Chapter 51

I’m ready to send Barracuda a copy of three scenes from Death by Deception. Firstly, the victim Kelly Field is photographing a lonely Dunlin when she trips and falls into the bog, striking her head on a rock. Next, the anonymous culprit removes the evidence to make it look like an accident. In the third scene, Piper and Bandit visit the bog after the police have deemed the death accidental. They scope out the area looking for clues, finding a broken piece of string and some holes on opposite sides of the earth path, and speculate about what might have happened.

I hope this glimpse into the book gives Barracuda a taste of my efforts to fictionalise Molly’s death into a very different story. I’m not sure what I’ll do if she has concerns but I want to fulfil my promise and respect her wishes, keeping my fingers and toes crossed.

When I hit send, it occurs to me to send it to Helena too. I haven’t forgotten her phone message insisting that nothing I write ‘resembles her history’ but I wonder if our recent contact has changed anything in that message.

Barracuda replies.

Thank you, Tiggy. This is very good writing. I’m so sorry Kelly dies just because she likes to go to lonely places to take photos. It’s not fair. Charlie’s read it too and he wants to talk to you about something he’s written. Can you meet us at the old inn at Cheriton Cross? She suggests a time. Bring Raider the Radiant.

Charlie has written something. Something to do with Wolf Weevils?

And Raider has a new title.

“Each day we discover your hidden depths,” I tell him. “I’ve sent her the scene with Bandit in it. We can give your social media followers a sneak peek.”

I read him three short extracts and he lets me choose one to post.

This time we stop at the old inn we’ve passed on our visits to Merton Mire. It’s located on a through-road at Cheriton Cross, walking-distance from the village called Cheriton Bishop. The inn’s white walls and multi-pane windows huddle under an enormous thatched roof. There’s a fire roaring in an iron stove and small groups of patrons are eating or just drinking. Charlie and Barracuda have taken a table in a corner. The place is dog friendly and when I unclip his lead, Raider crawls under the table to sit on Barracuda’s feet.

“I see you and the dog are acquainted,” Charlie says to her. He turns to me. “She’ll take him for a run when things get boring, if that’s OK.”

I pass her the lead. “If he shares any juicy secrets, get his permission to tell us.”

She grins and makes an OK symbol with her fingers.

“This meeting was my idea,” Charlie says. “I’ve read those chapters you sent to Barbie, and you need to know about my thesis. I’ve been doing a PhD on the Wolf Weevil, taking quite a few years because I have to work.”

As I wait for him to get to the point, a furtive chill zips through me.

“Helena Loxton knows what I’m about to tell you. I saw her a few months ago and gave her advance warning that I’m about to publish my thesis. Not many people will read it but there could be repercussions from my findings.”

“And why are you telling me?”

“Your description of the fictional death of the victim in your book is more accurate than you mean it to be.”

“It’s a murder made to look like an accident,” I say.

“Exactly. My studies of the Wolf Weevil show that Helena’s expert opinion on the death of Barbie’s mum was … wrong.”

“Helena made a mistake about the Wolf Weevil?”

“Mistake is one word for it. I prefer another word. Lie.”

The word lands on the table with a silent thud. Under the table, Raider twitches.

“More than one,” he adds.

He takes out his phone and passes me the photo he sent me. The class of high-school girls from forty years ago. I point to Molly and check with Charlie and Barracuda.

“That’s Molly,” he says. “Now take a closer look at the front row.”

After this preamble I shouldn’t be shocked but when I stop at one face it takes several seconds to register who I’m looking at.

“Helena,” I say. “She was in the same class as Molly in high school.”

Barracuda is typing. A message pings on my phone.

I know this part. Charlie cares. He knew my mum, I didn’t. I have a loving aunt and cousin and a fish family. I’ll take Mr Radiant for a walk.

She stands.

Another ping. He’s safe with me.

“I know,” I say.

She’s picked up the lead and Raider’s jumping up at her, impatient to go.

After they’ve left, Charlie continues. “Molly and Helena were at school together but Helena told the forensic pathologist doing Molly’s autopsy that they didn’t know each other. It’s crucial that experts are independent from the victim in case there’s a conflict of interest.”

“Why did she lie?” I ask.

“I’ll get to that,” he says. “The other lie is in my findings. She said the Wolf Weevil made the marks on Molly’s neck after death.”

“Not true? You mean Molly really was strangled?”

“It’s more complicated, Tiggy. Helena had been struggling to find a stable colony of Wolf Weevil’s in Woolley Wood so it’s possible she had no idea what they’d do to a corpse.”

“Her thesis? Her PhD?”

“I think she stole Molly’s notes. Her notebook and bicycle pannier were never found.”

“You think Helena killed Molly for her study notes?”

I can’t keep the incredulity from my voice. How much further can the highly respected Dr Helena Loxton fall from her pedestal? I’ve been feeling sorry for her memory loss but a surge of anger threatens to swamp that.

“I don’t know,” he says. “It could have been an accident, like the murderer in your book wants the police to believe. But there’s another possibility.”

Now that he’s gone this far, he hesitates. But not for long.

“As a ten-year-old,” he says, “I went out to Merton Mire with Molly several times and I remember she told me how precious Wolf Weevils are. Like gold, she said. Precious enough that someone was trying to steal them.”

“For her thesis.”

“I think Molly caught Helena at Merton Mire stealing Wolf Weevils from Molly’s study traps. To transport to Woolley Wood for her own studies. If that’s true, she was breaking every rule in the book for handling an endangered species. The two of them would have had a terrible argument and Molly might have fallen and hit her head.”

“And the marks on her neck?”

“Made by the Wolf Weevil. I’m in no doubt about that. But I’ve discovered they don’t colonise dead things, like maggots do. But a bunch of Wolf Weevils left marks on Molly’s neck. How did that happen?”

“Someone put them there,” I say.

“Someone who’d just collected enough of them from several study traps behind a locked gate.”

“The Case is Altered,” I say.

“Exactly.”

We sit with this until I remember something.

“The autopsy said Molly died from drowning.”

“I want to believe that Helena thought she was dead. Tragic but convenient. Being dead, Molly wasn’t going to report her for theft, environmental vandalism, trespass, assault, you name it. She stole Molly’s notes and left. But if she’d pulled Molly out of the bog, it’s highly possible she would have lived.”

Not very different from the murder of Kelly Field in Death by Deception.

“What did Helena say when you told her what you’ve discovered?”

“I was expecting a lot of high-handed bluster, putting me in my place as a pipsqueak in the entomology world. But she froze, went absolutely still. And I realised she’s waited forty years for someone to find out. The Wolf Weevil is so elusive and its habits virtually unknown that it took someone slow and dogged like me to understand what’s been wrong with everything she’s ever written about them.”

“She had to write up her thesis,” I say, “to include the lies she told at the autopsy.”

“I think it’s why she pivoted into forensics. She couldn’t maintain the lies through a whole career.”

“After she froze, did she say anything at all?”

“Eventually she asked me if I was going to publish it. And was there anything she could do to stop me.”

Milton Faulks took a bribe, why not Charlie Marsh?

“I said nothing would stop me. I was going to publish it and get the PhD I’d earned from my own field work.”

“You gave it to her straight.”

“And I told her Molly had left behind a child who’d grown up without her mother. Helena didn’t know about Barbie because my mum was already caring for her before Molly died. I told Helena that Barbie AKA Barracuda has lunch every day between 1pm and 2pm at the park in Barnstaple. I said she could go there and get to know her. I wasn’t going to tell her that Barbie’s mute but Helena asked about her nickname so I told her.”

“This was just a few months ago?”

“Yes, but Helena only visited her the first time on the same day you followed Barbie to Fish Family.”

After I triggered her memory.

“Has Helena been back to see her since?” I didn’t ask Barracuda that.

“Every week. They don’t say much. Barbie takes fish and chips for both of them. Barbie doesn’t get a lot of company. She thinks their meetups are making Helena feel better and she’s going along with them. I think that’s why Barbie doesn’t want to keep hearing what she did to Molly.”

This fills in a lot of gaps about the day I met Helena. Her mad dash to Barnstaple, minutes after Raider and I left her house. I imagine Helena has spent thirty-five years pushing the facts about Molly’s death to the furthest hidden recesses of her mind. Then she could get on with her career and pretend they didn’t happen. But months ago, Charlie hit her with a shocking truth. Her actions had left Barracuda to grow up without her mother. I suppose it’s possible that kind of shock, on top of Charlie’s thesis about to expose her lies, could cause her memory to shut down as a coping mechanism. But deep down she knew there was something crucial she needed to do.

Seeing me on her doorstep, looking so much like Electra, brought back the emotional pain of losing her much-loved niece. And in that moment, it triggered the devastating fact she’d suppressed. The secret killing that launched her stellar career also robbed baby Barracuda of her mother. In a flash Helena remembered the time and place to meet her victim’s daughter.

But is Barracuda right that their meetups are just making Helena feel better? Or is Helena planning to make amends?

When she returns with Raider, Barracuda sends me a text.

Raider says to tell you he doesn’t have any secrets. His mind is an open book.