arse occasionally.’
Tatershall groaned at the thought and picked up a pad from his desk. Jottings, doodles and random thoughts covered the paper, all connected to the couple from St Ives. What had started out as another boring mispers inquiry had now begun to fascinate him. The couple weren’t the sort of people he would usually feel much empathy for. Incomers rankled with him and rich ones twice over, but something about the couple drew a strand of compassion from him. At first glance they appeared to be not so different from the hundreds of retirees Tatershall came across in his work. Yet they had got under his skin. The husband, a cancer patient with not much time left, his wife a painter of dull landscapes, nothing unique there. But when he had read the letter from the hospital and stared out of the big window across the bay some of the emptiness from their lives washed over him. The trawl through their papers that revealed little, the sterile paintings, the flat devoid of memories, the story spoke to Tatershall of a couple who didn’t want to look back but had nothing to look forward to either.
He had managed to find out that they originally came from near Plymouth, another Devon link. The wife had been born in a small village on Dartmoor where the couple had later married at the local church, but beyond those bare facts nothing. Without a trip across to Devon, he thought, he couldn’t proceed further, certainly not if the local police were going to be as obstinate as DC Lees.
Reviewing the notes on his pad again brought to his attention the one nugget of information of any use so far. The location of Netherston Cottage. The place had been easy to find. A quick Google had revealed the hamlet of Netherston buried in the deepest part of the South Hams, an area of Devon which lay to the south of Dartmoor and took in the coastline from Plymouth to Dartmouth. Examining the aerial photograph overlaid on the map and comparing the lie of the land with the image on the painting he was pretty sure he had identified the exact location. The cottage lay nestled up against a wood in a valley only accessible along a mile or so of track. Even compared with places he knew in Cornwall the location was remote. Was it possible his mispers were there? Considering the health of the husband and his need for regular drugs and treatment Tatershall could think of only one reason why they would be.
The thought depressed him some more. But kicking the idea around in his head the notion didn’t quite make sense. The couple had moved to St Ives presumably because they liked the area. The view from the big window in the flat suggested an appreciation of the scale and beauty of the landscape and the wife’s paintings, however bland, indicated some sort of affinity for the place too. The gallery gave them a social connection right into the heart of the town and meant they would be able to get help and support. Why choose to go to some isolated cottage to die? Even if the couple had planned some suicide pact it would have been just as easy to carry it out in their own home. Unless they needed help, of course.
From their enquiries they had discovered the couple had no close friends in the area and no immediate family either. Could that explain the need to return to Devon, the county where they were born? Tatershall had brought the cardboard box with all their papers back to the station and he had started to go through the material again. This time he took each piece of paper out, checking between sheets and making sure he wasn’t missing anything. The pile on the desk beside him grew until the entire contents of the box had been removed. He sighed, disappointed he had found nothing new, but satisfied he had done a thorough job. He started to put the pile back in the box when he noticed a piece of paper wedged under one of the flaps at the bottom. He lifted the flap and pulled out the page of an old newspaper, which had been folded several times. As he unfolded the newsprint another piece of paper fell out. It was a birth certificate. Tatershall smoothed the document on the desk in front of him and read the details.
‘They’ve got a son,’ he said to himself.
‘Huh?’ Simbeck had been working at her desk opposite answering emails, but now she looked up.
‘Born in 1971, registered in Totnes.’ Tatershall read the name. ‘Can you do a search on the PNC for me?’
Tatershall spelled out the name and then inspected the page from the newspaper. As he digested the headline and associated story the sympathy he had for the couple began to drain away to be replaced by a wave of emotion comprised of both anger and sadness. He felt sick and all of a sudden wished he was out of the force and just an ordinary bloke who could go home and cuddle his kids without having to think about this stuff.
‘Boss?’
‘Rape and child-abuse. He got fifteen years. And there was me worrying about the cancer. Bastard.’ Tatershall put his head in his hands for a moment and then sighed. ‘Right, Kate. Do you know what I am going to do? I am going to go to the new coffee shop across the road and get a coffee and a cake. Afterwards I am going to come back here and complete the paperwork on this case and be done with the bloody thing.’
He stood up and went to the door.
‘Coming?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I have found the son.’ Simbeck pointed to the screen displaying the results of her search. ‘Matthew Harrison. There was an entry made yesterday. He is wanted for murder.’
*
So cold, I’m so very cold. And I am going to die.
Alice Nash knew that now. For certain. For a while she had clung to the hope she had been kidnapped, that a ransom demand would be issued and some rich benefactor would pay up.
Idiot. There is no kidnapper.
No, the house belonged to Matt Harrison, part-time photographer’s assistant, full-time madman, rapist and killer. The nutter wouldn’t be letting her go, not now, not after what he’d done.
After. At least now was after.
She had run from him and he’d caught her, smashing her down with a horrifying violence. She’d felt him against her, his naked body all over her as she squirmed underneath, and she waited for him to rape her. But he hadn’t. He had been aroused, but for some reason he stopped himself and had simply stroked her head as she had lain on the bare floor and sobbed.
‘There, Emma, sweet Emma. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine. I promise. Just you wait and see.’
Back in the little room she fell asleep and when she woke the hallucinations had started. Daytimes passed by in a whirl of colour and dizzy spells and the nights brought sweat and muscle spasms. She guessed Harrison had drugged her food or drink, but she had no choice but to consume what he provided each morning. Eat and drink or starve and die. Then one day she awoke from a deep sleep and the nightmare seemed to be over. Bright lights and white walls, not the old house she had been imprisoned in. A hospital. She had been rescued! The blurry images snapped into focus.
Flash!
‘Emma! You are back!’ Harrison smiled at her as he put the camera down. He wore casual clothes with a white coat over the top, like a doctor or one of those people who sliced up animals in a laboratory.
She screamed and tried to move, struggling against the ties holding her hands fast and the straps on her legs spreading them…
Oh my God no!
… wide apart.
‘Please no, don’t hurt me!’
Harrison bent over some kind of trolley, gleaming tools of stainless steel clinking together in his shaking hands as he sorted through them.
‘Hurt you?’ He turned round, shocked, mortified. ‘I am not going to hurt you. You are lovely, perfect, look at you.’
He moved his hand over and touched her breasts, cupping each in turn.
‘Yes, yes. Perfect. And clean. I hope!’
His hand began tracing its way down across her stomach and lower and Alice closed her eyes to try and blot out Harrison’s caress.
‘No, not yet my love. Soon, I promise. And the wait will be worth it, I know.’
When she opened her eyes he stood over at the trolley, holding some kind of medical device shaped something like a giant stainless steel dildo.
‘But first a couple of tests, just to check. You see the trouble is dirt gets everywhere these days. Into
