The Burning (15 page)

‘I hope you don’t think I’m speaking out of turn,’ she said, arriving flustered and out of breath, as if she had been swept up in a sudden rush of emotion, ‘but all
this seems so much more than coincidental, given what happened to Susie Ashton . . .’

Jenny said nothing, waiting for her to complete her train of thought without prompting.

‘There are lots of theories, of course – behind closed doors, people talk of little else around here – but there’s always been a lot of suspicion of the police’s
role. And to see the house swept away in a couple of days –’ she gestured towards the empty plot where it had stood – ‘it’s almost as if they want to erase all memory
for fear of . . .’ she struggled to complete her sentence, ‘for fear of being found out in some way.’

‘What do you think they’re trying to hide?’ Jenny asked neutrally.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Helen said, ‘but without wishing to sound paranoid, I do think they might have been watching the family recently.’ She glanced nervously left and
right, as if fearing they might be listened to.

‘Tell me,’ Jenny urged gently.

‘Several times last autumn, always at weekends when they would all have been at home, I noticed a car parked just along here, as if it were calling at the church. I spotted a man inside.
He must have parked there three or four times, but I saw his face twice. Dark hair, glasses. He was watching their house, I’m sure of it.’

‘Did you challenge him?’

‘No.’

‘Could you describe the car?’

‘Nondescript. It was a nothing colour, somewhere between green and brown. The sort you’d never notice if it were parked anywhere but here.’

‘Did you mention it to anyone?’

‘Only my husband. I can ask him if he ever made a note of the registration.’

Jenny searched her pockets. ‘I haven’t got a card. Look me up – if you can find it, email it to me.’

‘I will.’

‘You should get back inside before you freeze,’ Jenny said.

Helen Medway nodded, but there was still something weighing on her mind. ‘I shouldn’t be,’ she said guiltily, ‘but I suppose I’m a little frightened.’

Jenny touched the priest on the arm, feeling the full irony of the moment as she offered her reassurance.

Helen Medway appreciated the gesture and gave a nod, as if to say she was satisfied she had done the right thing. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Cooper, and thank you.’ She turned, and clutching her
frozen hands together, made her way back to the church.

A fresh blast of wind drove hard needles of icy snow into Jenny’s already burning face. Michael had still failed to appear. Growing a little concerned, Jenny pulled out her phone and
dialled his number. It rang once, then connected to an automated message informing her that his phone was unavailable, which either meant he was without a signal or had switched it off. Determined
not to indulge the irrational fears bubbling up in her mind, she set off towards the Land Rover, but after several yards found herself drawn towards the levelled patch of ground where Kelly and
Ed’s house had stood.

Jenny had never appreciated just how quickly and completely all trace of a building could be erased. The footsteps she was leaving in an inch of fresh snow were near enough on the same spot
where only three days ago Ed Morgan had carried out his slaughter. She had expected to feel something of the oppressive atmosphere she had felt while touring the ruins with DI Ryan, but all she
experienced was a strange sense of absence, like returning home to an unexpectedly empty house. It was as if the memories had been stored in the fabric of the building itself. She noticed that the
view from what would have been the front garden was clear across the common to the Ashtons’ cottage. A person, even a small child standing in this spot, would have been visible. There was
also an unobstructed line of sight to three other houses: the vicarage to the left of the Ashtons’ and two further properties to its right, one of which was positioned on a rise set back some
distance from the common. Other properties could be seen from here, too, but each had trees or fences that kept them partially hidden.

Turning to face the hill behind her, Jenny recalled her headlights sweeping the treeline as she had left the site forty-eight hours before, and the illusion she had experienced of a figure
darting between the shadows. Living among the forests of the Wye Valley, Jenny was more aware than most how they could play tricks on the mind. If you were in anything less than a robust mental
state, fallen branches and stumps could easily become distorted human forms; shadows and hollows made hiding places for unseen predators. It wasn’t hard to consider that Ed Morgan, unhinged
for whatever reason, might have found himself shooting at phantoms in the night.

It was then that she spotted an incongruous dash of colour amongst the trees partway up the slope: specks of yellow and orange. Seized by curiosity, she set off towards it. Making her way up the
bank, Jenny soon found herself scrambling on all fours as the gradient got steeper. She plunged her hands deep into the snow as she hauled herself up the incline. Finally arriving at the top, she
found herself on a natural step in the hillside, where the ground flattened out before rising sharply again. There, at the foot of a young oak was a fresh bunch of hothouse tulips tied with black
ribbon. A single word, ‘
Sorry
’, was handwritten on a plain tag attached to them. Jenny stooped to examine them: the petals were frozen, but only powdered with snow, suggesting
they had been placed there during the last few hours. She scoured the surrounding ground and spotted a trail of footprints leading off to her left. They belonged to a woman, or perhaps to a child,
and were certainly no bigger than Jenny’s. Leaving the flowers where they lay, she followed the prints across the level contour, then found herself on a path leading back down to the lane
that ran along the side of the common. There the prints merged with several other sets travelling up and down the hill and became lost.

Jenny went left down the path. It made several sharp turns through a thick stand of birch trees and returned her to the lane approximately thirty yards from where the house had stood. Heading
back across the common towards the Land Rover, she fetched out her phone and dialled Kelly Hart’s number.

Kelly answered on the third ring with a cautious hello.

‘Mrs Hart, it’s Jenny Cooper.’

‘I saw. Is it Robbie?’

‘No. Sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you.’

‘It’s OK.’ Kelly exhaled in relief.

‘I’m at Blackstone Ley, Mrs Hart. Someone’s left flowers near your house with a note. I just wanted to check that it wasn’t you.’

‘It wasn’t me. What does it say?’

‘
Sorry
.’

Kelly was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Is there a name?’

‘No name. Just the one word. I was wondering if you might have any idea.’

‘No.’

Jenny could sense her distress. ‘That’s fine. I’m sorry if I upset you.’

‘I haven’t left this flat. I wish I could. I wish I had somewhere to go. I wish I had someone to see.’

Jenny felt helpless in the face of the unexpected plea and found herself with nothing to offer in return. ‘I won’t disturb you again unless I have to,’ was all she could find
to say. ‘Thank you.’ She rang off and glanced back at the empty plot, with the uneasy feeling that concealed somewhere amongst the trees on the hillside, someone was watching her.

‘Jenny!’

She turned at the sound of Michael’s voice. He was approaching from her right, on the far side of the common, and was waving to her. She waved back, but her relief at seeing him was
clouded by the fact that he’d been gone nearly an hour and had frightened her.

‘Where were you?’ she demanded, when they met again beside the car.

‘I followed a footpath over the hill and got a bit lost. I knew you’d be worried, but my blasted phone ran out of juice.’

‘I kept trying you, but you were always engaged.’

‘That was my boss. I thought he’d agreed to leave me alone this weekend. No such luck.’ He unlocked the car and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Jenny got in next to him, knowing there was bad news coming.

‘Where to – home?’ Michael said, avoiding the issue.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me?’

Michael sighed. ‘He’s pleading with me to fly to Zurich on New Year’s Day. Some urgent shipments. We’ve still got tomorrow.’

‘You could have said no.’

‘Jenny, I can’t afford to lose this job. No one else is going to employ a 47-year-old pilot, ex-RAF or not.’

‘He needs you too badly to let you go. He only picks on you because he thinks you’re a single man who has no one to upset by working through the holidays.’ She gave him a stern
look. ‘He’s wrong.’

‘And you’re right,’ he conceded. ‘You usually are.’ He reached for her hand. Jenny let him take it. ‘You’re cold.’

She avoided his attempt to deflect her. ‘There are a few things you’re going to need help with, Michael.’

‘I know.’ He squeezed her fingers and kissed her on the cheek. ‘This is the last time, OK?’

Jenny nodded, accepting that this time it was probably too late to undo what had already been done.

Michael started the engine and pulled away. ‘I don’t know if it’s what you’ve told me about this place, but I wouldn’t be in any hurry to come back.’

‘You didn’t happen to pass a woman walking alone?’ Jenny asked.

‘No, I didn’t see a woman, but there was a guy behaving a bit oddly up in those woods.’ He nodded towards the hill.

‘What do you mean, oddly?’

‘I was going up the path, he was coming down. He spotted me, then veered off into the trees.’

‘What sort of age?’

‘Couldn’t say, though he must have been fit. Vanished without a trace, in the time it took me to walk twenty yards. Weird thing, though – he left spots of blood in the
snow.’

‘Blood?’

Michael stared straight ahead, refusing to answer her.

‘Michael—’

‘Got you!’ He laughed uproariously. ‘I didn’t see a soul.’

J
ENNY STARTED OUT OF HER
kitchen window at the smothering of snow that had grown even deeper overnight. She tried to muster enthusiasm for the start of
a new year, but struggled to rid herself of the feeling of loss that had descended the moment Michael had slipped out of the house several hours before dawn. She tried to console herself with the
thought that nearly three unbroken days together had been a record – as had their avoidance of a single major argument during that time – but the dull feeling of emptiness refused to
lift. In the past she had simply pressed on with her daily round, in the uncertain hope of seeing him again soon, but she knew that this time it was different. Something had changed. Michael
hadn’t raised the subject of living together again before he left, but Jenny knew that had been deliberate. He had handed the decision over to her.

Moving away from the window and warming her cold hands against the range, she realized how unsettled she was by the prospect of sharing every aspect of her life as well as her home. She had
built high defensive walls around herself in the years since her divorce, and the prospect of having them torn down at a single stroke was leaving her feeling naked and exposed.

Equally, she accepted that it was a decision that wouldn’t get any easier by postponing it. She forced herself to confront it. The answer seemed inevitable. If she was ever going to
change, it would have to be now. She was too young to get stuck in a rut and to take no further risks. There, she had done it, and it had been almost painless. She was terrified, but the prospect
of never changing was even worse.

Daunted, but also relieved that she had turned a corner, Jenny turned her back on the kitchen and retreated to her study, hoping to distract herself with the pile of reports that had remained
unread on her desk over the weekend. She hadn’t even settled in her chair when the phone rang.

It was DI Ryan, and he greeted her with his now customary apology for disturbing her out of hours. Jenny told him he needn’t worry – he wasn’t disturbing anything.

‘Kelly Hart’s been in touch,’ Ryan said. ‘She’d got herself worked up over something you told her yesterday – flowers laid at her house, with a
note?’

‘There is no house,’ Jenny said, ‘just scorched earth.’

‘At least it keeps the cameras away.’

And the heat off Superintendent Abbott and his old colleagues, Jenny thought. She chose not to share her scepticism with Ryan. So far he’d proved a valuable ally, and she wanted to keep it
that way.

‘The flowers were laid in the woods on the bank behind the house. There was a note attached, saying
sorry
. No name, just the one word.’

‘Did she have any idea who might have left them?’

‘Didn’t seem to. I’m no detective, but the footprints leading to them looked female. Though it’s only what you’d expect – men don’t touch flowers
without a gun to the head.’

‘Depends on the man,’ Ryan said. He paused. ‘Sorry if I’m making assumptions here, but from what she’s said to me, I get the impression you haven’t told her
about what happened inside the house.’

‘Do you think she’s ready for it?’

‘As she’ll ever be. I always think it’s better to hear the facts straight than drive yourself mad imagining things that didn’t happen. If you want to tell me what
you’ve got, I could share it with her.’

‘No, it’s OK. I’ve some more questions for her anyway. I should go and see her.’

‘If you’d rather not face her alone, I could always come and hold your hand.’

‘Won’t your super have something to say about that? I thought this was no longer a police problem.’

‘It’s a holiday. He doesn’t have to know.’

‘You want to do it today?’

‘You did say you weren’t busy. How about this afternoon?’

There was no good reason Jenny could think of for putting it off, so she called Kelly and arranged to meet at her flat, together with DI Ryan, at noon. She had expected Kelly to ask her what the
meeting was about, but she had responded with the passive acceptance of a woman resigned to whatever might be thrown at her. Despite this, the prospect of confronting her again in a few
hours’ time, and with such disturbing information, left Jenny too jumpy to settle at her desk, so instead she called the mortuary to see if anyone was on duty. She learned from a technician
that Dr Hope was on her way in. It was the excuse she needed to get out of the house and away from her own company. Jenny grabbed her coat and headed for her car.