Strawfoot Read online

  He carefully shifted his position in the bed, wincing at the pain, then forced another grin. ‘You haven’t been sticking pins in a doll that looks like me, have you?’ he said. ‘That might explain my present condition.’

  She stood up, bent over him and treated him to a long lingering kiss before turning for the door. ‘You just pray I don’t stick one of those pins in a more crucial spot,’ she replied and gave him an extravagant wink as she left.

  The little thatched cottage in Burtle village where Kate had lived with Hayden for over two years before their marriage looked less than welcoming when she drove her blue Mazda MX5 on to the gravel driveway running down the side of the house.

  For a moment she sat there, listening to the ticking of the hot engine, almost reluctant to leave the warmth of the car and make her way around to the front door through the curls of mist now drifting past the car’s windows. Going home to an empty house was never a pleasant experience and, with the gruesome murder of Melanie Schofield vividly etched on her mind, the thought of being on her own for the night had even less appeal.

  The teenager’s horrific death brought back some unsettling memories of her own too. The two-year hunt for psychopathic killer, ‘Twister’, following the incineration of two of her colleagues in a police van on a surveillance operation codenamed Firetrap, had become terrifyingly personal. In fact, it had almost cost her her life as well as her sanity and had required a protracted period of therapy before she was deemed fit to return to work. She’d hoped time and her marriage to Hayden – put back several months until she had achieved full recovery – would be the great healer that the quietly spoken psychiatrist had promised but deep down she knew that she would never ever forget her horrific experience and cases like this one served only to bring everything flooding back. OK, so Twister was long since dead but his ghost still seemed to haunt her and even now she felt his cold hand on her shoulder as she finally forced herself out of the car, through the mist to the front door of the cottage.

  The open fire was not even aglow now, just a pile of ash – in her present state of mind, reminding her of the contents of a cremation urn – but she didn’t bother to clear it out and relight it. She didn’t feel that hungry either and, dumping her keys on the kitchen work surface, she settled for egg on toast, an early night and a half-bottle of Shiraz.

  It was just dark by the time she climbed into bed and the bed itself felt cold and vast without Hayden to share it with her. She smiled as she thought of the big affable man she had chosen to spend the rest of her life with. Lovable, eccentric Hayden, who never swore or blasphemed and had an almost childlike old-fashioned outlook on life that often made him the butt of jokes by his more streetwise colleagues. Untidy, overweight and so laidback he was practically horizontal, he could be the most irritating man alive but he was loyal, solid and dependable – and, damn it, he wasn’t lying there beside her!

  The rafters cracked above her head as she unscrewed the bottle of Shiraz to pour some wine and she raised her gaze to the shadowed ceiling, cursing her inner fears. Shit, girl, she mused, you’re a bloody police officer, for heaven’s sake, not some neurotic, off-the-wall head-case. Get a bloody grip! You’ll feel a lot better after a good night’s sleep.

  She probably would have too had it not been for the innocuous-looking library book lying open on her lap. Her main reason for borrowing the thing had been to study the long chapter on corn dollies she had spotted while thumbing through the pages in the library but, as it turned out, the piece told her very little that she hadn’t gleaned from other sources already so it was a bit of a let-down. Inevitably, though, she carried on reading and, as a result, was soon drawn into the chilling world of witches, ghosts, ghouls and spectral hounds that Will Fallow seemed to inhabit. The old cottage, with its creaking joints and rustling thatch, provided the perfect atmosphere for such unnerving fantasies, so that sleep soon became the last thing on her mind. As it transpired, that was just as well, for over an hour into the book the ‘Legend of Old Strawfoot’ stalked out of the dark pages to greet her and ten minutes after wading into the story she suddenly knew she had struck oil. Draining her glass of red wine, she grabbed the phone from beside her bed and swung her legs out from under the sheets as she dialled.

  Roscoe had his head buried in a pint of ale at his local when an excited, dishevelled Kate entered the bar and sat down in the chair opposite.

  The DI raised an eyebrow. ‘Thought you were going for an early night?’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘Your phone call sounded urgent.’

  ‘It is,’ she replied and dumped the book she had been reading on the little round table in front of him. ‘Page sixty,’ she said.

  He flicked open the cover, his pint pot still raised to his lips with his other hand. ‘Drink?’ he queried, setting his own glass down while he thumbed back the pages.

  She shook her head and he shrugged and settled back in his chair to begin reading.

  The tale was only a few pages long and after a quick speed-read he finally closed the covers with a bang and leaned forward in his chair again to study her with a narrowed gaze. ‘Strawfoot?’ he said drily.

  She nodded and leaned across the table towards him. ‘It’s a local legend,’ she explained, keeping her voice low, ‘a spectral scarecrow that was supposed to haunt the marshes in the old days and was used by local people at that time to keep the kids in order. You know the sort of thing: “Be good or Strawfoot will get you.” Strawfoot was probably the original bogeyman in these parts and he evidently got his name because of the trail of straw he left behind after paying his unfortunate victims a visit. Remember the straw trail we found at the Melanie Schofield crime scene? Strike a chord with you, does it?’

  The DI closed his eyes for a second in apparent resignation. ‘Please don’t tell me you think our killer is a bloody ghost?’

  She gave a tight smile. ‘Hardly but it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? A half-naked girl called Martha Tinney is found strangled in a barn on the Levels exactly 150 years ago. Now the same thing has happened again and the two MOs are almost identical—’

  He tapped the book cover with one stubby finger. ‘Says here a local gypo, Frederick Laycock, was suspected of her rape and murder, after trying to use the legend to conceal his crime but that he drowned in a peat bog nearby before he could be properly questioned.’

  Another nod. ‘His mother was a self-styled witch, apparently, and peddled this stuff on a regular basis. He was, by all accounts, a sandwich short of a picnic, so it’s logical that he swallowed it all and actually believed he was the bogeyman.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘But what would be the link between a spectral scarecrow and a corn dolly? Doesn’t compute with me.’

  ‘I don’t know for certain but if you think about it, a scarecrow’s job is to scare birds away from crops, like corn, and the corn dolly was used as a means of promoting a good harvest. That could be the link.’

  Roscoe looked unconvinced. ‘So, what are you actually saying?’

  She tutted her impatience, raising her voice slightly. ‘You know what I’m saying, Guv. Obviously someone else found out about the legend and decided to run with it. A girl strangled and left half-naked in a barn? It’s too much of a coincidence.’

  He glanced around him, then said quietly. ‘But a 150-year-old copycat killing? Why?’

  ‘How the hell should I know? Maybe our man is a nutter who gets off on this sort of thing.’

  Roscoe drained his pint. ‘Another bloody psycho?’ he muttered, wiping froth off his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘That’s all we need, because it means this isn’t just a one-off; we can expect more.’

  He climbed to his feet and headed for the bar. ‘Do you want one?’ he threw back over his shoulder.

  She sighed. ‘OK, just a half,’ she replied. ‘Otherwise I won’t sleep at all tonight.’

  He grunted. ‘I won’t sleep now anyway,’ he growled.

  He returned minutes later wi
th two pints. ‘Sorry, I forgot you wanted a half,’ he said, his eyes gleaming mischievously at her grimace.

  She didn’t respond and waited for him to settle himself back into his seat and come out with what was the obvious question. ‘OK, so why now?’ he queried. ‘If your hunch is correct, why would your nutter suddenly start up now? What’s got his juices going?’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s a local man who had a breakdown – just lost it. Or, more likely, he’s new here, someone who has moved into our area from some other part of the UK and has adapted his previous tendencies to fit the Strawfoot legend.’

  He took a long pull on his pint, then studied her for a moment as she sipped hers. ‘At least that would narrow the field down to a few thousand people,’ he observed cynically.

  ‘Maybe just a few hundred,’ she replied.

  He snorted. ‘And you think that makes it any easier?’

  She didn’t say anything and he took a deep breath. ‘OK, we’ll go with your theory for the time being – but only because we’ve got nothing else – and your first job is to see the author of this book.’ She nodded and he grunted. ‘First thing tomorrow. Be interesting to see what he has to say.’

  ‘What about the meeting with the SIO?’ she asked.

  He grinned. ‘Alone in that big empty bed of yours, you’ll probably be up, out and back before he even has breakfast,’ he said.

  She stared at him coldly for a moment, then stood up to go, retrieving her book but leaving her pint glass on the table still half full. ‘Thanks for the beer,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 6

  Kate walked into the incident room the next morning later than she had intended and stopped dead.

  The place looked a lot more business-like than before, with a bank of computers on smart workstations, manned by staff she didn’t recognize, lining one wall. Printers were set up back to back on a table at one end, plus fax machines, whiteboards and all the other kit essential to the running of an efficient incident room firmly in situ. There was also a television, connected to a DVD player, in one corner and the ubiquitous coffee machine right next to it. Obviously the rest of the MCIU specialists had arrived and everything was on a ‘systems go’ footing.

  An impressive show but Kate had seen it all before and she took in the whole lot with just a single glance, the focus of her attention instead being on the two men standing talking to each other at the far end of the room.

  One was instantly recognizable as Roscoe and he seemed to have only recently arrived, since he was still dressed in his overcoat and pork-pie hat, and she knew the other man too, despite the fact that she was only presented with a side view of him. It was a while since she had last seen Detective Superintendent Raymond Ansell but she would have known that thin angular profile anywhere and, without even being told, she knew that he had to be the SIO appointed to run the murder inquiry – which gave her a definite sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Beelzebub, she mused, recalling one of the nicknames her colleagues had given him when he had been the DCI on the Twister murder inquiry. He was the last thing they needed!

  And he seemed to possess some of the Dark One’s powers too, sensing her presence as she approached and quickly turning to face her, one hand outstretched. ‘Ah, Detective Sergeant Hamblin,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while, has it not? Married, I hear?’

  She nodded, reluctantly taking the limp, effeminate hand. ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, answering both questions in one go, then adding, ‘But the name is Lewis now.’

  Ansell tutted. ‘Ah yes, silly of me. My apologies, of course.’

  ‘Mr Ansell has been appointed SIO on this inquiry,’ Roscoe announced unnecessarily.

  Ansell seemed to ignore him, the dark eyes like gimlets in the lean saturnine face as they studied her intently, the slightly lopsided mop of jet black hair, which she had always thought lent him an uncanny resemblance to Adolf Hitler – minus the moustache – drooping forward over the narrow forehead and the smile frozen on the thin lips in an expression that had all the empathy of a stone statue.

  In his late forties, with the build of a whippet, Ansell hadn’t changed at all in the two years that had elapsed since he had been the DCI and her boss on that last serial murder inquiry – even down to his expensive-looking blue suit and black highly polished shoes – and the aura of cold ruthless efficiency still emanated from him, as it had then, like an invisible force.

  ‘Nightmares all gone now then?’ he said in an obvious reference to the trauma she had suffered at the hands of the murderous psychopath they had then been targeting.

  She nodded quickly, colouring up. ‘It was a long time ago, sir.’

  His dark eyes seemed to burn into her and the lips twisted into a grimace that could have been an attempt at broadening his smile. ‘It was indeed,’ he agreed. ‘But memories can – er – linger, can they not?’

  She stiffened but said nothing, inwardly furious with him for what she saw as his insinuation that she was still not fit for the job.

  Roscoe looked uneasy and tried to turn the conversation away from what he knew to be a very sensitive subject. ‘This case is a lot different, though, sir,’ he blurted. ‘Looks like a plain and simple sex crime to me.’

  Ansell turned back to Kate. ‘I understand you have a theory of your own, Sergeant?’ he encouraged, his eyes now slightly hooded.

  She glanced quickly at Roscoe. ‘Not actually a theory, sir,’ she corrected, ‘just a few facts that point in a particular direction.’

  Ansell stepped to one side and indicated the door of the SIO’s office with a wave of one hand. ‘Then let’s hear it,’ he said. ‘But we might as well make ourselves comfortable first.’ He smiled at Roscoe. ‘I’m sure the DI here can arrange for some coffee to be delivered to us in the meantime, eh?’

  Kate couldn’t have been more relieved to receive the telephone call from Will Fallow in response to the message she had left on his answerphone. If she was honest with herself, she didn’t expect to get much out of the interview she had set up, even though it had to be done. It was more a case of escaping the tense atmosphere of the incident room than anything else. Detective Superintendent Ansell had been in the process of giving her quite a grilling on her so-called theories about the murder when the call had come in and it had got her off the hook right at the critical moment. When she finally got away, however, she was so stressed that she felt almost as if she had been physically violated. Not much team spirit to look forward to on this investigation, she mused as she drove out of the police station yard. Talk about history repeating itself.

  Will Fallow lived in a two-bedroom cottage with a tattered thatch and peeling woodwork on the outskirts of the tiny village of Cocklake, and Kate stared curiously at the unkempt patch of garden and the bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle parked just beyond it on a gravel driveway as she walked up to the front door and knocked twice.

  The tubby, bespectacled little man with the beaming ‘Pickwickian’ smile and shabby tweed suit opened up almost immediately, dismissing her proffered warrant card with an airy wave of one hand.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ he exclaimed. ‘Always pleased to see the police – especially pretty gals like you.’ He winked. ‘Wife’s out shopping in Cheddar, so I can say things like that, can’t I?’

  Kate smiled at the compliment, wondering how ‘Mr Pickwick’ would get on with one of her more feminist colleagues. ‘I won’t tell if you don’t,’ she replied and followed him inside.

  He made straight for what turned out to be his inner sanctum, muttering happily to himself as he preceded her. The room was only about eight foot square but it was made a lot smaller by the crammed bookcases lining two of the walls and the stacks of other books piled on the floor in every available space. A battered oak desk stood against the far wall, facing out of the window, which was cluttered with papers and more books, almost concealing a grey laptop computer and an ancient-looking printer jammed in behind it.

  Kate smiled again as she s
at down on the swivel chair he indicated and watched him heave himself up with some difficulty and much wheezing on to the edge of his desk, crushing some of his paperwork beneath his ample behind and almost upending the laptop in the process.

  ‘Sorry, Inspector—er—’ he said. ‘Not used to visitors, you see. Bit of a—um—er—recluse, I suppose you’d call me.’

  ‘It’s Detective Sergeant, Mr Fallow,’ Kate corrected gently, ‘and the name is Lewis, Kate Lewis.’

  He beamed again. ‘Ah, well, a detective anyway. I feel honoured. What can I do for you?’

  Kate hesitated, anxious not to give too much away about the investigation but recognizing that she had to tell him enough to get some answers to the questions she had for him. ‘We are currently making inquiries into the death of a young girl,’ she said, ‘and in connection with those inquiries, I have been carrying out some research into corn dollies.’

  His eyes widened. ‘Corn dollies? Good Lord, what on earth have they to do with anything?’

  ‘I can’t answer that, I’m afraid but my research has led me to read your very interesting book on Somerset’s folklore and I was curious about the way a corn dolly featured in the murder of Martha Tinney.’

  ‘Martha Tinney?’ he echoed and chuckled. ‘Good heavens but that was 150 years ago!’

  Kate pressed on, determined not to get sidetracked. ‘According to your book, Martha Tinney was found raped and murdered in a barn out on the Levels, with a corn dolly forced into her mouth.’

  He nodded, now frowning. ‘Very macabre business. But I would correct you on one point. The object in her mouth was certainly described as a straw or corn figure, but it would not have been a corn dolly. Corn dollies were used to bring about a good harvest by appeasing the spirit of the corn. The thing that was left at the scene of Martha Tinney’s murder was said by those who found her to have been an evil charm, believed to have been fashioned by a local gypsy and self-styled witch, called Annie Laycock, or Dark Annie, as she was nicknamed—’