The Shadow Collector (21 page)

‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘Mind if I go now, Gerry? There’s someone I want to see.’

Gerry had started studying the paperwork that had piled up on his desk in his absence and he looked up sharply. ‘Who’s that
then? I’m not letting you skive off to go and see your fancy woman.’

Wesley was too well acquainted with Gerry’s brand of humour to take offence. He gave the boss an indulgent smile. ‘My brother-in-law.
I want some background on Lilith Benley’s beliefs.’

Gerry raised his eyebrows. ‘He’s a vicar. Will he know much about witchcraft?’

‘If he doesn’t he might be able to put me in touch with someone who does.’

Gerry wished him luck and, after calling Mark to make sure he was home, Wesley put on the coat he’d just hung over the back
of his chair and left the incident room. He felt mildly guilty about abandoning his post while the team were still hard at
work but he wanted to learn more about Lilith and what might have driven her to her terrible crime. Besides, the doll left
in her cottage bothered him. Someone had cursed her. Someone had used the occult against her. Fought her with her own weapons.

He switched his headlights to full beam as he drove down the narrow lanes leading to the main road. The rush hour was well
over as he headed into Neston and the traffic lights
seemed to be with him as he passed through the town and out towards the village of Belsham.

Belsham was a long, thin village on the main road from Neston to Morbay and the medieval church stood down a side street behind
an extensive graveyard. The nineteenth-century vicarage next door to the church was, unusually, still home to the vicar, most
similar houses having been sold off by the church authorities years ago, a high proportion to wealthy incomers. Perhaps it
wasn’t as architecturally appealing as many local vicarages and rectories. Or maybe the fact that it had once been the scene
of a murder had made the church think twice about cashing in on this particular asset.

His sister, Maritia, opened the door to him, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He gave her a hug and asked how she was.
She looked down at her swollen abdomen and patted it proudly. ‘Twelve weeks to go.’

‘Pam sends her love,’ he said. He knew he’d be interrogated when he got home so he asked her how she was keeping. Luckily
the news was all good. A textbook pregnancy. But then Maritia had always done things by the book from her trouble-free adolescent
years to her academically distinguished medical training in Oxford to her marriage to the pleasingly inoffensive Rev. Mark
Fitzgerald. She had never given their parents one moment of anxiety.

After refusing her offer of a drink, Wesley went in search of his brother-in-law and found him in the shabby study crammed
with dark second-hand furniture and well-thumbed books. Mark was writing at a desk as cluttered as Gerry Heffernan’s and when
Wesley entered he looked pleased to see him, as though he was glad of the interruption.

‘I always think less is more when it comes to sermons,’ Mark said, pushing his notes to one side. ‘Keep it short and to the
point and you won’t lose your audience.’

‘Couldn’t agree more. I need to pick your brains.’ He sat down in the well-worn armchair on the other side of the desk.

‘Fire away.’

‘What do you know about witchcraft?’

‘Are we talking about Wicca or Satanism?’

‘Let’s start with Wicca.’

‘There’s a lot of it about in Neston, but then the town’s full of New Age stuff. It’s supposedly a pagan, pre-Christian tradition.
They worship a triple goddess and a horned god and have a lot of spells and rituals. One of their cardinal rules is that magic
is only to be used for good. Harm none.’

‘So a follower of Wicca wouldn’t make human sacrifices or …?’

Mark laughed. ‘Oh no, it’s not that sort of thing at all. It’s more the “wise woman” scenario – healing and solving problems
with magic. They believe in living in harmony with the natural world, which isn’t a bad thing, I suppose.’ His face clouded,
as though he’d suddenly thought of something unpleasant. ‘Mind you, Satanism’s quite a different matter. I’ve heard there
was a bit of trouble at a couple of local churches about twenty years ago.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘I think it was the usual thing – church broken into; the cross off the altar pinched; pentagram chalked on the ground in
the churchyard and burned-out black candles lying around. There was even talk of blood, hen’s probably judging by the feathers
found at the scene. I got all this
second-hand from one of my churchwardens by the way, so the story might have been exaggerated in the telling.’

‘This was twenty years ago?’

‘Give or take a few years. Long before my time, anyway.’

‘And there’s been nothing like that since?’

‘Thankfully not.’

‘Tell me what you know about Satanism.’

Mark raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s conjuring demons to harness their power for your own purposes – conjuring the forces of hell
to obtain earthly power. In the old witch trials of medieval times and later the accused was almost invariably alleged to
have conjured demons, although I suspect most of them were just local wise women – or even ordinary women on the margins of
society who’d got on the wrong side of their neighbours. To return to Satanism, there are certain ancient books that give
detailed instructions on how to summon demons and the rest is made up by the nasty minds that are into that sort of thing.
If you’re looking for your human sacrifices and rapes, these are the guys you should be going after.’

‘Would a follower of Wicca be involved in Satanism?’

‘Highly unlikely. They’re completely different philosophies. Not that I’m an expert.’ The words sounded like a disclaimer
at the end of an advert. ‘Sorry I’ve not been much help.’

‘On the contrary, you have.’

‘I heard about Lilith Benley’s disappearance on the news earlier. Saw your boss Gerry taking the press conference. I presume
that’s why you’re asking these questions.’

For all his mild appearance, Mark had a sharp brain. ‘That’s right. From what you’ve told me, the witchcraft angle to the
original crime doesn’t make much sense.’

‘Maybe the two women were outsiders. Maybe that’s why those girls chose to torment them with tragic consequences. The women
were merely driven beyond endurance and lost control. Nothing to do with magic at all.’

‘Most women who were accused in the olden days were innocent,’ Wesley said quietly.

‘True. But those Benley women weren’t, were they? Do you think Lilith Benley’s killed again?’

‘I don’t know, Mark. I wish I did.’

He looked at his watch. It was time he got home.

Saturday morning dawned fine and Wesley lay in bed at six-thirty wide awake. Weekends were for other people. For him it was
a working day like any other.

Pam was still fast asleep beside him, snoring gently. Normally she’d have been awake and alert by now but somehow her body
knew it was a day of rest. He lay there watching her for a while. The previous night she’d greeted him, bursting with untold
news. Her mother had been in touch again to tell her that Simon Frith still hadn’t heard anything about his prosecution. The
police were keeping him hanging on, she said, piling on the agony. She’d sounded, Pam reckoned, as if she was blaming Wesley
personally.

She’d also told him that she’d been to visit Neil in hospital straight after work. He’d seemed a lot better and as she’d arrived
at his room she’d passed a woman going out; a slim woman with long blonde hair, the type who looks like a teenager from the
rear but whose face betrays her true age. The woman had made no effort to return Pam’s inquisitive smile, instead she had
shot her a hostile, resentful glance. Pam seemed to have taken an instant dislike to the woman
who Neil had named as Harriet, the owner of the house where he’d been working before his accident. He still called it an accident
even though he now knew the truth. Perhaps he couldn’t deal with the thought that someone had wanted him dead. Wesley found
it hard to deal with too.

He sat up and swung his feet down onto the sheepskin rug by the bed. He could see the book lying on Pam’s bedside table; Shane
Gulliver’s latest.
Rejected
. Wesley often read Pam’s literary purchases after she’d finished with them but when he’d scanned the blurb on the back cover
somehow he didn’t fancy this one.
Rejected
was a gut-wrenching story of a boy raised in poverty on a rough London estate by an uncaring mother who was an alcoholic
prostitute. The blurb said that, like his four other gut-wrenching bestsellers, it was forged in a crucible of bitter experience.
Shane Gulliver had risen above his semi-feral origins and used his background to tell it like it was.

Apart from a London accent, there were few signs now that the confident and urbane Gulliver, with his well-spoken and attractive
wife and his large house on the fringe of a pretty Devon village, had come from such a humble background. If he’d started
off as an abused kid on a sink estate, nicking cars and dealing drugs, he’d certainly travelled a long way. Four international
bestsellers and a Hollywood film deal had probably helped ease the journey.

As he was heading for the shower, he heard Pam’s voice. ‘Neil said they might let him out of hospital on Monday. He’s still
in a lot of pain from his broken ribs. Do you think we should ask him to stay here?’

Wesley turned to face her. ‘That’s a good idea.’

‘I’ll go to see him this afternoon. I might leave the kids with your sister to give her some practice. Not that Michael
will want to go. There was a time when he couldn’t wait to visit Maritia and Mark.’

Wesley didn’t reply, guilty that he was too busy with his investigation to do anything about his son’s unwelcome change of
attitude for the moment. He’d have to leave the problem, if there was one, to Pam.

The traffic was sparse as he drove to the incident room. But he was delayed when he found himself stuck behind a slow-moving
tractor on a single-track road. He’d learned long ago that the only way to survive such bucolic irritations was patience and
he switched on Classic FM, hoping for some calming music but getting the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ instead. Music to drive fast
to – hardly appropriate in the circumstances.

When he finally reached West Fretham village hall he found Gerry sitting at his desk, head in hands. He looked up when he
heard Wesley’s voice.

‘I sent a team to make a thorough search of Lilith Benley’s place first thing,’ he said.

‘Any sign of those knives she bought?’

Gerry shook his head. ‘No. But the team found something interesting in one of the cupboards.’ He stood up and walked over
to a table in the corner where a number of items lay swathed in plastic evidence bags, waiting to be taken away for storage
in the police station’s exhibits store.

Gerry picked up a package and handed it to him. Through the plastic he could see that it was a book, beautifully bound in
leather with an embossed gold pentagram set with red cabochon stones on the front cover.

‘It’s been dusted for fingerprints but there was nothing useful.’

Wesley extracted the book from the bag carefully and
opened it. Inside he saw jagged remnants of paper clinging to the spine as though the pages had been ripped out in fury. The
destruction looked to him like a violent assault on something that had been precious to Lilith Benley.

‘The cover fits the description she gave of her stolen Book of Shadows.’

‘She could have done the damage herself – lied about it being pinched.’

‘No, Gerry. I think this was done to scare her. I think whoever left the doll stole it and returned it like this.’

‘We need some advice,’ said Gerry, his mouth starting to form his familiar grin. ‘We need to find a witch. There’s never one
around when you need one.’

‘I’ll get someone onto it.’

‘Any news from Neston nick about Neil’s accident?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Lazy buggers. Brake pipes cut – that’s attempted murder. If I was in charge of the case …’

Wesley suddenly felt a pang of guilt. Gerry was right; even though Neil was recovering, the investigating officer at Neston
should really be treating the matter with a lot more urgency. The best explanation offered once Neil had stated categorically
that he had no enemies was ‘kids messing about’ but Wesley didn’t buy that one. If he wasn’t so busy he would have made a
few discreet enquiries himself.

But other things took priority. All patrols were on the lookout for Lilith Benley, as was every force in the country. All
ports and airports had been notified too. Even though, according to records, she didn’t possess a valid passport there was
always the chance she could have obtained a false ID, possibly from some useful contact she’d made in prison. Every line of
enquiry had to be followed up.

In the meantime they needed to speak to Joanne Trelisip’s mother. If the woman was in a fragile state it was as well to have
somebody with him who was used to dealing with delicate situations. So he decided to take Rachel.

Nobody lives in complete privacy these days so it didn’t take long for one of the DCs to find the address of the woman who
was now calling herself Pauline Parry.

As Wesley was driving back to Tradmouth, Rachel was uncharacteristically silent so he asked if she’d set a date for the wedding,
making conversation.

‘Next June,’ she answered, gazing out of the window.

‘Hope me and Pam are invited.’

‘I haven’t thought about the guest list yet.’ Her voice was quiet. Wesley remembered that when his sister had been planning
her wedding she’d bubbled with excitement and enthusiasm.

‘Everything OK?’

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ Her words discouraged further enquiry. There had been a time when Rachel had confided in him, told
him her innermost thoughts. But it seemed that was over. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about this loss of intimacy.

The houses of the Tradmouth Estate, perched on the hillside overlooking the town, were all coated with uniform cream pebbledash,
armoured against the prevailing wind from the sea. Joanne Trelisip’s mother lived in a maisonette in a small cul-de-sac, like
the neighbouring semi-detached houses only with an additional storey on top and a concrete staircase protruding from the side
of the building. Hers was the lower maisonette, the one with the drawn curtains stained with mildew. Rain had begun to fall,
draining the scene of colour, and the concrete path leading to the front
door glistened dark grey, reflecting the ominous sky above.