She had nodded solemnly, risked a sneaky smile.
You’re going to be all right now.
The child’s eyes had locked into hers, one set trusting and innocent, the other neither.
Finally at 3.50 p.m., the teenage girl who helped serve behind the counter addressed the child, who stood as still as a garden statue.
‘You all right there, love?’
Kelly Simms had been texting her boyfriend for the last twenty minutes, giggling at his suggestive responses and only now had she become aware of her surroundings. She eyed the little girl in the sprigged dress. The girl nodded gravely but said nothing.
Kelly came around to the front of the counter and bent over. ‘Your mum upstairs, is she?’
The little girl shook her head solemnly.
‘You with your dad then?’
Again the little girl shook her head with the same mute solemnity.
‘Who are you with?’ Kelly’s voice had grown sharp. Instinctively she felt that something here was unusual.
And at last the child spoke. ‘I’m not with anyone,’ she said. ‘I’m on my own.’
Kelly hunkered down to meet the little girl’s eyes. They were wide open. ‘You must be with someone,’ she prompted.
‘No, I’m not.’ The little girl shook her head, dimples in her cheeks, golden curls feathering out. ‘I am on my own.’
‘Well, how did you get here?’
‘She brought me.’
‘Who brought you?’
‘The lady.’
‘What lady?’ Kelly scouted around for someone to lay claim to this one.
‘She’s gone now.’ The little girl put her hand on her arm. ‘She said she was going so there’s no use you lookin’ for her. She’s gone back.’
‘Gone back where?’
The child looked at her as though she was stupid. ‘To her house,’ she said, stating the obvious.
Kelly was taken aback.
The little girl spoke with growing confidence. ‘She told me you was to get the plees.’
‘Sorry? Oh, the police.’
‘And to give this letter and the bunch of flowers to the lady.’
‘What lady?’
The child pointed to the name on the front of the envelope.
Written clearly in large bold letters, she read:
A message to Martha.
TWENTY-SEVEN
A message to Martha. The phrase brought back memories.
Martha glanced up at the mantelpiece. There was a postcard there. Where it had come from was unmistakable. Lady Liberty held her lamp up high.
It had been sent by Finton Cley, one-time accused stalker through a misunderstanding about his family and the coroner’s verdict of suicide which had impacted them all so hard. Now, hatchets buried, he was running a successful antiques business in the Big Apple. The message on the back of the card was jaunty. Best thing I ever did, moving here. Sister engaged!!!
She smiled. Sometimes things turned out well after all. She turned her attention back to the white envelope. ‘And you say this was with her?’ Gloves on, she fingered the envelope.
Randall was pale and looked exhausted. He nodded and handed her the bunch of plants. ‘Together with this. She was clutching it like her life depended on it.’
Martha eyed the sprigs and thoughts began to tumble through her mind. Helter-skelter.
Oblivious to this, Randall continued apologetically, ‘I wasn’t sure if both were meant for you.’
‘I think they were.’ Martha slid a paperknife along the top of the envelope, preserving the glue, although no one licked envelopes these days. They either trusted the pathetically weak adhesive on both envelope flaps or they stuck on a strip of Sellotape. Still, you never knew your luck. Perhaps this once their perpetrator might have been careless, though she doubted it. The person behind all this didn’t strike her as someone who was careless.
She pulled out a blank sheet of paper. ‘I see,’ she said, unsurprised. The child had been the clue. That and the bouquet of plants.
Randall nodded wearily and Martha took her eyes off the sheet of paper and focused on him instead. ‘Alex,’ she said with concern, ‘are you all right?’
DI Randall shook his head.
‘But surely …’ She reached across and touched his hand. ‘The child is safe.’ This is wonderful. A success story – surely?’
He met her eyes briefly. ‘Of course,’ he said, not moving his hand away. ‘Of course. It’s wonderful. I can’t believe that Daisy is all right. It is fantastic.’
‘But …?’
He gave a deep sigh. And Martha decided it was time to jump the next big step.
‘Alex,’ she said tentatively, ‘we’ve been colleagues. No – friends – for a few years now. I’ve offered before … if ever you want to confide in me …’ she felt compelled to add, ‘… as a friend.’
For what more can a married man be?
Alex Randall hesitated, then lifted his eyes. ‘Thank you,’ he said simply. ‘You don’t know how very comforting I find that.’ He smiled at her and her heart began to sing.
There was a moment’s pause, which was broken by the detective just before it became embarrassing. He indicated the blank sheet of paper, the envelope and the sprig of herbs which the child had delivered so conscientiously. ‘So what on earth is the significance of this?’
Martha was silent, thinking and working out before speaking. ‘Where is Daisy now?’
‘With social services at a foster home.’
‘Has she said anything?’
‘Not much – mainly that she hurt her leg and a lady looked after her.’
‘Has a doctor examined her leg?’
‘It looks fine. There’s a wound that looks as though it came from the accident. It’s quite nasty and would account for the blood found in the car.’
Martha dropped her gaze to the sprig of plants and began to understand. She fingered the hairy leaves, the bell-shaped blue flowers. ‘And the X-rays?’
‘Show a recent fracture of the right tibia, now healed.’ He screwed up his face. ‘I think they called it callus formation and …’ he was less sure of himself now, ‘… greenstick?’
Martha nodded. ‘Aligned?’
In spite of his weariness, Randall smothered a smile. He often forgot that Martha was a qualified doctor.
‘Perfect alignment,’ he said.
‘Has Daisy said anything else?’
‘Very little so far. We’ve had some of the experts in child psychology interview her but it’s very difficult. It’s almost as though she’s been warned not to speak.’
‘Maybe she has.’
Randall nodded, watching her. ‘This woman is dangerous,’ he said.
‘But she kept Daisy safe. You have no evidence she’s dangerous.’
‘We might have, soon,’ he said.
Martha lifted her eyebrows in enquiry.
‘We’ve subjected Daisy’s dress to forensic analysis,’ he said. ‘It was bought in Tesco’s and only stocked there since last week. It was probably bought in Shrewsbury so we can look at their CCTV. And …’ His pause was significant. ‘We’ve come up with some dog hairs. Short and gingery. We’re thinking a terrier.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘The field is narrowing.’
She met his eyes fearlessly. ‘I want to see Daisy,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to her.’
The child who had been the focus of so much attention was smaller than Martha had imagined. She was tiny – even for a four-year-old, and entrancing, mainly due to her very beautiful bright blue eyes, which gazed back at Martha with the transparency that only a small child can give. She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by Lego bricks and small plastic farm animals. She was being watched by a stocky woman in a tweed skirt, presumably one of the team of social workers assigned to her care.
Alex nodded the woman a greeting while Martha sat down next to the little girl on the floor. ‘Hello, Daisy,’ she said softly and picked up one of the large
Lego bricks. The child put her head on one side and regarded her solemnly, saying nothing. Martha clicked the brick on to its partner and reached out for another one while the child continued to watch her warily.
‘Is your leg better?’ Martha asked, still playing with the bricks, forming them now into a bridge. The child’s attention was split between Martha and Martha’s building activity.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s good,’ Martha said, reaching out for one of the Lego people to stand on the bridge. ‘It must have hurt.’
The child nodded. ‘A lot,’ she said.
‘It’s a good job the lady made it better.’
The mention of the lady increased the child’s tension. Her shoulders stiffened but she handed Martha one of the Lego people, a little girl. Now she was making a face, considering.
Considering what?
Whether to speak? Whom to trust? She licked her lips and Martha reached out for a red Lego car. Daisy Walsh drew in a deep breath.
Martha changed the subject. ‘That’s a pretty dress,’ she said.
The child’s attention was focused now on her frock and she stroked the flowered material and looked up at Martha. ‘She bought it for me,’ she said.
‘Well, I think that was very kind of her.’ Martha hesitated before pushing on. ‘And she was very kind to look after you too.’
Daisy nodded. And then she smiled, the sun coming out from behind a cloud. ‘She made me better,’ she said firmly. ‘Like she promised she would.’
Martha took a chance. ‘I think her house is nice too.’
Randall was watching from the doorway, his expression softer than usual as he watched Martha with the child.
The child looked up. ‘It’s quite pretty,’ she said. Then added, ‘Yellow.’
Martha picked up a yellow brick. ‘Like this?’
‘Not the same yellow,’ Daisy said.
‘Paler?’
Daisy nodded and picked up the red car. She looked at it thoughtfully, then back at Martha. Tracy’s car. Red VW.
‘It’s a pity it fell off the mountain,’ Martha said, deliberately vague.
Daisy nodded, then threw the car right across the room. It hit the wall with a soft smash then landed on the floor. The social worker’s head flew up. Alex put a hand on her arm.
‘Did you like the dog, though?’
Daisy started giggling, putting her hand over her mouth. ‘He had a funny name,’ she said. ‘Sick something.’
Martha giggled too. ‘Was it really sick?’
The child was still frowning. ‘No,’ she said, puzzled. ‘Not sick. His name. Seck something.’
Martha did not want to prompt her. She bunched her shoulders up in a silent query. ‘Oh, I’d really like to know,’ she said.
Daisy was frowning fiercely. ‘Seck Met,’ she said.
Martha could hardly conceal her triumph. She blazed a smile at Alex.
Oh, what a neat little puzzle this was turning out to be.
TWENTY-EIGHT
‘Quite extraordinary,’ Alex said, handing Martha a cup of coffee. They had left the little girl still playing with her Lego. Instead of returning to their respective offices they had elected for neutral ground – Costa Coffee on the High Street, near Grope Lane and Waterstones.
‘The whole thing is quite extraordinary,’ he repeated.
‘So what do we actually know, Alex?’
Alex paused, put his cup down on the saucer deliberately. ‘We know that our person is a lady,’ he said, ‘who has looked after Daisy and then given her up. We know she lives in a yellow house and has a dog called …’ He eyed Martha suspiciously.
‘Sekhmet,’ she supplied innocently.
Randall raised his eyebrows. ‘And the significance of that is?’
‘You’d like to hear a story?’ Martha asked teasingly.
Randall smiled, knowing he was playing her game, and enjoying it. He nodded, picked up his cup of coffee and eyed her over the rim.
‘Right then.’ Her eyes were merry. ‘You asked for it. Sekhmet is an ancient Egyptian goddess usually associated with war and destruction, but also with both plagues and healing. Her name means “The Powerful One”. She is usually depicted as a woman with the head of a lioness, sometimes also with the sun disc and the Egyptian cobra on her headdress.’
‘Go on. This is more interesting than I thought,’ Alex prompted, ‘though exactly what it’s got to do with our abductor I’m not sure.’
‘Yet,’ Martha said. ‘It’s a pretty nasty tale,’ she said, ‘typical of the Egyptians. The story is that Ra, the old king of the gods, became angry with wayward humans and in his wrath ripped out his eye and threw it down to Earth. This divine eye became the Goddess Sekhmet, who in the form of a lioness, set about slaughtering humans, butchering them and drinking their blood.’ She made a face at Alex, who was watching her, a tilt of amusement lifting his normally straight mouth.
‘Ra, seeing the appalling habits of Sekhmet and realizing that at the rate she was going no one would be left alive on Earth, tried to calm her. But she refused to listen. She was enjoying her killing far too much. So Ra filled a lake with a mixture of beer and pomegranate juice, and Sekhmet, thinking it was blood, drank the lot then fell asleep. When she woke the next morning, she was much calmer but had a terrible headache!’
Alex was puzzled. ‘I can’t work out what this has to do with Daisy’s abductor.’
‘Patience,’ Martha said. ‘Though Sekhmet was known primarily as a violent goddess, she was also known as a healer who set and cured broken bones.’
Alex was thinking about this. He was silent, then looked up and asked quietly, ‘What was the plant, Martha?’
‘Comfrey,’ she said. ‘Sometimes known as knitbone. Daisy had a broken leg. This woman, whoever she was, healed it using traditional remedies.’
Randall drank his coffee thoughtfully before speaking again. ‘But it still doesn’t tell us what happened that night, why Tracy took her car out, why she tried to reverse and how or why Daisy was removed from the scene.’
‘And I don’t know either. We’ll have to ask her.’
TWENTY-NINE
Thursday, 2 May, 10 a.m.
In the end, it was surprisingly easy. It had taken less than twenty-four hours to find Primrose Cottage, partly through the recall of some of the team who had conducted the house-to-house searches and remembered its yellow exterior, the only yellow-painted house in the area, and partly through the unusual name of the dog. Vets proved very helpful and in this case led them straight to the cottage, which was owned by a woman called Violet Taylor, daughter of Eva, the woman who had once lived in Hope Cottage.
Things were turning full circle.
Alex was left in a quandary over whether to take Martha along with him. As coroner this was nothing to do with her but Martha, yet again, had proved pivotal in this case. Besides which, it appeared that Violet Taylor, whatever her connection, wanted the coroner to come along. The letter had been addressed to her. It had been an invitation. There was a backstory, which the police didn’t know. It was something to do with Charity Ignatio but Randall couldn’t make a connection. Charity had checked out. So he needed not only Ms Taylor’s help here but Martha’s too. His instincts might scream that there was something strange, something sinister about the events on that night, of 6 and 7 April, but he wasn’t going to be able to piece together the inexplicable fragments without help. He was only too aware that he was still missing many of the pieces. And so, after a great deal of thought, when he was sure that the remote cottage near Snailbeach was the one, he decided he would take Martha with him.
They both knew it was irregular but Randall believed that Violet Taylor, daughter of Eva, wanted to speak more to the coroner – for whatever reason – than to him.
Snailbeach was an old lead mining area on the edge of their search zone to the north-west of Church Stretton. It was a rural village with a few mine workers’ cottages and little else.
>
As the car drew up on that Thursday morning the first thing they heard was the staccato barks of Sekhmet. Martha couldn’t resist giving Alex a grin which he acknowledged, cocking his head. The cottage door opened and the dog came flying out. A ginger-coated terrier. In the doorway stood a woman.
Randall stared. His mind had been unable to produce any sort of picture before. If anything Violet Taylor looked just like the popular image of a witch. Long grey hair, a floor-length skirt, piercing black eyes. But looked at with more realistic eyes, she was less intimidating. Mid-fifties, an ageing hippy rather than someone with magical powers.
She was unsmiling and looked wary, but her face warmed a little when she saw Martha Gunn climbing out of the squad car.
There was no verbal greeting. She simply regarded them.
It was Martha who spoke first. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m pleased to meet you. It is Miss Taylor, isn’t it?’
Violet nodded. ‘I’m glad you came too,’ she said, adding, ‘at last,’ in a dry tone which robbed the words of any warmth. Her accent was just as they had imagined it: a rich, Shropshire burr.
The butter-coloured walls of the cottage seemed to absorb the spring sunlight so it looked as though the walls generated some of the glow themselves. Violet Taylor turned her back on them and went inside, the dog, quiet now, following warily. The interior of the cottage, in contrast, was dingy and dull, with heavy black beams criss-crossing the ceiling. Like many old houses the windows were too small to let in sufficient light, but there was a pleasant scent of lavender and a few early roses cut from the climber which had grown so thick it practically blocked the front door, its thorns meant to catch the unwary.
Randall followed the two women in, feeling strangely out of control. Whoever was pulling the strings in this case now, it certainly wasn’t the senior investigating officer.
Martha found herself staring up at the painting which hung over the fireplace. She turned and confronted its owner. ‘Horrible,’ she commented. ‘It’s horrible. A really nightmarish subject.’
‘To some, maybe,’ Violet said, her words thick. ‘Not to me. Everyone needs a source of inspiration.’
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