Strange Tombs

by Syd Moore

  ‘And what happened when you got there?’ I had asked, holding my mum’s hand so she didn’t feel insecure about any of this, which was stupid really but there you go.

  ‘Here,’ said my dad, correcting me. He glanced at the museum which was winking behind me. We had been sitting in the memorial garden. ‘It was here, Rosie. The museum was in disarray. You could tell as soon as we got into the car park. All the doors and windows were open, despite the rain. It looked like it was howling. Course, we went straight in and found Septimus was upstairs in his bedroom.’

  ‘I heard you before I saw you,’ said my mum and smiled and stroked my hair. ‘You were so young. You can tell a new baby’s cries. They’re different to anything else in the whole world.’

  Dad too let himself smile for a moment at the memory. ‘Father had enough time to tell us he’d found you on the doorstep. On your own. There was no trace of Celeste.’

  ‘Or my father?’

  ‘Your father?’ said Dad, then caught himself and looked away to conceal the beginnings of a burn on his cheeks. ‘We didn’t really know who your father was. Celeste never mentioned him to me. Or at least she was evasive whenever I asked her. Said it was her business, no one else’s. Always headstrong, my sister. Septimus only seemed to have a vague understanding of who he might be. He didn’t speak highly of him. And apparently Celeste only saw him a few times. But he had been here that night while Septimus was away. Dad was pretty sure of it – extra toothbrush in the bathroom. Whoever Celeste had had in there had obviously packed in a hurry. When Septimus returned home …’

  ‘He had been away on a case,’ Mum whispered. ‘But when he came back he said he went into Celeste’s room. It looked like someone had been staying there with her. He expected it to be the baby’s father, your father, though he was never sure. She had become secretive. It hurt him. They had always been so open with each other.’

  ‘But he was worried,’ said Dad. ‘Obviously you would be – you get home and find your granddaughter on the doorstep. Without her mother. Why? How? He knew Celeste must have been in trouble. She was a live wire for sure. But she was not irresponsible. There is no way she would have left you alone like that. She loved you.’

  The words made me swallow and bite down on an emotion I didn’t want to acknowledge. ‘So what happened?’ I asked, wide-eyed, at the same time not wanting to know the answer. After all, I was aware of how the story ended.

  ‘Dad had already phoned the police. And they did take it quite seriously, see.’ Ted Strange swallowed. ‘It was one hell of a night. There had been lots of accidents all over the county. They were coming up on the radio. “Avoid this junction here”, “road closures there” because of the severe weather. It felt like all hell was breaking loose while we were driving here. Not just the gale, but the rain was pelting us. Trees were going over left, right and centre.’

  Dad sent me a look that indicated this was a significant piece of information. He wanted me to digest it, so for a moment didn’t speak. Then as he continued I realised his intention. ‘They turned up shortly after we got there. The police.’ Then he lost his words. Or maybe he just didn’t want to say them. His eyes filled with water.

  I couldn’t look at him. It seemed intrusive, so I turned to Mum and smiled at her. But her face was drawn. The muscles around her mouth were flexing like she was struggling with an expression. I closed my eyes and let my head rest back onto the chair. The sun played on my eyelids, colouring everything brown. And then red.

  After a moment Dad collected himself. He inflated his lungs and said, ‘They told us that they’d found her.’

  I opened my eyes and saw he had leant forwards now, putting his hands on his knees as if he were recovering from a blow and needed help sitting up. ‘Her car had come off the road,’ he went on, ‘and ended up in the brook. Because of all the recent rain, the water level was higher than usual. She’d been unconscious when she drowned.’ Then he dropped his eyes. I didn’t know what was going on behind them, but I could feel shame coming off him and wondered if it was because everyone had assumed Celeste’s crash was an accident. Careless driving maybe. The conditions had obviously been right. Although, now we knew, it had been an incorrect assumption. A shadow on her memory. Unjust.

  But I wouldn’t go into that now. There were other more pressing things to learn. So I spoke up. ‘But they, the police, they didn’t say anything about him?’ I was going to say ‘my father’ but the words suddenly seemed loaded and full of blame. So I added, ‘The man that was with Celeste? In her car?’

  Mum shook her head. ‘We didn’t know if he’d been in the car. At first we wondered if it was he who chased Celeste or if he’d been responsible for her death. We just didn’t know what to make of any of it. Until, lately …’ Then she too hung her head like my dad had just done. They both fetched their eyes away from me to each other. It was a long low look. When their eyes met a small amount of tension seemed to go out of them. Then Mum’s narrowed and she said, ‘What that awful de Vere woman said … it’s shocking … we didn’t know for certain that Celeste was with anyone else that night in the car. Mind you, we’ve only got de Vere’s word on the matter and god knows she and her father have lied about everything else. Ethel …’ She trailed off and looked at my dad.

  He bit his lip and nodded sadly, no doubt thinking about his mother. What Mum said was true. We did only have Araminta de Vere’s half-crazed words. And they were not much to go on. When I was ready I’d have to go and visit that jailbird and try and squeeze some more info out of her. But when I was ready. Which wasn’t when I was sitting in the memorial garden hearing the whole sorry tale pour from my parents. The cork had shot out and nothing was going to stop them get this off their chests.

  I let my dad and his wife have a moment of silence, so they could gather themselves, then I said, ‘But what happened with me?’

  My mum nodded then said, ‘Well, it was while they were breaking the news to us, about, about what they found. About Celeste’s accident. And of course, we were all stunned, shocked. It was terrible news. We forgot, for that moment, that you had fallen asleep in your granddad’s bed. Then we heard a crying. And the policeman said, “Who’s that?” And Septimus looked at me, and so did your dad, and we were all thinking the same thing. Was whoever did this going to come after you? You had been saved for a reason but there was too much to think through and no time and so I just said it, right then. Just popped out of me mouth. I said, “Oh that’s my daughter, Rosie.” And then I went to fetch you.’ She tightened her grip on my hand. ‘It wasn’t organised. It just happened. And it worked.’

  I sat back and thought through the logic of it and said, ‘And that was it? You took me and nobody ever raised an eyebrow?’

  Dad shook his head. ‘Celeste hadn’t registered your birth yet. We went to Maureen’s sister, Auntie Babs, and stayed with her. Then we registered you as our own. Stayed with Babs till I could find a new job and a new home in South Essex, then we moved there with you, had new neighbours, and no one was any the wiser.’

  ‘Apart from Septimus.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Dad. ‘But he thought it was a good idea too. For a while. Then …’ he paused. ‘Then later he thought it was time we ought to tell you. We didn’t.’

  I nodded. I had an inkling of when that might have been. There was a memory that persisted, possibly from when I was about eight years old. It was here. At the Witch Museum. I was recording something for granddad. Or was I doing something else for granddad? Moving something? I couldn’t quite remember. Only that there had been a fight. Or at least cross words between Dad and Septimus. We never came back.

  ‘Me and yer dad had been trying for a while to start a family,’ said my mum and smiled at my dad. ‘But hadn’t been successful yet, so everyone was pleased to see you when you appeared. People just thought we’d got lucky, after all.’

  ‘Don’t talk about it any more,’ I said. ‘That’s all I want to know.’

  It
was the mention of them trying for a baby that brought tears to my eyes. Not in an emotional way. You just don’t like to think of your parents in flagrante, do you?

  It was enough explanation for the time being.

  Plus, I’d heard as much as I could manage. I didn’t want to look at myself and wonder why I hadn’t suspected any of it before. Why I had failed to pick up any hints? I mean – it was pretty massive stuff.

  But now I was devoid of the energy to work out what it meant.

  To my parents, about my parents. About me.

  About what was wrong with me.

  The sound of a cough, a purposeful announcing sort of interruption, came from the direction of the living room and took me away from that summer day of bleeding hearts and revelations.

  I was grateful to him.

  ‘So now you’ve brought the box in here to stare at?’ said Sam. But he was smiling. In his hand he had a sheet of paper. ‘I suppose it’s progress of a sort.’

  I turned and nodded. ‘I’ve found a notebook.’ And I waved it at him.

  ‘That’s a good start,’ he said with a grin and stepped through the doorway. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said and placed it carefully back in the box. ‘But I’m thinking I should try to see Araminta de Vere.’

  His face dropped and his mouth opened. But then he closed it and kind of ducked, bent his face down in a manner that made me think of surrender, and made a nodding movement. ‘Okay. If you really need it. I’ll come too. If you’d like?’ Which was supportive.

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t know whether I wanted him to or not.

  He lifted his face and we stared at each other across the room.

  I think he was waiting for me to say something but I was waiting for him.

  The air between us crackled.

  ‘Well,’ he said, and shook his head gently. ‘Whatever. Look.’ Then he held the ream of paper out. ‘Here’s the story: Man-Sized in Marble.’

  I was kind of pleased for the distraction. It’d be nice to be taken out of myself and into an engaging piece of fiction.

  Trundling closer to him, but not too close, I took the pages, glancing over the opening sentences: ‘Although every word of this story is as true as despair, I do not expect people to believe it. Nowadays a “rational explanation” is required before belief is possible. Let me then, at once, offer the “rational explanation” which finds most favour among those who have heard the tale of my life’s tragedy. It is held that we were “under a delusion” …’ That sounded promising. I was instantly engaged. In fact the opening chimed well with me. I had reached the point now, where I truly thought that although ninety-nine per cent of unusual phenomena had a psychological or logical explanation. There was still one per cent that didn’t.

  My own personal jury was out on the who, the why and the how.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d ever make my mind up for sure. These days those sorts of questions were plaguing me more often than they ever had before, leading me down dead ends and navigating endless roundabouts.

  ‘Is it good?’ I asked Sam, waving the story at him, just as I had the notebook minutes before. Oh yeah – I could do with several distractions right now.

  ‘I haven’t read it yet.’ He smiled. His eyes had softened to a honey brown which reminded me of cartoon beavers. He was feeling gentle. ‘Will do. In bed.’

  Bed. Yes. I nodded and felt that my head was heavy. I was, I realised now, very, very tired. Washed out and depleted. I yawned. ‘That’s a good idea,’ I said. ‘Might do the same.’

  As I turned to reach for my dressing gown, he touched my arm. ‘You okay?’ he murmured and moved his index finger up my forearm. ‘Really?’

  ‘I suppose. All things considering.’ It was my standard response. It made me sound like my dad. Who was not my dad.

  I sighed.

  He watched my face collapse. ‘You look done in.’ The aftershocks of the summer’s earthquake still rippled through me from time to time. And sometimes I just simply didn’t have the energy to keep my mask in place.

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ he went on. ‘What with the funeral. I hadn’t thought of it but it must bring back memories of …’ he stopped, realising perhaps if I hadn’t already thought about it then he shouldn’t be the one to flag up that dark sealed-in steamy day when we commended my grandmother’s coffin of bones and her mummified head to the sacred ground where my grandfather had lain awaiting his lost wife.

  Sam swallowed, cleared his throat and made his voice jauntier. ‘Well let’s see – driving to Damebury when we least expected it, Graham Peacock’s mysterious death, the spectre of avenging knights, a wolf in the woods. All pretty exciting and draining.’

  ‘Yep,’ I said, ready to catch on to this less exhausting thread. ‘A day in the life of the Witch Museum team.’

  His mouth kinked and he leant against the doorframe. ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.’

  I smiled back too. He said this on occasion. It meant ‘the more things change, the more things stay the same’. And it was so very apt to describe my time of tenure at the museum.

  ‘Let’s call it a day,’ he was saying. ‘I’ve got a film back from Monty that I want to look through. I’ll turn everything off.’

  I thanked him and began to close the door. ‘Can you turn off my head too?’

  I heard him say, ‘I’d like to try.’

  But I knew he was just being nice. That’s what he was like – a wonderful, caring individual, who was smart, handsome and wise.

  He deserved much better than me: a blousy, bombastic Benefit Fraud inspector who had failed to inspect the most massive fraud at the centre of her life, the nature of her very being.

  Yes, Sam Stone could do better than that indeed.

  And so he should.

  I squirmed out of my clothes.

  Then I slipped into the bed that I had slept on that night thirty-three years ago when my grandfather laid me, so gently, down on its sheets.

  When Maureen Strange picked me up and clutched me tight to her heart.

  When Celeste, my mother, breathed her last bubbled breath beneath the waters of Piskey Brook.

  Rain began to patter at the window stutteringly, like long-suppressed teardrops finding release.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘There was certainly an eerie similarity to the state in which Mr Peacock’s corpse was found,’ Sam agreed. ‘We should see if we can find photos of the poor man in situ.’

  The countryside flanked us quietly, as we drove through the damp gloom to Damebury. It was drizzling though not cold. But the sky was unhappy and grey.

  ‘Spot on,’ I said. ‘Yes, we need to speak to the police or coroner. Monty can be approached in that regard. I’ll give him a call later. There are other things we also need help with. I have transcribed the list of residents, staff and lecturers that Sophia gave you. I’ll email it as a follow-up to the inimitable Mr Walker once we’ve touched base.’ I was at ease once more. All thoughts of my troubled parentage, the dubious question marks that hung over my head, my total inability to deduce the fundamental precepts on which my life was built – all of that would have to wait. I was an investigator again with a case in hand. And I was good at it. At least, I knew what to do. And how to behave. Well kind of. And I had a lot of experience I could rely on – I understood the ropes, I got results.

  Sam nodded and looked out the window. ‘I hope you’re adjusting your speed in accordance with the slippery road surfaces. Breaking distance doubles.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said and gritted my teeth. ‘All right.’

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam shrug. ‘Well you nearly got that detectorist back in the village.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘He shouldn’t have been standing in the middle of the road.’ Like a lemon and looking at the floor, I thought but didn’t say.

  Adder’s Fork had experienced a brief influx of treasure hunters over the summer. Thankfully a new
series of Strictly had started and, when the aforementioned booty had not given itself up at once, a lot of those who had flocked to our little corner of Essex got bored and drifted off back to the telly.

  Sam didn’t comment.

  I continued to swerve our way round the rural lanes and byways.

  The area around our destination was quite hilly and far too picturesque for a county that was meant to be flat and uninteresting, which I remarked upon to Sam. ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell anyone or they’ll all be wanting to move here.’

  Then he pointed out a sign for Butt Green and the pair of us indulged in some teenage sniggering.

  ‘Did you hear back from Laura?’ I asked, mentally ticking off the questions we’d raised yesterday but hadn’t answered. See – logical mind reasserting itself. ‘Who knew about her story choice? That it was specifically Man-Sized in Marble?’

  He got his phone out and fiddled with it. ‘Yes, she said that she sent the information and story details out a good three months in advance when the course had been booked up, and suggested everyone read it prior to coming down.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘suppose that narrows it down to the ten participants – two lecturers and eight students. No one outside of them would have known about the content. There’s the housekeeper who got the day off yesterday, but I’m not sure she would have been required to read it. But we can ask.’

  Sam frowned. ‘Double bend or series of bends coming up. You might want to …’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, ‘reduce my speed.’ And put my foot down on the brake quite roughly.

  He lurched. ‘Now, I’m assuming Chris Devlin would know of it.’ Sam gripped the dashboard. ‘I imagine he and Laura must have discussed the course prior to commencing.’

  The roads were actually rather sharply angled. ‘What?’ I was quite grateful I’d slowed right down. Wow. Sam was having a positive effect on me.

  ‘He’s the other author, the one that Cullen reported didn’t make it,’ he explained, raising his voice as if I was deaf, not just distracted. ‘I was saying that, presumably, he knew. About the text. The story.’