The Betrayal of Trust (2 page)

‘Not going to ask what she was wearing.’

‘No, no, I can tell you that. It was white. Now go to bed – I’ll ring if I hear anything.’

But she would lie awake until she had news. She made tea and settled down next to
Mephisto, who had not stirred for several hours. The rain was still drumming on the roof. She had
been
reading a book about the lives of women in oppressive regimes, but after a couple of pages set it aside and got a battered paperback of a favourite Nancy Mitford novel from the shelf. Reading that was like eating porridge and cream, and slipped down in a similarly comforting way.

Ten minutes
later, Molly fell through the door, soaked and exhausted, having waded through flooded roads and then been blown off her bike. She had a badly cut hand and was shaken, but Cat gathered from her usual grin that it would take more even than this to crush her spirit.

Jocelyn Forbes turned on her radio hoping to find some light music but it had given way to alarming weather updates, and she only
needed to listen to the storm to know all she needed. She clicked on the bedside lamp and reached over to turn the dial. She tried for several minutes before giving up in frustration. It had happened again. Yesterday she could not twist open a bottle top, now this. Arthritis, like her mother, like her aunt. Age brings arthritis.

She lay back on the high pillows.

Her bedroom curtains were always
left slightly open and she could see lights in the windows of the two houses opposite. People would be awake tonight, up making tea, checking windows, hoping there were no slipped tiles on the roof.

But it was not the rain and wind that troubled her. She wished she could pick up the phone and talk to someone. There was no one. Penny would be asleep, her alarm set for six thirty. Her daughter
liked plenty of time to get ready in the mornings, to eat a proper breakfast and dress with care, whether she was in court or chambers. There were a few friends but no one close enough to telephone after midnight, except in an emergency. Was this an emergency? No, though the thoughts she had were as urgent as anything that could come to disturb her from outside.

She had never worried about ageing.
It took something minor, like not being able to turn the radio dial, to make her see what it might be like to become incapacitated and need care, to lose independence, have to move, to …

She told herself to snap out of it. It was the middle of the night, when everything blew up out of proportion, it was stormy, the news was terrible. Stop it.

The thoughts came back. They were not thoughts about
pain or the loss of consciousness, nor even frightening or confused thoughts. They were clear, calm, rational. Jocelyn Forbes was a calm and rational woman. But it would have been pleasant to talk to someone now, not about the thoughts and where they had led, but about a programme watched or a bit of gossip, a crossword clue that was defeating her, an exhibition worth seeing. The small cogs in
the wheel. Things she had been able to talk to Tony about, even if he had only grunted, half asleep. Things she used to ring her sister to share. She could always ring Carol any time. Carol had only been twenty miles away and would cheerfully have driven over here at two in the morning if she thought Jocelyn needed her. Or just chat on the phone for half an hour. Carol. It was almost three years.

The rain was steady on the roof though the wind had died down a bit.

Rain.

Rain.

The wind got up again, banging a gate.

Rain.

But doctors could help with arthritis now, they had all sorts of tricks up their sleeves. New medicines meant that people were not crippled so soon or so much. Crippled. It would be a long time before she needed to use the word about herself. All the same …

She wished
there was someone to talk to.

Thunder rumbled but in the distance.

Rain.

Sleep.

The storm water was still rushing off the Moor and now it was bringing stones, soil and branches along with it, washing earth away from the outcrops of rock and exposing the tree roots that clung to the slope. The outspread hands of giants had gouged the surface and hurled it down, gathering speed, rumbling like
an
underground train as it went. With nothing in its path it slipped and slithered on until it hit the road below and spread out over the tarmac, leaving a silt of branches, earth, boulders, mulch and more.

‘GUV?’

Serrailler’s watch said six twenty. He hadn’t got to sleep until after two.

‘Morning.’

‘Sorry, sir. We’re sending a boat.’

‘You’re …?’

‘Town centre’s underwater …’

‘Right.’

‘Can’t say exactly when – the fire brigade and our diving lot are out now and the lifeboats are deploying a team … we’re among the worst hit. They’re evacuating as many people as they can and one of the dinghies
will divert to you. Thought you’d want to be up and waiting, guv.’

‘You read my mind.’

Simon went through to the sitting room and looked out of the window, but even before he did so, took in the strangeness of the light on the white walls and ceiling, silver-pale and wavering in the reflection of the water below. It was like being transported to Venice. The Cathedral Close, as far as the gate
at the end, was underwater, but the wind had died down now, so that there was a strange calm and stillness about the scene. The cathedral rose above the water, the tower reflected in it and seeming to sway slightly. No one was in sight.

The dinghy arrived soon afterwards and then there came the most surreal half-hour of his life, sailing down the centre of
the
Cathedral Close and out under the
arch into the water-filled streets of Lafferton. Other orange inflatables with outboard motors were carrying the elderly, children, dogs, even a budgerigar in a cage; firemen on turntables were being swung up onto rooftops. The whole of the area in and around the Lanes was so deeply underwater that the shops were only two-thirds visible. It was not until they reached the outer roads beyond the town
centre that it was possible to get out and wade through the shallows. The station yard was crowded with rescue vehicles and press wagons. Doors were banging to and fro as more people came on duty and others went out wearing waterproof gear.

‘I take it the interviews are cancelled?’

‘Right, guv. Rescheduling for Friday.’

The station had been in a state of upheaval for several months after the
suspension of two CID officers and the resignation of the DCI. Morale was at rock bottom, no one felt like trusting anyone and the Chief Constable had been threatening serious reprisals. None of it was Serrailler’s fault, but he still felt to blame. If there were bad apples in the barrel he should have spotted them and got rid of them.

But things had calmed down, those who remained had pulled
together well and worked overtime, and today the interviews for a new DCI had been scheduled. Serrailler was not involved; the Assistant Chief Constable, the Superintendent from Bevham and two officers from outside were the panel.

He would be relieved when there was an appointment. The shortlist was said to be a strong one with several good applicants from other forces. They needed fresh input.

But that, like every other routine matter, had been put to one side.

It was barely seven thirty but as he headed along the corridor to his office DS Stuart Mattingley was coming out of it.

‘Looking for me?’

‘Guv. It’s bones.’

‘Bones.’

‘The storm brought half the Moor down onto the bypass. Couple of JCBs just got started clearing when one of the drivers spotted remains, guv.’

‘They’ll be
animal. Plenty of foxes and badgers up there, sheep –’

‘Apparently they don’t look animal, only no one can get out there until the water goes down a bit. Soon as there’s a chance forensics will send someone, do a recce.’

‘Meanwhile …’

‘There’s been a report that a couple of youths in a canoe are looting shops in the Lanes and they’ve found a body in a bedroom on St Paul’s Road. Old lady. Forensics
on way.’

‘By coracle?’

The DS looked blank.

None of it had much to do with Serrailler directly unless the death turned out to be suspicious. He headed for the canteen and his first coffee of the morning, wondering as he went whether he would get a lift home by dinghy later.

So far as the rest of Lafferton was concerned, the day was written off. Schools were closed, shops shut, traffic non-existent.
The skies cleared as the storm moved away and shafts of sunlight touched the flood waters. The rescue boats went on ferrying people from their water-filled houses. Television cameras shot the scene from helicopters.

Simon caught up on a backlog of admin until shortly after eleven when a head came round his door.

‘The bones, guv. Definitely human. There’s a skull as well.’

‘Have they started
clearing again?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t let them. We don’t know whether there are any more remains, where they came from, how old they are. This will be a slow job, sifting through a few tons of embankment.’

‘Problem is, if they can’t reopen the bypass and traffic can’t get through the town …’

‘You said it. Any chance I can get out there?’

‘You’ll have to wade to the main road, get picked up there
and dropped off by the roundabout. Walk along the bypass from there. The landslip is about half a mile down. Forensics are out there now and they’ll get a couple of small diggers to start shifting the debris bucket by bucket. Move it to the other side, check, then scoop it away if there’s nothing in it.’

‘Slow job.’

‘And too many bods are still tied up in the rescue and clear-up op.’

‘I need
boots.’

‘You need waders and a hard hat, sir.’

He went down the concrete stairs to the basement and the equipment store. An hour later he was standing on the empty bypass looking at a small hill of soil and rubble, beside which tarpaulins had been laid out. Two forensics in their white jumpsuits were bending over some pale grey bones, dirty with earth.

‘What have we got?’

‘Most of a body –
that’s limbs, skull, ribcage … there was some damage as it all tipped down. We’re missing a foot, pelvis –’

‘Same person?’

‘At a guess. But until we get it all onto the table and fitted together we won’t know for sure.’

‘Roman soldier?’

The young woman shook her head. She was pretty, short dark hair, nice smile. Shelley Churcher. Simon knew her well from many a crime scene over the last five
or six years. She had once told him she had wanted to do this job since she was twelve and watched an American detective series every Saturday night.

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Much more recent.’

‘How much more?’

‘Can’t tell you that yet. But categorically not your Roman soldier.’ She looked down at the bones.

How appalling, Serrailler thought, to have what remained of someone who had been flesh
and blood, life and breath and laughter, finally spread out on a tarpaulin under the sky. To have been pitched down from some hole or ditch or grave along with tons of earth in a howling storm and then to lie being scrutinised by strangers, waiting to be fitted back into something that once again resembled a human body. It seemed wrong simply to stare at the bones, wrong to see what should never
be seen, wrong and lacking in all respect and sensitivity – though forensics, he knew, always treated the dead as respectfully as they could, even while doing their job with medical detachment.

‘Cause of death?’

‘Come on, sir, you know better than that.’

‘How long has he been dead then? Can you give me anything?’

‘No,’ Shelley said. ‘Not yet. Nothing at all.’

They both stood for a moment
longer. On the empty bypass, the diggers were still. Clearing the mounds of earth and debris would now have to be done slowly and carefully, everything sifted in case there were any further remains. The road would not reopen for several days, adding to the traffic chaos around Lafferton in the aftermath of the storm.

But the logistics of all that were someone else’s job. Simon glanced down again
at the skeleton, laid out on the tarpaulin.

‘Poor bloke.’

Shelley shook her head. ‘That’s one thing I
can
tell you,’ she said. ‘This is a female.’

Fears are growing for the safety of 15-year-old Lafferton schoolgirl Harriet Lowther who went missing last Friday afternoon after playing tennis at the house of a friend.
Harriet left the house of Katie Cadsden, in Lea Close, at around four o’clock and was last seen walking towards the bus stop on Parkside Drive. She was due to catch a bus into Lafferton and meet her mother, Lady (Eve) Lowther, at La Belle hair salon. She never arrived.

Police are conducting house-to-house enquiries and are also combing undergrowth and woodland, a playing field close to Parkside
Drive, together with nearby allotments and towpaths, and divers are searching the river.

Drivers and regular dog walkers and joggers in the area are being handed leaflets and asked if they remember seeing Harriet, who is a pupil at Freshfield College for Girls.

‘Her disappearance is completely out of character,’ Sir John Lowther said.

He stressed that there was no reason why Harriet, an only
child, would not have wanted to meet her mother or return home. ‘We are a close-knit family and there have been no arguments or problems. Harriet is sensible and she
would
never fail to come back on time or to let us know if she was in any trouble.’

Harriet, who is five feet four and very slim with blonde hair, was wearing shorts and a white T-shirt with a pale blue sweatshirt over it, and carrying
her racket in a navy zipped bag.

Lafferton Police are continuing searches. Detective Inspector June Whybrow, who is leading the investigation, said: ‘We remain hopeful that Harriet will return home safely. We are following all lines of inquiry and are keeping an open mind at this stage.’