Chapter Forty-Six

Peter Prance was charged with conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm, and released on bail, on condition that he tried neither to leave Spalding, nor to contact his family. After his release, Tim went home for a shower, and was now returning, still more tired than refreshed, to the police station. He had asked Juliet Armstrong to gather the murder team together in the interview room during his absence. He walked through the door at 12 noon precisely, just in time to listen to Andy Carstairs’ final sentences as he retailed Peter Prance’s story to Juliet and Ricky MacFadyen.

“The whole rigmarole sounds totally unbelievable to me,” said Ricky.

“I agree that it is a very strange tale, and no doubt made the stranger by Peter Prance’s various embellishments,” said Tim. “And of course we have no reason to trust Prance: on the contrary, we know that he has been convicted of fraud several times, and is probably an expert liar. Nevertheless, I can pinpoint no glaring inconsistencies in his story; nor can I think of any other version which could incorporate without contradiction all the evidence that we have. What he has told us may be an approximation of the truth, or as near to it as we are ever likely to get.”

“But it doesn’t account for all the evidence, does it, sir?”, said Juliet. “For example, we don’t have an explanation for the plastic Red Indians. We don’t know if either Dorothy Atkins or Ronald Atkins – or both – were murdered; and if they were, as Peter Prance suspected, Hedley was almost certainly the murderer, which would make him, not Dorothy Atkins, a serial killer. And we haven’t solved the murder which we set out to solve in the first place: that of Kathryn Sheppard. If Hedley did kill Dorothy and Ronald, then I’d say that it was likely that he killed Bryony, Doris and Kathryn as well.”

Tim nodded.

“I agree that there are many loose ends to tidy up. As far as the Red Indians are concerned, once we found out that they were issued the year before the murders of Doris and Bryony, they ceased to be important. Hedley probably took the extra bag from the shop and gave the Red Indians to people that he knew, as mascots or even as a sort of joke against Colin. There was no Red Indian found with Doris Atkins’ body, and none with either Tirzah or Ronald, for that matter. And despite Peter Prance’s panic when he learned that Tirzah and Ronald had both died this week and therefore concluded that the coincidence was too great and that Hedley must have been responsible, there is absolutely no evidence that Hedley had visited Tirzah at Elmete Court on the day that she died, or at any time in the recent past. Conversely, although we know that Hedley did visit Ronald Atkins on the night of his death, this does not prove that Hedley murdered him: the circumstantial evidence rather points to the opposite, in fact. We know that Ronald bought a new washing-line earlier in the day; that his wife had probably left him; and that he knew that Bryony’s body was certain to be found the following day. He had every reason to kill himself and little cause to want to carry on living. As you know, Professor Salkeld said that very few hangings turn out to be murders.”

“What about Henry Bevelton?”

“I’m not sure whether Henry Bevelton was accessory after the fact when Bryony was buried or not. We can question him and try to charge him, but I doubt that we shall make anything stick. He has behaved in a shifty way, as you know, and some of the things that he has said don’t bear close scrutiny. My guess is that Henry is just a petty crook who agreed to do the Atkins a favour in return for keeping quiet about something that they knew about him – or alternatively he had heard the neighbours talking, and suspected that Bryony was buried under the apple tree, but kept it to himself, because he wanted to buy the orchard. Even if he is guilty, he has one inestimable advantage: all the Atkins family are now dead except Hedley, so there is only one person left who could betray him; and I’m pretty certain that Hedley is in such a state that although the CPS may decide to press charges, no judge will pronounce him fit either to testify or to stand trial. The whole thing has turned full circle, in other words: he is in practically the same position that Tirzah was in more than thirty years ago. Whatever the truth of all of it is, they have succeeded in keeping it in the family. Only Peter Prance has come anywhere close to piercing their conspiracy of silence.”

“If Peter Prance was right and two incestuous liaisons with Colin Atkins were at the root of all that followed, wouldn’t it be possible to check this out by getting some DNA tests done?” asked Ricky.

“Perhaps,” said Tim. “It would be worth a try, if only to satisfy our curiosity. I doubt if the results could be used to convict Hedley of murder, or to exonerate him, for that matter. The problem is that we shall only be able to obtain specimens from Tirzah and Ronald and Bryony – and Hedley himself, of course. Doris Atkins and Colin Atkins were both cremated.”

“From the previous work I’ve done with DNA testing, I think that specimens from the immediate family should be enough,” said Juliet. “Enough, at least, to prove whether or not Ronald was Hedley’s father, whether he and Bryony were full brother and sister, and probably whether there is any sign of inbreeding in Ronald, and, even more to the point, in Hedley.”

“Call Professor Salkeld and arrange it, then,” said Tim. “He is carrying out the post mortems on Ronald and Bryony, in any case. I’m sure that he’ll be happy to add Tirzah to his list and to take a few swabs from Hedley.”

“I still can’t think where Kathryn Sheppard fits into all this,” said Juliet. “With all these deaths going on in the Atkins family, it seems to defy logic that her murder did not tie in with them somehow. Yet, if Peter Prance’s story is to be accepted, the only Atkins actually to have been murdered in 1975 was Doris. If Colin Atkins was her murderer, I cannot see why he would also have killed Kathryn Sheppard. If he knew Kathryn at all, it could only have been as a passing acquaintance when she was going out with Hedley. We don’t think that Colin was a psychopath, do we?”

Andy Carstairs rose suddenly from his chair.

“I’ve got it at last!”, he said. “Something’s been nagging at the back of my mind for weeks, now, and I’ve just realised what it is.”