The Devil's Chair (11 page)

So Tracy was dead and still there was no sign of her daughter.

It isn't only human organs that have to be harvested early in the morning. Certain herbs and fungi also need to be collected while the dew is still on them. The plants are picked as carefully as the surgeon lifted out Tracy's heart, lungs, corneas and kidneys, and placed in a basket.

Martha had been kept informed of all the events. In fact, they had needed her permission for the organ donation to go ahead. As always it made her aware of mortality, of generosity, of lives transformed and of the savings to the National Health Service.

Randall watched the lorries moving in, the computers disconnected and lifted. He scanned the panorama. Moving out felt like he was abandoning the child – giving up hope. He was still worried that they had overlooked something. He felt a terrible pang of guilt as he watched his officers pack up their desks and computers, relinquishing the tea rooms back to the National Trust.

He and Talith were still there when the lorries pulled away and all but their car had gone. It didn't help that one press photographer was recording their retreat. With a long lens and tripod he was taking picture after picture. At least some of them would end up on tomorrow's front page accompanied by dismal and depressing headlines. Randall could almost have written them himself.

Failing to find missing child, police abandon crash site.

Randall spoke, more to himself than out loud. ‘Have we done everything we could have here?'

Talith gave out a deep sigh. ‘Have we ever, sir?'

Randall turned to face him. ‘What have we missed, Paul?'

‘I don't think we've missed anything, sir. At least, nothing tangible.' He too lifted his gaze up from the valley right to the top of the hill. ‘The little girl isn't here.'

In some ways life was easier back at Monkmoor Police Station. For a start they did not have the world and its photographer watching their every move. Comings and goings were not recorded, mobiles and computers worked faster here and their location gave them distance, a certain amount of detachment, from the case. Randall felt he could focus better on the enquiry.

Their morning briefings began to take on a different shape. There was energy and optimism. Areas were marked out, properties ticked off and ideas flowed like quicksilver. Then PC Sean Dart made the suggestion that they speak to Wanda Stefano. He looked embarrassed when DI Randall praised the idea. ‘You're right, Sean,' he said. ‘We've neglected her. We should at least talk to her and see what she can tell us about that night. If anything.' He grinned at the PC. ‘Maybe you'd like to take that on?'

‘Yes, sir.'

The team filed out and Randall was ready to start the day. He was contemplating where next to direct the enquiries when the phone rang.

It was Roddie Hughes and he was sounding pleased with himself. ‘We've found traces of paint on the bonnet of the car,' he said. ‘Fresh black paint and a very small dent. Do you know whether she's had a prang in it recently?'

‘We can soon find out,' Randall said tersely. ‘Do you think it's important?'

Roddie was silent for a minute and his answer, when it came, was guarded. ‘Obviously I can't be certain but I keep visualizing those tyre marks on the Burway, Alex. She was tanking along at fifty miles per hour when all of a sudden she screeches to a halt and, pissed as she was, bangs into reverse. Now – put that into perspective. If she'd had a prang that could explain things. Particularly if the other driver was angry at her speed, maybe even realized how drunk she was.'

‘No one's come forward,' Alex said thoughtfully.

‘Which means they either haven't heard about the tragedy – highly unlikely considering your press coverage – or they have a reason for not coming forward. At least, Alex, if the dent happened that night it places someone else at the scene.'

Randall was silent for a moment, so Hughes pressed on with his ideas. ‘They might feel responsible for what has turned out to be a fatal crash. They might have been drunk themselves at the time and know that at the very least they'd be charged with leaving the scene. It's possible it was a stolen car or a drugs thing. You know what the general public are like, Alex. Maybe it was a married man who had no business being up there. The possibilities are endless but …'

‘It gives our officers another focus for their enquiry,' Randall said.

‘Looking at the point where the two cars collided,' Hughes continued, ‘and the height of the paint mark, I'd lay a guess it was a four-by-four. Certainly something quite high off the ground. Actually, thinking about it, a typical drug dealer's car.'

Randall chuckled. ‘Right. Thanks.'

‘There is one other thing.' Hughes sounded hesitant. ‘Sophie and I are getting married in August. We wondered if you and Erica would like to come?'

Randall was so appalled at the prospect that he was speechless.

Hughes hurried on. ‘It's only a small affair. Nothing huge. Just a small do at The Walls in Oswestry. About fifty people. We'd love it if you'd come.'

‘Leave it with me,' Randall said in a strangled voice. ‘I'll speak to her. But …'

Hughes chipped in. ‘It's on the sixteenth. We chose a Friday because it's cheaper.' He gave a dry cough of a laugh. ‘Divorce comes expensive these days.'

When he'd put the phone down, Alex Randall sat, thinking. Take Erica to a wedding? He couldn't think of anything worse. His colleagues would be there. He could just imagine how she'd react to them and them to her. Mental illness is a subtle alienator. And his colleagues would always look at him askance, knowing the secret about his wife that he had tried so hard to keep from them. Sometimes he had great sympathy for Jane Eyre's Mr Rochester. They shared the same impediment. But then he could hardly lock her away. Erica's condition was anything but stable. It depended on her medication at the time. Randall grimaced. Or the phase of the moon at the time. Who knew? Certainly not the psychiatrists. He could not go to the wedding. Not with Erica. He had to think up a suitable excuse. And quickly so it would seem a genuine prior engagement rather than something dreamed up to avoid the ‘do'. He liked Roddie Hughes and thought he could have liked Sophie too. He didn't want to offend him. But there was no way he was going to be seen with his wife in public.

He forced his mind back to the case. Hughes was right on all counts. He knew about vehicle collisions and paint marks. If there had been a collision between two cars that night not only would it explain Tracy's sudden stop, the panicked reversal and the subsequent accident, but it also potentially introduced another person into the puzzle of Daisy Walsh's disappearance. There was no explanation why the driver had not come forward, though all of Roddie Hughes' suggestions were possible. But surely the accident and subsequent abduction of a little girl were enough to outweigh a minor prang or a drunken encounter? They must know what had happened – if not on the night then later through the media. The police couldn't have dreamt up more headlines. The driver must have realized that the accident he had witnessed, or possibly caused, had been serious. They must have seen the crazy reversing and the subsequent fall into the valley. But it hadn't been them who had called the police, unless their mystery caller and the driver were the same person, and when the car had tumbled down the bank they had watched from the Burway, seen it roll over and over and then rescued the child, walked to Hope Cottage and made the call. Four hours later? Neil had said that Tracy had left the house a little before 2 a.m. The car had been picked up by the CCTV on Stretton High Street at 1.58 a.m. It was a ten-minute drive from Neil and Tracy's home to the spot where the VW had left the road. That scenario was a possibility but hardly likely. Surely the more usual thing would have been to call from the top of the hill where there was a good mobile signal. And as Claire had said, who is without a mobile phone these days, particularly in a remote country area, late at night? But calling from a mobile number, Randall mused, would have made the caller identifiable. 999 calls have caller ID.

Was it the
driver
who had Daisy? Was it possible that the driver and the caller really were one and the same person, and they'd deliberately waited to make the call? Or were there two people involved, their caller and the driver? That seemed a more likely scenario, considering the delay of four hours between the crash and the telephone call. Hope Cottage was no more than a ten-minute walk from the crash site.

Concealing a collision which had resulted in such a serious and high-profile accident suggested
something
or more truthfully
someone
malicious and failing to report an accident was the most minor infringement which could certainly conceal something worse. But he was still left with the question: why take the child?

To save her, or because she was a witness?

He summoned Talith.

Sean Dart, meanwhile, was knocking on the door of a tiny farmworker's cottage in the village of Ratlinghope. The house was small enough to be a doll's house and he was surprised when a normal-sized female answered the door. Wanda Stefano was a pale woman with long, straight hair hanging in thin red rats' tails and a sixties, full Cher fringe. She had an air of weariness about her which instantly infected PC Sean Dart. He couldn't stop himself from yawning.

‘Don't let me keep you up,' she said sarcastically, adding, ‘Constable,' when she saw his ID.

‘Sorry.'

‘Let me guess.' Wanda had a lovely husky voice which Sean appreciated. ‘You have to be here about poor old Tracy.'

‘Yeah. Can I come in?'

She nodded and led the way into a doll-sized sitting room so small there was only enough room for two armchairs and a television. He sat in one and she, adjusting her tight jeans so she could bend her legs, sat in the other.

‘What do you want to know?' she asked.

‘Anything you can tell us about her.'

‘I take you haven't found Daisy?' Her head jerked towards the TV. ‘There's been nothing on the telly.'

‘No.' It felt like a confession.

‘You want to know about Tracy? She was the greediest woman I've ever known. She was proper mercenary. She'd sell her own mother she would if she could get away with it and they promised her thirty pieces of silver.' The woman touched a small gold crucifix around her neck. ‘I know you shouldn't speak ill of the dead but she was such a one. In a way.' The dark eyes warmed. ‘You almost have to admire her. She wouldn't let anything or anyone stand in her way. If she wanted it she'd have it, Neil being an example. The trouble with Tracy was that if she spotted something better she'd just go for that.'

‘The drinking,' PC Dart said tentatively, ‘was that much of a problem?'

‘More recently,' Wanda said. ‘I think she suspected that Neil was up to his old tricks again. She didn't like that. It was OK for her to take him away from his wife and kids but she didn't like it if the same thing was done to her.'

‘How do you think she was as a mother?'

Wanda blew out through her lips. ‘Not much better or worse than average,' she said.

‘And Neil?' Dart was fishing in the dark now.

‘I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him,' Wanda said dismissively.

‘Tracy said she was driving over to yours.'

‘It happened if they had a row.'

‘She'd drive over the Burway?'

Wanda nodded. ‘There was no point trying to tell her anything when she'd had a couple.'

‘Did she ring that night and tell you she was coming?'

A wary nod was his answer.

‘So what do you think has happened to Daisy?'

Wanda shrugged. ‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I honestly don't know. I don't like to think. She's such a lovely little girl.' Her face was stricken. ‘I just hope she's alive. That's all.'

Stirring, stirring, muttering and mumbling. Bubble, bubble. Work to do. Potions to mix. I start to wonder as I try to straighten my bent back. The message … Yes, it wouldn't be long now …

Forty-five minutes later, Talith was back outside the sad, neglected house which spoke of the unhappy people who had lived there. He smothered a grin. If the cottage from where the phone call had been made was called Hope Cottage he would have named Tracy and Neil's place in Church Stretton Hopeless Cottage.

Mansfield opened the door to him. The house smelt cleaner. Someone had been at it with the polish and Mr Muscle. Talith sniffed appreciatively. Nice.

‘Mind if I come in?'

Mansfield grinned and held open the door. ‘Be my guest.' He seemed jaunty about something.

Talith preambled by saying, ‘I'm sorry about Tracy.'

Mansfield looked away. ‘Best thing possible,' he murmured. ‘Someone benefitted, I think,' he continued. ‘They donated some of her organs.' He looked away and his face soured. ‘With the permission of her next of kin – her mother and sister.'

Talith was shocked. Not only was Tracy dead but Mansfield was talking as though they'd had a garage sale of her belongings. ‘I'm sorry,' he said again, stiffly. ‘That's awful.'

‘Truth is,' Mansfield confided, ‘when they were talking about switching the machine off and organ donation it actually came as a relief, deep down. I thought I'd end up being a full-time carer for a vegetable.'

Talith couldn't think of anything else to say except to repeat for a third time, even more awkwardly, ‘I'm sorry.'

Mansfield was expansive. ‘Don't be,' he said, waving his hand around. ‘Him up there. It's all for a purpose.'