Page 3 of Murder in the Winter Woods
Interesting. Clearly they anticipated this relationship continuing into the new year and beyond.
Julia felt a warmth that went beyond her snug winter coat at the thought of Laine and Jono staying in Berrywick, and staying together. There was something heartwarming about the idea of young people making a permanent home in the little village. And who could ask for a better and safer place to settle and, maybe one day, raise a family?
2
‘These roads are ridiculously dark,’ said Sean, leaning forward over the steering wheel and peering into the darkness. ‘It’s dangerous.’
‘Especially this lane through the woods,’ said Julia. She had suggested mildly that they should stick to the main roads going home from the Christmas market, but Sean had been insistent that the route through the woods would be beautiful at this time of year. He wasn’t wrong – but it was terribly dark, and difficult to properly appreciate the beauty.
Sean laughed. ‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘You told me so.’
‘I would never point that out myself,’ said Julia, ‘but yes, I did.’ They both smiled. Julia thought how pleasant it was to be with a man like Sean, who could laugh at his own mistakes. Her ex-husband, Peter, would have gone into a bit of a sulk at this point.
‘We should bring the dogs for a walk here again,’ she said. ‘During the day, obviously. But it is lovely.’
‘I do love winter,’ said Sean, carefully turning the wheel to follow the curve that took them into the depths of the wood. ‘Hopefully we’ll get some good snow, too.’
‘Jake does love the snow.’ Julia smiled at the thought of her chocolate Labrador, who was no doubt curled up next to the Aga and dreaming of walking as they spoke. She looked out of the window, trying to see if there were was any good holly to make a wreath. Perhaps she could bring Jake here and pick a bunch for the house. One of the joys of living in the country was the availability of seasonal wildflowers. But the sight that met her eyes on the side of the path was not at all what she had expected.
‘Sean!’ she yelled. ‘Stop the car. Now!’
‘What’s wrong?’ said Sean, carefully slowing down. He pulled over to the side of the road. ‘This isn’t a great place to stop, Julia. It’s hard to see the car if you come around the bend at speed.’
Julia looked out of her window again. Yes, it was still there.
A dark shape, where only a footpath and bushes should be. A dark shape with a foot sticking out into the road.
‘There’s a person there,’ said Julia. ‘Lying on the side of the road. My side. I think that they’ve been hit!’
Sean put the hazard lights on and grabbed his medical bag from the back seat of the car. ‘I hope we’re not too late,’ he said.
The two of them hurried over to where the person lay. Sean took a torch out of his bag, and knelt next to them, shining a light onto the face. ‘Oh lord,’ he said, ‘it’s Lewis Band.’
Lewis was the Berrywick taxi driver; the chap to call if you needed a local lift. His ageing Mercedes was a familiar sight along the Cotswolds roads.
Sean held his fingers to Lewis’s throat, and shook his head sadly. ‘I’m afraid that there’s nothing I can do for him, Julia. We’d better call the police.’
As Sean spoke to the police, explaining exactly where they were and cautioning them against hitting his car as they came around the bend, Julia didn’t know what to do with herself. It seemed disrespectful to just stand there, leaving Lewis’s dead body lying on the side of the road, one foot still on the path. Sheremembered that Sean always kept a picnic blanket in the car, and she decided to fetch it. It made no sense – Lewis was past feeling the cold – but as she spread it over his body, she felt a bit better, like she’d given him some dignity. As she tucked the blanket around him, she realised that his shirt was muddy.
‘Sean, pass me the torch, please.’
Finishing his call, Sean handed it over. ‘What is it, Julia?’
‘Look here. There are tyre marks all the way up to his body.’ She shone the torch around. ‘It’s like they drove right over him. That can’t be right.’
‘Maybe it’s old tyre marks,’ said Sean. ‘And he happened to land on them.’
‘Maybe. And maybe that footprint is old, too,’ she said, pointing to a footprint on the other side of the body. While Sean and Julia had left a fairly clear track of prints in the damp ground, this footprint was the only one on the other side of Lewis’s body.
‘Either way, let’s try not to pollute the scene more than we already have,’ said Julia. ‘It might be that the tracks and that print will help the police find whoever hit Lewis.’
It was several hours later that Sean and Julia finally made it home. DC Walter Farmer had arrived with a colleague to cordon off the scene, and sighed deeply when he saw Julia. ‘I’d just been about to go off duty, Mrs Bird,’ he said. ‘Amaryllis has a nice steak pie waiting for me at home.’
But when he’d seen the body, and when Julia pointed out the tracks and the footprint, Walter seemed to forget all about his pie, and his young wife, and focused entirely on the crime scene, calling for forensic backup and taking careful notes. His boss, Hayley Gibson, would be proud of him, Julia had thought, watching the young man work.
Sean and Julia let themselves in to Julia’s house, where Jake greeted them as if they had abandoned him on an icy peninsula with no hope of future contact.
‘A hit-and-run,’ said Julia, patting Jake and putting on the kettle. ‘What sort of person would do that?’
