Part 3 (1/2)

'That's none of your b.l.o.o.d.y business,' she hissed after a long silence.

'I'm sorry, Mrs Marrick, but in a murder enquiry we have to ask intrusive questions,' said Wesley smoothly, trying to rescue the situation. 'It would help us to catch Charlie's killer if you'd answer them as honestly as you can. We're not here to judge, just to find out the truth.' He felt quite pleased with this little speech but one look at Annette's face told him that it hadn't had the desired effect. She turned her head away and drummed on the table impatiently with her fingers.

Both men sensed that they weren't going to get anywhere with the Widow Marrick. It would be wise to leave it for now ... and maybe have a word with Petronella on her own. But that would have to wait: time was marching on and Charlie Marrick's postmortem was booked for two o'clock that afternoon.

It was Heffernan who stood up first, telling the two women he'd want to talk to them again, making the simple statement sound more like a threat than a promise.

'What do you think?' Wesley asked as they climbed into the car.

'That Annette's hiding something,' Heffernan stated bluntly. 'Probably the fact that she killed him. Most murders are domestic.'

Wesley didn't reply. He was keeping an open mind. It was almost midday and they decided to call in at the police station to see whether the team had come up with anything useful in their absence.

Wesley started the engine. 'Mind if we call at Neil's dig on the way back? He came round last night.' He paused. 'He's had a strange letter.'

Gerry Heffernan suddenly looked interested. 'How do you mean, strange?'

'Anonymous ... about monks.'

'Monks?'

'That's what Neil said.'

'There are some strange people about,' was the DCI's verdict.

'And blood. It mentions bleeding. I'm thinking of Charles Marrick.'

'Why should the killer write to Neil?'

'I don't know. Unless that TV appearance he made's brought some lunatic out of the woodwork.'

'Have you told him about Marrick?'

Wesley shook his head. 'He's jumpy enough already,' he said as they turned on to the road leading to Neil's dig.

After a few hundred yards, Wesley spotted an open farm gate and a group of mud-splashed cars parked just inside the entrance to a field. He slowed down to a crawl and saw a trio of green awnings in the near distance flapping lazily in the gentle breeze . This, coupled with the handwritten sign hanging on the gatepost saying 'Welcome to the DCAU Training Excavation', told Wesley he'd come to the right place.

'Where is he?' Heffernan asked impatiently as he got out of the car, testing the ground to satisfy himself that the earth was solid beneath his feet.

Wesley could see Neil talking to a group of earnest-faced young people who seemed to be hanging on his every word. He must have said something amusing because they laughed dutifully before returning to their trenches and starting work again, sc.r.a.ping at the earth with the dedicated concentration of the learner.

When Neil saw the two policemen he waved them over and led them to a tumbledown farm building with a corrugated iron roof at the far end of the field. 'It's a cow shed,' he explained when he saw Gerry Heffernan's puzzled frown. 'It's got a tap and there's even electricity in the form of one bare light bulb so we're using it as a site office. The farmer provides us with flasks of boiling water for the tea and at least we can wash the finds. I've worked in worse places.'

Gerry Heffernan tried to look impressed but failed miserably.

'Have you brought the letter?' Wesley asked, suddenly impatient.

Neil opened the bottom drawer of the rusty filing cabinet in the corner and took out a crumpled envelope. Wesley read the note inside without comment.

'I'm scared I'll do something terrible. I'm scared the bleeding won't stop.'

He pa.s.sed the note to Gerry who read it in silence and gave it back. Wesley could tell he was thinking the same as he was. Charlie Marrick had bled to death and the author of the note had hinted that he might do something terrible. Had he planned to kill Charlie Marrick and felt an urge to confess all to Neil Watson for some inexplicable reason? The idea, Wesley thought to himself, was quite preposterous. But stranger things had happened.

'Mind if I keep this?' he asked.

'Help yourself,' Neil replied. 'I'm glad to get the thing off my hands. Want to have a quick tour of the site?' he asked as Wesley put the envelope carefully into a plastic evidence bag.

It would have been bad manners, Wesley reasoned, to refuse Neil's invitation. Gerry Heffernan said nothing as he followed Neil and Wesley outside, glad of a break from investigating Charlie Marrick's murder ... just as Wesley was.

As Neil led them from trench to trench, the diggers who were mostly young apart from a few middle-aged enthusiasts glanced up but quickly looked down again. Two men in suits meant officialdom probably some bureaucrats from the Council checking on Health and Safety.

Wesley looked at what had been uncovered; substantial stone walls and a section of tiled floor which he recognised as medieval. Here, in the middle of nowhere, someone had gone to considerable trouble to build a high status building and his first thought was that it might have been the manor house attached to some abandoned and long-forgotten village.

Neil, of course, had done his homework and had consulted local doc.u.ments and ancient maps. The site, he explained, had belonged to the Cistercian Abbey of Veland a few miles to the west until Henry VIII had cast his avaricious eyes over the nation's monasteries and closed the abbey down, stripping the place of its wealth and its roof of its lead. The abbey itself had been bought by a wealthy landowner and converted into a handsome country pile while the mysterious cl.u.s.ter of buildings at Stow Barton had decayed and crumbled so that now only a few walls and tumbled stones were left above ground.

Neil's guess was that it had been a monastic farm, a grange. Or perhaps a luxury retreat for the abbot, an escape from the day-to-day ch.o.r.e of running the abbey the equivalent of a Russian dacha for high-up officials of the old Communist Party. The old maps he'd seen referred to it as the site of a manor house. But, like Wesley with his murder enquiry, he wasn't leaping to any hasty conclusions.

Wesley looked at his watch: they had been there half an hour and it was time they moved on. As they trudged across the rutted ground to the car, Gerry Heffernan commented that Neil's discoveries looked interesting and he wouldn't mind having a go at this digging lark himself. This left Wesley speechless as he drove back to Tradmouth for Charlie Marrick's postmortem. Gerry had always seemed to find the fact that Wesley had spent three years at university learning how to dig things up mildly amusing. Perhaps Neil's new tactic of reaching out to the public was having the desired effect in the most unexpected places.

On their way back to the police station, they bought a couple of sandwiches from Burton's b.u.t.ties, the shop where Steve Carstairs's father worked. Wesley found himself looking out for Steve's father, intrigued to see the man who had produced such a son, but he was nowhere to be seen. When they reached the CID office they found it was almost deserted as most of the team were out pursuing enquiries. But this was how Gerry Heffernan liked it sitting like a lord in his castle while his va.s.sals were out hunting down information to bring back and lay at his feet.

Taking advantage of the rare oasis of peace, they made themselves comfortable in the DCI's cluttered office, eating their sandwiches from the packet and was.h.i.+ng down their impromptu lunch with two plastic cups filled with a boiling liquid from the machine in the corridor that was alleged to be tea.

Wesley took Neil's letter from his pocket. 'Worth sending this to Forensic, do you think?'

He pushed it across the desk and Heffernan studied it carefully.

'Bit crumpled,' he said after a few moments.

'Neil said he chucked it in the bin then thought better of it.'

'The envelope's postmarked Neston so it must be a local nutter. But there's no actual threat is there? He's just saying he's scared he might do something. When did Neil receive it?'

'A couple of days ago. It was certainly posted before Charlie Marrick was murdered if that's what you're thinking.'

Heffernan read the note through again and shook his head. 'Neil gets this and Marrick's found bled to death. Is it a coincidence or not? Whoever wrote this says he's going to do something terrible ... maybe he did.'

'I'll get it sent to Forensic,' said Wesley, taking the letter from his boss. 'Interesting that the writer's showing off his historical knowledge to Neil ... almost as if he's trying to make himself feel important.'

'Perhaps that's what it's all about some poor inadequate wanting to feel significant.'

Wesley smiled. 'You could be right.' He paused. 'Perhaps that's why he killed Marrick to make himself feel powerful. The ultimate power.'

'After a job as a psychological profiler, are we?' the chief inspector said with a sigh, looking at his watch. 'Ready for the PM? If we're lucky we might get a cup of Colin's Earl Grey ... which is a darned sight better than this muck.' He tapped the empty plastic cup before picking it up and flinging it contemptuously into the waste bin.

Tradmouth Hospital was within walking distance of the police station and Wesley was glad of the exercise. It was another fine day the sixth in succession and the river was teeming with yachts, their sails raised to take advantage of the breeze. Gerry Heffernan gazed at the scene longingly: Charles Marrick's murder meant that it would probably be a while before he had the chance to take the Rosie May out to sea again.