Devils way, p.7
Devil's Way, page 7
Kate estimated the expanse of grass between the tree and Tor was twenty metres wide. It was almost dark, and the stars were bright in the sky. The moon cast the stretch of ground between the Tor and tree in a pale glow.
‘Charlie could have easily walked over to his parents’ tent,’ said Kate.
They walked to the tree. It took around twenty seconds. The vast branches of the old oak, gnarled and bare, seemed to move and surround them.
‘I’m finding this a bit eerie,’ said Kate, looking up. ‘And we’re together. I don’t think a three-year-old would want to cross this short expanse of ground in the middle of the night, let alone walk all the way down to the river.’ The branches creaked and keened in the silence, and a far-off owl hooted.
‘True,’ said Tristan. ‘But that’s not to say he wasn’t a tough little kid.’
‘Okay. Jean said it was just dark when she put Charlie to bed. She came out of the tent to have a cigarette after he fell asleep. That’s when she heard Declan’s voice calling her from up there on the Tor. It was dark, but she said the moon was full. It was midsummer night, June 21st, so it wouldn’t have got dark until after nine thirty.’
‘Ade said Joel called the police at 4am, and Joel said on the phone that they’d discovered Charlie was missing at 2am,’ said Tristan.
‘Which is five hours difference. Is Jean lying about the length of time she was up on the Tor with Declan?’ asked Kate.
‘Jean heard Declan’s voice up on the Tor when she was here under the tree. That means that Charlie could have woken up a bit later, come out of the tent, and heard Jean talking to Declan. That could have made him want to walk towards her voice.’
Kate nodded.
‘That’s when he could have got lost. He could have taken a wrong turn through those boulders and ended up by the river.’
The moor around them was now dark. They could just see a faint orange glow over the hills of the towns and villages on the other side of Dartmoor. Kate saw the windows of a house glowing in the distance, very faint. It wasn’t part of a town or village; it was a house alone on the moor. Kate shivered and crossed her arms over her chest.
‘We need to talk to everyone,’ Tristan said. ‘Jean, Joel… Declan, if we can find him. Oh, and Sadie in the solicitor’s office. She’s Jean’s friend, and she clearly loves to talk.’
‘I’ve got us booked in at Exeter records office tomorrow morning,’ said Kate. ‘I want to look through everything written in the press about the case before we talk to people. Shall we go?’
‘Yeah,’ said Tristan, shivering. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
14
Early the following day, Kate and Tristan arrived at Exeter records office. It was housed inside a wing of Exeter Cathedral, and was calm and peaceful this June morning. Kate loved the smell of books; that dusty dryness mixed with grease and a slight undertone of mould.
‘We’d like to access your microfilm records of local newspapers,’ said Kate as she and Tristan signed in.
‘Do you have a period and a particular paper in mind?’ asked the young woman at the front desk. Devon and Cornwall had a plethora of local newspapers.
‘Could we start with June to August 2007, and then May and June 2014, for all of these, please.’ Kate dug around in her bag and handed over a list of fifteen local newspapers. The young woman raised an eyebrow.
‘Okay, this might take a bit of time to gather,’ she said.
Kate loved working on the microfilm machines. There was something sturdy and definite about them. Information on the internet could be changed and wiped. There was something about the microfilm which comforted her. You could burn it, yes, but it remained constant and uneditable.
Kate and Tristan sat side by side on two microfiche machines, tucked at the back of the records office, up against the wall, behind a long row of shelves containing law reference books.
‘This is everything we have for those periods,’ said the young woman, returning with a plastic container stacked with tiny boxes holding the microfilm rolls. ‘With the May to June 2014 records you’ve requested, things are a little patchy. Quite a few of the titles on the list you gave me have now shifted to an online presence through the Devon Live website.’
‘Okay, thank you,’ said Kate. They’d requested the 2014 records to see if anything had been written about Becky Julings’s suicide.
They divided up the stack of microfilm boxes and started to whizz through. The local papers only produced a weekly edition, so they began with the date of the first issue after Charlie went missing on June 21st 2007. They already had a couple of press cuttings from Jean, but Kate wanted to see how the local news covered the aftermath of Charlie’s disappearance. There was often a more nuanced approach to local news and more detail, often omitted in the national newspapers where space was at a premium. They were looking for names of police officers, first responders and anyone else who might crop up.
‘I have the name of the lead police officer who took over the case. DCI David Falstaff,’ said Kate.
‘Here’s an article from the end of June,’ said Tristan. ‘There’s another name, a Detective Inspector Lewis Tate.’ There was silence for a moment as he read. He had a pen between his teeth, turning the handle on the side of the microfilm viewer as the black and white newsprint whizzed past on the screen. ‘DI Lewis Tate was tasked with organising the search with the Dartmoor National Park office. That’s all it says.’
Kate dug around in her bag and found her phone. She googled “Detective Inspector Lewis Tate, Devon and Cornwall police.” One of the first results made her sigh.
‘What?’ asked Tristan.
‘Lewis Tate was in prison for dealing drugs and stealing drugs from the police evidence store. He went down in 2011 for six years. He must be out now.’ Kate made a note of this on her pad.
‘What about DCI David Falstaff?’ asked Tristan.
Kate typed on her phone.
‘It looks like he’s still in the force. He’s now superintendent. There’s an email for his office.’
There were many articles written during the week Charlie went missing, but they all said similar things. The police revealed the details of Charlie’s blood found in the back of Declan’s car after his disappearance, and that they brought Declan in for questioning before releasing him without charge.
‘It seems like the story went away pretty fast when they couldn’t charge Declan,’ said Tristan as the morning wore on. ‘And it never made the national newspapers.’
‘Charlie went missing at the end of June 2007, and a week later, Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister. It was all the newspapers could talk about.’
As the time passed, their spot behind the rows of dusty books began to feel airless. They were staring at a high wall of breeze blocks, and the hot summer sun seemed to press at the corners of the long blinds pulled down over the glass.
‘Did Jean talk about a court ruling to get a declaration of presumed death for Charlie?’ asked Tristan. ‘Look at this.’ It was an article dated July 11th 2014, a written statement printed in the Okehampton Times.
* * *
In the High Court of Justice Chancery Family Division
Case number. 32498569328
In the matter of an application for a declaration of the presumed death of CHARLES ROBERT JULINGS. A claim has been issued in the High Court of Justice, for a declaration that CHARLES ROBERT JULINGS, whose last known address was FLAT 4, LINK LANE, EXMOUTH, DEVON EX11 1BD is presumed to be dead. Any person having an interest may apply to the court to intervene in the matter.
If you wish to apply to the court, you should do so at DEXTER & ASSOCIATES SOLICITORS LTD as soon as possible, and if possible, within 21 days of the date of this notice. Delay may harm your prospects of being able to intervene.
CLAIMANT: JEAN ELIZABETH JULINGS
CLAIMANT’S LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE: STEVEN DEXTER, DEXTER & ASSOCIATES, BARFIELD HOUSE, EXETER, EX1 2RE (01483) 567932
* * *
‘No. I didn’t know they’d applied for a ruling,’ said Kate.
‘That’s not normal?’ asked Tristan.
‘It’s quite an unusual thing to do, especially for a child. An application for a declaration of the presumed death is usually filed to settle legal matters, like an inheritance.’
‘Charlie would have been ten years old when this ruling was filed in 2014,’ said Tristan.
Kate was looking at the same time period, and a few minutes later, she found an article about the funeral of Charlie Julings.
‘This is dated September 1st 2014,’ she said. There was a black and white picture taken in a graveyard. A group of mourners stood looking at a small black headstone embossed with Charlie’s name. It was piled high with flowers and some cuddly toys. Jean was standing next to Becky and Joel, clutching a white handkerchief in a black-gloved hand.
Underneath was written:
* * *
The funeral of Charlie Julings took place today at All Saints Church in Exmouth. Charlie went missing in June 2007 at Devil’s Way gorge on Dartmoor. A search for many years failed to find any trace of the young boy. The family took the unusual step of applying for a high court ruling for a declaration of presumed death, which was granted in August. The official conclusion handed down by the high court is that Charlie fell into the Devil’s Way gorge sinkhole and drowned.
* * *
‘Why didn’t Jean or Steve Dexter mention this?’ asked Kate. ‘If you decide to get a declaration of presumed death from the high court, it means that you’ve accepted the person is dead. It’s a final legal decision. You have to print a statement of your intentions so the decision can be disputed if necessary.’
‘Oh, Jesus. Becky killed herself four weeks after the funeral,’ said Tristan. ‘There’s a death notice printed in the same newspaper on October 1st 2014.’
Kate sat back in her chair.
‘This is strange. Why would Jean hire us now? The declaration of presumed death was applied for in her name. Has she got new evidence that makes her think Charlie is alive? And if she has, why hasn’t she or her solicitor mentioned any of this?’
‘Ade said that the police thought Charlie had fallen in the river from the first few days of the investigation. And the police dogs backed this up. They traced his scent to the river where it stopped.’
‘But they’d been paddling and swimming that day in the river, which could account for that,’ said Kate. ‘I know, I’m being Devil’s advocate,’ she added, seeing his face. She looked at the pile of microfilm they still needed to check from the North Devon Journal, Crediton Gazette, and Culm Valley Gazette.
‘The North Devon Journal ran the same stories almost word for word about Charlie’s disappearance,’ said Tristan as he whizzed through the June 2007 editions.
Kate was working through the microfilm articles in the Crediton Gazette when she saw the same name mentioned twice in quick succession. A social worker called Anna Treadwell. Anna had spoken to a news reporter about Jean and Becky Julings, saying there had been, quote, “problems in the family”. Anna was quoted again in a Crediton Gazette article a week later. It stuck out to Kate because until now, the news reports had focused on Charlie going missing, and the only comments were of the family being “desperate” and “distressed” and Charlie being a “missing angel” etc. This Anna Treadwell seemed to be the only person criticising the family. Kate showed the articles to Tristan.
‘Two weeks on from the disappearance of Charlie Julings,’ said Tristan, reading aloud from the screen, ‘the police have no suspects and no leads. One theory is that Charlie wandered off from the family tent and fell into the Devil’s Way gorge. However, a local social worker, Anna Treadwell, is quoted saying there were “problems within the family” and “known issues around Charlie’s care”. What do you think they could be?’
‘It could have been Jean’s relationship with Declan. Ade said Declan had a police record, and there was that incident with the underage girl in the pub,’ said Kate.
‘But why doesn’t this social worker mention that? This second article was published two weeks after Charlie went missing and just after the police released Declan without charge,’ said Tristan.
‘And we don’t know enough about what was going on with Becky. Could she have been suicidal or have had mental problems before which had been flagged by social services?’ said Kate.
She picked up her phone from the desk and typed in a Google search for “Anna Treadwell, Devon and Cornwall council social worker”. She froze when the first results came up on the screen.
‘What?’ asked Tristan, seeing her face.
‘She’s dead. Eleven years ago, 8th July 2007, Anna Treadwell’s body was found. She’d been the victim of a vicious hammer attack in her home,’ said Kate. ‘Two weeks after Charlie went missing.’
15
After their morning at the Exeter records office, Tristan and Kate stopped in a café for lunch, but Kate didn’t have much appetite. She felt weak and washed out when they pulled up outside The Lawns nursing home.
It was a former cottage hospital on the outskirts of Exmouth with extensive grounds. They’d decided that Kate would go by herself and talk to Jean. There were delicate questions to ask her, and Kate thought Jean might be more open to talking one-to-one.
When she opened the car door, the heat from outside was fierce, but she felt cold and clammy.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Tristan. She could see the concern in his eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. Work had always been the focus that saved her. Work and purpose took her out of her head and out of her problems. She was determined to keep going.
‘Do you want to call me when you’re done? I can hang around.’
‘No. I can get the 157 bus. It’s only a fifteen-minute ride back to Ashdean. Tris, I’m fine. It’s going to take a few days for me to get back to myself.’
‘If you don’t fancy taking the bus, I’m happy to come back.’
Jean had asked to meet Kate in the grounds of the nursing home. The reception area was brightly decorated, but there was a smell of sickness and floor cleaner, so Kate was pleased they would meet in the open air. She was shown out to the garden, where Jean was sitting waiting in the shade of a huge walnut tree. The vast lawn was dotted with patients on zimmer frames and being pushed in wheelchairs, and a gardener was digging over the soil in the rose patch. Jean looked better; her face had more colour, and she wore a bright, patterned summer dress. She pulled herself out of her chair and hugged Kate for a long moment.
‘Thank you for coming. Sit down,’ she said, indicating a chair. Jean eased herself back into her own with a grimace, and when she adjusted the hem of her dress, Kate saw a flash of the bandages wrapped tightly around her thighs.
‘How are you? I brought you some sweets. I figured fruit was boring,’ said Kate, taking a packet of Fox’s Glacier Fruits from her bag.
‘Thanks, love. The bloody ulcers on my legs are finally healing. I can cope with everything else now that those are better. You look a bit peaky.’
‘I’m fine,’ Kate said, wishing people would stop telling her she looked like crap. There was another silence.
‘Where is your assistant? I wanted to meet him.’
‘He’s my business partner, but I thought it might be better if I came alone for our first proper chat,’ said Kate.
‘That sounds ominous.’
‘I didn’t know that you went to the high court and had Charlie ruled as presumed dead?’
A look of profound sadness moved across Jean’s face.
‘Yes. That was four years ago. I think that was a mistake.’
‘Why?’
‘Lately, I can feel Charlie, still alive somewhere,’ said Jean, leaning closer and clutching her hand against her chest. ‘I know it sounds barmy, but it’s true.’
Kate looked at Jean for a moment. She hadn’t mentioned she’d had this feeling when they were in the hospital.
‘But you didn’t feel it when you petitioned the court for Charlie’s death certificate?’
Jean shook her head.
‘No. I felt it for the first time shortly after Becky killed herself. It was that court ruling that tipped her over the edge. After we had the funeral, all hope in her died. And then she hung herself.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
Jean straightened up in her chair, and seemed to close off a little.
‘Anyway. You’ve signed the contract. You’ve got my money. What’s happening with finding Charlie?’ she asked, fixing Kate with a keen stare.
‘We’ve been talking to a couple of police officers who worked on the case. They were both on call the morning that Charlie went missing.’
‘What are their names?’
‘Adrian Merton and Lewis Tate.’
‘Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.’
‘We’ve also been doing some research, and we’ve flagged a few things I wanted to talk about,’ said Kate. She was unsure how to approach what she said next. ‘First of all, the timings of everything differ from what you told me in the hospital.’
‘Differ? What do you mean?’
‘You told me that on the night Charlie went missing, you put him to bed, went outside the tent for a cigarette, and that’s when you heard Declan’s voice up on Devil’s Tor. What time was this?’
Jean sighed.
‘I put Charlie down when it got dark. I remember it was well past his bedtime.’
‘It was midsummer night, so it wouldn’t have got dark until nine-thirty, at the earliest.’
‘Then that’s when it was – it was dark.’
‘How long were you up on the Tor with Declan?’
‘About ten minutes.’
‘And after Declan left, you returned to the tent and found Charlie was missing?’
