Dark Coven

by Nick Brown

  “Why would you…?”

  She didn’t get any further. A young policewoman called down the corridor to her.

  “Ma’am, I think we’ve found out who the victim is.”

  Chapter 4: A House Divided

  In the squad car on the way to the house, Viv tried to prepare herself for what would follow. The memory of the woman identifying the body was still fresh in her mind. The distress had been genuine; well, it was more the shock, but then again there was no other reaction when faced with a sight like that, it had shocked her and she’d had plenty of experience.

  But there was something else she’d sensed in Margaret Trescothic. She’d been very reluctant to talk about her community; there were things she wanted kept hidden and there were things that frightened her. Things that almost made Viv as nervous as the mutilated body of Kelly Ellsworth lying on the slab just inches away from her right hand. Not that she thought the woman had any direct responsibility for the murder, but she knew that once they began to ask questions they’d unearth things it might be better to leave buried.

  She was brought out of morbid reflection by Anderson, who said:

  “You were asking about Skendleby Hall. Well, if you look to the right you’ll see it: that’s the estate wall we’re driving alongside of now.”

  Viv looked and saw the weathered red brick wall and then the gates with a long curling driveway leading to the Hall. With its angles and massive chimneys lowering under the dismal grey sky it looked Jacobean and sinister. Set alongside the hall was the old church of St George and its great rectory surrounded by the graveyard. As the car slowed to take the corner, she thought she saw a vague black shape shift jerkily from behind one of the trees. It must have been a trick of the light because when she looked again it was gone. It made no sense, but it felt like someone had just walked over her grave, so she was relieved when Anderson said:

  “The hall was owned by the Davenport family for centuries, then, about eighteen months ago, out of the blue, they sold it to a financial wheeler dealer, a nasty piece of work. Sorry, shouldn’t have said that, he’s close to the Chief Constable. Not that I think the Chief likes him much, but you know how these types operate.”

  She did, like everyone else who had a pension fund or a job. Anderson carried on.

  “Behind the Hall there’s a patch of empty ground with some type of ancient burial mound that the locals think is haunted. The archaeologists from the Uni excavated it last summer, caused a lot of local reaction. An attack took place there but it turned out to be unconnected as far as we could work out. It’s the only bit of the case we managed to crack: it was carried out by an unbalanced young woman.”

  “I take it that you don’t buy any of this haunted stuff, Jimmy?”

  It was meant as a sort of soft joke, but to her surprise Anderson gave a serious answer.

  “No, no I don’t think so, but then I’ve no reason to, but one of the lads from the local nick got mixed up in it and is still off sick. Nerves they say it is, but that’s not what you get if you talk to him. Perhaps you should, his name’s Barford.”

  Wanting to lighten the conversation, Viv asked:

  “Why do they call you Jimmy when your name’s Peter?”

  For an answer, he put back his head and chanted:

  “Oh, Jimmy Jimmy, Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Anderson.”

  “Oh yeah, I get it, like the cricketer, but you don’t look anything like him.”

  “No, but I open the bowling for the division and for Rostherne, and it’s better than most nicknames.”

  They were on a minor track now, no buildings in sight, then the car turned a corner and there was the house.

  Viv’s first thought on seeing it was that it must have cost a fortune, even here so far from London property prices. But as she was processing this another perspective on the house hit her out of the blue.

  There was something wrong about it. She’d had intuitions on cases before, all good detectives did, but about people, not about places. Since they’d passed Skendleby Hall she’d felt uneasy with the countryside. It felt like a place where bad things happened or rather, that it acted as a magnet attracting them, taking what was twisted in people and amplifying it. Once she admitted the thought she dismissed it, she was a rationalist and, if not a fully paid up card carrying atheist, she was certainly a fellow traveller. It was the only topic over which she and her dad fell out. She may have dismissed the thought but she couldn’t shift the feeling. Fortunately, she had no time to reflect further: the car stopped and she saw the front door opening.

  *******

  The session in the house proved frustrating: although on the surface the women cooperated, there was something lurking below that neither Viv nor Anderson could get a handle on. The nature of the community in the house hadn’t helped either. What sort of set up was this? It felt somewhere between cult and coven, but with strong overtones of ‘ladies who lunch’. “Pinot Grigio Witches” Jimmy had called them back in the car and, although she laughed, Viv saw what he meant.

  But there was a definite pecking order in the house, even though only five of the seven women were present. The two missing were the newest and were both archaeologists who Jimmy remembered from the Skendleby investigations. This seemed not only too much of a coincidence but also creepy.

  They were shocked by the murder and Margaret, who identified the body, looked like she’d been crying ever since. They were scared too, yet despite this, Viv knew they were withholding. But her impression from the morgue was compounded: there was something else besides this, something they wanted kept hidden. Something that made Viv want to dig away and expose the roots. In particular, she wanted to interview Olga and Margaret again, and this time away from the house. She also wanted to see if the interview room at the station would loosen them up.

  Although as the investigating officer she was meant to be impartial, Viv hadn’t taken to the two women. For a start they cold-shouldered Anderson, made it plain that they only wanted to talk to her, not only for gender reasons she reckoned. If they were to be interviewed they wanted the senior officer. She could accept that - it happened.

  What she particularly didn’t like, and which always got to her, was their assumption that because she was a woman, and particularly a black, professional woman, they were all on the same side and that she would be sympathetic. In fact, more than that; like she would be grateful for their empathy. They hadn’t alluded to her as a sister but it had come close.

  Overt hostility, racism, Viv got it from time to time, particularly in her job, but she recognised it, learnt how to deal with it and with the dickheads who spouted it. But being patronised by ‘bien pensants’ who didn’t know her, had no idea of who she was and how she felt, yet thought they could categorise her on account of her appearance, grated on Viv. There was a lot of it in London and now Viv realised it was here too. She was still brooding over this, over Olga in particular, when they turned into the police compound.

  In the incident room some shots from the morgue were pinned up on the board. Lumps of meat divorced from the sweet looking young girl they had once comprised. She didn’t want to look, having seen the real thing, and didn’t have to as the door opened.

  “Ma’am, DS Anderson says that the archaeologist you want to see is here.”

  He was sitting in one of the small interview rooms with a plastic beaker containing some nasty hot drink. She liked to see them when they weren’t aware: gave her a better feel for them than when they were on their guard. This one looked like he should be teaching sociology in one of the new universities, was curly haired and dishevelled. He had the residue of a tan so must have been on holiday recently but the thing that hit her most of all was how troubled he looked: sad rather than guilty she reflected as an afterthought. She walked in.

  “Dr Glover? Detective Inspector Campbell, thanks for helping us out.”

  He did a double take (Viv was used to men reacting to her like this on first sight), then he put dow
n his drink and got up to shake hands.

  “No, please sit down, would you like another drink?”

  From his quick refusal, Viv got the impression that he was pleased to have got rid of the first one.

  “So, I take it you can confirm that the remains you found at Skendleby are historic and unrelated to any current enquiry?”

  “Yes, but…”

  He hesitated and she had to prompt him.

  “Go on, but what?”

  “Well, yeah, they’re historic, from two different periods actually, and er.... look. I’m sure they’ve got nothing to do with what you’re investigating, but there is something odd about them.”

  She watched his face as he spoke, he looked troubled and she knew there was something that he couldn’t talk about. What was bothering him? She said nothing, left him the space to fill.

  “There are the remains of two individuals from different periods, from the contexts I’d say separated by about two hundred years, well there or thereabouts. Timescale maybe between fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.”

  He paused again and she had to prompt him.

  “And that’s odd, is it?”

  “No, not as such. The odd thing is...the odd thing is, er…that, and I can’t be sure of this, but...”

  She smiled encouragement.

  “Come on, Dr Glover, you’re not on oath, you can speculate.”

  “Well, without ruling out ground disturbance, animal movements, etc., both bodies seem to have had certain bones removed.”

  A shiver ran up and down Viv’s spine, a premonition of what was coming. She asked:

  “But couldn’t natural causes account for that, like the ones you haven’t ruled out?”

  “They could, but it’s the same bones on each body; the one the workers found and the one we found directly underneath. There are marks of butchery where the bones were severed.”

  Another pause, Viv sensed he was really troubled by this but prompted him.

  “Underneath?”

  “Yes, and hardly disturbed, so therefore almost intact.”

  “Bit of a coincidence?”

  Dr Glover ignored the irony.

  “If we’d more time I could be surer, but Mr Carver wasn’t too happy to cooperate. He blames us for previous stuff.”

  Viv thought: Carver, so that’s the owner, the one Jimmy didn’t like.

  She said:

  “Don’t worry, if this turns out to be police business he will afford you all the time you need.”

  Giles continued.

  “It’s the same bones with both bodies and if it was done by an animal, it was an animal wielding a sharp knife. Not many of those round here. Two burials separated by a couple of hundred years, one on top of the other. It’s like whoever did the second knew about the first.”

  Viv thought to herself: and now there’s a third and he knows more than he’s saying.

  She asked coolly:

  “Do you always move from excavation to conclusion so rapidly, Dr Glover?”

  Her tone had been harsh and ice cold. She regretted it, she didn’t want to put him on his guard: it was shock at the coincidence that made her snap.

  He replied with a whine:

  “Well, you said I should speculate and that’s all I did.”

  He clammed up, she’d been clumsy, he knew more and she wanted that knowledge. She was sure now, he understood the link between this and Kelly’s death and that made him the killer, or at least a leading suspect. She softened her voice.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just that what you said was unexpected but could be particularly useful, and there is more, isn’t there?”

  He ran his fingers through his tangled hair and for a moment Viv thought he looked like the little boy he must have been. What was eating him? She didn’t have to wait long for the answer.

  “Look, this will seem mad and its freaking me out, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since I looked at these bones, but....”

  “But?”

  “But I’ve seen it before”

  “What, on a different site?”

  “No, it wasn’t archaeology at all, it was meant to be a holiday.”

  “You’ve lost me, Dr Glover.”

  “In Greece, Samos, this summer. Where I was staying there was an outbreak of killings, the same things were done to the victims, the same bones.”

  He put his head in his hands, and declared:

  “Oh God.”

  *******

  Later, after Giles had been given the stuff about his rights and locked up for the night, Viv took a coffee to the incident room. Outside it was dark and dank, inside the windows were misted up. Anderson greeted her.

  “Well done, Ma’am, looks like you’ve wrapped this up. How did you get him to talk?”

  “I’m not sure; he just came out with it as if he needed to talk. He was under no pressure. Didn’t you say that you’d interviewed him earlier this year? How did he seem to you?”

  “Ok really, we had nothing on him, he seemed alright.”

  Anderson broke off and picked up a plastic cup. Taking a gulp from it, he realised the coffee inside had long been cold and spat it back in disgust before continuing.

  “But then they all do until you nail them. Anyway, it must be him, how else would he have known about the modus operandi about all the detail of the bones? And making up all that crap about Greece is what clinches it for me. I suppose they’ll want you back in London now.”

  “I think that’s a bit premature: he’s not even being charged yet. We’ve no evidence really so tomorrow we’ll follow all this up. It’s been a long day so well done everyone.”

  Viv refused the offer to go for a drink, it wasn’t her way of operating, and got up to leave. A few paces down the corridor a young detective, whose name she couldn’t remember, called to her.

  “Ma’am, the data we put out has got a match. I’ve got the details here. Not just one murder but a series with the same MO, this summer on Samos, Greece. The senior officer there’s called Theodrakis.”

  Chapter 5: Not What I Wanted to Find

  He swerved, just managing to prevent the car from crashing into a hedge and skidding onto the grass verge at the lip of a ditch. The engine stalled. He turned off the ignition and got out, cursing himself for his stupidity. He should have been concentrating on the difficult pastoral visit he was about to make: or at least concentrating on his driving.

  But ever since he’d uncovered those papers in the archive it had been difficult to think of anything else. Giles had directed him to them, those papers, the ones Tim Thompson had tried to hide because he was afraid of what was in them. He’d been right to be afraid: now Tim was dead, killed in an apparently random attack in Nice where he’d been researching Skendleby connections. Except Ed didn’t believe there was anything random in Thompson’s death.

  It was one of the only things he didn’t believe these days. Since his experiences with Skendleby he’d changed from an agnostic priest in a crisis into a devout priest worried about how much there was to believe. He had no worries about his faith which sustained him: rather he feared all the other things that existed outside of it, and which most people choose not to see. He fished a battered cigarette packet out of the pocket of his parka and lit up, trying to concentrate on what he had to do next. While he was doing this he noticed that just ahead of him the road forked. He must be nearly there.

  He‘d had to think hard about making this visit: the house had acquired quite a reputation, not a good one. He discounted most of the stories, but there had been problems. What’s more, he wasn’t sure if he’d be welcome: as an Anglican vicar he was probably regarded as one of the enemy. The house wasn’t even in his parish, strictly speaking, being over the other side of Woodford, but then again it wasn’t really in any parish and he was the nearest priest to it. But after the killing he felt he had a duty to go and offer what help he could. At least that’s what he told himself, but deep inside he knew that wasn’t the
real reason driving him.

  The real reason was a creeping suspicion. It was all starting up again, and what he’d unearthed in the archives made him wonder if this killing was connected. He was going to reassure himself much as to reassure them. He threw down the cigarette and got back in the car.

  At first sight, the house failed to live up to its reputation: it looked the type of place only someone with a great deal of money could afford, but wasn’t in the least sinister.

  He pulled to a halt, noticing the wind had got up in strength, forcing the trees surrounding the house to shake their heads in some wild dance. As he got out of the car a sharp shower of hail was blown horizontally across him stinging his face and his scalp through his thinning hair as he ran for the front door. He waited outside and, continuing to be drenched by the squall, wondered if the bell was working. He was about to ring again when it opened and he found himself looking at a round-faced mousey-haired woman that he recognised but couldn’t quite place.

  “You’d better come in.”

  She led him through a large reception hall which he couldn’t take in as his glasses misted over with the contrast in temperature: he sensed she was sniggering at him, at which point he remembered her: Rose. She’d been badly injured just before they’d excavated ‘Devil’s Mound’. But he’d no time to test this hunch out as she walked through a door directly opposite and he followed, trying to wipe his glasses on a less than clean handkerchief.

  The room he followed her into was everything he wanted the rectory to be: elegant, modern and with an atmosphere you could sense as you walked in: welcoming and peaceful, perfect for meditation or prayer. It also looked frighteningly expensive.

  There were three women in it sitting on a couple of sofas by the great fireplace looking neither peaceful nor welcoming. He recognised one of them, striking rather than pretty, with masses of coarse black hair tied back in a ponytail. Leonie, she’d been on the Skendleby dig too. What exactly was going on here? He was relieved that he didn’t recognise the others who Rose introduced as Ailsa and Ruth, neither of whom looked anything like the stereotype of a witch but would have blended in well as teachers or office managers.