Felburgh

by Ivan B

  Caroline gave him a sideways look.

  “Could we have a free hand?”

  “Of course; I do not have one ounce of artistic creation within me.”

  Caroline smiled benevolently.

  “When does Mothers and Toddlers start?”

  “After Easter.”

  “Here’s the deal,” Caroline said, “You get the walls painted Magnolia; at least two coats of the standard colour by Thursday this week and we’ll paint you a mural by Easter Monday.”

  “We?”

  “I have a little team of painters; we all met at art school: Millie, Josephine, Geraldine, Patricia, Susan, and Tammy. Only Tammy is not deaf, she is Susan’s sister. I usually lay out the basic design, then we all comment and do modifications, then we all colour in like mad.”

  “And they’ll help?”

  “I would think so, although we do have a price.”

  “Which is?”

  “A take away meal for seven every lunchtime and each day a different type of meal.”

  Peter began to wonder what he was letting himself into.

  “And how many days?”

  “How big is the room?”

  “About fifty feet by twenty feet.”

  “What’s that in metres?”

  “About sixteen metres by seven metres.”

  “About four days. Can I have your e-mail address?”

  Peter handed her a calling card. She continued, “I’ll mail you when we’ll start, it will probably be Monday of Holy Week if that’s OK with you.”

  “Fine,” said Peter thinking ‘there goes my peace and reflective solitude for one of the most important weeks of the Christian year.’

  Caroline switched to signing again, “Now about the deaf school, what would prevent you from becoming our chaplain?”

  Over the next five minutes Caroline expertly defeated every argument he put forward, and had him totally in a corner when she suddenly stopped pressing the point and laughed.

  “I become more like Henry every year. Please pray about it; ministers who can sign are thin on the ground, but don’t let me force you into it; I’ll trust in God for that!”

  This time it was Peter who laughed.

  When he got home the hospice had called again: could he come. So the evening saw him once again at the hospice. Norma was slipping away. Peter gave her the last rites and held her hand. An hour later she died. Later Peter had a cup of tea with the matron; she too had a copy of Norma’s funeral requests, just in case Peter had lost his.

  Peter swallowed his tae.

  “I’ve seen it before, they put their affairs in order and then just allow themselves to die.”

  “Yes,” said the matron, “I thought this would happen to Norma, she has been keeping herself going until she saw her great-grand daughter and you. Then there was nothing else to do and she let go.”

  They sat in silence for some time until Peter got up to go.

  “Peter.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can we call you again if we need you?”

  “Of course!”

  It was almost midnight when he got home and all thoughts of disposing of the Revd. Graye’s body had not entered his head all day.

  Tuesday was spent, much to Jo’s amusement, painting the lounge magnolia. Peter hired one of those back-pack affairs that send paint to a roller via a tube. It was heavy, hard on Peter’s back, but fast. By the end of the day he had gone round the room twice. That night, for once, he had an untroubled nights sleep.

  Chapter 7

  Disposal

  Wednesday dawned as one of those crisp sunny March days that herald the fact that spring is just around the corner. Peter was glad; he had been worried that it would be wet and make grave digging difficult. He later saw, during his morning walk with Aquinas, that Mark was busy in the graveyard with a little green coloured digger. He said to Aquinas, “I hope that this is a good idea.”

  About ten o’ clock as Peter was pretending to get down to sorting out his committee papers for the following day Mark called round.

  “Hi Peter,” he said as he gave Peter a big smile, “I think you’d better come to have a look in the graveyard, there is a slight problem.”

  Peter replied.

  “There’s no-one here.”

  “Good,” said Mark, “we have a real problem.”

  They walked round to the graveyard; Aquinas tagged on as usual.

  When they arrived in the graveyard Mark showed Peter the problem: Mark had started to dig the grave, but just over six feet down he had hit a coffin lid. Peter looked at coffin then at Mark.

  “Was this in the graveyard map?”

  “No, definitely not. But look at this,” and Mark rolled over a dirty headstone, “this was buried on top of the coffin.”

  The headstone read, ‘Tomas James Jefferson 1865-1901 Much Missed’.

  Mark tapped the stone.

  “We have no records of ever burying a Tomas Jefferson, and I had a quick search done at the local records office: the only Tomas Jefferson they could find was declared dead by a coroner after being missing for seven years; but that was in 1908. It caused quite a stir at the time because it was his wife pressing for the declaration so that she could re-marry. She had already failed to be granted a divorce twice before and it was also obvious that the police suspected her of murder, but had insufficient evidence to prosecute.”

  “How come they gave you such a fast answer?” Muttered Peter. “The last time I tried to use a records office I had to wait a month for a nil reply.”

  “I accidentally hit pay dirt; the records clerk is writing a book on the unsolved mysteries of the late Victorian era and is including the story in her book.”

  Peter smiled ruefully; “We’d better not show her this coffin then!”

  Mark nodded.

  “Just our luck. We want to go in for a little bit of light body disposal and stumble on a Victorian mystery.”

  They stood there looking into the hole, not quite knowing what to do next.

  Eventually Peter made a decision.

  “The coffin looks in reasonable order it’s probably made of oak, do you think we could unscrew the lid?”

  “You have got to be joking squire,” retorted Mark, “You have got to be joking.”

  But it was obvious that Peter was not joking.

  Mark wandered over to his motorbike and came back with a small toolkit and jumped into the hole. Peter kept lookout while Mark tackled the lid. Six brass screws of the tall hexagon head variety held it down. Five unscrewed fairly easily; the sixth sheared off. Mark stood on the small ledge of mud to the side of the coffin and looked at Peter.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “Yes, I don’t think you’ll find anything.”

  Mark muttered, “I wouldn’t be so certain” and heaved on the coffin lid. The lid came up and revealed the inside of the coffin. In it was something, but it certainly wasn’t a body; it was a sack.

  Mark examined the sack.

  “Sand, it’s full of sand.” He looked at Peter, “Are you thinking what I am thinking?”

  “Probably,” replied Peter. “What better place to hide a body than in a coffin.”

  Mark lowered the lid and covered it in some fake plastic grass; the sort undertakers place around grave-holes to soften their impact, and climbed out.

  “What made you think the coffin was empty?”

  “If the wife was so desperate to re-marry and she hadn’t murdered her husband what better than to have a grave you could point to and appear a normal widow. But I guess something went wrong and the ploy either didn’t work or they abandoned the idea.”

  Mark looked at Peter.

  “Another scenario would be that she had bumped him off and the graveyard was the best disposal option.”

  Peter grinned, “Well that did cross my mind…”

  Mark took an imaginary swipe at Peter and they both laughed.

  Wednesday afternoon passed at a
seemingly snail’s pace to Peter. He couldn’t settle to work and he couldn’t settle to relax. In the end, he locked the front door and went down into the basement with a large torch. He made his way to the tunnel and the door in its side. He opened it. It led straight into a shaft on the side of which was bolted an iron ladder. Peter shone his torch upwards and could see nothing. ‘In for a penny in for a pound,’ he thought to himself and stepped onto the ladder and started to climb. After about five metres he reached the top of the ladder, just under a metal hatchway. Peter slung the torch over his shoulder on its lanyard and pushed the hatch. It rose about a foot and then stopped. That was enough for Peter. This was the metal hatch in the middle of his garage floor; he had assumed it was a drain cover. He replaced the hatch and climbed down the ladder back into the tunnel. He then shone the light downwards; again the beam disappeared into blackness. Peter went back on the ladder and started to climb down, after about four metres he climbed into water. If there was a sub-basement it was flooded. He shone the torch around. There was no sub-basement: this was a drainage sump for sitting half in and half out of the water was an old pump. It took Peter a little while to realise that the pump was activated by a ball valve much like a water tank inlet. The swinging arm of the valve was hanging down at about 45°; he reached over and lifted it up. Then he nearly jumped out of his skin as the pump sprang into life making a hell of a racket; Peter dropped the valve arm and the pump stopped. “Good grief,” he said to himself, “it’s been lying there for over sixty years, and it still works. He studied the pump closely and noticed a grease nipple on the upper bearing and resolved that next time he was down here he would grease the bearings. He climbed up the ladder and eventually stood in the tunnel dripping gently. He had been worrying how to get Reginald’s body out of the basement; now he had a simple straightforward route up into the garage.

  About midnight mark arrived with a plastic body bag.

  “Standard kit on any sea-going vessel” he said by way of explanation.

  They went into the basement and through the tunnel. Peter showed Mark the shaft and a rope that now came down the shaft and ended in a coil on the floor of the tunnel.

  “This goes over a pulley in the garage, should make it easy to lift the body out.”

  “Good thinking Batman,” said Mark

  They went into the shelter and carefully lifted Reginald’s body into the bag and zipped it up. He had felt like a wax model, but both of them knew he was for real.

  Getting him up into the garage proved to be child’s play and getting him to the churchyard was just as easy. Peter and Mark popped him into a wheelbarrow and wheeled him round with comparative ease. They managed to get him within ten or so metres before they had to resort to carrying him. At the graveside Mark jumped into the hole, threw out the plastic grass, and opened the coffin; fortunately there was enough moonlight for them not to need the torch. Peter lowered the body over and Mark placed it in the coffin and then screwed back the five screws; he placed the head of the sixth screw back in the coffin lid. Then he grinned at Peter and pulled out a small brass plaque that he screwed to the coffin lid.

  “What’s that?” inquired Peter.

  “It says, ‘Reverend Reginald Edward Graye, 1954-2002 May he be at peace’.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “Don’t worry; I made it myself in the boatyard this afternoon.”

  Mark climbed out of the hole. As Mark and Peter stood there Peter said a short prayer of committal. They then covered the coffin with a layer of mud and placed the plastic grass around the hole. As they turned to go Mark tripped over Tomas’ headstone.

  “Good grief,” he muttered, “I’d forgotten about this.”

  “Why not put it around the edge of the churchyard with the other headstones?” Peter suggested.

  “Great idea,” replied Mark.

  So they picked up the stone and carried it to the far side of the graveyard where there was a line of headstones along the boundary leaning against a hawthorn hedge. They placed it in a gap about two-thirds along the line. They then went back to the vicarage, placed the wheelbarrow back in the conservatory, shut the garage shaft hatch and went inside.

  “Now what” said Mark as Peter made two cups of Horlicks.

  “We do nothing,” said Peter, “at least not until after Easter. I’ve checked the computer; now that the second hard-drive has gone it’s as clean as a whistle, even the suicide note must have been on that disc. So if the police arrive they may find the gear, but there’s nothing to connect it to us. Meanwhile we had better make plans what to do with the computer, the air conditioning unit and the metal cabinets.”

  “Not to mention the ink-cartridges, the special paper stock and the money,” chuckled Mark, who was clearly enjoying the conspiracy. They clinked Horlicks cups and discussed options. Eventually about 3am Mark went home and Peter went to bed. Surprisingly he slept well; so well that he was nearly late for his Thursday morning committee meeting at Diocesan house.

  When Peter arrived home on Thursday afternoon the first thing he did was to check the graveyard. There was now a nice pile of earth over the newly filled hole and a rough wooden cross. There were no police. Peter relaxed a bit; it looked like they had got away with it. He then went home and back into the basement and up the shaft under the garage floor. He had noticed that the hatch could be locked shut by a bolt; he did not want this particular hatch opened by mistake so he pushed the bolt firmly home. While he was down there he greased the pump’s bearings.

  When settled back in his study, the phone rang; it was Roger. As usual he sounded slightly the worse for wear.

  “Hello Peter, I wonder if you could do me a favour?”

  “Depends what it is.”

  “Could you see my son, Bryan, he needs sorting out.”

  “Does he want to see me?”

  “If I say so, the little brat has nearly got himself expelled from school. Anyway he’s on his way round.”

  “I haven’t said yes,” said Peter somewhat curtly.

  “It’s what vicars are for isn’t it, to sort out the muddled and tend the weary, well he’s muddled and I’m weary.”

  “Has he always been a handful?”

  “No, he’s always been reasonable, until his mate got killed three months ago; since then he’s been a full handful. Do your best Vicar, I’ve nowhere else to go.”

  “OK, I’ll talk to him, but only if he wants to see me, I won’t talk to him if he resents being sent to me.”

  “Fair enough.” Roger replied as he put the phone down. At almost the same instance the doorbell rang.

  Peter let Bryan into the sitting room.

  Bryan looked like he had all the belligerence that he could muster, so Peter decided to start by setting the boundaries of their relationship.

  “Bryan, I know your father has sent you here, but I want to make one thing plain, I will not expect you to talk to me unless you want to. If you don’t want to that’s fair enough – I would have been steaming mad if my father had sent me to talk to a Vicar.”

  Bryan relaxed a little and managed a smile.

  “Your dad said that you’d had trouble at school.” Remarked Peter.

  “Teacher said that I had become an indolent fool.”

  “What did you do?”

  Bryan went silent. Finally he shrugged.

  “I walked out of his lesson and told him I thought that he was an overbearing rutabaga.”

  “What’s a rutabaga?”

  “A Swedish turnip, Mr Erricson comes from Sweden.”

  “And that is all you said?”

  Bryan shuffled his feet,

  “Well I may have slipped a few more words into the sentence.”

  “Swear words?”

  “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t sound like an expelling misdemeanour to me.”

  Bryan shuffled his feet again.

  “Well I was somewhat angry.”

  “So?”

  “So
I smashed a few windows.”

  “How many windows?”

  “‘Bout twenty.”

  Peter was beginning to get the idea.

  “Whose windows?”

  “Mr Erickson’s windows.”

  “Was the class still in the classroom?”

  “Yes.”

  Peter decided to change to subject for a minute.

  “But that’s not the real problem is it?”

  Bryan went quite. Peter waited a few minutes and it was obvious that Bryan was not going to speak.

  “Your father told me that your friend died.”

  “Bloody Pratt went and got himself killed.”

  “How?”

  Bryan shuffled his feet; “He got in a car with that fool Conrad.”

  Peter took a wild guess.

  “You mean he went joy-riding?”

  Bryan got up and started walking around.

  “Yes, stupid fool didn’t put his seat-belt on; and he sat in the back. I was always telling him that if he had to go joy-riding he had to sit in the front and wear a seat-belt.”

  “You ever been joy-riding?”

  “Once, scared the shit out of me and I swore I’d never do it again.”

  “I take it they crashed.”

  “Conrad tried to take a bend too fast and they hit a tree. Norman was catapulted through the windscreen straight into the tree; he died of a brain haemorrhage six days later. Conrad and his pal climbed out with hardly a scratch and just left him there.”

  Bryan swung round and faced Peter; his whole demeanour had changed from belligerent teenager to angry young man.

  “I’m so bloody angry. I’m angry at Conrad for nicking the car. I’m angry at Norman because the bastard didn’t say goodbye and I’m angry at myself because I didn’t stop him. I knew he was going to go joy riding that night but I didn’t stop him, I just let him go! If I’d tried harder he might have listened and then…”

  But Bryan stopped talking and burst into tears.

  Peter waited why Bryan cried, he didn’t say anything, but his mind was working at top gear. Eventually Bryan blew his nose and looked at Peter. Peter talked to him gently.