‘You had a nightmare.’
She could remember being woken from it vaguely, a soft voice telling her everything was all right, a hand rubbing her shoulders. ‘I dreamed I couldn’t find the baby.’
‘It’s probably that horror story Felix told you yesterday.’
‘It was Yousuf, the forensics professor, who told me the horror story about stealing a baby from its mother. It was bad enough thinking someone did it to Isabeau without hearing people have done it in the modern day.’ She looked across at him. ‘Don’t you like Felix?’
He shrugged. ‘He seems OK.’
‘You’re jealous!’ She started to laugh. ‘Of Felix?’
Nick grinned at her. ‘You were jealous of my volunteer, Mel, as I recall. Anyway, he’s good-looking; he had Lady George and her friends batting their eyelids at the meeting at the manor.’
‘He’s nice, that’s all. And he knows his medieval history, which is really sexy. I once dated someone because they knew all the dates of the War of the Roses. He’s also involved with someone. Anyway, I have to get up. I’ve got to work on the mainland this morning, on the clothing recovered from the grave. It needs to be ready for the textiles experts to start the conservation on Monday.’
‘Working on a Saturday?’
‘It’s the only time the lab isn’t full of students and it won’t take long. What about James? Have you heard anything?’
‘They said they would call if he deteriorated. They think he’s had a bleed into his brain, a stroke.’
Sage put her feet onto a warm patch lit up by a rectangle of sun. ‘Poor man. I really like him.’
‘Poor Judith and Chloe.’ Nick hunched his shoulders. ‘I hate these young deaths. Old people – it’s sad but somehow it feels right. Timely. But James has so much life to live.’
‘And Steph. Twenty years old.’
He grimaced. She remembered his own loss, and rubbed his shoulder briefly before rising heading for the bathroom. The warmth of his skin through the cotton made her hand tingle.
By the time she had showered and cleaned her teeth, she realised she was going to have to cross the bedroom in just a towel, but Nick had already gone into the kitchen. She could smell coffee and toast as she dressed.
He was in yesterday’s clothes, somewhat rumpled, having slept in a T-shirt and boxers. He was texting when she walked in.
‘I don’t have a spare toothbrush, I’m afraid,’ she said.
‘I brought one with me,’ he said, lifting a small bag. ‘Deodorant, razor, toothbrush. You have no idea how often I end up staying in someone’s house unexpectedly.’
‘Part of the job?’
He shrugged. ‘I also come from a big family.’
‘Three sisters.’ She reached for the coffee he had already poured. ‘I remember. Is this decaf?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Thank you.’ She sipped the coffee. Half-ideas flitted through her mind, but she couldn’t pin them down.
Nick turned towards the window, and stretched out his legs. ‘I’m called up to my parents’ a lot. My dad’s got dementia. He’s at the stage where he occasionally doesn’t recognise my mother. Gets upset, even lashes out.’ His profile gave little away. ‘I go over to calm him down, support Mum. She’s not ready to let him go to a home, not just yet.’ He turned to Sage. ‘We all have our problems.’
‘Yes, we do.’ She took a piece of toast and buttered it. ‘Your family’s problems make my baby worries seem trivial.’
‘Nothing about a baby is trivial.’ He smiled at her. ‘You wait until after he or she is born.’
* * *
Sage couldn’t face using her mobile phone although the police assured her they had removed the picture of Steph’s body, and had given the police her work number instead. They had left a message asking her to come to the main police station as soon as she could.
The police station was quiet. She was soon taken through to Inspector Belmont’s office.
‘Dr Westfield, thank you for coming in again.’ He pulled out a chair for her, then sat behind his desk and swivelled his computer screen around so she could see it. ‘This is the best image we could get from the camera footage taken in Bramble Cottage.’
The shadowy figure looked as indistinct as before. ‘That’s it. James – Mr Bassett – thought the camera might capture the person making nuisance calls. Or rather, he wanted to rule out any suspicion of it being someone living in the house.’
Belmont pressed a few keys, and the contrast between light and dark increased. ‘The only features we’ve been able to enhance are the line of the jaw and part of the nose.’
Sage leaned closer, staring at the image. A tiny gleam of light stared back, from the glossy curve of one eye. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it is Mr Bassett.’ The second she said it she dismissed it. ‘No. No, he has a pointier chin.’
‘Dr Westfield, can you think of any reason why someone would be in the Bassetts’ house late at night? We know it’s not the wife, the doctor, or any of their relatives.’
She shrugged. ‘Why are you asking me? I hardly know Judith or James, just through the dig.’ She looked back at the image.
The inspector sat back and folded his arms. ‘To be honest, Dr Westfield—’
‘Sage, please.’
‘Sage. We think the man in the picture, who may have been in the Bassetts’ home, could be Marcus Thompson, your ex-boyfriend. We aren’t sure how he got in; the Bassetts have a modern alarm.’
‘He sold them the house. He must have had the keys and the alarm code, I suppose, when he showed them around. Most people don’t change the locks when they move, I remember him telling me that.’ Sage looked down at her hands.
Belmont’s voice was gentle. ‘I understand he’s the father of your baby.’
‘Yes. We ended it a couple of months ago. Actually, I ended it.’
‘He doesn’t seem to realise that. He says he’s giving you space to deal with the pregnancy.’
She managed a small smile. ‘He’s arrogant. But I haven’t seen him for some weeks and—’ She broke off. ‘Actually, I did think I saw him in Banstock on the first, and a couple of days before that on the ferry. But he sells a lot of property in East Wight, he’s often over there.’
‘But to your knowledge, he never met Stephanie Beatson.’
‘Steph said there was a man hanging around the cottage. He spoke to her, I think, about whether the house would be for sale. She sent him away. She called him a ghoul.’
‘She never mentioned a boyfriend, anyone she might have been involved with?’
Sage thought back to the day they saw Agness Waldren’s memorial. ‘She was hoping Elliott Robinson would ask her out. He wasn’t interested though.’ She looked up. ‘You know, he was deeply involved in the excavation. I took up most of his time and attention.’
Belmont looked at her intensely, and she felt her colour rise. Talking to a policeman always made her feel a bit guilty.
He cleared his throat. ‘We’ll clear the garden as a crime scene shortly. I’ll let you know when you can get back there. I understand you were having the well filled in.’
‘We just have to make sure the garden is left tidy, reseed the ground.’ Unexpected, irrational tears filled her eyes.
Belmont looked sympathetic. ‘I’m sorry. It’s always hard when someone that age dies.’
Sage pulled out a tissue and dabbed her eyes. ‘You are absolutely sure someone did this deliberately?’
‘Yes. And at the moment, everyone who knew Stephanie has to be eliminated as a suspect. Are you going off the Island for any reason?’
She clutched her bag to her chest. ‘Work, and then I’m going over to Hampshire to stay with my mother. Then I have an appointment on Monday on my way back to the Island. I’m hoping to find out more about the textiles we exhumed in the woods in Banstock.’
Belmont made a note. ‘We’ll be in touch.’
50
17th November 1580
&nbs
p; Three dozen iron-hilted knives for the betrothal banquet eighteen shillings
Accounts of Banstock Manor, 1576–1582
The manor is a quiet place now the storm has blown through. The winds have chased away the rain and lightning, but left the first hard frosts, dusting the stone walls and wooden fences with white. The Reverend Matthew Waldren seems caught between relief and guilt at his sister’s disappearance. We can give him no comfort; anyone in that maelstrom was surely dashed to death against the rocks or drowned. Her heavy skirts at least would have made her struggles short.
Viola is strangely affected, sad for the loss of someone who, though troublesome, was part of the life of the manor. She gathers the last of the frost-faded flowers and comes down to the shore with me and Elias. She casts the blossoms onto the edge of the tide, just lapping the sand, quiet again.
We climb the low ridge so she can inspect the shattered tree, cleaved in two by a single bolt from heaven. The scent of charring still hangs in the air. On the ground lies a patch of sand fused into a lump.
‘This must be where the lightning hit,’ she says, touching a finger to it cautiously. ‘Look, Master Vincent.’
I inspect it, but my attention is drawn to figures walking along the shore. Viola recognises them first, with her young eyes.
‘’Tis Master Seabourne and his man,’ she says.
‘Perhaps they seek the—’ my tongue stalls over the word.
‘Body?’ she smiles at me, her mouth a little crooked. ‘Hers is not the first.’
She speaks of a time when a fishing boat, driven off the shores of Portsmouth by high winds, was wrecked upon the ledges. Three men drowned and only one found shelter upon the shore. Viola and her sister Elizabeth were amongst a party that came upon the bodies.
I turn to greet the newcomers. ‘Good morrow, Master Seabourne, Kelley,’ I say, and Viola smiles so widely he cannot but respond.
‘I am sorry to see you upon such a melancholy task,’ says he, looking at her. I see then, as the breeze takes a strand of her fox hair escaped from her hood, and it reaches for him. He is bareheaded, in his shirtsleeves despite the cold, and looks like a young man again. They only have eyes for each other, and I look away as her hand touches his.
‘Viola has found some rock where the lightning struck the ground,’ I say, and she pulls away to lead us to the tree.
Kelley examines the ground, digging around the strange stone, until he pulls out a stick of it. ‘See?’ he says, showing it to Viola. ‘The great heat and light of the storm has made a crude glass from the sand.’ He hefts it, feeling its nature, sniffing at it. It does smell as if it were forged metal. ‘So much heat and light infused into the glass,’ he mused. ‘That force might be of use to your work, Master.’
‘But who can command a storm?’ Viola laughs, touching the thing.
Elias leans over to see it. ‘There’s them that say that witches call up storms. They say Reverend Matthew’s sister summoned a tempest and it blew her away.’ He looks at me, and shrugs. ‘Ignorant people say it’s so.’
It seems to me that many people think so, including our stolid Elias.
* * *
There is no news of Agness but the cold continues, freezing the pond so that the children of the village skate upon the ice to the annoyance of ducks and swans, who needs must sit upon the fields to graze and forage. The weakest of the calves has died, despite being placed in one of the barns, and the berries are shrivelling upon the thorns in the woods.
Reverend Waldren seems almost content that his sister is out of her great sorrow, and is certain that she is in heaven. Myself, I hear strange rumours of a black-faced creature, perhaps a shade, looking in at cottage windows and being snatched away by the wind.
Master Seabourne has been conducting experiments in the grounds of Well House to the disquiet of the villagers. Once he created a thunderclap of his own, and half of his eyebrows were burned, as if he had lighted gunpowder. My brother has allowed him to visit the manor and see Viola in the company of one of the women, but while Isabeau still lives on the Island he will not yet consent to a wedding. He has relented enough to plan a betrothal party, at least.
Isabeau is now resting, her belly great. We pay for her room, food and candles to finish the work of the kirtle she makes for Viola. She mourns her lover, but he is pledged not to see her. I have grown fond of her and enjoy visiting her. Growing up at the French court she is somewhat educated, and we know in common many great lords and ladies in London. Isabeau loves Viola and speaks warmly of her, and her role in the life of little Lily, who grows bonny in the nursery. She has sewn a cap for the baby, with a sprig of lily-of-the-valley flowers as fine as if the embroideries were painted on.
I journey to the port of Ryde to see if a body washed up upon the shore there is indeed Agness. I first call at Isabeau’s lodgings, but there I am greeted by bad news. The local people, much sympathetic to the legend of Agness, have taken to whispering about the ‘French witch’, and her magics and curses. Now, the landlady fears that she cannot protect the woman, or even her own property.
Isabeau stands to greet me, and bows less gracefully, swollen with her babe as she is now. ‘They say Mistress Waldren has drowned, and is washed up on the shore.’ She shudders.
‘Indeed. I am going to inspect the body.’
She indicates her sewing chest. ‘I have finished Viola’s dresses. If I can go to the mainland now, I could escape the rumours.’ She touches the neck of her gown. ‘For you know, Master Vincent, that whatever I am, I am no witch.’
No witch, lady, thinks I, but a papist. That’s the only secret the girl has left. ‘You cannot risk the boat in your condition,’ I answer. ‘You must come back to Banstock.’ I think about the washed-up body. ‘Pack your things, and I will hire a cart to carry you.’ There is a small cottage, dry and warm, but too small for a family on the estate. It is close to Well House, which fills me with misgivings, but at least she can bear her child in peace.
I leave the house with Isabeau’s thanks still in my ears, and walk down the hill to the fisherman’s chapel close to the shore. A sturdy yeoman guards the door, but when he hears my errand, he unbars it and I go inside.
The shutters have been left open for air, and I see why when the body is revealed. The white, swollen thing surely died in the summer when the waters were warmer, for there is little left of the face or the hands and feet, perhaps eroded by the sea or eaten by crabs and fish. The swollen, ragged flesh makes it hard to see whether it is man or woman, although it is naked but for a few rags. It is probably tall enough to be Mistress Agness, and the remaining hair is long, but I have no impression of it being the rector’s demented sister.
‘I know not this person,’ I say, backing away and covering my nose. The stench is vile, and I hack and spit on the ground outside. ‘The woman I seek has only gone into the sea a few days since.’
‘There is a widow coming over on the packet, thinks it might be her husband, fell off the quay at Portsmouth.’ He bars the door and takes a deep breath of sweet air. ‘Sooner in the ground, the better, says I.’
I walk back up the hill to the small row of houses and see that the carrier has arrived and is speaking to some fellow outside the landlady’s door. Isabeau seems to hide inside the open door, away from the raised voice.
‘Is there some problem?’ I ask, as sternly as I am able, which is much I think, for they turn to me immediately and doff their hats.
‘I was just told, yer honour,’ speaks the driver, ‘that I’m to carry a proven witch on my cart.’
‘Nothing of the kind, my man,’ says I, but it takes some persuading and an extra shilling to brighten his eye with enough greed to load the girl’s boxes onto his cart.
I hand Isabeau onto the wagon, where a sturdy bench sits, and resolve to ride with the vehicle until we are home at Banstock.
Vincent Garland, Steward to Lord Banstock, His Memoir
51
Monday 22nd April
> The University of West Sussex’s textiles lab was arranged more like a design studio than any kind of laboratory that Sage had ever seen. Clothes were arranged on mannequins or hung on the wall; pin boards were covered with sketches and samples. The leader of the team was a man in a black velvet suit and a floral shirt that looked like it fell out of the sixties.
‘You must be Sage, Cally told me you were coming over.’ He grasped her hand warmly. ‘I’m Titus Armstrong. I was so sorry to hear what happened to your student.’
‘Thank you.’ Sage managed a tight smile. ‘So, have you been able to identify the fabric?’
‘We have, and extrapolate what the dress itself looked like, partly from the embroidery. It’s a real murder mystery, isn’t it?’
‘How does the embroidery help?’
Titus showed her a sketch of a tight bodice, highly ornamented, and a flaring skirt. ‘They are separate garments,’ he said, putting a pair of half-glasses on his nose. ‘The decoration would only have been where it would have been seen. The base fabric was blue silk, a sort of mid-range turquoise, we think, from GC-MS. We can tell the origins from trace elements. This fabric was incredibly rare in Tudor England, very expensive, bought from Spain. Only the areas that were doubled over, like seams at the armholes, are preserved at all.’
‘We think the dead woman was a seamstress. Maybe it belonged to her.’
Titus raised his eyebrows. ‘I very much doubt it. As I say, the fabric was imported silk, probably from Valencia, gorgeous stuff. If it was buried, we would expect it to be on someone with massive financial clout or social status. Also, the dress was actually draped over the body, she wasn’t wearing it, which is strange.’
‘And the embroidery?’ Sage leaned over more sketches, enchanted by the tracery of flowers.
‘Well, I’m not so much of an expert there, but one of my colleagues, Dr Bashira Enwright, she’s had a look at it, and thinks she recognises some of the knots. It was certainly applied at a later date. The fabric may be from as early as 1530, but the stitching is closer to 1600.’
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