Back at work in the New Year all of us in CPT and our colleagues in Social Services continued to plug away unsuccessfully with the Stephen Jeffries investigation. By the first week in February I knew that the time was approaching when decisions would have to be made one way or another. I felt fairly depressed again, a state of mind not improved by returning to the cold reality of my currently rather lonely and unfulfilling life after the warmth of the family Christmas in Clem’s comfortably stylish home.
Sitting at my desk indulging in a certain amount of self-pity on a wet Monday morning, following yet another empty weekend, I realised that drastic action was called for. At lunchtime I sent a DC down to McDonald’s for comfort grub — Big Mac and chips followed by Maple syrup pancakes. I told myself that allegedly abused children did not necessarily deserve a total monopoly on junk food, and simultaneously resolved to put my life in order.
The first thing was to sort out my accommodation. I knew only too well that the grubby overcrowded room to which I returned every night was enough to depress anyone. It was also quite beyond redemption. I was on my own now and I may as well get used to that and make the best of it. What I needed most of all was a proper home of my own.
Simon had told me the money from the sale of the bungalow would be through that week, and Simon rarely got things wrong. I decided to start looking straight away for an apartment to buy. One of those new luxury ones in the old docks would do just fine. Bristol was a good place to live, and it was time I started living again. For myself and only for myself.
I spent the afternoon sifting yet again through the accumulated paperwork on the Jeffries case. Basically we had nothing. Zilch. If Jeffries wasn’t squeaky clean then his act was super impressive and he appeared to have left no trail at all behind him. I really did not see how the CPT could do much more now than advise that the Social Services continue to keep a watching brief on the Jeffries family, and yet a lurking uneasiness that I could not explain seemed to grow within me even as logic and lack of evidence combined increasingly to suggest that Richard Jeffries must be innocent. There was something about the man that disturbed me, and that had maybe been so, if I was honest, from the beginning. Perhaps he was too good to be true. And maybe that way of thinking said as much about me and what seventeen years of policing had done to me as it did about Jeffries or anyone else. Certainly appearing to be rather too decent a human being hardly made it possible, thankfully, to arrest a man on a child-abuse charge.
Titmuss had been right about one thing at any rate, this was definitely a messy case. There was really nothing conclusive either way. I knew I had to put a particularly detailed report together though, because of the sensitivity of the suspect, and the quicker I got it over with the better.
I left Lockleaze shortly after eight, and on the way home stopped to buy an evening paper specifically for the property supplement. As I climbed back into my car I glanced at the front page. I never got to the supplement.
‘Woman killed in island mystery,’ screamed the splash headline. ‘Millionaire fiancé distraught.’
Natasha Felks was dead. Her body had been fished out of the water off Abri Island, by the crew of the Clovelly lifeboat, in circumstances which shook me rigid. It seemed that Tash had gone to the Pencil to look for dolphins — and that the young boatman who had taken her there had failed to pick her up. Natasha, stranded, as I could imagine so well, clinging to the rock face, hanging on literally for her life, had at some stage been unable to maintain her hold. She had fallen into the sea and drowned.
Five
How on earth had history been allowed to repeat itself? Technically I had no right at all to interfere in the Abri Island case. Abri came under the jurisdiction of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. Whatever may or may not have happened there was none of my darned business. But I have never been very good at minding my own business.
I called a mate at Barnstaple nick for a general gossip and worked my way round to asking about the death on Abri, which I had correctly guessed would come under Barnstaple’s jurisdiction, explaining vaguely that I was just mildly curious because I’d recently spent a holiday on the island.
I learned that Natasha’s death was being officially treated as suspicious and that the Senior Investigating Officer was a man whom thankfully I knew a little and liked a great deal — Superintendent Todd Mallett, a good, thorough, old-fashioned copper who came from North Devon and had recently returned there after having been stationed in Exeter for some years.
I battled with my conscience for the rest of that day, but ultimately, and somewhat against my better judgement, I could not stop myself calling Mallett himself.
‘Yes, of course I remember you, Rose,’ he remarked cheerily. ‘That cattle rustling case, the last time we met, wasn’t it? What can I do for you anyway?’
He was as friendly as I remembered. But straight to the point. After all he was investigating a suspicious death. He had no time to waste.
I repeated what was now becoming my standard explanation.
‘I went to Abri Island on holiday in November and got a sort of fascination for the place,’ I began, and I didn’t think I sounded particularly convincing. ‘I suppose I am just intrigued, by what has happened, I’d love to talk to you about it...’
‘What, mere curiosity?’ he interrupted jovially. ‘Nothing more than that, DCI Piper? Have you no work of your own to be doing?’
I resolutely refused to let myself think about Stephen Jeffries and a family torn apart waiting for me to complete an investigation which appeared to be getting nowhere.
‘Well, I may be able to help,’ I said as coolly as I could. ‘Perhaps we could meet...’
‘Ten tomorrow, here at Barnstaple — as you’ve obviously got time on your hands,’ he said.
Nothing could be further from the truth. However, the next morning I called in with some vague story about a possible tie-up with cases in Devon and Cornwall.
‘I need to go to North Devon, Barnstaple nick... hold the fort, Peter,’ I instructed.
It took me almost exactly two hours to drive from Bristol to Barnstaple Police Station, a neat modern box-like building joined on to the Civic Centre. I had plenty of time to think during the journey. All kinds of weird ideas were whistling through my head and I wasn’t sure how much I should tell Todd Mallett nor how much I wanted to tell him. I did know, as I had always done, that I should have reported the incident on Abri at the time. It was a bit late now. I wasn’t going to come out of this looking good. Maybe I shouldn’t even be going to see Superintendent Mallett at all.
The problem was that Robin Davey had been preying on my mind again, in more ways than one, ever since I had heard the news. I just could not believe that Natasha would have gone off with Jason in a boat and allow him to abandon her on the Pencil. She knew all about what had happened to me. Neither could I believe that Jason had still been allowed access to the boat. At best it was all so totally irresponsible. And the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary seemed, at the moment, to be thinking the worst.
Beyond these two facts I tried not to let my train of thought progress any further until I had talked to Todd Mallett. I told myself that I have always had far more imagination than is desirable in a police officer.
At least Todd Mallett was a refreshing change after Titmuss the Terrible. One of the few genuine non-chauvinists in the job, I reckoned.