Larry and Keech waited for a moment while Matt told his story. Larry read the note quickly and groaned as he did it. He called one of the officers over. A policewoman with freckles on one cheek, but not the other. ‘Check this animal out, will you?’
‘Will do,’ she nodded.
‘And use gloves.’
‘Er … of course.’ She hooked her fingers under the bag and toddled off, dead bird swinging.
‘Right,’ Larry turned to Keech. ‘You … fire away.’
‘Okay, since Jo’s body was found we’ve been back over this house, like you asked.’
‘Good. Did you find any more fingerprints?’ Larry patted his tie down.
‘It’s mainly just Jo, Lee and the kid’s prints all over the house.’
‘Show us this bottle, then.’
‘Come to the hutch.’
They walked to the end of the garden, where a rickety-looking wooden hutch sat.
‘You didn’t search this last time?’ Matt asked.
Keech said nothing, looking awkward.
‘When Jo was just missing we didn’t think much of her having an empty hutch,’ Larry said. ‘We figured she used to have a rabbit, or was planning on getting one. But ever since hers wound up a co-victim’ – he said that with no hint of sarcasm – ‘I asked them to have a closer look.’
‘And?’
The hutch was old and flimsy, with some caked bird crap crusting on the side. Larry leant over and tapped the stiff little peg lock. The door sprang open like something invisible was leaping out of it. The breeze made the straw of the hutch tremble.
‘We found these two things buried under the straw.’ Keech nodded to one of the other officers, who brought over a chrome flight case. He popped the catches and opened it up. Inside, wrapped in a transparent bag, was a small bottle of Evian. Only what was in it didn’t look much like spring water. It was yellow.
‘This was in the hutch. I could tell straight away what it was. Like I said, turns out it was hers.’
Larry turned to Matt. ‘So, Professor. Explain that, would you?’
Matt waited for a few moments, then nodded at the case. ‘Is that the knitting needle?’
‘Yeah,’ Keech pulled out a long transparent evidence bag, sealed at the top. He lifted it and shook the bag. ‘It had blood on it, sir. We got the results back along with the bottle.’ Keech was looking pleased with himself. ‘It is, without a doubt, Jo Finch’s blood. They clocked a perfect DNA match with her corpse.’
Larry frowned for a second and took the bag. Staring at the pointed end of the needle.
‘What is it?’ Matt said.
He lifted the bag and turned it.
‘Larry? What is it?’
‘Bochenski said there were holes in her.’
‘What?’
‘Remember? He logged it as just fire damage.’ Larry shifted his step a moment. ‘He said there were holes in her body.’
‘Where exactly?’ Keech said.
‘You’re right …’ Matt blinked as his brain started to whir and buzz. ‘Around the left nipple.’
‘Urgh.’ Keech pulled a face and pointed his finger at the end of the needle. ‘Well, the blood only covered the tip really, boss. So if this made those holes it wasn’t pushed in that far. Just a little jab.’
Matt chewed the corner of his thumb. Something he’d done since he was a kid, whenever he needed thinking time. There was an idea in him, bubbling slowly to the surface.
‘So basically,’ Larry said, ‘someone stabbed her with this thing?’
‘Looks that way,’ Keech nodded.
Matt looked off into the air pondering it, feeling his thoughts shimmering out of the shadows. In fact, he did that for a long moment. Long enough for the other two to stare at each other and shrug.
‘Matt?’ Larry said.
‘You mean they pricked her with it?’ He started pacing across the garden. ‘That’s what you mean. They pricked her.’
Keech shrugged. ‘Pricked, stabbed, whatever …’
‘With a needle …’ Matt stared at the hutch, thinking. Something brewing in the chambers of his brain, turning it over as the chilly breeze swept across Jo’s garden. The trees around them swayed gently and he looked up into the sky at the fast-moving clouds. In another garden somewhere, a dog had started barking angrily into the wind.
‘Well?’ Larry said.
‘The picture,’ Matt said. ‘The woodcut from her bedroom door. The one of the flood. Do you have it?’
Larry nodded at another officer who came over with a plastic file. ‘There’s a copy in there.’
Matt pulled the sheet out. The paper flapped against his hand. ‘And kill their animals …’ he finally said, and stared at the woodcut on the front. At heads drowning in the water. At what he’d assumed was wooden debris, cracking over their heads.
That wasn’t debris.
He counted four heads … all women.
‘What are you thinking?’ Larry said.
‘This …’ He tapped on the paper. ‘This wasn’t a flood. This picture isn’t a flood.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘This isn’t a flood …’ Matt let his hand fall to his side. ‘Holy shit.’
‘What?’
A second dog joined the other, and as the barks grew, another.
‘Pricking the skin. Killing the pets.’
‘English, Matt. English.’
‘Then hanging her on a bloody gallows tree? Burning her? I’m an idiot … it’s so blatant …’ Matt scraped a hand through his hair and gave out an exasperated groan. ‘The urine.’
‘Just bloody well speak, will you?’
‘This town …’ Matt said, as the dogs howled. ‘Joyce said it used to kill witches.’
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Girls and rabbit run together.
That’s the way it’s always been.
Never been a one for men,
It’s
Female hands and female friends,
That
Rub the rabbit,
Make him run
Make him swift and
Make him fast.
Paws are aching, snapping back
Sack and sugar, tall and black.
Even when he weeps to scurry.
He shouts Stop!
But they scream,
hurry.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
It felt surreal, sinking into Jo Finch’s white leather couch, around a coffee table displaying needles, urine and a mondo piece of centuries-old art.
Matt glanced down at the picture again and the drowning women. The objects behind their heads were not debris from a flood, but the solid wooden planks of the ducking stool. Alongside it, the note from his car sat unfurled.
Larry pulled his notepad open. ‘So … I’m listening.’
‘Okay.
