The Night Stalker (Detective Jane Bennett and Mike Lockyer series Book 4)

by Clare Donoghue

  ‘There’s Great Bear, Will’s Neck and Frog Combe,’ he said. ‘They’re not so bad.’

  ‘That depends on the bear, and what they were doing to Will’s neck,’ she said, forcing herself to smile. If Barney had noticed her disquiet, he had the good grace not to say anything.

  ‘Pip would have come up from that way,’ he said, pointing at the road disappearing back down into woodland. ‘This here is Dead Woman’s Ditch.’ He was out of the car again and heading for another copse of trees before Jane could protest. ‘It runs from here over to where we were just now.’

  As she climbed down, a different shiver worked its way from her toes all the way up to behind her ears. ‘Let’s make this quick.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘There it is.’

  Something occurred to her as she walked over to join him.

  ‘Barney,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You keep referring to Pippa as Pip,’ she said. ‘Did you know her?’ She didn’t know why she hadn’t picked up on it straight away. It made sense. They worked right next to each other. She pursed her lips, annoyed with herself. She had been so busy jumping at shadows, she had missed something staring her in the face. Fear, it seemed, was not conducive to good investigative work.

  ‘I went to the same primary school as her and her brother.’

  ‘You know Aaron?’ she asked, surprised by the sudden overlap in her worlds. Of course. If he knew Pippa, it followed he might know Aaron. For some reason, it made her feel better. Aaron was someone she trusted – someone she would feel safe with.

  ‘Used to,’ he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. ‘I didn’t know it was Pip until I got up here.’

  ‘She worked over at Fyne Court,’ Jane said, a question in her voice.

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘How well did you know her?’ she asked, her head cocked on one side. There was something in Barney’s expression that said this was more than a passing acquaintance.

  He pulled at his beard and sniffed. ‘I hadn’t seen her since school,’ he said, ‘but when she started working at the Farmer’s over in Combe Florey I recognized her, you know? We had a few drinks, went out a few times.’ He looked down at his feet.

  ‘You dated?’ she asked, unable to keep the incredulity from her voice.

  He shook his head, frowning. ‘No, no, nothing like that. We went out . . . like, a group of us. Her and I talked once, maybe twice, but that was it.’

  She looked at him. He held her eye. She couldn’t decide if he was being defiant because he was telling the truth, or because he was fighting a lie. ‘Why did you stay?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When you realized it was Pippa, why did you stay?’

  He opened his hands and shrugged. ‘The guy in charge asked me to help,’ he said. ‘It was a circus up here. I might not have known Pip, not properly, but I didn’t think it was right . . . folk seeing her how she was.’

  ‘Who asked you? Townsend?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. He hooked his thumb at the copse of trees over to their right. ‘You’d better take a look if you want, before it gets too dark.’ He turned away.

  Jane followed, but kept her distance. She had more questions, but they weren’t for Barney. They were for Townsend. What on earth was he playing at, allowing someone who knew the victim access to the crime scene?

  Barney had stopped. ‘This is it.’

  She turned on the spot. Dead Woman’s Ditch was a lot less dramatic than the name suggested. Between two lines of bent and twisted trees there was a leaf-filled gully, banks of earth, shrubs and moss climbing up on either side. ‘This is it?’

  ‘Yeah. This is the start of it. It runs for about a mile back down over there, through Shervage.’

  ‘It’s seriously just a ditch?’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but yes,’ he said. ‘It dates back to the Iron Age . . . some fortification or other dividing up the lands around here.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, already planning her call to Lockyer. Dead Woman’s Ditch might be a let-down, but she was pretty sure he would want to know about Townsend’s crime scene management.

  ‘Just thought you’d want to see it,’ Barney said.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘I appreciate you taking the time to show me.’

  ‘It wasn’t here he dumped the body,’ he said.

  ‘No?’ she said, clapping her hands together. She had lost interest. It was time to go.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was over at the other end, more in the woods, near where we were just now, as it happens.’

  She nodded. ‘Sure, sure.’

  ‘They were walking back from the pub when he did it,’ he said.

  ‘Really,’ she said without inflection.

  ‘I just thought . . . well, there’s been talk that, you know . . . well, I’m sure it’s just talk but with the other murder . . . well, it’s got the locals in a bit of a state.’

  ‘This guy Walford killed his wife back in, what, the seventeen hundreds?’ she said, walking back to the truck. ‘I think there’s enough distance between that and this incident to alleviate any concern.’ She smiled.

  He didn’t.

  ‘It’s not just Walford that’s got them . . . unsettled,’ he said. ‘What with Walford, Pippa and the other girl . . . well, it all feels a bit close for comfort.’

  ‘What other girl?’ she asked, looking up at him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  12th December – Saturday

  ‘Can you slow down?’ Jane said, trying to keep up with Lockyer, who was tramping through the undergrowth at a speed her legs couldn’t match. ‘Is it much further?’ She tripped on a tree root hidden in the snow, swearing under her breath. The forest floor was buried in a good inch or so, making walking without incident a challenge.

  ‘Quit moaning. It’s just up here.’

  ‘You’ve been saying that for the last half hour,’ she muttered under her breath, taking care to walk in his footsteps, which gave her a good excuse not to look too far ahead. Shervage Wood was no more appealing this morning than it had been last night, and Lockyer wasn’t helping. He had spent the drive down from Clevedon rambling on about John Walford and other local legends, each tale creating a fresh knot in Jane’s stomach. Before Peter, she had loved being scared: films, books, ghost tours, rollercoasters – anything to get the blood going. Not any more, it seemed. She had thought her tastes had just changed with motherhood and age, but her reaction to Quantock folklore was putting paid to that idea.

  Mind you, if she was agitated, then Lockyer was a man possessed. He had all but dragged her out of her parents’ house this morning, without breakfast. She had managed a gulp of coffee, but that was all. Her stomach rumbled. ‘Do you actually know where you’re going?’

  He gave her a withering look over his shoulder, as if she had just questioned his manhood. ‘I spoke to Ranger Boy Barney this morning and he gave me the coordinates.’ He waved the map at her. ‘I figured I’d better have a back-up plan, given your sense of direction is about as bad as your satnav’s.’

  As much as she wanted to refute his insult, she couldn’t deny that her navigation skills were questionable. No one could expect her to know her arse from her elbow out here. Barney had used a different route. They had entered the woods just up from where Pippa’s car had left the road. It had been a five-minute walk, if that. And it had been semi-dark. This morning’s route-march had taken an hour so far. Lockyer had insisted on seeing the crash site, walking the road route to Dead Woman’s Ditch, passing Walford’s Gibbet and then coming back through Shervage Wood to where Chloe Evans’s body had been found. The ‘other girl’. That’s what Barney had called her, as if dead girls were just par for the course around here. Jane couldn’t imagine ending her life somewhere so remote, and yet two girls had died out here and within six months of each other. The trees were denser than she remembered. She turned and looked around her. She could neither see nor hear the road.
Without Lockyer she might never find her way out.

  ‘Ooh arr, what d’ye see?’ Lockyer whispered.

  Jane coughed as she choked on her own breath. He was behind her, bent forward, his mouth inches from her ear. ‘Are you trying to give me a heart attack?’ she said, stumbling away from him, her legs like jelly. She was breathing hard. ‘And just so you know, you sound more like a pirate than a southerner.’

  He smiled. ‘Keep your hair on,’ he said. ‘We’re here.’ He gestured to a clearing to the right of where they were standing. ‘This is Wayland’s Pool.’

  With her blood still hammering in her ears, Jane forced her legs into motion and followed Lockyer to where he was pointing. ‘Wayland’s what? I’m not seeing a pool.’ The clearing was ringed with oak trees, their trunks so close in places they were almost touching. It was as if they were jostling for space, their snow-laden branches leaning in, trying to get a better look.

  ‘Well . . .’ Lockyer said, lowering his voice and creeping towards her, his eyes shifting from left to right and a smile twitching at the edge of his lips. ‘From what Barney was telling me there be many a legend up in these ’ere parts about dragons and ditches, but I’ll be telling the story of Wayland the Smithy. They named the pool after him, though it’s long gone now.’

  She resisted the urge to smile.

  ‘’Tis rumoured Odin’s master blacksmith used this ’ere pool to cool the shoes as he made ’em for Odin’s hunting party.’ Lockyer contorted his face. Jane hung her head and laughed. He really was something else.

  ‘On stormy nights you can ’ear his ’ammer as he pounds the horseshoe on his anvil, and even see the sparks on a clear night.’ He widened his eyes. ‘When ’e’s done ’e plunges the hot shoe into the pool with a hiss . . .’ He leaned in and hissed in Jane’s face. ‘Then Odin, ’e be ready for his hunt. The wild ’orses round these parts know better than to come into Shervage Wood, lest they become Odin’s prey.’

  She wiped her face with her gloved hand. ‘Thanks for that,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘The accent was better that time . . . apart from the spitting.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, still in character. ‘The legends don’t sound right if you don’t tell ’em in the local tongue.’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ she said, turning to survey the space in front of them. There was a clear depression in the centre of the snow-covered ground. Jane looked around her. The spot was no more informative in the daylight than it had been last night in the semi-dark. Before Barney’s revelation about Chloe Evans, Jane had been more than ready to get back to the truck and get the hell out of there. Instead she had insisted he bring her here. She tried to get her bearings, to see things as she had done last night. ‘Where was she? Off to the left?’

  Lockyer nodded.

  ‘Those poor kids,’ she said with a shiver.

  ‘It’s always the same,’ he said, coming to stand next to her. ‘You never want to be a kid or a dog-walker. If there’s a half-naked body to be found, they’re the poor sods who’ll find it every time.’

  She sighed, letting her shoulders relax for the first time this morning. ‘OK, so we’re here,’ she said. ‘What now?’

  ‘We talk to Townsend,’ he said, turning and walking back the way they had come.

  ‘And we couldn’t have done that in the first place? We had to come all the way out here because . . . ?’ she said, stretching out the word as she turned, picking her way through the snow, leaves and mulch beneath her feet. Her toes felt like icicles in her boots.

  Lockyer stopped and turned, Jane ploughing right into him. If he had worn glasses, she thought, he would have been looking over them. ‘We’re out here because,’ he said, taking her by the shoulders and almost lifting her back onto her feet, ‘I wanted to get a feel for the place. I want to know more going into any conversation about this case, not less.’

  ‘But what have you learned?’ she asked, using the back of her hand to wipe the end of her nose. ‘I told you everything Barney told me. Chloe Evans was found back in July. As you’ve just proved, there’s nothing to see.’ He didn’t appear to be listening. ‘Forgive me, but I just don’t see the point of being out here in the freezing cold . . . particularly when I was out here last night,’ she added under her breath. A rustling sound off to her left made her pulse jump, her breath catching in her throat. She shook her head. She had hoped daylight would put paid to her hysteria, but it seemed her subconscious had other ideas.

  Lockyer pulled the map of hiking trails out of his pocket and flattened it against his palm. ‘Back in London I know the area, the people,’ he said, as if that should answer her question. ‘When a job comes in – a murder with an unknown assailant, say – what’s the first thing we do?’ She didn’t answer. This was a lecture, not a Q and A. ‘We look at the method and location.’ He looked back down at the map. ‘More often than not, we have a good idea who we’re looking for, suspect-wise, just from that information.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true,’ she said, though she felt far from convinced.

  ‘I don’t have that here.’ He tapped the map, turned and walked away to the left. ‘Hence the legwork,’ he added, slapping his open palm on his thigh.

  ‘I’d already done the legwork,’ she muttered.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You might not understand this, but I’m coming in blind, and that’s a problem. For me, that’s a major problem. If you hadn’t been out here with Ranger Boy yesterday, I’d be none the wiser.’ He looked at her over his shoulder, a look of contempt on his face. ‘I can’t run an inquiry that way. He should have told me. It’s as simple as that.’

  She wasn’t surprised by Lockyer’s vernacular. It was always ‘I’ when he was angry – when he felt slighted in some way.

  ‘What else don’t I know?’ he asked. She knew better than to answer his rhetorical questions. ‘Is it an oversight? Is he withholding?’ He seemed to weigh the two questions in his hands, his back still to her.

  ‘Who, Townsend?’ she asked, clueless as to the origin of his sudden irritation. He shrugged but didn’t answer, his strides lengthening until she was almost trotting to keep up. ‘I honestly don’t see the issue here. From what Barney told me, despite the location, there’s very little to compare the two deaths. Chloe Evans was killed back in the summer, so most likely before Townsend’s time anyway.’ Lockyer harrumphed, but didn’t argue with her. She had no idea why he was being so pig-headed.

  ‘And what about all this crap about John Walford and the locals?’

  ‘What about it?’ she asked, slipping and sliding on the mud and snow as she tried to keep pace with him.

  ‘When was I going to hear about that?’ He veered off to the right.

  Jane followed, though she couldn’t see how zig-zagging like this was going to get them back to the car. ‘Walford killed his wife in the seventeen hundreds, Mike. Where’s the relevance?’ She raised her voice, to be heard over the creak and sway of the branches above them. They were walking into the wind. It whistled around her face and neck, chilling her skin.

  ‘She was left in Dead Woman’s Ditch,’ he said, stopping again and turning to face her. ‘Chloe Evans’s body was left by Wayland’s Pool, which just so happens to be on the same ordnance line, and Pippa Jones was found, what . . . four hundred yards on from that?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘From what your friend Barney told me, the locals are a superstitious lot. According to him they’re shitting themselves . . . won’t come up here at night.’

  ‘Is that why you were banging on about the legends before?’ she asked, trying to make sense of his motives, not to mention his mood. He wasn’t just frustrated. He was angry.

  ‘Jesus, I don’t give two shits about the legends,’ he said, throwing his hands out at the woods around them. ‘But what I do care about . . . what does matter is that the locals do and it is exactly the kind of information a DI in charge of a murder inquiry has to know.’

  ‘I don’t mean to be indelicate,’ she said, choosing her wor
ds, ‘but you aren’t the DI in charge, Townsend is. Who’s to say what he does and doesn’t know? If he knows about the Evans case, I’m sure he’s considered and dismissed it.’ His mouth straightened into a line as she spoke. ‘And as for the locals – again, I’m sure he knows and I’m sure he’d have told you . . . us, given half a chance. We only arrived on Thursday night, for pity’s sake.’ She blew out a long breath. His frustration was catching. She had been fine five minutes ago – cold, but fine. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath in through her nose before opening them again. ‘This isn’t your first joint inquiry, Mike,’ she said, keeping her voice level. ‘You can’t know everything right off the bat.’

  He pushed his tongue between his teeth and upper lip, sniffed, turned and walked away. ‘This is an important case for me, Jane,’ he said, throwing the words over his shoulder, some taken by the wind. ‘I won’t have people saying I did a half-arsed job.’

  ‘What people? Atkinson?’ she asked, feeling like she was stumbling around both literally and metaphorically.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then who?’ She saw his shoulders stiffen. ‘Roger?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Someone else?’ He didn’t speak, but he had stopped walking again. She blew out a breath, a cloud of white billowing in front of her face. She could kick herself. ‘I knew something was up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked without looking at her, the map snapping in the wind at his side.

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘Well . . . and I mean no disrespect by this . . .’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But you have been more . . . assiduous than normal.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Come on, Mike,’ she said, toeing a hole in the snow. ‘You’ve never been one for taking notes and getting bogged down in the admin side of things. You gave Townsend the third degree yesterday. I was waiting for you to ask him his wife’s bra size.’ Lockyer huffed out a laugh or a sigh, she wasn’t sure. ‘And you’ve been like a dog with two dicks since I told you about the Evans girl, so what’s the deal? What’s going on?’