The Eighth Witch (15 page)

“According to Holly, yes. Along with his laptop.”

“How did the fire start?”

“I’ve no idea,” Carter said. “Holly opened the safe and the whole lot went up. It burned fast. I barely had time to save the laptop.”
 

Lacey leaned forwards in his chair. “So you don’t think Ms. Ireland could have set fire to the papers accidentally with her cigarette as she said?”

“I was watching her the whole time. She wasn’t smoking.”

“So why did she say she was?”

“I think you intimidated her.”

“Me?” Lacey said. “Surely not.”

“That, and the fact that if she’d told you what really happened, you wouldn’t have believed her.”

Lacey took another sip of coffee. “So what really happened?”

“She opened the safe and the whole lot just went up in flames.”

Lacey’s eyes narrowed. “Spontaneous combustion?”

“More or less.”

Lacey didn’t look convinced. “But she obviously had access to the safe and the papers. If she didn’t want anyone to read what Norton was working on she could have planned the fire. There are plenty of accelerants around. She could have treated the papers with it and then, when the safe was opened, a single spark, say from a cigarette lighter, could have started the fire. That would explain why it burned so fast. You’re sure she couldn’t have started it?”

Carter thought hard. He could picture Holly crouched down by the safe, spinning the combination this way and that. Once the door was opened it effectively blocked his view of her. She could have set fire to the papers without him seeing, but Lacey’s scenario made no sense to him. “I think you’re on the wrong track,” he said. “I don’t see that she would have had the time to do what you’re suggesting. She got to the boat after us. She’d spent the night away at her friend’s house. And before that she was there with Norton.”

“But we only have her word that she spent the night with her friend.”

“So Sarah Bennett didn’t corroborate the alibi?”

“She did, in as much that Ms. Ireland turned up late. Then, from what I can gather, they got drunk together. There’s nothing to say she didn’t slip out of the house once her friend was asleep, go back to the boat and…”

Carter stopped him. “You’re building a case against her with no hard evidence whatsoever. It’s all supposition. If, as you say, she went back to the boat to set up the fire, why didn’t she destroy the papers then? Why wait until she had witnesses?”

“Smoke and mirrors,” Lacey said. “She knew that once Norton was attacked we’d be investigating. The question of the safe would come up sooner rather than later. If it was empty we would certainly have been asking her some very difficult questions. To stage the fire in front of witnesses lets her off the hook. Very convenient.”

Carter sighed. “I certainly believe that someone out there doesn’t want Norton’s research made public, and I’m certain that the fire was in no way accidental, but I’m not convinced Holly’s the culprit. I think whoever destroyed Norton’s papers also destroyed his laptop and killed Ollie Tucker. Holly Ireland was here this morning and then went to the hospital with Annie to visit Norton. She couldn’t be in two places at once.”

“And you saw her this morning?”

Carter took a lungful of smoke and shook his head.

“Then we can’t dismiss her as a suspect,” Lacey said.

“Fair enough. But I still think you’re wrong.” Carter changed tack. “Does the name Laura Sallis mean anything to you?” he said.

“Should it?”

“Laura Sallis is a friend of Annie’s. She went missing a while ago. Annie seems to think there might be a connection to these cases.”

“Sallis, Sallis. No. It doesn’t ring any bells. Did Ms. Ryder file a missing persons report?”

“I’m not sure, but I believe Penny Chapman called you lot in.”

“Then there’ll be a file. I’ll check it out when I get back to the station. If there’s anything interesting I’ll let you know.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Carter paused and swallowed the last of his coffee. “Do you know anything about an Elinor Yardley? Does that name ring any bells?”

Lacey looked at him sharply. “Now how on earth do you know about Elinor Yardley?”

“I saw it on Norton’s laptop before it died. He’d added her name as a footnote on one of his files.”

“And what was in this file?”

“A report on Sophie Gillespie’s death.”

“Hells bells! Are you telling me that Norton was researching these deaths as well?”

“I can’t swear he was looking into all of them. I didn’t get enough time to check all the folders before the computer crashed. But he had a file on Sophie Gillespie very similar to the one you’ve just shown me.”

“And he’d added Elinor Yardley’s name at the bottom. Some kind of cross-reference, do you think?”

“I imagine so. ‘See Elinor Yardley, 14th October 1608’. So I should think there was a file about her as well.”

Lacey sat back in his seat. “Interesting.” He ground out the cigarette. “Filthy things,” he muttered. He remembered now why he’d given them up. “Elinor Yardley was one of the Yardley sisters. My gran used to tell me stories about them when I was a kid. There were seven of them in all, and they came to Ravensbridge in the early 1600’s.”

“So who were they?”

“They were witches,” Lacey said with a smile. “A whole family of witches.”

Chapter Sixteen

The woods looked like a scene from a Christmas card. The ground was white and the whiteness extended to the branches of the trees, giving a phantasmagorical feeling of freshly fallen snow. All it needed was a robin with a holly twig clamped in its beak, Matthew Sparks thought as he climbed from his car and walked across to where Phil Reilly, the police doctor, was crouched over a body.
 

His presence and that of the dead body clashed with the eerily festive landscape, as did the Scene of Crime officers dressed in white coveralls going about their painstaking work—two of them closely examining the cab of a large tanker, its storage silo pointing up at the sky at an angle of forty-five degrees.
 

The tanker was another incongruity, an ugly intruder into an otherwise peaceful, rural setting.

Sparks crouched down next to the doctor and looked hard at the flour-dusted body. The area around the body was clear of the all-pervading flour. Sparks glanced around him and realized that Scott was lying in an almost perfect circle of brown earth. “What have you got for me, Phil?” he said, turning his attention back to the corpse.

“Been dead about two hours. Suffocation by the look of it.”

“Suffocation?”

“Look.” Reilly pointed at Dave Scott’s mouth, open wide in a silent scream.

The mouth was filled with densely compacted flour.

“Both nostrils are the same,” Reilly said. “Suffocation, as I say.”

There was a police constable hovering nearby, his blue serge uniform dusted with white. “Any idea who he is?” Sparks said to him.

“David Scott, driver of the tanker,” the constable said. “According to his driver’s license, he was thirty-five and lived in Burnley. 45 Thicket Rise. We’ve been on to his employer, Westmill’s, the flour company. He left their depot in Leeds at six this morning and was on his way up to Carlisle.”

“So what the hell is he doing dead in the middle of a wood?” Sparks said, almost to himself. “Any witnesses to what happened here?”

“One. An old man who was walking his dog. He saw the tanker enter the wood about seven this morning.”

“Did he see anything else?”

“He’s over there, if you want to speak to him.” The constable pointed to an elderly man wearing a green waxed jacket and holding a brown leather leash that secured a boisterous cocker spaniel.
 

Sparks wandered across to him. “The constable there tells me you saw the tanker this morning.”

The old man nodded enthusiastically. His hair was white and swept back from a lined, leathery face, and his watery blue eyes glinted excitedly. “That’s right, I did, and not for the first time.”

“You mean you’ve seen the tanker before, here in the wood?”

“Five or six times over the past eighteen months, I should say. Always the same driver.”

Sparks frowned. The track into the wood led nowhere, so it couldn’t be a shortcut. “Do you have any idea why the tanker driver should be coming through the wood?” he said.

“I should think that would be for the sex…most probably,” the old man said.

“Pardon?”

“It’s why he brought them here.”

“Brought who?”

“The women.”

Sparks looked steadily at the old man. “You’re telling me that the tanker driver brought women into the wood to have sex with them?”

“Well, I shouldn’t think they were playing Scrabble. Not the way the cab used to bounce around.”

Sparks suppressed a smile. “And did he have a woman in the cab with him this morning?”

“Of course.”

Sparks took a beat, weighing up whether he could trust the old man’s testimony. He looked reliable enough. “So did you see what happened here?”

The old man shook his head. “Sandy came upon it before I did.”

“Sandy?”

“The dog.” He reached down and ruffled the cocker spaniel’s throat. “Didn’t you, girl?” The dog panted gleefully and nudged his hand with her head when he took it away. “She came back to me with her paws covered in flour. I wondered what on earth had happened to her. She led me back here and I found this.” He made an expansive sweep with his arm. “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You didn’t happen to see where the woman went?” Sparks said.

“Woman?” The old man looked confused.

“The woman he had in the cab with him.”

“Oh, that woman. No. No sign of her.”

“Okay. Thank you. You’ve been very helpful. Perhaps you would come along to the station to give a formal statement.”

The old man nodded enthusiastically. “Of course. Anything I can do.”

“Well, thank you, Mr.…”

“Hodgson. Basil Hodgson.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hodgson. The constable will take your details and tell you when to come in.”

“There was one other thing. It might be important, but that’s for you to decide. I don’t know much about police investigations. Only what I see on the TV…and that’s not real life, is it?”

“And what would that be, Mr. Hodgson, this one other thing?”

“Well, it was Sandy. Normally she’s a curious little devil. Has her nose into everything. But not here. I could see that she hadn’t ventured very near the body and she hung back from the whole area, shaking, she was. She was better when I got her on the lead, but even then I nearly had to drag her to get her to come this far. She kicked up a terrible stink, howling, barking. It was as if she could see something I couldn’t. And whatever it was she could see was scaring the living daylights out of her. I hope that’s useful.”

“I’ll certainly bear it in mind,” Sparks said, then called the constable over to take Basil Hodgson’s details.

Back at his car he called Lacey’s mobile.

“Lacey. What is it, Matt?”

“Another suspicious death. I could handle it myself, but in light of what happened at Cavendish House this morning, I thought you might want to cast your eye over it.”

“Where are you?”

“Draper’s Wood. About a mile in. Follow the track and look out for a tanker. You can’t miss it.”

Lacey closed his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. “I’ve got to go,” he said to Carter.

“You were about to tell me about the Yardley sisters.”
 

“It’ll keep. There’s been another death. Matt’s at the scene, waiting for me. Perhaps we could have a drink later. There’s a great pub in town. The Fox and Goose. They have a fantastic choice of real ales. We could meet up there, say eight o’clock, and continue this conversation then.”

“Suits me,” Carter said.
 

A key turned in the front door lock.

“I’m back,” Annie called.

“Down here.”

Lacey was on his feet as Annie trotted down the stairs. “Oh, I didn’t realize you had company.”

“Inspector Lacey was just leaving.”

“You don’t have to go on my account,” Annie said.

“Duty calls.” Lacey turned to Carter. “Eight o’clock. I’ll see myself out.”

“Holly not with you?” Carter said as the front door closed.

“She’s staying on for another hour or so. Poor kid. She’s a wreck.”

“No change in Norton then?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got a bad feeling about it, Rob. He looks like a corpse, just lying there.”

“His mind’s retreated into itself,” Carter said. “He’s lucky to be alive. The fact that he is says a lot for his resilience. He just needs time to get over it.”

“I wish I had your confidence. What did Lacey want?”

“He had some files he wanted me to see. It seems that one member of the West Yorkshire Constabulary at least shares your concerns.”