The House in the Woods (Atticus Priest Book 1) Read online

  The House in the Woods

  An Atticus Priest Mystery

  Mark Dawson

  Contents

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part II

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Part III

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Part IV

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Get Exclusive John Milton Material

  Also By Mark Dawson

  In the John Milton Series

  In the Beatrix Rose Series

  In the Isabella Rose Series

  About Mark Dawson

  Part I

  1

  Detective Chief Inspector Mackenzie Jones was peeling potatoes and listening to Bing Crosby when her phone started to ring. She had been preparing tomorrow’s dinner for the last two hours. Andy had offered to do the meal, just like he usually did, but she had told him that she wanted to do it. She wasn’t as good a cook as he was and, not full of confidence that she would be able to pull it off, she had bought a meal box from Hello Fresh after seeing one of their ads on Facebook. She had a turkey, all the vegetables and sauces, and a booklet of instructions that even she could follow. She had selected her Christmas playlist on Spotify and had found, to her surprise, that she had enjoyed herself more than she had expected.

  She wiped her hands on a tea towel and turned the phone around so that she could see who was calling.

  It was Tristan Lennox.

  She picked it up and put it to her ear. “What’s up?”

  “Sorry for disturbing you, boss,” he said. “Christmas and everything.”

  ‘White Christmas’ ended and The Waitresses’ ‘Christmas Wrapping’ began. Mack turned the music down. “It’s not a problem. I was just doing the vegetables for tomorrow. What is it?”

  “We’ve got a problem.”

  “What?” She sighed. “What is it?”

  “Looks like we might have a murder.”

  She stopped the music completely. “What?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a farmhouse in Grovely Woods.”

  “Casualties?”

  “At least one dead.”

  “You can confirm that?”

  “I can’t. But I’ve got a witness who says he saw a dead body.”

  “Shit.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Where are you? Are you there?”

  “Yes. A civilian called 999.”

  “Name?”

  “Ralph Mallender. He said he went to the house and saw his father’s body through the kitchen window. He doesn’t have a key to get in, and the doors are all locked. I was closest when the call came in. I got here before uniform did.” He paused and Mack thought she heard the hoot of an owl in the background. “I’m sorry, boss. I really think you need to get out here. The civilian says there were four people inside the house, and I’m fairly sure I saw movement in the window.”

  She exhaled. Christmas Eve.

  “Boss?”

  “You called armed response?”

  “On their way, but they’re coming from Andover. I’ve got uniform covering front and back until they arrive.”

  She laid the knife on the counter and propped the phone between her shoulder and cheek. “Stay out of range. Nobody engages with anyone until the ARVs are there.”

  “Understood.”

  Lennox gave her directions. Mack noted them down and told him that she would call again from the car.

  Andy was in the sitting room. He had the kids’ presents set out on the coffee table and was struggling to wrap them.

  “I’m no good at this,” he said, grinning at the mess of paper and sticky tape on the floor. He noticed Mack’s drawn expression, and his own happiness fizzled out.

  “I just had a call from Lennox.”

  “Trouble?”

  “He thinks there’s been a murder.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve, Mack.”

  “I know that.”

  “And you have to go?”

  “You know I do.”

  He tried to hide his disappointment, but it was something that he had never been very good at doing. “Fine,” he said, trying to smile. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault. Not a problem.” He nodded to the kitchen. “You want me to carry on with the prep?”

  “Could you? I’m really sorry.”

  He took a piece of tape that he had stuck to the edge of the table and used it to seal the final flap of paper on Daisy’s present. He stood up and, seeing the concern on her face, stepped over the debris and drew her into an embrace. “I’ll take care of this. Just get home again as soon as you can.”

  “Keep the bed warm,” she said.

  Mack reversed off the drive and pulled away. It was late, and that, combined with the festive season and the cold drizzle that had been falling all day, meant that there was little traffic about. She left the ring road and turned onto Wilton Road, which led into the village and the entrance to Wilton House. Two large Christmas trees had been installed on either side of the gates to the house, and an adventurous local had clambered up the statue of the Earl of Pembroke and
draped a length of tinsel around his neck. The houses on either side of the road glowed with lights in the windows. Drunks rolled home after late calls at the Greyhound and the Bear, and the congregation was just emerging from St Mary’s and St Nicholas’s, sheltering under umbrellas with collars turned up against the cold. It all looked festive and inviting. Mack drove under the railway bridge and then, glancing regretfully at the illuminations in the rear-view mirror, made her way into the enveloping gloom of the countryside.

  She drove to Great Wishford and then followed the single-lane track to the north of the village. She passed between tilled fields towards the darker fringe ahead that signalled the start of Grovely Wood. It was dark, with no artificial light and all the illumination from the moon and stars blocked by the thatch of branches overhead. All she could see was what was directly ahead of her, the road and the underbrush illuminated by the light thrown forward by the high beams. She saw the shapes of the trees, the lines of beech planted on either side of the road.

  She drove on and, eventually, saw blue light throbbing through the trees. The gate that marked the end of the track and the beginning of the farm’s boundary was open. She drove up to it. A line of blue and white plastic police tape had been stretched between the gateposts, snapping in the light breeze. The blue light was from two patrol cars, and she recognised Lennox’s Audi parked alongside them. She parked, opened the door and got out. The rain had stopped, and now the temperature had dropped so that the moisture, once it was on the skin, felt frigid. A hard frost had been promised. No snow, but not the kind of night when you’d want to be outside.

  She recognised the constable waiting by the cars. It was Sam Collison, one of the team who worked the countryside beat out of Wilton station.

  “Boss,” Collison said.

  “All right?”

  “Freezing my tits off.”

  “Where’s Lennox?”

  “With the civilian who called us. Son of the farmer who lives here. Says he saw a dead body through the window in the door.”

  “Lennox told me he thinks there’s someone still inside the house.”

  “He thought he saw someone cross the upstairs window.”

  Mack looked through the trees to the house. There was no sign of movement now.

  “Did you see anything?”

  He shook his head. “The DS isn’t sure, but he said we were to stay back. He’s worried if there is someone still inside, they might take a potshot at us.”

  2

  “Evening, boss,” Detective Sergeant Tristan Lennox said.

  She gestured to the house. “Anything new?”

  Lennox shook his head.

  “You still think someone’s in there?”

  “Haven’t been able to discount it.”

  “We’ll be careful. Are there guns inside?”

  He nodded. “Control ran the premises through the database. There are firearms registered to this address. Shotguns for the farm.”

  “Bollocks.” She zipped up her coat. “I need to take a closer look. Can I get close enough without putting myself in the firing line?”

  “The barn over there,” he said. “If we take it nice and slow, we’ll be able to get a look at the house without giving ourselves away. Just keep your head down.”

  Mack ducked under the police tape and, with Lennox, slowly approached along the track.

  She looked over and noticed that the shoulder of Lennox’s jacket had been ripped. She pointed to it. “What happened there?”

  “I was fixing the fence at home,” he said. “Caught it on the post. Clumsy twat.”

  “Didn’t Sam buy that for you?”

  “Christmas last year,” he said.

  “She’s not going to be happy.”

  He shook his head ruefully. “Haven’t told her yet.”

  They reached the dark, looming shape of the barn and edged around the perimeter until they were able to squat behind a discarded pile of bricks that gave them a good view of the premises. The farmhouse was a large building, constructed in the Edwardian style and funded, no doubt, by the harvests of wheat that the fields within the woods had been producing for hundreds of years. There were lights on in one of the downstairs rooms and in two of the rooms above it.

  “In which window did you see movement?”

  “Top one, up there. Frosted glass.”

  He pointed to a window on the first floor.

  “Bathroom, maybe?” she said.

  “Maybe.”

  There was nothing there now. She took out her phone and shot a quick video, panning left and right so that the whole façade was included, and then signalled that they should return to the rally point. They retraced their steps. An ambulance had arrived while they had been away; Collison was at the door briefing the paramedics. It was standard practice: they didn’t know what they would find once they went inside, and it was best to assume the worst.

  “The two uniforms observing,” Mack said. “Who are they?”

  “Yaxley at the front and Edwards at the back.”

  “Where’s armed response?”

  “Still twenty minutes out. Firearms controller has whistled for support from Avon and Somerset. They’re sending extra units up.”

  Mack noticed a lone figure sat in the back of Lennox’s car. It was a man, his head and shoulders occasionally illuminated by the flashing blues.

  “Is that the civilian?”

  Lennox nodded. “His family lives here. Mum and dad. His brother and sister—Cameron and Cassandra—are back from university for Christmas. He thinks they’re inside, too. Betts is with him.”

  “Mallender?”

  Lennox nodded. “Ralph. Says he’s worried about his brother. Told me he’s unpredictable. Issues with his temper.”

  “He thinks the brother did it?”

  Lennox shrugged. “He thinks he might’ve.”

  “I’d better have a word.”

  She crossed over to the car. She could see the occupants a little better now. PC Betts was in the passenger’s seat and the civilian was in the back. They were talking.

  She opened the rear door and climbed inside.

  “Hello,” she said. “Mr. Mallender?”

  “That’s right. Please—call me Ralph.”

  Mallender was in his late thirties, with thick black hair and striking, haughty features. He was pale, and his hands, laid in his lap, were trembling.

  “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jones.”

  Mack extended a hand and Mallender took it. His flesh was icy cold and his grip loose.

  “DS Lennox tells me that you saw a body in the kitchen.”

  “Yes.” He swallowed. “My father.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you go inside?”

  “Couldn’t. Door’s locked.”

  “You don’t have a key?”

  “Not with me. Left it at home. And my father is very careful with security. They were burgled last year and he had heavy-duty locks put in afterwards. Once the doors are locked, that’s that. And he wouldn’t open them after dark unless there was a good reason.”

  “So how did you see him?”

  “I looked in through the kitchen window. That’s when I…” He stopped.

  “Go on.”

  “That’s when I saw him. He’s lying on the floor. Wasn’t moving. I saw blood.”

  “And who else is inside?”

  “My mother, my sister and my brother.”

  “And what do you think might have happened?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “DS Lennox says you’re worried about your brother.”

  He nodded. “He’s had problems with his mental health.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “His temper. There was a big argument this afternoon…”

  “Involving him?”

  “All of us. That’s why I came back—I wanted to sort it out before tomorrow.”

  Mack could see
that there was a lot of detail that she would need to excavate and understand, but that would have to wait.

  “We believe there may be firearms in the house—is that right?”

  He nodded. “Shotguns and a rifle. My father uses them to shoot the rabbits.”

  “Are they secure?”

  “In the gun safe.”

  “Anything else?”

  “My father used to be a competitive shooter. Pistols. He kept the guns after the law changed. Shoots them in the woods.”

  “And those are in the safe, too?”

  He nodded.

  “Would your brother have been able to get at the guns?”

  He nodded again. “He’d know where the key is.”

  “Thank you, Ralph,” she said. “I’m going to ask you to stay inside the car with Constable Betts while we get this sorted out. Okay?”