A Crowded Coffin

by Nicola Slade

  Edith was still lost in thought, still looking shaken, and Rory continued, trying to work out what her problem was. ‘Sam thought it was nonsense, this tall stranger, we all did; an old man being mischievous, teasing his friend. But,’ he stared at her, ‘what are we saying, Edith? That someone somehow harmed the old boy? It was a heart attack, the doctor said so. How could it be anything else? And what’s this about Sam and Dr Sutherland?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shivered, looking so forlorn that he put a tentative arm round her shoulders, tightening his grasp when she didn’t recoil. ‘I just thought … what if someone did kill him? But what if it was a mistake?’

  She turned to him, wide-eyed. ‘Why would anyone want to harm an old man? Nobody, as far as we know. But what if….’ She faltered, fumbling for words. ‘Suppose it was a mistake. Suppose it was Sam who was supposed to die. He’s been asking an awful lot of questions; maybe he asked one too many, the wrong one.’ She shivered and didn’t move away when he reached for her hand. ‘What can we do?’ she went on. ‘The police would laugh at us or more likely charge us with wasting their time. They’re stretched and you saw how high on their list they put my call about the other night – nobody’s been to check it out yet. You can’t blame them; they believe a drunk driver pushed Harriet off the road. Harriet says it was deliberate and she believes it was someone local. An old man dies peacefully in a cathedral and another old man trips and breaks his collarbone. And what about the missing man, last seen in this village?’ She shivered. ‘Plus, I think someone has been in Harriet’s house, poking about in her desk and among her things.’

  At his exclamation of surprise she explained her earlier feeling of unease, then sighed. ‘This won’t do, we’re supposed to be on duty. We’d better go and mingle.’

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he said firmly, still holding her hand, ‘we’re going to the cops, whether they laugh at us or not. This is all too weird and we have to get help.’

  Downstairs, Rory was captured by members of the local art group while Edith greeted old friends, explaining that she was back for good and planning to start investigating ways of making the property pay for its keep. ‘I’ve got loads of vague ideas, she explained to one of her grandmother’s cronies. ‘I’ve emailed a friend from uni who knows about converting old buildings and I want to see if we can turn the stables into holiday lets. It must be possible to do something with them. Anyway, that’s just one avenue to explore.’

  She nodded to another old friend. ‘Gran’s talking about turning downstairs into a flat for them and letting me make over some rooms on the first floor. That way we’ll be independent but close enough for company. As for Karen,’ she paused and waved to her old school friend who was bustling past with a tray of canapés, ‘I’m just praying she and Elveece will stay on for ever and ever.’

  Her attention was claimed by Brendan, who had Mike Goldstein in tow. ‘How’s poor old Harriet coping?’ Brendan sounded solicitous and even as she murmured a polite answer, Edith had to stifle a grin at the thought of Harriet’s outrage at such familiarity.

  The tall American chipped in. ‘I heard about Miss Quigley’s accident,’ he remarked in his attractive drawl. ‘She’s got to be a tough old bird to have survived something like that. You must have your hands full, with a party on top of everything.’ He smiled down at her, a gleam in his dark eyes. ‘What made you decide to have a party, tonight of all nights? Is this an example of the well-known British stiff upper lip?’

  ‘Harriet’s gone to bed,’ she told him. ‘She’s not too good tonight, but she’s very resilient. Now, can I get you another drink?’

  Rory was heading for the kitchen with a tray of empty glasses when his phone rang. ‘Sam? Hang on, reception’s not too good here, I’ll nip outside. That better? Harriet’s fine, in case you’re worried; she’s tucked up in bed, fast asleep.’

  ‘I hope to goodness she stays there,’ Sam retorted. ‘But it’s not Harriet I wanted to talk about. I’ve been doing some more poking about, turning over the odd stone, and I bumped into a very old friend tonight. Nothing to do with the diocese – he’s a retired engineer who was a colleague of mine before I entered the Church. He used to have some contacts with the oil business. I know I can trust him, though I swore him to secrecy anyway and I told him about all these ill-informed rumours of oil prospecting.’

  ‘Did he come up with anything?’ Rory was intrigued.

  ‘I’m not sure. He says himself he’s been out of that world for twenty years or more, and the technology’s moved on rapidly, which obviously makes his know-how a bit dated. He was intrigued, though, and told me that there are several ways of sussing out if there’s oil around. You can do aerial surveys to measure the magnetic fields, plus there are airborne radar and satellite images that map the earth’s surface. He pointed out that besides the commercial flights from Southampton Airport there are several smaller flights, instructors, and so on, and who’s to know what they’re looking for as they fly overhead? He’s not suggesting that anything like this has actually been done, though he’s promised to put out some discreet feelers tomorrow, but you get the picture?’

  Rory grunted, remembering a light aircraft that had been circling overhead a few days ago. Sam went on, ‘I made some notes, hang on. Right, a seismic survey would record differences in how rocks reflect shock waves and there are also ways to measure magnetic and electrical fields; variations in any field can signal a rock layer that could be interesting. But my friend did say that a lot of this will probably be done by computer these days. This is just background info.’

  Sam paused, and Rory could hear him riffling through his notes. ‘I’d better hurry up,’ he said and Rory could hear the laugh in his voice. ‘I’m supposed to be on a pee break; they’ll start worrying about my prostate. Okay, here we are. Apparently, at about Easter time, there was a gang of people in diving gear over at the Hag’s Hole.’ Intent on his report he missed Rory’s interrogative, ‘Huh?’

  ‘The grapevine said it was a team from the university, scuba diving or something, but what my friend said is that there’s another gadget called a sniffer that’s used underwater to detect traces of gaseous hydrocarbons. For instance if they were bubbling up from an oil reservoir.’

  Rory was about to comment when Sam cursed quietly. ‘Damn, got to get back in to the meeting. Look, ask Walter Attlin about the Hag’s Hole but try not to alarm him. He’s got his own fish to fry and I can’t betray a confidence, but one thing I can assure you is that he’s not looking for oil. So if someone else is, they’re doing it for their own ends.’

  Even allowing for Sam’s elderly acquaintance to be completely out of date regarding current oil exploration, Rory thought there was enough there for food for thought. He drifted back into the party and sought out his cousin Walter.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ said the old man with a smile. ‘I know Edith’s been watching me like a hawk, but I’m fine, and so is Penelope. How are you getting on with the neighbours?’

  ‘Fine, they’re a nice bunch. But somebody mentioned a place called the Hag’s Hole and I didn’t get a chance to find out more. It sounds a bit indelicate, I thought.’

  This time the old man laughed out loud. ‘Indelicate? Of course it is, this village is full of indelicate people! No, it’s always been called that, witches and so forth, I expect, as well as the God-awful stench that hangs about the place. It’s a biggish pond, a lake really, on land that belongs to me but which I’ve leased to Gordon Dean for the last couple of years. It’s next to his boundary and I believe he originally had some idea of cleaning it up and stocking it with trout. Hasn’t happened, though, I could have told him so.’

  ‘Wonder why it smells?’ Rory was intrigued. ‘Could it be methane bubbling up, maybe?’ He was remembering Sam’s parting shot before he hurried back to his meeting. ‘According to my informant,’ Sam had told him. ‘The best detection device of all in the oil world used to be someone who feels it in his bones, kind o
f ‘reads’ the rocks. Someone with a nose for it. Someone,’ he had added, ‘in the oil business might well come from Texas.’

  There was no time to consider the problem. Walter Attlin kept Rory by his side, introducing him to this neighbour, nodding to another, making sure that nobody was stuck for long with a bore. ‘Staff College,’ he twinkled on catching Rory’s eye. ‘Army training never leaves you; don’t let a group get too big and never let anyone get trapped in a corner. Ah, Lara. How are you, my dear? Your father not with you? Business in London? What a pity. And this must be your American friend. I’ve heard about him, of course.’

  They shook hands and Walter nodded to Rory. ‘Have you two been introduced?’

  ‘Not formally,’ Rory answered as Edith came up to them.

  ‘I must remedy that,’ the old man was smiling. ‘Mr Goldstein, let me introduce my cousin, Dr Rory Attlin.’

  ‘Your cousin?’ Lara’s interruption sounded incredulous. ‘I understood he was—’

  The temperature lowered until even Lara had the grace to look abashed. Edith looked startled and anxious but Walter Attlin spoke with a measured dignity. ‘Certainly, my dear.’ He was politeness personified, in spite of Lara’s own rudeness. ‘There was some kind of family quarrel a couple of generations ago and my great-uncle ran away from home. He was Rory’s great-great-grandfather and sadly the two branches of the family were separated. Fortunately, Rory made contact with us when he came down to talk about his new job, and we’re delighted to have the opportunity of healing an ancient rift.’

  Edith had time to notice Lara’s chagrin, along with the bashful but pleased expression on Rory’s face, before the significance hit her. So there was no mystery, no dark family secret. As he had claimed all along, Rory was a distant cousin, nothing more, and she had been making a complete fool of herself. The rest was sheer spite on Lara’s part, fuelled perhaps by speculation: the likeness really was remarkable.

  The arrival of the vicar gave Edith no time to analyze her relief. He opened his eyes at her slightly distrait manner and, to her intense irritation, it was clear that he was putting it down to pleasure at seeing him. Pride made her pull herself together as she escorted John Forrester towards the drinks. ‘I hear you were thinking we might go out for a drink tonight? Sorry about that but it’s been pretty chaotic round here, what with Harriet moving in with us.’

  ‘I hadn’t realized she was going to do that, but it makes sense, I suppose. I did try calling her but she hasn’t replied to my voicemail. I don’t think she likes me very much.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Edith murmured. ‘She’s very shocked, of course, and not really thinking straight.’

  He looked curiously at her and cleared his throat. ‘I was surprised Mr and Mrs Attlin decided to go ahead with their party, in view of everything.’

  ‘Oh, they wouldn’t cancel, not when everyone was coming,’ she said. ‘And it won’t affect Harriet, after all. She’s doped to the eyeballs and won’t hear a thing from downstairs.’

  She wondered at all the concern for Harriet. Brendan and Mike Goldstein had sent their sympathy and now here was the vicar at it as well, though it could simply be professional courtesy on his part. She took a sip from her glass and changed tack very firmly.

  ‘You’re looking very smart,’ she commented. ‘Most unvicarish.’

  ‘How kind,’ he grinned complacently, as he glanced down at his dark-grey, herringbone tweed jacket, expensive and understated, as were all his clothes. ‘I like to strike a balance between fogeyish and über-trendy and when I spotted this in Gieves & Hawkes in Winchester at lunchtime today when I gave our American visitor a lift in, I decided it was about as daring as the village would tolerate.’

  ‘Mike Goldstein was in Winchester today?’ She tried not to weight her question too heavily, but her mind was racing. No time to think about it now, though, not with John Forrester smiling down at her. For a moment she felt her pulse race – he really was unreasonably attractive – but even as she smiled in response, she glanced up to see Rory pause just behind the vicar. A frown wrinkled his forehead but he must have felt her eyes on him because he glanced up and grinned at her. Of course, it was true after all, she scolded herself, aware that John Forrester would assume her sudden blush was for his benefit. What a fool she’d been, her only possible excuse a mixture of anxiety and jetlag. Grandpa wouldn’t lie. If Rory happened to be his grandson, illegitimate or not, he would have said so. It must be so and besides, now she came to think of it, Rory would never have kissed her if the relationship had been closer. But why did Gran look so sad when anyone mentioned Rory’s father? She’d never known him, so what was the mystery?

  Rory was about to speak when his phone rang. ‘Sorry,’ he called as he headed outside again. This time it was a woman’s voice, with a slight accent. She sounded familiar.

  ‘It’s Margaret Mackenzie,’ she announced. ‘I was at the cathedral this afternoon? I’ve just remembered something.’

  chapter eleven

  The Great Hall was dark and shadowy, echoing with strange, unearthly chords. Harriet was watching some kind of ceremony, performed by a central robed figure, tall and magisterial, silhouetted against the dazzling light shining in from the front windows. The figure took a step towards her and she woke in a flutter as she realized it was an angel.

  She should have slept the night through, judging by the number of painkillers she had taken, but no, here she was at – she groaned as she glanced at her watch – just after 2.30 a.m. Her head aching and feeling uneasy after the strange dream, she sat up and wondered what to do. Karen had thoughtfully left a kettle and tea things in case of need, but it didn’t appeal. She staggered slightly as she went to the bathroom and on the way back she crossed over to the window.

  A flash, a second flash, hastily dowsed. Torches? The moonlight made them superfluous and she could just make out a figure right over at the far edge of the Burial Field. Oh not again. There hadn’t been much time to think about Edith and Rory’s glimpse of the two men, Brendan and Mike Goldstein, who had been up to no good in the same place. Edith had rung the police but too much had happened since, and that odd little incident had slipped Harriet’s mind. But what on earth were they up to now? Treasure-hunting, presumably, but what treasure? It was widely known locally that the remains of a Roman villa were supposed to be under the field and it was Walter Attlin’s cherished dream that one day there would be enough money to finance a proper dig. It was also known, however, that the field had been ploughed and planted for centuries and that nothing but fragments of pottery had ever shown up.

  Harriet tried to clear her throbbing head. There was no time for that puzzle but what should she do? If I’m going out there to see what’s happening, she shivered, I’m not going alone. Sam would never forgive me and anyway, I’m not that stupid, but – she hesitated – someone needs to check it out.

  Not Edith, though. Harriet dismissed the idea immediately. If anything happened, if there was an accident of some kind, it would kill the old people. Sam was too far away so it would have to be Rory; she certainly couldn’t handle this on her own, even though Edith would be furious when she found she had been sidelined. Harriet scrambled into jeans and a sweatshirt, thrusting her feet into canvas shoes. Grabbing her phone and her car keys, with their built-in torch, she stumbled out into the corridor and made her way to Rory’s room.

  ‘Rory, wake up.’ She shook him with increasing urgency. ‘Somebody’s digging in the Burial Field again. Oh, for goodness’ sake, Rory, wake up, will you?’

  When he peered groggily at her, yawning and protesting, she gave him a brief outline of the situation. ‘We’ve got to call the police.’

  ‘I think you’re right.’ He was still yawning and rubbing his eyes as he stared out of his window. ‘Blimey, I saw movement too, something glinting in the moonlight. But what do we tell the cops? Wouldn’t they just think it’s poachers? Is that going to be high on their list of priorities? I don’t know anything about wha
t goes on in the countryside.’

  ‘Even if it is just poachers,’ she said firmly, ‘they’ve no right to be there and that’s reason enough to tell the police. Look, can you see to get dressed? I don’t want to put the light on, it might make them suspicious.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ he grumbled. ‘Go away for a minute, Harriet. I sleep in the nude. I’m sure you’ve seen it all before but I’m shy, so push off.’

  He heard a stifled, surprisingly youthful giggle as she wandered over towards the window while he struggled into his clothes. A shaft of moonlight caught something sparkling on the polished mahogany of the tallboy and Harriet took a closer look.

  ‘Rory?’ There was an odd note in her voice and he raised his head. ‘Where – where did you get this?’ He zipped up his jeans and crossed the room to examine the tiny thing in the centre of her palm, the light glinting off the intricate twists and loops of silver wire.

  ‘That? It’s a bit of one of Edith’s earrings, isn’t it? I spotted in nestling in the weave of your precious vicar’s jacket this evening, on one of the sleeves. I nicked it without mentioning it to him, I’ve no wish to talk to him anyway. I meant to hand it over to Edith but we all went to bed fairly early and I completely forgot about it.’

  She looked at the delicate little object and then met his eye, looking very sober. ‘But this isn’t an earring, Rory. It belongs to me. It’s a miniature silver toast rack from my doll’s house collection.’

  They stared at each other, Harriet looking bewildered and increasingly disturbed. She frowned and looked out of the window again at the distant figure, then back at the miniature. ‘This is new,’ she said slowly. ‘It arrived by registered post the day before yesterday and I’d only set it on the side table with my other most recent treasures just before Edith came in for coffee with me.’