Authors: Alison Littlewood
The platform at the top of the motte was empty, nothing there but the bare wooden planking. Spreading away below were fields, clusters of houses, the flat grey shine of the boating lake. There was a windsurfing lesson in progress down there, and she saw a brightly striped triangle flop into the water, heard a distant wordless cry. White specks rose and passed above the water: gulls, circling. Up here, at the castle, there were none.
Cate scanned the rest of the site; she couldn’t see any irregularities, not so much as a stray crisp packet among the grass and stone. She went back down the steps and walked around the remains of the barbican, peering across the inner moat to the rough pile of rocks in its centre; into the moat itself. Then she checked around what remained of the curtain wall. There was nothing, no birds, living or dead.
She turned and headed towards the entrance.
The visitors’ centre was open, yellow light spilling from its windows. Cate pushed open the door and saw ranks of books, gift-wrapped soaps, jars of jam. There were displays that echoed the things she’d seen outside – aerial views of the site and battlefield, reconstructions of what life in
the castle would have been like. There were no visitors, not today.
The woman behind the counter greeted Cate and she smiled back. She ran her hand over a display of souvenirs meant for children, pencils, notepads, erasers, all with the familiar outline of the castle printed on them. She roused herself and went to the counter, identified herself, and asked her question.
‘Yes,’ the woman replied, ‘it’s all looked after quite regularly, since they built the centre, anyway, and decided to put a bit more into the place. There’s the grass to look after, and litter, all sorts of things. ’Course, he had to break off, after they found that girl: how awful. I can’t bear to look out of the window any more.’
‘Has he been back since then?’ Cate asked. ‘I wondered if he’d found anything unusual.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so, love. He didn’t like to come back at all after what happened, but of course he’d have reported it if he found anything. He knew the situation. We had the police come and talk to us, you know.’
‘We appreciate your help.’
‘Of course, love. Anything we can do. That poor thing. I’ll tell Martin you were asking. We hope you catch them. Martin was ever so upset. He hasn’t seen anything, though, like I said. Well, not apart from the birds.’
Cate had been edging towards the door. She stopped and looked round. ‘Birds?’
‘Yes, he found some dead, you know, around the castle.
That upset him, too; he said to me he almost packed it in after all that, except he needs the job, you know. Three children, he’s got.’
‘You said he didn’t find anything unusual – but there were birds? Dead birds, on this site? When was this?’
She looked worried. ‘I haven’t said anything wrong, have I? It wasn’t anything to do with that girl. It was afterwards that he noticed them. And it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, really, just some dead birds.’
‘Could he see what had killed them?’
‘I don’t think so, love,’ she said uncertainly. ‘He didn’t say so. He took them off to the incinerator – I hope that was all right. And it’s all been fine since—Miss?’
But Cate didn’t look back. She was already heading towards the door.
*
Cate retraced her journey to the main road, but again she found herself turning away from the police station and back in the direction of Sandal. She still didn’t quite know what she was doing, only that she could feel something happening, cogs slipping into place and beginning to turn.
After a time she turned off the road and on to a housing estate, driving alongside a row of bungalows, each appearing much the same as the last. She found the one she was looking for and scanned the frontage. Nothing appeared to have changed that she could see, but it felt empty: there was something about the way the curtains
were half closed, half open, and anyway, the car was missing from the drive.
She went up to the front door and knocked, unsurprised when there was no answer.
She turned away from the door and walked down the drive. After a moment’s hesitation, she eased around the corner, squeezing past the bins and into the back garden. She was effectively trespassing, but she could say she was only looking for Levitt where she’d found him before, couldn’t she?
There was the aviary clinging to the side of the shed, the bird feeders strung in rows along a line like lumpen washing. Beneath them, on the neatly mowed lawn, lay a dead magpie.
Cate walked towards it, feeling as if she were dreaming. Its black feathers flashed green and blue; its breast was a slab of pure white. She could not see what had killed it.
One for sorrow
, she thought.
‘Oh, hello. Are you all right there? I thought I heard something.’
Cate jumped. She turned to see a head balanced on the fence, surrounded by a cloud of curly grey hair. It nodded at her.
‘I’m quite all right, thank you. I was just – looking for Mr Levitt. I’m a police officer. I have a couple of questions he might be able to help us with.’
‘Oh.’ The woman’s eyes grew round. ‘Goodness.’ She seemed impressed.
Cate straightened, stood tall. She thought of adding,
It’s fine, there’s nothing to worry about
, but decided not to. Anyway, the woman wasn’t looking at her any longer. Her eyes were fixed on the dead bird at Cate’s feet.
‘Oh, shame,’ she said, ‘another one. Why is it always his garden? He blames my cat, you know, but it’s not her. I got a collar with a little bell. It’s always his place, though – and him so keen on birds. Sod’s law, I suppose.’
‘Really? Does it happen a lot?’
‘I’m afraid it does. Not everyone is as fond of birds as Bernard. Or me, of course. Not everyone’s cat has a collar like my Pippin.’
Cate looked down. The bird didn’t appear to have been mauled by a cat. She poked at it with her toe.
‘It’s a pity you won’t catch him, love.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Bernard. He won’t be around for a while, I don’t imagine. He went out earlier; I happened to hear the gate. He had an awful lot of things with him. That great big tent of his, I think.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘Oh no, not to me. I didn’t see him to talk to. Anyway, I’d better be getting on. The washing won’t do itself.’ She gave a sudden smile and her head disappeared over the fence.
Cate left the magpie where it was and went to examine the aviary. The structure had a double layer of fine mesh, so that her vision blurred when she looked inside it. There
was one large cage and a smaller one, just big enough for a person to stand inside. Of course, that’s what it was: one cage for the birds, another for the man. He would open the first door and secure it behind him before opening the second, to prevent the birds inside from flying away. For now, though, there were no birds.
Cate looked around once more, ran her hand over the metal frame.
‘Clever, isn’t he?’ Grey Curls was back in her place at the fence. ‘He makes it all himself. Has a workshop, you know. I asked him to fix my grandson’s bike, and he did ever such a good job. Such a nice man.’
‘A workshop, you say? That’s here, is it, in his garage?’
She shook her head. ‘Ooh, no, he’s very considerate. He doesn’t like to hammer away near people’s houses. No, it’s’ – she scrunched up her face until her eyes were almost lost to view – ‘it’s out near the woods somewhere, I think. Some place it doesn’t bother anyone at all.’
*
Cate burst out of the lift and into the offices. Several people looked up, but when they saw her they looked away again, down at their desks or into their computer screens. Was there something studied about the way they refused to catch her eye? She didn’t have time to think about that. She crossed the room, knocked hard on Heath’s office door. Then she saw Stocky sitting at his usual desk, a cup of coffee raised to his lips. He shook his head – just slightly – as the door opened.
‘Cate.’ Heath did not look pleased, but she didn’t care. She slipped past him into the room, relieved to see it empty. She set the things she was carrying down on his desk.
He closed the door behind her, each movement deliberate, as if carefully considered, or as if he were trying to remain calm. He returned to his desk and stared down in distaste at the things she had brought.
‘What the hell is this?’ His voice was low. Somehow that was worse than if he’d shouted.
‘Sir, I found this in Newmillerdam Woods, near the Little Red site.’ She indicated the robin, curled and dead and out of place on his desk. ‘It was near there, anyway. It didn’t die at once, though, or the SOCOs would have found it. We have to get it tested. I think it’s been poisoned.’ Her words spilled out in a rush. She felt suddenly breathless, as if she’d been running. ‘We have to hurry.’
He opened his mouth, licked his bloodless lips. ‘I repeat,’ he said, ‘what the hell
is
this?’
‘I found it,’ she repeated, ‘I
found
it, sir. The other was from the original site, near the Heronry. The magpie’s from Bernard Levitt’s garden. I didn’t find one at the castle, but the groundsman apparently has. I think they’re a part of it.’ She drew a deep breath.
‘Tell me.’
‘It was Alice who made me think of it.’ At this Heath shot her a hard look, but she pressed on, ‘We were talking about the things that didn’t fit, anything about the scenes
that
didn’t
work in terms of the fairy tales they were supposed to represent. The first one was that the girls were dead.’
Heath raised his hands; let them fall again.
‘The second was the poison. Chrissie Farrell had a poisoned apple. Now that does fit the fairy tale, but the next scene had poisoned bread, and that
didn’t
fit. Little Red was supposed to be taking the bread to her grandmother, so why would it be poisoned? And the third – that one had a bowl of poisoned fish. The fish were part of the story, but the poison was not.’
‘Except that the
girl
was poisoned.’
‘Yes, but why leave poison at the scene? And it was a different type to the one found in her body. It wasn’t done by accident. I don’t think anything was. It was a deliberate choice, and that should mean something.’
‘And?’ He made a rolling gesture with his hand.
Get on with it
.
‘I believe he was trying to poison the birds, sir.’
Heath stared.
‘It was done on purpose. Poisoned food at every scene. And later we find—’
‘Dead birds. Right, I got it.’
Cate knew from his face that he had not. ‘Sir, there were dead birds in Bernard Levitt’s garden. At least two of them. He’s a birdwatcher, he’s been seen in the woods a couple of times. We had him on the register of visitors to Newmillerdam after the body was discovered. I went
to talk to him and I found him scooping a dead pigeon off his lawn. The neighbour says it happens all the time.’
‘And?’
‘I know it sounds odd, sir, but I feel sure there’s a connection. I think we should get a search warrant, have a poke around, see what we can find; we should take some of the nuts from Levitt’s bird feeder. I think they might be poisoned too. I want to get them tested, along with the magpie and the birds from the murder scenes. If the poison is the same—’
‘Why the hell would he do that? It would mean he doesn’t like birds.’
‘It could mean a lot more than that, sir.’ Cate paused. ‘And I found out he has a workshop, somewhere remote, where he wouldn’t disturb anyone. He could have taken the girls there, did what he wanted to do before dumping the bodies. His neighbour said he’d gone off somewhere earlier. He could be headed there now.’
Heath lowered himself into his chair. He touched the plastic in which the dead robin was wrapped, then rubbed his finger and thumb together in distaste.
‘I want you to get out, Corbin,’ he said.
‘Sir?’
‘I said get out. I don’t want you anywhere near this, you hear? It was clearly a mistake, bringing you into it. You’re not ready.’
‘But Detective Superintendent—’
‘You’ve lost sight of this. You’ve lost all judgement.’
Cate gawped.
‘PC Stockdale told me how you kept Alice Hyland off the register,’ he said. His voice was quiet, but his eyes said everything.
‘Sir, I—’
‘This isn’t the time for you to speak. You can explain yourself later. Needless to say, I warned you. I said you should keep your distance from that woman. I told you to watch her.’
‘You made me her liaison—’
‘Yes, I did, and that should have been the perfect opportunity to keep an eye on her. Well, you failed, Corbin; and now it falls to me to do what needs to be done. You’re off the team, with a recommendation for further disciplinary action. You’ve interfered with the records in an important case. Enough.’ He nodded towards the door. ‘Now get out.’
‘But—’
‘You’re done talking. You had your chance and you’ve told me nothing concrete. Poison is left at the scenes: we knew that. And some birds died, boo-hoo. It’s pure bloody coincidence.’ His voice dropped lower. ‘You’ve been reading too many fucking fairy stories, Corbin. You know, my first instinct about you was right.’ He walked to the door, held it open. ‘I should never have taken you seriously.’
Cate glanced back at the dead birds she’d placed in the centre of her superior’s desk. They lay there, pathetic, sorry things. She should never have brought them. She tried to look at Heath as she walked out, to hold up her
head, and found she couldn’t; her cheeks were flaming. Other people were looking at her, though, as she left; she could feel it. She couldn’t meet their eyes either; she edged around the room without seeing any of it and found someone standing in front of her, blocking her way. It was Len Stockdale.
He took her arm, gripping it tightly. ‘It’s okay, love,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Come with me.’
He led her into a side office, gestured to a chair. She didn’t sit, didn’t want to. He pulled another chair across anyway and sat facing her. He reached out but didn’t seem to know what to do with his hand; he let it fall. ‘I tried to stop you,’ he said.