In the Moors (2 page)

“Your eleven o'clock client?”

“I'm afraid not,” said Rey. “I'm here on official business.”

“Don't you chaps usually turn up in pairs?” said Ivan.

“This is a straightforward, informal interview.”

“Informal official business,” I said, trying to get a secret smile to Ivan.

It didn't work. He turned away, as if bored by the whole thing—hens, dead or alive, detectives, informal or official.

“Give me a ring!” I threw after him, but he'd already disappeared into the hallway. I heard the front door slam.

“I'm sorry,” Rey began.

“Don't be.”

“Your partner?” he queried.

I gave him a big, sunny smile. “My lover. Ex, probably.”

TWO

After Ivan left, the
detective sergeant became all professional and distant. He didn't actually put his palms out and say “whoa!” but I could see he was mentally reassessing his approach.

“Miss Dare,” he began, “I'd be grateful if you could tell me anything you know about Mr. Houghton.”

“That should be easy. I can't tell you anything. I'm bound by an agreement of confidentiality.”

“We're investigating a serious matter, Miss Dare, and we'd appreciate your cooperation.”

I took a couple of swallows of Barleycup while my head reeled. “How serious is serious?”

“Very. Homicide.”

“Murder?” I yelped. “My client?”

“We're working on several leads. The more information we have, the sooner we can drop the ones that go nowhere.”

I nodded once. I could feel the blood pumping under my temples. Was that because a murderer had been in my therapy room,
or because the police were here now? “Even if I told you everything I knew, I don't think you'd be any the wiser. My sessions don't work like that.”

“In about half an hour,” said Rey, suddenly chatty, “Mr. Houghton will be released from an extended interview, free to go. I think he will immediately phone you to apologise for missing the appointment. He will not be told of my visit. I'm hoping he'll ask for a new appointment.”

“Sounds as if he'll need it.”

“As do we, Miss Dare. His next appointment may tell us whether this man is involved in the crime we're investigating.”

It was like stepping into a sudden draught of cold air. I swallowed hard on the Barleycup in my mouth, almost choking. “You want me to pass things he tells me over to you? That's immoral.”

“Not when lives are at risk.”

“I couldn't do that if my
own
life was at risk.”

“Your life is not at risk. I wouldn't ask you to do this if I thought it was.”

It was the
I
in his statement that made me pause. I reconsidered Ivan's comment about police arriving in pairs. Why was this man alone? “I want to see your ID again.”

He slid it over the coffee table. I wouldn't know a fake police badge if it had
Counterfeit!
stamped over it, but I rested my hand on the plastic coat and closed my eyes, to see what drifted into my mind. I gained a sensation—a recognition of strength and self-possession. Hidden underneath was a split-second flash of utter fatigue, the sort one associates with huge amounts of unhealthy habits. But that might be me, stereotyping the guy. Maybe he was a teetotal policeman.

“You're smart, Sabbie,” said Rey. “I'm here on a bit of a hunch. The man we're interviewing is a puzzle, and I'm hoping you'll be able to help solve it.”

“I told you,” I said. “I can't divulge anything that passes between me and a client.”

“If need be, we'd get a warrant for access to your notes. Your entire system if necessary—electronic to handwritten.”

I gave a soft chuckle, which calmed me. “That wouldn't do you any good at all. I don't keep the sort of client notes that would tell you anything.”

“You don't keep proper notes? What sort of psychotherapist d'you call yourself?” The man glowered. I could see he didn't like me dodging his questions, so I threw in my chips.

“My business is more spiritually based. I read tarot, offer Reiki healing, that sort of thing. Cliff was consulting me as a shaman.” I gestured to my belt of tools, which he'd been careful not stare at. “I speak with spirits, Rey. And, yes, I write down what I bring back. But only the client will understand it. I promise you that.”

Rey passed a hand from the front of his scalp to the back. His hair flattened and sprang up again, like new-mown grass. “Why … why do people do it?”

“Because some problems run deep. These might come out as bad eczema, or insomnia, perhaps. But underlying that, there is something harming the person from the inside. I try to get useful answers by working with the person's spirit world.”

Rey took a while to answer, which I considered a good thing. As a bloke, a copper, and someone who wore their hair as if they were about to pull on flying goggles, I hadn't put “listening to women” anywhere on his priorities list.

“Okay,” he said, finally. “So this guy came to you with a serious problem. A paying customer. And now he's under suspicion for murder. You see, there's a possible cause and effect between these two things. Like he's crying out to be helped. Or caught.” He picked up his mug, swilled the slops around, and put it down again. “He must want to be caught, because we found him scrabbling around in the middle of the night on top of the shallow grave we opened six weeks ago.”

“Not … ” I felt the house become still and hushed around me. “Not where you found that little boy.”

“Yes,” said Rey. “Josh Sutton.”

“I can't believe it. Cliff didn't come across as a …” I couldn't say the word.

“Doesn't your business help you see through people?” said Rey. “I mean,
into
them?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Weirdly, it's more likely to be some sort of artefact that works for me—we call it psychometry.” I didn't think I'd bother to tell him what I'd felt when I'd touched his badge. “And when I work with a client, I get to know their spirit world. But I'm not at that stage with Cliff Houghton yet.”

I thought about the first journey I'd taken for Cliff, using the personal object he'd brought for me. I'd felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding I hadn't been able to explain … I hadn't tried to, at the time. When I work as a shaman, I close my eyes and let myself down into a different place. It's like sinking into a full tub of warm water. I'm hoping to tap into the deep truths of the spirit world. Sometimes I can feel what a client is feeling, even though they don't know they're feeling it. But without that connection … without the spirit world to guide me, I'm not much better than the next guy at gauging personality. What had I thought of Cliff, the one time I'd met him? Quiet. Perhaps a little too quiet, which did make him feel a little … odd.

I couldn't bear to think that I'd entered the spirit world of a child killer.

My mobile crowed. I jumped out of my thoughts, and the detective gawped at the phone. I didn't think Rey Buckley had a surprisable bone in his body, but there he was, mouth drooping open, as my phoned went
cock-a-doodle-doo!
over and over.

My foster brother, Dennon, gave me the cockerel ringtone as a birthday present after I got the hens. I've had as many embarrassing moments with it as I've had laughs, and I'm pretty sure that was what my dear brother had hoped. Den is only eight months older than me, and when I first went to live with his family at age thirteen, we got up to shed-loads of mischief together. Later, it had turned into nicked carloads of mischief. Joke ring-tones are his settled-down side, although he had his fair share of community orders before he managed it.

I could see who was calling, since I'd entered his number into my contacts. I started with a gentle “Hi” and let Cliff do the talking, which didn't last long.

“Wind-chime door bells and cockerel phones?” said Rey, as I folded my mobile closed. “You kinda like your sound effects, don't you?”

But I was no longer in the mood to barter comments. “That was Cliff, to say he's sorry he's late. He didn't mention why.”

“He won't want to tell you.”

“He's going to take what's left of his appointment.” I suddenly felt as if the temperature had dropped around me. I was trembling like a small puppy. “I cannot believe he'd hurt a child.”

Rey didn't make any reply. He was standing as if ready to depart. I noticed that his hands had folded together and that the fingers were lacing and re-lacing.

I threw him a sharp glance. “You don't believe it either, do you?”

“I go by facts, Sabbie,” he said. “Facts, proof, evidence. I don't trust hunches.”

“Yes you do,” I said softly. “Or you wouldn't be here.”

THREE

“It was awful,” said
Cliff. I'd given him a glass of water and he was holding on to it as if it was a healing elixir. The pads of his fingertips were crushed around it, until the surface of the water trembled and slopped onto his cords jeans.

“Perhaps it will help to describe what happened to you.”

Cliff downed the rest of the water and spent time examining the tumbler, turning it round and round and gazing into it as if it were a crystal ball. His hands were bony at the knuckles, the fingers long and pale.

“Look,” I began. “I've been honest with you. I've told you a detective came here, and what he wanted from me. I think that's called putting your neck on the line.”

“It looks bad, I know.” Cliff risked a glance at my face. “I couldn't even give a reasonable explanation to the police.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't have one. I don't know why I went there. It was stupid. A stupid thing to do. I just … I needed to …” He gazed towards the window. The blinds were covered by a length of muslin I fell in love with at a sale. It's a rich cream in colour and printed at intervals with the outline of birds in flight. I like the soaring feeling they give and the way the light filters in. It also hides the view of the street, busy with traffic and nosy parkers.

“It
was
a need. I had to see. The case of little Josh had got into my head. The thought of where he was in that desolate, boggy place.” He looked up. “My dad used to take me to the wetlands. There's fish in some of the bigger waterways. We'd always take back an armful of bulrushes for Mum. I was going to pick a bunch, but the dog got me first.” His mouth twisted to one side, showing his teeth, which lay apart from each other, like gravestones in a crowded cemetery. “They set a dog on me.”

“You feel the police violated you?”

“Do I look like the sort of person who would …” He squeezed his lips together with one hand, squashing them between his fingers and screwing them round as if he needed to stop words falling from them. It made my stomach churn. “Do I?”

“No,” I admitted. But that didn't really explain why he'd waded through the Somerset marshes in the middle of the night.

“Perhaps we should get on with our session.” My voice cracked. “Last time, I asked you to bring something you thought was significant to your problem for me to use.”

“Yeah, a silver sovereign. Present from my dad. Like I said last time, I think my difficulties … stem from when he died.”

“It must have been dreadful for you.”

“It's dreadful even now.” Cliff looked up from his examination of the tumbler and shook himself, as if he was desperate to change the mood. “It seemed bizarre, you asking for an object. Like giving something to a tracker dog to sniff. Now it seems ironic.” Gingerly, he raised his left arm. “I don't think they treated my bites seriously at the station.”

“You should get a tetanus. Shamanic consultations don't offer immunity from infection.” I took the empty glass from him. Its entire surface was smeared with the sweat from his fingers. I turned to the desk behind me and laid the glass on its surface. I'd made the desk myself—two cheap bedside cabinets with MDF laid across them. I'd draped the remainder of the winged muslin over this, my only nod to coordinated décor. I needed somewhere to keep things out of sight, so that they didn't disturb the tranquillity of the room. From a drawer I took my notes and the small, flat package that Cliff had handed me last Saturday. It had been the first time I'd set eyes on a sovereign. I tried to hand it back, but he was looking at the floor and playing with his mouth again, so I put it next to the empty glass.

“I took a spirit journey using your sovereign to guide me, as I said I would. I didn't bring much back that first time, but I'm confident things will improve over the next few sessions.”

“What've you got?”

“Usually on a first journey, I'm wandering around looking for a ‘lead in' to a client's spirit world. But with you, Cliff, I immediately found myself in a small room.” I gave a cough and looked down at the printed page of my notes. For no logical reason, my stomach was churning. “I suppose this room was about seven or eight foot square. There wasn't any furniture to speak of, but I sensed I was on an upstairs floor even though I couldn't see out. The window was small and covered in a brown curtain that had been nailed onto the frame. Naturally, the light was poor, but I could see that the room was a bit grubby …” I glanced up at him. “Actually, Cliff, the place was filthy, festooned with cobwebs. There was a pile of untouched food lying on the floorboards, a heap of stale sandwiches, curling at the edges.”

I knew I was going to shudder as I read the next words, and shifted on my seat to disguise it. Cliff was watching me intently, while his fingers twisted at his ponytail, playing with it as a girl does. Some of the earth-coloured strands weren't long enough to be caught up, and they fell greasily over his face. I looked back down at my page.

“There was only one other thing in the room—a Hessian sack with knots tied around its rim to keep it open, like you see in cartoons. Something glinted in the sack, but in the dim light I couldn't work out what it was. I can recall not wanting to look more closely, but I walked the few paces over to where it stood and dipped a hand in. I think I had been expecting money, or jewels or treasure of some sort, but a softness caressed my fingers.”

I paused. I knew I was stalling. I could not bring myself to go on, and I wasn't sure if that was because it had frightened me, or because it might frighten Cliff.

“What?” Cliff croaked. “What was in the sack?”

“Hair,” I said. “Clippings of human hair, all colours from black to blond, some curled, some straight.” I gave a light-hearted smile. “Could have been swept up from a barber's floor.”

“Barber?” said Cliff. “Sorry, means nothing. I don't use them.”

“Whyever not?” I felt as if I hadn't breathed properly in hours.

“I chop at it myself. Avoid the queues, save time.”

Cliff didn't look like a man who had to choose between a haircut and catching his flight to Zurich, but I didn't comment.

“That it?” said Cliff. “Is that all?”

I nodded, and my neck creaked. I make it a policy not to tell clients anything that feels bad without being able to give a glimmer of hope or at least some explanation. I had no intention of telling Cliff that, as I had handled the hair clippings, I had been convinced that there had been someone standing behind me who hadn't previously been part of this journey. Typically that denotes some sort of spiritual presence, a guardian of mine or of the client's. But a terror had filled me as I stood in that repulsive room. It had crushed my heart into my lungs and hardened my muscles like quick-dry cement. I could not turn round or even move.

I'd had an overwhelming urge to get out of that place. I'd called to my animal guide and in no more than a flash, the scene changed. I was at my shamanic portal, where I set off for every shamanic journey. In it, a brook runs below a deep, mossy bank, mauve with heather. The water is very fast but brilliantly clear, and you can see the white stones that litter the brook's bed.

When I arrived at my brook, my knees had given way and I'd collapsed onto the grass. A wet nose broke the surface of the brook. I'd gasped, then laughed. A raft of short whiskers and round, loving eyes. It was my spirit guide, an old male otter.

“I don't think I can go back there, Trendle.”

“That was enough. You should do no more today.”

I had reached out to tickle Trendle behind his small ears, which he loves, but he dived out of reach with one splashing flick of his snakelike tail.

Now, I glanced up at Cliff, still sitting with his gaze on his slightly grubby trainers.

“Yes.” My voice sounded artificial in my ears. “That was all.” I passed Cliff the printout of my slightly abridged notes. “This is your copy. I'd like you to read it through to see if anything resonates.”

He glanced down at it. “I don't think it means anything to me.”

“That shouldn't worry us.” I was trying hard to be calm and professional, but beneath the bodice of my black dress, my heart was flickering like the candles.

He nodded and stretched his legs out. His ankles were suddenly exposed above black nylon socks, all knobbles and blue veins. He was too slim, and I wondered if he had recently lost weight, especially as it showed in his face, hollowing his cheeks.

“Would you like a hot drink, or more water?”

“You could fill that glass with whisky.”

“Sorry, I don't—”

“It was a joke,” said Cliff. “A coffee would be great.”

I got into the kitchen somehow, and flicked the kettle on. I leaned against the worktop. I felt as if I'd just got out of my bed after a heavy night—fuzzy head, wobbly legs, a sick, empty feeling in my stomach. Maybe it was just my lack of breakfast, but I was glad of this reprieve. I needed to think everything through—Cliff's story, Rey, Ivan, dreams, hens. But instead, I thought about Josh Sutton.

Josh had gone missing on Christmas Eve, almost three months ago, now. His family—mum, dad, big brother Branwell, and one set of grandparents—had gone for an after-lunch stroll on the Bristol Downs. Josh and Branwell were playing hide and seek among the bushes, according to the family. The Downs consist of mile after square mile of common grassy space that ends where the suspension bridge spans the river gorge, and it's surrounded on the other three sides by the more opulent parts of Bristol. The Suttons, Josh's family, lived in one of the nearby eighteenth-century terraces; the Downs would be their natural playground. I can remember being taken there as a kid. I lived in Bristol then, and it's one of the nicer memories from my early childhood. Dotted across the grassy acreage are the natural-growing copses of trees and shrubs, a great attraction for kids and lovers alike. Kids, lovers, and rapists, in fact … it's best not to venture alone over the Downs on the way back from a late-night party.

But this was the middle of a Christmas Eve afternoon, and no one was thinking bad thoughts. So when Branwell came over to his parents and said that Josh had got himself so well hidden, he couldn't find him at all, his family thought it was a kid's prank. But even with everybody searching, Josh couldn't be found. By the time police and volunteers did a sweep search of the whole area, hope had already faded. Even the Slamblaster action toy that Josh had been clutching had disappeared.

There is never a good time to lose a child, but surely Christmas and New Year must be the worst. His parents' strained faces became increasingly gaunt as they appeared, time and again, on the evening news. The search was spread over a wider and wider area, but the people of Bridgwater—myself included—still felt a long way away from the tragedy. At the start of January, Josh should have celebrated his seventh birthday. The whole country mourned him on that day. It didn't seem possible that Josh would be seen alive again. A couple of weeks after his birthday, a party of walkers and a dog with a good nose stumbled on his body, left in a shallow grave in a remote part of the Somerset moors. Josh had been found fifty miles away from his home.

I gave a start. Cliff was standing right beside me. I hadn't even heard him come across the kitchen, but now he was so close that his breathing had broken into my reverie.

“When a child dies, it always feels personal, doesn't it?” I said. “My nephew is just a bit younger than Josh. Everyone will know a little boy like him. It's an unspeakably compulsive story.”

Cliff forced a weak smile. “Thank you for that. I was beginning to think it was just me that was obsessed with the case. I've listened to every news story since he was found, bought every newspaper. While I was in the cells, the police searched my flat. They found all the articles I'd cut out in a file.”

“Why? Why did you do that?”

“I was hoping you'd tell me.”

“Hot drink first, I think.” I made a repeat of the earlier Barleycup and coffee (this time milk but no sugar), and we carried them back into the therapy room. I followed behind Cliff's lumbering gait, which I suppose went with his extra height.

“They never announced how he died,” he said, without looking round. “I've read every newspaper report; they never said.”

“I hadn't really thought of that before,” I said. “I suppose it is rather odd.”

“Not as odd as where he was found.”

“Because of those other bodies? The ones they found there ages ago?”

“That's right.” Cliff returned to the client's chair. The chair is a sun lounger, a little tatty around the edges, so I've draped it with a Celtic knot throw. I can adjust it from psychoanalytically prone to bolt upright, which was how it was now. Cliff's trainered feet were solidly on the floor and he leaned towards me, ready to talk. “The papers can't make up their minds. Sometimes the Wetland Murderer has returned. Sometimes it's a copycat crime.”

“I don't remember the Wetland Murders at all,” I said.

“They were twenty-three years back.”

“Ah. I would've been five. And I didn't live around here.”

“I remember,” said Cliff. “I was eleven. All these little kids started disappearing. Their photos were plastered over the papers. Everyone got scared.”

“The new stories resurrected those old photos, didn't they?”

“They're loving it, the papers. Wallowing. Those killings were … gruesome. Even the children's bones were broken. They were found with the duct tape still over their mouths.” Cliff broke off to take a swallow of his coffee and place it carefully on the floor by his feet. “Unbelievable.”