WHEN ASHLEY ARRIVED at Melva’s cottage later that evening, she found herself parking the Parma Violet behind a huge, obnoxious Land Rover that she recognised. Frowning slightly, she let herself in through the front door and paused in the darkened hall, listening to raised voices coming from the kitchen. She couldn’t make out the words, but the tone of the discussion was clear: two angry people rapidly losing patience with each other. With half a mind to just leave and come back in the morning, Ashley took two steps back down the hallway, only for Pester to come trotting out of the living room, barking in raucous greeting. The voices in the kitchen grew quiet, and then the door opened, splashing Ashley with light.
‘What are you doing here?’
It was Richard Lyndon-Smith. His brows were drawn down at the sight of her, the tops of his cheeks flushed with colour.
‘I’m visiting my friend, Dick. Surely even you can work that out?’ Ashley looked behind him into the kitchen and saw Melva standing by the stove. Her eyes looked very bright, as though she might have recently been crying, and her face was red. ‘What’s been going on here?’
Pester barked into the silence that followed, then trotted into the kitchen, his claws making light tapping sounds on the linoleum.
‘It’s all fine, love,’ Melva said, her voice thick. ‘Come through and I’ll put the kettle on.’
Richard swept a hand over his head, smoothing some strands of hair away from his forehead, and pushed past Ashley in the hall. He made more contact than was necessary, one hand touching her arm as if to steady her. As usual, when Richard was around, Ashley had to combat the urge to kick him in the shins.
‘Looking forward to seeing you at the House next week,’ he said, his voice pitched low, just for her. ‘It’ll be just like old times, won’t it?’
Ashley glared at his back until he was safely out of the house, then stormed into the kitchen.
‘What the hell was that all about?’
Melva sniffed. ‘Never you mind. I’ve known that boy since he was filling his nappies. Always has to be the big man. Tsk.’ She picked up the old-fashioned stove kettle and filled it at the sink before turning on one of the stove rings. ‘I never did understand why you were so keen on him when you were a teenager. Handsome, yes, but cruel. I never thought you’d go for that sort.’
Ashley sighed. ‘Oh yes, my single piece of teenage rebellion. I blame my hormones for that one. Are you all right, though, Melva? Whatever was going on there, it sounded … intense.’
Melva waved a hand at her dismissively before going to the cupboard and retrieving a couple of mismatched mugs. She popped a tea bag in each while Pester wove his way around her ankles, living up to his name.
‘It was nothing. Now, what are you doing here? Not that I don’t enjoy seeing you. I’ve been worried since … well, there’s one group of ladies who won’t be recommending us to their friends.’
Ashley winced. ‘I wanted to ask you something. It’s about the Gingerbread House Murders.’
‘Oh?’ Melva still had her back to her as she sugared the cups. ‘I thought you were gonna knock all that on the head.’
The kettle began to whistle.
‘I’ve got something to show you.’ Ashley sat down at the kitchen table and rummaged through her bag until she found the photograph of the child of sticks. She took it out and laid it on the table. ‘I wondered if you knew what this is. Something about it rings a very faint bell with me and … don’t take this the wrong way, but when I saw it, I thought of you.’
Melva poured the water and brought both cups over to the table. She picked up the photograph and held it up to the light, frowning. An odd stillness seemed to settle over her features.
‘What is it? You know, don’t you?’
‘Where did you find such a thing?’
Ashley leaned back on her chair. It seemed wrong, somehow, to share this discovery with someone else, but who was Melva going to tell?
‘We think they’ve been sent to the families of the children. We got that picture from Magda Nowak – it arrived the day after her kid vanished.’
‘That would make sense.’ Melva sighed. She put the photograph back down on the table, her fingertips resting lightly on it. ‘It’s a strange bloody thing to see in this day and age, I’m sure, but it looks like a changeling charm.’
‘A changeling.’ A distant memory suddenly seemed closer at hand, of her sitting in this kitchen with Malory when they were both young, listening to Melva as she spun them endless stories of blessed springs, ancient gods, brownies and boggarts, and the ‘fair folk’. ‘I knew it reminded me of something. What does it mean?’
‘I’m not sure I can tell you that.’ Melva was using a teaspoon to squish the tea bags against the sides of the cups. ‘The old story was that sometimes a faerie would take a shine to a child and steal it away. They would leave a changeling in its place, a sickly faerie child that would eventually waste away and die, or turn into something like that – a log or a bundle of sticks. Some people believed that having a child made of sticks already in the home would keep the fae from taking their children.’
‘But don’t you see? That does make a twisted kind of sense. Whoever is taking the children is leaving the parents with this replacement.’
‘Aye. One more cruelty on top of an already unforgivable act.’ Melva sounded angry, and it made Ashley oddly uneasy. She had hardly ever seen the old woman lose her temper, and tonight she had apparently witnessed it twice. ‘And what for?’
There was a jug of milk on the table. With a practised hand, she removed the tea bags and set them on a little saucer before pouring milk into the cups. Ashley took hers and wrapped her fingers around it. She craved heat, which was unusual for her.
‘I wonder if the police can tell where the branches were taken from,’ said Ashley. ‘That feels like the sort of thing they should be able to trace these days, doesn’t it? They could be able to pin down the area the changeling doll was made. But then if they could do that, they would have done it years ago.’
‘If the person who made it had any sense, they would have used trees far away from where they lived.’ Melva took a sip of her tea. She seemed calmer than she had, but Ashley noticed she didn’t take her eyes off the photograph. ‘If they have any sense, which doesn’t seem very bloody likely to me, given the murdering and what have you.’
‘I’ll ask Freddie about it. He might know the kinds of things the police will have done.’
‘Freddie is your young man with the podcast?’ When Ashley nodded, Melva thinned her lips. ‘I still don’t think any of this is a good idea, Ash, my love. It’s … it’s churning up a lot of stuff that’s better left undisturbed.’
‘I’m trying to help stop a child murderer, Melva!’
‘Don’t take on so – that’s not what I meant and you know it. I simply mean that putting yourself in the middle of all this could end up doing you harm. Bring back old nightmares, stir up old history, it could hurt you. It’s already hurting you.’
Ashley put her mug down. ‘What? What’s happened?’
Melva sighed heavily, and then reached for one of the newspapers piled on the end of the table. She unfolded it and passed it to Ashley. It was The Mirror. On the front page, there were three photos: one of herself, clearly clipped from the TV interview she had given, one of Robbie Metcalfe, slightly out of focus, and a very recent one of David Wagner, looking stern and grey-faced. The headline read:
MEDIUM IN GINGERBREAD HOUSE MURDERS DROVE BOY TO SUICIDE
‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’