Omens of Death

by Nicholas Rhea

  *

  Amelia Fender had told the Coffee Club all about the vehicle and the comings and goings at the Crowthers’ home. And they listened most intently.

  ‘That niece of hers is bringing all sorts of people into the house.’ Mrs Fender had leaned forward confidentially and dropped her voice.

  Other ears would be flapping in the cafe and she wanted only the Coffee Club to heed her words.

  Although the cafe was noisy and no one appeared to be listening, one could not be too careful in speaking confidentialities to one’s friends.

  ‘I don’t know what May would think if she knew they were having parties there, really I don’t ...’

  ‘Perhaps she gave the girl permission to bring friends in?’ suggested Millicent. ‘If it’s her niece, that would be quite normal, surely?’

  ‘I very much doubt it!’ returned Amelia. ‘I mean, you never know who youngsters are likely to attract and besides, the party went on right into the early hours, lights on all the time, cars and taxis coming and going ... I never got a wink of sleep that night, I can tell you. There were men and women ... and a van of some sort full of party stuff. I think May would not want all that sort of thing going on. I heard they’d been to the cricket club as well, partying till all hours, naked too ...’

  ‘That is awful, and in May’s house ... and naked you say? What on earth is the world coming to!’ Gertrude Nettlewren, one of the other Coffee Club members, was suitably shocked by the allegations of bare people. ‘I know I would hate to have strangers in my house when I was on holiday. They treat the place as their own.’

  ‘House-sitter, that’s what the girl is,’ said Mrs Fender, now wondering what had really happened at the cricket club. ‘She is house-sitting while Cyril and May are away. That’s what May told me. She said her niece was coming to look after the house, to live in. But that’s no excuse for bringing in all and sundry, I ask you ...’

  Millicent Pluke looked at her watch. ‘Well, I must be getting back,’ she said. ‘I have a lunch engagement with Mrs Councillor Farrell.’

  But dare she broach the subject of the cricket club over lunch, she wondered?

  Chapter 5

  After only two strides into the Circle, Montague Pluke came to an abrupt halt. He stopped because he experienced the presence of living evil. It was a tangible sensation, almost overwhelming in its intensity, and it was confirmed when a flock of screaming swifts burst from the heavens and cascaded across the sky with a swishing of their sabre wings. Within a split second they were out of sight above the leafy trees, the sound of their shrill voices fading rapidly in the sheer speed of their exodus. Some thought these birds were a gift of the Almighty, but, probably due to the Lincolnshire blood within him, Montague regarded them as the devil’s birds. Legend said they were Satan’s links with the dead and contained the souls of the lost. As Montague stood in silence during those vital moments he knew beyond all doubt that there was evil nearby. For the second time that morning he spat on the ground.

  From his vantage point he could see a well-worn footpath around the inside of the ring of stones. Another path cut across the central grassed area which formed the circular floor of the folly and it led directly to the underground chamber. Taking a deep breath, Montague knew he must continue — he must not be thwarted by the depravity which surrounded him. Everything now depended upon him.

  He regarded the cavern in the hillside; its dark opening was a few yards to his left and at its threshold there was a depression of bare, damp and muddied earth. It formed a moist hollow where the feet of visitors had worn away the surface. There were footprints at that point, unidentifiable but numerous.

  Because that threshold lay in the shadows of the trees and fractionally within the shelter of the cavern itself, it was always damp; deep inside, the floor was also permanently slightly wet.

  Montague observed that the opening was high and narrow, rather like the entrance to a catacomb, as the cavern thrust deep into the side of the mound of earth which formed its roof and walls. The aperture had a pillar at each side; there was no door to enclose it. Anything and anyone could enter without hindrance. No doubt wild creatures sheltered here when the weather was stormy. Each of the pillars which formed the doorway was a standing stone less than six feet tall by ten inches wide and ten inches deep; the lintel was another large stone. That crosspiece, and others within, supported the tons of heaped earth which formed the thick, weatherproof covering above the cavern, earth which was sprouting trees and shrubs. The varieties included deciduous and coniferous trees among them birch, hazel, oak, elm, holly, rowan, spruce and larch.

  Montague thought the opening looked like the entrance to a mine. It was similar to those of the ancient iron ore, lead and coal mines which dotted the upper regions of the Yorkshire Dales and, bearing in mind the risks of entering such a place, he wondered if there had ever been a roof fall. But, he told himself, this was not a mine. It was not even genuine; it was the model of a burial chamber, a folly, a rich man’s plaything.

  So why had that feeling of evil been so tangible?

  The lintel was less than six feet above the floor of the chamber and the uneven roof inside seemed no higher, so very tall men would have to duck and remember to keep their heads bowed during their time inside. A nasty crack on the cranium would be the painful penalty for forgetfulness. Montague was not a tall man, especially when carrying his hat. None the less, he approached cautiously, once more leading with his right foot, hat in hand and nose wrinkled at the onslaught of damp earthiness mingled with the smell of stale urine. From a point just outside the entrance he observed that the immediate interior seemed a veritable waste tip, a convenient dumping ground for unwanted garbage, the offal of humanity and the price of tourism. It was evident that the chamber was used variously as a shelter, a toilet, a brothel and a rubbish dump. Paper tissues, used condoms, and old newspapers littered the floor within sight of the entrance; there were empty beer cans too, broken beer and wine bottles and lots of plastic carrier bags. Dark-grey ashes, the remains of fires, along with charred kindling suggested that people had slept there, cooked meals or merely taken refuge from the upland weather, probably when hiking over these heights.

  Entering with his customary care, Montague saw that the subdued light of the summer day highlighted that awful miasma, before being extinguished in the windowless space beyond. It was impossible to see what lay in that velvety darkness because after four yards or so the chamber curved sharply to the right. Once inside, Montague experienced the dank coolness of the underground as he trod with precision, wary of the risks of contaminating any material evidence.

  As he reached the corner, his heart was pounding with suppressed excitement and he realised he required a light if he was to see any further. One of the objects in his breast pocket was a miniature torch, even if it did look like a fountain pen. He withdrew it and switched it on. The narrow-beamed light, surprisingly powerful, picked out the uneven rock floor and Montague noted it was cleaner than the area near the entrance. The filthy users of this place had not dared venture into these dark bowels of the earth.

  Continuing his exploration, he saw that the rock walls a few yards beyond the corner had apparently produced a natural shelf. It looked like one of those lintel stones which formed the crosspieces of the Circle but it was about knee height from the uneven floor. Part of the rock wall on his right, it was wide enough and long enough to accommodate the recumbent form of a human being. And so it did.

  It bore the white and naked body of a young woman. She was out of sight from the entrance, while lying on that natural shelf with her head towards the daylight, as if she was asleep. Pale and sombre in the all-embracing gloom of this folly of a tomb, she was alone and, he was sure, quite dead.

  He stood for a moment in respect for the dead, his panama dangling in his free hand while his old coat, buttoned tight about his belly, made him appear abnormal in shape, size and even mental capacity. He spoke to her, his voice soundin
g hollow in this weird place, but there was no response. He listened for breathing — nothing. He tried her pulse — nothing. He opened her eyes — they were dead.

  He closed her eyes and knew there was no truth in the rumour that the eyes of a corpse retained the image of the killer. Even now, some killers believed that and ensured the eyes of their victims remained closed after death by placing a coin upon each eyelid, to hold them shut. And, Montague knew, if the corpse’s eyes were open, it meant it was looking for a companion to accompany it to the grave ... but hers were shut. And she was cold, as cold as the stone which entombed her.

  He had examined enough dead bodies to be confident that no life existed in this unfortunate young woman. In addition, there were flies about in spite of the coolness and lack of daylight. They were a further indication of death, seeking somewhere to lay their eggs if they had not already done so. They swarmed in the beam of his torch, buzzing towards the centre of the light source. There was a belief that fleas departed from the body of a dead person, but these were not fleas. They were bluebottles, scavengers, pests and disease carriers and, in the heat of the summer, the coolness of her tomb had probably kept them at bay for a while.

  How long had she been here? Not long enough for the body to have decomposed nor to produce the sickly scent of death, but long enough to attract these buzzing insects. Montague waved his torch about to disperse them, without hoping for permanent success, as he said to himself:

  ‘A fly on your nose, you slap and it goes,

  If it comes back again, it will bring good rain.’

  One did settle on his nose; he waved his hat and it departed.

  Knowing better than to interfere with the victim unnecessarily, Montague was aware that a doctor must certify the death, but before that he himself must conduct an initial search of the remainder of the chilly, gloomy chamber. It would take a few moments. A more comprehensive search would be done later by his expert colleagues, but he wished to examine the scene in his own way, before the others disturbed it. One reason was that the darkness might contain another corpse, one overlooked by Winton in the trauma of his moment of discovery.

  It was also possible that a living person, a suspect perhaps, or some evidence relating to the girl’s death, might be abandoned or concealed here. Her clothes might be here too ... she could have undressed to please a man and placed her belongings in a dry place.

  His work of detection began as the pencil slim beam of his pocket light scanned the walls and floor. He noted green moss and dankness, the marks of water seeping through; the uneven floor here devoid of human rubbish; the wall of solid rock at the distant end and the lack of any other entrance or exit, however small. The entire chamber was probably no longer than thirty feet and no wider than six feet and seemed to contain nothing but the body and those items of litter near the entrance.

  When they had fashioned this chamber, Lord Losky’s workmen had probably not carved it from the earth. To hack a route through solid rock would not have been sensible, particularly to build something as trivial as a folly, so its origins had probably been a natural hollow among large, immovable boulders.

  Its present appearance suggested the builders had placed stone beams and lintels over that hollow, the beams then being covered with earth and planted with trees to produce its current near-natural appearance. It was fairly realistic, but Montague reminded himself it had never been intended as a real tomb, even if It possessed some of the attributes. For example, sunshine never invaded its entrance which lay permanently in shadow.

  Montague remained acutely aware of the atmosphere of evil in which he worked and at times it was so powerful that he felt he was in a genuine but abandoned mausoleum or family vault. He had to keep reminding himself that this was just a folly, a place of interest and amusement. Now, though, by a quirk of fate, this fun structure was surely serving as a tomb, however temporary it might be. He stood for a few minutes with his torch playing across the body, wafting his hat to frighten the determined and pestilent flies.

  She would be in her late twenties, he estimated. A young woman with a beautiful body and a fine, shapely figure. Her legs were laid together; her arms were by her side, almost as if she was lying to attention. Her feet were not tied together, he noted. In some countries and even in parts of Britain, it was thought the spirit left the body via a route between the legs, thus if the feet were tied together, the spirit could not return, nor could the evil spirit of any other creature gain uninvited access to the corpse. Her large breasts appeared to be flat because she was lying on her back and the tuft of hair between her legs seemed darker because her surrounding flesh was so white.

  Blonde hair, worn long, was spread about the stone shelf near her head and her face had been one of handsomeness, beauty and some intelligence. And she was totally naked. Apart from the fact that she wore no clothes, she did not even have any jewellery — no rings, no earrings, no watch or bracelet. Nothing. Not even a ribbon or clip in her hair, nor even a flower beside her body. He had never seen Millicent like this; she’d never allow him to view her nakedness. He sighed a sigh of lost passions.

  Holding his hat and the torch in his left hand, he wondered whether she had died here. Peering closer, he noted that the body appeared clean and without wounds. Although he was unable to examine her back without moving her, he saw that all the visible parts of her body were free from cuts and bruises. And she was surprisingly clean; even her feet were clean except for a solitary brown fibre wedged in a slit in her left big toe nail. From a blanket, perhaps? Montague knew better than to turn her over; at this stage of the investigation she must be examined by experts in this place and in this position before anything else was done. Although there was no sign of blood, she might have been stabbed in the back, shot in the head or killed by other means which were not readily visible.

  The absence of blood was no firm guide, but in spite of his eagerness to know, he must not move her. The pathologist would determine the cause of death — but the fact that she was unclothed in this dreadful place suggested that her demise was suspicious. That being so, it was time to have the death certified and arrange a full investigation, one of the first tasks being to establish her identity.

  Alone in the chamber with the subject of his enquiries, Montague’s heart thumped as he felt tremors of excitement and nervousness. So much now depended upon him. To reach a successful conclusion to this mystery would indeed be a challenge — and a great responsibility. It would not be easy; he accepted that. Her killer had made sure that identification would be most difficult. Clothes and jewellery were vital to that process, but every scrap had been discarded. They must be found. The entire surrounds of this place would have to be searched for them and that search would have to be extended over a huge area of moor and woodland.

  From what he had seen so far, he favoured the theory, that she had been killed elsewhere and brought here in death in the hope she might never be found. In Montague’s mind, whoever had killed her must have known of this remote tomb in the woods. It was not the sort of place you found accidentally, especially during those urgent moments when trying to dispose of a corpse. Having seen all that he wished, Montague emerged from the dank place, pleased to breathe warm but unsullied woodland air once again. Outside, in the shadows of the trees, he halted to replace his panama and approached Wayne Wain and Stephen Winton. They had waited for him at the Eastern Gate.

  ‘She’s in there, apparently dead in circumstances of some suspicion,’ he told Detective Sergeant Wayne Wain, adding with authority, ‘I want the entire Circle sealed and nothing touched or moved until our experts arrive. Wayne, call Control immediately with a situation report and confirm this is to be treated as a murder. Tell Sergeant Cockfield pronounced Cofield to set up the Incident Room.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘And, Mr Winton, I need to talk to you at some length.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ muttered the photographer.

  ‘Thank you for reporting
your discovery ...’ began Montague.

  ‘I nearly ran for my life ... what a shock ... I was exploring the place, looking for atmospheric scenes and backgrounds ... I thought she was asleep ... I touched her, Inspector, to wake her up ... then realised she was so cold, stiff. Dead. I was sure she was dead. I rang your office.’

  ‘Absolutely the correct thing to do.’ Montague smiled. To touch a dead person was thought to bring good fortune. He had touched her too. He addressed his sergeant, determined to establish his control over the enquiry.

  ‘Now, Wayne, once you have radioed Crickledale Control Room, you must stand guard at this gateway and keep everyone out of the Circle until the support services arrive. Ask Control to send two uniformed constables to guard the Circle, then await the arrival of the doctor and the specialists. Meanwhile, I’ll have a chat with Mr Winton in the car. When our support teams arrive, tell them the body of a young woman is lying in that cavern, on a stone shelf, around to the right, out of sight, out of daylight. She’s naked, but there is no apparent injury to the body. It could be murder, but, let’s be realistic, she could have died from natural causes. Whatever the cause of death, the usual care and attention to detail is required. Preserve the entire Circle and everything in the cave for examination — rubbish, ashes, the lot.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Wayne Wain, realising that Pluke did know a thing or two about the investigation of murder. Montague was clearly in charge and enjoying his role. Wain was suitably impressed. He hoped sincerely that Pluke would solve the crime and confound his critics.

  Leaving Wain on guard, Detective Inspector Pluke, with his half-mast trousers flapping around his ankles and his straw hat perched upon his head, led Stephen Winton away from the Circle saying, ‘We’ll sit in my car, Mr Winton, for our chat.’