The Devil's Chair (18 page)

Randall frowned. ‘So what happened to her subsequently? Was she found guilty of attempted murder?'

‘No,' Martha said. ‘Nothing happened to her. Whatever my private instincts I had no hard evidence and neither did the police. I passed an open verdict.' She felt she had to justify her decision. ‘I had no choice, Alex. It was all put down to a tragic mistake. Like the case, the book on fungi was returned to the library and put back on the shelf, as it were. In fact, young Charity came out of it rather well. The light that was put on it was a rebellious teenage girl who was trying to make amends for her previously unruly behaviour by organizing a banquet.' She couldn't prevent a look of disgusted cynicism passing across her face. ‘I couldn't have handled the PR better myself. Instead of being labelled a Borgia she was pitied and indulged and always insisted it had been a terrible mistake. She was put into care, for a while, and then fostered, probably inheriting all her family's money, including her stepmother's whom, I believe, was quite wealthy, coming from a farming, land-owning background. And from there to the present day, who knows? Dubai's a glamorous city – it sounds like she's done well for herself.'

Randall's face was grim. He was thoughtful for a moment before saying, ‘But the crimes are, surely, different? Besides, Charity was quite definitely out of the country when Tracy had her accident. We've checked.'

‘Accident?' Martha queried.

Randall regarded her, his face still frowning. ‘She can't have orchestrated …' He paused. ‘I don't understand,' he said. ‘What are you asking me to do about this?'

‘Nothing. I just wanted you to be aware, Alex.'

WPC Lara Tinsley had waited for DI Randall to return from the coroner's court before she discussed with him the results of her and PC Dart's morning's work and soon realized her inspector's mind was distracted. It was even worse than that. His mind had been buzzing with the possibilities Martha's revelation had provoked. But none seemed to fit the case. He had watched too many officers struggle to make facts fit an odd-shaped theory. Until the fit was perfect and watertight he knew whatever he came up with it would be the wrong one. And though he hadn't wanted to tell Martha this, this was what it felt like. The wrong connection.

He listened to his officer's story without comment, then asked, ‘And how are you getting on with PC Dart?'

It was not quite what she had expected. ‘We-ell,' she began before saying, ‘he keeps himself to himself, sir, doesn't he?'

Randall nodded. ‘And how is he to work with?'

‘I've no complaints, sir, though he doesn't volunteer much in the way of ideas.'

‘Give him time,' Randall said. ‘I think he'll be all right once he's got over …'

Tinsley looked at him enquiringly.

‘Once he's settled down,' Randall substituted. ‘So have you any suggestions that might throw a light on this case, Tinsley?'

‘No, sir,' she eyed him speculatively, ‘but I had a few thoughts.'

‘Go on.'

‘Well, firstly, I felt I could have got a lot more information out of Mrs Stanstead if her husband hadn't been there.' She hesitated. ‘He's quite intimidating.'

‘Really? What sort of information?'

‘I don't know, but she's obviously terrified of him and there was something else. Something she was keeping back. A neighbour saw the three of them together, Lucy, Neil and Daisy.' She leafed through her notebook then looked up. ‘She said, and I quote, that they “looked like a happy family”.'

Randall recalled the conversation he had just had with Martha. Charity Ignatio had kept something back too. She had hidden her past. ‘She's not the only one keeping things to herself,' he muttered.

‘And then I wondered a bit more about Tracy,' Tinsley continued.

Randall looked interested. ‘Go on.'

‘I wondered more about her life.'

‘Specifically?'

‘I wondered about her work, sir.'

Randall grinned at her and clapped her on the shoulder. ‘Too right,' he said. ‘And I'll add to that we need to know a bit more about Neil Mansfield.'

Perhaps it was Lara Tinsley's hopeful, eager face, but at the briefing Alex Randall began to feel a little more optimistic, as though the smallest glimmer of light was there, just over the horizon, a glowing ball of hazy pink. He didn't know yet what to do about Martha's revelation. He couldn't quite fit it in to the scenario. Yes, they needed to recheck passport control and make absolutely sure that Ms Ignatio hadn't sneaked back to the UK on 6 and 7 April. What irony if she had made the call herself after all their searching for the ‘mystery woman'. But even if Ms Ignatio had somehow spirited herself back to Shropshire it still didn't explain the whereabouts of the missing child. She wasn't at Hope Cottage. That was for sure.

But the slipper had been planted there between their initial search and Charity's homecoming.

Lots of ideas were buzzing round Randall's head as he faced his team of officers. Charity Ignatio and her disturbing past; Neil Mansfield with his Lothario ways; Allistair Donaldson, Daisy's apparently uninterested father, and Tracy herself, the cause of all this. Cause or catalyst?

So many unanswered questions.

Perhaps he should take a trip up to Scotland and see if he could get some answers from Allistair. Maybe he should not have relied on the local police to speak to someone who could prove so significant. After all, he was the missing child's next of kin. He was the person who had a right to her. Even if
he
wasn't interested in his daughter, perhaps he had family who were. There was a mystery caller to be found though he couldn't work out why, if she existed, she had not come forward. After all –
she
had done nothing criminal except abduct the child, if indeed she had. It was Daisy's disappearance which had escalated the police interest from a simple RTI and initiated the major police investigation. Had the little girl not been missing this case would have been done and dusted by now – a simple car accident with a drunk driver. In the light of no corroborative evidence they would not have looked terribly hard into the scrape of paint on Tracy's offside wing. After all, drink drivers, while they may be in a regrettable state, are not exactly a rare occurrence; neither are they known for their skill as drivers. But without the one ingredient of the vanished child there would not have been the attention this had provoked. And this caught Randall up short. Was that
why
the child had been abducted? To focus attention on a road accident? He pondered this point for some moments but found no answer. In fact, he was no closer to any answers at all – still only questions. Questions. Still questions and more questions.

However, he added it to the board:
Why take the child?

Underneath he wrote a point they had glossed over:
Something or someone real or imagined stopped Tracy Walsh in her tracks. Who or what was it?

Randall frowned. There was another point they had not explored well enough. It was the direction Lara Tinsley had suggested, Tracy's place of work: the Long Mynd Hotel
.

And central to the entire case was an area with an evil reputation, borne out by places for names and events: Dead Man's Beach, Dead Man's Hollow, Dead Man's Fair, the Devil's Chair. Church Stretton and its surrounds were full of tales of death and disappearances, riddled with folklore and inexplicable disappearances; miraculous appearances such as that of the Reverend E. Donald Carr after his night struggling with the blizzard in Carding Mill Valley. Carding Mill Valley was the very same place Tracy Walsh's car had made its final resting place. Randall's hand hovered over the board, reluctant to wander into a place of fantasy, then he set his mouth. One might believe anything in these strange hills.

N
ow he had the list in front of him it was beginning to feel complete: he stood back and studied the board. This looked well rounded.

He could allocate tasks and focus their attention. Randall felt his mood improve even further. It really did feel like dawn, the beginning of a new day. The room warmed as the officers sensed the lightening of their DI's mood.

Randall stood back to study the first name on the whiteboard, reflecting on his new knowledge concerning Charity Ignatio. Then he turned back to face the officers and filled them in on the old story, the family tragedy, wondering still if the poisoning of the soup had been accident or design. The trouble with events like that was that even years later one could never be absolutely sure, and as time rolled on the deaths became even more fuzzy and blurred, ever more out of focus. Unless there was a witness or a confession, poisoning cases were notoriously hard to prove, hard to bring to court and slippery as eels. And then there was the sequitur. Why on earth would someone place the Death Caps on the doorstep except to point the finger of suspicion? But if they knew something why not tell the police and see justice for the dead family? Randall narrowed his eyes. Unless that person had their suspicions but was unable to prove anything beyond reasonable doubt, and that was what the law demanded.
Beyond reasonable doubt
.

He thought for a minute. Perhaps the Death Caps were placed on the doorstep to send a message to Charity.
I know what you've done. I have my eye on you. Don't even think you'll get away with it ever again.

Maybe that was it.

A couple of the officers were resurrecting the background on their iPads. All agreed it made Ms Ignatio a lot more interesting. But the fact remained, incontrovertible: she'd been out of the country.

Randall scanned the room and picked out WPC Lara Tinsley, whose cow-brown eyes were fixed on him with particular alertness. ‘Lara,' he said, ‘I want you to go and talk to Ms Ignatio about the event. Let her know that we're aware of her past. See what you make of her.' He found it difficult to explain about the connection between the fungi that had been left at Charity's door and the plants that had been left at the scene of the crash. He wasn't sure himself. He could see a few of the officers frowning, as though they were sceptical. But when he related the fact that Death Caps had been left outside the house where the four family members had been poisoned, three of whom had subsequently died, he saw their expressions change to become thoughtful and he knew they were as puzzled about their significance as he was. If the person who had left the bouquet had had suspicions, why leave a message that at best could only provoke curiosity and point to an old and forgotten case? Why not simply come forward and tell the police what those suspicions were? It didn't make sense any more than this case and the disappearance of the little girl – yet. He trusted it would soon.

‘It puts rather a different light on our little globetrotter, doesn't it?' WPC Lara Tinsley kept her eyes on him, tucked a strand of silky hair behind her ears and nodded.

Randall continued, emphasizing the point: ‘Suddenly she isn't quite the innocent bystander we initially thought, is she? Hardly someone whose cottage was used
by chance
to make a phone call. It could have been used deliberately to focus our interest in her and evoke the old case, to make us realize she is someone with a devious and at best murky past. Why involve Hope Cottage at all?' Randall continued to encourage, wanting WPC Tinsley to understand how important this task was. ‘Maybe that was why. Get a take on her, Tinsley. Speak to her cleaning woman again if you need to. Also check on passport control. Is there any conceivable way she could possibly have slipped back to UK on the sixth and seventh of April?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘She's a bit too much of a closed book, that one,' he muttered more to himself than to the gathered team. ‘I don't feel I have a handle on her at all.'

Inwardly he was still asking the question
why make the phone call from her cottage?
Was it purely to focus their attention on her and resurrect the old case? And was their mystery caller still frustrated they were not spending more time and consideration on Ms Ignatio? Was that why they had planted the slipper?

He hesitated. He didn't want to influence his officers by voicing his concerns here and now and he didn't want to confuse this case by involving another old, puzzling incident, possibly a murder, which had never been solved at the time so what hope for them now? They should focus on the missing child. But his mind wouldn't stop asking questions. Why? If Charity
had
deliberately poisoned her family what would have been her motive? It could be put down to jealousy of her stepmother and half-brother. Hatred of her father for replacing her; a sort of teenage angst. But there was, as far as he knew, absolutely no connection between Charity Ignatio and Tracy Walsh, and that was a stumbling block. They came from different sides of life. And, if Charity had been innocent, since then she must have led a blameless life. She had no police record. He met Lara Tinsley's eyes, feeling the balloon of hope starting to deflate. He was beginning to realize how very little they had ascertained about this troubling case and he worried how far they would have to go to find one little girl, dead or alive. ‘Find out if there is any connection between Tracy and Charity,' he said, ‘however tenuous.'

She nodded.

Under his breath he muttered, ‘Thank you, Martha Gunn.' He had a swift vision of the unruly, flaming red hair that seemed so incongruous in a coroner. He recalled a pair of mischievous green eyes and her light manner but undoubted dignity when conducting an inquest, those same green eyes displaying such humanity for the families of the dead. That soft, sympathetic look that she had, just a few times, directed at him. How could she possibly know about his own troubled home life? He had never confided in her. There was no way. None of his colleagues was aware of his home circumstances. Yet he felt that Martha Gunn had somehow divined it and if he was honest with himself he knew he might not have spelt his story out but he had certainly hinted at it. She knew something was very wrong in his life and there was something in her gentle concern that helped him. For a moment Randall was struck. He was beginning to realize how much he was depending on her on this case, trusting her judgement and waiting around for her opinions.