The Shrouded Path Page 16

  The churchyard had been divided into three segments. At the top of the slope the grass was high, covering most of the graves so that they could be barely seen. Further down, the grass looked like it had been mown for winter but there was still an unkempt feel to the area. It was only at the bottom, in a patch near the road, that the graves looked cared for with plants and flowers in jars. Did Malcolm have his own methods for mowing the lawn?

  ‘It’s deliberate.’

  The voice made Mina jump and she wheeled around. A man in his late fifties stood in front of her wearing a green waxed jacket and a black felted cap.

  ‘Saw you looking at the churchyard. It’s deliberate how it’s managed. At the top, the oldest part of the churchyard, it’s been allowed to return to the wild. There are no relatives to visit the graves and some of them need repair. So it’s managed so that wildlife is undisturbed.’

  ‘It fits in with the landscape. Wild and messy. And the middle bit?’

  ‘That’s semi-managed. It’s mown twice a year but other than that it’s left, again to encourage wildlife to use it as their home. Then, of course, the more recent graves are well tended and family still come. It’s looked after and mown on a regular basis.’ He looked her up and down. ‘You’re the gardener at the pub?’

  Another one. ‘You don’t miss much.’

  ‘This is a small village. Do you know this place well?’

  There was a note in his voice that caused Mina to frown. ‘No. I’m new here. I’m taking any job I can get at this time of year.’

  ‘Of course, of course. I’m Harry Neale. The bonfire will be in my field on Sunday.’

  ‘I put a leaflet through your letter box just now.’

  ‘Did you? It’s all hands to the pump today getting the wood together. There’s usually some knocking about here. I need to collect it as some of the villagers are superstitious about taking wood from the churchyard.’

  ‘But you’re not?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s holy ground so it’ll do more good than harm, surely.’

  ‘What about the yew?’

  He looked away. ‘Even I draw the line at the yew tree. Well, I might see you on Sunday then.’ He turned to walk off and, as he did so, glanced down at the grave she was standing next to. His face dropped and he gave her a curious look.

  Mina waited until he’d gone out of the gate and looked down to see the name on the grave. Valerie Grace Hallows.

  37

  Catherine

  They sat in that fusty, little-used room dotted with remnants of a past life. On the sideboard, a faded colour photo was framed in cheap embossed plastic showing a couple in dated wedding clothes. The groom was wearing thick black glasses and a black suit with wide trouser legs. The bodice of the bride’s dress had two stiff peaks where her breasts jutted out. Catherine didn’t like to stare too long at the photo so instead took a sip of her drink while the woman opposite leant back in her chair, her eyes shut.

  ‘I get so tired these days.’

  Catherine also got tired from the confused images racing through her head but she didn’t dare say it to this woman. Instead, she sat and waited. The church bell rang out and Catherine looked at her watch in alarm.

  ‘I’ll have to go soon. I need to make the lesson after lunch. Mrs Gordon’s strict and will report me if I’m not there.’

  The woman opposite counted the bell chimes striking the hour. ‘Nine, ten, eleven. One of those bells in the tower came from the drowned village. Did you know?’

  ‘Drowned village? Where’s that?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She looked across to Catherine. ‘But you’ve heard of it before?’

  Catherine flushed and looked down at her skirt. ‘The woman I visit in hospital mentioned it. The drowned village, I mean. Why did she do that?’

  ‘She talked about the village, did she? And what did she say?’

  ‘Nothing that made sense.’

  ‘But enough.’

  The menace in the woman’s voice made Catherine look up. ‘Is it over?’

  She didn’t mean the bells and the woman understood this. There was a short silence except for the sound of the woman opening a drawer. ‘I want you to look at this.’

  She handed Catherine a leaflet. ‘Mina’s moved into the village. There’s no reason for her to be here unless it’s to discover our secrets. It could still all come out.’

  Catherine stared at the flyer. It was printed in the colours of mud and sludge green. Across the top were the words ‘The Land Girl’. ‘Why? Why is she here?’

  ‘She’s still trying to find out.’ The woman leant forward. ‘She can’t do that. You do understand, don’t you? She can’t find out. Do you want the shame brought on your family too?’

  Catherine shook her head. ‘No. No, I don’t want that.’

  ‘Do you have the key?’

  Catherine frowned. ‘What key?’

  ‘The one to the room upstairs. I need to take that from you.’

  ‘Upstairs? Oh, you mean this.’ Catherine reached over to her school blazer and dug into the pockets. ‘Is this what you want?’

  38

  Connie was in a bad temper and Dahl hesitated before approaching her. She was at her desk, managing to scowl and look sorry for herself at the same time. Connie clearly didn’t relish being given the job of sifting through computer records that was the bread and butter of detective work. It was she, however, who pointed out they’d rushed to interview Monica in Cold Eaton without first checking whether her sister, Ingrid, had had a post mortem after the fatal asthma attack. Here was the opportunity to slow down a bit and find a strong connection between the three women, if there was one. He had his coat on and car keys in his hand, ready to go back to St Bertram’s. He’d thought it wise to say goodbye to Connie but, after one glance at her face, he regretted the impulse. He tried to placate her, aware that his words were falling on deaf ears.

  ‘It’s what we want, isn’t it? We’re being guarded in our observations because we don’t know each other very well but we’re both wary of how Ingrid Kemp and Nell Colley died. Here’s our chance to prove it.’

  ‘By sitting in an office, sifting through paperwork? I want to be out there with you interviewing staff. The death of Hilary Kemp is our main focus because we’ve got evidence of foul play. Investigating her death will help us connect the other two.’

  ‘Yes, but we’ve a cast of hundreds as potential suspects and the incident room there is fully staffed. The case might be a priority but the trail is stone cold. I envy you concentrating on those records. I’m going to be spending all day interviewing medical staff whose attitudes will range from terrified to outraged. It’s the innocent ones who look most guilty in these situations. If we’ve a pathological killer in our midst he’ll be the most relaxed of them all.’

  ‘He?’ Connie looked up.

  ‘Just a turn of phrase. I’m simply pointing out it’ll be a complete pain assembling all the testimonies.’

  ‘Want to swap?’ asked Connie but Dahl shook his head.

  ‘Sadler must have had a reason behind allocating the tasks.’

  Connie snorted and turned back to the files on her desk. ‘Hilary Kemp had a different GP so we can put Dr Parsons to one side for the moment unless we have evidence he was at St Bertram’s yesterday. Enjoy yourself,’ she muttered.

  Dahl walked out of the building glad to leave Connie’s sour mood and the strains of working with Matthews. St Bertram’s had that unusual atmosphere so specific to hospitals, the entrance a mix of bustling activity and unhealthy lassitude. People either had somewhere to go or were killing time. The police personnel had been delivered in unmarked vehicles and were busy working in an allocated room on the eighth floor. The room was subdued when he entered it, the detectives aware that they were dealing with a potential murderer of the vulnerable.

  To one side, he heard a hospital porter describing taking Hilary for a scan and her confused ramblings. Dahl sat
in a chair that he’d pulled from behind a table and listened for a moment.

  ‘It was Valerie this and Valerie that. I just let her carry on. I waited while she had the imaging and, afterwards, on the way back to the ward she started on about the drowning of the village up at Derwent. This Valerie was originally from up that way, I think I managed to work out. Funny how your mind wanders.’

  Derwent. Dahl thought he could take his mother up to the reservoir sometime before the winter set in. It had an interesting enough history and his mother would like the escape from the confines of her house. Near the window, Bill Shields was sitting in one of the chairs, rotating slowly, deep in thought.

  ‘Dr Shields?’

  ‘Ah, the young Dahl. How are you getting on with Connie?’

  Dahl took off his coat. ‘She seems to like me, which, I suspect, helps.’

  The statement seemed to cheer Bill up. ‘Does she? Well, Connie has always had excellent taste.’

  ‘Are you helping out?’

  Bill rotated away from him. ‘Am I helping out? Well, I’m trying not to get in the way, we can say that.’

  Dahl sat down opposite him. ‘It’s upset you?’

  Bill stopped moving. ‘St Bertram’s is my hospital. Oh, I know you lot only get to see me in my scrubs in the pathology department or at the Christmas do if your boss remembers to invite me, but I have a life away from police work. I don’t only deal with the suspicious deaths, I look at the unexplained. Patients where the cause of death is clear but confirmation is needed anyway. I look at bodies where doctors are trying to advance medical knowledge and want me to try to work out the progression of the illness. It’s looking to the future not just to the past. What I’m trying to say is that there is a whole part of my work you never see. I belong to this hospital.’

  ‘You heard the official findings that the drip had been cut?’

  Bill nodded and stood up. ‘And so we wait for the results to see what was added to a solution that was supposed to help Hilary Kemp in her final hours, not hasten her end.’

  ‘We’re hoping for it today but it might take a little longer.’

  ‘A problem for you certainly but, for me, it’s almost irrelevant. The damage was already done when the needle entered the drip. Anyway, I think I’d better make myself scarce.’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  Bill turned around. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Do you ever hear of instances where you should have done a post mortem but it was never referred to you?’

  Bill shrugged. ‘There’s often some debate about when one should be performed. In hospital we sometimes chat about the practicalities of doing a medical PM and I can be involved in the decision making process, but, often, the decision is made without me.’

  ‘What about where the coroner should have been involved?’

  ‘That’s—’ Bill stopped. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘It’s just a query.’ Dahl sized up the pathologist. He was a rotund man, probably not long off retirement age, with an air of world weariness about him. Bill was staring at him aghast.

  ‘Don’t tell me there’s more than one?’

  *

  Connie was boss-eyed from staring at endless files. The three women had little in common except that they lived within five miles of each other and were about the same age, born in a seven month period between October 1941 and April 1942. If Connie’s calculations were right, this meant they would have all been in the same year at school.

  She picked up the phone and called the number she had for Mina Kemp. It went straight onto voicemail and she left a message. She tried Mina’s landline but the phone just rang out and she put the receiver down in frustration and, looking around her, sneaked out of the office, feeling like a fugitive.

  The Evening Star had a closed feel to it. The windows were shuttered and a rope was tied across the entrance to the boat. Connie rapped on a window but, receiving no reply, returned to her car and went to the other address she had for Mina, a smart semi in Lower Bampton with a sumptuous front garden.

  There was no answer to Connie’s knock but from behind the glass she saw a shadow come down the stairs and hesitate for a moment. The door opened and a large woman with a flush of colour in her cheeks appeared. Connie showed her warrant card.

  ‘Do I have the right house? I’m looking for Mina Kemp.’

  ‘It’s just she’s not here at the moment.’

  ‘And you are …’

  ‘Sorry. I’m her friend, Jo.’ Connie’s eyes dropped to the black holdall the woman held in her left hand. ‘She asked me to pick up some clothes.’

  ‘She’s staying with you?’

  ‘No. Umm, I don’t really know where she is. She’s asked me to pick up some stuff and she’ll call to say where she’s staying.’

  ‘She’s run off then.’

  Connie’s tone alarmed the woman. ‘She’s not run off. She’s—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look, she had to get away for a few days.’

  Connie’s face darkened. ‘If you know where she is, you’d better tell me.’

  Jo dropped the bag, defeated. ‘She’s staying at The Nettle Inn in Cold Eaton. I don’t think she’s working today.’

  ‘Right.’ Cold bloody Eaton, thought Connie. What’s she doing there?

  In a temper, Connie drove towards the village, keeping an eye on her speed. Mina’s van was in the car park but when Connie tried the side door of the pub it was shut. A pub that adhered to the old-style closing hours. Great. She peered inside the van but could see nothing.

  ‘Did you want me?’ Mina was standing on the road with an armful of leaflets. Her expression was one more of distance than guilt.

  Connie straightened. ‘I’ve been trying to find you at your various addresses. Your friend Jo didn’t want to tell me where you were. Why the secrecy?’

  Mina paled. ‘My mother’s just died. I needed to get away, that’s all. Do you have any more news for me?’

  Annoyed, Connie shifted, feeling the need for a cigarette. ‘I don’t have anything else to tell you other than we’re checking the circumstances of your mother’s death. There is something else I wanted to ask you, though. Can you tell me where Hilary went to school?’

  Mina put her leaflets into her bag and made a show of closing it. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Something has come up and I need to go back to your mother’s childhood to check for a link.’

  ‘She went to St Paul’s junior school, I think, and then on to Bampton Grammar. That’s all I know, I’m afraid.’

  ‘And does the name Ingrid Neale mean anything to you?’

  Mina looked confused. ‘Ingrid Neale. Who’s she?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I met a Harry Neale just now in the churchyard. Are they related?’

  ‘Harry and his wife, Monica, live in the manor house at the top of the village. Ingrid was Monica’s sister. You definitely don’t recognise any of those names in relation to your mother?’

  Mina shook her head.

  ‘What about a Nell Colley?’

  ‘I don’t know these people. Why are they important?’

  Connie didn’t reply but a glance at Mina’s face revealed bewilderment and, she thought, fear. ‘How was your mother in the days before she died?’

  Mina turned away. ‘I told you, she was a bit agitated and confused.’

  ‘Confused?’

  ‘Yes, you know. Disoriented.’

  ‘Did the medical staff know why?’

  ‘I pressed them but they didn’t really give me an answer.’

  ‘There were no other visitors apart from you?’

  ‘No, well, only the girl.’

  ‘Which girl?’ asked Connie.

  ‘She was one of the official visitors. They’re called patient support, apparently. She saw me the other day and said she’d been visiting Mum.’

  Connie took out her notebook. ‘When you say girl, how old do you me
an?’

  ‘She said she was in year nine but I don’t really know what that means. She looked around fourteen.’

  ‘And she visited your mother?’

  ‘She said she did.’ Mina looked unwilling to continue the conversation. ‘I think Mum remembered it but her memory wasn’t great towards the end.’

  ‘Did she go regularly to the ward?’

  ‘I don’t think so, although I think she’d spent time with Mum in the last couple of weeks. I really need to tell her Mum’s dead. She was concerned.’

  ‘They had become close?’

  ‘Not particularly but Mum did talk to her.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Um. Catherine Hallows. It was on her name badge. Only …’ Mina looked back to the church. ‘Hallows. That’s funny.’

  ‘What’s funny?’

  Mina shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s a Derbyshire name, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’ll need to talk to her.’ Connie looked across at Mina and was surprised to see a look of relief cross her face. Mina, despite her neutral tone and cautious words, didn’t want the girl missed from the list of interviewees. Connie turned to go. ‘You won’t go away without telling us, will you?’

  Mina shook her head. ‘I needed to get away, that’s all.’ She stopped, thinking something over. ‘Listen. What did Ingrid Neale and Nell Colley look like?’

  Connie tried to keep the look of surprise off her face. ‘I don’t have up to date photos at the moment. It’s a good point. I’ll see if they’ve arrived at the station. I’ve met Ingrid’s sister, though and, if they were alike, she was tall and slim.’

  Mina hesitated. ‘I have a photo of Mum’s friends. Do you want to see it?’ She rummaged in her bag and pulled out a photo, which she handed to Connie. ‘It was amongst my mum’s stuff. I don’t know who any of them are.’

  Five girls were lined up ready for a tennis game. They were styled in the fashions of the fifties, rigid hair and fitted sports clothes.

  ‘None of them’s my mother. I assume she took the snap. I was hoping to identify the others.’

  ‘That,’ said Connie, pointing to the girl second from the left, ‘must be Ingrid Neale. She looks just like her sister, Monica.’ Inside, she could feel the roar of excitement. It was a link. Mina, however, was looking perturbed.