The Plague Maiden (13 page)

He made himself a slice of toast and rushed out, making his way down the steep streets towards the centre of the town. It
was drizzling and the air was damp and cold. This walk was an easy pleasure in the summer but an effort when the weather was
less kind. Wesley kept it up throughout the year, however, because he knew the exercise was good for him.

Rachel was already at her desk surrounded by paperwork when he reached the office. It looked as if she’d been there some time.
Wesley asked her what time she’d left work the previous night and she answered ten o’clock with a meaningful smile.

‘Have we got a name for our skeleton yet?’ he asked, sticking to work matters.

‘I’ve looked through the files and this Helen Wilmer seems the most likely candidate. She was a third-year student at Morbay
University and she lived at home. She told her parents she was going out to see a friend one evening but she never came back.
And guess what …’

‘What?’

‘Before she started at university she had been a Sunday school teacher at the Reverend Shipborne’s church. And she went missing
a week after he was murdered. Coincidence?’

Wesley raised his eyebrows. It was sometimes difficult
to believe in coincidences. ‘Do we have an address for her parents?’

Rachel nodded and handed him a file. ‘Help yourself. It’s all in there. The boss wants to see you, by the way. He’s gone to
the Chief Super’s office but …’

Before she could finish her sentence Wesley heard Gerry Heffernan’s voice; he was in the corridor outside the CID office and
getting nearer. He sounded as though something was annoying him.

He halted in the doorway and looked around. His eyes lighted on Wesley. ‘Wes. Glad you could make it. You ready for our little
jaunt?’ With a jerk of the head, Heffernan summoned him into his office. Wesley followed.

‘The Chief Super’s had Aaron Hunting on the phone wondering what we’re doing about the threats to his stores.’

‘We’re checking out former employees and we’re still waiting for the results of the tests on that jam we found at the Sommerbys’;
Steve and Paul found nothing on the security videos … certainly no sign of Edward Baring or Patience Reid; and Forensic have
found nothing on the letters. According to Mr Sturgeon nobody working in the store has noticed anything unusual. The store
was shut while they made a search but Aaron Hunting’s reluctant to keep it closed just on the off-chance that something’ll
happen. So until our poisoner makes his … or her … next move, I don’t see what else we can do.’

‘Aaron Hunting’s a neighbour of mine, you know, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen him. He lives in one of the big waterfront
houses beyond the tower at the end of Baynard’s Quay. Huge place … own mooring, swimming pool, the lot. I’ve seen his yacht
on the river … a vulgar gin palace called the
Hunting Moon
.’ There was no envy in Heffernan’s voice. The
Hunting Moon
wouldn’t have been his style even if he could have afforded it. ‘Tell you what, Wes, let’s send Rachel and Paul round to
reassure him that we’re doing all we can. They can be trusted not to make dirty marks on his carpets or fart in public.’ He
looked at
his watch. ‘Isn’t it about time we set off? Hobson’s brief is coming in for the meeting. Apparently our Mrs Powell wrote to
her former bit of rough in prison, saying she was going to tell us the whole story. He’ll be well prepared.’

‘Pity. I would have liked the element of surprise.’

‘So would I, Wes. So would I.’

Neil Watson still bore the wounds of his particular battle bravely but he was definitely on the mend. He pushed himself up
onto his pillows when he spotted Matt hovering at the entrance to the ward holding a large envelope and a bag of grapes and
looking mildly confused, as though he had encountered some alien culture and wasn’t quite sure of the etiquette. Neil attempted
a hearty wave but paid for his effort with a stab of pain across the ribs.

Matt ambled over. He had come straight from the dig and hadn’t made much attempt to clean himself up, but the staff seemed
too busy to notice, the days of the fearsome ward sister with all-seeing eyes being long in the past.

As Matt sat down on the visitor’s chair, they mumbled meaningless pleasantries before getting down to the subject nearest
to their hearts – the dig.

‘You’ve missed all the excitement. We opened up a new trench hoping to find out how far the burial pit extended and we found
another skeleton … just on its own.’ He looked at Neil, preparing for the punch line. ‘Only this one had fillings.’

Neil sat forward and winced with pain. ‘What?’

‘It had modern dental work and it was definitely a separate burial, not related to the others – we only dug in that spot because
there was a small geophysics anomaly there … the skeleton was bang on top of a fairly modern drain. Dr Bowman thinks she was
strangled so they’re treating it as suspicious.’

‘So you’ve been seeing a lot of Wesley, then?’

‘I reckon he was hoping the body was old but no such luck.’

‘Has he identified it yet?’

Matt shrugged. Neil took that as a no.

‘So how’s the dig going?’ Neil sounded worried. If modern bodies had started to turn up, maybe things were getting too much
for Matt.

‘We’ve had to stop for a while.’

‘Has someone told the developers?’

‘They’re not pleased but there’s nothing they can do about it. And they know they can’t go ahead until all the plague skeletons
have been removed … if it is the plague.’

‘That’s something I can be getting on with while I’m out of action – I can do a bit of research into local history. If half
the population of Belsham was wiped out there’s bound to be some mention of it somewhere.’

Matt looked sceptical. Neil hardly looked up to trawling round the archives of Exeter just yet: even driving up there would
probably be out of the question in his state.

‘There’s a bloke I met when we started the dig: Dr William Verlan … he teaches history at Morbay University and he’s just
got back from a year’s sabbatical in the States. He lives in Belsham and he seems well up on local history.’

‘Think he’ll be willing to do your leg work for you?’ Matt smiled. After working with Neil for several years, he knew how
his mind worked.

‘It’s term time so I expect he’ll be otherwise engaged.’ Neil looked at the large brown envelope Matt was clutching in his
hand as though he was reluctant to let it go. ‘What’s in there?’

Matt handed it to Neil. ‘Have a look. You remember I told you that a corroded medieval dagger was dug up when you were attacked?
It looked as if it belonged to the skeleton with the head injuries …’

‘What about it?’

‘We had it X-rayed and the image has come up really well. Have a look.’

Neil slid the X-ray from the envelope and held it up to the light. He could just make out the shape of the dagger
… and something on the hilt. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust but as he stared he could just make out a shape on
the thickest part of the hilt … a barrel perhaps … no, a half-moon. It was so clear now that he was annoyed with himself for
not seeing it right away.

‘Probably a coat of arms,’ Matt said. ‘If we can find out whose …’

‘When I get out of this place I’ll get working on it,’ Neil said with determination. He felt a lot stronger and his head had
almost stopped throbbing. He was just longing for freedom.

‘When are they letting you out?’

‘Could be later today, they said. They don’t tell you much.’

‘And what’ll you do when you get out? I mean, will you be able to look after yourself or … ?’ Matt asked the question tentatively,
fearing that it would be assumed that he and Jane would be responsible for the invalid: neither of them was any good with
illness.

‘Don’t know yet,’ Neil answered with a vague smile. ‘Play it by ear, eh.’

Somehow Matt suspected that he had something planned: he just hoped those plans didn’t involve him.

Rachel Tracey was looking through sheets of paper. She seemed to spend a lot of time doing that recently, and she presumed
that it was just the unacceptable face of modern policing.

Today’s batch of papers contained details of Huntings’ former employees, gleaned from the personnel files by Keith Sturgeon’s
efficient right-hand woman, Sunita. Rachel trawled through them with only half her mind on what she was reading.

She had begun to make a list of possibles, people who might be worth interviewing, people who hadn’t really fitted in at Huntings.
At the same time she had crossed out other names; students who had been there only a few weeks
in the holidays and had left for bigger and better things, and people who had led a blameless life at Huntings and left for
better-paid jobs or for legitimate family reasons. She was aware that her mental profile of the Huntings poisoner might be
too rigid, but they had only limited manpower so she had to start somewhere.

Her eyes were tired. She had hardly slept the night before. She had lain awake, tossing and turning in the single bed she
had slept in since childhood, and she had avoided a conversation with her mother over breakfast by getting up late and grabbing
a slice of toast on the way to her car. Sometimes she felt that she couldn’t live at Little Barton Farm for much longer, being
treated like a child … but then again it was convenient and somehow comforting to go home to the farmhouse after a day tackling
the district’s low life. But she did worry about Dave’s arrival, about the hints her parents would make about her settling
down. In their eyes Dave, the good-looking, unassuming Australian brought up on a large sheep farm, was the ideal catch for
a farmer’s daughter. But Rachel wanted more … longed for the forbidden. Sometimes she thought that if her mother could read
her thoughts, she’d be shocked.

She scanned the paper in front of her, hardly seeing the words. She needed a coffee to wake her up, so she walked to the machine
in the corridor outside and got herself a plastic cup full of a brown liquid that claimed to be coffee, although one could
never be quite sure.

She took a sip, hardly noticing the taste, and as she sat down again a name at the bottom of the printed sheet on her desk
caught her eye. Frederick John Sommerby.

She leaned forward, feeling suddenly awake. Frederick John Sommerby, warehouseman. Dismissed on 30 April 1993 for punching
and injuring the warehouse manager. Immediate dismissal was followed by a ban from Huntings premises because of threats made
to management.

It was a few words at the bottom of the page in very
small print, but it told Rachel everything she needed to know. She took another sip of coffee and sat back feeling pleased
with herself. When Wesley got back she’d have something to tell him.

I have heard the fourteenth century called ‘the Devil’s Century’, and from everything I’ve ever heard or read about it I can
see why. But then hasn’t our own been even worse with two bloody world wars and atrocities across the globe? Perhaps our smugness,
our self-satisfied arrogance and our blind confidence in the great god Science prevent us from seeing our own faults. I was
guilty of all that once so I have no cause to feel superior
.

When I read the results of Barnaby’s research and learned of the tragic events that occurred in this very village all those
centuries ago, I suddenly saw the truth. King Death reigns now just as he has always reigned. And I have been his servant
.

I had taken little note of the tombs and graffiti in the bell-tower but yesterday I went to see them for myself. When I read
the inscriptions I knelt on the floor there and wept, begging the Lord’s forgiveness. Afterwards I told the churchwardens
that the tower had to be kept locked for safety reasons. I cannot tell them the truth. I cannot say that facing those horrific
reminders of my own sin fills me with terror
.

From a diary found among the Reverend John Shipborne’s personal effects

Christopher Elvis Hobson sat next to his solicitor, eyes downcast, fidgeting with a packet of cigarettes. Wesley studied him.
Initially nature had dealt Hobson a generous hand: he had good bone structure and in his youth he would have been classically
handsome in a Hollywood kind of way. But his hair – raven black when Janet Powell had known him – had turned a dull pepper-and-salt
grey during his years spent as a guest of Her Majesty, and his lined and sallow skin displayed an unhealthy pallor. A spot
of fresh air and sunshine would probably have done him the world of good. And perhaps after today those things wouldn’t just
be an unattainable dream.

‘So she wrote to you and all?’ Heffernan folded his arms and leaned back, awaiting an answer.

‘Yes.’ The monosyllabic reply was barely audible. Hobson took a cigarette out of the packet and lit it.

‘You must have been surprised that she’d come forward after all this time.’

Hobson looked him in the eye. ‘Yeah. I knew she’d gone off to the States. I’d given up hope of her ever coming forward. Have
you seen her?’

‘Yes.’ It was Wesley who spoke. ‘One thing that puzzles me is why you didn’t mention this alibi at the time of your arrest.
If she could have proved your innocence, why didn’t you tell the police?’

‘I did tell them later on … when I was about to be charged. But that bloody Norbert ignored it … never seemed interested in
checking it out. I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t want to involve her – she was married … had a lot to lose. And
I knew she was living in the States but I’d no idea where or how to get hold of her. Besides, I never thought I’d go down
for it. I never thought they’d have enough evidence. I knew I was innocent and ’

‘So as well as being chivalrous, you had a touching faith in British justice?’

He looked at Wesley as though the policeman had just said something in a foreign language. ‘You what?’

‘Nothing. Go on.’

Hobson didn’t need much encouragement. He was just getting into his stride. ‘I never thought I’d need Janet’s alibi at first
… my brief swore they didn’t have enough evidence to convict.’ He leaned forward. ‘I was fitted up by your lot, you know that.’

Heffernan straightened himself up. ‘How do you mean, fitted up?’ He had heard this story before … in fact he’d rarely met
a villain who hadn’t been fitted up by somebody or other.

‘That bloody Norbert, that’s who I mean. I told him I never knew how that silver came to be in my flat. I’d never seen it
before, I swear.’

‘Is there anything else that’s come back to you?’

Hobson glanced at his solicitor, who was sitting there expressionless. He looked as if he was bored with the proceedings,
but Wesley sensed he was taking in every word.

‘Yeah. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, haven’t I? There’s one thing that’s stuck in my mind. There was the lad
in the pub. He was talking to a couple of other lads while I was in there, then later on, when I drove past in Janet’s car,
I saw him hanging round outside the vicarage.’

‘How do you know it was the vicarage?’

‘Saw it on the telly the next day … on the news. I recognised it.’

‘Can you describe this young man?’

‘He was just a lad. Young … about eighteen. Dark hair, round face. Denim jeans and jacket. That’s about all really. He was
standing under a street lamp outside the vicarage, looking around as if he was up to no good, so I got a good look at him.
I told them all about this at the time.’

Wesley and Heffernan looked at each other. ‘There’s nothing in the files about any lad.’

‘Well, I told that Norbert.’ There was an edge of bitterness in Hobson’s voice, but then, Wesley thought, if he was indeed
innocent, this was hardly surprising.

‘I’m surprised that this story wasn’t followed up. I presume the police made some effort to trace this young man?’ Wesley
tilted his head to one side, awaiting a reply.

‘Norbert didn’t seem interested. He reckoned it was a fairy story. But it’s true.’

The two policemen exchanged glances again. Norbert had probably made up his mind about Hobson’s guilt and was reluctant to
waste time checking out his story. The line between sloppy policing and corruption was sometimes a fine one. Wesley suddenly
found himself wishing he knew more about ex-DCI Norbert.

‘Now think hard, had you ever seen the young man in the pub before?’

Hobson looked at him, puzzled. ‘I told the police all about it at the time. I did a job for one of them posh private schools.
Now I could be wrong, but I’m sure I saw him there.’

‘What was he doing there? Working or … ’

Hobson shook his head. ‘No. He was in school uniform … he was one of the kids. I’m good on faces and I swear it was him. I
told Norbert but he didn’t want to know.’

‘Which school was this?’ Wesley’s mind was working overtime.

‘It was opposite the church … in St Peters.’ St Peters was a district of Morbay. ‘Now what was it called?’

Wesley hadn’t lived in the area long so he looked at Gerry Heffernan expectantly. But when Gerry looked blank and failed to
come up with a name, he found himself thinking that Rachel would have known: she was a mine of local knowledge, her family
having lived and farmed in the area for generations.

‘We’ll find it,’ said Wesley confidently. If they made for St Peters and headed for the local church, they would be bound
to find something as conspicuous as a school.

‘So tell us what happened on the night the Reverend Shipborne died,’ Heffernan said, watching Hobson’s face. He used to pride
himself on knowing when people were
lying to him, but that certain confidence had vanished with the onset of middle age and these days he wasn’t so sure.

Hobson took a deep breath, preparing to retell a story he must have gone over a thousand times. ‘I’d arranged to meet Janet
in Belsham at seven. Nobody knew us there. I arrived about quarter to and had a couple in the pub while I was waiting for
her, then at seven I went outside to meet her … she was just pulling up in her car when I left the pub.’

‘Go on,’ Wesley prompted. So far his account matched Janet Powell’s perfectly.

‘We talked in the car for ages, probably about half an hour or it could have been longer … we had a lot to talk about. That’s
when she told me she was going to live in America and she couldn’t see me any more. Then we went for a drive around some villages
’cause she didn’t want to go in the pub … she was scared someone would see us together and tell her husband.’ He looked down
at his fingers, yellow with nicotine. ‘Then we went back to my place in Morbay.’

‘How did you feel about her going to the States?’ Wesley was aware that he was sounding like some sort of counsellor but he
didn’t know what else to say.

‘Gutted.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose I was stupid to think she felt the same as I did. If she’d left her husband I would have gone
straight … ’

‘What time did she leave your flat?’

‘Around midnight.’

‘And you haven’t seen each other since that night?’ Heffernan asked, mentally adding the words ‘to concoct this story between
you’.

‘No. I never heard from her again ’till I got the letter a week ago, honest. I didn’t even have an address for her. I knew
she’d gone to America but that’s all I knew.’

‘So there have been no phone calls, no contact whatsoever?’

Hobson shook his head.

‘We can check.’

‘Check, then. I’m telling the truth.’

The solicitor stirred in his seat. He had been so still Wesley had thought he had fallen asleep. ‘I think we have grounds
for an appeal, Chief Inspector. Don’t you?’

‘That’s not for me to decide but I shouldn’t be surprised.’

Chris Hobson was sitting there with a smug grin on his face, thinking of the compensation he’d get for his years of wrongful
imprisonment.

But Wesley’s mind was still on the Shipborne case. If Hobson hadn’t killed the vicar, who had? ‘Do you think you’d be able
to recognise the young man in the pub again … from a photograph maybe?’

Hobson looked up at him and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I reckon I would. I never forget a face … and I’ve had the last twelve
years to think about it, haven’t I.’

As Wesley watched the prison officer usher Chris Hobson out of the room, he thought that maybe it had been worth the journey
after all.

Rachel Tracey was angry, prickling with injured pride. Her status had been called into question and it rankled, irritated,
annoying as a pursuing wasp. As she sat at her desk and tried to concentrate on her paperwork, she couldn’t quite get the
slight out of her mind.

And somehow the fact that Aaron Hunting had been scrupulously polite didn’t make it any better. He had even apologised for
taking up her and Paul Johnson’s time when he had dismissed them. Some might have talked of organ grinders and monkeys, but
he had merely stated that he wished to speak to a senior officer about his problem and left it at that. But the effect had
been the same. It was the organ grinder he wanted to see rather than being fobbed off with his monkeys, and no amount of protestation
that Chief Inspector Heffernan was otherwise engaged on an important case would convince Aaron Hunting to make do with anyone
more lowly.

But she had managed to get a look at the house … the entrance hall and main room anyway. She had stood – she hadn’t been invited
to sit – in the spacious living room and looked out on the river through the massive window that took up the entire end wall
of the room. The light from the water reflected on the polished oak floor and white walls, forming ever-changing ripples of
light, and she could hardly take her eyes off the scene outside; the boats skimming to and fro across the water and the hill-hung
town of Queenswear on the opposite bank with its pastel houses and old stone church. It was quite a view. But then if you
owned a chain of successful supermarkets you could afford such luxuries.

There had been no sign of a Mrs Hunting, but, Rachel thought, such a woman – if she existed – might be out lunching or doing
good works or whatever it was wealthy men’s wives did to pass the time. There was no sign of any children either – in fact
the whole place seemed impersonally neat … like a very expensive hotel suite.

Rachel was a naturally curious woman – probably a genetic condition inherited from her mother – and she found herself longing
to find out more about Hunting’s private life.

But she told herself firmly that she was becoming as bad as her mother and turned her attention to the heap of paper on her
desk. The details from Huntings about former employees – and Fred Sommerby in particular – lay in pride of place in the centre,
a trophy to be displayed when Wesley returned from his interview with Chris Hobson. She picked up the missing-persons file
on Helen Wilmer. Wesley hadn’t had a chance to examine it but there was nothing to stop her having a closer look … and maybe
ferreting out some valuable snippet of information that they could follow up together. Wesley always figured in her plans
somehow.

She leaned on her elbows and opened the file. Helen Wilmer’s photograph lay on the top. A pretty girl with
thick brown hair, freckles and a wide, generous mouth smiled up at her. Rachel looked at the intelligent, watchful eyes and
thought that if she had met the girl she might not have trusted her. She had no reason for this assumption … it was a gut
feeling. But if Wesley’s theory was right, Helen Wilmer had been reduced to a heap of bones in the cold earth of a Devon field
and that smile had been extinguished for ever.

She put the photograph to one side and began to read the sheets of paper in the file. Helen had been twenty-one, so her disappearance
hadn’t been treated with the urgency it would have been if she had been much younger. She had had a blazing row with her parents
before she disappeared – a row about an unsuitable boyfriend – and this fact had led to her having been treated as a missing
person rather than a potential murder victim.

The unsuitable boyfriend had been questioned at the time but had denied all knowledge of her whereabouts. The police had circulated
her description but had had no response. She had said she was going to Neston to visit a girlfriend but had never arrived.
She had never caught the ten-to-seven bus into Neston as planned. She had disappeared somewhere between her house on the outskirts
of the village and the bus stop next to Pest Field on the main road into Neston. It had been a fine, clear night in November
and it seemed as though the last person to have seen Helen alive was a Mrs Bettison, who knew her from St Alphage’s church
where she had once taught in the Sunday school. It seemed that Helen, Mrs Bettison and Helen’s killer were the only people
out and about in Belsham that night, and Rachel wondered whether this had anything to do with the Reverend Shipborne’s brutal
death. Perhaps the residents of Belsham had locked themselves in their homes, fearing that the killer would strike again.
There was nothing like a murder in the neighbourhood for keeping people indoors.