The Lantern Men

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘I’ve given you the coordinates,’ says the voice on the other end of the line, rather defensively.

  ‘I’m in the middle of a bloody field.’

  But, as he speaks, a figure rises up out of the grass. A uniformed police officer. Nelson clicks off his phone and winds down the window.

  ‘I’m PC Matthews,’ says the uniform. ‘You’ll have to leave your car here, I’m afraid.’

  Nelson parks his car and leaves the hazard lights on. It’s blocking the road but he doesn’t suppose there’s much traffic at this time in the morning. He follows PC Matthews along a gravel path and across a wooden bridge over a ditch that is presumably sometimes a stream.

  ‘Where does the path go?’ asks Nelson.

  ‘To the sea eventually,’ says the policeman. He has a strong Norfolk accent. ‘We’re nearly there.’

  They take a sharp turn and there, spread-eagled across the path, is a woman’s body, long blonde hair merging with the sun-bleached grass. A racing bike lies on its side beside her.

  Nelson approaches cautiously. The woman is obviously dead, her face is luminously white and there are livid marks around her neck.

  ‘Who found her?’ he asks.

  ‘One of the nature wardens on an early morning walk,’ says Matthews. ‘He rang 999. I was the first responder with my partner, PC Hammond. He took the witness back to the visitor centre. I waited here for you.’

  ‘Are you from north Norfolk?’ asks Nelson. ‘I don’t think I know you.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I work out of Cromer.’

  ‘Did you call the crime scene investigators?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I’ll do it now. Did you touch the deceased?’

  ‘No. I mean . . . I could see she was dead.’

  In the old days, thinks Nelson, as he waits for SOCO to answer the phone, the police would be all over the body checking for signs of life. They would pick up weapons, trample over evidence, even close the victim’s eyes. Now the best thing that they can do is keep their distance and wait for the experts. He leaves a message for Mike Halloran, the chief investigator, calls Judy and asks her to meet him at the visitor centre. Then he leans over the body, careful not to tread on a strand of hair.

  She’s a young woman, dressed in exercise clothes, pink cycling shorts and a pink and black lycra top. And she’s tall and blonde, like all of March’s victims.

  *

  The visitor centre is a modern building of wood and glass that seems to rise out of the landscape like a spaceship. Inside, Nelson finds PC Hammond and the warden, a tall man who introduces himself as Liam O’Shea. They are sitting in the café which has windows all along one side, looking out over the marshes. The sun is up now and the sky is a pale, cautious blue. The café is closed but O’Shea has a flask of coffee and offers some to Nelson.

  ‘I always take one on dawn walks.’ He has a faint Irish accent, which makes Nelson predisposed to like him.

  ‘Is this a regular thing, then?’ says Nelson, accepting gratefully. ‘Early morning walks?’

  ‘Yes, I like to get out and hear the dawn chorus. It’s a good time to check the footpaths and fences too.’

  ‘So what did you see this morning?’

  ‘I saw the bike first.’ Nelson can tell already that O’Shea is going to be a good witness – he takes his time but is obviously remembering things carefully and in sequence. ‘The bike was on its side so I thought that someone must have fallen off. Then I saw her . . . I thought she was just hurt at first but then I saw the marks on her neck . . .’

  ‘Did you touch her?’ asks Nelson.

  ‘Just quickly. To see if I could feel a pulse. But there was nothing and her skin was cold.’

  This must mean that the woman had been dead for several hours. This May is turning out to be unusually hot but, even so, the nights are cool. It wouldn’t have taken long for rigor mortis to set in.

  ‘I rang 999 immediately,’ says O’Shea. ‘The police came very quickly, considering it’s such a deserted spot.’

  ‘Nathan . . . PC Matthews . . . is a local boy,’ says Hammond. His tone suggests that his colleague is to be pitied for this. Nelson sympathises.

  ‘Do you often get walkers, or cyclists, on the marshes so early?’ asks Nelson.

  ‘We often get walkers,’ says O’Shea. ‘Like I say, it’s a good time to see the birds. But cyclists are rare. It’s a long way from the designated cycle path and the ground is uneven, not suitable for bikes really unless you’ve got a really good cross bike.’

  ‘Did you recognise the dead woman?’ asks Nelson.

  ‘No,’ says O’Shea. ‘It’s so sad. She looked very young.’

  She did look young, thinks Nelson. The coroner and SOCO team will be on their way. They will take fingerprints and DNA which should help with identification. But, somewhere in Norfolk, a family will soon be missing a daughter.

  ‘Did you see a mobile phone anywhere?’ he asks. He had been struck that the dead woman had been without the headphones that always dangle from his daughters’ ears whenever they do any exercise.

  ‘No,’ says O’Shea. ‘I suppose it could have been thrown into the grass.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Nelson. ‘We’ll have a good look for it. The bike might well be marked too. It looked like an expensive one. ‘

  ‘That’s something that has been bothering me,’ says Liam O’Shea. ‘It was a road bike with thin tyres. More like a racing bike. Expensive, like you say. Who would ride a top-of-the-range racing bike over the marshes?’

  *

  By midday they have an identification. Heidi Lucas, aged twenty-five. She’s a primary school teacher and lives with her boyfriend, Josh Evans, in Lynn. Josh was away last night, visiting his parents in London, and the last thing he heard from Heidi was a text saying that she was going out for a bike ride at eight p.m. When he arrived home at eight this morning, Heidi’s bed hadn’t been slept in and, after a flurry of phone calls to family and friends, he had called the police. He clearly hadn’t expected the quick response and the blue light journey ending in the morgue.

  ‘I know it’s a terrible shock,’ says Judy, sitting with him in the grim, windowless visitors’ room. A box of tissues sits on the table between them. ‘But do you feel up to answering some questions? We need to act quickly, you see, if we’re going to catch the person who did this awful thing.’

  ‘I understand,’ says Josh, reaching for his water bottle and taking a long drink. He’s a thin young man with red hair that is already receding. From his physique Judy is willing to bet that Josh is also a keen cyclist.

  ‘Did you hear from Heidi after her text about going on a bike ride?’

  ‘No,’ says Josh. ‘I texted to say good night but she didn’t answer. That’s a bit unusual but I thought her phone was just out of charge or something.’

  ‘Did she say where she was going on her ride?’ asks Judy.

  ‘No, but she was doing road work,’ says Josh. ‘So I assumed it was around Lynn. She was training for a triathlon.’

  ‘She didn’t say that she was going to the coast? To Cley and the marshes?’

  ‘No,’ says Josh, wiping his eyes. ‘Like I say, she was doing road work. Speed stuff. She wouldn’t risk her bike on uneven ground. It’s a Canyon Aeroad, cost near five thousand pounds.’

  They’ll know more when they have the forensics, thinks Judy, but, from what Josh says, it’s seems clear that Heidi was murdered elsewhere and her body placed on the lonely footpath. Why? On the day after three bodies were found near Cley, a woman is killed in the near vicinity. A tall, blonde woman. Judy doesn’t need the boss to warn her against the danger of coincidence.

  ‘How did Heidi seem when you saw her last?’ she asks.

  ‘She seemed fine,’ says Josh. ‘Looking forward to the triathlon. We were going to do it together.’ And,
burying his face in his hands, he starts to cry in earnest.

  Chapter 14

  Judy leaves Josh with the family liaison officer. They will wait at the morgue for Heidi’s parents, who are driving down from Leeds. Judy tries not to think about that journey, the initial shock and disbelief, the long motorway drive punctuated by tears, the horror that awaits them at the end.

  Josh has given her an approximate route for Heidi’s last bike ride and, by the time she gets back to the station, Nelson and Tanya are at the scene, organising door-to-door enquiries and searching for any CCTV footage. The SOCO team are still out on the marshes. The only people in the office are Tony Zhang, sitting moodily at a computer, and a civilian intelligence officer called Liz.

  Liz greets her cheerfully. ‘I’ve had some success with the intel.’

  ‘What have you got?’ asks Judy. She likes Liz, who brings a much-needed sense of the outside world into the police station. She also bakes amazing brownies.

  ‘Robert Carr – Bob – and Leonard Jenkins are both living in Norfolk. Bob is living in Holt and Leonard in Cromer.’

  ‘Both near Cley,’ says Judy.

  ‘Yes,’ says Liz. ‘Bob is still working as a printmaker. He lives above his studio. Leonard is a teacher.’ Like Heidi Lucas, thinks Judy. Nicola Ferris too. She looks at her work phone, clicking through messages from Nelson. The Heidi Lucas case has precedence at the moment – the first twenty-­four hours are crucial – but she wants to question Bob and Leonard before the news of the third body makes it to the press. She remembers the crowd of reporters at the excavation. It won’t be long before they are on the trail.

  ‘Good work, Liz,’ she says. ‘If you give me the addresses, I’ll go and see them now. Tony, you can come with me.’

  Tony jumps up immediately, obviously hoping for some action. Judy sympathises.

  ‘Did you have any luck tracing the Eastern European girl?’ Judy asks Liz.

  ‘Not yet,’ says Liz. ‘We’ve been through all the missing persons reports and there are a couple of girls who might fit that description. I’ll chase them up. You two have fun now.’

  Fun is not quite the word that Judy would have chosen but she notes that Tony is looking distinctly more cheerful.

  *

  Bob Carr is a surprise. He looks much older than Ivor March, for one thing. Bob is tall but very thin and his grey hair is pulled back into a ponytail that reminds Judy slightly of Cathbad. But whereas Cathbad, though undoubtedly silver-­haired, is brimming with energy and vitality, Bob seems rather frail. Judy can’t see how he manages all the industrial-­looking printing machinery in the studio. There is a metal press in the middle of the room plus several trays of what look like DIY tools: scrapers, files, chisels, brushes and rollers. The rest of the space is taken up by workbenches, kitchen cabinets, folded trestle tables, a tailor’s dummy and an old bicycle on hooks. The room smells, not unpleasantly, of paint and linseed oil.

  ‘It is hard work,’ says Bob, ‘though not as hard as it used to be in the old days when we used mainly lead and zinc. Nowadays you can print onto anything – glass, plastic, cardboard. This,’ he indicates a print of a landscape overlaid with concentric circles of gold and silver, ‘is done by sunlight, solar-plate etching. No acid or solvents required.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ says Judy, looking closer. She can see the outlines of trees and houses, and traces of what looks like old-fashioned copperplate writing. She can just make out the words ‘blue remembered hills’.

  ‘I did art A-level,’ says Tony, unexpectedly, ‘but we never did anything like this.’

  ‘Art is being squeezed out of the curriculum,’ says Bob. ‘Schools can’t afford the equipment or the teachers. Everything is concentrated on English and maths – no music, no drama, no art. The creative spirit is dying. Sorry,’ he says with a grin, ‘don’t get me started on my hobby-horse. I can get quite heated.’

  But he doesn’t look heated, thinks Judy. He just seems slightly sad.

  Bob leads them up a wooden staircase to his apartment above the studio. It’s a small space, part kitchen, part sitting room, and the overwhelming impression is one of colour: every surface seems to be painted or covered with vibrant material. Prints and paintings cover every inch of the walls. Are some of them by Ivor March? It’s hard to tell, although lots of them seem to show March’s favourite themes: sea, sky, abandoned buildings. Even the door frames and window ledges are daubed with colour. The light shade is a metal colander, painted bright red.

  ‘It is a bit much,’ says Bob, apologetically, noting her look. ‘I’m always experimenting and, well, I live on my own and there’s no one to tell me to stop.’

  They sit at a round table in the middle of the room, painted crimson with yellow dots and wavy blue lines. Bob offers them coffee, which he makes in a candy-striped cafetière. Judy’s eyes are hurting.

  ‘Mr Carr . . .’ she begins.

  ‘Bob, please . . .’

  ‘Bob. We wanted to talk to you about the time that you lived at Grey Walls with Ivor March.’

  Bob sighs. ‘It wasn’t just with Ivor.’

  ‘I know,’ says Judy. ‘It was Ivor March and his wife Crissy, you, Leonard Jenkins and Ailsa Britain.’

  ‘And John,’ says Bob. ‘John Robertson, the gardener.’

  ‘Yes, my DCI has been talking to John. He says that you, Leonard and Ivor used to go out in a van finding lost women.’

  Bob is silent for a moment, staring into his handmade pottery cup. ‘You have to remember,’ he says at last, ‘we were trying to do something good. It was an artists’ commune, a place where we could celebrate beautiful things. Ivor painted, I made prints, Leonard sculpted. Students came and we taught them about life and art.’

  ‘What about Ailsa Britain?’ asked Judy. ‘What did she teach?’

  ‘She was an artist,’ says Bob. ‘She drew these amazingly intricate fairy pictures, a bit like Richard Dadd.’ Tony nods solemnly although Judy had never heard the name. ‘Ailsa was quite a talented printmaker too. Those are hers.’ He points at some skeletal leaves over the mantelpiece.

  ‘Wonderful use of colour,’ says Tony. He has a serious art-lover expression on his face. Judy is impressed.

  ‘Ailsa was your girlfriend, wasn’t she?’ she says.

  ‘She was at first, yes,’ says Bob. ‘I met her when she came to one of my classes. She came to live with us at Grey Walls. It was a golden time even though things turned so dark later.’

  ‘Tell us about the Lantern Men,’ says Judy.

  She thinks that Bob is going to pretend that he doesn’t understand what she means but, after another brief pause, he says, still in the same calm, quiet tone, ‘We called ourselves the Lantern Men after the legend of the lights that used to guide people across the marshes. We were a band of spiritual brothers, we wanted to help people. We’d find youngsters who were sleeping rough or who seemed lost in some way. We’d take them back to Grey Walls, Crissy would feed them, we’d talk to them about the beauty of life, they would draw pictures or write stories. Sometimes they’d just stay for a night or two, sometimes it was longer.’

  ‘And then what happened to them?’

  ‘They’d move on, spiritually refreshed.’

  ‘John mentioned an Eastern European girl who stayed for some time. Do you remember her?’

  ‘Sofia? Yes, of course. She was literally lost when we found her, wandering across the fens in search of a youth hostel. We took her home with us and she stayed for a few months.’

  ‘Do you remember why she left Grey Walls?’ asks Judy. ‘Did you see her leave?’

  ‘No,’ says Bob. ‘Crissy just said . . . or I think it might have been Ivor . . . they said that she’d decided to move on . . .’ He stares at Judy, as if realising something for the first time.

  ‘We found three skeletons yesterday,’ says Judy, ‘in the g
rounds of the Jolly Boatman pub near Cley. Ivor March gave us the location and we believe that two are the remains of Nicola Ferris and Jenny McGuire.’

  ‘And the third could be Sofia?’ Bob’s voice is a whisper now.

  ‘It’s a line of enquiry,’ says Judy.

  ‘Ivor would never have hurt Sofia,’ says Bob. ‘He loved her. We all did.’

  ‘Ivor March has murdered at least four women,’ says Judy. ‘He could well have more blood on his hands.’

  She wonders if Bob, like Chantal Simmonds, is going to protest March’s innocence but he says nothing.

  ‘Are you still in touch with Ivor March?’ asks Judy. She knows that Bob hasn’t visited March in prison but she wants to know what he thinks about the man who was once his close friend and ‘spiritual brother’.

  ‘No,’ says Bob, his voice very quiet now. ‘It was such a nightmare. When I found out about Ivor, I couldn’t believe it . . . He always seemed such a good man, holy almost. I couldn’t bear to see him again.’

  ‘What about Leonard Jenkins?’ asks Judy. ‘Are you still in touch with him? He doesn’t live far away from you.’

  ‘I wish Leonard well,’ says Bob, ‘but I’ve really got nothing more to say to him.’

  ‘He married Ailsa Britain, didn’t he?’ says Judy. ‘I thought she was your girlfriend?’

  ‘She was,’ says Bob. ‘At one time I thought we were going to get married and start a family. But that didn’t happen. Then she just announced that she was going to marry Leonard. I’ve never understood it to this day.’

  ‘They’re divorced now, aren’t they?’ says Judy.

  ‘Yes, the marriage didn’t last.’ Is there a slightly satisfied note in Bob’s soft voice?

  ‘Are you in touch with Ailsa? She runs the community centre in Cley. Not far away.’

  ‘Ailsa knows where I am,’ says Bob. ‘If she wants me, she can find me.’

  Judy thinks that he still sounds hopeful.

  *

  Judy and Tony sit in the car outside the studio as tourists wander past, eating ice creams and looking in windows of chic boutiques and artisan bakers. Judy rings Liz to tell her that they have a name, ‘Sofia. Bob thought her surname could be Novak or Novitch.’ Liz promises to get on the trail.