Murder Unearthed

by Anita Waller

  Mandy had certainly been a beautiful girl, with a smile that told of shyness. The photographs showed how she had grown and matured, from being a tiny baby in her mother’s arms to the Bambi-like grace of around eighteen, ready to take on the world.

  Zoe returned with the drinks and they sat together on the settee.

  ‘Mandy was beautiful,’ Kat said. ‘She had your eyes, your build, everything about her really was you. I’m so sorry, Zoe, I can’t begin to imagine how you’re feeling.’

  ‘I think you can, Kat. I think you know exactly how I’m feeling. You couldn’t do your job if you didn’t recognise grief, and when it’s murder it’s doubly hard. I’m never going to see my girl again, and I’ll never see her killer punished. I thank God every day he didn’t come from Castleton, that Jacob Thorne. At least I don’t have to put up with seeing his family around the place.’ Tears rolled down her cheeks, yet she seemed oblivious to them.

  ‘Would you like to take communion?’ Kat asked. ‘Would it help?’

  Zoe shook her head. ‘Not yet. I’m still at the point of asking why God would allow this to happen. And don’t come out with the old mainstay that God never gives us more than we can handle, because He has this time.’

  Kat put her arm around Zoe’s shoulders and held her. ‘Zoe, I’m going to leave my card with you. Anytime, anyplace, if you need to talk, you ring me. Don’t struggle alone. Will you be in church tomorrow?’

  Zoe shook her head. ‘I’m not convinced I’ll ever go in a church again.’

  ‘I wouldn’t normally say this, but it’s good you won’t be there. DI Marsden and her team are going to be questioning the congregation about Orla French’s murder, and you’re not ready to be faced with that.’

  ‘Thank you for letting me know,’ Zoe said with a sigh, then reached forward to pick up her cup. ‘Is Marnie okay? Is she getting the help she needs? I know she’ll not be getting it from him.’

  ‘Who’s him? Her husband? They seemed to be a very loving couple.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean Andy, he’s a nice chap. Settled in well when they first got together, although, like me, they don’t mingle much. I meant…’ She hesitated.

  Kat held her breath.

  ‘The vicar, Steve Barksworth.’

  Again Kat waited.

  ‘There’s something about him. I know he’s got a poorly wife, and he takes care of her, but I’ve always felt there was something about him… The way he was with Orla, following her everywhere, singling her out for praise, pushing her to take her faith to another level with the one-to-one courses he devised, I always felt it wasn’t good for the girl.’

  ‘Have you said anything of this to DI Marsden?’

  ‘No, I’m not a gossip, Kat. And really, would she bring up Orla’s murder in my presence? She’s a nice lady, is DI Marsden, and I don’t think she’d be that insensitive, do you?’

  ‘No, I’m sure she wouldn’t. But I’ll be telling her what you’ve said, so she’ll probably be around shortly for a bit more detail.’

  ‘You think it’s important?’ Zoe looked startled.

  ‘It could be, but if you’re asking me if I think Steve Barksworth is a murderer, then the answer is no.’ She smiled at Zoe. ‘Now, let’s talk about Mandy. Was she a good little girl?’

  Finally a proper smile appeared. ‘She was brilliant. An easy child, gave me no worries. Her teachers basically always said the same comments all the way through her school life. Mandy does well in every subject, she takes part in class activities and she has a beautiful smile. I used to ring her father to give him the report every time I went to a parents’ evening, and it always caused a laugh between us.’

  ‘She had a father?’

  ‘Yes.’ Zoe’s tone was dry. ‘The story of the immaculate conception was accurate in only one instance, you know. Mandy had a father. He was married, so when I told him I was pregnant I also told him to forget me and go back to his wife. He did, but I kept in touch because of Mandy. She didn’t know about that, she thought he had died before she was born. And then he did. Die, I mean. Two years ago, he had a stroke. Lingered for a while, then had a much bigger one and he was gone.’

  Kat squeezed Zoe’s hand in response, and they sat and talked quietly of momentous points in Mandy’s life, the laughter and joy she had shared with her mother, and Zoe’s worries that Mandy’s dreams of a fulfilling life had been squashed because she didn’t want to leave the family home, and therefore leave her mother to a lonely life.

  Kat stopped at the door on her way out and turned to Zoe. ‘You may not be ready for healing prayers yet, but you will be firmly in mine, Zoe. God bless, and as I said, be aware that DI Marsden will probably visit you after I’ve spoken to her.’

  Zoe nodded. ‘Thank you for today, Kat. I feel much better.’

  Kat walked down the path, climbed in her car and drove out of the village before stopping, taking out her phone and calling Tessa.

  ‘I have some news for you.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  It transpired that Michael Fairfax was CEO of a medium-sized manufacturing company, based half an hour’s drive away from his home, and making suitcases, handbags and other leather objects. Mouse figured this might be the better option of speaking with him on his own, rather than going to his house; a simple phone call would confirm his presence at work.

  It would be logical to leave early morning for the trip to the coast, rather than later in the afternoon, but before consulting Doris, Mouse added it to the list of the few things she had uncovered. She knew very little about Michael Fairfax; he had no Facebook account, and his company banked with Lloyds. She didn’t go into that feature, deciding she couldn’t really care less how rich he was, and it was irrelevant anyway.

  However, they had no authority to walk into his place of work and expect to see him there and then, they would need an appointment which could potentially lead to him discussing it with Helen. Mouse sighed. It didn’t matter who the hell he told after they had spoken with him, but she wanted the initial conversation to be a complete surprise.

  Decision made. They would go to his place of work, and blag their way in. No appointment, simply a power-dressed young woman and her nan. What could possibly go wrong?

  The church doors were closed to keep in the warmth, but opened easily when the large iron handle was depressed. Tessa had instructed Ray Charlton and Fiona Ainsworth to remain in their car until she sent them a text towards the end of the service to move into position outside the doors.

  Tessa and Hannah, “grumpy Hannah”, as her boss had laughingly called her, moved onto the pew and simply sat, taking in as much as they could, people-watching as the parishioners came in, chatted with others then gravitated towards their favourite pews.

  It occurred to Tessa that they could possibly be sitting in somebody’s lifelong seat. She hoped not and had deliberately chosen the one at the back of the beautiful church, so that she could observe everyone there.

  Steve Barksworth acknowledged their presence with a nod and a smile; no words were exchanged.

  It occurred to Tessa how different it was being in a church purely for a Sunday service, than it was for an interment, normally the only time she set foot in a church. Both of the girls the village had recently lost to murder would no doubt have their services in this church, and she would once more be sitting on this same pew for those funerals. The thought saddened her and strengthened her resolve at the same time.

  Orla French’s killer would be found, and soon.

  Tessa and Hannah found themselves singing along to the hymns and both of them actually listened to Steve’s sermon. It wasn’t the unpleasant seventy-five minutes they had expected, and as Steve said the blessing at the end, Tessa clicked on the pre-written text for Ray Charlton.

  The congregation sat back down, having been made aware of the police presence by Steve during his reading of the notices. Only one lady moved, and moved quickly. Tessa guessed she was Clarice, and she smiled at the thou
ght of this tiny woman being blocked by Ray’s bulk. She wouldn’t take bets on who would win the encounter.

  Tessa and Hannah moved out into the congregation carrying pre-prepared question sheets on clipboards, and worked their way through the twenty-two people who had attended the service.

  By the end of the questioning, which only took forty-five minutes, they had nothing concrete to look at. And Clarice hadn’t returned. Both Hannah and Tessa had given each person their business card with instructions to show it to the officer on the door and he would then let them go home, but if they thought of anything, any minor little thing, they could ring the number on the card.

  Steve brought in Ray and Fiona and made everyone a hot drink. ‘Did it go well?’ Steve asked.

  ‘It did, but it seems nobody knows anything,’ Tessa said thoughtfully. ‘So what happened to Clarice?’

  ‘She went home. It seems she doesn’t rush off to cook her husband’s Sunday lunch, he’s actually in a wheelchair, very poorly, and she leaves him for an hour and a half every Sunday but has to get back immediately.’ Ray handed Tessa a piece of paper.’ This is her address, boss. She said you can call anytime, she’s always in except for Sunday mornings.’

  ‘Then we’ll call round later, give her time to sort him out. I’m going to Zoe Williamson’s after leaving here. Ray, Fiona, you can head back when you’ve had your lunch. Hannah, do you want to go back with them?’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘Not likely. I want to meet this woman who’s managed to ignore everything and go her own way. I think I probably aspire to be her.’ She laughed.

  Hannah and Tessa spent half an hour with Zoe, but gleaned nothing beyond what Kat had passed on – that Steve Barksworth favoured Orla above anyone else, and his eyes followed her constantly.

  Zoe also sang Kat’s praises, saying how much better she felt for having spoken to her. She had seen nothing of her own vicar, “slimy Steve”, as she called him.

  The two officers sat in the car after leaving Zoe’s house and talked through their morning.

  ‘Did the vicar come across as slimy to you?’ Tessa asked.

  ‘A little. He was keen not to disagree with us. I did think it was nice that he mentioned the families of both girls in the prayers, but at the back of my mind was the info we’d received from Zoe Williamson and that kind of coloured how I saw him.’

  ‘Tomorrow we need to go through these forms and really scrutinise them. There may be some tiny snippet that’s sneaked in, that can tell us who Orla was seeing. I can’t believe it was the vicar, it would be too easy. And he’s got a really poorly wife. Orla would have known that.’

  Hannah gave a huge sigh. ‘Why can’t somebody confess and get it over with? Then we could do normal things like eat, instead of having to do strange things like going to church.’

  ‘You hungry?’ Tessa sounded surprised.

  ‘I am. I had breakfast before seven.’

  ‘Right. Come on, let’s go down to that tea shop in the village, the one where Orla used to work. When I interviewed the staff, I thought how nice it looked. Let’s go and grab something there before we go to see Clarice.’

  They locked the car and walked down the hill towards the main road that ran through Castleton. The tea shop was almost on the bend, with no parking facilities at all, yet it was busy. They squeezed into a tiny space that held a table for two slim people, and ordered food almost immediately.

  Tessa didn’t recognise the waitress; she had spoken to all members of staff, so assumed this girl had replaced Orla. ‘You new?’ Tessa asked conversationally.

  The words brought a smile to the face of the waitress. ‘Not really; nearly three years.’

  Tessa took out her warrant card and showed it to the girl. ‘Before I go, can I have a word with you, please.’

  The girl nodded. ‘Lucie Davison. How can I help?’

  ‘So you knew Orla French.’

  ‘I did. It was quite a shock to come home to that news.’

  ‘You’ve been away?’

  ‘Got back yesterday, from Cornwall. Mum’s been poorly, so I went down for a couple of days and apparently it all happened the day I went.’

  ‘That explains why I’ve not seen you before,’ Tessa said. ‘Please don’t disappear home. I need to have a chat with you.’

  ‘I’m here until five,’ Lucie said, and turned away to continue taking orders.

  Clarice could tell them nothing, but her husband was quite scathing about Steve Barksworth.

  ‘Never been to see me once,’ he said. ‘All these years my Clarice has gone to church, and he’s never set foot over this doorstep.’

  Clarice smiled in agreement. ‘I know they all think I shoot off because Ernie demands he has his Sunday dinner on time, but we don’t eat till Countryfile is on TV that day. I dash home because I can’t trust this daft bugger not to get out of his wheelchair. When he does he falls, and can’t get back up. But nobody knows that, so keep it to yourselves. It’s our business, not theirs.’

  Hannah wrote down everything that the couple said, and the two officers climbed back in the car.

  They parked outside Zoe’s house for the second time that day, and once again walked down to the café.

  With the arrival of darkness, the café was much quieter. The tourists had departed for home and Lucie immediately came over to join Tessa and Hannah.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve come back,’ she said. ‘I can go home as soon as I’ve spoken to you, it’s slowed down now.’

  ‘Thank you for waiting,’ Tessa said, and Hannah took out her notebook.

  All three sat, and the café owner mimed to ask if they wanted a drink. A shake of the head from Tessa told her no, and they both looked at Lucie.

  ‘You knew Orla well?’

  ‘I did, as much as anybody could know Orla. She was quiet, like a little mouse. I didn’t mix with her outside of work, except at Christmas. I like to go to the Christingle service at church, and there’s always cheese and wine and stuff after the service. It’s a bit of a social event for the villagers. Orla and I, along with Emily Carr, always spend the evening together. We’ll certainly miss her this year.’

  ‘Did you talk much at work?’

  ‘Not a lot. She told me she’d met up with Emily’s brother Paul a couple of times and that she liked him. In fact, the last time we spoke was on the night she went missing. It was a dreadful rainy day, and really quiet in here, so Orla asked if she could get off early, she had something important she needed to do. And before you ask,’ Lucie held up a hand, ‘I have no idea what it was. She left here around four, although that may not be accurate. I went home around five and we closed up.’

  Hannah continued to make notes. It seemed pretty obvious that Lucie had probably been the last person to see Orla alive, before she met up with the person who had ended her life.

  ‘And you didn’t hear from her?’

  ‘Nothing. I set off from here at five the next morning, and have been in Cornwall since. This is my first day back at work. I really know very little. If you’ve been to Cornwall you’ll know what it’s like getting a phone signal there, so I mainly kept it switched off. I’m going to miss her, we worked well together, had a bit of a routine going if one was busier than the other. And she was… nice. That sounds like nothing, doesn’t it, but nice is the right word. She wouldn’t hurt anybody, always polite, and super intelligent. She was wasted in here, but she had a really close relationship with her mum and I don’t think she wanted to leave home to go to uni or anything.’

  ‘Thank you very much for waiting for us, Lucie. Hannah is going to write out your statement covering everything you’ve said today, so if you can hang on and sign it, it will save you having to come into headquarters to do it.’

  While Hannah dealt with Lucie, Tessa nipped into the ladies and stared at her reflection. Orla must have looked in this mirror a hundred times, and simply stood and let her thoughts drift. A new love on the horizon? An illicit love? Or a perfectly reas
onable love that would make her life enriched by its presence in it…

  She sighed, applied some lipstick purely for the hell of it, and went to rejoin her colleague. Lucie was signing her name as she reached them.

  Tessa handed over her card. ‘Thank you for your cooperation, Lucie. If you think of anything else, please give me a call.’

  Lucie slipped the card into the top pocket of her white blouse and stood. ‘I hope you find the disgusting person who killed her very quickly. It makes everybody scared, knowing there’s somebody out there capable of this sort of stuff. Our village lost two girls on the same night, and the general feeling is that if it can happen to them it can happen to anybody. That makes you feel uncomfortable.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mouse and Doris left early on Monday morning. At nine o’clock, Mouse rang to make an appointment with Michael Fairfax, only to be told he was fully booked all day.

  ‘Then can I ask you to check with him, because this is a personal issue for Mr Fairfax, and it’s important we see him today. Very personal,’ she added.

  ‘I’ll try,’ the smooth voice at the other end of the phone said, and Mouse sat back to wait. Who would be able to resist a meeting that was about something personal?

  ‘Hello? Mr Fairfax has a small window at ten o’clock. He has another meeting at ten thirty. Will that be long enough for you to conclude your business?’

  ‘I’m sure it will,’ Mouse said. ‘Thank you for your cooperation.’

  She disconnected and turned to Doris. ‘We’ve to be there for ten. He’s apparently got another meeting at half past, so we could be paddling on Scarborough beach by eleven.’

  Doris looked at the grey skies. ‘You’ll be paddling on your own, Mouse. And will you remember, while you’re getting your toes wet, how poorly you’ve been? If you so much as sneeze once on the way back, I’ll make you walk home.’