The Shadow Collector

Book 17: DI Wesley Peterson

by Kate Ellis

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

Lilith Benley and her mother, rumoured to be witches, were convicted of the murder of two teenage girls. Eighteen years later Lilith is released from prison, and shortly after she returns to her old home, a young woman is found dead. DI Wesley Peterson is called in to investigate. Meanwhile, archaeologist Neil Watson discovers a gruesome wax doll at a house that once belonged to a woman hanged for witchcraft. And when Neil has a near fatal accident, some suspect a supernatural connection. Even though Wesley has problems closer to home to solve, it is up to him to uncover terrible secrets and banish dark shadows collected in the past – to bring a dangerous killer to justice.

Release date: February 7, 2013

Publisher: Piatkus

Print pages: 367

Sample

April 1994

She had no face. She rocked to and fro in the chair like a waxen doll come to life. And she hummed. A low hum like the buzz
of distant flies.


Lilith sat at the kitchen table and watched her. Perhaps this was all her fault. Perhaps this was the price she had to pay
for what she’d done.


The woman with no face began to rock faster. Creak, creak, creak on the worn linoleum floor. Lilith turned away and picked
up the soft toy on the table. It was a small bear, a silly love token he’d given her in those first rapturous days when the
world had been a bright place full of hope and passion. But now the thing was worn and stained with tears. Love had died.
Everything had died.


She picked up the jewelled dagger, thrust it into the animal’s belly and watched as the white stuffing spilled out like pale entrails onto the table.


The cow lowing mournfully in a distant field sounded like a soul in torment. And there was grunting too, an unearthly, primitive
sound. Then Gabby remembered that the women kept pigs round the back of the house. She could smell the scent of their excrement
on the night air and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. She was beginning to wish she hadn’t come. But Joanne had promised
entertainment – and Joanne could be very persuasive.


Joanne grasped her arm and dragged her through a gap in the ramshackle chicken wire fence that marked the boundary of the
cottage garden. She pointed to an uncurtained window, lit up like a stage. ‘There she is. She’s holding something. It’s a
wax doll. She’s sticking pins in it. I told you, didn’t I? I said she was a witch.’ Joanne tightened her grip on the sleeve
of Gabby’s denim jacket and began to pull her towards the house.


Gabby knew her companion wasn’t going to give up. An owl fluttered somewhere in the nearby trees and suddenly she wanted to
go. She’d had enough. And she knew that if she didn’t put a stop to this soon, she’d be stuck there for hours with the stench
of the pigs and mud seeping through her trainers. ‘This is boring,’ she whispered. This, she knew, was the ultimate put down.
Joanne hated boring.


But Joanne carried on as though she hadn’t heard, pulling her forward. Gabby was tempted to break away. But it was a dark,
lonely way home through shadowy fields and glowering trees. Besides, she’d promised her mother they’d stick together.


As they crept closer to the house Gabby could see the kitchen clearly through the open curtains. In the pale yellow light
of a single overhead bulb she could make out the old-fashioned cupboards painted a sickly green.


One of the women was sitting in a rocking chair in the corner. Her face was covered with a white handkerchief, draped like
a shroud. She rocked to and fro like an animated corpse in a grisly tableau, her wispy grey hair protruding from the edges
of the cloth.


The other woman was much younger with wavy black hair to her shoulders and a strong face with high cheekbones and dark eyes.
She was quite unlike the witches of Gabby’s childhood imagination but, with the wisdom of her sixteen years, she knew that
appearances often deceive.


The younger woman sat at the kitchen table, absorbed in her own thoughts, ignoring the faceless creature in the rocking chair.
She was holding something but Gabby couldn’t make out what it was. Joanne’s guess of a wax doll was a possibility … or it
could be wildly off the mark.


The pigs were grunting louder now, as though they were warning of intruders. Suddenly a dark shape appeared on the windowsill,
outlined against the light.


‘It’s a cat. It’s their familiar.’ Joanne said the final word in a gloating hiss.

‘I’m fed up with this. I’m going.’ Gabby hoped the threat would bring Joanne to her senses.

‘All on your own in the dark.’ There was mockery in Joanne’s voice. ‘Don’t you want to see what they do? John said they dance
naked when it’s a full moon. Can you imagine them with nothing on? I’ve got to take a picture – I’ve brought my camera.’


‘Why?’

‘For a laugh. Don’t you want to see John’s face when we show him the pictures?’

‘He’s not interested in you any more. Why don’t you leave him alone?’

The sound of a bolt being drawn back echoed like a gunshot through the darkness. Gabby took a step back but she felt Joanne’s
fingers pulling at her jacket again, clutching like the talons of a bird of prey. ‘Stay where you are.’


She let go of Gabby’s sleeve and edged forward, creeping across the cobbled path towards the house.

Then Gabby saw the door open and the younger woman loomed against the rectangle of light like a predator scanning the horizon
for its next meal. ‘Run. Now,’ she hissed.


Joanne started to giggle, a wild sound, on the edge of hysteria. But after a few seconds she began to move off and when Gabby
tried to follow, terror slowed her feet.


She knew the way out was within reach but she felt herself slipping on the damp cobbles. She hit the ground with a heavy thud
and lay for a second, too shocked to move. Then as she raised her head, she saw Joanne standing a few feet away, her slender
clawing fingers threaded through the chicken wire, rattling at the fence like a trapped beast.


October 2012

The woman in the red coat stood on the hill looking down at the farm buildings nestling in the lower ground. She had waited
a long time to catch sight of her quarry. It was her job to make sure every deception came at a price. Maximum payment. Maximum
grief. Maximum sales.


She edged away from the grazing sheep. She’d never been close to sheep before and they seemed so much bigger than she’d imagined. A city dweller, born and bred, she felt uncomfortable in the relentless countryside with its high hedges
and rolling fields fringed with brooding trees. And her high-heeled patent leather boots were beginning to let in water.


She thrust her hands into her coat pockets, her attention divided between the house below and the sheep who seemed closer
every time she looked round, slowly encroaching on her space in an ovine game of grandmother’s footsteps.


After a while her patience was rewarded when she saw a man leave the farmhouse carrying a bucket. This wasn’t the big story
but it’d do for now. Until she could engineer a meeting. Until she could find out the truth for sure.


She was about to raise her phone to take a photo when she heard a sound behind her. She turned her head and saw a dark figure
climbing over the rusty farm gate set into the hedgerow.


The newcomer jumped down into the field and made straight for her. And she knew she had a problem. Or was it an opportunity?

‘Hi. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been wanting to talk to you,’ she said, confident she could turn this to her advantage.

But there was no reply as the newcomer approached. She stepped back instinctively, further and further until the spiky hedgerow
was digging into her back. Then, before she could put up her arms to defend herself, she felt a sudden sharp pain. And when
she looked down she saw blood soaking through her red coat, forming a wet shadow.


She fell to her knees and the green world turned black.

Statement of Elizabeth Hadness, October 1st 1643

Alison Hadness is a witch. A woman of darkness. A collector of shadows. You cannot imagine her wickedness, the dreadful spells
she hath wrought upon our neighbours and my father, her husband.

She has confessed to me that she loves Satan and that he has been privy to her secret places. She has confessed that he has
had carnal knowledge of her on divers occasions, sometimes in the form of a cat, sometimes in the form of a goat and oft times
in the guise of a young dark man.


I state that all the accusations laid against her are true.


‘Shouldn’t Uniform deal with this?’

DI Wesley Peterson studied the sheet of paper he’d just been handed. A routine report – a break-in at a smallholding outside
the village of West Fretham. But from the look on DS Rachel Tracey’s face he knew something was bothering her.


For a few moments she said nothing. He could see dark rings beneath her eyes as though she hadn’t slept well and her fair
hair, tied back in a businesslike pony tail, seemed more untidy than usual. He wondered whether her forthcoming wedding was
causing her sleepless nights. She was the daughter of a well-respected farmer, marrying into another local farming dynasty,
so it was bound to be a big and stressful affair.


‘It’s Devil’s Tree Cottage.’ Her words were loaded with a meaning Wesley couldn’t quite grasp.

He gave her an enquiring look.

‘Don’t you remember? Dorothy and Lilith Benley. They murdered two teenage girls eighteen years ago and fed the bodies to their
pigs.’


Wesley’s brain, lulled into a stupor by the crime statistics he’d been compiling, eventually trawled some half-remembered
facts of the case from the depths of his memory. Eighteen years ago he had just started studying Archaeology at Exeter University
and the papers back then had been filled with every sad and sordid detail of the Devil’s Tree Cottage case. But, being a student
at the time, he’d had other things on his mind.


However, he did remember that it was the kind of case the tabloids pounced on like starving lions on the bleeding corpse of
a wildebeest. A titillating combination of witchcraft, grisly death and nubile teenage girls. And around the same time the
papers had also been full of the abductions of young girls in various parts of the country by a van driver who had changed
his name by deed poll to Satan Death. It had been a murderous time. A season of the dead.


Rachel leaned towards him. ‘The boss was a DS at the time and he worked on the case,’ she said softly. ‘The Benley women were convicted of the murders of Gabrielle Soames and
Joanne Trelisip. It was one of those cases everyone dreads. I don’t think anybody comes away untouched from something like
that.’


Wesley understood. He’d worked on cases like that himself and he knew now why Gerry had never mentioned it. There are some
things you don’t like to dwell on.


‘So what’s this about a break-in? Who lives in Devil’s Tree Cottage now?’

‘That’s just it,’ said Rachel. ‘She’s back.’

‘Who?’

‘Lilith Benley. She’s been released on licence and she’s gone back to Devil’s Tree Cottage. She claims she’s had a break-in
and she insists on seeing the DCI.’


‘He’s in a meeting with the Chief Super. Do you want to tell him when he gets back or shall I?’

She gave him an enigmatic smile and began to walk away so he knew he’d been landed with the job of breaking the news. And
he wasn’t sure how Gerry was going to react to having this particular part of his past dug up again like a rotting cadaver.


He didn’t have to wait long to find out. Gerry returned to the CID office a few minutes later, marching purposefully towards
his glass-fronted lair. He was a large man with grizzled hair and blue eyes that usually held a spark of humour. But today
he looked deadly serious. Wesley followed him and as soon as he sat down on the visitor’s chair, Gerry started to complain
loudly about the gruelling encounter he’d just had with Chief Superintendent Nutter about the overtime budget.


Wesley interrupted before he warmed to his theme. ‘There’s been a break-in at Devil’s Tree Cottage. Lilith Benley’s been released on licence … and she’s asking to see you.’


Gerry froze and sat staring ahead as though he’d just had a vision of hell. ‘I suppose I’d better go and see what she wants,’
he said after a few moments.


‘I’ll come with you if you like.’

Gerry shot him a grateful look and muttered something about being glad of the company.

‘I’m surprised they’ve let her out so soon,’ Gerry said as they were driving up the hill past the Naval College. Wesley could
just see his own house through the trees on the left. His wife Pam would be at work and the children at school so it would
be empty and peaceful apart from a prowling cat.


‘She served eighteen years.’

‘Hardly justice for what she did.’

‘It’s a long time ago and I can’t remember all the details. How were the girls killed?’

‘The mother said they’d stabbed them. Sacrificed, she called it. Mind you, she was mad as a cartload of electrified frogs.’

‘And she was believed?’

‘All the evidence confirmed it but we didn’t get there till a week after they vanished so there was nothing left of the bodies.’
He wrinkled his nose in disgust.


‘Rachel said the mother died in custody.’

‘Dorothy Benley was sent to a secure psychiatric hospital and died two years later. The daughter, Lilith, served her time
in Holloway. Model prisoner apparently. She always protested her innocence. Not that it cut any ice. She was guilty. No question
about that.’


‘So what was all this witchcraft business?’

‘The two women had a reputation locally for being witches. The mother had been heavily into it for years, apparently. Although
Lilith always swore she was just a white witch. Wicca I think it’s called. She made a big thing at the trial about never having
anything to do with Satanism.’


‘Any evidence that she did?’

‘There was stuff in the outbuilding where the girls’ clothes were found; wax dolls, black candles, things nicked from churches.
There were rumours about kids dabbling in black magic around that time but nothing was ever proved so if there was any sort
of organisation, it was a pretty shadowy one. One of the local vicars said he’d heard of things going on in more isolated
churches, not that any of his colleagues had experienced it themselves, of course. It always seemed to have a smell of the
urban myth to me – or should it be rural myth round these parts?’ He looked out of the car window. ‘It was always something
someone’s second cousin or neighbour’s friend’s dog had heard of, if you know what I mean.’


Wesley knew only too well how stories of the dangerous or exotic could gain a life of their own. He drove on, turning right
at the top of the hill onto the road that ran along the coast. The rain of the past few days had vanished and it was a bright
October day without a cloud in the sky. The sea sparkled to their left and it was only the half-bare trees fringing the rolling
fields to their right that betrayed the season.


‘Were the women suspects from the start?’

‘No. At first we worked on the theory that the girls had been abducted by that Satan Death. Remember?’

‘I remember.’

‘Not that anyone knew his identity back then, of course. A girl had gone missing in Cornwall a week before so it seemed likely
he’d struck again. He was a delivery man and this part of Devon was part of his patch.’


‘They never found any of his victims’ bodies, did they?’

‘He’d never say what he’d done with them. In the end he was caught trying to abduct a girl in Weymouth when a dog walker heard
her screams. He was convicted through blood traces in his van and the records the delivery company kept of his whereabouts
– always coinciding with when the lasses went missing. In the end he confessed to all the abductions … except for Joanne and
Gabby’s.’


‘But he could have been lying. He could have been playing games with the police?’

‘That was always a possibility. He was certainly in the South West at the relevant time. He killed himself in prison soon
after his conviction so we can’t ask him, I’m afraid.’


‘So what put the police onto the Benleys?’

‘We had an anonymous phone call a week after the girls disappeared. The caller said that if we wanted to know what had happened
to them we should go to Devil’s Tree Cottage and when we got there we found enough evidence to convict the Benley women –
the girls’ bloodstained clothing and traces of blood around the pig sty. The mother made a full confession … although it was
confused and contradictory.’


They drove on in silence for a while. After what Gerry had told him Wesley felt a little apprehensive about coming face to
face with Lilith Benley. He had met many murderers in the course of his career but her crime seemed particularly callous.
To slaughter two young girls and feed them to pigs seemed to deserve more than eighteen years’ imprisonment. But he knew it wasn’t his place to question the vagaries
of the criminal justice system.


They’d just passed through West Fretham, an unremarkable but pretty village boasting the requisite pub and church, when Gerry
twisted round in the passenger seat. ‘Did you see that?’


Wesley slowed the car to a crawl. There was a farm entrance to their left and at the end of the driveway stood a collection
of farm buildings – a stone farmhouse and several large barns filled with farm machinery and silage wrapped in glossy black
plastic. There were cars parked there too; a couple of SUVs, a BMW and a small blue sports car. But, more unusually, there
was a large van in front of the farmhouse with Poputainment TV written in bold white letters on the side. Heavy cables ran
from the vehicle to the house like monstrous umbilical cords.


‘Looks like they’re filming something,’ said Wesley, pressing his foot gently on the accelerator.

‘Celebrity Farm, it’s called,’ said Gerry triumphantly. ‘Our Sam was talking about it the other day. They put some has-been celebrities together
on a farm and film them looking after the animals. Then they’re voted off one by one by a panel of so-called experts. Our
Sam says it’s the animals he feels sorry for.’


Gerry’s son was a local vet so Wesley supposed his concern was only to be expected.

‘It’d be a brave farmer who’d risk his livestock like that,’ he said. He’d been born and bred in London but after living so
long in Devon he felt he was developing a tenuous affinity with the rural way of life. Working so closely with Rachel Tracey
for so long he supposed it was inevitable.


‘Don’t believe everything you see on telly, Wes. I bet the farmer’s always on hand to do the real work. It’s just down here.
Next left.’


Wesley turned the car down a narrow lane where the hedges rose like walls on either side, hiding the fields beyond. Weeds
sprouted from the road surface, suggesting that this was a route rarely travelled. But it was the way to Devil’s Tree Cottage.


‘If I was Lilith Benley I’d have changed the name of the house,’ said Wesley.

‘Perhaps it doesn’t bother her.’

‘The notoriety or the link with the devil?’

‘Both. It’s not far now … just on the left.’

‘Well remembered.’

‘It’s not something you forget in a hurry, Wes. I had nightmares about it for months afterwards.’

Wesley glanced at him and saw a haunted look in his eyes. Glimpses of Gerry’s softer side were rare. In fact few people in
CID knew it existed.


He spotted a pair of stone gateposts, one leaning at a drunken angle. There was no sign bearing a house name. Maybe there
had been once but it had been taken down when the place had become synonymous with evil. Wesley steered the car carefully
into the entrance. The track leading to the house was darkened by overhanging trees and rhododendron bushes. The surface was
rough and pitted with potholes filled with muddy water from the recent rain and Wesley was glad he was driving a pool car
and not his own. New exhausts cost money.


‘Isolated place.’

‘Too right. You could get up to all sorts here and nobody would ever know,’ said Gerry quietly.

Wesley was impatient to see the house, unsure whether this was out of morbid curiosity or a simple desire to get the whole
business out of the way. As the car emerged from the tunnel of rhododendrons Devil’s Tree Cottage came into view.


Somehow he had expected some sinister Gothic edifice, all dark stone and gables, and the reality surprised him. Devil’s Tree
Cottage was a low cob building, typical of rural Devon, its pale pink walls flaking and discoloured with the dirt of decades.
The cottage was in sore need of a coat of exterior paint and the roof was slate rather than traditional thatch but the impression
was quaint rather than sinister. The surrounding land had long since returned to nature and weeds sprouted between the cobblestones
leading to the front door. Here and there the rusted chicken-wire fence, that had once separated the small front garden from
the rest of the land, lay battered to the ground, a few supporting wooden stakes still protruding from the overgrown earth
like grave markers.


According to Gerry, the place had been empty for eighteen years so the dereliction was only to be expected. He was surprised
it wasn’t a lot worse.


The front door was studded oak, weathered silver-grey from years of neglect. Gerry sat quite still in the passenger seat,
gazing at it, breath held, as though he expected to see something terrible emerge. Then, as Wesley cut the engine, he saw
the door open slowly.


‘Do you want me to deal with this?’

‘No. She asked for me.’ Gerry was staring at the woman who’d just appeared in the doorway. ‘Bloody hell, she’s changed.’

The DCI’s movements seemed unusually clumsy as he wrestled with his seat belt and clambered out of the car. Wesley put it down to his reluctance to face the woman who was waiting
for them, arms folded, a hint of challenge in her eyes.


Wesley climbed out of the driver’s seat and shut the door, flicking the lock absentmindedly even though he knew this particular
security precaution was unnecessary in that isolated spot. He saw the woman look him up and down with undisguised curiosity:
perhaps when she’d last lived in Devon a policeman of West Indian origin was a rarity. His parents had raised him to believe
that it was rude to stare but he couldn’t resist the temptation to study Lilith Benley in return. She was tall, around five
feet ten, and although her frame was big she looked slim and muscular, as though she’d spent time working out. Her thick black
hair was peppered with grey and cropped short, emphasising her strong features, and she wore a long black skirt and tight
black T-shirt. She was what Wesley’s mother would have described as a striking woman – only on the verge of beautiful but
impossible to ignore.


He felt Gerry’s arm nudge his and they began to walk towards the house, Gerry sticking close to him as though he needed support.

‘Sergeant Heffernan, thank you for coming,’ she said formally as they approached. Her voice was quite high-pitched, more feminine
than Wesley had expected.


‘It’s Detective Chief Inspector Heffernan now.’

‘Congratulations.’ She looked at Wesley. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’

‘This is DI Peterson.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Detective Inspector Peterson,’ she said with a hint of irony. She looked at Gerry, a smirk on her pale lips. ‘I should have known you’d bring a friend. Policemen always go round in pairs, don’t they … like the old music
hall comedians.’ The smirk turned into a smile that lit up her face, but her eyes were watchful, hard.


‘You’d better come in,’ she said after a few moments. She turned her back on them and disappeared into the house and when
Gerry followed, Wesley fell in behind.


As he entered the indoor gloom of Devil’s Tree Cottage he took in his surroundings. The place clearly hadn’t been touched
since the time of the murders. There were cobwebs everywhere, like some fairy-tale castle frozen in time. Traces of grey fingerprint
powder could still be seen on the woodwork, as though someone had made an effort to clean it off but hadn’t made a very good
job of it. The heavy brown furniture in the shabby parlour was shrouded in a layer of dust and grimy curtains hung in limp
tatters at the windows. An empty rocking chair stood near the fireplace, its cushion torn and tattered, stuffing bursting
from its innards like the guts of some dead, mauled creature.


‘I apologise for the state of the place. I only got back a few days ago and I haven’t had a chance to do much. I’m only relieved
that it wasn’t vandalised when I was … away. But I expect it was protected by the superstition of the locals,’ she added with
a hint of bitterness.


‘I believe you reported a break-in.’ Gerry sounded businesslike, erecting a barrier of reserve between himself and the murderess.

‘Somebody broke in yesterday evening while I was out.’

‘What was taken?’

‘A book.’

‘What kind of book?’

She paused, as though she was considering her answer carefully. Whatever this book was, Wesley knew it wasn’t just the latest bestseller. This book had significance.


‘It’s called Book of Shadows. I … I used to be what’s sometimes called a white witch, a follower of Wicca. The book contained
spells and details of my personal spiritual journey. It was on the shelves up there.’ She pointed to a battered bookcase full
of faded paperbacks and dusty china. ‘I’d been for a walk and when I came back I found a pane of glass smashed in the back
door.’


‘Is that all they took, this Book of Shadows?’

‘As far as I can tell at the moment.’ She gave a bitter smile. ‘I thought a reputation like mine would guarantee that I was
left in peace.’


The words were defiant. And unrepentant. Whatever this woman had done in the past, Wesley suspected that she had few regrets.
Or if she did she was doing her best to hide them.


‘You say you used to be a white witch. Given it up, have you?’ Wesley could hear the scepticism in Gerry’s voice.

Lilith looked away. ‘Prison changes people, Chief Inspector. Not always for the better.’

‘I’ll get our crime scene people out here to see if your intruder left any fingerprints,’ said Gerry. He was shuffling towards
the door as though he was anxious to be gone. ‘If that’s all …’


‘No it isn’t all. I’d like some protection. Let’s put it this way, the local community has hardly been welcoming. And I feel
vulnerable here on my own.’


‘Vulnerable like those two lasses you killed?’

She flinched as though Gerry had struck her. ‘I had nothing to do with their deaths. I was innocent.’

‘Your mother confessed.’

‘The state she was in, she would have confessed to anything.’ She almost spat the words.

‘We haven’t got the manpower to mount a round-the-clock guard,’ said Wesley. ‘Anyway, your intruder was probably an opportunist
who thought the place was empty. As far as I can see there’s no evidence you’re in any danger … unless you’ve received any
threats you haven’t told us about …’


She shot a glance at Wesley, as though she was unsure how he’d react to what she was about to say. ‘I want the case reopened.
I need to clear my name.’


‘Have you got new evidence?’ Gerry sounded distant, as though he was reluctant to get involved.

‘Not yet but …’ She looked Gerry in the eye. ‘You were more sympathetic than the rest of them back then. They decided right
from the start that Mother and I were guilty but you kept an open mind. You asked questions.’


‘I always keep an open mind … so does Inspector Peterson here. But it didn’t do much good in your case, did it? You killed
those two lasses. The forensic evidence proved it.’


‘That evidence was planted. We had nothing to do with those girls’ deaths.’

Wesley noticed that her hands were clenched in frustration.

‘A jury thought otherwise so unless new evidence comes to light I can’t help you. We’d better be off.’ Gerry made for the
door and Wesley follow. . .