by Amy Myers
‘But there’s no proof since you said the bones, including the skull presumably, had disappeared,’ Georgia pointed out.
‘Quite.’ Jago gave her an approving nod. ‘But this was 1534. Leland reported all his findings on his commissioned Grand Tour of England to the King, who eagerly noted, no doubt, all the interesting items he’d like for himself.’
‘The Dissolution of the Monasteries,’ Georgia exclaimed. At last she saw where this was leading.
‘Indeed. The exact status of St Mary-in-the-Castle is uncertain. It seems to have had a degree of independence and was responsible to Canterbury, rather than to the priory. The three chaplains charged with looking after St Mary and its relics were undoubtedly aware that the King’s men were marching down the Canterbury road towards them with their booty bags to fill. What would you do if you were in their place?’
‘Hide the valuables.’ Peter gave the obvious answer.
‘In the 1860s there was heavy restoration work at St Mary-in-the-Castle,’ Jago continued. ‘The church had been in ruins for years, and while they were digging to study the original foundations they came across . . .’
As Jago paused, Georgia longed to reply: ‘King Arthur, who leapt up crying, “Is it time?”’
‘A lead coffin,’ Jago concluded.
‘With bones?’ she asked.
‘Empty,’ Jago said deflatingly, ‘which could confirm our story. We are agreed that these relics would have been taken to a safe place, but a heavy coffin would have been an impediment for the fleeing chaplains.’
Jago seemed to be entering the land of crazy logic in offering a negative as proof, otherwise it would be all too easy to go with the flow and conclude that this was a tenable thesis, Georgia thought.
‘The priory in Dover, their first natural choice,’ Jago continued, ‘had been quick to list all its valuables and cede the priory to the crown. Compliance was its response to the dissolution order, so no relics would be safe there. The next choice for the chaplains would be to take them to a smaller religious site that the King’s men had already sacked, in other words one on the road from Canterbury, roughly where the A2 runs.’
No prizes for guessing this one. ‘Such as Wymdown,’ Georgia said.
‘Where else? It is near the old Roman road, and would seem a good choice since it had much in common with St Mary-in-the-Castle. There is evidence of an early church predating the Anglo-Saxon one, and the church is still named St Alban’s, after the British saint who was martyred by the Romans when they clamped down on Christianity. When the Romans became more tolerant in the fourth century, temples were built in memory of the sacred martyrs. St Mary-in-the-Castle could be one, Wymdown another.’
‘Tell them, Dad,’ Mark said, as Jago came to another impressive halt. ‘Beware, you two, the Great Theory nears its climax.’
‘Mark is a cynic,’ Jago said with dignity. ‘At first Lance thought I was up the pole,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t think the phrase is used now, but it was a mild expression for being a loony of the first order. I firmly believed that Gawain’s remains and the gold goblet were buried near Badon House, in a field adjoining the churchyard.’
Harry Potter, here we come, Georgia thought. And where was Lance Venyon in all this?
‘Why there?’ Peter asked, looking all too ready to set off straightaway on a treasure hunt, she noted with foreboding.
‘Because Badon House used to be a lodging house for monks collecting tithes, it could therefore have been a place of refuge when the chaplains at the castle church were under threat. I bought both Badon House and the relevant field in 1959, as soon as I was convinced in my own mind of my thesis. Such large houses were going for a song then. Lance and Mary were living in Barham, and later moved to Wymdown on the Woolage Green road, and so they could keep an eye on the house for me. I came over occasionally to examine the ground to work out where the site could be. Lance naturally took a great interest.’
‘Looking for the golden goblet?’ Georgia asked, grateful Lance was back on the scene.
Jago laughed. ‘Yes, although in those days gold objects were automatically treasure trove for the crown, so if you are harbouring thoughts that greed was Lance’s motive or a motive for his death, you are wrong. In any case,’ he said wryly, ‘I found nothing – which is why I’m sharing this information with you today. Wherever that goblet is it isn’t in that field. I covered every inch of it with a metal detector, and dug too, but it produced nothing.’
‘Except a few old coins and bottle tops,’ his son put in sourly.
‘So what did you conclude?’
‘That my theory was wrong, so far as the burial site was concerned. And yet I couldn’t quite believe it. So although I sold the house, I still, crazily enough, own the field.’ He pulled a face. ‘An old man’s fantasy.’ Another pause, then a grin. ‘Or so I thought once.’
‘Are you implying it might still be there?’ Georgia asked incredulously.
‘No, but it is interesting that for some time now the story of the goblet has been circulating once again.’
‘How?’ Peter asked curiously. ‘Is there new evidence?’
Jago frowned. ‘Not to my knowledge, but who knows how such things begin? It’s mentioned between enthusiasts over the Internet, at archaeological meetings and so on. Sometimes it’s a joke, sometimes treated very seriously indeed. New evidence would hardly be revealed, since any historian would naturally want the glory of discovering the hoard all to himself.’
‘That would have been so in Lance’s time too,’ Peter pointed out. ‘A powerful motive for murder.’
Jago smiled. ‘Indeed, and that is why –’ a glance at Mark – ‘I have inflicted this long tale on you. Gold represents the ultimate Grail of worldly possession, and not only in monetary terms. Nevertheless, however greedy we collectors are for fame, it’s a far cry from that to pushing my poor friend off a yacht. Conspiracy theories, Mr Marsh, flourish with hindsight, and so, you must find, do those of murder. Lance was my dear friend, and I too find it difficult to grapple with the fact that a simple accident caused his death. But it did, and I still mourn his loss.’
*
‘A wasted day so far as work is concerned,’ Georgia observed, as they drove back to Haden Shaw, ‘even though Lance Venyon seems to have been an interesting guy. Nevertheless Jago didn’t believe he’d been murdered, and he should know. And before you say this King Arthur link should be followed up, remember that there’s no evidence that this golden goblet ever existed, let alone that it’s alive and well and living deep in the Kentish earth.’
‘It’s not all been a waste of time,’ Peter said complacently. ‘He’s a nice old boy and Lance’s best friend. And if nothing else it showed us that both art and King Arthur can arouse strong feelings. Even the way Mark reacted shows that.’
‘True, but where does that take us?’
‘Even best friends can fall out over passionate beliefs.’
‘You mean when Jago found there was nothing buried there, he blamed Lance for encouraging him, jumped into Lance’s yacht, and once out at sea, pushed him off it.’
‘Stranger things have happened.’
‘Nonsense. There’s not even a sniff of a suspicious death.’
‘What about Sir Gawain’s?’
‘Ha, ha,’ Georgia retorted crossly. ‘We’re not running a round-table service ourselves, prepared to right the wrongs done to Gawain’s bones.’
‘Seriously, Georgia, I think we should look into Lance Venyon’s death further, including the lovelies of yesteryear. Let’s do the job thoroughly. Gwen said Venetia Wain’s daughter still lives in Wymdown. Why not book an overnight stay at Badon House to check into it and perhaps talk to Venyon’s daughter again?’
‘And if that leads nowhere, we can write Lance Venyon and King Arthur’s cup off?’ One of them had to take a firm stance or they’d be wandering around Camelot for ever.
Peter hesitated. ‘Probably.’ He gave her a beaming smile.
<
br /> *
Badon House gave not the slightest sniff of buried secrets when she arrived there two days later. Nor did Wymdown. Maureen Jones, Venetia Wain’s daughter, was out and so was Elaine Holt, so Georgia had spent the afternoon gazing at Lance and Mary Venyon’s former home in the hope it might tell her something about its former occupants. Its Georgian windows and neatly trimmed lawn and borders blandly stared back at her, however, telling her nothing at all. Nor had the foundations of Badon House, which she had explored on her return. All the cellar now contained was Terry’s wine and a large number of pipes and spiders.
Just as she was prepared to write the visit off on work grounds and enjoy chatting to Gwen, Terry came home with good news. ‘You might catch Maureen in the church about seven-thirty,’ Terry told her. ‘I bumped into her this afternoon and she mentioned that she does the flowers on Friday evenings.’
‘Can I ask her about her mother’s former lovers?’
Gwen laughed. ‘Peter would do just that. Go carefully would be my vote, knowing Maureen. By way of introduction, there’s an old fresco on the north wall you can enthuse about.’ Gwen elected to delay supper until her return, and so after a drink and nibbles, Georgia set off down the footpath to Wymdown church. The sun had almost vanished for the day, and the minute she entered the churchyard it felt chilly. She could see no lights in the church and was uneasily conscious of her solitariness. ‘And no birds sing.’ This churchyard reminded her of the Keats poem. Here, time seemed temporarily suspended in a still heaviness, and she hurried through it to the church entrance, only to find it locked. The bird she was after had already flown, and frustrated she turned to go back to Badon House. She was beginning to understand why Jago was so keen on his theory. It was spooky enough here to imagine King Arthur tossing and turning beneath every gravestone.
Gwen had told her that the field Jago must own was not the one through which the footpath ran, but the one that stretched from the end of Badon House’s garden down to the churchyard’s side. It lay on Georgia’s right at present, and looked too rocky and too much at an incline to be ploughed. That must be good from the archaeological viewpoint. She caught herself, impatiently aware that she was beginning to take Jago’s theory as valid, even though he had given up on this field. She decided she would get back to Badon House as quickly as she could.
Nevertheless she lingered in the churchyard, not quite sure why she did so. It was easy to imagine that there was a bear in every bush. She could see plenty of such bushes on the far side where several large gravestones were clustered. A paper bag was sticking out from behind the one on the left. Perhaps this was where the local drug deals were done, debts paid, goods handed over. It was a remote enough place for it.
Automatically she began to walk over to pick up the rubbish, feeling increasingly ill at ease. This churchyard, or at least this corner of it, was distinctly creepy, far in excess of that generated by its prime purpose. It hadn’t seemed creepy to her the other day, but perhaps this only proved how subjective one’s feelings could be—
Something seemed to catch her by the throat. That wasn’t a paper bag. It was a hand. A still hand.
She found herself running towards it, as if to dismiss all thoughts of what it might be by disproving them as quickly as possible. She must be mistaken. The splashes on it were mud, the hand—
—was a hand. It belonged to a body that didn’t move. Couldn’t move. The sightless eyes of the dead man stared upwards, his clothes soaked with dried blood. She forced herself to touch the wrist to be sure of what was obvious. It felt cold, and the block of ice inside her that had momentarily stopped all thoughts unfroze. She gagged as the bile rose in her throat and with trembling hands delved into her bag for her mobile phone.
Chapter Three
A crime scene. She was standing in a crime scene. Georgia tried fiercely to concentrate on depersonalizing what was on the ground before her as she shivered in the dim light. In the distance the evening sun still shone, but in this tree-shrouded place it had long gone, leaving nothing but her and a dead body. It was that of a young man, with a shock of dark hair, and he had been shot. That was all too clear from the blood on his anorak, obviously from the entry wound in his chest, and judging by its appearance death had occurred not long ago. There was no gun to be seen.
While they had been sipping their drinks inside Badon House, Terry had gone outside to fetch something and had returned with a comment that the only thing that disturbed their peace at Badon House was the occasional pot-shot at a rabbit or fox. Had he recently heard a shot, perhaps this one? Out here, with woods and open fields around, it was unlikely that anyone would hear or care. The night has a thousand eyes: she remembered the poem she’d learned at primary school, but here they would all be closed. There would be a thousand ways for a murderer to escape.
No birds were singing. This was May, the time for their spring song, yet there was no sound at all, save her breathing in the heavy silence of evening. The fresh damp smell of dew contrasted strongly with the ugliness and tragedy of the corpse so near to her. She tried to force herself to concentrate on the crime scene, to notice details to help the police, but all she could do was stare blindly around her, her thoughts a jumble. This corner of the graveyard was more than eerie; it had a darkness and a sinister quality as though even the sun was scared to enter it. Nonsense, she told herself. Pure gothic fantasy. She knew she was wrong, however. Long after this crime had been solved, the place would still smell like this.
At last she heard the welcome sound of the siren growing nearer. Along the lane to the church only rabbits and foxes would have to clear the way, yet its shrillness had never seemed so welcome. With police arrival she would have company, and after giving her statement she could leave. Eventually, that is. She knew it would take time.
Georgia’s fingers curled over her mobile. She could ring Luke, but what for? A cry for support? Surely she should be able to cope on her own. She’d ring him after the ordeal was over.
Then, thankfully, she saw lights, as the police car drew up.
‘Here,’ she called, as doors slammed and flashlights pin-pricked their way through the churchyard. She resisted her impulse to run towards them in the interests of not wanting to add unnecessary footprints to the scene. She had longed to call DCI Mike Gilroy, Peter’s former sergeant in his police career. With luck this might just be within his area, but she had reluctantly decided not to. This death was nothing to do with Marsh & Daughter, and she should go through the right channels.
‘Miss Marsh?’ the elder of the two DCs asked.
Once upon a time, a fatherly Dixon of Dock Green might have patted her on the shoulder murmuring, ‘There, there. You leave all this to me.’ No longer. The steely eyes of this young policeman spoke of efficiency and impersonality. There were merits in both approaches, and Georgia braced herself to appreciate the only one she was offered.
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘DC Stewart, and –’ he indicated his female colleague – ‘DC Jenkins.’ The girl nodded, already on her radio summoning the team.
It would begin now. The machine was set in motion. Georgia felt her racing heart slowly calming down, now that the action was out of her hands. She retreated, while they conferred. She’d heard it all before, even seen some of it from a distance when Peter was a DI himself, and since then during Marsh & Daughter investigations. She had been an outsider then, however. Now she was a part of the investigation. She had found the body and as first on the scene would be automatically suspect until proven innocent. There would be a hunt for the gun when the SOCOs got here; they might think she had removed it. She thought of this with some surprise, uneasy at the thought, as though it linked her to the body, giving her responsibility towards it.
‘Are you all right?’ DC Jenkins asked, coming over to her. As a Dixon, she wasn’t doing badly after all.
‘I think so.’
She wasn’t. With tension relaxing, Georgia could feel herself sw
aying, and the DC led her to a dilapidated bench where she could put her head between her knees. It helped a little, especially when the DC volunteered to get some water from the car. Luke, I really should call Luke, she thought dully. And Gwen. Yet by doing so she would seem to be admitting her own weakness. She was supposed to be a professional crime investigator, not to faint at the sight of blood and death. It was more than that causing this, however. It was the atmosphere here, over and above the effects of the time of day and the gloom of the bushes. In this corner of the churchyard there was evil; perhaps from the murder that had just taken place, but perhaps for longer. Unbidden, Jago Priest’s story of the chaplains’ burial of their treasure came back to her. She could imagine this churchyard, probably much smaller then if it existed at all, and the chaplains passing through it, silent, dark figures in the night, fleeing from their enemies. The field where Jago – and Lance Venyon – had so fondly believed the remains of Sir Gawain to be buried was only thirty yards away.
There was no darkness any longer. The team was arriving and the first floodlight immediately illuminated the scene, white-suited figures were taking control, stepping plates laid ready to avoid disturbing footprints, tent erected, video cameras, and tape. Georgia was far enough away for the inner-cordon tape to exclude her, so she remained where she was, an isolated observer. And then came salvation.
‘What on earth are you doing here, Georgia?’ Mike Gilroy asked kindly, sitting down at her side. ‘This got anything to do with you and Peter, has it?’
‘Is this your case?’ she asked him stupidly. She didn’t need the answer, she was just overwhelmingly grateful for his presence.