by McNeir, Leo
“So that’s why she killed herself.”
“Yes. Also Marnie had an idea that Sarah Anne might have had a special feeling for the vicar. That would have made matters even worse, quite unbearable.”
“Yes, I can see that,” said Anne. “But they were all in it, the whole village.”
“I can’t imagine they’d all agree with killing the vicar,” said Ralph, “apart from a few extremists, perhaps. That’s the kind of strife that can divide a community for generations, long after the original cause is forgotten or no longer relevant.” They sat in silence for some moments, drinking coffee, watching the sun rise, dispersing the early mist and warming the air.
“I understand all that about the boobytrap,” said Anne, “but I’m not sure about why it was there and why they thought the vicar would be in that place anyway. How did the blacksmith know it would work?”
“Do you know what a priest’s hole is, Anne?”
“A hiding place. Was it for catholic priests when they were being persecuted? We did a history project about Tudors and Stuarts at school. But that was a lot earlier, Henry the Eighth’s time.”
“That’s right. It must have been a priest’s hole, originally.”
“But then the vicar would know about it,” said Anne.
“Which is why it was so dangerous. I believe the hiding place was created when the new clock was installed in the mid-fifteen hundreds. That was the same time that priests were under threat and often in danger if they refused to accept the new order of the Church of England. The blacksmith at the time, one of the Day family, would have been involved in fitting the clock mechanism into the tower. They would have needed metal frameworks and so on. They must have built the priest’s hole when they did that work.”
“Just as a hiding place,” said Anne.
“Yes. And the church would have accepted a simple wooden partition as the door and no-one would see it from outside. It was a clever plan.”
“So that meant the church and the blacksmiths would know about it,” said Anne.
“Exactly.”
“So did the blacksmiths change sides?”
“Good question. You have to remember that many people were attracted to the new ways and many could not tolerate what King Charles was doing. In a civil war people decide where they stand according to their own beliefs, not according to their country or where they live. Brothers fought against brothers.”
“I know what you mean. In the church leaflet it said that most of the village wanted the Roundheads to win, but the vicar and some of the others were High Church and supported the Cavaliers.”
“That’s the point,” said Ralph, tapping the table for emphasis. “After all the misery caused by the war, the last thing the village wanted was a traitor in their midst, someone who’d be able to get up to a high place and give signals under cover of darkness to Royalist soldiers in the area.”
“The top of the church tower!” said Anne.
“The only tall building in the village,” said Ralph. “And it had a built-in hiding place that the vicar thought only he knew about.”
“So the blacksmith turned it into a trap to murder him. That’s really gruesome.”
“Well, I suppose there was a kind of harsh justice about it. The vicar was only in danger if he betrayed the villagers. If he signalled the enemy and then tried to hide, he’d put his life at risk, just as he’d put the community in danger by helping the King’s men.”
“And that was how it happened.”
“Yes. The vicar must’ve been seen signalling from the tower. He saw the torches approaching and took refuge in the hiding place. The trap was sprung and he was killed, leaving no evidence of a murderer.”
“Do you think the villagers only pretended they couldn’t find anyone, or did they know all along?”
“Impossible to tell. I expect most of them had no idea how it had happened, and if anyone did, they were hardly going to admit it, in case they were accused of complicity and sent to the gallows.”
“Jonathan Day knew, but he was wounded in Hungtingdon,” said Anne.
“A perfect alibi, as long as no-one knew he had built the trap.”
“So poor Sarah Anne killed herself out of shame. Why did her father put that quote from the psalms after his signature?”
Ralph shrugged. “Hard to say. It may have been like a form of private atonement. Remember there was no priest at the time who could hear his confession. The murder must have weighed heavily on his conscience.”
“Now he has two murders to bear, and it could’ve been three or four,” said Anne sombrely. “I wonder how the machine worked. It must have been very clever to be working after all this time.”
“That I don’t know,” said Ralph. “But I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”
*
The talk in the village shop was of nothing but the events surrounding the discovery of the infernal machine. Molly Appleton had decided that it was best to be candid about every aspect of the matter and bring it out into the open, with the exception of the incident involving Albert Fletcher and Randall Hughes. The murder of Toni Petrie had filled the village with a sense of horror that the ancient hatred should have come back from beyond the graves of generations to infect their lives all these years later. Pauline Fairbrother called in after being turned away from the church by the young constable guarding the entrance.
“He told me I couldn’t go in with the church flowers,” she said, incredulous. “As if I was going to disturb anything. But he said no-one was allowed in until the place was declared safe. I’ve left the flowers in the porch for the time being.”
“They have to go through the proper form,” said George Stubbs, who had come in for his regular order of cigars. “Talking of flowers, can you order me some from Interflora, Molly? I want to send a bunch to Marnie Walker in hospital.”
“You’re the third this morning,” said Molly.
“Can you make sure I don’t send the same as the others then? Poor girl will be bored stiff if she just gets pink carnations all the time!” Molly pulled the catalogue from under the counter and began flicking through the pages.
“You can choose whatever you want, Mr Stubbs, and I’ll tell you if you clash with anyone else.” She turned the catalogue round towards him.
“I saw Anne being driven back last night by that friend of Marnie’s,” said Mrs Fairbrother. “Is he staying down there?” There was a hint of disapproval in her tone.
George Stubbs looked up from the catalogue. “I hope so, Pauline” he said firmly. “I’m quite sure her parents would prefer her to be looked after by someone like that, what I would call a ‘gentleman’, rather than have her left on her own after all that’s happened to her.”
“Oh yes,” said Mrs Fairbrother. “I’m sure you’re right, George. Molly, have you got a suitable ‘get-well’ card?”
*
The police car cruised past the shop as they were talking and came to a halt by the church gate. Bartlett and Marriner got out and walked up the path at an easy pace. The air in the church was cool and Marriner led the way up the steps of the tower. When they reached the landing beside the wooden partition, they switched on the temporary light that had been set up and examined the hiding place. The partition had been jammed open by a substantial block of wood, creating a gap large enough to allow inspection of the interior.
“I’m not going to get my bloody head chopped off if I stick it through here, am I?” said Bartlett.
“Probably not, sir,” said Marriner cheerfully. Bartlett knelt down and peered in. “At least,” Marriner went on, “if you do, it can only happen once.” He could not quite make out the exact wording of Bartlett’s growled reply, but he got the gist of it.
“Christ almighty!” Bartlett exclaimed. “Oh, bugger, I shouldn’t say that here, should I? Have you had a look at this, Ted?”
“Just a quick decko last night, sir, before the light was put in. I had a torch.”
“Have a look now,” said Bartlett, crawling out backwards with extreme care. “Mind you don’t touch anything. It’s amazing, the size of it. And to think it’s been here all this time and nobody knew anything about it.”
Marriner looked in. “No wonder Frank Day got his ankle broken,” he said. “He was damn’ lucky the thing didn’t get him.”
“It would have if that girl hadn’t been there,” said Bartlett. “How did he come to get his ankle stuck in the door, anyway?”
“It seems she grabbed him as the thing sprang open and they fell in a heap. The blade missed him by a whisker, but when he fell, his leg flew up and the door slammed shut on it. That’s how we were able to see in. The paramedics forced the panel open to get him free and kept it wedged with kneeling pads from the church. I’ve asked one of the builders from Glebe Farm to prize it open so we can see what needs to be done.”
“When’s he coming?”
“Any time now,” said Marriner, looking at his watch.
*
Bob the foreman saw Anne and Ralph coming through the spinney and went down from the first floor of cottage number one to meet them. “Are you all right, me dook?” he said to Anne. “We were worried when we heard what had happened.”
“Worried there’d be no-one to make your tea?” said Anne with a smile.
“Something like that. The police came down as soon as we got here. Sergeant Marriner wants me to have a look in the tower and see what’s what. He said to tell you that only I was to come, nobody else. Strict orders.”
“We’re coming with you,” said Anne, looking up at Ralph.
“That’s what he said you’d say,” said Bob.
*
It seemed that the further Bob crawled forward to see round the wooden panel, the further his trousers slipped down at the back. Anne had heard of the term ‘builder’s cleavage’ and now, despite the initial nervousness she had felt at returning to the tower, it was all she could do not to laugh out loud.
Ralph noticed her expression. “Things are looking up,” he whispered. Anne spluttered and began coughing to camouflage it.
Bob’s voice boomed from beyond the panel. “Bloody ‘ell! Oh, pardon my French! You should see this bug …er, this thing.”
“Can you see how it works?” Bartlett called out to Bob’s behind.
“Hang on a minute,” came the reply. “What’s this here? Oh, yes, I see.” There was a series of mutterings, some of it expletive, and Bob inched backwards out of the gap. Everyone present on the crowded landing watched his every move for any sign that the machine might swing into action.
“May I take a look?” said Ralph. Before Bartlett could stop him, he knelt and looked in, studying the mechanism in silence for some seconds. “It seems to be a system of weights and pulleys, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s right, me dook,” said Bob. “If you wobble the top step and then pull that stone up there over your head, it moves back just a fraction. Can you see?”
“Yes,” said Ralph. “It moves a lever out of its slot.”
“That’s it,” said Bob. “And then that big stone in the leather sling drops down and makes the door swing open while the scythe blade flies out.”
“It swings like a pendulum,” said Ralph. “It must go at a tremendous speed.” He looked up at the blade above him and realised that the rusty stains on it included the blood of Toni Petrie. He shivered. “What makes it close again?”
“That’s the clever part,” said Bob. “There’s another stone in another sling and it acts as a balance. When the blade swings back, the lever catches in the slot and shuts the door fast. You’d never know it had been opened.”
“And moving the stone before the blade system was put in, would just be a simple way of opening the door,” said Marriner.
Bartlett shook his head. “It’s a miracle that no-one else has been killed by it over the years.”
“Do you think so?” said Ralph. “After all, it was designed to be hidden, and very cleverly designed at that. We couldn’t spring it despite all our deliberate attempts. The first vicar knew how to open the priest’s hole. As for Toni …”
“Cruel luck,” said Bob.
Bartlett nodded. “It’s certainly a miracle that Mrs Walker ever survived.”
The group stood in silence, contemplating the awful ingenuity and the horror that it had caused across the ages. Suddenly, Ralph became aware that Anne was no longer with them. She had slipped away without a sound.
“Excuse me,” he said and set off down the steps. He knew she would not be laughing when he found her.
29
A week later Anne made her way up to the ward where Marnie was continuing to make a good recovery. Her parents had finally managed to arrive from Spain and had stayed in a hotel to enable them to make frequent visits. Now, they had gone to spend a few days with Beth and Paul in London. Ralph had gone back to Oxford for two days to sort out his affairs, but rang frequently for progress reports and would be returning at the weekend.
Marnie had had a succession of visitors, all of them timetabled by Anne, who organised a daily appointments list. George Stubbs had brought a Range Rover load up from the village and Anne’s parents had come bearing home-made cakes, lemon curd and biscuits. Another time there had been Marnie’s former colleagues from the office in London. On one day a deputation arrived from Little Venice, driven up by Roger Broadbent. Gary and Mrs Jolly were the first to walk in.
“Cor blimey, Marnie,” said Gary. “You look like death warmed up.” Mrs Jolly rolled her eyes to the ceiling, but Marnie gave her best smile.
“Oh good,” she said. “I’m glad there are signs of improvement.”
“Improvement?” said Mrs Jolly.
“Yes,” said Marnie. “I was admitted as a murder victim, after all.”
“Well, fair enough,” said Gary. “In that case you’re doing all right.”
Cards wishing Marnie well had arrived in great numbers, including many from people who did not know her personally, but knew of her through her donation of the drawings for the gallery at the National Canal Museum. This connection had led to media coverage of the attempted murder by the person dubbed ‘the invisible man’ in the popular press. The case had seized the public imagination with all its bizarre elements: the Civil War mystery, the murder of two vicars, the involvement of a woman vicar for the first time in a major news story. The miraculous survival of Marnie and, of course, the solving of the mystery by Anne, were the news editor’s dream human angle. She was dubbed ‘schoolgirl sleuth’, ‘up-and-coming young designer-detective’ or ‘kid super-dick’, depending on the newspaper. Ralph saw to it that Anne gave one interview to a group of journalists and then kept her out of the public eye. She needed no persuasion.
Anne turned into the ward where Marnie was now recovering and she was stopped in her tracks. The ward contained only four beds and Marnie’s was situated in the far corner. Today, it was barely visible behind a bank of flowers that cut her off from the rest of the world. A nurse bustled in with an armful of vases and the other women in the ward were enjoying the spectacle; it was good to have something to talk about, apart from their own ailments.
“Is anybody in there?” said Anne.
“Hack your way in,” came a remote voice. “Try not to trip over the gorillas. I think I’ll be the hospital’s first case of terminal hay-fever.” Marnie pulled herself up to sit straight but sudden sharp pains in her chest and back made her wince. The colour drained from her face and she took some seconds to recover.
Anne put a hand on Marnie’s arm. “Are you all right?” she whispered.
Marnie opened her eyes, gave a weak smile and breathed in deeply but gently. “Fine,” she said quietly. “I’ll tell you something. Being murdered is no joke. Don’t make a habit of it.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” said Anne, pulling up a chair. She waited patiently in silence.
Marnie looked at her and smiled again. “Getting there,” she said so
ftly. “Tell me about Glebe Farm.”
“Everything’s under control.” Anne produced a list from her bag. “The bank made the payment to the builders. Mike Thomas is coming up on Tuesday to see about tenders for the church porch. Willards have written to approve the costings for The Irish Navigator. Philip phoned to say work will start in three weeks.”
“That’s a relief,” said Marnie. “You’ve done wonders. Are you getting enough to eat?”
“No probs. Molly Appleton has given me enough to feed an army. She’s also given me tins of cat food for Dolly, who’s become a serial mouser. Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
“Don’t worry. What’s she up to?”
“I think she means well.”
“But?”
“It’s just that, she keeps bringing these mice on board. She probably thinks I need company while you’re away. Anyway, she brings them on board alive and they run all over the place. The exercise is doing me good, I suppose.”
Marnie smiled. “Anne? Have you got something to tell me?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Instinct. My antennae are twitching, along with everything else just now.”
“Well, I had a letter this morning.”
“An offer to sell your story to The Sun?”
“My GCSE results.”
“And?”
“I got an ‘A’ for Art, an ‘A’ for –”
“So it’s Anne with an ‘A’!”
“Anne with five ‘A’s, in fact … and three ‘B’s.”
“Consider yourself well and truly hugged! Come here!” Anne moved closer and let Marnie kiss her on the cheek. “That’s on account. I’ll dance a jig a bit later on. Hey, that’s marvellous! I’m so pleased. We’ll have to make sure we apply in good time for you to go to college after your year working with me.”
“Brilliant,” said Anne. “I’ve got some more news, actually. I hope I’ve done the right thing.”
“I’m sure you have, but you can tell me all the same.”
“You know Mrs Fairbrother, opposite the vicarage? Well, she came down with her daughter Jill last night. It seems Jill’s getting married and wanted to know if the cottages would be ready soon and if they were for sale. I said the first one would be completed by the end of September, but they were for renting.”