by Nicola Ford
‘David insisted that he check over the whole tower personally before he’d let anyone go up it. It was perfectly safe. But when he went back to look at the thing afterwards he found the planking I went through was totally rotten.’
‘Couldn’t he have missed it the first time round?’
She shook her head. ‘That’s what David says – he’s blaming himself for what happened. But I know him. There’s no way he’d have missed it. He’d never put anyone’s life at risk.’ What she really meant was that David would never put her life at risk, but Peter was the last person she was going to share that with.
‘Not deliberately, maybe, but mistakes happen. And I’m as much to blame as David. That tower had been knocking about at the manor for years. I should never have lent it to the dig. It was obviously well past its sell-by-date. If you want to blame anyone, blame me. I’m the one that nearly got you killed.’
That was all she needed: David and Peter competing over who was to blame. She wanted to scream. ‘You’re missing the point. The person at fault is whoever tampered with the planking.’ Peter just stared at her. ‘Great! Now you think I’m nuts too. Sally’s convinced David I’m overreacting. One less off the crime figures, I suppose.’
‘I’m sure if Sally thought there was the slightest chance that this was anything other than an accident, she’d have pursued it.’
What the hell did men think with? David clearly wasn’t the only one who’d been swayed by Sally’s all-too-obvious charms. But she really wasn’t up to arguing about the way in which DI Treen was going about her duties.
Peter said, ‘I know you’ve had a difficult time of it lately …’
‘Let’s get one thing straight, Peter – whatever you, or David or Sally Treen think, I’m not deranged. Someone saw to it that whoever used that thing was going to get hurt. And they didn’t give a damn if someone was killed in the process.’
‘But why would anyone do such a thing?’
‘You of all people should know we disturbed more than a few layers of dust when we found that archive. Someone wants to make sure we aren’t around to disturb anything else.’
‘But it doesn’t make any sense – not now it’s all out in the open about Gerald and my father.’
The duvet was tucked securely around her, but despite the pretty room and the sunny day, Clare felt suddenly cold and glum. The more people who told her Gerald was a murderer, the less she seemed able to believe it. ‘We don’t know for sure that Gerald killed your father.’
‘The police seem pretty certain.’
‘Don’t you find it strange that nothing happens in Hungerbourne for four decades and as soon as that urn turns up, people start plunging from towers?’
‘Are you suggesting my father’s killer is still alive?’
She elevated her sling-bound arm with a wince. ‘From where I’m sitting, it seems like a reasonable conclusion.’ She slumped back onto the pile of pillows behind her, suddenly aware of how tired she felt.
Peter paused. ‘Even supposing it wasn’t an accident, what makes you think whoever killed Father was responsible?’
She angled her head back against the crisp cotton, closing her eyes as if to intensify the glass-refracted heat of the sun as it touched her skin. ‘It’s a pretty strong motive for wanting us as far away as possible from Hungerbourne, wouldn’t you say?’
‘There is an alternative.’
‘Like what?’
‘Maybe someone has a vested interest in preventing you from finding the Jevons disc.’
‘But that doesn’t get us very far, does it? Even George Clifford doesn’t know where the disc is.’
‘You believed him!’ Peter sounded incredulous.
‘I don’t like the man any more than you do. But if he’d been involved in the theft, he would have been better off denying all knowledge.’ She shook her head. ‘No. I think he was pretty frank with us about his part in the affair. The most likely culprit is whoever killed your father.’
‘I think I’ve found something that will interest you.’
He withdrew a folded A4 sheet from his wallet and handed it to her. It was a photocopy of another of his uncle’s bank statements. She cast her eyes down the list of names and numbers. ‘I don’t see what this tells us. We already knew Gerald was paying Joyce.’
Peter gesticulated at the sheet. ‘Look at the entry above that.’
‘Royals Removals £2,500.’ Clare laid the paper down on the duvet in front of her. ‘Why would Gerald need a removals company? He wasn’t planning to move, was he?’
Peter shook his head. ‘Look at the date of the payment.’
She read it out. ‘10th February 2012. So?’
He nodded. ‘A fortnight before the fire.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You think this is Gerald paying for the archive to be moved into the manor attic.’
‘Don’t think – know. I looked Royals Removals up in the phone book. They’re based in Reading. The chap I spoke to remembered the job because it had been such easy money he couldn’t believe there wasn’t some sort of catch.’
‘And was there?’
He shook his head. ‘Apparently, Gerald asked them if they could come and move some boxes. They told him they’d need to come round and give him an estimate and, because of the distance, they’d have to charge him for the fuel costs. As Gerald was an old boy the chap suggested he’d be better off getting someone from his own area to do the work. But Gerald was absolutely adamant he wanted them to do the job – whatever it cost.’
‘Two and a half grand for moving a few crates across the yard. I bet they bit his hand off.’
‘It was only payable on condition they did it at night and told no one about it.’
‘So why did they tell you?’
‘When I told them Gerald had passed away and I was his executor they seemed to think it didn’t much matter any more.’
‘But why would Gerald want the archive moved?’ She was beginning to form her own ideas on the subject, though she could hardly bring herself to believe it.
‘I’d been trying to persuade Gerald for years he should hand the archive over to a museum. But he wouldn’t hear of it. And then there was all of the hoo-ha over the visitor centre proposal. Things got really nasty for him in the village. Half the village blamed him for it because he dug the site in the first place and the other half wouldn’t talk to him because he wouldn’t let them have the archive to display there. So as the British Museum already had the goldwork, I made a few enquiries of my own with them. When I mentioned it to David, he offered to write up the site. I didn’t realise he was going to write to Gerald about it.’
‘He’d have to, Gerald was the excavator. You arranged all this without Gerald knowing?’
‘I was worried sick about him. If I’d told him before I’d spoken to the British Museum, he’d have told me it was none of my business.’
‘Which it wasn’t.’ She knew Peter had acted out of concern, but she couldn’t shake the idea that Gerald must have seen it as a betrayal.
‘Worrying about the security in the coach house was driving him to distraction. It seemed to consume his every waking minute.’
‘What happened when he got David’s letter?’
‘He refused outright to countenance the idea. I tried to persuade him it was for the best, but he wouldn’t have it. In the end, he asked for a bit more time to think it over and I thought he was coming round. Then the coach house went up in flames and it was too late.’
‘You thought the archive had gone with it.’
He nodded. ‘Which was exactly what Gerald wanted me to think. A few days before the fire, he told me he’d seen someone hanging around the outbuildings. Said he was so worried he’d phoned the police.’ Peter shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘I could never understand how someone managed to break into the coach house so easily. He was out in that yard night and day in all weathers, checking it was securely locked up.’
‘You
think Gerald set the fire himself.’
Peter nodded. ‘It must have scared the old boy rigid when I told him I’d spoken to the museum. The only thing I can’t work out is why he went to the bother of having the stuff moved. If he’d let it burn, the evidence of what happened to my father would have gone up in smoke for good.’
‘It’s almost impossible to entirely destroy human remains in a normal fire – modern crematoria have to get up to nigh on a thousand degrees centigrade and then pulverise what’s left to turn it into ashes.’ Peter grimaced. ‘Gerald would have known that. Maybe he didn’t want to take the risk.’ She looked into the face that reminded her so much of Gerald’s and smiled. ‘Besides, your uncle was an archaeologist to the core. He could never have destroyed the rest of that archive.’
And, Clare thought, Gerald Hart was a man who had long ago decided he would put his personal ethics ahead of his reputation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Clare shifted in the cast-iron chair, trying to get comfortable. From her seat on the terrace of Ed’s farmhouse, she could see a purple-streaked sky above the darkening Downs. The elevation of the great chalk land mass of the Marlborough Downs ensured that even on the warmest summer’s day the air grew cold more quickly here than those unfamiliar with the area expected. And she found herself shivering at the damp chill in the air.
Ed raised his brandy glass. ‘Your good health!’
She reciprocated the gesture. ‘The continuation of which is largely due to you.’
Ed looked down at the table. Was he embarrassed? He didn’t strike her as the sort of man who would be reticent about his achievements. But then her track record in sizing up people – and men in particular – didn’t seem to be up to much lately. Casting her mind back to her first impressions of the man, she felt a twinge of guilt. She was the one who should be embarrassed. Without him she wouldn’t be sitting here.
From somewhere deep inside the house, the sound of Pat and Peter’s laughter drifted towards them, accompanied by the clatter and chink of plates and cutlery. Her injury had excused her from offering to help clear away the remnants of Pat’s cassoulet. Clare’s neck was sore from the weight of the foam sling that still hung from it. But with every sip, the suffusing warmth of her cognac worked its magic, easing the tension in her muscles.
They sat in companionable silence, enjoying the last embers of the day and the diminishing birdsong. It was several minutes before either of them spoke.
She said, ‘It must be strange for you having us descend on you like this, especially when you were part of what happened here the first time.’
For a second, he looked perplexed, but his confusion was fleeting. ‘You mean the excavation.’
She nodded.
‘Digging up at Old Barrows Field again has certainly brought back memories.’
‘A lot must have changed in Hungerbourne since the first dig.’
He tilted his head to one side and smiled. ‘I’d just like to emphasise that I was astonishingly young when the first excavation took place.’
She had to confess, he could be very charming when he put his mind to it. But his expression morphed from easy charm to earnest reflection in the time it took for her to process the observation. She realised for the first time that things must have been almost as difficult for him as they had for Peter over the last few months.
She set her glass down on the table. ‘I was so excited when I found the archive. I couldn’t quite believe our luck. But Gerald’s death seems to have been a catalyst for a lot more than just our project.’
‘I gather you’ve had a bit of a rough time of it lately.’
A few weeks ago, she’d have been less than thrilled with the idea of discussing her private life with Ed, but now she found herself willingly confiding in him.
She nodded. ‘When David asked me to work on the archive with him, I was relieved to have something positive to get my teeth into. But now it feels like I lifted the lid on Pandora’s box when I opened that first crate.’
‘You sound as if you might be regretting it.’
She didn’t reply.
He gestured towards the rapidly dissolving silhouette of the hills. ‘When you’ve lived here all your life and spent every waking minute out on the Downs, they’re as much a part of you as breathing. You come to realise it’s all very simple.’
She smiled. ‘I wish I had your certainty. Whoever left that message on the tea hut doesn’t want us around.’
‘You’re not going to let a bit of nonsense like that put you off, are you?’
Clare stayed silent. It wasn’t just the tea hut incident; there was also her ‘accident’ on the photographic tower. But she knew that, like David, Ed believed that was exactly what it had been – an accident.
‘People don’t understand what this place is about. They take it all for granted.’
‘Incomers, you mean?’
Ed shrugged. His tone was considered, deliberate. ‘They’re all the same, incomers or not. They don’t give a damn about what it is or what it means. They don’t feel it. They live on the landscape like …’ He faltered, his voice straining with emotion. ‘Like parasites.’ A trickle of clear brown liquid slopped over the edge of his glass as he brought it down onto the tabletop, creating a sticky pool on the cold, metal surface.
The force of his words made Clare start in her seat, but Ed didn’t seem to notice. She’d had no idea how intensely he felt about this place. He was obviously every bit as passionate as she and David were about its importance. For a few moments, she considered not pursuing the questions she’d already determined to ask him. They seemed faintly ridiculous now, disrespectful even. But he was her best chance of finding the sun disc – not to mention who wanted her dead. The velvet blackness of the night had all but enveloped them by the time she steeled herself sufficiently.
‘David said you spent a lot of time with Gerald in his later years.’
Ed turned towards her, his tone warm and responsive. ‘Working in town, Peter couldn’t always be around as much as he’d have liked. So I used to help out. I’d drop in on the old boy. Make sure he was alright.’
‘Did you know he kept the Hungerbourne archive at the manor?’
‘He never talked much about the dig.’
‘Why was that?’
Clare sensed more than saw Ed stiffen in his seat. ‘I would have thought that was obvious now.’
‘Do you think Gerald killed Jim?’
He hesitated for a moment before replying. ‘I was very fond of Gerald. I don’t want to believe he was responsible. But what other reason could he possibly have had for keeping Jim’s ashes under lock and key for all those years? What I can’t understand is how he managed to keep something like that a secret.’
‘Do you really believe he was capable of killing someone?’
‘You didn’t know Jim. He would have tried the patience of a saint. He was a first-class shit. Fancied himself as lord of the manor, but never showed any sign of acting like a gentleman.’
‘He was in money trouble, wasn’t he?’
‘Peter told you, I suppose.’ He peered into the semi-darkness as if straining to make out her expression. She made no comment, choosing neither to confirm nor deny his assumption. ‘Estelle and Gerald did everything they could to keep Jim’s gambling debts quiet, but they were on a hiding to nothing. Jim tapped up half the county for money at one time or another.’
‘How much did he owe?’
‘I don’t know, but it must have been a fair whack. He was desperate to get his hands on cash. I heard him arguing with Gerald about it more than once. At the time I had the impression that Peter didn’t know what was going on. But looking back now, I think he was just too embarrassed to let on.
‘Peter and I had something in common. We both had lousy fathers. A friendship forged in adversity, you might say. My own father was never physically aggressive, not in the way Jim was. But he was a detestable penny-pinching bully. As soon as I f
inished school, I started work on the farm. I’d never wanted anything else, but the old man was as tight as …’ He seemed to be on the verge of using an expletive, but thought better of it. ‘Well, let’s just say he was the meanest man I’ve ever met. He paid me a pittance. I was no different from any other young man. I wanted to be able to do what my friends were doing; have a few drinks and be able to treat one or two of the girls to a night out.’
With his curly, light brown hair tingeing into grey and his strong, muscular face, Clare was reminded again of the Brew Crew photograph. He must have been popular with the ladies when he was younger.
Ed seemed almost to have forgotten she was there. ‘He sat in his armchair like some crumbling dictator issuing his decrees. Do you know what he said when I complained? He told me I should be grateful.’ He snorted. ‘I was nothing more than cheap labour to him.’
Through the flickering red cast of the tea-light, she could see that his eyes still blazed with the injustice of it all. He fell silent, staring out into the night. The ill will he bore his father was evident. But she still couldn’t bring herself to feel the same compassion for Ed that she did for Peter. They’d both had a choice about what they’d do with their lives. Peter had gone out into the world and forged a life of his own. Ed, on the other hand, had chosen to stay. And, looking round at the farmhouse, he didn’t seem to have done too badly for himself.
A breeze rustled through the hedgerow that divided the garden from the fields beyond. She sipped her brandy and pulled the cream cable-knit jumper that was draped around her shoulders closer to her. Ed looked up and shook his head as if trying to dislodge an unbidden memory.
‘Ed, can I ask you a question?’
He smiled. ‘I find it difficult to refuse requests from attractive young ladies.’
She tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. ‘It’s about something someone told me about Jim’s disappearance.’
‘Who, exactly?’
She leant forward in her seat, trying to make out his expression in the flickering candlelight. ‘George Clifford.’ She let the name settle on the rapidly chilling night air. ‘He suggested you had a reason to be upset when Jim left Hungerbourne.’