The Devil's Chair

by Priscilla Masters

  Was it the driver who had Daisy? Was it possible that the driver and the caller really were one and the same person, and they’d deliberately waited to make the call? Or were there two people involved, their caller and the driver? That seemed a more likely scenario, considering the delay of four hours between the crash and the telephone call. Hope Cottage was no more than a ten-minute walk from the crash site.

  Concealing a collision which had resulted in such a serious and high-profile accident suggested something or more truthfully someone malicious and failing to report an accident was the most minor infringement which could certainly conceal something worse. But he was still left with the question: why take the child?

  To save her, or because she was a witness?

  He summoned Talith.

  Sean Dart, meanwhile, was knocking on the door of a tiny farmworker’s cottage in the village of Ratlinghope. The house was small enough to be a doll’s house and he was surprised when a normal-sized female answered the door. Wanda Stefano was a pale woman with long, straight hair hanging in thin red rats’ tails and a sixties, full Cher fringe. She had an air of weariness about her which instantly infected PC Sean Dart. He couldn’t stop himself from yawning.

  ‘Don’t let me keep you up,’ she said sarcastically, adding, ‘Constable,’ when she saw his ID.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Let me guess.’ Wanda had a lovely husky voice which Sean appreciated. ‘You have to be here about poor old Tracy.’

  ‘Yeah. Can I come in?’

  She nodded and led the way into a doll-sized sitting room so small there was only enough room for two armchairs and a television. He sat in one and she, adjusting her tight jeans so she could bend her legs, sat in the other.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ she asked.

  ‘Anything you can tell us about her.’

  ‘I take you haven’t found Daisy?’ Her head jerked towards the TV. ‘There’s been nothing on the telly.’

  ‘No.’ It felt like a confession.

  ‘You want to know about Tracy? She was the greediest woman I’ve ever known. She was proper mercenary. She’d sell her own mother she would if she could get away with it and they promised her thirty pieces of silver.’ The woman touched a small gold crucifix around her neck. ‘I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but she was such a one. In a way.’ The dark eyes warmed. ‘You almost have to admire her. She wouldn’t let anything or anyone stand in her way. If she wanted it she’d have it, Neil being an example. The trouble with Tracy was that if she spotted something better she’d just go for that.’

  ‘The drinking,’ PC Dart said tentatively, ‘was that much of a problem?’

  ‘More recently,’ Wanda said. ‘I think she suspected that Neil was up to his old tricks again. She didn’t like that. It was OK for her to take him away from his wife and kids but she didn’t like it if the same thing was done to her.’

  ‘How do you think she was as a mother?’

  Wanda blew out through her lips. ‘Not much better or worse than average,’ she said.

  ‘And Neil?’ Dart was fishing in the dark now.

  ‘I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him,’ Wanda said dismissively.

  ‘Tracy said she was driving over to yours.’

  ‘It happened if they had a row.’

  ‘She’d drive over the Burway?’

  Wanda nodded. ‘There was no point trying to tell her anything when she’d had a couple.’

  ‘Did she ring that night and tell you she was coming?’

  A wary nod was his answer.

  ‘So what do you think has happened to Daisy?’

  Wanda shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I honestly don’t know. I don’t like to think. She’s such a lovely little girl.’ Her face was stricken. ‘I just hope she’s alive. That’s all.’

  Stirring, stirring, muttering and mumbling. Bubble, bubble. Work to do. Potions to mix. I start to wonder as I try to straighten my bent back. The message … Yes, it wouldn’t be long now …

  Friday, 19 April, 11.20 a.m.

  Forty-five minutes later, Talith was back outside the sad, neglected house which spoke of the unhappy people who had lived there. He smothered a grin. If the cottage from where the phone call had been made was called Hope Cottage he would have named Tracy and Neil’s place in Church Stretton Hopeless Cottage.

  Mansfield opened the door to him. The house smelt cleaner. Someone had been at it with the polish and Mr Muscle. Talith sniffed appreciatively. Nice.

  ‘Mind if I come in?’

  Mansfield grinned and held open the door. ‘Be my guest.’ He seemed jaunty about something.

  Talith preambled by saying, ‘I’m sorry about Tracy.’

  Mansfield looked away. ‘Best thing possible,’ he murmured. ‘Someone benefitted, I think,’ he continued. ‘They donated some of her organs.’ He looked away and his face soured. ‘With the permission of her next of kin – her mother and sister.’

  Talith was shocked. Not only was Tracy dead but Mansfield was talking as though they’d had a garage sale of her belongings. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, stiffly. ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘Truth is,’ Mansfield confided, ‘when they were talking about switching the machine off and organ donation it actually came as a relief, deep down. I thought I’d end up being a full-time carer for a vegetable.’

  Talith couldn’t think of anything else to say except to repeat for a third time, even more awkwardly, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Mansfield was expansive. ‘Don’t be,’ he said, waving his hand around. ‘Him up there. It’s all for a purpose.’

  ‘And Daisy,’ Talith queried. ‘How do you feel about her? Who would look after her if …?’

  Neil looked flummoxed by the question. He gaped at the sergeant and it was obvious he didn’t know what to say. Talith made an effort to be helpful. ‘Perhaps Tracy’s mum or her sister?’

  Mansfield blew out his cheeks and shook his head decisively. ‘If – when – she turns up then Tracy’s mum … no chance,’ he said. ‘No good with kids. And if Sofia, Tracy’s sister, stepped forward to look after Daisy, which I doubt, the poor kid’s life would be hell. Sofia, two years younger and built like a dumpling, would make the child’s life a misery too. No,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Daisy’s well out of it.’

  Talith felt very uncomfortable. It seemed to him that Neil Mansfield simply didn’t get it, or was in some kind of denial over Daisy. Hadn’t he realized the poor little thing was probably dead? Mansfield’s cheerful manner had robbed him of any ideas how to respond. He opened his mouth to speak. Normally he trusted that if he opened his mouth something sensible would come out. He didn’t expect anything hugely sensible this time, just something appropriate that didn’t do any harm. But this time he was out of luck – nothing. His brain and his mouth had disconnected. He simply gaped like a fish.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mansfield said brightly.

  Was he on antidepressants?

  ‘What was it you came about?’

  ‘Just a couple of simple questions,’ Talith managed. ‘We’ve found traces of black paint on Tracy’s car. To your knowledge, had she had a prang in it recently?’

  Mansfield frowned. ‘She wasn’t a great driver,’ he said, ‘and she wasn’t above hiding from me if she’d had a bump in the car but I don’t think she’d had a collision in it – not recently anyway,’ he said. ‘Not that I know of, at least.’ He scraped his throat noisily. ‘Of course, I might not have noticed.’

  Talith wondered.

  But Neil’s next words began to convince him otherwise.

  ‘I have to say,’ he said, ‘when I went I went to the pound and saw the state it was in I grieved for it. Tracy loved that Polo. She treated her cars well, for a woman.’

  Don’t bother with PC talk, will you, Mansfield, Talith thought.

  Neil continued. ‘She’d have been really upset if she’d had a bump. Probably would have booked it in asap to get it tidied up.’


  Talith had noticed before how these random little quotes gave him a picture of the victims. He could imagine Tracy as he had seen on her photographs – not the thing in the hospital – being fussy not only about her appearance but that of her car too.

  Neil’s face clouded as though he had also had a glimpse of Tracy before everything went so wrong. His last view of the beloved VW had been at the scrapyard – after it had been released by the police. He’d had to go, accompanied, to collect Tracy’s things. There hadn’t been much there: a windscreen ice-scraper, some CDs, a toy of Daisy’s, sugar-free chewing gum. He gulped. He’d seen the damage and he’d seen the blood. He didn’t want to remember the car but he had a feeling it might invade his nightmares.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t be absolutely sure but I don’t think she’d had a bump in it – not before the accident.’

  Talith had a warm feeling inside his stomach. He was sure this information was important.

  THIRTEEN

  Friday, 19 April, 4 p.m.

  The story was obsessing the nation. Who was the mystery caller? Why had she rung and then vanished? The TV channels, local and national, had played the emergency tape over and over again, hoping someone would recognize the caller’s voice.

  No one had. Yet.

  They had appealed for anyone who could give them information to come forward. Again, no one had. Yet.

  A local businessman had offered a reward for any information which led to the whereabouts of Daisy Walsh, but even this had not borne fruit.

  It was most frustrating but the papers didn’t give up. They still ran the headline:

  WHERE IS THE CHILD?

  And waited.

  I have her.

  Why do you have her?

  You will find out. I have a purpose.

  Will we have her back?

  Wait and see.

  Is she dead?

  Again, wait and see.

  Randall had returned to Carding Mill Valley, which was now open to the general public – the usual assortment of voyeurs and amateur detectives as well as the more normal dog-walkers and hikers. The police tape still cordoned off the area where the car had rested. There were oil and scorch marks and a deep furrow in the soft soil. The bunches of flowers around the area had grown. Messages, good wishes, blessings, pleas for the return of Daisy and the customary: why? He looked away from the flowers and glanced up at the Burway, following the trajectory of the car, and climbed back up the steep bank, puffing a little when he reached the top. There were more flowers here. Roses, lilies, carnations and …

  Something caught his eye.

  A photographer he recognized as being from the Shropshire Star was recording everything, including the flowers, with an impressive-looking digital camera. Randall called him over. ‘Tony,’ he said, ‘take a picture of this, will you?’

  It was an odd concoction of plants. Not a pretty floral tribute. More like a bouquet garni – something you’d stick in a stew pot. It was a bunch of herbs. Surely? Randall stared at it. It looked so incongruous. Was someone playing a joke? He bent down and read the card with it, then almost recoiled. There was no why? or rest in peace or to a lovely girl. It was a message clearly aimed at him.

  Read the meaning of the plants, it said. Follow the message and find the child.

  Someone was playing games with them.

  Randall’s face became grim. He slipped a pair of latex gloves on and drew out a forensic bag.

  Two can play cryptic games, he thought, and slipped the floral tribute inside.

  Friday, 19 April, 4.30 p.m.

  Now Tracy Walsh was dead her case and therefore her family had moved into Martha’s jurisdiction. Her mother, Pat, had long, dark hair and, according to their records, was in her early fifties. Her face, however, was that of a sixty-something-year-old who had led a very unhealthy life, smoking and drinking and generally doing her own thing. She walked into Martha’s office, hostility bouncing her step, adding a certain arrogance to her air. She was skinny with stained teeth and nasty little eyes that peered at Martha with suspicious hostility and a certain amount of defence, as though the coroner blamed her for her daughter’s unhappy circumstances and eventual death.

  The very cheek of it, her manner said, her sharp shoulders almost pugnacious.

  Sofia Waterman, Tracy’s sister was, in contrast, a soft and podgy little dumpling of a woman, but with the lovely skin that frequently blesses the overweight. She had a strange, affected way of speaking, adding ‘Yah?’ to the end of every sentence. It sounded like something she had learned. She was copying someone, probably an A-list celebrity.

  Both expressed anger and righteous indignation at the ‘pathetic’ police investigation and affected a maudlin sympathy for their daughter and sister. But when Martha mentioned Daisy their emotions were hardly different. ‘We hardly knew her,’ Pat said, her daughter nodding in loyal agreement. ‘Tracy and Neil – they kept themselves to themselves, see. So we never built up a relationship with little Daisy.’ Pat seemed to realize that, as the child’s grandmother, something more was expected of her. ‘I did try,’ she said, ‘but our Trace, she shut me out.’

  ‘Yah,’ said Sofia and couldn’t resist having an extra dig. ‘We would love to have got to know the little kid,’ she said, her face as impassive as dough, ‘but Trace and Neil … They was having difficult times. It was best we left them alone. That’s what we told the papers. When Daisy’s found they’re willin’ to pay for the full story. Yah?’ she finished brightly.

  Martha resisted the temptation to echo, ‘Yah.’

  Pat and Sofia couldn’t resist pronouncing judgement on the dead Tracy, saying that she had a lot of ‘problems’ which they enlarged on as being ‘drink’ and ‘relationship difficulties’ before expressing relief that she was being ‘put to good use’. Martha assumed they were referring to the organ donation. She was relieved when they finally rose, muttering something about funeral arrangements and making a note of the date of the inquest.

  They still need more help; I must visit the cottage again and leave something more obvious. I spend as little time as I can in this place. For all its contemporary air I can sense, underneath, the black oil of evil, the dirty stink of wickedness. It is here – it is all around …

  Sunday, 21 April.

  Tracy’s thirty-fourth birthday was marked by no one. Not even Neil. He was aware of the date and wished he wasn’t.

  FOURTEEN

  Tuesday, 23 April, 10.30 a.m.

  It is a truism that where there is mystery, instead of diminishing as the days go by without a solution, it compounds. Look at Jack the Ripper. Look at the Marie Celeste. Look at the Bermuda Triangle. The folklore surrounding the unsolved mysteries compounds, grows, adds fantastic detail and finally finds a life all of its own, independent of the truth.

  The longer Daisy Walsh was missing the deeper the mystery, and the more her whereabouts were swamped in mist and folklore. The explanation for her continued disappearance resulted in stories ever more mysterious and bizarre. The local press stopped just short of printing the fable that she’d been spirited away by fairies, taken by demons or spirited into the bog by will-o’-the-wisps and their mischievous lanterns, but they’d explored almost every other possibility, including the patently silly one that she’d been swept down the stream at the bottom of Carding Mill Valley. In fact, the stream was little more than a trickle and wouldn’t have swept anything down it. Even the sodden pink slipper had been found no more than six feet from the heavy impact of the car. It was not possible that it could have borne the missing child right down the valley and out of sight, thought Martha as she read the story. She was familiar with the stream. Sam had fallen in it when he had been a three-year-old. He had been soaked – rainfall had been heavy for that entire month and the stream had been in full flow. But there had been no danger of him drowning, much less of him being swept downstream. He had simply been very wet, a little frightened and extremely cold. So this was not w
hat had happened to the missing child. The stream could not have swept anything down it except a leaf or a twig. Certainly not a child.

  She looked closely at the little girl’s face peeping around the edge of the door, laughing, curls bouncing like Shirley Temple’s. Her dark eyes were sparkling and her small milk teeth were exposed. She was wearing a sprigged cotton dress and her hand, holding the door, was chubby and child-like. She was a pretty, endearing child; no sign here of the screaming little girl who wet the bed and was dragged into a car by a drunken mother at two in the morning. How could it have happened to this child, a little girl anyone would surely love to claim as a daughter?

  Martha put the paper down with a tut of irritation. This was a difficult enough case without facts being so clouded by fable and fantasy.

  Her morning was interrupted by a tetchy Jericho putting his head round the door and asking if she had time to speak to Detective Inspector Alex Randall on the other line. Tempted to say of course far too enthusiastically, she modified her response to a simple, ‘Yes.’ Her curiosity was pricked. Could they have found the missing child at last?

  But when Alex was put through to her office phone his question, put abruptly, threw her in quite another direction. ‘Do you know much about flowers, Martha?’

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or challenge his sanity and in the end decided to play it perfectly straight. ‘In what context?’

  ‘The language of flowers.’ He spoke earnestly.