The Devil's Chair (19 page)

But it wouldn't do.

He cleared his throat and focused on the assembled officers and the briefing, aware that, to him, Martha Gunn was a treasured object that he took out of his pocket, admired and polished before returning it to its secret place. His left breast pocket. The one right over his heart. She was his talisman.

Bad thought, Alex
.

Lara Tinsley was eyeing him curiously.

‘Yes?' he asked.

‘Sir,' she began tentatively, ‘the person who left the Death Caps outside the door? I mean …' she flushed, ‘it only focused suspicion on Charity, didn't it?'

He nodded, realizing her mind was tracking in the same direction as his.

‘And we understand the message, or so we think.'

‘Yes.'

‘But the bunch of herbs left at the site of Tracy's crash. Is the message against Charity?'

He waited.

‘What's the warning?'

He threw the question around the room. ‘Any ideas?'

The faces that met his were blank.

‘And why take us back to the old case more than ten years later? I mean, why now?'

No one could think of a reason. Unless …

Again his thoughts turned to Martha. He could ask her that same question.

For now he wanted to focus on the present and find the child who had, it was alleged, last been spotted being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.

He set PCs Gary Coleman and Delia Shaw to interview Neil Mansfield and Lucy Stanstead again. ‘Observe the relationship between them,' he urged, adding, ‘but interview them separately. WPC Tinsley feels that this is an interview best conducted away from the good woman's husband, if you can manage that. It might be a bit difficult.' Randall frowned. Something was bugging him and after a brief search around his memory he knew what it was. It was the phrase that Neil Mansfield, Lucy Stanstead and Daisy looked like a happy family. It was brazen – and dangerous. Tracy had been a very jealous woman and as for Captain Stanstead – well. But surely he was out of the picture? Surely he had been away at sea at the time of Tracy's accident?

Another point to check.

‘Gary,' he added, ‘we have a warrant to remove Mansfield's computer. I don't need to tell you what you're looking for. Basically anything that might have a bearing on the case.'

Coleman grinned. ‘Good one,' he said. He loved computers and was never happier than when he was in front of a screen, tapping away on a keyboard. Randall, too, swallowed a grin. He knew he'd just handed Police Constable Gary Coleman his dream job. And if there was anything on Mansfield's computer Coleman would unearth it. Inwardly, now, he was beginning to smile. For some reason he was thinking about movies. It was all in the casting, the most important role, matching the right actor to the right part. They had to look right, have the appropriate talents. It could make or break a film. And boy, it was the same in the police force during a major investigation. Match the right person to the job.

And he just had.

Out of the corner of his eye, Randall could see Gethin Roberts twitching with anticipation. Time to put the young PC out of his misery. ‘Roberts, I want you to focus on Tracy herself. Villain or victim? Speak to her mother and her sister again. Explore her place of work further. Get up to the Long Mynd Hotel. See if you can get any evidence of further contacts.' Tracy might be dead, he thought, but in the end it was she who had taken the little girl – her daughter – to a dangerous spot in the middle of an ice-cold night, when she had been rip-roaring drunk. Why?

Roberts was watching expectantly. Waiting for a prompt.

‘I get the feeling,' Randall said, almost musing to himself, ‘that there is something we don't know about Tracy. I wonder why she took the child with her that night. If Daisy had been irritating her by crying, why take her out of her bed and put her in the car? It would be bound to make the child more fractious so why not leave her behind? Was it, I wonder, because she didn't trust Mansfield?'

‘But Mansfield looked after Daisy when Tracy was at work,' Roberts pointed out. ‘She must have trusted him.'

‘True. But I still wonder why she got the little girl up, put on her dressing gown and slippers and bundled her in the car.'

Around the room, DI Randall could sense that most of the assembled team were dubious. To them it didn't appear to be particularly strange behaviour. Not from a drunk, at least.

‘As for me,' he announced, ‘I'm going to take a trip up to Inverness and speak to Daisy's father and the rest of his family. Check 'em out. See if the connection was as tenuous as has been suggested and if there is one, perhaps a grandmother who takes an interest in Daisy Walsh.'

He turned around to read the next name on the board. ‘We've yet to identify our mystery caller who, it is still possible, has Daisy with her. Of course, if it proves to be Ms Ignatio then where is the child? How has she been spirited away when Charity was thousands of miles away when she was abducted? That would involve another person. It is quite impossible that she made the call, so if she is involved in any way she must have an accomplice. Maybe our mystery caller?' His head was spinning with the possibilities but he carried on doggedly. ‘Is she with her? Concealed somewhere? If so, where? She's not at the cottage. So is she …?' It was quite unnecessary to add,
Dead or alive, injured or not.
They all had imaginations. He didn't need to rub it in. They were all aware of the fragility of a four-year-old. Some of them had children of about that age themselves.

Randall hesitated before reading out the final entry on his list. He wasn't quite sure how to put it. He didn't really want to send his officers hurtling down a route of myth and legend but in his mind there was little doubt that this last thing played a part.

So he plunged in. ‘And lastly, there is the area itself. We all know that the Long Mynd and its environs are remote and wild and the place has a bad reputation – partly to do with folklore and partly to do with its geography. I concede that there is something menacing about the hills rising so suddenly out of the Shropshire Plain.' He was choosing his words very carefully. ‘So while I wouldn't want you to be influenced by folklore and superstition, bear it in mind, will you?' There were a few dubious nods of acknowledgment but DI Randall couldn't help noticing that there were no smiles, no mockery, no leg-pulling. The faces looking back at him were grim. A few glanced across at the board holding Daisy Walsh's picture as though to remind themselves of the missing child: the sweet little girl with sparkly eyes who peeped around a door and was still missing.

Alex Randall was mischievously aware that he had deliberately left out Sergeant Paul Talith. When the room had emptied Talith still waited, hovering like an expectant father. Randall grinned at him. ‘Fancy a trip up to Scotland, Paul?'

Truth was Talith didn't – not really. He'd promised Diana he'd give her a hand tidying the garden up but he could hardly say that to DI Randall, could he? No. So he simply nodded. ‘When, sir?'

M
artha was at a Stoke City home game in which Sam was playing. She watched the ferocity of his game, the speed of his sprints, his skill with the ball and then, heaven of heavens, he curled one which grazed the top bar and dropped in, rolling innocuously into the back of the net to an accompanying roar from the enthusiastic crowd and a look of dismay from the goalie. She looked around her. Even if she had had the skill she would not have liked to have been in Sam's shoes. All that focus. All that fervour. All that adulation which could so easily and quickly turn sour. But as she watched Sam's glances move left and right she realized something that had never quite hit her before. He did not see it like that. He was not an individual. It was not
his
shoulders that carried the game. It was the team. He was only part of a team. A limb of a whole body. The team members made up the rest. They were his blood brothers. His family. If he let them down
they
would forgive him because they were parts of the whole. It was then that she began to understand why such a fuss was made at affairs between the partners of team members. It was treachery, traitorous. Worse than incest. She looked around her at the others in the members' box. They probably already knew this. One very good-looking man, about her age, with dark hair and wearing a thick jacket, leaned over. ‘You must be so proud of Sam.'

She smiled into a pair of warm brown eyes that she didn't recognize. ‘I am,' she confessed, ‘and fearful too. So much can go wrong.'

‘I wouldn't look too far into the future,' he said softly, ‘particularly if you're a pessimist.'

She began to protest. ‘I'm not,' she said before she met his eyes again and realized he was teasing her.

She sat back and relaxed. The thought that Sam was playing with members of his ‘family' was a comforting thought.

She allowed her mind to wander.

Sukey was at home learning lines. She was at a school for the performing arts and loving every minute of it. She still looked young enough to play children's parts and yet woman enough to act the temptress. Seventeen years old with the poise of a woman of thirty. Sukey now had an agent and when the agent was approached with a script for a TV production or, even on one occasion, a movie, she had been auditioned and had been successful for two minor parts to date: a sheriff's daughter in a remake of a classic Western which in Martha's opinion hadn't needed remaking, the critics agreeing with her. But her second part had been in a wonderful adaptation of one of Martha's favourite titles:
A Tale of Two Cities,
where, helped by her wonderful golden hair and innocent eyes, she had played Little Lucie. While not ignoring the fact that she was probably ten years too old to play it, the critics had forgiven the liberty taken with Dickens and had praised her ‘wonderful mastery' of the French Revolution story and the child innocent of the horrors wheeling around her. In particular they had praised the scenes played with her grandfather, Doctor Manette, who had been played by one of the leading actors of the time. A friendship had blossomed – the actor had taken her under his wing and there was a suggestion that she would play opposite him again.

Where would it all end? Martha did not have a clue and for tonight she didn't care either. Her children were not such a heavy responsibility any more. She was realizing, like countless parents before her, that they were adults and must make their own choices and career moves. And yes, make their own mistakes too. She was startled out of her reflections by a roar from the crowd. The game was over. Stoke were the victors. She glanced across at the man. He was standing up, his back to her, chatting animatedly to a few members of the crowd. She hesitated then made her way to the exit. She must find out whether Sam was coming home with her or with one of his teammates.

Police Constable Gary Coleman was the force's computer expert. A few flicks of the keys and he could discover facts about its owner that even they were unaware of. That was the easy bit. The difficult bit had been removing it from Tracy and Neil's house. Neil had objected – strongly. ‘What about my emails? And my business?'

Coleman was soothing. ‘You'll have it back in a day or two.'

‘But …' And Mansfield had fallen quiet, his anger not abated but tempered by something else. What, Coleman wondered, was Mansfield so worried about?

He got to work.

Gethin Roberts, meanwhile, had just reached the spectacular Long Mynd Hotel. Set halfway up the hill overlooking the pretty Victorian town of Church Stretton, it was an upmarket place with some very wonderful views. A year or so ago Roberts and his girlfriend, Flora, had been driving south down the A49. The night had been snowy and the hotel had blazed its light, like a beacon, right across the valley, looking somehow majestic and mysterious at the same time. Flora had touched his arm. ‘It looks just like the hotel in
The Shining
,' she'd whispered in awe. And Roberts had been forced to agree.

As he climbed out of the car he reflected that he wouldn't mind a few nights here himself and wondered if it had a swimming pool.

It did. Outdoor
and
heated.

The manager met him in the hall. Roberto Agostino was a small, dapper Italian with oily black eyes and swept back hair. ‘Pleased to meet you,' he said with a tight smile. In general, four-star hotels do not like police attention. The visible presence of the long arm of the law is not considered good for business. Knowing this, Roberts gave him a bland smile in return and followed the manager into his small office.

Agostino closed the door behind them. ‘Now,' he said, not fooling Roberts for a moment with his friendly manner, ‘how can I help you?'

‘It's about one of your employees,' Roberts said.

Agostino lifted his eyebrows.

‘Tracy Walsh.'

Agostino's face cleared. ‘Ah, Tracy. Such a shame. I knew she sometimes had a drink too many but, eh,' he said with a Continental shrug and a pout of his lips, ‘this is awful. The poor girl. We have collected for her charity. And the little girl, Daisy. You still have not found her?' There was a note of accusation in his voice.

Roberts coloured. ‘No. Unfortunately we haven't.' Something struck him. ‘You knew Daisy?' he queried.

Another continental shrug. ‘Tracy brought her to work with her once or twice when she didn't have child care. We did not approve,' he added quickly, ‘of course. But what can you do?'

‘Yes,' Roberts commented vaguely. It was the first time he had ever considered the problem. Child care and work. How did people manage? He had the briefest glimpse into the future. How would Flora manage when they had their own children? Answer – he didn't have a clue. Her mum, he supposed, or child care. And that was expensive. He turned his attention back to Agostino who was speaking, the black eyes narrowed.