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

by Clare Donoghue

  ‘Keep listening.’

  For the remaining thirty-five seconds of the recording, none of them made a sound. The conference room was silent but for the sound of the flames, Pippa moaning and a car engine, idling in the background. There was a crunch as gears were engaged, and the clear sound of a vehicle accelerating away.

  ‘They stayed to watch,’ Jane said, shaking her head. ‘They knew she was alive – and they stayed to watch.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  13th December – Sunday

  Lockyer followed the ancient-looking Land Rover down the rutted path towards an old stone farmhouse. The snow made it near impossible to avoid the ruts. He cringed as the underside of the squad car scraped along the ground; and this was going downhill. How was he going to get back out? The lane looked a lot steeper now he was halfway down it than it had from the gateway at the top, where he had almost knocked down Robert Goodland.

  He had been forced to find an alternative route around Nether Stowey when he came up against a ‘road closed’ sign. It made sense. They were forecast for more snow, and given the plethora of lanes around the Quantocks and its surrounding villages, it was unrealistic to expect the gritter lorries to keep them all clear. It was on his detour that he met Goodland. The ancient farmer had all but jumped out in front of the squad car. Lockyer had managed to brake and swerve to the left, sliding into a snow-covered verge rather than Goodland’s legs.

  ‘You one of them London coppers?’ Goodland had asked, approaching the driver’s-side window like nothing had happened. He had a chicken slung under one arm. When Lockyer had said he was indeed ‘one of them London coppers’, Goodland had introduced himself and said, ‘You’d better follow me,’ disappearing into a field only to reappear moments later in the clapped-out Land Rover Lockyer was now following.

  He looked at the clock on the dash. He was meant to be meeting Jane in twenty minutes. She had somehow managed to change his original plan – to send her and a couple of Townsend’s team to speak to the regulars at the Farmer’s Arms in Combe Florey – into the two of them going in, with the BFG as their ‘guide’.

  Goodland pulled his 4x4 adjacent to the house and sign that read ‘Pepperhill Farm’. Lockyer watched him get out with the chicken still under his arm and proceed to walk away from the farmhouse, towards the barns. He sighed, dragging his hand down his face.

  Of course he could have travelled over with Jane and avoided this bizarre interlude, but then he would have missed the call from Linda at South West Forensics. She had an update on the paint samples taken from the Jones crash site. When he answered her call he had told Jane to go without him. Linda’s voice would have been better suited to radio presenting than geek work. It was low and husky. He had found himself listening without hearing until he remembered the reason for her call. She had managed to identify the other vehicle from a paint fragment. She had done the work herself to ensure Lockyer got the results he needed ASAP. He had promised to buy her a drink to say thank you.

  The car they were looking for was a ‘Chawton White’ Land Rover Defender, 1999, from the Solihull plant up near Manchester. It had been a big production year – over fifty-six thousand had come off the line, spread across fifteen colours. Lockyer skidded to a stop behind Goodland’s white Land Rover Defender and blew out a breath. He had seen almost as many Land Rovers as sheep since his arrival from London. If he didn’t know any better, he would swear Somerset was sponsored by the British 4x4 manufacturers. The expression ‘looking for a needle in a haystack’ sprung to mind. He turned off his engine, got out and half walked, half jogged to catch up with Goodland, the sun setting behind him. Jane would be pissed. He was going to be late – again.

  ‘I know, honey,’ Jane said as her son protested her absence. ‘It sounds amazing . . . I’m sure Grandma’s photos are ace . . . yes, and I can’t wait to see your picture.’ His voice was rising with each plea. ‘I’ll come in and give you a big kiss when I get home.’ He wasn’t convinced. ‘Yes, of course I’ll wake you.’ She wouldn’t, but now wasn’t the time for honesty. The signal kept dropping out: his voice drifting away and then screeching out, loud in her ear. She tugged at her hands-free. ‘Piece of shit,’ she said to her car as it grumbled up the hill. Thank God the gritter lorries had been out, otherwise she would have been in real trouble. ‘Sorry, honey,’ she said. ‘Yes, I’m still here . . . why don’t you ask Grandma to help you write a story all about your day? I would love that.’ The back end of her car slipped for a second as her tyres lost purchase. Her jaw tightened. She had been forced to come through Doddington after encountering a very snowy lane and a lopsided ‘road closed’ sign on the only route she knew. She wasn’t happy, but she had no one to blame except herself. She should have gone down the motorway to Taunton and come up to Combe Florey that way. But no, she had chosen to come over the hills – the way she knew, the way she hated – and now she had to listen to her son waxing lyrical about the place.

  To combat Peter’s ‘Christmas fever’, as her mother called it whilst indulging his love of dinosaurs and all things reptilian, Celia Bennett had driven Peter all the way down here so they could do the ‘Dragon Walk’ – something to do with the story of Gurt Wurm and a woodcutter. Jane rolled her eyes. She felt like she was up to her neck in legends. The result of her son’s ‘awesome’ day was that he was now beside himself because he had all this ‘brand new information’ to share with her and he wanted to do it now, not later.

  ‘I would love to, honey, but I can’t. I have to work,’ she said. ‘I know . . . I know you want me to come home, and I will . . . later on. You’ll see me later on.’ She could hear the disappointment and anxiety in Peter’s voice. ‘OK, honey . . . I keep losing you . . . my phone isn’t working so well . . .’ His voice rose by an octave. ‘Put Grandma on,’ she said, surprising herself. The line crackled and fell silent in her ear. She didn’t know if she was still connected or not, but she couldn’t look. She daren’t take her eyes off the road or her hands off the wheel. ‘Good choice, Jane,’ she mumbled to herself, and then to her mother: ‘Oh, it’s nothing, Mum, I was just talking to myself . . . yes, I know, first sign of madness, yes . . . that’s right.’ The familiarity of the conversation made Jane’s shoulder relax a little. It came to something when she courted a reprimand from her mother, but right now it was a welcome distraction. ‘I know, Mum,’ she said. ‘Because it’s my job . . . and I love it, yes.’ She nodded to herself. ‘And I love Peter, too . . . of course I love him more than work.’ She was still nodding, no doubt resembling the dog off the insurance adverts. ‘I’m doing my best . . . that’s right,’ she said. Up and down, up and down. The movement was almost soporific. ‘It’s all I can do . . . well, thank you . . . yes, I couldn’t do it without you . . . or Dad, yes.’ She could feel her eyes wanting to close. ‘No, of course I won’t wake him up . . . I know, he just needed to hear that . . . no, I don’t consider it lying.’ She exaggerated the nodding motion until she was rocking back and forth in her seat. ‘No, I don’t make a habit of it . . . of course . . . kiss him goodnight from me . . . yes, you’re right. Mm-hmm. Yes . . . mm-hmm, yes . . . yes, Mum . . . OK . . . I will . . . yes . . . Mum? Are you there? I think I’ve lost you. Are you there?’ She listened, but there was nothing but silence in her ear; no static, no rebuke, nothing. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she said to the empty line, pulling the hands-free earpiece out of her ear and throwing it and her phone onto the passenger seat.

  She could see the cattle grid ahead, the sign for Quantock Common on the left asking her to drive carefully. If she hadn’t already arranged to meet Barney at the pub, she would have been half tempted to call him so they could drive over the hills in convoy. Her original plan had been to come with Lockyer, but he had insisted she go ahead without him because he had to take a call from the paint specialists with an update.

  She flicked her windscreen wipers up to the next setting, and turned on her full beam. The snow wasn’t heavy but it was settling on the glas
s, obscuring her view. She could feel the temperature changing as she climbed. This was a mistake. She should never have come this way after listening to the recording again. She needed time to process things – to recover. She didn’t need to be driving over the Quantocks in the pitch black, passing the place where Pippa had died, where Chloe’s body had been found and where Walford had killed his sodding wife all those years ago. The muscles surrounding her spine tightened. ‘This was a mistake,’ she said aloud. She resumed the rocking, and began humming the Friends theme tune to herself.

  At first, listening to the recording of Pippa’s last moments had made her nauseous. To identify a person with the sounds she was hearing had turned her stomach. But she didn’t feel sick any more. Instead her mind was overrun with pity for Pippa and what she had gone through, and anguish for Aaron and what he was going through. But the overriding feeling was one of anger and disbelief. What kind of person could watch another human being burn? With one hand she pulled her hair back and held it in a stubby ponytail for a moment, then dropped it, returning two hands to the wheel as her car rumbled over the cattle grid. The revelation had also put a fire under Lockyer’s arse. The veil of ‘assisting’ in the investigation was slipping as he all but took the lead. He had called the team into the conference room without even a look in Townsend’s direction. He had them chasing up results from the crash investigation team, the paint specialists and any and all trace evidence that was yet to be logged and cross-referenced on the system. He made no reference to the Chloe Evans case to anyone, including her, but she knew that was where his head was at.

  It all came back to her own question: what kind of person could watch another human burn? It had to be someone with no respect for human life. Perhaps the same kind of someone that could snuff out not one but two lives when they murdered Chloe Evans.

  She braked as a hare dashed across in front of her, its eyes shining like marbles in her headlights. What were the odds that there were two people of such depravity stalking the same area? Her foot hovered over the accelerator.

  Even with her lights on full beam the blackness was overwhelming, surrounding her on all sides, but for the slice of road and snow-covered landscape they illuminated. She could feel Shervage Wood looming large to her right as the incline increased. The trees seemed to jump out, their branches reaching for her. With her elbow she pushed down the lock on her door, which in turn locked all the car doors. She was being ridiculous. She was being hysterical, but she couldn’t stop. Every fibre of her being was screaming for her to turn back, but even that made her pulse quicken. She didn’t want to stop. She had started something and now she had to finish it, no matter what the voices in her head were telling her to do.

  The road seemed to melt away in front of her. She sniffed and kept her eyes forward. She couldn’t look to her right. She didn’t want to see the scorch marks on the road. She didn’t want to see the rips and tears in the big oak. She didn’t need to. Since listening to the recording, Jane was seeing those things all the time. The images were just there, occupying a part of her brain she couldn’t switch off. She could hear the flames. She could see the bright orange contrasted against the black of the night. They were licking up her driver’s side window, tasting her, wanting more.

  She heard a noise off to her right, a deep crack within the forest.

  ‘There is no fire. They are just trees,’ she said to herself. ‘This is just a road. There is no one here but me.’ As she spoke, the calm she had hoped to instil vanished. What if she wasn’t alone? What if there was someone watching, waiting for their time to strike?

  ‘Jane,’ she said, startling herself with the forcefulness of her voice as it echoed around the car. ‘Stop it now.’

  ‘Mr Goodland?’ Lockyer called, looking around the stables for any sign of the man.

  ‘In ’ere, son,’ a voice said.

  Lockyer veered to the left, to the sound of rustling and the low rumble of Goodland talking – he assumed not to him. The chicken he had seen before was tied up outside by a length of twine. Lockyer brushed the falling snow off his head as he passed through clouds of hot breath billowing out from the other stables. He stopped at the farthest one, where the chicken was, and looked in. A large head came up to great him, almost sending him onto his arse as he staggered backwards.

  ‘This ’ere’s Toffee,’ Goodland said, appearing at the side of the horse. ‘And that down there is Dolly. She likes a walk afore bed.’ Lockyer opened his mouth but found he had nothing to say. He had seen and heard some things in his time, but walking a chicken beat the lot.

  Goodland pointed up to the sky. ‘’Tis forecast to get colder overnight so I wanted to make sure Toffee here had plenty of hay and she had her rug on good and snug.’

  ‘What about the others?’ Lockyer asked, gesturing to the other long faces that had come out to greet them.

  ‘None of them’s mine,’ Goodland said, stroking Toffee’s brown neck. Lockyer was pretty sure brown wasn’t right, but he had no idea of the correct vernacular. ‘Their owners lodge them here. They come up and look after them the’selves, though I expect I’ll be getting some calls given the weather.’

  Lockyer racked his brains for a horse-related follow-up, but drew a blank. ‘You wanted to speak to me, I take it, Mr Goodland?’

  Goodland looked puzzled for a moment, but then his eyes cleared. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I was down at the Farmer’s last night and I run into Barney. He’s a ranger up on the hills.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Barney, yes,’ Lockyer said. Jane had spent the majority of the drive home on Saturday trying to convince him that the guy was an asset whose local knowledge could help them. Given he had been blabbing to the locals, Lockyer was less inclined to feel the same way.

  ‘Well, ’e was telling me that you been talking a good deal about what happened back in the summer and . . . and what happened not so long ago.’ Goodland raised his substantial eyebrows.

  ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss an ongoing investigation, Mr Goodland,’ Lockyer said, backing away from the stable.

  ‘No, no, ’course not,’ Goodland said, waving a large working man’s hand in Lockyer’s direction. His fingers were like pork sausages. ‘I didn’t mean to get information, I meant to give it.’

  Lockyer stopped. ‘OK,’ he said, still wary of the guy’s motives. Gossip must be worth its weight in gold in a place like this – knowledge was power, and all that.

  ‘Well, Barney and me were talking about what goes on up in them hills when no one’s looking, right,’ he said, leaning on the stable door and lowering his voice. Lockyer looked around. They couldn’t be more alone if they were on the moon. ‘He’d been telling the lady copper about what the kids get up to and whatnot.’

  ‘My colleague mentioned it, yes.’ Lockyer stamped his feet. It was freezing out here, yet Goodland was in a body-warmer and shirtsleeves. ‘I believe there’s been a problem with drugs, graffiti and . . . other anti-social behaviour.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s kids,’ Goodland said, flattening his mouth out like a toad. He started nodding. ‘I mean, yes, I’m sure some of it ’tis kids, the condoms and beer cans no doubt, but not all. Not all.’

  ‘Can you give me an example of what you mean?’ Lockyer asked, dodging the snuffling mouth that seemed to have taken an interest in his left pocket. The horse nudged him in frustration. He stepped back.

  ‘’Bout a week afore the accident up on the Common, I was driving through Doddington and I just happened to be stopped near the memorial and I noticed someone’d been messing with it.’

  ‘The memorial?’

  ‘Yes, ’tis for Jane Walford,’ Goodland said.

  Lockyer felt the hairs that had been standing to attention on his arms lie down again. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I should tell you I’m not a superstitious man, Mr Goodland.’

  ‘You would be if you lived round this way,’ the farmer said, sliding one of his sausage-like fingers under his nose. ‘My grandfather used
to sit me and my brother on his knee and tell us the story of John Walford, of all the bad things he done, and just when he had us, when we were hanging on every word, he’d drop down his legs and send us both sprawling on the floor. If we was bad, my mother would send us to bed and say, “Think on what you done else John Walford will come for ye in the night.”’ Goodland chuckled. ‘I’m not ashamed to say I wet my bed more ’an once for fear of Walford.’

  ‘Stories, Mr Goodland,’ Lockyer said. ‘They’re just stories.’

  ‘But folk did go missing,’ he said, furrowing his brow. ‘Well, not folk as much as sheep and cattle – I’ve lost a horse afore now.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t see the connection,’ Lockyer said, shoving his hands in his pockets, ready to make his excuses and get out of here. He pictured the woodburner at the Farmer’s Arms. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse—’

  ‘That land up there is cursed,’ Goodland said, raising his hand like a preacher. Dolly had begun pecking at Lockyer’s boot. ‘Has been ever since Walford did what he did. O’ course his family claimed he was the victim, not Jane – that she had bewitched him, possessed him somehow and made him do what he did. The local folk back then tried everything to rid the place of the whole lot of them: chased them out, set a fire running through the ditch, put a hold on the land so no one could own it after the Walfords was gone. But it made no difference. Fifty birds dying all at once, just falling to the ground stone dead. Animals gone missing and either found dead with no cause, or never seen again – and that’s just what I’ve known to happen. You ask anyone, anyone, and they’ll tell you same as me. There’s some that say the place was cursed even before Walford, and that’s why it’s called Dead Woman’s Ditch.’ His eyes were wide. It was clear he was caught up in his story, even if Lockyer wasn’t. ‘Don’t know if Barney told you but t’was called that before Walford killed his missus. Some say it drove him mad. Him and his family, they’d been colliers from way back, lived and worked the land for years; ate, slept and breathed it ’til it blackened his soul.’ Goodland stopped. He was out of breath. ‘When I seen what they done to Jane’s memorial, I just thought . . . there’s another thing.’ He tutted and slapped his open palm on the horse’s neck, making it and Lockyer start. ‘’Course, I know now I shouldn’t have moved it, given what happened to that girl, but people go walking that way all the time, little ’uns and all. I didn’t want them stumbling on it and frightening themselves half to death.’