The Shrouded Path Read online

  Connie stared at the man, telling her brain to ignore the fact that he was completely fanciable. ‘Did he give a description?’

  ‘Only that she was about fourteen. He used the term “schoolgirl”.’

  ‘What the— Why didn’t he call us or look for the girl? Why’d he go haring off in his car?’

  ‘According to Jenny Kersey he was completely spooked by what he’d seen and wanted to get them both home. He was acting like he’d seen a ghost.’

  Connie looked around the office. ‘We’re short of personnel today. I’ll have to go and look by myself.’

  He smiled at her. ‘I’ll take you down to the spot if you like.’

  *

  In the car he introduced himself as Sergeant Morgan.

  ‘Don’t you have a first name? Or do you keep it quiet, like Morse?’

  He kept his eyes on the road and laughed. ‘Morgan is my first name.’

  Connie looked out of the window. ‘Sergeant Morgan. That’s a funny way to introduce yourself.’

  ‘Standard procedure.’

  She turned to him. ‘Standard procedure? It bloody isn’t. It’s standard to give your rank and last name.’

  ‘I just did.’

  ‘What is your first name?’

  ‘Morgan.’

  ‘So you introduced yourself as Sergeant Morgan. Rank and first name. What’s your last name?’

  ‘Morgan.’

  Connie swore.

  He relented. ‘My parents, in their infinite wisdom, gave me the same first name as my last. My name’s Morgan Morgan.’

  Connie snorted with laughter. ‘It’s not.’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘But weren’t you teased at school?’

  ‘Nope. My birthday is in September. I was the eldest in my class and built like a brick shithouse. Never been bullied in my life.’

  ‘But you can’t even shorten Morgan to anything. You’re Morgan Morgan.’

  ‘I know. I’m not bothered, to be honest. No one takes the piss out of me I can assure you.’

  I bet they don’t, thought Connie.

  She expected to see police tape or at least some evidence of the accident but the road was clear. ‘There’s nothing to see.’

  He glanced at her. ‘We reopened the stretch at six this morning. The emphasis is on getting traffic moving again, even when there’s a fatality.’ He slowed down and pointed at the road leading onto the carriageway. ‘That’s where the car came out into the path of the lorry. Road conditions were fine but visibility was poor. He didn’t stop to meet the junction.’

  Morgan turned down Cutting Lane, a narrow winding road that just allowed two cars to pass. The road climbed and then levelled out as they neared a large brick bridge. Morgan pulled into the side of the road and pointed to it. ‘Welcome to the Cutting.’

  56

  Mina, unable to settle, spent the morning on the deck of the boat wrapped in one of her mother’s ancient blankets. Her canoe, unused for days, needed checking over and then taking out along one of her usual routes. The problem was that Mina had lost her confidence since her fall. In her confusion, she couldn’t decide if she was safer here than at The Nettle Inn. She was now doubting whether she had been attacked at the top of the stairs at all. Perhaps Emily was right and she had merely tripped in the darkness. Away from Cold Eaton, the village didn’t seem as menacing as it had that morning and now it was the boat that was making her jittery. Her foot was throbbing from her short walk to the churchyard, although the accumulation of painkillers made the ache appear reassuringly distant. Here on deck she could at least hear and smell the water around her and also, if she was being honest, keep watch on who was approaching the boat. She was relieved when Sadler arrived, parking his car next to her van.

  He looked at the lettering on the boat’s stern. ‘The Evening Star. It’s a good name. Better than some of the supposedly witty ones you see on the boats going up and down this stretch. I saw one the other day called Cirrhosis of the River.’

  Mina got up, wincing as she put down her foot. ‘You like the canal? It’s not to everyone’s taste. People thought Mum had gone mad when she decided to live here.’

  ‘I live on it. The other side of Bampton. In a house, though. One of the old workers’ cottages.’

  ‘Ah, the posh bit.’ She regretted it as soon as she said it and glanced across at him. He was touching the lettering on the side of the boat.

  ‘Did you know the evening star is another name for Venus?’

  ‘The goddess, you mean?’

  ‘No, the planet. It’s how it’s referred to after sunset.’

  ‘Funny. I never knew.’ She looked at him. ‘Mum never said why she called the boat that. I can’t remember the boat’s original name but Mum changed it.’

  ‘It’s the brightest star in the sky. I often see it myself over the Peaks. Perhaps your mother used to look up at it too. Can I come on board?’

  ‘Of course. Sorry.’ Mina was aware of the flush spreading up her cheeks. ‘I should have invited you but my brain has turned to mush. I think it’s all the painkillers I’ve been taking.’

  Sadler took in the deck chair and blanket. ‘You’re watching for someone?’

  ‘I’m not sure if I just fell at the pub. There was someone in the room next to mine. I’m sure of it, but Emily, the owner of the pub, said it was empty. When I came to, lying there on the landing, I thought I’d been pushed. The trouble is the distance of time has made me doubt myself.’ She watched him turn away and look down the canal towards the village that held all the secrets.

  ‘I might make a trip out to Cold Eaton myself. I wouldn’t mind having a look at the place.’ Sadler moved around the boat. ‘There’s nowhere for anyone to hide here. You should be safe enough.’

  He looked across at her, concerned, and Mina dropped her eyes. ‘Let’s go inside.’

  He followed her down into the cabin and shut the door behind him. In the dim light she told him the story of her mother’s recognition of Valerie and the revelation that she had not only thought Valerie was dead, but that she had killed her.

  ‘Do you believe her? The story that she told you. Did it ring true?’

  I hate myself, thought Mina, but I have to answer this truthfully. She looked him in the eyes. ‘Yes. I believed her. I think at the time she told me that she believed that she’d killed Valerie. But, when she was perfectly lucid, she was sure she hadn’t.’

  ‘So let’s start from the assumption that your mother was involved in an act that, at the time, she believed ended up in the death of Valerie, even though she later realised this couldn’t have happened. What was your mother like?’

  ‘Hilary was cool, bookish and self-contained. She chose a profession that allowed her to immerse herself in her passion. Completely different to me.’

  ‘You mean the gardening?’

  ‘Yes, and Hilary was the first to recognise it. She gave me the little patch of garden at the front of the house that I filled over the years with bedding plants, gaudy pots, spiky shrubs. It just grew and grew and it even featured in the local paper when I was fifteen. People would slow down outside the front garden and look at the display. Mum even once caught a neighbour pinching plants.’

  ‘You say she was self-contained. She never talked about her childhood?’

  ‘No, but my grandfather was around so it’s not like her past was closed to me. She never referred to the past, though. Her childhood, schooldays, her relationship with my father. She wasn’t prepared to discuss anything.’

  ‘The fact that she never referred to the past might also be indicative of a trauma. When your mum was a teenager she was possibly involved in something that harmed Valerie. From what you say, it probably wasn’t deliberate but she’d mistakenly believed that Valerie was dead.’

  ‘So you think she didn’t kill Valerie? But Valerie’s dead, I’ve seen the grave, so who did she see at the hospital? She didn’t have any visitors apart from Catherine Hallows.
Unless someone from another ward came to visit her.’

  Sadler had his eyes on her. ‘When your mum said she saw Valerie did she see Valerie as she is now or as she was?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If she saw her childhood friend then Valerie would be your mother’s age, in her seventies. If she saw Valerie as she remembered her, bearing in mind you say she hadn’t seen her since she was a child, then Valerie would look like a teenager.’

  ‘You think she was hallucinating? That’s what the nurses said.’

  Sadler sighed. ‘She might have been but there are other reasons why Valerie might look as she did. The first possibility is that Valerie is alive and Hilary was shocked that Valerie had grown old as she thought Valerie was dead.’

  ‘That would mean Valerie had made it into her private room and I’m pretty sure that she had no visitors.’

  ‘The second possibility is that she saw Valerie as she remembered her as a teenager or a young woman. Valerie Hallows had a son who had a daughter.’

  Mina’s mind cleared. ‘Of course. She saw Catherine and thought it was Valerie, her grandmother. Of course. How stupid of me. But how does that help? Valerie died in 1963. Mum was at university by then. She specifically told me she hadn’t seen Valerie since school. She can’t have been involved in Valerie’s death at all.’

  ‘There may have been an incident before that. I don’t think it’s coincidence that Catherine was in Hilary’s room. She says she saw Hilary in the corridor and decided to visit her. That’s not enough of a reason for Catherine to stray from the ward that she’s been assigned to and seek out Hilary. She wanted something else from your mother.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I hope it was to talk to her. However, I can’t discount the possibility it was to do your mother harm. The problem is, I don’t know why.’ Sadler kept his eyes steadily on Mina. ‘Do you?’

  57

  ‘Jesus. It’s a bit grim. People actually choose to walk here?’

  Morgan smirked. ‘The Peak District can be divided into those who like to walk through its dramatic if unforgiving scenery and those who prefer to sit on their arses ignoring the landscape around them. The latter is made up of locals, teenagers and, it seems, ninety per cent of my colleagues.’

  ‘You like the outdoors then?’

  ‘It’s better than sitting indoors watching episodes of Jeremy Kyle when I’m not on shift.’

  ‘You walk or cycle?’

  He looked down at her. ‘Both. Shall we go?’

  They ignored the steps up the steep embankment, pushing instead through a narrow gap in the hedgerow.

  ‘This isn’t an official entrance onto the path, which is why it has no parking nearby. It looks like this hedge entrance has been used a few times, though. I suggest we walk through the tunnel in the direction that Catherine is likely to have taken and see if we can see anything.’

  Connie looked around. ‘We’re hardly likely to have been the first ones through this morning. If there was anything obvious someone would have notified us.’

  ‘But we need to take a look.’

  ‘How will we know we’re going in the right direction? Patrick never said which way the girl was going.’

  ‘She’ll most likely have come from the direction of Bampton, walking away from the hospital where she was volunteering. It’s unlikely she will have approached the tunnel from the opposite direction.’

  They had reached the path. Near the tunnel was a wooden bench where an elderly couple were eating sandwiches and drinking coffee from a flask.

  ‘I know this place. I’ve jogged this far in the past. I didn’t know it was called the Cutting, though. What a horrible name.’ Connie braced herself as she was nearly knocked over by a gust of wind. ‘Good God, it’s a wind trap.’

  Morgan winced as pieces of grit bounced off his cheek. ‘We might as well do what we came for. It won’t be windy in the tunnel.’

  They made their way towards the tunnel down a path made of compacted grit and sand. It was narrower than Connie remembered; it could only have carried a single rail line. On either side of the track there was a small verge and, as the incline increased, a steep embankment led down to houses below.

  ‘We really need to be combing through all the shrubbery down there if we’re looking for a body.’

  Morgan had his eyes on the approaching tunnel. ‘It’ll be quite a search. Let’s see what we can find in the tunnel. Look up there.’ Connie followed his gaze. ‘So we assume that Patrick and Archie Kersey were standing on top of the tunnel as they watched the girl go in.’

  ‘They wouldn’t be that easy for Catherine, if it was her, to spot. You have to look up and crane your neck to get a view of the path at the top.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll take your word for it. You’re about the height of a fourteen year old.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’

  ‘The point is that they can’t be seen. On the other hand, if you’re looking down you’re going to see a girl approach from quite a distance.’

  ‘But will you see them go into the tunnel?’

  Morgan looked up. ‘I think I’d better go up there and take a look. I’m not sure how tall Patrick Kersey was but let’s assume he was also of average height for a man. I’ll crouch down a bit.’

  Connie tracked Morgan’s retreating form until he stepped out of view. ‘I’m at the top of the bridge. Can you see me?’

  ‘No,’ she shouted up. ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘I can hear and see you. Carry on walking and stop when I tell you to. I want to see how long you stay in my sight.’

  Connie carried on walking.

  ‘STOP. Where are you?’

  ‘Virtually at the mouth of the tunnel.’ She looked up and could see nothing until she saw Morgan climb onto the fence and lean over at her.

  ‘If you were attacked outside the tunnel it would have to be right at the entrance.’

  The picnicking couple looked at them in alarm, gathered up their things and hurried off.

  ‘Yes,’ she shouted back at Morgan.

  ‘The verge on both sides of you is flat leading to the brick wall of the tunnel. There’s nowhere to conceal someone. Okay, now I want you to walk down the tunnel and come out the other side. I want to see how long Patrick might have waited until he realised that the girl hadn’t come out the other side.’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Do I have to go down the tunnel?’

  ‘Why, are you scared?’ As he leant over, she could see that he was grinning down at her.

  Connie couldn’t have articulated the dread that she felt at the thought of entering the long tunnel where she could hear the wind echoing around its cavernous interior. Morgan was taunting her so she took a deep breath and plunged into the tunnel. Inside the air grew stiller and colder and was tinged with a smell she sought to identify. Death? She wasn’t sure. Small strips of lighting illuminated her way and she stayed in the centre of the path. She pulled out her mobile phone and, switching on the torch function, tried to see into the sides. Even with the weak light she could see there was nowhere to hide a body.

  As she reached the end of the tunnel, as the aperture grew wider, she could feel her heartbeat becoming more regular. She came out into the open and couldn’t ever remember being so pleased as a gust of air swept over her.

  ‘Stop!’ Morgan called out. Connie halted. ‘I can see you now. Where are you in relation to the opening of the tunnel?’

  ‘It’s just behind me.’

  ‘Hold on.’ Morgan came running down the other side of the embankment and, after reaching her, he took off his hat and wiped a hand through his hair. He put his hat back on and looked around him. ‘You were through the tunnel in three minutes. Let’s say Patrick waited up to about ten minutes but, at some point, he must have realised you weren’t coming out. So we need to look inside the tunnel.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Morgan. I’ve just walked through it. It’s
not that wide and the sides are made of brick. There’s no one in there.’ Connie hesitated, remembering a smell that she had tried to push away as she walked the path. ‘Only …’

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘There is this odd smell, but I might have been imagining it. That place certainly gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Let me see. We should have brought a torch. I’ve one in the car.’

  ‘We can go back and get it if we spot something. Let’s get this over and done with.’

  Together they walked back down the path Connie had just taken. Morgan was looking around him with interest, feeling the walls with his fingertips. ‘Whether it’s Catherine who came into this tunnel or not, it’s still odd that a girl entered a tunnel and didn’t come out.’

  ‘You think there might be a secret door? Like in Scooby Doo.’

  ‘Hardly secret. Perhaps a ventilation shaft or something. Do you know anything about railway tunnels?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’m a trainspotter in my spare time.’

  He ignored her sarcasm and carried on feeling the walls. When they reached the opening at the other side, he nodded in the direction of the car. ‘Can you get the torch? It’s on the back seat.’

  Connie huffed off furious. What a wild goose chase. Apart from the place giving her the creeps there was nothing to suggest anything untoward. She retrieved the torch and made her way back to Morgan. He was about halfway down the tunnel, still looking around him. She shone the beam up into the ceiling and down the walls.

  ‘It all looks okay.’

  ‘Yes, but you were right about the smell. It’s not decomposition you can smell, though, it’s fresh air.’

  ‘Fresh air? It smells rank in here.’

  Morgan shook his head. ‘It smells like all tunnels, a bit earthy, that’s all – but I can also smell a clearer air which is stronger as you get into the middle. Can you give me the torch?’ She passed it to him and he shone it slowly around the walls of the tunnel. ‘Look up.’