A Journal of Sin (6 page)

‘A few people have mentioned he likes walking in the woods. I’m organising a search of St. Peter’s around three this afternoon. We’re meeting at the church. I could use the extra pair of eyes, if that’s the only bitter you’re planning on having this morning.’ Searching the woods was a long shot. The chances of him having walked in the woods and been caught in the storm were slim, but she didn’t know what else to do. Her sergeant or inspector had always covered any strategical thinking, and she’d been left to carry out the tasks. Now she was forced to come up with them herself and found that making the big decisions was far harder than the canteen chats gave her bosses credit for.

‘I’ll see.’ She wasn’t sure if his heart would survive a walk in the woods, but she wanted to keep him close.

‘Married with twin girls, by the way.’ She looked down at the glass of white. ‘And I’m more of a Merlot girl.’

St Peter’s was more bog than woodland. John’s feet plunged one after the other into the sludge. His boots took cold, brown water over the top, soaking his feet to the bone. The woods were usually the highlight of the town, a place where children played, where people walked their dogs as the sun set or teenagers sneaked away for that first forbidden kiss. The woods were behind the school and numerous footpaths ran through it, some cleared by the council, others made by people treading convenient shortcuts over the years. It was as much a place of relaxation as it was a site of historical charm. It was claimed the woods had remained the same for hundreds of years and, although the ground was often damp and weather almost always dreary, it’d never seen rainfall like this.

He had fond memories of St Peter’s woods. A path led from the rear of his school all the way through to the eastern entrance. He and his friends – well, the one school friend he’d had – would head to the woods once the bell had rung and run along the path to St Peter’s. They’d eat sweets, look at his brother’s old porn magazines and concoct things to tell their parents when asked why they were home late from school. They’d dream and wonder about the future, who they’d marry, when they’d be millionaires and how blissful life would be when they never had to go back to school again. He wished he could dream this trip to St Peter’s away, as the heady days of youthful exploration were far more pleasurable a thought than the search for an old man’s body. He stayed in line with the other volunteers, whilst Sarah walked ten paces ahead.

‘She thinks he’s dead. We wouldn’t be searching the woods if she thought he was alive,’ said one the searchers.

‘Maybe she doesn’t know and maybe you shouldn’t speculate. Keep your voice down in any case, you’ll only upset people,’ replied his partner.

‘It’s all changed since the storm. I used to know my way around this place.’

‘Well, if he was out here walking, he wouldn’t have survived that storm now would he?’

Similar conversations continued throughout the line.

She’d asked for no more than twenty-five people. She specified they be between twenty-one and sixty, although Tom had protested so much, she let him on board, and where Tom went, his wife, Anne, was sure to follow. John was there, as was Andrew Stockton, of Stockton’s stores, and Sam, the doctor from the meeting, along with a few others John didn’t recognise, at least not enough to put any names to. Tom was a little ahead of the pack and was more than likely in better shape than everyone else despite being the oldest.

‘She doesn’t know what she’s doing,’ said Tom. He pushed through a branch in front of him that scratched his waxed green jacket. He wasn’t going to miss this and he had brought his wife marching with him. Anne held her purple shawl on her head as she ducked through the gaps in the trees. She was far less prepared for this situation than her husband and was dressed as a lady of her age would be on a day at the shops. ‘You need more people to search a wood like this. That damn storm left some of the paths waterlogged. I’m struggling to find my way around, so God knows what hope she has of leading us. The thermos?’ She reached her frail hand around into the small rucksack she carried on both shoulders and produced a red thermos with a white mug cap. She struggled to lift her knees out of the mud whilst unscrewing the lid. John leaned over to help, but she swiftly pulled it away, just out of his reach.

‘I was just –’

She unscrewed the lid and poured Tom a cup of tea from the flask. He took the mug without checking his stride or saying a word.

‘Ok, everybody listen,’ said Sarah, from the front of the group, ‘the wood gets pretty dense from here on in, so we’ll have to be careful. We’ve only got about an hour or so of light left, so we’ll need to be back out within that time.’

‘Telling me how dense my own wood is. She looks about twelve,’ mumbled Tom. ‘It gets very thick through here; we may want to try going right, then back on ourselves, in a U-turn and coming back here when there’s more light,’ he suggested.

‘We’ll go further in this evening and do the rest in the morning.’ She kept her answer curt. ‘Did everyone manage to find a torch? If so, it’s best you turn them on now. Andrew’s kindly given us some batteries from the store, so if you need batteries come and get them. It’s best to take spares just in case, but please return any you don’t use.’ She held open a carrier bag full of batteries. A few people approached, including Tom, who took three sets, far more than he needed, and returned to the line.

Sean walked at the opposite end to John. They hadn’t spoken since that first morning at the church. Sean had kept his distance all day without so much as a glance in his direction. This wasn’t the place to ask him about the thin blue book he’d stowed in his pocket. John wanted to know what was in it. It was dated last month - January 2010 - too recent to have anything directly from Jenny in it. Too recent if Father Michael had recorded conversations at the time they happened. If he’d jotted his thoughts down as they came up, the dates could be meaningless; he may have recalled something about Jenny in January and written it down then. With Sarah refusing to let him read the journals, Sean’s book was the closest he had.

Wind blustered through the woods, blowing twigs and debris around but lacking the strength to cause any danger. The people of Sunbury didn’t need another tragedy after the month they’d had. They stepped over fallen branches and ducked under trees. The ground was firmer here, providing respite from the constant plunging into the earth and lunging over fallen foliage. The torches flashed high and low, with beams of various strengths lighting up the woods. Amy Prowse stumbled over a branch and caught herself on the stump of a broken tree; the Pendletons stopped and turned around, leaving their son behind to continue, whilst Anne and Tom began arguing about something, something John couldn’t quite hear.

‘Is everything ok?’ Sarah shouted back.

‘Yes, officer, absolutely fine,’ replied Tom, keeping his eyes on his wife. ‘Anne just wanted to head back, so I told her it’s not safe on her own and to stay with us, isn’t that right?’ Anne remained quiet.

‘We’ll all be turning back soon and it’s best we stay together.’ Anne really shouldn’t have been out there in the first place. Her woollen coat hung off her and her bony hands were grey with age and cold. The shawl covered her thin, white hair and slipped over her gaunt face from time to time.

‘It’s okay, I’ll walk back with you, if that’s alright?’ said Amy. ‘I’ve knocked my knee. I’ve got a torch, so we’ll make it back safely.’

‘That’s really not necessary,’ said Tom. ‘She’ll stay here with us.’ Anne clenched her teeth. ‘Fine. Fine, I’ll come with you,’ he said.

‘It’s ok, I’ll go, I’m a bit sore anyway. I need to preserve my knee to walk the dogs later,’ said Amy. ‘I hear the eastern path is a little less waterlogged, so we’ll head back that way.’

‘No, we’ll go back together. Good luck with your search. Now, come on, let’s get you back.’ Tom walked away and his wife followed a metre or two behind. They finished the search twenty minutes later when the light faded and Sarah thought it safer to go back. Few volunteers came forward for the second day.

She arrived home exhausted. The past twenty-four hours hadn’t panned out quite how she planned. She’d hoped to give the house a big clean before packing up and heading home to Mark and the kids. Instead, she’d been thrust into a missing person investigation, delivered a terrible speech in front of a town full of strangers, been quizzed, patronised and had to squelch through metre after metre of woodland whilst not entirely confident her investigative strategy was taking her any further. She wanted to call her sergeant and seek some guidance on what to do next, but, for now at least, that was impossible.

She kicked off her mud-covered wellies and peeled off her sweaty clothes. She’d been nicked a few times by sharp foliage and a couple of bruises formed on her legs from knocking into a tree or two. She longed for a hot shower.

Wrapping herself in her white dressing gown, a few years old and a little tatty and all the more comfortable for it, she went downstairs, opened the cupboard and uncorked a bottle of red. Her mother never drank them anyway and wine was there to be drunk; there was no pleasure in the aesthetic aspects of a good bottle of plonk. She’d not drunk one yet where the label or the design of the bottle was a greater pleasure than slowly savouring the nectar inside. Well, not since her university days at least. The wine back then had been a little suspect, but she’d hardly had the budget to complain. Maturity and adulthood had kicked in since then and she now had far higher standards in all areas of her life. Those Lambrini days were a long time ago.

She closed the kitchen door quietly, not wanting to wake her mother, and took out a can of tuna. She longed for decent food. The electricity had gone out just over a week into the storm, so they’d been living off canned meats, fish and fruit for a few days after the last of the real food defrosted. She sat in the rocking chair; wine in one hand and a can of tuna in the other. This wasn’t the most glamorous she’d ever felt, but it was the most relaxed she’d been in days, gently rocking and humming Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together’, a song that reminded her of home. Father Michael could wait till morning.

Knock, Knock.

She put the wine down and rocked forward off the chair. She peered out of the window to see a woman on the front step. She couldn’t make out who it was.
Knock Knock.
She put the chain and opened the door far enough to get a good look at the late-night caller. Tears dripped from the woman’s chin.

‘Hello?’

‘I’ve found him.’

THREE

The stars were out; no electricity meant less light pollution. The cold, muddy air reminded her of candyfloss queues on bonfire night. Her woollen coat and scarf kept her body warm, but did little for her nose or fingers. The rustling of nocturnal woodland life spooked her into a brisker walk. She told herself nothing was there, but between the dark, encroaching trees and the shadows cast by the flickering torchlight, she had second thoughts about coming out this late. She’d thought about waiting till morning, waiting for better light to conduct a slower, safer search. She’d changed into her pj’s and snuggled in under the duvet. After thirty minutes of turning this way, and rolling that, it was clear she wasn’t going to sleep. So much for sensible. Instead she was here, walking a marsh-like path through St Peters, stumbling in the mud and struggling to see where she was going, with Sam tagging along behind her.

‘You know when I said “anything you need”…’ Sam yawned. Knocking on his door this late had taken some nerve, but he had offered. She’d brought some essentials over and he’d contributed the rest. Between them they’d mustered a few sets of gloves, a dust sheet, a Leatherman multi-tool and a small, temperamental torch. She couldn’t think of a better time to call on a doctor and was pretty certain this was the very situation he was hinting at when he offered.

‘You meant anything I need.’

He plodded in and out of the mud in an uncomfortable way, like a city father taking his kids camping for the first time. Inviting him along raised another issue. Having John help with the search of Father Michael’s quarters had raised the risk of sensitive information being leaked. Father Michael’s notes needed to remain secret and she was starting to think trusting John so early had been a mistake. She had a little more faith in Sam; doctors understood the importance of confidentiality. Keeping the details of the murder method between themselves would be crucial to testing the suspect’s account in an interview.

Amy had been too distressed to talk for long, and Sarah’d thought it best to let her rest rather than launch questions at her straight away. Full debriefs were best conducted as close to the event as possible, and Sarah had arranged to go back once she’d finished at the scene. Amy had spent their conversation crying and spluttering words like awful, gruesome and horrific. When Sarah had finally calmed her down, she managed to provide directions to the site; directions that were increasingly hard to follow.

Mud covered the paths and the blown-down trees made the woods hard to navigate. They turned off onto the third path on the right. Tree roots poked through the ground and low-hanging branches threatened to take her eyes out. The path, really only a well-worn track, became harder to see the further she walked into the woods. She wondered if murders in nice, comfortable hotels had gone out of fashion, or whether they only happened in stories. She shook the torch. Amy’s map said the body was straight ahead, if she’d stayed on the right path. It felt as though she’d been pushing through branches and stepping over tree roots for far longer than the map’s short line suggested.

He lay face up in the sludge. Sarah held her arm in front of Sam.

‘Are you sure you want to see this?’

‘Well, I’ve come all this way, haven’t I?’

‘That doesn’t answer my question. I know I asked you out here, and I appreciate you coming, but I wouldn’t think any less if you changed your mind.’ Handling a freshly murdered body was entirely different to examining a morgue’s clean cadaver or looking over a nasty rash in a doctor’s office. The small talk on the way here had covered the weather, the government’s attitude to the sector and what to expect at the crime scene - standard emergency services topics. They’d briefly discussed their work history; he’d become a GP as soon as possible after graduating.