Who Is She?

by Ben Cheetham

  Steve gave him the lowdown on the best places to visit as they headed into a rugged landscape of humpbacked brown fells laced with fast-flowing streams and rivers. Isolated buildings of weathered stone and pebbledash were scattered along the roadside. To the west they caught glimpses of the brooding Irish Sea. The landscape softened and the fells receded into the east as they neared their destination.

  A terrace of white cottages and a few modern semis set amidst fields of grazing cows marked the outskirts of Gosforth. The village’s centre was a picture-postcard assortment of cottages, inns and local shops with colourful painted brickwork bordering their doors and windows.

  They pulled over outside the general store. “What do you say we talk to Mrs Boyles then have lunch in one of those pubs?” suggested Steve.

  “Sounds good.”

  “The Gosforth Hall Inn’s supposed to do some beautiful cask ales,” Steve said, licking his lips in anticipation.

  Jack smiled. “Been reading up, have you?”

  “Let’s put it this way. You’re the designated driver for the return journey.”

  They entered the little shop, which managed to cram in a butcher’s counter, bakery and delicatessen along with the usual groceries, beer, wine, spirits and other household items. A plump late-middle-aged woman with bobbed blonde hair and apple-red cheeks smiled at them from behind the till.

  “Mrs Barbara Boyles?” asked Steve.

  “Yes. Are you here about my phone call?” asked Barbara.

  Steve nodded and introduced himself and Jack. He brought up a photo of Butterfly on his phone. “We understand you think you recognise this woman.”

  “I don’t think it, I know it. You don’t forget a tattoo like that. Especially when it’s on the face of a pretty young woman.” Barbara tutted as if to say, What a shame. “She came in here about a year-and-a-half ago.”

  “So last June,” said Jack.

  “Something like that. It might have been May, but no earlier. She was alone and she seemed a bit… well a bit lost.”

  Jack thought about the lost look in Butterfly’s eyes. Had she been that way even before the amnesia?

  “You get people like that around here sometimes,” continued Barbara. “People running away from something, or trying to find something. Do you know what I mean?”

  Jack nodded. He knew exactly what she meant. After Rebecca’s death, he’d thought about taking himself and Naomi off to some far-flung corner of the world and never returning. “Can you describe her?”

  “I’d say she was in her late twenties. Slim, but not skinny. Maybe five-four or five-five. Boyishly short blonde hair.”

  “Could her hair have been dyed?”

  “Oh definitely. It was platinum blonde.”

  “What colour were her eyes?”

  Barbara thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t remember. Sorry.”

  “What was she wearing?”

  “Nothing special as far as I recall. I do remember that she was barefooted.”

  “Did she buy anything?”

  “No. She just asked for directions to Leagate Brow.”

  “Where’s that?” asked Steve.

  “You take the Wasdale Road to Wellington and follow the sign for Nether Wasdale. That takes you up Leagate Brow. There’s nothing much there. You can go for a walk along the River Bleng or Low Lonning.”

  “Low Lonning?” said Jack.

  “It’s a bridleway. There’s a lovely view of Wast Water from up there. But like I said, she wasn’t dressed for walking.”

  “So why would she go there?”

  Barbara’s voice dropped a notch. “I thought maybe she was one of them.”

  “Who’s them?”

  “Them that live out at Hawkshead Manor. It’s a mile or so past Leagate Brow on the left-hand side of the road. You can’t miss it. It’s a beautiful place.” Barbara tutted again. “At least it used to be before they moved in and turned it into some kind of commune or whatever you want to call it. You should see it now. What a mess. Weeds and rubbish everywhere. Livestock that look as if they haven’t been fed properly in months. It’s disgusting. I called the RSPCA but nothing’s been done. Those people should be in prison for the way they treat those poor animals.”

  Jack and Steve exchanged a sidelong glance. Had Mrs Boyles dragged them all the way up here because she had a bone to pick and hoped they’d do it for her?

  Jack’s deep brown eyes grew interested as Barbara said, “And the way they treat their children isn’t much better. Hair that’s never seen a brush. Scruffy clothes. Half-starved. They don’t go to school. God knows how many of them there are living there now. I’ve lost count. It seems like every time their mothers come down to the village one of them is pregnant or carrying around a new baby.”

  “How often do they come in here?”

  “About once a month. Go back a few years and the only time I saw them was on the roadside selling fruit and veg and bits of tat they’d made.”

  “Was the woman you called us about ever with them?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know any of their names?”

  Barbara shook her head. “They never say a word. Not to me or anyone else in the village. They just buy what they came for and leave.”

  “How long have they lived at Hawkshead Manor?” asked Steve.

  “Ooh, a good ten or twelve years. The previous owners, Mr and Mrs Lyons, both died a few months apart back in 2005 or 2006. Their son, Philip, lives down in London. He rents the place out through Swift Estate Agents in Egremont.”

  “And how many people live at the hall?”

  “Like I said, I’ve lost count. I’d say six or seven women. Maybe ten or eleven children. And one man. Everyone around here calls them the quiet ones.” Barbara shuddered. “It gives me the heebie-jeebies. It’s not normal.”

  “Can you describe the man?”

  Barbara wrinkled her nose. “In a word, ugly – weasel-faced, scruffy beard, long brownish-blonde hair, balding on top. He’s about your height. Skinny. I’d say he’s somewhere in his late forties or early fifties. He used to come in here sometimes, but I haven’t seen him in...” she puffed her cheeks, “it’s got to be two or three years. One other thing I can tell you, he’s not from round these parts. He has a strong Scouse accent.”

  Jack exchanged another likeminded glance with Steve, thinking about the stolen Audi that might have been involved in the shooting of PC Andrew Finch. Another curious little coincidence. “Does he own a vehicle? Or have you seen any vehicles coming and going from the manor house? BMWs, Audis, anything like that?”

  Barbara answered with a caustic laugh. “I’ve seen him driving the women and children round in an old banger of a minibus. No BMWs or Audis.”

  “Does the minibus have a rainbow painted on the bonnet?”

  “I don’t know. I can tell you this, it’s not fit to be on the road.” Barbara’s voice fell almost to a whisper. “They say all the children are his.”

  “Really?” said Steve, sounding more impressed than appalled.

  “It’s not normal,” repeated Barbara.

  “No, absolutely I agree. It’s definitely not normal.”

  The shopkeeper frowned as if she suspected Steve wasn’t taking her seriously. Jack moved the conversation on. “Did anyone else from the village speak to or see the tattooed lady?”

  “No. I’ve asked around. I’m the only one.”

  “And did she have a car or any other means of transport?”

  “Not that I saw. There’s a bus comes through here twice a day. She might have come on that. But then again, she didn’t look the type to use buses.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us about her?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “And apart from the residents of Hawkshead Manor, is there anyone else we should talk to?”

  “Philip Lyons. If you talk to him about what’s going on up there, perhaps he’ll do what he should have done years a
go and kick that lot out of his house.”

  They thanked Barbara for contacting them. “Whoever that poor lady is, I hope she pulls through,” she said. As they left the store, she added, “Will you be calling to let me know how it goes at the manor house?”

  Steve answered with a wave, muttering under his breath, “Will we bollocks.” He sparked up a cigarette and asked Jack, “So what do you make of what Hetty Wainthropp in there had to say?”

  “The woman she described is roughly the right height and build. Obviously her hair was different, but she could have grown it out between then and now. There are some interesting coincidences. The pregnant women. The bearded bloke with the scouse accent. The minibus.”

  “And the name of the manor house. I mean because of the mask the bloke in the woods was wearing.”

  Jack hadn’t thought of that. The coincidences were stacking up too high to be ignored. “Let’s have a drive out Leagate Brow.”

  “What about lunch?”

  Jack shook his head in reply. It was just after one o’clock. The baby had been missing for almost forty hours. Lunch could wait. He ducked into the car. Casting a mournful glance towards the village’s pubs, Steve followed suit.

  Chapter 15

  Wasdale Road led them north east past rows of farm cottages and fields of grazing sheep. Towards the road’s upper end, the River Bleng appeared on their right-hand side, bubbling through a stony channel lined by trees and bushes. They crossed the river on a low stone bridge and the road climbed steeply up Leagate Brow, narrowing to a single lane as it left behind the hamlet of Wellington. At the top of the slope, they pulled over by a bench. Like Barbara had said, there was nothing much to see. To the west, green fields rolled towards the sea. The bleak brown fells of Wasdale dominated the eastern horizon. Closer at hand, there was a patch of woodland, hedges, dry-stone walls, a pair of metal farm-gates, telephone poles marching down to the houses.

  Jack looked askance at Steve. With a shrug, Steve got back into the car.

  They continued along the lane, passing the woods on their left, descending steadily towards Wasdale. The precipitous scree-strewn slopes enclosing Wast Water came into view. At the head of the lake loomed the craggy summit of Scafell. They braked at a ‘Public Bridleway’ sign. “This must be Low Lonning,” said Jack. The bridleway ran straight as an arrow towards a farmhouse with a stone barn attached to it. “Barbara said Hawkshead Manor is about half-a-mile further on.”

  The lane dipped into a wood of pale beeches and spindly firs whose branches drooped over a brick wall swathed in ivy and weeds. At the centre of the wall were wrought-iron gates set between crumbling stone posts. Only a few curls of black and gold paint still clung to the gates. A sign so faded as to be almost illegible read ‘Hawkshead Manor’. Beyond the gates was a driveway well on its way to being reclaimed by nature.

  Jack and Steve took a closer look at the gates. They were chained and padlocked, but hung at an odd angle. A shove from Steve created a gap wide enough to squeeze through. Jack pointed at the sign. Underneath the worn lettering someone had scratched ‘Here Ends Civilisation’.

  Steve grinned. “I can’t wait to meet the lord of the manor.”

  Jack made a sweeping motion towards the gates. “Age before beauty.”

  Steve edged through the gap. “Not a bloody word,” he warned as he sucked in his beer-belly.

  A hint of caution came into their movements as they progressed along the driveway. If the lord of the manor and the man behind the eagle or, as it might be, hawk mask were one and the same, they were dealing with a dangerous individual. In amongst the trees were several tourer caravans streaked with moss and lichen. At some point in the distant past, one of the caravans had been painted red, green and gold. Others were graffitied with single staring eyes, anarchist symbols and slogans – ‘FUCK THE GOVERNMENT. FUCK THE CHURCH. FUCK THE WORLD’; ‘THE END IS NIGH LETS PARTY’. The ground around the caravans was strewn with rusting Calor Gas bottles, old tarpaulins and items of furniture that looked as if they had been ripped out of the caravans. The trees were decorated with coloured ribbons that fluttered in the breeze.

  “We’re not alone,” observed Jack.

  On either side, small figures slunk through the trees. Like the trees, the children were dressed in colourful, tatty clothes. Some had crewcuts. Others had long hair that was tangling into dreadlocks. Although thin, they didn’t look to be quite the starving waifs the shopkeeper had described. They were grubby, but rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed. They moved as silently and swiftly as woodland creatures. Jack counted eight of them. The smallest looked to be only four or five-years-old. The largest was maybe ten or eleven. It was difficult to tell which were girls and which were boys. They all shared similar brownish blonde hair and narrow facial features.

  “What do you want to do?” asked Steve.

  “Let’s keep walking.”

  The driveway degenerated into mud. “Bloody hell, these are brand new,” grumbled Steve as the ground sucked at his shoes.

  They emerged from the woods into an expansive area that might once have been landscaped gardens, but now was more akin to a broken-down farmyard. Several scrawny cows, goats and ponies were sniffing around for grass in a muddy enclosure. Hens were pecking at a patch of wheat that looked as if it had been left to rot. Rows of raised beds had been haphazardly planted with vegetables, but mostly left to go to weeds. Flies buzzed around a dead pig in a collapsed sty. Jack thought about Butterfly’s dirt-ingrained fingernails and calloused palms.

  “Looks like the good life gone bad,” commented Steve, wrinkling his nose at the stench of decomposition.

  “Explains why they’ve been using the village shop.”

  They continued past a cluster of vehicles in various states of disrepair – a double-decker bus mottled with rust, frayed curtains hanging in its windows; an old-fashioned ambulance on its axles; vans languishing in oil-stained grass. The garishly painted vehicle from the motorway CCTV wasn’t amongst them. The children peered from behind a mound of tyres. Catching the eye of one who looked to be about Naomi’s age, Jack smiled. Like a startled rabbit, the child darted out of sight.

  Beyond the vehicles, the driveway flared out in front of a grand dilapidated three-storey redbrick house. Several of the house’s ten tall arched windows were boarded up. The boards had been painted with the same staring eye as the caravans. The left-hand side of the double-fronted façade was almost completely enveloped in ivy, as were three of the six tall chimneys. White smoke rose from the foremost chimney. There were dark holes where slate tiles were missing from the roof.

  “I’ll bet this place costs a pretty penny to rent, even with the holes in the roof,” said Steve. “I wonder how they pay for it.”

  “That’s just what I was wondering.”

  The detectives climbed worn stone steps to a bolt-studded wooden door that looked strong enough to withstand a battering ram. Steve rapped on the door with a rusty knocker. His other hand lingered near his jacket pocket, which Jack knew contained a Taser. The door creaked open, revealing a thirty-something, five foot nothing, rake thin woman. Multicoloured beads were braided into her long blond hair. A shapeless brown dress hung down almost to her bare feet. Her blue eyes stared at them somewhat blankly from a face devoid of makeup. She said nothing.

  Could this be Badger? wondered Jack. Her expression didn’t alter as he introduced himself and Steve. He added, “If it’s convenient, we’d like to talk to you and anyone else living here about a woman you may have seen hereabouts.”

  The woman continued to eye the detectives silently. Then she turned and walked away, disappearing around a corner. Steve motioned to his lips with his thumb and forefinger to signify that he reckoned she’d been smoking weed. Jack pursed his lips uncertainly. The woman’s pupils hadn’t been dilated. Rather, her eyes had seemed to be half there and half off in some other distant place. He got the sense that she was high on something less tangible but just as potent as cannabis.

/>   “Should we follow her?” wondered Steve.

  Jack lifted a hand to caution patience. His gaze moved around an entrance hall almost as big as the downstairs of his entire house. A brass candle-chandelier dangled from the ceiling. Stalagmites of wax had accumulated on the scuffed oak floorboards below. The walls were scrawled with childish drawings of flowers, trees, hearts, animals, suns, moons and smiling people. In stark contrast, hanging alongside the drawings in rough wooden frames were finely detailed paintings of a world in chaos. Buildings reduced to rubble. Forests on fire. Blood raining from the skies. Terrified multitudes fleeing some unseen enemy. The air was thick with musky incense. Lilting ambient music drifted from somewhere deeper within the house.