To his astonishment, when they walked into Alice’s living room, Ewan Rigston was settled in an armchair, a mug of tea in his hand. He hadn’t seen Rigston for years, but he recognised him instantly. Alice jumped up from the floor and steered him and Jenny into the kitchen. ‘What’s he doing here?’ Jimmy demanded.
‘I know this is going to come as a shock, Jimmy, but the police think Edith and the others might have been murdered,’ Alice said, throwing a concerned look at Jenny.
‘That’s why Jenny’s here,’ Jimmy said. ‘Jane Gresham thinks she might be next.’
Alice looked ready to burst into tears. ‘Christ, Jimmy, what’s going on?’
‘It’s a long story,’ he said. ‘And Jenny’s tired. She needs to stay here for a few days.’
‘You don’t have to talk about me as if I’m not here, young Jimmy,’ Jenny snapped. ‘I can speak for myself. Alice, I need somewhere to stop. Can you put me up?’
‘Of course,’ Alice said distractedly. ‘I’ll show you to the spare room.’
‘All in good time,’ Jenny said. ‘Jimmy, be a good lad and get me a brandy.’
Jimmy cast his eyes heavenwards and went back into the living room where Alice had set out the drink. This time, Ewan Rigston caught his eye over the heads of what Jimmy thought of as the council of elders. ‘Jimmy,’ he said in greeting.
Jimmy nodded. ‘Shouldn’t you be out there trying to catch the person who’s killing my family?’ he asked mildly, reaching for the brandy.
‘I’m trying to do just that.’
‘You won’t find them in here.’ Jimmy poured a generous measure into a glass.
‘Your family are filling in some background for me. I’m trying to get a picture of what happened before the deaths. Funny thing is, your pal Jane Gresham keeps turning up like a bad penny.’
If Rigston had intended to needle Jimmy, he hit the mark. ‘Yeah. And her and Dan are victims here too,’ he said defiantly.
‘Who’s Dan?’
‘Her colleague, Dan Seabourne.’ Jimmy could feel the colour rising in his cheeks and hoped Rigston would put it down to anger.
‘How do you reckon them as victims, then?’ Rigston asked.
‘Somebody’s hijacking their work. And they’re making Jane look like the villain of the piece in the process. You should be getting her to help you, not insinuating that she’s part of the problem.’
‘Jimmy,’ his mother said, her tone a warning. ‘Ewan’s just doing his job.’
‘Is he? Then why was it up to me to take care of Jenny? If he had the sense he was born with, he’d be getting Jane’s list off her and making sure nobody else dies.’
‘Don’t tell me how to do my job, Jimmy.’
‘Somebody needs to,’ Jimmy said contemptuously. ‘If it wasn’t for Jane, Jenny would be sitting in her cottage waiting for a killer to show up. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take her a drink.’ He turned to find Jenny in the doorway, smiling at him for the first time all day.
‘Well said, lad. I expected better from you, Ewan Rigston. If it hadn’t been for Jimmy here, I could be dead in my bed. It’s time you put a stop to this nonsense. Now, Jimmy, suppose you show me to Alice’s spare room?’
Tenille was at war with herself. She’d had two major shocks on her most recent excursions and she didn’t want a third. But she still felt like she owed Jane for taking care of business. Besides, she couldn’t take constant confinement. So if she was going to go out anyway, didn’t it make sense to do something useful at the same time? And what were the chances of running into another burglar two nights running?
The decision made itself in the end. She’d become accustomed to sleeping at times other than the dead of night and now sleep just wouldn’t come when it was supposed to. She gave up tossing and turning just before midnight and headed out towards Coniston. Copperhead Cottage took a bit of finding, but she was relieved to discover it had no near neighbours, especially once she realised it wasn’t going to be easy to get into. After lengthy attempts to pick the locks front and back, she finally gave up. All of the windows were locked. She circled the house again, desperately looking for a way in, on the point of giving up altogether.
It was a cat that showed her the way. A long-haired white cat came shooting out of the shrubbery, leapt on to a garden bench and from there, on to the roof of a lean-to shed that abutted the gable end. The cat scrabbled up the slates and on to a window sill. As it disappeared inside, Tenille realised the window was open a few inches. She clambered up on to the back of the bench and reached for the guttering. It wobbled, but it took her weight. She managed to haul herself on to the roof at the third attempt, then crawled gingerly up the slippery slates, swearing under her breath.
When she reached the window, she clung to the sill as if it were a lifebelt in a stormy sea. She peered in, not wanting to raise the window if it was some old biddy’s bedroom. She couldn’t see much, but it was enough to know the room was empty, a bare mattress on an iron bedstead the only indication that this had once been a place where people slept.
Bracing herself against the roof, she pushed the window sash upwards. It creaked and groaned, but not enough to freak her out. Tenille slid across the sill and landed softly on the carpeted floor. Cautiously she crossed the room, almost tripping over the white cat, who was weaving round her ankles purring.
On the landing there were more cats, their yellow eyes gleaming. There was a faint aroma of cat piss and stale meat in the air. To her surprise, all the doors off the landing were open, and she could see that none of the curtains had been drawn. A quick circuit upstairs and down revealed that the house was empty. She breathed a huge sigh of relief. For once, it was going to be easy.
She started in the only bedroom that showed signs of occupancy. A thorough search revealed nothing of interest. The second bedroom told the same story. In the third room, however, Tenille found an old brass-bound chest. It seemed to contain nothing but old photographs. But when she lifted them out, she noticed the chest seemed shallower on the inside than it ought to have been. She risked carrying it through to the landing, closing all the doors and turning on the light. When she looked more closely, she saw a thin leather loop in one corner of the bottom. She yanked on it and the whole base lifted up, revealing an inch-deep hiding place.
Tenille lifted out a thin bundle of papers. The paper was thick and brittle, yellowing round the edges. It smelled of dust and dry cleaners. It was covered in old-fashioned handwriting, all loops and curls. She could hardly make it out at first. Then the opening words jumped out at her. I am minded tonight of the time we spent at Alfoxden, & the suspicion that fell upon Coleridge and myself, viz. That we were agents of the enemy, gathering information as spies for Bonaparte. I recall Coleridge’s assertion that it was beyond the bounds of good sense to give credence to the notion that poets were suited for such an endeavour since we see all before us as matter for our verse & would have no inclination to hold any secrets to our breasts that might serve our calling.
There should be trumpets or drums or something, she thought stupidly. Trumpets or drums or the Hallelujah chorus. This was the real deal. What she was holding in her hand had been written by one of the greatest poets the world had ever seen. Hardly anybody had ever set eyes on it. And she was touching it, smelling it, reading it. She’d have died before she admitted it, but Tenille felt exhilaration and exultation. She sat back on her heels and drank it in greedily.
She had no idea how long she crouched there, overwhelmed with it all. She felt drunk with excitement. But at last she came to herself and realised she had to get back to Jane with this news. She was tempted to walk out with the whole manuscript, but she knew instinctively that was the wrong way to play it. She thumbed through the papers, checking to see if there was a poem tucked in between the prose jottings. But no. All she could find were notes. What if she took one of the pages from near the middle? Then Jane would know she was telling the truth. And it would be worth all the hassle t
o see the look on her face when she realised what she was looking at.
Tenille chose a page at random and carefully placed it between her T-shirt and her sweatshirt. Then she put everything back as she had found it, carefully replacing the chest exactly where it had been so as not to disturb the dust around it. She felt giddy with delight as she made her way back to the cat window.
The chill night air and the prospect of getting down from the roof sobered her up. She eased the window back down and spreadeagled herself on the tiles. Inch by careful inch she made her way down the roof. When she reached the edge, she realised she was going to have to drop to the ground; the bench was too far from the wall to lower herself back on to it.
Tenille didn’t care. She felt invincible. She hung from the guttering then let go. It was only a few feet, and she landed safely in soft earth. As she staggered upright, heavy hands descended on her from both sides. Snarling, she struggled to free herself, but it was pointless. Her assailants were bigger, stronger and heavier. Within seconds, she was face down in the dirt, her arms pulled roughly behind her.
She felt cold plastic against her skin as a voice said, ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of burglary.’
Tenille’s face screwed up in frustration. ‘Ah, shit.’
My hiding place afforded me some sense of safety, which was needful to me as I was in no condition, to load a boat & set sail on the treacherous waters that beset Pitcairn. For some days I had little choice but to remain in hiding, feverish & weak. My head throbbed constantly & my shoulder burned. Under cover of night, I forced myself down to the waters edge to bathe my wound, but that was the only sortie I dared. I knew my best chance of survival was to disappear completely from sight The natives were too simple to understand that I might have survived to escape after they had taken me for dead. As to the disappearance of my body, I trusted Isabella to concoct some tale & this she must have done for I never saw nor heard any signs of a search party.
39
Rigston glowered across the table at the mutinous child opposite. He’d had to wait for an appropriate adult to arrive before he could interview her, and the duty social worker had taken his time to get to the station. The kid had had three hours in a cell to contemplate her options. He hoped it had softened her up a little.
He’d gone through the formalities with the tape, but Tenille had refused to confirm her identity. ‘I ain’t saying one damn thing to you, Mister Man,’ was all she had offered.
‘You’re doing yourself no good,’ Rigston said. ‘I know you are Tenille Cole. I know you’re wanted by the police in London in connection with a murder and an arson down there. We’ve taken your fingerprints and they match the ones the Met sent us. It’s only a matter of time before they arrive to take you back down there. Unless of course you’d care to explain your connection to four suspicious deaths up here, in which case I’ll be hanging on to you.’
She glared at him from under lowered brows. He couldn’t fathom her. Most thirteen-year-olds he dealt with were sufficiently intimidated by their surroundings and his presence to fold like a house of cards. But she was a tough customer, no question of that. Not much older than his own daughter, but she could have been from another planet.
‘We’ve been processing crime scenes all night, Tenille,’ he said, more gently this time. ‘We found your prints all over their homes–Edith Clewlow, Tillie Swain, Eddie Fairfield and Letty Brownrigg. You were in their houses. But there’s no sign of anything having been stolen, so you weren’t there for any ordinary burglary. And now we find you climbing out of Jenny Wright’s cottage with a sheet of paper that looks pretty old to me. Would you like to talk about that?’
Tenille shook her head.
‘For the benefit of the tape, Tenille Cole has shaken her head to indicate a negative.’
Rigston rolled up his shirtsleeves and leaned his meaty forearms on the table. He dropped his voice confidentially. ‘See, here’s how I think it went down. Jane Gresham’s been hiding you. I mean, why else would a London sparrow like you come up here? And Jane Gresham is on a quest. A quest she’s roped you into. She thinks somebody up here has something she wants very badly. And when she couldn’t dig it out the conventional way, she sent you in to look for it. Is that how it went down?’
Tenille made a small noise of contempt and shifted in her seat so she didn’t have to meet his eyes.
‘Only, things got out of hand. In all of those houses where Jane got you searching, somebody died. You’re in big trouble, Tenille. But we can maybe find a way to make it go easier for you. I think Jane Gresham put you up to this. She told you what to do, how to do it so nobody would know it was murder. And that lets you off the hook a bit. You’re just a kid. You were doing what Jane Gresham asked because you were frightened that, if you didn’t, she’d hand you over to the police for Geno Marley’s murder. That’s called coercion, and it would make things easier on you.’
Tenille turned her face back to him, defiance written on her features. ‘That’s called bullshit,’ she said. ‘And that’s all I have to say.’ She turned to the social worker. ‘You better get me a lawyer. You’re no use to me, man.’ She folded her arms and leaned back in the chair, studying the ceiling.
‘You going to take the rap for Jane Gresham?’ Rigston said. ‘Very loyal. I wonder if she’ll be as loyal to you? I bet you’re going to end up carrying the can for all of this, Tenille. You’re an easy target. Truanting black kid, bastard love child of a big-time gangsta. You’re going to take the fall for your nice middle-class university lecturer. While you’re spending the foreseeable future banged up, she’s going to be making a name for herself with the manuscript you found.’
She flashed him a quick look of contempt.
Rigston laughed. ‘You reckon that’s not how it’s going to play? I thought you’d have more street smarts than that. Jane Gresham will walk, and you will not. That’s the bottom line.’
‘I think you’re badgering her now,’ the social worker said. ‘If you’ve got some evidence, let’s be having it.’
‘I’ve got evidence of burglary,’ Rigston said. ‘My men were staking out Jenny Wright’s cottage. They were waiting for a killer. Looks like they got one too. But until we can firm up that part of the case, we’ve still got Tenille for burglary. And we’ll be keeping her locked up for now.’ He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘Interview terminated at three fifty-three a.m., Inspector Rigston and Constable Whitrow leaving the room.’ He suited his actions to his words and walked out into the corridor.
‘You didn’t pull any punches there, guv,’ Whitrow said.
Rigston ran a hand over his face, rubbing his tired eyes. ‘For all the good it did me. Can you believe that kid is thirteen? Hard as nails and tough as old boots. Doesn’t even need to get lawyered up to know to keep her mouth shut.’ He set off down the corridor. ‘Let’s shake the tree a bit and see what falls out. Send a couple of uniforms out to Fellhead and bring Jane Gresham in.’
‘You want them to arrest her, or just ask her to come in for questioning?’
‘Arrest her. Let’s get her on the back foot. Conspiracy to burgle, that should do it. She’s not got the equipment to stonewall us like Tenille Cole. Let’s scare the shit out of her. I’ve got four dead bodies on my patch and I want some movement.’ Rigston swung into his office and closed the door firmly behind him.
Shocked awake by the ringing of the bell and the hammering on the door, Jane winced as she sat up in bed, stiff and disorientated. The bedside clock showed four twenty-three. What the hell was going on? She struggled out of bed, groaning as her bruised muscles complained. Grabbing her dressing gown, she opened the bedroom door. Her mother stood at the top of the stairs, her face blurred by sleep, her expression bewildered. She could hear her father’s tread on the stairs. ‘I’m coming,’ he bellowed.
She heard the door open and Allan’s startled, ‘What’s going on?’ over the clatter of boots on the stone flags of the hallway.
‘W
e’re looking for Jane Gresham,’ a male voice said.
‘Is she on the premises?’ a female voice added.
Judy turned a startled face on her daughter. ‘It’s the police.’
Jane pushed past her and took a few steps down the stairs. Her father had his back to the wall. He kept repeating his original question. Two uniformed police officers occupied the rest of the space, the confined area rendering them even more unnerving than their uniforms and bulky utility belts.
‘I’m Jane Gresham,’ she said quietly. ‘What’s all the commotion?’
The woman officer stepped forward. ‘Jane Gresham, I am arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to commit burglary. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be given in evidence.’
Jane stared open-mouthed, too astonished to feel anything other than shock.