The Plague Maiden (31 page)

Gerry Heffernan wasn’t one of nature’s PR men. And Wesley shared his view that Chris Hobson could best be served if they discovered
the truth and cleared his name once and for all. No lingering doubts. No TV documentaries in a year or so’s time claiming
that Hobson did it after all. By the time they reached Dermot O’Donovan’s front door, Wesley was feeling quite indignant on
his boss’s behalf.

Rachel hadn’t said much. When Wesley, making conversation, had ventured to ask her how her flat-hunting was progressing, she
made a non-committal reply: she had viewed a few more flats around Tradmouth, without her parents’ knowledge, but she still
hadn’t found anything suitable. For the rest of the journey they stuck to work matters.

Dermot O’Donovan lived on a new estate on the outskirts of Plymouth; all brick driveways, mock Tudor gables and en suite bathrooms.
When Wesley had met him he had said he owned his own building firm. If his house was anything to judge by, the business must
be ticking along nicely.

Wesley was surprised to find O’Donovan’s front door wide open and a couple of men standing on the doorstep. They wore grey
suits and looked like a pair of shifty chartered accountants. As Wesley emerged from the passenger door and slammed it loudly
behind him, the men turned, frowning. He had the feeling he wasn’t welcome.

He advanced on them, holding out his warrant card like a shield. ‘DI Wesley Peterson, Tradmouth CID. I’m here to have a word
with a Mr Dermot O’Donovan. Is he at home?’ He thought it best to ignore the hostile looks that were being beamed his way.
The men stood side by side in the doorway facing him. One was tall and thin, the other shorter and fatter with a moustache.
Wesley was reminded of Laurel and Hardy … but this pair didn’t look funny.

The tall, thin man scowled and held out a warrant card of his own. ‘Be my guest, mate. Inspector Nick Forbes, Fraud Squad,
and this is DS Masters. We’re here to have a word with Mr O’Donovan about his business interests …
and we’ve been searching the premises.’

As if on cue Rachel emerged from the driver’s seat, smiling. ‘Nick. Nice to see you again. How are you?’

Forbes blushed and smoothed down his hair. ‘I’m fine, Rachel. Long time no see, eh? What’s all this about, then?’

Wesley, annoyed at being pointedly ignored, answered. ‘We’re conducting a murder investigation. We need to speak to Mr O’Donovan.’

As Wesley watched Forbes undressing Rachel with his eyes, he felt an unexpected stab of anger.

‘Well, we won’t be here for much longer.’ Forbes took his eyes off Rachel and addressed Wesley. ‘O’Donovan’s inside … help
yourself.’

They stood aside to let Wesley and Rachel into the house. Dermot O’Donovan had just emerged from the kitchen, chewing at the
nails of his right hand.

He looked at Wesley defiantly. ‘What the hell do you want? I’ve got two of your lot here already.’

‘Sorry to bother you, Mr O’Donovan, but we’d like to ask you a few more questions about the murder of the Reverend John Shipborne …
and Helen Wilmer.’

Wesley wasn’t mistaken; for a split second Dermot O’Donovan looked frightened. ‘I’ve told you all I know already. Look, my
wife’ll be back soon. I’d appreciate it if you could get all this over and done with before …’ He spotted Forbes making for
the stairs. ‘What are you doing? You’ve been up there already.’

‘We won’t be much longer … sir,’ said Forbes, as though he planned to take his time if it suited him. He looked at his colleague.
‘I take it we’ve seen all your business accounts?’

‘I’ve told you already … most of them are in my office.’

‘Some of our colleagues are searching your office premises at the
moment, sir. We’re just here to make sure you’re not keeping any little secrets from us.’ DS Masters grinned unpleasantly
and touched his moustache as he gave Rachel a knowing wink.

‘Why don’t we go through to your living room to have a
chat,’ Wesley suggested, anxious to put some distance between himself and the pair of clowns from the Fraud Squad. O’Donovan
nodded, resigned to his fate, and led the way.

‘What’s all that about?’ Wesley asked as he sank into O’Donovan’s expensive leather armchair.

‘It looks as if my accountant’s been cooking my books. Nothing to do with me.’

Wesley found himself almost believing this heartfelt protestation of innocence. He was beginning to think that O’Donovan should
have chosen acting as a career rather than building.

‘They’re not going to find anything, you know. I’ve got nothing to hide.’

‘We’ve been to see Barry Castello.’

O’Donovan’s expression gave nothing away. ‘Have you?’

‘Told us you were a bad lad.’

‘Surely you knew that already. I’ve made no secret of it.’

‘Where were you when the Reverend Shipborne was murdered?’

‘I was in the pub with some mates but I left early and went straight home … got back about the same time as my mum. I was there
the rest of the evening … my mother’ll tell you.’

‘Were you asked about your whereabouts at the time?’

Dermot thought for a moment. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘We’ve come across
someone else who says he was in the Horse and Farrier that evening … Philip Norbert. Know him?’

Dermot frowned. ‘There was a lad called Phil … dark hair … went to some posh school … bit of a tearaway.’

‘Was he there that night?’

‘Can’t remember after all this time. Might have been.’

‘And where were you when Helen Wilmer disappeared?’

‘Home with my mum. I told the police.’

‘Did you love Helen?’ Rachel asked quietly.

He shrugged. ‘I was very young … and what is love anyway?’

Rachel didn’t reply.

‘Look, Mr O’Donovan,’ said Wesley, ‘I want you to tell us everything you know about Helen Wilmer. Who were her friends? What
was her relationship with the Reverend Shipborne? What kind of girl was she? Did she mention that she was worried about anything?
Afraid of anybody?’

Dermot thought for a few moments. ‘Well, there was a bloke at the supermarket … at Huntings: she worked there in the holidays.
He was a big bloke … worked in the warehouse. She used to say she wished he’d stop following her about and staring at her.’

Wesley sat forward. This was a new piece of information. Edith Sommerby’s unpleasant husband had once worked in Huntings’
warehouse. And someone else whose name escaped him for the moment.

‘That wouldn’t be a man called Edward Baring?’ Luckily Rachel had a better memory for names.

Dermot shook his head. ‘I don’t remember the name but I saw him once. Curly hair and built like a brick shithouse.’

This sounded like Big Eddie all right. ‘So what did he do?’ Wesley asked.

‘Just used to watch her … gave her the creeps.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘Not that she told me.’

Wesley and Rachel looked at each other. It might be worth paying Big Eddie another visit.

‘Can you think of anything else?’ asked Rachel.

Dermot was silent for a few seconds, as though making a decision. When he
eventually spoke the words came out in a rush. ‘It was Helen’s idea. I had nothing to do with it. I just read the letter through
for her.’

‘What letter?’

‘She wrote it and asked me to read it through. I said it was a stupid idea but she thought it’d be fun … like an adventure.
I said it could be dangerous but she said it could get us some cash … it could get us out of Belsham and off to London.’

‘What did the letter say?’

‘I can’t remember exactly. Something like “I saw you coming out of the vicarage”, and she asked for a thousand pounds to keep
quiet. I didn’t want anything to do with it.’

Wesley leaned forward, his heart beating. ‘So who was the letter addressed to? Who was she trying to blackmail?’

But Dermot shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea. She said it was best if I didn’t know. I thought she was playing a game. I never
thought she’d go through with it …’

Wesley looked him in the eye. ‘We keep hearing that Helen was a nice girl before she got involved with you. She was a student
teacher … she used to teach in the Sunday school. Now how does a girl like that become a scheming little blackmailer? You tell
me that.’

Dermot shrugged, the ghost of a smile on his face. ‘She didn’t need much encouraging, believe me. It was like she’d been in
a cage for years and when she saw the outside world she went wild.’

‘And you were the outside world?’

‘Perhaps I was at first. But she was more than up for it … gagging to lose her virginity and try out dope. She used to like
taking risks … she scared me sometimes. I might have taught her a thing or two about life but she was a bloody good pupil and
when she disappeared I thought she’d just moved on to bigger things … maybe gone to London without me to try her luck.’

‘Do you know if the letter was ever sent?’

‘I’d told her it was a stupid idea so she never mentioned it again. I thought she’d taken my advice and torn it up.’

‘And you never tried to find out what had happened to her?’

‘I did at first but then later I moved on … as you see.’ There was a commotion outside in the hallway. Wesley looked round
as a woman entered. She was bottle blonde with a thin, pinched face, and a pair of small children, a boy with a crew cut and
a girl with a fair ponytail, both dressed in fancy private school blazers, stood either side of her like bodyguards.

‘What the hell’s going on? They say they’re police … what’s been happening?’

Dermot O’Donovan stood up, walked over to his wife and put a protective arm around her as the children looked on, half curious,
half excited at having policemen in the house. ‘It’s just a misunderstanding, love. My accountant’s been on the fiddle … nothing
for you to worry about.’

Wesley almost found himself believing every word that Dermot said.

‘So is Dermot O’Donovan in the frame or not?’ Gerry Heffernan put his feet up on the desk.

Wesley was temporarily distracted by the sight of his boss’s shoes, worn down at the heel, in urgent need of a visit to the
menders.

‘Is he our man, Wes? What do you think?’

‘I think he probably knows more than he’s saying and he seems to have a formidable talent in the lie-telling department. But
I’ve no idea if he killed Shipborne or Helen Wilmer. He did say that Helen was wild … up for anything, as though she’d just
been released from a cage.’

‘That’s not the impression her parents gave us.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be, would it? But can we believe that she was blackmailing Shipborne’s killer and O’Donovan was the one
who was holding her back? What do you think?’

‘She wouldn’t be the first demure little miss who’s forgotten what she learned at Sunday school and strayed onto the path
of wickedness, Wes. O’Donovan could be telling the truth. In which case Shipborne’s killer is probably Helen’s killer and
all.’

‘Dermot said that Edward Baring, Big Eddie the metal detectorist, had a bit of a crush on Helen when she worked at Huntings …
used to stare at her and follow her about. There’s no hint that he did any more than that, but it might be worth having another
word with him.’

Heffernan nodded. ‘We’ll put him on our list. What did you learn from Barry Castello?’

‘He said that Shipborne had done something in his past that he was deeply ashamed of, but he didn’t know what it was.’

‘Murdered someone? Raped someone?’

‘Shipborne seemed to have been the type of man who would have been deeply ashamed if his library books were overdue. But it’s
worth looking into.’

There was a knock on the office door. Through the glass they could see Trish Walton standing outside with a piece of paper
in her hand. Heffernan beckoned her in.

‘You know you asked for a copy of Adam Hunting’s death certificate, sir … well, I’ve got one. There was an inquest as well
and the verdict was natural causes. He’d been ill for some time and he’d just had a major operation.’

Wesley took the paper from her and stared down at it. Unlike his parents and his sister, he had no detailed medical knowledge,
and he could only guess what the scrawled words in the ‘cause of death’ section meant. He looked at Adam’s date of birth.
He had been five when he died … a little boy born into a wealthy family with his life ahead of him. But at least now they knew
that young Adam’s death wasn’t suspicious. It had probably been a waste of time going to the trouble of getting the death
certificate – another dead end.

Gerry Heffernan interrupted his thoughts. ‘So what did the kid die of?’

‘I’m not sure yet. I think we should have another word with Aaron Hunting.’

‘Well, don’t mention his kid’s death. The poor bugger’s been through enough. I mean, his crazy daughter’s tried to ruin his
business and his wife’s just topped herself …’

But half an hour later they were parking outside Huntings supermarket in Morbay, Wesley still stinging slightly from Heffernan’s
accusations of insensitivity. They had phoned the company’s head office in Exeter and been told that Hunting was at the Morbay
branch, now reopened after the recent crisis. As they made their way up to Keith Sturgeon’s office, Wesley noticed that the
atmosphere
among the staff seemed lighter now that the threat of poisoning had been removed.

It was Sunita Choudray who showed them into the manager’s office. Wesley asked her whether everything was okay and she nodded
shyly. Presumably her parents weren’t aware of her secret yet. She asked what had happened to Loveday and Wesley told her.
She had been charged and remanded for psychiatric reports. Sunita appeared to have little sympathy, which was hardly surprising:
Loveday had killed one old lady, made two other people very ill and put all their jobs under threat.

Aaron Hunting was sitting in the manager’s chair while Keith Sturgeon sat opposite in the visitor’s seat, his shirt-sleeves
rolled up as though he was preparing for a hard afternoon’s work, his eyes fixed on the file in front of him. When Heffernan
said they wanted to see Mr Hunting alone, Sturgeon looked relieved and hurried from the room to attend to some unspecified
task.