A Painted Doom (23 page)

‘A couple who were looking for something smaller. They moved to the other side of the village near the church. Why?’

‘What were their names?’ Wesley asked. He leaned forward, breath held, awaiting the answer.

Cromer looked at his wife. Wesley had seen that look before, when Cromer had been questioning some squirming politician or
shifty businessman. He suddenly felt sorry for the woman.

‘What was their name, Carla? Do you remember? It’s on the tip of my tongue. In fact somebody rang up and asked for them last
weekend – obviously hadn’t been given their new number.’

‘The person who rang – was it a man?’ Wesley asked.

‘Yes. Had a slight Liverpool accent. Come to think of it, it could have been Jonny Shellmer – certainly sounded like him;
not that I made the connection at the time, of course. Oh, what was the name of those people? It was something to do with
gardens. What was it, now? Come on, Carla. Think.’

Carla closed her eyes in concentration, showing a fine display of powder-blue eyeshadow above long mascaraed lashes.

‘It was Flowers,’ she announced suddenly after a few moments. ‘Jim and Maggie Flowers.’

She opened her wide blue eyes and beamed first at her husband and then at Wesley and Rachel, as if she expected a round of
applause.

‘That’s it,’ said Cromer with a smile. ‘I remember now. He asked for a Mr Flowers.’

The River Trad was a little choppy but this didn’t bother Gerry Heffernan. He had never suffered from seasickness. He stood
on the deck of the
Rosie May
, the twenty-seven-foot sloop he had bought and lovingly restored to her former glory just after Kathy’s death, and altered
course for home. The damp breeze swept through his unkempt hair and he breathed in deeply. There was nothing like the smell
of seaweed and salt water. He loved it – that and the sound of the gulls overhead.

The sea had always been there, part of his life. He was raised in a seafaring city, in a family where going to sea was the
norm. He had left his grammar school at the age of sixteen and joined the merchant navy, studying for his master’s ticket.

He was serving as first officer aboard a cargo vessel awaiting his first command when he was struck down with appendicitis
as his ship was passing the South Devon coast. He had been flown by helicopter to the nearest hospital – Tradmouth; a place
he’d never visited before, a port in Devon with a rich seafaring history stretching back to
medieval times. In Tradmouth hospital he had been cared for by a pretty dark-haired staff nurse called Kathy, whose charms
had been stronger than the call of the sea. He had stayed in Tradmouth and joined the police force at the suggestion of his
uncle, who was a bridewell sergeant in Liverpool. He had, as they say in seafaring circles, swallowed the anchor and moored
himself in Tradmouth for good.

He and Kathy had married and brought up two children in the pretty white house on Baynard’s Quay. But then, when those children
were in their teens, Kathy had died. He had been told the news by a nervous young constable, then he had identified her and
cried over her broken body, wondering how he was going to tell Rosie and Sam that they would never see their mother again.
He had been a churchgoer all his life, and he had prayed, prayed that the pain would ease, prayed that Kathy would have justice.

Even after four years the pain hadn’t gone away. It returned when he was alone or when something reminded him. When he was
sailing he often thought of her, heard her voice on the wind.

But now he tried to put her from his mind. He forced himself to think of the Jonny Shellmer case, of Alec Treadly. Talking
to that man had made him feel unclean. He was a father. Most fathers, he was sure, would have felt the same having to sit
so close to a man who had abused vulnerable youngsters.

He had received a message to say that Wesley and Rachel had gone to Derenham to visit some TV presenter whose phone number
was in Shellmer’s address book. There was also the welcome news that Paul Heygarth’s prints had been found on Jonny Shellmer’s
car and that Heygarth was being brought in again for further questioning.

Not so welcome was Rachel’s theory that some kind of paedophile ring was operating in the area. If so, surely he would have
heard something. Surely there would have been some hint from schools and Social Services. But then such
people were more skilled in subterfuge than the secret service. Gerry Heffernan shuddered and hoped with all his heart that
Rachel’s suspicions were groundless.

He sailed past the twin castles perched on the high headland, either side of the river entrance, and brought the boat around,
heading for home. There was a stiff breeze now and the
Rosie May
raced across the waves. Soon he saw Baynard’s Quay and the row of pastel-washed houses with his own set back at the end,
snuggling against its larger neighbour. He was about to drop the anchor when he looked up and saw a brilliant white yacht
sailing down the main channel out to sea. Flashy, he thought without envy. A gin palace, a rich man’s toy. A beautiful craft
but not his style at all.

Then he saw the name painted in bold black letters on the stern.
Henry of Lancaster
.

He made sure the
Rosie May
was properly moored before searching in his pocket for his mobile phone.

To my most beloved sister Lucy,

I have word that my husband was wounded in battle at Tewkesbury but the Lord spared his life and he is well cared for by the
brothers of the Abbey there, and Edmund is safe there also.

Have you spoken with the widow More of Tradmouth concerning my stepson, John? If she is willing he should call upon her. I
make it no secret that I have had cause to chastise him of late, but I pray that a good wife will be a blessing to him as
I assure you that he is but a little wild. He is most gentle and loving with his sister, my true daughter Elizabeth, and spends
much time in her company. It may be that the widow More will find him agreeable.

My dear son Edmund returns with his father when he is well enough to travel, and it will bring me much joy to see him. Yet
I grieve for King Henry and Queen Margaret’s defeat.

Your loving sister, Marjory

Written at Derenham this twenty-fifth day of May 1471

Monday dawned fine. As Wesley Peterson was eating his cornflakes, the weatherman on breakfast television made extravagant
promises of sunshine in the south-west. He
used the word glorious – always a bad sign. Wesley picked up his waterproof coat as he left the house.

He kissed Pam goodbye as she set off to drop Michael at the childminder’s before heading schoolward. She looked drawn and
tired again that morning, and Wesley wondered whether the job was becoming too much for her. But they needed her salary, so
she didn’t have much choice in the matter – she had to carry on. As she drove off his thoughts turned to the case, to Jonny
Shellmer.

Wesley felt that they still didn’t know enough about Shellmer; they knew about Shellmer the rock star, Shellmer the songwriter,
Shellmer the boyfriend of Sherry Smyth – but not Shellmer the man. Sherry Smyth hadn’t known him for long … and there was
a part of his life that he had kept hidden from her, either by accident or design.

Gerry Heffernan had spotted Hal Lancaster’s boat heading out to sea and he was contacting the harbour-master, an old acquaintance
of his, first thing to find out all he could. If Lancaster’s boat had been in the area at the time of Shellmer’s death, it
opened up a whole new range of possibilities.

When Wesley reached the station, Heffernan was sitting in his glass-partitioned lair drinking coffee, while the workers in
the outer office sorted through papers, spoke on telephones and punched information into computers. Officers drifted in and
took their places wearily, taking up where they had left off the previous night.

Rachel looked up and smiled when Wesley walked in. ‘I’ve got a print-out of all the numbers Jonny Shellmer rang from his phone
in the cottage. He rang Jack Cromer’s number on Sunday, which fits with Cromer’s account of receiving a call asking for the
Flowers, I suppose. I’m going over to Derenham to have a word with them,’ she added, trying to hide her keenness under a cool
veneer.

‘But Maggie Flowers told me she didn’t know Shellmer. She’d only met him briefly when he presented the cheque.’

‘Perhaps she was lying,’ Rachel replied with the hint of a
wink. ‘Are you coming with me?’

She knew the proximity of Neil Watson’s dig to the Flowers’ house would prove too tempting for Wesley to resist, and she was
glad. The alternative was to be teamed up with Steve Carstairs, and she could think of better travelling companions. And she
enjoyed Wesley’s company, enjoyed it too much perhaps. But she hardly dared to acknowledge this, even to herself, and certainly
not to others. She didn’t want to spark off the station’s ever-efficient gossip machine which, unlike the business of catching
criminals, required no solid evidence of wrongdoing for a conviction.

Wesley agreed to go over to Derenham later, and Rachel returned to her paperwork, satisfied that she’d won one small victory
so early on a Monday morning.

Through the glass partition, Wesley could see Gerry Heffernan gesticulating wildly, beckoning him with extravagant arm movements
like a constable on point duty. He opened the door and the boss stood up.

‘Have you heard, Wes? Heygarth’s been brought in again. I wanted to see how he explained away the fact that his fingerprints
were all over Shellmer’s car. He’s made another statement.’ He snorted. ‘Another pack of lies.’

‘Anything else new?’

‘I’ve been on to Captain Shaw, the harbour-master. He told me that Hal Lancaster’s sailed off to France – expects to be back
in Tradmouth later in the week. If we travel up to Liverpool tomorrow then we should be back in good time to give him a warm
welcome when he arrives.’

‘If he arrives,’ said Wesley realistically.

‘Captain Shaw seemed pretty certain he’d be back. Lancaster told him he had some business in Tradmouth.’ Gerry Heffernan was
trying his best to sound optimistic, but a note of doubt had crept into his voice.

‘Did he say if Lancaster was with anyone?’

Heffernan shook his head and ran his fingers through his unkempt hair. ‘He said he was alone when he called at the
harbour office and he never saw anyone else aboard the
Henry of Lancaster
. But there’s nothing unusual about that. I usually sail alone. She’s a lovely craft, that
Henry of Lancaster
,’ he added appreciatively with a faraway look in his eye. ‘But a bit flash for my taste.’

‘What about the time Shellmer was killed? Was Lancaster’s boat moored at Tradmouth then?’

‘Apparently not. He arrived on Friday. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t head up the river and drop anchor near Derenham before
that.’

‘I suppose we’ll have to wait until he comes back to find out,’ Wesley consulted a sheet of paper – his list of things to
do. ‘Tom from Forensics is over at Hoxworthy’s Farm now seeing what he can dig up on that computer of Lewis’s. I spoke to
him and he reckons he can resurrect any e-mails that have been deleted.’

‘The ghosts in the machine, eh?’ said Heffernan. ‘Let’s hope they tell us where Lewis has got to.’

Wesley sat down. He had some time to kill before his trip to Derenham to see the Flowers and he wanted to talk about the case,
to put his thoughts into some sort of order. He took a plain piece of paper from a pile at the corner of Heffernan’s cluttered
desk and laid it neatly in front of him.

‘Have we had confirmation yet that the gun found in Lewis’s room was used to kill Shellmer?’ he asked.

Heffernan held up the piece of paper his mug of tea had been standing on and waved it in Wesley’s direction. ‘Faxed to us
by Forensics first thing. I told them it was urgent so they pulled their fingers out.’

Wesley played with his pen, a Christmas present from his parents. He began to speak slowly, thoughtfully, making notes on
the blank sheet of paper in front of him to get things straight in his mind. ‘So Shellmer was shot with a gun that was later
found to be in the possession of Lewis Hoxworthy, who disappeared two days after the shooting. Shellmer was shot in the Old
Vicarage some time on Wednesday, and there’s evidence of a break-in.
Then his body was moved by Paul Heygarth, the estate agent, with the help of his lovely assistant Nicola, the day after. Heygarth
claims he only moved Shellmer because he didn’t want the sale of the house disrupted. He says he needed the money from the
commission. Having met Heygarth, I’d say that was possible. What does this new statement of his say?’

‘He says he moved the car for the same reason as he moved the body – so that nobody would associate the property with the
murder. He kept on about how he was desperate for the commission from the sale.’

‘Believe him?’

Heffernan grunted slightly and studied his knuckles.

Wesley continued. ‘Then the day after Shellmer’s body’s found Lewis goes missing, having boasted to his friend – if you can
call Yossa a friend – that he’s found something that’ll make him rich and that he has a gun. Shellmer’s car’s dumped by Heygarth
and then it turns up in the possession of Lewis’s mate Yossa. Is that coincidence – it’s not unknown for the likes of Yossa
to hang around carparks in the hope that something’ll turn up – or did the lads have some sort of contact with Heygarth?’

‘Then there’s a convicted paedophile living near by who has free access to the Old Vicarage. And there’s Angela Simms, who
was seen at Shellmer’s house. Her name was in Shellmer’s address book so they must have known each other somehow. She’s robbed
and left for dead, which may or may not be connected with Shellmer’s shooting. Then someone – a man with a slight Liverpool
accent: possibly Jonny Shellmer – rings Jack Cromer’s house asking for a Mr Flowers.’

Wesley examined the notes he had made and sat back. ‘What the hell’s this all about, Gerry? What’s going on here?’