The Corpse's Tale (Trevor Joseph Detective series) (6 page)

‘I’ll make one for all of us, shall I, Sergeant Thomas?’ David was as eager to please as a puppy in search of a tit-bit.

‘That would be nice, David, thank you.’ Mike waited until David was out of the room before handing Trevor a plastic evidence bag containing a sheet of paper. Scrawled in red crayon in childish capital letters were the words, KILLER GET OUT OR BE KILLED. YOU’RE NOT WANTED HERE.

‘Has David seen it?’ Trevor handed it back to Mike.

‘Yes. Not surprisingly it upset him. It was tied around one of these.’ Mike held up a second evidence bag containing four large stones.

Trevor took them and examined them through the plastic.

‘You can pick up ones like them in any field around here but I thought it as well to ask forensics to check them out.’

‘You might strike lucky with DNA.’ Trevor handed them back. ‘Mrs Morgan, I am sorry. After everything you have been through you shouldn’t have to put up with this.’

‘I didn’t expect people to welcome David back with open arms.’ Her voice trembled and she mopped tears from her eyes. ‘But after the judge freed him I thought they’d at least let us live in peace. David’s suffered so much. He didn’t kill Anna.’

David carried in a tray. ‘That’s why Mr Joseph is here, Mam,’ he said cheerfully, ‘to prove to everyone in Llan that I didn’t.’

‘Inspector Joseph, David,’ Mike corrected.

‘Mr will do.’ Trevor looked at Mrs Morgan. ‘Is there anyone you can go and stay with for the next few days, Mrs Morgan?’

‘I just told Sergeant Thomas. No one’s going to drive me out of my own home. They can do what they like. Throw stones at us, break our windows, burn the roof over our heads…’

‘There’s no need to get upset, Mrs Morgan,’ Mike interrupted. ‘I told you, I’ll have a uniformed officer stationed here, day and night, for the next few days.’

‘You have that much manpower?’ Trevor was amazed.

‘Mrs Morgan’s sofa looks comfortable, either I or one of my officers will sleep on it until this is over.’

‘Policing in rural Wales is certainly different to what I’m used to, Sergeant Thomas.’

‘The case you’re working on was the biggest we had in over a century.’

David handed round cups of tea and held the milk jug and sugar bowl for them to help themselves.

‘Please sit down,’ Mrs Morgan invited the officers. ‘David, there are chocolate biscuits in the cupboard.’

‘Not for me, thank you, David.’ Mike sat on one of the easy chairs, leaving the one nearest the sofa for Trevor.

‘Or me, thank you. I’ve just eaten one of Mrs J a m e s ’s excellent steaks.’ Trevor smiled at David, hoping to put him at his ease. He waited until David had sat next to his mother before speaking to him again.

‘I’m here to talk to you about Anna Harris, David.’

‘I liked Anna…’ David began.

‘Anna and David played together when they were children. He was twelve when she was born. He idolised her. Worshipped the ground she walked on. He wouldn’t have hurt a hair on her head. He’s big but he’s always been gentle. They used to call him the gentle giant in special school…’

‘I’d like to hear what David has to say, in his own words, Mrs Morgan,’ Trevor interrupted softly.

‘ D a v i d ’s not like other boys, Inspector Joseph.’

‘The Inspector knows that, Mrs Morgan.’ Mike rose to his feet. ‘You said earlier that you needed a few groceries. Why don’t I drive you to the superstore?’

‘That’s ten miles away.’

‘Twelve minutes there and twelve back in my car, Mrs Morgan,’ Mike smiled. ‘And half an hour for shopping. We’ll be back within the hour. Inspector Joseph will stay with David until then.’

‘I will,’ Trevor assured the elderly woman.

‘We do need a few things,’ she admitted. ‘And I don’t want to go to Morris’s.’ She clenched her fists tightly. ‘He might refuse to serve me like Tom the baker.’

‘Try not to think about it, Mrs Morgan. Get your hat, coat and handbag and we’ll be off.’ Mike nodded to Tr e v o r, ‘See you later, Inspector.’

‘I’d appreciate a chat about the locals’ view on the case, Sergeant.’

‘You’re staying in the pub?’

‘I am.’

‘I’ll get one of my constables to cover here for an hour this evening and call in.’

Trevor sat chatting to David about dogs until Mike left with Mrs Morgan. Sammy, the Jack Russell puppy David had been training ten years before was now an old dog. He hadn’t moved from his basket the whole time Trevor had been in the room.

‘Will you get a new dog, David?’ Trevor set his empty tea cup on the tray.

‘No point, Mr Joseph.’

‘Why’s that, David?’

‘Can’t go out. People don’t want to see me.’

‘Have you been outside?’ Trevor asked.

‘Tried when I came home. Went into the garden to sort it. People stood outside the wall and stared at me. Then the children from the council estate came and threw stones. No one stopped them. It upset my mam.’ David’s bottom lip trembled. ‘The garden needs a good going over, so does the churchyard. Mr Tony’s been here twice. But he thinks I killed Anna.’

‘How do you know, David?’

‘Because he keeps saying I’ve paid for what I’ve done. He told me and my Mam to hold hands with him and pray. I told him I didn’t want to. That I wanted to go out and tidy the churchyard. The stones are all dirty, the grass needs cutting and it needs weeding. He said I can’t have my old job back. I told him I’d work for nothing but he said it wasn’t up to him but the Church Council.’ As David spoke faster his voice rose higher. ‘No one in Llan has listened to the judge or Mr Smith. Everyone here still thinks I killed Anna…’

‘ Tell me about Anna, David,’ Tr e v o r interrupted. He found it odd that David grew calmer at the mention of her name.

‘Like Mam said, I liked her when she was a little girl. I liked her when she was older too. She was always nice and kind to me. She never made fun of me like some of the other children. We used to play together when she was little, Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders and Ludo. Or cards. Mam likes a game of cards and when Mr and Mrs Harris went away to buy antiques Mam would look after Anna. She slept in the back bedroom and had all her meals with us. But then that was when she was little. I’ve got a photograph of me and her together. Do you want to see it?’

‘Yes, I’d like to.’

‘It’s upstairs in my bedroom. Mr Smith sent on all my things from prison, but I’ve tidied them away.’

Trevor followed David into a small hall and up a narrow staircase. David’s bedroom was at the side of the house. If Trevor had been asked to guess the age of the occupant he would have put it as early teens. The duvet and matching pillowcase on the single bed were patterned with tigers. The bookshelves filled with comic books, assembled Air Fix kits and framed photographs.

‘This is my mam and dad on their wedding day.’ David handed Trevor a picture of a couple standing outside a church. The groom’s flared trousers dated it as the seventies, but Trevor couldn’t help feeling the bride’s dress would have been considered old-fashioned, even then.

‘What happened to your father, David?’

‘He was driving a tractor that fell over on top of him. They took him to hospital but Mam said they couldn’t do anything to help him. He died a week later.’

‘How old were you?’

‘I was a baby. That’s why I can’t remember him. This is me and Anna Harris. Mam took it on my sixteenth birthday.’

David was holding hands with a small girl with blonde pigtails and Trevor worked out that Anna would have been about four or five years old when it was taken. She was smiling up at David, innocent, trusting. Could David really have killed her fourteen years later?

‘It’s a nice picture.’

‘This is me and Mr Tony the year St David’s won an award for being the best kept church in Mid Wales. I’m holding the big cup we won. Mr Tony gave me a small one. Mam keeps it in the cupboard in the parlour.’

Trevor looked David in the eye. ‘I know you’ve told lots of people what happened the day before Anna was killed and the morning you found her. But could you go over it once more with me?’

‘Yes, Mr Joseph. Mr Smith…’

‘Who’s Mr Smith, David?’

‘My – my – ’ David struggled to get the word out, ‘– my counsel. He’s my friend. He knows I’m innocent and he said I should help the new police officers all I could because you’ll prove to everyone that I didn’t kill Anna.’

‘I promise you, David, I’ll do everything I can to find out the truth.’

‘I’ll make us another nice cup of tea, Mr Joseph and we’ll sit in the living room.’ He grinned childishly. ‘I’ll get some of those chocolate biscuits as well.’

He walked down the stairs leaving Trevor to f o l l o w. Trevor glanced at the other photographs on the shelf. There was one of David’s mother, looking older than her seventy years, her parchment-thin skin stretched over her cheekbones. He recalled her shaking hand, and tremulous voice.

He knew David Morgan must have suffered in prison. He’d seen the regime the warders imposed and the brutality of the inmates firsthand. A man as simple-minded as David would have found it difficult to adjust. He’d be an easy target for cooped-up, frustrated men, and he didn’t doubt that David had been bullied. But he could only guess what the last ten years had been like for his mother, stubbornly living on in Llan. Ostracized by most of her neighbours and the local shopkeepers who believed David guilty of the most heinous of crimes.

‘Tea’s ready, Mr Joseph.’

‘Coming, David.’ Trevor closed the door on the bedroom and walked down the stairs.  

C H A P T E R S E V E N

‘I
T
’
S LIKE
I
SAID
, Mr Joseph, I didn’t look at the girl lying on the ground that morning. Not after I saw she had no clothes on. Mam told me to never look at a naked girl. I didn’t know it was Anna Harris until the policeman told me when he locked me away.’

Trevor closed his notebook and pushed his pencil into his pocket. David Morgan must have been asked to tell the story of how he had found Anna Harris’s body hundreds of times in the last ten years. Both before and after his trial and conviction. From the files, he knew that David had never changed a single detail. In his experience that meant one of two things. Either David had a brilliant memory and was adept at recalling his lies, or he was telling the truth.

‘The earring you found on the path, David. Did you know it was Anna’s?’

‘No, Mr Joseph. But I knew it was gold. It was dirty. I tried to clean it but I was afraid of scratching it with my nails. I know gold is worth a lot of money.’

‘Let’s go back to the night before you found Anna in the churchyard. When you were looking for Sammy, did you see anyone?’

‘Lots of people. They said they saw me too, in court. Mrs George and Mrs Oliver came out of the Angel Inn and heard me calling Sammy. They’d been to the drama society with all the other ladies. They put on plays in the village. I used to like going to them with my mam. At Christmas they put on pantos. The last one I saw was Snow White. It was lovely, Anna Harris was Snow White and… ’

‘Who else did you see that night, David?’ Trevor steered the conversation back on course.

‘Mr Tony. He was always going back and forth between the vicarage and the church. There was a choir practice that evening. Mam and me listened to the boys sing when we were having our tea. That was before Mam went to bed with one of her headaches. Mr Morris was outside his shop when I was looking up the road. He was putting rubbish out for the bin men. When I couldn’t find Sammy in the High Street or the churchyard I went down the lane to look for him. Mrs Griffiths and Mrs Powell who live in the bottom cottages were gossiping

– no – Mam says it’s bad to say gossiping. They were talking to each other over the wall.’

‘It sounds like the whole village was out that evening.’

‘In summer if it was hot, it used to be like that. Sometimes until long after it was dark.’

‘Did you see Anna?’

‘I saw her leave the community centre with the others and go into the Angel Inn. That was before Sammy ran off. We were in the fields. Mr Jones said I could walk Sammy there when there were no animals in them.’

‘Did you see Anna afterwards?’ Tr e v o r pressed.

‘Not until the morning when I didn’t know it was her.’ David screwed his eyes shut. He had been happy to talk about Anna when she’d been a child but he hadn’t said much about her as a young woman. Trevor didn’t think that a young woman about to leave home would have much in common with a mentally retarded man, even if they had been playmates when they were younger. A sudden thought occurred to him.

‘Did you know that Anna was leaving the village, David?’

David nodded vigorously. ‘She told me.’

‘How did that make you feel?’

‘Sad. But her Mam and Dad were staying, so I thought I’d still be able to do jobs for them.

Anna promised she’d send me postcards. I collect them. I have a book.’ He went to a cupboard, opened it and pulled out an album. ‘They’re from all over the world,’ he said proudly. ‘Everyone who went on holiday from Llan used to send me and my mam one. There are lots there from Anna.’