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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Devon Mysteries
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
When Juno Browne finds a life-sized effigy floating in the River Ashburn, a note attached claims it as the work of Cutty Dyer, Ashburton's mythical blood-drinking demon. But despite Juno's instinct that this is a sign of trouble ahead, the police dismiss her find as a practical joke. Then the body of a woman is discovered by the river and it becomes clear that a killer has taken on Cutty's identity. But as suspicion falls on someone close to her, Juno finds herself drawn into solving the mystery, desperate to prove her friend's innocence. As the rain falls steadily and the level of the River Ashburn continues to rise, Juno must unmask the real identity of Cutty Dyer, or risk being swept away on a murderous tide.
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3
From Devon With Death
STEPHANIE AUSTIN
5
For Mum6
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
The corpse under the bridge had been waiting a long time. You might say it had been waiting for me since I was the one who found it. It’s become a habit of mine lately, discovering dead bodies. According to certain members of the local police force it’s a nasty habit and I admit it’s not something I’m proud of. I had stopped at the Old Mill Brewery, a stone building that stands alone on the ragged fringe of Ashburton, at a place where river and extinct railway come together, where muddy lanes take over from tarmac and a tangle of overgrown bushes hang over the water. Currently, the building is neither mill, nor brewery, but houses Rendells, the auctioneers. I’d come to eye up lots in their forthcoming auction, see if I could spot anything I might want to buy for my antique shop, Old Nick’s.
I was reminded, as I parked White Van, that this area was about to lose its ramshackle charm: where a farm shop and agricultural suppliers once stood was now a muddy 8landscape patrolled by diggers, the site cleared to make way for a development of smart new houses. Lord knows the little town of Ashburton needs affordable housing, but I don’t think I’m going to like it, and judging by the prices advertised on the hoarding, some people’s idea of affordable is not quite the same as mine.
I watched men and machines at work beyond the wire fence. A few weeks before, a freakish blizzard swept across Dartmoor, forcing isolated hostelries to open their doors at midnight to trapped motorists, but the snow had cleared in hours and Christmas had been as mild and gentle as the baby in the manger. So far, January had been calm. Beyond a sugary dusting on the high tors we had seen no snow, only an occasional frost, and no rain to speak of. The men behind the wire could work unhindered. The trees were winter-bare but yellow catkins hung like lambs’ tails on the riverside alders and people talked hopefully of an early spring.
I don’t like mild weather in January. I don’t trust it. Winter could lie in wait through the snowdrops, stay hidden until the primroses flower in the hedgerows, then sweep in like an icy blade and scythe the lot. Call me a cynic, but it’s happened before.
I decided I would leave White Van parked where it was for a few minutes and nip up the lane behind St Andrew’s churchyard to the church hall. A community market was held there weekly, which sometimes proved a source of interesting finds. I’d picked up a three-tier cake stand there last time, and I don’t often get the opportunity to look around it. I’m usually busy with errands for Maisie on a Tuesday morning, but her return from a Christmas 9visit to her daughter up north had been delayed by a chest infection, so she didn’t require my services.
I stopped to look over a low wall at the clear, fast-rushing water of the Ashburn. With no rain or icy meltwater to swell it, it was little more than a brook. It rose no higher than the pink wellies of two little girls who splashed about, giggling with delight, while their mother leant on an empty buggy and chatted to a friend on the little bridge above them.
I was lucky at the market, finding a small corner cupboard in pine not too heavy for me to lug back along the path without the bother of having to move the van. The deal was quickly struck and it was only a few minutes later that I was retracing my steps to the Old Mill Brewery.
I could still hear the toddlers playing in the water, but something seemed to be the matter. I could see them up ahead, the smaller girl clinging to her sister who was stretching her arms towards her mother on the bank, her pink wellies kicking up the water as she stamped up and down in panic. ‘Get me out, Mummy!’ she was screaming. ‘Get me out!’
There were no piranhas in the Ashburn that I was aware of. The little girls didn’t appear to be in any danger, but they were frightened. The bank was a steep drop and their mother, whose friend was no longer in sight, was pregnant and in no condition to rescue them. I lowered the pine cupboard to the ground for a moment to rest my arms and watched.
‘How did you get down there?’ she cried angrily, as if she’d only just noticed where they were. Tentatively, she began to edge down the bank towards the stepping stone 10that must have been their way down to the stream.
‘Wait!’ I called out. ‘You’ll hurt yourself if you slip. I’ll get the children out.’ I hoisted up the cupboard once again. ‘Just let me put this in my van. I’ve got wellies in the back.’ I nodded towards the car park. ‘It’ll only take me a moment.’
As I trotted off I heard her say, ‘You’ll just have to hang on, Hayley. The nice lady’s going to help you.’
I returned, booted up, and easily dropped down to the stepping stone and into the water. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked the little girls who were now sobbing piteously.
I picked up the smaller one. She weighed no more than thistledown and I swung her easily onto the bank and held her up to the outstretched arms of her mother. Beneath her blue knitted jacket I could feel her heart racing in her little chest.
‘Come here, baby!’ her mother cooed. ‘What are you keeping on about, Hayley?’ she added more sharply to her sister in the water.
‘There’s a man,’ she sobbed.
‘What man?’
‘A dead man,’ she hiccupped breathily, ‘in the water.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ her mother told her. ‘Course there isn’t!’
I dropped back down into the stream and picked her up. She was heavier, more solid than her sister and she clung to me in fright, burying her face in my curls. ‘Where?’ I asked her softly. ‘Where did you see this man?’
She pointed downstream to the low stone bridge, her face turned away. I carried her up the bank and set her down by her mother. ‘Shall I look?’ I asked. The little girl nodded silently, eyes shiny with tears. 11
‘It’s probably nothing,’ I told her mother, who by this time was ruthlessly buckling the younger child into the buggy, ‘but I’ll check it out.’
‘Oh, it’s OK,’ she told me. ‘Don’t bother!’
‘We don’t want them having nightmares, do we?’
She hesitated. I could tell she wanted to be off pushing the buggy and forget all about it. She sighed and shook her head, rolling her eyes towards heaven as if it was all too much.
I sloshed my way downstream towards the bridge. The water barely covered my ankles, yet I could feel its rushing force against my boots. It might be no more than a stream now, but the Ashburn had burst its banks and roared through the town like a lion in times gone by. I heard the mother speak again. ‘You’d better not be making this up, Hayley!’
I rather hoped she was. For there was something in the dark water beneath the bridge, something caught. I could make out the roundness of a head, the long fork of a body. Fear knotted my stomach but as I stooped, forced to bend almost double beneath the low stone arch, something about this body struck me as wrong. It was floating. There was no weight, no substance to it.
It was a dummy, the body fashioned from a pair of workman’s overalls, the face a mask. One arm had become stuck between two pointed stones, holding the body still, so that it bobbed obscenely on the surface of the shallow water. I prodded its free arm and something within it rustled. Cautiously, I squeezed. The sleeve was stuffed with packaging, with air-filled plastic bags. The whole corpse seemed to be stuffed with the same material; 12the head too round to be human, the hands crude balls bandaged into mittens.
I ducked out from under the bridge and stood up. ‘It’s all right!’ I called out to the mother and her girls. ‘It’s not real.’ I smiled up at Hayley, standing nervously on the bank. ‘It’s just a big doll,’ I told her. ‘You know, like the one they make for the bonfire on Fireworks Night? Like a scarecrow.’
Hayley stared at me, her fist to her mouth. ‘It’s not real?’ she asked in a tiny voice.
‘No. I expect some naughty children threw it in the river.’
‘There you are, Hayley, what did I tell you?’ her mother said. ‘Now, thank the lady.’
‘Thank you,’ Hayley mumbled obediently as she was grabbed by the hand and dragged away.
I watched her mother as she trundled the buggy in front of her. ‘I’m fine down here in the water,’ I muttered. ‘I can get out without any help, thanks for asking.’
Hayley turned around to look at me and I waved.
I waited until they were out of sight, then ducked back under the bridge. There were things about this dummy that were disturbing. I reached in my pocket for the small torch attached to my key ring and I shone it around. Its slender beam lit the wetly glistening stones above my head, the tiny ferns sprouting between them, and danced like silver glitter on the dark surface of the water.
I shone the light over the dummy, over the face. This was not some cheap Halloween mask bought in a joke shop, but fashioned from papier mâché, carefully painted and varnished to preserve it, the eyes wide and staring, the mouth gaping and ghastly. It was a face frozen in a scream. Where the head was joined to the body a 13bandage had been wound around to form a neck, and this was stained blood-red as if the throat had been cut. Pinned to the chest was a postcard protected by a clear plastic envelope. On the front was a coloured picture of some thatched cottages with From Devon With Love printed in red. I turned the envelope over. Scrawled on the back of the card in crude letters were the words: Cutty Dyer Dun This.
I crouched, the river swirling around my ankles, drips from the wet stones above me falling into my hair. Who would make such a grotesque object and put it into the water? Kids would seem to be the obvious culprits. But there was a strange sophistication about the way it had been put together, about the painting of the face, and despite the clumsy spelling of the note, the crudely scrawled letters, it looked like the work of an adult hand to me.
As I eased myself out from under the bridge, grateful to stand up straight, a familiar voice yelled my name. I nearly bashed my skull on the stone arch.
Two men were staring at me from the bank: one tall and silver-haired, a long pale blue scarf draped with artful carelessness around his shoulders; the other short and round, wearing spectacles and a fedora. Ricky and Morris must have come to take a look at the auction lots. They possessed a magpie’s eye for beautiful things and Morris was always hoping to add to his teapot collection.
‘What the bleedin’ hell are you doing down there?’ Ricky demanded.
‘Are you all right, Juno?’ Morris blinked anxiously over his gold-rimmed specs. ‘Do you need a hand up?’
I could have got out by myself, but I accepted Ricky’s 14proffered arm and let him haul me up the bank. ‘Jesus, Juno!’ he moaned.
‘It’s all muscle,’ I told him.
‘It’s all cake!’
‘Take no notice of him.’ Morris stood on tiptoe to give me a kiss on the cheek. ‘You’re beautiful.’
‘How did you know where I was?’ I asked.
‘We parked next to the old Van Blanc so we knew you were around here somewhere,’ Ricky waved his fag hand at me, his fingers trailing smoke. ‘We went inside Rendells and I shouted, “Has anyone here seen that tall bint with all the red hair … you know, looks like a Boudicca who’s lost her chariot …?”’
‘He did no such thing,’ Morris assured me, suppressing a little smile. He needn’t have worried. Ricky would have to work harder than that to wind me up.
‘What were you doing down there in the water, anyway?’
‘Finding a dead body.’
Ricky raised his eyebrows. ‘Again?’
‘Don’t you start. You sound like Inspector Ford!’ I told them about the unpleasant effigy under the bridge and we agreed it was almost certainly the work of kids. ‘Cutty Dyer!’ Ricky shook his head and threw his cigarette butt on the ground causing Morris to tut and mutter beneath his breath. ‘Kids!’ he went on. ‘They probably lobbed the thing over the fence by the skate park.’
‘The fence is quite high there,’ I pointed out. ‘They must be good at lobbing.’
‘They are. Haven’t you seen that big tree in the park?’ he asked. ‘Festooned it is, hanging in trainers.’
Morris turned to more practical subjects. ‘You haven’t 15got a day free this week, have you, Juno? All the panto stuff has started to come back.’
‘That’s right,’ Ricky nodded. ‘We’ve got Aladdin and Puss in Boots piled up in the hall. We can hardly get in the kitchen.’
Before Christmas they’d supplied costumes for pantomimes all around the country. Now the costumes were coming back and they could use my help to unpack. Before I inherited Old Nick’s I used to give a lot more of my time to their costume hire business. Now time was something I didn’t have so much of.
I agreed to go and help them out on Sunday. It was the only day I had free. Then they went into the auctioneers and I realised I’d better get a move on if I wasn’t going to be late for my next job. But I still wasn’t happy about the dummy in the water and wondered what to do about it. I wasn’t convinced this was a childish prank. But if kids weren’t responsible, then what kind of nutter would make such a thing? It was obviously intended to be seen, to disturb people, cause upset. That postcard was meant to be read by someone.
CHAPTER TWO
‘And who, or what, is Cutty Dyer?’ Elizabeth enquired when I finally made it back to the shop and told her the tale. She hasn’t lived in Ashburton long and couldn’t be expected to know. Cutty Dyer was a Dartmoor myth like Lady Howard’s phantom coach, the Hairy Hands at Postbridge and superfast broadband. Since arriving a few months ago, she had obtained a part-time job as a receptionist at a doctor’s surgery, but volunteered to look after Old Nick’s on whatever afternoons she could manage. This was a great help to me, freed me up to carry on with what I still considered my real business as a Domestic Goddess. Inheriting an antique shop had never been part of my plan.
My return to the shop had been delayed. Chatting with Morris and Ricky had made me late arriving for my cleaning job. Then I made a visit to the local police station. To be honest, I wished I hadn’t bothered.
‘Depending on what you read,’ I answered, leaning on 17the counter, ‘Cutty Dyer is a spirit or an ogre who lurks under the bridges of Ashburton, in particular King’s Bridge, grabs children who stray near the water, cuts their throats and drinks their blood. He’s also inclined to do the same thing to wandering drunks.’
Elizabeth raised a delicate eyebrow. ‘Nasty!’
‘And he’s local. He only operates in Ashburton. You don’t find tales of him anywhere else on Dartmoor.’
‘Presumably, this tale was invented to deter children from straying too near the river?’
‘Or deter people from getting drunk,’ I suggested. ‘There were a lot more pubs in Ashburton back in the day.’
‘So what did the police have to say?’
I groaned. I regretted ever having reported finding the wretched dummy. I was curious about where it had been put into the water. The River Ashburn rises on Rippon Tor, comes down off the moor at Horridge Common and flows through the town, playing hide-and-seek as it slides sneakily under streets and behind buildings. In fact, it’s perfectly possible to walk around the streets of Ashburton and not realise a river flows through the town at all. Many tourists do just that.
I grabbed a copy of the town guide, which, like a lot of shops, we keep on the counter for visitors, and opened it at the map, spreading it out so that Elizabeth could see. I placed my finger on a thin blue line. ‘The river comes into the town here, at Great Bridge, flows past Crockerton Cottages, then slides around the back of the Victoria pub. It flows along Cleder Place—’
Elizabeth tapped an elegantly manicured nail on the map. ‘That’s the little green where there are picnic tables …’ 18
‘Yes, right on the bank … As I pointed out to the desk sergeant at the station this morning, it would be lovely for the visitors and holidaymakers if that thing had floated past while they were sat scoffing their sandwiches.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That we don’t get picnickers in January.’
Elizabeth frowned, tracing the blue line with her finger. ‘But you found this dummy at the other end of town. Do you really think it could have floated that far? It would have to have gone under this building here …’
I nodded. ‘That’s the town hall. The river flows right underneath. You can see it come out again if you stand on King’s Bridge. It passes between the backs of these cottages and then it disappears again under West Street …’ I sighed. ‘You’re right, that dummy would probably have got stuck underground. Ricky reckons someone threw it into the river as it passes the skate park, which means it would only have been carried a few yards downstream before it got stuck where I found it.’
‘And it’s still there?’
‘The Laughing Policeman didn’t seem to think anyone needed to remove it.’ I had told him that a shower of rain could raise the water level enough to free this thing, float it downstream and cause a heart attack to some passing dog walker, but he didn’t take me seriously. But then, he hadn’t seen it. Quite obviously the work of kids, he’d said, but he’d make a note of the fact I’d reported it.
‘Of course,’ Elizabeth went on. ‘Where is not as important as why …’
‘The postcard’s the puzzling thing …’
The bell on the shop door jingled at that moment and 19a skinny schoolboy strolled in lugging a large schoolbag, which he immediately let slip from his shoulder to the floor.
He grinned at us, his fair hair sticking up in spikes.
‘Hello, Olly!’ I said.
He raised both arms above his head like a victorious boxer at the end of a bout and grinned. ‘Guess who came top in the geography test?’
‘Well done!’
‘I’m glad all that work I forced you to do was worthwhile.’ Elizabeth seemed determined to be unimpressed. She looked at her watch. ‘I suppose you’ve come in for a lift home. It’s not time to go yet,’ she warned him. ‘I’m not cashing up for another hour.’
‘S’alright,’ he shrugged, ‘I got homework.’
‘You heard of Cutty Dyer, Ol?’ I asked.
‘Yeh. Kids’ stuff,’ he sniffed dismissively. ‘Nan used to believe in him though. Why?’
I told him about the effigy under the bridge and his nonchalance evaporated, his blue eyes growing round with excitement. ‘Where is it? Can we go and have a look?’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘Didn’t you mention something about homework?’
He groaned but picked up his schoolbag. ‘Can I use your kitchen table?’ he asked.
As he passed Elizabeth’s chair, he gave her a little pat on the shoulder. I was pleased to see this tiny gesture of affection. When I first met her, a few months before, Elizabeth was homeless and Olly, alone at fourteen, needed an adult to take care of him. I’d put the two of them together and felt responsible for their happiness. As he headed through the back door of the shop and up the 20stairs towards the kitchen, I called out to him, ‘There’s milk in the fridge and biscuits in the cupboard. Help yourself.’
‘Ta!’ he called back.
‘Is everything working out?’ I murmured as soon as he was out of earshot.
‘Fine,’ she assured me.
‘No more trouble with bullying?’ Olly was small for his age and had suffered quite a lot at school.
She smiled. ‘I think we’ve put a stop to that.’
‘You talked to his teachers?’
‘Well, I did,’ she said, looking a little evasive. ‘But I also taught Olly some useful moves, if you know what I mean.’
I didn’t quite. Elizabeth had been retired for years, a music teacher, or so she claimed. But I had the distinct impression that for some period in her youth she might have served in the armed services. As what, I wasn’t sure. I know many women of her age but she’s the only one who carries a pistol in her handbag. Or I assume she still does, I don’t like to ask.
She deliberately changed the subject. ‘We’ve had quite a profitable afternoon.’
Old Nick’s always did well when she was on duty. Sophie and Pat, who shared the manning of the shop with me in return for free selling space, did their best, but we’d all noticed that profits increased when Elizabeth was in charge. This might have been something to do with her elegant charm, the same charm with which she handled difficult patients in her job at the surgery, but I suspect had more to do with the steely determination that lurks in her grey eyes. Whatever her secret was, she’d sold a painting for Sophie and toys for Pat. She’d even sold a brooch and some paperbacks for me. 21
‘You know, my dear, it’s not my business,’ she admonished softly, ‘but you really ought to be charging those two girls some rent.’
‘I know, but Pat’s trying to raise money for the animal sanctuary and Sophie’s as poor as a church rat.’ I swept an arm around the bare shelves at the back of the shop. ‘If only I had some takers for these empty units—’
‘Well, you haven’t at the moment, and those two should be paying you something.’
‘I don’t want to add to their troubles.’
‘And what about your own troubles?’ She indicated the pile of nasty brown envelopes, which lay unopened on the counter. ‘When the new financial year starts, you’re going to get a big demand for business rates.’
There are times, usually about three a week, when I wish Nick had never left me his shop.
‘I know Sophie and Pat feel awkward about it,’ she went on. ‘At least charge them some commission on sales. They’d be quite happy, you know.’
‘You’ve talked about it?’ I was surprised and a little put out. They hadn’t discussed it with me. Not yet. We had agreed last year that we’d review the situation at Christmas, but somehow, I had let the subject slide.
‘They’d feel a lot more comfortable, and at least you’d be getting something.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I promised reluctantly. I got a similar lecture from Ricky and Morris almost every time I saw them. But I genuinely wanted to help Pat and Sophie. Without their support, and now Elizabeth’s, I wouldn’t be able to carry on the business I’d been engaged in before I met Nick. All right, I was only cleaning, and looking after dogs and 22grannies, but it had taken several years for me to build the business up and I was reluctant to let it go. I couldn’t afford to, anyway. I couldn’t live on the shop’s paltry takings.
It was almost dark when I got home, the sun just dipping behind the hill I can see from my living-room window, the quirky huddled rooftops of the town below already lost in shadow. I opened the front door and breathed in deeply. Whatever was cooking in the kitchen of the flat downstairs smelt of garlic and chilli. Adam and Kate run a cafe and test out recipes at home. I am a very willing guinea pig, happy to put up with rattling windows, rumbling pipes and all the creaks and groans of the old ruin I rent from them in exchange for leftovers and free samples.
I climbed the stairs in happy expectation and sure enough, on the table outside my flat door lay some objects wrapped in foil and a large plastic container. The foil objects I quickly identified as vegetable samosas, but whatever was in the container sloshed about. I took the lid off. It looked like something scraped from the depths of a primeval lagoon, a deep muddy green. It smelt a bit that way too. I replaced the lid and trotted downstairs.
Kate answered to my knock and stood in the doorway, her dark plait hanging over one shoulder, a spatula in her hand. Her cheeks flushed from a hot stove, she looked particularly pretty.
‘Thanks for the stuff,’ I said.
‘You’re welcome,’ she answered brightly.
‘That … um … soup … is it?’
‘Swamp,’ she nodded. ‘We call it swamp soup. It’s delicious.’ 23
‘What’s in it?’ I asked, failing to keep the note of suspicion out of my voice.
‘Sweet potato and kale, it’s delicious,’ she repeated, ‘but for some reason, it doesn’t sell well.’
When you think about some of the things that can be found lurking in a swamp, perhaps that’s not surprising, but I decided it would be churlish not to give it a go.
‘Sweet potato and kale,’ I repeated. ‘Thanks. Right.’
‘And onion, of course,’ she called out as I climbed the stairs, ‘and garlic and chilli.’
‘Of course,’ I called back.
‘Let me know what you think!’
‘I will,’ I promised, as I closed the door.
Kate is not usually wrong about food, and she wasn’t on this occasion. The swamp soup tasted delicious; unusual but delicious.
After I’d downed a bowlful and a couple of samosas, I looked on the Internet to see what else I could discover about Cutty Dyer. He’s not as widely known as some other Dartmoor legends, although stories of his bloodthirsty activities in Ashburton date back to the seventeenth century. I found information about him on several websites, although there are no stories of his being active recently. I doubt if many kids in the town have ever heard of him, which made the message on the postcard attached to the effigy even weirder. But the old people, like Maisie and Olly’s Nan were brought up on scare stories about what might happen to them if they strayed too near the river at night.
I didn’t really find out anything I didn’t already know, so after a while I sat down on the sofa with my diary, making sure I had cleared it completely for the end of 24the week. Mrs Berkeley-Smythe was coming home from her latest cruise and would need all of my attention. She was the client I have worked for the longest and who I’ve seen the least, due to her determination to avoid living on dry land as much as possible. She spent most of her life on cruise ships and paid me to look after her house while she was away. Most of the time this meant clearing the junk mail, watering her house plants and keeping her garden tidy, but before she came home from a cruise, I always gave the whole place a proper spring clean. I’d already vacuumed, dusted, made up the bed and polished the hundred wretched horse-brasses surrounding her inglenook fireplace. Tomorrow I would put the heating on to warm the house through, reinstate the fridge and freezer and get in essential supplies – coffee, ice cream and several bottles of sherry. Mrs B-S was a living testament to what can be achieved on a diet of sugar, caffeine and alcohol. I always looked forward to her coming home and just as much to her going away again, which was usually after a few weeks. The longest period I have known her stay ashore was three months when she underwent surgery for a hip replacement. When she arrived home she would need me to help her unpack her cases and drive her to various appointments with her accountants and doctors. I always tried to clear the diary of everything else and give her two complete days. All other things went on hold except for my morning dog walking. This was not affected by Mrs Berkeley-Smythe: she was not an early riser.
This time the task of diary clearing had been made easier by Maisie’s continued absence and Elizabeth’s help in the shop. I thought about our conversation earlier and was just 25beginning to ponder gloomily how I was going to manage to pay the bills when I was distracted by the phone ringing. The caller didn’t bother to identify himself, but I could tell from the flat, northern vowels who the voice belonged to. ‘The rumour is that now you’ve run out of dead bodies to find, you’ve started making your own.’
‘I’m going to kill that bloody desk sergeant.’
Detective Constable Dean Collins chuckled down the phone.
My cheeks flamed with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. ‘Now I suppose I’m a laughing stock at Ashburton police station.’
‘Only amongst the uniforms,’ he assured me. ‘Here at Serious Crimes, you’re a legend.’
I decided to change the subject. ‘How is baby Alice?’
‘Beautiful.’
‘And Gemma?’
‘Well. Actually …’ he cleared his throat self-consciously, ‘she’s expecting again.’
‘Blimey! You don’t mess about, do you?’ I said. ‘It was only a few months ago you were lying at death’s door.’
‘Yeah, and I’d have been through the bloody door if it hadn’t been for you.’
I felt my cheeks reigniting. ‘Did you actually call about something?’ I demanded.
‘Yes. This effigy thing. Tell me about it.’
I gave him all the details and he said he’d go down to the bridge next morning and take a look. ‘Someone’s got a peculiar sense of humour. Probably best not to let the thing float around. I’ll get it put away somewhere.’
I was glad someone in the police force was prepared to take it even slightly seriously. We chatted for a little 26longer and then he rang off. I lay back and closed my eyes, shrieking as Bill landed with all four paws on my stomach. ‘Foul cat!’
He interpreted this as a form of endearment and began treading up and down on my ribcage, purring loudly. ‘Why don’t you go downstairs and live in your own flat?’ I demanded, unable to resist stroking his black velvet head. He gazed at me in rapture from his one green eye and nuzzled his cheek against my hand. ‘My landlords do not approve of our affair,’ I reproved him as his purr changed down to a more passionate gear. ‘Truth is, they’re jealous.’
The phone rang again then, disobliging Bill as I had to lean forward to pick it up.
‘Juno Browne?’ The voice that asked was bright, breathy and Welsh. ‘This is Sandy Thomas, Dartmoor Gazette.’
‘And what can I do for you?’ I asked, with all the enthusiasm of someone who has been misquoted and inaccurately reported before.
‘We’d just like a few words from you about the Cutty Dyer incident before we go to press.’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘Oh, we can’t reveal our sources,’ she answered piously.
Surely that sergeant at the police station wouldn’t have told the local newspaper about what I’d found? But of course, I’d told Ricky and Morris. They’d probably repeated my story to everyone they met in the auction house. Any one of them could have phoned the local rag. ‘It wasn’t an incident,’ I told her crossly. ‘It was just a dummy, probably a leftover from Hallowe’en or Fireworks Night and thrown in the river by children.’
‘But you reported it to the police.’ 27
‘It was quite … realistic,’ I admitted reluctantly, ‘gruesome, and plausible enough to give someone a shock if they saw it in the water.’
I could hear her tapping away on her keyboard at the end of the phone, her fingertips on fire. The Dartmoor Gazette was a weekly paper and usually there was more than enough drama in the everyday lives of folk on Dartmoor to keep its pages filled. It must be a thin week for news if my finding a Guy Fawkes dummy in a stream was needed to make headlines.
‘So, how many dead bodies is that you’ve discovered now?’ she asked.
I gritted my teeth. ‘It wasn’t a dead body!’ I insisted.
‘No, no, nooo …’ she agreed soothingly, ‘but how many is it?’
‘Look, each one of those bodies belonged to a person who was murdered,’ I said angrily. ‘Have you any idea how it feels to discover someone—?’
‘No,’ she interrupted, breathy with excitement, ‘but I’m sure our readers would love to know.’
The only reason I didn’t fling the phone down at that moment was because I was gripping it so hard I couldn’t let go. I sighed loudly.
‘So, how many is it?’ she asked again.
‘Just the three,’ I muttered.
‘Well, that’s three more than most people, isn’t it?’ she trilled brightly, and rang off.
I wished at that moment I could have made it four.
CHAPTER THREE
At least I hadn’t made the front page. That dubious honour was reserved for sheep rustlers and a nasty pile-up on the A30 outside Bodmin. But as I opened up the dratted rag I had purchased in the newsagent next morning, I found a headline blaring at me on page two: Jinxed Juno Discovers Fourth Corpse. There was even a photograph of me, looking dishevelled and dreadful and clearly startled by the flash from a camera shoved in my face. I had no memory of it being taken but there was a police officer in the background, so I imagine it was following an arrest. I read the first few words of the article before I could take no more, screwed the entire paper into a ball and lobbed it into the nearest bin.
I strode up North Street, simmering. I was vaguely aware of someone on the opposite pavement scurrying along, trying to catch up with me, calling my name, but didn’t pay enough attention to the eager, bobbing figure in the flapping blue coat until she had crossed the road and it was 29too late to take evasive action. Jessie Mole was standing on the pavement in front of me, effectively blocking my way, her face peering up into mine. Her pale blue eyes were staring and she was close, much too close.
‘You’re that Juno Browne,’ she breathed, grinning. ‘I’ve seen you in the paper!’
On a good day, Jessie Mole is a menace. She’s the sort of person that makes you duck into shops when you see her coming and hope to God she doesn’t follow you inside. It’s not just that she has no concept of personal space or other people’s boundaries, and no idea when a conversation has ended and anyone with half a brain would realise it’s time to say goodbye, she has a voracious greed for gossip about other people’s lives that is genuinely off-putting. It’s something to do with the way she tries to lock eye contact with you, as if she’s trying to drain your brain through your eyeballs and suck out your soul. And she’s odd: she wears ankle socks and a bow in her hair, although she must be every day of fifty. Right now she seemed in the grip of a feeding frenzy. ‘What did it look like, that body?’ She had clutched my arm and was not the slightest bit abashed when I very deliberately removed her hand from my sleeve. ‘Did it look like a real one?’ she carried on excitedly. ‘You know what they look like, don’t you? You’re always finding bodies.’
Her face was so close to mine it was almost out of focus. I stepped back and she took another pace towards me. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, Jessie,’ I said firmly, sidestepping around her. ‘Goodbye.’
She struggled to keep up with me as I quickened my pace. ‘It says in the paper Cutty Dyer did it,’ she carried on remorselessly. ‘Did it have its throat cut?’ I knew 30she couldn’t keep up for long. She had been lame since childhood and repeated operations had failed to correct the fault. ‘Was there a lot of blood?’ she called after me as I swung around the corner and out of sight.
By the time I reached Old Nick’s, steam must have been rising from my hair. One look at my face as I kicked open the door of the shop was enough to convince Sophie, sitting quietly at her worktable, not to mention the newspaper I could see lying on the counter. She gazed at me, her dark eyes huge, a paintbrush poised in one hand. ‘Hell’s teeth!’ she swore softly.
‘No, just Jessie Mole. If she follows me in here, I’ll kill her.’
Sophie laid her paintbrush down. ‘I don’t think she’ll dare.’
Jessie is a particular nuisance in shops. She tries to lock shopkeepers in a stranglehold of gossip, oblivious of the customers they might be trying to serve. As Ashburton is a small place and the number of shops is limited, it hasn’t taken her long to exhaust the patience of the entire shopkeeping community.
‘She came in here the other day,’ Sophie said, ‘hanging around, looking over my shoulder when I was trying to paint—’
‘When was this?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘One day last week,’ she responded vaguely. ‘You weren’t here. Anyway, I was longing for her to leave when Pat came in and got rid of her. She just ordered her out, said she wasn’t prepared to put up with her nonsense.’
‘Good for Pat.’
‘I don’t think she means any harm − Jessie, I mean,’ Sophie added, picking up her brush and surveying the painting in progress. 31
‘Maybe not,’ I conceded, ‘but she puts customers off.’ I’d seen many people execute a last-minute swerve and change course when they’d spotted Jessie through a shop window.
‘She is creepy,’ Sophie admitted.
I sat down heavily on a stool and sighed. ‘I wish I’d never mentioned that effing dummy to the police.’
‘You did the right thing,’ she said, gazing at me solemnly. She laid down her paintbrush for a second time. ‘Tea?’ she volunteered sympathetically. ‘Coffee?’
I glanced at my watch. ‘I’ll make it. I just popped in to check all was well. I’m going up to Mrs Berkeley-Smythe’s place to switch on her heating, and then I’m off up to the Brownlows’ house. They’ve got visitors coming to stay and their spare bedroom needs a good going-over. But I’ve got time for coffee.’
I climbed the stairs to the kitchen above, in what used to be Old Nick’s flat, and flipped the switch on the kettle. I got an unflattering view of my reflection in its shiny surface and detoured to the bathroom to see if things were as bad as they looked. Raking my fingers through a tangled mass of red curls did not make the frowning apparition in the mirror look any tidier. I had taken five dogs for a walk on the moor that morning, I reminded myself, and more or less sprinted to get away from Jessie Mole, so no wonder I looked a mess. Not that I would look much different if I hadn’t.
On my way back to the kitchen I paused on the landing. There was a tiny framed photograph on the wall, a picture that probably no one but me ever stopped to look at. Old Nick stared at me from twinkling eyes. Old Nick, for whom I had worked just a few months and who had rewarded me on his death by leaving me the building in which I now stood. 32
‘Bastard,’ I whispered softly, and swore I heard him chuckle.
On my way back from the Brownlows’ house, I called in at the information centre behind the town hall. I wanted to send a card to an old college friend. I prefer cards with original photos of Dartmoor and knew there was a rack full of them there, together with local maps and books. I found postcards identical to the one attached to the dummy: From Devon With Love written in red and a picture of thatched cottages. There was a range of cards with the same wording but different pictures: Widecombe Fair, Dartmoor ponies, or a cream tea laid out on a lacy tablecloth − all a bit naff, if you ask me. I selected a card with a picture of a twisted thorn tree standing alone in the bleak landscape of the moor, almost bent double by a cruel wind, dark clouds piling up for a storm in the sky behind it − much more my sort of thing.
I walked the dogs by the river next morning, through misty woods. The winter trees were leafless, their branches bare, the forest floor like old owl feathers speckled with greys and browns as autumn leaves decayed. Yet there was the green on the ivy-tangled trunks and every branch wore a velvet coat of emerald moss. The sun broke through the mist for a moment and the water in the river flashed silver, pouring like a layer of glass between stepping stones. The Tribe – the five dogs that I walked on weekday mornings − splashed happily in the shallows, snapping at the shadows of little fish, all except for Sally the ancient black Labrador who never left my side, happy to watch the younger dogs, her tail slowly wagging, and barking occasionally.
I couldn’t look at the water without remembering that damned dummy. Such an odd, strange thing. Just thinking 33about it filled me with a sense of unease, like this quiet, still January waiting for winter to come. I felt as if I was holding my breath, waiting for an axe to fall.
After a long circular walk, I deposited the canines in their respective homes and popped back to the flat to change my muddy boots. Then I drove up to Stapledon Lane to await the arrival of Mrs Chloe Berkeley-Smythe. As it turned out, she got there before me.
Stapledon Lane is where the police station and old courthouse used to stand. Now, these buildings are desirable residences. No less desirable is the handsome stone cottage belonging to Mrs Berkeley-Smythe, situated at the turn of the lane, commanding a fine view of the town below and the hills above. But its narrow front door and the two steep steps leading up to it make it less than ideal for anyone attempting to lug large suitcases into its cramped hall. A limousine from Southampton and its driver come as part of Mrs B-S’s cruising package and as I arrived the poor man was trying to drag a suitcase the size of a sofa up the steps without getting it wedged in the front door. There’s an art to it, as I know.
Mrs B-S was standing by the car, her refined foghorn voice blasting down the lane.
‘I’m so sorry, I can’t possibly help you, I’ve got a bad back. I’m so sorry.’
I called out to her and waved.
‘Juno, my dear!’ she cried as I approached, and enveloped me in an embrace that smelt of hairspray, face powder and high-powered perfume. ‘I can’t wait to get inside. I’m exhausted, utterly exhausted.’ I agreed that being driven from Southampton in the back of a limousine must be 34an exhausting experience. ‘Could you help poor Charles here?’ she asked. ‘Would you mind?’
Charles and I had met before. He was Chloe’s favourite driver and she always requested him, the poor sod. Between the two of us we managed to squeeze four large suitcases and three vanity cases into the cottage, allowing Chloe to flutter through into the living room, declaring, ‘I must lie down. I really must lie down.’
I paid Charles a handsome tip from her weighty leather purse and allowed the poor man to escape. He probably needed a lie down himself after driving her all the way to Ashburton, although he assured me, with a broad wink, that Chloe usually slept all the way after the first few miles. No wonder she was so exhausted. I noticed that she had managed to totter as far as the sherry before sinking into the cushions of the sofa. She lay there now, still wearing her coat, eyes closed, one heavily ringed hand hanging over the edge as if she were lying in a punt and trailing her fingers in the water.
‘Good trip?’ I asked.
‘Wonderful!’ she sighed. ‘But whenever I come back here and look around my darling little cottage, I wonder why I leave.’
I smiled. ‘You say that every time. You usually last about three days before you’re planning your next trip … or have you got something planned already?’
‘Nothing … well, only Cyprus … but that’s weeks away.’ She opened her eyes. ‘Come with me!’ she begged.
‘No, thanks.’
‘I’d pay.’
‘You’d have to, and it’s very kind of you to keep offering, but I can’t − really.’ 35
‘Well, I’m going to have to stop cruising soon,’ she moaned. ‘I shall run out of money.’
‘You say that every time too.’
‘Do I?’ She surveyed me from beneath heavy eyelids shaded a delicate mauve. ‘Why aren’t you married? Or living in glorious sin with some sexy man somewhere? It’s such a waste … You’re not gay, are you, dear? You’ve never struck me that way.’
‘No, I’m not gay,’ I assured her. ‘Now, I’ve done your shopping. There’s milk, cream, prawns and pâté in the fridge, and your favourite coffee ice cream in the freezer.’
‘You are wonderful,’ she sighed.
I pointed out three piles of post on her coffee table. ‘Hospital appointments in the first pile … you need to look at those … bills in the middle pile … and in this one’ – I pointed to the largest pile, more of a stack, really – ‘is the brochures you’ve ordered.’ There were also several parcels under the table, items ordered by Mrs B-S before she went afloat and taken in during her absence by her long-suffering neighbour.
Chloe barely glanced at them. ‘I shall need to go to the bank.’
‘That’s fine. It’s a bank day tomorrow.’ Ashburton no longer has a bank of its own, but two of the high street banks provide a mobile service, each visiting once a week, their immense wagons taking up three spaces in the town hall car park. ‘I’ll take you there in the morning,’ I promised. ‘Now I’ll make a start on the unpacking.’
‘Oh, it’s too exhausting!’ she complained. ‘Sit and have a sherry.’
‘I’ll have one later.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t pour me another, would you?’ She looked around vaguely as if she couldn’t remember where the 36bottle was. ‘And pass me the remote. Oh, you are an angel!’
As I left the room, the television blared into life and I heard her flicking through the channels until she found the one she wanted: the shopping channel. ‘There’s a present for you in one of the cases,’ she called out. ‘I can’t remember which one, but you’ll find it.’
‘It would help if I knew what I was looking for,’ I called back.
Chloe laughed. ‘I can’t remember that, either. What on earth did I get you? Oh, I expect you’ll know it when you see it.’
Her cases were beautifully packed, each garment carefully folded, not by Chloe but by some member of cabin staff, the most delicate items wrapped in tissue paper. I began unpacking, sorting and selecting clothes for the washing machine and the dry-cleaners, and hanging up those that could be returned to the wardrobes. This was a process that would take the rest of the day and most of the next as well. All this unpacking had to be done in the hallway as the cases were too heavy to lug upstairs. Once unpacked, and I managed to empty two that day, they could be stored in a spare bedroom, a room devoted entirely to shoe racks and sets of matching luggage. During the unpacking I came across a silk pashmina in mint green, which I decided wasn’t Mrs B-S’s shade at all.
Hoping that this might be mine I went into the living room to check. But Chloe was snoring gently in front of the shopping channel, a clutch of partly opened envelopes scattered on her ample bosom and spilling onto the floor. I decided not to disturb her.
