A Nice Place to Die (12 page)

‘Nothing,' Jack said as he got in beside her. ‘Less than nothing. We're getting nowhere on this case.'

Rachel looked across the yellowing grass with its patches of dried mud where the kids had been playing football. It was picturesque, in its way; a towering great tree near the centre, and the quaint old cottages surrounding the open ground, each with one downstairs and two upstairs windows looking out on the scene like the pairs of eyes and open mouths of an audience about to watch a drama unfold.

Rachel had heard before about the burning of a witch. It must've looked much the same when they burned Hester Warren, she told herself. I wonder if the people here clammed up then and pretended it never happened?

‘What exactly did this witch they talk about do to get herself burned?' she asked Jack.

Sergeant Reid had done his homework.

‘She was what they used to call a wise woman, back in the sixteenth century,' he said, trying to remember what the book he'd got from the library said. ‘She brewed potions from plants to cure warts, that kind of thing. But then there was some kind of epidemic and the children were dying. The people were far too poor to call the doctor, so they turned to Hester Warren. She tried to help them with her plant medicines, and, when the children kept on dying anyway, the parson and the squire and the doctor all blamed Hester for their deaths and condemned her as a witch. The villagers burned her at the stake.'

Jack stopped and took a bar of chocolate out of the glove box. He broke it in half and handed Rachel the smaller share.

Then he said, ‘More likely the children were dying of poverty and filthy living conditions and overcrowding. The toffs' children didn't die because their parents didn't have so many kids and lived in nice clean houses with good food. But the peasants were terrified and believed Hester was evil because the doctor said her potions poisoned their kids and the parson said she was unholy and an enemy of the church. Where they burned her was outside the village, just about where the housing estate is now. That's where she cursed them all.'

‘But that was hundreds of years ago,' Rachel said. ‘They can't still believe there could've been something in it.'

‘1568 was the actual year,' Jack said. ‘Hester cursed the village and its future inhabitants. And yes, a lot of them do believe there's something in it. They're very simple people, you know. They probably think we would've caught the murderer if the devil wasn't looking out for him. They think we're messing up a simple case; they're certain Kevin Miller did it. No one has any doubts about that.'

Reid was half laughing at the villagers' superstition, but he, too, felt that the murderer of Tim Baker was somehow protected by an outside power. Not witchcraft, of course, but something as powerful. Self-preservation, Jack called it.

We know who did this crime, he told himself, but the people who could bring Kevin Miller to justice are too afraid of what he might do to them. We've nothing to fight back with against that.

‘Sometimes I wonder why we bloody bother,' he muttered.

Rachel Moody recognized the frustration in his voice.

‘Hey,' she said, ‘enough of that. As long as there's this conspiracy of silence about what people saw and what they know, we must just wait and hope. The rules of evidence aren't part of the black arts. We will get him in the end.'

‘So what are we going to tell the public when he kills again and still no one admits to being a witness?' Jack Reid sounded angry, but his anger was at his own helplessness. ‘Those people are so scared of the killer he can do what he likes,' he said.

‘Don't go there, Jack,' Moody said. ‘We can't give up on this.'

‘I know, Boss,' Reid said. ‘But what can we do? These people are giving that young thug a licence to kill, and there seems to be nothing we can do.'

‘Take a grip, Sergeant,' Rachel said. ‘It will be even worse if we take him to court without conclusive evidence and then he isn't convicted. Which he wouldn't be on what we've got. Or rather, haven't got. Then he really would have won.'

‘Then what are we here for?' Reid asked.

‘Because in the end we will get him,' Rachel said. ‘Maybe he'll have to kill again before we do, more than once, even, but one day someone will talk or he'll make a mistake and then we'll get him.'

Jack knew she could say nothing else. They could do nothing else. But he was also disconcerted by the lack of human emotion in her attitude. She sounded as clinical as a computer. ‘That doesn't sound like protecting the public to me,' he said.

DCI Moody's voice was harsh and uncompromising, devoid of emotion. Not very feminine, Jack thought, not very caring at all. But then she hadn't got to the rank she had simply because the police powers-that-be wanted to give the force a more girlie image. Perhaps they'd got more than they'd bargained for in Detective Chief Inspector Moody.

‘The public made their choice,' she said. ‘They must take responsibility if they're prepared to protect Kevin Miller rather than innocent people like that young vicar.'

Jack Reid was surprised at the contempt in her voice. ‘You don't really like them, do you?' he said. ‘The public, I mean?'

Rachel Moody turned to look at him.

‘I don't like this case,' she said. ‘I don't like what those people are doing, covering up for that bastard. But it's not a question of like or dislike. These people who won't help are getting in our way. We can't do our job because of them, and doing the job is the important thing. At least it is to me.'

Jack Reid hesitated. Then he decided that for the moment the way they were talking allowed a suspension of their professional relationship.

‘About what happened in that shop . . .' he said.

Rachel Moody flushed. ‘I needed some air,' she said. ‘That's all.'

‘Look,' Reid said, ‘we're not all against you, you know, you're part of the team. I mean, if I was drunk on duty, my mates would cover for me, at least up to a point.' He was very embarrassed, but he couldn't stop now. ‘Up to a point they would, anyway,' he said. ‘What I'm trying to say, you should lighten up, let us help you. See yourself as part of the team. We're not enemies you have to defeat.'

‘Is that how I come across?' Rachel asked.

‘A bit,' he said. ‘You seem defensive and it's not necessary. We're not chess pieces you're playing with.' He paused, then added, ‘Ma'am.'

He waited in some trepidation for her to respond. He expected her either to explode, or retreat coldly into formality.

But she surprised him. She laughed.

‘What do you want, mothering?' she asked.

‘No,' he said, a little indignant, ‘No. A bit more respect, that's all. You may be a graduate from university and have diplomas and all that before you joined the force, and, OK, you've been fast-tracked and that's fine; we don't doubt you're a good cop.'

‘Hey,' Rachel said, ‘don't patronize me.'

Jack ignored her and went on, ‘You're not from around here, either, not one of us. But that doesn't matter. What we want is for you to know you need us too.'

Reid took a deep breath and finished in a rush, ‘We've got a lot more experience than you and you could make use of that if you weren't so paranoid about not losing face in front of us.'

‘You think I'm paranoid?'

Rachel knew he was right; she'd thought it didn't show. To establish her authority, she had kept her team at arm's length. She'd treated them like robots.

I'm afraid of them, she thought, I'm afraid they'll guess I'm flying by the seat of my pants most of the time.

‘Do you hate working for me?' she asked.

Sergeant Reid shook his head. ‘Of course not,' he said. ‘I wouldn't be saying this if I did. I'd have applied for a transfer. But being a good policeman is more than just doing the job and you could do with getting yourself more of a life.'

She nodded. ‘Point taken,' she said.

She didn't like to ask him for suggestions as to how she could do this.

Then he started the car. ‘Well,' he said, ‘what now? We won't catch a murderer sitting here chatting.'

‘Don't be so sure,' she said, and smiled at him. ‘I think we may just have made a real breakthrough in this case, Jack.'

FIFTEEN

A
lice stood behind the curtain in her unlighted bedroom. She stared out at the bleak night.

The houses in Forester Close seemed to her to be skulking in the shadows, waiting for something to happen. Alice thought, it's almost as though the street has got used to being afraid, it's lost confidence in the people who live in it. She asked herself, isn't that the meaning of community, people knowing they can trust one another? That's what's happened in Forester Close, we've lost confidence in other people. And why wouldn't we, we live in fear?

There was no sign of Donna or Alan at Number Two, no lights on in the house. But outside Kevin and Nate Miller with a pack of their friends were gathered in the driveway, whooping and shouting.

Kevin, astride his motorbike, was directing his followers. He revved the bike engine like a war-cry.

Savages, Alice said to herself, they don't give a thought for anyone else.

If only that were all, she thought, but it was worse than that. They moved off; seeming to her like a pack of wolves hunting for a kill.

She heard the sound of breaking glass as the group gathered briefly round a vehicle parked at the far end of the Close. Then they turned and moved back up the street towards her. Alice moved away from the window out of the range of the headlamps of Kevin's motorbike so no one would see her outlined against the curtain and know that she was watching.

As she turned she caught sight of a slight movement in her garden, behind the front wall.

It came again, then stopped. In the faint light from a street lamp, Alice could make out a shape of more solid darkness against the corner of the wall. The baying of the teenagers seemed to be getting closer, and the dark shape shrank a little and shifted as though cowering closer to the ground.

Then Alice saw a white face raised and quickly turned away. It was only a glimpse, but in that flash she recognized terror. And she knew, too, who was hiding from that pack of thugs. It was Jess. They were hunting Jess.

Alice thought, is it a game? After all, they're just children. Are they playing hide and seek? It must be a game, she's family, she's one of them.

But Alice could not dismiss the terror she'd seen on that young face. If this was a game, it had gone too far. Everything those thugs did went too far. They were dangerous.

Without turning on the light on the landing she made her way downstairs and into her hallway. She crept to the front door and opened it.

‘Jess,' she said in a whisper which in spite of her efforts quavered and betrayed her fear. ‘Come in, quick, they'll find you if you stay out there.'

She didn't see anyone running towards the house, but almost before she had called out, she felt a rush of cold air, someone pushed her aside and then the door closed. In the light through the door from the kitchen, Alice saw Jess and a young man clinging together in the hall, leaning against the wall trying to catch their breath.

‘They're after us,' Jess gasped. ‘My God, they'll kill us if they find us. They're after Mark. They're crazy.'

‘But why?' Alice said. She was bemused.

Jess was shuddering with shock. She managed to gasp, ‘They've been on the piss all day. Mum's out and Kevin brought his pals home and they found Mark's pickup. God knows how they knew it was his. They've smashed the windscreen and the windows and kicked the bodywork. We heard them.'

She started to cry. ‘They kept chanting “Kill, kill, kill”. I couldn't stop them. They're crazed.'

She sobbed quietly and the young man took her hand and squeezed it. ‘It's going to be OK,' he told her. ‘It's a farm vehicle; no one's going to notice a few extra dents. That pickup's a lot tougher than your Kevin and his mates. No one will know the difference.'

‘It's not the bloody truck,' Jess said. ‘It's what they wanted to do to you. And me,
me
, can you credit that?'

Mark said to Alice, ‘It was close. I can't believe what they were like.'

He'd had a bad scare, Alice could see that. He was babbling like a girl. ‘We got out through the back garden of the house next door, but they came after us. If they'd found us . . .'

Jess kissed his face. ‘It's OK now, they've gone,' she said.

The young man added, ‘I couldn't risk tackling them, not on my own. There are too many of them, if they'd laid me out, God knows what they'd do to Jess. I really think they would've killed her.'

He put his arm protectively round Jess's shoulders, but he couldn't disguise how scared he was. Neither of them could.

‘But, Jess, you're Kevin's sister,' Alice said, incredulous. ‘You're one of them. Why were they after you?' Even as she said it, she could hear how silly she sounded. Like King Canute trying to turn back the tide.

‘That makes it worse,' Jess wailed. ‘They think they've got the right. I'm family, they think they're looking after me, they know what's right for me. Oh, Mark, what are we going to do? If they get their hands on you now, I honestly think they'll kill you.'

He gave her shoulders a squeeze to comfort her. ‘It's all right,' he said softly, ‘trust me, it'll be OK.'