Deadly Remains

Book 29: DI Wesley Peterson

by Kate Ellis

Genres: Historical Mysteries; Police Procedurals; Mystery

Synopsis

Million-copy bestselling author Kate Ellis returns with the brand new mystery in the DI Wesley Peterson crime series.

When a body is discovered in a picturesque South Devon village, DI Wesley Peterson is called in to investigate. The victim, Barry Brown, is a celebrity ghostwriter and the theft of his laptop suggests that the motive for murder may lie in his work.

While Wesley investigates Barry's famous clients, Wesley's teenage son Michael joins family friend, Dr Neil Watson, on an intriguing excavation of a crashed World War Two plane on Dartmoor. The plane was used to ferry secret agents into Europe during the war and, when three skeletons are discovered nearby, it seems the wreckage might hold more secrets than they could ever have imagined.

Wesley's case leads him to the same area and he discovers a sinister history surrounding the moor and the nearby village of Moor Barton.

With four unexplained deaths, can Wesley solve the mystery before anyone else is put in danger?

Release date: August 7, 2025

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 90000

Sample

The story had it all. Wartime spies. A beautiful young secret agent going missing in mysterious circumstances. A gallant young pilot. Tragedy and heroism. Drama and sacrifice.

Barry Brown tidied his files. He’d been working all day, even though it was Sunday, a day of rest for most. His research into the air crash in 1943 had been making good progress. Until he’d stumbled across a startling development; a story potentially so strange and unlikely that it might have come from the pages of a whodunnit. But first he needed to make absolutely sure of his facts.

He pushed the files to one side, hauled himself out of the armchair’s warm embrace and went to the fridge to fetch himself a can of beer. He felt he deserved a drink, especially after the awkward encounter he’d just endured. But as he was about to open the fridge door, he heard the doorbell ring.

His heart sank. If it was who he feared it was, he wasn’t sure whether to let him in again. He’d already said all he had to say and he didn’t want to discuss it further. Barry wasn’t a man who enjoyed conflict.

He hesitated for a few moments before opening the front door.

Half an hour later, Barry Brown lay dead amid a jumble of empty files. The debris of his work.

The royal family shot out of the jeweller’s a few seconds after the alarm began to sound. The man in the King Charles mask took the lead, with the Queen and the Prince of Wales following close behind. Soon they reached the getaway car parked in the alleyway at the side of the shop; a top-of-the-range BMW SUV driven by the Princess Royal, who’d pinched it from its rightful owner the previous evening.

The jeweller and his assistant, Janice, cowered behind the counter with their hands on their heads as instructed. But as soon as they heard the roar of the car’s engine receding into the distance, Janice rose from her hiding place to survey the damage. Mr Parker, the jeweller, more cautious by nature, hesitated; he was afraid the raiders would return and punish them for raising the alarm. He’d seen the gun. And the Prince of Wales had looked as though he was prepared to use it.

‘We need to call the police,’ said Janice firmly as she crunched across the carpet of broken glass. The raiders had smashed the display cases before loading the contents into holdalls.

‘They told us not to.’

Janice had always suspected Mr Parker was a coward. She ignored him and picked her way noisily into the back room. It was time to call in the professionals.

‘It was them. Honestly, Chief Inspector, it was the royal family.’ The jeweller, Mr Parker, was in a state of agitation, but this was hardly surprising given what he’d just been through. They were sitting in the shop’s back room, sipping the weak tea his assistant had provided before going off to supervise the glaziers, who’d just arrived to repair the damage.

DCI Gerry Heffernan scratched his head, trying his best to keep his face straight. ‘Well, if it is them, they should be easy to find. You say the Prince of Wales threatened you with a revolver?’

‘Yes. And he looked as though he was prepared to use it.’

‘You mean the man wearing the Prince of Wales mask?’ said DI Wesley Peterson. He wasn’t normally a pedantic man, but he felt the need to establish the facts.

Parker managed a weak smile. ‘Yes, yes, of course. I don’t mean the actual royal gentleman himself. That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it? There were three of them, wearing rubber masks – the kind they sell in joke shops. The King, the Queen and the Prince of Wales. They all wore black – like some sort of uniform.’

‘And according to a witness, someone wearing a Princess Royal mask was driving the getaway car,’ said Gerry. ‘The vehicle was caught on camera and we have evidence that it was nicked from a house outside Neston last night. Now think hard, Mr Parker, is there anything else you can remember about these people? Anything at all? Accents, or . . . ’

‘The person in the Queen mask was definitely a woman. It was only the King who spoke. He ordered me and Janice to crouch down behind the counter and not to try any funny business.’ Wesley saw the man shudder. ‘As they were leaving, Janice triggered the alarm. I was frightened they’d come back and . . . ’

‘But they didn’t.’

‘No. I heard the car starting up. That’s when Janice called the police.’ Mr Parker hesitated. ‘You asked about accents. Well I could be wrong, but I think the King had an accent rather like your own, Chief Inspector. I think he was from Liverpool.’

‘That should help to narrow it down,’ said Wesley. ‘This is the fourth similar raid on jewellers’ shops in the south-west, and the robbers always wear royal family masks. Did anything unusual happen in the weeks leading up to the raid? Any new customers with Liverpool accents, for instance? Anyone who aroused your suspicions?’

Parker glanced nervously in Gerry’s direction. ‘Well, er . . . you came in, didn’t you, Chief Inspector. Purchased a silver necklace, as I recall.’

‘That’s right. Birthday present for my daughter.’

Wesley saw a fond look appear on the chief inspector’s face, as it did each time he mentioned Alison. Gerry hadn’t been aware of her existence until a couple of years ago. It wasn’t until her mother was dying that she’d confessed that Alison’s biological father was a young sailor she’d met in Liverpool when she was eighteen. He had sailed off unaware of her pregnancy, and she’d kept her secret until the end. When Alison discovered her father’s name and searched for him, she found that he’d left the Merchant Navy long ago and was now a senior detective down in Devon. Her appearance had come as a shock, one that Gerry’s other daughter, Rosie, was still coming to terms with. His son, Sam, however, had welcomed his new half-sister with open arms.

Parker looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m afraid you’re the only person with a Liverpool accent who’s come into my shop over the past few months, Chief Inspector.’ He hesitated. ‘And the man in the King mask had a similar build to yourself.’

Gerry didn’t seem to have picked up on the man’s implied accusation, and Wesley made a great effort to conceal his amusement. ‘Is there anything else you can think of?’ he asked.

Parker shook his head. ‘Nothing I haven’t put in my statement.’

Wesley caught Gerry’s eye and stood up, satisfied they’d learned all they could for the moment. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Parker. And if you remember anything else, however trivial it may seem, please don’t hesitate to contact us.’

Parker remained seated, and as they left the room, Wesley turned his head and saw that the man was staring in Gerry’s direction.

‘I’m sure Mr Parker thinks you’ve taken up a new career as an armed jewel robber,’ he said once they were out of earshot.

Gerry snorted. ‘The pay might be better, but I can’t stand the taste of porridge.’

They returned to the police station, where a message was waiting for them. A man had been found dead in a rented holiday cottage a few miles from Morbay. And it looked as though the premises had been ransacked.

Little Rockington was the sort of English village that featured regularly on calendars and attracted camera-happy visitors from both sides of the Atlantic. Sweet thatched cottages lined a village green with resident ducks swimming on its pond. At one end of the green a pretty stone church stood surrounded by memorials to bygone generations, alongside a tiny thatched café that served Devon cream teas to the tourists. It was the last place you expected to find violent crime – unless it featured in the pages of the cosier kind of murder mystery.

A CSI in a white crime-scene suit greeted Wesley and Gerry at the front door of the pink cottage overlooking the green. ‘The victim’s through there,’ he said with a jerk of his head.

‘What happened?’ Wesley asked. All they’d been told was that it appeared that the occupant of the cottage had been injured in the course of a burglary.

‘He was found by the cleaner. She called an ambulance, but it was too late. The doc’s been and said he’s probably been dead since last night. It looks as though the place has been searched, but there’s no sign of forced entry. He sustained a head injury, and that’s probably what killed him.’

‘Do we have a name for him?’

‘Barry Brown. According to the cleaner, he’s renting this place for a few weeks.’

‘OK if we take a look inside?’

‘You’ll need the proper gear,’ the CSI said, chucking a couple of packages in their direction. Wesley caught his neatly, but Gerry fumbled with his and dropped it on the ground. Once Wesley had put on his crime-scene suit, he watched Gerry struggle to fasten his zip over his belly. The DCI kept promising to go on a diet, but so far this hadn’t happened.

As soon as they were ready, the CSI led the way through a tiny hallway into a living room with a low beamed ceiling. The place was a mess. Drawers had been opened and the contents strewn over the floor. A laptop charger was still plugged in, but there was no sign of a computer. Several empty cardboard files lay near the inglenook fireplace, but the detectives’ eyes were drawn to the dark-haired man lying face-down among the debris, a small patch of dried vomit beside his head. In the kitchen area at the back of the living room two clean glasses sat upside down on the draining board but there was no sign of a bottle.

‘Has someone called the pathologist?’ Gerry asked. At times like this he liked to have Dr Bowman’s input.

‘I think the doctor called him. He’ll be on his way.’

‘Any sign of a phone or laptop?’ Wesley asked.

‘Nah. The intruder must have taken them, probably to sell down the pub,’ the CSI said with a roll of his eyes. ‘All this for a few quid, eh.’

Wesley picked his way carefully up a steep, narrow staircase that would cause any modern-day building inspector sleepless nights. Once he reached the tiny landing, he made for the larger of two bedrooms. A double bed took up the lion’s share of the space. Something on the small bedside table caught his eye.

‘Isn’t that a Rolex?’ he said.

The CSI had followed them up and was lurking behind Gerry in the doorway. ‘I noticed that. Worth a flaming fortune, those watches. I’m surprised they missed it. Someone was careless.’

‘They were only careless if theft was the motive,’ said Wesley quietly. ‘Maybe our killer wasn’t interested in valuables. Perhaps he or she was after something else.’

Gerry looked puzzled. ‘But what?’

Wesley turned to face him. ‘We need to find out more about the victim. Maybe the attacker didn’t pinch the laptop to sell on. Maybe he was more interested in what was on it.’

They made their way downstairs again, where a couple of constables were hovering around the front door.

‘Anyone had a word with the neighbours yet?’ Gerry called out, causing the two men to stand to attention.

‘Just about to do it, sir.’

‘Well get on with it. I want to know all about the victim. Name, occupation, home address, whether anyone else is staying here and if he had any visitors. If any of the neighbours saw anything, I want to know. Where’s the cleaner who found him?’

‘Being given tea and sympathy by a neighbour on the other side of the green.’

‘In that case, that’s where we’ll start. We’ll handle that one ourselves, but I want a team over here going door-to-door asking questions.’

It was a warm late-July morning. No mist. No rain. Only a pale blue sky dotted with light clouds and a slight breeze blowing over the vast expanse of Dartmoor. According to the email sent to all participants the previous evening, it was expected to be perfect digging weather.

Michael Peterson, at the age of thirteen, had feared that his classmates would scoff at his plans for the summer holidays, so he’d said nothing. It was bad enough being the only mixed-race boy in his class and having a father who was a police inspector, without spending his vacation engaged in something that might be associated with the old and untrendy. Michael desperately wanted to fit in, and he’d been worried that his mates would tease him if they knew that his honorary uncle, his dad’s old university friend Neil Watson, had persuaded him to take part in an archaeological dig over the summer. Not that Michael had needed much persuading, because excavating the site of a crashed wartime aircraft sounded exciting. Besides, he’d always thought of Uncle Neil as a bit of a hero, an unconventional Indiana Jones figure. But he knew others might take a different view.

His mother, Pam, had given him a lift to Neston and he’d caught the local train to Exeter, where Neil had picked him up in his battered car and driven him to the village of Moor Barton. When they reached the Gornay Arms, the old white pub where everyone was to meet, Neil gave a welcoming speech. According to records, the plane they planned to excavate was a Lysander. It had been en route from an airfield near Millicombe on the south coast to a base in north Devon when it had crashed in September 1943. The pilot had somehow managed to escape but later died of his injuries. There was no record of anyone else being aboard, and as no body was found in the wreckage, it was assumed that the pilot had been flying the short hop from one Devon airfield to another alone.

After Neil had said his piece and delivered a short briefing about health and safety, the group made their way to the crash site, Michael keeping close to Neil’s side. The people nearest his own age were a group of archaeology students who chatted together as they walked. For a moment he began to wonder whether signing up for the dig had been a mistake. But he knew Uncle Neil and his father would be disappointed if he gave up on day one.

When they arrived at the site, a desolate patch of moor a quarter of a mile outside the village, Michael stood to one side and watched as members of the local metal-detecting society swept the ground with their machines while Neil marked out the location of the trenches he wanted to open. A small mechanical digger stood by, ready to delicately remove the top layer of earth as soon as he gave the signal.

While he waited, Michael studied his fellow diggers. As well as the students, there were the members of a local archaeology society, who were mostly in their post-retirement years. Then there was a group of well-built men who seemed to stick together. He guessed these were the former soldiers Neil had mentioned. They were participating as part of a project, but Neil hadn’t told him much about it.

The soldiers stood slightly apart from the others and their conversation seemed terse and serious, as though they’d lost the habit of small talk. The volunteers from the archaeology society, in contrast, gossiped merrily and laughed at jokes Michael couldn’t quite hear. He noticed that one member of this group was standing a little way from the rest, watching them warily. He was probably in his late sixties, although Michael found it hard to tell. He was lanky, with a long, pale face and a small grey beard, wearing an open-necked checked shirt and an old beige bucket hat. Michael did his best not to catch his eye, because he looked like the kind of man his parents used to warn him against talking to when he was younger.

The man turned his head to look at him as though he’d realised he was being scrutinised, so Michael shuffled closer to the group of students. One of the girls, petite and pretty, with auburn hair tied in two long plaits, gave him a wary smile, as though she’d sensed his embarrassment and taken pity on him.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Michael,’ he answered, aware that his cheeks were burning.

‘I’m Harriet. Pleased to meet you.’ She offered her hand and he shook it, surprised by the formal gesture.

‘Come and join us. We don’t bite.’

He gave her a grateful look and sidled towards the group of students. They were chatting about things he didn’t quite understand, but he stood there trying to look as though he belonged and wishing something would happen. He hadn’t expected there to be so much hanging about.

Feeling a little bored, he couldn’t resist glancing round to check whether the man in the bucket hat was still watching him. To his surprise, he saw him sneaking away towards a dip in the landscape as though he didn’t want to be seen.

Neil was still in deep discussion with the metal detectorists, so Michael thought it would do no harm to find out what the man was up to, providing he kept his distance.

‘Where are you going?’ Harriet asked when he tried to slip away. It seemed she’d appointed herself to look after him.

‘I thought I’d take a look round; get the lie of the land,’ he said, trying to sound casual and wondering whether his father’s work was a bit like this. Following suspects.

‘You won’t have time for that. Come on. We’re starting.’

His guardian angel had spoken.

Landscapes shifted and changed over the years, but Pelham Jenks knew at once that this was the right place. He shielded his eyes from the sun and turned slowly until he saw a large rock shaped like a sleeping sheep half hidden behind a bank of yellow gorse.

The only sounds he could hear were the bleating of sheep and the mewing of a pair of buzzards circling the green and empty landscape like harbingers of death. He thought the tall granite tors in the distance looked like the brooding towers of satanic churches. But he told himself he was being overimaginative; a flaw in his character that had left him friendless during his distant teenage years – and made him wake screaming in the night, convinced he was being buried alive.

He’d brought a trowel with him, but he hesitated. What if the archaeologists ventured this way and noticed that the ground had been disturbed? But the dig was some distance away, so with any luck, nobody would spot what he was about to do.

As he made his way over to the rock, he carried out some swift calculations. He’d only been six years old at the time and memory could play tricks. But the dip in the ground a couple of yards in front of the boulder looked horribly familiar, and he could see that the spot was marked by a small heap of tumbled stones, as though someone had once built a little cairn, which had collapsed over the years.

He closed his eyes, and the scene flashed through his head: the sound of the spade hitting the ground and the scent of disturbed earth as he hid behind the rock watching the unceremonious burial of his own older brother.

Tears stung his eyes as he realised that the memories were real and not a product of his overactive childhood imagination.

And now he needed time to consider what to do next.

Little Rockington was normally filled with tourists taking selfies, and it occurred to Wesley that it would make an excellent setting for a cosy TV crime drama. Although the word ‘cosy’ hadn’t sprung to mind when he’d seen the state of his latest crime scene.

The cleaner who’d found the dead man was called Kylie Mountjoy; a single mother of two who worked for an agency that, in her words, sent her all over. She was obviously shaken by her discovery but still alert enough to make a good witness. She sat in the neighbour’s chintz armchair puffing on a vape as though she was in need of comfort. Every so often she picked up the mug on the table beside her and took a sip, pulling a face as she did so.

‘Linda knows I don’t take sugar, but she insisted. Said it was good for shock.’ She spoke in a whisper to avoid offending their hostess, a slim middle-aged woman with expensively streaked blonde hair and the tanned, lined complexion of a habitual sun-worshipper, who was now busying herself noisily in the adjoining kitchen.

‘Some people believe that,’ said Wesley, who was sitting beside Gerry on the sofa opposite. It was a small room with low beams, similar to the dead man’s cottage. He looked round and noticed a trio of photographs featuring a smiling little girl on the mantelpiece.

Kylie put down her mug and leaned forward anxiously. ‘I saw blood on his head. Do you think the burglar hit him? Is that how he was killed?’

‘We’re not sure yet, I’m afraid. We need to ask you a few questions, if you’re feeling up to it.’

She nodded. ‘Of course. Fire away.’

‘What can you tell us about the victim?’

‘Only that his name was Barry Brown and he said he was here to do some work. He’d booked the cottage for three weeks and I was sent in by the rental company to clean once a week. I only saw him the once before today. That time he was busy on his computer. And before you ask, I’ve no idea what he was doing. I just got on with my cleaning. I haven’t got time to be nosy about what my clients get up to.’

‘Of course not,’ said Wesley. It would have been good if she’d snatched the opportunity to look over the man’s shoulder to see what was on the screen, but he knew from long experience that life was rarely so obliging. ‘He didn’t say anything to you about his work?’

‘No. He wasn’t the chatty type.’

‘Can you tell us any more about him?’

Kylie considered the question for a moment. ‘He wasn’t that old – mid thirties, maybe. And he was pleasant enough. Polite but distant, if you know what I mean. I got the impression he was here to do a job and didn’t want any distractions. He had a nice car – a red BMW. It’s still in the residents’ parking spaces down the street; I noticed it earlier while I was parking on the road,’ she added, looking at her watch. ‘Look, I’m already late for my next client. They’re only in the next village, but . . . ’

‘Just one more thing? This cottage is on the other side of the green. Why didn’t you go to one of the neighbouring cottages?’

Kylie smiled. ‘That’s easy. I headed straight here because the other places are holiday lets and I don’t know the people who are staying in them. I know Linda because she’s one of my clients.’

‘That makes sense. Well, I don’t see any reason to keep you any longer. We have your contact details if we need to speak to you again.’ He hesitated. ‘Are you sure you feel up to carrying on after the shock you’ve just had? We can always get someone to notify your agency.’

She sat up straight and took a deep breath. ‘Thanks, but I’d rather carry on. Take my mind off it.’

At that moment, their hostess entered the room. ‘Is everything all right, Kylie?’ she asked. She had a London accent. Wesley guessed there’d be a lot of incomers in Little Rockington. Most locals couldn’t afford anything so picturesque.

‘Everything’s fine, thank you, Mrs . . . ’ he said, hoping he sounded reassuring.

‘Pugh. Linda Pugh.’ She folded her arms. ‘I haven’t given a statement yet.’

‘My officers are conducting house-to-house enquiries,’ said Gerry quickly, detecting a note of veiled criticism of the police’s efficiency. ‘But I told them we’d call here ourselves to have a word with Ms Mountjoy.’

Kylie stood up, more composed than she had been when Wesley and Gerry first arrived. She was still wearing her cleaner’s tabard. ‘Thanks for the tea, Linda. I’m feeling a lot better now and I’d rather get back to work.’

Wesley accompanied her to the front door, where he watched her pick up her plastic box of cleaning equipment and walk off down the pretty front path lined with colourful blooms.

When he returned to the living room, Gerry had made himself at home, sitting back on the sofa, legs splayed. Wesley could hear the clattering of crockery from the direction of the kitchen, and guessed that more tea had been offered and Gerry, as usual, had accepted.

As he sat in the armchair vacated by Kylie, Linda Pugh entered the room again with a laden tray.

‘Thanks, love, you’re a lifesaver,’ said Gerry, rubbing his hands together as he watched her pouring tea into mugs. ‘We’re hoping you might be able to help us. The man in the cottage opposite was called Barry Brown. Did you speak to him at all?’

‘No. People come and go from the holiday cottages. They rarely want to pass the time of day.’

‘Our doctor thinks he died sometime last night, and the lights were on in his cottage so it must have happened after it got dark. Did you see anything suspicious?’

She handed the mugs round and sat down before answering.

‘I think I saw someone calling there.’

‘At Mr Brown’s cottage?’

She nodded. ‘I’m not quite sure of the time, but it was probably between nine thirty and ten. It was getting dark, so I decided to draw the curtains, and when I looked out, everything was quiet because the tourists had gone home for the day, you see. They drive you mad in the summer months, coming up the path and staring in through the windows as though the village is some kind of museum. They don’t seem to realise that some people actually live here all year round.’ She gave a long sigh. ‘Most of the houses are holiday lets, and it’s a ghost village in winter. But in summer we’re inundated. Coach tours stop here most days in the season.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Wesley with some sympathy. His own modern house in Tradmouth could hardly be described as quaint, but Gerry lived in a cottage on the picturesqu. . .