Written In Blood

17-2

“WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY you followed Lucy Goulding down the road after she left?” Mitchell asked the moment Zack opened the door to let him back in.

Zack looked surprised by the question, and didn’t answer until he had closed the door behind the sergeant. “Because I didn’t.”

“Mrs Hawkins says differently; she says she saw you drive down the road just a minute after Lucy left your house. She’s very definite about it. Now, why don’t you tell me why you were following Lucy, and where she is,” Mitchell said as he trailed his suspect into the living room.

“I don’t have a clue,” Zack said. “Where Lucy is that is, because I didn’t leave the house.”

“Are you saying that Mrs Hawkins is lying? Because she is known to be a very honest and trustworthy person.”

“I’m sure she is, but on this occasion, she’s mistaken.” Zack scratched absently at his arm as he spoke. “After Lucy left I spent the afternoon out back, wrestling with the jungle I’ve got growing out there – I didn’t come in ‘til my stomach said it was time to make dinner. I didn’t leave the house until I went for my run this morning.”

“I take it you have no-one who can confirm that,” Mitchell said, his eyes on Zack’s arm; when he stopped worrying at it with his fingernails, Mitchell saw the author had a series of scratches, no more than a day old, midway up the back of his arm. “Where did you...” Before he could finish, his phone rang in his pocket. “Excuse me.” He left the room.

Mitchell waited until he got to the kitchen, where he was less likely to be overheard, to answer the phone.“Hello, sir, how’s everything going with the search?”

“I guess that depends on your point of view,” Stevens said. “We’ve found Lucy, but her parents aren’t going to be happy about it. I’m not happy about it.”

Mitchell felt his heart sink into his stomach. “She’s dead.” It was a statement, not a question. “Is it – was she killed the same way as Georgina?” he asked, wanting to hear that she hadn’t been killed, that she had died as a result of an accident.

“I didn’t see Georgina, so I can’t say for certain,” Stevens said. “But based on how you described her body, I think so, yes. I’d say she was killed by the same person, but what he did to her was worse, much worse, and I wouldn’t have thought that possible when you described what was done to Georgina.”

Mitchell wanted to ask what was different about Lucy’s murder, but wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. Instead he asked, “Where did you find her?”

“In the woods,” Stevens told him. “Her body is not far from where Georgina was found.”

“Have you found anything that might tell us who killed her? Or if what happened to her and to Georgina are definitely linked?”

“No,” Stevens said regretfully. “We’ve found some partial footprints near where Georgina was found, but the rain we’ve had in the past week has washed most of them away so we can’t follow them anywhere. The forensics people are still working at Georgina’s scene; maybe when they move on to this scene they’ll find something useful.

“Paul said you’re with Mr Wild, have you been able to find out anything from him?” he asked, changing the subject.

“He claims he didn’t see Georgina at all the night she disappeared, and that he never spoke to her, though he did know the name, and he was aware she was missing.”

“What about Lucy, has he been able to tell you anything on that front?”

“Things are a little confusing on that score,” Mitchell said. “Mr Wild has admitted that Lucy paid him a visit yesterday, but he claims she left after about an hour and he didn’t see her again after that.”

“And you don’t believe him?”

“Well, I’ve been able to confirm that Lucy did leave the house after about an hour, but, according to Constance Hawkins, Mr Wild followed her down the road in his car a minute or so after she left. He denies it, of course, claims he didn’t leave the house until this morning, that he spent his time gardening and working on some book he’s writing.”

“Are you thinking he could be responsible for these...deaths.” Stevens could not bring himself to say murder; it felt to him as though saying it would make it true.

“At the moment, I think he’s our most likely suspect,” Mitchell said. “He claims not to have seen Georgina the night she disappeared, yet she would have walked right past his house on the way to the Wright Farm, and he found her body in an out of the way place that just about no-one goes to. Then there’s his claim that he didn’t leave the house after Lucy’s visit, when he was seen doing so, and the scratches.”

“Scratches?”

“Yes, he has a series of scratches on his arm.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to bring him in, so I can question him again, and I want to search his house and cars for anything that might link him to all of this.”

“Sounds reasonable; I’ll send you a couple of the guys from the search party to help you out, I’ll send them as soon as I’m off the phone, it shouldn’t take them long to reach you.”

**

* * * *

“IS EVERYTHING ALRIGHT?” Melissa asked when Mitchell walked back into the living room.

Mitchell shook his head. “No, it’s not. Mr Wild, I’m placing you under arrest on suspicion of the murder of Lucy Goulding. We’ll be taking you to the station for questioning, and searching your house and vehicles for evidence; with that in mind, where’s your other car? Your Land Rover is outside, but not your Aston Martin, where is it, we’re going to need to search it as well.”

The announcement was not a surprise, given how obvious Sergeant Mitchell had been with his suspicions, but Zack had expected it to be a little longer before he was arrested. He assumed the move had been prompted by the discovery of Lucy’s body – he didn’t doubt that that was what Mitchell had been told on the phone.

“I think that’s a question I shouldn’t answer until I’ve spoken to my solicitor,” he said. “Speaking of whom.” He got to his feet so he could get his mobile phone from the desk and make the necessary call.