The Plague Maiden (37 page)

Sturgeon took a deep breath. ‘It was worth it, believe me.’

‘And Amy’s suicide?’

‘When Hobson’s case went to appeal she must have realised the truth would come out eventually. She couldn’t face it.’

Wesley hesitated and glanced at Gerry Heffernan, who was watching in silence.

‘Shipborne suffered too, you know, Keith. He had a conscience. He heard a story about a man who’d done something similar,
put people’s lives at risk here in Belsham hundreds of years ago. The story haunted Shipborne so much that he had the church
tower locked up so he wouldn’t have to be reminded of it. He wasn’t the heartless man you think he was. He was tormented by
the thought of what he’d done. He’d made a dreadful mistake and he blamed himself for it. You didn’t have to punish him …
he punished himself.’

Heffernan scratched his head. He felt out of his depth. ‘I think we’d better carry on back at the station. You can ring your
solicitor when we get there.’

As the chief inspector prepared to recite the familiar words of the caution, there was a great roar as Keith Sturgeon bounded
across the cold stones of the church aisle towards the back of the building, like some desperate animal evading capture. The
sudden movement took the two policemen by surprise and they stood for a second, stunned, before they began to follow. Wesley
thought their quarry would make for the main door but instead he carried on in a straight line towards the tower. He leaned
his weight against the ancient door and it gave way with a crash. Once he was inside the door was slammed in their faces.

‘What does he think he’s doing?’ Heffernan asked, breathless.

Wesley, assuming the question was rhetorical, didn’t answer but concentrated his energies on pushing the door open. There
was something behind it: Sturgeon had erected some sort of makeshift barricade and Wesley cursed himself for not foreseeing
the situation.

‘What do we do now, Wes? Wait till he decides to come out?’

‘I don’t think he plans to come out.’

‘What?’ Heffernan looked at him.

‘I think we’ve got to get to him before he does anything stupid.’

Heffernan joined Wesley in pushing and with each shove they felt the obstacle blocking the doorway giving way a little. After
a while their persistence paid off and the door opened just wide enough for them to squeeze through into the darkness. Only
a tiny sliver of grey light filtered through a high, cobwebbed window, and it took their eyes some seconds to adjust. Wesley
could just make out the shapes of the Munnery tombs and the bell ropes, curled like snakes at the end to form nooses. But
there was no sign of Keith Sturgeon.

‘He must have gone up. Where’s the bloody door?’ Heffernan groped his way around the perimeter of the room, muttering oaths
under his breath as he banged into tombs and discarded pews. ‘It’s here. It’s not locked.’

There was a terrible creak as he pushed the small arched door open. ‘Do we go up or what?’

Wesley dodged past him. They had been responsible for allowing him to escape so it was up to them to make sure he was brought
in safely. He began to climb the narrow winding stone steps very carefully. They were steep and worn and the overwhelming
smell of damp pervaded the chill, stale air. He felt his way upwards in pitch darkness, the stone walls clammy beneath his
searching fingers. When he stopped and listened he couldn’t hear a sound, not even Heffernan behind him. The boss had done
the sensible thing and had stayed in the tower room, calling for back-up on his mobile. But Wesley knew that there might not
be time to wait for reinforcements.

He felt his way up the narrow spiral staircase, his hands clinging to the cold, damp roughness of the stones. This was what
it would be like to be blind: to have no idea what lay ahead. He felt his palms sweating with fear.

As he climbed he suddenly saw a shaft of dull grey light; the autumn daylight was creeping in through the louvres of
the bell chamber. As he drew level with the small, arched entrance he could make out the shapes of the bells, hanging between
their great wooden wheels like sleeping giants. As he stared at them, the things seemed almost to be breathing, as if they
were just waiting to be wakened by the twitch of a rope below.

He paused for a few moments, listening, but he could hear only the faint fluttering of pigeons’ wings in the still air, so
he continued up the steps, more slowly this time. At the top he found a wooden door, covered in dull green paint, dry and
flaking like diseased flesh, but when he tried the handle he found that it was locked. Sturgeon had vanished into thin air
… or he was hiding somewhere.

He felt his way slowly back down the steps until he reached the bell chamber. He stopped at the entrance and listened, but
he could hear nothing but the gentle cooing of the resident pigeons.

He was about to make his way down again when he heard a sudden frantic flutter of wings. He turned and stared into the bell
chamber, and as his eyes became used to the light he thought he could just make out an alien shape among the sleeping bells
… the shape of a man, squatting, half hidden by the solid mass of the tenor bell; the largest bell with the deepest voice
… the bell that tolls for death.

‘It’s no use running away, Keith. If you come down now we can sort this out.’

Sturgeon straightened himself up. ‘What’s the point? It’s all over. There’s nothing left.’ His voice echoed against the hard
metal of the bells.

‘There’s your wife.’ It was all Wesley could think of on the spur of the moment.

‘If my funeral coincided with a budget meeting, I doubt she’d bother coming.’

Wesley could think of nothing more to say, other than inappropriate clichés. That night in bed, with hindsight and after hours
of thought, he knew he’d be able to come up with some brilliant, life-saving speech … but now he was
lost for words. And the helpless inadequacy he felt was almost painful. ‘Just come down,’ he pleaded. ‘We can talk about this.’

He took a step forward into the bell chamber. He could hear the wind howling against the outside of the tower as the pigeons
beat their wings in alarm. He began to tread gingerly between the bells while Sturgeon watched him, impassive.

He was a few feet away from Sturgeon, walking stiffly, testing the safety of the floor with each step. But the man had begun
to back away from him.

‘We’d better go down now,’ he said softly.

It happened so quickly. The struggle, the flailing arms grabbing at the air as the floor splintered and gave way. The noise,
echoing like thunder around the tower as it set the silent bells swinging, tolling for a death for the first time in years.

When Gerry Heffernan, waiting below, heard the cry, like some primeval creature screaming out its last breath, he ran towards
the stairs, his heart thumping, mouthing Wesley’s name.

I read in the local paper that our Member of Parliament is to ask questions in the House of Commons about the events of that
summer and the effect the trials had on the population of this area. I’m not sure whether this is as a result of my public
confession, whether word has got about and people have begun to put two and two together
.

I did not mention my own suffering in my sermon and I have spoken of it to nobody since; to have mentioned my own loss would
have made it seem as if I was asking for pity … which I wasn’t as I blame only myself. When my little Mary was born, half
formed and barely alive, I did not realise at first that it was a judgement on me. I had thought it an isolated incident,
a tragic misfortune of the type that happens randomly every now and then … until I heard that there were other, similar births
locally, all eight or so months after the trials I had instigated had taken place. Claire, my dearest wife, never got over
the loss of the daughter who left us before we could even know her. She suffered with depression until she eventually succumbed
to cancer, God rest her sweet soul
.

Perhaps I should have told my congregation how I suffered, how I paid the price for playing with
people’s lives, for playing God
.

From the diary sent to DI Wesley Peterson by Dr Anne Talbot

Loveday turned her gaze towards the window when the nurse entered the room. The nurse, a woman in her thirties who was a regular
at her local weight-watchers’ class, assumed the capable, no-nonsense expression she always wore when dealing with her patients.
But she always allowed Loveday the occasional smile. She liked Loveday: she wasn’t as much trouble as some of them.

‘I’ve brought you what you wanted, Loveday. But I’ll have to stay here while you write it. You know you’re not allowed to
have pens unless someone’s with you.’

Loveday kept on staring at the window and made no comment on the restriction. Such petty infringements of her liberty were
the stuff of her life now. Pens were sharp and she wasn’t allowed them in case she harmed someone … or harmed herself as she
had done so many times in the past.

The nurse handed her the notepad and cheap Biro and sat down on the blue bedspread, leaning back against the wall and crossing
her powerful legs as though she expected to be there for some time. ‘Get on with it, then. I haven’t got all day.’

Loveday stared at the blank white paper for a while before looking up at her companion.

‘That nice black policeman who came to see me …the detective inspector. What was his name?’

The nurse shrugged her large shoulders. ‘I haven’t a clue, love,’ she replied wearily.

Neil stood with his head bowed as the soil poured into the hole. He bent down and took a handful of earth and threw it in.
It felt like the right thing to do somehow, but he didn’t know why. He looked round at the others. Their faces were solemn.
It was over.

‘So what happens now?’

Neil swung round. Wesley was standing at his shoulder, watching as the trench was filled.

‘I’ve heard that they might build new houses on the site.’

‘No supermarket?’

Neil shrugged. ‘Sturgeon’s death seems to have put a spanner in the works. We’ll have to wait and see. I never thought it
was right to build an in-store bakery and delicatessen counter bang on top of a plague pit anyway. You got your case all cleared
up, then?’

‘Yes. Sturgeon killed the vicar because he blamed him for his son’s death.’

‘Why?’

‘When Shipborne had been a top government scientist he’d authorised the spraying of this part of Devon with bacteria. He thought
they were harmless but it turned out later that they caused the deaths of vulnerable people, including Amy Hunting’s son,
who was recovering from a heart operation. They also caused clusters of birth defects … which was ironic because Shipborne’s
own baby was born eight months after the trials and died soon after. … probably as a result of what Shipborne had authorised.’

‘He paid for his mistake, then?’

They stood in silence for a few minutes. Then Neil spoke. ‘What about that other skeleton we dug up … the girl?’

‘Sturgeon strangled her because she was blackmailing him and left her body on the road. William Verlan ran over her, thought
he’d killed her and panicked. He dumped her body in a newly dug drainage ditch and covered it over. He’s been charged with
concealing the death but I can’t see him going to jail somehow.’

‘You’re sure it was Sturgeon who killed her?’

‘He admitted it before he … ’ Wesley had a sudden urge to change the subject. In the dim light he had caught a glimpse of
Sturgeon’s face as he fell through the floor,
grasping at the air: the torment, the despair. He saw it in his dreams, just as he saw visions of Sturgeon’s bleeding corpse
lying in the tower room sprawled across Urien de Munerie’s tomb, the face turned towards the terrible writing on the wall.
He shut his eyes, trying to block it out. ‘What’s happened to the skeletons?’ he asked briskly.

‘They’re being studied and stored at the County Museum. Then there’s talk of them being reburied in the churchyard. The Munnery
dagger’s being put on display.’

Wesley stared at the earth. ‘It’s a pity we could never find out which skeletons were Hawise and her children. It would have
been nice to give them a name.’

‘You know your trouble, Wes? You’re too bloody sentimental.’

Wesley looked at his watch. ‘I’d better get back. I only dropped by to see how the dig was going.’

‘How’s Pam?’

Wesley was tempted to say that she was much better since Neil’s departure but he erred on the side of tact and just said,
‘Fine.’

His mobile phone began to ring in his pocket, emitting a tinny version of a Bach fugue. When the conversation was finished,
he turned to Neil, his eyes shining with excitement. Excitement and something else – anxiety perhaps.

‘Pam’s gone into labour. I’ve got to get back. I’ve got to organise someone to look after Michael and take her to hospital.’

‘Give her my love,’ said Neil, his face serious.

Wesley turned to go. The dig was over, and so was the Shipborne case. Life had to go on.

Four hours later Neil received a phone call telling him that Wesley and Pamela Peterson were now the proud parents of a beautiful
baby girl.

*

Dear nice black policeman (sorry I can’t remember your name but I’ve met so many different people since I came here)

Dr Harvey keeps telling me that I’ve got to be honest. I’ve got to face the truth about my feelings and the things I’ve done
in the past. There’s something I told him today, a thing I’ve never told anyone before, and I’d like to tell you about it
because I think you’d understand. Sometimes I think I must have dreamed it. But I know I didn’t.

You’re wondering what it is, this secret I’ve been keeping to myself for all these years, rotting and festering in my head.
Dr Harvey says it’s bad to suppress things. They always used to say confession was good for the soul, didn’t they? So this
is my confession.

I was nine when Adam was ill. I heard the doctor tell my mum he had a lung infection. His breathing was all funny and Mum
said I wasn’t to go near his room. But in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep I went in and I stood there by
his bed watching him sleep. He’d stopped making the wheezing noise and they’d said he seemed a bit better. She always fussed
over him. It was all ‘How are you feeling, Adam? Be careful, Adam. Don’t catch cold, Adam.’ And he’d just smile that smug
little smile of his and play nicely while I created havoc. She treated him like some precious ornament. And I hated her …
and I hated Dad … and I hated the man who used to come to the house when Dad was out and make such a fuss of Adam and touch
Mum when they thought I wasn’t watching and did things with her in her bed. I worked it all out eventually when I was grown
up and knew about sex: I pieced together the jigsaw, all the half-forgotten memories, until I realised that he was Adam’s
father. Then I made sure he paid for what he’d done to me.

Anyway, where was I? I said I went in when Adam
was asleep, didn’t I? Well, I stood there watching him for a while and I started thinking that if he wasn’t there they might
take some notice of me. At that moment I hated him so much, really hated him. There were two pillows on his bed and one was
pushed to the side. I picked it up and put it over his face. I did it gently because I didn’t want to wake him up. Then I
started to press down. He moved and I pressed harder. His body jerked about but he couldn’t make a noise. I don’t know how
long I held the pillow over his face but it seemed a long time, and when I took it away he wasn’t moving any more.

They said he died of natural causes … because of the infection. Mum was never the same afterwards and it never worked out
how I’d wanted. Mum still ignored me and got obsessed with Adam and Dad spent all his time at work, just like before. If my
life had been a nightmare before I did what I did, it got even worse afterwards.

Dr Harvey was right. I feel better now I’ve told you. I’ll send this to your police station. Dr Harvey says I won’t be arrested
but I’d like to see you again … to talk to you.

Yours truly

Loveday Wilkins

Loveday held the letter out to the nurse, who looked up from the magazine she was reading.

‘You finished, then?’

Loveday nodded. ‘You’ll make sure it’s posted, won’t you. I think he’s from Tradmouth police station. He’s an inspector. Can
you find out his name?’

‘No problem, love.’

The nurse took the paper from her outstretched hand and left the room. It was the end of her shift.

When she reached the cloakroom she crumpled Loveday’s letter into a tight ball and threw it at the overflowing litter bin.