‘Thanks, Wesley. It’ll mean a lot to Simon to know someone from the police is on his side.’
Wesley winced. She’d obviously misunderstood. But that was typical. ‘I didn’t say I’d do anything to influence the case. I
couldn’t even if I wanted to.’
His words didn’t seem to register. ‘Can I speak to my daughter?’ she said, sounding positively cheerful.
He passed the phone to Pam and she took it reluctantly, as though she feared it was contaminated. Judging by the noises coming
from the living room, it was time to play the stern pater familias and get the children to bed. He only hoped there wouldn’t
be a call from work to ruin the effect.
Rupert Raybourn had come to hate his famous catchphrases. ‘How ya doing?’ and ‘Rupert’s rarely wrong.’ At one time they’d
been shouted at him in the street whenever he ventured out. And the people who quoted them always seemed to think they’d come
up with something witty and original, which made it worse somehow. He’d been obliged to acknowledge them with a friendly smile
even though he was cringing inside.
But these days this universal recognition wasn’t automatic and he no longer had to resort to the disguise of wig and dark
glasses to achieve anonymity. At times he found this liberating but at others he longed for the old days when he was someone;
when his existence made a difference. Maybe that’s why he’d agreed to take part in
Celebrity Farm
. Or perhaps there was another reason, one he hardly liked to acknowledge even to himself.
He’d been assured that filming would resume as soon as
possible but, on the suggestion of the police, he had moved temporarily to the Marina Hotel by the waterfront in Tradmouth,
which was a vast improvement on the accommodation at the farm. The director and crew were still holed up in their rented cottage
in West Fretham so, in Zac James’s absence, he now had some much-needed privacy, which suited him fine. And, to top it all,
the film company were paying for the hotel. Which was a good job because after his last divorce settlement he was skint.
The police would still be up at Jessop’s Farm but he imagined their presence would have dwindled to a couple of constables
by now, stationed there to keep the press and sightseers away.
They wouldn’t see him if he drove up to Devil’s Tree Cottage.
He still imagined Lilith Benley as she had been in 1989 when he’d first met her in Morbay.
He’d been top of the bill in the Pavilion Gardens back then and she’d come backstage, dumbstruck at meeting a celebrity as
so many are. When he’d invited her out for a drink, as much for company as a prospective sexual encounter, she’d said she
had to see her mother back to her hotel first. Lilith had been attractive in an unconventional sort of way and even the mention
of a mother hadn’t put him off. But then his plans had been thwarted and everything had changed.
Rupert’s career had really taken off soon after. And Lilith Benley had become even more famous in her own way. But her kind
of fame comes at a high price.
The knocking on the door had been loud and insistent. But Lilith had sat quite still, out of sight of the window, waiting
for the visitor to go away. She’d heard more police cars going up and down the nearby lanes, wailing like banshees, and she
knew they’d probably come for her again sooner or later. Give a dog – or a bitch – a bad name … Her reputation as the brutal
murderer of two young girls had kept trouble away in prison – but that same reputation was bound to attract problems on the
outside.
In fact it had already started. She’d received a package just that morning and ever since then she’d been going over the possibilities
in her head. Was it a message or was it a warning? Either way, it was something else she needed to hide from the police. And
she’d hidden it well in a place they’d never find.
As soon as darkness had fallen she’d shut the tattered curtains, trying to make sure there were no gaps for any ill-wishers
bold enough to approach the house to peep through. Then she’d lit the stove. It was October and even though the days were
unseasonably warm and damp, the nights were bitterly cold. Once the logs she’d brought in earlier from the store outside were
well alight, she’d switched on the lamp and picked up the book she was reading. Maybe she would buy a television. She needed
to keep in touch. She needed to know what they were saying about her.
She had boarded up the pane of glass the intruder had smashed in the back door, nailing the square of hardboard in place,
doing her best to make the place secure. She had called a glazier in Tradmouth who’d said he’d do the job later that day.
He’d sounded friendly and helpful … until she’d told him her name and address and his attitude suddenly changed. But she still
needed a new pane of glass in that door so she’d meekly agreed to his terms – a week’s time and twice the usual price.
Perhaps it would always be like this from now on. Perhaps she’d have to learn to do these things for herself so she wouldn’t
be at the mercy of gossiping tradesmen. She needed to be self-sufficient just as she had been in prison. When you’re self-sufficient,
nobody can hurt you.
When she peeped out of the window into the darkness she saw the tail lights of a car vanish down the drive. Whoever had pounded
on her front door had given up and gone away. And she was thankful.
There were distant lights in the field beyond her far hedgerow, on Joe Jessop’s land, and she stood at the window watching
for a while. She couldn’t see what was going on behind the wall of tangled foliage but she knew those lights meant bad news.
They had brought in lights like that eighteen years ago when they’d conducted their detailed forensic search of Devil’s Tree
Cottage. They had frightened the pigs and the hens had stopped laying with all the disturbance. Lilith had hated those bright,
relentless lights because they had shone into her darkest and most intimate secrets.
The next morning Wesley left Pam dozing, waiting for the alarm clock to signal the start of another day. The children were
too old now to burst into the room at six-thirty and demand attention. There were times when Wesley missed this innocent disruption
to his sleep. But you can’t turn back time.
When he arrived in the CID office at seven o’clock members of the team were drifting in, depositing damp coats on the rack
by the door then heading for their desks to check whether anything new had come in overnight. Gerry bustled in at five past,
struggling out of his coat and moaning
loudly about the weather outside. Yesterday’s half-hearted sun had vanished, to be replaced by grey drizzle floating in horizontal
sheets over the choppy river. The outside temperature had plummeted at least five degrees but the office seemed stuffy.
At seven-fifteen an unsmiling Gerry emerged from his office. Photographs of the crime scene were already pinned up on the
huge white board that filled the far wall. The image of the unnamed woman in the red coat was at the centre surrounded by
pictures of Zac James, Rupert Raybourn, the four members of the film crew and Joe Jessop, the farmer who owned the field.
Wesley found himself wondering whether Lilith Benley’s picture would end up there.
Gerry called for attention and stood in front of the board like a teacher preparing to address a class. Wesley sat down beside
Rachel who caught his eye and smiled. She looked more relaxed today. Perhaps whatever had been bothering her had been resolved.
‘Anything come in from Traffic about Zac James’s car?’
When the response was a negative murmur, Gerry pointed to DC Paul Johnson. ‘Contact them, will you, Paul? Get them to examine
all their cameras. Sometimes that lot need a bomb up their backsides. A man who flees the scene of a murder has to be top
of our suspect list so we need to find Zac James fast. And we have another problem,’ Gerry continued, looking round the attentive
faces. ‘We don’t know who the murdered woman is yet. The search teams have been looking for a handbag or phone but nothing’s
turned up so far. We need to get a likeness that won’t frighten the horses and circulate it quick in the hope someone recognises
her.’ He looked at DC Trish Walton who was sitting to
attention near the window. ‘Trish. Check that nobody matching her description has been reported missing.’
‘Already done, sir. No luck.’
‘Then check out all the hotels and B and Bs.’
Gerry distributed the other tasks but there were a couple he was reserving for himself and Wesley. Joe Jessop’s neighbour
– the one who’d complained about the filming at the farm – had been out when the door-to-door team had called the previous
day and he wanted to pay him a visit. He also wanted a further word with Jessop himself. The body had been found on his land
after all.
The complaining neighbour was called Shane Gulliver. Wesley was familiar with the name because Gulliver was often interviewed
on chat shows and breakfast TV. Wesley hadn’t read any of his books because the author’s brand of maudlin fiction, inspired
by his own tragic childhood, wasn’t to his taste. But Pam, an avid devourer of books, had read a couple. They were well written
she’d said, if a little self-indulgent.
Shane Gulliver’s eighteenth-century rectory stood in an acre of land, separated from Jessop’s Farm by a high hedgerow and
a narrow footpath. When Gulliver had complained initially to the police he’d stated that he was a tolerant man who’d put up
with the smells, inconveniences and unfamiliar sounds of the countryside. However, the constant traffic generated by the filming
and the screeching girls who’d trespassed into his garden while Jackie Piper was in residence had tried his patience to the
limit. He’d settled in the Devon countryside so he could write undisturbed. He needed peace and solitude … not the three-ring
circus Jessop’s Farm had become of late.
Wesley had read the details of his complaint and rather
liked the bit about the three-ring circus. From what he’d seen of
Celebrity Farm
that summed up the situation nicely. He parked the car on Gulliver’s gravel driveway and when he knocked on the glossy black
front door, Gerry hung back a little as he often did when he decided that Wesley was more likely to strike up a rapport with
the individual they planned to interview. The door was opened by a slender woman with short dark hair, a snub nose and large
blue eyes. From the photographs on his dust jackets, Wesley knew that Gulliver was well into middle age, probably in his fifties,
so if this was his wife, she was considerably younger than he was, maybe by twenty years.
‘Mrs Gulliver?’
‘I’m Gwen Gulliver, yes.’ She made a show of examining their warrant cards and told them to step inside. She sounded slightly
exasperated as though she was finding the whole business tedious, and Wesley couldn’t help feeling like an estate worker who’d
found himself on the wrong side of the lady of the manor. For a man who made so much of his humble roots, it appeared that
Shane Gulliver had found himself a partner in life from a different world altogether – but it was a world Gulliver would probably
have grasped eagerly the moment his first novel made the bestseller charts. According to Pam, although ninety-eight percent
of writers struggle to earn a crust, a tiny handful right at the top could make serious money. Her own excuse for not embarking
on the Great British Novel, apart from her children and her teaching career, was that she was extremely unlikely to find herself
in the top two percent. She’d never been optimistic by nature.
Gwen Gulliver ushered them into a spacious drawing room, tastefully decorated in cream and gold; a tasteful,
feminine room and an unlikely setting for a man who sold himself on his gritty credentials.
‘I’ll get my husband,’ she said and turned to go.
‘Actually we’d like to talk to you as well,’ said Wesley. ‘No doubt you’ve heard about the body that was found next door at
Jessop’s Farm yesterday afternoon?’
She turned back to face him and frowned. ‘Body? No … I …’
‘A woman was found dead in one of the fields. Did you see or hear anything suspicious?’
‘No. Nothing. When I got home I heard a lot of sirens and police vehicles careering down the lane at high speed but that’s
all I know. Apart from that I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, I’m afraid. Do you know who she is? How did she die?
Is it associated with the filming?’
‘I’m afraid we’re treating the death as suspicious. And we’re still trying to identify the victim,’ said Wesley gently. He
saw Gwen raise her hand to her mouth. She looked shocked. But shock was natural in the circumstances.
‘You didn’t answer the door yesterday evening when my officers called round,’ said Gerry.
‘I must have been out picking Shane up from Morbay station.’
‘Where were you yesterday afternoon?’
‘I was in Plymouth … shopping. I got back around five-thirty.’
‘Have you seen a woman hanging around recently … youngish, blonde hair, red coat?’ Gerry asked.
Gwen shook her head. ‘It doesn’t ring a bell. But there have been a lot of strangers about because of the filming. We had
to complain about teenage girls trespassing on our property.’
‘This woman was probably in her late twenties.’
‘The ones I saw were teenagers and it was over a week ago.’
‘Have you ever had any dealings with a woman called Lilith Benley?’ Wesley asked. ‘She lives on the other side of Jessop’s
Farm land … place called Devil’s Tree Cottage?’
Gwen Gulliver shook her head again. ‘The name’s familiar because there was a TV documentary about her a couple of years ago
… and from time to time the papers do a feature on horrific crimes when they’ve nothing better to write about. She’s in prison,
surely.’
‘Not any more,’ said Gerry. ‘She’s out and she’s come back. I wondered if you’d met her.’
Gwen’s eyes widened and a look of affronted horror appeared on her face. ‘Why on earth would I have anything to do with someone
like that?’ She shuddered. ‘I’m sorry, I’d like to help you but …’
‘In that case we’d better speak to your husband,’ said Gerry.