by Leo McNeir
More hesitation. “Well, no.” She made a gesture that encompassed the whole area around them. “All of this, really.”
Angela stepped in. “Celia’s family owns the land on which these houses are built and most of the land around here. They live at the Court.”
Marnie smiled. “Sorry to be thick, but what court?”
“Knightly Court.” Angela pointed down the street. “It’s the big house beyond the far wall.”
Marnie and Anne followed Angela’s finger and noticed for the first time that Martyrs Close ended as a cul-de-sac at a high stone wall.
Angela continued. “I suppose, technically, your family are lords of the manor, aren’t they, Celia?”
“I suppose so.” Celia turned to Marnie. “You live in the village?”
“Glebe Farm, down by the canal.”
“Of course. I’ve heard about you. You actually live on a boat, isn’t that right?”
“Temporarily. We’re renovating the farm. I hope to move into the farmhouse shortly. We don’t farm, of course, but we have a few acres of land.”
“My husband’s a property developer, but perhaps you knew that. Is that your line of business?”
“Only because most of the buildings at Glebe Farm are ruins, or rather they were. I’m an interior designer.”
Celia looked steadily at Marnie. “How interesting. You have your own company?”
Marnie inclined her head towards Anne. “Standing beside me. We’re what you’d call a close-knit team. Talking of which, we’d better get back to the drawing board.”
“It’s been nice meeting you, Marnie.” Celia lowered her voice. “Angela was just telling me that you originally found the grave here.”
“By chance. I walked through the gate from the churchyard and there it was.”
“You’re not a member of the congregation, are you? I don’t remember you being involved in the church.”
Marnie had the impression that Celia did not want her to go. “No,” she said simply.
“I was just wondering,” Celia said, “how you came to be passing this way on the day you found the grave.”
“I was taking a walk, getting to know the village. We hadn’t long moved in.”
“Ah yes, of course. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would be searching among the brambles.” Celia held out a hand to Marnie. “See you again, no doubt.”
She walked over to a car and drove off. Marnie and the others watched her go and strolled along the pavement.
“What did you say her name was, Angela, your Princess Di look-alike?”
“Devere, Celia Devere. Oh yes, I see what you mean about the look-alike. It’s the hair, I suppose.”
“Same hair, same colouring, same style. Same car too: Audi convertible. It’s odd that I’ve never seen Knightly Court, or even heard of it.”
“Not really, Marnie. You approach it from a road that only leads to their house and grounds. They also have a gate into the churchyard, further round.”
Anne joined in. “Manor houses usually had their own private entrance, didn’t they? Did the Devere family build the church?”
Angela frowned in concentration. “I don’t think they go back that far. Randall will know the history, if you’re interested. I think they took over the manor at about the time of Henry the eighth, or thereabouts.”
“And her husband’s the lord of the manor?”
“Oh no. It’s his father, old Marcus Devere, who owns the place. Celia and her husband live in one wing. It’s a very big house.”
They arrived at Marnie’s car.
“Did the police say who they thought it might be in Sarah’s grave? Presumably her coffin is down there as well?”
Angela grimaced. “It’s horrible, Marnie. They found human remains, partly wrapped in some sort of material, resting on top of Sarah’s coffin.”
“You saw them?”
Angela’s eyes flickered towards Anne. “Yes, we both did. They couldn’t identify the … whoever it was. The body was little more than skin and bones in what looked like a shroud.”
“Well, this has been a wasted journey for me, as it turns out. I expect I’ll get back to find the police in their usual parking place in the courtyard.”
“Usual place?” Angela looked puzzled. “The detective said he had to speak to Henry Tutt in private without delay. He wanted to see all the tools in his shed as a priority.”
Marnie took the car keys from her pocket. “That figures.”
“He asked if I knew your phone number.”
Marnie laughed. “I thought the police know it by heart.”
“Do you know this officer then, Marnie?”
“Let me guess, was it Chief Inspector Bartlett or Sergeant Marriner?”
“Neither of those. Let me think. What did he say his name was?” Angela reflected. “Binns, yes, DS Ian Binns. That’s it.”
Anne made a faint snorting sound as if she had suppressed a sneeze. Marnie pulled the car door open.
“That’s a new one on me. Binns. Never heard of him. Oh well, a pleasure in store, no doubt.”
On the drive back to Glebe Farm, Marnie heard another odd sound from Anne and glanced across to see her struggling to control her expression.
“Are you laughing, Anne? What’s so funny?”
“Binns!” Anne exclaimed. “It’s a good job he works here and not in London.”
Marnie looked totally blank. “I don’t get it.”
“Really not, Marnie? If he were in the Met, he’d be … Binns of the Yard!” Anne shrieked like a fishwife.
Marnie laughed, relieved that Anne could see the funny side of things. She had the feeling that the euphoria would not last.
*
Arriving back at Glebe Farm, Marnie turned into the garage, another small byre at the back of the office barn. She had been muttering to Anne that they had not so far managed to get the week underway, when she spotted a strange car outside the farmhouse.
“We’ve got a visitor, Anne. No prizes for guessing who it is. And you’ll be pleased to see he’s parked appropriately, in the yard.”
This time there was no laughter from Anne. The presence of the police conducting an investigation had become a not unfamiliar experience during their time in Knightly St John. Now, the connection with the suicide of Sarah Anne Day in 1645 and the murder of the Rev. Toni Petrie brought back memories that were still raw. Marnie herself had come close to becoming a murder victim, and Anne had saved one man’s life. Most people in the village had been affected by the events that had led to the death of their vicar two years before.
DS Ian Binns was peering in through the window of the office barn. He looked round when Marnie and Anne turned the corner. Stocky, an inch or two taller than Marnie and a few years older, with thinning short hair, he looked tough. His expression was grim. When he spoke, it came as a surprise.
“Mrs Walker? Marnie Walker?” His tone was quiet. He held up a warrant card. “I’m Detective Sergeant Binns. Good morning.”
“Good morning.” Marnie’s own voice was deep for a woman. “Would you like coffee?”
“I’d love one, thanks. It’s been quite a morning.”
They settled in the office, the detective in the visitor’s chair, a steaming mug before him. Anne sat at her desk across the room, clasping a mug in both hands. Marnie took Binns’ acceptance as a good sign. When the police came to call they normally refused, which she took as a measure of their distrust.
“It must have been quite a surprise, finding a second body in the grave.”
“You can say that again.” He took out a notebook. “I need to ask you a few questions, Mrs Walker. Then in due course I’m going to need a statement.”
“That’s fine.”
Binns asked Marnie to describe how she had come to find the grave. While she spoke, he took notes in shorthand.
“So you just saw the headstone by chance.”
“Yes.”
“Do you often go through that gate in the wall?”
“No. That was the first time.”
“You had a particular reason for going there?”
“I’d noticed the gate and wondered where it led. I hadn’t long been in the village. I was getting my bearings, getting to know the place.”
“I see. That’s odd, isn’t it?”
Marnie felt her stomach turn over. She had the feeling she was about to be caught out, though there was no reason why she should be. It had been the story of her relationship with the police; she somehow always managed to give the wrong impression. This was usually exacerbated by DCI Bartlett, who succeeded in twisting whatever she said to her disadvantage.
“Odd?” she repeated.
“Yes. I mean there’s no headstone now, is there? What became of it, do you know?”
Marnie relaxed. “Someone smashed it. Toni and I … that’s the previous vicar …”
Binns nodded. “Toni Petrie, the one who was killed.”
“Yes. We moved the broken pieces to the crypt to protect them from further damage. People have long memories about some things. Toni said she wanted to give the stones sanctuary.”
“A nice thought.”
Marnie was surprised how easy she found it to talk to this detective. “I suppose the pieces will still be down there. Is it important?”
“Hard to tell at this stage. What I’d like to establish is who smashed the headstone and why? Can you help with either of those questions, Mrs Walker?”
Marnie paused before replying. She had no desire to rake over the conflicts and tensions that had marked her first year in Knightly St John.
“Sergeant Binns, I really don’t think that incident can have anything to do with the remains found in Sarah’s grave.” Binns began to speak, but Marnie raised a hand to silence him. “I know you’re going to say something like, we’ll be the judge of that … well of course, I know you have to be thorough. The point is, there was a lot of ill feeling at the time we moved here between the former vicar –”
“Toni Petrie?”
“No. Her predecessor, Randall Hughes. He left under a cloud – arguments about priorities, policies and so on – and his opponents were delighted. Then they found he’d been replaced by a woman. Some people didn’t like that. Someone from Sarah’s family – yes, they’re still around – put flowers on her grave and a parishioner took exception to that in a fit of temper.”
“A parishioner with a sledgehammer and an almighty rage,” Binns said slowly.
“Look, Mr Binns, it’s all over now. Everything changed with Toni’s death. People got back their sense of proportion. Those wounds have healed. Let’s not open them up again. This other body, this skeleton, how long has it been in the ground?”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“But probably a long time?”
“That’s possible.”
“Do you really believe anyone concerned about parish pump matters like the church maintenance fund or the state of the porch would be involved in this burial? It could be ancient.”
“That depends on a lot of factors, Mrs Walker.”
Marnie shook her head. “Such as a local argument about women priests?”
“Possibly. Who knows? But you’re making a big assumption.”
“What assumption?”
“That the smashing of the headstone was about this woman, Sarah Anne Day.”
Marnie made a dismissive gesture. “What else could it be?”
“People have long memories about some things. You said so yourself. What if the anger that led to the headstone being desecrated was provoked by the other body in the grave? Had you thought of that?”
*
Later that evening Marnie was sitting propped up on pillows in the sleeping cabin on Thyrsis, talking on the phone. As usual when Ralph was working away from home, he rang at bedtime for a chat.
Dr Ralph Lombard, visiting Professor of Economic Sciences in the University of Oxford, was one of the country’s leading economists. In his early forties, he had been Marnie’s lover and partner for most of the time she had lived in the village. Eventually they planned to move into the main house at Glebe Farm and some day they would marry. In the meantime they were temporarily using Ralph’s narrowboat, Thyrsis, as sleeping quarters and Marnie’s boat, Sally Ann, moored close by, as their floating dining room.
“So how are things up in the far north?”
“Oh, the life of the external examiner is the usual wild ride.” He chuckled. “The University of Durham is lovely, of course. Professor Charlborough is rather a pedant, but he’s not a bad old stick. More to the point, how are things with you? There was something on the ten o’clock news: remains found in an unmarked grave in a village in Northamptonshire?”
“I’m surprised it made the main news on the BBC.”
“It was just a snippet and I was changing out of my suit, so I missed most of it. This is presumably Sarah’s grave?”
Marnie gave him the story. He listened in silence to the end.
“Did this detective – what did you say he was called – Binns? Did he have any idea how long the skeleton had been in the ground?”
“Too early to know, but I think it could be very old.”
“Why do you say that, Marnie?”
“Why? Well, don’t you?”
“Is there any evidence to support that conclusion?”
“You’re sounding like an academic.”
“Could be because I am an academic. So, is there?”
“Ralph, it’s a skeleton.”
“I understand that. But do you know how long it takes for a body to decompose and become skeletal?”
Marnie reflected. “I just thought … I sort of assumed …” Her voice petered out. “Do you know, Ralph?”
“Not at all. I think it probably depends on the conditions in the ground, type of soil, humidity, the protection round the body.”
“You’re saying you think it could be modern?”
“No. I’m saying that in the absence of more information, more actual evidence, we can’t determine how old it is.”
“Binns said something strange – oh by the way, Anne calls him Binns of the Yard. I thought you’d like to know.”
Ralph laughed. “She would! What did he say, your Binns of the Yard?”
“He wondered if the smashing of the headstone was not about Sarah Anne Day but to do with the other body.”
“Did he, now? I can see the logic in that.”
“But don’t you remember, Ralph, old Mr Fletcher, the farmer, admitted he’d done it on account of Sarah?”
“Yes, and I’m absolutely convinced Mr Fletcher knew nothing about the other body. No-one did. Let’s hope the police soon identify it.”
“Or establish that it’s too old to be identified,” Marnie added.
“Yes. That might be the best outcome. The last thing we want is for all that business to be stirred up again.”
Chapter 3
Statement
Marnie heard the sound of an engine and opened her eyes in the dark cabin. She felt Thyrsis rock gently at her mooring as the boat passed. The portholes were blocked in by padded buttons, but a faint light seeped under the door. Morning had come.
She had passed a restless night, dreaming of a smashed headstone, thatched houses on fire in the civil war, a vicar killed in his own church, parishioners finding his body at the foot of the tower stairs.
One image stayed fixed firmly in her mind more than all others: a girl was kneeling on the floor, cradling the head of a man in her lap. Round his neck was a noose in the form of a leather belt. Angry red bruising showed where it had bitten into his skin. The scene was the office barn at Glebe Farm. The girl was Anne. The man was Randall Hughes, the former vicar who had hanged himself from a hook embedded in the beam across the ceiling. The beam supported the floor of the attic where Anne had her room and slept every night, untroubled by thoughts of hangings.
It was believed that from that same hook Sarah Anne Day h
ad hanged herself at the time of the civil war. She had discovered her family’s implication in the death of the royalist vicar, Jonathan Goldsworthy. The anguish had been too much for Sarah to bear, at a time when the whole country was writhing in torment, and Northamptonshire had become the centre of the decisive actions in the first civil war, culminating in the battle of Naseby.
Almost three hundred and fifty years later, further tension had come to Knightly St John with the appointment of Randall Hughes as the new vicar. His opponents argued that he had swept away the traditional forms of worship and placed the upkeep of the church buildings above the needs perceived by the community. He merely regarded himself as ‘progressive’ and responsible. Replaced by a woman vicar, he saw himself as instrumental in her death and felt the same overpowering remorse as Sarah Anne Day.
Randall’s attempt at suicide failed because of the swift action of Anne, helped by the very man who had been one of Randall’s main opponents: Albert Fletcher, the old farmer who had sold Glebe Farm to Marnie.
In a state of shock at so much turmoil and tragedy that summer, the village had given itself a good shaking, recovered some of its equilibrium and settled down to normality. Now, with the mystery of an unexpected body being retrieved from Sarah’s grave, the whole mixture could bubble up again.
Marnie groaned audibly and was surprised to hear the sound echoed from close by. Seconds later she was joined on the bed by a sturdy black cat. She felt hefty paws kneading the duvet near the pillow and turned her head to find herself looking into deep amber eyes set in a solid round face. The eyes blinked slowly. Dolly snuggled up on the duvet against Marnie’s shoulder and began emitting a slow, quiet purring. It was comforting, but could not dispel Marnie’s anxieties for long.
*
Marnie entered the office barn to start the day and stopped abruptly, gasping with shock. In the middle of the floor Anne was at the top of the aluminium step-ladder, reaching for the hook in the beam.
Anne glanced round. “Oh great. Glad you’re here, Marnie. Can you just hold the ladder steady. It’s a bit wobbly up here.”
Marnie rushed forward. “What are you doing?” She took firm hold with both hands.
“You’ll see.”