Devils way, p.17
Devil's Way, page 17
There was a small shed to the right of the front door, and the woman went to it and unlocked it with a key attached to her neck with a long piece of string. Inside it was packed with egg boxes. She put two in an old plastic bag and handed it to Kate. Then she took out a cash box.
'That’ll be four pounds,’ she said. Kate found the exact money, and the woman dropped it into the cash box. She was locking up the shed when a young girl came out of the front door. She was skinny and looked to be nine or ten.
‘Mum. Jack hit me,’ she said matter-of-factly. She was holding a bag of frozen peas against her eye. She saw Kate and Tristan and nodded. ‘Hello.’
‘I didn’t mean to throw it at her,’ said a boy’s voice from inside. A tall young lad who might have been thirteen or fourteen came to the door. He had long brown hair down to his shoulders and wore a red Adidas tracksuit with filthy bare feet. ‘She asked me for the remote, and I threw it to her.’
‘Why are you both telling me this? I have to do the animals,’ said the woman.
The girl gave a look of resignation which belied her years and pushed past the boy. He staggered back into the doorframe.
‘Did you see that?’ he said indignantly, holding his arm. His voice was breaking, and it had a piping tootle.
‘Jack, are you going to help me with the animals?’ said the woman. ‘Because that’s all I care about with your father being away.’
The boy thought about it and then disappeared back inside.
‘When they were younger, they used to think everything I said and did was wonderful. And now, I’m an annoying old mum,’ said the woman. She indicated they should follow.
‘Can I ask you about something?’ said Kate as they started back.
The woman stopped and turned, mild irritation crossing her face.
‘What?’
‘We’re actually private detectives. My name is Kate Marshall and this is my partner, Tristan Harper. We’re working on a case of a small boy, who went missing nearby, at Devil’s Way,’ she said, pointing across the moor. The woman seemed to study them properly for the first time.
‘Private detectives, is that a thing round here?’
‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘Can you help us?’
‘Yes, I remember hearing about it. Charlie Julings was the young boy,’ said the woman impatiently. ‘But why have you come here?’
‘You have the closest house to Devil’s Way where he disappeared. We wanted to ask you about the local area and to try and find out if you saw anything that day?’ said Kate.
‘No. We didn’t live here then. It was before our time. We took over the farm in 2008.’
‘When, in 2008?’
‘January.’
‘Do you know why the previous owners left?’ asked Tristan.
‘Previous tenants. We’re tenants. This farm is Crown Land. We rent from the Crown. Now, if there’s nothing else, I’m busy. I need to feed all my animals. The woman who usually helps me is away, and so is my husband.’
‘What’s your name?’ asked Kate.
The woman hesitated and pursed her lips; she didn’t seem to enjoy being questioned like this.
‘Mrs Dawn Grey.’
‘Do you know the whereabouts of the previous tenants?’
‘No. I don’t. I think they run another farm somewhere up north, but that’s all I know.’
Kate looked around at the land. Now she knew that the previous tenants had left, she was disappointed but her interest was heightened. ‘Do you mind if we take a look at the landscape across to Devil’s Way?’
‘Fine,’ she said impatiently. ‘You’ll get the best view from up by the edge of the small wood. Follow the farm buildings up to the top of the yard. Just close any gates when you’re done,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ said Kate to her back as she hurried off. Kate and Tristan started off up the path past some outbuildings. They came to a broad concrete platform, and they could hear cows mooing inside a huge shed, and a strong smell of manure wafted over them. They passed another shed filled with hay bales and emerged through the farm buildings onto a wide rocky path which led up a grassy platform with trees. They stopped and looked at the moor rolling out in all directions. It was a breathtaking view. Kate could see very clearly, in miniature, the Devil’s Way Tor and a silvery thread of the river glinting in the sun. The fields across towards it were flat, and pockets of haze gathered in patches stretching out to the Tor. They stared for a moment.
‘Okay. What now?’ asked Tristan with a grin. Kate glanced sideways at him and laughed.
‘I know. I feel a bit stupid. What are we doing? This woman wasn’t even living here when Charlie went missing.’
She glanced around and saw that, to the left, there was a small copse of trees beyond the farm buildings. It was slightly higher than the rest of the land. Kate set off the short distance, and Tristan followed. When they reached the edge of the copse, they stopped. This slightly elevated point afforded them a better view with more detail. They could see the dirt track road which led back to Okehampton.
‘Look how huge that patch of gorse and woodland is around the Pixie Tree,’ said Tristan. ‘I was looking at it on Google Maps. We don’t know if the police searched that area.’
‘We should ask Ade, Lewis, or someone, how overgrown it all was back then. Eleven years is a long time, and it could have been much smaller,’ said Kate. ‘It’s a good point. We should ask.’
‘If they organised a huge search party, they probably did check,’ said Tristan. The sun was now hot. Kate stepped into the shade of the trees and immediately felt cooler.
Tristan followed, and they walked a little way into the copse. In places, the sun shone through high branches, dappling the woodland floor, and Kate could feel dead leaves underfoot. They came to a cluster of three boulders. One was big enough to climb up and sit on, and the other two were smaller.
‘Hey, look at this,’ said Tristan. He was standing by the thick trunk of an oak tree. In the centre of the bark, around head height, there was a strange deformity in the wood, a foot high, which was in the perfect shape of an ear.
‘I like to call it the listening tree,’ said a voice.
‘Jesus!’ said Kate, turning to see the young boy, still barefoot, wearing the red tracksuit. He moved out from behind a tree.
‘Have you been there the whole time?’ asked Tristan, who looked equally shaken up by the intrusion.
‘Maybe,’ said the boy with a grin. He had a big gap in his front teeth and large brown eyes. He was handsome in an odd, geeky way, thought Kate. Or he would be when he was older.
‘Was this carved into the wood?’ asked Kate, pointing to the ear.
‘Nope,’ said the boy, seeming bored and detached. ‘It grew that way. Cool, isn’t it? It reminds me of those mice in that online video, with the ears growing out of their backs.’ He took out a roll-up cigarette from his pocket and a lighter. Cupping his hands, he lit up. Kate could smell right away that it was marijuana.
‘How old are you?’ she said.
‘I’ll be fourteen next year,’ he said, exhaling thick white smoke between his teeth.
‘Does your mother know you smoke weed?’
He shrugged.
‘I haven’t told her. I could tell her that I came up here, and he put his hands down my trackies,’ he said, indicating Tristan, ‘and you just watched.’ He grinned. ‘But I won’t.’
Kate looked at Tristan, who shook his head and rolled his eyes. She noticed a pile of cigarette butts at the base of the large boulder, which was probably the kid’s smoking spot.
‘Okay, we’ll leave you to it,’ she said. She glanced at the perfect ear in the tree trunk, and they set off back to the car.
‘Today seemed to start so well,’ said Kate when they were driving back to Ashdean. She checked her phone. ‘And that Bernard guy didn’t call.’
‘He might not have got through to his colleague in the police,’ said Tristan.
Kate looked out of the window, and she had that familiar prickle on her tongue and in her throat, the need for a drink.
‘Can you drop me in Ashdean?’ she said. ‘I’m going to go to a meeting.’
36
Kate arrived home just after seven and made herself some cheese on toast. She took it with a glass of iced tea to the living room window and sat in her favourite chair, watching the last of the tourists leaving the beach as the sun sank on the horizon. She thought back to their meeting with Bernard. He’d seemed genuine. She hoped he wasn’t now going to ghost them.
When Kate finished her food, she poured another glass of iced tea and got her notebook out of her bag and tried to organise her thoughts. She placed Anna Treadwell to one side and reviewed her notes from the day.
The previous tenants of Danvers Farm had left, when? Late in 2007? Charlie went missing 21st June 2007. Kate opened her laptop and googled “Danvers Farm”. When they went to the Exeter records office, the farm hadn’t been on their radar, so they hadn’t looked for it. After a short search through local news listings, Kate found a small article dated January 5th 2007:
* * *
South Zeal farmer arrested on suspicion of attempted GBH after car flips
A South Zeal man remains in police custody after he was arrested following a crash on Danvers Road. The incident happened just before 6pm on Thursday when his car overturned on the main road. The man, and a woman who was travelling with him, escaped the car unharmed.
Danvers Road was blocked for hours, and police arrested the man at the scene.
A spokesperson said: “Police were called at about 5.50pm yesterday (January 4th) to reports of a road traffic collision in Danvers Road, near Danvers Farm, in which a car was on its roof. The occupants of the car, a man and a woman, both managed to exit the overturned vehicle safely.”
* * *
Kate carried on her Google search and found a court report from March 21st 2007:
* * *
South Zeal farmer handed suspended sentence
Steve Hartley (31), a farmer from South Zeal, appeared in Exeter Magistrates' Court and was handed a three-month suspended sentence for dangerous driving. Hartley of Danvers Farm was arrested on January 4th for flipping his car on Danvers Road outside his farm.
An 18-year-old woman named as Jennifer Kibbin was in the car with Hartley at the time. The couple initially told police that Jennifer Kibbin was Steve Hartley’s wife, Libby, who was at home with the couple’s two-year-old son.
Jennifer Kibbin of Poole Road, Exeter, had been charged with providing a false name and address, but this charge was dropped.
Libby Hartley (30) attended Exeter Magistrates Court to support her husband.
* * *
Underneath the article text was a picture taken of Steve Hartley walking down the steps of Exeter Magistrates’ Court. He was a tall, broad, handsome man with a square jaw and brown hair parted neatly to one side. His wife, Libby, was petite and elfin beside him. She had a heart-shaped face, and her black hair was cropped short. She wore a dark blue cardigan over a long flower-print dress with a Peter Pan collar. With her doe eyes, downcast from the camera, she had the martyred look of Princess Diana about her. She was cradling a small boy on her hip, who had a mop of brown hair, and he was wearing denim dungarees. Underneath the picture, the caption read:
* * *
Steve Hartley was accompanied in court by his wife, Libby Hartley, and their two-year-old son, David.
* * *
Kate sat back in her chair for a moment. Steve Hartley had been caught in a car with this eighteen-year-old Jennifer, and they’d tried to say that she was Steve’s wife, Libby.
Libby had stood by him, or so it seemed to say in the local paper. Kate did some more googling to see if she could find out any more information about Jennifer Kibbin but there was nothing. She wondered when the Hartley’s left Danvers Farm.
When Kate googled “Steve and Libby Hartley farmer”, she found that they were now working on another farm in Shropshire on the Welsh borders. Shropshire wasn’t as ‘up north’ as Dawn Grey thought. There were no photos, but the farm had a Facebook page that advertised hay for sale, and also stabled horses. There was a short description: “Hill Brook is a family-run farm; Steve and Libby Hartley live with their two children, David and Daisy.”
The page only had eighty likes and hadn’t been updated for three years. Kate felt like she’d reached a dead end. She wondered why they had given up Danvers Farm and moved away. Perhaps it was due to Steve’s public affair? The car crash had made the local paper along with the fact that Jennifer Kibbin, the teenage girl with him, tried to pass herself off as Libby. People in small rural areas love to gossip. Maybe that’s why they upped sticks and left the area.
Kate turned her attention back to her notebook and rechecked her phone, debating if she should call Bernard. She tapped her fingers on the table. No, she wouldn’t chase him until tomorrow.
Bernard had told them Anna had been denied a licence to foster children. Was that unusual? Maybe not. She had been a single woman, living alone with a demanding job. Is that why they turned her down? And what about Anna’s friendship with Maureen?
Kate put the notebook away, took out her iPad to look at the crime scene photos again, and saw that she still had the page open to Maureen Cook’s Writers Group. She went to swipe and minimise the page, but she pressed on the link to the group’s anthology, which took her to an Amazon ebook product page. Kate noticed that Maureen’s short story ‘A Little Light Extinguished’, was listed first in the collection, and something about the title piqued her interest. She clicked on the link to download the free sample, and the first few sentences grabbed her:
* * *
I’ve lost count of the days since we lost our boy. My lack of sleep is unbearable. I’ve lost count of the days since… since… I can’t bear to write it, but I must.
* * *
It seemed so unlike the woman Kate and Tristan met that afternoon. Did Maureen have children? She hadn’t mentioned anything. Kate went back and started to read the whole story…
37
‘A Little Light Extinguished’ by Maureen Cook
* * *
I’ve lost count of the days since we lost our boy. My lack of sleep is unbearable. I’ve lost count of the days since… since… I can’t bear to write it, but I must.
My little boy had been scared in the house. I knew it. His bed is in the back room, further from where we sleep than I would like, but the mould is so bad in the room next to ours. And in the summer months, the walls run with condensation and the moment I try and scrub the black mould away, it comes back. The spores lie in wait for when my back is turned and bloom through the plaster and wallpaper.
So I put him in the other room to save his little lungs.
His face had been flushed for a couple of days, and he was running a fever, but… I’m scared to take him to the doctor. That social worker has it in for me, and I know that if I take him to the doctor, it will be seen as my neglect. BUT I DON’T NEGLECT. I DIDN’T. I LOVE. THAT’S WHAT I DO.
LOVE.
I brought him into our bed on the third day. He was delirious. I managed to keep it from Dan, who was distracted due to the harvest.
I had him with me when Dan came to bed at midnight. He seemed a little better, his breathing was less shallow, and he even cried out a few times. That should have been good, shouldn’t it? Crying out. It’s only when they’re quiet that you should worry.
Dan kissed us both on the head, and he fell into a deep sleep the moment his head hit the pillow. I lay awake in the dark, listening to the boy’s breathing. I kept talking to him, asking, ‘tell Mummy how you feel?’
One moment he said ‘hot’, and the next, he said ‘cold’ in his little voice. That voice. It was on my mind to call the doctor, but I just kept thinking of that bitch who had it in for me… I’ve read about those children’s homes and some of those foster parents.
Children go missing.
They get “lost” in the system, and there’s no recourse for a bad mother, is there? They can just take him if they want, and I’d never see him again, and they wouldn’t have to tell me where he was or what they did with him…
So I kept him wrapped up, but not too much. I got up in the night to wet a washcloth which I kept on his forehead… Dan’s alarm went off at four, and when we checked on the boy, he seemed better. His face wasn’t as flushed, and his temperature had gone down. I cried with relief… Dan went off to do his rounds.
And that’s when I allowed myself to drift off. And the Devil always gets you when you least expect it.
What happened next is a blur. Like I’m looking at it through dark smoky glass. I woke up, and the boy wasn’t beside me. I put my hand out, and then I felt how I was lying oddly. Like a pillow was under me, but it felt harder.
His little body was under me. I’d rolled on top of him in my sleep. I pulled him out, and his blond hair glinted in the light, but his face and lips were blue. I tried to blow in his mouth and pressed on his chest, but he was limp and cold.
I was really calm. I put the boy back in his cot and tried to work out what to do. He was dead.
I don’t know how long. I just sat there for a long time, and then I got overwhelmed with panic. I left the room and walked around the house. It was so quiet, and I stood in the hallway leading down to the boy’s bedroom. And for a moment, I thought it was all fake, and I dreamed it. I held my breath to try and hear any sounds that he might be making. Those little snuffly sighs when he sleeps, but there’s nothing. Not even the clock is ticking. The battery is flat.
It’s getting hot inside, and I haven’t closed any of the curtains in the rest of the rooms. I can smell something… It’s something that I don’t want to acknowledge. And I hear the sound of a fly buzzing.
