Tyack & Frayne Mysteries 01 - Once Upon A Haunted Moor (5 page)

“He was out. He wasn’t scared.”

“No. He was ready to tackle all the flak we’d face here – the village gossip, the school, the church, my job, even...” Gideon paused, remembering old Pastor Frayne, his face like a stone-carved eagle’s even before his dementia had robbed it of expression. “Even my parents. I stopped him. I wasn’t ready at all.”

Lee pulled up the blanket to cover them both more closely. “He must have loved you a lot, to agree.”

“Oh, God, he never agreed. We fought over it all the time. But I made it... a rule, a condition of our relationship. Yes, he did love me though – to put up with it as long as he did. We both loved each other a lot.”

“But he got tired of it.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t even touch him in public. And after all, it was such a bloody waste, you know? The whole village knew about us anyway. I was...” His voice broke. “Such a coward. Such a fool.”

Lee shifted to lie over him. There was something so warm and uncompromising in his gaze that Gideon didn’t try to stop the sob rising up in him: let it tear free
, the lonely sound of it harsh in the dawn silence. Lee’s brow creased in empathy. He kissed the tears off Gideon’s face. “If you know that now – if you told him, wouldn’t he come back?”

“Not likely. He got married last month.”

“Oh.”

“To his new boyfriend. Biggest public ceremony you ever saw. I don’t think he meant to rub my nose in it, but... he was pissed off. He wanted to show me, I think – what I’d missed.”

“He invited you?”

“Yes.”

“And you went?”

“Yeah. I shook his hand. Jonathan’s, too. I wanted to wish them the best. What else could I do?”

“You’re a good man.”

Gideon had felt like a bad one for such a long time – and, since the child’s disappearance, a useless one. But when a verdict like that came from Lee, it wasn’t a guess, was it? Not just his opinion. He’d said that he could
see
. Gideon stared up into his face. “Maybe we weren’t the loves of one another’s lives either,” he said slowly. “Or... I couldn’t have treated him like that. I’d have got over myself.”

“Or he’d maybe have settled for what he had behind closed doors.”

“I could never have asked that of him.”

A faint smile, wicked and sad at the same time, curled one corner of Lee’s mouth. “I dunno. I think sometimes a good man is worth staying in for.”

He leaned in. Gideon arched a little way up to meet him, and they brushed mouth to half-open mouth, moth-wing tentative. “Does that,” Lee whispered, “answer more your idea of what a first kiss ought to be?”

“Yes.” Gideon’s expectations for everything were being turned on their heads tonight, though. “Still, I like the one we had. Christ, Lee – I feel bad, lying here so warm and happy with you. I haven’t really slept since the kid went missing.”

“I know. If it’s any comfort to you, if it’ll help you sleep... I really think she’s still alive.”

Gideon frowned. He tried to resist the inward lift, the charge like ozone in the air, that came with this strange man’s pronouncements. “You see, this is
why I tried to warn Sarah about you. You’ve got so much power. You say something like that, and people believe you.
I
almost believe you.”

“I’d never say it to Sarah. I’ve never once
in all my career told a relative or a friend their missing person was alive until I had real, direct evidence. I’m saying it to you because you’re strong. You’re smart and brave, and you can do something about it.”

Gideon lay speechless. Tears were stinging his eyes. “Sleep now,” Lee told him, softly commanding. “I’ll be here. You know I can see off your monsters, just like you can help me with mine. Go to sleep.”

A stormy Halloween morning broke over the moors. From the kitchen window, Gideon watched blue-black clouds massing over the hills, darkening the bracken and heather to a far-flung mantle of grey. If this kept up, dusk would be down by four, and the schoolkids could get a good, hysterical head of steam worked up before the night’s riots began. A busy night, the old Samhain could be, even for a copper in a tiny place like this.

Gideon’s day was looking pretty full as well. He wanted to see Bill Prowse – nothing formal, just an unexpected drop-in for a chat. The DNA specialist was due that afternoon, and there were a dozen routine tasks in the office to be caught up on. And Sarah Kemp to see, of course.
Gideon felt ready for it all, even the walk down Sarah’s shadowed road.
Sleep now,
Lee had commanded him, and he had – only for a couple of hours, though, before that same voice had woken him, this time ordering him to lie back and let Lee get on with the job. Gideon had no idea why he felt so refreshed. He turned away from the gloomy scene outside, switched on a light that made the ancient kitchen look almost appealing, and set the kettle to boil. His dog materialised at these signs of life and he opened a tin for her, letting her into the scullery so he wouldn’t have to watch the gory process of her breakfast.

Then he rested his hands on the time-blackened table and let the warm rush of recall have sway. God, who knew he’d have been capable? Stored-up energies, perhaps, from a long lonely year... Lee beneath the duvet, diving down. Gideon coming almost as soon as the hot mouth closed on him: groaning, laughing, swapping positions and doing the same
for him, awkward as a bullock but remembering how. No condoms to hand, and the lube gathering dust somewhere in a bathroom cupboard, but Lee’s agile weight at his back, the pressure of his cock between Gideon’s thighs, his hand underneath, expertly jerking him off...

The kitchen door opened. Gideon managed not to jump out of his tingling skin. Standing in the doorway was the cause of all this coming and chaos: freshly showered, clean and prosaic in the change of clothes
he’d brought with him from the B and B. He’d also put on the sweater Gideon had offered him. It was a little big for him, but he’d rolled up the sleeves and the grey-green matched his eyes. He looked fucking delicious. “Christ,” Gideon said helplessly. “I could just about eat you alive.”

Lee grinned. “Reckon you already did that, copper. Better give me some breakfast, or there won’t be anything left.”

It should have been awkward, but they ate companionably, toast washed down with strong tea, Isolde’s happy bustling taking the edge off their silences. Gideon reminded himself sternly, watching his guest feed the dog a well buttered crust, that he couldn’t expect such domestic scenes often. One night might have been no more than that. “I’m going to check in on Sarah Kemp this morning,” he said. “Bill Prowse too, like I said. If you’d like to see her again – and I can ask Bill too, if you want to look around his place...”

“No.” Lee looked up from scratching Isolde’s head. “I think this is in your hands now. I’m sorry I couldn’t put a face to the monster for you. Do you mind if I stay here for a couple of hours? I’ll take your dog for a walk.”

Gideon examined him. Yes, he was lovely, carrying his sexuality with an easy flair Gideon could never have managed, not if he’d been raised by the most liberal of parents. He also looked weary, ragged at the edges in the way that talk of his dreams or his visions always seemed to bring on. Gideon put out a hand. “Come here for a minute.”

He drew Lee onto his lap. It was a gesture he’d struggled to make to a child, or even the damn dog. To offer it to an adult – no, he and James had both been too chained up for that. But Lee whispered his name, transforming the moment to solid grown-up gold by straddling him, taking him hard into his arms. “I can’t believe you thought this might have been only for one night.”

“Stop that, you freak,” Gideon chuckled. “I don’t want you pulling thoughts out of my head.”

“Not unless they’re clever ones, eh?”

“Yes. You can grab hold of those. I don’t even think I want you trying to put faces to monsters, not if it hurts you so much – gives you such bad dreams.”

“It’s how I work.” Lee rubbed his brow against Gideon’s. “And... it wasn’t so bad with you near me, somehow. It’s like you’re granite I can anchor into. Try and remember – windows, and blue and green roses, and the garden. I don’t know what it all means, but – ”

A rap at the back door paralysed them both. Gideon’s heart lurched, but he disentangled slowly. He was changing: would probably have catapulted poor James halfway across the room. He and Lee were barely on their feet when Mrs Trask, his parents’ housekeeper, let herself in. She stood in the doorway, the key still in her hand. She raked Lee over with her gaze. “I’m here for the laundry, Constable Frayne.”

It sounded like a declaration of war. It would take a lot to get under Gideon’s skin this morning, though, and he only smiled. “
Why don’t you skip it today? The pastor’s room doesn’t need doing, and mine can wait.”

“I always take Pastor Frayne’s laundry on Friday. Yours too.”

She was an unpleasant old girl, wasn’t she, her faith soured long ago to obsessive worship of her minister. Why had this never occurred to Gideon before? He didn’t have to like her. He certainly didn’t have to worry about what she thought. There was nothing for it. He leaned his backside against the cupboard and folded his arms. “Fact is, Mrs Trask, I’ve just spent the night with my friend here. And there are some mornings when a man should launder his own sheets. Don’t you agree?”

“Gideon
Frayne!
Your father would turn in his...” She seemed to remember at the last second that Pastor Frayne wasn’t dead. Pausing only to shoot Lee one last toxic glance, she turned on her heel and slammed out.

Lee watched her go. Then he turned to Gideon, his face a mask of astonishment. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“Fuck! Nor can I!” Instantly Gideon was struck by the fear that he’d rebounded too far, compromised Lee’s privacy in his new desire for freedom. “Did you mind?” he asked anxiously. “I should have checked with you, before I – ”

Lee strode across the room and silenced him with a kiss. “You’d better get out of here,” he said, after a shuddering, impassioned half
minute, “before I show you how much I minded that.”

“I was just afraid...”

“Well, you don’t do things by halves, do you? What next – down the high street in a carnival float?”

“I don’t th
ink so,” Gideon said, with enough doubt in his voice to make Lee laugh. “I could maybe tie a ribbon on the Rover.”

“Look, if I wasn’t out anyway, I’d be proud to be outed by a man like you. Seriously, go. I’ll wash up the dishes and stuff. You come home at lunchtime, don’t you?”

“Yes, about one.”

“Okay. I’ll be here, if that’s all right with you. I’ll see you then.”

Sarah Kemp’s living room was a bright island on a morning like this. She welcomed Gideon in from the rain. Something had spurred her to make an effort – the room was tidy, lamps lit, Halloween decorations strung everywhere. “Oh, hello, Gideon.” She followed his gaze. “Not me, I’m afraid. Joe did all this for the kids – Jenny and Shaun love Halloween. So did Lorna, for that matter. He wanted to make it nice for them, in spite of...”

She tailed off, and Gideon watched her realising that she’d referred to her daughter in the past tense. Gideon’s walk here today had been less painful. His mind had been crowded with new thoughts, his body aching warmly with the imprint of strong hands.
It all came crashing back in on him now. God, yes, the power of the psychic –
I really think she’s still alive.
No wonder Lee kept his mouth shut around the relatives. “Sit down,” he said gently, taking Sarah by the arm. He pulled a tissue from a near-empty box on the table and handed it to her. “There you go.”

“Thanks. Joe’s just in the back making tea. Joe!” she called through the half-open door to the kitchen. “Fix one for Gideon, would you?” She blew her nose. “He’s been a bloody angel, that man. I... wasn’t sure we’d see you today.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I went off on one with you a bit yesterday, didn’t I? I wanted to apologise.”

“To be honest, Sarah, I was coming to say sorry to you. I thought I was just angry about Lee – Mr Tyack – coming here and treading on my toes as a copper, but the truth is... Well, I felt like I’d been letting you down so badly, and part of me was almost scared by the idea that he’d do better.” Gideon had sat down – uninvited for once – on the far side of Sarah’s table. He was almost too startled by his own burst of honesty to notice. “How stupid. What must you think of me?”

But Sarah was regarding him with the first glimmer she’d shown in two weeks. “And you feel better about these psychics, do you – this morning?”

Gideon blushed to the roots of his hair. “Bloody Mrs Trask!”

She actually laughed. “Ah, Gideon – you know this village better than anyone. People are going to whisper and point any time anyone gets into bed with someone new. What did you think – we were gonna run you out of town with pitchforks? You’re our policeman. You look after us, always have done. Everybody knows that.” Gideon couldn’t speak. He settled for staring into the little gas fire. “Anyway,” Sarah went on, “it was daft of me to put any faith in him – your Lee Tyack, I mean. He seems a nice lad. And he was very kind to me. But I heard from Mrs Waite that he had you lot all the way out at Wheal Catherine mine yesterday, looking for my girl.”

“That’s right. We did look, but...”

China clattered in the kitchen. Sarah turned round in her chair. “What’s keeping you with that tea, Joey, love?”

No answer came. Nothing at all, except after a moment the soft closing of the back door.

“Well, where’s he gone off to?” Sarah began to get up, but Gideon gestured her to stay. A deep unease was starting in him, a worm  he’d felt turning a few days before but had drowned in scotch, old loyalties and self-doubt.

“Wait here, will you, Sarah? Are Jen and Shaun in school today?”

“Course they are.
” She stared at him in confusion as he got to his feet. “Where else would they be? Aren’t you going to stay for your cuppa?”

“Not just now. Don’t you worry about anything, okay? There’s just somebody I’ve got to see.”

He let himself back out into the street. For a moment he stood in the rain. There was a smell of pumpkins in the air, of smoke from the garden fires burning off the endless tons of leaves the sycamores let fall at this time of year. Gideon noticed these things peripherally. He was listening. No engine noise had begun in the lane behind Sarah’s house. Joe had probably walked there. He lived a few miles away near Upton Cross, but when he was working the sheep pastures up near the crags, he left his jeep and quad bike in a shed on the outskirts of the village.

Gideon would go there. Most probably he’d catch up with Joe en route. They’d talk, and the cold worm in Gideon’s gut would quit gnawing him.
He was sure of that. Nevertheless he unhooked the radio from its holster on his jersey: thumbed the call button for the station. “Liz? Do me a favour, would you? Put in a call to headteacher Prynne at the kindergarten. Don’t scare her, but tell her not to let the Kemp kids go home with anyone but Sarah Kemp today. Nobody at all.”

***

There was no sign of Joe in the lane that led to the garages and sheds. Not in the street either, and those were the only two thoroughfares in this part of the village. That meant he’d ducked out somewhere, over the hedge or into someone’s house. Or perhaps, by a stretch of the imagination Gideon could no longer make, he’d just nipped out of Sarah’s to pick up a paper and was back there now, finishing his tea.

The idea was so appealing that Gideon turned and began to retrace his steps. He had to at least check.

His route took him down the alley behind Bill Prowse’s street. The rain was thickening to fog now, precursor of a proper Bodmin blanket if the weather stayed calm. The climate here was so mild that late roses were drooping from trellises in some of the gardens and back yards. Uneasily Gideon thought of boats cutting the water, of windows and badly spelled wheels. That was a hell of a way for Lee to do business, wasn’t it, forming such vague symbols into places and names – and both of them wrong, so far as Gideon could make out. Yet the Truro people had said Lee was very good, that he’d given solid leads in cases like this...

It occurred to
Gideon that in both cases he had himself provided the words to Lee’s pictures.
Wheal Catherine, Prowse.
Gideon had begun to hope that he’d been helping Lee’s intuitive processes along. Maybe he’d just misguided him, brought him down to earth too soon.

Prowse
. Gideon sighed. No roses in that garden. Unlike his neighbours with their autumn chrysanthemums and lavender, Bill seemed to take pride in making his little yard garden as much of a wasteland as possible. The lawn was long dead, the patio slimy with moss. No roses at all, not even blue and green ones, which now Gideon came to think about it were weird colours for a rose, unless...

He took a couple of steps back and looked up. Unless they were wallpaper roses, clearly visible through an upstairs window. Faded but lurid still, the ki
nd of thing a child would register, in a bedroom easily accessed via a wall and the sun-porch roof.
The monster in the garden. The monster sees the window – sees the roses, blue and green...

For the first time in his career, Gideon entered a house unannounced. There’d never been any need: even Ross Jones would politely answer his knock and offer tea before Gideon busted him yet again for his dope crop. This time he grabbed the sun-porch door, shoved it open so hard that it bounced off the inside wall, and strode in.

Bill Prowse, his missus and two of their kids were foregathered in the living room. They all jumped violently at Gideon’s entrance. They looked guilty as hell, but that didn’t mean much – with the Prowses, either they’d just stopped doing something underhand or were just about to start. Even the toddler looked shifty. “Right, Bill,” Gideon said, planting himself between the family and the blaring TV. “I know I’ve already asked you about the night Lorna Kemp disappeared. But I want you to tell me again – right now.”

Bill just gaped at him. He was a huge man, once strong but now run to fat on a diet of pasties and chips. He spent most of his days where he was now, sprawled in front of the TV. Mrs P, the sole family breadwinner, stepped in as usual. “Will’m!” she barked, shooting out a hard hand to crack her husband on the ear. “You heard him! Switch that damn TV off and tell him what he wants to know.”

“I’ve already told ’un,” Bill said sullenly, obeying as far as hitting the mute button on his remote. “I were here all night, right in this chair. I watched ’Stenders, Holby City, Nick Knowles on the DIY – ”

“Right,” Gideon interrupted him. “Nick Knowles can’t give you an alibi, can he?” Bill
had
gone through this before. Now his list of his evening’s viewing sounded odd to Gideon, a bit too carefully rehearsed. “Mrs Prowse, you were at your sister’s?”

“That’s right. I left
him
here to watch the kids.”

The kids. The little one had glazed over without the TV’s stimulus, but Darren, Bill’s eldest, and at 12 years old as promisin
g a ruffian as anyone could wish, was twitching in the corner. “What’s the matter?” Gideon enquired pleasantly. “You should be in school, shouldn’t you?”

“I’ve got th’earache!” Daz blurted. He did look sick
. Gideon should have noticed, but the Prowse kids were perpetually skinny and malnourished. “Anyway, what’s it to you, copper?” Mrs P drew a fiery breath to blast her offspring through the window, but Gideon held out a hand. “I didn’t do nothing, all right? It weren’t even me. What am I meant to do? It were him, all right? And he told me if I didn’t, the Beast of fuckin’ Bodmin would come on Halloween and eat me up!”

Gideon resisted the temptation to feign a backward recoil. Christ, talk about pushing the button – it was enough to knock anyone down. Bill and Mrs P were staring, mouths open wide. “Him?” Gideon echoed, pointing at Bill. He was fairly certain Darren didn’t mean his father, but he had to be sure. “Your dad made you do something?”

“Naw!” the poor kid fairly howled. “It were her own uncle! What were I meant to do?”

Gideon closed his eyes. It was just for a second – long enough to catch his breath. Then he fixed on Daz a look he knew could threaten twenty-five-to-life in Dartmoor jail. “This is not your fault,” he growled. “It’s mine, and the fault of all the people who were meant to look after you and Lorna Kemp. But I swear to you, Darren Prowse, if you don’t tell me what happened that night, you’ll
wish
you only had the Beast of Bodmin to worry about.”

“
It were Joe,” Darren croaked. “Joe Kemp. He told me not to let Lorna go home after we’d been playing on the moor. He said to bring her back here instead, but not to let my mam or dad know.”

Deliberately Gideo
n relaxed the muscles that wanted to clamp his hands around this kid’s neck and choke the truth from him. “Lorna was in this house? She came back here?”

“Yeah. It were easy. She stops here all the time, don’t she? So she weren’t scared. I just told her her mam had said for her to come here and sleep over. My ma was away, and – ”

Gideon swung to face Bill. “And your dad didn’t notice he had an extra kid that night?”

“He were passed out drunk in that chair! I could’ve brought home six of her.”

Mrs P gave a squawk. She reached out and fetched Bill another slap. “You sot! That child was here in my house? I told you to watch them, you great lard-arsed – ”

“Enough,” Gideon said softly. “Right. She was here. Then what happened, Daz?”

“Nothing. She went to sleep in the back room like she always does when she’s here, and me and the others went to bed too.”

“And in the morning...”

“She were gone, that’s all. I thought she’d got up and walked home.”

“But nobody raised the alarm. Sarah Kemp didn’t call me till morning.”

“Joe told me he’d give her some story so she’d not be worried. And he got me by the neck of my jumper – like this...” Darren demonstrated vividly on himself. “And he said that when anyone asked me, I had to say Lorna started off home by herself that night. That the last time I saw her was on the moor. He paid me five quid.”  Desperately the boy met Gideon’s eyes, a twisted scrap of pride flaring in him. “I wouldn’t have done it for
that
. I tell you, when Ma Kemp came to the school all shrieking and crying and shaking me, I wouldn’t have done it for a hundred. But Joe said...”

“That the Beast of Bodmin would get you? For the love of God, Darren...” Gideon remembered his own panicked flight two nights b
efore, and felt a twinge of hypocrisy. “How old are you?”

But Darren had turned white. His defiance and effort at swagger drained away, and he looked at Gideon with hollow eyes. “It were worse than that. He said he
were
the Beast, the monster. And on Halloween, if I’d told, he’d come for me.” His face crumpled. “And now I have, haven’t I? I’ve told.”

Gideon picked him up. He was small and skinny, and it was no effort to hoist him
by the armpits across to Mrs Prowse. She opened her arms in a startled maternal reflex, and Daz, who’d been fighting off her embraces since he could walk, huddled up into her lap. “Look after him,” Gideon said fiercely. “Tell him there’s no bloody beast on Bodmin Moor. And as for Joe Kemp – he won’t hurt anyone either. Not after today.”