Cursed Inheritance (6 page)

‘I have to go to London tomorrow,’ he said, trying to sound casual.

Pam looked at him as though he’d disappointed her in some way.

‘A man’s body was found in the river and we have an address for him in London. 1 have to see his wife and bring her back to identify the body. I’ll stay the night in Dulwich - with my parents.’

She hesitated. ‘Can’t someone else go?’

Wesley shook his head. If he told her that he wanted to see where Patrick Evans lived for himself and fmd out as much as he could about his life, he feared she wouldn’t understand.

He was about to open his mouth to ask what they were having for supper but the look on Pam’s face made him

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think twice. If he had had a hard day, so had she. He whispered something in Michael’s ear and the child slipped out of his arms. They would make the supper together; a spot of father-son bonding.

Emma Oldchester had never liked telephones. She had always felt nervous about making calls, although she never really knew why this was. But she had finally done it. She had booked into Potwoolstan Hall for a week, starting on Easter Monday.

She glanced at her watch. Barry was late and she didn’t like being alone, especially in the dark. From the window she could see the trees in the fields opposite the house reaching for her like gnarled fingers against the deep grey sky and she suddenly felt afraid. The outside world had always been a threatening place but this house was her refuge. Somewhere he could never touch her.

Emma switched on the television news. There was a strike at an airport up north; a civil war in some African state with an unfamiliar name; share prices had fallen. But she wasn’t really listening - she just liked to hear the sound of human voices. It made her feel less alone in that empty house.

She sat quite still for a while, staring at the screen. A casserole was bubbling away in the oven for when Barry returned. Everything was under control.

Until the telephone rang.

She ignored it at first but as it carried on ringing she slumped down in the corner and stared at the instrument, her body trembling as she willed it to stop. It would be him. Even when she’d refused to see him, he had kept on calling - pestering, Barry had called it - and although he hadn’t called for a few days, she knew he was out there somewhere, biding his time.

Eventually the ringing stopped. But she knew he wouldn’t give up. Patrick Evans would call again.

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Two days since we were set upon by a party of Savages. It seems they are led by a cruel and powerful Chief who has conquered many tribes and has many warriors under his command. By all accounts he is a clever and conscientious leader and a man to fear.

Captain Radford, the President of our Council, observed that these native warriors greatly outnumber the settlers and this Chief could have slaughtered us if it had been his will. It may be that he is willing to establish a truce between our people and his and to trade with us.

We passed through excellent ground full of flowers of divers kinds and colours and strawberries four times bigger and better than our own in England. We met with a Savage who brought us to a Garden of Tobacco and other fruits and herbs. He gathered tobacco and distributed to every one of us then we departed as we mistrusted some villainy.

Our fortifications are as yet unfinished and even the gentlemen amongst us have laboured beside the artisans to erect the walls as we fear for our lives and the safety of our womenfolk.

On the twentieth day the Chief sent forty of his men with a deer to our quarters but they cameˇ more in villainy than in love. They would have lain in our fort

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all night but we did not allow them for fear of their

treachery.

1 try to allay the fears of Mistress Morton as her

husband gives her no such words of comfort and reassurance. Her name is Penelope … the name of a

faithful wife.

Set down by Edmund Selbiwood, Gentleman, at

Annetown this twenty-first day of July 1605.

When Wesley left home at seven the next morning, Pam kissed him on the cheek and instructed him to drive carefully. He sensed that she wasn’t happy about his journey to London. But there were some things a policeman’s wife had to put up with, he thought, trying to banish his nebulous feelings of gUilt.

As he knew he had a long journey ahead of him, he tucked into a hearty full English breakfast in the police station canteen. Sitting alone at a table by the window, he gazed out at the view of the river as he ate. The weak spring sun was shining and the clement weather had lured a number of sailors on to the water. And he had noticed some early tourists in the town over the past few days, strolling at a leisurely pace along the waterfront, getting in the way.

The canteen was empty apart from a noisy quartet of uniformed constables in the corner, just come off their shift and tucking into bacon, sausage and eggs. They ignored him and he ignored them, which suited him fine. As he stared out of the window, he thought of the day ahead. Colin Bowman had booked the postmortem on Patrick Evans for eight fifteen. Over the years, Wesley had taught himself to watch some of the gruesome procedures without being physically sick but he still looked away when the first incision was made in the corpse’s chest and when the brain was removed from the open skull. Wesley looked down at his now empty plate, wondering whether he’d done the right thing. Perhaps it would have been wiser to witness the

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postmortem on an empty stomach.

. As soon as he had finished at the mortuary, he intended to set off for London to see Evans’ s wife - or rather widow. Pete Jarrod had rung him at home the previous night to say that when a DC had called round to break: the news, the widow had seemed to take it calmly. This came as a relief: Wesley didn’t know whether he was up to coping with hysterical grief. He had come to rely on Rachel to deal with that sort of thing because she was good with the bereaved, possessing just the right mixture of sympathy and common sense. But this time he’d be alone. With the investigation into Evans’s suspicious death gathering pace, Rachel was needed in Tradmouth.

Of course there was always a chance - a slim one admittedly - that they had made a mistake about Patrick Evans; that someone who resembled Evans had stolen his identity and the genuine article was alive and well somewhere. But Wesley dismissed the idea. The hotel manager had recognised the photograph of the tidied up corpse and once his wife had identified the body the question would be settled beyond doubt.

Wesley looked at his watch and at his empty, greasy plate. It was time to meet Gerry Heffernan. With a sigh he stood up, his chair legs scraping loudly on the hard floor. The group of uniforms in the corner looked round then averted their eyes.

As Wesley arrived in the CID office, Heffernan hurried in, breathless. He had the dishevelled look of a man who’d overslept. But then he’d lived alone since his children had left home for university. And his wife had died some years . ago so there was nobody to make sure he got out of bed on time in the mornings. His tie was askew and there was a grease stain on the front of his shirt. Pam concluded long ago that Geiry Heffernan was the type of man who needs a good woman. Trouble was, good women seemed to be in short supply these days.

‘Ready for our rendezvous with Colin, Wes’!’ The chief

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inspector sounded inappropriately cheerful, his accent betraying his Liverpool origins.

‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ Wesley mumbled. Heffeman charged ahead, setting the office door swinging and Wesley followed, regretting his choice of breakfast. His stomach was already starting to complain at the earlier excesses of that morning.

Colin Bowman was waiting for them at the mortuary. As usual, the two policemen observed the proceedings from the far side of the white-tiled postmortem room, Wesley hardly saying a word and looking away at the most gruesome moments while Heffeman chatted cheerfully, as though Colin was doing something quite mundane, like preparing a meal or working on a car engine.

Colin announced that the victim had been a healthy man in his thirties. He had good muscle tone, probably as a result of working out regularly in a gym, and Gerry Heffeman couldn’t resist observing that all that healthy living hadn’t done the man much good.

The cause of death was undoubtedly a stab wound to the heart. The blade that had ended Patrick Evans’s life had been narrow, sharp and fairly long; a kitchen knife perhaps. From the angle of the wound, his killer bad pr0b-ably been a few inches smaller than him. Or perhaps standing on slightly lower ground: the Devon landscape was notoriously undulating. Colin also observed that the murder could have been committed by a man or a woman. That was all they needed, thought Wesley: the entire population of Devon under suspicion.

The only time Colin’s stream of social chitchat stopped flowing was when be began to examine the contents of the corpse’s stomach.

‘He’d eaten a hearty meal.just before be died,’ he announced after a few seconds of silence. ‘Hardly digested. Come and have a look.’

Wesley and Heffeman edged forward reluctantly. Wesl~y could still taste the sausage and baconbe’d bad for bleak-

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fast and the last thing he wanted was to throw it up all over the spotless mortuary floor. As Colin waved the bowl containing the dead man’s last supper under their noses, Wesley closed his eyes and held his breath. ‘I’ll send it for proper analysis, of course, but unless I’m very much mistaken, that looks like lobster. Fair amount of wine to wash it down too but we’ll know for certain once I’ve sent this lot to the lab.’

‘So he died happy, with a decent meal inside him,’ Heffernan observed. ‘Homemade or restaurant?’

Colin chuckled. ‘Now I’m not a clairvoyant, Gerry. Perhaps a lady friend had gone to a lot of trouble and he failed to appreciate her cooking. That’s for you to find out. I’ll send samples for toxicology tests. That should tell us if he was the worse for drink.’

‘Time of death?’ Wesley asked.

‘Can’t be exact, of course, but I’d say he died about twenty-four hours before he was found, give or take eight hours or so.’ He frowned. ‘He was .found yesterday morning. Monday. But, as I said, he ate a big meal shortly beforehand and nobody I know has lobster washed down with red wine for Sunday breakfast so I’d say he died on Saturday night after a last supper, as if were. I can’t be certain, of course but … ‘

This theory made sense to Wesley. Evans had enjoyed a slap-up meal. Then for some reason somebody had stuck a knife in his ribs and dumped his body in the river. His dining companion, perhaps? He made a tp.ental note to get someone to check out all the local restaurants with lobster on the menu. It was quite possible that someone saw Evans with his killer. But then again, things weren’t usually that easy.

When the postmortem was over and Colin had cleaned himself up, Wesley declined the customary invitation to stay for a cup of tea. He had a long and arduous journey to make. And an appointment with a widow.

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At two o’clock Pam Peterson sat down. Michael, exhausted after a morning at nursery, had fallen asleep and Amelia, worn out from a morning of hearty howling, had done likewise. At first Pam couldn’t decide whether to do something about the state of the house or about the state of herself. She had decided on the latter and had showered, washed her hair and changed. Although she knew that Wesley wouldn’t be home to appreciate her efforts, the feeling of being cleansed and perfumed lifted her spirits.

After half an hour of pampering she found, to her relief, that the children were still asleep. Freedom beckoned and so did the sightless screen of the computer moniter in the corner of the dining room. It was ages since she’d enjoyed the luxury of doing something unproductive and self-indulgent and the dirty dishes in the kitchen weren’t going anywhere.

When she switched the computer on she found there was an email from Neil. He had remembered. In all the excitement of arriving in a new country, he hadˇ thought of her.

‘Hi Pam and Wes.’ He had put her name first. ‘Eight-hour flight but no jet lag. Weather fine. Bit warmer than home and good conditions for digging. I’m staying in an apartment near the university, sharing with one of the guys on the dig - Chuck Hanman. He’s talked about nething but baseball so far but apart from that he seems OK.

‘I’ve had a tour of the dig. It’s a big operation and very well funded. It’s a long time since I saw such good conservation facilities and the site itself is interesting. In 1605 sixty-five settlers came across from England in a ship called the Nicholas which sailed from Tradmouth. They built a fortified settlement at Annetown (named after James I’s queen) and they intended to trade with the local Indians until they could grow their own food. Everything went fine for a while, until the Nicholas sailed for home. Then people started dying of some mysterious illness. Life must have been
gh.

‘Chuck told me they’d found an adult male skeleton w,ith

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a musket ball lodged in the skull. He’d been buried in a wooden coffm which means that he was a gentleman rather than a peasant (they were buried in shrouds). I assumed he’d been killed by the natives who must have resented the settlers pinching their land but I was told this was unlikely because he’d been killed by a European weapon. Bit of a mystery, eh? One of his teeth has been sent away for analysis but I’ll tell you more about that next time.

‘As for the other thing I mentioned, I don’t really know where to start. How do you track someone down in a strange country? I almost wish Gran hadn’t asked me because I can see I’ll have my hands full at the dig. Don’t work too hard, Wes - give those villains a break, eh. Be in touch soon. Neil.’

Pam smiled to herself as she hit the button that would print the email out. Then the smile disappeared when she remembered that Wesley wouldn’t be home until late tomorrow. And then he’d probably be too tired to read it. As she stood up, Amelia began to cry. There were times when she envied Neil, when she wished she too could cross the Atlantic without a second thought for her responsibilities.