The Way, the Truth and the Dead

by Francis Pryor

  Alan pushed open the back door into what had formerly been the Public Bar, but was now the Ploughman’s Rest. Being a Friday night, the place was well filled, although not quite as crowded as he would have expected ten or fifteen years ago. The landlord, Cyril, was a local who had run a much larger pub in Ely as a younger man and had moved back to Fursey when he retired. He genuinely ran the pub as a social enterprise: yes, he did earn a modest living from it, but he also knew the Cripps was the main focus of village social life. Alan reflected that it wasn’t just doctors, nurses and vicars who had a sense of vocation.

  His arrival was greeted by a cry of ‘Look who’s just arrived!’ from Davey Hibbs, who rapidly drained, then held up his empty glass. He tried to persuade the two men he was with to do the same, but they shook their heads.

  At the bar Cyril had seen the exchange and had already poured a foaming pint of Old Slodger by the time Alan reached him. Cyril looked up for confirmation as he was about to pull the second pint. Alan nodded. ‘Might as well, Cyril, he’s earned it.’

  ‘You had a good week, then?’

  Cyril made no secret of the fact that he was a big fan of Test Pit Challenge and had started a ‘Dig News’ section on the pub noticeboard.

  ‘Unbelievably good, Cyril.’ He took a long pull from his pint. Then ordered ham, eggs and double chips.

  Cyril scribbled a note to the kitchen and Alan paid for his beer and the meal. As he waited for his change, Davey came alongside. Alan pushed the pint towards him.

  ‘Cheers, Alan,’ he said as he took a long draught. ‘We’ve had a good week. And I’ve enjoyed working with you. Come and meet my brother Sam.’

  Alan remembered Sam Hibbs had been the man who had been hit by the falling willow tree during that storm shortly before Stan’s death. He’d obviously been hurt quite badly, as he was sitting down and two walking sticks leant against the table beside him. Next to him sat Bert Hickson, the Fursey Shoot’s ex-soldier and Davey Hibbs’s uncle, whom he’d met briefly with Stan’s parents and Barty at the wake. It was ­Hickson who had found Stan’s body and Alan winced as he remembered his insensitive comments to him, but Bert appeared not to remember. He seemed more at ease, enjoying his pint of Slodger.

  Alan asked Sam how he felt. ‘Nothing permanent and I’m seeing a physio—’

  ‘But you know what Thorey said at the time, Sam: take the buggers to court. That’s what he’d have done,’ said Bert.

  ‘Yes, Bert, that’s fine for him to say, but I’ve no complaints with the Smiley’s. They’ve been good to me, and they’ve given me all the time off I need. And as for Joe Thorey, he’s plain greedy, that’s all. And you know as well as anyone, he’d no more take his own employers to court than fly.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t need to, does he? He’s got it made. He wouldn’t sue the goose that lays the golden eggs, now, would he?’

  They all nodded. He was dead right. Meanwhile Alan’s head was racing. The Thorey they were talking about so disparagingly was presumably Joe Thorey, Bert Hickson’s replacement as head keeper. Alan remembered his rude behaviour at Stan’s wake. He had not made a good impression.

  Bert stood up. He nodded at their glasses. They gave thumbs ups and he headed towards the bar. Alan joined him ostensibly to help carry the glasses, but actually to re-introduce himself. It was Bert Hickson who had phoned the police about Stan’s body and there was much Alan needed to learn.

  ‘I am impressed, Mr Hickson, you look even fitter than when I saw you last. You been taking exercise?’

  ‘I’ve been swimming and doing a bit of cycling, too.’

  ‘Well, it certainly seems to have worked.’

  The older man smiled. ‘Well, you can’t sit at home all day. I’m better off being out and about.’

  ‘Do you ever do any work on the estate? I’d imagine Joe Thorey would welcome the help of a fit man like you.’

  ‘In your dreams, young man. He wouldn’t let me back into Fursey Park if I offered to work for free. And I’m damned if I’ll do that. I know Barty wouldn’t object, nor would Mr ­Sebastian, come to that. Trouble is, neither of them are running the shoot. That’s strictly between Thorey and Mrs Sarah.’ He paused. ‘And what they say goes.’

  This was very interesting. The more he learnt about the Cripps family, the more complex they seemed. Wheels within wheels; different people, differing ambitions, yet no external cracks. To the outside world they were as solid as rock – or maybe as thick ice.

  Cyril had been pouring their pints and obviously listening in to the conversation.

  ‘Talking of Thorey, he never turned up last night. I’d got his evening meal ready as usual.’

  ‘Prompt at seven?’

  ‘That’s right. As he likes it.’ He lifted two full pints up onto the bar. ‘So I had to eat it myself.’

  Alan felt it was time he said something. ‘That must have been a chore for you, Cyril.’

  ‘That’s enough lip from you, young whippersnapper.’

  The two older men smiled.

  ‘But it’s not like him, is it?’ Bert asked.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Cyril replied. ‘As you know, he always eats here. That’s how he puts his teams of beaters together every weekend. Everyone knows he’s here at seven. Grace says we should pay him a commission.’

  As Alan and Bert picked up their pints and started to move away, the young man who had been standing at the bar next to Alan received a text. Alan glanced back at him. The man’s face looked puzzled.

  ‘Cyril, I’ve just got a text.’ Bert and Alan stopped on their way back to the table. There was something about the way he said it. ‘It says here that Joe didn’t report to the office all day. And I was waiting for him down at the pens all morning. Gave up in the end and helped clean out the game larder.’

  By now the bar had gone quiet. Then somebody asked, ‘Has anyone checked out his house?’

  ‘Yes, Dan,’ a lady sitting on the settle by the fire called back. ‘I did the cleaning all morning. Come to think of it, he hadn’t used the electric kettle, which was cold. I remember thinking that at the time.’

  ‘That’s you all over, Dolly,’ another lady called out. ‘Tea first, cleaning second.’

  Normally that might have raised a small laugh. But not now.

  Slowly, conversation resumed. After all, Alan reflected, people are allowed to take a day off from time to time. But everyone he spoke to was agreed: it was odd that he hadn’t told anyone he was leaving – not even the estate’s cleaning lady.

  Just before closing time, Alan’s sense of foreboding increased when another elderly man, who he could hear discussing Thorey’s disappearance with Bert Hickson, called cheerily over his shoulder, by way of goodnight, ‘Oh well, Cyril, here we go again. Curse of the Cripps – call in the police divers!’

  Alan put a bunch of empty glasses on the bar and turned to leave. Those parting words were echoing through his befuddled brain. When was it, 2004? That’s right: the gardening banker at the hall. What was his name: Hambledon? Hampton? No, Hansworth. That’s it: Hansworth. Hansworth. And then poor Stan.

  But now his blood was running cold. Cold as the swollen waters of the Mill Cut.

  Part 2

  Seeking the Truth

  Seven

  Alan detected a glint of black ice on the village street as he stood at his kitchen window sipping tea from his Nikon mug. On the table beside him was a packet of chocolate digestives. Two women who helped out at the village shop walked gingerly by on their way to work. Alan glanced down at his watch: 6.45. The weekend starts early for some, he thought. Still, the tea was working its magic, dissipating the after-effects of the night before. He’d got up promptly to resume work on Stan’s notebooks, which had been starting to slip behind schedule. But now he found he was thinking not so much about levels in dykes, as the river into which they drained. And from there it was a short step to Hansworth, fishing and to Joe Thorey. Would he be walking to work today? He very much doubted it.

/>   Across the fields he could faintly hear the sound of an ambulance siren. He started to imagine who might have fallen ill at that hour when his musings were suddenly interrupted by the bright-yellow reflective jackets of two police community support officers who were caught in the headlights of a passing car. Alan guessed they must have walked out of Fursey Hall’s drive, to the right of his cottage, and were heading back into the village.

  He took a large bite from a biscuit. Police. So, he thought grimly, maybe the loud-mouthed Joe Thorey hasn’t reappeared.

  * * *

  The sun was just starting to appear above the open, peaty fields of Padnal Fen away to the south-east, as Alan took the right fork onto the Littleport Road. In the mirror, the ruins of Fursey Abbey Church looked superb in the clean light of morning. Normally he’d have pulled over and taken a photo, but not today, as he’d agreed to meet Jake and the team for a cup of tea and a chat before they began their last full day’s work at White Delphs.

  After fifteen minutes the road rose steeply to ascend the huge man-made banks of the River Great Ouse. He remembered driving here with his dad who explained that in the 1950s and ’60s that slope had been the only place where learner drivers taking their test in Littleport could practise handbrake hill starts. For a few hundred yards the road ran parallel to the Kings Lynn–Cambridge railway line, then it came off the bank and veered west, towards yet another riverbank. He slowed down. He knew the turning was around here somewhere. A huge tractor with a load of sugar beet thundered past him, heading towards Norfolk.

  Welcome to White Delphs Wartime Experience and Adventure Playground proclaimed a large notice, which Alan thought had been designed with some care. The khaki and brown camouflage shouldn’t have been eye-catching at all, but it was. Maybe it was the raised, brightly painted lettering plus a zigzag line of cod-machine-gun bullet holes that did it. But whatever it was, it worked – and had been professionally executed. ‘And it wasn’t cheap, either,’ Alan muttered under his breath as he turned into the visitors’ car park.

  The car park proclaimed that it was free and welcomed people to come and use it, even if they were not planning to visit the attraction ‘on this occasion’. Smart marketing again, Alan conceded. There was even a picnic area, complete with benches and tables. Another, smaller, painted ‘camouflage’ notice proclaimed that ‘The White Delphs Wartime Experience and Adventure Playground was owned and operated by Historic Projects Management ltd., a registered charity’. The brief terms and conditions were signed off by Blake Lonsdale, Chief Executive, at the HPM Registered Offices in Stratford, east London – of all places. Alan wondered what on earth the connection might be.

  Jake was waiting for him and they walked across the car park to a Portakabin behind a screen of tall black poplars, which Alan reckoned had probably been planted during the war. People rarely think of plants being historic monuments, but those trees almost certainly were. Around them were several massive concrete anti-tank cubes, the base of a spigot mortar, another more active anti-tank weapon and pieces of old railway tracks which had been cut into short lengths and set deep into the ground, again against incoming armour. Alan was impressed. It was nice to come across a small corner of the fens that hadn’t been flattened out in the interests of intensive agriculture.

  Although it wasn’t the summer tourist season, the car park was by no means empty and Alan’s eye was immediately caught by a gleaming dark-blue Bentley. As they approached the side entrance to the visitor centre, a door a few yards away opened and a man in a smart suit emerged. He pointed the keys at the Bentley, whose lights dutifully blinked. Alan was fascinated: the man’s suit and the Bentley’s paintwork were a perfect match.

  Jake touched Alan on the shoulder and semi-whispered, ‘That’s Blake Lonsdale, he’s chief executive of the company that runs this place.’

  Their hesitation had caught Lonsdale’s attention. He looked up and strode towards them. ‘So one of you gentlemen must be Jake Williamson?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  They shook hands. Close up Lonsdale was strikingly handsome. Fit, fifties. Film star good looks. Slightly greying temples.

  ‘And I’m Alan Cadbury. I’m an archaeologist at Fursey Abbey just down the road.’

  ‘Indeed, I know it well. My friend John Cripps has told me all about your project. Sounds most interesting.’

  Blimey, Alan thought, word gets around quickly.

  ‘I was just going to show Alan what we’ve been up to here,’ Jake added.

  ‘Excellent. Be our guest. And please be polite about the company, Jake.’ This was said with a broad smile. They then chatted about the perils and pleasures of running a historic visitor attraction, and Alan was impressed not just by his obvious business ability, but by his interest in archaeology. Then a phone rang in the Bentley. ‘I do apologise, that might be quite important. I’d better answer it. So nice to have met you both.’

  Jake closed the door of the side entrance behind them.

  ‘So, will you be “polite about the company”, Jake?’

  Jake smiled. ‘To be quite honest, I will. They’ve treated us very well indeed. They’ve given us everything we’ve asked for and never quibbled over contingencies.’

  Clients of excavation contractors always quibbled over contingency clauses in project specifications. It was part of life in commercial archaeology. But not, it seemed, at White Delphs.

  Once inside the Portakabin, Alan felt immediately at home; this was familiar territory for him. The place had that early morning feel to it: the chill of night-time was still there, but pushed into the background by the steam of kettles and the ubiquitous portable gas stove. This Portakabin also smelled good because Jake’s finds assistant, Henrietta ‘Hen’ Clancy, couldn’t stand instant coffee and had brought a filter coffee maker with her.

  She greeted Alan with a warm kiss on both cheeks. She was a little shorter than Jake, but about the same age – late twenties/early thirties – and as Alan looked at them standing together, it was clear that their relationship went beyond the professional. As Alan knew only too well, such things often happened on digs. He thought back to Harriet on the ­Guthlic’s graveyard job. The memory of her was still fresh, and still, he had to admit, warm. But then he’d blown everything – and pointlessly. It had shaken – in fact it still shook – his confidence. He found his mind returning to those days made dark in high summer, when he knew his obsession was driving the only woman he had really cared for away. But he couldn’t help himself. He’d gone over and over those times, trying to learn lessons from them. And had he? Would he handle things any better now, more than a year on? He hoped he would, but doubted it. His introspection was abruptly broken by Hen who was trying to stack a finds tray on the trestle table behind him.

  He stepped aside with a muttered apology. Hen had acquired her nickname because she was a punctilious finds assistant and had a reputation for clucking around people when they handed in their finds trays at the end of a day’s digging. Once Alan had put a rubber egg in her tray. He smiled as he recalled her reaction, which was to return it to Alan, to store in a place ‘where the sun don’t shine’, much to the delight of some tired, mud-spattered diggers.

  Jake introduced him to the two professional diggers, Jon and Kaylee, both of whom had graduated the previous summer from the Field School at Westbourne. Alan had a high opinion of Westbourne graduates, who were often motivated and hard-working.

  Hen asked about the people behind the Fursey project, as she was becoming increasingly aware that during the current depression some potential employers were a bit financially unreliable, and that the White Delphs company, Heritage Projects Management, had been excellent. Jake added that they also paid promptly, and didn’t quibble over budget changes. By way of response, Alan explained that Fursey was both a long-term visitor attraction and a publicly-funded research project. He told them that so far he’d also found them very good to work for.

  Both Hen and Jake already knew Alan an
d they were glad of the work. The two others were slightly hesitant at first, but once Alan had explained what they were finding and the potential of the Fursey site, they rapidly became more enthusiastic. Soon they agreed to come along, too.

  At this, Alan smiled broadly. ‘Thanks for that. It’s good to know I’ll have an experienced team to start the new project. It’s always difficult, when you don’t get much notice. So you’ve helped get me off the hook. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.’

  After their short chat, Jake took Alan across to the site. Digging had finished, but it still looked neat and business-like. Alan smiled: for all the world it could have been a Roman villa or a Benedictine monastery for the care and attention they had given the remains. The fact that most of the structures dated to the autumn of 1940 was entirely irrelevant. Everything was there: sunken cable ducts, exposed and displayed as if they had been the flues leading into a Roman bath house hypocaust; rough-cast wartime concrete, brushed and cleaned like the finest Norman masonry.

  ‘You’ll have to find your own way around, Alan, as I’ve got loads of things to get cleared up before the end of the day.’ Alan nodded; he fully understood. ‘But just to put you in the picture, at the start of the dig I was asked to investigate what they thought might be the accommodation area—’

  ‘What, for the troops?’ Alan broke in.

  ‘Yes, but also civilians.’ Jake couldn’t conceal his enthusiasm for the site and the period. ‘Remember, only a few of the specialist gunners were regulars. The rest were Home Guard and some were veterans of the First World War. These chaps would have needed support of some sort.’

  ‘And did you find it?’

  ‘Yes, very much so. Over here we’ve got the block-work stub walls for Nissan-hut-type buildings and you can see over here’ – they walked a few paces towards the poplar trees – ‘the remains of tiles and slabs for the floor. We also found spoons, forks and broken glass salt and pepper pots, some with Bakelite tops still in place. We reckon it was the canteen.’