The Devil's Chair (26 page)

Knowing she shouldn't she fingered the small garments, felt the stiffness of the dried blood. She couldn't rid herself of the conviction that she was being watched. Was she?

Yes. Oh, yes.

This is a valuable lead. If someone careless had simply dumped their rubbish on the top without noticing them the clue would be wasted. And, regretfully, people can be so unobservant. What a tragedy if this most precious item is not appreciated to its full extent. But as I watch my prayers are answered. The tall, thin woman, bare ankles exposed by too-short jeans, is holding them up. Her focus and immobility tell me all.

I can leave now.

Slowly, slowly, practically causing not a ripple of air around her to be disturbed by the surreptitious gesture, Maria pulled her mobile phone from her bag, took a couple of photos then phoned the police.

There wasn't usually a heavy police presence around Church Stretton but since the Burway mystery (as it was currently being called) there were a few more squad cars marauding the town centre. As though by magic they arrived seconds after the phone call, sirens blaring, shattering the sleepy peace of a rural Shropshire town on a Sunday morning. Maria Shelling stepped back in awe as a tall, skinny cop in uniform stepped towards her. ‘Was it you who made the call, ma'am?'

She nodded. ‘I haven't touched anything or disturbed the …'

Their eyes followed the same trajectory.

The bin was simply a tub fixed to a lamppost. High enough off the ground so rats, dogs, children and cats could not forage.

PC Gethin Roberts' eyes took in, as Maria's had done, the pyjamas neatly folded, the pretty pattern designed to appeal to children and their doting parents, then he too took in the long tear in the fabric and the blood.

His mouth dropped open and without thinking he called up DI Randall's mobile and connected with his answerphone. But while he was leaving his message, like Maria he scanned the car park and the growing crowd of curious people who watched, in excitement.
They need to be kept back
, was his first thought. His second was,
Is Daisy near?
Was her abductor, male or female, amongst them?

Don't worry. I've gone.

Then all hell broke loose.

Squad cars poured in. The officers quickly did the necessary, taped off the area, made the phone calls, started looking for evidence and conducting a half-hearted fingertip search. Of a car park?

Randall arrived half an hour later and took over directing the search. Finally they bagged up the depressing little bundle. Randall's heart sank as he carried out the task. The stain of blood was large and the tear on the pyjama leg surely indicated a life-
threatening
wound? A life-
costing
wound?

In contrast to the trousers the pyjama jacket was relatively undamaged and less grubby, protected, as it would have been, by the dressing gown. ‘Oh, Daisy,' Randall said and handed the package to Roddie Hughes. Like Roberts he too looked around him and then upwards. At least the supermarket had installed CCTV cameras and for once they looked to be in the right place and angled properly. Maybe their person wasn't so smart after all.

Oh, yes I am, Inspector. So much smarter than you, actually. Just look. I am ready. I am waiting for you.

DI Alex Randall began to take stock. Like the slippers these pyjamas were tangible evidence and could well provide forensic information.
They
were on top of this case now. The police. This person, whoever he or she was, might be playing cat and mouse but he and his team were inching ever closer, flushing out the truth.

You can play games but you leave clues
.

He felt optimistic yet at the same time apprehensive. Where would this latest piece of evidence take them? What horrible truth lay behind the trail of breadcrumbs that seemed to be leading them straight to the gingerbread house? Randall knew better than anyone that if they found out that Daisy had died between the time of the crash and her discovery the force might well be held responsible. And as SIO he would ultimately carry the can. He had watched investigations being conducted before. The entire case would be picked apart like a knitted pullover destined to be reduced to balls of wool.

But every trick this person played revealed a little more about themselves. He or she couldn't help but leave stray clues around. The crumbs would lead to the witch's house. He started instructing his officers.

At eight that night Neil Mansfield arrived at Monkmoor Police Station and nodded when he saw the pyjamas, then sobbed when he saw the blood and the tear in the trouser leg. He left a broken man. His shoulders bowed, all hope gone.

Randall began the briefing with the initial findings on the pyjamas. Testing for blood might be quick but it had also been obvious from the start that the pyjama trousers were Daisy's. It had told them nothing they hadn't already known.

‘Right, obviously we don't have all the results yet.' He risked a glance around the room, took in the expectant faces and continued. ‘But we are pretty certain …' he indicated the photograph, the child's pyjamas spread out as though waiting for a child to put them on, kiss goodnight and climb into bed, ‘that these are the pyjamas that Daisy Walsh was wearing on the night of the accident.' Most of the officers looked at the photograph, their faces becoming glum. ‘It also appears,' he said, ‘that as the garments were found yesterday, neatly folded on the top of the rubbish bin in the Co-op car park, that they were placed there relatively recently, probably early yesterday morning as the bins are emptied weekly on a Thursday and there was little rubbish in it. We are taking this as deliberate provocation.' He frowned for a minute. What was the best way to interpret this? Provocation or that little trail of breadcrumbs meant to lead them to the child?

He leaned forward and met each officer's eyes in turn. ‘We're initially focusing on the CCTV footage starting at daybreak yesterday in the hope that we might be able identify the person who planted these. Talith, perhaps you'll take charge of that?'

DS Paul Talith nodded.

‘Needless to say, we don't know whether the child is alive.' He hesitated. ‘Looking at the bloodstain …' all eyes turned to the second photograph, top right, close up the blood stain, then back at Randall, ‘… it seems certain that Daisy sustained a severe injury or injuries during the accident. Initial examination of the right leg of the pyjama trousers suggests she may have had a broken leg, probably a tibia. There was a fragment of bone halfway down the tear.'

The faces of the surrounding officers were grim. Some of them were imagining their own children, badly hurt, away from a hospital or their mothers and fathers.

Randall read their faces and knew he needed to focus their attention on the hard investigation rather than on the suffering of a child. ‘Let's face facts,' he said gently, ‘and not get too distracted by folklore, by …' he tried to laugh it off, ‘the reputation of the Long Mynd and by its awesome geography. Let's act as though it all happened somewhere else. If it had happened elsewhere we would be concentrating less on the causes of the accident and more on the fact that a little girl, four years old, has been missing for nearly a month.'

The officers were wary now.

‘Church Stretton is a largely rural town with a small resident population but a large influx of visitors – hikers and bikers mainly.' He stopped, his thoughts snagged by the words he had just used so flippantly.
Large influx of visitors
. People came and they went. His eyes met those of young PC Gethin Roberts and something seemed to pass between them, recognized only by them and not picked up by anyone else in the room.

To buy time and gather his thoughts, Randall recapped.

‘Daisy hasn't been seen since the night of the accident. At first we wondered whether she was even in the car but finding the slipper and her little toy appeared to indicate that she was there and so suffered the accident. Later we find that her mother's partner, Neil Mansfield, was having a relationship with another woman, Lucy Stanstead, who is unable to have her own children. She appears to have formed an attachment to the little girl. It is not impossible, even, that Lucy Stanstead was our mystery caller. Her husband was away at sea at the time. But in light of Daisy's clothing being planted in various places,' again Randall stopped, testing each statement as carefully as a foot tentatively testing thin ice, ‘the appearance,' he continued slowly, ‘of the damaged and bloodstained pyjama trousers yesterday
appears
to discredit that theory. Daisy is not at the Stanstead home and our caller appears to be leading us towards her wherever she is.' Again he stopped. What assumptions was he making that would lead them all up the garden path?

The room was not only silent but still. He had all their attention.

He continued, ‘Let's look a little closer at what we know. Drunk, Tracy leaves the house with Daisy. She drives up a narrow, dangerous and lonely road at two a.m. on a Sunday morning.'

Still no one either moved or spoke.

‘She does an emergency stop. We know that from the tyre marks. She then reverses, loses her track and tumbles down into Carding Mill Valley. Again, we know that. The accident is reported at six a.m. by an unknown person. We have never traced that person; neither have they come forward in spite of numerous appeals.'

All eyes were on him.

‘Tracy ends up in hospital and dies and the child has vanished. One slipper was found immediately after the crash at the crash site; the other was left in the loft of Hope Cottage some time later. Her dressing gown has also been planted near the crash site. And now her pyjamas have appeared in town, put there some time since Thursday. I think we can assume by the way they were placed that they were meant to be found and were probably put there only a few hours before Mrs Shelling found them. The pyjama trousers seem to indicate that Daisy, at the very least, has a broken leg. And that, I'm afraid, is the sum total of what we know.'

‘Not quite.' Gary Coleman had finally got his chance to speak.

A
s they left the interview room, PC Gethin Roberts caught up with Gary Coleman and tried to persuade him to focus at least some of their interest on the Long Mynd Hotel.

‘There's something there,' he said. ‘I can feel it in my bones.'

Coleman rolled his eyes then looked at him, puzzled. ‘What?' he asked bluntly.

‘Well,' Roberts began, ‘from what you got on the computer, it looks like Tracy was looking on the internet to profit out of her little girl. Child modelling, didn't you say?'

‘So?'

Coleman tried to ignore his colleague but there was something about the earnestness of Roberts that had always endeared the younger copper to him.

‘I don't know what it is, Gary,' Roberts insisted as they strode down the corridor towards their cars. ‘But it's something to do with the place. Why don't we pay it a visit?' he suggested hopefully.

Although Coleman's instinct was to scoff at Roberts' idea, it struck him that only Gethin Roberts had been there already. Perhaps he had seen something.

But he didn't want to appear too enthusiastic. ‘I suppose it's an idea,' he conceded. ‘Maybe it would explain some of what's been going on. Perhaps someone there does know a bit more than they're saying.' He speared his colleague with a stare. ‘It's a worth a little bit of digging.'

‘Now?'

‘OK. But first, why revisit the hotel, Gethin?'

‘It was that one social worker,' Roberts said with deliberation. ‘The one Tracy was closeted up with for ages. Sheila Weston; the one that kept an eye on the little girl when Tracy was busy at work. I did some checking. She worked for a while out in Dubai as a teacher. Now, I'm not saying there's a connection,' he put in quickly. ‘I mean, lots of people have worked in Dubai.' He grinned. ‘I'd work out there for the pay and the tax situation but it
is
a connection. And there
is
a lot of money out there. And …'

His voice trailed off.

He'd run out of ideas but Coleman pressed his key tag and the car responded with a flash of its hazards and the click of doors opening. ‘So what are we waiting for?'

Roberts grinned. ‘The Long Mynd Hotel?'

WPC Lara Tinsley, in the meantime, was following up a hunch of her own.

Randall was sitting in the briefing room, staring at the pictures which lined the boards, Daisy peeping out from behind the door, Tracy on a night out looking drunk, but happy. The wrecked car, Tracy's facial injuries. Tracy in intensive care, tubes sticking out of her nose and mouth, huge machines in the background.

Randall swivelled around in his chair to look at photos of other people involved in the case. Neil Mansfield, his face a mixture of powerful emotion: bewilderment at the situation he found himself in, grief at the loss of his partner and the child he had so obviously loved, worry at the charges that he feared might be made against him. And overlying all that, a huge swamp of unhappiness that blurred and bloated his features. Randall peered along the wall, towards the other people less affected by the Long Mynd tragedy: Tracy's mother and sister and her ex-husband, father of the missing child. Then there were people whose connection was more difficult to place. Charity Ignatio. What part was she playing in this drama? Was she a killer? Had it been an accident or had she liquidated her family by poisoning them all those years ago? He was irritated that he couldn't get a handle on the girl.

And then there was the puzzle. Who had left the fungi on Charity's doorstep all those years ago, and why? To point the police in the right direction? If so, why be so obscure about it? Why not simply say what they knew? Indeed, why was their mystery woman being so obscure with them now? Were they one and the same person – the old woman in a nursing home? If she knew something about the whereabouts of the little girl why not simply bring her forward? Why not produce her?