Cursed Inheritance (13 page)

chewing over every tackle, every foul and every offside

decision in tedious detail, and he’d always tended to avoid

their company. But as he and Chuck were sharing a small

apartment there was no escape. And no time off for good

behaviour.

91

Chuck, however, did have his uses, local knowledge being one of them. And he was eager to help Neil in his search for Max Selbiwood, even promising to search for his name in lists of local residents. Neil didn’t enquire too closely about how he was going to tackle this onerous task: he was just glad to have someone to do it for him. Chuck reminded him of an over-enthusiastic dog, a Labrador perhaps, enjoying a game of fetch. But he wasn’t complaining. It could save him a lot of work.

As Neil scraped away carefully at the palisade trench, a remnant of one of Annetown’s earliest fortifications, he thought of Hannah Gotleib. She hadn’t turned up at the dig that day and he wondered where she was. And what she was doing that evening. He hadn’t even asked her if there was a significant other in her life: somehow it had seemed inappropriate, too personal.

He could always ask Professor Keller if he knew her phone number. But he knew in his heart of hearts that he wouldn’t have the courage. It would be another cosy night in with Chuck listening to the ins and outs of the baseball season.

Easter weekend came and went. Gerry Heffernan disappeared from the office for an hour on Good Friday to sing with the choir at St Margaret’s Church and returned looking subdued. Wesley felt an unexpected pang of regret that he hadn’t gone with him.

They spent most of Saturday going over everything they knew about Patrick Evans’s death and making sure that there was nothing obvious that they’d missed. All the staff and guests at Potwoolstan Hall had now been interviewed and Wesley took a particular interest in Charles Dodgson’ s statement. But, like everybody else, Dodgson claimed to have seen nothing suspicious. Patrick Evans’s murderer was either very clever or very lucky. Or someone was lying.

On Sunday morning, Wesley caught up with domestic

92

chores, salving his conscience and trying to ignore the joyous clamour of church bellS carried on the cool spring breeze. In the afternoon, he and Pam walked on the quayside at Tradmouth with the children, licking ice creams and watching the boats scuttle across the river.

When it was time to head home, Wesley said that he had something to do and promised he wouldn’t be long. The thought of Kirsty Evans sitting alone in her hotel room was making him uncomfortable.

Kirsty seemed pleased to see him and grateful for the opportunity to talk about Patrick as they lingered over a cream tea in the bright hotel lounge. In the weeks to come people would probably avoid the subject for fear of opening up raw wounds. Kirsty was quite adamant that she had never heard Patrick mention the name Potwoolstan Hall. And Wesley had no reason to disbelieve her. She had already assured him that Patrick had never brought his work home.

Monday was a bank holiday, as damp and depressing as only a British bank holiday Monday can be. But Wesley went intQ work early that morning and requested the files on the Potwoolstan Hall case. They were kept in the archives - case solved - and Wesley’s demand to see them produced a flurry of activity before a young uniformed constable brought them up to the CID office and deposited them on his desk.

Gerry Heffernan arrived in the office late, pleading a faulty alarm clock. He lurched past Wesley’s desk, still apparently half asleep, then he stopped and swung round. ‘What’s new?’

Wesley told him about his cream tea with Kirsty Evans the previous day. ‘Someone from Uniform is taking her back this morning. Said he was glad of the trip to London. There’s no accounting for taste.’

Heffernan raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t so unsentimental about his home town. There was times when he waxed very lyrical about the virtues of Liverpool, wallow-

93

ing in nostalgia after a few pints in the Tradmouth Arms. He looked at the files piled up on Wesley’s desk, normally kept so neat, unlike his own. ‘What’s all this?’

‘The Potwoolstan Hall murders. I told you the papers were missing from the file I took from Evans’s office. It must have been the case he was investigating or else why would he be down here? I’m seeing if anything was missed at the time.’

‘You’re wasting your time, Wes. It was the housekeeper. She had a history of mental problems and her employers, the Harfords, had been giving her a hard time. They accused her of stealing. In the end it turned out that she hadn’t done it but it still caused a lot of ill feeling.’

‘So she killed the whole family? Seems a bit over the top.’

Heffernan sighed. ‘The psychiatrist who gave evidence at the time said Martha Wallace was like a pressure cooker ready to explode at the slightest provocation. ‘

‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wonder if he’d have reached that conclusion if he’d examined her before it happened. What sort of mental problems did she have?’

Heffernan shrugged. He wasn’t well upon medical matters. ‘Heard from your mate Neil?’

Wesley looked up, surprised at the sudden change of subject. ‘He sent us an email when he first arrived to say he’d got there OK.’

They were interrupted by the arrival of Rachel Tracey. She was holding a piece of paper. She was grinning and she looked as though she had news to impart.

‘You know Steve and Paul have been checking out fences and dodgy jewellers? Well it seems they paid a surprise visit to a jeweller called Jack Wright in Morbay first thing and they found a bracelet and earrings that fit the description of the stuff pinched from the Dukesbridge health spa.’

‘Jack Wright? He’s been warned before about not being too particular about who he buys jewellery from. What about the rest?’

94

‘He admits he’s sold some stuff on to a contact in London - necklace and ring that could be the ones pinched from a woman on that creative writing course near Neston. ‘

‘So he’s owning up?’

‘He says he’d no idea they were stolen and he wants to cooperate. ‘

Heffernan grinned. ‘The old old story. He thinks he might get away with it if he pleads ignorance. With his track record he’s pushing it. So did he say who it was who took advantage of his better nature?’

‘A man called Mr Smith, who claimed to have found the jewellery in a house he’s clearing out belonging to an old aunty who’s just passed away.’

‘How touching. Description?’

‘Vague. Could fit a thousand balding middle-aged men.’

Wesley frowned. This description didn’t fit any of the guests or staff at Potwoolstan Hall. Charles Dodgson was definitely in the clear. ‘Any sign of Mrs Jeffries’s ring?’

Rachel shook her head. ‘It seems the “aunty’s” house is taking a long time to clear out and that’s why the stuffs being offered for sale in dribs and drabs. According to Wright, Mr Smith is very convincing.’

‘We’d better see if he can tell us any more,’ said Wesley, ever hopeful.

‘It’s on my list.’ She gave a small, smug smile. This one would be easy to crack. It was only a matter of time before the thief was in the interview room confessing all.

Emma Oldchester had never been so determined about anything before. Her father had pleaded with her not to go. So had Barry. But for once she would defy them. She knew she had to go through with it. She had no choice.

She had been working all weekend to finish the houses that had been ordered. Mrs Bartlet’s and Miss Pinson’s were ready but she would finish off the other two - Mrs James’s and Mrs Potts’s - when she got back. Emma felt calm, organised, as she knelt down before the house she

95

would never sell. The special house. Her house.

The fac;ade was split in two, like double doors. She

opened the right-hand side. It was all there, the dark, heavy

furniture, the green wallpaper and the fine oak staircase . . She had taken so much care; put into it every detail she

remembered, large and small. The small drawing room to

the left of the entrance hall had been painted a dark mustard

shade, she remembered that. And she remembered the

blood that had splashed on to the walls as if someone had

thrown pots of red-brown emulsion paint around. There had

been a horrible smell; a vaguely metallic odour, the same

as she had smelled once in a butcher’s shop. Blood. The

smell of the slaughterhouse.

She looked at the miniature room and touched one of the

figures that lay on the ground near the doorway. It lay there

dead, its blue dress splashed with rusty-red paint. There

was another, male figure, also splattered with blood. The

colour of the blood was exactly right, just as she remembered it. It was on the other two figures too, another male

and female who lay on the landing just outside the frilly

bedroom upstairs. The russet paint had splashed up the

landing window. She hadn’t wanted to leave any detail out.

But the hallway was the worst. A doll lay on the floor

between the front door and the stairs, a mass of red-brown

gore where its head should be and the walls and floor

around it bathed in blood.

She opened up the other half of the frontage to reveal the

left-hand side of the house’s interior. Inside, she could see

the dining room with its dark glossy furniture and striped

red and white walls. The table was set for five with tiny

cutlery and plates, and wine glasses, small as a thumbnail,

stood by each place setting. But no figures sat on the little

Sheraton-style chairs. The meal had been eaten already and

the diners had departed.

The room to the left of the dining room was furnished as a

kitchen complete with a dresser, stove and scrubbed pine

table. A small doll sat at the table, not upright but slumped.

96

The doll wore an apron that had once been white but was now stained with rusty brown and the head looked as though it had been dipped in paint the colour of dried blood. Something lay beside the doll’s right hand: the tiniest of guns. Emma had put so much care into getting everything right.

She stared for a while before shutting the front of the house, concealing the scene within. Then she bent and picked up a tiny doll, dressed all in black, that had rolled under the table. She put it in the pocket of her cardigan. It was time to go.

Barry wouldn’t be home until six. He would have to get his own meal that night. Emma would be at Potwoolstan Hall, eating her vegetarian supper. She wondered if they’d use the dining room and if they’d left it how it was: after all, nobody had actually died in there. Her hands began to tingle with nerves and excitement at the thought that she would actually be there. She would see it again. She wanted to know the truth so badly. And Jeremy Elsham would help her to find it.

Emma shut the door of the spare bedroom that served as her workshop behind her and made her way downstairs, her footsteps muffled by the thick carpet, the best quality they could afford. Barry said it didn’t do to skimp. She picked up the case that stood near the front door. She had packed it first thing that morning, impatient for the moment.

After making sure the burglar alarm was switched on and the door was shut properly, Emma Oldchester put the case in her van and drove off towards Potwoolstan Hall.

Chuck had come up trumps. He had found the address of a Max Selbiwood who lived in the leafy suburbs on the other side of town from the university. Chuck had even offered him the use of his pick-up truck that evening. Neif was grateful for Chuck’s boundless generosity and enthusiasm, but he wasn’t sure that he was ready to face Max Selbiwood just yet.

He had given the matter a great deal of thought that day while he was working at the dig. If it were indeed the right Max Selbiwood, then he would be a very old man, the same age as

97

his own grandmother. Or perhaps the Max that Chuck had found was the son of the man he was looking for. In which case it would be difficult to explain the reason for his visit.

In a moment of cowardice he almost convinced himself that he should leave well alone; that he should concentrate on doing what he was over there for: excavating an important site where settlers from England, mainly from the West Country, had landed all those centuries ago. Neil had never been one for sentiment but he felt that it would be wrong to let his dying grandmother down and abandon his search for Max Selbiwood. He pictured her in the nursing home, her body giving up the fight for life while her mind was still so alert to everything that was going on around her, every pain, every indignity brought on by dependence on others. She had asked him to do this one last thing for her and he could hardly back out now.

‘Hi, how are you doing?’

Neil was crouched in a trench, scraping the earth gently from around the outline of a section of stained soil left by the decayed timbers of an early wooden building. He looked up from his lowly position and saw Hannah Gotleib standing there on the edge of the trench.

‘We’re uncovering some armour and weapons in trench five, probably discarded by the early settlers. Come and take a look.’

Neil straightened himself up. Why was it everyone else’s trench seemed to contain all the most exciting finds? It was the story of his archaeological life. He followed Hannah across the site, distracted by the sight of her shapely rear. When he looked back at the dig where the archaeologists were working, concentrating on their work with earnest faces, he could see the footprint of the original Annetown fort quite clearly; the traces of the ditches dug by the earliest colonists to support their protective timber walls.

He quickened his pace and caught up with Hannah. She looked at him and smiled; a dazzling white-toothed smile.

‘You know you said that one of the early settlers was called Selbiwood?’