by Kate Ellis
‘Is it true you’ve served time in prison?’ said Wesley with scrupulous politeness.
Xander Southwark smiled. ‘I make no secret of it. Acknowledging what I did in the past helps me to help others. I’ve overcome adversity and so can they. As well as healing and meditation we specialise in life coaching and counselling here at Princebury Hall. People come to us with problems and, hopefully, leave with solutions.’
Wesley recognised a sales pitch when he heard one.
‘What were you inside for?’ Gerry’s question was blunt but Wesley knew it was meant to be.
‘In my former life I was a solicitor and I stole money from my firm’s client account. I’d run up heavy debts and convinced myself I could borrow the money to tide me over then pay it back before anyone noticed but there was an audit and… I learned my lesson in jail and began a new life. I help my clients to do the same.’ The smoothness of his answer made Wesley suspect that it was a story he’d told often.
‘Where did you get the cash to buy this place?’
Southwark gave Gerry a curious look.
‘If you must know it was an inheritance and the rest of what I needed came from an understanding bank whose faith in my project paid off, I’m delighted to say.’ Southwark handed a glossy brochure to Wesley. ‘You have a stressful job, Inspector. I’m sure you’d find one of our courses beneficial.’
When Gerry grunted he was handed a brochure too.
‘What can you tell us about Andrea Jameson?’ Wesley asked. ‘She’s dead so you won’t be breaking any confidences.’
‘She was a businesswoman who ran a successful company in Tradmouth, but I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you.’ Southwark stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me I have a counselling session in ten minutes.’
‘Did you get the impression he was keen to get rid of us?’ Gerry said as they walked across the thickly carpeted landing to the staircase.
Before Wesley could respond he spotted a familiar figure flapping towards them. Della was wearing a voluminous bright yellow kaftan; it wasn’t her colour. She came to a sudden halt when she saw them and Wesley thought she looked embarrassed, something he’d never expected to see.
Gerry nudged his arm. ‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’
‘Hello, Della. How’s it going?’
‘Are you here to check up on me?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself, I’m here on an investigation. I’ve been trying to call you.’
‘We’re not allowed phones. Besides, I’m told the signal’s rubbish.’
Wesley looked round and lowered his voice. ‘These counselling sessions – do people tend to reveal their innermost secrets, that sort of thing?’
The question appeared to take her by surprise. ‘Xander says we have to be completely honest or we’ll never overcome our past.’
‘Are the sessions recorded?’ Gerry asked.
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing.’
Gerry turned to go and Wesley did likewise.
‘Is that all?’ She sounded disappointed.
Wesley told her to enjoy her course and they left her on the landing. When he glanced back he saw a forlorn expression on her face, as though they’d just abandoned her.
‘What do you reckon?’ Gerry asked as they walked back to the car.
Wesley considered the question for a while. Xander Southwark had refused them access to the address of Jason Fitch’s other lady friend and he was sure he’d known Fitch a lot better than he’d admitted. ‘I think we might need that search warrant.’
12
The following morning Rachel Tracey set off for Jocasta’s old school, her colleague and house-mate DC Trish Walton beside her in the passenger seat. Wesley had observed that no teenage girl is an island; Jocasta Ovorard was bound to have confided in one or more of her former classmates.
Rachel knew that people didn’t go out deliberately to get themselves murdered in the run-up to her wedding but the timing was lousy. With the double murder and Jocasta’s disappearance she’d be working long hours for the foreseeable future so she wouldn’t see much of Nigel, let alone have time to do all those little jobs that fell to a bride these days. She was lucky her mother was only too happy to shoulder some of the burden. Even so, Rachel felt she was missing out on something – although she wasn’t quite sure what it was.
‘Thought about your hen night?’ Trish said, breaking the amicable silence.
‘Not really,’ Rachel replied in a tone that discouraged further enquiry.
Trish remained silent as they drove over the moor towards their destination. Travelling across the top of Dartmoor, avoiding the sheep and ponies wandering on to the road, brought it home to Rachel how large the county of Devon was. The landscape up there looked barren and sinister, with few trees and great granite tors looming from the swirling, patchy mist, quite unlike the kinder countryside around Lower Torworthy. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as she navigated her way along the empty road and by the time she reached the school she felt quite unnerved, although that might have been because she hadn’t been sleeping too well of late.
Widedales School stood a couple of miles outside the North Devon seaside town of Ilfracombe and the huge red-brick Gothic building looked as if it might once have been a hospital or an asylum; the sort of place the Victorians considered the height of fashion and modern taste regarded as monstrosities.
The school secretary was younger than Rachel had expected and as she led them to the headmistress’s study she made polite conversation about the vagaries of the Devon weather. Trish answered pleasantly but Rachel couldn’t be bothered. Her own schooldays had been spent in her local comprehensive and she didn’t feel comfortable in a place she associated with stuffy privilege. She knew Wesley’s parents, both doctors who’d come from the Caribbean to train for their chosen profession, had sent him to a well-known public school in London but, in general, she didn’t like the sense of entitlement those kind of places engendered. Wesley, to her mind, was the exception.
The headmistress, a tall, gaunt woman with a well-cut suit and a crushing handshake, answered their questions with apparent candour but revealed little about her former student. When they asked to see her classmates, she looked uneasy.
They were provided with tea and biscuits while the girls who, presumably, knew Jocasta best were singled out and rounded up from their various lessons and free periods. Forty minutes later they were faced with a queue of seven sixth-form girls. To Rachel they all looked grown-up, beautiful and confident. She was sure she hadn’t been like that at their age and found them a little intimidating.
They interviewed the girls one by one in the empty staffroom and the first six all told the same story, almost as though it had been rehearsed: Jocasta was stand-offish and considered herself above them. Unsurprisingly this hadn’t gone down well and they made no secret of their dislike. No wonder, Rachel thought, she’d been keen to leave and embark on her drama course – although it didn’t look as if she’d made many friends there either. As she listened to the classmates’ damning verdicts she began to feel a little sorry for Jocasta Ovorard.
The final girl they interviewed was called Finola and as soon as she told them she’d actually shared a room with Jocasta, Rachel felt more hopeful. If Jocasta had confided in anybody it would be her room-mate. She and Trish had shared many confidences over a glass of wine in the living room of their cottage.
Finola was small and pretty with a generous mouth and turned-up nose. She looked nervous so Rachel gave her an encouraging smile, like a dentist assuring a patient that the treatment wasn’t going to hurt a bit.
‘I understand you shared a room with Jocasta,’ she began.
The girl nodded.
‘Would you say you knew her best of all the girls here?’
Her narrow shoulders lifted slightly in a wary shrug. ‘Probably.’
‘Tell us what she’s like. And be honest. She’s been missing for a while now a
nd her parents are very worried so anything you can tell us might help us find her.’
Finola cleared her throat. ‘She hated it here. The others gave her a hard time.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I guess she only had herself to blame. She was always going on about her big plans: drama school then an acting career. She said she had contacts. She sneered at anything they said. Louise wants to read philosophy at uni and Jo said that was really stupid. Harriet’s brilliant at maths but she said that was really boring. She was always trying to bring people down.’
‘What about you?’
‘Once I realised she was doing it because she was insecure, I felt sorry for her to tell the truth.’
Trish had been sitting beside Rachel taking notes but she broke her silence and asked the next question. ‘What was she insecure about?’
‘Something to do with her parents, I think. Her dad’s an MP and he’s often in London which she said suited her fine ’cause he’s a creep.’
‘Funny thing to say about your own dad.’
‘You’re right. She always changed the subject whenever he was mentioned.’
‘Did she say anything else?’
There was a long silence. ‘She did say once that she could never take any friends home.’
‘What do you think she meant by that?’
‘She didn’t elaborate but there was something about the way she said it…’ She thought for a moment. ‘Maybe it was because of her mum. I think she had problems… with her nerves. Mind you, Jo might have been making it all up to add a bit of drama to her life. People do that a lot here.’
‘What do you know about her mother?’
‘Only that Jo didn’t get on with her either.’ There was a long pause. ‘She said her mum had other interests.’
‘Such as?’
Trish and Rachel waited for her to continue and after a few seconds their patience was rewarded.
‘She said her mum had a boyfriend. In his late twenties and a bit of a hunk,’ Finola revealed with a sly smile. ‘Jo said she hated him but I knew she was lying. I think she fancied him herself.’
‘Know his name?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Did Jo have a boyfriend?’
‘I think there was somebody but she never confided in me. Sometimes she used to disappear at weekends and come back with a smug look on her face. This place is like that prison up on the moor and just as hard to escape from – but there are ways if you’re really determined. And if anyone was determined it’d be Jo. She hated it here and I don’t blame her.’
‘You’ve stuck it out,’ said Rachel.
‘I’m interested in my grades. I want to read medicine at Cambridge.’
‘Good luck,’ said Trish as the girl stood up to leave.
‘What did you think?’ Trish asked once Finola had left the room.
‘I think someone needs to have a word with the mother and her toy boy – if he exists,’ Rachel replied with a grin.
‘What about Jeremy Ovorard?’
Rachel didn’t answer.
After Lucy Zinara’s arrival the previous evening she and Neil had spent the night in bed making up for the lost summer months, breaking off their reunion only to go out and buy a midnight kebab, something that made Neil feel like a carefree student again.
Lucy had asked after Pam Peterson. Neil said she appeared to be doing really well and that he’d seen a lot of Wesley while he’d been in charge of a strange, privately funded dig at Newfield Manor near the village of Whitely, although that was weeks ago. Time flew, he said, which must be a sign of advancing age. Lucy had laughed at his joke – always a good sign.
The Orkney dig was finished and somebody else was writing up the reports so for the time being Lucy was free. Neil, however, had work to do. He had to go over to the university to see what was happening with the wooden figure he’d told her about, and after that he’d arranged to meet his group of volunteers to continue the graffiti survey at Lower Torworthy church. He told Lucy there was a chance they might bump into Wesley there because there’d been a shooting near the village and the place was swarming with police, dismissing the dramatic event with a wave of his hand. Archaeology excited both of them more than murder.
When Neil and Lucy arrived at the university the little monk, as Neil now thought of it, was standing on a steel table in the centre of the lab; a relic of the medieval world incongruous against the utilitarian surroundings.
Lucy walked round the table, examining the figure from all angles. Its side was open and the mechanism inside visible. It looked to Neil as though it had been cleaned up since he last saw it.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she said.
At that moment a large middle-aged woman in a shapeless navy-blue dress entered the room. She made straight for Neil, her hand outstretched.
‘Dr Watson. I was told to expect you. I’m Dr Fletcher. Susan. Department of Mechanical Engineering. Interesting thing you’ve got here – from an engineering point of view – although I suspect it’s more a clockmaker’s province than mine. In fact it was a clockmaker I know who helped to get it going. It’s surprisingly intricate for such an early date. Sixteenth century, you say?’
‘Late fifteenth or early sixteenth – certainly pre-Reformation.’
She nodded. ‘It’s well preserved. My clockmaker friend went into rhapsodies when he examined the mechanism – said it was quite beautiful. I said it was a shame it couldn’t be seen and appreciated but he pointed out that in a less enlightened time than our own that wouldn’t be considered important as long as God could see it. Do you want to see it working?’
Neil looked at Lucy. ‘Of course.’
Dr Fletcher turned the figure round carefully and depressed a lever in the open side. As soon as she replaced the wooden cover the thing began to move.
It shuffled forward, a little unsteady on its wooden feet, and raised its arms, all the time moving its hinged mouth as if in silent prayer. After it had moved forward a foot or so it turned and began to beat its breast. Then the head turned from left to right and the left arm was raised in blessing. Dr Fletcher allowed the routine to be repeated twice more before she removed the wooden cover and pressed the lever to stop it.
‘I know it’s always hard to pin you archaeologists and historians down to facts but I must confess I’m curious about this little chap,’ she said. ‘Do you know why it was made?’
It was Lucy who answered. ‘A couple of years ago I read about something like this in a journal. It was a mechanical friar made for Philip the Second of Spain in the sixteenth century – a sort of prayer machine. The theory was that Philip had it made to pray for the recovery of his son.’
‘Did it work?’ Dr Fletcher asked. Neil could hear scepticism in her voice.
‘He recovered but it didn’t do him much good. He was mentally unstable and his father had him locked up; he died in solitary confinement. That particular machine’s in Washington DC – in the Smithsonian collection.’
‘So how did a similar one get to rural Devon?’ she asked.
‘That’s something we want to find out.’
Neil was gratified by Lucy’s use of the word ‘we’.
‘I showed it to someone from the History Department,’ Dr Fletcher continued. ‘He said he was sure that someone was researching something similar back in the nineties but he couldn’t remember any details. It might be worth following up.’
