Deadly Thyme (36 page)

Would he fail in finding Annie?
Would he give DI Bennet back in London something more to hold against him? “Can’t finish the job can you? A failure is what you are.” Would that prediction come true now he couldn’t think straight?

He stared back at himself in the dresser
’s mirror.
Who do you think you are?
You can’t do any good here. Go home!
He slammed the sock drawer shut.
No!
After all this time, he would stay and he would straighten out this business with Trewe, and he would find the lost girl.

45

Tuesday morning

Day seventeen

I
t was about eighteen miles northeast of Perrin’s Point to the Treborwick Police Station where DCI Trewe worked. The drive took Jon Graham thirty minutes. It had rained sometime in the night, leaving puddles on the roadway, but the sun was bright that morning. The regional station was a square gray building that sat on a rise of land. The time had come to resolve issues. He pursed his lips and stepped through the glass front door into the dimmer interior. His eyes hadn’t adjusted, but he kept walking and almost ran over Perstow, who was leaving in somewhat of a hurry. He must not have noticed Jon entering. Why was he here and not at Perrin’s Point police station in his office?

“Since you are here, do you have a moment?” Jon asked.

“Of course.” Perstow stood back while smoothing his shirt over his protruding front.

“Follow me then.”

Perstow didn’t say a word as Jon walked past several desks and rapped on the door to Trewe’s office. He heard Trewe yell, “Enter.” Jon nodded encouragement to Perstow and walked in. A clutter of coffee mugs, pencils, papers and take-out pizza boxes were scattered across every surface. Jon wondered why Trewe was eating pizza with his digestion problems.

Standing at the window, Trewe turned when they entered. “What is it?”

Without prompting, Jon sat down. “The hospital rest put you in a good mood, I see. Pizza and coffee?”

“I
’m in a perfect mood, and someone else was here eating pizza last night.”

Perstow scooted into a chair before being invited.

Trewe repeated, “What is it?”

“After yesterday
’s revelation,” Jon said, “the entire direction of this investigation has changed. Now we believe Annie may be alive. I’ve asked Mrs. Butler and her mother to keep quiet until after the second inquest. And I believe that Mrs. Butler may still be in danger.”

“We know this. So why burst in here? I
’m up to my eyes. Get on with it.”

It sounded as if Trewe was angrier at him than he usually was. Jon said, “If you would prefer, I
’ll ask Mr. Perstow to leave the room.”

“I was completely prepared to speak to the dead girl
’s real mother.” Trewe’s pale eyes narrowed, cold as ice. “I wasn’t so sick I couldn’t have gone to the Benton’s home in Devon.”

So that was it, Jon thought. Trewe still thinks Jon was a vigilante, over-stepping his responsibilities.

“I’m sorry that I did not consult you. The police authorities in the girl’s district needed to be the ones to tell the poor parents.”

“That isn
’t all, though, is it?” Trewe swung towards him. “Why have you come so formal-like and with a witness?”

“My mother always said if she were going to cook something, she had to clean the kitchen first.”

Trewe rolled his eyes. “And?”

Jon said
, “In order to arrive at the truth, I need something cleared up.”

“Bloody hell
!” Trewe yelled, “What’s this about?”

“About the investigation that brought me here in the first place.”

Trewe shoved empty take-out boxes aside. “Talk!”

“I
’d like to get Bakewell on conference call with your permission.”

“Right.” Trewe punched some numbers into his desk phone.

Bakewell’s voice boomed a loud but normal, “Bakewell here!”

Trewe told him who was calling
, and Jon chimed in as well. “Sergeant Perstow is present, also.”

“So the whole circus?” Bakewell exclaimed. “Well, Trewe, it
’s come down to this. I wanted this assignment badly, especially when I found out who the subject of the home office’s investigation was.”

“Who?” Trewe
’s face looked pinched. Jon thought he saw wariness and stark suspicion in his eyes.

“You.”

Trewe’s face changed from storm to tempest, developing a dangerous, wild-eyed, veins-standing-out-at-the-neck look. “What?”

“Look, it
’s the money, man,” Bakewell boomed.

A change came over Trewe. The standing-out veins disappeared
. The rigidity and the wild-eyed dangerous look, gone. In its place was something close to a smile. “Money? What money? What are you on about?”

Bakewell
’s voice filled the room, “The nine hundred, eighty-two thousand pounds or thereabouts transferred from National Westminster to Lloyds.”

Jon watched Trewe carefully. Shock registered. Then, a trace of a grin played at the edges of his lips, where it gradually spread into a smile. A chuckle started and grew to a laugh. It took him a few moments to work at gaining a modicum of control. He reached for a tissue to wipe his eyes. “Brilliant. I had no idea
… What a waste of our tax payers’ money.”

Jon stared at Trewe.
What was this?

Trewe took a tissue and blew his nose. “I won the money on the pools.”

“The pools!” Bakewell yelled. “There’s no way in hell you won that money and didn’t spread the word.”

“People change, Tom,” Trewe said.

Jon glanced at Perstow who looked like the canary that had been nabbed by the cat.

With a gigantic grin spread across his face, Trewe wiped his eyes again. “My son-in-law talked me and my son into joining the pool. Split three-way it
was a grand thing!”

Suspicion remained at the back of Jon
’s mind. How could this man, who wore his emotions like Christmas-fairy lights, have hidden his tremendous fortune for this long? “How is it no one knew?” Jon asked.

“Only the three of us kn
ew. I swore them to secrecy until I was pensioned. If I told anyone else it would get about.” Trewe waved his hand in the air. “I don’t want a lot of long-lost relatives popping in, acting like pigs in clover. And I don’t need my past sneaking up thinking I might owe more alimony. Pardon me, Tom. So I kept quiet.”

With a parting growl, Bakewell cut the connection from his end.

“Nothing’s changed except … my deposit account.” With that bright non-customary smile plastered to his face, Trewe leaned forward. “How is it my account would be of interest to anyone?”

“Someone at the bank reported a policeman had deposited a large amount of money,” Jon said
, “and demanded an investigation.”

“I did wonder at the manager
’s reaction at the time I transferred the funds. Wouldn’t stay with that bank after what they did to my son in law, charging him interest on savings! Highway robbery.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“What would you do?”

Jon laughed. “Early retirement and a holiday in the Greek islands or the States comes to mind.”

Trewe snorted. “Everything else keeps interfering.”

“We can wind up the fraud investigation, if you can prove all this, of course
,” Jon said.

“I
’ve filed a cover letter from Littlewoods … here,” Trewe pulled a drawer towards him and withdrew a sheet of paper, “here it is.” He handed it to Jon. “And all along I thought you just wanted to keep me company.”

Jon glanced at the paper and handed it back to Trewe. He could hardly take it in.

Trewe smiled, calmer now. He shook his head. “The way people react …”

Perstow beamed. “I
’m in the room with a rich man.”

Trewe leaned back in his chair, crashing into the wall behind, gouging yet another mark. “See what I mean?”

46

Midday

The postmistress jerked back and almost slipped off the stool behind the counter. “What! Charles? Don't find the door open enough as it is, yer sneakin’ through the back door where no one is allowed?”

Charles stood before the postmistress and smiled, more to himself than at her.

“I was hoping to bring a package in early,” Charles said, “as I haven’t much time later in the day. Won’t you humor me this one time?”

“I may be deaf
, but blind I’m not, sar. Ye ’aven’t any package. I know what’s what,” she raised her voice as she pointed at the computer, “and I stick to schedule even if no one else does! That’s the way things are, like it ’r not. What are ye up to? Yer not comin’ back here!”

“You know my name. No one gets that privilege any longer.” He pushed the rag he had prepared into her mouth
, forcing it open. She choked, then gasped and took a step back, grabbing at the rag. He shoved her. She ricocheted off a cabinet to the floor, slamming the back of her head against the flagstone. Between the chemical on the rag and the force of her landing, she was senseless to the world. Her dress had flown up.

He looked down, shocked.

“She is such a liar!”

Sin upon sin, as you would say, Mother!

Ruth looked out the kitchen window to the back of her home where the thyme cascaded over its pot. It was a partly cloudy day, and much too humid.
Annie is alive and I must keep my mouth shut.

Dear God in heaven!
she wanted to shriek.

Crepuscular sunlight strained through the haze in the west. She stared out across the next cottage
’s roof below her window. A wide stone wall divided the properties. Movement caught her attention—a single gray feather, weightlessness on stone. She looked again. It was gone.

It had been two weeks and three days.

Her stomach churned. She paced across the kitchen and back to the window. Was Annie cold? Hungry? What would she do if they couldn’t find her? What if they couldn’t find her for six months, like the girl in the surf? She rubbed her hands up to her shoulders. She bent and stretched her lower back. She readied her stance and kicked out with her heel. She swung around, jumped away, and kicked with the other leg, back kick, push kick, evasive side kick. She then paced back to the window, turned, and repeated her kicks, imagining the hurt she could do if she only knew who to hurt.

Somewhere there was another mother going through what she had gone through already
. Perhaps for six months this mother went through this not knowing and wondering. That would make the death so much more horrible. Not knowing is worse than knowing, really.

She paced the length of the kitchen again and glanced at the clock on the wall
—past twelve—an excruciatingly long day. It was amazing how long a minute took. At exactly this time tomorrow the second inquest would take place.

And Annie may still be alive and will stay that way as long as I sit in my house and keep quiet about it.

She had been experimenting with paper, wadding it up and tossing it into the little pool at the center of the cave. How long did the wadded up paper take to sink? The paper floated better if it was less tightly wadded. She had been writing notes and wadding them into a ball and sending them down the hole.

The first time Annie wrote anything it sounded crazy:

Mom, I’m in a cave. I need you. Please help me.

He wouldn
’t let her mother see that. No, it would be worse than writing nothing. That one went down the hole.

This is Annie Butler. I
’m in a cave.

Which cave? No one will know which cave. Tears turned her cheeks to ice. She rubbed them to revive some warmth. The heater
’s tick, the dripping water, and the waves outside worked together in a sort of weird orchestra of a thrumming music that never ended.

She had thought so hard about what to write
, but when she put it to paper her words sounded so stupid.

Mom, don
’t worry. Follow the man’s instruction and you’ll find me.

Less frantic, but no, that was bad because she didn
’t want her mother to follow the man’s instructions. The creeper was crazy. The creeper would hurt her. She crushed the note up and tried again:

Mom, I
’m well. I will let you know soon what to do. Do not worry meanwhile.

That wasn
’t bad but she did wish she knew the man’s name or something so she could slip clues into the words. How could she slip clues into words?

The first letter of each sentence
—she could code it like the kind of messages they texted. What would it say? How could she hide it well enough?

She had nothing else to do but think.
The cut on her leg was oozing. The skin around it was red and painful to touch. It was hard to think when her leg felt like it was going to burst open.

Jon had a good
, strong cup of coffee in front of him. He and Trewe were on a sort of truce, sitting across from each other at Trewe’s desk. He and Perstow were at the Treborwick station to see Trewe, who was still not working a full schedule.

Trewe nodded. “It
’s wonderful the body was not Annie Butler. But that still leaves Annie out there somewhere, and we’re back on square one. How is Mrs. Butler taking this?”

“As well as,” Jon said. “I told her we have to be discreet. Don
’t want the fox to know the hounds are after him. The second inquest is still on, public notices up. We’ll stage it as if it were Annie’s. Mr. and Mrs. Benton, the
real
dead girl’s parents, will be coming later to make arrangements for the remains so they can bury their daughter. We’ve asked them to remain incognito so the alarm is not raised. They’ve been more than cooperative because they want this as much as anyone. We want to flush this person. There has to be a reason for taking a child and keeping her alive.”

“He drains their blood. Maybe he needs it fresh.”

Jon leaned back. “Surely this one is different. He grabbed her so near her own home.”

There was a soft knock at the door.

Trewe murmured, “What fresh hell is this?”

Perstow got up and when the door opened, he nodded at whoever had interrupted.

The door cracked wider. Trewe thundered, “What? Speak up!”

Perstow turned to him. “Another body, at the Perrin
’s Point post office.”