The Jackal Man (3 page)

When Wesley arrived that Monday morning, bleary-eyed after the disturbances of the previous night, he made straight for Gerry’s
office. But before he could reach his goal he spotted DS Rachel Tracey bustling around the desks with an anxious expression
on her face.

‘Any news from the hospital about the girl?’

Rachel shook her head. ‘I rang a few minutes ago. They just said she was comfortable. Trish is down there doing bed-side vigil
duty.’

‘Have we identified her yet?’

Rachel pushed her blonde hair back off her face and nodded earnestly. ‘Her name’s Clare Mayers and she’s in the sixth form
at Neston Grammar. Her mother called to report her missing shortly after she was found. She’d been to the quiz night at the
Anglers’ Arms and she was due home by eleven thirty. She only lives half a mile away and she’d told her mum she was getting
a lift.’

‘What about the father?’

‘No mention of a father. The mum gave us the names of the girls Clare was supposed to be with so we’ll have a word with them.
Paul and Nick have gone to the pub to talk to the staff.’

‘And the mum?’

‘A patrol car took her to the hospital.’

‘Good,’ said Wesley. It sounded as if everything was under control. But Rachel always made it sound that way.

He could see Gerry sitting in his office with the telephone receiver to his ear. He didn’t look happy. As soon as he spotted
Wesley through the glass-panelled door he began to make frantic beckoning signals.

Wesley suddenly felt even more tired as he made for Gerry’s lair. The interrupted sleep was catching up with him. And his
wife, Pam, hadn’t been too pleased about being woken in the middle of the night either. For the past week she’d had inspectors
crawling all over the school where she taught and, with the worry and stress, getting to sleep was hard enough. Wesley had
made sympathetic noises and reminded her that the half-term break began soon. At least that thought had put a smile on her
face.

He opened the door to Gerry’s office and the DCI looked pleased to see him.

‘I’ve just been onto Forensic,’ Gerry began. ‘Nothing apart from some tyre tracks in a passing place a bit further up but
they could come from any vehicle that had been down there in the past day. I know it’s hardly an A road but it’s a short cut
to Hugford so there’s a fair bit of local traffic.’

‘It was quiet last night: our man probably wouldn’t have needed to use a passing place to give way to an oncoming vehicle.’

Gerry sighed. ‘You’re right. And by the time Danny Coyle arrived on the scene the attacker had buggered off. And the couple
in the cottage on the corner didn’t see or hear anything.’

‘I think the sound of Coyle’s car coming up the lane disturbed the attacker. Probably saved her life.’

Gerry looked up suddenly. ‘Unless it was Danny Coyle who did the dirty deed and lost his nerve.’

Wesley shook his head. He couldn’t see it himself. ‘I think the attacker drove down the lane from the main road, saw Clare
walking and stopped his car a bit further on just round the bend out of sight. Then he walked back to meet her.’

‘She was attacked from behind. She might have seen him coming and started to run back towards the pub.’

‘Which means something about him frightened her.’

‘Or her mum warned her never to talk to strange men on dark deserted lanes.’

Wesley didn’t let Gerry’s comment interrupt his train of thought. ‘Our man probably saw the headlights of Danny’s van approaching
and legged it, leaving the job half done. He could have run back round the bend and driven off before Danny had a chance to
see him. It wasn’t that long after closing time so someone might have seen a vehicle driving away fast.’

‘Uniform did a house-to-house in Hugford first thing this morning but nobody saw a thing.’ He rolled his eyes to heaven. ‘All
sleeping virtuously in their own beds for once. Just our luck.’

Wesley sat down and leaned across the desk. ‘Gerry, I’ve been going over a few things in my head. Could this attack be linked
with that one in Neston last month? I know the victim was unharmed but these things sometimes escalate.
Today’s flasher can become tomorrow’s rapist. What do you think?’

Gerry pulled a face, the one he pulled when he was deep in thought. The first attack had happened just after New Year in Neston,
eight miles upstream from Tradmouth. The victim was a young woman who’d been walking home from a pub – just as Clare Mayers
had been – and the attacker had been a man in a black hooded top and a mask.

According to the Neston victim’s description of her attacker, he was average height. Average build. Average everything. He’d
grabbed her from behind, thrown her onto the ground and tried to thrust his hand inside her clothing, fleeing when she started
to scream. The victim had described the mask he was wearing as some kind of cartoon animal but she couldn’t be specific.

The attack had left the victim more shocked than traumatised. But Wesley couldn’t dispel the thought that sex attackers tend
to grow bolder and more vicious with time.

‘There’s no indication that Clare Mayers suffered any kind of sexual assault,’ he said. ‘She was certainly fully dressed when
she was found.’

Gerry snorted. ‘If you can call what these young girls wear these days fully dressed. Skirts up to their knickers.’

Wesley grinned. ‘You’re showing your age, Gerry.’

‘Maybe. But I never let our Rosie go out like that when she was at school.’

Wesley said nothing, certain that Gerry’s daughter, Rosie, had had her wild moments when her widowed dad’s back was turned.

Gerry changed the subject. ‘Clare was strangled with some sort of thin cord or twine so he’d come prepared. If it was a spur
of the moment thing, he’d have used his hands.’

After a perfunctory knock the door swung open to reveal Rachel standing on the threshold. ‘Sorry to interrupt. There’s a call
for you, Wesley. An Inspector Petrie from the Met. He says you know him.’

Wesley’s mind was so preoccupied with the recent attacks that it took him a couple of seconds to place the name. But as soon
as he did he stood up, almost knocking his chair over. ‘Ian Petrie’s my old boss from the Arts and Antiques Squad at the Met.
I’d better see what he wants.’

‘We can’t spare you to go poncing about after some art smugglers, Wes,’ Gerry said, half joking, half concerned.

‘Don’t worry.’ The boss looked as though he was in need of a bit of reassurance. But Wesley had experienced a feeling of curiosity
and even excitement at the mention of Ian Petrie’s name.

When he reached his desk he picked up the phone. It was a long time since he’d had any contact with Ian Petrie other than
the obligatory card at Christmas. When he’d worked in the Met he’d liked the man. A gentleman copper, always dapper in suit,
tie and a rose in his buttonhole, he had been the object of many snide remarks from officers in other, supposedly tougher,
units like vice and serious crime. But the dandyish veneer had hidden a sharp intelligence. In spite of his appreciation of
the finer things in life, Petrie had faced his fair share of violence and put away more than his fair share of villains over
the years.

‘Ian? It’s Wesley.’

‘Wesley, my dear chap. How are you?’

Wesley detected an air of forced jollity in his voice, as though he had something on his mind other than catching up with
an old colleague.

‘Well, thank you. And you?’

‘Look, I need some help. As you’re sunning yourself in the West Country, you’re the first person I thought of.’

Wesley didn’t know whether to feel flattered or horrified. It sounded as though Ian Petrie was assuming, like many London
officers, that policing in Devon and Corn wall was an easy option; chasing stolen tractors and locking up drunken tourists.

‘Hardly sunning myself at the moment,’ said Wesley, keeping the conversation light but wondering how he could let his old
boss down gently. He really didn’t have time for distractions at that moment.

‘Quite right. The weather’s worse than it is in London.’

‘But we do tend to get milder winters.’ As Wesley said the words he wondered to himself how he had come to be discussing the
weather. He gathered his thoughts. ‘How exactly can I help you, Ian?’

‘Look, can we meet up for lunch? Promise I won’t keep you long.’

‘You’re actually down here?’

‘Yes, I’ve just arrived. Didn’t I say? How about that lunch?’

‘Sorry, Ian. A girl was attacked last night … half strangled in a country lane. There was an assault in Neston last month
and we’re wondering whether there’s a connection. I’ll be lucky if I can grab a sandwich at my desk.’

‘Please, Wesley. It’s important.’

Wesley hesitated. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘I’m booked into a place called the Tradmouth Castle Hotel. How does twelve thirty suit you?’

‘OK. I’ll meet you in the Ship Bar on the ground floor.’

‘Great. Look forward to seeing you. I need to pick your brains.’

As Wesley put the phone down he had an uneasy feeling
that he’d just committed himself to something he’d probably regret.

DC Trish Walton hated hospitals. She’d hated them ever since she’d watched her father die in a hospital bed with tubes and
airways sprouting from his wasted body. She’d sat next to her mother, comforting her, while her sister had made herself scarce
and gone off to her boyfriend’s house because she couldn’t stand their father’s pain. Trish, the more dutiful daughter, had
stuck it out, knowing that her mother needed the support.

As she sat outside the single room where Clare Mayers lay, it brought the memories back. The smell, the shiny linoleum floor,
the pale pattern on the curtains around the beds, the sound of the machines. She’d peeped through the window in the door from
time to time, just to reassure herself that nothing disastrous had happened and the machines were still bleeping as they should.
Each time she’d seen Clare’s pretty bruised face on the pillow she thought how young she looked … and how vulnerable.
She hoped she’d pull through.

A nurse – middle-aged and reassuringly motherly – bustled past her to perform some routine checks and as she opened the door
Trish slipped in behind her.

‘Is everything OK?’ she asked nervously as the woman checked the drip that was emptying itself drop by slow drop into Clare’s
arm.

The nurse looked round, her face serious. ‘She’s holding her own.’

‘Any idea when she’ll come round?’

‘No idea, love,’ the nurse said with a sympathetic smile. ‘Could be tomorrow, could be in the next five minutes.’

Trish looked down at Clare’s neck. The thin wound, like a necklace of blood, had been cleaned up and a couple of the deeper
incisions had been sealed with stitches. Now it was hidden by a layer of gauze.

The nurse carried on with her tasks, talking to the unconscious girl every so often, telling her what she was doing as though
she could hear and understand every word. Trish liked her for it.

‘Would it help if I sat by the bed and talked to her?’

The nurse was washing her hands in the basin at the side of the room. She turned and smiled. ‘I always like to think they
can understand. It’s just that they can’t let you know. It certainly can’t do any harm, can it?’

When the nurse left the room Trish took a seat by the bed, pulling the chair closer to the unconscious girl with a loud scrape
of metal on linoleum. She took in a deep breath of disinfected air and began to talk. She started with the weather but after
she’d exhausted the subject of the hospital she thought she’d better try and talk about what happened. In the gentlest possible
way, of course.

‘I don’t know if you remember anything about last night,’ she began. ‘You’d been to the quiz night at the Anglers’ Arms with
your mates. How did you do? I’m useless at quizzes – I can never get the sports questions but that’s what we keep boyfriends
for, isn’t it?’ She paused, her eyes fixed on the girl’s face, hoping for a reaction. She was beginning to feel a little foolish,
chatting away to someone who probably couldn’t hear her. But she decided to carry on. At least it relieved the boredom.

‘Your mum’ll be back soon. She had things to sort out at work and she knows you’re in safe hands here.’

It was hard work trying to sound positive. She searched
round for something new to say but failed. Then as she stared at Clare’s face she thought she saw a slight movement of the
eyelids. She leaned forward. ‘Clare. It’s OK, you’re safe in hospital.’

For a few moments she was convinced that she had imagined the flicker of the eyes. But it was there again. Stronger this time.
Trish froze, watching intently. And when the eyes flicked open then shut again, she searched for the button to summon the
nurse.

When she looked back at the bed she saw that Clare’s eyes were fully open. She bent to take hold of the girl’s hand, careful
not to disturb the drips and the sensor clipped to her finger and Clare’s grey eyes slowly focused on her face.

Her lips began to move. At first no sound emerged but a low rasping mumble, incomprehensible at first. Then her dry lips began
to form words.

The effort almost seemed too much for her but it was clear that she had something important to say.

‘What are you trying to tell me, Clare? Do you know who did this to you?’

Clare gasped for breath as she fixed Trish’s eyes with hers. ‘Dog,’ she mouthed, the sound coming out in a hoarse, painful
whisper. ‘Dog’s head.’

Then the eyes shut and she collapsed back on the blue hospital pillow, exhausted by the effort.

Sir Frederick Varley greeted me with great politeness and we conversed for a while before he made any mention of his children.

I had been informed at our interview in Oxford a month before that he had three children. There was a twenty-one-year-old
son called John who, naturally, was not my concern. His mother, I was to discover later, had ended her days in an asylum and
upon her death, Sir Frederick had married again. By his second wife, Sir Frederick had fathered two further children: Victoria,
now aged eight, and Edward, aged seven. After Edward’s birth the second Lady Varley had been called to meet her Maker and
it would be my task to educate and care for these two motherless children. I had expected to feel some degree of apprehension
about making their acquaintance but now I was at the castle, I found I possessed a new confidence. Surely these infants could
be no more terrifying than the reminders of death that surrounded them.

It was Sir Frederick himself who took me to meet the children in the nursery. I had expected the sound of play or squabbling
to reach my ears as we approached the room and I was surprised by the silence.

Sir Frederick pushed the door open and I took in the scene. The schoolroom and nursery were neat and well equipped with a
large black-board and many toys and puzzles set upon shelves in an orderly manner. The pictures adorning the walls all appeared
to be connected with Sir Frederick’s travels and interests: paintings of the pyramids and framed copies of wall paintings
and hieroglyphics. There was a large chart on the far wall illustrating the various gods of Ancient Egypt: Horus with his
falcon’s head was there, as was my favourite, Anubis.

The children were sitting at desks, backs straight and arms folded. But their eyes bore into me as though they could see into
my very soul.