Path of Needles (20 page)

Alice was staring into space, her mouth hanging open.

‘What is it?’

‘Christ,’ Alice said. Her eyes focused on Cate. ‘Do you think—?’

‘What?’ asked Cate. ‘Alice, are you all right?’

‘They die
all the time
,’ she said. ‘What was it about these cases that was different?’

‘The way she was posed. You know that. I saw it and it made me think of—’

‘Exactly. It made
you
think.’

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

Alice raised a hand, snapped her fingers in the air. ‘How do you know there haven’t been others?’

‘Oh—’ said Cate.

‘Exactly,’ said Alice. ‘I know the Farrell girl was different, but maybe there have been others, ones like the prostitute. There might have been others where nobody bothered to think, or nobody saw it the way you did. You need to look at old cases – older, anyway. See if any of the bodies looked posed, if anything was found with them. The first girl, in the photographs – it wasn’t that obvious it was supposed to be a fairy tale. This might have been happening for years.’

Cate didn’t answer. Instead she took a long, deep breath. She was already running through everything she would need to do: she must speak to Heath again and make sure they’d accessed all the old case files – unsolved murders with sus circs, particularly involving young women, look at missing persons. It was likely they’d done it already, but maybe they could turn up something new. It could
give them the breakthrough they needed, give the profilers more to work with, find DNA or other evidence they could use to piece together a real suspect list.

Stocky couldn’t doubt her any longer after that; with a breakthrough in the case that had come from Alice, Cate would be vindicated. And she would need Alice more than ever. If she looked through the old cases she might not see the things Alice saw. As unpleasant as it was – as undesirable, to have a civilian dragged into this – if she saw anything that felt likely, she would have to ask Alice to review the cases too.

She was trying to work out how she would explain that to Heath – and to Stocky – when her mobile rang.

‘I know you’re off duty,’ the voice said; it was Dan, ‘but there’s been another one. It’s at Sandal Castle. I suggest you get over there now.’

‘Is it the same? Posed, like the others?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘not the same at all.’

‘Then why—?’

‘She’s still alive,’ he said, ‘that’s why not. The ambulance is on its way. As am I.’

The phone went dead.

Cate and Alice stared at each other. Then Cate got moving, headed for the door. She turned and looked back. Alice was still watching her, and she had a question in her eyes. After a moment, Cate said, ‘Come on.’ The girl – if it was a girl – who’d been found at the castle would be rushed into hospital. If there was anything to be gleaned
from seeing the place where she’d been found, the
way
she’d been found, it would be best if Alice was there to see it too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The old grey stone of the castle was darkening to black in the fading day as Cate pulled into the parking area. The cracked asphalt was pulsing with blue flashing lights and when she opened the door she heard voices, low and urgent. The sound was inimical to the peaceful, silent sky, the ancient presence of the place. The castle walls were a jagged line topped by the reaching fingers of its ruined towers. The air was cool but unexpectedly humid, as if the spring dusk would at any moment turn to rain.

Cate glanced back at the access road. The other side of Manygates Lane was lined with houses that faced the castle grounds; most of the windows were dark and it was impossible to see who might be watching. Near to where she stood, a neat path led away towards the visitors’ centre.

Cate strode up the short bank that divided the car park from the castle grounds and Alice followed. Figures milled about, busy sectioning off the site, and she recognised
Dan, who nodded in greeting before he saw Alice and frowned. He looked at Cate.

She asked: ‘What’s happening?’

He pointed into the site. ‘She’s there,’ he said. ‘She’s gone. Dead when we got here.’

‘What? You said she was all right.’

‘No, I said she was
alive
, that’s what we were told when this was called in, but when we got here, she’d already gone. The doctor’s called it.’ His voice dropped an octave. ‘Looks like the people who found her made a mistake. She
looked
alive, though. I doubt she’d been dead long.’

‘Jesus.’ Cate stared towards the castle.

‘Heath won’t like it,’ Dan said in a low voice, looking at Alice. ‘Didn’t he say—?’

‘I know what he said.’ Cate swallowed. ‘It’s my responsibility. I thought—’

‘Corbin.’ The hoarse, tired-sounding voice cut her off. Heath was striding towards them. ‘Dan – make sure this place is shut down before the fucking circus arrives.’ He looked towards the visitors’ centre, then finally back at Cate. He turned without saying anything else, then, over his shoulder: ‘Hang around. You too, if you will, Ms Hyland.’

*

Cate stood with Alice as the evening grew darker and a yellow moon rose over the castle walls, and then out of their grasp. Alice didn’t speak, just watched everything, and Cate wondered how she could be so calm – but perhaps she was like Cate herself: outwardly quiet while inside,
the questions burned. They faced the shattered remnants of the curtain wall, those eroded towers outlining the scene. Before them the ground undulated over long-buried structures. She knew that it dipped steeply into a dry moat nearer the castle. Now she could only make it out by the shine of spotlights. In contrast to the sudden brightness, the short-cropped grass around the place looked almost black. SOCOs came and went, their hooded figures turned to ghosts against the shadows.

There was another light too, somewhere higher up and further away. It streaked the sky, almost as if it were floating; Cate knew it must be from the wooden platform built across what would once have been the highest point of the castle.

She had visited this place with her parents when she was young, and occasionally she still came walking here when the mood took her. Though little remained of the original castle keep, it was set atop a huge mound – the motte – probably created with earth excavated from the moat. In recent years that wooden platform had been built over it so that tourists could walk up there and enjoy the view without clambering over rough stones, destroying the history under their feet.

Battles had been fought and lost in the fields around this site. Somewhere was a commemorative stone that marked the death of Richard Plantagenet at the Battle of Wakefield – she’d never forgotten that old mnemonic for remembering the colours of the rainbow:
Richard of York gave battle in vain
. Now there was nothing to see but a field.

Someone strode towards them, his feet silent on the grass, but his presence commanded attention all the same. ‘Ms Hyland,’ Heath said. ‘Come with me.’

He headed away with Alice at his side and Cate followed, keeping close so that she would hear anything that was said; but he didn’t speak, didn’t give anything away at all. They paused only to pull on protective clothing before he led them towards the moat. Cate began to make out details: a short distance away was one of the newer wooden structures, a bridge that crossed the ancient defences – but they stopped before they reached it, near the glow she’d seen which resolved itself into individual points of light. Figures were moving down there, passing in and out of the shadows.

Heath took one step onto the banking. ‘A moment,’ he said, addressing Alice again; he still hadn’t said a word to Cate. He half stepped, half slithered away from them, disappearing into the ditch with a muffled curse. Alice glanced at Cate, then followed, taking Heath’s hand when he backtracked to help her down. Cate scrambled after them; Heath was already heading further along the moat, taking Alice with him.

The girl lay a short distance away, surrounded by more lights and the pale overalls of scene-of-crime officers, who stood back when Heath approached. Both of them stopped and looked on, not speaking. Cate peered between them and saw the body.

She was facing upwards, her blank eyes staring into the blank sky. She had been covered with a large coat, but her dress spread beneath it, the white fabric of the full skirts shining in the spotlights. She looked a little older than Chrissie Farrell and Teresa King; her face was pale, calm, almost serene. Cate thought at first that her dark blonde hair was patched with colourant, then realised it was streaked with mud.

Heath said something in a low voice and a SOCO stepped forward and lifted the coat away, revealing that the girl’s dress was muddied too, as if she had been rolled down the slope. Perhaps whoever placed her here had struggled to move her. Cate looked at the bank next to the body and noted that the area had been kept clear; probably the reason they’d climbed down further along the moat, so as not to trample over any footprints the killer may have left behind.

There was something else too. The way the girl was lying – it wasn’t quite right, not
organised
enough. One arm was splayed at her side, the other trapped beneath her. For a moment Cate wondered if this was linked to the other cases at all, or was something else: then she saw what had been revealed beneath the coat. A single white rose had been placed on the girl’s body, and an image flashed into Cate’s mind of the girl’s hands resting on it, holding it in death. Was that how she’d been left? She had been discovered by someone who’d assumed she was alive; perhaps they had done this, disturbed the positioning of the body when they tried to revive her.

Cate squinted and saw a narrow band wrapped around the girl’s dress, drawing it in close to her body. She thought at first it was a belt, but it was too thin, like twine; then she saw it was green, a wiry stem, and there were thorns jutting from it.

There was something lying next to her head, too. Cate shuffled further around; no, it wasn’t
next
to her head, it was fastened to it, a small hat such as a child might make out of paper. She almost hadn’t seen it in the shadows because it was completely black.

Heath stirred, squinting around at Cate as if he’d just noticed her. ‘PC Corbin,’ he said, ‘you’ll do. I want you back up top. The people who found her are waiting up there – accompany them out of here, would you?’

Cate murmured her assent. She felt the night’s cold cut through her as she turned her back on the scene – and on Alice. Why keep her contact here and send Cate away? But there was work to do, and she was needed to do it; she couldn’t think about that now. She concentrated on retracing her steps and climbing the steep side of the moat in the dark.

*

The couple who’d found the body were middle-aged, their faces pale, and they didn’t ask questions, didn’t say anything at all; they just waited for instructions. The woman drew her coat tightly around her and looked at Cate with a plea in her eyes.
We don’t belong here
, that look said.

For a moment Cate felt lost, as helpless as the girl who had been left in the ditch; then she led them away back to the edge of the car park by the visitors’ centre. Dan was still there and he caught her eye and came over.

‘If you wouldn’t mind coming with me,’ he said to the man, and led him a short distance away from his wife.

Cate looked after them and realised he’d done the right thing in separating the couple. It meant they could each take an initial account of what they’d witnessed before the pair could discuss what had happened, possibly influencing each other’s formal statements. All the same, she wished she could hear what they were saying.

She turned to the woman, who watched as Cate took out her notepad and flipped it open. Cate spoke gently, taking down her details for the record and so that any background checks Heath felt to be necessary could be carried out; though her instincts told her that the couple were just as they appeared, innocent passers-by who’d encountered more than they had ever wished to see on their evening walk.

They were married, the woman – Sandra – told her, and out for a stroll, like they often did at this time of day. They’d parked at the boating lake at the foot of the hill and walked up to enjoy the view from the top. She cast a concerned glance in the direction of the lake when she said that and Cate knew she was thinking that the gates would have been closed down there, locking their car in.
Cate remembered what she had seen in the moat and mentally shrugged; there were worse things.

‘So you were the ones who called the police?’

‘And the ambulance, love. I mean, we’ve ’eard the stories. I asked for the police first, but Gerry said we’d better check, and I said, no, it’s like the others, the ones in the paper. He checked anyway – he was brave, braver than me – and it was like we said, she was still alive.’

Cate looked over at Gerry, who was talking to Dan without looking at him; his eyes were fixed on the ground. He wore only a thin shirt and now he wrapped his arms around himself. Cate realised where the coat had come from that was covering the girl.

‘How did you ascertain that she was alive? Was she conscious – did she say anything?’

Sandra grimaced. ‘She didn’t look like she was dead, that’s all. Gerry tried her wrist, and he thought he felt a pulse, only she didn’t seem to be breathing. I – he wasn’t sure.’ Her voice broke.

‘So he touched her hands. Did he move—?’

‘He tried to do the kiss o’ life, love,’ Sandra broke in, ‘but after that he tried her wrist again and he didn’t feel a pulse at all.’ She looked at her husband, a wild look in her eyes.

‘And then what happened?’

‘Nothing, love. We called an ambulance. It was me did that. Only it came and went, and
that
one’ – she pointed towards the motte – ‘he said she were dead after all, that
it wasn’t any use. Gerry didn’t think so, though. She had a pulse. He
thought
she had a pulse. That’s what he said.’ She shuddered. ‘I couldn’t have touched her, not me, but he did, my Gerry. So brave, he was. An’ he left her his coat.’ She met Cate’s eye. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll want it back, now. And it wasn’t any use anyhow, was it?’