A Crowded Coffin Read online

  Sam clucked his tongue in annoyance. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Edith, not you as well? I’ve had Harriet adding two and two and making seventeen on the same topic. And,’ he shot a warning glance at his cousin, ‘I suggest you both keep quiet about your wilder theories. There’s a man missing and the police admit they have some concerns. It’s not a matter for idle speculation.’

  Edith blinked and looked anxiously at Harriet, who laughed at her. ‘He’s a clergyman, he has to say things like that. Don’t worry, it goes with the job. If Sam and Rory don’t want to discuss the village goings-on, you’d better drop round for coffee with me tomorrow, Edith. We can sum up the evidence, or lack of it, then.’

  Just before midnight Edith jolted awake, a partially formed idea nagging away at the back of her mind. Sleep proved elusive so she scrambled out of bed and looked out at the moonlit farm, silver and black in the shadows. All the anxiety about her grandfather’s health, along with the fairly parlous state of the farm’s finances, clamoured in her head, and she was just about to draw the curtain again when a glint of light caught her eye, two fields away. She squinted and spotted the light for a brief, second time; a torch held downwards, perhaps? It looked as though it was coming from the Burial Field. But that’s not possible, she gasped. You can’t see that far from my window.

  About to dial 999 and summon the cavalry, she hesitated as another movement distracted her. This time it was a moving shadow, man-shaped, and it was running swiftly across the garden below her. As the man crossed a patch of moonlight she gasped: it was Rory.

  It was enough to galvanize her into action and she dressed quickly. Slipping on jeans and T-shirt and thrusting her feet into trainers, she rootled in a drawer for the torch that always used to be there, found it and ran quietly downstairs. He had been coming from the direction of the study and, guessing that he had left the glass door open for his return, she left the house the same way.

  Halfway across the first field she almost blundered into a pile of sawn logs and timber. Of course, Gran had told her about the oak tree. No wonder she could suddenly see out of her window, the tree had been struck by lightning earlier in the year. She caught up with Rory as he hesitated at the field gate, some yards in front of her, then turned aghast at the slight sound she made as her shoe knocked against a stone.

  ‘For God’s sake, Edith,’ he hissed in outrage. ‘I nearly had a heart attack. Why are you…? Oh, never mind. Here, just get behind this hawthorn hedge so they can’t see us. And keep quiet.’

  ‘Who is it? How many? I can see two of them, is that all? What are they doing?’ Edith peered through the branches, gently holding back some leaves as she stared indignantly at the distant figures. ‘Bloody treasure-seekers, that’s who they’ll be. I’m calling—’ She patted her back pocket and made a face. ‘My mobile’s on my bedside table. Have you got yours?’

  ‘No. Stupid, aren’t we?’ He craned his neck to look more closely. ‘I can only see two of them as well. They haven’t got metal detectors, though. Can you see? They’re poking around the base of your old angel stone but they’re not using—’ He broke off abruptly. ‘There’s something peculiar about their heads but I can’t see what it is from here.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Edith smothered a giggle. ‘They’re wearing balaclavas!’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ He squinted the hundred yards or so across the field and shook his head in astonishment. ‘So? Bank robbers? Commandos? What—?’

  ‘That’s Brendan Whittaker,’ she interrupted, indicating the slighter, shorter man. ‘I’m sure of it. Look, he’s got really sloping shoulders. I reckon he has his suit jackets built up, but I’ve noticed he’s a lot less impressive in casual clothes. Yup, I’m sure that’s Brendan. Now what is he up to? I wonder.’

  Rory was still staring at the scene. ‘I know this sounds mad, but surely that’s the vicar? The other guy, I mean.’

  The long, angular figure wielding a shovel certainly looked familiar and Edith had just turned towards her companion when, at that moment, the shovel struck a stone with a loud jarring clang, audible to the onlookers. The expletive that ripped from the tall figure was unmistakably transatlantic in tone. Not the vicar after all.

  ‘Mike Goldstein?’ They strained to listen but the words were inaudible, only the soft but urgent murmur that followed.

  ‘What are we going to…?’ Edith began, then she caught a glimpse of Rory’s face in the moonlight. He was grey with sudden exhaustion and the story of his imprisonment came flooding back. She felt a pang of sympathy. ‘Come on.’ She tugged at his arm. ‘Let’s get back home. We can’t deal with this on our own. Look, if we keep to the hedgerow we’ll be in shadow.’

  He made a token protest but caved in as she half pulled him across to the house and in through the glass door. At his bedroom door, Rory paused for breath then stood still, staring rigidly at the wall. Edith stared. She could see nothing but ancient oak panelling but suddenly it struck her. This was where Rory had supposedly seen – or, in spite of all his camouflage about medication, she suspected that he had seen – the Locksley ghost.

  Harriet fussed around the kitchen, her wits unusually astray as she tried to make sense of everything. Sometimes she thought that Sam, who was back in Belfast for a night, winding up his project, had the right of it and she was making something out of nothing. There was still that nagging doubt, though, and she was glad she had dropped him at Southampton airport early that morning so there was no need to worry that he’d turn up today to apply his caustic common sense and laugh at her tentative theories. Edith, on the other hand, although generally speaking as sensible and practical as Harriet herself, would definitely be ready to discuss, discard and revisit all those theories.

  What’s more, Harriet smiled reminiscently, Edith could keep a secret. Even the threat of detention had not made her tell who had sprayed paint on an unpopular teacher’s car. Harriet grinned as she remembered Edith, her hands spattered with incriminating paint, acting like an Angela Brazil schoolgirl and defiantly refusing to sneak. The situation was eventually resolved by a tearful confession from the culprit who admitted the crime, whereupon Edith stopped being a martyr and explained that the paint was only on her because she had found the discarded aerosol and put it in the bin.

  The front doorbell rang and she greeted her former pupil with affection. ‘I’ve had a baking session,’ she said, leading the way to the garden. ‘I had a sudden, uncharacteristic urge to make a coffee and walnut sponge, so you’re my first victim. Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Harriet.’ Edith put down her coffee mug and spoke abruptly, abandoning the gentle chat about local affairs. ‘What do you know about John Forrester?’

  ‘The vicar?’ Harriet temporized. Here it was again; the vicar’s name kept cropping up, even if it was only in her own imaginings. Not only the vicar though; the village’s tame tycoon, Gordon Dean, was in there too, along with his minion, Brendan, and now his good-looking American visitor, Mike Goldstein.

  ‘Harriet?’ Edith was staring at her, curiosity written all over her face. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘What? Yes, of course. Sorry, I was lost in thought. Where were we … oh yes, John Forrester. What do you want to know?’

  ‘You’re stalling,’ accused Edith. ‘I asked first. But, oh, all right. I was talking to him yesterday, at the party.’

  ‘I know,’ Harriet agreed. ‘I saw. He was looking very interested in your conversation. About the Roman origins of the farm, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s just it.’ Edith frowned and picked at a loose thread on the pocket of her jeans. ‘He was asking about the Romans. He claimed the late Roman period was his particular interest and in fact he was full of it when I was talking to him and I thought nothing of it, but I’ve been going over what we said, and it seems to me now that he wasn’t really all that clued up. He has a superficial knowledge, I admit, but he’s an educated man and he’s clearly mugged up on local history to get along with his parishioners, wh
ich is a perfectly sensible thing to do.

  ‘It’s not that, however, that makes me wonder. I’ve met lots of enthusiasts, you know, archaeologists and so forth, and when I first went to university I innocently let slip that we had our own villa at the bottom of the garden, so to speak. I soon learned to keep quiet, though, otherwise I’d be besieged by history buffs trying to pin me to the wall and scour my brain for details. Still happens occasionally, though I keep it quiet; they’re always angling to come and poke around the place but they never have any funding. Besides, Grandpa’s never been keen on strangers poking about on his land. But the point is, Harriet,’ Edith looked across at her hostess, ‘I can recognize a true enthusiast a mile off, is what I’m saying. I checked with Grandpa and the vicar hasn’t simply asked if he could come and take a look round. Grandpa would have been delighted, but John also made one or two slips about the Roman withdrawal from Britain that didn’t sit well with his supposed interest.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ Harriet was intrigued, and aware of a deepening of the elusive anxiety she had felt at the previous day’s party. ‘Couldn’t it just be that he was trying to impress an attractive young woman?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Edith shrugged and took the second slice of cake that Harriet was offering. ‘I didn’t get that sense, not then, anyway.’ She munched thoughtfully, and went on, ‘Once or twice, though, he really did come across as a genuine enthusiast, but it wasn’t about the Romans. It was when he was talking about King Alfred and especially about Alfred’s son, Edmund Atheling. You remember Edmund? The ancestor who’s supposed to have married the heiress, Edith, the one who was descended from the original Roman founding father.’ She wiped crumbs from her mouth. ‘He wanted to know if there are any family documents or legends about Edmund and he was particularly interested in Edmund’s mother.’

  ‘And are there any?’ Harriet was just about keeping up with all the history. ‘I got the booklet out for Sam to read but I only skimmed through it. I haven’t read it properly for donkey’s years. Who was his mother, anyway?’

  ‘According to Miss Evelyn Attlin, she was Aelfryth, daughter of a local lordling. Nobody seems to have been scandalized by her affair with Alfred and there’s no record of a subsequent marriage, just a brief mention that she lived out the rest of her life with her son and daughter-in-law, doing good works.’

  They looked at each other and shrugged. ‘I suppose I can understand the vicar’s interest in King Alfred,’ Harriet said. ‘He’s an interesting character and pivotal to English history. Not known as a womanizer either, so a reputed son, born the wrong side of the blanket, would certainly throw new light on him.’ She cast a curious glance at her visitor. ‘Do you like him?’ she enquired casually. ‘John Forrester, I mean. I find him a little too pleased with himself,’ she added, as a prompt.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Edith’s response was accompanied by a look of indecision. ‘He’s certainly very self-confident but it’s not long since he lost his wife, so it feels a bit uncomfortable. What you said,’ she looked suddenly anxious as she turned to Harriet, ‘about him trying to impress me, I mean. I think that’s what he was doing as well, but I also had the feeling that the thing about Edmund Atheling was more important to him, if you see what I mean.’ She fiddled with her coffee spoon and raised anxious grey eyes to her former headmistress. ‘But why would he bother? To pretend, I mean. Who cares if he likes Saxons better than Romans? Nobody round here, that’s for sure.’

  Harriet looked thoughtful and poured more coffee in answer to Edith’s nod. ‘They were all at it,’ Edith confessed. ‘Trying to impress me, I mean. It was a bit embarrassing, really, but Brendan was definitely coming on to me, and so was Mike, the Texan guy. It wasn’t just John.’

  ‘John?’ Harriet gave her a wry look.

  ‘That’s the other thing,’ Edith said. ‘I was just leaving this morning, to come round to yours, when the phone rang. The landline, not my mobile. It was John Forrester, asking me out to dinner tonight.’

  She glanced up as Harriet stifled an exclamation. ‘What? Oh, don’t worry, Harriet. I’m not stupid, I know what the village gossips are like. I’ll be on my best behaviour for dinner with the vicar and make sure we eat somewhere publicly. Anyway,’ she looked put out, ‘Rory got a call from Lara; he’s off to dinner with her tonight too.’

  ‘She’ll eat him alive and spit out the pips.’ Harriet was diverted. ‘I always reckoned she was a femme fatale, the minute she walked into my school all that time ago. There wasn’t a male creature in the school, staff or student, who didn’t fall over his own feet in confusion whenever she cast a glance at him, and she’s learned quite a few more tricks since then. Poor Rory.’ There was a lurking twinkle in her eyes at the thought, then she reflected for a few minutes. ‘So, apart from your undoubted physical attributes, Edith, why do you suppose all these men are on your case?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Edith looked puzzled. ‘But that’s not all I wanted to discuss with you. Something happened last night.’

  She filled Harriet in on the previous night’s surprising goings-on in the Burial Field and was slightly shocked by her ex-headmistress’s reaction.

  Oddly enough, Harriet showed no surprise, but was insistent as she said, ‘Yes, well, that settles it, Edith. You simply have to call the police; this has got to be connected with the attack on your grandfather.’

  ‘I know, I did call them, this morning.’ Edith hunched her shoulders. ‘I called the contact number we got after Grandpa’s accident and got a frazzled-sounding woman who took my name and said she’d pass on the message, but they were short-handed and it might be a few days before anyone gets around to us.’ She made a face. ‘I got the distinct impression that what she really meant was that we’d be lucky if anyone turned up at all. But I thought someone ought to know. I haven’t dared tell Grandpa; he directly said I wasn’t to interfere because he doesn’t want Gran upset, and anyway, they’re both pretty frail. I suspect the woman I spoke to just put it down to kids mucking about, but at least I’ve reported it.’

  ‘I’m glad to see you’ve got a smidgen of common sense, Edith,’ Harriet spoke sternly and she was frowning. ‘Walter has been a soldier and a farmer for most of his eighty-something years and neither profession is known for its weakling qualities. Penelope is tough too, for all her delicate appearance.’ She thought about it for a moment then met Edith’s eyes. ‘Oh, all right. I’ve no authority to butt in, but you must promise not to do anything stupid if you spot them another night. No Famous Five stuff, please, and if you do go off on some idiotic tangent, for God’s sake leave a note or text me.’

  There was a mulish expression on Edith’s face but Harriet sighed and, driven by a feeling of urgency, gave it one last try before she changed the subject.

  ‘Look, I had a phone call just now….’ She caught herself up – that had been in confidence, though she would tell Sam when she had a chance. ‘I meant to say, if anything else does happen, you simply have to make a fuss when you report it. I’ll do it for you, if you like. I’m not afraid of your grandfather and I’m good at yelling at people.’ As her visitor fidgeted, still looking indecisive, Harriet changed the subject briskly. ‘Come and look at my latest treasures while I make some more coffee.’

  Distracted, as her hostess intended, by the change of topic, Edith made straight for the large doll’s house that stood in Harriet’s small dining room. Her ex-head’s collection of miniatures had been legendary at school and once a year, as a fundraiser, the house and contents were put on display. Edith had never lost her delight in the tiny pieces, many of them little masterpieces and of museum quality, costing so much that Harriet sometimes had to catch her breath when she thought of her bank balance.

  ‘Look on the table,’ she told Edith now. ‘There’s a silver toast rack and a muffin dish, as well as the most minute salt and pepper. I always like to keep the new things out, so I can gloat. There’s a magnifying glass there, you can check out the details.’
r />   When the phone rang again, half an hour later, Harriet was on her own. Edith had set out for home, slightly comforted by talking it over with one of the few people whom she held in genuine respect and affection. Harriet could be exasperating sometimes, with her complacent air of being always in the right, but – as Edith was only too well aware – Harriet very often was in the right. It was infuriating but reassuring, and it made her ex-headmistress a safe sounding board for ideas that came out more than half insane.

  Harriet flapped for a moment until she spotted the phone on the sofa. ‘Sam? Where are you? Belfast? Is there something wrong?’ She listened intently as her cousin told her to be quiet and hear him out. ‘Goodness,’ she said slowly, when he insisted she listen. ‘That’s interesting.’ She frowned for a moment then, ‘Look, I know you’ve only got a minute, but this is important. Edith’s just been round and told me a crazy tale.’

  She relayed the story of the midnight digging in the Burial Field and when he exclaimed, she said, ‘No, she’s not been dreaming. I had a call from Rory Attlin just before she got here, telling me the same story. He’s worried that she might get herself involved in some foolhardy attempt to find out what’s going on. Edith says she got in touch with the police, but they were too busy to react. You can’t blame them, I suppose; they said Walter’s accident sounded like joyriding kids and there was no evidence, and now this latest episode sounds like treasure hunters.

  ‘Rory rang me because he’s starting to be really anxious. He doesn’t know the area and he’s worried about the old people as well as Edith, plus he knows he’s not fit enough to cope with any boys’ own adventures she might drag him into.’