‘The standing order went through, I am sure. I checked online yesterday. We are not all fuddy-duddies you know.’
Calter tried to explain about the return visit, but it took Savage’s intervention to get them an invite into Mrs Harbersher’s front room, Enders made to wait outside because the cottage didn’t appear big enough for the three of them. Net curtains, porcelain figures of dogs and cats, old-fashioned upholstered chairs, a carpet with patterns on and a coal fire with heat so intense it hurt to look at. Mrs Harbersher had been young in the sixties and yet the room matched Savage’s childhood memories of her own grandmother’s parlour.
Tea and biscuits took an age to arrive, but when they did the tea came in fine china and the biscuits in a Tesco’s luxury brand tin. Savage glared at Calter as she grabbed two at a time. No wonder the electricity company aroused such suspicion if this was how they acted.
‘Mrs Harbersher,’ Savage began. ‘You’ll know we are here about the murders and the body discovered in the church?’
‘Shocking business. In my time we behaved with a little more care. These days the young ones can’t wait to get their knickers off and this is the result, mark my words.’
‘We are trying to find out some information about a man who may have had something to do with the area at one time or another. He is called Matthew Harrison. Does the name ring any bells with you?’
‘Matthew?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s a good old fashioned name, isn’t it? Part of the problem these days is those silly names parents come up with. I am sure that is why there is so much bad behaviour.’
‘So you don’t recognise it?’
‘I didn’t say that. I do recognise it. Matthew Harrison. Elizabeth Foulds was his mother. She came from Bridge Farm. Those Foulds are all dead, and now it’s just a house with a couple of barn conversions since they parcelled the land off.’
‘And? This Elizabeth Foulds?’
‘Lizzy? An attractive girl, very pretty, but a bit quiet and in her own head. She was a few years below me when I left the local school. That’s closed now. Not enough children in the village, you see? Everyone moves away or dies.’
‘What happened to Lizzy?’
‘She left too. Got married and moved to a remote little cottage somewhere over Totnes way. She visited a few times, but as her parents got older she came less and less. When they died she inherited a tidy sum from the sale of the farm, her being an only child.’
‘And her husband?’
‘Richard Harrison his name was. A draughtsman by trade or an architect or something similar. He’d come to the farm to plan out a milking parlour and found a bride instead. Very romantic. At least we all thought so at the time.’
The information was coming, but was taking an age to arrive. Calter wriggled on the edge of her seat, itching to ask the obvious question, but Savage didn’t give her a chance.
‘Where did they get married, Mrs Harbersher?’
‘Oh, same place as I did. Right here. In the church.’ The old woman’s face wore a saddened expression and she looked much older as her eyes shifted their focus from Savage and stared out the window and across the green to the church. ‘I don’t suppose anyone else will want to do so now, will they?’
Savage didn’t think so either, but she didn’t want to get into a prolonged discussion.
‘What did you mean when you said you thought the way they met was romantic at the time?’
‘Well, history changes things, doesn’t it? When you look back with hindsight you bring the truth to bear on distant events. Everything comes out in the wash in the end.’
‘I am sorry, Mrs Harbersher, but I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you lot know anything? It happened over thirty years ago, but you do keep records, don’t you? Richard Harrison went down, convicted of rape and child abuse. The girl he raped was only seventeen and poor Matthew, what? Nine, ten, eleven? A disgusting business, he should have been hanged, Lizzy as well, if you want my opinion.’
*
After they left the cottage Savage strolled over to the church, leaving Calter and Enders next to the car. In fifty years time what had happened here and the sordid story Mrs Harbersher had told them about the Harrison family would have become just another Dartmoor legend. Visitors would talk in hushed whispers while they viewed the altar where the body of Simone Ashton had lain and a printed booklet, selling for a few quid, would tell the whole sorry tale, proceeds to the church roof repair fund.
Then all of a sudden Calter was waving across at Savage and shouting something about Riley being on the phone. It was a crap signal and she didn’t understand half of what he said, but it concerned a lead from a detective in Cornwall and a location for Harrison’s bolt hole.
‘Ten minutes drive, ma’am,’ Calter screamed. ‘Come on!’
Enders revved the engine as Savage ran across the green and jumped into the back of the car. He hit the accelerator and the car swung sideways tearing great chunks of grass out from under its wheels before they bounced onto the tarmac and screeched away.
‘Where to?’ Savage said.
‘Somewhere near Gara Bridge,’ Calter said. ‘Approximately five miles south of the A38. Riley’s coming from town with a bunch of cars. Blues and twos, ARVs, the lot.’
A few minutes of driving and the country lane had become like a tunnel, cutting through the land with the trees at the top of the steep banks curving overhead and almost blocking out the light. The speed of the car gave a sort of rushing sensation like they were playing in some giant video game. Objects by the roadside shot past in a blur, only sharpening for a frozen moment, a blink of an eye, before they vanished; green moss on a tree stump, a herd of cows waiting by a gate, a startled rabbit. There was a roaring noise in Savage’s ears too, but she didn’t think anyone else in the car could hear the sound.
In the front Enders was driving like a maniac and Calter sat beside him, eyes glued to the road, hands gripping the seat. The car ripped through the deep puddles that were everywhere, the spray blinding their vision forward until the wipers cleared the windscreen. Fast, too fast, Savage thought, but she had too many other things on her mind to worry about that, and the queasy sensation in her stomach had nothing to do with the style of Enders’s driving.
Another village went by in a flash of twee cottages and parked cars and then they slid sideways across the road leaving tyre marks and flattening a ‘Keep Off the Grass’ sign on a neat corner as Enders swerved to avoid a man on a bike. Savage muttered a ‘steady’ from the back of the car, but otherwise left him to it. She wanted to get to their destination as quickly as he did.
‘We are here!’ Calter jabbed her finger at the Sat Nav and pointed ahead. ‘Into the wood.’
A forestry track curled up away from the road and disappeared behind a cluster of pine. The muddy track had deep ruts and a 4x4 would have been more suited to the task than the Ford Focus they were in.
‘Do you think we can manage it?’ Savage asked Enders.
‘Of course we can, ma’am.’ Enders seemed offended, as if Savage’s question was a personal affront to his driving ability.
They left the road and headed up the track, the car yawing to the side for a moment before Enders turned into the skid and they lurched onward. They crested a rise and headed down into a small valley, soon leaving the wood behind and bouncing along between stone walls behind which the occasional sheep could be seen nibbling at the poor pasture. Up ahead a little cottage sat on the far side of the valley, nestled under a vast conifer plantation.
‘Shit!’ Enders brought the car to a halt.
In front of them the track forded a fast-flowing stream, bank full thanks to the rain. The depth was hard to estimate, but Savage thought it could be anything up to a couple of feet.
‘We ain’t going through the water, ma’am. Too deep for us, I am afraid.’
Savage could see the cottage standing about half a mile away, no problem to walk to, but they would get wet crossing the stream.
