The Shadow Collector (25 page)

Wesley was about to say that it was hardly urgent, that it could have waited till tomorrow, but Richard sounded so eager that
he hadn’t the heart. He said he’d check to see if anyone connected to Joanne had died in the period before her murder and
ended the call as politely as he could. Then he returned to the kitchen where he found Pam with Shane Gulliver’s book open
in front of her. But her eyes were closed.

Wesley told Gerry about Richard’s call as soon as he arrived at the incident room on Sunday morning ‘Think it’s relevant?’
he asked. He wasn’t sure of the answer and wanted a second opinion.

‘Not unless this mystery man followed Joanne here and murdered her and her mate. But that’s hardly likely. The evidence against
the Benleys was overwhelming.’

‘What about the “he’s dead” bit?’

Gerry shrugged. ‘Who knows? It’s all a bit vague.’

Wesley saw that Gerry had been looking though all the information they had on Evan Mumford. And at that moment it seemed more
relevant than some half-remembered conversation from the dead girls’ school days.

‘I want to know more about Mumford. He supplied the murder weapons and his wife supplied his alibis,’ said Gerry.

‘Vera Bourne certainly doesn’t like him. Accused him of domestic violence.’

‘And don’t forget Neil was nearly killed while he was working at his house. What if Mumford was afraid of him stumbling on
something he wanted to keep hidden so he thought he’d get rid of him by arranging a convenient accident?’

This wasn’t something Wesley had considered before. But now it didn’t sound so far-fetched.

‘What about Boo Flecker.’

‘Maybe he thought she had something on him.’

‘And Zac James?’

‘Perhaps he’s a music lover,’ said Gerry quickly. ‘I don’t know. Maybe if we dig deeper we’ll find out. But Lilith Benley’s
still top of our list.’

Gerry shuffled some papers on his desk. ‘Boo Flecker’s phone records have turned up at last but there’s nothing of much interest
that we don’t already know about. There’s only one – a London number that turns out to be a literary agent. Imogen Barnes
and Associates. It’s the weekend so the office is closed but I got someone to look this agent up on the Internet and it turns
out that one of her clients is Shane Gulliver. Now if Vera Bourne really did see him talking to Boo …’

‘She says she only saw him from a distance. He could have been talking to anyone in a red coat, even his wife.’ Wesley hesitated.
‘Mind you, didn’t Boo Flecker tell her mum she was onto a “Mr Big”. Her mum assumed it was some criminal mastermind but what
if she meant Gulliver?’

Gerry frowned.

‘Mr Big. Gulliver’s Travels. Lilliput. Jonathan Swift.’

Gerry suddenly twigged. ‘I think we should pay Mr Gulliver a call.’ He looked at his watch. ‘No time like the present.’

It was Alex Gulliver who opened the door. He even greeted Wesley with a half-hearted smile, until he noticed Gerry Heffernan
standing behind him and the smile turned into an uncertain frown.

‘Your dad in?’ Gerry said.

‘If you mean Shane, yes. He’s not my dad,’ the boy added as though it was important to make this plain. He stood aside to
let them in. ‘I’ll tell mum you’re here. Shane’s working and he doesn’t want to be disturbed.’

Wesley was about to say that he wouldn’t have any choice in the matter but, not wanting to put the boy on the receiving end
of Gulliver’s wrath, he agreed to speak to Gwen instead. She could do the dirty deed and prise the author away from his laptop.
She showed them into the drawing room and asked them to wait before hurrying away.

When Gulliver finally appeared his face was red. Wesley half expected him to deliver an impassioned speech about living in
a police state but instead he feigned civility.

‘I see we’re not the only ones who have to work on Sunday,’ Wesley began.

‘I have a deadline to meet. How can I help you?’

‘We believe the woman who was murdered at the farm next door tried to contact your agent.’

‘Really?’ The word was casual. ‘Perhaps she was writing a book. A lot of journalists seem to these days.’

‘We’ve also had information that you were seen talking to her the day before she died,’ Wesley added, taking the risk that
Vera Bourne’s vague testimony was true. He watched
Gulliver’s face carefully for a reaction. His expression gave nothing away but Wesley could see the man’s fingers pulling
nervously at his shirt sleeve.

He waited, hoping the author would feel the urge to fill the silence. Eventually the tactic paid off.

Gulliver took a deep breath. ‘OK. She called at the house but I refused to speak to her. Then she stopped me in the village.’

‘Did she threaten you?’

There was a long silence before he answered. ‘She threatened to make things public that I’d rather keep private.’

‘Such as? You might as well tell us, Mr Gulliver. We’ve got a team of experienced detectives back at the incident room who’ll
trawl through every record they can lay their hands on.’

‘They won’t get very far.’ He looked away.

‘Why’s that?’ said Gerry.

Another silence. Then Gulliver spoke quietly, as if he didn’t want to be overheard. ‘Look, if this comes out it could finish
me. Make me a laughing stock. I need your absolute assurance that anything I tell you will be treated as confidential.’

‘If it has no connection with the murder, you have our word that anything you tell us in this room will go no further.’ Wesley
looked at Gerry who nodded earnestly in agreement.

Gulliver sank down on the sofa opposite the two policemen and put his head in his hands. After a few moments he looked up.
‘When I began writing I couldn’t get anything published.’ The man had suddenly lost his East End accent. ‘I’d written four
literary novels which, for some inexplicable
reason, all the major publishing houses rejected. I’d acquired an agent by then – a clever woman who knew the market – and
she suggested that I begin again. A rebirth, she called it. This was the period when memoires of the more lurid variety were
starting to dominate the bestseller list and the worse the catalogue of misery and abuse, the more the public seemed to lap
it up. She suggested I change my name, assume the persona of a boy from the East End who’d survived a horrific childhood –
dead prostitute mother, violent alcoholic father, sexually abusive uncles and all that – and progressed to a feral life among
drug addicts and criminal gangs. I was, er …” discovered” by my agent through a prison creative writing class. Only I wasn’t.
I’d never seen the inside of a prison until I went to Wandsworth to do a talk. I had an extremely comfortable upbringing and
went to a minor public school.’

‘Welson Hall?’

Gulliver looked at Wesley, astonished. ‘How did you know?’

‘Boo Flecker contacted the school. I presume your real name is Giles Parsons?’

The answer was a meek nod. ‘My father was in the army so I boarded at school and never settled anywhere long enough to make
roots and contacts. My agent said that was to my advantage if I was to assume a new identity. So was the fact that I was an
only child and my parents were both dead.’

When he looked up, Wesley could see pain in his eyes. This man had denied who he really was … and it had come at a price.

‘I presume your wife knows your real identity.’

‘Of course. Although I didn’t come clean till a week
before the wedding. Shane Gulliver’s my real name now, incidentally. I changed it by deed poll.’

‘How did your wife react when you told her?’ Wesley asked, full of curiosity.

‘I was afraid she’d call it off at first. After all, she chose Shane Gulliver, the successful author … not Giles Parsons,
the failed literary novelist from a boring middle-class background. She was shocked, of course, but she came to terms with
it. I suppose I should have confessed earlier but I was reluctant to rock the boat. She’d had enough problems of her own …
what with Alex’s father and …’

‘Who is Alex’s father?’ It was Gerry who asked the question, unable to contain his curiosity.

‘She met him when she was young and he’s long gone. But there was a time she was scared he’d find them.’

‘Is that why she doesn’t like having her photo taken?’

Gulliver raised his eyebrows. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Harriet Mumford told us. I suppose in Gwen’s case it’s understandable … if there’s an ex in the background she wants to avoid.’

‘The trouble with photographs these days is you don’t know who gets hold of them, what with the Internet and social networks.
The last thing Gwen wants is the ex tracking her and Alex down. He was bad news.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘She always said it was better I never knew. That was in the past.’

‘And he’s never tried to make contact with Alex?’

‘Gwen broke up with him when Alex was a baby. Alex has no memory of him and Gwen wants it to stay that way.’ He sighed. ‘Well,
gentlemen, you’ve got the truth out of me but I’d be grateful if you didn’t spread it around. I’m sure
you’ll appreciate that I’d like my …’ He searched for the word. ‘Deception kept quiet. If it came out it could ruin everything.’

‘And if Boo Flecker had lived the story would have been spread all over the papers,’ said Wesley. ‘You had every reason to
kill her, Mr Gulliver.’

The author bowed his head. Wesley could see a pale patch of scalp amongst the dark curls; he was beginning to lose his hair.
‘I can see it might look that way but I swear I’ve never killed anybody. I couldn’t.’

‘She threatened your livelihood and your reputation.’

‘If the worst came to the worst I would have trusted my agent to deal with it. She’d have sorted everything out.’ He smiled
bravely. ‘And, who knows, if the truth came out and it was handled right it might even be good publicity at this stage in
my career; that’s what my agent said anyway.’

Wesley suspected that the man’s agent had taken the place of his long-dead mother, the protector, the one he could rely on.
And somehow he believed his claims of innocence.

‘Anyway, I was in London when that woman died. I saw my editor first thing then I had lunch with a friend.’

‘Have you heard about the murder yesterday? Zac James. One of the celebrities who took part in the filming next door.’

‘I did hear something about it on the news and I’ve seen a lot of police cars speeding past.’

Gerry had been listening carefully and now he spoke. ‘Where were you yesterday, around lunchtime?’

‘I was here.’

‘Any witnesses?’

‘My wife was at work – she works part time at an art
gallery in Neston – and Alex was in his room doing God knows what. I wasn’t aware I needed an alibi so I didn’t arrange one.’

Wesley stood up. ‘We might need to talk to you again.’

They left the house and as they walked back to the incident room Gerry caught Wesley’s arm. ‘He’s got a whacking great motive,
Wes. We need to check times with the friend he had lunch with. He could have caught an earlier train.’

‘I believed him.’

‘That’s because he’s been living a lie for years and it’s second nature to him. He’s no alibi for the time Zac James was killed.’

‘We can check whether anyone saw him walking to the village at the appropriate time.’

‘You get someone onto it, Wes. And if you get the wrong answer, Shane Gulliver comes straight in.’

Gulliver had indeed met his editor on the morning of Boo Flecker’s murder. However, the friend he claimed to have met for
lunch wasn’t answering his phone so he could still have caught an early train back and reached West Fretham in time to kill.
As for the time of Zac James’s murder, he’d claimed that he was in the house alone with Alex, Gwen having gone to work. Only
Alex was denying he was there. Although Wesley wouldn’t have put it past him to lie to get his stepfather into trouble.

Wesley sat for a while thinking. They had no idea where Lilith Benley was, or even whether she was still alive. But he had
an uncomfortable feeling that she was in danger. He recalled the doll they’d found at Devil’s Tree Cottage with the rusty
nail thrust into its roughly shaped wax flesh. Its
message was that somebody wished Lilith dead. But had that wish been acted on?

When he’d first met Lilith she’d seemed so determined to defy public opinion and resume her life in Devon. If she was still
alive, something terrible must have happened that night to make her flee her home and go into hiding – and he felt it was
up to him to find out what had become of her. But each new discovery only seemed to confuse things, like another pebble thrown
into a pool, churning up the dark mud at the bottom, turning the water into an opaque soup.

He felt he needed a diversion, time to get things straight in his head. And he had a promise to keep. He’d promised to take
the wax doll from Mercy Hall to Neil in hospital.

Before setting off that morning he’d put the thing in the boot of his car. He hadn’t told Pam what he was doing because he
knew the very sight of it disturbed her. All the time he’d been driving to West Fretham he’d been aware of its malevolent
presence, however much he tried to persuade himself that it was just his imagination. It was an object – a mass of wax, wood,
hair and nails. Nothing more. It had no power to hurt.

When he said he was going out, Gerry told him not to be long. It was Sunday so there wasn’t much traffic and as he was driving
past Bereton sands, heading for Tradmouth, his phone began to ring so he brought the car to a halt in the deserted car park.

When he answered the call he heard Pam’s voice. ‘Simon Frith tried to kill himself last night. He took an overdose of antidepressants.
Della found him. Luckily she was in time.’

Wesley said nothing for a few moments, taking in the news. ‘This implies he’s guilty as charged, don’t you think?’

‘Not necessarily. What if the accusation has made his life
unbearable? He could lose everything, Wes. His job; his freedom; his reputation; his family. How would you cope with something
like that?’

Wesley was about to utter something trite, like ‘if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime’. But something stopped him.
Instead he asked where the man had been taken and the answer was Tradmouth Hospital, where he was heading to brighten Neil’s
day. He ended the call and drove on.