Cursed Inheritance (41 page)

Once the service began, he and Wesley studied the mourners. Not many had made the effort to come and pay their last respects. There were a few colleagues from Potwoolstan Hall; Pandora Elsham leading the small party dressed, although not in black, in suitably muted colours. Jeremy Elsham was nowhere in sight.

Arbel Harford and her husband stood slightly apart, dressed in seemly black. Arbel dabbed her eyes with a crisp white handkerchief and stood stiffly, close to Anthony’s shoulder.

-Anthony Jameston kept glancing at Elsham’s party bashfully, like one who knows he has behaved foolishly and doesn’t like being reminded of it. He stole a sly glance at his watch from time to time, counting the minutes until he could leave without causing offence.

There were several people at the grave side Wesley and Heffeman hadn’t seen before. And then there was Dylan Madeley, glowering angrily into the open grave, his hands shaking, clenching and unclenching his fists.

Further back stood a handful of reporters, local and national. Serena Jones was there, conspicuous in their midst in bright red miniskirt and suede jacket. Wesley felt irritated that she couldn’t have shown more respect. But then Serena wasn’t the respectful type.

The police always harbour the hope that a killer will turn up at his or her victim’s funeral. But in Wesley’sexperi-ence it rarely happened. It almost seemed like the

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superstition that the dead eyes of a murder victim always reflect back the image of the murderer. A nice thought but not to be relied on in a murder enquiry.

Once the coffin had been lowered into the earth, the mourners began to drift away. Serena made straight for Arbel and Anthony, only to be waylaid by Gerry Heffernan, who told her to have some consideration.

Serena protested that she was only doing her job and by the time she had finished debating the point, the mourners were gone. Only Dylan was left, staring into the grave. Wesley and Gerry watched him for a few moments, decid-ing whether the time was right to approach him. But as Heffernan took a step forward, Dylan Madeley sprinted away like a gazelle pursued by a lion and disappeared into the headstoned wastes of the cemetery.

Jeremy Elsham locked his office door. If any of the Beings wanted him, they’d have to wait. He sat down at his desk and took a key from the top drawer.

He stared at the key for a while before walking over to the safe, where all his most confidential and sensitive secrets were kept. He unlocked it and took out a tape. When it was in the machine he pressed the button and sat back, his eyes closed.

He listened to her voice, high-pitched and terrified; a child’s voice coming from a grown woman. ‘The other man killed my mummy.’ He listened as she broke down in terrified sobs; a child face to face with worse horrors than she could ever imagine. A child in hell.

After playing it through once, Jeremy Elsham took the cassette out of the machine and pulled at the thin brown ribbon of tape until it spilled out, draping itself over the edge of the bin as he threw it in. He kicked the bin and the loose tape slithered into its depths.

He unlocked the office door, crossed the hall and, once outside, he made for the trees, looking around, scanning the windows of the Hall for watching eyes. But he told himself

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that, as he often went to the woods to meditate, nobody would think it strange. And if they did, he could rely on Pandora to make some excuse. She was good like that. And she knew what was at stake.

On his way to the clearing he called in at the outhouse where the gardening tools were kept to pick up a spade. It was time to bury the past once and for all.

‘Any sign of Dylan Madeley?’ Gerry Heffernan asked with a heavy sigh.

Wesley provided the reply he expected. Dylan hadn’t returned to the hostel. All patrols were on the lookout fot Madeley and his usual haunts were being checked. It was only a matter of time before he turned up.

Trish Walton gave a coy knock on the open door of Heffernan’s office. ‘Can I have a word, sir?’

Wesley cleared the spare visitor’s chair of its veil of papers and files and Trish sat down stiffly on the edge of the seat. ‘How’s Emma OldchesterT

‘She’s OK. Working on her doll’s houses: keeping busy. Her husband said he’d make sure she wasn’t left alone. I’ll drop in again tomorrow.’

‘I’ll feel much better when she’s remembered everything and we have her full statement,’ Wesley said. He looked at Trish. ‘She knows who did it. It’s locked in her head at the moment but she knows.’

Rachel Tracey knocked on the office door and entered. ‘I’ve had a call from North Yorkshire. You know that picture of Nigel Armley we faxed up? That gardener you talked to - Mr Clayton - identified him at once. It was the man who worked there calling himself Victor Bleasdale.’

Wesley shifted in his seat, feeling rather pleased with himself. It looked like his hunch was right. Armley had swapped places with Bleasdale. He was the killer. But where was he now?

Serena Jones had hoped her great scoop would lead to

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offers of work from the national papers. But even though the story of a junior government minister booking in for some New Age therapy under an assumed name at the very house where his wife’s family had been murdered had made the second page for a couple of days, everything had now gone quiet. Even Steve Carstairs hadn’t come up with anything juicy since his initial desire to get into her knick-ers had tempted him to indiscretion.

But she hadn’t finished with Potwoolstan Hall yet. Now that her cover was blown and she had no chance of seeing things from the inside, she had decided to take the direct approach. She would ask Jeremy Elsham for an interview, implying that she was so impressed by what she’d seen at the Hall that she intended to write a favourable article about the place. She would appeal to his vanity. All men are vain.

She parked her car in the Hall’s car park and began to trudge up the path. Serena never normally contemplated failure but this time there was the nagging thought in the back of her mind that Jeremy Elsham might send her away with a flea in her ear. Once bitten, twice shy. This would need all the charm that Serena was convinced that she possessed.

As she rounded the bend she spotted a movement, a figure darting towards the trees. Jeremy Elsham was carrying a spade and it was clear that he didn’t want to be seen, which, for a self-promoting man like Jeremy Elsham, was odd, to say the least.

Serena stepped sideways into the rhododendron bushes that lined the drive and watched him disappear into the wood. Then, when he was almost out of sight, she followed, treading softly, alert to all movement, jumping at every bird that fluttered in the canopy of branches. Crows cawed in their scruffy nests in the tree tops: great evil-looking things. Birds of ill omen. She carried on, walking on tiptoe, stopping every now and then to listen. For the first time in years she felt nervous. And she hated the unfamiliar feeling of vulnerability.

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She could hear the soft thud of spade on bard earth somewhere ahead. She moved forward slowly, holding her breath, cursing silently as a twig snapped beneath her feet and the noise echoed like a rifle shot in the still air. The noise of digging stopped and she flattened herself against a convenient tree, hardly daring to breathe.

When the digging started up again, Serena’s courage flooded back and she moved forward, using the cover of the trees. The sound was nearer now and she crept towards it, closer and closer, until she came to a small clearing in the trees. Then she froze.

Jeremy Elsham was sweating profusely. His pale blue tracksuit bore dark stains around the armpits and upper back and he stopped from time to time to wipe the perspiration from his brow. He seemed to be digging at the rootsˇ of a fallen tree and every so often he placed something carefully in a cardboard box. Serena pressed her body against a gnarled tree trunk and watched.

Elsham lifted something from the ground. A human skull. He held it for a moment, staring into its empty eye sockets like Prince Hamlet addressing the skull of Yorick.

Jeremy Elsham was digging up human remains. He had buried someone in the grounds of Potwoolstan Hall and was now disposing of the evidence. This was possibly the scoop of her career. Her heart beat faster as she began to make plans.

She was first on the scene - a prime witness - and she would be in on the police investigation from the start. She smiled to herself as she began to creep away. Steve Carstair’s home number was stored in her mobile. She would ring him, maybe that evening when he’d fmished work.

But first she had to get away to safety. Serena Jones wasn’t out of the woods just yet.

Barry Oldchester touched his wife’s arm. ‘You’ve had an email fromMrs Pottsasking if the house is ready. It’ s her

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daughter’s birthday tomorrow and she’d like to pick it up tonight. She can come straight round after her evening class. ‘

Emma sighed. She’d been working on her houses every waking hour to take her mind off other things. ‘It’ll be finished this afternoon,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘Can you email her back and tell her it’s OK?’

Barry looked into her eyes anxiously. ‘You’ll feel better once you’ve seen this doctor that chief inspector mentioned. Closure, they call it. You’ve got to come to terms with what happened before you can move on.’

Emma said nothing. He’d probably come across that on some daytime TV programme. Sometimes she wished he wasn’t there.

He was taking time off work, hovering over her like an irritating servant. And if Barry didn’t work he wasn’t earning.

He began to read the paper and Emma watched him. Perhaps she had been fooling herself when she’d thought that once she knew the truth about her past she could think about starting a family. She was beginning to harbour the uncomfortable suspicion that once she knew the truth her dependence on Barry might cease.

That afternoon she worked on Mrs Potls’s doll’s house, papering the walls with tiny floral prints, gluing in the dainty Victorian fireplaces. When it was finished she looked at it with satisfaction. It would give the little girl hours of pleasure. Her own parents, Joe and Linda, had bought her a doll’s house for her ninth birthday. But she had upset them by arranging all the little dolls as though they were dead and smearing them with Linda’s lipstick to make it look as if they were bleeding. They had taken the house away from her after a few months.

Once Mrs Potts’ s house was finished, Barry carried it down into the hall, where it sat, waiting to be picked up by its new owner. And after they had eaten he switched on the TV and sat quietly, intent on the screen. Emma, bored and

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restless, wandered into the kitchen for a packet of crisps, aware that she was only eating for something to do. At nine o’clock the telephone rang and Barry answered it - he always did - while she hurried out into the kitchen to make some hot chocolate. Barry liked his hot chocolate before bed.

When she brought the cups into the living room, Barry was standing there with his back to the gas fire. He looked agitated.

‘That was a woman in Neston. Her tank’s burst and water’s pouring through her ceiling. She says she’s called about six plumbers already but … ‘

‘Are you going?’ She was surprised that she felt so excited at the prospect of being alone.

‘She sounded in a right state. Said her husband’s away and she’s got three young kids.’

‘You should go. I’ll be OK.’

‘I won’t be long. That lady’s coming round for the doll’s house in half an hour. You’ll be all right if you lock up when I’ve gone and make sure you ask who it is before you open the door.’

Emma glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and felt a sudden chill of fear. ‘I’ll be fine. You go.’

He kissed her forehead, a fatherly gesture with no hint of desire. ‘Tell you what, I’ll … ‘

‘I can’t stand all this fussing,’ Emma screamed. ‘Just go.’

Without a word, Barry Oldchester left the room and Emma slumped into the nearest chair.

Pam was in the bath having a long soak after her first day back at school. From experience Wesley knew she’d be some time: she’d taken the portable CD player up there as well as a bottle of wine. He’d half hoped she would ask him to join her. But there had been no summons from on high as yet so he had to be satisfied with the papers Neil had left him.

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He had read the first part of Edmund Selbiwood’s account of the early days of the Annetown settlement already but there were also some new documents which came from a different source. Wesley flicked through them and saw that some were official records and some were accounts written by other settlers that mentioned Edmund and the woman he was besotted with, Penelope Morton. The type of woman most mothers would advise their sons to avoid.

He was about to settle down to continue Selbiwood’s account when the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver and was surprised to hear Steve Carstairs’s-voice.

‘What is it, Steve?’ he asked, wondering what catastro-phe he was about to report.

‘I’ve just had a call from Serena. Do you remember Serena? She was at Potwoolstan Hall when … ‘

‘I remember her.’ Serena Jones wasn’t easy to forget. ‘What about her?’

‘She’s just rung to tell me she was round at the Hall and she saw something.’

Steve was being irritatingly cagey. ‘What did she see?’

‘She says Jeremy Elsham was digging up some bones in the woods.’

Wesley sighed. ‘Bones?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Human bones?’

‘That’s what she said. That’s -why she rang me. She thought the police should know. ‘

‘Very public-spirited of her. 1 suppose we’ll have to check it out, but it can wait till tomorrow.’

‘Don’t you believe her … sir?’

‘I don’t know what to believe any more,’ he said softly before putting the receiver down. It could be relevant to their investigation or it could be the product of Serena Jones’s fevered imagination; something quite innocent that her subconscious longing for a good story had caused her to misinterpret. Perhaps Jeremy Elsham had been hypnotis-313