The Body in the Trees

by Richard James

  “May the Fourteenth,” began Melville, jabbing at the paper with a finger, “War Hero Dead At Larton.” He turned to Bowman. “The unfortunate man shot himself in the head.” He picked up another newspaper to lay over the first. “June the Eleventh,” he read from the masthead. “Railwayman Falls From Larton Church Tower.”

  Graves scratched furiously at his notebook, desperately transposing the information beneath each of the lurid headlines.

  “In both cases,” Melville asserted with a stab of his finger, “the verdict returned by the coroner was one of self-murder.”

  “Did you know these men?” Bowman enquired, gently.

  “By sight, at least,” Melville confirmed.

  Graves looked up from his notes. “Were they from the same part of Larton?” he enquired, his pencil poised.

  Melville bent over the table again, indicating each headline with a finger as he spoke. “The railwayman was from the Village.” He flipped to the next edition. “The soldier lived in Larton Dean.” Melville thought. “Is that pertinent, do you think?”

  “Perhaps,” the inspector allowed, gnawing at his lip. “But what of the latest? Fletcher Cousins?”

  “He’s not local at all,” insisted Melville. “Or at least he wouldn’t be considered so.” He turned to the fireplace and walked to the mantel to retrieve a pouch of tobacco and a pipe. “You would have to direct all your questions concerning Cousins to Maxwell Trevitt, the farmer in Larton Dean.”

  Bowman heard Graves scratch at his notebook.

  “May we take these newspapers from you, Lord Melville? The information they contain might well prove invaluable.”

  Melville gave a shrug. “As you wish.” He turned at the fireplace to regard the inspector with an unblinking gaze. “Detective Inspector Bowman,” he began, tamping down the tobacco in his pipe, “would you think it usual for a small village such as Larton to have such a high incidence of self-murder in so short a time?”

  Bowman’s frown cut deep at his forehead. Fletcher Cousins was the third man to take his own life in just eight weeks.

  “On the contrary, Lord Melville,” the inspector demurred, “I would think it most unusual indeed.”

  “And that,” Melville concluded with a nod, “is why I prevailed upon Scotland Yard.”

  VI

  Checking In

  The King’s Head was a public house and hotel standing halfway along the high street in Larton Village. Originally an old coaching inn, it stood close enough to the street that its lower courses of brick were caked in detritus from the road and the windows with a skein of dust. Even at this early hour of the evening, the steps up to the entrance were crowded with a throng of locals. Fresh from the fields, they lifted their drafts to their lips almost in unison, whenever there was a convenient lull in their conversation. The building rose over three floors to an ancient, thatched roof through which rose a pair of impressive chimneys. An ornate sign hung listless in the still air above the door. An obviously hurried likeness of King Charles II stared out with a censorious expression, seemingly in judgement at the drinkers beneath. In truth, as was often pointed out, the Stuart king had been guilty of far worse in his time. The entrance to a courtyard lay between the inn and a small butcher’s shop. A narrow passage led between them to a square cobbled space, big enough to accommodate half a dozen horses and their carts. Much of the original Georgian architecture survived within, from the thick walls and tall windows to the wide, sweeping staircase that rose to the higher floors.

  Having been dropped at the inn by Prescott, Melville’s rather terse driver, Bowman and Graves were left to carry their cases up the few steps to the door themselves. The gaggle of drinkers in their path fell into an awkward, suspicious silence as they passed, their eyes narrowing in their scrutiny of the strangers in their midst. Bowman had to physically barge past one with his shoulder in order to clear a way to the door. The man met Bowman’s gaze with a steely stare, his beery breath almost causing the inspector's eyes to water. He wondered how wise he had been to accept Melville’s invitation to be quartered at the inn for the duration of the investigation. As he entered the public bar to the rear of the building, Bowman could feel the fingers of his right hand twitch in anticipation of a drink. The room about him had begun to sway. The tremor increased. Thinking fast, he passed the case from his left to his right hand, the better to quell the shaking. As his mouth dried, he felt a strange sense of detachment. His body felt light, as if the weight of the case alone was keeping him on the ground. There was a pressure at his temples and an awful buzzing sound in his ears. His mind felt restless and Bowman struggled to make sense of his thoughts. Reaching out, he clutched at the low bar for support, sweeping aside three or four empty tankards as he fumbled for purchase.

  “You alright, sir?” Graves enquired, concerned.Bowman’s tongue felt thick in his mouth. The words choked in his throat. He nodded, trying to focus on the sergeant at his side. The walls were closing in, the ceiling pressing down upon him. That was it, he realised. That was what he was feeling. Pressure. It bore down upon him, blocking his ears and pressing at his temples. The building itself seemed to have a heavy presence, malevolent and brooding.

  “I need - ” Bowman began, struggling for breath. “I need... to sit down.” To the evident surprise of the woman who had even now appeared to provide assistance to the new arrivals, Bowman collapsed to the floor, his eyes rolling back in his head, his right hand twitching in its strange, irregular rhythm, as if possessed of a life of its own.

  The seat beneath him felt hard and unyielding. He was thrown left and right as he bounced over the cobbles, struggling for purchase wherever he could find it. Bowman fought to understand. Strange yet familiar smells assailed his senses. As if from far off, a cacophony of voices came to his ears. Incongruously, Bowman had a sudden memory of swimming in the river as a child. As his head dipped below the water with each stroke, the voices from the bank became muffled and distant. Was he under water? Bowman shook his head to clear it. There was something ahead of him, just out of reach. Two blurred, indistinct shapes, they rose and fell with a regular rhythm. Bowman narrowed his eyes to make sense of the vision. Suddenly, his ears cleared and the inspector was assailed by a wall of sound; people screaming, the sound of hooves. A cold wind assaulted him, buffeting him as he fought to remain seated. He made fists of his hands in a desperate attempt to maintain his balance, only to find he was clutching at something. Looking down, he saw he held a length of leather between his hands, stretching before him towards the diffuse shapes ahead. His chest was rising and falling in an effort to breathe. He tried to blink away his confusion and as he did so, there, before him, the shapes coalesced. Horses. He was at the helm of a carriage. Bowman felt a cold fear rise within him. His breathing quickened. Casting his eyes about him, he saw familiar buildings flashing past. He knew exactly where he was. As if to confirm his dreadful suspicions, Bowman’s eyes alighted on a street sign affixed to the wall. The scene around him froze, as if the universe itself was conspiring to give him time to read the words; ‘Hanbury Street’.

  Bowman let go the reins. A dreadful inevitability had asserted itself. He felt like an actor in a play, scripted, prepared and rehearsed. Even with his hands at his side, the carriage rattled on. This time, he realised with a start, he was to be the driver.

  Behind him, as he knew he would, as he had a thousand times before, he heard a crack. The bullet had snapped through the canopy of the carriage and would soon lodge itself in his shoulder, cold and deadly. Ahead of him, a woman pushed her child from the carriage’s path. He could see the flanks of the horses steaming with their exertions, spittle flying from their gaping mouths. People shouted as he passed, some in anger, some in sheer surprise at his approach. One threw a stone that caught a horse on its rump, goading it to even greater speed.

  Suddenly, he felt it. Tearing into his flesh, the bullet passed through bone and sinew to lodge just behind his breastbone, burning with a ferocious heat. He
clutched at his chest despite feeling no pain at all. He knew exactly what would happen next. The carriage would veer violently to the right, into Old Montague Street and Queen Street before rejoining Hanbury Street to the east. There, Bowman saw the Women’s Refuge. Looking again, he noticed the woman he had met at the meeting he had attended just seven days before. She stood, frozen in an attitude of horror, seemingly aghast at the events unfolding before her. Bowman met her gaze, her eyes burning into him with fierce accusation. He opened his mouth to speak, to implore or explain, when suddenly he saw her. There, stepping off the curb before him, just as she always must, was Anna. Her head was tilted away from him so that he could not see her face, but he knew it would be her. Looking beyond her, where Bowman had expected to see a representation of his past self, standing in sudden realisation of the horror before him, he saw nothing. It was as if the world had ceased to exist beyond her. A mist descended, holding them distinct from the world. The two of them, held in suspension. The moment seemed an eternity. He tried to scream a warning, but no sound came. The horses thundered on, their dread hooves sparking on the road. And suddenly, they stopped and all was quiet.

  The silence was so thick, Bowman fancied he could taste it. The road and its attendant buildings were gone. More than that, they had never even been. Bowman felt a profound absence. A void where the world had been. A tangible and eternal nothing. He had always existed here and now, within this bubble of a moment, the horses suspended in mid air, the carriage beneath him solid and unmoving. The very air seemed pregnant with the dreadful knowledge of what must happen next. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she turned her head towards him. Bowman’s breath caught in his throat. Where he should have seen her face, her beautiful beguiling face, he saw... nothing. He felt his gorge begin to rise. Where Anna’s face should have been, there was a ghastly, horrific absence of features. Her skin was smooth and stretched across her skull, devoid of any aspect. He tipped forward in his seat. A scream filled the air like the whistle of a train, hurting his ears. She turned fully towards him, her dreadful face seeing yet unseeing as he pitched towards her. He fell into its blankness, into the void of her face, his fingers clawing before him.

  “Sir!” a voice exclaimed. “Be careful there!”

  Bowman’s eyes snapped open. Graves’ face hung before him, his eyes wide with concern. The inspector’s clothes clung to his skin, hot and damp. Looking about him, he tried to gauge his surroundings.

  “We got you upstairs, sir,” Graves was explaining, “to your room. We thought it best to lie you down.”

  Bowman realised he was reclining on a simple, wooden framed bed, a pillow propped beneath his head. The room was square and sparsely furnished. A rickety chest of drawers stood between the two, high windows that gave out onto the High Street. On the opposite wall, a small table held a jug of water and a chipped ceramic basin beneath which, Bowman saw, his suitcase had been stowed.

  “A doctor has been called,” Graves said, softly. “He will be with us straight.”

  Bowman struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. “No,” he slurred, “I’ll need no doctor.” Swinging his legs from the bed, he pressed the heels of his hands against his forehead in an effort to quell the throbbing.

  The scene was interrupted by the arrival of a young woman dressed in a simple cotton smock. A stained apron was tied about her waist and a dishrag thrown over her shoulder.

  “Is he quite well?” she enquired of Graves. She spoke with the same, soft burr as the driver who had collected them from the station just a few hours before. Bowman recognised her as the last person he had seen before he had succumbed to his mania. Perhaps she had even helped Graves carry him to his room.

  “He is well enough to talk,” Graves glared at his colleague pointedly. “Though he will not see the doctor.”

  “I can send him away as quickly as I called him,” the girl confirmed.

  Graves turned to her, his handsome face aglow in the golden light of the afternoon. “Thank you, Maude,” he smiled. “You have been more than helpful.”

  Bowman noticed the girl blush at his words. “I do what I can, Sergeant Graves,” she giggled. An age seemed to pass between them as they held each other in an easy gaze then, finally, she turned to go.

  “Oh, blast, almost forgot,” she checked herself. “You are invited to Trevitt’s farm, Inspector Bowman.”

  So, Graves had told her his name.

  “How did he know I was here?” Bowman’s moustache twitched on his upper lip.

  “There’s little that happens here that goes unnoticed,” Maude said, innocently.

  Bowman nodded.

  “I’m not sure he’s quite well enough for that,” Graves began.

  “What time does he expect me?” Bowman was doing his best to feign normality.

  “Seven of the clock,” Maude answered. “The lad is still at the door if you wish to send a reply.”

  Bowman rose unsteadily to his feet and shuffled to one of the large, rectangular windows that looked out over the high street. Looking down to his left, he saw a young boy with a large dog playing absently in the street. The lad seemed to sense the inspector's gaze and turned to glare up at his window. Bowman fancied he noticed a look of recognition in the boy’s expression.

  “Tell him I will be there.”

  “But, sir - ” Graves began in protest.

  “Do you know Cousins’ widow?” Bowman had turned to Maude.

  “Florrie?” The young girl shrugged. “Of course.”

  “And could you furnish Sergeant Graves with her address?”

  Maude seemed glad to turn her attention to the sergeant again. “Reckon so,” she confirmed with a smile.

  “Question her, Graves,” Bowman began. “We need to know the circumstances leading up to her husband's death. We must discover why Cousins might have hanged himself.”

  “But sir,” Graves objected. “Are you sure – ”

  “Sergeant Graves, we are here to investigate an important matter.” Fancying the whole of Larton knew of the detectives” purpose by now, he saw no reason not to be explicit in Maude’s presence. “And that is what we shall do.”

  VII

  Articles Of Faith

  As Senior Steward, it fell to William Oats to dress the Temple and the Chamber of Reflection for the initiation. He was diligent in his duties and renowned for despatching them with a solemn attention to the details. Dressed in a formal black suit and waistcoat, Oats had tied a pristine, white leather apron at his waist, as was required for all when in the Temple. The candles lit, he blew out the taper and walked slowly across the flagstones to the west wall. Pausing briefly, he cast his eyes up to the painting that hung there. It was a depiction of two pillars flanking a stone altar upon which was laid a red cloth and a copy of the Holy Bible. A golden goblet, a representation of the Holy Grail itself hung, somewhat improbably, in the air some six inches from the altar cloth. A figure concealed behind one of the pillars was visible from the shoulder only, his hand stretched out to point to the chalice with a delicate finger. The eye was led to this sombre scene, heavy with symbolism, via a chequered black and white tiled floor. At the steps to the altar lay a canvas in a frame, a picture within a picture, depicting a square and set of compasses. The whole was framed with a border of black and white triangular shapes, each side marked with the cardinal points of the compass. Though an old man, Oats had only recently begun his journey through the Brotherhood, but he knew enough to recognise the meaning behind the images. The two, free standing copper pillars that dominated the piece were Boaz and Jachin. They had stood sentinel on the porch of Solomon's Temple, the first in Jerusalem. Oats let his eyes rest on the square and compasses, the tools of the Great Architect. Almost as a reflex, he intoned the appropriate passage from the many books he had been obliged to study.

  “The square to square our actions, the compass to keep us within our bounds.”

  Oats understood this as a warning to any brother not to overreach him
self, but rather to know his place in the Great Design. He could think of one or two in the Lodge who would do well to reflect upon the words. Between the compasses sat a sheaf of corn, picked out in gold. Peculiar to the Larton Lodge, it represented the labours of the farm workers in the fields but also the charity that each brother was expected to show to another.

  “When thou cuttest down thine harvest in the field,” Oats uttered solemnly, “And hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.”

  The words gave Oats pause and brought to mind those that Fletcher Cousins had left behind. His boy, in particular, Oats felt the most sorry for. Perhaps he should make a deposition to the Grand Master that provision might be made to secure his future.

  Leaning before the picture, Oats lifted the lid on a great chest that stood beneath it. Moving a cloth to one side to reveal a large ornate box, Oats let his fingers caress the carved motifs that ran along its outside. The All Seeing Eye stared unblinking from the wood, its benevolent beams radiating outwards and over the lid of the box.

  “The eyes of the Lord are in every place,” intoned Oats, almost unconsciously, “Beholding the evil and the good.”

  Grasping the handles at either side, he lifted the box carefully from the chest. Slowly and with great reverence, he carried it across the floor of the Temple. Resting the heavy box on the floor, he reached up to pull a curtain to one side, revealing the Chamber of Reflection beyond.

  A small anteroom to the Temple, the Chamber was of a hexagonal design and held no furniture beyond a table covered in a black velvet cloth. It stood upon a mosaic of black and white tiles, like those depicted in the picture on the Temple wall. Here, in the Chamber of Reflection, the All Seeing Eye was given prominence, gazing down from the ceiling with a benign stare. Aside from the points of the compass marking the north, south, east and west, the walls were bare so that the initiate might more readily fix his contemplation on the Holy Artefacts. Reaching for the box, Oats took each one in turn and placed them in their prescribed position on the table. A human skull was placed at the exact centre, a sickle blade and hourglass arranged with care to each side. A silver plate was loaded with bread from a pouch that hung from a loop on Oats’ belt, a small jug filled with water from a stone basin by the door. A single candle was placed in readiness to be lit at a corner of the tabletop. Oats took the time to measure the exact distances with the span of his hand before resting each object in its place, stopping occasionally to measure them again. Finally, taking a handful of salt from a bottle and forming a fist with his hand, he let the substance fall to the table in a steady stream. Moving his hand from left to right, he carefully spelt out the letters “V.I.T.R.I.O.L.” across the leading edge of the tablecloth.