The Devil's Chair (3 page)

Like Jericho, she wondered what had happened to her. She pictured a small body thrown from the car, finally discovered yards from the crash site, and squeezed her eyes shut. Before the days of compulsory child car seats she had known children thrown up to eight hundred yards from the point of impact. The origin of the ‘Child on Board' notices was a tragic crash where the children had not been found until the next day, dead not from the impact but exposure after being thrown over a hedge into a field. In the inquests she had held on children who had not been strapped in she had been torn between sympathy for the parents and anger at their neglect. In such cases she could never point the finger but she had read in their guilty faces that she did not need to. They'd pointed the finger at themselves.

‘Daisy,' she muttered to herself, liking the name and mentally preparing herself to meet the little girl in tragic circumstances. She knew the drop from the Burway into Carding Mill Valley. A four-year-old could hardly have survived such trauma if she'd been thrown from the car, nor a second night out on the Long Mynd, undiscovered by increasingly desperate and despondent searchers. But then, even if Daisy had been strapped into her car seat, she still might not have survived the impact.

Her eyes lost their focus and her mind shifted to the driver, the mother, who had made it to hospital, and must have driven up one of the most treacherous roads in the county late at night with a small child – drunk, too, if what Jericho said was true.

She turned away from St Mary's Spire, which rose over Shrewsbury. She had enough problems to deal with on a cold spring Monday morning without fretting about two people whose fate may or may not lie in the coroner's court. So she put the events to the back of her mind and concentrated on the morning's work, but her mind disobediently kept wandering back to the puzzle of the missing child. She was relieved when, at lunchtime, Jericho knocked on the door. Instead of calling him in Martha went to open it herself. Jericho Palfreyman was standing there, scowling and making a futile attempt to block the unmistakable, gangly form of Detective Inspector Alex Randall who was standing behind him, eyebrows raised in mute appeal for an audience. She smothered a smile. ‘It's all right, Jericho,' she said, trying to keep her face straight and block the gladness she felt at the detective's presence. ‘I was going to stop for lunch now anyway.'

Her officer couldn't resist a soft ‘harrumph' of disapproval but he stepped back all the same. A moment later Alex was in the room, his restless form bringing turbulence in his wake. He was frowning and she caught some hesitance in his manner. ‘Hello, Martha,' he began, then grinned sideways at the door. He was only too well aware of her assistant's antipathy towards him. He was also aware that it stemmed more from protectionism than any real dislike for him personally. A coroner has many demands on her time. Jericho simply tried to minimize them.

Which was his job.

No sooner had she shut her assistant out than the detective began to apologize. He shuffled awkwardly. ‘Bit embarrassing this,' he said, ‘consulting you when there is no body.' His hazel eyes flicked up to meet hers. ‘I know you have more than enough to do without …'

‘Ah,' she responded, indicating her computer screen where the latest news headlines were displayed. ‘The little girl who was taken by the fairies.'

Randall's grey eyes scanned the screen. ‘Told you it was embarrassing,' he said drily, then seemed lost for words.

‘Well?' she prompted.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I know I really shouldn't be bothering you with …' His voice trailed away and he tried again. ‘I mean, it's nothing to do with …'

She took over. ‘I take it this visit is connected with the car that rolled down the Burway early on Sunday morning and the little girl who is currently missing?'

Detective Inspector Alex Randall looked relieved. ‘It is,' he said quietly, his mouth still open as though ready to continue.

It was obvious that he needed to unburden himself.

‘Then sit,' she invited. She sat down in one of the two armchairs in the bay window, Alex in the other. Somehow the town of Shrewsbury, with its violent and dramatic history seemed a fitting backdrop for his story, witness as it had been to such dramas. ‘Fill me in.'

She was fully aware that the detective would be confiding in her facts about the case that were not in the public domain. She was equally aware that he hadn't paid her the insult of asking her to keep these facts quiet.

‘OK,' he said, relaxing a little. ‘Briefly. We have Tracy Walsh, the thirty-two-year-old partner of forty-year-old Neil Mansfield. They've been together for two years.'

Martha interrupted. ‘Neil Mansfield is not Daisy's father, then?'

‘No. Tracy had actually been married, briefly, to Daisy's father, an Allistair Donaldson, but the couple split up not long after Daisy was born. Daisy has her mother's surname, which Tracy reverted to on the break-up of her marriage. Donaldson lives near Inverness. He's a fish farmer and has had little to do with his daughter. According to the local Scottish bobby who interviewed him his contact was little more than a tenner at Christmas. Tracy had had a few partners since Allistair but she and Neil met two years ago and have lived together for a little over a year. It is, apparently, a volatile relationship. They live in Church Stretton and are well known for their public drunken arguments. The local police have been called in several times.' He sighed. ‘And as is usual in these cases, Piggy in the Middle is little Daisy, four years old, not surprisingly a rather quiet, withdrawn little girl.' He looked up, his eyes soft, knowing she would want his sources. ‘Again, according to the neighbours. Anyway …' He sighed. ‘On Saturday night the couple had yet another drunken argument after a bout of drinking that had started at lunchtime.' His eyes met hers in weary cynicism. ‘They were pissed out of their brains. Tracy's blood alcohol level was three hundred milligrams and that was hours after she'd left the house. No alcohol was found in the car so …' He left her to draw her own conclusion.

‘Crikey. Three hundred milligrams? That's quite a few ciders,' Martha commented.

‘Yeah. And somewhere nearing four times the legal driving limit,' Alex said. He continued: ‘At sometime around two in the morning Tracy runs upstairs and grabs her daughter, saying she's had enough of Neil and is leaving him – she's going to stay with a friend. She takes the car up the Burway towards the Long Mynd and the rest …' He opened his palms. It was as though he had run out of words.

‘What about Neil? Why didn't he try to stop her?'

‘He says he thinks he did – before he passed out. He pleaded with her to leave Daisy with him.' A shadow crossed Randall's face. ‘He says he was
going
to ring the police but …'

He shrugged, his face bleak. ‘It's an awful story,' he said, ‘but not exactly uncommon.'

Martha put a hand up as though to ward off his words and the images they conveyed. ‘Don't,' she said. Then, ‘So where does Neil Mansfield think she was heading?'

‘She has a friend, a girl called Wanda. He thought he heard her name being mentioned. Those two are pretty thick. Wanda lives in Ratlinghope. It's possible she was heading for there,' he paused, ‘but never made it.'

Martha eyed him. There was something else. She waited, knowing her silence would give him the opportunity to say what was really troubling him.

‘There are some puzzling facts,' he continued quietly. ‘In fact, the entire event is a series of anomalies.' His eyes met hers. ‘I'll start with what we know for certain. The accident was reported somewhere around six on Sunday morning.'

‘Yes?'

‘The call was made from a local cottage.' He gave a twisted smile. ‘Hope Cottage.'

Martha was bemused. ‘What's so puzzling about that?'

‘The cottage was empty at the time,' Randall continued. ‘It belongs to a single woman who works mostly abroad. Her name's Charity Ignatio and she's currently in Dubai. Last night she was at a public dinner in the city. I've spoken to her this morning and she has assured me that when she is away no one goes into her cottage. Not even her cleaner. So …' His eyes locked into hers. ‘Who made the phone call? Who reported the accident?'

Martha made no comment, so he continued: ‘When the local police and air ambulance arrived the car was surrounded by a group of girls doing their Duke of Edinburgh Award. Wisely, they hadn't tried to remove Tracy from the car. She was unconscious at the time with a broken neck, a head injury and various other broken bones.' Alex looked less than sympathetic. ‘Daisy,' he said gravely, ‘is still missing. There is absolutely no sign of her. The Duke of Edinburgh girls plus members of the general public familiar with the Stretton Hills have helped us look for the little girl but we haven't found her.' He leaned forward, his face strained. ‘She's vanished,' he said simply, baffled.

‘Could she have survived the accident and wandered off?'

Alex sat back in his seat, watching her from beneath lowered lids. ‘Of course, it's possible, Martha,' he said, ‘but we've searched every square mile of that immediate area. She's only four years old and would have been in shock. Possibly injured. The people who have helped us search know these hills, the valleys, the streams and the vegetation like the back of their hands. They could walk it blindfold. We've found a soft toy but have yet to identify it as Daisy's.'

‘Then is it certain she was in the car in the first place?'

Randall's expression was grave. ‘According to Neil.' And she could hear the doubt in his voice.

‘Well, Alex,' she said softly, ‘you know the old adage: “When you've discounted the impossible, whatever remains …”'

‘However improbable.' He looked up, a hint of a smile softening his features. ‘She
hasn't
been taken by fairies, Martha, as one of the locals, a Mr Faulkener, has suggested.'

‘No,' she agreed.

‘Or the Devil.'

She shook her head. ‘Not him either.'

His eyes were pleading with her for some rational explanation.

‘Well,' she said, bound to respond to the detective, ‘call me a pedant but it would seem to me that whoever made the phone call has Daisy.' She hesitated, before adding, with concern harshening her voice, ‘Who may well be injured. Was the caller a man or a woman?'

‘A woman, the call centre girl thinks.'

‘Thinks?'

‘She thought a woman with a gruff voice but it could have been a man.'

‘What
exactly
did the caller say?'

‘That there was a car,' he gave an apologetic smile, ‘
gorn orf
the Burway and that a woman was hurt.'

Martha frowned. ‘Someone,' she repeated. ‘Not two people or anything suggesting a child was in the car?'

‘No. There was no mention of the child.'

‘I assume the caller didn't leave a name?'

‘Correct. Until we called at the place and found out the facts we just
assumed
the caller was the owner of Hope Cottage. We were busy with the rescue operation so didn't check out Hope Cottage for some hours.'

Randall stopped speaking for a moment. He was frowning and looking out of the window, as though searching in the town for some clue. ‘There is something else,' he said reluctantly. ‘The tyre tracks.'

‘Go on.'

‘Tracy drove up the hill, it would appear, at quite a lick. There are fresh tyre marks around one or two of the corners. Obviously, at that time of night, she wouldn't have expected to meet another car. Fact is she probably wasn't in a state to care much. But whatever her mental state she came to an abrupt halt and started reversing madly as though she was panicked about something.'

‘Perhaps the drink overwhelmed her so she changed her mind?' Martha suggested gently, ‘and thought she'd go home after all.'

‘It's possible. The tyre marks veer all over the road so I suppose we can't rely on her acting rationally.'

Martha caught the doubt in his voice. ‘But?'

‘It was an emergency stop. There was quite a bit of tyre left on the road. She went into a skid then reversed. That's when and why she slipped and fell into the valley.' He made an attempt at levity. ‘Reversing on a notoriously dangerous road when drunk as a skunk is never a good idea.'

‘No.'

He obviously felt he needed to emphasize this point. ‘The marks on the road suggest she made an emergency stop as though something was blocking her way forward.'

‘Another car, perhaps?'

‘There were no marks of another car. We've put boards out and made appeals on local radio and TV. No one's come forward to say they were on the Burway Sunday morning around two a.m.'

His eyes met hers. ‘Anyway,' he said, ‘whatever the reason that Tracy Walsh lost control of the car it left the road, rolled over and over down into Carding Mill Valley and finally came to rest on its roof.'

Martha was thoughtful for a moment. Then she started firing questions at him.
Rat-a-tat-tat
. ‘The child's safety seat,' she began.

‘Yes?'

‘Was the buckle open or fastened?'

Randall's eyes gleamed. This was exactly why he had left the scene of the investigation and come here. ‘Open.'

‘Was there blood on it?'

‘No,' he said cautiously, ‘but there was blood on the back of the seat in front and some inside the roof of the car. We've taken samples for DNA and will be analysing all the bloodstains.'

‘Sorry, Alex.' She apologized in advance of asking: ‘There's no chance she's
underneath
the car, is there?' She didn't really think so. Alex Randall was a thorough and intelligent officer but she had to explore all possibilities.