Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death

by M B Vincent

  Her eyes filled as she looked past him. ‘Jess,’ she corrected him, softly. She had slept through most of Christmas Day; woken on the sofa by the Queen’s speech, she’d had hot chocolate in her hair. ‘I couldn’t bear to look at the empty place at the table.’

  ‘So you made another one.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She meant it, but she wondered why it was always her who was sorry.

  ‘I see.’

  Jess speculated: what did her father see? As far as she could make out, he saw very little that he didn’t want to. She shrank even smaller in the Chesterfield; this whole room conspired to hurtle her back to childhood.

  ‘I assume from the earliness of the hour, from the dramatic nature of your arrival, the fact that it’s mid-semester, that this isn’t a casual social visit. What have you done now?’

  ‘Does it have to be something I’ve done? What if I just wanted to see my own flesh and blood?’

  ‘Very well. Tell me nothing has happened. Tell me everything is fine.’ The Judge steepled his fingers beneath his chin, his stillness contrasting with his daughter’s unease.

  She paused. She gave in. ‘Dad, that job just wasn’t me. The whole set-up.’ Jess sketched something – even she didn’t know what – in the air. ‘I felt hemmed in.’

  ‘Oh Jessica,’ sighed the Judge. ‘It wasn’t you? What does that mean? Mum was so chuffed when you got that position. After everything that went on with you. And where are we now? May? Nine months later and it’s over. You couldn’t even last a year. You couldn’t get out of bed and go to work in the morning like everybody else.’

  ‘It wasn’t about getting out of bed!’

  ‘So it was your customary objection to being “normal”.’ The Judge made a noise Jess knew well. A cross between a tut and a snort. A snut, perhaps. ‘If you’d stuck with your law degree instead of studying the ancient past perhaps you’d be able to deal with the present day. You were always drawn to ancient history. Perhaps if Harriet hadn’t saddled you with that damn silly middle name . . .’

  For one terrible moment Jess thought he was going to go against Castle tradition and say the name out loud. But no. ‘I hate the law,’ said Jess, aware this was as blasphemous in the Judge’s study as swearing in a cathedral. There was no need to drag her mother into this, let alone try to blame her. ‘It was a mistake to go back to Cambridge. Too many ghosts.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake.’ The Judge raised his voice. ‘How many young women get an opportunity like that? It was handed to you on a plate. An old tutor puts in a good word and you waltz right into a lecturing post. But it’s not you, you say. What does the faculty have to say about this? Max stuck his neck out for you; you mark my words, that chap must be furious.’

  ‘I haven’t exactly told Max.’

  ‘Not exactly?’

  ‘Jesus, Dad, we’re not in your courtroom!’ Jess stood up and planted her hands on his desk, leaning over for the full disclosure she’d known he’d tear out of her. ‘I ran away, okay? That’s what you want me to say, isn’t it? Jess cocked up yet again.’

  ‘When?’

  Jess winced and shut her eyes. ‘Last week.’

  ‘You mean you literally ran away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Without telling anybody?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Judge sat back. He regarded her evenly. ‘And so you came home.’

  ‘Yup,’ said Jess. ‘I came home.’

  This bit was important.

  As important as the crucifixion. It must be done carefully. There would be pictures in the news. Maybe the front page of the Kidbury Echo. Everyone would see. He had to get this just right.

  Words could come out wrong. But not the box. The box was solid and good and straight. He passed his hand over it. The grain went with the symbols. The hinge was almost invisible.

  The inside shone pleasingly in the dim light. Perhaps no one would ever know of the craftsmanship. Not once the box had been filled. The contents would overshadow the message.

  Some messages, even if you shout them, remain a secret.

  The box sat in his hand and was perfect.

  The paper bag sat in a soggy red puddle. Pulling a face, he wiped around it with a rag. The bag split and he had to catch them before they hit the floor and rolled away.

  That was funny. Like a cartoon. Humming, he tucked the goodies into their bespoke new home and closed the lid. Surely the gods would smile on him.

  Chapter 2

  PAN’S PEOPLE

  Monday 16 May

  The noise was a heavy boom, undercut with silvery chatter. Jess, eyes firmly shut, sensed the weight of the water above her head. She was in it, of it, her lungs were shrieking.

  She sat up. The bed was dry. The room was as it should be. Padding downstairs in bare feet, doing up her shirt, Jess fled the dream. She thought it had gone; perhaps it had only been waiting in the bricks of Harebell House.

  DS Eden agreed with the inspector that, yes, the red-tops would have a field day with something as newsworthy as a crucifixion. And yes, the local press would find out any minute because Castle Kidbury nick leaked like a sieve. Furthermore, he accepted the urgency of being seen to be doing something. And yes, results were necessary. And yes, young Danny Ruhrmund was refusing to cooperate, but that didn’t mean—

  Realising his superior had rung off, Eden slammed down the phone and barked for DC Knott. He planned to funnel the crap down through the pecking order, but when Knott’s plain, keen face showed round the door, he said, ‘Karen, how’s your mum?’ instead.

  ‘A martyr to her legs as ever, Sarge.’

  DC Knott lived with her mother, who was never quite well but never quite died either; the whole station was aware of her pitiful home life.

  ‘Sorry to hear that. Come in, come in.’

  The woman always lurked at doors, as if waiting for an invitation.

  ‘Knott, did Danny say anything worth mentioning before him and his mum left?’

  ‘Not a dicky bird.’

  ‘Any ideas about who he meant when he said he didn’t want to get “her” into trouble?’

  ‘Nope, Sarge. I asked his mum, but she was more interested in getting him home.’

  ‘Did you mention the cross to her?’

  ‘ ’Course not, Sarge.’

  ‘Good.’ Eden didn’t quite believe her. ‘Any word from Richleigh yet?’ Keith Dike’s remains had been taken to the better-equipped police station in the neighbouring, more populous town whose borders encroached on Castle Kidbury by way of meandering housing estates and business parks.

  ‘The medical examiner, some bloke called, um, something,’ said Karen, flipping through a notepad, ‘he’s still working on the body, but he did say the eyes were removed before death.’ She seemed thrilled by this news. ‘Apparently you can tell because the blood—’

  ‘Fine, good.’ Eden held up a hand. Karen Knott was morbid. He was not. ‘We need to pick up the ringleader of that crew on Pitt’s Field. Pronto.’ Eden didn’t believe in hunches; he believed in solid police work. Yet there was something about the guy on Pitt’s Field that set his copper’s synapses snapping. It would be better than leaning on Danny, which was what his bosses were suggesting. ‘What’s he call himself again? Pan, or something stupid like that.’

  ‘Yes, sir, Pan. You think those travellers might have something to do with Keith’s death? Keith’s missus came up with a list of people who had it in for him.’

  ‘Everybody had it in for Keith. He was one of nature’s gits. But I can’t imagine anybody going to the bother of building a cross for him. This looks like some kind of ritual, Knott, not a bust-up between pissheads.’ Eden almost said ‘Pardon my French’, but he remembered that the female officers prided themselves on immunity to bad language. ‘I reckon it’s those Pitt’s Field weirdos who’ve been stringing up Else’s sheep as part of some sort of ceremony, so let’s get this Pan bloke in and ask him a few questions, eh?’

  ‘In cas
e they’ve, like, got more ambitious. Moved up from sheep to humans?’

  It sounded stupid when she put it like that. It was a knack that Knott had.

  The unwashed mob on Pitt’s Field got on Eden’s every nerve. The grime, the lack of order, the roll-ups, made him grind his teeth as he passed them on his way to the station each morning.

  ‘They’d have the time on their hands to pull a stunt like this. Plus, if they’re off their heads, they’d have the confidence.’

  ‘But wouldn’t they have to be, like, animals, Sarge?’

  ‘Animals wouldn’t do what we saw this morning, Knott.’ He hesitated by the door, straightening his tie in the glass panel. ‘How is it out there?’ Eden nodded towards the outer office, where phones rang and conversation eddied. ‘How are they taking it?’

  ‘You know, Sarge. They’re making jokes. But I heard DC Kennedy being sick in the loos.’

  The sight of the body, so shocking in the banal landscape, had shaken Eden. He’d seen the professionals around him – the forensic team, the photographer – swallow hard, set their shoulders. Castle Kidbury just wasn’t that sort of town. Results were needed. ‘Go and pull in this Pan, Knott. But gently does it, okay? No fuss.’

  ‘Lentils,’ said Jess to herself, opening another cupboard. ‘Lentils, lentils, and oh look! More fucking lentils.’

  Nothing dented Jess’s appetite – a trait her mother had commented on approvingly even while the older woman was on yet another cabbage-soup diet. Running away from a plum job for reasons she couldn’t fully explain to herself or her father, driving through the night, disappointing the Judge for the umpteenth time – all of it made her long for a bowl of Coco Pops.

  ‘Where’s the normal food, Bogna?’

  Bogna, her hands deep in water at the sink, laughed. ‘My darling, I ban sugar in this house. We eat healthy here.’

  ‘You eat boring here.’ Jess felt aggrieved; this was her kitchen, in a way. ‘Dad doesn’t need to lose weight.’ The Judge was a paper clip. Thin, coiled, pointy edges. Her mother’s kitchen had been a production line of gigantic roasts and steaming stews. Dumplings. Beef Wellingtons.

  ‘Why not have some—’

  ‘There is nothing,’ said Jess, ‘that I want in this house.’

  Composing a shopping list in her head – chocolate milk/Hobnobs/cheese – helped Jess calm down. Speeding wasn’t easy in her aqua-blue Morris Traveller, built in gentler times, but she put her foot down and barrelled along the Kidbury Road towards Richleigh and the Waitrose that had flowered on its ring road.

  Windows rattling, clutch complaining, the car pulled out to avoid a huddle of police cars on a verge. Jess squinted into the field and saw a very un-Castle Kidbury whirl of activity.

  Uniformed officers were manhandling people in the mud, slipping and sliding as they carted individuals out through the barred gate. A van pulled up, spraying muck, and the complaining, gesturing mob were goaded through its back doors.

  Jess passed the scene and made it two hundred yards before she squealed on the brakes and backed up.

  ‘Hey!’ she yelled, leaping out. ‘What’s going on?’

  She was ignored; the officers had their hands full. The squatters of Pitt’s Field would not give up their guru without a fight.

  ‘Fascist pigs!’ yelled a woman who’d cultivated dreadlocks despite being unquestionably Caucasian. ‘Scum!’

  Jess, her Doc Martens slithering in the wet dirt, pushed past the heaving tableau. There was a medieval feel to it, like Bosch’s demons prodding sinners down to hell.

  Scattered, dilapidated caravans. A yurt. A slag heap of bin bags. Fitful bonfires. Birdsong. Coppers swearing.

  A barefoot toddler, her face crusted with dirt, smacked into Jess’s shins.

  ‘Whoa there.’ Jess bent down to pick up the child, who acquiesced calmly and bent her head to Jess’s shoulder. ‘Who are you, then, eh?’

  ‘She lives there.’ A woman hurrying by in tattered harem pants pointed at the most vintage of all the caravans.

  In the doorway of a lozenge-shaped trailer, its seams leaking rust, stood a tall, thin woman of Jess’s age. They were dressed similarly – loose obfuscating layers – but she had a dirt tan that rendered her grey.

  ‘Caroline Mansfield, you old tart!’ Jess dodged through the scrum. ‘What are you doing here?’

  The last time Jess had seen her old school friend was at one of the weddings that spread like a virus through their social circle one bygone summer. Caroline had been wearing a fascinator and a linen suit; she’d smelt of Miss Dior.

  ‘Welcome to modern Britain,’ shouted Caroline. There were twigs in her hair. ‘This is what it’s come to.’ She was too agitated to be surprised by Jess’s materialisation. ‘We’re not hurting anybody. We just want to be left in peace. They want to cut Pan down because they know he sees through them.’ She put out her arms for the child, shouting ‘Bastards!’ loudly over its blonde curls.

  ‘Is she yours?’ Jess could see something of Caroline in the little girl. ‘She’s so sweet.’

  ‘Jess, this goes against nature.’ Caroline bobbed on the step and the shabby caravan bobbed with her. Her eyes widened over Jess’s head. ‘Shit, guys! They’ve got Pan!’

  Caroline took off on bare feet, foisting the child back onto Jess, who lurched behind as best she could.

  More dark uniforms had arrived, bulky and well-fed alongside the raggedy bohemians.

  ‘Who’s Pan?’ shouted Jess as a nucleus of unwashed civilians and pissed-off police officers clustered around a decrepit Winnebago.

  ‘He’s the reason,’ said Caroline. ‘He’s the point of it all.’

  ‘He looks like Russell Brand,’ said Jess.

  Tall, long-limbed, heavily bearded and with dark eyes that, even at this distance and in the midst of a scuffle, glittered, Pan let himself be taken, arms outstretched, by the police.

  Jess was reminded of school assemblies at Easter; this Pan was a passive creature, his head lolling, just like the languid Jesus of church murals.

  ‘We love you, Pan!’ yelled Caroline as the thin blue line bundled him towards the gate.

  An officer, red-haired and sweating, peeled off from Pan’s escort to lift Caroline off her feet.

  ‘No you fucking don’t!’ Jess, child in her arms, raised her boot, but before it could make contact she too was seized by a passing flatfoot and dumped in the back of the van. The doors closed, somebody slapped twice on its side and they were off.

  Caroline crawled to Jess’s side. She placed a gentle hand on hers. ‘You’re with us now. You’re joined with the great Pan.’

  ‘Shush, please,’ shouted DC Knott.

  The babble continued. The custody suite at the station seethed with infuriated . . . What are they? wondered Jess, stuck among them, arms glued to her sides.

  It was a fancy dress party, she decided. Not one real honest-to-God hippie in the place. Mostly young – nobody over thirty-five – and all in disintegrating clothes that hailed not from gap-year travels in Peru but from Gap. Very little West Country twang in the aggrieved shouting, but plenty of private-school vowels.

  Something else united them – they were all women. The great Pan recruited only the fairer sex.

  Jess elbowed her way to the duty desk, where Knott was still appealing vainly for silence. Time to disassociate herself from her companions and get back on the road to Waitrose.

  Jess opened her mouth just as a besuited man appeared behind Knott and roared ‘Quiet!’

  That did the trick. Jess closed her mouth and the clamour around her died.

  ‘My name,’ said the man, ‘is Detective Sergeant John Eden. I’m leading a major investigation into the death of a local man. All I want to do is ask Mister, er, Pan, a few questions. I have no idea what the rest of you are doing in my station.’

  Jess caught his sideways look at the female officer, whose lips were pursed.

  ‘But now that you are, and since you apparently assaulted pol
ice officers in the course of their duties, we need to take all your names – your actual names, please – and process you.’

  The babble started up again. They knew their rights, these bourgeois gypsies, and they were vocal about them. Jess, who’d grown up among law manuals, didn’t add to the noise. If she’d curbed her impulse to stick her nose in, she could be enjoying a nice Ginsters pasty right about now.

  Somebody’s eyes were upon her. Jess lifted her head to see the beleaguered female officer staring straight at her.

  A word in Eden’s ear and he, too, was looking at her. He didn’t seem to like what he saw.

  ‘You,’ he said to Jess, ‘are all I bloody need. Does the venerable Lordship know his daughter’s out and about kicking coppers?’

  Chapter 3

  RUMPOLE TO THE RESCUE

  Still Monday 16 May

  DS Eden’s cassette deck whirred pointlessly once again as Jess sat opposite him in the interview room. Arms folded. Resolutely silent.

  ‘Come on. I know who you are. You’re not one of those New-Age poseurs.’ Eden tapped his pen on the table. ‘Tell me what you were really doing at Pitt’s Field.’

  Jess’s eyes flickered over the plate of chocolate digestives on the Formica between them.

  ‘I’ve got Hobnobs, too.’

  Jess refolded her arms. She wasn’t to be broken so easily.

  ‘Chocolate fingers?’ Eden gave the slightest of smiles and leant in. ‘Custard creams?’

  ‘I was driving past, that’s all.’ Jess hesitated. ‘Custard creams, please,’ she added in a small voice.

  Eden gestured to DC Knott, who stood leaning against the door. The officer left the room rolling her eyes.

  ‘Go on, Jess. Give me more.’

  ‘All right. I was driving along the Kidbury road and I saw your debacle.’

  Eden straightened up. ‘My debacle?’

  ‘Your debacle. So I thought I’d see what our fine boys in blue were up to.’