Stark rubbed his chin. “That’s long enough for anyone to get in the car and leave. We should check up on it. The old bird didn’t get a look at the number plate, did she?”
“No, she didn’t, but it was Franklin Knox’s Prius.”
“She sure about that?”
“Very. It’s the only yellow car in the village.”
Winsell and Knox – any connection?”
“None that I know of.”
Stark rubbed his forehead.
“What is it? A headache? I know an old woman who can…”
“No!” Stark dialled back the force of his reply. “No, not that. It was something Ravyn told me about the two men.” He searched his memory, but it was difficult trying to recall anything with Aeronwy stridently warning him against gwiddons and love hexes. “Got it: Winsell has copies of all Knox’s books.”
Ware shook her head. “Only a strap… Only an outsider would pay attention to them. Most people think him a pretentious old git.”
“A prophet without honour in his own village, is he?”
“I don’t know anything about that, Sarge.”
Stark sighed. Apparently, only Ravyn could get away uttering obscure references, biblical or otherwise.
“But most people think them rather simple.”
“Not full of arcane lore that mankind is not prepared to know?”
“I only read one,” Ware said. “Mostly just old stories of demon raising and malicious elementals, the same old thing we heard as kids around the fireplace on Samhain and Beltane. Suggestion and innuendo, but no follow through, if you know what I mean.”
Stark had no idea what she meant. “I’ll pay a visit on Knox.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I want you to continue looking for that car.”
“I’ve done them all.”
“Then keep canvassing for someone who saw Winsell.”
“I’ve done his road and the roads all around.”
“Then wait for Ravyn’s return and report to him.”
“Yes, Sarge.” she said, her tone flat. “Should I tell him you found anything I missed at Venture Cottage?”
“No. Nothing to show why he left or where he went,” Stark said. “Hopefully, Knox can shed some light on that.”
Ware gave up trying to involve herself in Knox’s interrogation. It was clear Sergeant Stark wanted her out of the investigation and nowhere near him, but she had no idea why. What motivation could he possibly have for wanting to see Franklin Knox without her? She knew what Ravyn had said about his intent, and she believed him, but did he also speak for Stark?
Stark started to leave, then turned. “How do I get to Knox’s?”
The instructions she gave were terse and tinged with frost, but he seemed oblivious to her displeasure. After he left, she decided to return to Venture Cottage. If she found anything, it would mean she had overlooked something she should not have, but showing up Stark would more than compensate for the oversight.
Five minutes after leaving the constabulary she saw Winsell’s cottage and knew immediately something was amiss. The front gate was open. Someone crouched in the deep shadows of the porch out of view of neighbours and casual passers-by.
Gripping the ASP telescopic baton in her coat pocket, she eased between gate and fence and silently trod the flagstones. The man was big, wide-shouldered, garbed in a dark jumper, concentrating intently, grunting as his huge hands tried to prise something from the earth. It was, she realized, the protection stone.
A scuffing sound betrayed her. Lebbie Rodgers turned, leaped to his feet, and rushed her. He gripped a knife in his left hand.
Rodgers never saw Ware’s hand fly out of her pocket, never saw the black steel baton snap to its full extension, and never saw it swing though the dappled air. But he certainly felt it connect, first with his left wrist, then his right knee.
He howled like a wounded swine and fell, knife still in his grip. Ware smashed the baton’s knobbed head against Rodgers’ hand, kicked the knife away, then retrieved it.
“Bloody filth!” He grabbed a post and pulled himself up. “You broke my hand!” He let go of the post, then grabbed it before he fell again. “My knee! You shattered my bloody knee, you stupid cow! You bloody fu…”
Ware looked at the still form on the porch. He had come at her again, and where was the witness who could say he hadn’t? She called for an ambulance, told the dispatcher there was no hurry. Entering the cottage, she paused and glanced back. She thought of the dozens of times he and his mates had terrorized her and her friends growing up. Not much to look at now, was he?
* * *
Franklin Knox’s cottage was at a road’s terminus, built on a jut of land. The two-storey building was bounded on three sides by the River Dylith, a minor tributary to the Orm. The slowly turning, but non-functional wheel on the side betrayed its genesis as a mill.
There was no car in the drive and the garage was vacant. Stark stood a moment at the gate listening to the creak of the mill wheel and the liquid giggling of the water. A wind moaned among the trees on the opposite bank. He looked away lest he see pale forms of hanging men.
If Stark turned and threw a rock, he might break someone’s window. Even so, he felt far from the haunts of men. Listening to sounds villagers knew as water nymphs and hamadryads, he sensed the nearness of a magical realm. Had a gwiddon come out of the swarthy forest to offer a headache philtre or a love-hex it would have seemed the most natural thing in the world.
I do not believe.
Kicking gravel just to hear a sound of human making, he drew near the cottage. The garden was well tended. He knocked loud on the door, heard it echo through the building, knew it was untenanted. He peered through the windows on either side, then moved around to the rear.
A sliding glass door occupying nearly half the cottage’s width, obviously a modern addition to the venerable building, overlooked a flagstone patio and a wide expanse of manicured lawn stretching to the river’s edge. A small motorboat was tied to a short jetty. In the midst of the landscaping, incongruous amongst rosebushes and azaleas, was a ring of standing stones. The megaliths were adorned with the same sort of symbols as the ones in the village green and around the sinkhole at the Stryker farm, but these stones were more weathered than either of the others.
Stark snorted in disgust and returned his attention to the cottage. He tried the sliding door but it was locked. Pulling a penknife from his trouser pocket, he started to jam the blade into the lock. He paused. Without warrant or probable cause, he was breaking several laws, but he did not feel he was without justification. Besides, he thought, there were no witnesses to his transgression – hanging men, wood nymphs and gwiddons did not count.
He slid the blade in, moving it about carefully, feeling for the lever that would throw the latch. After a moment, a sharp snick told him he had succeeded.
“Anybody home?” he shouted. He was certain of the cottage’s vacancy, but decided to follow the letter of the law after vexing its spirit so sorely. “Mr Knox? It’s DS Stark. Welfare check! I found your door unlocked. Making sure you’re okay.”
Satisfied he had fulfilled his duties, more or less, Stark entered.
He searched, but found neither Knox nor Winsell, either dead or alive. Neither was a surprise. The absolute stillness of the air told of a long vacancy and he had not sensed the presence of death. If a place held a body, he always knew. It had nothing to do with smell or any of the physical senses, but seemed an aura to which he was sensitive. It was the closest the practical-minded DS Leo Stark ever came to believing in things unseen.
His mobile chimed and he answered. He told Ravyn about the clue that led him to Knox’s cottage.
“No joy there, sir, not for either man. When are you coming…”
“Highchurch is dead,” Ravyn said.
“Sorry to hear that. I didn’t know the old boy, but…” He listened as Ravyn outlined the circumstances. “There will be hell to pay
if the post mortem comes back negative, but, from what you say, Penworthy will come up with something.”
“I asked her to compare your blood work with Highchurch’s,” Ravyn said. “I’m sure she’ll find the same substance. A chemical capable of inducing disorientation, paralysis and hallucinations in you could be fatal to a much older, less healthy man.”
Then Ravyn told him about finding the letter.
“Just the one?” Stark asked. “From what young Marquest said, his dad sent bushels. The date indicates it might be the last of them sent before the elder Marquest tossed it in. Hopefully, it will help us get a bit forwarder in who killed Dale and the others.”
“It shows we’re on the right track about Ezekiel’s apprentices.” Ravyn paused. “There’s something else we need to talk about.”
Listening to Ravyn, Stark frowned, and the longer he listened the more intense his frown. Drawing in a deep breath, he held it till he felt centred, as a well-intentioned therapist once taught him, then blew it out his nostrils. He sounded like a bull ready to charge.
“No, I did not know anything about that, sir,” he said. “Rodgers alive? Or did she kill him? Oh, I see. Well, there will be some kind of dust-up over it, even if Heln has to kick it himself, but Rodgers has the kind of character that justifies most every sin. But why tell you and not me?”
The frown, which had mostly vanished, returned.
“I don’t know why she would think that, sir,” he said. “I never said anything against her. It’s just that I’m trying to keep a bit of distance between us, a professional gap, you might say. All this magical rubbish she puts so much store by doesn’t help either, but I have never been anything other than supportive.”
“Well, there is one other factor about which you should know.”
Stark listened, face flushing crimson.
“Bloody little bastard!” Stark had never been so angry, never so motivated to have his fingers gripping someone’s throat. The rage he felt prevented him from speaking, almost made him shatter his mobile. By degrees, he regained control, then said into the silence that had reigned since Ravyn stopped speaking: “This can’t go on. It has to stop. I’ve had my fill of the prat, and I’m not going to put up with it anymore.”
“I take it more occurred between you and Mr Heln than you let on?” Ravyn’s voice was even, as calm as if he were chatting about the weather or the price of sausages. “Not about training.”
“No, sir,” he admitted. “It got a little…heated.”
“No witnesses of course, for he is a careful man,” Ravyn said. “But you should have told me anyway.”
“What can we do?”
“As I told Constable Ware early this morning, do your job.” the chief inspector said. “It’s all any of us can do, for the time being.”
“Can you at least bring this up to the ACC or the Chief Super?”
“I think they already know, or at least have an inkling.”
“Then…”
“A very careful man is our Mr Heln. And well connected.”
Stark sighed and collapsed into a handy chair, all the fire in his gut suddenly extinguished.
“What do you want me to do, sir?”
“Stay on a bit at Knox’s cottage, look for some clue of where he might be,” Ravyn said. “If he’s nowhere in Knight’s Crossing…”
“Doesn’t seem to be.”
“So, unless he and Winsell have gone to Denby Marsh or into Stafford for some reason, they might be at the Stryker place.”
“What would drawn them both there?”
“There’s a connection we don’t understand yet.”
“Find one, find the other?”
“I think so.”
“But what about Winsell’s ag…agora… What about him not being able to go out in the open? Think he’s faking?”
“Not at all,” Ravyn said. “His fear is as real as the trauma that induced it.”
“Then how could he…” Stark paused. “He made himself go out to Stryker Farm with you, but that was because he wanted to clear himself of suspicion of the boy’s disappearance. Motivation.”
“And here he might have motivations even stronger.”
“Having to do with the old murders?”
“Having to do with magic.”
Stark growled.
“I do not believe,” Ravyn said. “But they do.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that, sir. I was beginning to wonder.”
Ravyn laughed at the other end. “No matter what you find or don’t find at Knox’s meet me at Stryker Farm. I’ll be there as soon as I check on things with Ware.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Stark.”
“Sir?”
“I think I know why you’re aiming for a ‘professional gap’ in your relationship with Ware, but it might help if you at least plainly told her you’re both on the same side.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do that,” Stark said. “We may not have Paris, but we’ll always have Heln.”
“Goodbye, Stark.”
* * *
Lebbie Rodgers was still out cold on the porch of Venture Cottage when Ware finished with her search and the ambulance arrived. A few casual strollers had noticed the inert form from the road, but continued without stopping when they saw who it was.
As the attendants loaded the litter into the ambulance, Rodgers regained consciousness and Ravyn pulled up behind. He glanced at the jolting, rocking ambulance, heard shrieks and roars within, then looked to Ware approaching.
“There will likely be an investigation,” Ravyn said.
“I figured there would be, sir, one way or another.”
“Any witnesses?”
“No, sir, he has no witnesses.”
Ravyn cast a sharp glance at the constable. “Tell me again what happened when you found him on the porch.”
Ware repeated what she had told him previously. It was, Ravyn noted, identical, word for word, to her earlier account. Perhaps the truth, he thought; perhaps well rehearsed. Maybe both.
“Why would he remove the protection stone?”
“It’s a powerful talisman, sir,” she said. “But I can’t see Lebbie using it on his own. He’s too stupid.”
“From this point onward, Constable, you should be very careful what statements you make in public about Lebbie Rodgers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But, yes, he is incredibly stupid.”
The ambulance attendants flew out of the back of the vehicle, dishevelled and breathless. Normally, one would ride in back to see to the patient, but both had evidently had their fill of him. Slamming the doors, they squealed down the road, eager to pass custody of the raucous Lebbie Rodgers to the Stafford hospital, the staff of which would gladly release him into police custody once they set bones and bound his limbs.
“He’s a big, powerful man with a history of violence.” Ravyn eyed Ware’s petite form. “Even your typical British jury should be able to figure out what to do with Mr Rodgers.”
“If he’s out of commission for even a few months, the village will be a quieter, more peaceful place,” she said. “His mates don’t amount to much without him.”
“The CPS should be able to secure his tenancy for a few years,” he said. “You had already searched Venture Cottage, had you not?”
She nodded. “I didn’t find anything when I searched again.”
“Why were you here? Had you missed something?”
“No, sir. Well, not exactly.”
Ravyn gave her a quizzical look.
“I was hoping Sergeant Stark had missed something.” she said. “I did not like being brushed off when I offered to help interrogate Knox. I mean, this is my village, these people my people.”
“Let’s say you were being thorough and leave it at that.”
“I suppose so.”
“You don’t think Knox or Winsell connect with the old case?”
“I don’t see how…” She paused. “Winse
ll lived over in Denby Marsh at the time of the murders. Since he moved here, he and Mr Knox have never met, far as I know.”
“They knew of each other,” Ravyn said. “Winsell has copies of all Knox’s books, and I found it difficult to believe Knox’s claim he did not know who moved into Venture Cottage.”
“He does try to keep up with things.”
“And they were both at the Stryker place at the same time,” he said. “The day we found young Harold. Stark and I left Winsell in the house, but he must have seen Knox.”
“I had forgotten about that.”
“What is your connection with Knox?”
Ware looked up, a doe caught in the sights of a huntsman. “My connection? I don’t know what you mean. I’ve known him all my life, but I know all the old family scions. He came to read at school once on Book Day, but I…”
“Last night at the Broken Lance.”
“Sir?” Her voice was a whisper.
“What did he say to you on his way out?”
She visibly relaxed. “Just to be careful of you. He called you a cunning strapper.”
“Nothing else?”
“No, sir.”
It was obvious she was holding something back. At the mention of a connection she tensed as he had seen many villains do under caution, when confronted with something they thought securely hid. But she relaxed when asked about their encounter in the pub. She confessed about Heln sending her to the pub and Knox’s passing comments, so it had to be something between the two events she was keeping to herself. He had given her a chance.
“Very well, then.”
The tone of Ravyn’s words, the softness of his gaze evoked a sense of shame in her, but she smothered it beneath her fears.
“What do you want me to do, sir?”
“Let’s return to the constabulary,” he said. “I want you to write out a statement about the attack by Lebbie Rodgers while it’s still fresh in your mind. I will be the investigating officer.”
She started to protest.
“You become the plaintiff in this situation, so you cannot be the investigator,” he said. “I’ve made arrangements for a statement to be taken from Rodgers once the custody sergeant accepts him from the hospital, unless Rodgers opts for a solicitor’s presence. Only a fool would make a statement without advice of counsel. I imagine he will speak long, loud and freely.”
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