “Sarah clearly thinks you are.”

  “Fuck Sarah.” Felicity thumped her fist down on the table.

  Chadwick broke his silence. “
There was one other person who was riding this morning. Is that who you were with?”

  Felicity cracked. “Phillip Hetherington-Jones. I was with Phillip Hetherington-Jones.”

  “And you had sex in the forest,” stated Collins.

  Felicity dropped her head and stared at the scratched wooden table. “No. We never got that far.”

  Collins softened his tone. “Now that is out in the open, do you think you can tell us everything exactly as it was?”

  “I can. But can this stay within these four walls? There are two marriages at stake here.”

  Not happy ones, thought Collins. “I would not want to make a promise I might not be able to keep. But we are experienced at being discreet if we can do so without compromising an investigation.”

  Chadwick gave her an encouraging nod.

  “Okay.” Felicity took a deep breath. “Here goes, the truth.”

  She proceeded to tell her story, from the moment she rode out through the stable gate until the moment the police came down the narrow track. The only thing she omitted was any mention of taking off her clothes.

  At the end of the interview the two officers stepped out into the corridor.

  “I thought her story hung together,” said Chadwick.

  “Oh, she was telling the truth. The only thing I didn’t understand was why there are no sick stains on her clothes. Though, as my old boss used to say, even Dixon of Dock Green could work that one out.”

  Chadwick laughed. “You’re a cute bastard, aren’t you?”

  “I’m a hungry bastard, I know that. I seem to remember passing a chip shop on the way here?”

  “Our canteen will be doing cooked meals.”

  “No thanks, even Greek fish ‘n’ chips are better than police canteen food. Is there any chance of a uniform running me down there while you deal with the formalities of Lady Wilkinson’s statement?”

  “You’re pushing it on two fronts, but I guess you are a guest in my nick.”

  “Sort it for me and I will buy you a beer after we’ve interviewed this Hetherington-Jones chap. I assume you’ll make sure Lady Wilkinson doesn’t contact him before we’ve heard his version of events.”

  “This is Berkshire, not Norfolk,” chuckled Chadwick.