Recalled to Death

by Priscilla Masters

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles From Priscilla Masters

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  A Selection of Recent Titles from Priscilla Masters

  The Martha Gunn Mystery Series

  RIVER DEEP

  SLIP KNOT

  FROZEN CHARLOTTE *

  SMOKE ALARM *

  THE DEVIL’S CHAIR *

  RECALLED TO DEATH *

  The Joanna Piercy Mysteries

  WINDING UP THE SERPENT

  CATCH THE FALLEN SPARROW

  A WREATH FOR MY SISTER

  AND NONE SHALL SLEEP

  SCARING CROWS

  EMBROIDERING SHROUDS

  ENDANGERING INNOCENTS

  WINGS OVER THE WATCHER

  GRAVE STONES

  A VELVET SCREAM *

  THE FINAL CURTAIN *

  GUILTY WATERS *

  * available from Severn House

  RECALLED TO DEATH

  A Martha Gunn Mystery

  Priscilla Masters

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2015

  in Great Britain and the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition first published 2015 in Great

  Britain and the USA by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2015 by Priscilla Masters.

  The right of Priscilla Masters to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Masters, Priscilla author.

  Recalled to death. – (The Martha Gunn mystery series)

  1. Gunn, Martha (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  2. Randall, Alex (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  3. Murder–Investigation–Fiction. 4. Homeless persons–

  Fiction. 5. Shropshire (England)–Fiction. 6. Detective

  and mystery stories.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9’2-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8527-2 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-627-5 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-680-9 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  Beware of those who are homeless by choice.

  Robert Southey, 1774–1843

  PROLOGUE

  28 October, 4 p.m.

  Umbrella in one hand, flowers in the other, she found it easily enough in the municipal graveyard, amongst the rows of tombstones, a place put aside for those who had no name. Plot 171, a mound of damp mud, rain trickling over the soil in tiny rivulets the only sign of movement. No flowers, no name. Simply a wooden stake in the ground and the title: Plot 171. His new identity. She almost smiled. For a moment she stood still, struggling to believe that he was really underneath this anonymous pile of earth, then she bunched the stems together and laid the flowers down. Roses, deep, dark red, the colour of love, blood and betrayal, and lilies, white and scented. Funereal.

  And dangerous. It was dangerous for her to be here.

  A woman, on her knees, tending an adjacent grave, glanced across at her curiously and asked her the same question the sextant had. ‘Did you know him then?’

  She shook her head. And almost heard the cock crow. Another lie to add to the legion of lies she’d already told. What would one more matter? But somehow, compared to the others, this denial seemed the very worst. To rob him of his identity, to allow him to remain forever unknown, his grave unmarked, his name missing. For ever? Her mouth curved not with a smile but with cynicism, her eyes narrow, feline, cruel. Plot 171. The unknown soldier.

  She almost choked. But he was dead now and she could do or say nothing in reparation except give him back the dignity of his identity: his name. His past. She stood a moment longer, thinking.

  Phrases ran through her head. The unknown soldier. Known unto God.

  She made her decision. That would have to be enough.

  She turned and walked away, the phrase ringing in her ears.

  Plot 171. Known unto God.

  ONE

  Six weeks earlier.

  Thursday, 11 September, 9 p.m.

  An autumn mist shrouded the ruin, heavy and cold as a sodden grey blanket, the rain dripping over the stones, playing its own wet melody. Splash, tinkle, drip. Splash …

  All else was still and cold and quiet, the ruined house wary and watchful as it had learnt to be over the centuries. Watchful but powerless to protect the man who lay in its wrecked embrace.

  Thursday, 11 September, 9.15 p.m

  The White House.

  Sam was grumpy. He’d been moping around the house all evening while Martha waited for him to get whatever it was off his chest. This was not like her son, who was naturally buoyant and optimistic, not a sulker or a brooder. She eyed him across the table, playing with his supper instead of wolfing it down as he usually did, his gaze downcast, shoulders heaving in heavy, bothered sighs. It was her way to wait for him to speak rather than prompt him, so the silence stretched. His eyes flickered up towards her then away again and she knew he would pick his moment. Eventually he cracked. He gave a few groans as warning, let his fork clatter on to the plate, cleared his throat and looked up.

  ‘Mum,’ he said tentatively.

  ‘Sam?’

  Another deep sigh. ‘I feel stagnant.’

  She frowned at the word. This was not what she had been expecting. She looked at her son. Eighteen years old. Signed up with Stoke City FC. Thick, unruly hair with only a touch of her dreadful red. Teeth inclined
to be crooked and uneven but lately being forced into line with a brace. He grinned at her scrutiny, his brown eyes soft and affectionate.

  ‘Stagnant?’ she queried.

  ‘My mates,’ he said in his gruff voice. ‘They’re all going off to uni. You know – studying stuff. Training for a profession or something anyway. Going off. Leaving home. But me? It’s still training four times a week. Matches. Home. Away.’ He was bobbing his head at the routine as he spoke. ‘Doing the same thing year in, year out.’ He looked at her, his brown eyes appealing. ‘It isn’t enough, Mum. I want to …’ He looked around him, his eyes searching for something. ‘Broaden my horizons,’ he said finally, with a touch of bravado. ‘Do something else. Go somewhere else. Be somewhere else. Be someone else.’ His eyes were impassioned and sincere and she did not doubt this sincerity.

  She gritted her teeth. Somehow she had always expected this – that Sam would, one day, need more than just football in his life. Most people envy the professional whose job is doing what they can only do for fun. But in reality it is like many dreams: the dream becomes a reality and then humdrum. Few ask a professional footballer about the big afterwards. Few say: ‘And then what? What do you do when you’re dropped from the team? Or injured? Or the new manager dislikes you?’ Or ask what happens when they get older. Not everyone can be a Beckham.

  Instead, people focus on the glamorous here and now, on the string of noughts that follow what they consider to be a living wage. Sam did make good money. She banked it, invested it and he had access to all he needed. But he was still so young. Still a teenager. He had had driving lessons and bought himself a modest car which relieved her of taxi duty, something she found rather sad. She’d always enjoyed those chats driving him to and from games or training. And at the same time as she’d been relieved of a duty she had rarely found irksome, she gained a new worry – that he would have an accident. Motherhood, she thought as she eyed her son across the kitchen table. It came with a furrowed brow and always something to worry about. So yes, Sam was currently financially independent. But the money he’d made wouldn’t last his whole life. And so she constantly did ask the questions: what next? What then? She met his gaze straight on, understanding exactly what he was saying. ‘Well,’ she said, challenging him, ‘Sam Gunn.’ She smiled at him, feeling warmth bounce off toffee-brown eyes, so like Martin’s. ‘If you want to broaden your horizons, how are you going to go about it?’

  It had always been her way of parenting to encourage them to solve their own life’s problems with only a little of a push from her. They had hardly known their father so it had been her advice alone. Sam’s face twisted in a thoughtful expression while she watched silently. There was a small pattern of faint freckles on his nose that changed shape when he was thinking. She watched them, fascinated. Then he scooped up a deep breath ready to dive from the top diving board. ‘I’m going to apply for uni,’ he said. ‘But not straight away. In a couple of years. I’ll stay with Stoke for a bit longer. I’m going to save up some money to see me through uni.’ He grinned, showing his brace off to perfection, ‘So I don’t have to depend on you. I’m going to study for A-levels and I’m going to talk to the manager. He’s got a mate who gives career advice, sort of.’

  She interrupted him. ‘And you trust them?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said seriously. ‘I do. I’m going to talk to them and discuss my future. Football won’t last for ever, Mum.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It won’t. And I know it’s difficult with your friends going off to uni. What about Tom?’

  Tom Dempsey was Sam’s best friend.

  ‘He thinks the same as I do.’

  ‘Good.’

  Sam scooped in another deep breath. ‘So, next year, I’m going to re-sit my A-levels.’ His expression was now watchful, waiting for her response, which was an encouraging smile.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I want to be a teacher,’ he said simply, his expression faintly anxious, as though she would not think this a worthy ambition.

  She nodded. She had expected that at some point he would look beyond the beautiful game, but this was a surprise to her. Somehow she had not guessed at teaching. It would take some getting used to.

  Sam grinned at her. ‘At least with my football money I won’t have to have a student loan. Will I?’

  She simply laughed.

  Thursday, 11 September, 9.30 p.m.

  Detective Inspector Alex Randall watched the vehicle leave his home with the usual sense of hopelessness, anger, frustration and concern. They would take her. Again. They would patch her up. Again. And then she would come home again and the whole sorry circus would start up all over again. He turned away from the blue light strobing down the road, neighbours no doubt watching from behind their twitching curtains. Chatter clatter. Idle chatter and speculation. He felt despair. He was so tired of this. He wanted another life. He turned away and closed the front door behind him.

  TWO

  Friday, 12 September, 10.30 a.m.

  John Hyde, his name was. An English name and it suited him well. He was stolid, reliable and honest. Bouncy and energetic. English Heritage paid him to open the gates of Moreton Corbet Castle at 10.30 a.m. during the week, so that was exactly what he did. On the dot. In his early sixties, having taken early retirement from an accountancy firm, he had been hoping to slide into retirement: gardening, an allotment and Viking River Cruises with his wife, Margaret. But Margaret had died unexpectedly of a particularly voracious form of leukaemia, leaving him with no one to cruise or garden with. It had not gone according to plan. But John Hyde was a stoic and, as he was fond of repeating to his friends at the golf club, he didn’t do,‘sorry for myself’. He was making a determined effort to ‘fill my time’ and this was one of the ways he did it, by acting as custodian to the dramatically beautiful but ruined facade of Moreton Corbet Castle, which always reminded him of a very beautiful woman with a terrible facial injury like Holmes’s Veiled Lodger.

  The odd fact about Moreton Corbet Castle was that it had never been anything but a ruin. There had been a house there which was damaged during the Civil War and a rebuild. But it was never completed, due, some said, to a curse from a man named Paul Homlyard, who had obviously had supernatural talents.

  After the rain of last night it was a bright, golden morning, and Hyde filled his lungs with the pure country air. He unlocked the padlock of the small gate and, not for the first time, as he strode across the field towards the ruin he looked up at the dramatic facade which he had photographed on numerous occasions: in fresh spring, snowy winter, summer’s heat haze and autumn’s colours. It always looked beautiful and this morning especially so. He felt his spirits soar. It was an amazing place. The windows, glassless, blinded by war and superstition. He felt a frisson of excitement. The jagged edges of the stones which contrasted with the smooth elegance of the Queen Ann facade. A facade which, in spite of its ruined state, still stood tall and shapely against the bluest of skies promising such a wonderful interior – yet inside it was disappointing. There was no interior, only piles of tumbled stones and mown grass. But like many people, Hyde was perfectly aware that sometimes hints and promises, expectations and imagination were more exciting than reality could ever be. The retirement he had planned with Margaret may well have settled into the humdrum and not been the endless rounds of golf, cruises and gardening in a perfect weather balance of sunshine and light showers, but cold and dreary with periods of mind-numbing boredom. So he accepted the limitations of the house which hinted at its dramatic and haunted past.

  It was his custom to wander around the perimeter of the grounds and then inspect the stonework, checking that all was well, making sure there was no litter, no discarded lager cans or, horror of horrors, pizza boxes. They were his pet hate. He couldn’t believe how people would simply discard their detritus and leave this lovely place a mess. But there you were, he chuntered as he marched around the area. People were people. And English Heritage didn’t se
cure the premises all that well because there was nothing of value here. It was simply a ruin. There was nothing to guard, nothing to steal. So the only security was the padlocked gate which anybody could vault over.

  Today he felt his spirits lift. The sun was golden; there were no Styrofoam food containers, no lager cans and no pizza boxes. Not even a biodegradable apple core. All was neat and tidy, quiet and organized. The grounds were a rich green, still damp and freshly mown, the signs clean and undefaced. He walked inside the remains of the dining chamber, in the shadow now of the tall walls, the sun momentarily blocked out. He crossed to the far end of the room, to the lower chamber, and peered down the steps into the vaulted stone cellar.

  And instantly knew: something was wrong. It took him a few minutes to work out what it was. An iron railing protected the area, and beyond that there was a short flight of shallow stone steps. He glanced down. There was a splash of rust on the third step down which looked like paint. But it wasn’t rust and it wasn’t paint either. He knew exactly what it was. He removed the railing and descended the steps with grim apprehension. There was a smell too. A butcher’s shop smell. Rich and sweet but also frightening. It was the sweet stench of blood. He peered into the gloom and immediately spotted something in the corner. A huddle of blankets or a coat or …

  He was still frowning as he went over to touch it and realized it was not just a coat: someone was wearing it. He jerked back. ‘Hello?’ he said, startled. The person did not move; neither did he answer. Hyde fished a flashlight from his pocket and shone it into the man’s face. The man stared up at him, glassy eyed, skin ghost white, two weeks’ stubble. At first he thought that a scarlet scarf was tied around his throat. Hyde peered closer then stood for a moment, unable to take in what he was seeing and unable also to move, act or even vocalize. He was glued to the spot, the glue seeping into his throat too. He couldn’t scream or shout. He simply gagged and was stuck to the floor. His eyes were fixed on the gaping wound beneath the man’s chin, moving only briefly to take in the eyes – glazed, almost closed. But he must have stretched out a hand and touched him because the man’s skin, he remembered later, had felt fish-cold.