The Shadow Collector (12 page)

It was the manager himself who greeted them at the bar, a man too young and smartly dressed to be the classic mine host –
more like an off-duty city banker playing the part.

‘You told our officer that you saw the murdered woman on Tuesday lunchtime,’ said Wesley.

‘That’s right. They’re saying that’s around the time she was murdered, is that right?’ he said with a worried frown.

‘We think so, yes. What can you tell us?’

‘I noticed a grey Ford had been in the car park since Tuesday so I reported it. The officer who came made some enquiries and
found out that it had been hired by that poor woman.’

‘Can you describe her?’

‘Slim, blonde hair, red coat, shiny boots, sharp features. Most of our lunchtime customers are holiday makers but we also
get quite a few business people from Dukesbridge. If it hadn’t been for the man she was with, I’d certainly have put her in
that category but …’

‘Who was she with?’

‘He was elderly. Could have been her father, I suppose. But she didn’t behave as if he was her father. She kept complaining
about the steak for a start. Sent it back twice. And the body language was wrong. As if they were strangers rather than relatives.
You get to notice things like that in this job.’ He leaned on the bar and smiled. ‘I’ve always been a people watcher. Interested
in what makes the punters tick.’

‘Ever thought of joining the police?’ said Wesley.

‘I did as a matter of fact … once. I suppose you want a description of this old chap. He was tall, around five eleven.
And he had grey hair, quite a lot of it. No male pattern baldness. He wore a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows – very
old fashioned – and twill trousers, beige. I’d have put him in his early seventies. He had a long face. And glasses.’

‘Did you notice if he arrived in a car?’

‘Sorry. We were busy. They both ordered steaks but he ate his without moaning – cleared his plate so he must have enjoyed
it. She paid which I thought was a bit unusual. They didn’t seem to belong together, if you see what I mean. I couldn’t quite
work out the relationship between them.’ For a man who prided himself of being an observer of his fellow men, the manager
now sounded unsure of himself.

‘Actually we know she was a freelance journalist so it was possible she was interviewing this man about a story she was working
on.’ Wesley thought it would do no harm to pass on this snippet of information.

The manager gave a solemn nod. ‘That would certainly fit.’

‘I don’t suppose you happened to overhear what they were saying?’ Gerry asked, eyeing the hand pumps greedily.

‘Well, I did hear her mention a name.’ He paused, like a game show host about to announce a winning contestant. ‘Lilith Benley.
That murderer. I couldn’t make out anything else she said but when I went over to ask if everything was all right I definitely
heard her mention Lilith Benley. They’ve just let her out of prison, haven’t they? There’s been a lot of talk about it in
the village. Bad feeling.’

Wesley and Gerry exchanged looks.

‘Would you know this man if you saw him again?’ Wesley asked.

‘I think so.’

‘I notice you’ve got CCTV cameras outside. Are they working?’

‘They certainly are. I check them myself regularly.’

Wesley glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll send someone round to check out the footage for the relevant time if that’s okay.’

‘No problem,’ said the manager, all co-operation.

Wesley looked round and saw a grin of satisfaction spread across Gerry’s chubby face, creasing the flesh around his eyes.
‘Good thinking, Wes. But it’d be rude to go without sampling the beer.’ He surveyed the array of hand pumps, smacking his
lips. ‘I’ll have a half of Doom Bar. My round.’

Dave Saunders was a field archaeologist, a man of the soil. And he knew that he looked the part with his beard, wide-brimmed
hat and real ale gut.

He had been taking an all too active part in excavations for fifteen years now and the excitement of discovery, the unveiling
of history and the camaraderie of the dig, still set the adrenaline coursing through his body. However, he’d always left Neil
Watson to do the talking. Over the years Neil had become adept at scolding greedy developers, fighting the Archaeological
Unit’s corner at meetings with ignorant officials and liaising with the public and heritage organisations. Neil shone at the
things he tended to avoid and Dave had felt no secret satisfaction when he’d heard of Neil’s accident, no ambitious relish
at being promoted from second in command. On the contrary, he’d found himself dreading the new and unlooked-for challenge.

Taking over temporarily as site director at the Princes Bower dig wasn’t a problem because all that remained was
to complete the excavation, fill in the trenches, process the finds and write up the reports, all tasks well within Dave’s
self-imposed capabilities. But the small additional job Neil had taken on at Mercy Hall was another matter.

At the request of the local Conservation Officer, Neil had been calling at the house regularly to see what progress was being
made as the builders cleared the soil from the newly discovered cellar, giving advice and assessing anything of a historical
nature that turned up down there. Dave knew Neil hadn’t particularly got on with the builders, describing one of them as a
little runt of a man called Lee who had bad skin and breath to match. According to Neil they’d treated him with suspicion
and smirked at each suggestion he made. But their attitude changed when they found the thing behind the panelling.

Before the crash Neil had called Dave to tell him about the little coffin. It was an important discovery, he’d said; a valuable
piece of social history from a superstitious age. He’d been taking it to Exeter for conservation when he’d had the accident
that had thrust Dave into his unfamiliar new role.

Now Dave himself was visiting Mercy Hall, having put on a fresh pair of jeans and tried, without much success, to prise the
dirt from his fingernails for the occasion. He was greeted by the owner of the house, who introduced herself as Harriet Mumford.
Dave was used to women in soil-caked digging clothes who’d join him for a pint after the dig in the evenings – women who weren’t
afraid to get their hands dirty – but this one looked as though she’d use rubber gloves to pick up a pair of dirty pants.
Neil had said she made sculptures but somehow Dave found it hard to imagine those elegant hands covered in clay.

Faced with Harriet Mumford he felt like some clumsy medieval peasant intruding on a high born lady. But she smiled and shook
his rough hand limply, saying how shocked she was by the news of Neil’s brush with death, before leading him through to show
him how work was progressing on the cellar.

When they reached the room Dave saw three builders standing by the window drinking tea from stained mugs. They nodded a greeting
with slight smirks on their lips. Dave nodded back, feeling awkward.

‘You another archaeologist then?’ one of them said. He was stripped to the waist, his tanned and hirsute torso bulging with
muscles. When he put his mug down he folded his tattooed arms and waited for an answer.

‘My colleague had a car accident so I’m standing in till he’s on the mend.’

‘But he’s going to be okay is he … your mate?’ said a younger man who fitted Neil’s description of Lee, the one he’d described
as the Runt. He sounded genuinely worried, which surprised Dave a little. Perhaps Neil had misjudged him.

‘The doctors aren’t sure yet,’ said Dave. ‘How are you getting on with the cellar?’

The third man answered. ‘We’ve dug out the section by the steps but I reckon it carries on under the whole length of this
room. Someone went to a lot of trouble to fill it in. Don’t know why ’cause it looks like a good dry cellar.’

They all looked at Dave as though expecting him to provide an explanation. But Dave hadn’t a clue why someone in the past
should have filled in a perfectly serviceable cellar so he said nothing.

‘What about the panelling?’

‘We stopped taking it down when we found that thing,’ said Lee.

‘The conservation officer wants the rest of it removed to see what’s behind it. Then it’s got to be put back when the work
on the room’s finished.’

For a moment Dave feared the men were going to object but they said nothing.

‘What have you found in the cellar?’

Lee scurried out of the room and returned a minute later with an old garden trug filled with objects. As Dave took it he felt
his confidence flooding back. He picked up the pieces one by one and examined them. A trio of clay pipes, early seventeenth
century. A fragment from a Bellarmine jug. More pottery, late Tudor early seventeenth century. A James I coin dating from
shortly after the gunpowder plot and another of Charles I dated 1642. Nothing later.

Dave looked up and saw the men watching him, as if they were waiting for his verdict. He didn’t like to disappoint them. ‘From
these finds I’d guess that the basement was filled in around the mid-seventeenth century. But I can’t be absolutely sure.’
He saw the men glance at each other. Just another boring archaeologist harping on about the past.

‘We’d better get on,’ Lee said wearily.

‘If the conservation officer wants the rest of the panelling removed maybe you should do that first. But be careful not to
damage it.’

Without another word they began to prise the panelling away from the wall, surprisingly gently, exchanging the odd comment
about last night’s football. Dave hovered at a distance, unsure whether to lend them a hand. But they seemed to know what
they were doing as they removed a
small section of the old panelling with great care and leaned it against the wall. Then he heard Lee swear loudly and all
three men scrambled away from the wall at lightning speed, almost colliding with him as they rushed past.

‘What’s the matter?’ he called after them.

Lee turned and Dave saw that the blood had drained from his face. ‘Have a look for yourself.’

Dave made his way across the room and leaned over the half-removed section of panelling. Then he saw it lying on the flagstones
like something in a medieval image of Judgement Day.

Another tiny, rough-hewn coffin.

The new incident room was up and running in West Fretham village hall. A single storey, whitewashed building near the church
used by everyone from playgroups to the WI, from Scouts and Guides to the local amateur thespians. But now it was Gerry Heffernan’s
temporary kingdom, a cavernous space with open rafters and brick walls painted in dirty cream gloss. There was a stage at
one end with faded blue velvet curtains. When Gerry had first walked in, he’d been tempted to get up there and address his
team with a few well-chosen words from Shakespeare’s
Henry V
. But he reckoned that would be taking leadership a step too far.

The newly installed phones and computer equipment seemed to be working, which seemed to Gerry, who had never put too much
faith in technology, like a miracle in itself. He stood by the white board beneath the stage and looked around at the officers
hard at work. Wesley had gone off with Rachel to interview the suppliers of the murder weapon, surprisingly located at the
address where Neil had
been working, and now he had an important job to assign to somebody. Important but deathly boring. And after a few moments
he spotted the lucky winner.

Nick Tarnaby was sorting through witness statements with a faraway look in his eye. Gerry knew when someone was pretending
to look busy as the boss prowled about. He’d done it himself in his younger days.

‘Nick. The manager of the Ploughman’s Rest’s got some CCTV footage for us. Go and get it and then go through it, will you?
We need to find the victim in the car park with an elderly man.’

‘You want me to go now, sir?’

‘That’s the general idea. The manager promised to find it for us by three and it’s half past now. No sampling his wares, mind.’

Nick stood up, uncharacteristically enthusiastic. Perhaps it was the mention of licensed premises that had put a spring in
his step, although Gerry had never had him down as a great drinker.

As Nick was struggling into his coat Gerry’s phone rang. It was Dan Sericold. He’d arrived in Devon and he had some business
to attend to that afternoon but he’d meet them the next morning at the pub where he was staying. Anything he could do to find
the bastard who killed Boo. Gerry put the phone down, hoping that Sericold would give them something new. They needed all
the help they could get.

Harriet Mumford looked rather distracted when Wesley and Rachel arrived at Mercy Hall. And when Wesley asked her whether something
was wrong she explained that half an hour before their arrival her builders had made an
unpleasant discovery. She didn’t elaborate further and, even though he was intrigued, he really didn’t have time to ask.

He held out the bag containing the bloodstained knife while Rachel watched silently.

‘Do you recognise this, Mrs Mumford?’

Harriet Mumford wrinkled her nose with distaste. She had taken them into a half-finished dining room with bare floorboards
and roughly plastered walls. There were new electric sockets and new wooden windows, exact copies of the originals. No expense
had been spared.

‘We’ve traced the label on the handle to an import company registered at this address.’

‘My husband’s in London and he won’t be back till tomorrow.’

‘Then perhaps you can help us,’ said Wesley. He wasn’t falling for the little woman who knows nothing act.

Harriet bowed her head as though she realised she’d been found out. ‘It’s an athame. A ceremonial dagger used in Wiccan rites.
My husband supplies various outlets throughout the country.’

‘Any locally?’

‘Several shops in Glastonbury, but more locally there are two shops in Neston. I’ll print out the details in the office if
you want to come with me.’

Wesley glanced at Rachel. He had known her long enough to sense that she had taken a dislike to Harriet Mumford. No doubt
she’d explain the reason to him in due course.