‘But you had a good reason to want him out of the way, didn’t you?’ said Rosie after receiving a nod from DS Kirkham to indicate that she should continue with the explanation.
‘Well, I … I suppose I…’
Again, Brad shot a flash of concern in Rick’s direction.
‘Rick told you he intended to make a decision this week whether to report your money-making scheme to the police, didn’t he?’
‘What money-making scheme?’ asked Phil, his head swivelling from Rosie to Brad and finally Steph who simply shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
‘Despite Rick generously financing the cost of the Myth Seekers Society’s trips abroad to chase down exotic myths and legends, Brad still struggled to afford the ancillary expenses.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that Brad helped himself to a souvenir from all the ancient monuments he visited to sell on the internet when he got back home so he could use the cash to finance his next trip. And Emma’s. She knew what he was doing, in fact she encouraged it.’ Rosie met her eyes. ‘Didn’t you? Even when Brad’s conscience started to twinge.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ snapped Emma, refusing to look at Rosie.
‘So you had a nice little sideline going,’ spluttered Phil, his eyes filled with dismay. ‘Did you also join an archery club to hone your shooting techniques?’
‘Look, Phil, you’ve got to believe me.’ Brad turned his widened eyes in the direction of the treasurer of the Myth Seekers Society. It was clear from his expression how desperate he was to explain himself and to seek forgiveness and reassurance that his place amongst the members of the club was still safe. ‘I wouldn’t shoot Rick, or anyone else for that matter! I’m so, so sorry I did those terrible things. For what it’s worth, I did tell Emma that Athens was the last time, didn’t I, Em?’
Emma shrugged.
‘If that’s true, why did we find a chisel with your fingerprints on it up at the Garside Priory?’
‘I wasn’t going to use it! It was still in my rucksack from our weekend away on the Isle of Man. I promise you. And Phil, you of all people should know that I could never hurt anyone, don’t you?’ Brad’s eyes were pleading now, sending Rosie’s heart ballooning in sorrow as she recalled the trauma Brad and his family had suffered.
Phil let out a heavy sigh and shook his head, clearly as distressed as Brad was. ‘I know Brad, I know you wouldn’t. Sergeant? Are you accusing Brad of shooting Rick or not?’
‘Mr Cookson could have easily introduced the sedative to your drinking water on his way back from the stream, then waited until everyone was asleep, followed Rick on his hike up to the priory and shot him with the bow and arrow he had hidden in a carved-out tree trunk a few weeks before. If Rick had died, Brad’s crimes would never be reported and his continued membership of the Myth Seekers Society would not be in jeopardy.’
‘But I didn’t do it!’ cried Brad, standing up from his seat, his face scarlet, his fists clenched at his thighs.
The uniformed officer stepped forward from his station at the French doors, but DS Kirkham held up his palm. ‘Sit down, Mr Cookson, I know you are not responsible for shooting Mr Forster.’ He shifted his concentration to Emma. He let his eyes rest on the top of her head until she glanced up to see him staring at her.
‘Don’t look at me! I didn’t shoot Rick either! Why would I do such a thing, I hardly know him!’
‘You met Mr Forster for the first time when you joined the Myth Seekers Society, is that right?’
‘Yes, but I saw how Rick went on with Phil and some of the other older member so I decided from the outset to steer clear of his brand of intimidation.’
‘But you were happy to accept his financial contribution to your trips abroad?’
‘Sure, we all were. It isn’t a reason to shoot him though, is it? In fact, it’s quite the opposite, wouldn’t you say? I don’t think we’ll be going abroad again any time soon. And before you ask, Rick wasn’t threatening me with anything either.’
‘No, I don’t suppose he was. So that leaves us with Mr and Mrs Brown.’
‘Now wait a minute, Sergeant…’ began Steph, raising her buttocks from her seat on the sofa, her hands on her hips. Her sunflower-bedecked tea dress, tightened at her narrow waist with a twisted rope belt, lent her the air of a Fifties TV presenter. She dragged the sides of her mustard coloured cardigan across her chest and crossed her arms before meeting the officer’s eyes head on.
‘Please sit down, Mrs Brown.’
Steph looked down at her husband, rolled her eyes at his inaction and did as requested, smoothing her skirt over her knees.
‘Perhaps unforeseeably, you were alone at the lodges on Sunday night. You could have raced over to Garside Priory, shot Mr Forster and returned without anyone noticing your absence. However,’ the sergeant hurried on as he saw Steph’s lips begin to part in indignation, ‘there is no way you could have introduced the sedative to the evening coffee unless acting in partnership with someone else, such as your husband.’
‘Sergeant Kirkham, I really must…’
‘If you would do me the courtesy of hearing me out, Mrs Brown.’
Steph lapsed into angry silence, her eyes narrowed, her brow creased as she stared at him with patent dislike. Rosie saw the sergeant give her a nod and she took up the narrative.
‘I think everyone here knew that Phil wanted to invest in a plaque to commemorate the Myth Seekers Society’s twentieth anniversary. When he presented the resolution to the committee it was voted down by Rick. Phil was really upset, so he went ahead and ordered it anyway, taking the funds from the accounts without permission.’
‘Good on you, Phil. You have my total support!’ cried Brad, before sinking back into the folds of the sofa, clearly regretting sticking his head above the parapet.
‘Unfortunately, Rick wasn’t quite so forgiving and he threatened to report the matter not only to the members, but to the local police.’
‘Perhaps you panicked?’ continued Detective Sergeant Kirkham. ‘Or maybe Mr Forster’s perpetual line in sarcastic comments became just too much this weekend. You snapped and decided to remove him from your life once and for all? You could have easily added the sedative to the coffee. You could have followed your tormentor’s trek to the priory, maybe to challenge him over his selfish desire to exclude the other members from enjoying the experience of watching the sunrise. However, as I said before, this incident was premeditated, not something that was committed after a spur of the moment loss of control. The perpetrator had to have planned this months ago so that the bow and arrow could be hidden, ready to be retrieved at the opportune moment and returned afterwards.’
‘So, Sergeant,’ interrupted Helen, glaring at him as if he was solely responsible for preventing her imminent escape to her new life. ‘We’ve just been told that someone in this room intended to murder Rick by shooting him with an arrow and then both you and Rosie have gone on to discount every one of us? Oh, unless…’
Helen’s eyes lingered on Matt for a few brief seconds before moving to Mia who had the brazenness to give her her most vibrant smile until she looked away embarrassed. The creases at the side of DS Kirkham’s lips tightened as he sent a silent signal to Matt and his officer stationed at the French door.
‘Mr Forster’s shooting had nothing to do with his membership of the Myth Seekers Society. Nor did it have anything to do with his malicious behaviour towards its members or his threats to expose Brad and Phil for their misdemeanours. The assault on his life was carefully planned over many years, as resentment built into a hatred so intense that the only release for the perpetrator was the commission of such a heinous act.’
DS Kirkham now had everyone’s full attention; every eye in the Windmill Café was focused on his face. Rosie could feel her heart thumping against her ribcage as she waited for him to reveal the identity of the culprit. For all her involvement, for all the time and effort she had invested in trawling through the facts she had helped to uncover, for all her reliance on her gut reaction, her intuition, her instinct, to lead her and Matt to their discoveries, she would not want to be standing in DS Kirkham’s shoes at that moment. Neither would Matt, as he’d shown when he’d been asked whether he would like to announce the name of the person responsible for shooting Rick.
Rosie understood exactly how Matt felt – that person had almost destroyed the outward-bound business his father had founded and guided to success, they’d almost destroyed not only his livelihood but that of Freddie and Mia too. She could see the sparks of fury flying behind his eyes as he waited for the sergeant to reveal all.
‘Permit me tell you how it happened. We know that the assailant had to make sure the group slept through Matt’s wake-up call so a sedative was administered by way of the coffee, except for their own and their victim’s. When Mr Forster woke up, he set off to Garside Priory to appreciate the sunrise solo. His attacker waited until he was at a safe distance before following him, collecting their bow and quiver from its hiding place on the way.
‘Our archer waited until Mr Forster entered the cloister, took aim and released their first arrow, which missed. I believe nerves played a part in this lack of accuracy, and the error gave Mr Forster the chance to run towards safety whilst the bow was being rearmed. It’s much more difficult to hit a moving target, and the second attempt only managed to pierce their victim’s ankle before he gained shelter. Anxious not to draw attention to their absence, our perpetrator replaced the bow in the tree trunk and sprinted back to camp. What a perfect alibi, to be able to awake with the rest of the group and declare themselves disgusted at Mr Forster’s betrayal.’
Detective Sergeant Kirkham paused for a few moments to let the facts sink in, before continuing ‘However, our intrepid archer hadn’t bargained on the curiosity and puzzle-solving abilities of our local crime-busting duo. Rosie and Matt had started to ask questions and come up with a few answers, some of which were just a little close for comfort, so it was imperative to warn them off. The message was made loud and clear by gaining access to Rosie’s bedroom and leaving a calling card by way of an arrow in one of her soft toys. Fortunately, this did nothing to deter their investigation.’
DS Kirkham dark-pewter eyes roamed around the room like a laser beam, until they stopped and honed in on one individual.
‘That was what you did, wasn’t it?’ Again, a short, dramatic pause. ‘Emma?’
A collective gasp of surprise rippled around the room as every pair of eyes swung to look at her. For the first time since they had arrived at the café, not a single word escaped from Rick’s mouth, but the shock was evident across his expression. Emma, however, was highly vocal, leaping up from her seat to make herself heard all the more.
‘What? No way! Why are you saying that? Why would I want to shoot Rick? I told you, I hardly even knew him!’
Emma pivoted her head from left to right seeking support for her denial from Brad, then Phil and Steph. Her face had drained of all colour and her eyes were wide with indignation and disbelief. But Rosie spotted a tremble in her fingertips and tiny beads of perspiration at her temples.
‘Because, Miss Hewitt,’ continued DS Kirkham, slipping his hand into his jacket pocket to extract a length of cream parchment, ‘Richard John Forster is your father.’
‘He’s your father?’ gasped Brad, his jaw loose, flicking his eyes over to a white-faced Rick, whose earlier arrogance and irritation at the proceedings had seeped from his face like candlewax.
‘Yes, Mr Cookson. Richard Forster is the father who abandoned Emma and her mother within weeks of her birth, forcing her mother to struggle through job after job to make ends meet as a single parent. It all became too much for her, didn’t it, Emma? She committed suicide when you were ten years old. You went to live with your aunt and cousins but you never forgave your father for what he did.’
‘Look, Sergeant, I don’t know what you’re…’
The police officer stepped forward to lay the birth certificate on Emma’s knees, holding her eyes with his, waiting until she glanced down at the spidery handwriting, at the evidence that stated irrefutably that Richard John Forster was Emma Jayne Hewitt’s father.
‘You blame Richard Forster for your mother’s untimely death and for that he had to pay. I suspect that when you were eighteen you decided to search for him. When you eventually found him, and saw how well he’d done for himself, it could only have hardened your resolve. You began to gather as much information as you could about his life and his activities and a plan formulated in your mind. Then you discovered he was the chairman of the Myth Seekers Society and decided to join. What better way to watch him more closely, find out what sort of man he really was. There was no chance he would recognize you, you were only a few weeks old when he last saw you and he’d never followed your progress through life or offered to pay any child support. Perhaps if he had, we wouldn’t be in this position today.’
‘Emma…’
‘You latched on to Brad, used your relationship with him to join the foreign trips so you could continue your surveillance of the life Richard Forster had made for himself after leaving your mother, watch him splash the money he’d earned whilst your mother struggled to feed and clothe you. Resentment festered and your plan fell into place.’
‘Emma? What is he saying?’ demanded Brad, his voice wavering as he moved away from her to the end of the sofa they shared, his upper lip beginning to curl in revulsion.
‘It’s all a load of bullshit, Brad. Don’t listen to him,’ Emma spat as she flung the birth certificate onto the floor and reached over to fold Brad’s hand into hers. But he pushed her away, stood up and moved to sit on a bar stool at the kitchen counter between Matt and Mia.
‘We have Miss Barnes here to thank for unearthing the evidence that you took part in a taster course offered by the Cheshire Archery Association at the gym where you work. And whilst I suspect you used a false name to sign up for the residential archery course that was held in North Wales last summer, your image is on a photograph of everyone who passed the course – and we also have a statement from one of the instructors who coached you and he’s prepared to give evidence to that effect. He confirmed that you shoot a recurve bow exactly like the one we found in the woods at Garside.’
Emma stared at Rick, her fingers raking through her hair, her demeanour agitated. She paused, as if preparing to take flight, and then her eyes ignited with passion and she launched herself at Rick.
‘I hate you!’ she screamed, her fists flying high as she rained down punches on her father until an appalled Steph helped the detective constable to settle her back onto the sofa. ‘If you hadn’t walked out on Mum after I was born she would still be alive! Have you any idea how hard it is to stand at your mother’s grave when you’re ten years old? Nothing, nothing at all can stop the agony – or even begin to heal the pain. Nothing!’
Tears streamed down Emma’s cheeks and her green eyes, so reminiscent of Rick’s, flashed around the gathering as she challenged each one of them to disagree with her. Rosie knew she couldn’t – she knew exactly what it felt like to lose a parent. In fact, if she were honest, in those dark days and weeks after her father’s death she had also considered marching into his law firm to harangue the people responsible for making him work so hard that he’d suffered a fatal heart attack. But, unlike Emma, she had been lucky enough to have her mother, and her sister, to stand by her side as she railed against life’s cruelty and to guide her away from her brief flirtation with insanity.
She stared at the broken young girl curled into a ball in the corner of the sofa, her eyes wild, her fists pressed into her mouth, her slender body convulsed with the pain of her memories, as DS Kirkham approached her. At the same time, Helen rose from her chair and went to sit beside Emma. She hooked her arm around her shoulders and the girl began to keen for the still-raw loss of her mother, rocking backwards and forwards like a wounded animal.
‘I’m so sorry for what Rick did to you,’ Helen whispered, her own tears falling unchecked. ‘He told me he had a child from his first marriage. I should have taken more interest, should have tried to find you. I was so wrapped up in myself and my desire to have a baby of my own – it was all I could think about. I’ll engage a decent criminal lawyer to represent you, Emma, from my divorce settlement. It’s the least I can do.’
Emma lifted her eyes to look at Helen with incredulity, her breath coming in gulps.
‘Really? You’ll do that?’
‘Come with me, please, Miss Hewitt,’ said DS Kirkham, holding out his hand to guide Emma from the room.
Emma slowly pushed herself from the sofa, shooting a final glance at Brad who averted his eyes, after which she allowed herself to be handcuffed and lead from the café.
‘I’m going with her,’ announced Helen, and without a backward glance at a very shocked Rick, she strode from the room to catch up with Emma and the police officers.
The atmosphere in the café crackled with charged emotions. However, far from averting their eyes, everyone was staring at Rick with distaste. Rosie had expected the chairman of the Myth Seekers Society to immediately launch into a lecture of conceited self-justification, but Rick wasn’t totally insensitive. He had no doubt realized he would be preaching to a hostile audience and had decided to remain silent. In fact, perhaps there was even a little shame lurking behind his pale green eyes.
The discomfort continued to swirl around the room until Rick announced he was leaving and a whoosh of relief broke the tension, which in itself caused two dots of heat to appear on Rick’s cheeks. Rosie suspected Rick had attended his last Myth Seekers meeting. She watched as he wheeled himself out to the terrace and struggled to make speedy progress along the gravelled pathway, calling over his shoulder, ‘Send your invoice to my office, Rosie, if you please.’
‘Of course.’
Rosie smiled briefly at Matt and Mia as they joined her outside the Windmill Café. She watched the police 4X4 disappear down the driveway, her chest alive with a cauldron of sensations. Whilst she was relieved they had uncovered the identity of Rick’s attacker, Emma’s story had been a profoundly sorrowful one that she wouldn’t wish on anyone and she hoped that the circumstances of her actions would be taken into account at her trial.
She heaved a sigh and raised her eyes to the sky. Dusk had begun to send ribbons of indigo, violet and salmon pink across the canopy overhead, but she ignored its attempt at beauty in the face of such sadness. No one in the little Windmill Café had spoken since Rick had departed; each lost in their own thoughts as they tried to assimilate everything they had just heard into some kind of order they could understand.
‘I think we could all do with a drink.’
Rosie put the kettle to boil and Mia helped set out the teapot, the cafetière and a random selection of china mugs and cups. Matt fetched a bottle of whiskey from his SUV, whilst Rosie arranged a selection of the cakes and pastries she and Mia had baked on Sunday afternoon – a lifetime ago, but in reality, only four days ago.
Yet in that time everything had changed for all the guests in the Windmill Café’s lodges.