Path of Needles (16 page)

There was a glimmer of red somewhere up ahead of her, a bright blood colour, and when she saw it Alice knew that she was dreaming. It was the dead girl. She was in the woods now, at one with the trees and the insects and the birds. The path of needles and the path of pins were behind her; she would not find them again. She had no choice left but to wander the lost places.

Somewhere above, a large bird stirred and a branch wavered. There was the burbling roll of a wood pigeon’s call, the answering cry of something she didn’t recognise.

There was a reason she had to speak to the girl, she knew that, but she couldn’t think what it was. She started to head after her anyway, then broke into a run. Hard ground gave way to softer earth thick with undergrowth, everything a new, soft green. The trees were thinner, their trunks silver and pale. Ahead of her was another glimpse of red.

Alice tried to call out for the girl to wait and found she couldn’t speak; there was only a bird’s cry, high and snipping like silver scissors, somewhere on the edge of hearing. She ran faster, through a deep drift of bluebells that looked almost purple in the dim light. A drop of rain fell onto her face and she realised she could smell it in the air, sense it in the gathering blackness: a storm was coming.

Then she saw that the girl had stopped after all; she was watching her, peering from behind a tree trunk, her face a pale oval. Her lips were pressed into a flat blank line, but Alice had the impression of sharp teeth hidden behind them. Suddenly she wasn’t sure if it was Little Red leading her onwards or the wolf. The girl looked hungry. She pulled the red cape back from one arm. There was a strap wrapped around it and she pulled it tight. In her other hand she held a needle. It was long and sharp and held promise in the droplet that clung to its tip. The girl thrust the needle into her flesh, keeping her eyes on Alice
as she depressed the plunger. Her eyes, which had been nothing more than dark smudges, suddenly shone.

Then Little Red was running again, ducking into the trees while Alice stared at the place she had been. She shook herself, tried to follow, but the trees resisted her, blocking her with their branches, fighting her. She couldn’t see the girl any more. The ground was covered in fallen branches and dead bracken and smothered by a mulch of long-dead leaves. Alice stood still and listened; everything was quiet as a held breath and she felt alone. She couldn’t go back – she hadn’t found what she was meant to see. She started walking again, steadily this time, looking about her. To each side were only the scabbed trunks of birch and ash, but ahead was something different, a sprinkling of white flowers on the ground.

Alice emerged into a clearing that was coated in fresh soft grass. It was no lighter here and she looked up to see the sky was smudged with cloud and scattered with the first stars.

When her gaze fell to the clearing once more, she noticed something else. Opposite her, under the edge of the trees, was a wooden hut. It wasn’t some rough-made thing but neat and sturdy, its freshly sawn edges a pale gold against the bark-covered walls. It had no door; instead, there was a simple opening, curtained by dripping rain which had started to fall more heavily, making a hissing sound all around her; it almost sounded like there were words in it. Alice ran, drops falling on her clothes and
hair, soaking her, but she still paused at the entrance, before peering in. It was dark inside, but the hut appeared to be empty. As she ducked under the roof, the rain transformed into a solid heavy drumming.

There was a wooden table inside the hut, with two chairs drawn up to it. The furniture was crudely made and much too big, as if intended for a giant. At first Alice thought that was all, there was nothing else, then she saw something on the table. She heaved herself up onto one of the chairs and leaned over it.

The thing was a book. Like the table and chairs it was too large, and like them it was made of wood. At first she thought it was only a carving, a solid thing, not something with pages that could be opened, but when she put out a hand and lifted the cover it moved easily. As she turned to the first page, somewhere out in the woods a bird began to sing.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Cate took a seat in Heath’s office. She’d been summoned as soon as she got to the station, ahead of the morning briefing, but Heath wasn’t there; when the door opened it was Dan who walked in. He nodded at her and moved to the other side of the room, where he remained standing. It made her feel out of place, despite the almost-smile he cast in her direction.

As she waited, Cate found herself thinking of that very first briefing when she’d put her hand in the air and mentioned fairy tales, the way Stocky had whistled the ‘Heigh Ho’ song afterwards, and laughed at her. It seemed a long time ago.

The door slammed back and Heath entered, walking rapidly, as if he didn’t have time for this; he was frowning, but then, Cate couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t look annoyed. ‘Let’s get to it,’ he said, and jabbed a finger towards the whiteboard. ‘All right, so our second victim’s
Teresa King. And you’ve informed the parents?’ He jerked his head towards Cate.

She stood, went closer. ‘We haven’t found a mother, sir. She abandoned the girl some time ago, apparently. There’s just a grandmother, and yes, she’s been told. She was quiet about it, didn’t seem too shocked, but I get the impression she never would show her emotions, if you know what I mean. She hasn’t had anything delivered to her, no bottle of blood or anything like that.’

He didn’t respond. ‘The girl was dumped in the woods near Newmillerdam Lake, only a few miles from the first scene. No convictions, which comes as a surprise, judging by the company she kept. A charming young lady by all accounts, not much in common with the first aside from age and sex.’

‘Not as such,’ said Cate.

‘Corbin?’

‘I just mean they could be compared not in their similarities to each other but their similarities to the characters they were chosen to represent. Little Red – I mean, Teresa King – was found in the guise of a girl who’d left the path, who’d chosen the way of needles. The only relative we could find was a grandmother, not a mother or father. And Chrissie Farrell, as we know, was the beauty queen, the fairest of them all …’ Her voice tailed away when she saw Heath’s expression.

‘Make sure you don’t get carried away, Corbin. We have to treat this as we would any other murder case, by
examining the evidence, following the leads we have. Until your friend’s theory gives us a suspect it’s not a hell of a lot of use to us. Yes?’

Cate subsided, then changed her mind. ‘It does fit, sir – and I know Alice Hyland has this idea it’s a female killer, but Cosgrove does teach literature, so he might have the knowledge. We could check out the specific subjects he’s been covering, maybe try to get a look at his bookshelves. Anything on folklore might show—’

‘Cosgrove has an alibi,’ snapped Heath. ‘Signed, sealed and delivered this time. The guy’s barely been out of the house since the first case except to go to the school and back. We’ve been keeping an eye on him. He might as well have been in fucking prison.’

‘It’s a big school. He might have—’

‘There are no unauthorised absences. We’ve had him under surveillance, plus the school has staff on the gate during breaks to stop the kids sneaking off to the chippy. No sightings of Cosgrove on either count. Now
your
contact, on the other hand …’

She looked up again, startled.

‘You have to admit it’s odd. She knows all about these fairy tales. She knows the area. She shows up conveniently in time to cast her eyes over the latest girl’s body.’

‘We
asked
her to—’

Heath held up a hand. ‘Devil’s advocate, Corbin. I’m just pointing out that you can see suspects everywhere. She even knows the other location we have so far – she
lectures in Leeds, doesn’t she?’ He paused, allowed that to sink in. ‘And she insists it’s a female killer. Isn’t that what you said?’

Cate nodded.

‘What you need is
evidence
. But for now, make sure you keep your distance – and watch her, that’s all I’m saying.’

Cate was silent, though she felt her cheeks reddening, as much with guilt as chagrin at Heath’s words. If she hadn’t brought Alice Hyland into this, the most the woman would have known about it would be what she saw on the evening news.

Or outside her window.

She had a sudden image of Alice as she’d seen her, breaking off from looking at the crime-scene photographs and turning to the window as if taking mental refuge in the apple tree that grew in her garden.

The
apple
tree. And a poisoned apple had been found next to Chrissie Farrell’s body. But no: Alice’s tree was still in blossom; it wouldn’t fruit until later, in the autumn. She forced herself to concentrate on what Heath was saying.

‘The interviews are under way,’ he said. ‘Passers-by are being contacted, anyone who was walking in the wood at the time the body was discovered – anyone we know about, anyway. There are entrances to those woods at any one of a dozen places, and that’s if no one climbs over a wall or a fence. It stretches right along the A61, and there are routes heading away through farmland; there’s one path that follows an old railway line for miles. Obviously
whoever dumped the body couldn’t have got that far carrying it, but there could have been any number of people wandering about in the woods.

‘The estimate is that Teresa King was dumped some ten or eleven hours before being discovered. That means a lot of potential witnesses could have just walked away. We’re keeping a cordon around the woods for now; if people go walking there they might do so regularly, and we might still get a chance to talk to them. They might come back.’ He looked at Cate. ‘Maybe the killer will.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Alice looked out of the window. The sky was a pale grey-blue, gently misted over with fine cloud. It might burn off as the day warmed, but for now, everything was lit in soft, muted tones. The trees blurred and shifted in the breeze. It made her think of a watercolour painted wet on wet, the colours bleeding into each other. The air would be cool and tempting. She glanced towards her bag, thrown down in the corner. She still had marking to do, but she knew if she sat and put the essays in front of her she could never fix her mind on the words. It was as if she’d become attuned to this new mystery she had been presented with; she couldn’t leave it alone.

She grabbed her jacket and headed out, taking the gate that led from her back garden into the woods. After a while she slipped off the jacket and felt the cool air on her skin. The trees were alive with birdsong, though when Alice looked up she could see nothing, not a single bird.

She found herself heading in the same direction she
had taken in her dream. At first the path was grey and ridged with roots, just as she had seen it then. She felt quite sure of the way. It took her along the hillside, roughly parallel with the lake and out of sight of the shoreline path. After that she kept moving, not really paying attention to where she was going, so that for a while the landscape she’d seen in her dream felt more present than the real.

Soon the ground softened and Alice found herself walking through drifts of bluebells, their perfume wafting in the morning air. She was heading towards the deepest part of the woods, where tracks and pathways criss-crossed each other at every step, making it easy to become lost. She didn’t try to follow the route she’d seen in her dream any longer – she didn’t think she could if she tried; it probably wasn’t even real.

The path narrowed and Alice picked her way around fallen branches and the twining roots of trees. The ground was spongy underfoot, almost unpleasantly so, and it was quiet; Alice stopped to listen.

The birdsong had ceased. The only sound was that of branches stirring, the soft touch of leaf against leaf, small noises she wouldn’t ordinarily have noticed.

Ahead of her, between the trees, white wood anemones were scattered across the ground.

She swallowed. The woods didn’t feel so friendly any more, didn’t feel like
hers
. She couldn’t remember this place from any of her previous walks. She tipped her head back,
seeing trunks and branches receding away from her towards the sky. It wasn’t brightening but growing duller, a flat, even grey. She went on and reached a clearing, smaller than the one she’d dreamed about but still
there
. It was peaceful and quiet, and Alice smiled; she’d found herself looking for the hut as if it had been a real place that she could revisit. Of course there were only the trees, but then she stared, because there
was
something nestled beneath them after all. She hadn’t noticed it at first, not because she hadn’t seen it exactly, but because the colour blended so well with its surroundings. She only saw it now because the thin slit across the canvas had stood out as she scanned everything else, a dark slot hanging in the air. She took a step back, her chest tight, as if she couldn’t get her breath.

The thing was a canvas tent, not brightly coloured like ordinary tents but mottled with the greens and browns of camouflage. As she watched, it rippled, then fell still, and a man’s head appeared through a gap in the fabric.

Oddly, Alice recognised him.

He smiled and gave her a little wave. He grabbed the binoculars that hung around his neck and waved them too. ‘It’s my little home from home,’ he called out.

She thought for a moment of turning and walking away – running, even – and then he spoke again.

‘I’m still looking,’ he said. His voice was faint, hardly any force behind it, and Alice leaned forward to hear him better. He smiled again. His expression was guileless and a little downcast.

Slowly she crossed the clearing. ‘The blue bird? Haven’t you seen it?’

‘Not yet, but I’m quite determined, you see. Quite the little mouse.’

It occurred to Alice that she hadn’t once thought of the blue bird all the time that she had been walking. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve probably spoiled it for you,’ she said, glancing around as if even now it would be flitting away from the noise she’d made. She looked back at his hide. It was just fabric stretched over a simple frame, probably not much to carry; the sort of thing a child might play in. And here he was, a grown man, alone in it – for how long?