Unholy Rites (26 page)

Marple suddenly unavailable? This could be the break they'd been waiting for. Arthur strode up to the railing. “What time did he phone?”

The Rev Pat's brow wrinkled, deepening the lines in her face. “About eight o'clock. Why are you asking? You can't think James had anything to do with Stephen's disappearance.”

“Standard police procedure,” Arthur said. “You know, find out where everyone was, whether they've seen or heard anything. I could pass the information on to the police, since you'll be tied up here.” He gestured towards the doorway and the dim interior beyond, hoping the Rev Pat wouldn't question his dubious reasoning. “Did he leave a number where he could be reached?”

“He gave me a contact number but insisted I keep it private.” She smoothed the front of her surplice, then sighed. “When this was my job, I considered it my duty to be available to anyone who needed me. I think James would feel the same—or if he doesn't, he should, in a case like this. Come into the office.”

A few minutes later he emerged triumphant, Marple's contact numbers in his pocket, and joined the searchers outside the church hall. The police incident room had been set up inside, with Detective Inspector Royce in charge. Royce had seemed efficient but harried when he'd addressed the searchers this morning, as though his mind were on more important matters. What could be more important than the disappearance of a child?

Nothing was more important to the searchers now reassembling from various directions, Wormhill, Tideswell, Monsal Mill, all with the same listless step. All, that is, except Danutia, who radiated excitement as she hurried towards him from Mill Lane. He advanced to meet her.

“Any trace of Stephen?” he asked.

“No, but when the others turned back, I went on to Monsal Mill. Someone's broken in and is sleeping rough there, or has been until recently. My hunch is that it's Cameron Roberts. I've got to find Kevin.” She set off again, Arthur marveling at her reserves of energy. He'd been surprised to see her turn up at the church hall with Alice and Liz Hazelhurst. They had gone inside, leaving Danutia to join him for a few minutes' chat. She'd looked pale and worn, having talked with Liz most of the night and come away convinced of Liz's innocence, much to Arthur's relief. Now she was like a bloodhound onto a new scent.

By the time Arthur caught up, Kevin was lumbering down the church hall steps. He looked as though he'd been on duty all night, as most likely he had: his clothes were rumpled, his face unshaved, his eyes bloodshot.

“Let's go into the churchyard where we won't be disturbed,” Danutia said, heading for the gate.

Kevin gave Arthur a baleful look. “Does this concern you? If not, you should wait here.”

Danutia turned back. “It does concern Arthur. Someone tried to kill him, remember?”

“Right. The brake line.” Kevin followed her, rubbing his face.

When they'd gathered in the churchyard, Danutia described what she'd found at Monsal Mill: a broken window on the river side and signs of occupation inside—empty food tins, beer bottles, cigarette stubs. Then her face lit up. “There's also the leg bone of a sheep, with bits of dried meat still sticking to it. And on the wall there's a drawing of a goat's head inside an inverted pentagram.”

“The sheep killer.” Kevin shifted his weight and looked back at the church hall. “This is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with Stephen?” Arthur was wondering the same thing.

“I'm getting to that.” Danutia pulled a scrap of newspaper from her jacket pocket and unfolded it to reveal a crumpled piece of paper with handwriting on it. “This is part of a note in code, and the writing looks like Eric's. I remember his slanted E's from his signature on the Community Service Order. This strongly suggests that the person who's been camping out at the mill is Cameron Roberts, the man I saw Eric with yesterday.”

“Let me see that note, would you?” Arthur asked, peering over her shoulder. She held it closer. “I saw Stephen fiddling with a piece of paper like that at the well dressing meeting a few weeks ago. He must have been trying to decode it.”

“There's our link,” Danutia said triumphantly to Kevin. “Eric sent coded messages to Roberts through Stephen. As I told you yesterday, there's good reason to believe that Eric arranged for Stephen and Roberts to meet last night. If Roberts has Stephen, who knows what he's thinking of. Maybe the sheep killings were just practice. He could be crazy enough to sacrifice a child next time. Do you think you can get Inspector Royce to listen?”

Kevin gazed at her with tired eyes. “Did you find anything indicating that Stephen has been at Monsal Mill?”

“No but—”

“Then there's nothing I can do. Not that it's up to me, or even Royce,” Kevin said. “He's asked for more resources and been turned down. All available manpower is being diverted to the protests at Manchester Airport, including officers from here. Mrs. Ellison keeps insisting that Stephen is with his dad and his dad won't hurt him, so there's not much we can do now except try to locate Ellison.” He turned away.

“Wait a minute,” Arthur demanded. “Did you know that the Reverend Marple has disappeared?” Danutia looked at him, startled. “He left a message for the Reverend Pat saying it was a family emergency. Isn't that suspicious?”

“Did you hear me?” Kevin said. “We don't have the manpower to follow up every harebrained idea. If you want to find out where Reverend Marple was last night, ask him yourself.” He motioned to Danutia. “Can I talk to you in private?”

While the two police officers conferred just inside the churchyard gate, Arthur tried to calm himself. He'd felt ready to punch Kevin for not listening, and the good-natured sergeant had evidently felt the same. The stress was getting to them all.

The gate clicked shut behind Kevin, and Danutia returned. “Alice has been asking for me,” she said. “I've agreed to spend the afternoon with her.”

Arthur felt his anger bubble up. “Every minute counts. Why are you helping Kevin when he's not helping us?”

Danutia ran a hand through her limp curls. “I made a deal. If there are any new developments, he'll tell me. Who knows?” she said, with forced optimism. “Maybe I'll find out something helpful from Alice, and you'll discover what Marple's been up to. Let's meet for dinner and check in.”

Still skeptical, Arthur set off for Well Cottage to phone the numbers Patricia Wellcome had given him. All afternoon he tried the London exchange and then the local number, punctuated by glasses of wine and pipes of tobacco. Each time a mechanical voice invited him to leave a message. Finally he gave up.

He and Danutia had settled on the patio of the Reward, and Arthur had begun to complain about his lack of success, when a familiar figure materialized out of the lengthening shadows.

“Thought I'd find you here,” Kevin said, pulling up a chair from an adjoining table. Arthur could tell from his sagging shoulders that he wasn't bringing good news.

“Do you want me to leave?” Arthur asked.

“Not much point, is there?” Kevin turned to Danutia. “We haven't found Bob Ellison yet. People all over the country claim to have seen him, or the boys, or the van, but none of the reports have panned out.”

“Neither did my time with Alice,” Danutia said. “I must have asked a hundred questions about Bob's trips, in different ways. She insisted she doesn't know anything and never had. ‘Out of sight, out of mind, and good riddance,' was the way she put it. Can't say as I blame her. Does this mean you're at a dead end?”

“Luckily we have other sources,” Kevin replied. “Royce got onto the manager of the brick works Ellison delivers for, down near Newhaven—”

Danutia broke in. “Newhaven, you say? Is that Braden Brick Works?” When Kevin nodded, she turned excitedly to Arthur. “That's where Cameron Roberts worked before he went to prison. This changes everything. Now we have a possible connection between the two men.”

“I'm afraid that doesn't change anything,” Kevin said, standing up. “I have to go.”

Danutia raised her hand to make him pause. “You haven't been willing to consider the possibility that someone besides Ellison has taken Stephen because I couldn't give you a convincing motive. Try this: Roberts is a criminal. It's conceivable that Bob Ellison, who abuses his wife and children, may also engage in other kinds of criminal activity. If they had a deal that went wrong, then maybe we're talking about blackmail, or revenge. Maybe all this stuff about sacrifice is just a cover.”

Danutia was right about one important thing that day. As Arthur soon discovered, she was utterly wrong about another.

Danutia banged on Arthur's
bedroom door. “Arthur! Wake up! You have to see this!” She'd found the door to Well Cottage unlocked, as usual, and so she'd raced up the stairs. Now she knocked again, careful not to drop the object dangling from the twig she carried. “Arthur! Wake up!”

Sounds of stirring inside. Arthur, eyes half closed, hair tousled, peered round the door. “What's going on? Don't you know—”

She thrust the wicker figure under his nose. It was about four inches tall, its head made of a tiny upended basket, its hollow body and limbs of a twisted vine. It was stuffed with red flower petals, like tiny flames.

Arthur's eyes flew open. “Holy shit,” he said. “Where did you find that?”

“Do you know what it is?” Danutia asked, urgently.

“A Wicker Man. I saw some at a Blessing Day stall on Saturday, though I don't remember which one. Those red petals . . . it's a sign, isn't it? Give me five minutes to dress.”

Retreating to the kitchen, Danutia set the Wicker Man on the table and put on the kettle. To quell the panic in her stomach she stepped out the back door. The moment she'd spotted it, the Wicker Man had filled her with dread and a sense of foreboding. She stood in the garden, taking in the morning chorus of robins and the clean, lilac-scented air. Feeling calmer, she returned inside.

Arthur was pouring boiling water into a large brown teapot. He nodded at the Wicker Man. “Where did you find it?”

She made herself a cup of coffee. “Hanging from one of the side panels of the well dressing. I couldn't sleep, so I let myself out of the pub and went for a long walk by the river. It was just getting light, and Mill Lane was deserted. As I came back, I had the sense that something about the well dressing wasn't quite right, so I had a closer look. It was the red petals against a blue sky that caught my eye. As you can see, the thong is made of plaited strands of light and dark leather, like the one Janet Rosson found. This is clearly another warning, but what does it mean?”

“Nothing good, I'm afraid. Did you ever see that horror movie with Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee?
A Wicker Man
or
The Wicker Man
, something like that.” When Danutia shook her head, Arthur said, “I was too young to go when it came out, but it's one of the movies Joan and I saw at the Hyde Park Picture House. Even then, it was really scary. I came across a reference to it in one of Mum's books last week. I'll find it for you.”

After a few minutes, he came back and handed her a book. “This is set up like a dictionary,” he said. “Look under W.”

Danutia found the entry on Wicker Man and read the passage aloud:

Some neopagan Beltane rituals include the burning of a Wicker Man, dramatized in the 1973 horror film of that name. In the film, a policeman from the Scottish mainland is sacrificed when he is called to a small island to investigate the disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl. The association of the Wicker Man with human sacrifice derives from a passage in Julius Caesar's
The Gallic Wars
, which discusses the practices of the Celts in Gaul: “Some weave huge figures of wicker and fill their limbs with humans, who are then burned to death when the figures are set afire.” Whether such a ritual—which Caesar does not claim to have seen—ever existed is hotly debated by modern pagans.

By the time she reached the end, her voice was shaking. She looked up to find Arthur holding the twig and examining the Wicker Man carefully.

“What's this inside?” he said. “I can't quite see.”

Danutia felt her stomach clench and her mouth go dry. “It's a tiny plastic baby,” she said. She thought of the plaited thong, the umbilical cord binding the baby to her body, the invisible cord binding them all. If only he knew.

“These red petals,” Arthur said, thoughtfully. “Beltane's a fire festival, so they must represent fire this time, not blood. If I remember rightly, the Beltane fires are lit on May 1. So the Wicker Man can't refer to Stephen—he was abducted on May 3.”

Timothy Roberts hit on the head, garrotted, dumped in a pond. Stephen Ellison snatched at night, already dead or possibly destined to be burned to death. Inside her a child who would live or die as she decided. Danutia blinked rapidly but still the images crowded in.

Arthur touched her arm. “Are you all right?”

She'd almost dropped the book. She shook her head, as if to try to shake the images out of her head. “I was wrong last night to dismiss the idea of sacrifice. So wrong. It's almost like the killer put this up to make sure we stayed on the right track. But why?”

Arthur set the Wicker Man back on the table. “He's playing with us. The trouble is, we don't know the point of the game.”

Arthur's words sparked a new idea. Danutia looked again at the entry on the Wicker Man. “Arthur, if I'm reading this right, in the Wicker Man movie, the girl disappeared, but she wasn't the victim. It was a trap set for the policeman. Maybe the point is that this is an elaborate trap set up for you.”

“Why me? I thought we were trying to find a connection between the killer and Stephen.”