Rather to Be Pitied Read online

  Contents

  Also by Jan Newton

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Quote

  About Honno

  Copyright

  Also by Jan Newton and available from Honno Press

  DS Kite novels

  Remember No More

  Rather to be Pitied

  by

  Jan Newton

  Honno Modern Fiction

  For Merv, always

  As always, there are so many people who have encouraged me in the writing of this book. I have been gratified and humbled by the response to Remember No More, the first book in the Julie Kite series, which made it so much easier to embark on this, the second. The wonderful people of mid Wales and beyond have taken Julie Kite to their hearts, and I’m truly grateful for their continued support and feedback.

  Grateful thanks to Chris Kinsey, who motivates me constantly, to write and to improve.

  To Kevin Robinson, retired West Yorkshire Police Inspector, once again huge thanks for his support in ensuring that my facts were factual, and for painstaking proof reading with a forensic eye. As usual, any mistakes in any aspect of this novel are, of course, my own.

  Thanks to everyone at Honno for their help and support, especially Caroline Oakley, my editor, for accommodating all the recent ups and downs away from the writing side of life.

  Lastly, but most importantly of all, my gratitude to Mervyn, without whom none of this would have been possible. For over thirty years, he has supported everything I have ever wanted to do with insight, patience and pride. I will always be grateful.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Day One

  Mark Robinson sat down on a dry tussock of grass in the shelter of a slab of rock. If it hadn’t been for the breeze, this would have been a perfect July day. There was barely a cloud in the china-blue sky and from somewhere nearby, the cry of a curlew stirred long-forgotten memories of his own childhood. One more hour and he could finally drop the kids off at the school gates and head for home.

  Mark sighed. He’d always prided himself on his patience, on the fact that he would always take the time to listen to his pupils and would never ever give up on them, no matter how trying they were. And yet, after three days under canvas with this lot, traipsing around in circles in the middle of nowhere, he was beginning to appreciate the attitudes of some of his battle-weary colleagues. He counted his charges yet again. God knows what would happen to them when they did the expedition on their own in three weeks’ time. He pushed his water bottle back into his rucksack and stood up.

  ‘Right, where is he?’

  ‘Who, Sir?’

  ‘Very funny, David, as if we couldn’t guess who might be missing.’ Mark clambered onto the rock he had been sitting on and scanned the moorland. ‘Where is he this time?’

  ‘I’ve got him, Sir. Look, he’s over there by that sheep.’

  ‘Could you be a bit more specific in the sheep department, Sasha, help to pinpoint it a little.’

  ‘The dead one, Sir, there.’

  Mark looked to where the girl was pointing. Three hundred yards away, Owen Lloyd was approaching the carcass of a black sheep with unaccustomed alacrity. Entirely appropriate. As they watched, the boy suddenly took a step backwards, then another, still staring at the sheep, before turning back towards the group and breaking into a run. Mark watched him stumble over the clumps of reed and the tufts of tough moorland grass, but it wasn’t until the boy stopped suddenly and bent forward with his hands on his knees that Mark set off towards where Owen was stooped.

  ‘Stay there,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘Sasha, you’re in charge of keeping everyone here, OK? Don’t let them move.’

  By the time Mark reached him, Owen was retching up his packed lunch into the peat.

  ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

  Owen wiped his mouth on his sleeve and pointed in the direction of the sheep. ‘Over there, Sir.’

  ‘It’s all right, it’s just a dead sheep. I know it’s sad, but it happens all the time out here. It’s difficult to get to. It’s hard for the farmers to cover such a vast, boggy area.’

  Owen shook his head and stared at his teacher. His eyes looked huge and dark in his pale face and Mark realised, perhaps for the first time, that Owen Lloyd was still just a child.

  ‘It’s not a sheep, Sir.’ Owen’s bottom lip trembled and he closed his eyes.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Mark. ‘I’ll go and have a look.’

  ‘Don’t, Sir, it’s horrible.’

  ‘You stay here. I’ll go and check it out, it might just be injured.’

  ‘It’s a body, Sir,’ Owen blurted, ‘and it’s covered in maggots.’

  Owen Lloyd’s description was all too accurate. The skin on the man’s face was dark and peeling. Flies buzzed lazily around him. Mark tried to look away. The smell caught in his throat like the sickly-sweet whiff of something decomposing gently in the bottom of a hedgerow, but far, far worse. He stood up and struggled to swallow the bile that burnt his throat. Against his better judgement, he glanced back at the corpse. One of the man’s hands appeared to be missing; the cuff of his black denim jacket rested in the mud and several fingers, a couple of small bones and a gold ring lay scattered next to him. The bones could have been sheep bones, couldn’t they? But the ragged flesh which covered some of them looked far too human. Sheep didn’t bite their fingernails either, did they? His stomach lurched. He lifted his phone from his pocket. No signal. He backed away as if retreating from something sacred, then turned, took a deep breath and returned swiftly to where Owen was sitting with his head in his hands on a clump of grass.

  ‘Have you got your phone on you, Lloydy?’ he asked, as casually as he could.

  The boy looked up at him. ‘But you said we couldn’t bring phones, Sir.’

  ‘And we both know that would make no difference at all, don’t we?’ Mark forced a grin. ‘Could you check to see whether you’ve got a signal?’

  ‘Honest, Sir, I haven’t got my phone.’

  ‘OK.’ Mark took him gently by the elbow and led him back towards where Sasha was standing high on the rock, hands on hips, attempting to keep the group in order. ‘Listen, Owen, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell them what you saw. There’s no need for them to have nightmares too, is there?’

  Owen nodded. ‘Do you think… well, could he have been murdered, Si
r?’

  ‘Out here?’ Mark shrugged. ‘There’s not much chance of that is there? It’s far more likely that he was out walking and was taken ill, I’d have thought. Anyway,’ he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, ‘let’s not worry about that now shall we, let’s just get you all to the minibus.’

  ‘What is it, Lloydy?’ David was running out to meet them. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yep, I’m fine.’ Despite the wobble in his voice, Owen managed a nonchalant shrug. He looked up at Mark. ‘It was just a sheep.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Day One

  Julie Kite watched DI Craig Swift scuttle across the office towards her. He only ever moved as quickly as this when there was something really important to impart. She was already reaching for her jacket when he approached her desk.

  ‘A group of school kids have found a body,’ he said, slightly breathless from his exertions.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Above Pont ar Elan, on the Monks’ Trod.’

  Julie frowned. ‘On the what?’

  ‘Follow me, I’ll fill you in on the way.’

  She smiled. So much for him being office-based these days. Rhys Williams rolled his eyes as she passed his desk. One of these days, Swift would let the two of them out together without him. Julie followed Swift down the stairs and through the reception area. Brian Hughes, the desk sergeant, grinned at her as she whizzed past him in an attempt to keep up with Swift. It was amazing how quickly he could shift if he wanted to.

  Swift strode across the car park, dropped into the driver’s seat of his Volvo, waited for Julie to clamber in and fasten her seatbelt and crunched the gear lever into reverse.

  ‘Right, so where are we headed, Sir?’

  ‘Pont ar Elan. Bridge on the River Elan.’

  ‘And that’s where, exactly?’

  ‘It’s up above Rhayader on the old Aberystwyth Road.’ Swift steered the nose of the car out of the car park and into the school traffic – the only sort of rush hour Julie had encountered since her move from Manchester Metropolitan Police, three months before. She smiled to herself as she watched drivers politely giving way to each other at a tricky junction, as they did every day.

  ‘So, what’s this Trod thing all about then?’

  ‘The Monks’ Trod,’ said Swift. ‘That’s one for your Adam. He probably knows more about it than I do already.’ He swerved round a campervan which had stopped suddenly. Its occupants appeared to be arguing over a map.

  ‘It’s an ancient route up in the hills.’ He nodded towards the north. ‘Apparently the monks used to use it to travel from Strata Florida Abbey in Pontrhydfendigaid to the sister house at Abbeycwmhir.’

  Julie blew out her cheeks. She would never manage these Welsh names with their convoluted vowels. ‘Yeah, he’s already mentioned something about drovers’ roads. Would that be similar?’

  Swift laughed. ‘He doesn’t hang around does he now? How’s he getting on at the High School? Has he settled into the new job by now?’

  ‘Oh God, he loves it, and the kids, the countryside, the lack of traffic, having no neighbours, the whole bit. It’s as though he was always meant to be here. He’s got huge plans for the summer holidays.’ She grimaced. ‘But almost all of them involve running and cycling.’ She turned to Swift. ‘I don’t suppose you know of anywhere he could practise his open water swimming, do you?

  Swift glanced at her. ‘Do I look as though I would have the inclination or the ability to squash myself into a wetsuit, Sergeant?

  Julie stifled a smile. ‘Maybe you have a point there, Sir.’

  Swift slowed to allow an oncoming lorry to squeeze past and then he accelerated away round the tight bend, bringing the solid stone walls of the cathedral into view on their right. ‘Strangely enough, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of anyone wanting to do open water swimming.’

  ‘What about up at the reservoirs, Sir?’

  ‘The Elan Valley?’ Swift shook his head. ‘No swimming, sailing or otherwise larking about up there. Not on the water anyway.’

  ‘Oh well, it was worth a try.’

  ‘And what about you, Julie? Are you feeling a bit more settled here now?’

  Julie watched through the side window as the houses petered out and the car headed into open countryside. ‘I’m getting there, Sir. I love the way everybody knows everyone else and the fact that it’s completely silent at night. I love the views and the rivers and the way people calculate journeys in minutes rather than miles.’ She thought of home, of the centre of Manchester, the bustle and drive of the place, the fact that everyone was a comedian. ‘I’m a townie at heart though. I think it may take a little while longer for me to feel like a total country bump– er, person, Sir.’ She gazed over fields full of sheep and ever-growing lambs. It was a very long way from the concrete and tarmac maze she had been used to. ‘Would I be right in thinking that this location’s going to be muddy, wet and covered in sheep shit?’

  ‘See, you’ve cracked it. Spoken like a true local that was. I don’t suppose you remembered to bring your wellies?’

  ‘Actually, Sir, I didn’t. Give me time, it’s not quite a reflex reaction yet.’

  Swift laughed. ‘You’re in luck, Sergeant. Apparently this one’s not too far off the road.’

  *

  Dr Kay Greenhalgh’s black Alfa Romeo was in the tiny car park at Pont ar Elan. Next to it was a marked patrol car and a gleaming black van with chillingly dark tinted windows. Swift slid the Volvo to a halt. Just up the lane, a white Mountain Rescue Land Rover was tucked into the bank, from which a pair of deep and grass-filled vehicle tracks led sharply uphill.

  ‘Who found the body?’ Julie asked, as Swift pulled on a pair of battered black wellingtons. He slammed the boot lid, hitched up his suit trousers and set off up the lane towards the Land Rover.

  ‘It was a school kid on a practice run for a Duke of Edinburgh expedition.’

  ‘Kids? Out here on their own?’

  ‘They had a teacher with them, thank God. He phoned it in from the bus, but he insisted on taking them back to school once he knew we were on our way. They had parents waiting to collect them, so he thought it would be better to get them out of the way. He said he didn’t want them to see anything they shouldn’t.’ Swift’s breathing became more laboured with the gradient of the hill and he waved Julie past him as they drew level with the Land Rover. ‘Up that slope and turn right at the top.’

  Julie followed the line of the track as it disappeared round the curve of the hill. Away to her left, the river Elan bent left and right then broadened into the beginnings of what looked like a lake. Bog cotton waved in the breeze, the white heads reminding her of enthusiastic and exhausting trips to Hayfield and Edale with Adam. At the top, she waited for him to catch her up.

  ‘It’s a godforsaken spot, Sir. He probably died of hypothermia.’

  ‘In July, Sergeant?’

  Julie laughed. ‘It’s July, Sir, but it feels like February in Urmston.’ Despite the heat of the sun, the wind felt as though it came straight from the Arctic. Overhead, a buzzard circled and she shivered. ‘Do we know who he is?’

  ‘Not yet, but no doubt the good doctor will have a theory.’

  Despite Swift’s assurances, Kay Greenhalgh was a good ten-minute muddy walk from the road. As they climbed over the brow of a rock-strewn bank, they saw her and her entourage of Scene of Crime Officers, starkly obvious against the unrelenting greens and browns of moorland, in their light blue paper suits. Outside the locus, there were two uniformed PCs, and two men dressed in black who stood motionless, their hands clasped and heads slightly bowed. Four members of the Mountain Rescue team, in their bright orange suits and white helmets, waited on the other side of the cordoned-off rectangle, with a sled-like stretcher on the ground between them. The scene beneath her reminded Julie of watching a play from the front circle, with the brightly coloured costumes of the actors brilliantly lit in the dark theatre. This production needed no words.
/>   Julie squelched on down the track through puddles with their iridescent surface indicative of peat. She attempted to wipe the worst of the mud from her shoes on a tussock of reeds. ‘I thought you said it wasn’t far off the road, Sir.’

  ‘It could have been worse, Julie, this track goes on for miles.’

  The doctor greeted Swift with her stock opening line. ‘Good afternoon, Inspector. Nice of you to join us.’ Kay Greenhalgh smiled at Swift. ‘I’ve almost finished here. I need to get him on the slab before I’ll be able to tell you anything useful. It looks as though he’s been dead for five or six days at most, judging by the maggot activity. There’s no rigor and apart from the head, the skin has a marked green tinge. He also has a catastrophic head injury, but that’s all I can say for now.’

  The bloodstains on the rock showed that the man had probably been in a sitting position originally, with his back leaning against the rock and his legs straight out in front of him. Now he was slumped forward into a dark tidy heap. Dr Greenhalgh lifted the shoulders. The skin on his face was dark – almost black – and there were maggots weaving their way in and out of every facial orifice.

  ‘Why is the skin on the face at a different stage of decomposition to the rest of him?’ Julie asked.

  ‘Well observed, Sergeant. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea. I’ll know more once I’ve done some testing.’