Kate didn’t believe in the supernatural, but his soft voice in the darkness gave her the chills.

  ‘Who found Anna’s body?’

  ‘I did,’ he said quietly. ‘I’d been away on holiday with my sister. And when I came back, I noticed a couple of large parcels on the front step, and one was soaked from the rain. So I checked it out. The front door was locked, and all the windows were closed. I broke the window on the downstairs loo, and I found her.’ The light from Gregory’s torch was bouncing back off the walls, casting his face in long shadows. ‘Whoever did it used a hammer. They battered her when she was lying on the floor. There,’ he said, indicating the mysterious bloodstains. ‘Her body had been lying here for twelve days. I don’t know if you can imagine. There were maggots. The stench was awful.’

  ‘Was it… was she sexually assaulted?’ asked Kate.

  ‘The police said no.’

  ‘Well, that’s a small positive in a horrible situation,’ said Kate, realising that she was sounding exactly like a private detective.

  ‘Why was the body left for so long? Didn’t anyone else miss her?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘I was away. Anna was on holiday from work. We live on a quiet cul-de-sac. I’m her only direct neighbour. There’s the patch of land on the other side. No one missed her, it seems.’

  Kate’s eyes followed the trajectory of the blood from the floor as it arced up the wall.

  ‘Did the police have any idea who did it? And how they broke into the house?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Anna had had a couple of scares in the weeks leading up to this.’

  ‘What kind of scares?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘One night, she was in the kitchen making her cocoa when the back door handle was tried. She said she saw it move. A week later, she was woken up by a noise in the back garden. She went over to the window.’ Gregory indicated the back window with the grate over it. ‘There was a person in the back garden, by the back door, all dressed in black.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She called the police both times. They advised her to get a security light put in. And she did. She also had an alarm put in with those motion sensors downstairs. The works. It cost her a lot of money. But that’s what doesn’t make any sense. When I found her, all the doors were locked but the alarms were deactivated.’

  ‘Was someone waiting for her, maybe? When she came home from work?’ said Kate.

  ‘It’s possible. But who would do that? She had very little of value. Anna wasn’t a rich woman, and she helped so many people. She was a social worker, and occasionally she fostered children, short-term if they needed somewhere to go.’ He shook his head.

  ‘And the police never caught who it was?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘No. It didn’t really make the news in any big way. Just a bit in the local paper. That surprised me. Perhaps more people are murdered every day than we know.’

  ‘The police found no fingerprints?’ asked Kate.

  ‘They found hers because she lived here, and I had to give my prints to rule me out, but I never really came inside the house. We’d chat on the road or in the garden. They did find the murder weapon on the path of scrubland behind the house. It was a claw hammer, wrapped in a plastic bag.’

  They were silent, and Gregory indicated the door. Kate was glad to leave the room. The lingering blood spatters and the stained floorboards gave her the creeps. They went back out onto the landing.

  ‘That was the loo. Squatters ripped it out, so you’d have to put something new in,’ Gregory said. The bath was full of dust, and the toilet bowl, sink, and taps were missing. They moved through to the second bedroom. This was in better condition than the other rooms. It was empty of furniture, but on the walls there was faded, but still rather beautiful, wallpaper covered in animals. There was also one side piece of a cot, with wooden bars, propped up against the wall. Tristan glanced up at Kate and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Did she foster many children?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. I remember once seeing a police car pull up late at night, and they dropped off a young girl. She was maybe two years old… This wallpaper is nice, isn’t it?’

  Kate nodded. She looked around the room. She wondered how those children felt, being dropped off at this house tucked at the back of a quiet cul-de-sac.

  ‘Was she married?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘No,’ said Gregory. There was something about how he said this, as if he had never expected her to be married.

  ‘Children?’ asked Kate.

  ‘No. Anna was a bit of a hermit. She always seemed to be working. Kept herself to herself.’

  ‘And the police never thought it was a neighbour who killed her? Was she in dispute with anyone?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘Good lord, no. This is a nice quiet street. There’s me, old Mrs Grundy, Mr and Mrs Patel who run the post office. They’re very well thought of. And another woman on the end has been renting for years. She works abroad a lot, I think.’ Gregory looked between Kate and Tristan, and she wondered if he was becoming suspicious of all their questions.

  Gregory took them back downstairs and they went along to the kitchen at the back of the ground floor. The back door was boarded up with a metal grille. The kitchen units had been ripped out, so there wasn’t much to see. They came back out of the house and into the front garden. Kate was glad of the sunshine and fresh air. Tristan asked to see the back garden, and they walked around the path at the side of the house, but it was overgrown, with chest-high weeds. A line of tall trees backed onto the scrubland at the end of the garden.

  ‘The Coldharbour housing estate is only a mile away, beyond the trees,’ said Gregory. He gave a theatrical shudder. ‘It’s far enough away, but I wonder if it wasn’t someone from there who killed her. It’s rather rough.’

  ‘Did the police think someone from the estate was involved?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘No, but I mentioned it to them. I don’t think they bothered to take me seriously.’

  ‘Have you ever had trouble from the people at the estate?’

  Kate could see Tristan bristling a little at the vague mention of people on council estates being bad.

  ‘Well… no, but that’s not to say we wouldn’t have trouble from them,’ said Gregory.

  ‘Has anyone from the estate ever decided to walk or drive here?’

  It was a deliberately opaque question, but Gregory seemed to consider it seriously.

  ‘I don’t know if many of them have cars. Apart from the burned-out ones you see in the local paper. Like I say, it’s far away. Thank goodness.’

  There was a silence as they looked at the tall weeds swaying in the overgrown garden. Kate gave Tristan a look to warn him not to get into an argument. Gregory finally seemed to notice Tristan’s annoyance.

  ‘You’re not from the estate? Are you?’ he asked.

  ‘No. We’re from Ashdean,’ said Kate quickly.

  ‘Right. What line of work are you in?’

  ‘Mum runs a caravan site on the coast. I help her,’ said Tristan. Good one, thought Kate. If they needed to talk to him again, they wouldn’t have to bend the truth too much.

  ‘Do you think you’ll be phoning the estate agent?’ he said. His hopefulness broke her heart. He just looked like a sad man in a tragic, forgotten place.

  ‘I don’t think so, but thank you for showing it to us,’ said Kate.

  She looked back at the house. The murder had interested her, but what was it to do with Charlie? Probably nothing, she thought. But something niggled at her. She thought back to her meeting with Jean. The social worker, Anna, had an interest in Charlie. It was as if she wanted to take him away and keep him for her own. That’s what Jean said. Take him away and keep him for her own.

  21

  Kate and Tristan drove into Okehampton and parked in one of the town centre car parks. Dark clouds were gathering at the horizon just as he switched off the engine, and rain started to fall, rattling on the windscreen. Kate undid her seat belt and turned to him.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘Did she have so few people in her life that her body lay undiscovered for twelve days?’

  ‘She’d been on holiday from work, so no one missed her.’ She rummaged through her bag and found her notes on the original newspaper article.

  ‘Still. You’d think someone would have phoned and then been worried when there was no answer.’

  ‘Her body was found on July 8th 2007,’ said Kate, flipping through her notebook. ‘A couple of weeks after Charlie went missing. There’s just something about it being a hammer attack. The crazed violence of it. I know that someone committing a robbery would go into a house armed. I’ve seen the aftermath of hammer attacks. It’s usually gang-related violence or sadism. And Gregory said she wasn’t sexually assaulted.’

  ‘Would he know that for sure?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘I don’t know. The article in the newspaper didn’t say that Anna was raped.’

  ‘Would they print that?’

  ‘The police might release those details if they were relevant to their investigations,’ said Kate, wishing for the thousandth time she had access to the HOLMES police database. ‘Anna was a social worker. I don’t want to make assumptions, but I’m guessing she wasn’t rich. And Kirby Cane Walk is a decent area.’

  ‘But a mile away from a council estate,’ said Tristan.

  ‘It really burned you, what Gregory said?’

  He nodded. ‘I come from a council estate, I’ve had a lot of stuff like that slung at me. I know there can be plenty of bad apples, but we’re not all bad.’

  ‘I agree. But you have to admit if this Coldharbour estate is rough, someone from there could have done it.’

  ‘Gregory said the doors were locked when he found Anna’s body, but the alarms were deactivated. Would she install a security system only to let some stranger in from a council estate? And can you tell someone is from a council estate, just by how they look?’ said Tristan. ‘And are we getting away from our case? What does this have to do with Charlie?’

  ‘There is a connection to Jean,’ said Kate. She rummaged in her bag and took out her phone. ‘I’m going to call her.’ She put the phone on speaker and dialled. Jean answered her phone after a couple of rings. The rain was coming down hard now on the windscreen, and the glass was misted up.

  ‘All right, love?’ Jean said. ‘I was just thinking about you and how it was going.’

  ‘Jean, I’m just here with Tristan,’ said Kate. She briefly told her about their morning at Kirby Cane Walk. ‘Did you know that Anna Treadwell was also registered as a foster parent?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Jean. ‘But that makes more sense to me. She was an odd one. Very robotic and distracted, and she took an unhealthy shine to Charlie. I called it an itchy womb.’

  ‘Itchy womb. You mean that this social worker wanted a child?’ said Kate.

  ‘Yes, and not just any old child. Like I said, I think she wanted Charlie. Anyway, what’s that social worker got to do with Charlie after all this time? Do you know how many people from rough areas get hassled by social workers?’

  ‘Can you tell us more about Anna Treadwell? How often did she visit you at the flat?’ asked Tristan. There was a pause.

  ‘The first time, I was on me own. That was when Becky and Joel were away with Charlie.’

  ‘What did you say to her?’

  ‘She said someone had phoned their hotline to flag a safeguarding issue for a child at the property. She used some highfalutin language like that. She said it was a neighbour, and then I knew it was Helen, from upstairs, who’d made the call. I told her there were no children in my flat when this safeguarding issue happened.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ asked Kate.

  ‘She didn’t like having the wind taken out of her sails. She said she would come back, which she did, a few days later. I was in the living room with Becky and Charlie, and we was watching Postman Pat. It was one of those lovely days. The house was clean, and we were all quiet and happily watching TV. She hammered on the door and was very pushy about coming inside. I let her in, and she went and picked Charlie up off Becky’s lap! Without asking or anything like that. I had to stop Becky from hitting her. Charlie started to cry and, I’ll always remember it, this Anna woman started to talk to him in a low voice, saying that she would be keeping an eye on him and make sure he wasn’t in danger. And that she could take care of him if he wanted her to. It was creepy. I got Charlie back off her because he was so upset, and then we asked her to leave.’

  ‘Did you see Anna Treadwell again?’

  ‘Yes. She came round a few more times over the next couple of weeks. Strange, out-of-hours times, too. Once at 6am on a Sunday morning, another time at 11pm on Friday. She was trying to catch us drunk or being loud, I dunno. And another time she followed us to the supermarket, Becky and me with Charlie. She came up to us in the biscuit aisle and tried to pick Charlie up from the trolley. He didn’t like her and started to cry.’

  ‘Did Anna Treadwell ever file an official report at social services?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘Gawd knows. Anna said my neighbour, Helen, phoned her again, but I think she was lying. I’d been around and had words with Helen.’

  ‘Do you have her number?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Helen’s? I’m sure I do, somewhere, but it wouldn’t do you any good. She’d dead. She was decapitated in a car accident a few years back, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. I know I’m talking out of turn here, but we had nothing but trouble with her as a neighbour. She was mean for sport. I tell you, I’ve never seen a happier widower than her husband, Alan.’

  ‘Jean, I know this sounds strange, but do you think this Anna Treadwell could have had anything to do with Charlie going missing?’ asked Kate. There was a long silence on the end of the phone.

  ‘What? No... No. I’d never put the two things together,’ she said.

  ‘You said that Anna came on the scene a few months before Charlie went missing. When exactly?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘I suppose it all happened February-March time. I’d have to have a think. Yes, Becky and Joel went to Center Parcs with Charlie in the February because it was cheaper. But no, she was off the scene by then. By the time Charlie went missing, it was June, and Anna was long gone. I always assumed she couldn’t get us on anything, so she’d moved on to another kid.’

  ‘Did you report Anna to the social services? Because this sounds very unprofessional,’ said Kate. They heard Jean laugh dryly.

  ‘As I said yesterday, you probably think of the authorities differently, but where I come from, they’re the last people you phone if you’re in trouble. And my flat is on the Coldharbour estate. It’s the kind of place the police don’t bother coming out to.’

  Tristan looked at Kate with his eyes wide. It was the same council estate behind Anna’s house.

  22

  Okehampton was only eight miles from Gidleigh, where Declan Connoly lived, so Kate and Tristan decided to use their time wisely and pay him a visit.

  Kate had never been to Gidleigh, which sat on the edge of Dartmoor and was surrounded by woodland. When they drove into the village, the grass out front of a tearoom was busy with people in walking gear sitting, sipping drinks, and eating cake. Tristan peered at his GPS and saw three winding lanes leading off the village green in different directions.

  ‘It looks like he lives off an unmarked road, but I can’t see which one we should take,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s ask him,’ said Kate, spotting a postman who was just opening the village postbox.

  ‘Excuse me. We’re looking for Zieger Cottage?’ she said, winding down the window when Tristan pulled close. ‘A man called Declan —’

  ‘Declan Connoly?’ said the postman squinting at her as he pulled a bundle of envelopes out of the post box and stuffed them into his bag.

  ‘Yes.’

  He gave Kate directions up a lane partly covered by a group of trees beside the church graveyard.

  ‘If you get to a crossroads, you’ve gone too far,’ he said. Kate thanked him, and they drove off past a group of children playing croquet on the empty side of the green. The lane led up steeply from the village, and the views across Dartmoor were stunning. They could see a couple of smallholdings nestled in the valley ahead. As the road banked down again, they found themselves in a tunnel of trees with tall, drystone walls on either side. They came to a gate in the wall and heard a high-pitched whining sound.

  Zieger Cottage was a crumbling squat house with roof tiles missing and pebble-dashed walls. It was set back from the road and had a large plot of overgrown land surrounded by drystone walls. A battered white van was parked in front of the house, and its wheels were half-submerged in a wide, churned-up patch of mud. A tow truck was parked a few metres away with a winch cable attached to the hood of the half-sunken van. A hard-faced woman with dark greying hair tied back in a thin ponytail was gathering up a row of wooden planks, forming a walkway out to the van. A wild-haired man with a florid red face and large watery blue eyes was inside the tow truck, revving the engine. They hadn’t noticed Kate and Tristan arrive over the noise.

  ‘Is that Declan?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘Yeah. I recognise him from the newspaper articles,’ said Kate.

  They left the car and went to the wide farm gate, watching for a moment as the truck revved and shot forward on the soft earth. The van rocked on the end of the long cable, but its wheels looked stuck fast. Then with a lurch, the line broke, and the truck shot backwards. The man slammed on the brakes.

  ‘Cherry. Cherry!’ he yelled. She looked up, and he switched off the engine. He came bowling out of the truck towards her. He was stout and wore dirty shorts and a T-shirt with wellington boots. ‘You’re supposed to watch the cable!’