Dark Ritual

by Patricia Scott

  “That would be nice. By the way, I meant to tell you, there was a letter in one of those library books Rosemary brought back today. It’s been used as a bookmark, I think.”

  “Did it seem important?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Call me daft. But I think it was left inside on purpose. It was a letter addressed to Sandra from Martin Robbins.”

  “So why was it in Rosemary’s book?”

  “A bookmark perhaps. Look, I have it here. I suppose I should give it back to Martin. I can’t think how Rosemary’d gotten hold of it though.”

  “Martin has told us about this already,” he said, reading it through. “So why did Rosemary do this so deliberately? Perhaps she guessed that Alan was thinking of making his confession. She must have realized he’s been under considerable stress.”

  “And wanted to put the blame on Martin. I suppose she would do anything to distract suspicion from Alan. Too late now.”

  “Maybe not. She’ll fight hard for him I suppose.”

  Thirty-seven

  Viviane decided to call on Rosemary.

  What would Rosemary do? She would stick by Alan, despite what he had done to their daughter, Viviane thought. At least she had her art to help her through; he would get life imprisonment unless it became a crime of manslaughter. Could he stand it? Could she stay here on her own?

  She felt the letter crackle in her blazer pocket. Why had Rosemary left it in the book? A cry for help because Rosemary knew something was wrong with Alan. Knew that his feelings for their adopted daughter had turned into strong passion and perhaps she’d wanted to tell someone about it.

  Viviane smelt the fire and saw the smoke rising above the trees as she drove up outside the house. It hung heavy on the air which was close and sultry now, a storm threatening perhaps. Rosemary was obviously keeping herself busy clearing up in the garden.

  She wandered round the back of the house and saw the fire burning down the bottom of the long stretch of the cottage garden. It stank; smelt acrid, and nauseous. For a moment it made her recall the fire that had been lighted to burn Sandra. What on earth was Rosemary burning on it? She went in closer with a handkerchief over her mouth. It looked like some painted canvases and old clothes. The burning oil paint would make it reek. It was Rosemary’s way of getting rid immediately. Out of sight, out of mind. She could hardly give any of Alan’s or Sandra clothes to the village charity or jumble sale.

  The back door was unlocked when Viviane tried it. She knocked on it. If she got no answer she would leave the letter on the kitchen table and a note to explain she had come round.

  “Hello, Viviane.” Rosemary opened the door to her with a smiling face. “You are just the good company I needed today. Have you got time for a cup of tea?”

  “I have... I’d love one. How are you, Rosemary?” she said following Rosemary into the house. “You look better than yesterday.”

  “I am better. I’d like to show you the work I’ve done on Sandra’s head.”

  “Come into the parlour, we might as well make you comfortable. The tea’s brewing in the pot. I have made some scones and I have some clotted cream, so let’s spoil ourselves, shall we? I hope you’re not on a diet,” she said leading the way into the sunny parlour with the tea tray.

  Shall I mention Alan? Viviane decided not. It was obvious Rosemary was not going to talk about him. She sat down and watched Rosemary pouring out the te., “Sugar, milk? This is my homemade raspberry jam. I much prefer raspberries to strawberries. This delicious cream is a gift from the Maddocks, so kind of them. So it wouldn’t be right to let it go to waste, would it? The scones I’ve just taken from the oven.”

  “No it wouldn’t. Mmn — they’re delicious, Rosemary, I wish I had your light hand with scones. These melt almost on the tongue.”

  Viviane studied Rosemary as she smiled, chatted, and poured out the tea into her best gold rimmed tea service. She had obviously been working in her studio, she was wearing her blue clay stained smock overall. Viviane supposed that this was good, that she had something to occupy her thoughts. People grieved in very different ways and if this was her way of getting through the day on her own, well and good. She knew how difficult it had been for her when Steve was taken without warning from her, so suddenly while working on a homicide case with Bob; she had never been able to say goodbye to him.

  Even now she felt angry. So God only knows how Rosemary is feeling right now Viviane thought studying her. Her thoughts were interrupted. “Do you mind if I smoke, Viviane? A bad habit that I’ve picked up again. But it gets me though the day for the moment.”

  Viviane shrugged. “Of course, why not...”

  Rosemary lighted the cigarette and smiled at Viviane. “Do I owe an awful lot for those books I brought in? I know I’ve had them for quite some time. Sorry about that. Can I write you a check now for it?”

  “Later, will do, Rosemary, please, don’t worry about it now. It won’t close the library. Did you realize that you left a letter in The Golden Bough book? It was a letter that Sandra must have received from Martin. Thought you might be looking for it. I have it here with me in my purse.”

  Rosemary frowned, tapped out some ash on a dish. “I wonder how that came about then.” She nodded. “I must have picked it up, meant to give it to Sandra and then used it as a bookmark. Silly me. So much on my mind lately,” her voice lifted dreamily, slightly off key. “Sandra didn’t want to stay here with us anymore. She had other fish to fry. And I couldn’t get it out of her what she was really doing down here. I guessed that she was working on something that would give her career a boost.”

  “You must know that Martin wrote to her because he needed her help with the Bells. That was in the letter I have now. I’m sure she would have confided in you but she couldn’t risk anyone else finding out.”

  “She would be safe and alive now, Viviane, if she had only stayed in London. What a mess our daughter made of her life. She got rid of a baby. Alan and I were never given the chance to have our own child. And she destroyed her own. I would have taken care of it gladly. If only she had told us about it. That man Rafe Conway is to be blamed for what she did. He took advantage of her,” Rosemary said stubbing out her cigarette.

  “I’m sure you would have helped her if only you’d known.”

  “Another cup of tea?” Rosemary lifted the teapot and held out her hand for the empty cup. “Then I’ll show you how far I have gone with her head.”

  Viviane felt anxious to leave now. She wasn’t sure if her presence there was actually helping Rosemary. She drank down the tea quickly and wished she hadn’t asked for sugar. It left a sickly cloying taste in her mouth.

  She stood up and followed Rosemary across the hall into the studio. The afternoon sun was falling on the life sized clay head. She was taken aback by the unbelievable likeness to Sandra and she hesitated in the doorway for a second or so before going over to it.

  “Rosemary... It’s beautiful. How long has it taken you altogether?”

  “Roughly two-to three weeks. I planned to start it before she came down here. I didn’t ask her to sit for it I used her photographs and my memory to do it.”

  “It’s remarkable how like her it is.”

  “I’d had it in my mind for some time. I wanted-wanted to do it for her father.”

  She touched the head lovingly with her hand curving round the chin as Viviane watched and felt her heart skitter-kilter in her chest. “I hope she can forgive us now.”

  “Sandra loved both of you. I’m sure of it.”

  “Are you?”

  She replaced the cloth over it and turned round to Viviane. “Are you going home now? You look a bit pale. That gorgeous cream wasn’t too rich for you, was it?”

  “I-I do feel a bit ropey... Who-ah.” Viviane had to admit that she felt a bit fragile and suddenly very sleepy as she clung to the door handle and tried desperately to focus on standing up on her feet. Then before she could stop it the floor rushed u
p to meet her as she crashed down in a heap.

  Thirty-eight

  “July 12 ten a.m. DCI Robert Fowler and DS Ian Peale interviewing Mr. Alan Peterson. We have been going over your statement, Mr. Peterson. You have refused so far to take any legal advice which we have advised you to do.” Alan Peterson showed no emotion as Fowler spoke.

  “That’s right, Chief Inspector. I don’t want it.”

  Fowler leant back in the chair and Peale frowned. “Your wife has not phoned. Have you tried to make any contact at all with her?”

  “No. Rosemary doesn’t need me anymore. I have given her enough pain.”

  Fowler tapped his teeth with the biro. “If I now say to you that there is some doubt about your statement, Mr. Peterson, is there anything else you wish to tell me? Anything at all?”

  Peterson frowned. “No comment.”

  “We have been told by a reliable witness that you were still in London when you said that you were on your way back here, Mr. Peterson.”

  “No comment.”

  “We have a statement from Mr. Jackson, the night clerk of the hotel you were staying at. He said you attracted his attention by speaking loudly into your cell phone, which is verified with information from your daughter’s phone. And according to Mr. Jackson, Sandra called as you walked in through the foyer. He thought it was your wife you were speaking to on the phone. You had an attractive woman with you, he said. A tall blonde. She was well dressed, and wore good jewellery. You’d been drinking, or you probably would have been more circumspect in your behaviour.”

  “We have since then traced your lady friend,” Peale came in sharply. “She is the wife of a friend of yours. She can give you an alibi, sir.”

  Alan Peterson covered his face with his hands and groaned.

  “We can only think that the reason you were prepared to confess to a crime you didn’t commit, is that you are protecting someone, Mr. Peterson. Is that not so?”

  “No comment.”

  Thirty-nine

  The phone rang in the mill house disturbing the quietness that filled it inside. Outside the water pounded over the wheel and there was a throbbing car engine running somewhere.

  “No reply,” Fowler said. “We’ll leave Peterson to think it over for the moment. I think we’d better make a move. Go and see Rosemary Peterson.”

  “And pretty quickly, Bob.”

  If they were right and Peterson was shielding his wife, then what had made her kill their daughter? Was it because she found out that Sandra had aborted her baby? She had allowed her husband to take the blame and punishment for the crime he’d confessed to without saying a word in his defence.

  Fowler took out his mobile, saw the text on it from Viviane and swore as he read it:

  HI BOB. GOING TO PAY A VISIT NOW TO ROSEMARY AT MILL HOUSE MIGHT ASK ABOUT THE LETTER. SEE YOU. VIV.

  “Christ... We’ve got to move, Peale. Viviane Trent’s at the mill house.” He tried to call her on the phone. “Getting no reply.”

  Forty

  The officers heard the noisy sound of the car engine and rushed over to the garage doors. They hadn’t the automatic pilot to open it, and it took some minutes to break down and open the doors, turn off the car engine and discover Rosemary Peterson’s dead body. She’d been dead for at least an hour or so. Fowler felt the relief rush over him. But it was only temporary. He rang Viviane at home. It reached the answerphone.

  He rang Viviane’s cell phone, still got no answer. But then as they walked through the kitchen, they heard the ringing tones coming from the empty parlour where they found her phone in the leather purse lying in the chair beside the remains of the tea for two on the table.

  “What’s that bloody woman done with her? She wouldn’t have left without her purse, or jacket, would she?” Fowler felt himself panicking as they opened up doors.

  Peale shouted, “She’s here, Bob. In the studio. And out for the count.”

  “Call the ambulance now! My God!” Fowler rushed into the room. “Is she breathing? What has Rosemary done to her?”

  “Drugged her by the look of it.” Peale was already phoning for the ambulance.

  Fowler knelt down beside Viviane; Rosemary had put a pillow under her head and covered her with a car rug. “She didn’t put her in the car with her.” He cradled her gently in his arms. “We’ve got a pulse, thank God.”

  “There’s a letter here in the parlour. On the mantelpiece. Two letters, one for her husband, and a tape.”

  Fowler pushed his fingers through his hair and sighed as he sat down beside Viviane and reached over to hold her hand. “Peterson thought this might happen, I suppose.”

  “What made you feel that he was shielding her?”

  “Intuition, Peale. I felt we had to make sure. It’s not new for someone to confess to something they haven’t done.”

  “I suppose not. Lucky you did. She made up her mind to clear him though. Peterson made a confession because he felt guilty; felt he was the reason Rosemary killed Sandra.”

  The ambulance arrived after what seemed like an age. Fowler would have taken Viviane into hospital but the scene of crime officers had arrived and he was unable to leave.

  The scene of crime officers took note of the painted canvases and blood-stained clothing which was taken from the fire and the bottle of sleeping pills found on the mantelpiece. Fowler phoned the hospital to let they know what Viviane had been given and she was treated accordingly.

  Forty-one

  “We’re sorry, Mr. Peterson, I’m afraid that we have some bad news for you.”

  “It’s Rosemary... isn’t it? What-what has happened to her? Something has happened to my wife, hasn’t it?”

  Fowler nodded. “Mrs. Peterson took her own life this afternoon, sir. After she left a full confession on video tape and a letter for yourself.”

  Peterson groaned and covered his face with his hands. “She said that you had nothing to do with Sandra’s death. Therefore you are free to go, Mr. Peterson.”

  He stared at them. “I’ll never be free. I was to blame for what Rosemary did. I deserve to be punished.”

  “If you would like to see a doctor or a counsellor, Mr. Peterson, we can arrange it for you now.”

  He shook his head. “May I see my wife now, please?”

  “Yes, you will be required for identification, sir.”

  Forty-two

  Viviane stirred on the pillows in the hospital bed, opened her eyes, blinked and smiled when she saw Bob Fowler and Richard standing on either side of the bed “Hello. What are you two doing here? Have I overslept? Where am I?”

  “In hospital, Mum. You were poorly but you’re okay now.”

  “Am I? What was wrong with me? Who brought me in?”

  “The Paramedics and the ambulance.”

  “Do you remember where you were? What happened to you, Viv?”

  She frowned and thought for a second or so. “Well — yes — I think I was enjoying a cream tea with Rosemary Peterson... Oh, I remember now, I began to feel a bit weird, very sleepy after that second cup.” Fowler nodded. “Rosemary drugged me, didn’t she?”

  “That’s right, she did.”

  “Why? Is she all right? Is she in here too?”

  “’Fraid not. She killed herself.” Viviane gasped and tried to sit up. “Rosemary killed Sandra, Viv. You’re lucky she didn’t attempt to kill you.”

  “How-how, Bob? Did she take an overdose? I think she must have known that I would want to return the letter to her.”

  “We found her in the car in the garage... With the engine left running. She must have planned all of it before you arrived. She’d already made the tape and left the letter for her husband.”

  “How dreadful.” Viviane started to cry. “What she must have gone through. Why did she kill Sandra? She adored her?”

  “I think you might understand better when you see the tape. But not just yet.”

  “When will they let me come home?” She looked for help to Bo
b. “I don’t want to stay in here a moment longer. Richard will you please get the doctor and ask if I’m allowed home?”

  “If you promise to take the day off tomorrow. I’ve already phoned in for you, Mum, so you can’t say no.”

  Forty-three

  The following morning Bob brought the tape over. Viviane let him in with a smile. “You’re all finished here now?”

  “All but tidying up a few things. I thought you should see this tape.” He took it out of his pocket and put it on the table. “After all, you were a great help to me.”

  “I don’t know whether I should, Bob. How is Alan feeling now? He must be devastated. He has no one left now to turn to for comfort...”

  “You might feel a bit different about that after you’ve watched the tape, Viv.”

  He seemed lighter in spirit now that the case was dealt with but slightly awkward. Perhaps she had expected a bit too much from their renewed acquaintance. She knew that she would miss his visits even if it was only because he needed to call on her help occasionally. Could she let him know how she felt about him? She had no idea whether he felt the same. There was no reason why he should entertain feelings for her, yet she’d felt that he did. She’d seen his eyes on her often and wished he’d say something before it was too late.

  He put in the tape. Rosemary started speaking, slowly and confidently. “I knew all about their relationship, Chief Inspector Fowler, I saw those paintings he did of Sandra. She was a beautiful child and at first I didn’t mind. But he hid all those he did of her as she grew into a young woman.” She stopped for a moment. “And-and I don’t know what age she was when he first had sex with her... But it must have gone on till she got away from him to go to university.”

  She heard Richard gasp as he watched and heard what she said.

  “My God.” Viviane snatched a glance at Bob and felt a cold chill rush over her as she listened.