The Devil's Chair

Table of Contents

Cover

A Selection of Recent Titles from Priscilla Masters

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

The Martha Gunn Mystery Series

 

RIVER DEEP

SLIP KNOT

FROZEN CHARLOTTE *

SMOKE ALARM *

THE DEVIL'S CHAIR *

 

The Joanna Piercy Mysteries

 

WINDING UP THE SERPENT

CATCH THE FALLEN SPARROW

A WREATH FOR MY SISTER

AND NONE SHALL SLEEP

SCARING CROWS

EMBROIDERING SHROUDS

ENDANGERING INNOCENTS

WINGS OVER THE WATCHER

GRAVE STONES

A VELVET SCREAM *

THE FINAL CURTAIN *

 

 

*
available from Severn House

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First published in Great Britain and the USA 2014 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

eBook edition first published in 2014 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 2014 by Priscilla Masters.

The right of Priscilla Masters to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Masters, Priscilla

The Devil's Chair. – (The Martha Gunn mystery series)

1. Gunn, Martha (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

2. Randall, Alex (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

3. Shrewsbury (England)–Fiction. 4. Missing children–

Fiction. 5. Detective and mystery stories.

I. Title II. Series

823.9'2-dc23

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8389-6 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-535-2 (ePub)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

To all my friends and colleagues at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital – I'm going to miss you. And particularly Ana Ireland, office sharer. Thanks for the book about Church Stretton.

‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'

Leo Tolstoy,
Anna Karenina

O
ver my fireplace hangs a painting. It is a very old work, painted in the sixteenth century and unsigned. I have mused about this and come to a conclusion: perhaps it is unsigned because the artist, competent though he undoubtedly was, was not quite comfortable with the subject. So why was he painting it, you may ask. Was someone paying him handsomely for his skill in portraying such a scene?

I have often wondered as I have sat in my armchair and looked up.

It is graphic, painted using dingy oils, on an oak panel. A beechwood frame surrounds it, which is probably the original. There are numerous woodworm holes. The shape of the Devil's Chair, in the background, though very dark, is easy to recognize, so there is no doubt of its geographical location. One wonders, in its five-hundred-year-old story, where it has hung. Not in a school or a church, that is for certain. Its subject matter and title would preclude it from most, if not all, public places. So I have come to the conclusion that my picture has probably lived out its life in a place very much like its location today. Hanging over a fireplace, in a private home, where its owner can gloat over its subject matter alone and without witness.

I say the painting is graphic. It is exactly that. There are a variety of expressions on its subjects' faces. The innocent babies, not knowing for what purpose they have this attention, are wide-eyed and curious. The older children, however, are more cognisant. They look anxious; one in particular looks frightened. He is a small boy with large, dark eyes and the sallow complexion of an Italian. Perhaps that is a clue to the painter's origins. I don't know. The boy's mouth is open as, still running, he looks behind him. Fear etches a line of worry across his young forehead. A small girl has tripped over her long skirt and lies sprawling in the mud, her face pressed down hard into the dirt. And even though her features are completely hidden – you cannot tell if she is pretty or one of nature's plain children – one can still interpret her terror because her skinny little shoulders dig into the dirt as though she is trying to bury herself into her own grave. From what are the children running, those that are able, you may ask. The babies and toddlers are frozen, for all but the very youngest child knows that above them, behind them, racing towards them, flies evil. One can read it in the crone's face, intent on her ghastly business. Her eyes are burning coals, her mouth toothless, her body scrawny. She is, in many ways, exactly as we would all imagine her.

Not all who flee are children. There is one old man who looks back in terror, his bony knees seeming to shake on the canvas. Is he one of them? Does she want him too? Why? The answer lies beneath. I have said that the painting is not signed. Who would own to spending such time finding this hideous idea, selecting the right brush, the right strokes, the right colours even? No one would own to this but the title, skilfully brushed in below, proclaims itself without bashfulness in letters which are easy to read.

Harvesting the unbaptized.

S
he didn't believe the stories. It was all nonsense. Meant to frighten people and keep them away. She glanced in the back of the car. Daisy's eyes were wide open. She was too terrified to cry. She clutched the sodden Jellycat squirrel and kept sucking it, which annoyed Tracy even more. Bloody kid.

The child's dressing gown flopped open. In her haste, Tracy hadn't tied it. And she would have sworn that the little sod had wet her new pyjamas. She turned her attention back to the treacherous road. Shit. She didn't dare look down. Too far to fall. But she was going to do this, she was going to get there. She smiled at herself and peered into the gloom. She was going up there. All the way to the top. And then some.

In the back Daisy sniffed and Tracy took her eyes off the road for a second. ‘Oh, shut up,' she said. ‘Just put a sock in it, will you?'

She turned around and for a second – just a second – she had a pang of guilt. She shouldn't be doing this.

Then she squared her shoulders. She would see this through. She'd show him. She could leave him behind. She didn't need him. She glanced up. The top was shrouded in mist. She almost laughed at her stupid superstition. Of course the Devil wasn't sitting in his chair. The child's eyes were still wide open and she sucked the soft grubby toy even more noisily. Tracy jabbed her foot down hard on the accelerator. The vehicle wasn't a powerful one. It was a tired old VW which had done more than the mileage necessary to justify its existence. But Tracy had a fondness for it because its registration letter was T. It struggled with the steep hill, whining in protest. Whining like the child. Tracy sucked in a long, deep breath. She simply couldn't stand it. The car whined, the child whined, Neil whined. She checked the rear-view mirror then focused on the scene outside. She'd climbed as high as an eagle's nest. An eyrie, she believed they called it. She spluttered to herself, amused at the joke. Eerie it bloody well was. She hiccupped with humour and peered through the windscreen again. Eerie. And as black as the grave. The car lurched, complaining. She forced the accelerator down again and continued to peer through the windscreen, trying to penetrate the mist. God, it was empty around here. There was no one. No one but herself, the child, the Devil and his demons. And up here in this godforsaken place one could believe in it all. Tracy gave a snort. Ever since she'd been a kid she'd been threatened with being abandoned up here, on the Long Mynd, food for the Devil and his imps. And now?

Bang
.

She stopped dead. Then she looked up, out of the windscreen. What the …?

It wasn't possible. No.

Tracy tried to put the car in reverse but the engine screamed in mechanical protest. And she joined the car in its screaming terror as she felt the wheels slide backwards.

I
t had been a typical evening, an evening of sour bickering, of veiled threats, and as the evening wore on and their blood alcohol levels slowly crept up, the threats and insults became less veiled and more aggressive. Even the TV remote control was the subject of a war.

‘Give me that.'

‘No. I don't want to watch football. Let's see a film.'

Neil's mood was as bad as his breath. ‘Oh, piss off, Tracy. Give it here.'

He lumbered towards her and she screamed. ‘Get away from me, you brute! I bet you wouldn't treat your beloved Lucy like that.'

Neil Mansfield hovered over her, swaying slightly as though on the deck of a ship. ‘She isn't my beloved Lucy. She's just …'

‘A client?' she mocked, her voice high and tight. ‘Just like I was, Neil? You think I don't know what's going on?' She sank back into the sofa, her face thin and hard. Her smile was a mirthless gash in it. ‘Some people never learn, do they?'

Mansfield returned to his chair, reached for another lager, drank glumly and lit another foul-tasting cigarette. What else was there to do? From somewhere, maybe way back in his English literature GCSE, he dragged up a quote. ‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'

Bollocks, Mr Tolstoy, he thought, his mouth twisting. All
unhappy
families resemble each other too. There's always rows, Mr Tolstoy. There's always alcohol, Mr T. There's always violence, Leo. And there's usually some poor little kid stuck right in the middle.

‘W
hich service do you require?' The girl was bored. Saturday nights/Sunday mornings were the worst. Lots of drunks and pranksters, relatives concerned about an elderly mother or father, people panicking with chest pain or breathlessness or sometimes simply the lonely, desperate for someone to talk to so they would dial the magic number. Then there were the teenagers ‘missing' – not back when they said they'd be. Sian's lip curled. When were they ever? And so they dialled the number: the number that was always picked up and met with a human response rather than a robotic voice assuring you that you are valued, moving your way up an invisible queue and being subjected to hours of dreadful music.