DC Trish Walton was getting sick of keeping an eye on Annette Marrick at Foxglove House. She didn't like the woman but she did her best to hide the fact, to stay professional.

Annette had started to regard the policewomen a.s.signed to provide her with support and protection as unpaid servants who made the tea, fielded phone calls and visitors and packed the dishwasher and was.h.i.+ng machine. She had asked Trish to fix up a cleaning company to remove all trace of the murder and this was one thing Trish could sympathise with. Living with the reminders of violent death would be a nightmare for anyone.

Petronella Blackwell seemed to have made the decision to stay for the duration. Trish Walton had heard the story of her birth and adoption and was rather surprised that the young woman felt such loyalty to the mother who had abandoned her. But she sensed there was something else there too ... some unknown factor. Some secret in the house that hadn't yet come out into the open.

Her task for that morning was to break the news of Simon Tench's murder and point out the similarities to the death of Charles Marrick. DCI Heffernan had told her to observe Annette's reaction and try and discover her whereabouts at the time of Tench's death. And, most importantly, she was to find out whether there was any connection, however slight, between Charles Marrick and Simon Tench.

She made a pot of tea and sat down with the two women. Three friends having a chat over a cuppa. Or at least that was the image Trish wanted to create to encourage confidences.

Annette was looking bored rather than grief stricken. She stared into her steaming mug absentmindedly. Petronella looked at Trish and gave her a shy smile.

'How did you sleep?' Trish asked, breaking the morning ice.

Annette looked at her. Trish saw a flash of contempt in her eyes. 'If you must know, I took something. Knocked me out for the night.'

Trish cleared her throat. It was time to ask the embarra.s.sing question DI Peterson had instructed her to ask. She felt her cheeks reddening as she took a deep breath. 'Can I have a word with you alone, Annette?'

Annette touched Petronella's arm and Trish saw the young woman flinch before slowly edging away. 'I've got no secrets from my daughter. You can say anything you like and it won't bother her, isn't that right, Pet?'

Petronella didn't answer.

'Okay then. Were you having a s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p with Fabrice Colbert ... the chef?'

Annette smirked. 'What if I was? Not a crime is it? Fabrice and I had a bit of a fling ... and it's true what they say about Frenchmen. Fabrice was as good in a bed as he is in a kitchen, I can a.s.sure you,' she added by way of explanation.

Trish felt herself blus.h.i.+ng at the woman's candour. Petronella, sitting beside her, looked as if she wanted to shrivel up with embarra.s.sment, s.h.i.+fting in her seat to put some distance between herself and her mother.

'Where did you meet?'

'Here. We couldn't go to his place because of his girlfriend.'

'Whereabouts in the house did you ... er ... ?'

'The bedroom. Where do you think? Swinging from the b.l.o.o.d.y chandeliers? And before you ask, it's all over now. It finished a couple of days before Charlie died when he pulled that wine stunt. It was nice while it lasted but I can a.s.sure you it was purely physical on both sides. Nothing to commit murder over.'

Somehow the words had the ring of truth. Trish found herself believing her. And at least she could report back to Wesley Peterson that Annette Marrick had corroborated Colbert's explanation as to why his prints had been found at the murder scene without any prompting. All she had to do now was to break the news about the second murder ... the one that seemed to be identical to Marrick's. She took a deep breath. 'Did you or Charlie ever know a vet called Simon Tench?'

'No. Why?'

'He was found dead yesterday morning ... and it looks as if he was killed in the same way as Charlie was. We're trying to establish some sort of connection.'

Annette stood up and walked over to the window. 'Well, I don't know of any. And I knew all of Charlie's friends.'

'So you've never heard of Simon Tench?'

Annette shook her head. 'Never.'

'You've never had any animals ... any pets you might have taken to ... ?'

'Can't stand b.l.o.o.d.y animals,' was the reply. 'Neither could Charlie before you ask. His ex had a dog but he had it put down 'cause he couldn't stay in the same house with it.'

This caught Trish's interest. 'Where can we find this ex-girlfriend?'

'Search me.'

'Do you know the name of the vet who put it down?'

Another look of contempt. 'How the h.e.l.l should I know? It was a long time ago ... before I met him.'

This wasn't going anywhere. But Trish was getting a clearer picture of Charlie Marrick. He'd have his girlfriend's dog destroyed just because its existence didn't suit him. Trish, an animal lover, felt she would have disliked Marrick if she'd met him in life ... even more than she disliked his wife.

'I'm going out. I need to do some shopping in Tradmouth. Is that okay with you?' she said to Trish sarcastically before sweeping out of the room.

Petronella, on the sofa, watched her go, looking rather embarra.s.sed. 'Look, I'm sorry she's so rude.'

Trish smiled rea.s.suringly. 'She's been under a lot of strain. Grief can affect people ...'

'Grief ? Is that what you think it is?'

'What else?'

'Relief,' she said with a vehemence that made Trish look at her intently. And when she looked she saw that tears were forming in Petronella's eyes. 'He ...'

It occurred to Trish that this was the first time she'd actually been alone with Petronella. Up to now she had been concentrating on Annette, a.s.suming the abandoned daughter who now lived in Bath couldn't be involved in any way. But perhaps she'd been wrong. 'Go on,' she prompted.

Petronella stood up, fists clenched, eyes full of tears and fury. 'If you want the truth, Charlie was a complete b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Whoever killed him deserves a medal and I hope you never find him because he's done the world a favour.'

Trish said nothing. She waited for Petronella to carry on, to get whatever grievance she had against the dead man off her chest.

But Petronella didn't elaborate on her statement. Instead she slumped down on the sofa and buried her head in her hands.

Trish decided a bit of gentle probing was in order. 'What do you mean, Petronella? What did Charlie do to make you hate him so much?'

Petronella looked up at her, her eyes red with unshed tears. 'Okay, if you want to know, I'll tell you. When I came here a couple of years ago to find my mum I was naive, trusting. Some would say stupid. Charlie put on a good act at first ... all sympathy and pretending he was glad I'd found Annette and all that. He said I could stay as long as I liked ... he seemed keener on the idea than Annette was. It wasn't till I'd been here a couple of weeks that I found out why.'

'What do you mean?'

Petronella looked her in the eye. 'Annette went out to the hairdresser's one day and I was left alone with Charlie. He ... He was in his bedroom and he called downstairs to me to bring his mobile phone up. I didn't think anything of it but when I got there he was behind the door.'

'Go on.' Trish guessed what was coming but she hoped she was wrong.

She began to speak again, almost in a whisper. Her hands were shaking. 'I went inside, calling his name, saying I'd found the phone. But I didn't realise he was behind me. He slammed the door shut and locked it. He was laughing ... saying he had something for me ... a treat. Then he ... he pushed me down on the bed and started pus.h.i.+ng my skirt up. He was stronger than me. I tried to push his hands away but he was stronger than me. He was rough ... he hurt me and when he'd finished he said something like "You enjoyed that, didn't you," even though I must have been crying. He ...'

Trish sat down beside her and took her in her arms. 'It's okay. He can't hurt you now,' she cooed in her ear, aware that the cliche she had just uttered the first thing that had popped into her head was a lie. Charlie Marrick could still hurt her, even from beyond the grave. The memory of him would always be with her ... polluting her life.

'I was so ashamed,' she sobbed into Trish's shoulder. 'After it happened I left right away.' She broke away from Trish's embrace, took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. Then she looked Trish in the eye. 'I was so ashamed that I let it happen.'

Trish, lost for words, held her close as she began to sob her heart out.

CHAPTER 7.

Would Neil Watson have received the last letter yet? Possibly not. Post was usually late these days. The writer sat staring at the blank computer screen. There was so much more to say. Information to be fed out little by little moves in the blood game. Neil Watson was losing the game at the moment. He still had no idea what he was dealing with.

The writer glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was almost time to go. But not before the next letter was started.

The Abbey of Veland owned much of the land round about but most of it was rented out to tenants who farmed it and paid the abbey a generous rent. The abbey held great wealth and the abbot lived in some style while the brothers in their habits of rough, white, undyed wool, prayed eight times each day in addition to their strict regime of work and study. They rose at 2 am for the office of Nocturns, then Matins at 4 am, then Prime at 6 am, and so on until the day ended with Compline at 8 pm followed by a light supper. It must have been an arduous life. No wonder they looked forward so much to their time at the seyney house.

The writer switched off the computer. The letter would be continued tonight when there was more time.

The newspaper lay neatly folded and unread, on the breakfast table. The writer picked it up and began to scan the front page. Police treating vet's death as murder was the headline. Then there was the smaller headline at the bottom of the page. Skeleton in woodland still unidentified.

The writer's hands shook but it was important to stay calm. n.o.body should know what really happened.

Even though it was so hard not to tell.

Colin Bowman seemed subdued that morning. However, Colin being Colin, he still gave Gerry Heffernan and Wesley Peterson a friendly greeting and offered them his customary refreshment before they made for the postmortem room. And it was over tea and biscuits that the pathologist confessed that he was dreading what was to come.

'I can't say I knew Simon well but he seemed a really nice chap,' he explained. 'It's one thing cutting up a complete stranger but it's quite another with someone you've met socially. I tried to get Roper from Morbay Hospital to do it but he's busy with a pile up on the by-pa.s.s.' Colin sighed. This was the first time Wesley had seen him like this. Even pathologists who are quite accustomed to death, he thought, have their limits.

'Our Sam says everyone at the surgery's really upset,' Heffernan chipped in. 'No one can believe that anyone would want to hurt Simon. According to our Sam, he got on with everyone and there's no way he had any enemies.'

'He had one,' Wesley said, then immediately regretted his flippancy.

Colin went on to ask how Emma was and Heffernan told him that her parents were on their way down to stay with her. Wesley felt a great wave of sadness engulfing him as he followed Colin and Gerry into the white postmortem room and saw the sh.e.l.l of what used to be Simon Tench lying on the stainless steel table.

As he went about his work, Colin was uncharacteristically silent and as soon as he'd finished, he nodded to his a.s.sistant who began to sew up the incisions Colin had made with quiet efficiency. Then Colin removed his green gown and signalled to the two detectives to follow him to his office. When he asked if they'd like another cup of tea they could tell that the question wasn't just asked out of politeness he needed the tea to revive him, to calm his nerves. For some men it would have been a gla.s.s of whisky but for Colin Bowman it was a cup of strong Earl Grey.

'Well?' said Gerry Heffernan as the tea was poured from Colin's bone-china pot a venerable antique.

'It looks exactly like the other one. Of course I won't know if the body contains hemlock until we have the toxicology report but the lack of defensive wounds certainly suggests he was incapacitated somehow when he was stabbed. There's no sign that he was restrained in any way.'

'And hemlock causes paralysis?'

'Oh sure. As I said in my report, its effects are not dissimilar to curare and that's used to paralyse patients during operations. It's a little slower acting of course, but quite effective. The muscles are paralysed but the mind remains clear until death. Nasty. There was no sign of quail in the stomach contents this time by the way. In fact he hadn't eaten for a while, although he'd had a wee dram shortly before his death.'

'Whisky?'

'That's right.' He paused for a few moments. 'There was something I noticed some very faint scarring to the left forearm almost identical to the marks I noticed on Charles Marrick. It's very old scarring so it's probably got nothing to do with ...'

'It's strange all the same,' said Wesley. 'What about a time of death?'

Colin shrugged. 'Any time between seven o'clock to ten o'clock on the evening before he was found. Sorry I can't be more specific.' He drained his teacup and reached for the pot. This was a two-cup situation. 'I'll let you have all the lab reports as soon as they come in. I really hope you catch whoever did this. Simon never did anyone any harm ... he didn't deserve ...'

Simon Tench's death had driven all thoughts of the skeleton in the woods out of Wesley's mind. But he suddenly remembered there was something else he needed to ask. 'By the way, Colin, have you had a chance to examine those bones that were brought in ... the ones that were found in the woods near Sunacres Holiday Park?'

Colin shook his head. 'Not yet, I'm afraid, but I'll make a thorough examination this afternoon. I trust you're going through your missing persons records.'

'I've got someone on it. But with Charles Marrick's murder and now this ...' He left the sentence unfinished. Colin didn't need it spelling out.

As Wesley and Heffernan took their leave, Colin raised a hand in farewell.

'Any thoughts, Wes?' the DCI asked as they walked along the embankment by the river to a fanfare of shrieking sea gulls.

'Only that our two victims have nothing in common. One was a right b.a.s.t.a.r.d who'd nick his own granny's walking stick given half the chance and the other was said by everyone who knew him, including your son, to be some sort of saint. However, they're both male and around the same age.' He hesitated. 'What about Neil's letters? Could they have something to do with these murders?'

Heffernan frowned. 'No idea. But there's something we're missing here, Wes.'

The only thing they had to do was to find out what that something was.

Carl Pinney was still being held for questioning. His story about eating pizza with his sister, Chelsea, at the time Simon Tench was killed was flimsy to say the least ... and it certainly didn't convince Gerry or Wesley who suspected that Chelsea would back up her brother against the police any day. With this uncertainty in mind, Pinney's clothing had been collected from his home by a couple of uniformed constables who had had to endure Carl's mother's swearing and abuse and young Chelsea's spittle in their faces.

The custody sergeant, Dan Zachary, had finished his s.h.i.+ft. Another day closer to his eagerly antic.i.p.ated retirement. He normally shook the dust of Tradmouth police station off his feet as soon as work was over and headed straight for home where he would cook a meal for his wife who worked in a care home. With no children to upset the equilibrium, theirs was a marriage of equals before it became fas.h.i.+onable.

But today Dan broke with routine and climbed the stairs to the CID office because something was worrying him ... something he wanted to talk over with Gerry Heffernan. Dan had known Gerry for years, ever since he'd been transferred to Tradmouth from Morbay nick as a young detective constable. Gerry had risen in the ranks of CID to become chief investigating officer dealing with any serious crime that occurred in the Tradmouth area, but Dan had been content to stay in uniform, eventually carving out a niche for himself in the custody suite.

The CID office was buzzing like a beehive as Dan walked in. Computers were flickering and phones were ringing but Dan's eyes were drawn irresistibly to the crime scene photographs pinned up on the far wall.

He averted his gaze from the gruesome images and made his way to Gerry Heffernan's office, where the man himself was sitting back with his feet up on his cluttered desk, a picture of relaxation amidst the frantic activity. Sitting at the other side of Gerry's desk was a smartly dressed black man aged around thirty with delicate features and intelligent eyes. Dan recognised DIWesley Peterson his arrival in Tradmouth had caused a lot of talk, in spite of all the chief constable's diversity initiatives. But Wesley Peterson was an una.s.suming man who'd fitted into the team easily. He was popular with most especially with Rachel Tracey if canteen gossip was to be believed. But Dan only listened to gossip in the course of duty. You could sometimes learn a lot from gossip.

In fact it was gossip that had brought him here. He had overheard someone talking in the canteen about Steve Carstairs' alleged attack on Carl Pinney, who was currently enjoying Dan's lavish hospitality in what he called 'The Pentonville Suite' he liked to call all his cells after Her Majesty's more famous hotels. Dan had listened carefully to what was being said before returning to his desk to do a bit of checking. It was then he'd made an interesting discovery. A discovery that he thought he ought to share with DCI Heffernan.

He rapped on the gla.s.s door and Heffernan looked up, signalling him in with a welcoming grin. Dan let himself into the office and sat down on the spare visitors' chair beside DI Peterson.

'I've been looking through the records, Gerry. Comings and going down in the custody suite and all that. I've found a discrepancy.'

The two detectives watched him, all ears.

'You know your DC Carstairs ... Steve. There's no record of him visiting the custody suite at the time Pinney claims he was beaten up.'

It was Wesley who asked the obvious question. 'Why wasn't this picked up before?'

'Pinney did have injuries there's no question of that. He howled for his brief and made the accusation and because Carstairs had been down to see him before. Andy the lad who was on duty is new and I reckon he got mixed up.

Wesley looked at his boss. This seemed unlikely.

'He said Carstairs had been to see the prisoner and been on his own with him which I wouldn't have allowed if I'd been there. So when Pinney was found about half an hour later with injuries, it was a.s.sumed ... But according to the log, the prisoner was taken his dinner after Carstairs left.'

Wesley sat forward. 'So Pinney was unhurt after Steve had left.'