Death in the Woods: A DCI Jude Satterthwaite novel (The DCI Satterthwaite Mysteries)

by Jo Allen

  ‘Call yourself a policeman?’ said Mikey. ‘Look again. Izzy used to go and play with the girl who lived there before Dr Wood bought it. She says there’s a flagstone you can lift and hide things. It’s quite big. Izzy and the girl left a kind of time capsule in there.’

  ‘Mikey,’ Jude said, ‘if this is helpful I’ll buy you a pint.’

  ‘If it’s helpful? I’m telling you. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but whatever it is that’s where it’ll be.’

  He hung up. Two of the policemen were heading back up the path as Jude turned again towards the house and opened up the door he’d just locked. In the kitchen he lifted the blue rug and rolled it back. It took a second look to see that one of the flags was less well set than those around it.

  He helped himself to a knife from the kitchen drawer, dropped to his knees and inserted the blade between the flags. It came up easily; he slid four fingers under the slab and lifted it.

  Inside the cavity beneath it, a foot square and a foot deep, was a plastic M&S carrier bag. When he lifted it out he saw a jam jar, crusted with dust underneath. Izzy’s time-capsule. Izzy and Lou, the message on the outside said, painted in what looked like black nail varnish.

  He stood up and removed the bag, laying it on the kitchen unit under the eyes of Ashleigh and the two uniformed officers. Inside was a large brown envelope. He opened that, too. There it was. Nicholas Chester’s teenage diary, curled with age and, he thought, stained with Leslie’s tears. It fell open at a page marked by the class photograph that Leslie had shown Becca, or a copy of it. A copy, he guessed, because this one had been marked, lines drawn across individual faces as though they were ticked off. His parents, thank God, still smiled out of the picture and some of the others he knew from the annotations his father had written out for him in the pub and the thumbnail bios that Chris had looked out. Those ticked off were either dead or grieving for their lost children.

  He opened the diary and skimmed the schoolboy scrawl. Every now and then a name was marked in the modern fluorescence of a highlighter pen, as if someone had been through it in detail, ticking off things to be done. He skimmed a few pages, rapidly, caught his mother’s name. Linda…kind to me today… Then he flicked to the end, because that was where the truth would be. Nicky’s diary, he saw from a swift glance, would need some textual analysis, but the impression it gave him was clear.

  ‘Now we know. It wasn’t an accident. He killed himself.’ The quiet, musical teenager had attracted the cruel displeasure of his classmates and they had made his life miserable. He had gone to Lacy’s Caves and hidden there because they rode their bikes past his house and laughed, because they waited for him when he went out. And one day they’d found the place he went to preserve his sanity and had followed him there, too. ‘Look. Here it is.’ He read it aloud. ‘I can’t take it. They’ll be sorry when I’m dead. I’m going to do it.’ That was where the diary ended, dated the day before the boy’s death..

  ‘But the train driver’s statement—’ said Ashleigh, bewildered. ‘I went back to it. He said Nicholas was trying to get out of the way and fell.’

  The witness statement had been clear, but so was the diary in front of him. ‘He must have changed his mind at the last moment.’

  ‘Oh God, I see. And fell, so it sort of was an accident but yet not. And that explains why Leslie is so determined that it was his fault and he failed his son.’

  ‘It looks like this is all we need from here,’ said Jude, to his audience. ‘It may not be definitive evidence of any murder, but it certainly indicates Vanessa has had some kind of input into what’s been going on.’ He handed the carrier bag and its contents to one of the constables, who placed it in an evidence bag and labelled it. ‘Let’s get back to the office and sort this out.’

  ‘You don’t think she’s done a runner?’ Ashleigh asked, as he turned towards Penrith.

  He shook his head. Vanessa and her father had been working towards an objective and that objective was achieved. The highlighted names had been those who were dead, or whose children were dead, and the only other name was that of Izzy’s mother. Perhaps, ironically, it was Izzy’s very vulnerability that had made it too much of a risk for Vanessa to attempt to gaslight her, with so many people watching out for her welfare. And his parents’ names had been in the diary but not highlighted and not, he’d seen with relief, in any negative association. Thank God they hadn’t been in the group who’d mocked and harassed their classmate, and the one mention he’d seen of his mother had been in reference to her kindness.

  That must be why Vanessa had been so sure Mikey would come to no harm. His parents had committed no sins for which he must be sacrificed, for which they must atone. Her taunting of Jude himself had been no more than an attempt to express her power.

  He got out his phone and called Doddsy. ‘Interesting stuff from Vanessa’s house. We found the diary. Did you have any luck hauling her in?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Doddsy, brief to the pint of terseness. ‘No sign of her.’

  ‘You tried the Community College?’

  ‘Yep. She was expected but phoned to say something had come up. She’s not at her office and her secretary doesn’t know where she is. She missed an appointment there this morning.’

  Jude paused. Where would Vanessa go, when she knew the game was up? ‘You’ve got people looking out for the car? Blue Peugeot, I think.’

  A twitch to his left. One of the constables — the one he’d left on watch at the door — was looking suddenly alarmed. ‘There was a blue Peugeot came past while you were searching. Slowed in the lane and then took off again. I thought it was just a rubbernecker.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jude sighed in frustration. ‘Doddsy. Looks like she knows we’re here. She may have made a run for it. You know what to do.’ Another call, number unknown. ‘I’m putting you on hold just now. Hello? Jude Satterthwaite speaking.’

  ‘Hello again, Chief Inspector. Ellie Jack here, at Eden’s End. Just a quick call, but I thought you’d like to know. Vanessa Wood’s here, just arrived. Came roaring up the drive like she was in the Sweeney, she did, and stormed into the place with a face that would turn the milk.’

  ‘To see her father?’

  ‘She sure as hell isn’t here to see me,’ said Ellie, cheerfully. ‘I expect I’ll see you in a few minutes, then, shall I?’

  Twenty-Six

  Vanessa was looking out of the window of Leslie’s room when the Mercedes with the two detectives in it came crawling up the drive at a respectful pace, rather than the wheel-spinning, rubber-burning speed she’d expected when they came to arrest her. Her heart sank when the liveried patrol car came along behind them. They’d better be on their game. She was pretty certain they couldn’t get her for murder, but Jude Satterthwaite had struck her as the creative sort. He’d think of something, though a good lawyer must be able to argue that even Eden Whispers probably wasn’t illegal, just a breach of an unenforceable voluntary code, and there was no record of the words she’d whispered in the ears of the dead. Even the texts and messages she’d sent had been carefully phrased and could be read entirely innocently.

  She hoped.

  She would be struck off, of course, but she was only a couple of years away from retirement and professional disgrace was a price well worth paying. ‘Dad. I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Of course, Vee.’

  ‘Yes. It’s very serious.’

  The car stopped and the chief inspector and sergeant got out and strolled towards the front door, for all the world as if they were there on a casual visit. Somewhere in the reception area the bell rang, long and loud.

  ‘I won’t be coming to see you any more.’

  There was a short silence. Most of the time Leslie was sharp as the proverbial tack, but he was showing increasing signs of short-term memory loss. From time to time she had to repeat herself. So much the better. It would save her the effort of making a full confession to the police. ‘Why’s that?’

&nbs
p; ‘I might have to go to prison. Because of Nicky.’ Even if she didn’t, he would. Or maybe not. Surely he was too old and infirm to be locked up? But murder, after all, was murder.

  He folded his hands tightly over one another. The door to his room was open and she heard soft footsteps in the carpeted corridor. She turned her back on the door. The footsteps stopped and no-one came in, but she felt their shadows and their silence. Jude Satterthwaite and Ashleigh O’Halloran had found the room and they would stand and listen to her confession before they took her away.

  ‘Prison?’ said Leslie, his voice quavering. ‘Why?’

  ‘Remember how you told me what you did to Richard and to Finn?’

  On that prompt, he dug in the inside pocket of his jacket. Out came the class photo. Vanessa took it from him, reached into her bag and took out a pen. It didn’t matter what happened to her. What mattered was that he had some kind of payback for what had happened to him, for all the years of misery and guilt that had followed Nicky’s death. Now, of course, without her to remind him every visit of what she’d done, he’d forget the other parents who would suffer just the way he had for the mistakes they’d made, whose children had died because they’d driven Nicky to his death. In future he would remember only his own grief.

  But she would know. Every time she’d visited, every time she’d talked him through her actions only for him to forget again, she saw the same satisfaction, the same understanding and the peace that came from knowing someone else would suffer what they’d made him suffer. Wielding the pen with vicious satisfaction, she slashed through two of the images. ‘Richard and Finn, both dead. You killed them. Well done. I’m proud of you. And I did the others.’

  ‘You killed them? They said they killed themselves.’

  ‘Clara gave me the idea,’ she said, for the detectives’ benefit. She hadn’t had to intervene on that occasion, and nor had she wanted to. Clara’s parents hadn’t known Nicky, but their grief had been first a reminder and then an inspiration. Vanessa had tried to save her and failed. ‘I was seeing Connor, who was struggling with mental health issues. It was easy. He was deeply insecure.’ Another figure defaced, another parent mourning a child. ‘Sharon Ford. Remember, she had a daughter. Tania. She jumped off the bridge.’

  ‘Did you push her?’

  Vanessa hesitated. Why confess to murder when she didn’t have to? ‘I was with her when she jumped. Because I’d set up a website, you see.’ Now they had her computer the police would find it, find everything she’d done to goad the youth of the Eden Valley to their deaths. In a strange way she was proud of herself. ‘There were the Currans.’ Their father’s face, too, was disfigured by the malicious slash of red pen. ‘I went with Charlie to the woods that night and watched him die, and I thought of you and of Nicky. Jimmy Kennedy’s daughter, too. And I went with Ben to Lacy’s Caves.’

  ‘Nicky used to go there. It said it in the diary.’

  ‘Yes. That was a happy coincidence. Ben said he used to go there and drink with his brother, so I suggested we meet there to see if it would help him move on.’ She’d never intended that it should. ‘I brought vodka, and water in a vodka bottle for me. And the pills.’

  ‘Vee.’ Leslie’s hands were shaking, but she knew he understood. She took his old hands in hers and thought of Nicky, as she knew he would be doing. ‘You were always so clever.’

  She thought she’d been a little too clever, on balance. Nicky had liked Jude Satterthwaite’s parents but she’d never believed they were entirely blameless. That, along with his assumed authority, was the reason she hadn’t been able to resist taunting him with the ridiculous suggestion that he, too, was within her control. He never had been, and it had only been a matter of time before he recognised the dangerous nature of the things she was inspiring him to think. Pride was a besetting sin. If she hadn’t fallen victim to it they’d still be looking at everything as inexplicable, powered by a malicious but anonymous online troll. ‘I know. I have to go now, Dad. The police are here. They’ll want to talk to you soon.’

  ‘Goodbye, Vee. Thank you. And I’m sorry.’

  She got up and bent to drop a quick kiss on the top of his head. ‘It’ll be difficult now. But I promise you. It was worth it.’

  As she turned away from him, Jude stepped forward. ‘Okay, Dr Wood.’

  She dipped her head. ‘Of course, you heard that.’

  ‘We did. You might be interested to know we found the diary. I’m placing you under arrest, on suspicion of encouraging and assisting with the suicides of Juliet Kennedy, Ben Curran, Charlie Curran, Connor Turnbull and Tania Baker. I’d like you to come with us and make a formal statement, now.’

  The litany of names gave her a thrill; they were a roll of honour, a tribute to Nicky. ‘Of course.’ As she walked out behind him, Ashleigh O’Halloran fell into step in the rear, as though they were expecting her to run. ‘What about Dad?’

  ‘We’ll be interviewing him later. I’d like to send someone down to take fingerprints first, if you don’t mind.’

  As if it made any difference whether she minded or not. ‘Of course.’

  She got into the back seat of the car and the sergeant got in beside her. Jude Satterthwaite started the engine but let it idle for a moment, watching her through the driver’s mirror. He was a clever man; she understood, now, just how much so. There was value in keeping your cleverness hidden, rather than flaunting it.

  ‘Why did you try and make it look as if it was Josh Foster?’ he asked.

  She fidgeted. Another example of being too clever. ‘I didn’t know where Steven Lawson had gone. He was the ringleader. Everybody hated him, but they were scared of him, too. They picked on him but he took them on and they all turned on Nicky instead.’ Like a pack of wild animals. ‘Read the diary. It’s all in there.’

  ‘You must have known he was Josh’s father.’

  ‘Not for certain.’ If she had done, she’d have pressed further, tried harder to exert her influence over Josh and drag him down, too, though she knew she’d have struggled against his mother’s common sense. ‘At one point I heard a rumour he was back and that Geri Foster was dating him. I don’t know her well, but she was always knocking around this place, because of her parents. Her mother was local, and whatever Geri says, people do have a strong sense of their roots. But no. I wasn’t sure.’

  He let the engine tick over for another moment. ‘What about Izzy Ecclestone?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Her mother’s name is in the diary. You highlighted it.’

  Vanessa thought of Izzy with what passed for sympathy. ‘I never did anything to try and hurt Izzy. The opposite, in fact. I treat her as you’d expect me to treat a client. I did my best for her.’

  ‘May I ask why?’

  She leaned back against the headrest. She was suddenly very tired. ‘In my professional opinion, Izzy isn’t saveable. She has so many complexes, so great an obsession with death. Time, and her own frailty, will take care of her for me.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, in a voice that was rich with irritation, and he put the car into gear and headed off down the drive towards Penrith.

  Twenty-Seven

  It was too late, but Ashleigh couldn’t rid herself of the feeing — of the fear — that ending her relationship with Jude had been a mistake.

  She got the cards out of their hiding place in her chest of drawers, sat down and began to shuffle, sliding them through her hands the way Raven did, with the ease of practice. It had been a while since she’d looked at them, as if, for the first time, she didn’t trust them.

  Scott had texted her as she was leaving work, and she hadn’t replied. A sick feeling lurked in her heart, of impending self-destruction, surely too much like that which had troubled Tania and Connor, Charlie and Ben and Juliet and which must still linger in the darker corners of Izzy Ecclestone’s soul.

  Normally full of sound common sense, she didn’t need anyone to tell her that what she was thinking was
wrong. She wasn’t about to take her own life but handing it over to Scott amounted to much the same thing. She looked at the message on her phone. Enjoyed our walk, as far as it went. Let’s try again.

  He’d moved up to Cumbria for the summer and surely that meant something. He’d done it to see more of her, or so he’d assured her, and she couldn’t see any other reason why he’d have come. Scott was a man who liked crewing yachts in the Mediterranean rather than teaching hordes of kids to windsurf in the chill of Ullswater.

  It was flattering, but she’d been flattered before. Ashleigh was no fool. If she went back to Scott there was every chance the vicious spiral of their marriage would repeat itself. They’d begin well; she’d be at work and he’d be bored; there would be temptation in his way; and, because he was Scott and couldn’t resist a good-looking woman, he’d fall.

  She turned the deck of cards face up. She’d taken what she interpreted as their advice and ended the relationship with Jude, on the delusion of sacrifice. With hindsight — always with hindsight — she understood how her subconscious mind worked. By letting Jude go, by giving him another chance to make it work with Becca, she’d thought she was freeing herself up for another chance with Scott. But Becca hadn’t played ball and now she felt nothing but guilt.

  If only she could turn the clock back.

  She dealt the cards out, five of them face down, then picked up the five and shuffled them back in the pack. For the first time she felt they’d let her down and she didn’t trust them not to do it again.

  When she fanned them out in front of her, it occurred to her that there were too many cards in the deck she didn’t want to see again. She could have done without Death, and the Three of Swords that always came up when she thought of Scott and which never offered her any comfort, but it was the Hanged Man that she selected. It wasn’t just that it was the card that had prompted her to step away from a relationship that looked as if it was becoming serious and back into one that had almost destroyed her. It was that every time she saw the Hanged Man’s serene face as he dangled by his feet from the trees she thought of the futility of that loss.