Dark Ritual (18 page)
Authors: Patricia Scott
“We’re sorry, Mr. Peterson, I’m afraid that we have some bad news for you.”
“It’s Rosemary... isn’t it? What-what has happened to her? Something has happened to my wife, hasn’t it?”
Fowler nodded. “Mrs. Peterson took her own life this afternoon, sir. After she left a full confession on video tape and a letter for yourself.”
Peterson groaned and covered his face with his hands. “She said that you had nothing to do with Sandra’s death. Therefore you are free to go, Mr. Peterson.”
He stared at them. “I’ll never be free. I was to blame for what Rosemary did. I deserve to be punished.”
“If you would like to see a doctor or a counsellor, Mr. Peterson, we can arrange it for you now.”
He shook his head. “May I see my wife now, please?”
“Yes, you will be required for identification, sir.”
Viviane stirred on the pillows in the hospital bed, opened her eyes, blinked and smiled when she saw Bob Fowler and Richard standing on either side of the bed “Hello. What are you two doing here? Have I overslept? Where am I?”
“In hospital, Mum. You were poorly but you’re okay now.”
“Am I? What was wrong with me? Who brought me in?”
“The Paramedics and the ambulance.”
“Do you remember where you were? What happened to you, Viv?”
She frowned and thought for a second or so. “Well — yes — I think I was enjoying a cream tea with Rosemary Peterson... Oh, I remember now, I began to feel a bit weird, very sleepy after that second cup.” Fowler nodded. “Rosemary drugged me, didn’t she?”
“That’s right, she did.”
“Why? Is she all right? Is she in here too?”
“’Fraid not. She killed herself.” Viviane gasped and tried to sit up. “Rosemary killed Sandra, Viv. You’re lucky she didn’t attempt to kill you.”
“How-how, Bob? Did she take an overdose? I think she must have known that I would want to return the letter to her.”
“We found her in the car in the garage... With the engine left running. She must have planned all of it before you arrived. She’d already made the tape and left the letter for her husband.”
“How dreadful.” Viviane started to cry. “What she must have gone through. Why did she kill Sandra? She adored her?”
“I think you might understand better when you see the tape. But not just yet.”
“When will they let me come home?” She looked for help to Bob. “I don’t want to stay in here a moment longer. Richard will you please get the doctor and ask if I’m allowed home?”
“If you promise to take the day off tomorrow. I’ve already phoned in for you, Mum, so you can’t say no.”
The following morning Bob brought the tape over. Viviane let him in with a smile. “You’re all finished here now?”
“All but tidying up a few things. I thought you should see this tape.” He took it out of his pocket and put it on the table. “After all, you were a great help to me.”
“I don’t know whether I should, Bob. How is Alan feeling now? He must be devastated. He has no one left now to turn to for comfort...”
“You might feel a bit different about that after you’ve watched the tape, Viv.”
He seemed lighter in spirit now that the case was dealt with but slightly awkward. Perhaps she had expected a bit too much from their renewed acquaintance. She knew that she would miss his visits even if it was only because he needed to call on her help occasionally. Could she let him know how she felt about him? She had no idea whether he felt the same. There was no reason why he should entertain feelings for her, yet she’d felt that he did. She’d seen his eyes on her often and wished he’d say something before it was too late.
He put in the tape. Rosemary started speaking, slowly and confidently. “I knew all about their relationship, Chief Inspector Fowler, I saw those paintings he did of Sandra. She was a beautiful child and at first I didn’t mind. But he hid all those he did of her as she grew into a young woman.” She stopped for a moment. “And-and I don’t know what age she was when he first had sex with her... But it must have gone on till she got away from him to go to university.”
She heard Richard gasp as he watched and heard what she said.
“My God.” Viviane snatched a glance at Bob and felt a cold chill rush over her as she listened.
“He must have known that Sandra hated him. Sandra said he ruined her for anyone else. When I demanded to know the truth she told me it wasn’t Alan’s child. It was Rafe Conway’s. I woke up late that night. I heard a noise downstairs and thought it was burglars. And when Alan was away I always kept the wooden mallet on the table by our bed. We had a breakin two years ago.
“I picked it up, crept downstairs and discovered Sandra in Alan’s studio. I was shocked. She was making so much noise. She didn’t care anymore. At first I thought she’d gone mad. She’d opened up Alan’s cupboard and was pulling out and ripping up portraits he’d done of her, as a child and a teenager. Some I’d never seen before.”
An indrawn breath and a sob followed this. Rosemary dabbed her red eyes with a tissue. “She’d posed naked in them. They were clearly meant to be erotic, he’d painted her after they’d had sex, she said. She swore and shouted as she destroyed them one by one with a knife. Minutes before, she said she’d spoken to him on the phone, in London. Told him what she’d done. Then she taunted me about the woman he had with him in the hotel. And then she laughed, said I deserved everything that was coming to me.
“Said that I should have protected her... Kept his fucking, filthy hands off of her, she said. She blamed me for everything he’d done to her because she said he’d ruined her for every man she ever wanted and loved.”
Rosemary faltered then continued again with a shaky trembling voice. “I-I couldn’t take it any longer and as she turned away from me I swung the wooden mallet and hit her hard on her head. She fell, crumpled up on the floor at my feet.
“I realized what I had done. I’d intended to kill her. I couldn’t make her better, but she wasn’t my little girl anymore. Sandra was a stranger to me and deserved to be punished for what she had done to Alan and myself. I took her to the crop circle, undressed her and used the knife to cut her throat, and shed her blood to cleanse and enrich the soil ready for the crops next year with the pagan harvest ceremony. I had decided that some good should follow from her death.
“I must have been crazy but I believed that this was a fitting end to her and perhaps she might think so too.
“The knife turned out to be Macey’s I discovered afterwards, which was all to the good. I believed that he was partly to blame for how she turned out. I found Martin’s letter and some bird feathers in Sandra’s purse, and put the feathers in her hair and the letter in the book I returned to the library to throw some blame on Martin. But Alan realized the truth in the end. I can’t let him take the blame, whatever he did to Sandra…”
The tape stopped abruptly.
“What did she do with the wooden mallet? Has Alan seen this tape?”
“Yes. He’s free now. But I doubt he’ll stay on here for much longer.”
A week later, Bob drove up in his car to call on Viviane again.
“I think I know, Bob, what Rosemary did with the wooden mallet.”
Bob laughed. “So do I. But it’s much too late now.”
Viviane giggled. “You won’t have the heart to ask Alan to destroy Sandra’s head before it’s completed in bronze?”
“No. And by the way, I put in an offer yesterday to buy the old mill house. It’ll suit me just fine, Viv. So I hope you don’t mind having me as a neighbour?” He grinned at her and reached out for her hand, which felt warm and giving in his.
She smiled as he came in closer to her. “So I can visit you for a change when I run out of sugar or I’m in need of some good company?”
“Or fancy something much more perhaps? Some T.L.C. for instance?”
“I’d like that very much,” she said as he took her into his arms and kissed her.
If you enjoyed
Dark Ritual
you might be interested in
Dying to Meet You
by Patricia Scott, also published by Endeavour Press.
Extract from
Dying to Meet You
by Patricia Scott
Bucket and spade dropped onto the sand. Lugworms forgotten, Victor Goring hitched up his pants and ran over to the crop of rocks where the tide lapped gently around his green wellies and played patter cake against the girl’s naked body lying on the sands in front of him.
‘Strewth!’
Victor stared down at her face which was a bloody, battered mess; her tawny green eyes wide open in the rocky pool surrounded by sea anemones clinging to the submerged seaweed-covered rocks. A small pink crab rested on her swollen tongue and erratic shrimps darted around the long strands of dark blonde hair floating in the water.
Victor pulled out a mobile and a large handkerchief from his jacket pocket, scattering small change out onto the sand. Mopping his bearded face with the handkerchief, he phoned the Harling police station.
‘A woman’s body has been found on the seashore near the Harling Pier, ma’am,’ DC Calder said, putting his head through his chief’s open office door. ‘SOCO’s there already.’
‘Right - call the Doc and the necessary team, please.’
Detective Superintendent Viviane Peterson, the new broom in the Harling police station, finished up the remainder of her early morning canteen coffee, already cold in the mug, freshened up her lipstick in her hand mirror and zipped up her light blue jacket as Detective Sergeant Geoff Trask put his plump rosy face round the office door.
‘Ready, ma’am?’
‘Okay.’
The police cars and ambulance arrived noisily on the sunny sea front near the Harling Pier entrance. Some early risers amongst the holidaymakers from the hotels opposite lined up against the green railings to watch the police team making its procession down the long pebbled beach and across the shingle to join the white uniformed Scene of Crime officers on the sands.
The local man who’d found the body, Victor Goring, stood on one side watching the police proceedings with much interest, bucket and lugworms long forgotten.
‘Mr Goring? I’m Superintendent Peterson. You found the victim?’
‘Yes, miss, er - Superintendent.’
‘Thank you for calling us. You can go now, Mr Goring. Can you come into the station later? Say in an hour’s time to fill us in with the details? Good morning, Granger. Looks like the tide’s coming in fast. We’ll have to make it quick. First impressions anyone?’
Doctor Anthony Granger, the police surgeon, a short, thin young man, with a cheerful freckled face, snub nose and pencil thin moustache, straightened up to greet her. ‘Good morning, Superintendent. Our victim’s a female. She was strangled and battered about the face and head extensively with a heavy weapon of some kind.’
‘Sexually assaulted?’
‘At a quick glance, I would say possibly - yes. Looks like extensive bruising between the thighs and in the groin area.’ He bent over again to study the face more closely and with a wry grimace said, ‘Young, a natural blonde - age about twenty-six/seven. Time of death, midnight or thereabouts, and the injuries, I would say, were committed shortly
after
death. The head placed as it is in the pool, its small inhabitants will doubtless have added to the damage done to it already.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘Nasty.’
‘Could she have been moved and dumped here after she was killed?’
Granger nodded. ‘There are signs of possible movement; those purple marks on the left side under the body can vouch for that. I would say more than likely she was brought here during the early hours before the tide was on the turn.’ He shifted his brown suede shoes with a smothered curse as the water splashed and lapped in closer around them.
Peterson nodded and turned to the officers who’d joined her. ‘You agree with that lads?’
DI Nick Farmer and DS Geoff Trask nodded as they stared silently down into the rocky pool at the terrible battered face lying under the water, and then at each other, shock registering plainly on their grim faces.
DC Brian Calder joining them took a hesitant look down at the victim and gulped, then stammered out, ‘It’s - it’s, DS Handley, ma’am! Look! See there’s a rose tattoo on her left arm and that - that gold pendant she’s wearing. It’s Cancer the star sign. Linda was given it for her birthday last week.’
The police officers grouped around her saw Peterson’s fine boned features flush with anger as she swore and slammed a fist into her open hand. It seemed that the seagulls echoed her explicative as they shrieked out and screamed overhead.
‘A police officer! Christ! The killer has a blighted sense of humour,’ Granger said straightening up again.
Pushing back her thick honey blonde hair from her wide forehead, Peterson wondered how she was going to deal with the case efficiently and quickly. Of all the bad luck, it seemed that fate really had it in for her. Only three weeks in a new place and she was faced with this foul crime.
Peterson addressed the forensic team briskly as they started to work on the beach around them, ‘Okay, everyone, let’s get on with it. See if you can find the weapon. We haven’t got long before the tide comes in. I’m depending on you all to make a good job of it, no mistakes - no bloody balls up!’
*
The yellow strips were put in place carefully across the beach, under the pier, fluttering in the brisk sea breeze frivolously like yellow ribbons. Photos were taken quickly as the invading tide encroached on the crime scene.
Accompanied by Trask, DI Nick Farmer strode back up the beach, and attempted to sort out the maelstrom of thoughts that were catapulting around in his head. He had worked with Peterson some years ago as her sergeant in the Met. She had a reputation of the iron hand in a silk glove to keep up; it had followed her even here. He hoped it stood her in good stead. Linda Handley had been an efficient young officer. Well liked. Who could had have done this? Who’d wanted her out of the way? He cursed, brushing his eyes quickly with the back of his hand, and hoped Trask hadn’t noticed.
‘So what do you think, lads? Was it because of something she was working on?’ Peterson joined them half way up the beach. ‘Or was she a victim of a sexual assault out in the street? Are we looking for a rapist turned killer?’
Farmer curled his generous mouth expressively, shook his dark head and shrugged. ‘No idea, ma’am. We have had a couple of reports of attempted rape locally but no leads so far.’
‘Do you think we’ve got to look for a rapist, Nick? It seems motiveless otherwise,’ Geoff Trask said. ‘God! What wouldn’t I do for a smoke right now.’ He fidgeted in his loose blazer jacket pocket for a peppermint sweet, popped it into his mouth and chewed on it.
‘We don’t know that, Geoff. We’ll have to take a look at her house. See if the bastard got at her there. It’s not far from here on the front.’
‘Come on lads, let’s get moving,’ Peterson said studying their grim faces.
Farmer walked on up the beach quickly. Behind him, the forensic team in their white uniforms were zipping up the body in a black body bag. Farmer felt his mouth constrict and his palate grow dry, as he glanced back over his shoulder and saw the body bag lifted carefully onto the stretcher, passing him by as it was carried up the beach by the medics. He’d made a swift move from the Met to Harling two years previously, leaving the mess of his earlier life behind. He had settled down uneasily at first into this new lifestyle, a new team, new home and new working routine. He had found, surprisingly, that the south east coast was equally as busy as London. He hoped that Peterson would not wish to interfere and leave it to him and the others on the team to deal with everything.
*
Peterson forced herself to remember all she could about the young, bright eyed woman officer. She recalled Linda greeting with a wide welcoming smile, chocolate biscuits and a mug of decent hot coffee in her office on her arrival at Harling Police Station.
Peterson’s contracting stomach muscles were betraying the acute uneasiness and nausea she was feeling. It wouldn’t have taken much for her to throw up in front of her officers. They were on the move again, ignoring the crowds of interested onlookers staring down at them from the wide promenade above.
She swallowed hard before speaking again. ‘Linda was a local, wasn’t she, Trask? Do her parents live here?’
‘Both, ma’am. Her mother’s a nurse in the local hospital and her dad’s in insurance.’
‘Better get the father to identify her then.’
They climbed up the metal staircase from the beach onto the seafront, to face the interested audience of holidaymakers and locals collecting quickly on the busy promenade. Adventurous children, like monkeys, clambered out from under the pier, and attempted to climb up over the stone groyne to invade the beach but were sent away quickly by the uniform on duty below.
Laura Goring, Clairvoyant and Tarot reader, while out on her early morning stroll, dressed in a brilliant purple silk kaftan, long chains of amber beads swinging and clinking around her neck, a heliotrope silk bandanna swathing her frizzed hennaed hair, leant over the pier rails to watch the ongoing drama below with an uneasy look on her long, bony features.
Close by on the pier, overlooking the rails, two worried town councillors called on by anxious hotelkeepers, conferred together and looked down at the police activity with growing anxiety. A brutal murder couldn’t be played down that easily in Harling. This could cause a crisis in the town’s publicity drive. They could do without it occurring at such a busy peak holiday period.
The annual carnival week was due to commence the following Monday, with beauty and baby contests, dancing competitions and talent shows on the pier, the big fancy dress carnival parade and prize floats, culminating in a large firework display in the Victoria Park on the Saturday. It could all be so easily ruined by this…