by Nicola Upson
Josephine took one of the chocolates she was offered. They chatted for a little longer, and then she stood to leave. ‘Please don’t get up,’ she said. ‘I can see myself out.’
But Mrs Cleever insisted on showing her to the door. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, clutching Josephine’s hand again. ‘You will give my regards to your brother, won’t you? It was such a long time ago now and it means the world to me that he remembers.’
‘Of course I will,’ Josephine promised. It was scarcely surprising that a woman whose daughter’s death seemed to have been forgotten by the world would be touched by the idea that something far more ordinary still mattered to someone, and she was pleased to have brought that gift, even if the person concerned had never actually existed. ‘And may I come back and see you again?’ she asked. ‘A friend of mine has just moved here and I’ll be coming down from time to time. It’s been a pleasure to meet you and it would mean a great deal to me to get to know you better.’
‘You’ll be welcome any time,’ Maud Cleever said, and Josephine left her to her memories. She walked back to St Clement’s Passage and wrote down everything that she had learned while it was still fresh in her mind, then telephoned the police station, only to be told that Chief Inspector Penrose was unavailable and unlikely to be free for some time. Disappointed, she left a message for him to call her urgently, then thought about what to do with the rest of her day. There seemed little point in going to the library now; other than the full inquest report, which Archie could easily access for himself, she doubted that the newspapers would tell her anything which she didn’t already know. On the other hand, she was too restless to sit around and wait for Archie to telephone when it might be hours before he was able to. In the end she decided to leave a note for him at the police station, detailing everything that was most important from her morning’s work, then check the map and walk along the river to Hodson’s Folly. Although it would tell her nothing, she was keen to see for herself where Ellen Cleever had died.
It was one of the things that she had come to love most about Cambridge during her time there: everything was in walking distance, and there were very few walks that weren’t beautiful. Within a few minutes of leaving Regent Street, she found herself strolling across common land with cows grazing peacefully on either side, and it astonished her that a landscape as pastoral as this could be found so close to the heart of a town. She crossed the road which cut through the fen and picked up the towpath on the other side of the bridge, forgetting for a moment the tragedy that had brought her here and enjoying the sights and sounds of a river walk in winter—the harsh cry of a pheasant startled out of the undergrowth, an unexpected blaze of white as a swan settled on the bank. Through the trees Josephine could see a group of wooden bathing huts, deserted now but with signs of recent use by someone much hardier than she was. She paused to look at her map, and saw that Hodson’s Folly was marked nearby, on the other side of the river.
And then she glimpsed it up ahead—a small stone shelter, built in the classical style and standing in a walled garden like a Cambridge college in miniature. The folly was accessed by a footbridge and she crossed the river slowly, struck by the peculiar nature of the building and the remoteness of its location. It was deathly quiet, and branches snapped loudly under her feet as she followed the wall round to a narrow, arched gateway. The folly itself was built sideways to the river with open windows looking downstream, and the grass in front of it was blackened in places where someone had lit a fire. Obviously the building still provided shelter or a meeting place for those with the nerve to use it, but even now, in daylight, Josephine found its atmosphere unsettling. She remembered the description that Maud Cleever had used—godforsaken; perhaps it was because she knew that a young girl’s body had been found here, but she couldn’t have described it better herself.
She stepped forward to take a closer look at the coat of arms which had been engraved into the stone above the entrance, careful to avoid the nettles that threatened to overwhelm the folly on the woodland side. It was an interesting motif, a swan swimming beneath a rain cloud, and she wondered who Hodson was and why he had chosen to make his mark in such an incongruous way. The French inscription—translated as ‘fare well’—told her nothing about the folly’s creator, but she found a certain irony in the motto and in the image of a knight’s helmet which was elaborately carved above it; whatever had taken place here all those years ago on Christmas Eve, she doubted that it could ever be described as chivalrous.
Inside, the small building was open to the sky but it was hard to say now if it had been designed that way or if the roof had simply fallen in over time. To her surprise, someone had left a sprig of winter jasmine on the window ledge, tied at the stem with a red ribbon. She looked at the flowers with interest, recognising the plant as something that grew in the Cleevers’ garden and wondering if Ellen’s father secretly came out here with flowers to remember his daughter, or if someone else had left them. Either way, their presence could hardly be a coincidence.
Beyond the window, the river was still and murky, a dirty dull green which Josephine shivered just to look at. No wonder Maud Cleever had regretted coming here, she thought: standing on the spot where her daughter had died, it was impossible not to imagine how bleak and lonely those final moments must have been. What had brought Ellen here, she wondered? And could her death really be connected to a group of men whose lives seemed so far removed from hers—a barrister and a Home Office official, a respected musician and the owner of a substantial country house? Josephine took a final look round, wishing that the stone could talk, then headed back to town to wait for Archie’s call.
21
Penrose walked away from Little St Mary’s Lane in the early hours of the morning, feeling a strange mixture of sadness and relief. Although he and Bridget had come to no decisions about their future in the brief time they had spent together, he had seen in her a mirroring of his own uncertainties. A mutual awkwardness was natural after such a long absence, and it had been unfair of him to arrive at her door unannounced, but there was very little joy in the reunion, just the guilty, bittersweet alliance of two people who had acknowledged—to themselves, if not yet to each other—that they were happier on their own. The sense of regret and failure hovered over everything they said and didn’t say, and when Bridget suggested that they meet to talk properly as soon as his case was over, Penrose gladly took it as his cue to leave.
He walked the streets for a while, having little appetite for company, but they felt too much like a map to his past, forever leading him back to those early days with Bridget, so he dozed in his car until the church clock woke him at eight. The police station was quiet when he walked through the front door and a subdued George Clough stood by the enquiries desk in a crumpled suit, apparently having had very little sleep. ‘You look like you’ve had a long night,’ Penrose said. ‘Have you charged him yet?’
‘It’s not the right man,’ Clough said through gritted teeth, taking Penrose to one side. ‘It turns out this one’s a petty thief up from London, chancing his arm during the silence when he thought everyone was looking the other way.’
‘So the attack on the shop girl—’
‘Was just to shut her up when she screamed, yes. That’s all we can lay on him—assault and attempted burglary. He’s got a cast-iron alibi for at least three of the rapes, and I don’t think he’d even set foot in Cambridge before this week. So we’re back to square bloody one.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Webster must be taking it badly. He’d worked so hard to get his man, and he deserved a bit of luck.’
‘Taking it badly? That’s an understatement. I thought he was going to punch this bloke’s lights out for not being a rapist. Anyway, I’ve sent him home for a few hours to pull himself together. This will look bad enough in the press as it is, and I can do without Webster’s temper making things worse.’
‘The papers haven’t got hold of it yet?’
&nb
sp; ‘No, but it’s only a matter of time and I want to get a statement out before they do, otherwise we won’t just be accused of incompetence—they’ll say we’re encouraging women to take risks by withholding information. I don’t suppose anyone will remember for a moment that it’s the papers and not the police who decided publicly that this man was the rapist, but that’s all par for the course.’ He patted his jacket pocket and scowled when he found it empty. ‘Got a cigarette on you?’ Penrose obliged, happy to stem the rant for a second or two. ‘With a bit of luck, your body at the Priory should distract them for a while,’ Clough added with a glint in his eye. ‘Very considerate of you, Penrose.’
‘Always glad to be of service.’
‘Is there any news on that since last night?’
‘No, but I’m expecting Spilsbury’s preliminary report to be here soon. That should confirm identity and an approximate time of death, but there’s still a long way to go.’
Clough nodded sympathetically, more serious now. ‘Well, if you need anything from us you only have to ask.’
‘Actually, I was hoping to look through some old files. Are they kept here?’
‘How far back are we talking?’
‘Christmas 1913.’
‘Yes, they’ll be downstairs in the basement. Tell me what you want and I’ll get my secretary to look it out for you.’
‘Anything relating to a girl called Ellen Jane Cleever. She died on Christmas Eve—I think it was a drowning. Does the name mean anything to you?’
Clough shook his head. ‘No, but it was before my time. I’m just short of twenty years here, although forty feels closer on days like today. Make yourself at home upstairs and I’ll ask Penny to bring you the paperwork and a cup of coffee. You look bloody awful.’
Penrose smiled, grateful for the professional camaraderie which was always at its strongest when things were going equally badly on all fronts. ‘Thank you, sir. I’ll keep you informed of any developments.’ He headed up to the first floor and found an empty desk, then put a call through to Fallowfield in London to bring him up to date. The sergeant had very little news of his own, except to report that someone from the Home Office had telephoned and grudgingly given the details of Richard Swayne’s country home in Sussex, which he was following up with the local force.
Penrose’s next priority was Robert Moorcroft, but there was little point in speaking to him until he knew as much about Ellen Cleever’s death as the local police records could tell him. While he was waiting, he took his own files out of his briefcase and began to read through the details of each murder in turn to see if anything new occurred to him. Stephen Laxborough’s tortured final hours came back to him now in ruthless detail as he looked once again at the scene of crime photographs from St John’s churchyard, and he laid the images of Westbury’s body and Carrington’s out next to them on the desk. Taken together, the photographs bore witness to an extraordinary catalogue of suffering and punishment, but the later murders answered many of the questions which had puzzled him about Laxborough’s death. He knew now why the killer had risked returning to the graveyard to reveal the musician’s body when he could easily have let it lie there undisturbed and undiscovered: getting away with murder wasn’t the sole objective of these crimes; it was just as important to the killer to make an exhibition of his victims, to present in public an intensely private course of justice. As he got closer to the end of the list, he was also beginning to reveal his reasons, and Penrose wondered what he would do if—God forbid—he was allowed to complete the task.
He put the photographs away and began to look through the post-mortem reports and his own notes from the scene of each crime. A familiarity with the details of Laxborough’s murder had not made them any easier to read, and he turned with relief to the rest of the report. It included a transcript of the words carved on the tomb where the body was found, and Penrose glanced through it: ‘Here Lyeth the Body of Mr James McArdell, Metzotinto Engraver of London, who departed this Life on the 1st of June, 1765, aged 37 years. A native of Ireland and the most eminent in his Art in his time.’ He read the inscription again and the same word—‘Metzotinto’—jumped out at him. Until now, he had always assumed that the grave was chosen for its secluded position and distance from the public paths, but now—with a greater knowledge of the killer’s preoccupations—he saw instantly that the bones buried there were in themselves a clue. There was a story in M. R. James’s first collection called ‘The Mezzotint’ which he hadn’t yet read and he took the book eagerly out of his briefcase to see what it might tell him. The setting was familiar—a Cambridge college and an antiquarian collector who acquired an object of great interest—but as he read on, the significance of the story chilled him for reasons entirely different to the ones that James had intended. The object in question was a mezzotint engraving of a manor house, ordinary enough until the picture began to change over time, showing a sinister figure crawling across the lawn, then an open window and the figure—horribly skeletal—fleeing from the house clutching a baby who might have been alive or dead.
For the first time, Penrose understood that the murders followed the pattern of this story, with everything gradually closing in on Angerhale and Robert Moorcroft: the photographic fragment of a manor house found with Laxborough’s body; the open window at the Priory, forced by an intruder who had stolen nothing; the photograph sent to Simon Westbury with the threat of someone coming; and finally the body at the edge of the Priory grounds. He wondered if Moorcroft had made the connection, and skipped to the end of the story with a mounting sense of dread. It was just as he feared: the changing mezzotint told an ominous tale of revenge in which a landowner’s son—the last of his line—was stolen by a ghost as a reckoning for the evils of the past. So was that to be Robert Moorcroft’s punishment, he wondered? The abduction of a much-loved child and his only male heir, but this time by a very human form?
More concerned than ever, Penrose picked up the telephone and asked to be put through to Angerhale Priory. ‘Mrs Moorcroft?’ he said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. ‘It’s Chief Inspector Penrose. Where’s Teddy?’
The question sounded more blunt than he had intended. There was a pause and then he heard her voice, confused and a little anxious. ‘Teddy? But Teddy’s with you, or he should be by now. I sent him to make a statement, just as you asked.’
‘What do you mean? I didn’t send for Teddy.’
‘But a policeman came to fetch him first thing this morning. He apologised for arriving unannounced, but he said you needed a formal statement about yesterday. I wanted to go with him but Evie was crying about something and Robert was nowhere to be found, and the policeman promised to have him back with us as soon as possible. I knew Teddy would always be safe with you, so I let him go.’
Penrose felt a sudden wave of fury that his name should have been used to deceive her, but the anger was swiftly followed by guilt at not having acted quickly enough. ‘Please try to stay calm when you hear what I’m about to tell you,’ he said, ‘but the man who came to your house this morning wasn’t a policeman. He might have said he was, but—’
‘You’re wrong about that,’ she insisted. ‘He showed me his warrant card and I telephoned the police station to check with them. The man I spoke to confirmed that he worked there. You surely don’t think I’d let my little boy go off with someone without making sure that he was who he said he was? Inspector, you’re as bad as Robert. He was furious with me when I told him Teddy was at the police station, but what was I supposed to do?’
Her tone was increasingly defensive now because she knew that something was wrong and blamed herself. ‘What was the policeman’s name?’ Penrose asked.
‘Wait a minute—I wrote it down.’ She put the receiver down and he heard her footsteps moving away and coming back across the Priory’s stone floor. ‘Webster. Detective Inspector Thomas Webster. Do you know him?’
Obviously not at all, Penrose thought. He gave a brief descriptio
n of Webster, and Virginia Moorcroft confirmed that it tallied with the man who had taken her son. ‘What’s going on, Inspector?’ she asked. ‘What have I done?’
‘You’re not to blame and I promise to get Teddy back, but first you need to tell me exactly what happened—every small detail, as quickly as you can.’
‘The housekeeper came to fetch me just after seven and told me that there was a policeman at the door. That didn’t surprise me after yesterday, and Robert had gone out early with the dogs so I went downstairs myself. I suppose if I’m honest I thought it might be you. He introduced himself and explained what he wanted, and I had no reason to doubt him but obviously I checked with the station before agreeing. Teddy was downstairs by then, full of bravado about his big adventure, and this man was good with him. I watched them together while I was making the call, and Teddy obviously liked him because he was chattering away about the choir and the school and the music he loved.’ She paused, and Penrose could only imagine the effort it took for her to remain calm; there could be nothing worse than the moment when you realised that your child was in danger. ‘Anyway, when I had my confirmation I asked Inspector Webster not to keep him out too long and he agreed. He gave me a note for my husband and they left straight away.’
‘And the car?’
‘Just an ordinary dark-coloured saloon. Teddy was disappointed it wasn’t a police car with a bell, but Webster said that plain clothes officers didn’t drive those.’ She took a deep breath, and he could hear that she was fighting back tears. ‘I waved them off down the drive, for God’s sake. How could I have been so stupid?’