Strange Tombs

by Syd Moore

  I thought she’d pick me up on my slang but she didn’t. Prison life was making her less spiky.

  ‘Oh right,’ she said, and pulled down her sweatshirt and crossed her arms. ‘What do you want then?’

  ‘I want to know what happened when you chased Celeste that night. I want to know who the man was.’

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I did wonder if you’d remember that part.’ She tossed her Susan Boyle back and said to herself, ‘Makes no odds I hazard. Araminta can tell. But cooperation will be looked upon favourably, one hopes.’

  Oh blimey. This one hoped she hadn’t actually lost the plot altogether.

  ‘All right then,’ she said and bared her teeth. ‘What do you want to know?’

  I thought about it and said, truthfully, ‘Anything you can remember.’

  ‘Will you tell your lawyer about me?’ Her eyes narrowed, foxily.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I replied, not that I had a lawyer. But if I ever did, for whatever reason I engaged them, I would tell them that Araminta de Vere was a crazy old bat.

  ‘Araminta, deal-broker,’ she said, and her wonky smile widened. ‘Well, you know what? I’d seen them together earlier in the week. Celeste and he. Outside the museum. Though it had been closed that day. I knew your grandfather was away.’ She sent me a forehead full of frowns. ‘No doubt on one of his barmy investigations, so Celeste had obviously taken the opportunity to get her fancy man in. Though that’s not what she called him, when I stopped to say hello.’

  ‘No?’ I said feeling my heart beat a little faster.

  ‘Called him her “partner”. Ridiculous term, I always thought. Like it was a business enterprise.’ She peered down her nose, waiting to deliver the motherload. ‘He was pushing you in your pram.’

  The image blew across my brain: Celeste laughing, long dark hair like Ethel-Rose, pink lips, her hand crooked through that of this man, who for some reason I had dressed in a gaberdine suit like the one I had found hanging in Septimus’s wardrobe. In his hands the man was gripping the handle of a big old-fashioned pram with a pretty fabric hood. And he was smiling. I could have got lost in the picture but I didn’t have long and needed to really stay on task. ‘Did Celeste give him a name?’

  Araminta paused, as if surprised by the question. Then she said, ‘It was foreign. And when he greeted me he was exceptionally polite. He had an accent. Possibly French.’

  Wow, I thought, but pushed on. ‘And what was his name?’

  I watched her squint her eyes and reach back into the past. ‘It was possible it began with an “A”,’ she said and unfolded her arms so she could tap the side of her Boyle. ‘Anton?’ She looked up at the ceiling. ‘Or Andre? Antoine? Something like that.’

  I held my breath. ‘Surname?’

  Araminta’s eyes snapped back to me. ‘Oh she wouldn’t have said that, oh no. Not one for formalities was your mother.’

  It felt strange hearing her say those words: your mother. It had back in the summer when Araminta had been bashing my head on the floor. It did now, as she sat opposite me, an inmate.

  ‘And what was he like?’ I mused out loud, omitting the unvoiced ‘my father’, if that indeed was what he was. Not just some passing boyfriend. Or ‘partner’.

  For some reason this irritated her. ‘Like?’ she said, pushing her lips together like a stewed prune. ‘Like? I don’t know.’ She shook her head in short sharp jabs. ‘Can’t recall,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Oh come on, Araminta,’ I said in exasperation. ‘You must remember. That day – it changed everything. It was memorable.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She paused. I was surprised by her cooperation. ‘Well, he was tall. And well-dressed. Dark hair. Quite fastidious I thought. Not the type you might think Celeste would go for, she had always had a taste for a wilder kind of man.’

  ‘What colour eyes?’ I asked, flashing my own at her to see if they prompted any memories.

  ‘Oh I don’t know. It was such a long time ago.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Well go on. What happened?’

  ‘I didn’t see them for long. Maybe a minute or two. But I had the impression they really weren’t happy about seeing me.’

  Completely understandable. I mean, who would be? I thought, then quashed it. I needed to keep her on side. ‘So then later? Before the accident?’

  She screwed her face up and sniffed. ‘I think I told you about that in summer.’

  ‘Tell me again,’ I said. My voice sounded hard. But the command in it produced compliance.

  ‘All right,’ said Araminta. ‘Well, you know, that afternoon, when I found out from padre what had gone on with the girl, Celeste, and he’d told me about the whole sordid story, well obviously, I was shocked, mortified really, you see. And when I realised he’d let the girl go … Well, you can imagine, can’t you, we couldn’t have that. All our dirty linen ready to be aired by that, that,’ she caught sight of my face and moderated her tone. ‘That woman,’ she said with more prudence than I would have imagined her capable of.

  ‘So,’ I kept the anger out of my voice and nudged her on. ‘You got into the car to find her and went down to the Witch Museum?’

  ‘That bloody place,’ she said, lips stiffening. ‘If only it had never been built at all!’

  I was careful not to betray any more feeling so repeated. ‘Did you get to the museum?’

  ‘Not quite,’ she said. ‘As I was approaching, Celeste’s car shot out of the drive. He was in the passenger seat. She was going very fast. I hung back, at first, then followed them down Hobleythick Lane. It was a terrible night. Oh, the weather was awful. One of the trees had already come down in the village near the vicarage. The wind was up and there were leaves flying all over the place.’

  I nodded. Same as Dad had described.

  Araminta sucked her teeth for a moment. ‘It didn’t take me long to see they were heading for Chelmsford. The new road hadn’t been built then, and they were bombing down towards the brook. I guessed they were going to go into the police station to tell them what had happened. Couldn’t let that happen, could I?’

  Just to egg her on I shook my head. ‘I understand.’ Though it pained me.

  ‘Now it might come as some surprise to you, but I did not have murder on my mind. I thought I would buy Celeste. Everyone has their price, as they say. Some more than others.’

  Buy my mother indeed! Like she was something that could be owned. Like her silence was buyable! My lips pursed.

  ‘As they were turning the bend on Piskey Lane, I put my foot down and accelerated. Booted them right up the bottom,’ she said and laughed.

  I clenched my teeth determined not to react, but wait and listen and learn.

  ‘Only had to do it once,’ she continued. ‘That old banger wasn’t much cop and went spinning round and round across the road. When it started careering over the grass, down towards the brook, I parked my own and got out. Started running towards it because I thought it might fall straight in. But it hit a tree. There was a tremendous bang and that’s what stopped it. Smoke started coming out of the bonnet. I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there. Then I heard you crying.’ She nodded at me and for a moment her face looked less nutty than before. It reminded me she was a mother too. ‘When I reached the car, I saw you in there. Still strapped in. You were all right. But both Celeste and the man were out for the count. And there was …’ she paused, ‘… there was blood on the windscreen.’

  ‘Did you check to see if they were alive?’ I asked but she shook her head.

  ‘Did think about it, but then I realised this might be a gift from God. A good way to solve the problem.’

  My stomach turned over. How on earth could she think that divine intervention? She was deluded. Completely mad. Prison was where she belonged. For as long as possible.

  ‘And I thought the car might blow up,’ she went on oblivious to my dark machinations. ‘So I got you out and then got Araminta out of there as soon as I could. Dropped you off, li
ke I said, at the Witch Museum.’

  I leant forwards on my elbows and rubbed my head. ‘And that’s it?’ I wasn’t sure I could cope with any more.

  ‘And that’s it.’ She re-folded her arms.

  ‘Not much to go on,’ I said out loud and regretted it, for as I looked into her face I saw she knew instantly what my plan was.

  ‘Oh no, no,’ she said and wagged a finger at me. ‘Not now. Not after all these years. You can’t possibly think of finding him.’

  ‘Might be my father,’ I said and shrugged.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ she said with a sincerity that completely took me off my guard.

  Why would she warn me off? I wondered. After all, like she’d said, she had nothing to lose. ‘Why not?’ I regarded her with close attention.

  ‘Because your mother drowned in the brook,’ she said simply.

  ‘I know,’ I returned.

  ‘There was no one else there,’ she said. ‘After I left, there was only him.’

  ‘What?’ I said, as her meaning dawned. ‘You think he might have pushed her in?’

  She shrugged. ‘He wasn’t there when they found her, was he?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘Well?’ said Sam when I got back to the museum. He had a nervous energy circling his body and was fidgeting even more than he had in The Griffin’s beer cellar. ‘How did it go?’

  He came over and helped my coat off and then gave me a hug.

  I wasn’t really expecting it and I think if I hadn’t been so mentally exhausted I might have given in to a blush. But it just wasn’t in me. I hugged him back very briefly and then looked around for something to lean on. Sam didn’t look like he was going anywhere.

  I was exceedingly pleased the museum was closed, and went and propped myself against the ticket office ledge. ‘It was informative and a bit of an ordeal. She’s given me some info but I still need to see Big Ig.’

  Sam picked up my bag. He had my jacket folded over his arm. ‘Monty will keep his promise. You’ll see him. You just have to be patient. Really. I know it’s not your forte but try to keep tight.’

  ‘I just want to know everything now,’ I said. There was a bit of a pronounced pout in there.

  ‘And you can,’ Sam said and offered me his hand. ‘But remember, now and then, what you’re really looking for is often right under your nose. You just don’t see it sometimes.’

  I looked at him, standing there with his arm stretched out to me and I took it.

  ‘Come on,’ he said and led me into the darkness of the museum.

  I wasn’t sure where this was going, or what we were doing or where we were going to end up but I was so tired I gave up thinking and just went with the flow, past the torture instruments, the folklore, the poppets and the old hedgewitch.

  I stopped at the foot of the stairs to our quarters – they seemed a long way up. But Sam tightened his grip on my hand and pulled me. He was strong, and I felt some of his strength pass into my body. Then with each step I took, a warmth began to build. Inside me my spirits were rising.

  I was coming home.

  I was back.

  When Sam opened the door to the living room, I blinked hard: the place was full of light. A deeply autumnal amber coloured the room, flooding in through the west-facing windows.

  And I stepped into it.

  Outside, the sun was setting. The evergreen trees that bordered our museum dipped and bobbed, basking in the mellow glow, like it was some vast and dark emerald sea.

  Sam led me into the middle of the room so I could feel the subtle warmth of the sun on my face, and shining on my hair.

  ‘I retrieved it from amongst the jumble,’ he said. Then he walked me over to the fire and sat me on the comfy chair. ‘I hope you don’t mind. It was in the box in your room. The notebook,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time, don’t you?’

  Then he pointed to it, on the coffee table next to a glass of poured wine. As I stared, a slim shard of sunshine fell upon it, illuminating the mustard cover so that for a moment I had the sense the book itself was glittering.

  ‘Your birthday is September twenty-first, isn’t it?’ Sam asked.

  I nodded and reached for the slight and floppy paperback.

  ‘Because this looks like Celeste’s handwriting to me,’ he said and with that, retreated quietly closing the door.

  And so I took it onto my lap and opened the first page.

  ‘15th of December 1982’ the entry began.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Astute Essexians may have deduced that my Damebury is very similar to Danbury, a small village on a hill three hundred and sixty-seven feet high. It was in the thirteenth-century church sited there, St John the Baptist, that a knight’s tomb was indeed discovered. Another was discovered later. According to The Gentleman Magazine of 1779, that occupant was said to be without any signs of decay, pickled in a solution that, yep, tasted like ketchup. Those who are interested in finding out more about this most fascinating episode can find the article online.

  The new discoveries have (sadly perhaps) come straight out of my imagination. However there have been stories of ghosts and secret tunnels leading from The Griffin to the church circulating for decades, though none to this day have been found. I should also add here that the cellars and their contents are products of my fancy. Though The Griffin itself is indeed a delightful pub with an excellent menu.

  E. Nesbit’s story helped fire my imagination and if you would like to read it, this too can also be found with a quick google. It is entitled Man-Sized in Marble and I would recommend it to those who like their stories full of suspense and superstition. As Tabby Walker attests, ‘It’s a damn good read.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  It was Martin Frampton, the headmaster of North Street Juniors, who first told me, many years ago, about the Pickled Knights of Danbury, so it is he who must be first thanked. Without that playground chat this book would never have happened and I’m very grateful to him for it – and also for educating my son!

  Thanks must go, as always to Jenny Parrott, my editor, who is simply fantastic and a great support in all my ‘strange’ endeavours. Margot Weale, is nothing like Margot Lovelock. A more hard-working and lovely publicist, I swear, could not be found. Same goes for Thanhmai Bui-Van, my sales manager, who is irrepressible, full of good nature and energy. My gratitude also goes to Juliet Mabey, Novin Doostdar, Harriet Wade, Paul Nash, Laura McFarlane and all the team at Oneworld for making these books and their jackets so great.

  I am also indebted to the eagle-eyed Francine Brody, who has helped me a lot with this script.

  My husband, Sean, and son, Riley, are also to be praised for their unerring guidance and encouragement. This must be extended to my mum, dad, step-mum, step-dad, brother, sister, step-brother and step-sister, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends too many to mention. Special exceptions include Rachel Litchtenstein, Colette Bailey, Steph Roche and Kate Bradley.

  I have had a few conversations with people who have helped my work to evolve: Sarah Ditum, Ros Green, Cathi Unsworth, Chris Simmons, Ben Nicholson and Jane Gull. Thank you for your input. It’s always valuable.

  And I must thank, super-fan, Birte Twissleman for her fantastic support and unstinting enthusiasm, and Mark Lancaster for his companionship and most excellent driving.

  Jo Farrugia wanted her daughter named after a baddie, so I think I’ve nailed that one.

  Big up to the Essex Girls Liberation Front – Jo, Elsa and Sarah. Check them out on Facebook.

  If there’s anyone I’ve forgotten to thank, please forgive the omission – the feeling is there even if the names elude me.

  Final thanks, of course, go to my readers. Strange Tombs is, as always, for you.

  A Point Blank Book

  First published in North America, Great Britain & Australia by Point Blank, an imprint of Oneworld Publications, 2019

  This ebook published 2019

  Copyright © Sydney
Moore 2019

  The moral right of Sydney Moore to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright under Berne Convention

  A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-78607-448-5

  ISBN 978-1-78607-449-2 (eBook)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Oneworld Publications

  10 Bloomsbury Street

  London WC1B 3SR

  England

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