Tom appeared through the mill doors as we entered the yard. There was a graze on his right cheek, and he’d bitten his lower lip. A thin trickle of blood had dried on his chin. His jacket lapel hung down and looked beyond repair. Tom liked his clothes. He liked his car too and I was glad it was dark, that any damage wasn’t immediately visible.
‘Found him?’ Randy asked.
Tom shook his head. ‘Not yet. Christ knows it shouldn’t be hard. There’s only one floor. A few enclosed rooms. Unless the bugger’s scaling the chimney, I haven’t the foggiest where he’s got to.’
‘He isn’t in there.’ I set off towards the outbuilding I’d spotted earlier. It was tucked into the far corner of the yard, built of stone like the wall, its door all but hidden behind a trailing buddleia bush. I’d seen a gleam in the window that I’d been sure had been a pair of eyes.
I reached the door and it opened easily. Behind me, Tom and Randy shone torches over my shoulder. Huddled in the corner, on the floor, half hidden by sacking, was the small, shaking figure of Terry Parker.
We gave Terry a cup of tea, a blanket and put him in a cell for the night. For his own protection.
He told us the shoe was his own, and he even managed to produce a receipt. With nothing else at all against him, we knew we’d have to let him go in the morning, although he showed no enthusiasm for the idea.
Midnight found us in the Square & Compass, a pub in the town centre. Last orders had come and gone, the landlord had locked the door, and we’d carried on drinking.
This was my first time in the Square & Compass and I was surprised to find it beautiful. Columns decorated in a repetitive pattern like fish scales held up a plaster ceiling carved in overlapping circles and the red rose of Lancashire. The floor was a curious arrangement of black and white tiles, while the windows were all etched glass. Some of them were round, like portholes on a ship.
‘These won’t be cheap to replace.’ I’d stopped just inside the door to admire the glasswork, thinking of drunken brawls on a Saturday night.
‘Nobody throws a brick at these windows.’ Brown put his hands on my shoulders to hurry me along. ‘Nobody would dare.’
In the Square & Compass, tables weren’t scattered around the bar as was usually the case but enclosed within a line of carved wood-panelled stalls that ran along each outside wall. The pattern that kept repeating itself, in the glass, on the wooden panels, along the top of the bar, was of two interlocked triangles that together formed a diamond shape. I didn’t think I’d seen it before, but there was something about it that kept drawing my attention. It took me a few minutes to realise the upper of the two triangles was a draughtsman’s compass, the lower a square rule.
It wasn’t a working man’s pub. Most of the other drinkers wore suits; a couple were in the sort of leisure clothes men might wear at the golf club. We’d found a stall in the corner and were reasonably confident that no one could overhear us. I was the only woman in the place – even the bar staff were men – and the stares continued long after we arrived.
‘You all right with that, Flossie?’ Sharples asked me for the fourth time, looking down at the Britvic orange I’d made last an hour.
The music changed to the latest Andy Williams hit. He was my favourite singer back then and I loved his new song, ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’.
‘I’m fine, boss. Thank you.’ I took another sip to show willing. Even after I’d forced half of it down, the combination of concentrated sugar and artificial orange flavour was burning my tastebuds.
Across the table, Tom was mouthing the words to the song and staring at me.
‘I think you’re onto something with that chart of yours, Flossie, but you’re going to need some help,’ Sharples said. ‘Woodsmoke, can you have your people feed her information?’
‘Sir,’ I said, ‘I’m not promising anything, but if I can have a look at the funeral details that Sergeant Brown finds, I might be able to spot something.’
‘What sort of something? And what sort of details?’ Brown looked as though I’d asked for his trouser size.
‘Name, sex and age of deceased. Time, date and place of burial. Casket or coffin. Cost of funeral. Anything. I don’t really know till I see it.’
‘What good will that do?’
‘I can spot patterns,’ I said. ‘I was good at maths and I can … Oh, it’s hard to explain it. I look at information and if there’s a pattern, or even a break in a pattern, an anomaly, I can see it.’
Another silence. Brown dropped his cigarette end and ground it out beneath his foot. I could practically see the words ‘jumped-up schoolgirl’ running through all their heads.
‘Can’t hurt,’ said Tom. ‘Can it?’
‘It’s not a small job,’ said Brown. ‘That’s a lot of information. Is that really the best use of Flossie’s time?’
‘She does have plenty to be going on with,’ said Sharples. ‘She’s spending tomorrow morning in the library. Lunchtime in the museum.’
‘What’s she doing in the library and museum, boss?’ Green asked.
‘We need as much information on this voodoo doll as we can get,’ Sharples said. ‘This talk about grave-robbing is worrying me as well. Even if it was twenty years ago. I think we’re going to need an in-house expert on black magic, witchcraft and devil worship, and as Florence keeps reminding us, she’s been to university.’
He drained his pint, stood up and pushed open the stall door. ‘I’m done,’ he said. ‘Don’t stay too long, lads. We’ve a lot on tomorrow. And someone make sure Florence gets home. She’s not much older than them kids, and it might be a tad embarrassing if anything happened to her.’
He nodded at me, muttered something I didn’t catch, then left.
‘What did he say?’ I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.
‘He said, “Nice one,”‘ Brown told me.
They were all staring at me.
‘What?’ I said.
‘From No Shit Sharples, that’s a marriage proposal,’ Tom said.
30
Thursday 19 June 1969
We left the pub at one in the morning. At my insistence. I’d got bored watching the three of them get steadily drunk, and by the time their eyes had lost focus and their speech had started to slur, they didn’t seem to mind being told what to do. Gusty, who was never allowed inside a vehicle after a few pints, walked to his house in the town centre. I dropped Woodsmoke off along the main road and then, finally, Tom. He was still singing the Andy Williams song when I pulled up. What little of it he knew.
His house was bigger than I’d expected, a new semi-detached bungalow with dormer windows in the roof.
‘Why d’you leave me till last?’ He leaned against the passenger door and showed no sign of climbing out.
‘You’re closest to the station,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave your car there overnight.’
His face fell. ‘You don’t need to do that. Take it home. I trust you. You’re a good driver. For a girl.’
I’d been driving since I was twelve. I’d learned on a private estate near to my family home and had done some rally-driving with one of my brothers while we were both at university. I could probably outdrive everyone at the station.
‘It’s a bigger engine than I’m used to,’ I said. ‘And I could use some fresh air. It’s been quite a day.’
Silence.
‘Sleep well,’ I said.
‘You too, Florence. You sleep well too.’
‘You will probably sleep better if you leave the car and go inside your house to bed,’ I told him.
Still he didn’t move. ‘It’s been nice,’ he said, ‘having a drink with you. Thanks for coming.’
‘Thanks for asking me.’
It’s possible my tone was a little more pointed than I planned. Or maybe I just hadn’t expected him to pick up on it. He looked me directly in the eyes. ‘It’s not that we don’t want you to come,’ he said. ‘We’d be more than happy for you to join us; you’re
one of us now.’
It really didn’t feel that way to me. But Tom was a nice guy. A nice, drunk guy.
‘It’s not that you’re a lass, or a poncey Southerner, or cleverer than the rest of us put together; we’re OK with all that. It’s that you don’t drink.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve got to see it from our point of view. We all get wasted – we need to in this job – and we start talking and acting like pillocks, and you sit there sipping your Britvic orange and judging us.’
‘I do not.’
He looked at me.
OK, I had done, but not in a mean way. I’d thought it hilarious the way their eyes lost clarity and the stuff that came out of their mouths became increasingly bizarre as the night wore on.
‘You’re welcome to come, Florence. Come out with us anytime and welcome, but you’re going to have to hold your nose and swallow back a couple of Babychams.’
‘Tom, get out. Go to bed.’
Finally, he leaned away from the door, opened it and practically fell into the road. He pulled himself up, weaved his way round the front of the car and, after a few fumbles, managed to unlock his front door.
I saw a curtain twitch in one of the upstairs windows.
The station felt deserted. Apart from the station officer, I saw no one when I made my way in through the back and climbed to the first floor. I left Tom’s car keys in his desk drawer just as a phone started ringing.
It made me jump. The building was so quiet. It wasn’t even my phone, which would have made some sense, but the one on DS Brown’s desk.
It stopped. I think I breathed a sigh of relief.
Another started ringing. Opposite side of the room, out of sight behind the row of filing cabinets, unnaturally loud.
It’s him. He knows I’m here. He’ll ring every phone in the room until he finds me.
After four rings, it stopped.
I was being absurd. The telephone system was programmed to search the room. If a phone wasn’t answered in four rings, the call automatically moved on to the next in the group.
It started again. Tom’s desk, and I was not afraid of a telephone. I set off towards it. I reached it on the fourth ring but heard nothing except dead air down the line. I put the phone down, looking around, trying to predict where it was going to go next. I’d get it this time.
Nothing. As though the caller had given up.
Detective Sergeant Green’s phone started ringing. It was close enough to catch. I ran across and grabbed it.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Sabden Police Station, CID room.’
Silence on the line, but not dead silence. Someone was there.
It’s him.
‘Sabden CID, WPC Lovelady speaking.’
‘That girl you found.’
Silence again.
‘Who’s calling, please?’
‘Where is she? Where did you put her?’
‘Which girl do you mean? Can I take your name, please?’
‘The dead girl. The one you found in the grave. Where is she?’
‘I can’t give out that information, I’m afraid. Who is this?’
‘She has to be cremated.’
‘Well, that will be up to her parents. I can’t discuss this any more unless you tell—’
‘You must not put her back in the ground. She will not rest.’
I think I stiffened. I know I looked over my shoulder. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Burn her. Do you hear me? You have to burn her.’
The line went dead. I got my bag and switched out the lights. I like to think of myself as not easily ruffled, but I was conscious of my footsteps down the stairs being quicker than they might otherwise have been.
‘Sarge,’ I said, before I’d even got to the front desk, ‘did you put a call through a couple of minutes ago?’
He was away from the desk, sharing a pot of tea with one of the uniformed constables, who’d popped in for a break.
‘I wasn’t sure what desk you’re using,’ he told me. ‘Did it find you?’
‘It did, thanks. Did the caller give her name to you?’
He pulled a face. ‘To be honest, love, I thought it was a bloke. No name, though. Problem?’
I shook my head and wished them both good night. As I left the building, I felt a moment of regret that I’d left Tom’s car keys upstairs.
I cycled quickly that night, not even stopping for traffic lights, but got back to the Glassbrook house without further incident. That is, until I was trying to unlock the big front door without waking the house.
I fell over something in the porch.
Stepping back, more jumpy than I’d have cared to admit, I found my torch and shone it on the tiled porch floor. Flowers. Not any old flowers but red roses, fat and long-stemmed, wrapped in paper. I bent to pick them up and caught sight of my name written in pencil on the wrapping. They were for me.
I crept inside, the roses – thornless and scentless like florist-bought roses usually are – tucked beneath one arm. In the kitchen, I found a jug and ran water. It was only when I was unwrapping the flowers that the card fell out. From the Flower Pot in town, Marlene’s shop, the message on it was three letters long.
RIP.
31
In the grand Victorian style that dominated so many of its municipal buildings, Sabden Public Library boasted great bay windows on the ground floor, ornate fake balconies on the upper. The roof was an undulating line of gable ends and carved finials; in its centre a round tower, topped with a polished copper dome.
Not for the first time, I wondered about Sabden’s wealth. It wasn’t a huge town, and ninety-five per cent of its population seemed to live very modest lives, but a walk around the town centre and its impressive, perfectly maintained public buildings made it clear there was money here.
Important people, who didn’t take kindly to anyone rocking the boat?
Revolving doors took me into the library’s central hall, where the domed ceiling seemed a long way above my head. Sunlight streamed in through skylights, and dust sparkled like particles of gold all around me.
I coughed, although there was nothing in my throat, and then sniffed loudly. There was something about the place that made me want to make a noise.
The children’s room was off to my right, the adults’ shelves arranged around the outer walls. Great wooden tables and chairs for reading were scattered over the area. The reception desk was a gigantic ring of oak, in the centre of which worked three women, each dressed in various shades of brown and grey. Two were middle-aged. The third looked quite elderly and was engrossed in her task, writing in a large ledger-type book.
I called out a cheery ‘Good morning’ and then walked across the central atrium to the reference room. The notice on the door told me that silence was expected – nay, demanded – once I crossed the threshold. I let the door slam hard behind me.
I was tired. For the second night in a row I’d barely slept. RIP? What was that about? Another small-minded prank, or something more sinister?
The sense of something dark on the loose in Sabden was growing. If I spent any time alone, I could almost see a shadow ahead of me, slipping out of sight, and if I stopped moving, even for a few seconds, the silence around started to feel ominous. When I woke in the night, I found myself listening for sounds beyond my room.
There was nowhere, I realised, that I felt safe. Not at the Glassbrook house, where I couldn’t even lock my bedroom door; not at the station, where everyone resented me; and certainly not around town, because every pair of eyes I looked into could be the last ones that Patsy Wood saw.
I wanted to be back at work, in the midst of things, not stuck here in a public library. Especially as I couldn’t help feeling Sharples had sent me here to get me out of the way.
And I wasn’t always talking about going to university.
I found the section I was looking for, pulled out a few books and sat down. Immediately I could feel my eyelids starting to
droop.
‘I think you might struggle with that one,’ a voice behind me said. ‘It’s written in old Scots.’
‘So I’m discovering.’ I looked up, rubbing my eyes.
The librarian who’d approached me wore no make-up, and her huge unruly eyebrows suggested she didn’t waste much time in front of mirrors. When she moved her head in a certain way, though, I caught a glimpse of ruby earrings. She had fat, masculine fingers, but her fingernails were perfectly shaped and painted scarlet. Her name badge said, Mrs D. Reece.
‘I can make it out, but it’s heavy-going.’ I tried and failed to stifle a yawn. A glance at my watch told me over an hour had passed.
Mrs Reece pulled out a chair and sat beside me. ‘Is there anything I can help you with? You seem a little overwhelmed.’
My corner of the big reading table was covered in books. While small in real terms, the library had proven well stocked when it came to material on the occult.
‘You can tell me what possessed the King of England to write a book about witchcraft.’ I closed the book so that we could both see the front cover: Daemonologie, in the form of a dialogue, written by the high and mighty prince, James by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland. ‘Actually, forget that. I don’t care. Tell me how so many women throughout history could be executed for something we now know to be utter nonsense.’
If Mrs Reece registered my anger, she didn’t show it. ‘Different time,’ she said. ‘Religious faith went unquestioned. People believed in the Devil and all things evil.’ She lifted a hand to scratch behind her ear, showing off the beautiful ruby earring again. ‘When people, usually women, were seen acting in an unorthodox manner – especially if they enjoyed some unexplained success – accusing them of having supernatural powers was easy.’ Her grey eyes glittered as though about to shed tears. ‘And, we mustn’t forget, most of them confessed.’
The book’s cover scraped across the tabletop as I pushed it away. I really didn’t want to read it any more. Or the other one I’d pulled down, The Wonderful Discovery of Witches in the County of Lancashire by Thomas Potts.
The Craftsman Page 13
