Murder in the Goblins' Playground (DCI Arthur Ravyn Mystery Book 1)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “In the heart of Red Cap Woods?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the old caravan?”

  She nodded.

  “I need an audible answer, Miss Mayhew,” Stark prompted, his voice softer, gentler than he had intended.

  “Yes, in the…in the abandoned caravan.”

  “By the Lord of the Woods?”

  “Yes.”

  “By Douglas Trentmoore?”

  “But Allan never knew…” Her eyes widened and her tiny fist flew to her mouth. “I mean…”

  “Trentmoore vanished long before Allan ever took up residence in the caravan,” Stark continued, unable to suppress a slight smile. “But you knew him, didn’t you, Miss Mayhew?”

  “No!” The word was barely recognisable around the fist against her mouth. “No, I didn’t know…don’t know who…”

  She grabbed her fist with her other hand and forcibly pressed them into her lap. She sat staring at Stark, lips trembling, eyes so wide they might roll out of her skull at any moment. For an instant, Stark fought a sense of self-loathing, not only for himself but for his job, which called for him wade through the morass of human misery and occasionally ruin lives.

  “You knew Douglas Trentmoore, didn’t you, Miss Mayhew?”

  She looked at him with moist, pleading eyes.

  “You were a young girl then, you and the others, your friends, Lillian and Marion,” Stark continued, his tone low and gentle. “You not only knew about the caravan in the woods, but you knew the man who lived there—Douglas Trentmoore.”

  “No…No, I…”

  “Miss Mayhew, you’ve already admitted it, when I asked you about Allan,” he said when her voice trailed into silence. Out of the corner of his eye he saw WPC Stevens frown. “Allan could not have known him, but you did.”

  She nodded.

  “An audible answer, Miss Mayhew, please.”

  Again, she nodded.

  “For the record,” Stark said, “the witness responded with a nod of the head, twice.”

  She looked up and whispered: “Yes, I knew Douglas.”

  “Did the others know him?”

  She shook her head. “No, they only knew there was someone in the caravan, a man. Lillian warned us away from him.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Because he had offended spirits dwelling in Red Cap Woods,” she replied, her voice less tremulous now that she recalled words not her own. “Lillian said that any man who would commit such an affront to the Lord of the Woods, to the ancient spirits that dwell there, would soon meet his destruction. She told us that no man who would set up a caravan in the midst of the woods would ever be given lease. Lillian said the Lord of the Woods would deal with him, bring doom upon him. Out of fear for what might happen to ourselves, we gave Douglas and his caravan a wide berth.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, I was curious about…” She paused. “One night I was in the woods alone. I was about sixteen and often walked in the woods alone, though I never really was alone, you know. The elves were ever with me, the Red Caps, but I had no fear. I had lease, you see. I had said all the words, sung all the songs, performed all the ancient rites at the phasings of the moon. I walked without aim, following their laughter in the wind, their rustlings in the brush, the flashing of their diamond eyes in the darkness. They led me where they wilt, and I followed, willingly, eagerly, for in those magical moments I was one of them.

  “Then I found myself at the edge of a glade.” She paused. “At the edge of the glade, where the caravan was. I watched from hiding for I was afraid to approach, but was more afraid to leave. Then the door of the caravan opened and I saw him…saw him silhouetted against the glare of the lantern within.”

  “Douglas Trentmoore?”

  “As I learned,” she replied. “But in that instant he was huge and black, as if he were the Lord of the Forest manifesting himself to me, to me alone. I approached him, skyclad, and we went into the caravan. Even then, it seemed as if I was with the Lord. Only later did I learn he was a man named Douglas. We became lovers, he and I, because…you see, we had lease.”

  “What happened to Douglas Trentmoore?”

  Lights had sparkled in her eyes at the recollection of a time long past recovery. They now vanished.

  She shrugged her thin shoulders. “He went away.”

  “Where did he go, Miss Mayhew?” He paused, then asked: “Dylwyth, what happened to Douglas?”

  “He went away,” she repeated. “I don’t know where he went or where he is. That’s what men do, isn’t it? They go away.”

  “Dylwyth, did you have a child by Douglas Trentmoore?”

  Her gaze shot up. “What?”

  “Was he Raymond’s father?”

  “The elves guided Raymond to me because I had no child and wanted one,” she said. “Elves do that, you know. ‘Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild, with a faery, hand in hand. For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.’ Oh the world is full of weeping, Sergeant, and pain and sadness, betrayal and loss. Raymond was led to me by the fairies because I was so full of loss and sadness.”

  “Loss and sadness…for Douglas leaving?”

  “Life is full of sadness,” Dylwyth said. “Raymond was a gentle child. Not as beautiful as Allan, but smarter than that poor little mooncalf, Gwen. He has a kind spirit and lives with the elves at the forest’s edge. You see, he has lease…but so did Allan, for awhile.”

  Stark watched her elfin features collapse, all the facial muscles that helped maintain a sense of composure failing as sadness and grief overwhelmed her. Her large eyes brimmed with tears, then gushed. Her head drooped, her shoulders heaved and the interview room was filled with a keening wail.

  “The interview is paused.” Stark snapped off the recorder. He shot up from his chair and turned abruptly to Stevens. “Stay with her. See if you can get her to calm down.”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” WPC Stevens said, her tone hard, clipped.

  Stark half-turned as the policewoman rushed past him, but said nothing. He opened the door, stepped outside, and was careful not to slam it closed.

  * * *

  “After Stevens calmed her down, and she was more or less coherent, I started in with questions about Cutter, when last seen, his movements, that sort of thing.” Stark shook his head. “Her answers were clones to what the other two said. I should not have let her divert me with all those crocodile tears.”

  “Stevens was not very complimentary about you,” Ravyn said. “Said you bullied her.”

  “It was a fair interrogation,” Stark said. “I followed your lead on the matter of the caravan. You can listen to the recorder.”

  “Oh, I intend to, but not for that reason,” Ravyn replied. “I’ve no doubt you conducted a good interview. But I’m not surprised that Stevens complained. Though not from Ashford, she was born and bred in Hammershire, and you’re an outsider. I don’t think she will pursue it further however.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But if she does, you’ll have my support.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Stark said, “but shouldn’t you wait until you have heard the tape?”

  “It’s digital, so there’s no tape, but I don’t think anything from you will shock or surprise me,” Ravyn replied. “I would not have let you take the lead with Dylwyth if I did not trust you. My instruction to include Stevens was your protection, not hers.”

  Stark looked surprised.

  “Don’t let your guard down just because a person is old,” the Chief Inspector said. “Time changes us physically, but it does not change our nature. A snake does not become less deadly with each skin it sheds.” He motioned toward the recorder. “All right, let’s hear what you got out of Dylwyth Mayhew.”

  Stark switched on the machine, then settled back. As he listened to the exchange between himself and Dylwyth, he keenly watched Ravyn’s features. He hoped to see some sign of approval or disapproval, but knew h
e would not. Ravyn sat still, eyes half-lidded, features placid. This would be the first and last time the guv’nor would listen to it, but Stark knew that weeks later, maybe months or even years, he would be able to recite it word for word.

  “Lillian Nettle was right about one thing,” Stark said, switching off the machine after he heard himself announce the ending time of the interview. “Dylwyth weeps like a faucet at full blast, and for no good cause.”

  Ravyn nodded. “It can be very handy.”

  “You think the waterworks were not real?”

  “Oh, they were real all right,” Ravyn said. “But also convenient for all of them. Dylwyth may be the weakest link in the chain, but she has strong links on either side to support her.”

  “Well, at least I got her to admit she knew Trentmoore, for what that’s worth,” Stark said.

  “To be honest, it’s not worth much.”

  “But I thought…”

  “It was obvious all of them knew him,” Ravyn said.

  “I don’t see how it’s that obvious.”

  “A stranger pulls a caravan into their sacred woods and sets up house,” Ravyn said. “An affront, surely. No doubt Lillian told them to stay away, but would they? Would you?”

  “That age, not a chance in hell,” Stark admitted. “If anything, it would make me suss it out. As Dylwyth did.”

  “You got her to admit it,” Ravyn said. “But she also denied on record that the others did.”

  “We can break them down,” Stark said. “Find holes.”

  “Unfortunately, Dylwyth plugged the holes in their stories by her admission,” Ravyn pointed out. “We can hammer at them all we want, but they need only deny everything and point to Dylwyth’s interview as confirmation. Lillian is strong enough to withstand anything we throw at her, plus she has Heln on her side, and Marion is not going to let her temper get the best of her a second time. Dylwyth need only reassert her claim.. The most frustrating thing is that she probably did tell the truth, at least for the most part, as Lillian told her to do. She was a sacrifice.”

  “I still think we can break them.”

  “We’ve gone as far as we can, at this time, on a mystery that, truth to tell, we would have a difficult time justifying as being part of the current investigation,” Ravyn said. “We will return to it before we finish.”

  “You think the things are connected?” Stark asked. “The deaths of Cutter and Lent, and the disappearance of Trentmoore?”

  “And the three children,” Ravyn added.

  “Raymond’s the oldest and was raised by Dylwyth,” Stark said. “She had her affair with…” He paused. “Sir, what is ‘skyclad’? She said that, and I recall you said…one of your aunts… it almost made Marion choke…”

  “Oh, that,” Ravyn said dismissively. “It means naked. Pagans and their modern counterparts use it as a term for ritual nudity.”

  Stark uttered a low appreciative whistle. “So, Trentmoore is in the doorway of his caravan when a naked teen comes traipsing out of the trees. He must have thought she was some kind of wood nymph, just like she thought him the Lord of the Woods.”

  “She was adamant about Raymond not being her child by Trentmoore, but rather evasive otherwise,” Ravyn said. “The fairies left him with her, she said, because she was so filled with sorrow and loss. Loss of what, do you think?”

  “Loss of…well, I don’t know, sir,” Stark admitted. “I thought it was Trentmoore leaving, but it couldn’t have been that.”

  “No, he was still here,” Ravyn said. “According to county records, she took over the post office at the age of eighteen, young but not unusual in a village like this. The police reports Spooner gave Cutter indicate Trentmoore was still getting drunk and into donnybrooks at that time, and a few years after.”

  “The ages of all three children cover that span,” Stark said.

  “And all the girls knew him.”

  “Three children by three different girls,” Stark murmured. “Can we be certain of that?”

  “Of course not, but it’s a tenantable conjecture until it’s proven wrong,” Ravyn said. “Think about what Dylwyth said about the boy she raised and Trentmoore…before she went off the rails.”

  “She did not specifically deny Trentmoore was Raymond’s dad,” Stark said. He was rather disgusted with himself for letting her distract him from the question with all the fairy rubbish. “So, if we take her diversion as an indication that Trentmoore was the father, then…what? The mother was one of the other two?”

  “Tenuous logic,” Ravyn said. “But it’s a working thesis.”

  “But how can we assume that Lillian or Marion was the mum?” Stark asked. “It seems well established in the village that the babies came to them as they say, left off at their places.”

  “The travelling mother in distress was always a fiction,” Ravyn said. “Before Oscar Lent descended on Ashton with his grand plans for redevelopment, no one came to Ashton for anything. Forty years ago, a stranger would have been watched even more keenly than now. A woman who came in carrying a baby and left empty-handed would have been gossip fodder for at least six months.”

  “But…pregnant? Everybody would know. It’s a small village.”

  “You have much to learn about villages, Stark,” Ravyn said.

  “So everyone keeps telling me, sir.”

  “I spent a lovely afternoon with Aunt Althea,” Ravyn said. “We had a tea that was as delightful as it was productive.”

  “A dear old thing who gets into everyone’s business, is she?”

  “Perhaps,” Ravyn said. “But I would not say so within hearing, unless you want your ear pulled or knuckles rapped. As a teacher, she was a fearsome old dragon who put Lillian Nettle to shame. She was well admired by her good students, but naughty schoolboys like Peter Woodcock and Lenny Child let out a sigh of relief when she retired. She knows the village and its inhabitants well.”

  “She would have known these three women when they were girls,” Stark said. “What did she have to say?”

  “It may seem that everyone knows each other’s business, but some secrets are easy to keep, and having a baby is one of them,” Ravyn said. “Loose clothes, some sick days, home delivery by trusted chums—no one need ever know, especially if you have a plan for depositing the child with someone who was overtly and obviously not in the family way.”

  “One gives birth, but another raises.” He shook his head. “I can see how that would hide the fact and all, but would a mother be able to completely sever her ties?”

  “No, not completely,” Ravyn said. “But probably enough.”

  “So, who did what?”

  “Aunt Althea said all three women went through a ‘chubby phase’ in their youth, which most people overlooked, but not Aunt Althea,” Ravyn said. “Remember, Aunt Althea was a teacher and was trained to watch for all signs of immorality. Of course, that was back when teachers were still held responsible for their charges, before all the rules went out the window and the lunatics were put in charge of the asylum. The girls were out of school by then, but old habits die hard, so she saw what she saw and noted it.”

  “I suppose I thought it would be hard to hide something like that because I was told it would be hard to hide,” Stark said.

  Ravyn smiled. “Told by?”

  Stark sighed. “Marion Stone. Last night.”

  “Oddly enough,” Ravyn said, “Marion Stone was the first of the Weird Sisters to go through a chubby phase.”

  “She’s Raymond’s mother?”

  “Could be Raymond’s mother,” Ravyn cautioned. “It’s still nothing more than a working hypothesis.”

  “If your aunt is right, then, Marion got the first bun.”

  “Crudely, but aptly put,” Ravyn agreed. “Afterwards the mite is left in the post office by some unfortunate girl who was impressed by Dylwyth’s gentleness, or kind face, or some such thing.”

  “Why her?” After a moment, when Ravyn did not immediately answ
er, Stark asked: “The loss she mentioned is the child she didn’t have by the Lord of the Woods?”

  “It would have been traumatic for her, sensitive girl like that, another having the child she expected from the union,” Ravyn said. “She would have been distraught, especially if she had not known that Marion had also found her way to the caravan.”

  “They probably gave it to her to shut her up, make it so she couldn’t say anything without shaming herself,” Stark said. “Can’t see Marion wanting it anyway, the cow. Though a strong lad would have been more useful to her than what she got.”

  “She couldn’t keep it even if she wanted,” Ravyn pointed out. “If she had, someone would have recalled the gained weight, her loose clothing, perhaps some days the butcher shop was closed or her being sick some mornings. Besides, Dylwyth needed that child as a link to the Lord of the Woods.”

  “It could have been simply because she is the weakest link, you know, sir,” Stark said. “Very emotional that one. Did she even want a child from Trentmoore? For all we know, until Raymond came her way, it may have been nothing more for her than good old lusty fun, just giggles and screams.”

  Ravyn shook her head. “Not if she is a devout pagan.”

  “She does seems quite serious about all that rubbish.”

  “One of the tenets of paganism is the fecundity of the world, the fertility of male and female,” Ravyn said. “It manifests itself in all sorts of rites and rituals, from planting seeds at certain phases of the moon to phallic or yonic worship. She would not have given herself to a man whom she thought to be the Lord of the Woods else she expected a child from that union, a bridge between worlds.”

  “All right, let’s say that it’s Raymond from Marion to Dylwyth, for whatever reason,” Stark said. “Then a year or so later along comes Allan. I’d peg Dylwyth for that, finally getting what she really wanted, if what you say is right.”

  “Not Marion again?” Ravyn asked, smiling. “She seems well suited for motherhood, except for temperament, of course. What Aunt Amy, the veterinarian, would call good breeding stock.”

  Stark shuddered, thinking of legs that might crush a man, of big hands and sinewy arms that could rip a man’s head off. Or shove a blade of some kind all the way through him.