The Skeleton Room

Book 7: DI Wesley Peterson

by Kate Ellis

Genres: Police Procedurals

Synopsis

When workmen converting former girls' boarding school, Chadleigh Hall, into a luxury hotel discover a skeleton in a sealed room, DI Wesley Peterson and his boss, Gerry Heffernan are called in to investigate. But within minutes they have a second suspicious death on their hands: a team of marine archaeologists working on a nearby shipwreck have dragged a woman's body from the sea. And it becomes clear that her death was no accident. The dead woman's husband may be linked with a brutal robbery of computer equipment but Wesley soon discovers that the victim had secrets of her own. As he investigates Chadleigh Hall's past and the woman's violent death, both trails lead in surprising directions.

Release date: January 20, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 384

Sample

My sorry tale begins in the year of Our Lord 1771 when I was newly appointed to the parish of Millicombe. At the hour of ten
o’clock one Friday in April of that year, I was called to the hamlet of Chadleigh to visit a certain farmhand called George
Marbis, who, by all accounts, was close to death. His daughter, Margaret, had run along the coast path to Millicombe at that
late hour and my maidservant showed her into the study where I was composing my sermon for the following Sunday. The girl,
Margaret, a poor, thin creature, pleaded with me to come with her, saying that her father was most troubled and had asked
to see me. As vicar, I felt obliged to give the dying man some words of comfort, so I went with Margaret to Marbis’s cottage,
which I found to be a dark, foul-smelling place, hardly fit for the animals he tends.

Marbis was indeed close to meeting his Maker, and I prepared to utter the words of comfort I use at such unhappy times.

But Marbis would have none of my prayers. He clawed at my sleeve with his bony hands and said that he wished to speak with
me in private. Margaret, who had cared for her father since her mother’s untimely death in childbed, busied herself about
the cottage, and the dying man bade me stoop so he could whisper in my ear. His breath was noxious but I obliged him. Yet afterwards I wished I had refused, because what he had to tell me was a secret so vile that
it were best not to hear it.

From An Account of the Dreadful and Wicked Crimes of the Wreckers of Chadleigh by the Reverend Octavius Mount, Vicar of Millicombe

23 July

Ian Jones watched his colleague wield the sledgehammer, fearful that one misplaced blow would bring the huge edifice of Chadleigh
Hall crashing to the ground.


‘You sure that’s not a supporting wall, Marty?’

‘’Course I’m bloody sure.’

Marty Shawcross raised the hammer while Ian scratched his shaved head. At least they’d have plenty of time to get out if the
ceiling started to collapse.


A few foundation-shaking thuds later, when the dense cloud of plaster dust had begun to settle, Marty and Ian looked at the
small jagged hole that they had made in the wall.


‘You were right. Looks like a doorway. It’s been blocked off.’

‘What did I tell you?’ Marty reached out and pushed the loose plaster from the edge of the hole. ‘Do we carry on or what?’

‘Ours not to reason why – ours just to do what’s on the plans. Give it another bash.’

Marty obeyed and dust and debris flew into the air as the hole expanded. The men coughed and Ian took a grubby handkerchief
from his pocket and held it to his face.


‘We’re meant to be knocking through to the next room but this looks like some sort of cupboard or . . . I’m having a look.’

‘Go on, then. Rather you than me.’

Marty watched as Ian poked his head through the hole and quickly pulled it out again.

‘Can’t see a bloody thing. Got your lighter?’

Marty, a incorrigible smoker, pulled a cheap disposable cigarette lighter from his trouser pocket and handed it to Ian, who
lit it and held it just inside the gaping hole.


After a few seconds of silence, Ian turned to face his companion. The blood had drained from his face, leaving it as white
as the plaster dust that was settling on the splintery floorboards.


‘What is it? What did you see?’

It was a while before Ian felt up to answering.

Neil Watson had dived down to the wreck of the Celestina several times. But, being a creature of habit, he preferred to work on dry land, dealing with the artefacts the divers were
bringing up from the seabed, viewing their video footage and writing reports in the disused beach café that they were using
as their site headquarters.


He was unused to working in such splendid isolation. He missed the hustle and bustle of a land-based dig and the chatter of
his colleagues, most of whom were working aboard the boat or diving beneath the sea.


But today he had company. A couple of bored-looking youths – Oliver Kilburn and his friend, Jason Wilde, aged eighteen and
both at a loose end since the finish of their final school exams – had volunteered to help with the finds from the wreck.
And as Oliver’s father was Dominic Kilburn, the businessman who owned the beach, Neil felt he could hardly complain that the
pair were unreliable and turned up only when it suited them.


Satisfied that the boys weren’t doing too much damage to the delicate objects brought up from the seabed, Neil stepped outside
the café onto the sandy concrete steps that led down to the beach. He shaded his eyes against the sun and squinted at the
dive boat, which bobbed near the rocks, watching the figures on the deck, divers in shiny black with brightly coloured air
tanks on their backs.


Neil knew that their main enemy was the weather. The ship’s timbers had been uncovered by a freak storm three weeks before and discovered by amateur divers, who had reported
their find to the relevant authorities. And, if nature decided not to cooperate, another storm could cover the remains of
the Celestina up again just as quickly. They were working against the clock, and Neil Watson preferred to work at his own pace.


‘How’s it going, then, Dr Watson?’

Neil swung round. A tall man was standing on top of a rock to his left, outlined against the sun. Neil shielded his eyes,
feeling small and subservient as he gazed up at the towering figure. But perhaps this was Dominic Kilburn’s intention.


‘We’re making good progress. They’ve uncovered more of the timbers and found a lot of interesting stuff. Your son’s in there
washing the pottery they brought up this morning – high-status stuff, probably from the captain’s cabin. Want to take a look?’


Neil pointed at the shabby wooden building near by which had been a beach café and ice-cream shop in the days when the cove
had been the property of a neighbouring girls’ boarding school which had allowed its use by the public.


But Dominic Kilburn’s mind was on more important things than old pottery. ‘Is there any sign of . . .?’

‘No. Nothing like that.’

‘Can you use metal detectors down there? Speed things up a bit?’

‘I can assure you that we are carrying out a thorough investigation of the site. We’ll use metal detectors if they’re considered
appropriate,’ said Neil with academic dignity, as though Dominic Kilburn had made an obscene suggestion.


Kilburn jumped down off his rock, walked up to Neil and put his face close to his. ‘I’m footing the bill for this, so if I
say get a move on, you get a move on.’


Neil pretended not to notice the threat in Kilburn’s voice. ‘You can’t just strip the wreck of anything that might be worth a few bob, you know. Everything has to be recorded, photographed
and drawn in situ, and any finds need to be conserved properly. We don’t cut corners. We’re archaeologists, not treasure hunters.’


‘So what about all these stories? Surely you’ve found some signs of . . .’

‘Don’t get your hopes up. There’s a chance we won’t find anything like that.’

Kilburn was about to reply when his son appeared at the café door. Oliver Kilburn was tall, classically good looking with
fine fair hair. Neil noticed a distinct family resemblance and wondered, not for the first time, whether the boss’s son was
a helper or a spy in their midst. Kilburn greeted Oliver with a scowl, seemingly annoyed by the interruption, but before he
could say anything the sound of raised voices drifted over on the breeze, clear above the cry of the seagulls and the thunder
of the waves. Something was happening.


Neil shaded his eyes and looked out to sea. A dinghy was approaching, its outboard motor thrusting it through the waves at
full speed. Without a word he left the Kilburns, father and son, and ran towards the waterline to meet it. When the dinghy
reached the shore Matt jumped out, anxious to relay some news. Neil glanced back and saw that Dominic Kilburn was standing
beside his son, watching expectantly, no doubt hoping that Matt was bringing the news he had been waiting for since he had
first heard the story of the Celestina.


But what Matt had to say didn’t concern sunken treasure. After a brief conversation, Neil took his mobile phone from his pocket
and looked at it despairingly. There was no signal. He swore under his breath and looked up to find Dominic Kilburn and his
son standing beside him.


‘What’s going on? What have they found?’

Neil didn’t answer. ‘I need to get to a phone. There’s no mobile signal around here.’

‘There’s a cottage up on the cliff top. You pass it on the way down to the beach,’ said Oliver Kilburn in an attempt to be
helpful.


‘Thanks,’ Neil mumbled. At least the boy’s suggestion had been a good one.

He looked out to sea again, ignoring Dominic Kilburn’s repeated questions. He could see that the diving team were dragging
something onto their boat but he didn’t hang around. He rushed off up the sand, leaving a neat trail of footprints behind
him, and scaled the steep and overgrown path to the lane above.


When he reached the top he paused to catch his breath, but then he ran on. Fifty yards down the lane he found a small, brick-built
cottage fronted by a long and overgrown garden. The gate bore the name ‘Old Coastguard Cottage’ on a rustic wooden plaque,
but Neil had no time to take in the architectural niceties: he rushed up the garden path, ignoring the tall, toppled flowers
that ambushed his legs, and banged on the front door. The sound was urgent – but then it was meant to be.


A thin, dark-haired man in his early thirties opened the door a fraction and peeped round suspiciously, as though he feared
a raid of some kind. When Neil explained the reason for his visit the door opened a little wider, and after a few seconds
he was allowed into the hallway.


The man pointed to an old-fashioned telephone, which stood on the hall table, and he watched in silence as Neil dialled the
numbers: 999.


‘Police,’ Neil said calmly, instinctively turning away from the man. ‘We’ve found a body in the sea at Chadleigh Cove.’

When Neil turned round he saw that the colour had drained out of his host’s face.

The two policemen climbed out of the car and admired the view. Chadleigh Hall had been built at a time when pleasing proportions
were all the rage.


‘It’ll be nice when it’s finished,’ commented the elder of the pair, a big man with unruly hair, an expanding midriff and a prominent Liverpool accent.


‘What are they doing to it?’

‘Turning it into one of them posh country hotels. Nothing that need concern us on our salaries.’

The younger man smiled. ‘I suppose we’d better see what all the fuss is about.’

As if on cue, a uniformed constable appeared, shaded by the magnificent Georgian portico. He raised his hand in greeting.
‘Sorry to drag you out, sir,’ he said, addressing the older man and ignoring his companion. ‘But a couple of workmen have
turned up a body. They were knocking a wall through and they found a skeleton. I reckon it looks suspicious,’ he added seriously.


‘Right, then, George, lead us to it.’

The constable led the way through what was once, and no doubt would be again, a magnificent entrance hall, now filled with
scaffolding, large paint pots and the tools of the builder’s trade. They ascended a sweeping, dust-covered staircase and passed
through a series of rooms, each stripped bare to the plaster and awaiting the attentions of electricians and decorators.


The younger CID officer breathed in, the smell of fresh paint reminding him that he had promised his wife that he would decorate
the bedroom some time soon – work permitting.


Stepping through another doorway, they found themselves in a smaller room, as bare as the rest. Two men were sitting on wooden
stools: the smaller of the pair was a monkey-like man with the wizened skin of a heavy smoker, the larger sported a fine beer
belly and had more hair on his body than on his head. They stared at the newcomers.


‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Heffernan and er . . .’ The constable hesitated. He knew Gerry Heffernan – everybody knew
Gerry Heffernan – but he hadn’t come across his colleague before, although he’d heard of his existence: there weren’t that many black detective inspectors in the local force.


‘Detective Inspector Peterson,’ the younger man said quietly.

‘They’ve come to ask you a few questions,’ the constable said with relish.

‘Right, then, let’s get on with it, shall we,’ Heffernan began, looking from one to the other. ‘Which of you found this skeleton?’

‘We both did, I suppose. But Ian went inside to have a look and I stayed out here. It gave me the creeps just looking at it.’
Marty Shawcross shuddered.


‘Can you tell us what happened?’

Marty looked at the policeman who spoke. Detective Inspector Peterson possessed a quiet air of authority which Marty assumed
was bestowed by his police warrant card.


‘We didn’t know it was there,’ Marty said defensively. There was no way they were going to lay any blame on him. ‘The plans
said this wall was to be knocked through so me and Ian started and there was this sort of room and . . .’


‘It must have given you a shock.’ Wesley Peterson did his best to look sympathetic.

‘Nearly gave me a bleeding heart attack seeing that thing staring at me.’

‘Me and all,’ Ian chipped in, not wanting to be left out.

Heffernan plunged his hands into his trouser pockets and looked Marty in the eye. ‘Well, if you’ve recovered perhaps you could
give a statement to the constable here while me and Inspector Peterson have a look at what you’ve found.’


Marty nodded. ‘We thought we were just knocking through to the room next door. We reckoned it was a cupboard or something.
It’s nothing to do with us really. We just . . .’


Wesley Peterson decided to interrupt the protestations of innocence. ‘Do you know anything about this place? Who were the previous owners?’


Marty shrugged his shoulders, still on the defensive. ‘It used to be some posh girls’ boarding school. Then it was empty for
a few years until Kilburn Leisure bought it and decided to turn it into a hotel. There’s going to be a health spa and a golf
course and . . .’


Wesley looked around at the chaos, the protruding electrical wiring and the debris-strewn floor. ‘Very nice,’ he said, imagining
the finished result.


‘It’ll be a bit beyond our pockets but the Chief Constable might give it a go,’ mumbled Gerry Heffernan with what sounded
like envy. He nodded to the constable, who was hovering near the door, preparing to usher Marty and Ian away.


Marty raised a hand, as if about to say something. But the constable shot him a discouraging look and the two men filed out
meekly.


Wesley Peterson watched them disappear through the doorway. ‘I can’t see that their statements are going to tell us much.’

‘We’ve got to go through the motions, Wes. And you never know, one of them might have done it.’

‘Hardly likely.’ Wesley grinned at his boss. ‘I bet this room – if it is a room – has been sealed up for years.’

‘We’d better take a look, I suppose. After you.’

Wesley ventured into the room first. Although the entrance had been enlarged since Marty’s initial discovery, he had to lower
his head as he crossed into the unknown. The space was pitch dark, and Wesley wrinkled his nose at the musty odour of decay.
He could hear Gerry Heffernan breathing close behind and he found some comfort in the thought that he wasn’t alone. And at
least, unlike Ian and Marty, he knew what to expect. He flicked on the torch he had borrowed from the constable and moved
its beam about the room.


It was small, this chamber of death: around eight foot by nine. As the light played around the cobweb-covered walls he could make out a dark shape in the corner.


The torch beam came to rest.

‘Ruddy heck,’ Heffernan murmured.

Wesley said nothing. He stared at the thing sitting there; a complete skeleton slumped on a large, solid-backed, wooden chair.
Its wrists appeared to be tied by wisps of rope to the chair’s arms and the skull grinned up at them, as if pleased to have
some company. A hank of fairish hair was still attached to the skull and decayed scraps of cloth and tissue clung to the bones.
Wesley looked away.


‘Poor sod. Looks like he’s been tied up in here and left to die.’ Gerry Heffernan began to back out of the room. ‘Has someone
called Colin Bowman?’


‘He was in the middle of a post-mortem but he said he’ll be here as soon as he can.’

‘Come on, Wes, let’s get out of here.’

Wesley didn’t protest. He would be as glad as his boss to be out of that tomb chamber. Wesley, who had studied archaeology
at university, had seen many bones in his time, but somehow these filled him with a particular horror. It was the circumstances
– the squalid little room, the chair and the remnants of rope that suggested the victim had been alive when he was left in
there; that he had been helpless as he listened to his tomb being sealed before facing a slow death in the darkness.


They stepped outside into the larger room, a room on the first floor which would probably have been used as a bedchamber when
the house was built in the eighteenth century but which was now earmarked as an office for the new hotel.


‘How long do you think he’s been there?’ Heffernan asked anxiously. If it was less than seventy years it was their job to
launch an investigation.


‘Haven’t a clue yet but there’s bound to be something that’ll give us a hint. And by the way, I think it’s a she.’

Chief Inspector Heffernan looked at his subordinate in wonder. ‘How do you work that one out?’

‘The look of the skull. I could be wrong but . . .’

Gerry Heffernan said nothing. Man or woman, the skeleton in the sealed room at Chadleigh Hall – soon to be the Chadleigh
Hall Country Hotel – was something he’d rather not think about.


The constable announced the arrival of the pathologist.

Gerry Heffernan was relieved to see Colin Bowman. Last time he had encountered a suspicious death he had had to make do with
Colin’s locum – and Gerry hadn’t quite made up his mind whether he approved of lady pathologists like Laura Kruger. To Gerry
Heffernan a woman’s place was with living patients, preferably in a mother-and-baby clinic.


Colin, his usual relaxed self, indulged in his customary ten minutes of social chitchat before borrowing a torch and venturing
into the small chamber where the skeleton sat, now the focus of the police photographer’s attention. Wesley and Heffernan
waited outside the room for the verdict: there wasn’t room in there for all of them.


After a few minutes Colin emerged, his amiable face serious. ‘Nasty business.’

‘How long do you think it’s been there?’ Wesley asked. ‘It is old or . . .?’

‘Well, I can pronounce life extinct but not much else at the moment. If I had to hazard a guess I’d say she – and I’m pretty
sure it’s a she, incidentally – has been there for some years. But how many years . . .’


‘Can’t you give us any idea?’ Gerry Heffernan sounded impatient. If he wasn’t under any obligation to investigate the unknown
woman’s gruesome death, he wanted to get back to the police station for a nice cup of tea.


‘Sorry,’ said Colin Bowman. He picked up his bag. ‘Well, gentlemen, if you can arrange for the remains to be brought to the
mortuary, I can make a more thorough examination.’ He looked around. ‘This place was a school for years, you know. A girls’ boarding school. An aunt of my wife’s was an old girl.’


‘And did she tell you if they used to wall up their pupils when they misbehaved?’ said Wesley with a smile.

‘She never mentioned it and I can’t really ask her as she’s in South Africa.’

Heffernan slapped Wesley on the back. ‘Time we were off, Wes. We can’t do much here until Colin’s given us his verdict and
I want to catch up with some paperwork.’ He sounded subdued, serious. Not his usual ebullient self.


Heffernan had begun to march towards the staircase and Wesley followed, wondering what had brought about the boss’s change
of mood and this unaccustomed desire to catch up on paperwork – he usually behaved as though it didn’t exist. Perhaps the
thought of the woman in the sealed room had affected him more than he would care to admit.


‘Are you okay, Gerry?’

‘’Course I am.’

Neither man said anything as they walked towards the car. Then Wesley decided to break the silence, to distract them both
from thoughts of death.


‘How are Sam and Rosie settling in?’ Gerry Heffernan’s children were both home from university for the summer.

‘Okay. Rosie’s got herself a job playing the piano in some posh restaurant. And Sam’s working for a landscape gardening company.
Makes a change from last year.’


Wesley grinned. Last summer Gerry’s son, Sam, had found a particularly enterprising way of supplementing his student loan.
It was something Wesley could hardly forget.


He was about to unlock the car door when his mobile phone rang. Heffernan looked irritated. ‘Whoever invented those things
should be shot,’ he muttered as Wesley answered it.


After a brief conversation Wesley turned to his companion. ‘A body’s been found in the sea off Chadleigh Cove. They want
us there. It’s not far away.’


‘I know where it is, Wes. We used to take the kids there when they were little. Nice beach. Kathy always used to like places
where you didn’t get the crowds of day trippers.’


Wesley noticed a faraway look in his boss’s eyes, the look that always appeared when his late wife’s name was mentioned.

He opened his mouth, about to mention that Neil Watson was working on some eighteenth-century shipwreck at Chadleigh Cove.
But he thought better of it. ‘I suppose we’d better get over there.’


‘Two bodies in one day, eh?’ said Heffernan gloomily. ‘Don’t suppose we’ve got much choice.’

The beach was inaccessible to vehicles so the police and ambulance personnel had to make their way along the steep path that
led down from the cliff top.


Neil Watson had watched as a couple of the divers working on the wreck had carried the body ashore. A woman’s body, barely
recognisable after the sea creatures had feasted greedily on the eyes and soft flesh, swathed in sodden and shapeless cloth,
filthy with mud and seaweed. There were no shoes on the waxy, swollen feet but there was a wedding ring on her finger, cutting
into the bloated flesh.


The divers stood around on the golden sands, not quite knowing what to do. When Dominic Kilburn had seen their discovery,
he had pleaded a business meeting and left. But Oliver still hung around, watching.


A young constable in shirtsleeves, first on the scene, busied himself trying to convince everybody that there was nothing
to see. But nobody seemed to be taking much notice of him.


When Heffernan and Wesley arrived the body was ready to be moved by a couple of well-built ambulance men. The police surgeon
– or Forensic Medical Examiner, as he was now known – had pronounced life extinct and had authorised the woman’s last journey to Tradmouth Hospital mortuary to lie with the Chadleigh Hall bones in a room of stainless-steel
drawers.


There was nothing more to be done until they knew her identity and Colin Bowman had determined exactly how she died. Just
as Gerry Heffernan was suggesting that they return to the station for a cup of tea, Wesley spotted a familiar face.


He walked towards Neil Watson, his feet sinking in the fine sand: it was difficult for a man wearing a suit on a sunny beach
to look anything but out of place. Neil saw him and grinned.


‘That body’s not going to hold us up, is it?’ Neil had always put his work first, ever since he and Wesley had been students
together at Exeter University; not a thought for the unfortunate woman who’d just been pulled out of the sea.


‘I shouldn’t think so. Tell me about this shipwreck, then. How are you getting on?’

Neil was only too pleased to satisfy his old friend’s curiosity. ‘The ship was called the Celestina. According to the records, she hit the rocks one night in 1772 and sank out there, just where the dive boat is.’ He pointed
to the divers’ small vessel that bobbed at anchor a couple of hundred yards out to sea.


Neil looked round to make sure Oliver Kilburn wasn’t in earshot. ‘Dominic Kilburn of Kilburn Leisure owns the manor of Chadleigh
and he has rights to any wreck in the sea off his land.’ He frowned, trying to remember the exact terms. ‘Any ship wrecked
as far out to sea as a man on horseback can see an umber barrel, that’s it. It’s one of those archaic manorial things.’


‘So why are you here?’

‘The County Archaeological Unit’s coordinating everything and making sure that anything of historic interest is dealt with
properly, but Dr James, who’s an expert in marine archaeology, is leading the actual dive. Kilburn’s making a great show of cooperation, saying how he values our help and all that. But I get the feeling we’re just here to
keep the authorities happy, and we’re as welcome as a plague of cockroaches in his hotel kitchens.’


‘So how’s it going?’

‘Okay so far. Of course, it’s Jane who loves all this underwater stuff, and she’s having the time of her life working with
Dr James: she hangs on his every word.’ He grinned, pointing to a tall blonde in a black wet suit who was standing down by
the water’s edge.


‘I read somewhere that there are a lot of wrecks around this coast.’

‘Oh, yes. It’s famous for them.’

‘So why’s Kilburn so interested in this one? What’s in it for him?’

Neil smiled knowingly. ‘I dare say I can let you in on his little secret. According to contemporary records, the Celestina was on her way home from Portugal to Tradmouth carrying a cargo of gold coins and jewels. And as far as we know they’re still
down there waiting to be found. And if Kilburn has this ancient manorial right to the wreck, then legally . . .’


‘Any sign of them?’

‘Not yet. And we’re trying to keep the whole thing quiet. The last thing we want is treasure hunters.’

Large quantities of gold had always eluded Neil on his past forays into archaeology. But there had to be a first time.

‘How’s Pam?’ Neil asked suddenly, shielding his eyes from the light.

‘She’s okay. But she can’t wait for the end of term.’

‘I keep forgetting when the baby’s due.’

Wesley was rather surprised that Neil even remembered Pam was pregnant: such things usually passed him by. ‘Not until November
but . . .’


Wesley was interrupted in mid-sentence by a loud voice behind him. ‘I thought it was you. What are you digging up this time?’
Gerry Heffernan had arrived.


‘A shipwreck,’ Neil answered. ‘Was it murder, then?’

Heffernan looked confused.

‘The body in the sea – was it murder?’

‘I hope not. The weather’s nice and the holiday season’s coming up so the last thing we want is more work. Has Wes told you
about the skeleton we found at Chadleigh Hall?’


‘No, he’s been keeping that one quiet.’ Neil looked at Wesley expectantly.

‘Some workmen have just found a skeleton in a sealed room at Chadleigh Hall, about half a mile from here.’

‘How long’s it been there?’ Neil sounded interested.

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘Let me know if you want me to have a look at where it was found,’ said Neil. ‘Examining the historical context and all that.’

‘Skiving off work, you mean,’ Gerry Heffernan mumbled under his breath.

Neil grinned. ‘Call it helping the police with their enquiries. How about it?’

Gerry Heffernan shrugged. It would do no harm. Neil’s expert eye might spot something that wo