‘You’re right. I’m sure the police will understand why you haven’t come forward.’ I pause, studying him. ‘Why is that exactly?’
He sighs raggedly. ‘This is highly embarrassing. I’ve been awfully foolish. Elizabeth thought the farmhouse had a ghost. I told her she was imagining things, but she wasn’t a woman to be trifled with. She kept badgering me, insisting I help. I was passing that evening. I dropped by and said a prayer, sprinkled holy water through the rooms and blessed some candles.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Nine-thirty.’
‘What time did you leave?’
‘Ten-fifteen.’
‘You seem very sure of the times.’
‘I was home by ten-thirty.’
‘Can anyone vouch for that?’
‘I live alone. My housekeeper only comes in during the day.’ The priest runs his tongue over his teeth as though polishing his smile.
‘Did you find any ghosts at the farmhouse?’
Abermain stiffens. ‘By all means make fun of me, Professor, but don’t demean my faith.’
‘You conducted an exorcism.’
‘I blessed a house.’
‘And then lied to the police.’
‘I wasn’t asked. I know that sounds like a feeble excuse…’
‘Yes, it does – a coward’s excuse. You cared more about your reputation than helping solve this case.’
He lowers his eyes as though accepting his penance.
‘Were you sleeping with Elizabeth?’
‘What?’ His nostrils swell.
‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Father, but the police will ask you the same question.’
‘That’s an outrageous slur!’ His eyes are fixed on mine. ‘I took a vow of celibacy when I became a priest. I have honoured that vow.’
‘What is your attitude towards adultery?’
‘It’s a sin against God and a betrayal of someone you have sworn to love and honour.’
‘Elizabeth Crowe was unfaithful to her husband.’
‘I will not speak ill of the dead, Professor.’
‘She will answer to God.’
‘Just as you and I will.’
‘Do you counsel adulterers to repent?’
‘Of course.’
‘But you forgive them.’
‘Our Lord absolves sinners who are truly sorry.’
‘The get-out-of-Hell-free card.’
‘I didn’t come here to have my faith questioned by you or anyone else. A family needs comforting.’
Turning quickly, he walks up the path and opens the painted gate. At the front door he knocks and waits, glancing back at me. He no longer bears the serene smile of a man who has banished from his life all doubt or uncertainty. Instead I can almost hear something rattling inside him, shaken loose by his fall from grace.
He calls out: ‘Are you going to tell the police?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you let me talk to them first?’
‘You have until midday.’
32
Perched on a promontory overlooking the Severn Estuary, the Walton Park Hotel resembles the setting for an Agatha Christie story where a body will be found washed up on the rocks or poisoned in the pantry.
Bennie is standing beside the unmarked police car like a soldier on sentry duty. Although in uniform, she’s hasn’t had time to pin up her hair. I suddenly remember where I first saw her – at the public meeting in Clevedon. She had been dressed in civvies with her hair down, standing near the back of the hall, filming Milo Coleman with her mobile phone.
I look for DCS Cray. She’s talking on her phone in the shade, crushing chestnut husks beneath her shoes as she paces up and down.
‘Yes, sir, I understand … if I just had more resources … we believe they are linked, sir … bleach, that’s right … Yes … with more time and personnel we could find more links … Yes, sir, I appreciate the constraints … I understand … I’ll keep you appraised.’
Bennie pretends not to listen.
‘I don’t even know your proper name,’ I say.
‘PC Benjamin, sir,’ she replies.
‘Your first name.’
‘Emily, but everyone calls me Bennie.’
‘How long have you known Milo Coleman?’
Her whole face seems to spasm. She glances at DCS Cray. ‘We’ve met.’
‘Does the DCS know that you’re seeing him socially?’
Bennie is breathing hard, her throat aflame. ‘We’re just friends … I mean … I’ve only been out with him a few times.’
I don’t answer. She wants to explain. ‘I know the guv hates Milo, but he isn’t so bad – a bit full of himself, but he’s not trying to sabotage the investigation.’
‘He’s scaring people.’
‘Milo thinks the investigation should be more proactive. He says we should be challenging the killer. Rattling his cage.’
‘And what do you think?’
She shrugs hesitantly, her eyes shining. ‘Please don’t tell the guv. I don’t want to lose my job.’
Cray has finished her phone call. She jams the phone into the pocket of her jacket.
‘Trouble?’ I ask.
‘Bannerman did a radio editorial this morning calling for me to be replaced, which prompted the Chief Constable to issue a statement saying he has every confidence in me.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah.’
We both know the subtext. In football parlance, whenever a club chairman expresses full confidence in a football manager, that manager’s days tend to be numbered.
A sigh inflates and deflates her lungs. ‘There’s something else. The Chief Constable doesn’t want us linking the farmhouse murders and these attacks. He says the bleach isn’t a strong enough connection.’
‘What about Harper Crowe being choked?’
‘He doesn’t think it’s relevant. He wants a separate team to take over the Naomi Meredith investigation and the choking attacks. I’m to concentrate on the farmhouse killings.’
‘So why are we here?’ I ask.
‘Personal curiosity,’ replies Cray. She glances across the parking area. ‘Is that your Charlie?’
‘She’s my chauffeur for the day.’
‘Is she old enough?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘Must make you feel old.’
‘Just one more thing.’
Leaving the parking area, we walk through a grove of trees and emerge on to Walton Green, which slopes steeply towards the sea. Early summer flowers are growing in sunnier corners, yellow-tipped daisies and bloated dandelions. Two council gardeners are mowing the grass, turning in their seats to check the line of the previous cut. Moths and other insects fly up as the mower passes.
Cray unfurls a satellite map on a park bench, showing me this stretch of coastline. ‘You asked about the attack on June sixth. The victim was Maggie Dutton, aged thirty-one, married, one child. Her husband is working in Saudi Arabia. Short-term contract. Big money. No tax. Maggie is a bookkeeper. She lives in Clevedon and walks most weekends, often with other ramblers but sometimes on her own. Portishead to Clevedon is one of her favourite walks. It’s about six miles. On Saturday the sixth of June she had lunch at a café in Portishead and started along the coastal path just after two o’clock.’
The map bulges in the breeze and I help hold it down. Cray runs her finger along the line of the footpath. ‘Four other walkers have come forward to say they saw her along the way – two passed her at the lighthouse, and others at the Redcliff Bay Caravan site and Charlcombe Wood. A woman at the caravan park saw Maggie filling up her water canteen from a tap. That was at three-thirty, so she was making good time. We don’t know exactly what time she reached Ladye Bay, but we estimate about five o’clock.
‘We don’t know if the attacker waited for Maggie or followed her from Portishead,’ says Cray. ‘None of the witnesses reported seeing anyone loitering on the footpath that afternoon.’
We’ve reached an old toilet block, shaped like a turret and built from the same grey stone as most of Clevedon’s historic buildings. Now abandoned, the windows are bricked up and the gutters rusting. Continuing along the footpath, we come to an intersecting track. A right turn takes us up steps to the nearest road. A left turn leads to the beach. The main footpath continues straight on and begins to climb higher up the cliff, entering a dense grove of trees.
‘We think she was attacked here,’ says Cray, pausing near the summit. ‘She was choked unconscious and dragged off the path into those trees. He bound her wrists and ankles with masking tape and carved the letter into her forehead.’
Sections of the undergrowth open up beneath the trees where the ground is pitted with old animal burrows. I crouch down beneath the lowest branches, discovering a pocket of isolation, invisible from every side except the water. I try to picture what happened. There was no initial exchange, no greeting or conversation. He struck quickly from behind, before she could raise the alarm.
Below us on the beach two teenage boys are throwing a Frisbee and a rock fisherman has set up a tripod to hold his rod. A small boat, fat-bellied and brightly painted, is bobbing on the swell.
DCS Cray is still talking. ‘There were three people on the beach when it happened. Two of them were rock climbers practising on the traverse. The other was a woman walking her dog. None of them saw Maggie, but the woman thought she heard someone shouting from the direction of the path.’
‘Did forensics come up with anything?’
‘A few shoeprints and scuff marks.’
‘DNA?’
‘No.’
‘And you’ve interviewed her?’
‘Twice. She’s become less and less cooperative. Wants to forget.’
‘Who found her?’
‘Two fisherman were heading down to the bay. They found Maggie curled up and crying in the undergrowth. She had managed to remove the masking tape from her mouth, but couldn’t see where to go because of the blood in her eyes.’
Retracing our steps, we reach the intersecting path and climb the steps to the road.
‘Was Maggie Dutton having an affair with anyone?’ I ask.
‘She denies it, but her husband is away for months at a time.’
‘You think she got lonely.’
‘It happens.’
‘What about the other victims?’
‘Unswervingly uncooperative.’
Somewhere high in the firmament, a hawk cries out and a Union Jack flutters and snaps on a flagpole.
‘There are likely to be others,’ I say. ‘People who haven’t come forward.’
‘We’re making enquiries,’ says Cray. ‘Looking at the obvious places – hospitals, medical clinics, women’s shelters, marriage counsellors…’
‘What about the online dating service Elizabeth used?’
‘The company is based offshore. The registered address is a post office box in Bermuda, but we’ve tracked down one of the directors. He told us to talk to his lawyers, so I’m trying a different approach. I’ve told him that the media might appreciate a story linking an online dating service with a double murder and a series of mutilations.’
‘How did he react?’
‘A change of heart is imminent.’
Cray has been glancing around casually, but her eyes now meet mine. ‘I had another thought last night,’ she says. ‘I was trying to think outside the box – to look at things from another angle.’
‘And?’
‘What if Elizabeth Crowe killed Harper?’
‘Why?’
‘Hear me out. We know she hated her ex-husband. It was like the Wars of the Roses between them. What if she wanted to punish Dominic Crowe by killing their daughter? Look at how carefully Harper was left – with the teddy bear tucked under her arm and her hands folded. A mother would know her favourite childhood toy.’
‘And then what?’
‘Dominic Crowe turned up. He saw what Elizabeth had done and went berserk, stabbing her to death in a rage.’
‘There’s no proof that Elizabeth called Dominic that night.’
‘They talked earlier. Fought.’
‘I can’t see it,’ I say. ‘There’s no evidence of depression or a mental disorder. They weren’t involved in a bitter custody battle. Harper was about to leave home and go to university.’
The DCS accepts the logic of this with a shrug as though it was worth a try. Dandelion seeds swirl around her like summer snow.
‘I bumped into Dominic Crowe yesterday,’ I say. ‘He and Becca Washburn were having coffee at a café near St Michael’s Hospital. They looked rather cosy.’
Cray raises her eyebrows. ‘You think they’re seeing each other?’
‘I think they’re closer than we imagine.’
Her limestone-blue eyes linger on mine, trying to reach inside my mind. ‘I’ll get someone to pull Becca’s phone records.’
I glance at my watch. It’s just gone midday. ‘You might also want to check out Father Abermain.’
‘The priest!’
‘He was at the farmhouse on the night of the murders. Elizabeth thought the place was haunted. She asked him to exorcise her demons – literally not figuratively.’
‘So the candles and the Bible…’
‘Some form of blessing.’
‘Why didn’t he come forward?’
‘I’m sure you’ll ask him.’
Cray turns away from me, moving as ponderously as a knight walking in a full suit of armour. On the edge of the horizon, a container ship barely seems to be moving, as though pinned between the sea and the sky like a drop of moisture trapped between two panes of glass.
Having done a circuit, we arrive back at the cars where Bennie and Charlie are chatting as though old friends. My shirt is damp with perspiration and clinging to my back.
Cray has walked under the tree again, tucking one thumb into her belt as she talks on her mobile. She’s reporting Father Abermain, spinning another thread in an investigation that has spread her resources so thinly there is no strength left in the web.
The farmhouse is empty today. The psychologist must be busy elsewhere. He has some sort of shaking disorder or strange palsy, Parkinson’s perhaps – not a death sentence, but he’ll die sooner than he expects. He’ll lose his balance and fall under a car or a train. Either that or he’ll aspirate food into his lungs and die of pneumonia or another pulmonary condition.
I have watched the house for the past hour, making sure nobody is home. Moving towards it now, I skirt the edge of the stables and follow the stone boundary wall until I reach the western corner. I cannot see the road but I will hear any vehicle approaching.
It wasn’t like this on the night they died. I didn’t wait an hour, weighing up my options or debating what to do. Internal monologues are repetitive and annoying.
Elizabeth opened the door and asked what I was doing here.
‘I have a present for Harper.’
‘Her birthday is tomorrow.’
‘I want her to have it when she wakes.’
I thought she was going to argue, but she saw I wasn’t alone and became distracted. Although outwardly calm, inside my mind was screaming, ‘She knows, she knows, she knows. She’ll tell the police. I’ll be interviewed. They’ll poke around … try to dig up dirt.’
Elizabeth waited in the sitting room while I climbed the stairs to Harper’s room, just as I’m doing now. Quietly, I opened her door without knocking. She was asleep. The curtains were closed. Today they’re open, yet I half expect to see Harper still lying on her bed beneath the window, curled up under her duvet in her nightdress.
> I knelt beside her bed. I listened to her soft breathing. I leaned my face close, inhaling and exhaling in the same rhythm, slowing my heartbeat. Her eyes opened.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked sleepily.
‘Nothing.’
She pulled the cover up beneath her chin.
‘Why are you here?’
‘I brought you a present, but don’t open it now.’
I ask her about the bag she was carrying when I saw her that day.
‘Where do you keep it?’
‘Bag?’
‘It was blue and grey.’
‘Somewhere,’ she said sleepily.
‘I need you to find it.’
She thought. Frowned. Shrugged. ‘Can’t it wait? I’m tired. I’ll find it tomorrow.’
Then she remembered something else and asked, ‘Did you see the news? A woman was attacked on the footpath.’
‘When?’
‘This afternoon. Did you see anything?’
‘No. What did you see?’
She shrugged and yawned, turning towards the digital clock. ‘It’s nearly midnight. I’m almost eighteen.’
‘Yes, you are – happy birthday for tomorrow.’
I hugged her from behind, slipping my arm around her neck. She laughed and pushed against me. I remember how her hair smelled of coconut shampoo and was still damp from the shower. I applied pressure. She fought. Her body bucked and heaved. Her legs thrashed at the bedding. Her fingers clawed at my arms.
If only she hadn’t been there. If only she hadn’t seen.
– She saw nothing.
She saw me.
– Nobody will believe her.
She can place me there.
When it was over, I opened the bottle of bleach and dipped each of her fingers inside. I could hear Elizabeth talking downstairs. Waiting for me.
‘I’m sorry – I woke her,’ I said, when I reached the ground floor.
Elizabeth had poured herself a glass of wine. ‘Did she see her present?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you get her?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
She offered me wine. I told her no. She topped up her glass and said it helped her sleep.
‘Did Harper mention that she saw me today?’ I asked.
‘On the footpath.’
Close Your Eyes Page 22
