The Lantern Men

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘Exhausting. The head thinks we’re due an Ofsted inspection and keeps nagging us about data. Mine’s up to date but he still nags.’

  ‘Idiot,’ says Nelson. He’s not surprised to hear that Laura’s paperwork is up to date. She’s always been the conscientious daughter. Rebecca, now living in Brighton, is the one who leaves everything to the last minute.

  ‘Laura!’ George grabs his sister’s hair. ‘Laura. Becca. Katie.’ He’s a child of few words but he loves chanting his sisters’ names. Hearing them together like that always makes Nelson feel happy and guilty in equal parts.

  ‘Don’t pull Laura’s hair, Georgie,’ says Michelle, coming in with a tray. Nelson doesn’t know if she heard George say ‘Katie’. ‘You shouldn’t let him, Laura.’

  ‘It doesn’t hurt,’ says Laura. She pushes her long blonde hair, like her mother’s used to be, back behind her ears. Michelle has brought soft drinks for her and Laura and a beer for Nelson. From this he deduces that he’s not in disgrace.

  ‘Are you staying for your tea?’ Michelle asks Laura. With the family, she still says ‘tea’ in the northern way. With strangers, she’d say ‘dinner’ or even ‘supper’.

  ‘No,’ says Laura. ‘I’ll have something back at the flat.’ Nelson looks at her sharply. He often worries that Laura’s not eating enough.

  ‘I just popped in to say hallo,’ says Laura. ‘Your murder’s in the paper, Dad.’ Laura has always been the daughter who is most interested in Nelson’s work. He’s often thought that she’d make a good police officer.

  She shows him the local paper, The Chronicle. It’s folded back at an article headed, ‘Jenny’s last story.’

  Ivor March, 51, was convicted last week of the murders of Jill Prendergast, 35, and Stacy Newman, 38, but police have always suspected that he was involved in the disappearances of Jenny McGuire, 36, and Nicola Ferris, 34. DCI Harry Nelson of the Norfolk Serious Crimes Unit confirmed in a press conference that police still suspect that March killed Jenny and Nicola, neither of whom have been seen since they disappeared from the Cley area of north Norfolk in the summer of 2016.

  Both women knew Ivor March. Nicola attended his art classes and Jenny was a creative writing student. Now Jenny’s family have released the last story that Jenny wrote for the class where March was a tutor. It’s called ‘The Lantern Men’ and concerns the Norfolk legend of mysterious figures that prowl the marshes at night. It’s said that travellers would see a man walking ahead of them and carrying a lantern. They would follow the light only to be led to their deaths on the treacherous ground. In Jenny’s story, she sees the lights as she is cycling home across the marshes.

  Underneath there’s a brief extract illustrated with photographs of all four women and a rather crude drawing of a man in a cloak carrying a lantern. There’s also a photo of Jenny McGuire that Nelson hasn’t seen before. It shows Jenny astride her bike with the marshes in the background. She is smiling, strands of blonde hair blowing across her face.

  Nelson looks back at the article, focusing on the words ‘cycling home’. He looks at the bottom of the page and sees the by-line ‘Maddie Henderson’. Maddie is Cathbad’s eldest daughter. She’s not a great fan of the police but, nevertheless, Nelson plans to have a chat with her tomorrow.

  Chapter 7

  Nelson is surprised by his first view of Grey Walls. From its name, and from the sinister shadow of Ivor March hanging over it, he had imagined a Gothic monstrosity with towers at each corner. Instead, he sees a square stone house covered in ivy and purple flowers – he’s vague about plants – with open windows and a distinctly friendly aspect. There is a covered veranda that runs the length of the house and on it two women sit, typing away earnestly. Clough is waiting for him by the gate, leaning on his car and eating a sandwich. Some things about Cloughie never change, thinks Nelson. He always has a smart car – this is a newish Land Rover Discovery – and he’s always eating. But, despite that, Clough looks pretty fit. His wife has just had a second baby so maybe Clough is burning up the calories by pushing buggies. Nelson doubts it somehow.

  ‘Hallo, Cloughie. How’s it going?’

  The two men shake hands, the formality covering a very real affection between them. After all these years, Clough is almost family and Nelson would defend his family with his life. He is fiercely tribal, which is why he still supports Blackpool after all these years.

  ‘Can’t complain,’ says Clough. Which, if true, does imply a fairly drastic change of character. But Nelson thinks that Clough probably is pretty content at the moment. He has a new job, a promotion, a new house and a new baby. His wife is a glamorous ex-actress and his oldest child, Spencer, is a bouncing three-year-old. Life is treating him well.

  ‘How’s the baby?’ says Nelson. He has a go at the name. ‘Amelia.’

  ‘Amélie,’ says Clough. ‘It’s French. She’s terrific. An angel. Doesn’t sleep much, though. You forget what those days are like.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ says Nelson. ‘I was nearly fifty when George was born.’

  There’s a short silence while they both think about the difficult, tragic time when Nelson’s first son was born. A birth and a death, a time none of them will ever forget. Then Nelson says, jerking his head towards the house, ‘Does she know we’re coming?’

  ‘No,’ says Clough. ‘Sometimes a surprise is best.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ says Nelson.

  They approach the veranda steps but, before they can make themselves known, a woman Nelson recognises as Crissy Martin appears in the doorway. At first sight she looks young and beautiful, with flowing blonde hair and a perfect oval face. But when she comes closer Nelson sees that she is older, about his age, in fact, and that the hair is more grey than blonde. Michelle has recently cut hers, thinking that forty-eight is too old to have long hair, but Crissy lets the white locks hang loose about her shoulders. Her dress is loose too, covering the fact that she is probably a lot larger than Michelle. But she is still good-looking, the pale hair, tanned skin and blue eyes making an arresting combination.

  ‘Welcome,’ she says. Her voice is attractive too, soft and low. ‘Have you come about a retreat?’

  ‘Morning,’ says Clough in his most officious manner. ‘I’m DI Dave Clough from the Cambridgeshire CID. This is DCI Nelson. We’ve come to talk to you about Ivor March.’

  The smile doesn’t falter but Crissy does glance quickly at the typing women. ‘You’d better come in,’ she says.

  She leads them through a large sitting room, where a man is staring rather helplessly at his laptop, and into a room that seems more functional than the rest of the house. There are filing cabinets around the walls and the shelves hold, not leather-bound classics and Penguin originals, but files labelled: ‘Bookings 15–16’, ‘Accounts April 12–April 13’, ‘Tax’ and ‘VAT’.

  Crissy sits behind the desk and Nelson and Clough take the chairs opposite. Nelson waits, with some difficulty, for Clough to start the proceedings.

  ‘Ms Martin,’ he says, looking pleased with himself about the ‘Ms’, Nelson thinks, ‘I believe you were married to Ivor March from 2001 to 2010.’

  ‘You know all this,’ says Crissy. Her voice is still even, although the fingers of one hand are tapping on the desk. ‘I spoke to a policewoman. Tanya something.’

  ‘DS Tanya Fuller,’ says Nelson. ‘We have the interview on file. Something else has come up.’

  They both wait for Crissy to ask, ‘What?’ It takes some time but she eventually asks the question.

  ‘Are you acquainted with Dr Phil Trent from the University of North Norfolk?’ asks Clough.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ says Crissy. ‘I’ve never even heard of that university.’

  Phil would be horrified to hear that, Nelson knows. He’s always trying to raise UNN’s profile, jealous of the fame of the nearby University of East Anglia.

 
‘What about Dr Ruth Galloway, formerly of North Norfolk university, now senior lecturer at St Jude’s College, Cambridge?’ he says.

  ‘Ruth Galloway . . . Ruth . . . yes, she was here on a retreat, only last week. A delightful woman.’ She looks at Nelson when she says this and Nelson feels himself colouring. Has Ruth told Crissy about their relationship? Ruth is reticent about her private life but Crissy looks like the sort of person who is good at extracting secrets.

  ‘Did you give this to Ruth with a parting gift?’ Nelson passes over the card, now encased in plastic, open at the writing. Is it his imagination or does a spasm of fear cross the self-possessed face?

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she says. ‘I like to give all my clients a parting gift. We become very close during retreats. Many secrets are shared.’ This time she definitely looks at Nelson.

  Clough reaches over with another clear plastic envelope. ‘This was sent to Dr Phil Trent last week. Do you recognise the writing?’

  Crissy says nothing.

  ‘We believe it’s your writing,’ says Nelson, after another pause.

  ‘You’ve no proof of that.’

  ‘Not yet,’ says Nelson. ‘But we’ll have a handwriting expert look at it and we’ll examine the postcard for DNA and fingerprints. It’s pretty hard to write a postcard without touching it.’

  Another silence. Then Crissy says, ‘I can explain.’

  ‘Please do,’ says Nelson.

  ‘Ivor didn’t kill Stacy and Jill,’ says Crissy, speaking in a rush now, eyes glittering. ‘I’m sure of it. A real forensic archaeologist would have found that out. Phil Trent isn’t an expert in that field. I looked him up. When I met Ruth and found out that she used to work in north Norfolk, I knew that she should have been the person on the case.’

  ‘Then why write to Phil? Why not contact the police?’

  ‘I wanted to shake him. He sounded so smug on the stand.’

  ‘How do you know? You weren’t there. Ruth says you were here all week.’

  ‘A friend was in court.’

  ‘A friend? Who?’

  Crissy is silent for a moment, still drumming her fingers on the desk. Then she says, ‘Chantal.’

  ‘Chantal Simmonds?’ Nelson can’t stop the incredulity showing in his voice. ‘The woman your husband had an affair with? She’s your friend in court?’

  ‘We had an open marriage.’ Crissy sounds more composed now. She even managed a rather patronising smile, obviously pitying people with less civilised marriage arrangements. ‘It was a spiritual union more than anything. I was a little angry when I found out about Chantal but I’ve come to appreciate her good qualities.’

  Remind me what they are, Nelson wants to say. He’s rather grateful when Clough cuts in, ‘So Chantal thought that Phil Trent sounded smug in court and you sent him a poison pen letter?’

  ‘Poison pen,’ says Crissy. ‘What an old-fashioned phrase. Chantal knows that Ivor is innocent. We’re working together on this. I wrote the letter because I knew you’d recognise her handwriting.’

  ‘Why do you both think that March is innocent?’ says Nelson. ‘His DNA was on the bodies.’

  ‘DNA can lie.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that it can’t,’ says Nelson. ‘Although witnesses sometimes do. The bodies were found in your friend Chantal’s garden.’

  ‘Phil Trent completely mismanaged that dig,’ says Crissy, sounding wild again. ‘Ruth is worth ten of him.’

  It’s what she said in her anonymous note. Nelson doesn’t disagree with the sentiments but the words suddenly sound very sinister indeed.

  *

  When they leave the house, the two woman are still tapping away on the terrace. What can they be writing with such fury? thinks Nelson. He had an idea that writers spent most of their time staring dreamily out of the window.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asks Clough, as soon as they are out of earshot.

  ‘We could charge her with impeding an inquiry or sending malicious messages.’

  ‘Where would that get us though?’

  ‘Or we could speak to Chantal Simmonds.’

  ‘Now you’re talking.’

  They have reached Clough’s car, its black paint gleaming in the sunshine. Clough looks at it proudly before reaching out and grabbing something from the windscreen.

  It’s a note, scrawled on a folded piece of lined A4 paper.

  If u want to know more about Ivor March meet me at the Hanged Man on Newnham Rd tonite at 7.30. Ask for John.

  ‘The Hanged Man,’ says Nelson. ‘Jesus wept.’

  *

  He decides not to tell Chantal that they are on their way. Clough is right about the value of surprise. They drive in convoy to Salthouse, a village on the north Norfolk coast. Nelson vaguely remembers Ruth telling him something about a Roman settlement nearby but, to him, there’s nothing about the place that would have recommended itself to the homesick legions. There are fields, then a church with cottages clustered round it, then flat marshland intersected with pools and winding streams, then there’s the sea. He can imagine how bleak it would feel on a winter’s night when the wind (as Norfolk residents always tell you proudly) comes directly from Siberia.

  ‘Beautiful spot,’ says Clough, getting out of his car. ‘I’d like to live somewhere like this.’

  Nelson despairs of him sometimes.

  Chantal’s cottage is on the outskirts of the village, backing onto a meadow. And, it was in her garden that they found the bodies of Stacy Newman and Jill Prendergast. Today, the place seems a million miles from such horrors, but as they approach along the unmade-up path Nelson sees that Chantal’s garden is still a building site with the earth churned up in great mounds. Why has she left it like that? So she can be reminded that two women were found there, women murdered by her boyfriend? What do the neighbours make of it? It’s a small community and, at the time of the murder inquiry, people had seemed horrified that such evil could live in their midst. Do the same people now chat to Chantal when she goes to the shops or walks by the sea?

  He gives Clough a quick biography as they walk. ‘Chantal Simmonds, aged thirty-five, says she’s an artist but I’ve never seen any evidence of it. Used to work in a local café but doesn’t now. She was briefly married to a plasterer called Alan Simmonds, no children. She doesn’t seem to have any close friends. Her parents are both dead. Chantal met Ivor March at a painting course in Cambridge. The rest is history.’

  ‘I remember her in court,’ says Clough. ‘She never missed a day.’

  ‘No,’ says Nelson, pushing open a rickety-looking gate. ‘She’s certainly loyal. And tenacious.’

  ‘You haven’t got a warrant,’ is Chantal’s greeting.

  ‘This is just a friendly visit,’ says Nelson, ‘just a chat.’

  ‘A chat!’ says Chantal. ‘DCI Nelson wants a chat. I suppose you want to enquire after my health.’

  ‘How is your health, Chantal?’ says Nelson. ‘All that prison visiting must take it out of you.’

  ‘A lot you care,’ says Chantal, but she steps back to let them in. That’s one thing Nelson has learnt about March’s girlfriend: she can’t bear to be left out of things.

  Chantal shows them into a small sitting room. The front room, Nelson’s mother would call it. The cottage is a basic two-up, two down, made desirable by the setting – and by the large garden.

  Chantal Simmonds is small with jet-black hair cut in a severe bob with a straight fringe. Journalists, who had used the words ‘statuesque’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘blonde-haired’ to describe March’s victims, resorted to ‘striking’ for Chantal, which means, Judy says, that she looks foreign. She’s the sort of woman who never dresses casually. Today she’s wearing a red sleeveless dress and black high-heeled sandals. A strange outfit for sitting at home watching Bargain Hunt which, according to the frozen TV in
the background, is what Chantal had been doing. A large ginger cat is sitting on the sofa. Apart from its flat face it looks very like Ruth’s cat, Flint, and seems equally unimpressed by Nelson.

  ‘We’ve just been to see Crissy Martin,’ says Nelson.

  ‘Bored of harassing me, are you? Well, good luck getting anything out of Crissy. She knows how to keep quiet.’

  It’s an interesting accolade, thinks Nelson. He says, still trying for a pleasant tone, ‘We wanted to talk to Crissy about a postcard that was sent to Dr Phil Trent of the University of North Norfolk.’

  Clough hands the plastic envelope to Chantal. She looks at it carefully, one red-nailed hand tapping on the arm of her chair.

  ‘Phil Trent was the archaeologist who gave evidence at Ivor’s trial, wasn’t he?’ she says at last.

  ‘Yes,’ says Nelson. ‘Have you seen this postcard before?’

  ‘No,’ says Chantal. ‘It’s not my handwriting.’

  ‘We didn’t say it was,’ says Nelson. ‘We just wondered if you knew anything about it.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ says Nelson, ‘because Crissy said that she sent it because you weren’t impressed with Phil in court. She said you were working together on this.’

  ‘Why ask if you already know the answer?’

  ‘I just wonder why you and Crissy Martin would be working together.’

  ‘Because Ivor’s innocent,’ says Chantal. ‘And who would know better than the two women who loved him best?’

  ‘Come on, Chantal,’ says Nelson, ‘you know he’s not innocent. Ivor March killed those women and buried them in your garden.’ Although the window doesn’t face that way, all three of them instinctively look towards the back of the house. ‘He killed Nicola and Jenny too and I’m going to prove it.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Chantal. ‘Pin all your unsolved murders onto a man who’s already in prison. That’s what the police always do.’

  ‘You knew Nicola Ferris, didn’t you?’ says Clough.

  ‘Oh, this one speaks too, does it?’ says Chantal. ‘I knew her slightly. She was on Ivor’s painting course. A nice woman.’