Murder in the Goblins' Playground (DCI Arthur Ravyn Mystery Book 1) Read online

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” she said, taking the card. “She won’t have to go into Stafford, will she?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Stark replied. “We’ll probably set up an incident room until we clear up this matter.”

  “You mean, find out who did him in?”

  “That’s how we like these things to end.”

  She smiled. “Well, in that you may be disappointed.”

  “Why do you say that?” Stark asked.

  “Because he lived in Red Cap Woods, obviously,” she replied. “The Folk in the Woods are stirred up over what Oscar Lent and the other strappers want to do—put in houses, a Tesco and lots of other nonsense. It was only a matter of time before they did something red, and it probably won’t be the last.”

  Stark grinned. “Done in by fairies or elves or whatever?”

  “Tell you what, Sergeant,” Marion said, leaning toward him, lowering her voice further. “You go on into the deep heart of the woods and say that. Something red will come to you, sure.”

  “I understand Cutter had been there awhile,” Stark said, “living in an old caravan.”

  She shrugged. “He had lease to be in their realm, didn’t he? They let him live there…well, until they didn’t.”

  She stepped back inside.

  “Good night, Sergeant,” she said, closing the door. “Gwen will give you a bell, when she’s ready to talk.”

  “Sooner rather than later,” Stark said, but he was already talking to a dark and ancient door. He snorted. “Nutter.”

  As he entered the gate of the third cottage, he heard the strident rings of a telephone within. It stopped before he was halfway down the garden walk. He raised his hand to knock. The door opened.

  “You’re the police?” the woman facing him asked.

  She was thin, wiry, garbed in a grey dressing gown. Her white hair was pulled into a tight bun. She crossed her arms and regarded him as a serpent might a mouse.

  “Detective Sergeant Stark,” he said, producing his warrant card. “Stafford CID. I’m here to…”

  “Yes,” she interrupted. “Allan is dead. How did it happen?”

  “Your name, ma’am?” Stark asked, pencil poised over notepad.

  “Young man, I asked you a question,” she snapped. “When I ask a question, I expect an answer.”

  Stark rotated the pencil between two fingers as he waited. He was not about to let her usurp his authority in this matter, whomever she might be…other than a friend of Marion Stone.

  “Name?”

  She glared at him a few moments longer. “Lillian Nettle.”

  His hand trembled slightly as he wrote her name. “You’re…”

  “Yes, Allan Cutter was my son,” she said evenly. “Now, tell me what happened.”

  “Your son?” Stark frowned. “I was given to understand…”

  “I raised him as my son, therefore he is.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Now that your official blather is out of the way, tell me what happened,” she demanded. “Need I talk to your superior?”

  “No, ma’am, that won’t be necessary,” he said. “Mr Cutter entered the Three Crowns earlier this evening, mortally wounded. He collapsed and died. It was very quick.” He paused, wondering how much he should tell her. “He was stabbed, a single thrust. We think he may have been attacked in or near Hob’s Lane.”

  “He died at the pub?”

  “Yes, ma’am, in the snug bar,” Stark said. “According to our pathologist, it may not have occurred to him how seriously he was wounded until it was too late. We think that he finally realised what was happening and went to the snug for help.”

  “Rubbish!” Lillian snorted. “Knowing Allan, he probably went there to get one last drink…at someone else’s expense.”

  Stark watched her keenly.

  “I may be his mother, but I am under no illusion about what sort of man he was,” she said. “He drank too much, let his temper get the best of him, and was nasty-minded. His only redeeming quality, if such it can be called, is that he kept himself out at that squalid caravan most of the time, not inflicting decent society with his presence.”

  “I understand he also stood up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves,” Stark offered.

  “I assume you’re referring to that Gwen Turner creature.”

  Stark nodded.

  “A pathetic fool, that one.” She glanced at the cottage across the way. “And, yes, as you have probably deduced—since you claim to be a detective—Marion told me you were coming.”

  “I did not know you lived here, else we would…”

  “The pub riff-raff thought to call the police, but not a single one of the ale-sodden brainless dolts thought to tell me what happened,” she sneered. “Well, I don’t suppose I could expect any better of them. All of them are cut from the same cloth as was Allan, and a poor weave it is.”

  “Did Mr Cutter have any enemies?” Stark asked.

  “A man like Allan, he had nothing but enemies,” she said. “He had those with whom he drank, but they weren’t proper friends, just wretched sinners as bad as himself. He never had friends due to his own grievous faults. Ever was that way, even as a lad.”

  “Had he mentioned to you…”

  “We did not speak, but by his choice, not mine,” she said. “He left home, vowed not to come back. Said he was leaving Ashford, ‘escaping the curse of Hammershire,’ as he called it, but come back he did. I learned he had returned, but not from him telling me so. ”

  “He then moved a caravan into place?” Stark added.

  “He took up residence in the old caravan.”

  “What did you think about that?”

  “What was I to think of it?” she shot back. “It wasn’t any of my business, now was it? He chose not to have discourse with me, made it plain my opinion was of no import.”

  “But if you saw him as your son, then…”

  “I raised him to a moral life, to know right from wrong, to see his place in the universe, but he turned his back on all that, and me, by his own choice…his own foolish choice,” she said. “I did what I could, but the sins of the father—and the mother—are visited upon their progeny, generation upon generation.”

  “Did you know Allan’s parents?”

  Lillian Nettle glared at Stark. “You think I would have kept the beast had I known where to find his parents? Marion said you were a ponce, but she’s always been as sharp as a river pebble. Turns out she was right, for once.”

  “I don’t suppose anyone who leaves a baby in a dustbin is the type who…” he started to say.

  “She may have been too kind about you,” Lillian snapped. “And you call yourself a detective, listening to back-alley stories from idiots who never stepped foot into the library of their own accord, treating rumour as if it were gospel.”

  “Then Allan wasn’t left in a dustbin?”

  “Don’t be daft, Sergeant!” She planted her fists on her hips. “Is that something even the worst mother would do?”

  Stark thought about all the sufferings he had witnessed mothers visit upon wee babies and decided not to answer. Lillian Nettle may be highly educated, at least by the standards of Ashford, he thought, but she was naive to the ways of the world. Bringing pain and suffering to the weak and helpless was human nature.

  “Do you know of any reason why anyone would want to harm Allan?” he asked.

  “Do men need a reason to do evil?” she demanded. When she saw he was not going to rise to her bait, she added: “As I told you, Allan chose not to contact me. Were it not for whatever pittance of information I could pry out of that stupid Gwen creature, I would know nothing at all of his doings, not that there was much worth knowing. He kept himself to himself, made his business his own, and spent almost all his time in that wretched old caravan, which even he should have had the sense to avoid.”

  “Because it’s in Red Cap Wood
s?” he suggested.

  “Well, perhaps you’re not quite as dense as I thought,” she said. “Or maybe you’re merely parroting superstitious nonsense heard in the pub…probably after knocking back a few pints yourself.”

  Stark surreptitiously bit the inside of his lower lip to cut off words that would surely find their way back to Superintendent Heln. After a moment, he released his grip and said: “Superstitious nonsense? So there are no such things as goblins or fairies?”

  “Fools listening to the tales of fools!” Lillian laughed.

  “Well, some kind of tradition an old evil there,” he offered.

  “What is old?” Lillian asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s a simple enough question, even for a strapper, I would’ve thought,” she shot back. “You have some education, I suppose, an understanding of the English language. So, then, tell me what you consider old. Fifty years? A hundred? What?”

  Stark closed his notepad’s cover, returned it to his pocket. He pulled out a card, wrote hurriedly across the back, and handed to her.

  “We’ll want to talk to you at length about Allan Cutter, but I can see this is obviously not the best of times,” he said. “You can call me or DCI Ravyn—his mobile is on the reverse—to make an appointment. Good night, Mrs…”

  “It’s Miss Nettle,” she corrected. She took the card and tapped it contemplatively against her sharp little teeth. “You didn’t answer my question, Sergeant.”

  “I haven’t time for games, Miss Nettle,” he said wearily. “It’s late, and I still have people to talk to.”

  “You have no idea what old is,” she whispered. “The woods were old when the Romans avoided them, old when Druids raised their stones. Beings that predate humanity still haunt the woods. Have a care that they don’t get you, Sergeant.”

  “Good night, Miss Nettle.” He turned and walked away.

  “Save some time and skip the next two,” she called. “Dylwyth Mayhew is a weakling and Maratha Chandler a delusional fool.”

  Stark did not look back till he stood on the street, then wished he had not. She still stood silhouetted against the open door, a hand pushed against each jamb. He could not see her face, but he somehow knew she was leering at him. He turned away.

  “Mad bitch,” he muttered.

  As he approached the fourth cottage, he listened for the ringing of the telephone, but the place stood silent and dark. For all that, though, there was life inside, a curious and perhaps wary eye turned upon him, evidenced by subtle movements of the curtain in the front window of the ground floor. He walked up the path, stepped onto the stoop, and waited.

  The door opened slowly, gripped by a bloodless hand. A white face floated into view, surrounded by hair once blonde, but now like spun cotton under moonlight. Her brow was wide, but narrowed to a sharp chin. The shape of her head, combined with slightly pointed ears and abnormally large dark eyes, gave her a decidedly elfin cast. Briefly, Stark wondered if one of the eldritch inhabitants of Red Cap Woods, of which so many had hinted, had wandered into the light. But he dismissed the idle thought when he saw red-rimmed eyes recently wet with tears. He knew nothing of fairies, but thought they did not weep.

  “You…You’re from the…” She closed her eyes momentarily, then wiped leaking moisture from them. “You’re the police?”

  “Yes, I’m DS Leo Stark, Stafford Constabulary,” Stark said.

  He lowered his tone to the softest of murmurs. No one had ever accused him of being sensitive, much less sympathetic, but confronted with this pale and trembling creature, he felt like a hunter come suddenly come upon a lost fawn in the forest.

  “You’ve come about what happened to Allan?” she whispered.

  “That’s right ma’am.”

  He thought back to what William Brianson said about three women, Weird Sisters he had called them. Marion’s first call may have been to Lillian, but the second was obviously to this woman. As different as they were, there was a thread between them, which also connected all of them to Allan Cutter.

  “You’re Dylwyth Mayhew?”

  She uttered a tiny gasp, her white hand flew to her mouth.

  “Miss Nettle told me who you were,” Stark explained.

  Dylwyth’s gaze darted toward the librarian’s house, then back to Stark. She seemed to shrink back when considering the woman next door and the man standing before her, but Stark could not decide which made her quail the most.

  “Yes, I’m the postmistress,” she said.

  “You live here alone?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you see anything in Hob’s Lane?” Stark asked.

  “Is that where Allan was attacked?”

  “We think so.”

  She shook her head. “Two men, walking slowly…a torch.”

  “Less than an hour ago?”

  Again, she nodded. “You?”

  “And my guv’nor, DCI Ravyn.”

  Her eyes widened a bit. “Arthur Ravyn?”

  “That’s right,” Stark affirmed. “Do you know him?”

  “No, not actually know him…he stayed here…as a lad…”

  “Other than me and my guv’nor, did you see anyone else?” Stark asked. “Did you see anything out of the ordinary?”

  “No,” she whispered. She leaned forward slightly. “They say the Devil almost got one of their holy men to do his bidding.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard the story,” Stark sighed. “I suppose you don’t watch the road because you might see something evil and terrible?”

  “Oh no, not at all, Sergeant,” Dylwyth breathed. “If one were to see the Dark Lord when the moon is a cup, one might die, but not from terror. One might die from the sheer majesty of the sight.”

  Stark frowned in confusion.

  “It wasn’t the Devil the Vicar met,” she explained. “It was the Lord of the Woods.”

  “Just to be clear,” Stark sighed. “You didn’t see Allan Cutter in Hob’s Lane, or anyone else? Just me and DCI Ravyn.”

  “Nor the Lord of the Woods,” she added. “Though I know he was in Red Cap Woods after duskfall. I heard the sounds of the Folk making merry in the woods.” The faint smile playing about her pale lips abruptly collapsed. “I suppose it was the Folk who did in poor Allan. It was…inevitable…that caravan.”

  “How well did you know Allan Cutter?” he asked.

  She looked at him sharply. “Not well. Not well at all. He came to the post office once a week, but we did not converse. We never talked. There was no reason to.”

  “Is Miss Nettle a friend of yours?”

  “I’ve know her all my life.”

  “You knew Allan growing up then?”

  “He was a small-minded child,” she asserted. “He grew into a most unpleasant man. He was Lillian’s problem, not mine.”

  “What about Marion Stone?”

  After a moment: “Nor hers.”

  “Was there any relationship between Allan and Gwen Turner?”

  She looked shocked. “Friends, him and the poor little mooncalf. Just friends.”

  He took a card from his pocket and passed it through the barely open door. “We may need to speak to you later.”

  “I don’t know anything,” she said. “I didn’t see anything. Allan was never mine.”

  He shrugged. “In a murder investigation, sometimes the tiniest detail will turn out to be of the greatest importance.”

  “But if Allan was killed by the Lord of…”

  “We’re looking for a more human agency.”

  “Oh,”

  “Anyway, we’ll be in Ashford for at least a few days, until we exhaust all lines of enquiry,” he said. “If you think of something later, no matter how trivial it may seem, please give me a bell. My mobile’s number is on the card I gave you.”

  She looked at the card in her hand, as if noticing it for the first time. “Yes. Good night, Sergeant.”

  The door closed with a soft click. Stark put away his not
ebook and pencil. He had been dismissed. He departed slowly, thinking of the three women. Lillian Nettle’s comments had not indicated any sort of amiable bond, but he knew from experience that women friends could be simultaneously affectionate and vicious.

  He wondered what Ravyn would make of them. No doubt more than he did. They were nutters, each of them, especially the last with her quiet madness. They were tied to each other, and a thread connected them to Allan Cutter, but it was a thin, fragile one.

  It would be late when he got home, but before head hit pillow he would type up his notes—by his new guv’nor’s standards they would become transcripts—and email them to his laptop. Aeronwy would not be happy, but that was just a matter of degrees these days. Anyway, it was not as if he had anything to look forward to.

  He paused before the fifth and final cottage. According to Lillian Nettle, it belonged to Maratha Chandler, a ‘delusional fool.’ After interviewing four lunatics, though all potty in very different ways, Stark was ready for a delusional fool. Perhaps she was also a busybody. He loved busybodies for they always made everybody’s business their own.

  A light shone behind brocaded curtains on the ground floor. He opened the gate’s latch, started down the garden path and a yellow globe by the door snapped on, spreading a warm and welcoming glow over the porch. The door opened, revealing a thin white-haired woman with an engaging smile.

  “Good evening, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Detective Sergeant…”

  “The police, how exciting,” she murmured. “And you’re not a Hammershire man, are you?”

  “No, ma’am,” he replied tensely. “London originally, but…”

  “Oh, even more exciting, Sergeant…” She paused. “I’m sorry, but what did you say your name was.”

  “Stark,” he said. “DS Leo Stark.”

  “Would you like to come in for a cuppa?”

  He smiled. “Yes, ma’am, I surely would.”

  Chapter 4: Where the Owl Soars

  By the time DCI Arthur Ravyn thought to look back, Stark was lost in the night. He did not have high hopes for finding witnesses to anything that might have happened in Hob’s Lane. Even if one of them had seen something, he reflected, his sergeant was not the man to draw it from them.