Devils way, p.20
Devil's Way, page 20
‘I know. But they were on our land!’ said Jack. Dawn folded her arms and eyeballed her son to shut up.
‘Yes. And you could have just called the police rather than taking the law into your own hands. Now, do you understand what I’ve said?’ said Harris.
There was a pause, and Jack nodded.
‘Jack does understand, don’t you?’ said Dawn fixing him with a stare. ‘Jack.’
‘Yeah. I understand,’ he said looking at the floor.
Harris turned to Kate and Tristan.
‘And why were you trespassing on their land in the middle of the night?’
‘We’re private detectives, and…’
‘Yes, you keep saying that—’
‘And we believe there is a body buried in the woods. The body of a small boy,’ said Kate.
‘What?’ asked Dawn, looking between Kate, Tristan, and the police officers.
Harris put up his hand to silence her. He opened his mouth and hesitated.
‘What?’ he repeated. Kate explained, and when she got to the bit about the ground penetrating radar, she broke off and turned to Jack.
‘What happened to our equipment and the iPad? We were in the woods for a while before the police arrived.’
‘I have the iPad,’ said Duncan, taking it out of his jacket. He went to hand it to Kate, but Harris gave him a look and grabbed it.
‘What other equipment do you have?’
‘Ground penetrating radar,’ said Tristan, speaking for the first time, the flannel still pressed to his temple.
‘Ground penetrating radar?’ repeated Harris.
‘We hired it from a plumbing company,’ said Kate. Dawn was still holding one of the flannels in her hand, looking between them as they spoke.
‘How can you possibly think a body is buried on our land?’ she said, her voice shrill.
‘If I can have the iPad, I can show you,’ said Kate.
‘You dug up a body and took a picture of it?’ said Dawn. Harris took a renewed interest in the iPad and turned it over in his hands.
‘None of you knows the pin code, so you need me to unlock it,’ said Kate.
Harris handed her the iPad. She opened it and found the app with the screenshots from the ground penetrating radar that they’d taken.
‘Where on my land?’ asked Dawn, confused at the image with the coloured lines.
‘In the woods. Where the tree looks like it has an ear on the trunk,’ said Tristan. ‘Next to the boulders.’
Kate watched Harris studying the image.
‘You see there,’ she said, pointing to the bulging lines of colour on the image. ‘This is where we believe it could be buried.’
‘It? What do you mean it?’ shrilled Dawn. ‘This is my land. I have a right to know. And what are you going to do about these two people who trespassed? Surely there must be recourse for that!’
Harris considered this and handed the iPad back to Kate.
‘That image could be anything,’ he said. Kate explained the investigation they were working on and how the farm linked tenuously to the case and the short story.
She also explained that she was the Kate Marshall who had broken the Nine Elms Cannibal murder case. She didn’t like to talk about it, but she thought it could be a good Get Out of Jail Free card in this instance. It seemed to work.
‘Hang on, hang on,’ said Harris. ‘You’re Kate Marshall, the ex-Met police officer who found the Nine Elms Cannibal?’
‘And this is my partner in the agency, Tristan Harper.’ She rummaged in her pocket, found their business card, and handed it to Harris. His attitude seemed to change; he seemed slightly in awe, as if he didn’t know what to say next.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Dawn. The kitchen door opened, and the young girl Kate and Tristan had seen on their last visit poked her head around it with bleary eyes. They widened when she saw everyone.
‘Mum, what’s going on?’ she said. Dawn looked at everyone crammed into her tiny kitchen and moved over to her daughter.
‘It’s okay, love. Everything is fine. Let’s go back to bed. Jack, you can come with me too.’ He looked like he didn’t want to move. ‘Jack. Now, please… I’ll be back in a moment,’ she added to Harris. When they’d left, Duncan took the iPad and looked through the GPR scans.
‘Peter Conway tried to kill you, didn’t he?’ said Harris.
‘Yes.’
‘And is it true that you were in your flat looking at the evidence, and you had this lightbulb moment where it all fell into place?’ Kate was pleased to see the change in him, but this wasn’t the time to do a Ted Talk.
‘I appreciate the questions, and I’d be happy to talk about that case. But would you be willing to bring in a small forensics team and check this out?’
‘This could be anything,’ said Duncan, holding up the distorted lines of colour on the iPad screen. He didn’t seem as impressed with Kate as Harris.
‘I can explain in more detail, but so much of what we’ve been investigating links back to this farm. It could be a tree root or an old bicycle, but I feel we had probable cause to check it out. It might actually be a body. Another lightbulb moment, if you like.’
Harris was silent for a moment. He scratched his chin and then looked back at Kate and Tristan.
‘Probable cause. Lightbulb moment,’ he said, nodding. He reached for his radio and called into the control team.
‘Can you send a forensics team out to Danvers Farm in South Zeal? Right away.’
42
Harris and Duncan left the kitchen, and told Kate and Tristan to stay where they were whilst they sealed off the area around the woods. There was a strange lull when they were left alone.
‘Are you okay?’ Kate asked, moving over to Tristan. He pulled the cloth away from his face and peered up at her. The redness had gone down, and his eyes looked less bloodshot. ‘I’m sorry, Tris,’ she said, feeling the guilt again.
‘It’s not your fault. This soap feels sticky,’ he said, going up to the sink and gently splashing his face with water.
‘How’s your head?’ he asked.
‘Fine. Just a bit sore… I’m not going to the bloody hospital, though,’ she added when she saw his concern. Dawn came back into the room.
‘Are your kids okay?’ asked Kate.
‘Shaken up,’ she said. ‘Both of them are shaken up.’
‘I’m sorry about this.’
Dawn eyed Kate for a moment.
‘Do you really think a body is buried on our land?’ she said, quietly. Kate looked outside the kitchen window and saw the sky was turning a deep blue. It would soon be light.
‘Honestly, I hope not.’
Dawn went to the fridge and took out a bottle of milk.
‘Why didn’t you come to talk to me about this the other day?’
‘Would you have believed us if we came to ask you to look on your land for a dead body?’ said Kate. Dawn switched on the kettle.
‘Are you going to press charges against Jack?’ she said, watching Tristan splashing his face with water. She took a clean cotton tea towel from a drawer and handed it to him. Tristan took it and pressed it against his face lightly.
‘No,’ said Kate.
‘Do you want some tea?’
Kate nodded. Dawn worked in silence for a moment, taking out mugs and sugar. Kate looked out of the window impatiently, wanting to be down the yard with the police.
‘How much do you know about the previous tenants? Steve and Libby Hartley?’ she asked.
‘I told you, nothing,’ said Dawn. ‘I know that they left abruptly. When we took over the farm, there was still stuff of theirs here; bedding, some clothes, and ornaments. They even left food in the pantry.’
‘When did you take over the lease?’
‘Early in January 2008.’
‘How long had the farm been vacant?’
Dawn hesitated with the teapot in her hands and had to think.
‘At least five, six months,’ she said. Kate looked at Tristan.
‘They left in July 2007?’ said Kate.
‘Around that time, I think so. The land was a mess. The Crown Estate brought in another cooperative of farmers to do the harvest that year, but there were a lot of things overgrown. I heard from the locals that Libby Hartley was having mental health problems. And Steve Hartley had a problem with drinking. Earlier that year, he’d flipped his car over on the road outside when he had a young girl in the passenger seat that he was having an affair with. I don’t think they were in a happy marriage.’
‘We read about it in the local paper,’ said Tristan.
‘The rumour is that Jennifer Kibbin, that’s the girl Steve was with that day, was pregnant with his baby,’ said Dawn. ‘It’s never been substantiated.’
Kate looked at Tristan. An unwanted baby. And Steve and Libby left the farm so soon after Charlie went missing. She turned to look out of the window, thinking about the woods. Dawn followed her gaze.
‘You don’t think…’ She put the tea caddy down with a clatter and went very pale. ‘You don’t think that the… the... whoever it is buried on my land is a baby?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Kate, wanting to reassure Dawn but also having the same thought. ‘Have you ever met a social worker called Anna Treadwell?’ she asked, changing the subject.
‘No. Why would I have anything to do with a social worker? My children are happy and loved,’ said Dawn. She looked scared now, and haggard. ‘My husband is coming back later today. You can talk to him.’
‘Where has he been?’
‘The Norfolk Show, it’s a farm show.’
Dawn wiped her eyes and left the room. It was now light outside. Kate could see the stray cats circling around their bowls and dishes on the drain lid in the yard. After a moment, Kate saw Detective Chief Inspector Harris appear through the gate, and a moment later there was a knock at the back door. Dawn returned with a packet of biscuits and opened the door.
‘Kate and Tristan, would you like to come with me?’ said Harris. ‘And would you like to come with us, Mrs Grey?’
‘No. I’m going to stay here with the children,’ she said.
‘Are you okay, Tris?’ said Kate. His face was looking much better. He nodded and looked like he wanted to escape the kitchen.
The sun was now up but behind grey clouds. They followed Harris through the trees and the farm buildings. When they came out into the fields, they saw a forensics van parked close to the edge of the woodland. Kate and Tristan were given white Tyvek suits to wear and coveralls for their shoes. Harris pulled on the protective gear with them.
A path of tarpaulin had been laid from the van into the woodland, and two bright floodlights had been set up next to the boulders.
Kate felt horrible dread and adrenalin when she saw a group of three forensics officers working to clear away a section of the leaves and pine needles around the flattened earth under the boulder.
‘It feels real now,’ said Tristan, echoing her sentiment. They stood for a long time, just watching from a distance. It was slow work because they had to bag up the soil layers and take live samples of the worms and insects underneath the boulder. As the minutes ticked by, Kate hoped that they would find nothing. The thought of finding a child’s body buried here filled her with horror, and she wanted to be proved wrong. The sky was grey, and the temperature dropped, making Kate feel glad about the forensics suits. A few minutes later, it started to rain, and a tarpaulin cover was quickly erected above the ground so the forensics officers could continue to dig.
Tristan and Kate were given an umbrella, and they stood in silence, listening to the rhythmic sound of spades scraping the soil and the rain clattering on the tarpaulin. The ear protruding from the tree trunk glistened in the floodlights and Kate thought again how the soft wood looked like human skin. The sound of the rain intensified and started hammering down, and the clouds grew thick, casting the woodland clearing in a light mist. The smell of the rain on the soil and plants cut through the chilly morning.
The forensics officers started digging deeper, and Kate noticed they were using the GPR images they’d scanned in the night.
‘We have something,’ came a voice, suddenly breaking through the silence. Tristan and Kate moved closer to the hole. It was around a metre and a half deep, and roots from the surrounding trees poked through the edges. Two forensics officers were working in the hole under the bright floodlights, and their white coveralls were caked in the peaty mud.
Kate watched as they switched out their spades for coarse brushes and started to work more carefully, scraping away the soil. What is it? Tell us what it is! a voice shouted in her head.
A few minutes later, a forensics officer lifted a huge, muddy mass out of the hole. As he gently laid the bundle down, a new tarpaulin was placed underneath. The fresh soil clumps fell away, and they started to work with their brushes to expose a faint pattern. Kate could see the contours of a heavy fibre blanket.
The dread started to trickle into her stomach, and a terrible silence spread over the team as they began to gently unroll the blanket. A tiny blackened bundle was inside. A light was brought closer, and they saw the shape of an arm, a small sunken face with eye sockets, a nose, chin and teeth.
‘No, no, please no,’ Kate heard Tristan say beside her. She reached out and grabbed his hand.
‘It’s a small child,’ said one of the forensics officers, sitting back on his heels on the tarpaulin. The small, decomposed body lay remarkably intact, lying within the folds of the blanket, and there were still wisps of hair stuck to the dome of the child’s skull.
‘What if it’s Charlie?’ asked Tristan quietly beside her.
43
The discovery of the body changed everything. A murder investigation was opened, and Detective Chief Inspector Harris asked Kate and Tristan to make a formal statement.
‘So. Let me get this straight in my head,’ he said when they were talking to him in one of the police support vehicles. ‘You stumbled across a short story in an anthology, which led you to decide to search for a body?’
‘Yes, it was when we discovered the link to Charlie Julings’s disappearance. When he went missing, the police searched this farm, and said the previous tenants were acting strangely. We then discovered that a social worker called Anna Treadwell had been concerned about Charlie’s welfare in the weeks leading up to him going missing. Anna Treadwell, was then murdered. We found a link between Anna and a local woman, Maureen Cook, who ran a writing group of which Anna was a member. The writing group released an anthology, and one of the short stories, authored by Maureen Cook, was about a woman burying her child under a boulder in a wood which has a tree trunk with the shape of an ear protruding from the bark,’ said Kate.
Harris scratched his head and looked over at Duncan, who had been making notes.
‘And this Maureen Cook, what does she do now?’ he asked.
‘We think she’s retired.’
‘And what’s her connection to Danvers Farm?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Tristan.
‘What led you to this short story?’ asked Harris.
‘I looked through the anthology, published by the writers group trying to find if Anna Treadwell, the murdered social worker had written anything. She hadn’t.’
‘Then why did you pick out the story written by Maureen Cook?’ he said, unable to hide his confusion and exasperation.
‘It was the ear, the growth on the side of the tree opposite where the body was buried. The exact same ear is described on the tree in Maureen Cook’s short story. And that’s how we arrived here,’ said Kate. There was a knock on the van door, and a police officer poked her head around.
‘Guv, the Chief Superintendent is on the phone. He wants a full update,’ she said.
Harris’s face drained of colour. He looked down at the signed statement from Kate and Tristan.
‘I’ll need to take a DNA sample from both of you, so we can rule you out of the crime scene,’ he said. ‘And don’t go anywhere far. I’ll need to talk to you again.’
Kate and Tristan left the farm through the front gate, escorted by a uniform police officer, who lifted a line of police tape for them to pass underneath. It was just after 8am.
The area out front was filled with police cars and police response vans, and the road was closed off in both directions.
They walked back down to Tristan’s car, parked just beyond the police cordon where a local news van was pulling up. Oh no, thought Kate.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said, pulling up her hood. Tristan did the same.
‘Can you drive?’ asked Tristan. ‘My eyes are still a bit blurry from the mace.’
He passed Kate the keys, and she unlocked the car. The doors of the news van slid open, and a woman who Kate recognised as one of the local from-the-scene news reporters hurried across to them.
‘Have you just come from the farm?’ she asked as Kate opened the driver’s door. Kate shook her head. The news reporter looked past her and saw Tristan’s swollen face. ‘How are you involved with the murder investigation?’
‘We’re not,’ said Kate.
The news reporter didn’t know who she was, which was good.
‘We’re hearing rumours that a child’s body has been discovered? And that it could be the body of Charlie Julings, the three-year-old boy who vanished eleven years ago at Devil’s—’
Kate cut her off by closing her door. She activated the central locking and turned on the engine, then put the car in gear and reversed at speed down the road, executing a three-point turn that almost led them into a ditch. She only relaxed as they drove away, and the TV news van started to recede in the rear-view mirror.
She turned to Tristan. He was quiet and staring ahead.
