Tom and I were leaving the police enquiry office when Isla Ferris arrived in handcuffs. Seeing me, she let out a sound I could only describe as a howl. “You miserable cow.” She’d resisted arrest, we learned later. She was still resisting, attempting to wrench her hands free, kicking out at anyone who got close, and heaping abuse on everyone. She accused Tom and me of lying, Constables Doaks and O’Brien of police brutality, DS Varma of planting evidence, and DCI Okoje, unbelievably, of racism.
Tom and I stayed just long enough to hear Okoje formally charge Isla Ferris with the murder of Gideon Littlejohn.
Knackered, as Tom had put it, we returned to the Crown, ordered a light supper in our room, and built a fire in the fireplace. We were sitting with our feet on the brass fender when Okoje phoned.
Tom listened for several minutes, saying, “I see,” a number of times. When they’d rung off, he said, “Isla’s admitted everything. She went to the Old Merchant’s House at ten forty-five that morning, pretending she wanted to discuss the exhibition of the dress. And yes, before you ask, she got tea. That’s when he told her about Hawksworthy. He probably thought he was doing her a favor. They went to the computer room. He was going to show her the file of evidence. She shot him, took the file, and went immediately to her own flat to shower and change clothes.”
“What happened to the file?”
“She destroyed it, of course. No idea Littlejohn had produced a video. They’re taking her to the jail in Newton Abbot. The police are matching her fingerprints with those found in the computer room.”
At around nine Tom got a texted update from DCI Okoje.
Teddy Pearce was recovering in the hospital in Plymouth. Quinn had been allowed to remain with him, pending a court hearing on the charge of public endangerment and carrying a firearm in a public place. She was facing a mandatory five-year sentence, but Okoje thought a skillful barrister might persuade the judge to make the sentence noncustodial because of the age of her children. Her father, Karl Benables, had returned from Germany and was now very much involved. Which was probably a good thing. He had clout.
Hawksworthy had been taken to a low-security facility near Newton Abbot pending his arraignment on charges of fraud, abuse of public trust, and the forging of documents. He kept insisting his stellar career should count for something, Okoje said. But whatever happened, his career was over.
“How do you feel now the case is solved?” I asked Tom.
“Like I’ve been hit by a lorry,” he said.
“I know what you mean.” We were still exhausted from the ordeal at Evelscombe mire. Every muscle in my body was complaining, and I had an angry red welt across my back.
“Tomorrow’s our last day in Devon,” Tom said. “Can’t say I’m sorry to leave.”
“No, neither am I. But I do regret not solving the mystery of Nancy Thorne. Did she really murder Luke Heron? If she did, why?”
“We’ll probably never know. I think we can safely say the dress belonged to her, and the DNA results should tell us something about the blood. If the blood belonged to Luke Heron, it will show a significant link to South Asia. I emailed my preliminary report to Nash & Holmes while you were in the shower. I’ll send along the DNA report once we get it.”
“I wonder what the museum will do without its director,” I said.
“They have an excellent board, from all accounts. They’ll probably hire someone as quickly as they can. And go ahead with the new crimes exhibit.”
“I hope so. There will be a lot of interest—especially when a contemporary crime is involved. Hawksworthy’s arrest will lend an extra frisson, don’t you think?” I shifted so I could put my feet on Tom’s lap. “Speaking of crime, what’s the penalty for forging your academic credentials?”
“That’s a new one for me—not that I’m wasting any sympathy there. I’m more concerned about Quinn Pearce. We’re really hard on gun crime in the UK these days. What she did was incredibly irresponsible.”
I was thinking about Ivy and Lily when we heard someone tapping on our door. I got up to answer. It was Yvie Innes, and she was holding the trunk. “Julia Kelly from the museum dropped this off. She said you should take a good look at the tab in the lid.” She turned to leave. “And, oh—she said to tell you she didn’t touch anything.”
I thanked Yvie, took the trunk, and placed it on the floor near the hearth. Opening the lid, I propped it on one of the decorative pillows from the bed. Tom and I sat side by side on the floor. I pulled on the fabric tab, revealing the compartmented tray. It was empty.
“Why does Julia want you to examine that again?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know.” I ran my fingers over each small compartment, feeling for any tiny beads or jewelry findings I might have missed. I found nothing, but even if I had, why would it be so important?
“I wish Julia had come up herself.”
“She probably thought it was too late. She mentioned a tab.”
I sat back and thought for a moment. Instead of the tray, maybe Julia meant the recessed area in which the tray was concealed. I ran my hand gently over the fabric along the underside of the domed lid.
Something crackled.
“There’s something in there,” I said.
Tom leaned forward to look. “Will you have to remove the lining?”
“I don’t think Julia would have left that to me. There has to be something else. Hand me my lighted magnifier.”
I trained the light on the recessed area, moving it slowly along the seams.
Then I saw it, a tiny tab of fabric, no more than an eighth of an inch long and lined up so precisely with the pattern it was virtually invisible. I straightened. “I know what Julia meant, Tom. There’s a second tab. Can you see it?”
Using my fingernails, I pulled gently. Behind the tray compartment was a second space, smaller than the first but also meticulously lined with fabric. Concealed inside were letters, old ones, still in their envelopes and bound with blue ribbon. “Do you have a pair of gloves?” I asked Tom.
He reached for his jacket. “Last pair.”
I pulled them on.
The letters—there were seven envelopes—had been sent by Sally Tucker, and they were all addressed to the same person, her son, William Tucker. “Look, Tom—the letters are still sealed, marked ‘Uncollected. Return to Sender.’” I read the postmarks. “Sally mailed a letter to William every January from 1902 until 1907. He never received them.” I laid the envelopes on the low table between our chairs in order of date. “Either she stopped writing after 1907, or the later letters didn’t survive.”
“Or Sally didn’t survive.”
“Good point.” I picked up the earliest letter. “The return address is number four Brook Lane, Widdecombe Throop. That makes sense. The village wasn’t flooded until 1906.” I stopped, trying to figure out what the dates were telling us. “Sally must have started writing the letters soon after her sister, Nancy, died.”
“When did we figure William was born?” Tom asked.
“Late 1885 or early 1886.”
“That means he left home when he was … well, fifteen or sixteen.”
“Four of the letters, the earliest ones, are directed to the post office in Plymouth. The last three were sent to a post office in Brighton. William never picked them up. Maybe he didn’t have a fixed address—or Sally didn’t know the address.”
“Well—are you going to read them?”
I opened the first brittle envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper, covered in a small, precise script.
12th January 1902
Widdecombe Throop
To William, my darling son, for that is what you will always be. I pray for you every night, asking God to protect and guide you. Can you not write to me? I shall not beg you to tell me where you are, just that you are alive and well. Today is your sixteenth birthday. I fear for you, my dearest boy, alone in the world, without friends. How are you living? How do you eat? But I must not torture myself with such questions.
I know how angry you were when your mother died.
I stopped reading. “His mother? Could she be talking about Nancy?” Several pieces of the puzzle fell neatly into place. “Mercy Abbott told me the trunk that contained Nancy Thorne’s dress had belonged to Billy Cole’s grandfather, a man named William. Tom—Billy Cole was William Tucker’s grandson. How else would he have gotten the trunk?”
“And that means he was Nancy Thorne’s great-grandson,” Tom said. “Read on.”
We should not have told you so abruptly, William, not without preparing you first. But Nancy was dying, and she would not go to that blessed realm without telling you of your true parentage. My only consolation is she died with a clear conscience. She didn’t deserve your suspicion, nor your wrath. I don’t blame you—how could I? But when you fled the house that night, without giving her an opportunity to explain, she gave up. Later that same night she breathed her last. I blame myself, but we did what we thought best at the time.
Dearest William, as much as I wish to relieve your mind, I cannot tell you anything of your father’s death. I placed my hand on the Bible, you see, and took a solemn oath before God that I would tell no one what happened that terrible night. Woe to me if I do not fulfill that sacred vow. I can tell you this much: your mother lived her life carrying the burden of a shame she did not deserve. I can say no more. Please believe me, my darling son, you are all I think of. If I am doomed to live out my life alone, I shall bear it as best I can. Perhaps it is what I deserve.
May God soften your heart. Please write and relieve my pain.
Your mother, Sally Tucker
“If William was Nancy’s child,” Tom said, “could the blood on the dress have anything to do with his birth?”
“Not unless she lay on her stomach to deliver him. Trust me—that doesn’t work. Besides, it was September when she returned home covered in blood. William wasn’t born until January. Nancy, on her deathbed, must have told William who his father was.”
“Whatever she told him made him angry—angry enough to leave home. Read another letter.”
We read all the returned letters. All but the last were essentially the same. Every year on January twelfth, William’s birthday, Sally implored her adopted son to come home or at least to write. As the years went by, the letters seemed less like communication and more like meditation. As if Sally were writing to herself.
The final returned letter, dated January twelfth of 1907, was different.
To William, my son,
This is the last letter I shall write. The doctor tells me I must die soon. It’s cancer.
I’m not afraid. When I leave this poor earthly body, I know I shall be reunited with my parents, my beloved husband, and my dear sister. Your mother, dearest William, was a saint. Her love for you was so strong. Yet for your sake, she could not acknowledge you. I know I shall not see you again, so I picture your face as it must be now—the face of a strong young man of twenty-one. I pray you will never experience war or famine or grief, but that God’s face will shine upon you in blessing all the days of your life. At fifteen you did not realize the pain you caused by leaving. Perhaps you do not realize it still. I forgive you.
You know I must honor my vow. But death releases us from all vows, does it not? So I shall write an account of that night while I am able, knowing you will not read it until after I am gone. I am ready to die. God is my judge. To Him I shall answer and I believe I shall find grace. I die hoping that you will learn of my death and return to claim what is rightly yours. I wish it were more. If you return to bury me, I pray you will find this account and forgive us.
May the knowledge of what is good and kind and merciful sustain you always.
Your loving mother
Sally Tucker
I folded the letter and slipped it back in the envelope. My throat ached.
“Did William Tucker ever return to claim the trunk?” Tom asked. Even his voice held emotion.
I cleared my throat. “He must have. But it seems he didn’t find the account Sally wrote.” I held up the final letter. “This must be it. It’s marked ‘For William.’ The envelope is still sealed. William never read it.”
As the fire crackled, I read aloud.
To William. This is a true account of the events that took place on the seventh of September 1885, as they were told to me by your mother, Nancy Thorne.
The story began a year earlier.
Luke Heron was an exceptionally handsome young Romanichal man of thirty-two, a widower whose wife had died giving birth to a stillborn son. Like all men in the Squires family, he worked with the livestock on the moors, but he also worked with wood, producing fine objects of all sorts—bowls, carved boxes, platters, clothes pin and pegs, sturdy knife handles. His wares were prized by everyone, from farm wives to the landed gentry.
Before Christmas of 1884, Nancy was making lace by the fire. A mouse ran across her foot and she leapt up, dropping her bolster pillow, with the lace and all her precious bobbins, into the flames. Nothing could be saved. Somehow we found the money, and she commissioned Luke Heron to make new bobbins from dark, fine-grained cherrywood. Stated simply, my darling, they fell in love. But you must know such a marriage would never have been accepted by the citizens of Widdecombe Throop nor by Luke’s family. For that reason, your parents kept their love a secret.
In June of 1885, your mother found herself with child—with you, dearest William. Do not blame her. Your father was an honorable man, and they were in love. When Nancy told him of her condition, he was determined they should marry. But not in England. They would sail to America and start a new life. Luke had relatives in Chicago who would help them. To that end, they saved every penny they could.
On the night of the seventh of September 1885, when Nancy was five months into her pregnancy, they planned their escape. I remained at home that night, as I could not conceal my sorrow. Nancy attended the evening service as usual. There Luke met her with a horse and cart, from where they intended to leave England forever. Sadly, this was not to be.
In late August, Luke’s beloved grandmother, Queenie, had died. At her funeral, Luke’s cousin, Tawno Squires, accused him of stealing some of his grandmother’s possessions. This was not true. Luke had confided in his grandmother, and before she died, she gave her favorite grandson her wedding ring and other gifts, meant to help him and your mother on their way. When Tawno saw Luke leave the camp that night with the horse and cart, he followed him to the church and, with your mother, out onto the moor. They were travelling to Plymouth, where your father had bought passage on a ship. They never made it. At Evelscombe, Tawno accosted them and demanded that Luke return to camp and confess. When Luke refused, Tawno produced a knife and threatened to kill them both. The men fought. Both were severely injured. Both died on the moor—first Tawno, then, hours later, Luke.
Nancy did not kill your father, William. I swear it before God. She tried to save him. She loved him and he died in her arms. Before your father died, knowing your mother would be suspected of murder, he made her promise on all that is sacred that when he was dead, she would roll both bodies into the mire. It was all he could do for the woman he loved and for his child. She did what she promised.
The bodies were never found. She made me swear on my very soul I would never reveal the truth. She could not have known what that vow would cost us both. The dress she’d worn that night was horribly stained with blood. Yet she would not part with it. I washed it, but the stains remained, as did her grief and the stain of suspicion. She wore the dress every day of her life, a dress that held her beloved’s lifeblood.
On a cold day in January, she gave birth at home. And I took you as my son.
This is a true account. May the Lord have mercy on my soul and theirs. And may He show you kindness and grace.
Your mother, Sally Tucker.
Tom and I sat back and let out a simultaneous sigh.
“They never knew the truth,” I said. “Not Gideon, not Billy Cole, and not Billy’s grandfather, William Tucker, the son born to Nancy Thorne and Luke Heron. They all believed Nancy murdered Luke Heron, and the truth was there all the time, within their reach.”
“They died believing the lies.” I thought about Hugo Hawksworthy, who, I was convinced, had ended up believing his own lies.