‘Yes, yes!’ she hissed. ‘Get on with it.’
He began slowly but firmly pressing down with both hands, almost as if he was just testing its weight. It didn’t move. He glanced over at our group and wiped his hands down his trousers, leaving two dark smears of mud on each leg. He pushed down on the large raised wooden bar again, this time lifting his entire weight off the ground. The first glimmer of defeat started to emerge on his face.
Aunt Charlotte stepped forward, rolled up her sleeves and nodded to Gerald. She placed her hands next to his on the lifted beam. Mirabelle wedged herself in between them and looked straight ahead, her hands firmly set on the wood.
They began to push. It rocked a little and the waters rippled. Again, they pushed down and then each of them began to lean on it until their feet were barely touching the ground. Aunt Charlotte was on the tiptoes of her thick brogues, skidding in the mud, when the stool began to surface. They paused and then with renewed effort, the strain clear on their faces, they pushed.
There was a ripple of movement and something dark broke the surface of the water.
‘Push!’ Aunt Charlotte commanded.
Ron hurried forward to lever the end of the bar. I couldn’t see a space. The strain was evident on all their faces. And slowly they pushed the bar further down and the other end began to rise from the water as if it was being torn out of it.
At first, the slumped mess didn’t even look human. The long hair strewn with weeds poured down towards the moat, water raining from the heavy clothes. The shock of it made the four pushing lose their momentum for a second and the stool began to slip. Ron let go.
‘Quick!’ Mother shouted towards me.
We ran to the wooden beam, desperately trying to nestle ourselves between the others, some of us barely able to get a hand on the wooden bar. Together we pushed down again on the coarse, wet wood. The seat rose up and the long, black cape drained out into the water in a fast stream until finally the body was lifted high up into the air above us. It was a thin silhouette against the slate grey sky, leaking out in a long uninterrupted flow of water as if it was melting.
Jocasta MacDonald’s marbled face looked almost serene staring down into her watery grave. She was tied down to the chair with thick coils of rope that gave this scene a very definite purpose. Nothing was vague about this image. Nothing loose about the intent.
‘Oh my God,’ Marsha breathed in disbelief.
The rope was tied so tight that where the cape was pulled back her clay white skin bulged over the bindings. Someone had stood on the other end of that pole and plunged that trussed up woman into the muddied waters and those slimy depths below. Had she been conscious to see the water rushing up to meet her? Or perhaps she had woken up in her new watery world — alert eyed, then panicked and feverishly struggling. Thrashing inside her bindings, rocking one way then the next, she would have been the very mirror image of the calm, martyred face that looked down on us now.
It hadn’t occurred to me until he fell to his knees and groaned, that the woman’s husband was there to witness her rising up from those dead waters. She sat above him, her eyes as white as mould, blindly staring down at him. Her expression caught in that last failed attempt to find breath.
‘I . . . I can’t . . . God . . . No!’ Ron’s cry seemed to have a new voice.
She hung above us in the sky, unmoved, her dead eyes reflecting the water.
Each of us looked up at her in horrified disbelief.
‘Oh my God,’ Aunt Charlotte breathed.
‘Get her down,’ Harriet said. ‘Turn it. You need to move it round, then lower it.’ She seemed to find it easier to be practical than let the truth of what we were seeing seep in.
We swung her round, the pole pivoting in the centre, as if we were opening no more than a simple gate. The water spewed round her and splattered across us, muddy droplets falling from her among the thin rain. Her cape clung to her back, pulled and gathered in by the rope, glimpses of the grey flesh underneath, battered and bruised.
‘Jocasta?’ Ron whispered.
‘Christ.’ I heard Mother’s voice as she reached for my hand. I felt her fingers slip between mine.
We set the body down as gently as we could, but she was heavy with water and death. Her head slumped until it rested on her chest. The delicate, ethereal woman who had hovered above us was gone. Stark blue veins rippled clearly beneath the cold flesh, blanched and wrinkled by the water. Long strips of black hair fell either side of her face. Her hands were clenched tight in fear on the arms of the chair where they had been cruelly roped. Her legs were rigid against the wood as if everything about her had tensed in on itself. The water was the merest trickle coming from the tips of her hair now and dripping soundlessly from her clothes. The chair sat heavily in the dirt, its legs sinking into the thick mud.
Her hair parted over the back of her head and I could see the grey skin of her neck. I let go of the bar, my mind numb as if protecting itself from this grim scene.
Ron had stumbled towards her and fell into the mud at her feet.
‘I . . . Jocasta . . . Jocasta.’
He breathed her name in and out as if trying to breathe new life into her. He looked up into her face below the curtain of lank hair. His eyes were set wide in disbelief. Kneeling, he clutched his hands tight together until he looked like he was praying up into the face of an angel’s statue. As though he was about to start unfolding his soul to this saint. His eyes were pearly with tears.
No one could speak. We watched in fear and awe.
I looked away and saw Dad’s shape lingering by the castle walls. Had he tried to warn me, shock me into not coming down here? Standing there beneath the vast castle walls, he was steeped in shadows as if the light of him was slowly going out.
I looked around our sad group. The wind rushed around us in a sea of sound, but no one moved. We stood, such despondent figures, spaced out in our carefully set places. Jocasta on her chair and the broken shape of Ron kneeling before her. A desolate scene, lifted from some poor painting, a pilgrimage or sorrowful gathering to worship or grieve. Who knows what we looked like stranded in that terrible moment?
Finally, Mother cleared her throat. She has always worn silence uncomfortably. ‘We need to do something.’
‘What can we do?’ Mirabelle’s voice sounded timid, afraid.
It was Bridget who answered, not Mother. ‘Nothing.’ The word was defiant.
‘We can’t—’
‘We can’t do anything. We’ve already done enough. Too much. We should put her back where we found her for the police.’
Ron looked around at Bridget, his eyes venomous. There was an eerie calm settling over him. ‘You touch her and I’ll sink you.’
‘Don’t threaten me.’
‘Bridget.’ Mirabelle held up both hands. ‘Leave him.’
‘Oh, so you’re growing brave now, are you?’ Bridget’s face tightened. ‘Maybe I should tell them how brave you were when you first came to me.’ As her mouth formed round a smile, her lips glistened with rain drops.
‘Shut up, Bridget. Have some respect.’ Aunt Charlotte’s face was set firmly with conviction. ‘We’re not lowering that poor wretched woman into the water again.’
‘Jocasta. My, Jocasta.’ Ron’s voice was no more than a weak chant now.
‘That’s your rope, isn’t it, Gerald?’ Harriet’s voice was barely above a whisper as she peered closer.
The thick, blue rope snaked round the black cape, under the woman’s arms. We all looked back at Gerald, who seemed suddenly stunned. ‘Don’t . . . I . . .’ he stuttered. ‘I told you I’d been robbed.’
‘Of your metal detecting kit.’ Aunt Charlotte stared at him. ‘Not your murderer’s kit! What the hell do you need that rope for?’
‘Pulling up heavy finds.’
‘A likely story.’
Marsha stepped between them and held up her hands. ‘Right, that’s enough. We need to . . .’ She broke off and looked a
t Ron. ‘Someone should go and check on Reverend Vert.’
Ron slowly raised his head as if an invisible string had pulled it up. His eyes instantly skewered Marsha. ‘That bastard? I’ll murder him myself.’
CHAPTER 26: THE MISSING VICAR
We decided that, in light of Ron’s murderous pronouncement, it might be better if we didn’t take him with us to see the vicar.
The Bradshaws offered to stay with him, and as they moved in closer round the ducking stool, I got the distinct impression that their interest might be straying back into historical reconstruction territory.
We walked away, me, Mother, Aunt Charlotte, Mirabelle and Bridget, all following Marsha, all looking shell-shocked.
My thoughts were numb as though the icy rain had melted through into my head and frozen everything. But my stomach knotted and unknotted constantly tying and untying itself. I felt the nausea passing through me in waves.
‘Is it wise to leave Ron with Gerald and Harriet?’ I frowned.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Mother said. ‘He’s no more a murderer than I am.’ These words brought less comfort than she’d hoped.
‘I don’t understand it.’ Aunt Charlotte sounded weary.
Mother sighed. ‘Why does that not surprise me?’
Aunt Charlotte scowled and shook her head. ‘We saw her. She was going home. We were all there at Verity’s house.’
‘Well, clearly she didn’t make it home.’ Mother didn’t add any more.
‘But the moat, the castle . . . it’s the wrong way from Verity’s.’ Aunt Charlotte could have been talking to herself.
‘What?’
‘Think about it. She would come out of the vicarage, and her house, the Lodge, is across the lane over to the left from where she was standing. The castle is across and over to the right — opposite the church. So she wasn’t going home.’
‘The vicarage.’ Marsha spoke as if she disbelieved her own voice.
‘Marsha?’ There was a moment of genuine concern on Mirabelle’s face.
‘I need to go.’ Marsha stared out at the rain. ‘I need to be with Verity. She needs me.’ Her eyes had a glazed, unreal nature to them as if they could see so much more than what was in front of them. She looked through us all.
‘Well, if you think that’s necessary . . .’ Mother’s voice trailed away.
Marsha was already turning towards the road with a new intent. ‘I must go. She needs me.’
‘Right,’ Aunt Charlotte called. ‘Good idea. You go and check everything’s all right there and . . .’
Marsha was too far away to hear us even if she’d tried to. She moved with a new purpose, her head lowered and hands shoved deep into her pockets.
We looked at one another. I shrugged. ‘She just wants to protect her family, I suppose.’
Bridget’s eyes narrowed. ‘At the expense of everyone else.’
‘I don’t see any problem with that.’ Mother held back her head disdainfully, rain trickling over her face. ‘It’s entirely natural for her to be worried. There are two dead people here and Verity shouldn’t be on her own.’
‘Well, it’s all a question of priorities, I suppose,’ Bridget sneered and cast Mirabelle a sour little look. ‘And she’s not on her own. Lucy Morello is there.’
‘Somehow I don’t think that’s very comforting to Marsha,’ Mother said.
I sighed and closed my eyes as if it might block out what they were saying. ‘We need to see if the vicar is all right. He’s the only other one on his own, isn’t he?’ It was a genuine question. I still couldn’t work out where everyone lived and should be, and most importantly where they really were. I could have done with that map right now. How could I have misplaced it so easily?
Aunt Charlotte lowered her voice, which doesn’t really make that much difference. ‘From what the other villagers are saying, she, I mean . . . the dead woman, was probably off to the church, back to the vicar, not on her way home. Her first reaction to the news that there was a killer on the loose was ‘I need to get to him.’ She didn’t mean her husband. I think she was definitely off back to the church. And if that’s the case, he’s in danger.’
‘Or he’s dangerous,’ I added.
No one answered. I watched Marsha’s back disappear into the misty rain, her long hair falling down across her coat. She had a determined walk, which was the very opposite of our brow-beaten group. We were tired, a punishing exhaustion had spread through us all, the rain in some way diluting us. We were being drained. I didn’t look back. None of us did. We bent our heads and trudged towards the church. My thoughts were unspooling fast. And again, we found ourselves in this village without any of the locals with us. It was starting to look a little pre-ordained.
We crossed the lane, stepping through the swathes of mud, leaves and sticks flooding down. The rain was a thin drizzle now, but the wind still drove round us. The trees above were black shapes burned by winter. And I was bitter damp in my wet clothes now.
The rusted gate to the graveyard was already open as if it had been expecting us. Aunt Charlotte was right, it was directly opposite the castle. I turned and could still see the small shapes of the Bradshaws, Ron kneeling and the strange outline of the woman roped to a chair at the end of the long construction. It seemed so unreal even from this distance.
Aunt Charlotte caught me looking back. ‘All getting a bit Wicker Man here now, isn’t it?’ She spoke quietly, as if afraid someone might be listening. ‘Not sure the graveyard’s the best place to be.’
‘What are you scared of?’ Bridget said acidly. ‘The ghosts?’
I flicked a look at Dad, who stood solemnly by the entrance. Mother was watching me intently.
‘Come on, come on,’ blustered Bridget, pushing her way through. ‘I thought you people loved the dead.’
A rook called out from the bare bones of the tree overhanging the church wall. The branches were all bent in sufferance from the constant wind, leaning away from the church. The bird watched us with his smooth pebble eyes before lifting up on the wind in a splash of wings. It wheeled above us then disappeared like smoke.
The graveyard was thick with neglect. Grass had grown so high up round the graves it whispered above some of them like fine grey hair, smothering the long-forgotten names. This fragile decay teetered so very precariously on the edge of collapse.
The church stood by silently, its windows looking down in dark sorrow. A few panes were missing, some cracked. The stonework was crumbling. Everything seemed to be coming to the end of its gentle decline. The path was overgrown at the edges, the gravel full of ragged weeds. We moved slowly past a stone sarcophagus where the lid had slipped down and cracked, leaving a large gaping hole that my eyes were quickly drawn to. A subsiding headstone leaned into it from the side as if the occupants had found some solace with each other.
The cold damp lifted from the ground and burrowed up through my flimsy soled boots, soaking into my skin. I wrapped my coat around me tightly, hugging myself. I could feel Dad’s Bible poking into my side and I ached for a sip of its warmth. My head pounded from lack of sleep and I touched the spot beneath my hair where I’d hit it. It was small but still painful. The joints in my neck were grinding against one another. I could so easily just curl up at the base of one of those stones and fall into a deep and welcome sleep.
After Dad died, they found me doing that regularly. After a few months of it, Aunt Charlotte and Mother would know where to find me. They’d bring heavy blankets and flasks of tea as if we’d just embarked on some macabre picnic. We’d drive home in silence past the early shift workers waiting at bus stops, delivery vans and the bundled-up homeless in doorways. I was so disconnected then that it just passed over the surface of my eyes as easily as the reflections on the car window. Mother didn’t allow it to continue for too long. She just created a fortress around us, locking us in at night, alarming everywhere in the house — but it wasn’t to keep people out.
Bob the Therapist said I’d reconnecte
d a lot. The only trouble is I’m not sure I connected everything in the right order. But Mother is always quick to remind me that I’d been pretty ‘dark and morbid’ before. Mother often confuses soul-wrenching grief with wearing too much black.
Here, we walked through centuries of grief. Some of the larger, more stately tombs were so old that time had erased their dates. Most of the lids of the larger tombs had in fact fallen in or been dislodged.
At the end of the path stood a small incongruous static caravan. It had a very temporary appearance that had somehow become more permanent, judging by its weather-beaten look and weeds growing up around it. There was a fine spray of something like algae all up the dirty white sides. A light was on. High yew trees cast great shadows round it that presumably meant it was always in perpetual semi-darkness and the lights had to be on all the time. The door was half open in that sort of dark, uninviting, cautionary tale way. We, of course, decided to go in.
‘Reverend Vert?’ Mirabelle stepped timidly through the door.
Mother pushed through and looked around the place frowning. Mother doesn’t do timid.
‘Your Holiness?’ Aunt Charlotte called.
‘He’s not the Pope,’ I corrected.
‘But he’s holy, isn’t he?’
‘Depends if your definition includes sleeping with the local witch,’ Mother said.
It smelled damp in the caravan. Even the floor had a spongy texture to it as if it might rot through. The small static caravan looked like it had been abandoned sometime in the 1970s. The fragments of wallpaper had psychedelic patterns that were peeling down onto the mildewed carpet tiles.
A few pans stood next to an old primus stove. Cans of beans and Pot Noodles were lined up behind them, along with empty bottles of cheap supermarket vodka. There was a small unmade bed at one end. Another half-empty bottle of vodka stood by the side of it with two cups. One had a dark-red smear of lipstick across the rim of it.
‘Looks like local gossip was reliable,’ Bridget commented, her eyebrows raised in judgement.
I took a step further in and Bridget grabbed my arm. ‘Touch nothing!’ she said. ‘We could be dealing with a homicidal vicar.’
THE SUPPER CLUB MURDERS a gripping murder mystery packed with twists (Smart Woman's Mystery Book 3) Page 18