The Shroud Maker (33 page)

He pushed the album to one side and caught sight of the photographs on the office wall. There was Jenny Bercival smiling down at him and he couldn’t help thinking of her mother. She was still in Tradmouth, still venturing out every day to the Palkin Festival studying the face of every young woman in the desperate hope that she might be Jenny.

As yet there had been no sightings of Jenny. And the ever-present possibility remained that the hungry river had claimed her on that night a year ago. Her disappearance might have been tragic rather than sinister, but before she’d vanished she’d been seen in the market square and at the edge of that square there was a flight of steps which led up to Albany Street where Miles Carthage lived. Carthage who not only illustrated Shipworld but who also devised the storylines and regarded Kassia Graylem as his muse. And then there was Pixie’s claim that Carthage was related to Chris Butcher. They needed to speak to Butcher as soon as possible.

He looked up and saw Rachel standing by his desk.

‘Scientific Support have found more stuff on Peter Joss’s computer. More e-mails from Miles Carthage telling him the storylines. Look at these. They’re dated a year ago.’

The sheet of paper she handed him was filled with extracts from e-mails. Someone, probably Rachel herself, had picked out the juicy bits so he wouldn’t have to plough through them and he felt grateful. He began to read.

‘
The Lady Morwenna is coming to the Shroud Maker tonight and he must keep her safe so that she cannot betray Palkin.’
He looked at the date – the day Jenny Bercival had vanished. He read on. ‘The Shroud Maker will keep the Lady Morwenna secure and feast upon her beauty. None must know she is held in the Cave of Adron.’

There were more story outlines: elves, battles, beautiful wraiths who were once maidens in thrall to the Shroud Maker. All things that Gerry would have dismissed as nonsense. Then about ten days ago a message had been sent saying that another maiden was in need of protection, one beautiful enough to tempt any man. Her name was Alicia and she wore a gown of blue velvet.

‘These e-mails weren’t on Carthage’s computer.’

‘He must have deleted them, which is suspicious in itself, don’t you think? We can get Scientific Support to have a look.’ She looked rather pleased with herself. ‘There’s something else. I asked someone to run a check on Carthage and it turns out he actually owns that house on Albany Street. He inherited it from a great-uncle four years ago. The great-uncle was a recluse who was related to Josiah Palkin-Wright. The house has been in the same family for over a century.’

Wesley turned round to face her. ‘Carthage led us to believe that he just rented the first-floor flat. Wonder why that was.’

‘I’ll organise a search warrant for the house shall I?’ said Rachel.

As soon as Wesley had nodded his assent Rachel made for Gerry’s office and he watched as she broke the news. Gerry took his feet off his desk and straightened his back, all attention. Wesley knew he’d be impatient to question Carthage and search his house. But they had to follow procedure. One slip-up could ruin everything.

Neil sensed that Chris Butcher was losing patience with the excavation he’d seemed so keen to encourage a few weeks before. He’d announced that morning that he was anxious for the builders to make a start so that the work could be completed before the weather deteriorated. The implication was that he wanted Neil and his team out. Maybe the novelty of buying a house on a site occupied since the Middle Ages had worn thin.

Since the night she’d visited the house Astrid had treated him with a distant coolness, as though she found the memory of her confidences embarrassing. Neil, however, was too busy recording the site for posterity and making sure the correct procedures were followed to worry too much about Butcher’s domestic life.

Sacha had been in touch at last with the dating results for the skeletons. The young females had both died between the years 1870 and 1915, which raised as many questions as it answered. Neil hadn’t heard from Sacha again since her call, which didn’t particularly worry him. He didn’t like the woman and it wouldn’t bother him if he never worked with her again.

But he was curious about those bones, about why they were there and who was responsible for the deaths, because Sacha was certain that they were murder victims. For a while he’d thought they might be Palkin’s two missing wives, the ones mentioned in
The Sea Devil
. Now it seemed the mystery was more recent.

He’d made some calls and discovered that, at the time the women were buried, the land and the boathouse had belonged to Josiah Palkin-Wright, the author who had claimed descent from the great man. He needed to find out more about Palkin-Wright, to know whether he was linked to the bodies or whether they’d just been deposited in his disused boathouse by an opportunist.

Most of the evidence for John Palkin’s life, the evidence that inspired the Shipworld website and the festival, had come from Palkin-Wright’s work. He’d been a man with an obsession who’d regarded John Palkin as some sort of hero. And he’d delved into the minutiae of the medieval Mr Big’s life, obtaining source material that, as far as Neil – and even Annabel – knew hadn’t been seen or referred to before or since. Somewhere, Neil thought, these documents might still exist. Or had they only existed in the mind of the author?

On his way back from visiting Wesley the previous evening he’d walked past North Lodge and stopped to read the plaque beside the front door. Although the house appeared to have been split into flats at some point in its history, it didn’t seem to have undergone any violent modernisation over the years. Palkin-Wright’s possessions would probably have been disposed of a century ago but there was always a slender chance that some trunk might have been overlooked and abandoned in some forgotten corner of a dusty attic. Now the dig was coming to an end he was feeling restless; and he was eager to see inside that house.

He walked through streets that were virtually deserted and when he reached the house he tried the bell with the name M Carthage printed neatly beside it. If, by any remote chance, anything had been left behind, it would probably be in the attic and there was a chance the tenant might have access.

When there was no answer he pressed the unlabelled bottom bell and heard it sounding somewhere in the depths of the building. He waited a while but when nothing happened he started to walk away, turning to look up at the two small dusty windows just below the roof.

He was imagining the things that might still be nestling in the tall white house, things that could lead him to the truth about John Palkin, when he almost collided with a man who was approaching the front door. He was probably in his thirties, pale with black hair, and he had a leather bag slung over his left shoulder’

‘Do you live here?’

The man looked wary, as if he suspected Neil was about to rob him. ‘Why?’

Neil began to explain about the excavation and the bones. Most people, in his experience, were only too happy to help solve a historical mystery – even to the point of sharing his enthusiasm. But the man listened, expressionless, his eyes focused on something in the distance.

‘I notice there’s an attic. Probably the old servants’ quarters. I know it’s a long shot but I was wondering whether the former owner, Josiah Palkin-Wright, left anything behind.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about that. I just rent the first-floor flat.’

‘Does anyone live in the attic?’

‘No. It’s empty.’

‘Who’s the landlord?’

The man had taken a key from his pocket and was about to unlock the door when he froze. ‘Someone from London. Can’t remember his name.’

This wasn’t much use. But Neil wasn’t giving up. ‘You must have his details. If I can get his permission to see up there…’

‘I’m sorry, I’m busy.’ The man opened the door and slipped inside, leaving Neil standing on the doorstep feeling foolish.

He turned to go. Now that he thought about it, it seemed increasingly unlikely that anything from Palkin-Wright’s era remained in the house, especially if the place had been bought as an investment by a London landlord.

He reached the bottom of the road, heading back to the dig, when he saw a couple of familiar figures walking towards him. Wesley and Gerry were followed by a brace of uniformed constables, one tall and one small.

As they approached Neil waited in the centre of the road. He saw that Wesley’s face was serious with no smile of greeting.

‘Not at the dig?’ Wesley asked.

‘I’m on my way back there. I’ve just been to Josiah Palkin-Wright’s old house. That book I showed you last night – remember I said he must have had access to original documents? Well, I wondered whether they’d been squirrelled away in some forgotten corner of his attic. I called but the guy in the first-floor flat says the place belongs to some landlord in London, which means that if there was anything, it was probably disposed of years ago.

Wesley and Gerry looked at each other. ‘What did this man look like?’ Gerry asked.

Neil provided a description of Miles Carthage. He had lied to Neil about the landlord, and Wesley wondered why.

‘We’re going there now,’ Wesley said.

‘If you get in, can you have a look in the attic?’ Neil said, half joking.

‘We’ve got a search warrant so we’ll be looking everywhere,’ said Gerry.

For once Neil was lost for words. Should he hang about in the hope of seeing inside the house? Or would the police think he was cramping their style or committing some technical crime against procedure? As it was Wesley and Gerry, he decided to take the risk and when they made for North Lodge he followed a little way behind and hovered on the pavement as they climbed the front steps.

Gerry rang the bell and hammered on the door but there was no answer. After a full minute, he gave up and turned to Neil. ‘You’re sure he’s in?’

‘He went in ten minutes ago but he could have slipped out again and headed the other way.’

‘Do we break it down, sir?’ said the smaller constable, eager for action.

Gerry shook his head and to Neil’s surprise he took a leather pouch from his jacket pocket and held it up triumphantly. ‘A present from a grateful ex-con,’ he said before emptying the contents of the pouch into the palm of his hand. ‘He was kind enough to teach me the fine art of lock-picking.’

He dangled the skeleton keys from his fingers and turned to Neil. ‘You can wait for us to give you the all clear then you can have a look for your old papers.’ He grinned at Wesley as if delighted by his own generosity, then started fiddling with the lock.

If Gerry was up for it, Neil wasn’t going to argue.

Wesley stood at the foot of the attic stairs and looked upwards. It was dark up there and the single panelled wooden door at the top was in deep shadow. He had a sudden sense of evil which he swiftly dismissed as nonsense. An overactive imagination.

Gerry was already at the top, trying the skeleton keys in the lock. Wesley held his breath. Then he heard a telltale click.

To Gerry’s surprise the door swung open smoothly, as if the hinges had been oiled. Wesley climbed the stairs to join him. Beyond the door was a spacious room and in the light streaming in from the two windows, filthy with years of grime, he could see it was unfurnished, the floorboards dusty and bare. There was a cast-iron fireplace on the far wall with a built-in cupboard to the right. Wesley’s first thought was, that if Carthage owned the place, he was wasting money by not making it into a self-contained flat and letting it out to holiday visitors. The room was empty and he knew Neil would be disappointed that there was nothing here that might move his research forward.

Neil wasn’t the only one who had in interest in what they might find from Palkin-Wright’s day. Palkin-Wright had owned the boathouse where those murdered women had been buried during his lifetime. The skeletons were too old to concern the police but they remained at the back of Wesley’s mind.

‘There’s a door over there,’ Gerry said, nudging his arm.

When Wesley opened the door he found more of the same. The room was completely empty. Another door led on to a tiny bathroom, unmodernised and lined with cracked white tiles.