Cursed Inheritance (43 page)

The porch protecting the back door was unlocked and once the parcel was safely deposited, the postman yielded to his natural curiosity and peeped through the back window; tentatively at first then, when he saw no movement within, more boldly. He pressed his face against the glass and looked into the room. And when he saw the body lying on the floor, he jumped back and caught his breath for a few seconds before dialling 999 on his mobile phone with trembling hands.

322

15 June 1606 Mistress Selbiwood delivered of a

son named Thomas.

25 June 1606 Mistress Radford died of the bloody

flux, her body bruised and swollen.

5 July 1606 Thomas Selbiwood, son of Master

Edmund Selbiwood, baptised.

25 July 1606 Master Edmund Selbiwood is

exceeding sick of a mad fever. His

skin doth peel.

1 August 1606 Master Edmund Selbiwood died

today of the bloody flux.

4 August 1606 Captain Radford is sick of the mad

fever and in a furious distracted

mood did come openly to the

marketplace blaspheming. He then

fell sick of the flux, his body bruised

and swollen.

10 August 1606 Captain Radford was today translated from this uncertain and

troublesome state.

Because of his early return from the States, Neil Watson found himself at a loose end. He had the option of catching up on his paperwork. But paperwork had never really been his forte. He longed for action; he yearned to get his hands

323

dirty. So when Wesley rang to ask him to use his archaeological expertise to help the scene of crime officers excavate the site of a burial, he felt pathetically grateful for the distraction.

When he arrived at Potwoolstan Hall the bones themselves had already been removed to the mortuary to await Colin Bowman’s attentions. Neil was there to examine the place where they had been buried.

It was always possible that the mystery man had been buried naked, but Wesley, perhaps optimistically, was counting on finding something in the makeshift grave that would lead to an identification. That was where Neil came in.

Neil put on the white-hooded boilersuit the police forensic team habitually wore - if this was a murder scene it was important that the evidence shouldn’t be contaminated - and after two hours of painstaking scraping and brushing a strange array of objects, some so tiny they would have been missed by an inexperienced eye, lay on a white sheet beside their former resting place. They had been arranged carefully and the whole procedure had been photographed and recorded. Neillooked at his haul: an assortment of buttons and metal eyelets; a rusted zip; a few coins and the corroded remnants of a belt buckle. Fragments of cloth had been collected and bagged and samples had been taken from the surrounding soil.

By the time Wesley arrived, the job was almost done, and he stood beside Neil looking down at his grim harvest. He had just come from a meeting with Colin Bowman at the mortuary. Colin had joked that they were keeping him in work. Somehow, Wesley hadn’t felt like laughing.

‘Colin said anything about the bones?’ Neil asked after a long period of silence.

‘He said there’s a healed fracture on the right femur. And it wasn’t a particularly old one. There’s also some dental work. Rather rules out the theory that he’s been there for centuries. He has someone tracking down medical records at the moment.’ .

324

‘Why are you looking so pleased with yourself?’ NeH asked.

‘No reason.’

Neil walked away and when he came to the line of blue and white crime-scene tape he began to take off his protective suit.

Every time somebody entered the CID office, Gerry Heffernan looked up, then looked down again, disappointed. There was to be no distraction from the divisional crime figures which hung over him like a long jail term.

So at ten o’clock when Steve Carstairs burst in with the news that a postman had summoned a patrol car to Gwen Madeley’s cottage because he’d looked through the window and seen a body lying on the floor, the chief inspector leapt to his feet at once, knocking the crime figures to the floor, where they landed in an untidy heap.

‘A woman’s body?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘And you didn’t think to ask.’ He began to pace up and down. ‘Arbel Harford was at that cottage. Hell. Why didn’t we offer her some protection?’

Steve shifted from foot to foot, uncertain what to do next. There were dark rings beneath his eyes and he hadn’t shaved that morning. He looked exhausted. Maybe Serena Jones was a demanding woman, Heffernan thought fleetingly. She certainly looked the type.

‘Inspector Peterson in yet?’

Steve scowled and shook his head. ‘He’s gone to Potwoolstan Hall. That skeleton. He’s asked me to check Gwen Madeley’s bank account and … ‘

‘You done it?’

‘Yes but…’

‘You up to driving?’

There was another scowl that Heffernan took for a yes.

‘We’d better get over to Gwen Madeley’s cottage. And,

325

before we go, see if Dylan Madeley’s turned up yet, will you.’

Gerry Heffernan stood for a few moments staring at the gruesome pictures on the notice board, fearing that it wouldn’t be long before Arbel Jameston’s image was up there and cursing himself for not watching her more closely.

Wesley often wished the mobile phone hadn’t been invented. He wanted time to think. He had answered it after the seventh ring and heard Gerry Heffernan’s voice telling him that a body had been discovered at Gwen Madeley’s cottage: Arbel Jameston had been there alone.

It seemed that the killer wouldn’t stop until all possible witnesses to what had happened at Potwoolstan Hall in 1985 had been eliminated. Emma Oldchester was still unconscious in hospital under police guard but the operation had gone well and the doctors were optimistic. Now all they had to do was guard her well and hope she would be able to tell them what they needed to know. But maybe he was expecting too much. And he had a nagging feeling that it might not be right to encourage Emma to relive the horror of what she had witnessed when she was seven years old. However, the thought that she had gone to Jeremy Elsham voluntarily because she wanted to remember helped to salve his conscience.

He was about to return his mobile phone to his pocket when it began to ring again. This time it was Colin Bowman, sounding inappropriately cheerful as usual.

‘I’ve got some news for you, Wesley. I’ve had someone going through medical and dental records and I think we have a name for our skeleton.’ .

‘It wouldn’t be a Nigel Armley by any chance, would it?’

Colin sounded deflated. ‘How did you know?’

‘I’m clairvoyant.’

He rang off and returned to his car. And as he drove to Gwen Madeley’s cottage, he hoped that he wouldn’t have

326

to be the one to break the news to Arbel’s husband.

Emma Oldchester opened her eyes then she closed them again.

A shout went up from the man seated by the bed. ‘Nurse. Nurse. She’s moved her eyes.’

How Emma wished that Barry would leave her alone sometimes. Half aware of his presence, she tried to lift her right arm to shoo him away like an annoying insect but she found she couldn’t move. Her limbs felt like lead and there were things attached to her arms. Tubes and lines. She tried to open her eyes again and succeeded for a couple of seconds. She was in a bright room with blue walls; a strange room.

She tried to speak but she only managed a squeak. There was a machine nearby that bleeped.

‘You’re OK, love, you’re in hospital. Your dad’s here.’

She heard Joe Harper’s gruff, loving voice and felt him squeeze her hand gently.

She tried to speak but her throat was dry and sore. She mouthed the word ‘water’ but nobody seemed to hear. She closed her eyes again. Sleep was better than trying to talk about trivia.

Memories of that night all those years ago - the night her mother died - were starting to swim into focus. She wanted to see the doctor the police had talked about. She wanted him to help her remember properly. She was ready to face the past.

‘The doctor’s with her now but he says she’s not up to making a statement yet,’ said DC Paul Johnson, averting his eyes from the corpse that lay on the floor of Gwen Madeley’s sitting room.

Gerry Heffernan scratched his head and stared down at the mortal remains of Dylan Madeley. The dead man’s lips were curled upwards in an unpleasant snarl and it seemed he looked more vicious in death than he had done in life.

327

There was a crusted wound on the side of his head where he had apparently fallen against the hearth. In his hand was a knife with a narrow blade. Probably the knife that had killed Patrick Evans.

‘We should have made sure Arbel Jameston wasn’t alone here at night.’

‘Do you think she would have taken any notice?’ˇ said Wesley.

‘He obviously came here to kill her. This was self-defence. No jury would convict her of murder.’

‘You think he killed the Harfords?’

Heffernan sniffed. ‘No doubt about it. It had his signa-ture all over it.’

‘So why was Nigel Armley’s body buried in the woods at Potwoolstan Hall?’

Heffernan turned and stared at him. ‘Those bones belong to Nigel Armley?’

‘Colin Bowman traced Armley’s dental records and, according to his medical records, he broke his right femur in 1982. The bones are Armley’s all right.’

‘And why have you been keeping this little gem of information to yourself?’

‘I only found out before I set off. I haven’t had a chance to tell you.’

Heffernan paused for a moment while he absorbed the information. ‘So Armley swapped places with Bleasdale who was killed in his place, shot twice in the face with a shotgun to destroy the teeth and make identification extremely difficult in the days before sophisticated DNA testing. And as it was an open and shut case, everyone accepted what the killer wanted them to accept. Armley changed his identity and took up that gardening job in Yorkshire. Why? What was his motive? And where did Dylan come into it?’

‘Perhaps they were in it together, Armley and Dylan and Dylan killed him when they fell out.’

‘Dylan I can understand. He hated the Harfords. But

328

Armley was a respectable naval officer engaged to the daughter of the house.’

‘Maybe he wasn’t as squeaky clean as people thought. I had another call just as I was leaving the office. It seems that there was a question mark over the deaths of Armley’s parents. Their boat blew up. Nothing was proved of course and the coroner brought in a verdict of accidental death.’

‘Where was Armley when it happened?’

‘It seems he was due to go sailing with them but he said he felt ill.’ He raised his eyebrows.

Heffeman said nothing.

Wesley stared at the body of Dylan Madeley; Dylan would have stood for everything Nigel Armley despised. But sometimes opposites attract. Perhaps Armley was having a sexual relationship with Dylan as well as his sister, Owen. Or they were planning to steal from the Harfords. The possibilities are endless. Armley wouldn’t be the first apparently upstanding member of the community to resort to murder.

‘Do you want to interview Arbel Jameston when she’s up to it?’

Wesley shook hi head. ‘I think I’ll leave that to Rachel. I have to get back to the office anyway. I’ve some things to check out.’

Heffeman looked at him ruefully. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said as he stepped out of the way of the police photographers. His mobile rang and he answered it. When he’d finished his conversation he looked at Wesley.

‘That was Trish at the hospital. Emma Oldchester’s come round. She’s saying she wants to talk to Clive Wellings and I’ve told Trish to call the psychiatry department and let him know.’

‘He might be busy.’

‘Never too busy to do a mate a favour,’ he said with a grin as Wesley left the room.

Arbel Jameston had been found crouching in a tom white

329

cotton nightdress splashed with blood, on the guest bed upstairs. She was shaking, too terrified to venture downstairs in case Dylan came round. For a while she had been too upset to speak but after the doctor had checked her over, Rachel had encouraged her to wash, dress and put some make-up on. And with some coaxing, and something from the doctor to calm her down, she had eventually managed to tell them what happened, still on the verge of tears but considerably calmer.

Rachel put the bloodstained nightdress in an evidence bag discreetly, hoping Arbel wouldn’t notice. Then she sat beside her on the bed as she explained how Dylan Madeley had let himself into the cottage at around six thirty in the morning. She had woken up to find him standing over her and he had attacked her, furious at her accusations of attempted rape that had been dug up again after all this time. He had threatened her, implying that this time any accusations she made wouldn’t be unfounded. Her body shook as she repeated his words in a whisper.

She had managed to break away from him and get downstairs and, when she fought him off, he had fallen and hit his head on the stone fireplace. It had been an accident. When Rachel asked her why ~he hadn’t escaped and called the police, Arbel said that she’d dashed upstairs and locked the bedroom door, not realising he was dead and had been too frightened to venture down again. Her mobile was in her coat downstairs and Dylan had pulled the telephone wires from their socket so there was no way of calling for help.

Rachel believed she was telling the truth. The woman had been paralysed with fear for what must have seemed like a lifetime. Thinking it best to get Arbel away from the scene of her ordeal, she drove her back to the Marina Hotel and stayed with her, providing tea and sympathy. In the privacy of her room Arbel showed her the fresh cuts and bruises she had sustained during Dylan’ s attack. She had been fighting for her very survival. She had been doing a