The Shroud Maker (35 page)

‘You locked her in your attic.’

‘She tried to escape. She didn’t understand.’

‘What didn’t she understand?’

‘That her beauty has to be preserved.’

‘I thought Kassia was your muse.’

He shook his head vigorously. ‘She was the Lady Alicia. She died and was laid to rest in a boat.’

‘Do you tell Palkinson what to write?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does someone else give you instructions?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. The Shroud Maker. But nobody knows his identity. He has no face.’

In spite of the warmth of the day and the sun beating down on the bare rock Wesley shuddered. ‘But you know who he is.’

Miles gave a small, closed smile, as if he had a precious secret he wasn’t about to share.

‘What did you give Jenny to make her stay?’

‘Give her?’

‘You must have given her something to make her drowsy.’

‘When she gets upset I let her have the pills the doctor gives me. They help her sleep.’

‘What about her food?’

‘She has what I have. Unless she’s asleep. Or she doesn’t behave herself.’

The last statement sounded petulant and Wesley hardly liked to think of the truth behind it. Still, he had to ask. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Sometimes I have to punish her.’

‘Does that mean you don’t give her any food?’

Carthage nodded, his eyes still fixed on the horizon.

‘I saw Jenny. She’s very ill. You should have called a doctor.’

‘She doesn’t need a doctor. I look after her.’

‘Did you kill Kassia? Put her in the dinghy?’

Carthage shook his head again. ‘I’ve never killed anybody.’

‘Then who did?’

‘I don’t know. It might have been the Shroud Maker.’

‘Who is the Shroud Maker?’

Carthage didn’t answer.

After a long silence Wesley spoke again. ‘I like the illustrations you do for Shipworld.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I believe you’re related to Chris Butcher.’

Miles looked up. ‘That’s wrong. It’s not Chris.’

‘Who is it, then?’

Miles gave a secretive smile and said nothing.

It was time to get Miles to the station and Wesley knew he’d feel safer once he was off that outcrop with the sea swirling a few yards below like a hungry beast.

Wesley put a hand under the man’s elbow to help him up and, as Carthage seemed to be co-operating, he took the opportunity to ask another question. ‘I went down to the cellar. I saw the others. Who are they?’

Carthage looked round, alarmed. ‘They’re nothing to do with me. They’re Josiah’s women. They were in the attic but I moved them when the Lady Morwenna came.’

‘What do you mean, they’re Josiah’s women?’

‘He wrote it all down. His notebooks are in the trunk.’

‘Trunk?’

‘There are letters in there that Josiah’s wife wrote to her sister. He hid them before they could be sent.’ Carthage turned calmly and looked at Wesley. ‘I swear I didn’t kill Kassia. I’d never do a thing like that. Can we go now?’

Wesley watched while the artist packed his sketch pad and pencils away in his leather shoulder bag. Then he stepped back so Carthage could go ahead of him down the rock, taking his phone from his pocket to alert the others that he needed help.

Without warning he heard a thud, leather on rock. Carthage had thrown his bag down and was dodging forward. Wesley put a hand out to grab his arm, the action instinctive and a little too late. The cloth of Carthage’s shirt slipped from his grasping fingers and he could only watch as the suspect hurtled towards the edge of the plateau like a sprinter intent on the finishing line.

Afterwards Wesley could remember yelling something at the top of his voice. Probably the word ‘no’, swallowed by the wind and the crash of the waves. But whatever it was he shouted it had no effect. A thousand words of persuasion probably wouldn’t have stopped Carthage hurling himself off the edge of the flat rock into the foaming sea below.

The shock paralysed Wesley for a while as the waves roared in his head, relentlessly, without pity, swallowing the living and the dead. He stood there on the edge of the rock, searching desperately for any sign of Carthage in the water below. There was none. The man had gone and he knew there was nothing he could have done to stop him, even though he’d blame himself for the rest of his days.

A voice, one of the officers waiting on the path, jolted him back to the moment and, without thinking, he picked up Carthage’s bag. The sketch book tumbled out and fell open on a picture of a face concealed by a blank white mask. Underneath were three words: The Shroud Maker.

There was no sign of Miles Carthage but the consensus of opinion was that, unless luck was on his side or he was a very strong swimmer, he was unlikely to have survived the currents in that particular part of the English Channel. Bodies could be swallowed up by the billowing waves and washed up months later further along the coast.

Wesley knew it was inevitable that there would be an inquiry. The officers watching from the cliff path above were bound to back up his story so Gerry reckoned he had nothing to worry about. In spite of this he still hated being treated like a guilty man.

When he’d returned home that night Pam was filled with righteous anger at the prospect of questions being asked. If she’d thought it would do any good she’d have confronted the investigators and rubbed their smug noses in copies of her husband’s exemplary record. The doctors said that Jenny Bercival had been in a bad way. If she’d been left there much longer, she might not have survived her ordeal which meant that Wesley had just rescued a young woman from certain death and brought a murderer to justice. Wesley had never seen his wife so incensed. It was a side to her that was new to him and he rather liked her imitation of a tigress defending her young.

It looked as if the man who had killed Kassia Graylem and Andre Gorst and kidnapped Jenny Bercival was now dead. And even though his responsibility for Eric Darwell’s death wasn’t certain, the case was closed. All that remained was to complete the paperwork.

But Wesley had heard that heartfelt statement –
I didn’t kill Kassia. I’d never do a thing like that
. The words echoed in his head at night, robbing him of sleep. Gerry had dismissed his claim that some mysterious individual who called himself the Shroud Maker was responsible as the ramblings of a sick mind, an inability to divorce fantasy from fact. He reckoned the only way Carthage could deal with what he’d done was to shift the blame on to a creation of his imagination: simple really when you thought about it.

The mystery of the bodies in the cellar had lost its urgency since Colin and a forensic anthropologist had confirmed that they had most likely been there for around a hundred years. Neil’s usual bone specialist, Margaret, had done the honours as Sacha Vale had departed for London to work on a new TV series. Wesley wondered whether she would keep seeing Chris Butcher. If she did, it would upset Astrid. Strange, he thought, that both Jenny and Kassia had been involved with Butcher. An idea began to take shape in his head. But it was nebulous, half-formed. And perhaps it was as far into the realms of fantasy as Shipworld and the Shroud Maker.

It was Sunday, the final day of the Palkin Festival, and the embankment was packed as Gerry made his way to the hospital where he’d arranged to meet Rachel at the entrance to Jenny Bercival’s ward.

He’d already been working hard that morning to reassure Wesley that what happened wasn’t his fault, even though the powers that be were harrumphing that he hadn’t followed the correct procedure. Gerry told him that if he’d gone on to that rock with back-up, Carthage would have jumped even sooner. At least he’d had a chance to discover the truth. Wesley had responded by saying he wasn’t sure they had the whole truth just yet. Somehow he couldn’t see Carthage killing Andre Gorst like that. It didn’t seem to be his style. Gerry knew he could be right, but it was something he didn’t like to think of just at that moment.

‘Is Jenny expecting us?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Gerry.

Rachel began to walk ahead, religiously using the antiseptic hand gel on the wall before opening the door to the ward, shaming Gerry into doing likewise. His late wife, Kathy, had been a nurse and she’d have insisted on him obeying the rules. Being in a hospital, especially Tradmouth Hospital where she’d worked, always reminded him of her and caused a nagging feeling of deep loss. He was glad he had work to distract him.

Gerry let Rachel enter Jenny’s side ward first, standing behind her like a shy suitor. Maybe, he thought, she’d be afraid of men after what she’d experienced. Luckily her mother was with her, sitting protectively by the bed. As Mrs Bercival greeted them Jenny shifted back against her pillows, a wary look on her ashen face. Gerry asked her how she was feeling, trying his best to sound avuncular and unthreatening. For a man used to the blunt approach, he didn’t find it easy.

Jenny was thin to the point of emaciation and she kept coughing, as though the dust of that attic was still lodged in her lungs. When she spoke it was in a hoarse whisper, like someone whose voice had failed after a prolonged bout of screaming.

As they’d arranged, it was Rachel who began the gentle questioning and Gerry could see the strain on her face. Maybe it was their increased workload, or pre-wedding nerves. Or perhaps coming face to face with the reality of Jenny’s ordeal disturbed her, reminding her that life could hold hidden horrors; things that made joy and optimism seem naive.

Mrs Bercival clung on to her daughter’s hand as if she was reluctant to let go. It wasn’t only the daughter who was in need of comfort, Gerry thought. Their ordeals had been quite different but they’d both been through hell over the past year.

‘Are you up to talking about what happened, Jenny?’ Rachel asked.

Jenny glanced at her mother. ‘Mum, I’ll be OK if you want to go and get a coffee or…’ Her voice was weak, barely audible.

For a few moments Mrs Bercival stayed put until she realised the meaning behind her daughter’s words, when she gathered up her handbag and left the room reluctantly. Gerry was glad she’d taken the hint. Jenny might be more open about what had happened to her without her mother listening.

Jenny sat against the pillow, staring ahead, her flesh almost as pale as the white bedding.

‘This can wait if you’re not feeling up to it, love,’ said Gerry softly.

She cleared her throat. ‘No. I’ll be all right.’ Her voice shook a little. They’d take it slowly.

‘Can you tell us how you came to be there?’ Rachel asked cautiously, as though she feared the question might cause distress.

Jenny turned her head slightly to look at her. ‘I was into Shipworld – I mean, really into it – and I met Chris Butcher at the festival the year before last. He called himself William de Clare.’ She gave a weak smile. ‘He wanted to be my gallant knight and I guess I was flattered. We used to meet up in London. I knew he was married but that didn’t matter. He said his wife didn’t understand all the things he liked to do. Playing parts and all that.’

There was an awkward silence before Rachel asked the next question.

‘And the tattoo?’

A slight flush of colour appeared on the girl’s cheeks. ‘I did it to please him.’

‘Tell me what happened last year,’ said Rachel.

‘I met a guy at the festival. He worked on the Shipworld website and he knew all about me and Chris. He did brilliant illustrations.’

‘This was Miles Carthage?’

‘I thought it was amazing to meet someone who had talent like that and he said he wanted me to model for him. He seemed a bit odd. A loner. But he was an artist so I thought he was just a bit… eccentric.’

‘You modelled for him?’

‘He said Chris had asked him to do a portrait of me. I mean, Chris had said our relationship was just a bit of fun but I thought this meant he wanted to get more serious. The painting Miles did was brilliant and he said he was going to use some pictures of me on Shipworld. I was going to be part of it. I was going to be the Lady Morwenna.’