by Sam Hurcom
The Postmaster fell silent, any remnant of the smirk on his face disappeared. He began scratching at his cheek and I beckoned him to speak.
‘The body was found seven days ago, so when was the town meeting?’
The Postmaster looked over my shoulder. As I turned to look, I saw a flicker of movement from across the street and the hem of a coat disappear from view into a small dwelling. I felt unseen eyes peer at me.
‘Tuesday,’ the Postmaster said quietly. When I looked at him next he was already backing away from where I sat. ‘Need to be getting on. Good luck with your investigation.’
He walked away without another word. I watched as he climbed onto his bicycle and sped away down the street. I turned back and looked over my shoulder. Someone had been watching us.
When Cummings returned he was twenty minutes late. I marched across the Twyn towards him and cut through his dribbling apologies.
‘How far have we to travel?’ I barked.
‘Not far to the scene along the woodland trail to the north-east. About two and a half miles from there to Michaelston and the church but I can fetch a cart or—’
‘We’ll walk. And Vaughn had better meet us there.’
Cummings didn’t speak much for quite some time after that.
We left the Twyn via Mill Hill. Our thin trail was soon hemmed in by trees and shrubs, held back by low-lying stone walls. Dotted at intervals of a hundred yards or so stood tall and slender telegraph masts with a few thin wires attaching each to the next. The heat of day seemed only to be intensifying with each passing minute and I was quickly enveloped in clammy sweat below my collar. Buzzards and midges bombarded us as the smell of the farmyards to the north and east became heavy in the air.
The trail at the bottom of the hill remained flat only a short while. We crossed a wide and well-maintained bridge that spanned the river running from the north, before our trail split in three directions. Straight before us, the road ascended sharply up an extremely steep hillock. Cummings explained to me feebly that this was the Pen-Y-Turnpike, the road that led to Llandough and further on back towards Cardiff.
‘Far easier to take a cart that way to reach Michaelston as well – as I tried to tell you, it could be quite a walk with your equipment.’
I didn’t answer. The road to the right (Mill Road) was a stark contrast to what had preceded it. A row of grand stately homes of red brick and white fascias were set back from the wide roadway. The buildings seemed relatively well kept, though each garden appeared barren and unattended. I enquired of this to Cummings, who explained the homes had been finished only the previous autumn.
‘Are they vacant?’ I asked dubiously. Cummings simply shrugged.
‘A few are occupied,’ he said casually. ‘Clerks and managers from the city.’
I didn’t labour the point, and Cummings guided us left off the trail.
We began to traipse along a bone-dry dirt path that led us into the woodlands. The river we had crossed now ran heavily to our immediate left, in a steep gully concealed in places by thick ferns and fallen saplings. Beyond the gully, the earth rose gently, studded with trees that hung towards the path as they grew awkwardly under their own weight. To our right, a field spread away, unkempt and filled with meadow weeds and dandelions. Birdsong and the pleasant trickle of cool water filled the space. Even now I can smell wild garlic as I write these pages, for it grew with great abandon throughout much of that woodland, pungent and strong in the summer heat.
Cummings held his tongue for much of the walk and I admit I was grateful for his silence.
Perhaps a quarter of a mile or so along the path, the ground beyond the river began to ease and flatten. I caught sight of huge glasshouses between the trees and made out the first signs of life: a few farm hands attending to the vegetables and tomatoes growing inside. Cummings explained that the greenhouses were a recent addition to the property of Johnathon Miller, the owner of much of the land. It was Miller, Cummings whispered in hushed tones, who had stumbled upon the girl’s body.
Soon after the large expanse of glass conservatories, our path bent left, and we crossed a small stone bridge spanning the river. Here Cummings stopped a moment; standing before us was the mill from which the road we had come along had acquired its name. It was something from another age, its limestone-clad façade daubed in white paint, its misshapen walls all aslant and crooked. Thick ivy exposed only small patches of the exterior; wiry ash trees and thick bramble bushes seemed to contort around the structure. It looked as if the building had grown out of the very ground.
The river passed one side of the mill and a rickety wooden wheel, contained within a lean-to shelter, spun slowly as the water dropped down a sheer, man-made waterfall. A dark coloured sluice, almost green for the moss growing on it, was fixed atop the waterfall.
Worthy of a John Constable painting, I mused, and I meant it with sincerity. The quiet churn of the mill, the smell of damp soil and the light haze of corn dust in the air only enhanced the beauty of the scene. Beams of white light penetrated the upper canopy of a few tall evergreens that shaded the mill and bridge.
My gaze became fixed on a small round window bored into the side of the mill. Obscured in the shadows, I grew certain a figure moved.
A silhouette took shape. The contours of a body, of a face.
The beauty of the place was lost on me as my heart began to beat a little faster.
‘This way,’ Cummings grunted before I had time to ask who could be inside. Even as we walked out of sight of the mill, I still felt the unseen figure watch our movements. I began to scan the trees around us with ever greater suspicion and unease.
Vaughn was indeed a young man. He had the pasty and blotched complexion of one who has suffered badly from acne in adolescence. His handshake was limp, his palms sweaty and cold. I looked down upon him, and I am not a tall man by any measure. The near black uniform and collars he wore seemed to hang from his scrawny frame in a manner that was far from alarming but almost laughable. He looked like a lad who had stolen his father’s clothes.
I introduced myself curtly, laying down my case and opening it carefully to produce my equipment. I made haste to ask Vaughn to show me the exact place where the body was found. We weren’t far from the mill, now standing in a meandering avenue filled with colour. Bursts of light shone through leaves of green, amber and dusky orange. To our right, tall ash trees stood stoically, spreading back and high up a slope littered with ferns and the aforementioned wild garlic. There was a similarly steep embankment on the opposing side of the trail. This, Cummings told me, was the entrance to the Cwm Sior, a wooded valley, which I noted down after my introduction to Vaughn.
With a little hesitation, the young officer pointed to our right; concealed by the grey tree trunks was a small clearing, where a wall of sheer granite pierced the rise of the land.
‘Cummings mentioned that Johnathon Miller found the victim – what time was this?’
Vaughn seemed to think it over. ‘A-around six, perhaps a little earlier. Shortly after dawn. She would’ve b-been left there from the night before.’
The young lad spoke with something of a stammer. He seemed embarrassed by it and shifted a little awkwardly as I looked at him. I view such things as nothing to a man’s character.
‘What was Miller doing when he found her?’ I asked, jotting down the time of discovery.
‘W-w-walking with his hounds to inspect the land at the other end of the Cwm. Was his dog, really, who found her.’
I nodded again and pocketed my notebook. A few minutes later, I had erected my camera stand and aimed the lens straight down the meandering trail of the Cwm to take my first image.
‘Do you have a suspect then, Constable?’ I asked absently, already knowing his answer.
‘Travellers were c-camped out up past Michaelston a little way. Been there for over a week.’ He
paused as he tried to get his words out. ‘Day the body was found they moved on – no sign of them anywhere.’
I replaced the dry plate in my camera and moved a little further up the path to capture another image.
‘What would be their motivation?’
‘They had their way with her and didn’t want to deal with it – savages!’ Cummings scoffed and spat as he spoke. I eyed him momentarily.
‘I would care for the Constable’s opinion.’ I turned my gaze to Vaughn. ‘What would be their motivation?’
Vaughn glanced at Cummings before clearing his throat. ‘The um … Tilny girl was known to be meeting with the tr-travellers whilst they were here. Some of the young farm hands will testify to her coming up and down this track in the days before she, um, she died.’
I nodded and carefully took the plate from my camera.
‘Why see to kill her, though? If things had got out of hand why not simply leave?’
Vaughn remained silent for a few moments.
‘If they had raped her, they likely feared she would tell the police.’
‘Would you have believed her?’ I asked plainly.
The young man’s eyes widened and he glanced over at Cummings.
‘Promiscuous girls are asking for trouble,’ Cummings said boldly.
The man’s ignorance became clear to me then. ‘You would blame the shopkeeper who has his produce taken by the thief?’
Cummings folded his arms and scoffed. ‘Come on, man. That’s hardly the same thing.’
‘In my mind, and that of the law, it is.’
Cummings sighed in mock exasperation. ‘I thought a man from London would have a less naïve view on the world.’
I chose not to reply. I took in the scene some more, walking a little way up the trail. It bent shallowly toward the left, and I could see the bushes and wild shrubs encroaching ever more upon the path as it did so.
‘How many ways could a man come to this path?’ I called back to the other two, now huddled close by my camera.
‘Too many to count,’ Cummings replied. In that I feared he spoke true.
I stood in silence for a time, pondering and taking the place in. As I stepped back toward Vaughn and Cummings, I spied two figures approaching from the mill. One was far taller than the other, though it was clear that both were labourers, clad in loose shirts and slacked trousers that were all spotted and flecked with dirt and dust. Their skin was deep brown, glossed by the heat of the day. They approached Cummings and Vaughn, greeting the pair as they passed. As the two approached me, the taller man doffed his cap. His nose was flattened, and he had cauliflower ears and visible scars across his lower jaw.
‘Great shame about the young woman, Inspector,’ he said to me with a thick Welsh drawl. There seemed a genuine regret and sadness about him and I nodded and watched after the pair as they walked on and disappeared from view.
‘Who were they?’ I asked when I was back alongside Vaughn and Cummings.
‘The Davey brothers, Geraint and Lewis – two of Miller’s lads.’
‘Rugby player? The taller, I mean.’
Cummings nodded. ‘Geraint – he doesn’t mind a scrap or two either.’
I didn’t write this in my notebook then, though I must stress how the brief encounter played on my mind in the coming days.
I set about fetching the camera and stand and asked Vaughn to show me the exact spot where the body was found. He went ahead of me, and as we scrambled through the undergrowth, over loose twigs and fallen leaves, we came to the granite face. There was smooth dirt underfoot. Immediately I was perplexed.
‘This is the spot the body was found?’
‘Y-yes. Her legs were this way.’ He pointed which way the body had lain.
I placed my camera down and moved around the scene a few times, my back pressed against the granite rock face. At one point, I even scampered a short way up the slope to look down upon it.
‘You are certain she was found here?’
Vaughn concurred once more.
I shook my head in bemusement. A black scar of scorched earth and charcoaled twigs was scored into the ground. Yet it seemed far too small, barely the remains of a scouting camp fire.
‘How badly was she burnt?’ I exclaimed a little, beginning to set up my camera to capture the scene.
‘Across most of her b-body,’ Vaughn said. ‘Almost entirely.’
‘Can you not see?’ I asked, to which both Vaughn and Cummings shook their heads. ‘These scorch marks are too small. This would never have burnt her entire body; it would take a significant bonfire to cause such damage. You’d see the remnants, not just scorch marks on the ground.’
Vaughn and Cummings began to stammer over one another.
‘It has to be the place—’
‘If they kept adding wood—’
‘It would make no difference,’ I interjected. ‘The victim’s body would need to be engulfed in flames to allow sufficient heat to cause total immolation. I’ve seen it before; bodies destroyed entirely in makeshift furnaces. These marks suggest only minimal tissue damage could have been inflicted to part of her body.’
As I took my image and replaced the plate another thought struck me.
‘It begs the question why there is a body at all? If the culprit intended to dispose of her why not burn her fully to be rid of her remains? Why not bury her, or throw her in the river? Why dump her so close to the mill, where any remains would very likely be found?’
Neither Vaughn nor Cummings spoke. As I took more photographs, their silence began to irritate me.
‘Would either of you entertain the notion that this has been staged?’ I growled after a few moments, catching myself before I could say more.
Cummings began to nod his head vigorously. ‘As it would if the travellers committed the crime in their camp. They could leave the body here to make it seem another had committed the act.’
‘But the question still remains,’ I replied, ‘why is there a body at all?’
To that Cummings said nothing. I spent the next forty minutes taking photographs of the scene and making notes on the size and shape of the scorched area. With my attentions taken, Cummings and Vaughn stepped away, and it was only as I took my last image that I realised they were muttering quietly to one another. It was more of an irritant to me then than a cause for any suspicion.
Jotting my last few notes, I fetched a short stick and knelt alongside the blackened ground. The charcoal was shallow, though I moved and pawed through it a little for anything that may be hidden. There was nothing and I threw the little stick away with an audible sigh. Questions bombarded me.
The heat of the day had not abated, and the muggy air seemed to take effect on me as I hunched in the dirt. My head began to throb lightly (a result of the half pint of ale, I assumed) and my body seemed weakened, lacking the spritely energy I had felt upon my arrival. I tried in vain to loosen my collar and rubbed the heavy sweat from my brow.
Weary and uncertain of what remained to be learnt from the scene – for it had only succeeded in throwing up more questions than answers – I reached inside my jacket pocket and fetched a thin empty vial. I intended to take a small sample of the dirt, for though it was beyond my competence, I knew of colleagues and chemists who had in recent years begun experimenting with dirt, water and other such earthy things in the hope of shining greater light on crimes committed. It was merely a passing thought, for I was certain that this spot could not be the place in which Betsan had been murdered.
I reached down to fill the vial but instead made a startling discovery. The charcoal and blackened earth were still warm to the touch.
3
The General’s House – June 17th, 1904
Cummings and Vaughn were silent when I came back alongside them. I chose not to say anything of the warm soot and
charcoal; it was such a strange occurrence that made no sense. Though I had no reason then to suspect the two men, I decided it best to keep my own counsel until I could be certain they played no ill part in the whole affair. I began disassembling my camera stand and placing my equipment back in its case. I tucked the dry plates neatly in a custom pocket that would hold them safe and secure.
I asked Vaughn whether his report was finished.
‘Not— not entirely. It’s not something I’ve done be-before, sir.’
The light throbbing in my forehead was rapidly spreading to my temples and I was in no real mood to badger the young man.
‘You can finish it as we examine the body this afternoon,’ I said sternly, rubbing my eyes as thin maroon spirals and dots began to swirl in my vision.
‘A-are you all right, Inspector?’ asked Vaughn.
‘I’m not an Insp— never mind. Yes, I am fine.’ I wasn’t. ‘Which way would you deem best to get to Michaelston and the church? Perhaps on the way you could both elaborate as to why the body is held there?’
The pair remained quiet for a prolonged moment.
‘To be fr-frank, sir, it m-may not be possible to examine the body this afternoon.’ Vaughn was talking quickly as I knelt down to close the latches on my camera case. ‘I’m not sure Mr Cummings was aware—’
‘Richmond,’ Cummings cut in, ‘the church cleric, is not here. He’s on business today in the city – he helps run a small missionary by the docks. He’s the only man who has the keys to the church.’
‘You didn’t think to tell him of my arrival last night or this morning?’ I asked coarsely. ‘You surely assumed an examination of the body would be a priority?’
‘I can’t recall if I discussed the matter with him,’ Cummings replied flatly.
A vague answer if any. I looked up at him and thought to question him further. But as I stretched from the floor, I struggled to maintain my balance, my legs feeling weak as the world seemed to blur and lean acutely. Whatever had come over me was worsening quite suddenly.