by Nicola Ford
As her eyes adjusted to the bright daylight, Clare could see that between the scatter of old takeaway containers and McDonald’s wrappers, every chair and surface was covered with books. All of them with pieces of paper and Post-it notes sticking out at every angle. But the same words appeared in the titles over and over again: CELTIC, GODS, MYTHS, RITUAL, SACRIFICE, DEATH.
If this was Neil’s homework, my God he’s been doing it thoroughly. No wonder Sadie left him; no woman could put up with this. On the walls, in no apparent order, were taped more images: some printed from the Internet, others ripped from books. There were images of the skeletons of horses, dogs and birds all in pits. Classic Iron Age offerings, every one. And then, as she turned, behind her on the wall she saw a corkboard. On it were three photos. One of each of their three child burials from Bailsgrove and beside them another, this time photocopied, image of Lindow Man. Two of the infant skeletons had a circle of red marker pen ringed round their necks, the third round its head.
She plucked a book from the top of the nearest pile. Flicking through its pages she saw image after image ringed in red marker. She opened a second, almost afraid to look. Photo upon photo of the skeletons of birds and animals. Ancient human burials in peat bogs – all ringed in red marker pen. Clare could feel the palms of her hands beginning to sweat. This was everything Stuart Craig had said about Beth and more. It was time to leave.
She headed for the door, but as she got to the hallway she heard footsteps clattering across the uneven concrete path, accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing. It was Neil – he sounded out of breath.
Before she had time to think she found herself darting up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She headed through the first door that she came to, pulling it gently closed behind her just in time to hear the front door open. It slammed shut with a jolt that shook the house. Standing stock-still, her every instinct was telling her to keep calm, to breathe, but to get out. And then she heard a quiet metallic click as he dropped the catch.
From somewhere below her she heard a muffled thud. It sounded like something heavy being dropped on the piles of bills and junk mail that had been dumped on the hallway table.
She switched her phone to vibrate and held her breath. She didn’t know what was going on with Neil. But one thing she knew for sure was she had no intention of confronting him about it now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Stone knew that the first few hours in a murder inquiry were always the most important. If the right decisions were taken at the start it could shorten an investigation by months or even years. If the wrong decisions were made it could mean a killer went undiscovered. And that could cost lives.
He could leave Ray and SOCO at Weaver’s Close to get on with it. They knew the drill as well as he did. He already had family liaison on the case and they’d contacted the relatives – one brother in Surrey somewhere. You had to know where to put your resources. And his time was best spent elsewhere.
As he climbed into his Volvo he noticed a well-dressed, middle-aged woman hovering just outside the crime scene cordon. Stone climbed out of his car again and spoke to the young constable who’d called the case in. He informed him that it was Sheila Foggarty, the woman he’d been dispatched to interview about the brick-throwing incident at the dig site, but, as he told Stone without much joy, she’d point-blank denied knowing anything about it.
Stone walked towards her. ‘Mrs Foggarty.’
She nearly jumped out of her skin. ‘Yes.’
Stone flashed his warrant card. ‘DCI Stone. Can I have a word, please?’
‘If you must.’
He nodded to where his Volvo was parked. ‘We might be more comfortable in the back of my car.’
She glanced around, taking in every window in the street as she did so. ‘I’d rather do it here if you don’t mind.’
‘Whatever you prefer. You seem to be very interested in what’s going on here, Mrs Foggarty.’
‘I know Mr Crabbs, Chief Inspector.’
He couldn’t help noticing the present tense. ‘Were you a friend of his?’
‘You might say so. More of an acquaintance really. Is he alright? Has something happened to him?’
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mr Crabbs is dead, Mrs Foggarty. He appears to have been murdered.’
For a moment he thought she was going to faint. He helped her to a seat on a nearby garden wall.
After a few moments she regained her composure. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just such a shock.’
He sat down next to her. ‘It’s always a shock. You never get used to sudden death.’
She said, ‘No, I don’t suppose you do.’ She turned to face him. ‘Has this got something to do with the dig?’
‘That’s a very curious question, Mrs Foggarty.’
She looked taken aback at the directness of his statement. ‘You might think so, but it’s perfectly obvious to me. Crabby has been spending a lot of time up there recently and then there was all of that strange business with the Kinsella woman. This sort of thing isn’t a regular occurrence in the village, you know. It wasn’t like this before they started digging up there.’
‘I understand from my constable that you’re not entirely happy with the excavations.’
‘Honestly, Chief Inspector, it’s a travesty. Little more than grave robbing and all so that charlatan Paul Marshall can build houses.’
‘Is that what made you decide that it was OK to nearly kill someone?’ She repeated, ‘Kill someone? I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘That brick that you threw, Mrs Foggarty. It struck a young woman on the head. She had to be taken to hospital.’
Sheila Foggarty clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God! It wasn’t meant to hurt anybody.’
Suddenly and quite without warning, Sheila Foggarty began to sob. Stone reached into his pocket and produced a paper tissue.
When the sobbing had subsided, she said, ‘Thank you. It was only meant to scare them. To make them stop digging. We just don’t want the houses.’
‘We?’
‘Me and Crabby … and a few of the other local residents.’ A look of horror suddenly spread across her face. She gesticulated towards Crabby’s house. ‘You don’t suppose this is some sort of retaliation, do you? For what we’ – she corrected herself – ‘for what I did.’
He wanted to reassure her, to tell her it was highly unlikely, that this had nothing to do with the dig. But after what he’d just seen in the back garden of number 6 Weaver’s Close, he realised he’d already badly misjudged the situation. And if he was going to get answers, the dig site was where he’d be most likely to find them.
Jo glanced down at her watch. It had been a couple of hours since Clare had left to try to find Neil and she still hadn’t heard from either of them yet. They could ill afford to be one pair of hands down at the moment, let alone three. No Neil, no Clare and no Val – at least for a couple more days. But she guessed Clare had her priorities right at least. Neil was obviously having a tough time. And living people had to come before prehistory. She just wished Clare would damn well hurry up and find him.
In Val’s absence, Jo was trying to restore some sort of order to the finds that had been scattered to all corners of the office, in what had now become known in the latest outbreak of trench humour as Brickgate. Thus far she’d had little success, and when she got to her feet to see who the car that had just pulled up belonged to it was something of a welcome diversion. She stuck her head out of the Portakabin door hoping that she might see Clare, but instead she found herself face-to-face with DCI Mark Stone.
Jo blinked as she stepped out into the bright sunshine. ‘Hi, can I help?’
‘I hope so, Dr Granski. Is Clare about?’
Jo said, ‘No, not at the moment. She’s gone into Gloucester. But she shouldn’t be long.’ She smiled. ‘And Jo will do just fine.’
‘Thank you, Jo. Would you mind if we went into your office? There’s so
mething I need to talk to you about.’
She gestured towards the Portakabin door. ‘Sure, go ahead.’
He said, ‘You might want to take a seat.’
This didn’t sound good. In her experience when cops asked you to sit down it generally only meant one thing. Had something happened to Neil? Was that why he hadn’t turned up to work this morning?
‘I understand that you and Clare know Wayne Crabbs.’
Jo breathed an inward sigh of relief. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe this was about the metal detector finds.
‘Yeah, sure. We know Crabby.’
Stone nodded. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, Jo, but Mr Crabbs was found dead this morning.’
Shit, she’d been right the first time. ‘Crabby’s dead? But how?’
‘We think he may have been murdered.’ He looked at Jo. ‘Look, there’s no point beating around the bush. He was definitely murdered. Someone slit his throat.’
For several seconds Jo sat stunned, unable to speak.
Then she said simply, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Why would anyone want to kill Crabby?’
Stone withdrew his phone from his pocket. Flicking through the pictures, he turned it through one hundred and eighty degrees and showed an image to Jo. ‘Do you recognise this?’
Jo gestured towards the phone. ‘May I?’
‘Go ahead.’
She zoomed into the image, swiping her finger up and down the screen.
She passed him back the phone. ‘It’s a context sheet.’ He looked puzzled. ‘One of the recording forms that we use on the dig. Like these.’
She plucked a ring binder from the shelf and flipped it open to show him. He nodded.
Then Jo added, ‘It’s not one of ours, though. That’s Beth’s handwriting. But there’s something not right with it.’
‘Oh, why’s that?’
Jo said, ‘In the section about finds down at the bottom it says that layer had a fragment of stone tablet in it. And there’s been nothing like that found on the excavation.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘One hundred per cent. If there’d been anything like that found we’d have it here with the rest of the finds.’ Jo opened the lid of the laptop sitting in front of her, pulled up a database and searched for the word ‘tablet’. ‘And there’s nothing in the finds register – see. Do you mind if I ask where it came from?’
He sighed. ‘We found it in Mr Crabbs’ house. It was sitting in an empty shoebox on his coffee table. It appeared to have been wrapped around something. But whatever it was wasn’t there any more. There was one more thing.’ He scrolled through the pictures on his phone again. ‘This was found lying next to Mr Crabbs.’
Jo took the phone. It was the image of a large black bird. A small photographic scale had been positioned alongside it. She was no ornithologist, but just by the size of it she could tell what it was.
She placed the phone down on the table. ‘I’m guessing you already know it’s a raven.’ He nodded. ‘Ravens were sacred birds in Celtic mythology, DCI Stone, and it’s not uncommon to find them in offering pits. Sometimes on their own, sometimes with other animals. But the other stuff – the head and the throat and that twine – it’s what they call the threefold or triple death.’
‘The what?’
‘The triple death. It’s what they would do in the Iron Age on the rare occasions that they sacrificed people. A blow to the head, a garrotte and then finally they severed the jugular vein. Some people think the blow to the head was a sort of mercy blow to knock them unconscious. The garrotte was almost certainly supposed to increase the blood flow when the throat was cut.’
Stone offered a grim, weary smile. ‘I’m glad they didn’t make a habit of it.’
She pointed at the phone. ‘This is just like that hare they found with Beth, isn’t it? Right down to the orange twine.’
Stone narrowed his eyes. ‘How do you know about that?’
Surely he didn’t think she was involved in some way?
‘Crabby told us. Me and Clare.’
That seemed to satisfy him. And his thoughts now suddenly seemed to be taking a different tack.
Stone asked, ‘Where did you say Clare was?’
‘She’s gone down to Gloucester to see if she can track down a member of staff who didn’t turn up to work this morning.’
‘Who?’ he almost screamed at her.
Jo sat back in her chair, open-mouthed.
Stone took a deep breath. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Jo, but this could be important. Crabby isn’t the first murder related to this dig.’
Jo said, ‘You mean Beth.’
For a moment Stone hesitated, apparently uncertain of what to say. ‘I’m going to be straight with you. Knowing what I know now there’s every possibility that Beth might not have taken her own life. But it’s not what I meant. One of my colleagues down in Wiltshire has been investigating another murder. A bloke by the name of Jack Tyler. Name mean anything?’
Jo shook her head. ‘Never heard of him. But then I don’t know everyone in Wiltshire. It’s a big place.’
‘Well, it turns out Jack Tyler was an archaeologist by training. And he worked for Beth, on this site.’
‘On this site?’
Stone nodded. ‘That’s right. And Beth sacked him for turning up to work drunk. So now you see why I need to know who hasn’t turned up for work.’
Jo shook her head in disbelief. ‘I don’t believe it. Three people connected with this dig have been killed.’
She needed to concentrate, pull herself together. She looked at Stone; he didn’t appear to be in any doubt.
She said, ‘Clare’s gone to find Neil Fuller, our site assistant. Like I said, he didn’t turn up for work this morning. Clare was worried about him.’
‘Oh, why?’
How much to tell him?
She said, ‘He’s been a bit down lately. Things with his wife are – you know – kind of rocky.’
Stone looked disbelieving, ‘Does Clare normally make house calls to staff members who’re going through a rough patch with their other half?’
Jo hesitated. How much should she tell him? Who could it hurt? If there was ever a time for telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, this must be it.
She said, ‘Neil had a few problems with drugs and alcohol in his younger days. Clare was just a little concerned things with his wife might have sent him off the rails again.’ She paused. ‘And there’s something else you should know – Neil worked for Beth here too.’
Stone said, ‘Everyone the killer has targeted was involved with the dig when Beth was in charge. You said Neil Fuller didn’t turn up for work this morning. Have you spoken to him?’
Jo shook her head. She had a bad feeling about this. ‘No, we’ve had nothing from him. Not even a text.’
Stone looked Jo straight in the eye. ‘There’s every possibility Neil could be in danger.’
Or, Jo thought, as he hasn’t been seen or heard of since Saturday night, it might be too late. And what Stone was very carefully not saying, but was blindingly obvious to anyone with half a brain, was that if the killer was targeting Neil and Clare was looking for him, she was putting herself squarely in harm’s way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
David didn’t know what residue of memory or instinct had driven Jeffrey Kinsella to give him Beth’s envelope, but what he did know was he was grateful for it. Jack Tyler and Beth Kinsella were both dead and Fuller had worked with both of them at Bailsgrove. And it was obvious from the video that Marshall had been giving Fuller backhanders. And not just the odd tenner.
But to do what? To get rid of Beth? Maybe. But Marshall wanted his houses built and he can’t have been happy when the police closed down the site after Beth’s death. The video surely had to have been made by Beth, though. She must have had her suspicions about what was going on. Had she confronted Fuller about what she’d suspected? One thing was for sure, she was obviously nervo
us about what might happen. Otherwise why would she have given her father that USB stick? She’d hidden it in the one place she knew no one would ever look.
He flung his laptop onto the passenger seat of the Land Rover and dug his mobile out of his pocket. But who should he ring first? Sally? Clare? Jo? There was no choice, it had to be Clare. She and Jo would be at the dig site with Fuller now.
He scrolled through his contacts and hit Clare’s mobile number. It rang and rang. Pick up the bloody phone! Then it went to voicemail.
‘Clare, if you get this please, please phone me. It’s urgent. Neil Fuller is dangerous. He’s being paid by Marshall. I have proof. Close the site down. Do whatever you need to do. But stay with Jo. And for God’s sake don’t go anywhere on your own.’
He flipped over to messaging, his fingers fumbling on the screen. Fuller dangerous. I have proof. Stay with Jo. Two dead.
David’s hands were shaking as he punched Jo’s number on his mobile. He was all but praying now. Please have your phone switched on. Please.
On the second ring Jo picked up. Thank God.
‘Hi, David.’
He could hear her saying to someone in the background, ‘I’d better take this. OK, if I hear anything from either of them I’ll let you know. Write it on that.’
Then she said, ‘Sorry about that. Good timing. There’s something I need to talk to you about.’
He said, ‘I haven’t got time for that. This is important.’
‘But, David—’
For Christ’s sake, why couldn’t she just keep quiet for once?
‘Just shut up and listen, Jo! You and Clare might be in danger.’ David could almost feel the silence at the end of the phone. ‘I’ve just been to see Beth Kinsella’s father. He’s’ – inexplicably he struggled for the words – ‘not very well. He’s in a nursing home. He gave me something Beth had left with him. A video. It seems to have been made by Beth. And it shows Paul Marshall paying money to Neil Fuller. Lots of money, Jo. Do you understand? Fuller’s taking bungs from Marshall. And now Beth is dead and so is Jack Tyler.’