Watching the Ghosts (22 page)

As usual Sally was hedging her bets until the post-mortem, although she did remark on the cuts and cigarette burns; signs of torture identical to those of Melanie Hawkes' body. Joe tried hard not to imagine the woman's last hours and he noticed that Sally was looking uncharacteristically concerned, as though she shared his thoughts. Some things even got to the professionals.

He made for his car and drove back towards the city, passing Boothgate House before turning right by Boothgate Bar. The Tourist Information Office was on his left and he thought of Lydia working in there. His initial, niggling feeling that last night had been a mistake, something to repent in his leisure hours, was growing by the minute. But they'd both been yearning for something; love, perhaps, or just the reassurance of human contact. So why did he feel as though there had been a betrayal? Of Kaitlin's memory, perhaps, or just his old-held – and some would say outdated – principles. But he knew he hadn't time to think about that now.

He parked in the police station car park but, instead of entering the building, he walked on to the street and crossed over Wendover Bridge, heading again for the centre of the city, obeying a sudden instinctive impulse to check out something that was bothering him. It would probably come to nothing but he told himself it would do no harm.

He walked quickly – he always did – and he soon reached the antique shop belonging to Sebastian Bentham's uncle. Melanie Hawkes' file had contained the name of a Cecil Bentham but no address. Perhaps he was a relative of Sebastian's. It would certainly do no harm to ask. He looked into the window and saw the clock with the moon face standing at the rear of the shop. Sebastian was there too, sitting at a roll-topped desk, a broadsheet newspaper open in front of him. When Joe entered the shop he looked up expectantly and folded the paper.

‘DI Plantagenet. What can I do for you?' He sounded slightly worried.

‘I'd like to take a look at that clock if that's OK with you. Does it work by the way?'

‘No idea. I don't think my uncle ever tried to get it going. Why? Not thinking of buying it are you?' he added hopefully, as though he'd be glad to get the thing off his hands. Or perhaps he just needed to make a sale, any sale.

Joe shook his head. ‘How's the play going?'

Sebastian's face lit up. This was a subject more to his liking. ‘It's had some good reviews. The Yorkshire Evening Post described it as ‘powerful and thought provoking'.

‘That's good. I've spoken to the Reverend Rattenbury and Betty Morcroft by the way. Is there anyone else you can think of who might be able to tell me more about Havenby Hall?'

Sebastian shook his head. ‘I tried to trace the matron, Mrs Chambers but I had no luck.'

Joe nodded. His own team had tried to track down Mrs Chambers too but she seemed to have vanished without trace. There was no record of her death so presumably she was still out there somewhere. Perhaps he would get them to try harder.

‘Do you mind if I look inside the clock?' he asked.

‘Help yourself.' His lips formed into a sad half grin. ‘If you manage to get it going we can put the price up.' He opened the desk drawer and, after fumbling around for a while, produced a key which he handed to Joe.

Joe walked over to the clock and used the key to unlock the door in the tall base. But all he saw was a dusty pendulum drooping sadly in the dark, cobwebbed space.

‘Are you looking for anything in particular?' Sebastian asked. Joe could tell he was doing his best to hide his burning curiosity.

Joe turned to him. ‘The woman who sold your uncle this clock was murdered last night.'

Sebastian stared at him in disbelief for a few moments. ‘Fuck. I mean . . . oh God.'

‘Did you know that she was the daughter of Dr Pennell, the doctor who worked at Havenby Hall?'

Sebastian's eyes widened in surprise. ‘No.'

‘You didn't contact her when you were carrying out the research for your play?'

‘Dr Pennell's name came up a lot and I soon learned that he'd died. I tried to find his relatives but . . .'

‘Mrs Dodds had been estranged from her father since she was very young. But it's odd that the doctor's clock ended up with you, isn't it? You'd really no idea it came from Havenby Hall?'

Sebastian stared at the clock and shook his head.

‘Havenby Hall was the inspiration for your play and the clock just happened to end up here. As a policeman, I don't tend to believe in coincidences like that.'

Sebastian scratched his head, as though he was trying very hard to think up a convincing answer. ‘My uncle deals with lots of house clearances. As far as I know this was just another one . . . routine.'

‘Is Cecil Bentham a relative of yours?'

‘Yes. He's my uncle.'

Joe felt a thrill of triumph.

‘Then I'd like a word with him.'

Sebastian looked uncertain for a moment. ‘I'll give him a call.'

Joe watched as Sebastian picked up the old Bakelite receiver and dialled. It was a long time since he'd seen a telephone like that but anything more up to date would have looked out of place in this emporium of old and shabby things.

After a short conversation Sebastian replaced the receiver and turned to Joe. ‘He says he's not feeling too good today.' He frowned, puzzled. ‘He seemed quite lively when I saw him last night.'

The last thing Joe wanted was to be accused of bullying a sick old man but he needed to speak to him. ‘What's wrong with him?' he asked.

Sebastian shrugged. ‘He's had a virus. He was on the mend but . . .'

Joe turned his attention to the clock again. There was somewhere he hadn't looked but it was a long shot. ‘Mind if I have a look behind the face?'

He pointed to the clock and Sebastian folded his tattooed arms as though he was weary of the whole subject. ‘Help yourself.'

‘Will you give me a hand to turn it round?'

Sebastian left his desk and walked over the bare floorboards to where the clock stood, pushed against the shop wall. They both manoeuvred it round until the back was visible, covered in dust and cobwebs. A large spider scuttled in panic down the case and out of sight and Joe saw what he was looking for. There was another door behind the clock face and when he used the key he'd used for the lower case, he found that it fitted perfectly.

The door opened with a stiff creak revealing the inner workings of the clock. And something else. A small black notebook, dusty and battered, had been stuffed into the gap between the workings and the clock case. Joe took a plastic evidence bag from his pocket and scooped the thing into it.

‘What is it?' asked Sebastian, craning his head for a better view.

‘I don't know yet. I'll give you a receipt for it and . . .'

‘Don't worry. It's nothing to do with me,' he said as if he was anxious to dissociate himself from the whole thing.

‘I'll need your uncle's address,' said Joe as he slipped the notebook into his pocket.

Maybe it was time for visiting the sick.

Beverley had seen Lydia go out that morning with a man in tow. And she'd recognized the man at once as the police inspector. Plantagenet, he was called – not a name that's easy to forget. She found herself wondering whether some distant ancestor of his had had royal blood. Not that he looked anything special or particularly regal. Perhaps when she saw Lydia again, she'd ask her. It would be something to talk about. An excuse to open a conversation.

Mother was still in bed. Since her last bout of illness her health had deteriorated and she needed the wheelchair all the time now. It was a good job, Beverley thought, that her hatchback car could accommodate it; at least it meant she could get out of the flat on a regular basis. In the hospital they'd talked about physiotherapy and rehabilitation, but Mother had showed little interest in that sort of thing. The only thing that preoccupied her these days was the past.

She put the door on the latch, walked out into the corridor. The police presence had dwindled to a single uniformed constable sitting on a plastic chair next to the basement door, separated from the rest of the world by a barrier of blue-and-white crime-scene tape festooned around the hallway like bunting at a fête. She toyed with the idea of taking the young man a cup of tea. But as she watched he answered his radio and began a conversation. She'd missed the moment.

Besides, she had something else to do. She returned to her flat and picked up a scrap of paper bearing a neatly written number. It was time she made the call.

‘Is that Canon Merryweather? The Deliverance Minister?' she asked when the call was answered. ‘It's Beverley Newson here, from Boothgate House. I knew Karl Dremmer. Look, I think I need your help.'

She listened carefully to George's reply.

The undercroft was the only part of the abbey near the city centre that had been left intact after Henry VIII's commissioners had done their worst. Standing near the entrance to the Museum Gardens, it served as a gloomy covered passageway with its elaborately vaulted ceiling and its huge Roman sarcophagi, placed there in the shelter to protect their ancient carved stonework.

Alan Proud leaned against one of the sarcophagi, watching the passers-by; the mothers with pushchairs, the teenagers on bicycles and the couples holding hands. A few of them gave him a wary glance. Some people considered that a man waiting in the shadows must be up to no good. Little did they know his real interest – if they did, they would have fled screaming.

The time of his appointment had passed long ago but he still waited. He'd give him another fifteen minutes before he abandoned hope.

He fixed his gaze on the entrance to the gardens, a pair of huge wrought-iron gates erected at a time of Victorian civic pride, and watched as tourists, young families, pensioners and workers on their lunch break streamed through. He felt a stab of disappointment. He'd been anticipating this moment for so long and now he'd let him down.

With a sigh, he turned to leave his post. Perhaps there'd be a message on his computer when he got back to the flat. Perhaps he'd get a second chance.

‘Alan?'

The voice, soft as a whisper, made him swing round.

‘You've changed,' was the only thing he could think of to say to the man who'd killed so many people.

K
arl Dremmer's post-mortem was already booked for that afternoon and Emily reckoned they were lucky that Sally had agreed to fit Judith Dodds' in as well. But he supposed it depended on your definition of luck. To him there was nothing lucky about watching a corpse being taken apart.

There were few surprises about Dremmer's cause of death. A blunt instrument, probably the hefty chunk of wood left over from the renovations that had been found discarded, bloodstained and wiped clean of fingerprints, in the overgrown grass of the graveyard during the routine search. The blow had caused massive head injuries that had resulted in death and Dremmer had been attacked from behind so he probably hadn't known a thing about it. There were signs that he'd been the victim of some violence before death. There was some bruising to his torso, as though he'd been punched or kicked in the ribs, and a cut on his cheek. But whether this was linked to his murder, Sally couldn't say.

Once she'd finished with Dremmer, Sally turned her attention to Judith Dodds.

‘She died in exactly the same way as Melanie Hawkes,' Sally said once she'd completed her gruesome business. ‘She was rendered unconscious by a blow to the head and then strangled with a ligature – a scarf perhaps or a pair of tights – and then there are the cuts and burns. The bruising on her wrists and ankles is identical to that on Melanie Hawkes which suggests that she'd been restrained at some point. I think the flowers were stuffed into her mouth once she was dead but I can't be absolutely sure.'

‘Fresh flowers?' Emily asked.

‘Well, they weren't fresh when we found them but I think they must have come from her garden.'

‘So he probably used anything that was handy?'

‘Looks like it. The ones in Melanie Hawkes' mouth were wild flowers mostly, found in any piece of wasteland or hedgerow.'

‘A bloke picking flowers would stand out like a tart at a convent,' said Emily.

Sally considered the question for a moment. ‘Didn't Peter Brockmeister sometimes gather them and keep them in a vase till he was ready to use them?'

‘That's right,' said Joe. ‘It was part of his ritual.'

‘So this killer's trying to copy him,' said Emily. ‘But the cigarette burns and the cuts make it different. Brockmeister never tortured his victims; he just knocked them out, tied them up and strangled them . . . slowly. If he was alive, I'd say he could be branching out, trying something new.'

‘But he's dead,' said Emily.

Before Joe could reply Emily's phone rang. When she answered it he could tell from her expression that the news was to her liking.

‘That was Janet,' she said, returning the phone to her pocket. ‘The kidnappers have been in touch again. They wanted to check whether Hawkes still had the money. They even put Daisy on the line for a second to prove she was still alive. Janet said she just said hello and she didn't sound frightened.'

‘Could have been a recording.'

Emily suddenly looked solemn. ‘Could be. They cut her off before Hawkes could start a conversation with her. Oh God, Joe, I hope you're wrong.'

‘So do I. When's the drop?'

‘Tonight. They're going to call with further instructions. ‘We could have a chance to get the kid back,' she said. ‘So let's not blow it.'

As Joe followed her out of the mortuary, he felt in his pocket and his hand touched the plastic bag containing the book he'd found hidden in the clock. But examining it would have to wait. There were things he had to do.