The Rotting Spot (A Bruce and Bennett Mystery)

by Valerie Laws

  “What happens when forgiveness doesn’t come? When all your life you’ve had to live with the burden of what you’ve done, without any such release? The knot that was inside of you, that mix of fear and anger and need, has become a cancer sucking all of your energy and hope. You become a shell, nursing a bitter core.”

  Liz drew in her breath. What did these words mean to Peg? How much did she remember from that mad time so long ago?

  Peg swung round to face her sister, relinquishing the mouse.

  ‘Now you know how it feels, to lose a daughter, and not know where to seek her! My Molly, now your Lucy!’

  Liz flinched. It was like one of the sheep outside on the moor, woolly and innocuous, which she’d seen suddenly turn on the lean, sharp-toothed sheepdog last lambing season. The hopeless courage of the mother. She felt almost afraid of Peg for a moment.

  ‘I have to come to terms with God, and what I did to make Him take my daughter from me. You might like to think about what sins you are hiding, Lizzie, to suffer a loss like mine! And as for Seymour, seeking oblivion in a bottle!’ Peg shot at Liz as she left the room.

  ‘Poor darling’s exhausted,’ Liz shouted after her, ‘sitting up all night waiting for Lucy to mail.’ The last part was to herself. She looked at her husband, and her face softened. Whatever happened, she had him. She’d got him, and she’d kept him. Lucy’s disappearance had hit him hard; Molly’s newly discovered death was a blow he was struggling to cope with, he’d been such a doting uncle in the years before they had their own daughter. He’d always said he believed Molly was alive. Now he sought oblivion with renewed desperation.

  19

  Friday 4th July

  Ivy Lodge, Wydsand Bay

  Erica Bruce lay on her back, her eyes closed, feeling the heat of the hands that roamed all over her body. They did not touch her, but she could feel when they were held above one of the chakras, as if she were next to a fire. She was undergoing reiki, with Rina. Bad energy drained away, through the healing hands, and the body and mind were washed clean of tension, and the invisible scars of old trauma. Erica had never had reiki before but Molly’s skull, and Mickey’s death, seemed to be blocking her thoughts. It was worth a try. And she had to admit, it was pleasurable, giving yourself over to total relaxation, the brain switching to alpha waves and a state of being rather than thinking or doing as it did when she practised Transcendental Meditation.

  Floating in this state, her mind filled with a picture. Einstein, with his electric hair and soulful eyes.

  After the session, Rina gave her a glass of water. Erica sat drinking it, slowly coming to active consciousness.

  ‘That was amazing, Rina. I could feel the heat coming off your hands, waves of it!’

  ‘Yeah, it’s handy when the central heating breaks down. You should have let me do it before. I hope it’s helped. At least you’ve stopped being annoyed with me!’

  ‘Course I have.’ Erica felt light and clean in the midday sun outside Ivy Lodge. She tasted every atom of her grilled vegetables on tomato bread. Every bubble of her sparkling mineral water was a jewel as sharp and perfect as a prime number. ‘I thought of Einstein,’ Erica told Rina.

  ‘Oh, him.’ Rina was not impressed. ‘He got his wife to abandon their first daughter, because they weren’t married, and then dumped his wife after treating her like muck.’

  ‘I know, I know. But he said such amazing things, had such beautiful ideas. A bit like Mickey Spence, in that he was eccentric. Had good and bad sides to him. I was very fond of Mickey, despite his old porn mags.’

  ‘Is that why you thought about Albert, because he reminded you of Mickey?’ Rina sank her strong teeth into a blueberry muffin.

  ‘I don’t know … I feel it means something. Something to do with this whole business.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll discover a new theory of relativity!’ Waiting for her last patient, Erica was calm and almost trance-like; this time she had a mental picture of Einstein streaking by on a ray of light. She felt instantly alert and clear-minded, and when her patient came in with her stringy catarrh and sinus trouble, was able to find the right remedy with all her usual flair.

  When she was alone, she rang Steve Jackman.

  ‘Have you heard from Lucy?’ His eager first words, no greeting, made it obvious he had not.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ He sounded deflated.

  Erica rushed on, feeling guilty for giving him false hope even for a second. ‘Could we meet, d’you think? Soonest? I want to follow a new line of enquiry.’

  ‘You sound like the cops,’ Steve said mildly.

  ‘God, you’re right. It’s just with Molly being found, and Mickey Spence dying, I need to give the whole thing another look, get things clear. I thought you could help me. You care about Lucy.’ And you couldn’t have murdered Molly either, she added silently.

  ‘Ok. Come round tonight, about eight? Toby’ll be in bed. In theory anyway.’

  She scrawled down the address and set off to the gym for a really demanding cardio-vascular workout to burn off the adrenalin. She was in control once more. She felt so up about the coming evening, it was almost like she had a date.

  Ten to eight. Steve answered the door of a smart terraced house in one of the posher bits of Newcastle. Neat features, clear colour, small ears … lean fit body. The father of Lucy’s child. ‘Wine?’ he asked in the bright sitting room.

  ‘No, but I may whimper a bit.’ She blushed. ‘Sorry, I’ve developed the habit of talking in double entendres, my mate Rina’s fault. Yes, I’d love some wine, thanks.’

  He opened a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

  ‘Toby in bed?’

  ‘Yeah. I managed to wear him out this afternoon. Well, I’m more knackered than he is really.’

  They sat down on a deep sofa with their glasses, the bottle between them on a small table.

  ‘Would you like some nibbles?’ he asked.

  For a fatal second, she hesitated and their eyes met. They both laughed.

  ‘Ooh, I say, matron,’ Erica said in a mockney Carry On voice. It was weird how different the atmosphere was without Toby, cute though he was. Kids seemed to absorb all the available attention like little black holes, she thought.

  ‘So, what’s on your mind?’

  ‘Einstein.’ Erica didn’t mention the reiki. Not sure how it would go down with a medic, even one as laid back as Steve seemed to be. She went on. ‘He did what he called ‘thought experiments’. He had these theories, but couldn’t test them in a lab. Theories about the behaviour of light rays, gravity in space. All the theories had to be backed up by mathematics, but he would just imagine ‘what would happen if…’ What if you were riding on a light ray, what would time do, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yeah, so what’s that got to do with you, me and Luce?’

  Steve swigged his wine and refilled both their glasses.

  ‘Well I’ve been getting my thinking all tangled up with circular reasoning. You know, ‘surely Mickey Spence couldn’t have killed Molly. I knew him. But the evidence points that way. But it can’t be right.’ It’s got me nowhere.’ Erica picked up her glass. She had Steve’s full attention. Such wonderful brown eyes. No wonder Lucy had been attracted to him. Stop it Erica. She shook herself mentally.

  ‘It’s easier if I do a thought experiment. I start with a theory. See if it stands up. So my theory is, Mickey Spence didn’t kill Molly. He’s innocent, he’s not a dangerous paedophile, he’s the guy I’ve known for years. I know that theory might be wrong, but it’s a starting point. So now I say, suppose that’s true. What follows from that?’

  ‘That somebody else killed Molly. And somebody else, or Spence, buried her head in the rotting spot.’

  ‘Part of my theory is that Mickey didn’t do that either. See, I know what it’s like to be a skull-hunter, and Mickey was eccentric. If he’d found a skull, he’d have been tempted to keep it. But a freshly dead head, from someone he knew and liked? Let’s suppose eve
n he wasn’t that weird.’

  ‘Ok. Somebody else killed Molly, and buried her head in the rotting spot. Why not just get rid of the head like they must have done with the rest of the body, in the sea with stones in the pockets or whatever? It’s not easy cutting off a head, and I speak as a medic here.’

  Steve’s words echoed in her head. The Skull Hunter’s blog had used the same words. Could someone else have written all, or some of the entries on Mickey’s computer? It was always online, and anyone could get in there. Mickey’d denied writing the blog, and now he wasn’t there to ask …

  ‘Hello?’ Steve broke in on her sudden thoughts.

  ‘Erm sorry. Yes, well, from our agreed starting point, there’s only one reason I can think of for putting Molly’s head there. As an insurance policy. Setting up Mickey Spence as a suspect, a sort of time bomb that could tick away down among the ants and worms for years and years. Until it became necessary to set it off.’

  ‘Twenty-five years. So what’s set it off after all that time?’ Steve answered his own question. ‘Lucy going awol. That must be it, surely.’

  ‘We don’t know, but it must be connected. Lucy goes missing, and whoever did kill Molly is worried she might have stumbled on something that incriminates them. Or at least, suggests Molly is dead. So they activate the time bomb.’

  ‘You realise you’re implying that same somebody also killed Mickey.’

  ‘Ok, he could have fallen by accident, but it’s a bit too convenient, isn’t it? So I do feel that, sure. But what are feelings worth? Nothing, to Will Bennett and co.’

  ‘Let’s just keep going with this. The police can follow up the other obvious theory, that Mickey did it, and killed himself or died by accident when he dug her up.’ Steve topped up their glasses again. Erica felt that rush of recklessness when you just know you’re going to drink a lot. The bottle stood empty between them. A piece of shaped air.

  ‘So,’ Steve summed up. ‘Somebody killed Molly, buried her head, and twenty-five years later, dug her up and killed Mickey Spence. Does that imply somebody strong?’

  ‘Not necessarily, d’you think? Mickey was notoriously susceptible to alcohol. I feel sure somebody had hinted to him that they were going to get him a human skull to complete his collection, swore him to secrecy. He couldn’t resist boasting to me, in a roundabout way. All they had to do was dig Molly up, or even tell him where to dig. At night, so no-one would see. On the cliff edge. Get Mickey bevvied up on vodka, wouldn’t take Arnie Schwartzenegger to whack him on the head, push him off the cliff, especially while he was all preoccupied and excited.’

  Erica shivered suddenly, seeing Mickey’s boyish, excited face, turning to someone he trusted, and the look of surprise as he found himself falling, falling … his last sight on earth, the cold eyes of a murderer he’d thought was a friend.

  Steve noticed. ‘You ok?’ he asked softly. He rubbed her arm, gently, a couple of times. She pulled herself together. He withdrew, leaving a patch of heat on her skin. She felt shivery again, for a different reason. Not that reason had much to do with it.

  ‘I’ll get another bottle.’ Steve got up. ‘If your theory is right, it means that someone local killed Molly. God, does that mean that Lucy’s … dead?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know, Steve. I’d prefer to think not. And there’s a logical reason to think that, if you need one – if Lucy was dead, there’d be no need for the killer to activate their insurance policy in the rotting spot, she’d not be able to tell anyone anything, would she?’

  ‘S’pose not. You’re right.’

  Of course, thought Erica, it was possible the killer activated the policy in case Lucy had told someone before she died … Better not mention that. If Steve thought of it, he too was saying nothing.

  ‘It seems to me the most likely suspects I know about are Molly’s own family. Peg Westfield, Liz and Seymour Seaton.’

  ‘Don’t forget George Westfield,’ Steve poured fresh drinks. ‘He died after Molly’s disappearance, not before.’

  ‘Shit, I’d not thought of that. He could kill Molly, the insurance could be activated by some other family member who knew.’

  ‘And that’s Lucy’s family too remember. Would a mother kill her daughter and cut her head off?’

  ‘If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. The Bible has some heavy stuff in it, for religious fanatics. You hear of families hiring exorcists, and watching them beat their children to death. We know Peg was angry about Molly being on the pill and presumably sleeping with Paul Reed. And she hated Mickey.’

  ‘There’s another suspect. Paul Reed. Dumped by his first love, losing his entry into a richer family.’

  ‘I know. And Molly derided him at the party, said she had someone better. And there’s Julie Reed too. Her best friend, and rival for Paul.’

  ‘And of course, apart from Peg, George, Seymour, Liz, Paul and Julie, any combination of the above. Plus anyone we don’t know about.’

  Erica sighed. She felt warm and wined up and safe like she hadn’t in ages. And horny too. Not enough action lately, that was the problem. ‘We need to make another assumption. We need to assume Lucy did go of her own accord, and is choosing to stay away.’

  ‘Yes, and I surely hope so. Everyone thinks Lucy’s gone off for her own reasons. If Lucy was, well, out of action, the killer would be safe. Not worth taking the risk of killing Mickey.’

  ‘That’s right!’ Erica sipped her wine, not saying that something bad might have happened to Lucy, just not related directly to Molly’s killer. ‘So we’re back to Lucy again. Lucy going missing.’

  ‘Luce went off so suddenly. It was Father’s Day.’ Steve looked down into his glass, sober and sad. His long lashes swept his cheek. ‘I just wish she’d come back. Toby misses his mum. And I’m worried about her. We don’t seem to be getting anywhere.’ He looked up again and intently into Erica’s eyes. ‘I know it’s tragic about Molly and Mickey and all that, but it’s Toby I care about, Lucy and Toby.’

  ‘Maybe we should concentrate on Lucy then. She took Toby to Stonehead that Sunday, Father’s Day. She came to visit you later. So far, according to plan. Then she left Toby with you and went off. Perhaps something specific had happened on that day to make her change her plans.’

  ‘Maybe. I wondered if she visited us all to say goodbye, you know, having already decided to go.’

  ‘Let’s assume again, do another thought experiment. So what exactly, in detail, did Lucy do that day, as far as you know?’

  ‘Visited me, with Tobes. Gave me a beach towel, with the Ferrari logo on. They know one of my ambitions is to own a Ferrari, Luce often gives me joke presents like that. Before that, she visited her parents, Peg was there as well for Sunday lunch. Visited her gran, Lily, at the nursing home.’

  ‘Where Julie Reed works … so Lucy saw all the main suspects, or people close to them, that day. Either she said something to spook them, or they said something to spook her.’

  ‘There’s another possibility,’ Steve said. ‘She went off for some unrelated reason, and the killer thinks she might have stumbled on something that incriminates them.’ So he’d thought of it too.

  ‘Yeah, but that gets us nowhere. Whereas if we work on the assumption that something related to Molly made Lucy go back to Stonehead, we can go over her visits again and try to find out what it was. If there’s nothing, then we can backtrack.’ Erica drank some more wine, and then frowned.

  ‘Trouble is, I can’t get near the Seatons or Peg. They’ve complained to Bennett about me as it is. And they’d not tell me anything. Unless you…’

  ‘Hey, I’m not flavour of the month with them either. I’m keeping Toby away from Lucy’s family. If they have got something to hide, they must wonder if she said anything to me. They’d not be likely to tell me anything about her visit, would they?’

  ‘Fuck it, we keep getting stuck! What about Lily though, can we not look into Lucy’s visit to the nursing home?’

  ‘Good luck
. Lily’s got dementia. She might tell you anything, or nothing. Oh, look, Erica, sorry to sound negative. We do need to check out Lucy’s family. It won’t be easy, but…’

  ‘I know. How about we start with the care home? See if we can find out anything about Lucy’s visit. Then, we can see if we can think of any way to tackle the Seatons.’

  ‘Look, this might sound a bit Famous Five, but I’ve got a key to Hex Tower. Had to go in to pick up something of Toby’s, and Lucy gave me a spare key. The family are up at the cottage, we could go in and take a look around … god knows what for.’

  ‘That would be great, but wouldn’t you get into trouble, and with your glittering career and so on…’

  ‘If they stay up the coast, I can actually ring and ask them if it’s ok me going in. Say I need something of Toby’s. There’s lots of his stuff there in one of the spare bedrooms. If they say no, that’s suspicious in itself.’ He laughed uncertainly. ‘I can’t believe we’re talking about Lucy’s family this way. Why would her parents kill Molly?’ Erica hesitated. ‘Something Fiona, the pub landlord’s daughter, said. All this talk about Mickey being a sex pervert, molesting young girls. She said something about Seymour, something like, ‘Now if anyone’s…’ then stopped herself. He was always a babe magnet, maybe he had a very low age limit. Maybe he even abused Molly.’

  ‘Woa, that’s nasty stuff. He’s Lucy’s dad. I’ve been out drinking with him.’ He studied her face. ‘No, Erica, and if that’s what you’re thinking, I don’t believe Seymour has ever abused Lucy. He’s crazy about her, not in that way though.’

  ‘Maybe not. But it’s a possible motive isn’t it? He or Liz or both could have killed Molly to stop her telling on Seymour … and Liz is a doctor. Easily able to cut off a head. And convince Mickey she could get him a skull.’

  ‘Come to that, Peggy’s old man was a butcher. She used to help out in the business.’