The Fifth Grave, page 7
part #1 of DCI Jacob Series
“What about the consultant?” Anna asked.
A sea of confused faces turned to her.
Jacob explained. “While at the crime scene this morning, Sergeant Mazurek and I were approached by Dr Sophie Anderson. Some of you will recognise her name if you followed the Ferryman killings that occured last year in London. Dr Anderson played a key role in bringing this so-called Ferryman, also known as Alistair Keeley, to justice. She lives locally and she heard about the discovery on the internet. She drove up and asked if she could help. It’s that simple.”
“And what do we think about that?” Morgan asked.
“It doesn’t matter what we think about it,” Jacob said. “All that matters to us that Chief Superintendent Kent thinks it’s a lousy idea and doesn’t want her anywhere near the case.”
“But she was very good when it came to catching Keeley,” Innes said. “She lured Keeley out by pretending to be a victim and nearly died.”
“Yes, she was very brave,” Jacob said, his tone indicating the subject was closed. “But it’s not happening, and if there are no more questions then this briefing is over. You all know what you’re doing and it goes without saying that the Chief Super wants this brought to a close as fast as possible. We all know cold cases can be tough, but you’re a good, solid team and you’ll have all the resources you need. Let’s get on with it.”
As chair-legs scraped on the floor and people started talking, Innes turned to Jacob.
“What’s the good news?” Innes asked.
“I’m sorry?”
Everyone had stopped and was now looking at him, waiting for answer.
“When we walked in and you opened the briefing, you said, ‘first the bad news’. I just wondered what the good news was?”
Jacob gave a wry smile. “I’m the SIO.”
Everyone gave a final laugh as the team filed out of the room.
Everyone except Jacob.
CHAPTER 9
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Bill Morgan was more than happy to be in the office over the Christmas holidays. This time of year usually meant presents, drinks, and more turkey and sausages and puddings than he could shake a stick at, but this year was different.
When Leanne had walked out on him less than six months ago it had felt like his world had collapsed. The house was dark and cold when he returned after work. Meals had gone from properly cooked dinners to cartons of takeaway food picked up on the way home. He didn’t know how, but somehow the bed had doubled in size. He’d concealed his crumpled marriage from his friends and work colleagues with his usual efficiency but inside he still felt the rawness.
Over time he had grown into a new routine. His many years in the Royal Marines had taught him how to be self-sufficient and look after himself. After a short period of depression, also carefully hidden from the world, he’d had a sharp word in the mirror and picked himself up by his bootstraps. But the house was still too quiet and spending extra time at work was no longer the pain it had once been.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of DC Holland sighing from the other side of the frosted acrylic desk divider.
“All good, Holloway?”
“I’m loving it, sir.”
“Good stuff. I can’t think of a better way to spend Boxing Day afternoon, can you?”
Holloway didn’t sound convinced. “If you say so, sir.”
Morgan stood up and watched the young man’s eyes crawling over the data on his laptop screen.
“Not losing your mind are you?”
“No, sir. At least, I don’t think so. This is the list of missing persons you asked me to research.”
Morgan sipped his coffee and wandered around the double desk. “Let’s have a gander then.”
“Because of the two-year time frame, the original list was thousands of names, as you would expect, but when I restricted the search parameters to the local area as you suggested things got more manageable. These are all women in the Chief Inspector’s cohort who went missing from the immediate local area during the specified timeframe.”
Morgan ran his eyes down the list, taking hold of the laptop and clicking on names. “Good work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What have we got here, I wonder?” Each name he clicked on opened another window, a file of a cold case unsolved for years. Another face looking back at him from beyond the grave, waiting for justice to be served. With thousands of missing women across the timeframe, he had made the early decision to start with local cases and slowly move out, but the truth was she could have come from anywhere, not only in the country, but the world.
He pointed a chunky, nicotine-stained finger at the screen. “I remember that one… and that one there. All those hours of searching, manhunts, in some cases dogs and everything, and yet look at this list. Dozens still missing and probably never to be found.”
“They say a lot of them just don’t want to be found.”
“I don’t know what to think, frankly,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Everyone on that list is someone’s loved one, Holloway. Someone’s wife, girlfriend, mother, daughter or sister. Each one of those names is like the tip of an iceberg concealing masses of grief and loss under the surface.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right then, email them over to me and I’ll be a second pair of eyes. In the meantime, let’s hope the bods over in pathology are able to make an ID through a dental record match because if not, we’ve got a bloody huge amount of work to do here.”
*
As night covered the landscape, Sophie weaved her Audi through an endless maze of narrow country lanes and prayed her GPS satnav hadn’t malfunctioned in the terrible weather. When she finally reached the Old Watermill, she breathed a sigh of relief and pulled off the main road. Slowing to a crawl, she drove along the gravel drive and braked, bringing the car to a stop just as another light snowfall began to drift out of the sky.
No, he wasn’t expecting her. No, he probably didn’t want to see her. Yes, it was worth another try.
Knocking on the door, she straightened herself up to her full height and quickly tidied her hair.
When it swung open, she was surprised to see Jacob in casual clothes. Jeans with a slight rip in one knee and a tea towel over his shoulder.
“Dr Anderson?”
He looked just about as surprised as she had visualised in her head. “Sorry to call like this, but I was wondering if you’d spoken with your boss about getting me on the case?”
“Wait, you drove all the way out here to ask me that?”
“You weren’t answering your phone.”
“It’s Boxing Day.”
“Yes, but…”
He narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t you say you lived in Salisbury?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s a long drive,” he said coolly. “Nearly half the county.”
“I’m keen to be part of the investigation.”
“Some would say stubborn.”
“Others would say tenacious.”
Jacob sighed. “You’d better come in.”
After she had taken off her boots, she followed him along a narrow exposed-brick corridor until they reached a sunken lounge. Messy, stacks of boxes and books, and a viola with no strings on it was carelessly dumped on one of the chairs. Through French windows, she saw the rear aspect of the property lit by the soft amber glow of LED lights. She glimpsed a river winding through a large meadow and what looked like a walled kitchen garden, albeit it in a certain amount of disrepair, now frozen and silent in the late December gloom.
Jacob stooped over to pull his jacket off a leather armchair and then he smashed his head on one of the exposed beams as he stood back up to his full height. He cursed loudly and rubbed his head. “Damn it,” he said. “Not too many six-foot people around when this was built.”
“No, I don't suppose there were.”
“Please, take a seat here by the fire.”
“Thank you. Hell of a place.”
“Is it?”
“It looked big on Google Earth when I checked the address but not this big.”
“It’s too big,” he said casually. “And away from the fire it’s cold too. I’d forgotten just how cold – especially the original part of the house, but then that’s eight hundred years old.”
“Still... it’s a beautiful home.”
Ignoring the compliment, he fixed his eyes on her, the ghost of a smile on his face. “Have you eaten?”
*
He pulled a bottle of chilled white wine from the mostly empty fridge and uncorked it. Searching through the cupboards, he eventually admitted defeat and grabbed two china mugs from beside the kettle. “Sorry, not had a chance to sort the place out yet.” He was embarrassed as he poured the Chablis out into the mugs and made a big show about giving himself the one with the chip in it. “Hope that’s all right?”
“Please don’t worry about it,” she said.
“I’ve been renting in Oxford for the last year and I only moved in a few days ago. It’s my parents’ place but they live abroad now so they’re letting me crash here while I get organised.” He looked down at the floor for a second. “Pretty embarrassing at my age. Anyway, that’s why it’s, well… minimal.”
“That’s very generous of them.”
“They have their flaws, too,” he said with a smile.
“Don’t we all?” she asked, taking a sip. “Tastes lovely by the way.”
“Which is probably more than I can say about dinner.”
She laughed. “Why, what are we having?”
He shrugged and pointed at the fridge. “Whatever’s in there.”
After another sip of the wine he opened the fridge door and rummaged around in search of something good to eat. It was still stocked from his short trip to the supermarket on Christmas Eve, and after a few moments of careful consideration he decided to go Italian – pancetta, shallots, mushrooms and garlic.
“You go and relax while I get this going.”
He opened a fresh pack of linguine and started boiling a pan of water on the stove. Peering through the door he saw Sophie settling into the big leather sofa, glass of wine in hand. Anyone else would be relaxing but he could tell from the look on her face she was busy working on the case even now.
He left her to her thoughts as he cooked dinner and then brought the two full plates into the living room. Wandering over to the nook by the fire, he handed her one of the plates.
She sat forward and set her wine down while he put some more logs in the burner. “It’s pretty cosy in here,” she said.
“One of the nice things about old place like this is the thickness of the walls. Keeps the stormy weather out where it should be and us nice and warm.”
On cue, a gust of wind howled outside as Jacob settled in an old leather wingback chair beside the fire.
“Look, before we go any further I have to tell you that I spoke with my boss and he turned down your proposal. It was a very firm no, as well.”
She felt disappointed but was determined not to show it. “Okay, well – thanks for asking.”
“If it’s any consolation, he’s a difficult bastard and never gives an inch to anyone. With him, if it’s a no, it’s a no.”
She laughed. “That makes me feel a bit better. Sort of.”
“Good.”
“I would have liked to help though.”
“I knew you’d be disappointed. Tell me, what made you come back from America?”
She paused before answering. “I want to say it was the right choice for my career, but the truth is I missed my family and friends.”
He lifted some of the pasta and bacon off the plate and took a sip of wine before speaking. “Fair enough. Did moving back damage your career?”
“Not really, well…”
Already he could see a change had come over her.
“Keeley?” he said, quietly.
“Yes,” she ran her hands over her face. “Most of them you can forget, or at least put out of your mind, but not the Ferryman. He’s as close to pure evil as I think you can come and still be human.”
“As I said to you this morning out at the woods, I read about your involvement in that case with great interest. You worked with Dr Theo Miles, is that right?”
“Yes. He’s probably the best forensic psychologist in the world and it was amazing to be able to work with him, but I was more of a researcher and not heavily involved.”
“A second fiddle type of thing?”
She took some wine. “More like third chair trombone, really.”
“But you were on the case – you risked your life.”
“Yes, and it changed me. It left a scar on me.”
“I understand. This job can do that. It will do that.”
“What about you?” she asked quietly.
“What about me?”
“I saw on the news today that you were new to the area.”
“That’s not right,” he said. “I was born here and brought up here. I even started my career in the police here. It’s home, but I moved to London and then Oxford for my career, taking up a DCI post in Thames Valley CID.”
“Why did you move back?”
He set down his fork. “I’d rather not talk about, if it’s all right with you.”
“Of course,” she said, finishing her meal. “I’m sorry.”
“No need.”
“No, I’ve come here uninvited and started asking personal questions. I should go.”
Outside, the wind howled. “You’re not going anywhere in this,” he said, setting his plate down on the side table. “Besides, you’ve had two glasses of wine. There are seven bedrooms to choose from, but if it makes the choice any easier only two of them are made up – the spare room is in the old part of the house.”
“Sounds perfect,” she said.
*
Jacob woke from his sleep covered in sweat and his heart pounding in his chest like a jackhammer. He smelt smoke and when his eyes flicked open he saw it gathering on the ceiling of his bedroom. Hot, grey and noxious, it rolled and billowed into every corner and started to crawl down the walls.
Tumbling from his bed, he knew he had to get Sophie out of the house at all costs but the bedsheets were tangled around his ankles. He kicked and screamed but there was no escape. The smoke burned his throat and stung his eyes, and now he saw the tell-tale orange glow of flames as they crawled under the door and started to lick up the walls. Paint peeled and blistered and wallpaper ignited.
“Sophie!”
No reply.
“There’s a fire! You have to get out and save yourself!”
He screamed when he woke, jerking upright in bed like a jack in the box with his heart going a mile a minute.
He wasn’t in Oxford, but in the Old Watermill.
It had all been just another nightmare.
There was no smoke or fire.
There was no Jess.
*
A few miles away, the man turned the late night news off and returned his gaze to the fire. Things were going from bad to worse and he felt control slipping away from him like smoke. They’d found the witchcraft book on the remains and were now considering the possibility of some kind of ritual murder more seriously.
He stared into the glowing embers of his fire and watched the flames licking over the sides of the blackened logs. Once part of a mighty tree, they would soon be no more than a heap of ash. What a little fire could do, he mused.
Lifting the Scotch bottle to his lips and gulping a good double shot, he lowered it back down between his legs and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes danced over the bookshelf above the plasma screen as he took in all the titles. Aristotle, Herodotus, Sophocles and more modern offerings – Shakespeare, Hegel, Dostoyevsky, Camus. He liked intelligent books. He was an intelligent man, but the question on his mind was how intelligent was the new Detective Chief Inspector?
They would find out soon enough.
The fermented grain mash burned its way inside him. The tension in his shoulders and neck started to unwind and his breathing began to slow. It felt like the perfect sedation, and he greedily took another swig from the bottle. The spirit’s malty vapour drifted up his nostrils as he once again wiped the excess from his lips.
Yes, they would find out soon enough.
CHAPTER 10
Thursday, 27th December
Kieran Messenger had been watching the woods for an hour from the cab of his Hilux. Working alongside Adam Dawes as one of the ranger’s two forester assistants, he knew them like the back of his hand. Now as dawn light began to break over the hills to the east, he watched the one they had once called Artio clambering back up the hill towards a track leading into the woodland.
He’d been unable to focus on anything since Dawes had told him about what had happened yesterday, and since then compulsively he’d watched the TV news. Not much happened around here at the best of times, so when a skeleton was found buried in his woods he sat up and took notice.
Especially when it presented such an opportunity.
He’d wasted no time that morning, hurriedly getting dressed and leaving the house before sunrise so he didn’t miss his chance. Artio came up here most days, and today was no exception. He had considered waiting a little longer to make his move, but the fear of leaving it too long worked on his mind and forced him to act.
You’ll only get one shot at this.
This way he could give Amanda everything she wanted, everything he had ever promised. If he played his cards right things might really change for the two of them. They might even be able to move out of that dump and find somewhere nice to bring up the baby. All he had to do was keep his nerve.
Artio reached the top of the track and stepped into the woods.
What was that being carried in the bag?
He fought to control his nerves. Leg pumping up and down in the footwell and fingers tapping on the steering wheel. He switched the radio off and a deathly silence filled the cab like poison. Alone with the thoughts of what he was about to do, he started a low, tuneless whistle as he tracked the progress of his prey deeper into the woods.
A sea of confused faces turned to her.
Jacob explained. “While at the crime scene this morning, Sergeant Mazurek and I were approached by Dr Sophie Anderson. Some of you will recognise her name if you followed the Ferryman killings that occured last year in London. Dr Anderson played a key role in bringing this so-called Ferryman, also known as Alistair Keeley, to justice. She lives locally and she heard about the discovery on the internet. She drove up and asked if she could help. It’s that simple.”
“And what do we think about that?” Morgan asked.
“It doesn’t matter what we think about it,” Jacob said. “All that matters to us that Chief Superintendent Kent thinks it’s a lousy idea and doesn’t want her anywhere near the case.”
“But she was very good when it came to catching Keeley,” Innes said. “She lured Keeley out by pretending to be a victim and nearly died.”
“Yes, she was very brave,” Jacob said, his tone indicating the subject was closed. “But it’s not happening, and if there are no more questions then this briefing is over. You all know what you’re doing and it goes without saying that the Chief Super wants this brought to a close as fast as possible. We all know cold cases can be tough, but you’re a good, solid team and you’ll have all the resources you need. Let’s get on with it.”
As chair-legs scraped on the floor and people started talking, Innes turned to Jacob.
“What’s the good news?” Innes asked.
“I’m sorry?”
Everyone had stopped and was now looking at him, waiting for answer.
“When we walked in and you opened the briefing, you said, ‘first the bad news’. I just wondered what the good news was?”
Jacob gave a wry smile. “I’m the SIO.”
Everyone gave a final laugh as the team filed out of the room.
Everyone except Jacob.
CHAPTER 9
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Bill Morgan was more than happy to be in the office over the Christmas holidays. This time of year usually meant presents, drinks, and more turkey and sausages and puddings than he could shake a stick at, but this year was different.
When Leanne had walked out on him less than six months ago it had felt like his world had collapsed. The house was dark and cold when he returned after work. Meals had gone from properly cooked dinners to cartons of takeaway food picked up on the way home. He didn’t know how, but somehow the bed had doubled in size. He’d concealed his crumpled marriage from his friends and work colleagues with his usual efficiency but inside he still felt the rawness.
Over time he had grown into a new routine. His many years in the Royal Marines had taught him how to be self-sufficient and look after himself. After a short period of depression, also carefully hidden from the world, he’d had a sharp word in the mirror and picked himself up by his bootstraps. But the house was still too quiet and spending extra time at work was no longer the pain it had once been.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of DC Holland sighing from the other side of the frosted acrylic desk divider.
“All good, Holloway?”
“I’m loving it, sir.”
“Good stuff. I can’t think of a better way to spend Boxing Day afternoon, can you?”
Holloway didn’t sound convinced. “If you say so, sir.”
Morgan stood up and watched the young man’s eyes crawling over the data on his laptop screen.
“Not losing your mind are you?”
“No, sir. At least, I don’t think so. This is the list of missing persons you asked me to research.”
Morgan sipped his coffee and wandered around the double desk. “Let’s have a gander then.”
“Because of the two-year time frame, the original list was thousands of names, as you would expect, but when I restricted the search parameters to the local area as you suggested things got more manageable. These are all women in the Chief Inspector’s cohort who went missing from the immediate local area during the specified timeframe.”
Morgan ran his eyes down the list, taking hold of the laptop and clicking on names. “Good work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What have we got here, I wonder?” Each name he clicked on opened another window, a file of a cold case unsolved for years. Another face looking back at him from beyond the grave, waiting for justice to be served. With thousands of missing women across the timeframe, he had made the early decision to start with local cases and slowly move out, but the truth was she could have come from anywhere, not only in the country, but the world.
He pointed a chunky, nicotine-stained finger at the screen. “I remember that one… and that one there. All those hours of searching, manhunts, in some cases dogs and everything, and yet look at this list. Dozens still missing and probably never to be found.”
“They say a lot of them just don’t want to be found.”
“I don’t know what to think, frankly,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Everyone on that list is someone’s loved one, Holloway. Someone’s wife, girlfriend, mother, daughter or sister. Each one of those names is like the tip of an iceberg concealing masses of grief and loss under the surface.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right then, email them over to me and I’ll be a second pair of eyes. In the meantime, let’s hope the bods over in pathology are able to make an ID through a dental record match because if not, we’ve got a bloody huge amount of work to do here.”
*
As night covered the landscape, Sophie weaved her Audi through an endless maze of narrow country lanes and prayed her GPS satnav hadn’t malfunctioned in the terrible weather. When she finally reached the Old Watermill, she breathed a sigh of relief and pulled off the main road. Slowing to a crawl, she drove along the gravel drive and braked, bringing the car to a stop just as another light snowfall began to drift out of the sky.
No, he wasn’t expecting her. No, he probably didn’t want to see her. Yes, it was worth another try.
Knocking on the door, she straightened herself up to her full height and quickly tidied her hair.
When it swung open, she was surprised to see Jacob in casual clothes. Jeans with a slight rip in one knee and a tea towel over his shoulder.
“Dr Anderson?”
He looked just about as surprised as she had visualised in her head. “Sorry to call like this, but I was wondering if you’d spoken with your boss about getting me on the case?”
“Wait, you drove all the way out here to ask me that?”
“You weren’t answering your phone.”
“It’s Boxing Day.”
“Yes, but…”
He narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t you say you lived in Salisbury?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s a long drive,” he said coolly. “Nearly half the county.”
“I’m keen to be part of the investigation.”
“Some would say stubborn.”
“Others would say tenacious.”
Jacob sighed. “You’d better come in.”
After she had taken off her boots, she followed him along a narrow exposed-brick corridor until they reached a sunken lounge. Messy, stacks of boxes and books, and a viola with no strings on it was carelessly dumped on one of the chairs. Through French windows, she saw the rear aspect of the property lit by the soft amber glow of LED lights. She glimpsed a river winding through a large meadow and what looked like a walled kitchen garden, albeit it in a certain amount of disrepair, now frozen and silent in the late December gloom.
Jacob stooped over to pull his jacket off a leather armchair and then he smashed his head on one of the exposed beams as he stood back up to his full height. He cursed loudly and rubbed his head. “Damn it,” he said. “Not too many six-foot people around when this was built.”
“No, I don't suppose there were.”
“Please, take a seat here by the fire.”
“Thank you. Hell of a place.”
“Is it?”
“It looked big on Google Earth when I checked the address but not this big.”
“It’s too big,” he said casually. “And away from the fire it’s cold too. I’d forgotten just how cold – especially the original part of the house, but then that’s eight hundred years old.”
“Still... it’s a beautiful home.”
Ignoring the compliment, he fixed his eyes on her, the ghost of a smile on his face. “Have you eaten?”
*
He pulled a bottle of chilled white wine from the mostly empty fridge and uncorked it. Searching through the cupboards, he eventually admitted defeat and grabbed two china mugs from beside the kettle. “Sorry, not had a chance to sort the place out yet.” He was embarrassed as he poured the Chablis out into the mugs and made a big show about giving himself the one with the chip in it. “Hope that’s all right?”
“Please don’t worry about it,” she said.
“I’ve been renting in Oxford for the last year and I only moved in a few days ago. It’s my parents’ place but they live abroad now so they’re letting me crash here while I get organised.” He looked down at the floor for a second. “Pretty embarrassing at my age. Anyway, that’s why it’s, well… minimal.”
“That’s very generous of them.”
“They have their flaws, too,” he said with a smile.
“Don’t we all?” she asked, taking a sip. “Tastes lovely by the way.”
“Which is probably more than I can say about dinner.”
She laughed. “Why, what are we having?”
He shrugged and pointed at the fridge. “Whatever’s in there.”
After another sip of the wine he opened the fridge door and rummaged around in search of something good to eat. It was still stocked from his short trip to the supermarket on Christmas Eve, and after a few moments of careful consideration he decided to go Italian – pancetta, shallots, mushrooms and garlic.
“You go and relax while I get this going.”
He opened a fresh pack of linguine and started boiling a pan of water on the stove. Peering through the door he saw Sophie settling into the big leather sofa, glass of wine in hand. Anyone else would be relaxing but he could tell from the look on her face she was busy working on the case even now.
He left her to her thoughts as he cooked dinner and then brought the two full plates into the living room. Wandering over to the nook by the fire, he handed her one of the plates.
She sat forward and set her wine down while he put some more logs in the burner. “It’s pretty cosy in here,” she said.
“One of the nice things about old place like this is the thickness of the walls. Keeps the stormy weather out where it should be and us nice and warm.”
On cue, a gust of wind howled outside as Jacob settled in an old leather wingback chair beside the fire.
“Look, before we go any further I have to tell you that I spoke with my boss and he turned down your proposal. It was a very firm no, as well.”
She felt disappointed but was determined not to show it. “Okay, well – thanks for asking.”
“If it’s any consolation, he’s a difficult bastard and never gives an inch to anyone. With him, if it’s a no, it’s a no.”
She laughed. “That makes me feel a bit better. Sort of.”
“Good.”
“I would have liked to help though.”
“I knew you’d be disappointed. Tell me, what made you come back from America?”
She paused before answering. “I want to say it was the right choice for my career, but the truth is I missed my family and friends.”
He lifted some of the pasta and bacon off the plate and took a sip of wine before speaking. “Fair enough. Did moving back damage your career?”
“Not really, well…”
Already he could see a change had come over her.
“Keeley?” he said, quietly.
“Yes,” she ran her hands over her face. “Most of them you can forget, or at least put out of your mind, but not the Ferryman. He’s as close to pure evil as I think you can come and still be human.”
“As I said to you this morning out at the woods, I read about your involvement in that case with great interest. You worked with Dr Theo Miles, is that right?”
“Yes. He’s probably the best forensic psychologist in the world and it was amazing to be able to work with him, but I was more of a researcher and not heavily involved.”
“A second fiddle type of thing?”
She took some wine. “More like third chair trombone, really.”
“But you were on the case – you risked your life.”
“Yes, and it changed me. It left a scar on me.”
“I understand. This job can do that. It will do that.”
“What about you?” she asked quietly.
“What about me?”
“I saw on the news today that you were new to the area.”
“That’s not right,” he said. “I was born here and brought up here. I even started my career in the police here. It’s home, but I moved to London and then Oxford for my career, taking up a DCI post in Thames Valley CID.”
“Why did you move back?”
He set down his fork. “I’d rather not talk about, if it’s all right with you.”
“Of course,” she said, finishing her meal. “I’m sorry.”
“No need.”
“No, I’ve come here uninvited and started asking personal questions. I should go.”
Outside, the wind howled. “You’re not going anywhere in this,” he said, setting his plate down on the side table. “Besides, you’ve had two glasses of wine. There are seven bedrooms to choose from, but if it makes the choice any easier only two of them are made up – the spare room is in the old part of the house.”
“Sounds perfect,” she said.
*
Jacob woke from his sleep covered in sweat and his heart pounding in his chest like a jackhammer. He smelt smoke and when his eyes flicked open he saw it gathering on the ceiling of his bedroom. Hot, grey and noxious, it rolled and billowed into every corner and started to crawl down the walls.
Tumbling from his bed, he knew he had to get Sophie out of the house at all costs but the bedsheets were tangled around his ankles. He kicked and screamed but there was no escape. The smoke burned his throat and stung his eyes, and now he saw the tell-tale orange glow of flames as they crawled under the door and started to lick up the walls. Paint peeled and blistered and wallpaper ignited.
“Sophie!”
No reply.
“There’s a fire! You have to get out and save yourself!”
He screamed when he woke, jerking upright in bed like a jack in the box with his heart going a mile a minute.
He wasn’t in Oxford, but in the Old Watermill.
It had all been just another nightmare.
There was no smoke or fire.
There was no Jess.
*
A few miles away, the man turned the late night news off and returned his gaze to the fire. Things were going from bad to worse and he felt control slipping away from him like smoke. They’d found the witchcraft book on the remains and were now considering the possibility of some kind of ritual murder more seriously.
He stared into the glowing embers of his fire and watched the flames licking over the sides of the blackened logs. Once part of a mighty tree, they would soon be no more than a heap of ash. What a little fire could do, he mused.
Lifting the Scotch bottle to his lips and gulping a good double shot, he lowered it back down between his legs and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes danced over the bookshelf above the plasma screen as he took in all the titles. Aristotle, Herodotus, Sophocles and more modern offerings – Shakespeare, Hegel, Dostoyevsky, Camus. He liked intelligent books. He was an intelligent man, but the question on his mind was how intelligent was the new Detective Chief Inspector?
They would find out soon enough.
The fermented grain mash burned its way inside him. The tension in his shoulders and neck started to unwind and his breathing began to slow. It felt like the perfect sedation, and he greedily took another swig from the bottle. The spirit’s malty vapour drifted up his nostrils as he once again wiped the excess from his lips.
Yes, they would find out soon enough.
CHAPTER 10
Thursday, 27th December
Kieran Messenger had been watching the woods for an hour from the cab of his Hilux. Working alongside Adam Dawes as one of the ranger’s two forester assistants, he knew them like the back of his hand. Now as dawn light began to break over the hills to the east, he watched the one they had once called Artio clambering back up the hill towards a track leading into the woodland.
He’d been unable to focus on anything since Dawes had told him about what had happened yesterday, and since then compulsively he’d watched the TV news. Not much happened around here at the best of times, so when a skeleton was found buried in his woods he sat up and took notice.
Especially when it presented such an opportunity.
He’d wasted no time that morning, hurriedly getting dressed and leaving the house before sunrise so he didn’t miss his chance. Artio came up here most days, and today was no exception. He had considered waiting a little longer to make his move, but the fear of leaving it too long worked on his mind and forced him to act.
You’ll only get one shot at this.
This way he could give Amanda everything she wanted, everything he had ever promised. If he played his cards right things might really change for the two of them. They might even be able to move out of that dump and find somewhere nice to bring up the baby. All he had to do was keep his nerve.
Artio reached the top of the track and stepped into the woods.
What was that being carried in the bag?
He fought to control his nerves. Leg pumping up and down in the footwell and fingers tapping on the steering wheel. He switched the radio off and a deathly silence filled the cab like poison. Alone with the thoughts of what he was about to do, he started a low, tuneless whistle as he tracked the progress of his prey deeper into the woods.
