The Bone Garden (34 page)

But it had been hard work. And he had had to share a room;
accommodation for the seasonal workers. He hadn’t liked that. He needed his privacy. And his room-mate had got on his nerves
with his public school ways and casual boasts of his expected inheritance.

Always a good mimic, he had learned to imitate Charles, copy his mannerisms. His drama sessions in the young offenders’ institution
hadn’t been completely wasted. This trick had caused a lot of hilarity among his motley crowd of fellow workers from all over
Europe. He and Charles had even looked alike and were sometimes mistaken for each other by the boss, Monsieur Petit.
Les jumeaux terribles
, they were called: the terrible twins. Until one day he got sick of Charles – sick of his talk of his cosy, privileged childhood
in the large Dukesbridge bungalow; his expensive education in some posh boarding school; and his financial expectations, which
even included a manor house that his family hadn’t lived in for years. He felt no sympathy for the fact that Charles had no
family apart from an invalid father, that his mother had died when he was small; that he had no family or friends with which
he had kept in touch in England. He made the alarming discovery that he could feel no sympathy for anyone but himself – in
fact, he could feel nothing. No pity, no guilt – nothing.

And when an official-looking letter had arrived for Charles, Mark – feeling instinctively that it might be to his advantage
– had pocketed it secretly and opened it when he was alone. It said that Charles’ father had died. Mark had hidden the letter,
keeping the knowledge to himself. Why shouldn’t he? It was time life dealt him some good cards for a change. He had thought
the sleeping pills he had given Charles in France would finish him off; that his death would be taken for suicide so there
would be no awkward loose ends.

So it had been a shock when Brian Willerby cornered him in Earlsacre village, just outside the King’s Head, and asked if he
could have one of his ‘discreet words’. He had said that a man claiming to be the real Charles Pitaway had rung him from a
caravan park in Bloxham; that he had compared Charles’ handwriting with his own in his office file and had found a discrepancy;
he was worried and was contemplating mentioning it to a policeman he knew … discreetly, of course. Poor Brian – he really
hadn’t been very good at that sort of thing. What a mistake it had been for the solicitor to tell him everything he knew,
and exactly where the real Charles was staying. He had had no choice: he had had to eliminate Charles, the threat to all
he had acquired, and he had had to silence that pathetic little man Brian Willerby at the first opportunity.

Now he was on his way back to France with the prospect of a new future. And the police had no solid evidence against him.
He wasn’t a fool; he had covered his tracks well. He had the file containing his correspondence with Brian Willerby – and
the letters in the handwriting of the real Charles – with him in his briefcase: it would go straight into the English Channel
once they had set sail. And as for Rachel – well, the police already knew that they were seeing each other, so that would
explain away any forensic evidence of her presence in his flat. Pity about Rachel. But when you’ve killed twice, murder –
the disposal of a human obstacle – is easy. And she’d never be found – he had seen to that.

He smiled to himself as he turned away from the rail, intending to head for the bar. He needed a drink.

‘Where is she?’ The voice made him jump. He saw a figure emerging on to the deck. ‘Where is she?’ Wesley repeated, walking
forward slowly, his hands clenched by his side.

Mark Helston, otherwise known as Charles Pitaway, drew himself up to his full height and smiled. ‘I’ve really no idea who
you’re talking about,’ he replied, kicking his briefcase over the side of the ship.

Wesley came out of the interview room on the ground floor of Tradmouth police station. He needed a break; needed to get out
before he was tempted to punch Helston in his smug, inscrutable face, to take him by the scruff of his neck and strangle him
till he told the truth. Wesley Peterson would never have considered himself a violent man. His God-fearing parents had always
taught him that violence solved nothing – that it was the peacemakers who were blessed, not those who resorted to using their
fists. It had never occurred to him to disagree with this point of view – until now. Now he found himself wanting to smash
Helston’s face to pulp each time he shrugged those elegantly clad shoulders when he was asked what had happened to Rachel
Tracey.

Gerry Heffernan joined him outside in the corridor and put a fatherly hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t let him get to you, Wes.’

‘He knows where she is.’

‘We don’t know that. He said she left first thing this morning before we arrived to question him. At the moment we can’t prove
otherwise. Forensic are going over his car and his apartment, but by the look of it the car’s been scrubbed clean recently.
He’s had lots of time to get rid of any evidence.’

Heffernan was making a great effort to sound professional, detached – but he wasn’t making a very good job of it. The expression
on his face betrayed every emotion, every fear and doubt.

They heard the sound of rapid footsteps and WPC Trish Walton appeared round the corner, hurrying towards them, her face set
in an earnest, worried frown. ‘I’ve just heard from the mobile phone company, sir. They say her mobile’s somewhere in Dukesbridge.
They can’t be more accurate than that, I’m afraid. And the briefcase has been retrieved from the water. Forensic have got
it now.’

‘Thanks, Trish,’ said Wesley quietly.

‘Dukesbridge, eh?’ mused Heffernan as Trish headed back to the CID office.

Wesley closed his eyes, trying to focus on the evidence. They had to start thinking clearly, for Rachel’s sake.

‘The neighbour said he’d been having a clear-out and had a rug with him. He told the neighbour he was taking it to be cleaned.’

‘Strange thing to do, unless he was getting rid of the evidence. Bloodstains,’ Heffernan added, almost in a whisper.

‘It wasn’t in his car so he must have got rid on it
en route
. Which road would you take from Dukesbridge to Plymouth?’

‘The A379, I suppose. That’s the obvious route. The most direct.’

Wesley thought for a few moments. He felt helpless: he had to take some action, however futile it might turn out to be. ‘I
think we should go to Dukesbridge; drive along the route he must have taken. He must have left that rug somewhere. Has someone
rung all the cleaners in the area?’

Heffernan nodded earnestly. Then a thought came to him. ‘We’ve been assuming that he was ditching the rug to get rid of evidence.
But what if Rachel was rolled up in it, Cleopatra-style?’

That same thought had already occurred to Wesley.

Heffernan looked at him, more resolute now. ‘Come on, Wes, let’s get out of here. Then at least we can feel we’re doing something
instead of hanging around contemplating our belly buttons and thinking the worst.’

Wesley led the way, pushing open the swing-doors with uncharacteristic violence. Without a word he drove out of the police
station carpark and on to the main road. Even Gerry Heffernan spent the journey in silence, racking his brains for the tiniest
clue that might betray Rachel’s whereabouts.

When they reached the outskirts of Dukesbridge, Wesley pulled the car up on to a grass verge and stopped. ‘Let’s try and follow
his route from his flat to the ferry. We know her mobile’s somewhere in Dukesbridge, within a mile or so’s radius of the town
centre. There are all sorts of possibilities. The mobile might not be with her for some reason. He might have taken a detour
off the route. But let’s not think about that now. Let’s assume that he made straight for Plymouth and that she still has
the mobile with her. Okay?’

Heffernan nodded, fearing that the alternative scenarios Wesley mentioned were only too possible. But he didn’t put his misgivings
into words. Now wasn’t the time for negative thought.

Like Tradmouth, Dukesbridge was perched on a river estuary, although the Duke’s was less impressive as estuaries go, and at
low tide the river was an expanse of mud punctuated by hungry wading birds. It had been low tide when they had first arrived
that morning, but now the tide was rising as Wesley drove to Pitaway’s waterfront apartment and parked outside. He looked
up at the balcony of the empty flat and stared at the gleaming, lifeless glass of the French window. Heffernan stared too.
Neither man uttered a word. After a few minutes Wesley thrust the gear lever into first and set off. He negotiated his way
along Dukesbridge’s narrow main shopping street, making for the main road out to Plymouth. Old properties gave way to Victorian,
then to houses built in the twenties and thirties. As they reached the outskirts of the small town, newer estates sprawled
out, nibbling at the countryside.

On the very edge of town they passed a colourful notice announcing that Southair Homes were in the process of building forty
executive three- and four-bedroomed detached houses. Suddenly Wesley braked, causing the car behind to sound its horn aggressively.

‘What have you stopped for?’ Gerry Heffernan sounded mildly annoyed. ‘Now’s hardly the time for house-hunting.’

Wesley turned to him, impatient. ‘Helston was involved in garden design. He told me at the cricket match that he’d designed
gardens for some new showhouses on the outskirts of Dukesbridge.’

Heffernan wasn’t given time to take this in. Wesley jumped from the car and ran over to the building site. Heffernan followed,
but
slowly at a distance: he really wasn’t up to all this leaping about at his age. He puffed behind as Wesley ran past the showhouse
set in its small, newly landscaped front garden – probably Helston’s handiwork – towards the back of the site, where construction
was still going on. A few hard-hatted men seemed hard at work on the new dwellings that the powers that be considered necessary
to house Devon’s swelling population in the twenty-first century. A huge yellow digger squatted by a ditch filled with concrete
drainage pipes.

Wesley stopped. To his right a burly labourer was standing with tattooed arms folded challengingly, staring at him. ‘No unauthorised
persons,’ he said with barely disguised hostility. ‘And where’s your ’at. Health and safety,’ he added righteously.

Wesley rooted in his inside pocket for his warrant card. ‘Police. I’m Acting Detective Inspector Peterson.’

The man shifted from foot to foot uneasily. ‘I’ll get the foreman,’ he grunted, edging away across the furrowed ground.

‘What time did work start here this morning?’

The man looked Wesley up and down suspiciously. ‘What do you want to know for?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Just answer the question,’ Wesley barked. This was no time to worry about police–public relations.

‘We were late this morning, started work about ten ’cause we knew some materials we needed wouldn’t arrive till then. We’ll
work late tonight, mind. Why?’

‘So at around nine this morning this site was deserted?’

The man nodded.

‘Were those sewer pipes there this morning?’ he asked, looking at the trench where the concrete tubes lay waiting to be covered.
A small crane stood by with another pipe dangling from its chains, ready to extend the line towards where the new houses would
be built.

‘Aye. Why do you want to know?’ The man’s aggression had now given way to curiosity.

The digger’s engine had started up and it was edging forward, ready to fill the trench with the soil heaped at its edge. It
was getting nearer, moving forward relentlessly on its caterpillar tracks like some giant crocodile slithering towards the
water. Wesley shouted, but his voice could hardly be heard over the throbbing engine.

It was Gerry Heffernan who acted. He stumbled over to the digger
and stood a few yards in front of it waving his arms like a brave revolutionary confronting a dictator’s tank. The machine
halted; fortunately the driver’s shower of colourful expletives was lost under the continuing noise of the engine. Eventually,
when he realised the large, scruffy man in front of him wasn’t going to budge, the driver turned the key in the ignition.

‘I want a look inside these pipes,’ said Wesley, making for the end of the row, his clean and unsuitable shoes slipping on
the hillocks of discarded soil. He half jumped, half fell into the trench, past caring about the state of his suit. Gerry
Heffernan trotted after him, followed by the labourer and the driver. A few other workmen had begun to gather to see the entertainment
that would distract them from the dull routine of house construction.

Wesley could just make out a shape: something was lying about ten feet inside the sewer pipe. It was too far in to be easily
detectable when the next pipe was added to the row. In fact, once the pipes were covered it was unlikely to be detected at
all, unless it caused a blockage. It looked like a rug or a roll of carpet, tied at both ends and lying at the bottom of the
concrete tube. If they had been half an hour later it would have been buried unseen along with the sewer pipes.

‘I’m going in,’ said Wesley. ‘There’s something in there.’ He refrained from saying ‘someone’.

But the labourer pushed him out of the way. ‘Quicker if I do it,’ he said impatiently, and he fell to his knees and began
to crawl into the pipe.

His voice echoed around the ring of concrete as he uttered an oath of amazement. ‘Fuckin’ hell. It feels like there’s something
inside here.’ The man sounded shaken by his discovery. ‘I’ll pull it out.’

‘Can you manage?’ asked Wesley anxiously.

He couldn’t make out the reply, but the man emerged, bottom first, dragging the now filthy roll of rug behind him. It was
secured at either end with string, like a Christmas cracker. The man drew a penknife from the pocket of his soil-covered jeans
and looked at Wesley inquiringly. Wesley nodded.

The string cut, the rug remained tightly rolled around the shape in its centre. Wesley stared at it as though paralysed, not
daring to touch it, fearing what he might find. But Gerry Heffernan pushed him out of the way. ‘Let the dog see the rabbit,
eh?’ He bent and picked up an edge of the rug. ‘Well, we’ve all seen the film, haven’t we?’ He yanked at the edge and the
rug began to unroll. An arm flopped out.