The Grave Tattoo (43 page)

‘Jane?’ was all he had time for before she was upon him, raining blows against his chest, sobbing and shouting incomprehensibly. He tried to fight her off without hurting her, but she was like a woman possessed. She just kept hitting him.

The next thing he knew, strong hands were gripping his arms and shoulders. Jake struggled, but he was held firm. He realised there was a man on either side of him, clearly determined not to let him go. A third man had his arms round Jane from behind, holding her tight and saying meaningless words of reassurance.

‘What the fuck’s going on here?’ one of the men said.

‘I’ve got no idea,’ Jake said desperately. ‘I saw the fire and called the fire brigade. Then Jane came staggering out of the fire with some crazy notion that I was involved and started beating up on me.’ As he spoke, he realised how unlikely his version appeared.

‘That sounds like a right load of bollocks to me,’ his other captor said. ‘Reckon we’ll wait for the cops to come and sort it all out.’

‘Are you all right, love?’ the man holding Jane asked, loosening his grip and turning her to face him.

Jane burst into a fresh bout of sobbing and leaned against him. ‘Nay, lass, it’s all right,’ he said, looking over her head at his mates with an expression of bewilderment. Before anyone could say anything more, the night was split open by blue flashing lights and sirens.

He was, Jake realised, well and truly fucked.

43

Jane decided she liked the hospital room. It was white and it was quiet and she didn’t feel ill enough to be scared by what being there might mean. According to the doctor, she’d suffered minor smoke inhalation, a painful but medically minor blow to the head, plus assorted cuts and bruises. They were only keeping her in for observation because they’d thought her incoherence on arrival had to do with concussion. But then, doctors were not trained to diagnose grief.

There was, she knew, a police officer outside her door. The one on duty first thing had been really helpful, calling Rigston and telling him she was ready to make a statement. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to hold her emotions at bay for long and she wanted to get the events of the night off her chest before they became blurred by her reactions to them. The inspector had been there within twenty minutes and in spite of the attempts of the nursing staff to thwart Jane’s desire to talk, he’d taken a statement from her. He hadn’t given her an easy ride, threatening at one point that he would charge her with police obstruction if only to make sure she stayed in one place for long enough for him to complete his enquiries without any further catastrophe. But by the end of their conversation, she felt from him a grudging acceptance of her version of events.

‘You need to stay here while I examine the evidence and decide whether you’re telling the truth,’ he said firmly when they were done. ‘I’m leaving an officer on the door. He’ll have orders to arrest you if you try to escape.’

‘I promise I’ll stay put if you answer two questions for me,’ Jane said.

‘I’m the one who asks the questions.’

Jane pulled a face. ‘Spare me the hard-boiled cop routine. First thing I want to know is what happened to the papers that I had tucked into my waistband last night?’

‘Your precious manuscript is back in the hands of its owner,’ Rigston said. ‘It’s up to Mrs Wright now what she does with it. And I don’t want her pressurised in any way. She’s an old lady and she’s just lost her home in traumatic circumstances. Are we clear on that?’

Jane closed her eyes and sighed. ‘I’m not in any fit state to go round monstering old ladies. Trust me on that.’

‘What was your other question?’ Rigston asked.

‘Will you please pay attention to what DI Blair has to say about Tenille? She needs a break. I know she broke the law, but look at it this way: what she did triggered what happened last night. Without her intervention, you might never have solved those murders.’

Rigston shook his head in exasperation. ‘I’m not making any promises. It’s not my job to let criminals walk away from their crimes.’

She’d pushed him on the point, but he would say nothing more concrete. And she was too tired to carry on. Seeing that, he made his escape, leaving her to silence and white and the insistent nag of grief.

Her isolation didn’t last nearly long enough. The nurse granted her parents twenty minutes. Judy wept for eighteen of them while her father sat gripping her hand as if he would never let it go. Matthew, Diane and Gabriel were given ten minutes. Little was said that didn’t revolve around Gabriel but it felt like the start of something different between them.

None of this eased the terrible ache in her heart. Dan’s treachery was terrible, but her conviction that Jake was complicit only compounded the bitter taste of betrayal. And somewhere in the middle of all this, Tenille had got lost. She had made promises that she had failed to keep, and that hurt almost as much as what Dan and Jake had taken from her. And who, she wondered, had broken the news to Harry that his lover had been killed by one of his closest friends? The occasions for grief just kept piling up around her.

Rigston came back late in the afternoon, bringing an air of satisfaction into the room with him. ‘I think we’re there,’ he said. ‘We found Dan Seabourne’s prints in Edith Clewlow’s house where they had no business being because you were never there with him. No joy so far at any of the others, but, if you’re telling the truth, those later deaths were premeditated and he probably had the sense to wear gloves. We checked with Jimmy Clewlow and although he gives Seabourne a partial alibi for a couple of the deaths, he had enough of a window of opportunity to commit the murders.

‘We also checked out his computer. As well as the email address you were using for him, he had another anonymous account. And we found an exchange of emails with Caroline Kerr, your pal Jake Hartnell’s boss. They were negotiating for her to handle the sale of the manuscript. That’s what Jake was doing parked up by Irish Row. He was supposed to have a rendezvous with the vendor, though neither he nor Ms Kerr will admit to knowing the vendor’s identity. Nor that what they were negotiating for was going to be stolen property.’

‘Stupid greedy bastard,’ Jane said. But at least stupidity and cupidity were better than conspiracy to commit murder. It was small comfort, but it was better than nothing.

‘They usually are. Unfortunately I can’t find anything to charge him with.’ He sighed, staring out of the window with a glum expression on his face. ‘Can’t bloody find anything to charge you with either. This job’s a pain in the arse sometimes.’

‘What about Tenille?’ Jane hardly dared ask.

‘Her auntie’s coming to fetch her tomorrow.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m a fool to myself sometimes. I’m counting on you to keep her honest.’

‘Thank you,’ Jane said. ‘I won’t let you down.’

‘Mind you don’t.’ He got to his feet. ‘Oh, and Dr Wilde says she’ll be in touch when she’s got something concrete to report.’ He paused on his way to the door and turned back. ‘Get yourself some counselling,’ he said gruffly. ‘Five deaths is a lot to carry on your conscience. Especially when they’re not your fault.’

Rigston had been followed in short order by the doctor, who pronounced her well enough to go home and free up his acute bed. To her surprise, when she had emerged from the room dressed in the clean clothes her mother had brought, her father was sitting on a chair further down the hall, twisting his cap in his hands. He jumped to his feet as she walked unsteadily towards him. ‘I sent your mother home with Diane and Matthew,’ he said. ‘She was doing everybody’s head in.’

Jane felt the prickle of fresh tears. ‘I love you, Dad,’ she said, linking her arm through his. By the time they arrived back at the farm, Jane was so tired she could barely climb out of the Land Rover and walk indoors. The stairs looked like a mountain, but she dragged herself up. At the top, she looked down at the anxious face of her father. ‘I need to sleep for about a week,’ she said. ‘Tell Mum to please let me sleep.’

Jane took the stairs one at a time, steeling herself for a major smother attack from her mother. When she opened the kitchen door, she was astonished to see Alice Clewlow sitting at the table with the inevitable mug of tea. Her mother was nowhere to be seen. ‘Judy’s just popped out to the shops,’ Alice said, as if her presence was as routine as the view from the window.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ Jane said weakly, slumping into the nearest chair.

‘Somebody needed to talk to you and Jimmy’s too wrapped up in his own bloody psychodrama to be any use to man nor beast so I thought I’d better pick up the baton.’ Alice gave her an appraising stare. ‘You look like shit.’

‘Feel like it too. Look, I’m sorry about Jenny’s house. I…’

‘I didn’t come here to get an apology. I came here to make one. I’m sorry I was so bloody rude to you at Edith’s wake. I should have known a Fellhead Gresham wouldn’t be out to cheat my family. If I’d listened to you then, we might have saved a few lives.’

Jane shook her head. ‘I’ve been over this in my head so many times. Dan was set on his course. I don’t think anything would have stopped him till he got his hands on that manuscript. There’s no point in either of us beating ourselves up.’

‘Not that that will stop us,’ Alice said drily. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry for what I said.’

‘It’s OK, Alice.’ Jane managed a weak smile. ‘And I should apologise for introducing Dan to Jimmy.’

Alice snorted. ‘He’s always had appalling taste in men.’ She took a drink of tea.

‘Can I ask you something, Alice?’

Alice looked slightly wary. ‘Sure.’

‘How did Jenny end up with the manuscript?’

Alice looked relieved. ‘That’s easy. It passed down from Dorcas to her eldest, Arthur, and he entrusted it to his eldest, Beattie. And Jenny was Beattie’s favourite. So she got the family heirloom with strict injunctions to keep the Wordsworth family skeleton firmly locked away in the closet. It was only when she understood people were dying for it that she realised she had to give it up.’

‘That makes sense,’ Jane said.

Alice fiddled with the handle of her mug. ‘Jane, I didn’t just come here to apologise to you. I came because I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news for you.’

‘Oh Christ,’ Jane said. ‘I don’t know if I can take any more bad news. This has been the worst week of my life.’ She pushed her hair back from her face. ‘Better let me have the bad news first. Then at least I have something to look forward to.’

‘Jenny wasn’t totally frank with you,’ Alice said, her manner halting and awkward. ‘She’s cautious by nature, is Jenny. So she let you have the notes, to see how you behaved. Like, could you keep a confidence? Would you try to talk her into selling them? Would you treat them with respect, or would you just try to make a name for yourself off the back of them. It was a kind of test…’

Jane suddenly felt cold. ‘Oh God, Alice. Oh please, no…’

Alice blinked hard. ‘I’m afraid so. She had the poem too, Jane. About sixty pages long, loosely bound between leather covers. Handwritten. She kept them separate in case she was ever burgled. So that, if she lost one, she’d have the other as a sort of insurance policy. She kept the poem stuffed inside a pillow in her bedroom.’ She took a deep breath. ‘So, yes. There was a poem. But now there isn’t.’

Tears spilled from Jane’s eyes. ‘Oh God, no,’ she wailed. ‘This is a disaster.’

‘The thing is,’ Alice continued, ‘it’s a disaster nobody’s going to know about. Nobody blames you. The family’s talked about this and we’re all agreed, nobody’s going to say a word about what’s been lost. Your reputation’s not going to suffer.’

‘To hell with my reputation,’ Jane stuttered. ‘The poem’s lost forever. And it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t got so het up about it, it would still be safe. Your relatives would still be alive and so would bloody Dan.’ She sniffed. ‘How am I going to live with myself after this?’

Alice got up and put an arm round Jane’s shaking shoulders. ‘Stop it, now,’ she said, her low voice genuinely comforting. ‘That kind of talk is pointless. What’s done is done. You couldn’t have known any of this would happen. I meant it when I said nobody blames you, and we’re the ones with the right to dish out the blame. And here’s the good news. Jenny wants you to have first crack at the notes. You can still make something marvellous out of all this mess. Please, don’t get eaten up with guilt.’

‘I can’t help it,’ Jane snivelled. ‘I feel so bad about all of this.’

Alice pulled up a chair so she could hold Jane against her shoulder. ‘There’s something else I have to tell you that might help you look on the bright side. I took Jenny out to her place yesterday afternoon. And half a dozen cats came out of the undergrowth as if by magic, rubbing themselves against her legs. And you know what she said? She said, “I always hated that house, Alice. Bloody miserable place. But it had been in the family for generations, it wasn’t my right to walk away from it. Now I can have a nice little bungalow with big windows so I can see the view. I can see out my days in comfort.” So you see, it’s truly not all bad.’