Deadly Thyme (25 page)

“Yes, someone has been following me for some time, before this happened to Annie.”

“Can you describe the person following you?”

“He
’s covered. Scarves or something painted on his face. He wasn’t standing up, or maybe he’s deformed, like a hunchback … Whatever.” Ruth’s voice caught. Jon’s heart did some kind of back-flip.

Jon knew that she was describing the man who beat her outside his caravan. He said, “Don
’t you have any suspicion of who it was? Could it have been Tavy?”

Ruth looked up in alarm. “Tavy had nothing but kind words for me. How could you say such a thing? The reason I
called is I want to know more about your suspicions that Annie was not or is not the only girl kidnapped in Cornwall. Why can’t I find anything about it on the Internet?”

“Because they weren
’t kidnapped in Cornwall.”

“But
—”

“They were left in Cornwall.”

“Dead?”

“Yes.”

“And Annie … it wasn’t Annie I saw dead.”

Ruth
’s mother must have been listening, because she hastened into the room with a mug of steaming tea in each hand. “Are you upsetting my Ruth?”

“I don
’t want to.” He turned to Ruth, “Mrs. Butler, we have no real proof.”

“Look!” Ruth pointed to the painting of Annie on the beach. “There
’s your proof. Look at her feet, then look at the dead girl’s feet. You can see the proof. It isn’t Annie!”

Tuesday night, 10:33
p.m.

The flickering firelight caressed Charles’s features with seductive, warm fingers. He sat in the long, narrow sitting room of his home listening to the crack and pop of sizzling embers. It was raining outside. He would have to go check the heater. Rain was good because it covered his footprints so well.

He had been so good, doing all that was required so his mother would tell him how much she had loved him always. He intended her to say it.

He had his chance to capture the American woman and he had been scared off by the nosy policeman. He would not fail a second time.

It takes too long to grind the seeds to make
cyanide, he thought. The Wife must have something in her medicine cabinet. The one medication had been perfect for the dog. Stupid to be so friendly, what good is that?

He sang softly
, “pick-pack paddy-whack, give the dog a pill. That old man goes rolling still.”

He slapped his knee and stifled a laugh. Sometimes he really exceeded himself.

Poison. Really effective stuff. Of course there were always lupine seeds. He could dig around in the greenhouse and come up with some. A few could kill a man.

He stood up, stretched and walked to the bar opposite the fireplace. He moved one of the decanters and saw the ring it left in the thick dust. He hadn
’t wanted The Wife to touch his liquor cabinet. He liked his dust just the way it was. A hissing beyond the fireplace brought him upright.

“
Life is only a casing, Chubby, an exoskeleton, as it were, for death. Physical death is the final and glorious conclusion. The top rung of the ladder, Bubby. We are only passing from one death to another. All of us are dead.”

“I hear you, mother.” He wanted to add
that some were definitely more dead than others were, but why bring that up?

He fixed himself a small nightcap and a larger one for The Wife. If something happened before he could prepare more carefully, he could claim she killed herself with alcohol.

He started to take a long swallow.

“
The German hussy has led my Charlie to an unhealthy way of living. I knew she would from the moment I laid my eyes on her. I always said …”

He choked on his cognac. The fumes burned into his nostril, thrilling up into his forehead. “The German witch wants me for my secure position and good looks,” he intoned. He had heard it more times than he could count.

“Health is paramount to keeping your body for the everlasting life, Charlie.”

Old-fashioned gibberish,
he thought, but there was no reasoning with her. “You are an everlasting memorial, Mum. The proof of the pudding!”

He positioned a Frank Sinatra album on the record player. He wondered why others found records so passé. “Come Mother! Let us dance as we used to.” He held his arms out and up, put his head back and began a slow rotation, turning in wide arcs around the den.

The flickering shadows on the walls moved back and forth. Anyone observing would have imagined trickery as the one shadow dancing became two.

33

Wednesday afternoon

Day eleven

Standing above the beach, Jon watched the waves break against the rocks. He’d been over everything twice and had no breakthroughs in the case. He’d been briefed in the morning meeting with Trewe at the police station, and after filing reports and fielding phone calls, he wanted a walk on the beach. Nature always revived his good humor. A seagull perched on a nearby rock, pecking at what was left of a fish. Like Trewe, pecking at the subject of money while they were driving from Tavy’s house yesterday. Jon couldn’t remember why the subject got around to money of a personal nature, but he had said to Trewe, “Mrs. Butler may not have money problems, but if the killer has money problems, it may have set—”

Trewe had interrupted, “Or
maybe the killer has lots of money and tucked it away so no one knows where it came from, and then the child stumbled upon some truth the killer didn’t want her to know. Perhaps the child threatened to tell—there’s a scenario I can believe.”

Jon had wondered where Trewe would go with that. What about the money Trewe had tucked away? But the conversation drew to a close once they arrived at the police station.

The gull rose into the air and floated away.

Should he tell Mrs. Butler more about the investigation and his own suspicions? He dare not, not alone. He was too good an officer to be unmindful of the serious nature of the warning for speaking to a witness or anyone so closely involved in a case without another officer present. Trewe did not want anyone privy to the information about the other victims. Jon was convinced it was crucial to step up the investigation and
begin again to search for a living victim, but he had no allies.

Of course, he was one for following leads
—always within the law, signed citations, proper warrants, etc. He often got results, and results were not frowned upon. But in this he had to be cautious. He had developed feelings without encouragement or reason for Mrs. Butler. She had just withstood the worst thing to happen to any parent. She was in no way interested in him and never would be, but that didn’t stop his heart doing what it did in her presence.

He went over in his mind all the particulars of the case. No eye witnesses, no witnesses to anything, but there were several strangers seen in or around the village that day, including himself. They were all accounted for and found to be there for legitimate reasons.

Why in this case was the killer taunting the police? He hadn’t done it with any of the other girls. Those had been done without any notes or calls or anything. And Annie was ten years old, while the others had been older. Were these the reasons Trewe would not consider his theory?

In the process of acquiring every detail of Annie Butler
’s life from the past twenty-eight days, more questions were put to Annie’s friend, Dot—the hope being that Annie had confided something, as girls do.

Seems that Annie had been worried about something a few days prior to her disappearance. Other friends, their parents, and Annie
’s teachers were questioned. Anyone who could possibly have had any contact with the girl at any time had been questioned. Other than the vague, unnamed worry, they had learned nothing new. Annie was a good girl who trusted others easily. She had strong opinions but sometimes changed her mind. She liked to do things her way if she could get away with it, she liked being outdoors, she was very creative and often made things or did things for others. She had a passable singing voice and enjoyed sport, particularly football. She and her mother both took part in a self-defense training class. She was a physically strong, though petite, child. She adored her mother, loved lemon ices and did well with her school work. What was it about her that made her more vulnerable to being a victim of murder?

He couldn
’t answer that. And if the child was the victim of kidnap and was being held, then the question remained, why? The only possible answer was because something of Annie Butler’s was what the kidnapper wanted. What would that something be? Money? No, Ruth Butler did not appear to be so well off that her child would be held for ransom. Added to that, there had been no ransom demand. No, the perpetrator wanted something other than money. But what? Power? Sex? Were they dealing with a pedophile? The other girls had not been sexually molested. Though time and sea had wiped away most evidence, the body they had did not appear to have been sexually molested. And
that
was what was entirely strange about this business.

So, what kind of power was the murderer getting from these girls?

The blooming thyme had obviously come from Mrs. Butler’s garden. Or had it? There were many possible places. If protected from cold wind and with the right amount of sun, it could bloom early.

Suspects? He had seen the postmistress near the hanging shoe outside Mrs. Butler
’s cottage. She was not perturbed in the least by any questioning, and there was nothing suspicious about her statement.

The flowers and strange Welsh notes had come from Mr. Tavish.

The emails. Had they come from Mr. Tavish’s computer? After a forensic examination of the computer, it was determined that anything threatening had been written after the day of the inquest. And no one had seen or heard from Tavy since the inquest. The evidence suggested to Jon that Tavy had had a violent altercation in his kitchen that day, but they could do little until he was found except keep that line of inquiry open.

Money and lots of it was somehow involved here. He didn
’t believe in coincidences. Trewe had lots of money and it was time to approach the problem head on instead of dancing around it. Trewe’s secret needed airing. The man was going to implode otherwise. He had even considered him as a suspect, but he didn’t seem like a killer—which didn’t mean much, Jon knew. Many sociopaths could function every day in their jobs and do terrible things without thought or emotion. They had a bent dial on their moral compasses. But that did not fit our Mr. Trewe, Jon thought. The man spouted emotion at every turn, which also didn’t mean much if something had upset the balance of his mentality. He may not have begun displaying his volatile nature until recently. He’d have to check on that.

The string. The spool sitting so prominently on the stove in Mr. Tavish
’s kitchen was the same sort of string used at the post office to bind packages before taping. Could it be pointing at the postmistress? Of course, it is common enough. It could be purchased anywhere and used for anything.

The thing
to do would be to locate Mr. Tavish.

He went back to the
Perrin’s Point police station and sat at Perstow’s desk because there were no other desks available that weren’t buried in paper. Where was Perstow? He should be here or at least have left a note or something. Why hadn’t Perstow rung him to let him know what he was doing? Jon sat and stared at the reams of paper strewn everywhere.

Just then, the station
’s phone buzzed. Jon answered and explained that Mr. Perstow wasn’t available and asked if he could take a message.

It was the coast guard. Some fishermen had spotted something suspicious on a ledge of rock, just below the village
, and noticed a lot of bird activity. They were there now. The light wasn’t perfect, but it looked like a human body.

Wednesday night

The piercing, cold salt
air stung the eyes and nostrils. Jon peered carefully over the edge of the rock precipice. It had taken time to get all the equipment together. Except for preparing for the incoming tide, there had not been desperate scurrying to get set up. This was not a rescue.

Lights had been set up to aid the divers, forensics personnel, photographers and various other police technicians assisting SOCO with the scene of the crime. Some lamps had been lowered over the edge
, about fifty feet down. There was indeed another body.

The sea should have been successful, Jon reflected, in washing away the physical scraps. But it had already been reported that the body
’s flesh had snagged and caught on the jagged rock. They were working against the tide. They needed to get in and get out before the waves washed away a few policemen.

With his constant pacing, shouting and arm waving, Trewe made Jon nervous. Definitely not a good thing to be nervous while standing on a precipice above the sea after dark.

“Mr. Graham! What do you make of this?” Trewe held a plastic bag up to Jon’s face.

“Video tape.”

“It’s strewn everywhere down there along with cd shards.”

With a creaking squeal, the winch attached to the back of a Range Rover began its humming life.

“The body is coming up now.” Jon cupped his hands shielding his eyes from the glare of the lights. “It looks heavy. It isn’t a child.”

The winch pulled the black plastic-enshrouded body strapped to an aluminum stretcher from below. The men at the top of the cliff used a hook to grab the metal cage the body bag was in. They directed it to land and let it down. Once unhooked from the winch, they freed the parcel from its cage. With explosions of white light, the photographer shot pictures of every detail. Jon took a few pictures on his mobile. Technicians on all fours were going over the turf on the cliff
’s edge. The forensic staff would supervise the moving of the body to the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Mortuary.

The pathologist, Roger Penberthy, reached the top of the cliff in a harness and handed his medical kit to Trewe. With help from one of the uniformed police, he fought free of the clamps and buckles.

“Never so happy to be on solid earth,” he sputtered, white mustache bristling. His breath vapor puffed as if coming from a steam engine. He squinted at them. “Peter, count your blessings you weren’t hung above this frightful sea as I’ve been for the past hour.”

Trewe glared. “Well?”

“Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. This poor soul did not enjoy his final moments. I was not able to ascertain the exact cause of death”—he indicated the body-shaped parcel lying near where they stood—“except for the obvious.”

The glare from the strobes turned the water-specked, black bag silver. The doctor unzipped the bag, revealing a flattened, misshapen, greenish-red face, swollen in a death grimace that obliterated what should have been there
—the laugh-lines around the eyes and mouth.

An unseen fist plowed into Jon
’s stomach. The body was Gareth Wren Tavish.

The doctor spoke over the waves, “Remarkably untouched. Lay with his arm covering this part of his head. Rest of him didn
’t fare so well. On the rock for the better part of three days.”

“How can you tell?” Jon asked, sick at heart.

“Bodily fluids and gas build up after death, swell a body like a balloon, then they leak out—slowly. This balloon is deflated. Usually takes about three days. I’ll have to do tests before anything is official, of course. I can be more specific once I’ve done the postmortem.” The doctor pointed to the side of the head. “Either from the skull scraping against the rocks or as a direct result of the fall from the cliff, there’s this …” He pulled long strands of the man’s beard away from the side of his head. Part of the skull was gone, exposing gray-white, bloodless matter.

The bulging material was brain. Jon looked away. “In your opinion, is there a way to that particular spot on the rocks other than straight down?”

The doctor shook his head. “Waves are too rough for boats to move close to the rocks. Even at low tide, the beach isn’t visible, just the rocks. The spot the body was lodged in is compatible with a free-fall from the top. Pushed over? Slipped over? Don’t know. That’s your department.” The doctor picked up his case.

Trewe swayed slightly. “How
’d this happen?”

Jon couldn
’t separate his feelings into any kind of reasonable muddle. How ironic Tavy had teased him about falling over the edge when they first met. But some unanswered question niggled just now—something was missing. Seeing Tavy in such a state left him feeling numb and depressed. He had really liked the old man. Tavy’s body, the lost video, and whatever else the killer felt was important enough to destroy must have gone over the side. Then the niggling thought became clear in a flash. He said to Trewe, “The killer would have taken what he thought important.”