Dead Man's Lane

Book 23: DI Wesley Peterson

by Kate Ellis

Genres: Police Procedurals

Synopsis

Strangefields Farm is notorious for its sinister history ever since serial killer Jackson Temples lured young women to the premises, and the girls never left alive. Now, decades later, Strangefields is being transformed into a holiday village, but the developer's hopes of its dark past being forgotten are ruined when a skull is found on the site. Police suspect it belongs to one of Temples' victims and, when a local florist is found murdered in an echo of Temples' crimes, DI Wesley Peterson fears a copy-cat killer could be at large.

Release date: February 7, 2019

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 400

Sample

Linda Payne knew how to die convincingly. She’d yielded to the strangler’s rope so many times that it had become second nature. She’d perfected the look of innocent terror as her executioner approached with the noose in his outstretched hands. She’d even mastered a brief display of final defiance, showing the ultimate triumph of virtue over evil obsession.

She knew her lines off by heart after reciting them to herself for weeks while she made up the bouquets she sold in her little florist’s shop opposite Tradmouth Market. Her assistant, Jen, probably thought she was mad but when you’d been entrusted with the title role it was vital to get everything right.

It was dark by the time she’d said farewell to her fellow actors and left Tradmouth’s Arts Centre, glad she’d managed to bag a parking space nearby. She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime because she’d stayed late in the shop to deal with the flowers for a funeral the following day so she was hungry and eager to get home. But food wasn’t the only thing on her mind.

As she drove she muttered her lines to herself. Even so, it was another character’s speech from Act Five that echoed around her head; words so fitting for her situation that Webster might have written them with her in mind.

‘I suffer now for what hath former been: sorrow is held to be the eldest child of sin.’

At one time, many years ago, Linda had known plenty of sin and sorrow and she’d been trying to forget about them ever since. But who had really sinned? The answer to that question had once seemed so clear but now she wasn’t so certain.

When she arrived at her cottage just outside Neston she noticed a small dark car parked a little way down the lane, tucked into a passing place with its lights off. For a brief moment its presence struck her as strange but she put it out of her mind as she pulled into the gate and brought her little florist’s van to a halt by the front door.

She had first seen the cottage in the kinder weather of midsummer and she’d fallen in love with the place. Now, fifteen months later, the windows were letting in draughts and the place felt damp. Autumn was here and the branches of the green trees would soon be reaching naked to the sky like grasping skeletal hands. At this time of year she regretted her home’s isolation, especially in the hours of darkness.

Keys at the ready, she opened the front door but as she crossed the threshold she sensed a movement to her left. Someone was there, waiting in the shadows, and she wondered whether the moment she’d dreaded for so many years had finally arrived. The moment when she’d be called upon to pay the price for another’s sins.

‘Hi. This is Tradmouth Community Radio broadcasting to you this chilly Monday evening. Still, the weather’s not too bad for October and, according to the forecast, there’ll be no rain and a gentle breeze till the weekend so for all you yachting types out there it’s sailor’s delight.’

The presenter took a breath as he fumbled for the correct switch.

‘I see we have another caller on the line. Hi, caller, tell us your name.’

There was an awkward silence.

‘We have a shy one here. What’s your name and where are you calling from?’ the presenter said, hiding his irritation behind forced jocularity. It wasn’t the first time a caller had lost their nerve at the prospect of being on air and it always annoyed him. Didn’t they know he was trying to make a programme – that if things went well he might get a chance to make it to BBC local radio?

‘Are you still there, caller? Don’t be coy. We’re all friends here.’

‘Hello.’ It was a man’s voice. Gruff and local.

This one needed a little coaxing. ‘Where are you calling from?’ A direct question usually did the trick.

‘I don’t want to say. It’s just that I’ve found a body – bones, like. He told us not to say anything but—’

The line went dead but the presenter broke the silence, feeling pleased with himself for his quick thinking. ‘Well, it looks like we’ve got a mystery on our hands, folks. Perhaps we should all be “Watching the Detectives” – and here’s Elvis Costello to help us do just that.’

He started the track and called the police. The caller had sounded frightened so it was something he felt he couldn’t ignore.

‘Someone’s handed this in at the front desk. Says he found it on the steps outside.’

Detective Inspector Wesley Peterson looked up from his paperwork to see DS Rachel Tracey standing by his desk holding a dirty green plastic bag at arm’s length so it wouldn’t soil her crisp white shirt.

‘Don’t keep me in suspense. What’s in it?’

‘You did archaeology at university so it could be right up your street.’ She looked round. ‘We’d better put something on your desk before I … ’

She spotted an unused exhibits bag on a nearby filing cabinet and cleared a space on Wesley’s desk for it before donning a pair of crime-scene gloves and lifting the skull carefully from its carrier bag as a cascade of dried soil trickled down. She placed it on the desk with exaggerated care and looked at Wesley expectantly, awaiting his verdict.

He studied it for a while before he too put on a pair of gloves and picked it up to examine it more closely.

‘Judging by those brow ridges, it looks female to me, although I could be wrong. Possibly youngish. No dental work. It could well be old and none of our business but it’ll take an expert to confirm that for sure. Was the person who left it caught on CCTV?’

‘I’ll ask someone to check,’ said Rachel, suppressing a yawn.

‘You look tired. You’re not overdoing the wedding preparations, are you?’

‘I’m fine.’ She wasn’t going to tell him that the mention of her coming wedding filled her with apprehension, especially when that reminder came from Wesley. ‘Have you heard the latest? Someone rang the Community Radio station last night to say they’d found a body – or rather bones.’

‘Could this skull be connected?’

Rachel shrugged. Anything was possible. ‘They’ve sent over a recording of the call. Caller doesn’t say much, mind you.’

‘Man or woman?’

‘Man. Sounds local. Wonder why they didn’t call us.’

‘Could be someone who doesn’t like the police for some reason. We should play it to the boss. He might recognise the voice,’ Wesley said, knowing DCI Gerry Heffernan’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the area’s criminals, petty and otherwise. ‘I want this skull taken to Dr Bowman at the mortuary and the bag it was in sent to Forensics for thorough examination. If I’m wrong about it being old, we need to know.’

However, by the end of the day Wesley was none the wiser. The call to the radio station had been made from an unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile and even though Gerry said the caller’s voice was vaguely familiar, he hadn’t been able to place it.

‘The line “he told us not to say anything” interests me,’ said Wesley as he sat down by Gerry’s desk. ‘It suggests more than one person found these bones, if they exist. And who told them to keep quiet?’

Gerry looked up from his paperwork. ‘Could be someone’s idea of a joke.’

‘The skull’s real enough.’

‘Didn’t you say it was old?’

‘That was my first impression, but it would need to be examined by an expert.’

‘Then let’s hope you’re right and it’s not our problem.’

Wesley left Gerry’s office wishing he could feel so confident.

Whenever Grace Compton remembered her distant teenage years she thought of Wesley Peterson. Growing up in Dulwich she’d seen him regularly at the local church attended by her family and his; a church popular with the West Indian community. They’d been members of the same youth club and Wesley’s mother had been her GP back then. Although the Petersons hailed from Trinidad and her own parents from Barbados, the two families had been close and Wesley’s sister, Maritia, had been one of her best friends while they were at school. Then, like a lot of youthful friendships, they’d grown apart once they went their separate ways: she up to Manchester University to read architecture; Maritia to Oxford to read medicine and Wesley to Exeter to study archaeology.

She was still in occasional touch with Maritia who, like Wesley, had settled in Devon and was now married to a vicar. Maritia had a young son but whenever they communicated Grace rarely asked after the child, preferring instead the subject of her own glittering career as partner in a top London architectural practice. Over the past couple of years she’d persuaded herself that she pitied Maritia; that it was a dreadful shame that such a talented woman doctor was shut away in some rural backwater working as a part-time GP when she could be carving out a brilliant career in some metropolitan teaching hospital just as her father, the distinguished cardiac surgeon Mr Joshua Peterson, had done.

As for Wesley, she’d been astonished when he’d chosen to study archaeology at university and even more surprised when he’d decided to join the police force. The Petersons were clever and, in Grace’s opinion, they hadn’t made the most of their gifts. Even so, there were times when she wondered whether they were more content with their lot than she was.

Grace had dated Wesley for a short period during their adolescent years and whenever she contacted Maritia she could never resist asking about him. In fact she had a nagging suspicion that Wesley was one of the reasons she’d kept in touch with her old friend – but Grace had never been one to acknowledge her own weaknesses, and Wesley Peterson might have become a major weakness if things had worked out differently.

Then two years ago something had happened to make her realise that her feelings for Wesley had been little more than a schoolgirl crush. Someone else had entered her life; someone who’d shaken her ordered professional existence to the core. But when tragedy had struck she’d worked hard to convince herself that her former instincts had been right all along. Love only causes pain and you’re better off without it.

Once what she termed her ‘moment of madness’ was over, she’d poured her energies into her work creating new buildings – her contribution to posterity. The Compton Wynyard Partnership had grown in size and prestige and had recently been awarded the contract to design an exclusive new holiday village nestling in the rolling countryside two miles outside the port of Tradmouth; a project that would keep her and her staff occupied for quite a while to come.

According to the plans there were to be twenty-five luxury cottages, each blended into the landscape with glass frontages and curved turf roofs, all clustered around a Jacobean farmhouse that was to be refurbished to provide seven luxury apartments – an attractive historic centrepiece to the development. No expense would be spared by the developer Hamer Holdings and the model on public display in the local planning office looked extremely impressive, even though she said so herself.

The Strangefields Farm development was Grace’s baby and she felt protective towards it, wounded by every objection and annoyed by every interference by the local Planning Department – and by the County Archaeological Unit which had become involved because of the historic nature of the site.

Courtesy of the developer, she was staying in the Marina Hotel in Tradmouth and, as Maritia – and Wesley – lived in the area, she knew she ought to seize the opportunity to catch up with the brother and sister who, at one time, had played such a major role in her life. It had taken her a couple of days to get round to making the call and now, as she tapped out Maritia’s number, she realised to her surprise that she felt nervous.

‘Hi Maritia. It’s me … Grace.’

‘Hello, Grace. How are you?’ Maritia said, clearly pleased to hear her old friend’s voice.

‘You’re not going to believe this but I’m in Tradmouth working on that new holiday village on Dead Man’s Lane. I don’t know whether you’ve heard about it but it’s been keeping me incredibly busy. Having said that, I’m hoping to have some free time over the next few days so do you fancy getting together?’

‘How about tomorrow?’

Maritia sounded keen, something Grace put down to a longing to escape her humdrum existence for a few hours.

‘I’ll check my diary. I’ve got to meet one of the subcontractors but … ’ She paused, not wanting to seem too available. ‘Lunchtime tomorrow’s OK. How about grabbing something to eat in Tradmouth? My treat.’

‘Perfect. I’ve swapped my day off tomorrow with one of the other doctors but Dominic’s still booked in at the childminder’s so I’m free all day. I can recommend a lovely little Italian place.’

‘Italian sounds good. How’s Wesley?’ she asked, trying her best to make the question sound casual.

‘He’s fine. Busy as usual.’

After more pleasantries Grace heard a toddler shouting for attention in the background – then a scream and a howling cry.

‘I’ll have to go,’ Maritia said. ‘See you tomorrow. Twelve thirty.’

Grace heard the dialling tone and felt unexpectedly irritated that her friend’s priorities had so clearly changed. She suspected that when they met the following day they might have little in common – apart from Wesley. They’d always have him.

That night in her well-appointed hotel room Grace didn’t sleep well. She was turning over in her mind the questions she was planning to ask and rehearsing how she was going to bring up the subject at the forefront of her mind.

She kept telling herself she was a professional woman at the top of her game, not the sort of person who saw things that weren’t there. But when she met Maritia the next day she knew she would be tempted to tell her what she thought she’d seen.

As she dozed she saw herself leaning over their restaurant table and whispering the words: ‘You’re not going to believe this, Maritia, but I’ve seen a dead man.’

The CCTV footage from the police station entrance showed a dark figure in a hoodie dropping the plastic bag on the steps and scurrying off as though the devil himself was after him. Gerry thought it was probably a man but beneath that hood it could have been anybody.

The fingerprint results from the bag containing the skull proved more helpful. When Wesley arrived at the station first thing the next morning he made himself comfortable and scanned the message that had just come in. Clear prints had been found on the bag – and those prints were on record.

Gerry Heffernan was already in his office. When Wesley had first transferred to Tradmouth from the Met, the DCI’s timekeeping had become erratic in the aftermath of his wife Kathy’s death. But now Joyce Barnes had moved in with him he usually turned up before the rest of the team. Rachel reckoned Joyce had been a beneficial influence and Wesley agreed. She’d put a stop to the gnawing loneliness the boss had tried so hard to conceal while he’d been on his own.

He gave a token knock on Gerry’s office door which he usually kept open so as to hear what was going on in the main office.

‘Tell me we’ve got a lead on this bastard, Wes,’ Gerry said, looking up from the paperwork that seemed to have multiplied on his desk overnight.

‘Which particular bastard are we talking about?’ Wesley said, sitting down opposite Gerry. ‘We have quite a few on our books.’

‘This burglar who’s been targeting the elderly. Nine cases, all within a ten-mile radius of Neston. No prints or DNA and nothing on CCTV. Mind you, he likes to take jewellery which means he’ll need to get rid of it sooner or later,’ Gerry added with a note of optimism.

‘We’re keeping an eye on all the pawnbrokers and jewellers in the area.’

Gerry rolled his eyes. ‘Unless he goes further afield to get rid of it.’

‘He’s bound to slip up eventually,’ said Wesley, eager to change the subject. ‘You know that skull someone left on our doorstep?’

‘What about it?’

‘The bag it was found in has been examined for fingerprints and there’s a lovely clear set belonging to an old friend of ours. Glen Crowther.’

Gerry snorted. ‘Glen “someone must have fitted me up” Crowther. I presume he’s out.’

‘Yes, and word has it he’s kept his nose clean since his last stay in one of Her Majesty’s hotels. You’ve always had a soft spot for Glen, haven’t you?’

‘Me?’ Gerry squirmed in his seat, as though he’d been caught doing something shameful. ‘Well, I admit I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for him. While I was stationed in Morbay I had dealings with his old mum and she was a nightmare: booze, drugs, dodgy men – you name it, she did it. And Glen’s never used violence, which is a point in his favour.’

Wesley was only too aware that the boss tried to hide his softer side from both villains and underlings. But it was there alright. ‘I’ve heard he’s working on a building site. When I track him down would you like to come with me … renew old acquaintance?’

Gerry shook his head. ‘No, Wes, I’ll leave it to you. Take Rach. She’s looking a bit peaky these days so the fresh air might do her good. Any news on the skull itself?’

‘It’s with Colin Bowman at the moment. There were traces of soil attached to it which suggests it’s been buried at some point. An osteoarchaeologist or a forensic anthropologist will be able to tell us more once Colin’s finished with it.’

‘Think we should start going through our missing persons files?’

‘Let’s see what the experts say first.’ Wesley paused. ‘I’m wondering if it could be connected to that phone call to the radio station. The caller said bones. What if someone’s sent us a sample? And where’s the rest of the body, that’s what I want to know.’

According to Glen Crowther’s probation officer he’d found himself a job at the new holiday village development about two miles outside Tradmouth.

He was driving up the hill, heading out of town with Rachel in the passenger seat, when she broke the amicable silence. ‘Strangefields Farm. That’s where that serial killer, Jackson Temples, used to live.’

A distant and unpleasant memory emerged from the hazy recesses of Wesley’s mind. ‘That’s right. I remember now.’

He’d first heard the name Strangefields Farm while he was working in London, a brand-new fast-track graduate in the Met’s Art and Antiques Unit, fresh from university and still wet behind the ears. The media had made much of the fact that Strangefields Farm stood on ‘Dead Man’s Lane’. The name had been a gift to many a sub-editor at the time and now Wesley recalled the headlines – THE KILLER ON DEAD MAN’S LANE.

The circumstances of the case had appealed to journalism’s more lurid side. The victims had been teenage girls lured to an isolated farmhouse by an artist called Jackson Temples who’d set up a studio in the house he’d inherited from his late parents. The unfortunate girls had become household names for a few short weeks until the press moved on to some fresh horror.

Temples had persuaded them to model for him and they’d been flattered at the prospect of being immortalised on canvas. But when the images Temples had created of his victims were revealed to a horrified public in court, the strange and, in the opinion of the prosecution, perverted paintings had helped to secure his conviction.

A number of girls had gone to the farmhouse and had come to no harm, posing for their portraits and emerging unscathed. Four girls, however, hadn’t been so lucky and by the time Wesley had joined Tradmouth CID, Jackson Temples was safely behind bars and his exploits old news.

Wesley knew Rachel would have lived locally at the time and when he asked her what she remembered about the case she gave a visible shudder.

‘I was only fourteen when it happened and my parents still thought of me as a child which, looking back, I was. They thought the subject of Jackson Temples was too unpleasant for my delicate ears.’

Wesley couldn’t help smiling. The Rachel he knew was anything but delicate.

‘Anyway, I remember reading in the local paper that a girl called Carrie Bullen had been attacked and left for dead. Then about a week later the body of a girl called Nerys Harred was found washed up on the river bank near the castle. At first they thought the killer came from Morbay because that’s where the girls had last been seen. The Strangefields connection wasn’t discovered until much later.’

‘You remember a lot about it.’

‘It was the talk of my school. You know what teenagers are like.’

Before Wesley could ask more questions they’d turned into Dead Man’s Lane, a winding road lined with tall hedgerows, just wide enough for two vehicles to pass. He slowed down, driving at a crawl, looking for the entrance. To his left he noticed an old cob cottage with lichen-stained walls, half hidden by the greenery that had grown up around it, like a witch’s house from a fairy tale. Half the roof tiles had gone, revealing skeletal rafters beneath, and a pair of pigeons, presumably the only living residents, flew out of their nest by the crumbling chimney. The side facing the road was windowless as though the little house was hiding itself from passers-by and a few yards away a white post protruded from the narrow grass verge, the name Dead Man’s Lane painted in stark black against the clean white background.

He brought the unmarked police car to a halt beside a pair of large gateposts, each topped by a stone lion, so worn down by centuries of Devon weather that the once-impressive beasts now looked more like domestic cats.

He turned to Rachel. ‘You OK?’

‘Course I am. Why wouldn’t I be? In fact I’m curious in a gruesome sort of way. The girl who survived, Carrie, led the police here and if she hadn’t lived who knows how many more he’d have killed. A fisherman found her on the river bank at Derenham with a severe head injury and suffering from hypothermia. Temples had tried to strangle her like the others but he hadn’t made a good job of it. Still, she was the first so … ’

‘He hadn’t perfected his technique?’

Rachel gave a grim smile. ‘You could put it like that. She was in a coma for a couple of months but when she eventually came round she gave the evidence that led to his capture. In the meantime Nerys was found dead and a couple more girls had gone missing. Their bodies were never found but there was evidence he’d killed them too.’

‘What evidence?’

‘Their clothes were found at the house.’ She paused. ‘Funny how some girls came here and left unharmed. Some even gave evidence for the defence at Temples’ trial; said they hadn’t seen anything suspicious.’

‘Maybe they just had a lucky escape. Wonder why he chose those particular victims?’

‘There was a theory going round that they were all the same type but I don’t know how true that was. From the photographs in the papers at the time three were really stunning with long dark hair but one was quite … ordinary, so that theory could be rubbish. Another story went round that he only killed when the moon was full, which meant girls were safe if they went there any other time.’

‘Sounds far-fetched but you never know. Do they know what happened to the girls who were never found?’

‘At the trial it was said that he dumped the last three victims in the river at high tide in the hope that their bodies would be washed out to sea. He’d once been in a sailing club at school so they said he knew about tides. The final two victims were never found, although a skull was caught in the nets of a trawler about ten years ago and dental records confirmed that it belonged to one of them – Jacky Burns. The rest of her’ll be down there somewhere. Who knows, she might be found one day – along with the last girl he killed. Gemma Pollinger her name was.’ She paused. ‘Unless the skeleton the caller to the radio station said he found is hers. And the skull … ’

‘I’m pretty sure it belonged to a young woman so you could be right. We won’t know for sure until the lab conducts tests. How long did Temples get?’

‘Thirty years minimum. He always refused to admit his guilt so he won’t be getting out any time soon.’ For a few moments she said nothing, then ‘I think the boss worked on the case. But he never talks about it.’

Wesley switched on the engine again and drov. . .