by David Hodges
‘The home of Annie Laycock, 1788–1863,’ it said. ‘Burned at the stake for witchcraft.’
Underneath the plaque was a crude wooden sign, bearing the words: ‘Danger. Keep Out. Site under restoration.’
For a few moments Kate just stared at the plaque, her heart racing and an uncomfortable chill creeping down her spine. Annie Laycock – Dark Annie? Suddenly she could see a logical reason for Will Fallow’s visit; no doubt he was a key member of the restoration team. But the likely solution to the mystery about his visit gave her no comfort. The house had looked singularly unwelcoming, even from a distance and, knowing the sinister background of the old woman who had once lived here and the series of brutal copycat killings that had been committed since, she found the place about as inviting as an Egyptian mummy’s tomb! Nevertheless, she couldn’t just walk away from it now, not after following Fallow’s smoking VW across half the countryside. She had to find him and satisfy her curiosity beyond all doubt. The most attractive proposition was to shout his name and get him to come out of the cottage to see her, avoiding the need to poke her nose into that creepy darkness but for some unaccountable reason a little voice in her head warned her against advertising her presence so early and instead she gritted her teeth and gripped the torch more firmly in one hand as she moved closer to the front door.
The door itself lacked a hinge at the bottom and had pulled away from the supporting frame, jamming itself in between two flagstones, and she leaned against it for a moment, head thrust forward into a musty smelling room to listen. Nothing at first, then something erupted from the gaping window above her head with a nightmare screech, practically giving her a heart attack, and showering her with debris from the sill.
Mouthing a curse over her shoulder at the magpie, which had now settled on a tree behind her, she forced herself through the door and directed her torch around the room, shielding the beam in her cupped hand to reduce its range and intensity. Two low doorways to her right and rickety-looking stairs, missing several treads, climbing up into a heavy gloom.
She moved forward cautiously, now less worried about the beam of her torch giving her away than walking into something nasty or falling through a hole in the floor. There was another open door at the end of the room and she took a deep breath and peered through – regretting it immediately.
It happened suddenly, taking her completely by surprise – a shape, darker than the gloom, slamming into her with all the force of a runaway bull, hurling her to one side as if she were nothing more than a shop mannequin. Before she could recover, her heel caught something on the floor behind her and she lost her balance and pitched backwards, her arms flailing the air helplessly. Hitting her head on the wall, she crashed to the floor with a bone-jarring impact at the same moment as the figure briefly blotted out the grey oblong of the front doorway before disappearing into the garden beyond.
In her groggy state, her head on fire from contact with the rough wall, she was only just conscious of the roar of the high-revving engine and the scraping, tearing sound of tyres biting deeply into soft earth as the powerful car sped away past the cottage from the opposite side. She managed to get on to her hands and knees and probe the gloom with outstretched fingers until she touched the wall again, then slowly palmed herself upright with the flat of both hands against the cold stonework. But by the time she made it to the front door, the car was gone, leaving just the rich oily burn from its exhaust hanging in the still air and the brief flash of sunlight on a windscreen between the hedges of the drove as it sped away towards the main Westhay road.
She saw the man with the bicycle a second later. He had shrunk back against the wall on one side of the drove, his bicycle in front of him, as if intending to use it as a shield and, despite the hammering pain in her head, she stumbled over to him.
‘You OK?’ she gasped, the fingers of one hand pressed against her temple, which was bleeding.
He nodded. ‘Bloody madman!’ he exclaimed, in a distinct Somerset accent. ‘Nearly ’ad me, ’e did. Wha’s ’appened to ’e then?’
She didn’t answer him but clutched at the top of the wall for support. ‘Did you get his number?’
He shook his head. ‘Goin’ too fast.’
‘Any idea what sort of car it was?’
‘Couldn’t say, my duck. One of them low sporty things, tha’s all I know. Bright red, it were.’
‘What, a sports car, you mean? Soft or hard top?’
He scowled. ‘An’ ’ow would I know? Don’t ’ave one meself. Been a ’drover or a tractor, could’ve said but not tha’.’ He studied her suspiciously. ‘An’ what you doin’ ’ere anyways?’
Kate produced her warrant card with a shaky hand. ‘I might ask you the same question, Mr. . . ?’
‘Rose,’ he said. ‘Albert Rose. My land, this, an’ I were passin’ when I sees Mr Fallow’s car by the cottage an’ went to ask if ’e needed anythin’ – renovatin’ old Annie’s place, see, him an’ tha’ society—’
But Kate was no longer listening to him, as she remembered Will Fallow. Where the hell was the little man? He must have heard the car roar away, yet he hadn’t materialized and his car was still parked in the same spot.
With a dreadful sense of foreboding, she stumbled back to the house, leaving the old farmer staring after her.
Her torch was lying where it had fallen, its beam focused on one wall. Groaning as pain rippled through her head when she bent over, Kate snatched it up, calling out wildly at the same time. ‘Will? Will Fallow?’
But there was no reply and when she stepped gingerly through the door from which her assailant had burst just moments before, she could see why.
The room looked as though it had once been a kitchen of sorts and the big iron hooks from which hams and poultry had been hung in days gone by still projected downwards from the naked beams where the ceiling had once been. One of those hooks had been used for quite a different purpose now, however. In fact the hook itself was only just visible, exiting as it did through the back of Will Fallow’s neck after passing through the underside of his jaw, leaving him hanging there like the raw dripping carcass of one of the animals that had once hung there itself.
CHAPTER 19
Hayden Lewis’s face wore a worried frown as he studied Kate in the glow of the newly lit fire, holding both her hands in his own as a sign of reassurance. The cut to her head had long since stopped bleeding but her auburn hair was grotesquely matted around the wound and the ugly bruises down one side of her face were already clearly visible.
As with all her previous updates, he had listened in silence to everything she’d had to say about the day’s events and, in particular, her encounter with Will Fallow’s killer but now she had finished, his rebuke, if gentle, was none the less pointed. ‘Another close call, eh, old girl?’ he said. ‘You really ought to be more careful, you know.’
She nodded grimly, freeing her hands and reaching for the glass of red wine he had poured for her. He was right, of course. She had only just escaped with her life during the Twister episode two years before and this last incident had been a bit like history repeating itself.
It was several hours since her horrific discovery at Annie Laycock’s cottage and it was now pitch black outside, with a full moon rising. She had felt more than a little guilty about having to quit the crime scene while Ansell, Roscoe and the SOCO team continued to work on under powerful floodlights but Ansell had given her no choice, ordering her home when she’d refused to get herself checked out at the local hospital and telling her not to return to duty until she had fully recovered. To be fair, she knew that his decision had been the right one, whether she liked it or not – after her nasty bang on the head, she certainly needed a good night’s rest if she was to be of any use to the team in the morning – but being sent home like a naughty schoolgirl really rankled and she had difficulty managing the resentment and frustration it invoked.
Sleep was the last thing on her mind too. Although dog-tired and s
till a little groggy, she knew it would not come easily. Talking things over with Hayden was the only way she could think of to settle her mind and get her thoughts into some kind of a logical frame – and Hayden certainly wanted to talk and to ask questions.
‘So, what about this farmer who was nearly run over?’ he said. ‘Surely he must have seen more than just a red sports car flash past?’
She took a long pull on her glass of wine and shook her head, wincing at the pain that seared through her temple. ‘Apparently not. Even when Roscoe re-interviewed him, he stuck to the same story – just a red sports car, was all he claimed to be able to remember. Couldn’t even tell us the type of sports car or whether it was a man or a woman behind the wheel.’ She smiled faintly. ‘But even that was enough for the DI. He’s really off on one where Maurice Copely is concerned – bit of a cause célèbre for him – and since Copely himself owns a red MGA, which seems to have vanished with him, Roscoe needs no further convincing that he is our man.’
‘What do you think?’
She shrugged. ‘Evidence we have so far seems pretty conclusive, I have to admit.’
‘Except that he doesn’t have a finger missing from his left hand, which could be a critical defence?’
‘Roscoe reckons the pathologist could be wrong about that.’
Hayden gave a short laugh. ‘Well, that’s one way of getting over an evidential discrepancy – just ignore it and press on regardless. Any sightings of your man?’
‘Not even a glimpse. He seems to have vanished into thin air. Wife says she has no idea where he’s gone but is convinced it is with another woman, and he’s made no contact with anyone at the library where he works. Could be anywhere.’
He sighed, refilled her half-empty glass of wine and poured himself another, blatantly ignoring the doctor’s orders to avoid all alcohol while on the tablets he had been prescribed. ‘So why stiff Will Fallow?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine – and why in Dark Annie’s cottage of all places? Bearing in mind what’s been happening in the name of Strawfoot, that could be significant in some way. Trouble is I can’t quite see how.’
Hayden sipped his wine slowly, staring at the flames in the open fire grate hissing and fizzing as a strengthening wind gusted rain down the open chimney. ‘Maybe Fallow was implicated in the murders?’ he said. ‘Could be that he and his co-conspirator fell out?’
Kate shook her head firmly. ‘No way,’ she replied. ‘Fallow’s the last person I would see being mixed up in anything like this.’
‘OK then, what if he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? You’ve said he lived for his local history and it seems the cottage where he died is currently undergoing restoration work. Maybe he happened to be out checking on the progress of the work when he ran into the killer on the site and was wasted for his trouble?’
‘That doesn’t explain what the killer was doing there, though, does it?’
‘How about dossing? Your man may not be a member of the historical society at all but actually some psycho who is on the run and up until now has been sleeping rough at the cottage.’
Kate treated him to an old-fashioned look. ‘A dosser with a sports car? Do me a favour, Hayden. I thought you were supposed to be a detective?’
He gave a rueful grin. ‘Just a thought, that’s all, and you don’t seem to be coming up with any brilliant ideas anyway. Maybe Fallow’s killing is not the work of your Strawfoot character at all but is totally unconnected with the murders of the three women?’
‘I don’t buy that either. With Fallow and Dark Annie’s cottage involved, it is all too much of a coincidence.’
‘So why go for such an elaborate method of despatch? There are easier ways of stiffing a struggling man than hoisting him bodily several feet up in the air to ram him on a meat hook attached to the ceiling – not to mention the strength that would be needed to do the job. ’
Kate frowned. ‘It’s unlikely Fallow was struggling. According to the pathologist, he had a nasty impact injury to the side of his head in addition to the wound to the throat that killed him. She reckons he was struck with some blunt instrument before he was hung from the hook, so was very likely out cold when the killer finished him off.’
‘Exactly my point. Why bother to stick him on a hook? Why not simply strangle him, like the women, or batter him to death? Far less effort required.’
‘Maybe because the thing was personal. This was a particularly vicious killing by anyone’s standards – unprecedented in its level of ferocity – which suggests to me that whoever was responsible was motivated by a sense of outrage. I think Fallow infuriated our man somehow, which is why he wasted him in such a sadistic way.’
‘So you’re saying this could have been a vengeance thing?’
‘Or a response to blackmail. Perhaps Fallow put the squeeze on him and he took exception to it?’
Hayden nodded slowly, lips pursed in thought. ‘That could be it but if it is, how did he manage to discover the ID of the killer?’
‘I don’t know but when I last saw him he seemed very uneasy, as if he knew something but was keeping it to himself and felt guilty about it.’
‘That would put him pretty close to our man socially—’
‘Exactly! Which brings us back to the historical society or the library – or both.’
‘Usual suspects then?’
‘But more than likely someone who owns a red sports car.’
‘So Maurice Copely – but who else?’
‘None of those we have seen up until now, so far as I know, unless one of them has a second car hidden away somewhere.’
Hayden raised an eyebrow. ‘But your man Granger is a butcher so he’s the most likely one to have cut his finger off at some stage, chopping up animal carcasses.’
Kate frowned again. ‘I didn’t notice whether he had lost any of his fingers when we interviewed him. That wasn’t on the agenda then.’
He brightened, as if he had contributed something significant. ‘Worth a check, though, wouldn’t you say?’
She drained her glass and rose carefully to her feet. ‘Probably but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m for bed now, I think.’
He grinned, draining his own glass and reaching for his walking stick as he climbed very slowly out of his chair. ‘Excellent idea. Always ready for bed, you know.’
She studied him narrowly. ‘To sleep, Hayden,’ she warned him, reading the message in his blue eyes. ‘Nothing else.’
‘Course,’ he said. ‘Do you think I’d try and take advantage of a sick woman?’
‘Yes,’ she said bluntly, ‘but since you even need help getting up the stairs and are strapped up like a bloody knight in armour, I don’t think you’d present too much of a challenge.’
CHAPTER 20
T he torch awoke Kate – a shaft of white light tracing a path across the darkened ceiling.
Climbing out of bed, she padded to the window, her bare feet making hardly any sound on the thickly carpeted floor. The torch caught her in its beam as she pulled back the partially drawn curtains, but seemed to shrink, becoming a single headlight-like blaze in the shadows below before being abruptly extinguished. Then it snapped on again and almost immediately died – to blaze into life once more a second later. It was a signal. Her intruder was actually signalling to her! As she watched, the torch was switched on a third time and swung in an imperative down–up motion, plainly inviting her to join whoever was holding it in the garden.
Returning to the bed, she studied Hayden lying there on his back, snoring, with his mouth wide open. She was tempted to rouse him to tell him what was going on but decided against it. It would have been pointless. In his present condition, Hayden would be more of a hindrance than a help and, dosed up as he was on red wine and analgesic tablets to relieve his back pain, it was doubtful whether he could even negotiate the stairs. No, better to let him sleep.
Pulling on her robe, she made her way down to the living room. Her
wellington boots were standing to one side of the front door and, slipping them on, she grabbed a heavy police-issue torch from the windowsill and unbolted the patio door. Then she hesitated, a familiar voice in her brain clamouring for attention, warning her to stay put. It could be anyone out there in the night and, police officer or not, she was still no match for a strong aggressive assailant – as she had found out at Annie Laycock’s cottage. Common sense dictated that she should ring the nick and get a crew over to deal with things. Going out there on her own was plainly sheer madness.
She took a deep breath. Maybe it was but by the time a police team managed to get there, the intruder could be gone. Furthermore, it was likely that he would simply vanish at the first glimpse of a marked police car anyway and she knew she would never forgive herself for throwing away her one chance of finding out who was out there and why.
Her mind made up, she jerked open the patio door and stepped out into the moonlight, her torch levelled across the lawn at the boundary fence. There was no sign of anyone. She moved forward cautiously, off the patio on to the lawn, her torch following the line of low bushes marking the boundary on all three sides.
Then she saw the intruder’s torch flash again from the far right-hand corner of the garden and, after a moment’s hesitation, she crossed the lawn diagonally towards the spot.
He was just a dark shape, muffled in a hooded coat of some sort, and she now realized he was not in the garden at all but standing beyond it on the other side of the rhyne which bordered the rear of the property – well out of reach.
‘Who the hell are you?’ she began.
‘Can’t you guess?’ Maurice Copely sneered.
Kate froze. ‘Half the force is out looking for you,’ she snapped. ‘Running was a stupid thing to do.’
He gave a short unamused laugh. ‘What did you expect me to do? Once that silly cow, Janice Young, decided to rubbish my alibi, I knew your lot would be around to pick me up. So it was either run or sit and wait to be fitted up by your boss, Ted Roscoe.’