The Devil's Chair

by Priscilla Masters

  Alex didn’t comment but something in his face looked haunted and sad. Regretful. It was as though he was reliving some personal painful memory. Martha wondered, was it the phrase love this child, or the word pawn? The next minute he had recovered and was his old self, balanced but secretive, hiding behind a screen of politeness. ‘When we find Daisy’s abductor,’ he said, his face grim, ‘we will charge her at the very least with wasting police time and abduction, and possibly concealment of a body, if not with something far, far worse.’ He was staring into the distance, his face haunted but determined. ‘I still have so many more questions,’ he confessed.

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Why was this person on the scene in the first place? Was it accident or design?’ He indicated the sprig of plants. ‘Why leave such an obscure message when we might easily have failed to pick up on it?’

  ‘The message,’ Martha said slowly, ‘was left deliberately obscure. Only the right person would read it.’ She looked up. ‘They knew it would end up with you, Alex.’

  He took a moment to absorb that one. ‘What it doesn’t tell us,’ he said, ‘is whether she’s alive or dead. Presumably if she’s injured it would be as a result of the car accident? If so why not simply bring Daisy to us? We’d take care of her. We’d make sure she was safe and had any medical treatment she needed.’

  The sentiment sparked Martha off thinking. ‘Wait a minute, Alex. Realistically, what will happen to Daisy if you find her safe and well?’

  He shrugged. ‘Relatives, usually. They generally step in – with the encouragement of social services.’

  ‘Exactly. And Tracy’s relatives are?’

  ‘Well, there’s her father,’ he said dubiously.

  Martha dismissed him with a purse of her lips and a shake of her head.

  ‘Daisy’s father? I don’t think so.’

  ‘So it will be Daisy’s grandmother and aunt.’

  ‘Exactly. Like I said, I’ve met them, Alex.’ She paused, picking her words out carefully, like chicken bones. ‘They don’t want her. The general impression is that there was bound to be a tragedy someday with Tracy’s drinking, yet they’ve shown little interest in Daisy. But they are her next of kin. Realistically, who else is in line to take care of Daisy if she’s still alive? Neil?’

  ‘What do you think they think of Neil?’

  ‘To be honest they didn’t seem that interested in him either but at least they didn’t say anything bad about him.’

  ‘Do you think it’s possible that if Daisy’s still alive grandmother and granddaughter might be reunited?’

  Alex snorted. ‘Reunited? They hardly saw her. I don’t think if has ever seemed a bigger word, Martha. She’s just not the maternal type, is she? And I think it very likely that if Daisy really is still alive social services will be keeping a very beady eye on her future.’

  Martha was silent. Randall watched her, seeing her face thoughtful, pensive, anxious. Finally she looked up. ‘I’d be very tempted,’ she advised slowly, ‘to look very deeply into Tracy and Neil’s lives,’ she said. ‘Not just their life together but their lives as individuals. I suspect something very murky is behind this. And I simply can’t believe that the little girl was discovered by chance at six a.m. in a remote country place by a wandering country person who abducted her, when she was probably injured and shocked, and who is now teasing you with obscure bunches of plants meant to send warnings which you might or might not have read correctly, and which withhold the vital fact, whether Daisy is still alive. OK,’ she said, holding up her index finger. ‘So you’ve got the message now, that there is more to this than meets the eye. But malevolence? Who does that refer to? Our abductor? Tracy? Her family? Neil? Something happened that night up there on the Burway, at two in the morning a few weeks ago, and I don’t think it happened by chance.’

  The phrase resonated in her head like an echo. Happened by chance. What was she saying? That all this had been planned?

  It was an impossible idea.

  She focused on him. ‘Wherever the little girl is,’ she said, ‘dead or alive, injured or healthy, happy or not, she shouldn’t be there.’

  Randall’s grey eyes were very troubled. ‘Where should she be, Martha?’

  ‘Possibly with Neil, but that won’t happen.’ She was temporarily distracted. ‘Tell me. Did Tracy’s sister and mother visit her in hospital?’

  ‘I think they had to go there to sign the organ donation forms.’

  ‘Mmm.’ She screwed her face up. ‘A four-year-old child is naturally suspicious of strangers. I wonder if Daisy had met her abductor before.’

  Randall shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

  She could follow his train of thought – how very little they knew – for the time being.

  ‘Well, I have plenty to chew over.’

  ‘Good,’ she responded lightly.

  He still didn’t move. She put a hand on his arm, less as a physical contact than a way of emphasising her words. ‘The sort of person who would send this message, Alex, is exactly as your forensic linguist thought – a country person with an eccentric character. Someone who lives in the past, in the realm of witchcraft and folklore, of legend and fantasy, someone whose values are not like ours. Someone who believes they are above the law. Someone without conscience or pity. Someone who does not care about a four-year-old child who, if she’s even alive, must be confused and frightened if not in actual pain or danger. Find her, Alex, for goodness’ sake. This person is pure evil. She is playing with you and deliberately using an obscure way of communicating to taunt you. She’ll let you have the truth when it suits her.’

  Even as she spoke the words something pricked her mind. It was the phrase she had just used, obscure way of communicating. Somehow it connected with another phrase she had used in the past, together with without conscience or pity. She had been here before, to this dark and troubled place. It was connected with a girl. Not a child. A girl. There was, in her mind’s eye, another image, faded, indistinct and blurred at the moment, but the image would come into focus at some point. Just not yet. She was not ready for the revelation. All in good time (one of her mother’s favourite phrases). She looked down at the plants and knew she must do something here apart from simply translating. She must interpret too. Interpret and anticipate.

  Alex was watching her. ‘What is it, Martha?’ he asked gently.

  ‘I can’t say,’ she said. ‘Not now. Not yet, but I fear for the child.’

  It was the name. Why had it seemed familiar?

  He said nothing but still watched and waited.

  Finally she spoke. ‘Something in this case is reminding me of a previous case long ago. I’ll have to ask Jericho if he can help me out here.’ She laughed. ‘He has the memory of an elephant. Leave it with me, Alex. I really can’t say because it might be nothing. I might be barking up the wrong tree.’ She stopped then added, ‘I hope so.’

  He simply nodded. Then, quite out of the blue, he spoke. ‘Martha,’ he said tentatively.

  Sensing something she turned, her eyes on him.

  But she knew from the quick drop of his gaze that he had lost his bottle.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said and she knew if she had pursued the subject he would have sidestepped whatever it was he had been about to say.

  He left and she watched the still-swinging door. How bloody typical, she thought. The only man I have the slightest feelings for and he’s married, plus he doesn’t appear to have any affection for me whatsoever. A moment later she stood up decisively and opened the door.

  ‘Jericho,’ she called. ‘Can you help me out?’

  FIFTEEN

  Wednesday, 24 April, 10 a.m.

  Charity Ignatio’s homecoming was different from other occasions. Not quiet and private but very, very public. The police had been in constant contact with her while she had been in the Middle East and they knew she would be back today. Apart from a few days off early in April her schedule had been far too tight to return an
y sooner and they had had to be patient. It was hardly likely that Charity would hold any key to the child’s whereabouts. She was out of the picture, having been in the Middle East at the time of the crash and Daisy’s disappearance.

  But, as Daisy remained missing, media interest had swelled so not only the police but the press, noisy and jostling, long lenses poised, were waiting for her outside her front door on that chilly April morning. She arrived back in the UK tired and jet-lagged after an overnight flight and voicing her outrage. How dare someone break into her cottage, make a telephone call and then vanish into thin bloody air. By the time she’d picked up her car from Heathrow airport, paid the exorbitant fee for being away for almost a month, battled her way up the M40 and across to Shropshire on the M54, finally arriving at Hope Cottage at 10 a.m., her mood had not improved. And when she saw the police car, standing patiently, waiting for her return, and behind that the feeding frenzy of the world’s papers, she finally snapped.

  But what the world loves more than anything else – more than romance or scandal, more than a grisly murder, more than embarrassing failure or even runaway success, is a mystery. And this mystery was sticking to the front pages of papers and media sites like a fly to flypaper.

  WPC Delia Shaw stepped forwards to introduce herself but she had her work cut out soothing the irate and exhausted woman. She looked behind her apologetically at the long lenses and furry sound equipment that was being thrust forward. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘If we could have stopped them we would have but …’

  Charity Ignatio simply scowled. She was somewhere in her mid-twenties with swarthy, Hispanic, thick-set features. She had beautiful dark eyes and fabulously long, curling eyelashes that couldn’t possibly be a gift of nature, could they? She also had a wonderful complexion and a strong, square, almost masculine chin. The thought flashed through Delia Shaw’s mind that she would have made a great Carmen.

  Charity’s scowl deepened as she met the officer’s eyes. ‘Look,’ she said in a very patrician voice. ‘I’m bloody knackered. I haven’t had any sleep for two nights and I need to rest. It isn’t my fault that someone’s used my cottage.’ Her eyes scanned the press and their intrusive lenses with frank hostility. ‘And if that lot think I’m giving them an interview …’ Her eyes narrowed, ‘… about bloody nothing …’ She didn’t need to complete the sentence.

  ‘I know that,’ WPC Shaw said sympathetically. ‘We just want you to take a quick look around and see if anything’s been moved or is missing. Or …’ she began, with a flash of inspiration, ‘if anything’s there that shouldn’t be. We can take a statement and your fingerprints sometime later.’ She flashed a winning smile. ‘When you’ve had some sleep.’

  ‘Right,’ Ms Ignatio said, stomping round to her boot and dragging out an enormous suitcase.

  PC Gary Coleman hastened to help. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Let me.’

  And she did.

  The cottage felt cold and unwelcoming. Charity looked around her, still grumpy. ‘I take it you’ve already had a look around.’

  Delia Shaw didn’t think it was quite the right moment to point out that a front door key hidden under a flower pot was not a good idea. Ms Ignatio was in a bad enough mood as it was without police criticism of her security arrangements.

  She continued with her grumbling. ‘You’d have thought Shirley would have made a bit of an effort,’ she grumbled. ‘Put the heating on or something.’

  ‘We asked her not to come,’ Delia Shaw responded smoothly. ‘We know that our mystery call was made from here.’ She ignored the outraged, ‘Bloody cheek,’ and continued. ‘We don’t know who she is and we didn’t want your cleaning woman to destroy any potential evidence. We think our caller is the key to finding the little girl.’ She dropped her eyes. She didn’t want Charity to read her private fear that either they never would find Daisy alive, or that they would find her decomposed body.

  Somewhere.

  But if she’d thought that mentioning Daisy Walsh would soften Charity’s anger she might have considered again. It did nothing. She marched around the rooms, her aggression as obvious as steam coming out of a dragon’s furious nose.

  Belying its Victorian exterior, the cottage was very modern inside and it was obvious that Charity’s tastes were for the ultra-contemporary. Everything was Spartan white. Even the sofa was spaceship-white leather and looked very uncomfortable, the sort where the cushions slide off and is always cold to the touch. Delia Shaw took a surreptitious glance at Ms Ignatio and added, like its owner, to her observation. Charity might have a warm, traditional name but there was nothing either warm or traditional about her or her abode. In fact, the puzzle was why on earth did she choose to live here? Of all places? She would surely have been much more at home in a Mayfair flat. It would have been more convenient too for someone who spent their life travelling between international airports. So she watched her closely and with scarcely concealed curiosity.

  The two officers followed Charity around in their stockinged feet, Ms Ignatio having insisted they remove their shoes first. They didn’t mention the fact that forensics had done a thorough hovering job and was currently analysing every speck of debris that had been lifted from the carpet. If Ms Ignatio thought the carpet looked extra clean she didn’t say so.

  The kitchen was Tardis spacious with white wood units and pale granite tops, and it had a wonderful view out towards the sheep scattered along Carding Mill Valley and the Burway which looked a thin, precipitous ribbon of tarmac heading upwards and out of sight. Charity stood in front of the window and stared out, apparently lost in thought.

  Delia Shaw cleared her throat. ‘Is anything out of place?’

  ‘No. But …’ Charity turned around. ‘You’ll think I’m being fanciful,’ she said, embarrassed, ‘but I can feel a presence.’

  ‘It’s possibly because you know someone’s been here,’ Coleman said, ever the pedant. ‘It’s quite common when there’s been an intruder to feel that they’ve left their mark somewhere.’

  ‘Is anything out of place?’ Delia Shaw persisted.

  Charity looked around her, frowning. ‘I can’t work out what it is,’ she said, ‘but something is different.’ Her eyes scanned the room as she scowled.

  Both Shaw and Coleman would dearly have loved to press her or even mention the intensive forensic ‘scrub’ but Charity’s shoulders dropped and she continued with her tour without saying anything more.

  They trailed after her around the small, two-bedroomed cottage, her misgivings translating to them and altering the innocent character of Hope Cottage. Instead of appearing a tidy, hardly lived-in home it seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for them to discover something. Delia Shaw glanced at her colleague. Was it possible the child was here after all?

  It appeared that Charity felt the same. She was opening cupboards and searching under beds, her fingers spread out, her features puzzled.

  As the cottage had a sloping roof upstairs the loft was very small, with only room for the water tanks and a small, wooden boarded area, no more than three foot square. The police had already searched up there and found nothing but Charity had the eyes of a hawk. She dropped the ladder down and climbed right into the loft, switching an electric light on as she went while the two police waited at the bottom of the ladder, looking at each other, their shoulders up, querying.

  ‘Aha,’ Charity said, scrabbling around up there. ‘Not mine, I think.’ And she dropped a small fluffy pink slipper right into Delia Shaw’s hand. It had a scuffed plastic Barbie doll on the front and was a twin for the other.

  Delia Shaw felt her face flame, while Coleman gave an embarrassed scrape of his throat.

  Martha, meanwhile, was speaking to her officer. Jericho was listening intently, his head titled to one side, his eyes gleaming. He loved playing detective and his memory for old cases was prodigious, much better than Martha’s. His mind was like a filing cabinet, everything neatly placed in chronological and alphabetical order.r />
  ‘Did I dream it, Jericho,’ she was saying, ‘or did it really happen?’ And then she told him about the bunch of herbs and the message it had conveyed, which had led to her question about a past case.

  Jericho was silent for a moment, his mind flicking through cases as though they were cards in a pack. King, queen, ace, jack. He looked at her. It was the jack. The jack of clubs. A naughty card not, in this case, a male, but a female of the species. Jericho Palfreyman felt happy. He so loved a cliché.

  ‘Deadlier than the male,’ he murmured appropriately.

  And Martha had got her clue.

  ‘In 2002,’ he said decisively. ‘It were a wench what cooked tea for her family. You remember,’ he prompted. ‘They lived in Hope Bowdler. Father, stepmother and half-brother.’ He screwed his face up in concentration. ‘The girl made some sort of a soup and they all fell ill.’

  Martha looked dubious. ‘I’m not sure whether …’

  ‘Aye, but she must have had a witch’s knowledge of plants,’ he said. ‘There was no proof what she’d bin up to but someone left some Death Cap on ’er doorstep.’ He looked at her in some surprise. ‘Don’t you remember, Mrs Gunn?’

  ‘Not as well as I should,’ she said. ‘Who did you say died?’

  ‘The whole family,’ he said, ‘except ’er.’

  Martha screwed up her face. She still didn’t remember the whole story – only fragments. It had always been a jigsaw with too many pieces missing. ‘I remember the verdict,’ she said. ‘Misadventure. I had no option. I just remembered the case. I wonder what happened to her.’

  Jericho looked very slightly irritated because now he didn’t quite have all the answers. ‘Give me a few days,’ he said.

  Randall was still pedantically pursuing leads, his officers increasingly frustrated.

  WPC Lara Tinsley had the pleasure of PC Sean Dart’s company when they went back to interview Lucy Stanstead at DI Randall’s insistence. He didn’t feel comfortable with the role of the naval captain’s wife in all this. Tinsley watched the PC concentrate on driving the squad car and wondered. She hadn’t quite made up her mind about Sean, whom she’d privately christened Sean Dark Horse. He’d recently transferred to Shrewsbury from Halifax but no one really knew why. She suspected it was to do with a marital breakup – he had a bitter twist to his mouth and never mentioned his family. Not his partner (male or female) or children, not even his mother or father, or anyone, in fact. He really was the proverbial dark horse and Lara Tinsley, who had a slightly nosey streak to her, had made it her mission to winkle out his backstory.