by C. J. Tudor
—
He finishes his sandwich and reaches for his mug of tea. Then he changes his mind and picks up the bottle of sherry he opened earlier. He takes a swig, savoring the sweet burn down his throat.
His ankle is still black and red, and more swollen than ever. The skin looks cracked and he’s increasingly convinced it is broken after all. But, with the tablets and booze, he hardly notices the pain.
He is aware that he smells, quite badly. He needs to shower, he thinks. Then, he’ll take the old couple’s Toyota and drive over to Chapel Croft and take a look around. He’s already got the keys out on the table. It’s been a while since he drove. But it’s a new car and he’s hoping it’s an automatic. Old people usually drive automatics, right?
He reaches for the sherry again…and tenses. He thought he heard something. Another car engine, tires crunching on the gravel driveway. The terrier runs from the kitchen, through the archway into the hall, yapping. He gets up from his chair and follows it. There’s a small window to the side of the wooden front door. He peers through.
Sure enough, a silver Nissan has pulled up on the drive. “Cathy’s Cleaners” is written down the side. What to do? He could just not answer the door, but she probably has a key. Plus, the damn dog is yapping up a storm. Fuck.
He watches as a slim woman—mid-thirties, dark blonde hair—climbs out of the car. He glances toward the living room. The axe is still embedded in the old man’s head. He hobbles into the kitchen and pulls open the cutlery drawer. He selects a sharp bread knife and walks back to the front door, heart thudding.
He peers through the window. The woman goes to the trunk and takes out a Henry Hoover and a box of cleaning products. She carries the box up to the front door. His hand tightens on the knife. She puts the box down on the doorstep, then walks back to the car. She closes the trunk and picks up the vacuum cleaner. Then she stops, obviously remembering something. She opens the back door and takes out a branded purple tunic, which she slips over her T-shirt. He stares. In the back of the car, there’s a baby seat.
She locks the car and crunches up to the front door. He looks down at the knife. Back at the door. He sees there is a chain on it. He quickly loops it into place. Then he backs away. The doorbell rings. The terrier scrabbles at the door, barking hysterically. He hears her say:
“Hello, Candy, are you okay?”
She rings the doorbell again. He climbs up the stairs and sits on the landing, out of sight. He hears her insert a key into the lock and push the door open. It jams against the chain.
“Hello—Roz, Geoff? The chain’s on?”
The dog claws at the gap.
“Hey, Candy. It’s okay, sweetheart.”
She rattles the door again. He hears her tut. Why isn’t she leaving? What’s she doing? His question is answered as a mobile suddenly trills in the house. After five rings, it stops. He hears her voice outside:
“Hello, it’s Cathy. I’m at the house, but I can’t get in, the chain’s on. Your car’s here. Are you okay? Give me a call. I’m going to head off now, but I can always come back later. Okay. Bye.”
He waits.
“Bye, Candy. Nose in.”
She pulls the door shut and he listens as she crunches across the gravel to her car. A few seconds later he hears the car drive away again. He lets out a sigh of relief.
He walks into the kitchen and picks up the Toyota keys. There’s a door from the kitchen to the side of the house. He eases it open and hobbles around the farmhouse.
You can’t take the car.
Why?
Because it’s the first thing the police will look for when they find the bodies.
His heart sinks. Of course. Right now, no one knows who he is or what he looks like. But if he takes the car, the police will be looking for it. Cars are not easy things to hide, even if you burn them out.
He looks around, and then he sees it. A bike. Propped against the log shed. He hurries across to it and swings his leg over the saddle. He can just about manage to pedal with his ankle. The terrier yaps and howls frantically from inside the house—loud enough to cause a small crowd of jackdaws to rise, squawking, from the rooftop. He should have killed the dog too.
He stares back at the farmhouse, considering. Then he cycles out of the driveway in a spit of gravel. The dog’s howls echo after him.
“So, I thought you worked at the village hall?”
We walk across to the chapel from the cottage. I told Flo to let Frank know where we are if he needs me.
“I help out at the café as a favor, really,” Kirsty says. “Nan enjoyed the coffee mornings when she was alive, so I feel I’m giving something back. Same with the youth club. I used to enjoy going there as a teenager.”
“That’s great. And this is your full-time job?”
“Mostly. I run the business with my dad and brother. Sometimes we’re flat out on a big project, others we’re twiddling our thumbs.”
“Right. Well, I’m glad to have caught you twiddling.”
I open the door to the chapel and we walk inside.
Kirsty looks around. “Always thought this place was a bit weird and creepy.” She glances at me. “Sorry. No offense.”
“That’s okay.” I smile. “You’re right.”
We walk down the aisle of the nave and stare at the hole in the chapel floor. Kirsty draws in a breath.
“Whoah. Well, that’s a mess.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t just mean the hole, although that is a mess, obviously.” She kneels down. “I mean this stonework. Whoever tried to repair it did a really rubbish job.”
She opens her toolbox, takes out a chisel and prods at the crumbling stone. “Total bodge job. The stone is cheap. Modern, not authentic, and the cement is poorly mixed.” She frowns. “Also, I don’t understand what they thought they were doing. It looks like the timber has rotted beneath the floor here. You shouldn’t try to pave over rotten foundations. The floor will always give way again. Lucky someone didn’t plunge all the way through.”
“I almost did.”
We both turn. Flo stands in the doorway. She limps toward us. “Put my foot right through the floor.”
“Crap,” Kirsty says. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just scraped my leg, fortunately.”
“You were lucky. This whole section of flooring could have given way at any time.”
Flo sits down on a pew nearby.
“Has Frank gone?” I ask her.
“Yeah. Said the internet should be up and running in about an hour.”
“Okay. Good.”
Kirsty sits back on her haunches. “Right. First job. We need to get rid of these cheap slabs.”
“Can we go down there then? I’d like to take a look at those coffins.”
“I need to make sure it’s safe. You don’t want the whole ceiling caving in on you.” She shines a flashlight down into the hole. “I can see some steps, so I would guess that the original entrance is slightly to our left. I still don’t understand why this was paved over in the first place.”
“Me neither,” I say. “How recently d’you think it was done?”
“Within the last few months, from the looks of it.”
Months? So, while Fletcher was still here. I suddenly think about the architectural plans in the box. Did he discover the vault? Maybe find a way down? But why pave over it again?
“Right.” Kirsty takes a hammer and another chisel from the toolbox, as well as some protective goggles and a dust mask. “You might want to stand well back. Here we go.”
The sound of the chisel striking stone echoes around the empty chapel. It reverberates through me, almost as if someone is taking the chisel to my own bones. I glance at Flo. She pulls a face and sticks her fingers in her ears.
Kirsty brings the hamme
r down on the chisel again then pulls away a chunk of stone paving slab. “Shouldn’t take long,” she says. “This stuff is like papier mâché.”
It doesn’t sound like it, unfortunately. I grimace as she whacks the hammer against the chisel on another corner of paving. This time, the whole lot crumbles and falls through what is now a much wider hole. I hear the bits of stone crash into the vault below.
Kirsty pulls her mask down and regards her handiwork. “Okay, I think if I just lift this older flagstone here, we can expose the top of the stairway.”
She bends and starts to lift the stone. I go to help.
“Careful,” she says. “We don’t want to damage it.”
We wiggle the stone free of the loose cement.
“One, two, three…” Kirsty says. “Heave.”
We lift the stone up—my back twinges—and place it down to one side.
“Whoah,” Flo mutters, coming closer.
We stare into the hole. The removal of the paving slabs has revealed a steep and uneven staircase that leads down to a vaulted tunnel.
Kirsty crouches right down, examining the tunnel roof with her flashlight. “The rest of the foundations look okay. It’s just this section that has rotted.”
“Right,” I say, pulling my own flashlight out of my pocket. “I’ll go down first. Flo, I think you should stay up here.”
“No way.” She folds her arms. “We go together.”
There’s no point arguing. I know that look. I invented that look.
“Fine. All together it is.”
I snap the flashlight on and gingerly start down the stone steps. They are barely wide enough to fit half of my foot on and there is nothing to hold on to for balance, just the smooth and slightly damp curved wall. At some point there must have been a trapdoor here, I think.
“Mind your footing,” I say to Flo and Kirsty, who are following closely behind me.
The flashlights illuminate about four or five steps ahead. My shoulders brush the brick. As I near the bottom, the vault opens out. I straighten and point the flashlight around. I hear Kirsty whistle. The underground room is small and narrow. The ceiling curves above us. Clustered in an arch on one side of the vault are three coffins.
Flo mutters. “Total Bram Stoker.”
I feel a small chill. Which is ridiculous, of course. I’m a vicar. I deal with death and coffins pretty regularly. And yet, down here, beneath the ground, in the darkness…
“So, this is a crypt,” Kirsty says.
“That’s what most vaults are,” I say. “Basically, fancy graves for those deemed of importance within the village or town.”
Curiosity is now getting the better of claustrophobia. I walk up to the coffins and train my flashlight on them. They’re all a bit moldy and warped, but only the uppermost one has completely cracked open, revealing its occupant.
Or perhaps the occupant was trying to claw his way out?
I shove that helpful thought aside and try to focus. Each coffin has a slightly corroded brass plaque on the top, engraved with the name of the deceased:
James Oswald Harper, 1531–1569. Isabel Harper, 1531–1570. And finally, Andrew John Harper, 1533–1575.
The Harper family vault. Except, something isn’t right. Something is itching at the back of my mind.
“This doesn’t make sense,” I say.
“Why?” Flo asks. “You just said rich families had their coffins put into vaults?”
“Yes, but the story goes that the Harper family were Sussex Martyrs, burned at the stake for refusing to renounce their religion.”
“That’s right,” Kirsty says. “Their names are on the memorial. We restored it only last year.”
“That’s what is bugging me. The names on the memorial. The same names. If the Harpers were burned at the stake, what are they doing buried down here?”
“When did the purge of Chapel Croft take place?”
“Oh, we did this in school,” Kirsty says. “The Protestant Purge of Chapel Croft took place on the night of 17 September 1556.”
I point at the plaques on the coffins. “So why are the dates of death different—over a decade later?”
We all stare at the coffins.
“So, you’re thinking, they weren’t burned as martyrs?” Flo says.
“It doesn’t look like it.”
It looks like, somewhere along the line, someone has decided to rewrite history. Easy enough to do. Record keeping was poor in the sixteenth century. And didn’t Rushton say that the fire destroyed most of the parish records?
And history is written by the ruthless.
“But everyone knows that the Harpers were Sussex Martyrs,” Kirsty says. “It’s kind of a big deal. If it isn’t true…” She trails off.
If it isn’t true, then the Harper family name would be irrevocably tarnished. It might even mean they were the ones who betrayed the burning girls to save their own necks. And that is a big deal in a small village. Does Simon Harper know his family reputation is built on a lie? Is that why he “donated” money to the church? To keep it hidden? But, if that’s the case, it would mean that someone within the church must have been complicit in covering it up.
I stare at the skull of James Oswald Harper. It’s in surprisingly good condition. I frown. And then I train my flashlight inside the coffin. What the hell?
“Kirsty, could you just point your flashlight over here?”
“Sure.”
“What is it?” Flo asks.
I don’t reply. I stick my flashlight in my mouth and, using both hands, tug at the cracked wood of the split coffin.
“Mum,” Flo says, sounding worried. “What are you doing?”
I grunt and pull again. There’s a crrrrack that echoes around the small chamber and the entire wooden coffin lid peels off. I stagger backward, clutching the broken lid. The coffin tips to one side and a skeletal body tumbles out.
Flo yelps. Even Kirsty mutters, “Shit!”
I stare at the remains on the ground. Then I look back at the coffin, where a far more decayed, brown skeleton rests inside. That’s what I saw. A second skull. A second body inside the coffin.
“Wh—why are there two?” Kirsty gasps.
Good question. I crouch down beside the first skeleton. Only slightly yellowed. Dressed in a black priest’s cassock and white dog collar. Strands of blond hair still cling to the scalp. And then I spot something else.
On one finger is a chunky silver signet ring.
I crawl forward and gently lift the skeletal fingers, peering at the ring more closely. Engraved on the front is a saint wielding a cross and a sword. Words in Latin run around the circumference:
Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio.
St. Michael, protect us in battle.
A wave of dizziness washes over me. I sit back on my haunches.
“Mum?” Flo’s voice sounds distant. “Are you okay? What have you found?”
I nod, but I’m not okay.
I think we’ve just found the missing curate. Benjamin Grady.
* * *
A rattling at her window. Skeletal fingernails scratching the glass.
Merry sat up in bed, blinking blearily. Her room swelled with shadows. Moonlight wavered at the window.
Rattle, click. Rattle, click.
Not fingers. Pebbles. Stones.
She padded across the room and pulled the curtain aside, peering out. Her eyes widened as she spotted the figure standing beneath the window. Joy. She yanked it open.
“What are you doing here?”
“I needed to see you.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“It was the only way. Please.”
She debated with herself, and then nodded.
“Wait there.”
She grabbed her dressing gown and tiptoed carefully out of her room. She could hear snoring next door. Mum had finished two bottles of wine after tea, so she should be out for the count. Still, Merry found herself holding her breath as she padded down the stairs and out of the back door. The night breeze felt cool through her thin pajamas.
“What’s going on?”
Joy started to sob, noisily. “I’m so sorry. I let you down.”
Merry glanced nervously back at the house. “Don’t cry. Come on.”
They walked to the end of the garden and sat down on the broken-down wall, near the well.
“I was so stupid,” Joy sobbed. “I thought he was good, but he’s the devil.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
But Joy just shook her head. “You know, what we talked about before? Running away?”
Merry did. But they hadn’t talked about it much recently. They had barely seen each other.
“I thought you’d changed your mind.”
“No. Do you still want to go?”
She thought about her mum. She was getting worse. The other night, she had become convinced that Merry was possessed and needed the devil driven out of her. When Merry had seen the full bath of ice-cold water, she had run and hidden in the woods.
“Yes,” she said firmly.
“When?”
She considered. “Tomorrow night. Pack a bag. Meet me here.”
“What about money?”
“I know where Mum has some hidden.”
“Where will we go?”
Merry smiled. “Somewhere they’ll never find us.”
It seems to take him a long time to cycle from the farmhouse to the outskirts of Chapel Croft, even though a weathered white sign informs him that it is only five miles.
His head throbs from the sherry (or rather, from stopping drinking the sherry) and his ankle feels like it’s on fire. He stops several times, to catch his breath and rub uselessly at the ankle. The inflammation is spreading. Purply-red skin bulges over his sock and stretches up his calf. But he has to keep going.
At one point, he rests near a stile. He can see a trough for sheep on the other side. He clambers over, sticks his face in and drinks. The water is brown and sour, but it’s relatively cold and it quenches some of his thirst.