She turned one of the photographs over and saw that there were three names printed neatly on the back, one of which she knew
but the other two were unfamiliar.
She made her way home and when she reached the flat she settled down on the sofa and read through the letter again several
times. And each time the contents seemed less believable.
Perhaps, she thought, her estranged husband had been suffering from some sort of delusion brought on by the obsession he had
with tracing his forebears. Or perhaps he’d been a little mad.
Harry wasn’t there, which was a disappointment because she felt she needed to confide in someone. But she knew it would be
better to talk to someone who’d known James well – someone who would confirm that what he claimed was nonsense.
She went through the possibilities. There were the other doctors in the practice – Dr Graham and Dr Fitzgerald – but she didn’t
like Keith Graham and she knew Maritia Fitzgerald’s brother was one of the detectives in charge of catching James’s killer
so it might be inappropriate to take her into her confidence. But Evonne Arlis had been close to James and she was the sympathetic
sort. She looked up Evonne’s number, picked up the phone and dialled but there was no answer.
She put down the receiver and looked for the card Inspector Peterson had given her with his direct number at Neston Police
Station. She began to dial but she stopped halfway through. She needed proof before she made it official.
Transcript of recording made by Mrs Mabel Cleary (née Fallon) – Home Counties Library Service Living History Project: Reminiscences
of a wartime evacuee.The Yanks all left in June 1944. D-Day. They’d been practising for it over at Bereton and some people said there’d been a
terrible accident and a lot of them were killed. I remember hoping it wasn’t true. I’d liked the Yanks and it did seem quiet
and dull once they’d left.It was Pat who went home first after the War was over – her mum was missing her, she said. We promised to always keep in touch
and we did for a few years. Then life got in the way. I got married and had our Sandra and those days at Tailors Court seemed
a long way off.When I left Devon to go back to London Belle was still there. Someone – it might have been Otto Kramer – said she had nowhere
else to go and it didn’t really surprise me
that nobody wanted her. She was so pretty but she was really nasty. I once bit into a lovely red apple and found a maggot
in it and I suppose Belle was a bit like that – nice on the outside but bad on the inside. I didn’t care that I never heard
of her again.Nobody ever heard of Charlie again either and I sometimes wondered what had happened to him. But I don’t suppose I’ll ever
find out now.When Pat and I wrote to each other we never mentioned Belle and Charlie. Somethings are best forgotten.
When the telephone on Wesley’s desk began to ring he picked up the receiver, his inner pessimist telling him that whatever
he was about to hear would probably add to his workload and put paid to an early escape.
For a few moments he heard a muffled conversation, as though the caller had covered the mouthpiece and was talking to someone
else. Then a female voice asked whether she was speaking to Detective Inspector Peterson.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked.
‘It’s Sister Packham from Ward B6 Morbay Hospital. We have a patient here – a Mrs Esther Jannings. She was admitted earlier
today and she keeps asking to see you. Says she’s got something important to tell you.’
Wesley took a deep breath. ‘OK, Sister. I’ll be over as soon as I can.’ Just as he replaced the receiver he spotted Rachel
entering the office with Paul Johnson, deep in conversation.
As soon as Rachel saw him she walked over to his desk. ‘Anything new?’
‘I’ve made rather an interesting discovery,’ he said, printing two names on a spare sheet of paper. ‘Notice anything? You
too, Paul.’
Paul came and leaned over Rachel’s shoulder. After a few seconds he smiled with recognition.
But Rachel still looked puzzled. ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’
Wesley’s eyes met Paul’s and they exchanged a conspiratorial smile. ‘The names Charlie Haslem and Liam Cheshlare – they’re
anagrams. Clipton’s locum was Isabelle’s cousin – the one who was evacuated to Tailors Court.’
Rachel looked him in the eye. ‘So he could still be around somewhere.’
All the names and faces involved in the case rushed through Wesley’s mind. But no man he’d seen seemed to fit. Dr Welman or
Oscar Powell at the Podingham Clinic perhaps. Or Keith Graham, the retired senior partner at Maritia’s practice. He stared
at the only photograph he had of Cheshlare – he could be Graham. It was possible. He’d arrived late at Maritia’s dinner party.
Was it possible that he’d just come from shooting James Dalcott? Or Dalcott’s neighbour, Len Wetherall – he was around the
right age. It seemed unlikely but, in the course of his police career, he’d known stranger things happen.
But he’d given his word to the Sister on Ward B6 that he’d visit Esther Jannings so it was a question he’d have to contemplate
later. He asked Rachel to go with him to the hospital and she fetched her coat without a word.
The cold, rainy drive in the dark from Neston Police Station to Morbay Hospital took them through the village of Belsham,
past the vicarage where Maritia and Mark lived. There was a light in the front room window – but then vicars tend to work
a lot from home. He sat in the passenger seat while Rachel drove, his mind overloaded with possibilities, knowing that the
solution was staring
him in the face and if he made just one more connection, everything would come into focus.
It was Sister Packham herself who greeted them at the entrance to the ward. In a hushed voice she told them that Mrs Jannings’s
condition had deteriorated since they’d spoken on the phone. The tacit implication was that Esther Jannings hadn’t got much
longer to go in this life. But she still insisted on talking to Inspector Peterson. There was something on her conscience
that she had to share before she went.
When they arrived at Esther Jannings’s bedside in the small private room off the main ward, her eyes were closed and her hair
was spread out on the blue hospital pillow like a steel wool cloud. But as soon as the Sister announced their arrival the
eyes snapped open and a claw-like hand emerged from the bedclothes and made a feeble beckoning gesture. Wesley moved forward
and sat down on the bed.
‘What did you want to tell me, Mrs Jannings?’ he said softly.
Her bony, liver-spotted hand fluttered towards him and he took it in his.
‘There are things I did. Things I was scared of the police finding out.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘It was me that told them to bury him.’
Wesley looked round at Rachel. She was standing at the end of the bed, watching and listening in silence.
‘I didn’t know what they were doing. I honestly didn’t know.’ Esther’s voice seemed stronger now, as though their presence
had given her new power.
‘Tell me,’ Wesley said almost in a whisper.
‘I was round at Tailors Court looking for Miles when I heard noises from the outhouse and I went in. He was lying there all
cut open.’
‘Who was?’
‘And Belle had this look on her face. Go on, she was saying. Go on.’
‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’
‘I was scared my Miles would get the blame. Everyone used to talk about him and the experiments he did. I told him it was
really all his fault showing things like that to children.’
‘Whose body was it?’
‘I don’t know, just a boy. I didn’t look closely. It was horrible. I thought if the body was never found they wouldn’t blame
my Miles. He’d promised to marry me, you see.’
‘Who killed the boy, Esther?’
‘He was such a pretty child: looked so innocent, like a little angel.’
‘Who did it?’
There was a long silence and for a few terrible moments Wesley was afraid he wasn’t going to learn the name. Then Esther spoke
again. ‘Charlie,’ she whispered. ‘Belle said Charlie killed him.’
‘What happened to Charlie, Esther?’
‘I found him another billet later that day, far away from Miles and that Belle. I said it was an emergency.’ She paused to
catch her breath and all Wesley could hear was the faint hissing from her oxygen mask. ‘When he came to see me at Palm View
I never recognised him, not till he told me who he was.’
Wesley looked at Rachel. ‘He came to see you? When was this?’
‘After they’d found the bones. I don’t know how he knew I was there. He made me promise.’
‘What did he make you promise?’
‘Never to tell and I swore I wouldn’t. But I can’t go with that on my conscience. I can’t.’ There was panic in her eyes, as
though she knew that time was short. ‘When he came today I was scared. He went when I pressed the button to call the nurse
but what if he comes back?’
‘Can you describe Charlie? Please, Esther.’
She formed the word ‘no’ with her parched lips. Then her eyes suddenly closed and her whole wasted body seemed to go limp,
like a puppet dropped by its operator.
‘That’s enough,’ said a stern female voice from the door. Sister Packham was standing guard, ready to shepherd them out.
Wesley looked at the woman on the bed. He could hear her breathing. It was shallow and rattling. He said goodbye to her, even
though he was sure she couldn’t hear him.
‘Has she had any other visitors today?’ he asked the Sister as she led them out of the ward.
‘Yes. A lady. But she didn’t stay long.’
His heart began to beat faster. ‘Can you describe her?’
The Sister took a deep breath and gave a detailed description, right down to the shoes and handbag. She was the sort who’d
make an excellent witness. He took the photograph of Isabelle, George and Cheshlare out of his pocket.
‘Can you take a look at this photograph? If you cover up the hair can you tell me if there’s any resemblance to the woman
who visited Mrs Jannings yesterday?’
The Sister took the picture and began to study it
intently, her hand shielding the subject’s hair. Then she handed it back.
‘There is a likeness. Are they related?’
Wesley thanked her and left.
It was a Friday evening and the traffic between Morbay and Neston was bad. But Wesley was too preoccupied with what he’d just
learned from Sister Packham to feel the usual frustration of the jam-bound motorist.
When he reached the incident room he asked whether anything had come in for him before making for his desk and switching on
his computer. He decided to check his emails and found that there was just one jewel amongst the routine dross.
Neil had forwarded something that Annabel had turned up for him. It was an extract from a book by Clifford Hilton, the local
historian who had taken the Kramers in during the War, entitled
A Short History of Tradington
. Wesley settled back and began to read.
The dark history of Flesh Tailor’s Court came to a head in 1595 when Simon Garchard was arrested and hanged for the murder
of a maidservant, Annet Raine.
But two years later, John Raine, shipwright and father of Simon Garchard’s alleged victim, gave the following testimony to
the magistrate.
‘Master Philip Tanner threatened that he would kill me and cut me to pieces if I spoke against him so I was afraid to tell
the truth but now I desire to bear witness to his evil actions and I beg your lordship’s indulgence. When my daughter, Annet,
was maidservant in the household of Simon Garchard, a physician and caster of spells, Master Tanner served as apprentice.
Against the laws of God and man, this Garchard defiled corpses he took from the churchyard.
Garchard was hanged for the wicked murder of my beloved daughter but at his trial he swore that he was innocent.
Rather he said that Philip Tanner, eager for fresh flesh to use for his hideous and unspeakable deeds, did strangle my daughter
and defiled her dead corpse, cutting at her innards. I did not believe Master Garchard’s words, thinking he desired only to
shift the blame and avoid the noose and another servant, Elizabeth Ryde, told the jury that she too saw Garchard with blood
on his hands when Annet met her death.
But I now know what Garchard said was the truth for Tanner boasted of this deed at his house in Tradmouth when I visited him
last Candlemass and found him in his cups, drawing pictures on his wall of a most terrible nature. He said that Garchard had
used the dead buried some days beneath the earth in such a way but Tanner had wanted a corpse that was fresh and warm. He
performed his foul deed in the byre near to the house and left her poor mangled body to be found by servants, knowing Garchard
would be blamed and the woman Elizabeth Ryde he threatened with death if she did not bear false witness against her master.
I was afraid to come forward, sir, because he threatened to cast a spell upon my wife who was sick with the dropsy. But now
she is dead, my lord, so I can tell all.’
Tanner, who was operating as a physician in the port of Tradmouth, vehemently denied Raine’s accusation, saying Raine bore
him a grudge because of a long-standing quarrel and, as Elizabeth Ryde was by now dead, she could not give evidence so no
charge was ever made. However, Tanner was said to have confessed to the crime on his deathbed, although we can never really
know the truth of the matter.
When Wesley had finished reading he found himself wishing that the mystery of the Tailors Court skeletons was all he had to
worry about. There were times when he
envied Neil. He looked at his watch, wondering what time he’d get home.
Then his phone began to ring.
Harry Parker had returned to the flat after an afternoon spent in the Tradmouth Arms with a group of local fishermen, and
when he’d found the place in silence he’d felt a little uneasy. Roz never went off like this without telling him. But then
he discovered the note she’d left, saying she’d gone out and she wasn’t sure when she’d be back. The vagueness of the message
bothered him slightly, as did the fact that whenever he tried her mobile, it went straight to voice mail.