Chapter Thirteen
When Edward approached his own house, almost skidding off the road in his haste, he saw, to his surprise, three people waiting.
Flanking Wendy were two kindly looking men who had the beseeching look of priests at confession.
They must be twins. Both wore jeans and trainers, and both sported navy blue jackets, as if they had rushed into work at the weekend.
They had thinning hair, but the one on the right evidently dyed his, while the other had let his go prematurely white.
It was one of few features which separated them.
The lack of fat on them made their movements angular, suggesting marionettes mirroring each other, controlled from above by a left hand and a right.
The twin on the left with the white hair was smiling warmly, but with an air of worry.
It was the brother to Wendy Wrigley’s right who stepped forward first.
‘I’m Charlie Hurst – this is Hubert.’
‘Hi,’ said Hubert, with the white hair. ‘A double-H, Hubert Hurst.’
‘Don’t ask about his middle name,’ said Charlie.
‘It’s Roger. So the initials are HRH,’ said Wendy, with an affectionate smile. ‘Somewhat regal.’
‘At school his nickname was Prince, of course,’ laughed Charlie. ‘Johnny was partly responsible for that.’ At the mention of their departed friend, all three of them became suddenly downcast and a fog of worry settled on the Hurst brothers again.
‘I am sorry for your loss,’ said Edward, even though the murder had been nearly two years earlier. ‘I didn’t know you were at school together,’ Edward continued. ‘I thought Wendy said university.’
‘Well, that was when we set up our gang, university medics.’ Hubert looked into the middle distance. He took half a step forward, as if he was stumbling and about to fall. ‘Our gang—’
‘Us, Pippa, Zirch, Johnny, a couple of others. It was the four of us who ended up in Devon,’ said Charlie.
Wendy put in: ‘And then disaster struck. I came here to find my tribe again.’
‘And we feel,’ continued Charlie, ‘so desperate to find out who or what or why. I mean, why would he be murdered?’
Wendy said sharply, ‘Charlie, please!’
He gulped. ‘I know you hate the word.’
‘Hate is strong, but I do.’
‘Did Wendy say you were both medical consultants?’
‘I’m cancer, he’s dementia,’ said Hubert. ‘We work virtually next door to each other at Exeter General.’ He hopped left and right on his feet, a sign of nervousness.
Edward said, ‘Now I feel even worse about keeping you waiting.’
‘We wondered if you wanted us with you in the forest today,’ said Hubert.
He and Charlie were both like priests, simultaneously elevated and humble.
How keenly they were feeling the pain of this, the loss of their friend.
If Wendy had been responsible, or even just a genuine suspect, the twins would not want anything to do with her.
It reinforced Edward’s absolute conviction – her alibi was watertight because she was innocent.
The pain from the fatal shooting of Dr Jonathan Wrigley was spreading like a stain. A mystery that would never be solved, unless he could untangle it for them.
He would try.
Wendy drove. The Hurst twins were persuaded she could handle the day without them.
‘I’m so sorry I forgot my commitment,’ Edward said when they were in the car. ‘Yesterday was chaos.’
‘Why?’
‘You didn’t hear about the accident at the pizza place?’
‘Oh, of course. Yes.’
He could see her mind was elsewhere. As she took the country roads at speed, cornering faster than he would have wanted, he googled ‘Dr J Wrigley murder’.
He wasn’t much of an investigator, forgetting the appointment and doing his research this late.
All the printouts he had made from online articles were in his kitchen. Phone signal was patchy on this road.
‘They’re decent men,’ she said suddenly.
‘The twins?’
‘They are so, so decent. They spend their lives just trying to help. They see a lot of people nearing the end. I think it gets to you.’
‘I couldn’t do it. When my listeners die, I feel it.’
‘Found anything on your phone?’
‘It’s all the stuff I’ve seen before. About the location.’
‘I brought an Ordnance Survey map,’ she said.
On YouTube he saw a thumbnail with Andrew Coombs, followed by a pop-up advert.
He clicked the screen to close the pop-up, but suddenly the amateur pilot appeared, full screen, speaking out loud into the car: ‘The poor man was on the forest floor near the airfield. Spread out like a star in a white linen suit, right up against a tree, and we will never forget it. Naturally our thoughts are with the family.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Wrigley, I didn’t mean to play that.’
‘Wendy, please. And leave it on.’
Coombs was asked about his daughter. ‘Still in shock from me turning the aircraft.’ His tone was clipped, as if he was protecting her.
Maybe they had nearly crashed. An accompanying photo, captioned ANDREW AND CLARA COMBS IN HAPPIER TIMES, showed father and daughter standing beside a tiny plane, both figures blasted by bright sunlight, him grinning, her face pixelated.
The report cut to a Google image of the airfield which jerked to the forested area two hundred yards to the north.
A red cross appeared alongside the words BODY FOUND HERE.
Edward took a screenshot before the signal went.
The journey from Sidmouth to Chittlehamholt was more than an hour, even though she broke the speed limit most of the way.
They used a route that passed close to the north side of the airstrip, then took a right fork.
After five minutes bumping along a track with hedgerows on both sides, they saw the entrance to the airfield itself.
‘Shall we?’ asked Wendy Wrigley, pointing.
It seemed cheeky to park within it when they had no business there, but they did.
Sure enough, they had not been stopped for more than a minute on the edge of the pristine strip before a man in a gold hairpiece approached, jogging as if it was urgent.
He wore shorts and a pilot’s blazer, double-breasted with epaulettes and five gold buttons. He introduced himself as Gracey, the ‘manager-gardener-receptionist’ of the place, and said – as telegraphed by his rapid approach – that this was not a car park for casual walkers.
Before Edward could speak, Wendy had disarmed Gracey completely. She locked the car and asked Edward to show him the screenshot. ‘We need a man who knows his way around a map. It’s personal to me.’
Gracey took the page as Edward unfolded it. There were ominous clouds overhead, and it was starting to spit.
‘Where that poor doctor was found?’
Edward held his breath. Would Wendy be recognized by this man? Would he judge her like Coombs and everyone else?
‘He was my husband.’
Gracey stared at Wendy as if hypnotized.
‘Well. Thoughts with. God. That’s thrown me …
We had a new flyer up in the air that day, brought his young daughter, some sort of London banker’ – the word, as he said it, loaded with negativity – ‘and I watched him coming in to land, and the lunatic tried to buzz the body! … Excuse me, ma’am.
’ It was a distasteful phrase to use. He started pointing at a distant spot in the air.
‘So I feel I know the vertical position because I can visualize his plane up there, dropping like a bloody stone.’
‘Where were you when it happened?’ asked Edward.
Ignoring him, Gracey turned Edward’s phone landscape-portrait-landscape.
‘Agh, I need to lock this display. It keeps turning. I don’t know how helpful this map is, except yes, it’s definitely over there, past the four planes, into the wood.
Oh, Christ. Gosh. I don’t know.’ A gust of wind blew the lapel of his overcoat across his face, and he pulled it away quickly, like a highwayman unmasking himself.
‘Walk between planes three and four, the Ikarus and the Cirrhus. The Cirrhus is grounded, in case you’re alarmed there’s a hole where the engine should be.
Proceed around two hundred yards once you’re in amongst the trees.
Two hundred, three hundred? Stay in a straight line between this point and the gap between the planes. The red cross could even be accurate.’
‘Where were you when you saw the plane buzz the site?’ Edward asked again.
Gracey folded the map, handed it to Wendy and, without looking away from her, said: ‘In ATC over there.’
‘That shed?’ asked Edward.
‘We call it ATC. Good luck. And while you’re in the mood for searching, please search yourselves for tick bites later, the bullseye mark on the skin. Lyme Disease is an absolute motorhome.’
It gave Wendy and Edward a bonding moment as they walked. She said, ‘Where is that phrase from, “an absolute motorhome”? I mean …’ and, as she laughed, he replied: ‘Something to do with Scottish politics? Wasn’t there a motorhome scandal?’
The two walked across the expanse of mown grass as instructed and passed between the last two light aircraft.
Soon they were in the forest, their trousers soaked by tall heather and brambles. There was no path. Wendy Wrigley had her phone out. Edward was trying to unfold the paper map as he walked.
‘Would my phone help?’ she asked, a little impatiently. ‘With this I can tell north, south, east, et cetera. I have signal. Good old Chittlehamholt.’
‘I guess airfields have masts. I don’t need a mast for this.
’ He spread the map across his knee and marked the point at which they had entered the forest and then, after looking over his shoulder, the location of the ATC shed.
There was a cross on it already – he had marked the location of the X in the TV report.
‘You never came here?’ he asked as they picked their way among the debris on the forest floor.
‘No, never. Not before, not much of a walker, you know. And after …’ She trailed off.
‘Did he used to walk here on his own?’
‘Yes. Especially if he felt unwell.’
‘Unwell?’