the festival was mainly for the tourist trade.
Hungerford found the page and passed it to him. The group had posed in costume, holding their instruments. Rosie Heffernan was at the front on the left, a large recorder half raised to her lips. Harry stood at the back with Dan Hungerford in the centre. Ursula was on the right and sitting on the ground at Hungerford’s feet was a young woman with tumbling auburn curls wearing a familiar blue velvet gown.
Wesley stared at the picture for a while, overwhelmed by a feeling of deep sadness. It was her all right: beautiful and bubbling with life. And now she was lying in a refrigerated drawer in the mortuary.
He passed the programme to Gerry. They had a name for the victim. Next it was a question of finding out who had ended her life.
Wesley was about to ask whether anybody was willing to identify the body when the doors to the church hall opened with a crash.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Rosie Heffernan as she stumbled in carrying a long, black instrument case.
It was then Wesley noticed the bruising around her left eye – and the look of fear on her face.
Chapter 5
When John Palkin married his first wife Joan Henny, the match increased his wealth and allowed him to pay for the construction of four new cogs for his expanding fleet. However, Joan died giving birth to their son, Richard, leaving John a widower of considerable means. Strangely, some eighteen years after Joan’s death, shortly before the untimely death of their son, Joan’s father, Thomas Henny, wrote a will leaving his entire fortune to his grandson, his only living relative.
Some two months after the will was made, Thomas Henny was murdered. According to the coroner at the time, he was set upon by footpads while riding home from visiting Tradmouth (he lived eight miles away in Neston). The footpads – a pair of runaway servants – were caught and hanged. These were men outside the law, branded as wolf’s heads by the authorities for stealing from their master and badly beating a fellow servant who tried to stop them. But they protested their innocence, claiming they’d never set eyes on Thomas Henny, let alone murdered him. At the time Henny had been carrying a purse of gold coins which was found on his body. Which begs the question, were the servants innocent? And if they were, who was responsible for the death of Thomas Henny?
A short time after Palkin’s son Richard inherited his grandfather, Thomas’s, fortune, he too died at a tragically young age leaving his father, John Palkin, an extremely wealthy man.
From ‘The Sea Devil – the Story of John Palkin’ by Josiah Palkin-Wright. Published 1896
When Gerry asked Rosie about her injuries, her answers were evasive. She claimed she’d bumped into something and that everything was fine, even though it didn’t take a detective to know she was lying.
Wesley had asked Dan Hungerford to identify Kassia’s body. As he was in charge it only seemed right that he took the responsibility. The man had been reluctant at first but it was something he couldn’t wriggle out of.
Once in the mortuary, Hungerford had seemed detached, speaking in a monotone and showing no emotion. Wesley suspected that this was the man’s way of dealing with the horror of the situation. But he’d made a positive ID. The dead woman was Kassia Graylem all right.
They’d made arrangements to interview the group later down at the police station. Wesley, of course, would be the one to speak to Rosie and he wondered whether she would reveal where she’d been the previous night. Somehow he doubted it.
After arranging for a patrol car to drop Hungerford back at the church hall, Wesley and Gerry returned to the incident room where Gerry assembled the team and called for attention before making the announcement. The dead woman had been identified as Kassia Graylem, aged twenty-two.
The phone number Hungerford provided had already been tried but there’d been no
Hungerford found the page and passed it to him. The group had posed in costume, holding their instruments. Rosie Heffernan was at the front on the left, a large recorder half raised to her lips. Harry stood at the back with Dan Hungerford in the centre. Ursula was on the right and sitting on the ground at Hungerford’s feet was a young woman with tumbling auburn curls wearing a familiar blue velvet gown.
Wesley stared at the picture for a while, overwhelmed by a feeling of deep sadness. It was her all right: beautiful and bubbling with life. And now she was lying in a refrigerated drawer in the mortuary.
He passed the programme to Gerry. They had a name for the victim. Next it was a question of finding out who had ended her life.
Wesley was about to ask whether anybody was willing to identify the body when the doors to the church hall opened with a crash.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Rosie Heffernan as she stumbled in carrying a long, black instrument case.
It was then Wesley noticed the bruising around her left eye – and the look of fear on her face.
Chapter 5
When John Palkin married his first wife Joan Henny, the match increased his wealth and allowed him to pay for the construction of four new cogs for his expanding fleet. However, Joan died giving birth to their son, Richard, leaving John a widower of considerable means. Strangely, some eighteen years after Joan’s death, shortly before the untimely death of their son, Joan’s father, Thomas Henny, wrote a will leaving his entire fortune to his grandson, his only living relative.
Some two months after the will was made, Thomas Henny was murdered. According to the coroner at the time, he was set upon by footpads while riding home from visiting Tradmouth (he lived eight miles away in Neston). The footpads – a pair of runaway servants – were caught and hanged. These were men outside the law, branded as wolf’s heads by the authorities for stealing from their master and badly beating a fellow servant who tried to stop them. But they protested their innocence, claiming they’d never set eyes on Thomas Henny, let alone murdered him. At the time Henny had been carrying a purse of gold coins which was found on his body. Which begs the question, were the servants innocent? And if they were, who was responsible for the death of Thomas Henny?
A short time after Palkin’s son Richard inherited his grandfather, Thomas’s, fortune, he too died at a tragically young age leaving his father, John Palkin, an extremely wealthy man.
From ‘The Sea Devil – the Story of John Palkin’ by Josiah Palkin-Wright. Published 1896
When Gerry asked Rosie about her injuries, her answers were evasive. She claimed she’d bumped into something and that everything was fine, even though it didn’t take a detective to know she was lying.
Wesley had asked Dan Hungerford to identify Kassia’s body. As he was in charge it only seemed right that he took the responsibility. The man had been reluctant at first but it was something he couldn’t wriggle out of.
Once in the mortuary, Hungerford had seemed detached, speaking in a monotone and showing no emotion. Wesley suspected that this was the man’s way of dealing with the horror of the situation. But he’d made a positive ID. The dead woman was Kassia Graylem all right.
They’d made arrangements to interview the group later down at the police station. Wesley, of course, would be the one to speak to Rosie and he wondered whether she would reveal where she’d been the previous night. Somehow he doubted it.
After arranging for a patrol car to drop Hungerford back at the church hall, Wesley and Gerry returned to the incident room where Gerry assembled the team and called for attention before making the announcement. The dead woman had been identified as Kassia Graylem, aged twenty-two.
The phone number Hungerford provided had already been tried but there’d been no
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