Saturday 3 November, 6.58 a.m.
That morning as the sun rose over The Roaches the far wall of Lud’s Church had the briefest dusting of gold, though the glow only penetrated the top few inches. The rest remained sullen and dark, quiet as the grave except for the drips which tapped out a slow beat as they coursed down the walls, quenching the thirsty ferns and finally puddling on the floor making the stones slippery as an ice rink ready to make the unwary fall. A mouse skirted the edge but, peering over, was glad to scuttle back into the safety of his nest.
11 a.m.
Kath had already primed Hayley. After considering her three best ‘mates’, she had decided she needed Chi to help with the old man. Besides, she had plans for Chi. Fifi’s voice, particularly with its current nasal overtone, would be recognizable. Besides Fifi was too stupid. Even stupider than Hayley. She’d mix her words up, make a mess of it all. And Debs? She needed Debs to drive. No. Family loyalty was the best plan.
In other words Hayley.
Now Hayley was her sister and as such could be expected to be loyal and want to help her. But sometimes she didn’t seem to want to play ball. And this was one of those annoying times. The stocky little shit had stood her ground. ‘I don’t want to, Kath.’ Her next statement had almost guaranteed a smack in the face even if she was her sister. ‘I’m trying to go straight, you know.’ Kath had stared at her, amazed. ‘Go straight?’ she jeered. ‘Why would you want to go straight?’
Her sister’s reply had stunned her. ‘Because I don’t want to end up like you.’
‘But you’re a Whalley. Of course you’ll end up like me. Crime’s in our blood – just like being Jewish or something. You can’t change it.’
Kath was beginning to panic. She needed her sister’s cooperation.
She’d rarely had to try persuasion on a family member. It wasn’t her usual way of making certain people do as she wanted. Threats and fear, chuck in a bit of torture. That was more her style, but this was one of those rare moments when she needed to use another weapon. Loyalty? Balled fists held behind her back, she tried again. ‘All you’ve got to do is read the fucking words on the sheet and don’t answer any questions.’
‘I’ll get it wrong, Kath,’ Hayley bleated. ‘I know I will. Besides, what if they recognize my voice? They’ll know it’s me. They’ll come after me and they know where I live.’
‘You silly cow. They won’t know it’s you. Just make up a name. Don’t use your own and disguise your voice.’
Hayley still looked reluctant, so Kath tried another card, even more foreign to her. ‘Come on, Hay.’ She accompanied this with a leer and a soft punch (softer than she wanted to administer) on the shoulder. ‘You’re my sister.’
Hayley simply stared back, uncertain, but now Kath was reading fear in her eyes. She would know the cost of crossing her big sister. Maybe persuasion hadn’t been the best way of convincing Hayley to fall in with her plan. Maybe she should have relied on good old-fashioned threats. She could see in Hayley’s eyes that she was wavering.
‘I am never doing anything for you ever again.’
‘You won’t have to. This is a one-off.’
Midday
Being in hospital, confined to bed, with restricted visiting hours, DS Mike Korpanski had little to do except fiddle with his phone, play games, watch the nurses bustle around their work, observe the doctors, feel himself for his leg pulses, at least the ones he could reach, and think. Strung up like a chicken, his leg was throbbing. He rang for some painkillers and then attempted to settle and read on a Kindle that Fran had brought in but had filled up with detective stories. Detective stories? As if.
As boredom set in, Korpanski began to recall the accident that had put him there.
No accident. The more flashbacks he experienced, the more convinced he was that it had been deliberate. What he couldn’t work out had been why?
Until a Eureka moment.
2 p.m.
Bundling him downstairs had been trickier than they’d anticipated. Hoiking him a mile across the moors was going to be a big challenge. Luckily she had Chi to give her a hand. At least Chi was strong. They were held up at traffic lights, which made all of them twitchy, except Zachary, whose eyes were wide open, his shoulders hunched. Traffic lights meant being stationary. And anyone could have looked in and seen three women with one frightened old man.
The lights turned green.
Leaving Debs to mind the car ready for escape, Kath and Chi staggered along the path under pine trees dragging Zac between them. A cold wind rattled through the pine needles, making the experience even more unpleasant, and Zachary was too drowsy to stand upright. Maybe they had overdone the sedation. His feet dragged along the path, picking up mud and pine needles. ‘Please,’ he managed, ‘can’t we stop? Why are we here?’
‘We’re looking for your teddy, Zac.’ Chi was attempting to cheer him up.
But he looked at her with perceptive eyes. ‘You won’t find him out here,’ he said. ‘Teddy wouldn’t have come out here. Not without me. We should go back.’
‘Soon, old man,’ Kath said, spitting out some chewing gum that had lost its flavour. ‘You’re helping us.’
‘How?’
‘Never you mind. I’ll explain when we get there.’
They walked a few more steps before Kath turned back to him. ‘Give me your slipper.’
‘I’ll be barefoot.’
‘I said give me your slipper.’
Without further argument he removed his slipper and handed it to her. She left it at the side of the path. Just in sight, ready to be found.
He was silent for a few more steps but then, childlike, he spoke again. ‘Is it much farther?’
‘No. No. Not much.’
It was cold. Kath started muttering. ‘Nearly ready, my dear. Come to Kath.’
Chi spoke up. ‘Is this all really worth it?’
She practically blenched when Kath turned furious eyes on her. ‘You don’t get it, do you? This is the best time possible. Now she’s carrying that sweet little infant. All blond hair and blue eyes.’
Debs was sitting in the car tempted to leave the scene. It wouldn’t be long before the police cars would come screaming along the road, if Kath’s plan came off and Hayley played her part. The terrain was such that you could hear police sirens all the way from Leek. What if they’d met someone on the path while they dragged the old man between them? She didn’t want to be around when Kath finally had her way with DI Piercy. She didn’t know Kath’s exact plans for the detective, or for the old man, but she could guess. She’d do what she was going to do to Piercy – and just abandon the old man to his fate. And then more officers would pour into this remote location. And someone would have taken a note of her mother’s car number plate. Worst of all, there was nothing in it for her. From her eavesdropping it sounded like Chi had money and Kath would have her revenge, but for Debs there was nothing at the end of the tunnel.
And right at the back of her mind was another uncomfortable thought. What exactly was Kath planning to do with her? She would be a witness, part of the whatever crime. They’d all heard of ‘joint enterprise’. Whatever Kath did, she would be complicit, and she hadn’t missed out on the paranoia Kath Whalley was displaying towards an increasing number of people.
They were halfway there when Kath demanded the second slipper, leaving it, like the first, just a little off the path, and Chi realized her plan. Little breadcrumbs strewn along the way would take up any officers apart from Piercy, who would head straight for Lud’s Church. Considering the terrain and having to bring the old man, they weren’t making bad progress. It wasn’t far now. Chi spoke up. ‘You want me to stay with you, Kath?’
Kath turned her head very, very slowly and fixed her eyes on Chi, who could read her plan. She was going to be the one to take the rap. Kath continued to stare and Chi had the uncomfortable feeling she was looking right through her, as though she couldn’t see her. As though she didn’t count. Was this what obsession was like? she wondered. A shutting down of the periphery, losing everything that was not connected to your focal point? It made her feel very uncomfortable and extremely apprehensive. She was realizing how little she really did count. No more than the old man, who was looking at her with those pathetic, bleary eyes begging her to help him. She was expendable, nothing but a means to an end. Her function was solely to help tether the goat.
She looked at Zac and knew she couldn’t help him.
If she so much as gave him a glass of water, Kath would jump her.
She’d seen her take it out on too many people. And Kath was strong. Built like a weightlifter and even stronger and more solid since her jail sentence. Chi wasn’t going to take her on. She had no option but to fall in with her plans.
But she moved slowly, placing one foot in front of the other, arm hooked under the old man’s, dragging him along, trying to block out his pleading.
‘Where are you taking me?’ His voice was quavering. ‘What have I done? Let me go. Please. I want to go back. I’m cold.’
Kath was taking no notice of him either. It was as though she couldn’t even hear him. Her face showed a calm determination, eyes blazing ahead, skin pale. She was slightly ahead of Chi, tugging the old man hard, muttering to herself. Chi could guess what she was saying, uttering curses against Piercy, combined with malicious taunts interspersed with ‘fuck this’ and ‘bastard’ that, and other profanities. That was when she realized. Kath was mad. For now, her focus was purely on ‘getting even. Getting Piercy’. It was her absolute obsession. But Chi wanted that freedom and sunshine. She didn’t want to be here on this freezing dark moor where another dark deed was about to happen. But what could she do? Nothing. And so she trudged along the muddy path, strewn with pine needles and long-dropped beech leaves, wishing she could turn around and head in the opposite direction, taking the old bloke with her, depositing him on the doorstep of that nice, warm, comfortable residential home where he would be safe. It was her last chance. She knew this area well. They weren’t far now. She was running out of time. Soon it would be too late. She skipped two steps ahead, dropping the old man’s arm so he stumbled on to his knees with a groan.
Kath turned, eyes blazing. ‘What did you do that for?’
Chi dropped her eyes.
They’d reached the entrance to the chasm. Kath pinned her with a stare. ‘Don’t even think of stepping out of line, Chi. I’ll know.’ She was already pulling her mobile phone out of her pocket ready to put Hayley into action.
Chi’s last glimpse of the old man was him holding out his hands to her, beseeching. Then he seemed to crumple as Kath pushed him down the steps. ‘You,’ she said, ‘stay right there.’
As they descended the steps, Chi could still hear his voice, weak but caught on the wind. ‘Please don’t hurt me. Help me. Help me.’
Chi was tempted to put her hands over her ears. Of all the appeals she had ever heard made to Kath, this was the least likely to provoke any response. She didn’t want to hear it because she knew that voice, those words, would resonate inside her ears for ever.
‘Good luck, old man,’ she whispered, but her words were carried along in the wind.
3.05 p.m.
Time for Hayley to play her part in the phone box.
She’d pulled her hoody well up and completed the ‘disguise’ with a pair of outsized sunglasses which, if anything, only drew attention to her more. She clutched the sheet of paper, having practically memorized it, apart from a couple of little ‘alterations’ she’d made for effect and to show that she wasn’t a hundred per cent under her sister’s thumb.
As she walked along the High Street, she practised her lines as though she was an Oscar performer, even adding little flourishes to her words. She was going to make a good job of this. By Godfrey, she’d have them all running.
Debs had wanted to explain to Kath’s deluded silly sister that this phone call would probably lure a police officer to her death, but she hadn’t dared cross Kath. It would be her death that would be next in line if she so much as opened her mouth the wrong way. Debs didn’t have much of a conscience, but buried deep was a sense that this was a step too far. She was frightened. She’d heard Hayley repeat her lines and had been able to tell by the way she was concentrating that she didn’t have a clue what part these ‘lines’ would be playing. So Debs had made a couple of contributions of her own. Though she couldn’t be certain anyone would pick up on the tiny trail of breadcrumbs she was scattering.
She’d left the front door of Mill Street wide open, knowing that their nosey neighbour would take note. She’d also left the door to the bedroom wide open and the sheets still on the bed. Maybe the smell would draw someone in.
That was as far as she dared go.
Some things are just too hard and dangerous.
3.10 p.m.
Hayley reached the phone box, as instructed, and dialled.
‘Hello.’
PC Gilbert Young, in charge of the protected number, knew his lines. ‘Your name, please?’
‘Meredith Kercher.’
Young made a double palm-up sign to his colleagues, a what-the-f? But he scribbled the name down all the same and passed it to DC Alan King, who immediately typed it into the PNC with a confusing result. On a Post-it note he scribbled, Girl murdered in Italy. He passed the note to Joanna.
‘OK, Miss “Kercher”, you have some information about our missing man?’ They were not only listening in but also recording.
‘Yeah.’
It was a local accent.
‘Go on, Miss …?’ PC Young glanced down. ‘Kercher.’
Silence on the end. So Ms ‘Kercher’ needed prompting.
‘I think I saw him. I was out hiking,’ Hayley read, nervous now. Even she had picked up on the fact that this guy didn’t believe her. She hadn’t convinced him. What had she done wrong? Kath had told her to use a false name. She’d only plucked one from the internet.
‘Where do you think you saw him?’
DC King was frowning into his computer.
‘It was near Lud’s Church.’
‘Lud’s Church?’
‘Yeah that’s right.’ PC Gilbert Young frowned. That didn’t make any sense. Lud’s Church was nearly nine miles from Ryland’s, a good mile from the nearest road and a hike across open moorland with paths through wooded areas. An old man with limited mobility who’d been missing for nearly two weeks?
‘What makes you think it was the missing man rather than another hiker?’
‘He was wearing pyjamas.’
Gilbert Young was shaking his head, meeting the faces of his fellow officers with bemusement. ‘OK, Miss “Kercher”, when did you see him?’
‘’Bout an hour ago. He was wandering. It’s taken me this long to get back, you see. He looked a bit muddled to me.’
‘So why didn’t you bring him back with you?’
‘He would have been too slow. I thought it’d be quicker if I headed back and phoned you. Besides, he wouldn’t come. He said he had to find something.’
‘Did he look in good health?’
‘He looked all right to me.’
And she put the phone down. She’d done her bit. Kath would surely be pleased with her.
Gilbert Young looked at DC Alan King.
King already had his answer to the question he knew would be asked.
‘Call box,’ he said, ‘Market Square.’
Which was both good and bad news. A public call box was so much less traceable than a landline or mobile. But the Market Square and in particular The Butter Market had a plethora of CCTVs since an outbreak of vandalism a few years back. Even better, like the cameras mounted on St Edward’s Street, they did their job.
They all sensed this was not right, but Joanna was already on her feet. ‘I don’t have an option,’ she said. ‘Unlikely as this is – and it could be a red herring or a wild-goose chase. But I don’t have an option. I’ve got to check it out.’
She had some hiking boots in the boot of her car. If she put the blues and twos on she could be there in less than twenty minutes. ‘OK,’ she said, already on her feet. ‘King. You and Jason – let’s go.’
If she did find Mr Foster, she could call for help and bring him to safety. It would soon be dusk. If he was out there he would be out in the cold for another night. She didn’t have an option.
She knew the area well. She and Matthew had walked the trail many, many times, had enjoyed picnics overlooking the crevice in the rock, taken photographs, even slipped on the moss-covered steps as they’d descended into the chasm. Like many others, they had been imbued with the atmosphere so strange it was hard not to believe the legends. Once you had hiked across the moors, the place had a strange, haunted air; a sense of secrecy, violence and tragedy. But one fine summer’s day a few years ago, both she and Matthew had had a rare glimpse of the escaped wallabies and that had cheered them up immensely.
Unfortunately, while Lud’s Church survived, the wallabies, escaped from a private zoo, had not. Staffordshire winters were too harsh for them.