Chapter Four
MATTHEW COULD HEAR CATH ARMSTRONG SCREAMING before he reached the entrance to Tide House land.
It was a primeval howl of pain and it reminded him of the long call of the herring gull: nerve-shattering, ear-splitting.
He nodded to the constable at the gate and turned a corner to see a group of people, still standing, a frozen, horrified tableau, in the sunlit front garden.
Jen Rafferty was holding the woman, and the husband was looking on, apparently helpless.
There was, Matthew saw with relief, no sign of the young boys, though surely they would hear the sound even from inside the house?
He wondered who was with them. Ross May wasn’t part of the group, so perhaps Jen had sent him in to be childminder. He wouldn’t enjoy that.
Jen saw Matthew approaching over Cath’s shoulder and gently prised herself away, passing the woman to her husband. Cath seemed not to notice the change in contact and clung to him as she had to the detective.
Jen gestured to Matthew to follow her and showed him to the beginning of the path that led down the combe to the beach.
There was the noise of water – the gentle murmur of waves on the beach below and something closer and more vibrant.
The shallow stream that he’d seen from the farm trickling here over a rocky bed, hidden by trees.
‘Cath found her,’ she said. ‘She hasn’t stopped screaming since.’
They walked in single file until they were halfway down the slope. A uniformed officer was just visible.
‘Hannah was in the farmhouse until early this morning.’ Matthew remembered how he’d almost phoned the parents to tell them that their daughter was safe. He couldn’t imagine how dreadful that would have been – to give them false hope just before the body was found.
They stayed on the path and looked across at the crime scene.
The crime scene manager was already there.
Matthew couldn’t see a body immediately.
There was the skeleton of a building, not big enough even for a cottage.
The old watermill, he realized, a round millstone lying on its side, covered in lichen.
One collapsed wall, less than a metre high, seemed to be the focus of the professional’s attention.
‘I missed her on the way down to the beach,’ Jen said.
‘I was so focused on where I was putting my feet, worried about going arse over tit. Cath was walking ahead of me on the way back up and saw a shoe. Hannah’s shoe.
She rushed over and picked it up before I could stop her.
It’s been bagged now. From there, she saw the lass, just the other side of that stone wall.
’ A pause. ‘I had to follow Cath, or she’d still be there with her daughter.
Holding her in her arms. Screaming.’ Jen paused again for a moment.
‘We’ll have mucked up any footwear prints. ’
‘I suspect there wouldn’t be much to see anyway.’ It was all dead leaves from last autumn and bare rock where the millstream had carved its way to the beach. No mud or bare soil. Little chance of footwear marks. ‘Did you get any idea about cause of death?’
‘Blunt force trauma, I think. There was a wound on the back of the head. But Sal Pengelly will make her way from the house soon.’ Jen turned her head until she was facing Matthew.
‘She reckons Lottie might have been killed in the same way, before being thrown into the pool. Though she could have slipped or tripped and hit her head on the way down.’
‘That would be something of a coincidence, don’t you think?
We should work on the hypothesis that both women were bludgeoned to death, until we know anything different.
Did they die at the same time, I wonder?
Or did Hannah come back to find Lottie dead?
’ Matthew was talking to himself, his voice so low that Jen could hardly hear.
The crime scene manager had wound a tape around the trees, marking a boundary.
Matthew was pleased that he’d fastened it the right way up.
He was irrationally upset when the blue writing on the crime tape was upside down.
He moved so he could see Hannah’s body on the other side of the mill wall.
She was as dark as her friend was fair. Less perfect.
Less groomed. She wore a sleeveless T-shirt and shorts.
One shoe. A red espadrille. The other bagged by the CSIs.
A matching little red cardigan had fallen open to reveal one shoulder.
Were these the clothes she’d been wearing to the festival the day before?
Jacob would know. She was slight and dark and was lying on her back.
Matthew could clearly see the blood that had seeped into the ground.
Around her, in the shadow of the wall, green shoots and a few remaining bluebells, well past their best, dying, crushed in places by Cath Armstrong and Jen Rafferty.
‘Poor lass.’ There was a catch in Jen’s throat. ‘Her whole life ahead of her.’
Jen had a daughter not much older who’d started at university in Bristol the year before.
‘I’ll have to go back to the farm and tell the Brennans.’ Matthew was thinking of Jacob, in love.
Jen looked surprised.
‘I promised I would,’ Matthew said, ‘and the son was her lover. They slept together last night.’
‘A suspect then?’
‘Oh, at this stage, isn’t everyone a suspect?’
He turned and walked up the steep path to Tide House. In the garden, Cath Armstrong had stopped screaming, and everything seemed unnaturally quiet.
Venn stopped on his way to the farm to phone Appleyard.
He’d asked Jen to tell Oldham that the Armstrong girl was dead too, but he didn’t trust the superintendent to pass on the facts calmly to the Chief Constable.
Oldham would want someone else to take responsibility, perhaps a team from Exeter or Plymouth.
He’d never completely trusted Matthew. After all, Matthew was married to a man, he didn’t understand rugby and he didn’t drink beer, unless it was the fancy continental stuff.
Besides, the superintendent would want someone from another region to blame if the case went tits up.
The Chief Constable answered immediately. ‘Any news?’ Oldham couldn’t yet have passed on the message.
‘We’ve found another body.’
‘The Armstrong girl?’
‘Yes, the mother found her. No doubt about the identity.’
A brief silence on the end of the line before Appleyard continued. ‘This’ll be a shitstorm then. Box 500 might want scrutiny in case there’s some political motivation.’
‘Box 500?’
‘MI5.’
Venn thought this was well outside his area of experience or expertise. Perhaps Oldham was right, and they should bring in someone from outside.
Appleyard seemed to guess what Matthew was thinking. ‘You’ll be SIO of course. But it’ll be a category A murder, so you’ll get all the resources you need.’ A pause. ‘Within reason.’
‘I’m not sure …’ Matthew admired Appleyard, but this would be, as he’d said, a shitshow, with intense media scrutiny and probable political interference.
‘You’re the best murder detective in the region.
Since you’ve joined us, the cases you’ve worked have been sensitive and complex, and you’ve managed them all with dignity and competence.
I need you to be lead on this. If you have any problems, you come straight to me.
Superintendent Oldham can supervise anything else that comes up in the patch. ’
‘Thank you.’ Because what else, Venn thought, could he say? At least it seemed he wouldn’t have Oldham on his back.
‘Are you happy with your existing team?’
‘Yes. Rafferty has already developed a good relationship with the family and May has matured a lot since he first joined us. Vicki Robb is invaluable back at base with the tech. Totally reliable.’
There was another moment of silence. ‘Perfect,’ Appleyard said at last. ‘Best to keep a small core team, I think. Less chance of leaks. And as I said, come straight to me. That’s the line of command.’
Bob and Tessa were still in the farmhouse kitchen. Breakfast had been eaten and cleared away, but they were drinking coffee and chatting quietly. When he knocked at the boot room door, Tessa shouted for him to come in.
‘You again!’ Her voice was cheerful. ‘There’s coffee in the pot if you’d like some. It’s the calm before the storm. We’ve got more campers arriving later today. You’ve found Hannah then?’
He didn’t answer, but the coffee smelled good. It was keeping warm on the edge of the Aga. Tessa passed him a mug, and he helped himself, before sitting with them, shaking his head at the offer of milk.
‘Where’s Jacob?’
‘Jake? Over at the glampers.’ She went on to explain. ‘We’ve got half a dozen glamping pods at the end of the meadow, close to the stream. Bob’s idea. For the people who like the notion of outdoor living but don’t fancy roughing it. You’d be surprised how much they pay …’
‘Of course. And Jake’s there?’
‘Yeah. Making himself useful, getting ready for the new arrivals. No point sitting here fretting, and besides, the Kinzalows needed more wood for the hot tub.’ Her voice was easy, relaxed.
Bob Brennan looked across the table at him. ‘Have you found the maid?’
‘She’s dead,’ Matthew said. They would hear soon enough from their son. ‘We found her body not far from the path down to the beach.’
Tessa let out a little cry. ‘Oh, my poor Jake! He loved the bones of her. I couldn’t see that it would work out, not long term – we were so different from her family – but I thought they’d have one glorious summer.’
Again, her voice triggered a memory of the Armstrongs’ accent, and Venn couldn’t help asking, ‘You came from the North East too. You have much in common?’
‘Aye, maybe. But my granddad was a pitman, and my dad was a plumber, working for the City Council. He was active in the union, but no, we didn’t exactly mix in the same circles …’
‘What happened to the girl?’ Bob Brennan was impatient. The easy manner of the ageing hippy had disappeared.