The Shroud Maker (11 page)

Scarlett and Pixie exchanged looks, as if each was wondering if the other was in possession of some secret knowledge. It was Pixie who finally broke the silence.

‘Remember when I went into Tradmouth with her a couple of days ago?’

Scarlett nodded.

‘We were walking down the High Street and she dodged into a side alley. She said there was someone she didn’t want to see. When I asked her about it she said she thought she’d seen someone from her past.’

‘Was it a man?’ Wesley asked.

Pixie shrugged. ‘She just said someone she knew once. Could have been a woman, I suppose. I really don’t know.’

‘When was this?’

‘Last week… Thursday maybe. Come to think of it, she did seem a bit jumpy after that.’

‘Was it the man she was involved with, do you reckon?’

There was a flicker in Pixie’s eyes, something Wesley couldn’t read. ‘Sorry. No idea.’

‘What about her family? Do you know anything about them?’

Scarlett shook her head. ‘She said they were dead. She never talked about them.’

‘How long has she lived here?’

‘About four months. Someone left and we put an advert on the noticeboard of the wholefood supermarket in Neston. She was the first to answer and we liked the look of her.’

‘You didn’t check her out? Get references?’

Scarlett gave him a scathing look. ‘We like to trust our instincts.’

‘What did she tell you about her life before she came here?’

‘She said she’d lived in London for a while and that she’d dropped out of uni. She decided to come down here and try her luck busking in Neston.’

‘Anything else? Anything at all?’

‘I think she said her grandparents came from up North,’ said Scarlett. ‘She might have mentioned Manchester but I’m not sure. She was always vague about details. Evasive.’

Pixie nodded in agreement.

‘Does she have a computer here?’

‘I won’t allow computers in the house. Don’t believe in them,’ Scarlett said piously.

Pixie’s face went red and Wesley suspected he might have disobeyed the house rule. But that was hardly a crime.

‘What about a mobile phone? Did she own one?’

‘No,’ Pixie said. ‘We’ve got one between us, a sort of house phone. She used to give people that number if they needed to get in touch with her and whoever answered it would pass on the message. Once she’d joined this early music group we got a few calls from the man who led it – Dan his name is – arranging rehearsals and all that.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No.’

‘Dan says he’s been trying to get in touch but there’s been no answer.’

Scarlett sniffed. ‘We can’t always get a signal here. That’s probably why.’

Wesley thought it unusual that this young woman should be so dismissive of modern technology but he assumed her rejection of the modern world was a matter of principle. He couldn’t help feeling a small twinge of sympathy with her stance.

Gerry stood up. ‘We’ll send someone round to take your statements and ask where you were at the time of Kassia’s death. Don’t worry, it’s just routine.’

‘Can we have a look at her room before we go?’ Wesley asked.

Scarlett led the way up a once-magnificent staircase which wouldn’t have taken a great deal of effort to polish up and restore to its former glory. Kassia’s room was near the top of the stairs and Scarlett opened the door reverently.

‘Nobody’s been in here,’ she explained. ‘We take our privacy very seriously.’ She looked around as she stepped into the room, as though the surroundings were unfamiliar to her.

Wesley stood behind her in the doorway, taking in the scene. It was a large and perfectly proportioned room with stained floral wallpaper and a four-poster bed in the centre. The bed drapes were tattered red velvet, ripped in places to reveal a grubby lining. In spite of this the bed was neatly made, a modern brown cotton duvet looking rather out of place amongst the shabby grandeur.

‘It was my grandmother’s bed,’ Scarlett explained. ‘She actually died in it. Not that I told Kassia that.’

When her comment was greeted by silence, Scarlett seemed to get the message and left them to it. As soon as she’d gone Wesley and Gerry began to investigate, opening the massive oak wardrobe. It wasn’t crammed with clothes as Wesley had assumed it would be, just the basics: long skirts; jeans; trainers; a couple of pairs of ballet pumps similar to the ones she’d been wearing when she died. As expected there was no computer and the books on the dusty mahogany shelves in the corner were an eclectic mix of fantasy fiction, romantic novels and classics. They included a set of Dickens and the complete works of Shakespeare as well as two volumes of Sherlock Holmes stories – Wesley’s own adolescent favourite.

A big mahogany chest of drawers stood in the corner. The top drawers contained clothes and underwear, but the bottom one was filled with papers. Wesley took out the drawer and when he placed it on the bed he saw Gerry rub his hands in anticipation.

There was a birthday card on top, a reproduction of a French impressionist scene, and when Wesley opened it he saw that it was from someone called Lisa who had been thoughtful enough to scribble a note on the back and an address in Didsbury, Manchester. The note just said that Lisa had been trying to get in touch with her and that she’d moved and was letting Kassia know her new address. She ended the note by asking why Kassia hadn’t been in contact.

Wesley saw a pink photograph album covered with over-cute pictures of prancing kittens nestling underneath the card. As he flicked through it he saw that it was only half-full and the photographs all seemed to date from around the same time, summer by the look of the weather. They were taken at a harbour, a beach, or aboard a boat and a suntanned couple, probably in their late thirties, featured heavily. The round-faced woman favoured long skirts and washed-out T-shirts and her fair hair cascaded around her shoulders. The ponytailed man looked as if he spent a lot of time out of doors and wore the same outfit in each picture, a khaki T-shirt and shorts, and he sported a single earring. In one of the photographs the couple stood with a younger Kassia, the man’s arm draped casually around her shoulder. They had the relaxed look of a family on holiday together. A unit.

Kassia had written captions neatly underneath each picture.
Me with Mum
.
Me and Dad
.
Dad and Mum on board the
Sally Jane
.
One photo, Wesley noticed, appeared to be missing but the words were still there printed neatly beneath the empty space:
Me, Dad, Mum and R
.

He replaced the album and continued his search. There were letters in the drawer from University College, London dated a year ago. Official stuff and terse communications about why Kassia hadn’t turned up for her exams. Then the offer of pastoral advice, the final warnings and the last judgement. As Wesley read them he had a feeling he was learning her story, that of a life and potentially comfortable future careering downhill. But there was no clue as to the cause. He discovered two brown envelopes at the back of the drawer, both posted in Tradmouth and bearing the Bolton Hall address. According to the postmarks, they’d both been sent over the past couple of weeks. It was Gerry who opened them first. Then, saying nothing, he thrust them into Wesley’s hand.

Wesley read them one by one. The typed words had the sharp, clear look of something churned out on a laser printer. Untraceable.

The second was dated a week later.

Wesley held them at arm’s length, as though he feared they were contaminated.

‘Is that a threat, I wonder? We’d better get these bagged up and sent to Forensic. The mention of Palkin fits in with the clothes she was wearing.’

‘And the group… Palkin’s Musik.’

‘We need all the available CCTV in Tradmouth and Neston examined.’

‘It’s already being done for the area around the waterfront.’

‘I know, Gerry, but I think we should extend it. If by any chance this character’s been following her, he might show up on the footage.’ He looked at the letters. ‘What’s this about the light being at its best?’

Gerry didn’t have an answer for that one.

It was almost the end of the day and Neil hadn’t seen Chris Butcher since his spat with Astrid. The woman had marched off without glancing in the archaeologists’ direction and Neil would have dismissed it as just another domestic if it hadn’t been for Astrid’s accusation. ‘It’s all your fault… just like it was last time
.
’ The words rang in his head as he opened a new trench nearer to the house. ‘It’s her isn’t it? The one you’ve been
seeing.’ Sometimes he envied his friend Wesley’s ability to ask questions and use the force of law to get answers, like legalised snooping.

A couple of the diggers had had to leave early to go up to Exeter and Neil had decided to save the excavation of the disturbed area of earth until their return. On the other hand he couldn’t help asking himself whether something might be buried there. In the end his curiosity got the better of him and he began to dig. It would do no harm to carry out some preliminary investigation before they started in earnest tomorrow.

After a few minutes’ work he saw it, standing out pale against the dark earth. It was obviously bone. Possibly part of a butchered animal, or part of a human femur. He needed to dig further to find out.

Neil had imagined that after the row with Astrid Chris Butcher would have left the bungalow and made straight for his yacht, so he was surprised to see the man emerging from the back door. Butcher was in costume but instead of looking ridiculous, as many did, the clothes seemed to endow him with an air of authority. Perhaps it was because he wore them with the confidence of a Shakespearean actor. Confidence, Neil knew, could conquer most things.

He walked over to the edge of Neil’s new trench and stopped, staring down at the soil. Eventually he spoke. ‘What’s that?’

Neil looked up. ‘It’s bone. Could be human,’ he added, half joking.

Butcher froze for a few moments. Then he leaned forward confidentially and lowered his voice. ‘To tell you the truth, Neil, I’d prefer it if things weren’t delayed too much. The builders are waiting to start and… Any chance you can forget what you’ve just found and close the trench? I know something like that creates lots of bureaucracy so you’d be doing me a great favour.’

And before Neil could answer, he strode away.

Scarlett and Pixie had sworn that they hadn’t a clue who the letters were from or what they meant. But Wesley had them sent off to Forensic because he had a feeling they might be important.

When Wesley and Gerry returned to the police station, there was a message on Gerry’s desk. Mrs Bercival wanted to see him urgently because another letter had arrived in that day’s post. He called her back, saying they’d be round as soon as they could. Wesley thought he sounded excited as if he hoped they might be on the verge of a breakthrough.

While Gerry made some further calls Wesley strolled over to his own desk and placed photographs of Jenny and Kassia side by side. The two girls were certainly the same physical type. And then there were the tattoos on their shoulders. The more he considered it, the more certain he was that the two cases were linked. But he needed proof.

Gerry emerged from his office and paced up and down the incident room, staring at the noticeboard with its photographs of the victim and some of the main players – the members of Palkin’s Musik, Jason Teague and now Scarlett Derringer and Pixie. None of them was known to the police, which left Dennis Dobbs, the man who’d given the false address – an address which, according to the Met, didn’t even exist. As yet there was no picture of Dobbs so all they had was Teague’s description of him.

A search of the
Queen Philippa
had failed to turn up his passport, which meant he had it with him so he could easily have left the country by now. The possibility of their main suspect slipping through their collective fingers had put the DCI in a bad mood but the prospect of another meeting with Mrs Bercival had seemed to raise his spirits a little.

When they arrived at the cottage on George Street Mrs Bercival greeted them eagerly, as if the newly received letter had given her fresh hope. She led them through to the kitchen where the radio was tuned to a play on Radio Four, the sound of human voices providing the illusion of company. An Ordnance Survey map of Tradmouth and the surrounding area was spread out on the pine dining table under the living-room window as though she was planning a walk. But she was dressed for town rather than a hike in the countryside.

‘I was just getting a feel for the lie of the land,’ she said after inviting them to sit. ‘I wanted to see if there was anywhere Jenny might have gone…’

As she began to fold the map Wesley could see tears forming in her eyes. She took out a tissue and wiped them away, seemingly annoyed with herself for yielding to negative emotions.

‘You said you’d received another letter,’ said Gerry gently.

‘It was here when I got back. I’ve been walking round Tradmouth looking for her.’

She gave a brittle smile and pushed an envelope across the table to Gerry. He took a pair of crime-scene gloves from his pocket and drew out a sheet of paper. It looked identical to the earlier letter, the one saying that Jenny was still alive. The address on the envelope was neatly printed and the first-class stamp was franked with a Tradmouth postmark.