Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel (18 page)

Savage gave an involuntary shiver as Parker pressed his lips together in an approximation of a smile. There was a tap, tap, tap. Not Parker with the cane, but his wife walking into the room and appearing at Savage’s shoulder.

‘Have you sinned, Charlotte?’ Mrs Parker’s bony hand shot out and grasped Savage’s forearm. She leant over, Savage getting a waft of halitosis. ‘Can you say you’ve led a blameless life?’

‘I very much doubt she can.’ Parker pushed himself up from his chair. He stepped forward, his spindly body looming over her. ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone, Inspector. I did what was best for the boys back then and I’m not afraid to answer for my actions. Are you?’

‘I’m warning you,’ Savage said as she wrestled her arm free from Mrs Parker’s grip. ‘I could have you arrested.’

‘I thought that’s what you were going to do anyway.’ Parker leered down and then pounded the cane on the floor in a series of staccato strikes which emphasised each word he spoke. ‘Arrest. Us. For. Murder.’

‘Well then, Inspector?’ Mrs Parker touched Savage again, this time lightly on the shoulder. ‘You can either arrest us or …’

‘You can get the hell out of here.’ Mr Parker rapped the cane on the side of Savage’s chair. He turned sideways and looked at the mantelpiece. ‘The ten minutes are up.’

Savage pushed herself to her feet and barged between Parker and his wife. They made no attempt to stop her. She turned at the doorway.

‘I don’t know what went on at Woodland Heights, but I can tell you I intend to find out.’ Savage spun on her heels and went down the hallway to the front door. She flung the door open and scampered down the steps. As she opened the iron gate, she looked back up at the house. The Parkers had pulled the curtains open and stood like a pair of statues, staring down at her.

‘Ma’am?’ Calter was leaning against the car. She nodded up at the house. ‘Everything all right? Those two look like a right couple of weirdos.’

‘You could say that.’ Savage slipped through the gate. ‘Mr Parker all but threatened me with a cane.’

‘Threatened?’ Calter moved towards the gate. ‘We should go back in there and arrest him then.’

‘No.’ Savage shook her head and took a deep breath. ‘We need more evidence.’

‘Well, the neighbours weren’t much help. The Parkers keep themselves to themselves. They don’t get involved in village life and callers apparently get short shrift.’

‘Don’t I just know it,’ Savage said.

Chapter Sixteen

North Devon. Friday 23rd October. 1.23 p.m.

Riley and Enders left PC Sidwell bewildered, telling him only that they’d found a link between their case and the disappearance of Tim Benedict, the link being the use of a Taser weapon. There was no doubt, Riley said, that Benedict had been abducted. For the moment though he’d kept quiet about the link to the raft.

‘Sidwell. He’s in another league,’ Enders said as they drove away. ‘And you thought Plymouth detectives were backward.’

‘Only you, Patrick,’ Riley said. ‘But Sidwell’s right about one thing. That is, why Benedict?’

‘Well you could say “why Sleet?” Two men, fifty miles apart, but there has to be a connection, right?’

‘Exactly. Trouble is they’re entirely disparate individuals.’

‘Disparate?’

‘Benedict’s mid-sixties, Sleet twenty years younger. Benedict is a priest and Sleet an animal drug rep. I can’t see them having crossed paths.’

‘What about Sleet? He could have been up here visiting farms in the area.’

‘Good point. We can check his schedule, though I’m not sure his patch goes this far north.’ Riley stared through the windscreen as hedges and fields rushed past. ‘We’re a world away from Plymouth up here. Tiny villages, a few small towns, not much going on. I can’t see anything Benedict could have got mixed up in which would tally with what Sleet’s been doing.’

‘This woman, Sarah. The one on the mobile. She could be the link. She’s had an affair with both Sleet and Benedict and her hubby’s got mad and taken both men out.’

‘Now who’s in another league, Patrick?’ Riley laughed. ‘No, I can’t see it. Benedict is widowed, sure, but from what Sidwell told us he doesn’t seem the bed-hopping type. Not that vicars are immune to temptation of course.’

‘Something else then.’

‘We need to start with the raft. Both men’s initials were inscribed on the mannequin’s arm along with two others. However, the chance of tracking the other two down using just their initials is minuscule. I mean CH and BP? That could be Christina Hendricks and Brad Pitt for all we know.

‘Unlikely, sir.’

‘Sure, but you get my point. What concerns me is that the mannequin was mutilated and came with an elaborate threat.’

‘The Bible stuff?’

‘Just so. My imagination might be running away with itself, but I don’t think this is going to end well.’

After speaking to Parker, Savage found something was niggling at her. Back in her office mid-afternoon, she rifled through the statements from the boys at the home. Three of the boys had mentioned the cellar and Parker had hinted at corporal punishment. And the cellar was the one part of the house Savage hadn’t searched. She’d planned to, she remembered, but Samuel’s arrival had put paid to that. Short of obtaining a search warrant there was no way she was going to be able to return to the children’s home officially.

Unofficially, however …

At a little after five p.m. Savage and Calter drove to Hope Cove again, this time in Savage’s MG. Savage parked in the village car park, her vehicle one of only three sitting on the gravel expanse. Lights in nearby houses had begun to flare in the twilight and a gentle breeze wafted cooking smells from the inn across the way.

‘Quite a day, ma’am,’ Calter said, as they got out. ‘Back and forth and back again, hey?’

Savage nodded. ‘Yes. Thanks for coming.’

‘You’re lucky I’m available.’ Calter zipped up her waterproof jacket. ‘My Friday nights are usually sacrosanct. And there’s this guy I’ve just met, a Marine.’

‘If there was a problem you should have said.’ Savage pulled on her own waterproof. ‘I’d have come on my own.’

‘No problem. I told him I was worth waiting for.’ Calter moved on to her boots, lifting a foot onto the rear bumper of the MG and tightening the laces. She looked up. ‘Are you sure we should be doing this?’

‘Yes,’ Savage said. ‘There isn’t any other option. Anyway, we’re within our rights.’

‘Well then why don’t we just go in the front way and in daylight? And why come in your MG instead of using a pool car?’

‘I don’t want anyone to know we’re searching the place again. As far as Samuel and Parker are concerned, I found nothing of interest. I’d like it to stay that way until we’ve got more evidence.’

‘You think Samuel’s involved?’

‘He’s involved somehow. I feel he told me too much to be implicated directly in the boys’ disappearance though.’

Calter nodded and pulled on a pair of gloves and a black hat.

‘Suits you,’ Savage said. ‘You look like a ninja.’

‘I
am
a ninja, remember?’

Calter did a form of martial arts, Savage recalled. Ju-jitsu or something. More than once the DC had showed she wasn’t to be messed with. Savage put on her own set of gloves and hat and hoisted the rucksack onto her back.

‘Come on, let’s get going. We need to leave the village before dark or it’s going to look really odd.’

They walked down past the Hope and Anchor Inn and onto the coast path which skirted the beach. The wet sand glistened in the fading light and a set of footprints led down to the water’s edge where a trio of dogs bounded round their owner. At the far end of the beach the local rescue boat sat in front of its boathouse. Several crew members stood around the RIB chatting.

‘All right, girls?’ one of the men said as they approached.

‘Fine thanks,’ Savage said as they turned to the right and began the steep climb up the coast path.

‘He can rescue me any day, ma’am.’ Calter looked back over her shoulder at the guy and smiled. ‘Mind you, you know me and the sea. I get sick in a paddling pool.’

Steps led up from the beach and then the path curled out and round the top of the odd piece of land known as Bolt Tail. They had no need to head out onto the promontory so they cut across and rejoined the coast path as it ran along the clifftops in an easterly direction towards the children’s home and Soar Mill Cove. They passed another dog walker, hurrying back to the village before the light gave out, but after that saw no one.

Dusk had well and truly fallen by the time they reached the point on the coast nearest Woodland Heights. Half a mile farther inland, lights from a cluster of houses marked the village of Bolberry. Overhead, the clear weather of the daytime had gone, replaced by dark clouds. Occasionally a smattering of stars glinted through a rift, but the clouds soon rolled across again, extinguishing the light.

‘Now we wait,’ Savage said, moving to one side of the path and finding somewhere dry and comfortable to sit. ‘Until it’s fully dark.’

‘The home’s not haunted, ma’am?’ Calter said, as she plonked herself down alongside Savage.

Savage stared across to where the house stood sinister and looming. She wondered what sort of abuse had gone on there, whether the boys’ screams had punctuated the still night air or whether, in fact, they’d been too scared to cry out.

‘Haunted?’ she said. ‘Very probably.’

Within half an hour the last of the light had gone. Savage held a finger to her lips. Next to her, Calter’s silhouette nodded. They pulled themselves up from the ground and padded away from the path and across an expanse of grass. The house emerged from the gloom, grey walls rising to where the roof touched a now formless sky, the upper windows nothing but black voids. At the bottom of the front steps, Savage stopped. In the distance a dog barked and she could hear the occasional car on the Salcombe road, a mile or so away. Behind them came the noise of the waves rolling in against the base of the cliffs. A brooding silence from the house.

‘We go in,’ Savage whispered. ‘We stay together, take it easy, do this methodically, OK?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

They walked up the steps. Samuel had pulled the door to, but the frame was warped and he hadn’t been able to shut it enough to engage the padlock and hasp. Savage gave the door a gentle push and it scraped open.

‘Can’t see a thing.’ Calter’s voice hissed in the darkness as Savage pushed the door to. ‘This is like being inside a coal scuttle. Oh!’

‘Stay still.’ Savage had reached out and touched Calter on the arm. Now she unshouldered her rucksack and rummaged inside, pulling out two small torches. She turned one on and handed the other to the DC. ‘Use this, but keep the beam low and don’t point it at the windows.’

Savage swept the torch down the corridor. The staircase rose into darkness.

‘You want to check up there again?’ Calter said.

‘No, we’re here for the cellar.’

‘I was hoping you’d forgotten. Remember Harry and his cellar? I really didn’t like that.’

Calter was talking about the serial killer, Matthew Harrison. He’d had a penchant for killing young women and then storing their bodies in a number of freezers which he kept in his basement.

Savage crept up the corridor towards the rear of the house. Debris crunched underfoot and on each side they passed rooms where shadows danced in the light from the torches. In one, a pair of red glowing eyes flashed for a moment before something scuttled off in the dust. When they reached the kitchen it seemed larger than Savage remembered. The oak table stretched across the space, pots and pans dangling from some kind of rack above. Against one wall stood a Belfast sink, the porcelain cracked, a tap dripping rhythmically into a broken mug.

‘Nice,’ Calter said. ‘Just the sort of place to prepare school dinners.’

‘This way.’ Savage edged round the table and over to the far side of the room where one door led to a pantry and storerooms, the other to the cellar. She pushed the cellar door open. Uneven stairs fell away in utter blackness and a waft of dank and dirty air assailed her nostrils.

‘Down there, ma’am?’ Calter stood alongside Savage. ‘You’ve got to be joking, right?’

‘I’ll go first,’ Savage said. She stepped down onto the top stair, a huge granite slab, well worn and sloping left to right. She shone the torch at her feet and stepped down again. Each stair was a huge flag, rough and uneven. She continued on down, Calter just behind. At the bottom, her feet splashed into shallow water. She swung the torch around and the beam revealed puddles and debris.

A few metres in front of her a joist hung half fallen from the ceiling. The hole in the living room, she thought. Off to the right a narrow arch in a stone wall led to another chamber. She moved across towards it, trying as best she could to avoid the puddles.

‘Ma’am!’ Calter stood over by one wall, the light from her torch playing on the rough stones. ‘Look here.’

Savage turned. Calter was examining a set of chains which hung from a hook midway up the wall. The chains were linked to a pair of manacles and in front of the wall stood a rusty old bed frame.

‘I can’t believe this,’ Calter said. ‘They brought the kids down here and tied them up as a punishment? Bloody animals.’

Savage said nothing. She wondered to herself how this had been missed. Surely the entire property had been searched when the boys went missing?

She went back to the arch and peered through. She flicked the torch round and the light revealed a small room just two or three metres across. The main part of the cellar had a stone and earth floor, but in here the floor was concrete. The concrete had been roughly laid, little ridges here and there and a pronounced bowl in the centre where water had collected. Savage played the torch over the surface. In the right-hand corner there was some sort of scraping, a marking. She walked across, knelt, and pointed the torch down. Somebody had written a date on the surface before the concrete had hardened: 4/11/88.

Fourth of November, 1988.

The two boys had gone missing in August of the same year. The concrete had been laid a few months later. Why lay a new floor in this tiny room when the main part of the cellar was just as rough?