A Perfect Death (18 page)

Wesley smiled to himself. He wished all his witnesses were so observant. ‘You didn’t get the car registration, by any chance?’

‘Sorry. I tried to see it but there was a van in the way. However, the man’s car was dark blue, I could see that much. And
a saloon – a Mondeo or a Vectra or something like that,’ Caroline Tay said with breathtaking efficiency. This woman might
be the perfect witness
but Wesley suspected that a date with her would be like chatting up a robot. He thanked her and said he’d send someone to
take a statement.

He looked round the room. Everyone in there seemed busy, dealing with forms, talking on the phone or typing industriously
into their computers. Only the new boy, DC Nick Tarnaby, looked as if he was a loose end, staring out of the window at the
view of the river, apparently in a world of his own while the paperwork piled up on his desk. Wesley felt a twinge of vindictiveness.
If there was one thing that annoyed him it was people who didn’t pull their weight.

He caught Rachel’s eye. ‘I’ve just been speaking to Nadia’s housemate, Caroline Tay.’

Rachel nodded. She remembered Caroline. And, from the expression on her face, the slight raising of her eyebrows, Wesley guessed
that she hadn’t particularly taken to her.

‘It seems that Nadia’s had a visitor. Middle-aged man who didn’t leave his name. Can you go and have another chat to Caroline,
see what she can tell you?’ He jerked his head in Nick Tarnaby’s direction. ‘Take Nick with you.’

Tarnaby looked up, shaken from his daydreams.

‘And then get him to go through any CCTV footage in the vicinity – let’s see if we can find a registration number for this
mysterious visitor’s car.’

‘Is there any more news of that missing Lithuanian girl?’ Rachel asked with a sudden frown.

‘Her friend’s being interviewed at Morbay but I’d like a word with her myself.’

‘Think she could be the Grandal Field victim?’

‘It’s a possibility.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Tell you what, Rach, when you’re at Caroline Tay’s try to get a sample of
Nadia Lucas’s DNA – her toothbrush or hairs from her hairbrush. And see if there’s a photo of her.’

‘OK. Will do.’ Rachel stood and swung her handbag over her shoulder. She looked keen to get out of the office and into the
fresh air. Wesley felt a bit like that himself. He saw her look at Nick Tarnaby. ‘Come on. We’re off to Neston.’

Tarnaby stared at Rachel as though she’d made an unreasonable demand.

‘In your own time, Nick,’ she said in a rare flourish of sarcasm.

Nick Tarnaby reluctantly began to follow Rachel out. If he wasn’t careful, Wesley thought, he would be the recipient of one
of Gerry Heffernan’s verbal kicks up the backside. And Wesley hoped it would be sooner rather than later. Perhaps he would
have a quiet word.

As Rachel reached the office door, she turned and said something to Tarnaby, like a dog walker telling her pet to hurry up
and come to heel. Wesley smiled to himself. If anyone would sort Tarnaby out it’d be Rachel.

He sat down at his desk and brought up the Pure Sons of the West website on his computer. He had an uneasy feeling about this
particular organisation. They were big on threats and boasts but when he and Gerry had started to dig beneath the surface,
they’d found little there apart from a ragged group of bar-room dissidents.

He stared at the screen, wondering whether the
dramatic death by fire of the woman in the field and the burning of Jack Plesance’s property had come as happy coincidences
for the Pure Sons of the West. They’d mentioned Owl Cottage on their website, careful not to claim responsibility directly
and denying all connection when they found out about the fatality, which meant they hardly registered in the Richter scale
of terrorism.

However, Wesley still wanted to keep an eye on them. They had allegedly made threats against Sheryl Bright. And they had talked
of taking action against second-home owners. The Pure Sons of the West were there, lodged in the back of his mind. He didn’t
believe in coincidences.

He heard Gerry Heffernan’s voice calling his name and he glanced at his watch. Six o’clock and he was feeling hungry. Pam
would be giving the kids their evening meal and wondering what time she’d see him that night. He stood up and walked slowly
to the DCI’s office, passing the huge noticeboard that almost took up one wall of the CID office. He could hardly bear to
look at the image of the two charred corpses, their blackened lips drawn back to reveal smoke-stained, grimacing teeth. It
was hard to believe that one of them had been Ian Rowe and the thought made Wesley feel slightly ill. Ashes to ashes. The
funeral service had it spot on.

Gerry Heffernan was in his office, feet up on the desk, looking totally relaxed. He patted his bulging stomach and grunted
at Wesley to take a seat.

‘Anything new, Wes?’

Wesley recounted his conversation with Caroline Tay, the news that a middle-aged man who wouldn’t give his name had been enquiring
about Nadia Lucas’s whereabouts.

Gerry pondered the matter for a few moments. ‘They seek her here, they seek her there, eh. I asked Trish to find out what
she could about her but there’s not much.’

‘Caroline Tay says she never mentioned her family, which is odd.’

‘They could all be dead or maybe they emigrated to Australia or something. Or they could be up in an isolated croft in the
Highlands of Scotland. According to Trish she got her degree in Medieval History at York University so her relatives could
be up there in the wilds of North Yorkshire,’ Gerry added absentmindedly. ‘Let’s face it, they could be anywhere.’

‘Did Trish find out anything else?’

‘She’s working on it.’

‘We still don’t know what she did between graduating and getting the job with Crace.’

‘Eva Liversedge might be able to tell us.’

‘Yes, there’s bound to be references and that sort of thing.’

‘If it’s relevant.’

Wesley knew the boss had a point. He had a strong feeling that whatever was going on had its roots in the time Nadia worked
for Crace, not in the distant past.

‘We’re talking as if this whole thing revolves round this Nadia. She could be a distraction. She could turn up at any minute.’

‘Ian Rowe was e-mailing her. Ian Rowe had her car. Ian Rowe’s dead and she’s disappeared off the face of the earth.’

‘Could she have killed him?’

Wesley sighed. ‘I don’t know what to think. Could Nadia be the woman in the field? I’ve asked Rachel to get some samples from
her house for DNA matching.’

‘Good.’

‘We’ve no reason to believe that Rowe’s death and the woman in the field are linked. But if it does turn out to be Nadia …’

Gerry Heffernan shook his head. ‘My money’s still on it being this Lithuanian lass. We need to talk to her mate but the interpreter’s
gone home and she’s not available till tomorrow morning – some domestic crisis apparently.’

‘Don’t they know it’s a murder inquiry?’

Gerry gave a dramatic shrug. There were some things that couldn’t be rushed. ‘And what about the Pure Sons of the West?’ he
continued. ‘I’ve yet to be convinced that they’re as pure as they try to make out. They’ve been sending letters to Sheryl
Bright threatening to burn her alive. It seems too much of a coincidence that a woman just happens to be burned alive in the
field owned by Sheryl’s husband. And I don’t like coincidences.’

The two men sat in amicable silence for a few moments. During the morning briefing, Gerry had scrawled his thoughts about
the various suspects and other dramatis personae on the notice board, linking the names with crooked lines where he thought
there
was a link, however tentative. The board had ended up looking like the web of a drunken spider. It hadn’t helped at all.

Wesley broke the silence. ‘Grandal Field must be significant.’

‘Go on.’

‘It might be worth having another word with Professor Demancour. He’s interested in Stephen de Grendalle, who owned the land
back in the thirteenth century. There could be some link with the work Demancour did in France. Some Cathar connection.’

Gerry Heffernan smirked. ‘You’re not going to tell me it’s some secret about the Holy Grail and hidden treas-ure? Come on,
Wes, we’re wandering into the realms of fantasy here.’

‘As a matter of fact some treasure from the time of the Albigensian Crusade was found in a place called Saissac. It’s on display
in the town museum. Pam and I went to see it.’

He saw Gerry roll his eyes. ‘Very nice. But do you think this Ian Rowe might have known where to get second helpings?’

Wesley shrugged. ‘Gerry, I’ve really no idea. But I’m not ruling anything out at the moment. But it does seem odd that the
victim was burned to death on a site connected with Demancour’s research. And the Cathars were burned as heretics back in
the thirteenth century.’

There was a light knock on the door, followed by the appearance of DC Paul Johnson. ‘Sir. I’ve just had Mrs Grogen on the
phone … Donna Grogen’s mother.’

It took Wesley a few moments to place the name. Since the DNA tests had proved that Donna wasn’t their victim in Grandal Field,
he had put her out of his mind. ‘Well? What did she say?’

‘Donna’s turned up.’

‘Alive and well, I take it?’

‘Yes. She went off with a lorry driver, only this particular lorry driver was an ex-boyfriend of Mrs Grogan’s and that’s why
Donna kept so quiet about it all. It’s been going on for a while apparently and she was using that Chas Ventisard as a smokescreen.
Now it’s all over Donna’s come back with her tail between her legs. Do you want someone to have a word?’

Gerry sighed. ‘I suppose we could do her for wasting police time. But then she didn’t really know we’d be panicking and thinking
she was lying dead in Colin’s mortuary, did she? Rach saw the mother before so I suppose she should go and have a quick word
when she’s free. Just to put the lid on it.’

‘And to see what Donna knows about Chas Ventisard and the Pure Sons of the West,’ said Wesley. ‘She was involved with Ventisard
and she works for Jon Bright. She might still be up to her neck in it.’

Gerry Heffernan gave Wesley a sideways look. He was right, of course. Donna Grogen wasn’t off the hook just yet.

Sheryl Bright parked her Mini Cooper in a passing place, some distance from the field’s entrance, and walked the rest of the
way. It was dusk now and she could see the lights of Tradmouth twinkling, reflected
like jewels on the river’s choppy waters.

She opened the gate to the field and the hinges gave a complaining squeal, cutting through the silence. This place wouldn’t
be silent at night for much longer, she thought. Soon there would be car engines and sound systems and chattering televisions
and children’s screeching voices. Soon the quiet earth would be buried forever beneath bricks and concrete. And it was her
husband, Jon, who would bring about its sterile death. Somehow that made everything worse.

In the distance Sheryl could hear the chugging engine of the passenger ferry, still plying to and fro from Queenswear to Tradmouth.
She could see its lights as it glided across the water like some exotic pond-skating insect. She stood quite still and felt
her eyes prickle with nascent tears. She had grown up in Queenswear. When she was a child she’d played with her brothers in
the surrounding fields and she’d run across the cowpat-strewn grass to the trees by the water’s edge on summer afternoons.
And later she’d dug down and exposed its secrets … but that was something she preferred to forget.

She wrestled a tissue from the pocket of her jeans and blew her nose. She was getting sentimental and that would never do.
There was too much at stake.

She looked at her watch. He was late. She wished now that he hadn’t suggested this place – not after what had happened. She
had avoided looking at the corner of the field that was still cordoned off with police tape – the corner where the woman had
been engulfed by the flames – but now she summoned the
courage to turn and look. It seemed so ordinary now. Just a blackened patch, barely visible in the fading light. But her imagination
still supplied that terrible picture of the flames and she thought she could still hear faint, terrified, screams wafting
towards her on the breeze blowing in from the river.

She didn’t hear him coming up behind her and when he touched her arm she jumped.

‘You nearly gave me a heart attack,’ she whispered. Somehow whispering seemed appropriate, even though there was nobody around
to hear now that the archaeologists had all gone home.

She felt his arms engulfing her, holding her tight, secure.

‘I’ve had a visit from the police.’ The man’s voice was serious, worried.

‘And?’

‘I said nothing, like we agreed. Perhaps we should— ’

‘No.’ Sheryl Bright put a finger up to her companion’s lips.

But he pushed her hand away gently before kissing her, tentatively at first and then more passionately. But he kept his eyes
open, focused on the spot where the woman had burned to death on that awful Tuesday night the week before.

Unfortunately, there is little written evidence to back up my theory that Raymond Tresorer’s daughter Jeanne is the same Jeanne
whom Stephen de Grendalle brought back as his bride to his estates in Queenswear.

Tresorer was a knight in the household of Guillaume de Minerve. He was an important and trusted man and a prominent figure
in the Cathar church. We do not know whether he was actually one of the
Perfecti
, or
bons hommes
as the Cathars called them (good men or friends of God).
Perfecti
were men or women who lived in working communities but as members of a strict monastic order, eschewing sexual relations and
eating no meat, as an animal might contain a soul waiting for revelation. The ordinary Cathar believer wasn’t subject to these
strict rules but he or she was required to have faith and prepare to attain knowledge through a spiritual baptism called the
consolament which would be carried out by a member of the
Perfecti
on the believer’s deathbed.