A Crowded Coffin (9 page)

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, which 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.’

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.’

She broke off as a tall figure appeared at her front gate. ‘Talk of the devil, Sam, here’s Rory, just about to ring the bell. Is it okay if I tell him what you’ve just told me? He’s got his head screwed on and I gather from what the Attlins have said that he can keep his mouth shut.’

She opened the door to her unexpected visitor. ‘Rory, come in. I’ve just been talking to Sam and he’s come up with something that makes our wilder imaginings seem tame!’

‘I just had a narrow escape,’ Rory told her as she handed him a mug of coffee and a slice of cake. ‘Edith scorched past me on her bike but luckily I spotted her first and dodged behind a tree. I don’t want to get into a fight about going into Winchester to the police station and making a fuss so they’ll come out and take a look at things here, or at least, not till I’ve had a chance to discuss it with someone rational. She’s so frightened of worrying her grandparents that she can’t think straight.’

‘She’ll calm down,’ Harriet reassured him. ‘Part of it is guilt because she wasn’t here when Walter was injured. Absolute nonsense, of course, and he’s told her so more than once, but it’s hard to be rational where the people you love are concerned.’ She cursed herself when a brief spasm of misery crossed Rory’s face. Poor lad, he was singularly short of people to love, by all accounts. She rushed into the latest development.

‘Sam rang to tell me about a conversation he’s just had on the plane to Belfast. It’s yet another bit of information that somehow seems to be related to all the peculiar goings-on round here lately.’ She shook her head, frowning. ‘Seems to me there are far too many things that don’t add up. Oh well, this is what Sam had to say.

‘He was sitting next to an old colleague on the plane, someone he’d not seen for ages, and they fell into shop talk, as you do. Then the other man asked if he’d been involved in the inquiry into missing documents at the Stanton Resingham
archive. Sam said no, he’d not heard anything about that, so his friend, who sounds a bit of a gossip, told him it had all been kept very hush-hush, on a need-to-know basis, very cops and robbers. It seems a rare manuscript turned up at auction abroad late last year and sold for a pretty impressive sum. The trouble was, some very similar pages turned up a few months later at the archive and there was a bit of a panic because some academic recognized them as being from the same manuscript. Unfortunately the vendor had insisted on anonymity and had disappeared by then, along with the cash.’

Rory looked bewildered. ‘Okay,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m not sure where this is taking us, but go on.’

‘The subsequent inquiries,’ said Harriet, ‘revealed that about half the documents in the archive had so far been examined over the previous year, so it was decided to go through them again – fine-tooth comb stuff – and see if they could work out what, if anything, was missing. Not an easy job, as you can imagine. The whole archive was just a mass of documents collected by this old antiquarian, and his notion of collating was impressionistic to say the least, but he’d left a lot of money in cash to finance the whole thing so they’d got it under way.

‘Anyway,’ she stopped suddenly, with a slightly shamefaced grin. ‘Oops, sorry, Rory, I’m slipping back into Miss Q mode. Stop me if I start lecturing or giving you order marks for running in the corridors or smoking behind the bike sheds. Where was I? Ah yes. They soon realized from various
references
that there were other things missing; some whole manuscripts, in some cases, in others just the odd page. The galling thing was that they could tell that the missing items must have been wonderful, not just from their historical perspective, but in some cases as objects of astonishing beauty. There was apparently a note referring to a mediaeval breviary, with scribbled descriptions of the illuminations, a work of art
from the sound of it – and not a trace of the actual item to be found.’

‘God, that’s a tragedy.’ Rory was horrified and Harriet remembered belatedly that he was an artist himself. ‘Did Sam say if they’d got any clues?’

‘Apparently they had a pretty good security system including individual key codes, which are swiped in. You know how it works: when the card is swiped, the time, date and ID are recorded, and when the codes were checked there were no discrepancies. The only person whose card came up was the researcher who was employed to work in the archive. He’d been vetted and passed as honest and well qualified, references panned out okay, no reason to doubt his credentials.’

She paused. ‘The only trouble is, his name was Colin Price, and he’s been missing since the beginning of January this year.’ Rory glanced at her and was struck by the gravity of her
expression
. ‘The last known sighting of him was on the fifth of January when he had a couple of pints at The Angel in Locksley. While he was there he was very interested in the village and
particularly
asked about the church, the vicar and the history of the Attlin family up at Locksley Farm Place.’

She looked down at her folded hands and then at Rory, her blue eyes shadowed and anxious. ‘He hasn’t been seen since.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Rory stared at her. ‘I heard about that, Edith’s convinced his disappearance has got something to do with her grandfather’s accident
and
with this midnight poking-about by the angel stone.’ He finished his coffee and nodded abstractedly as Harriet offered a refill. ‘I thought she was imagining things but then, I don’t really know her very well.’

‘She’s not one for flying off on a tangent,’ Harriet told him, looking thoughtful. ‘Most of the time she’s logical and
practical
, but this is about her family and Edith is very close to her grandparents. You’ve heard about her father? Yes, well that
was a very difficult time for her, obviously. A tragedy like that could warp anyone but Edith’s mother bravely bore the brunt of it herself in London, while the Attlins kept Edith safe down here. She’s turned out remarkably well-balanced, on the whole.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘I can’t imagine what she’d say if she heard me say that; she imagines she was one of the scourges of my time at her school. She wasn’t, though, but I was probably more aware of her because of the distant
relationship
, even though she’s only just been brave enough to drop the “Miss Quigley”.

‘Anyway, anything that touches her family sends her into a panic and, of course, the old people are just that – old. Edith can’t bear to think of anything happening to hurt them.’

Rory digested this in silence then asked, ‘Why would this Colin Price have been asking about the vicar, do you think? I can understand an interest in the farm – loads of history there and he was a researcher, after all. He could have been hoping to get a lead on whether there might be stuff in the archive, things that might be saleable; but why the vicar?’

‘No idea.’ Harriet shook her head. ‘I’ve racked my brains and Sam was no help. It’s public knowledge that John Forrester was looking like a high-flyer, maybe even a fast-track to a bishopric, who knows? But his wife, who was a bit older, I think, seems to have had a lot of problems and had a breakdown, so last autumn he was appointed here to cover the four parishes. I suppose the thinking was that she could recuperate more easily; we’re quite high up here and out in the country, so there’s more air and less hustle and bustle.’ She made a face. ‘At least, that would be the official thinking, I suppose. In fact, of course, there’s as much stress in the country as in the town, if not more. Just fewer people and less noise.’ She cut another slice of cake and put it, unasked, on Rory’s plate. ‘The trouble is, not everyone is happy with the way a village works, everyone
knowing your business. I’m not sure Gillian Forrester was too keen on that aspect of her new life.’

‘How did she die, then?’ Rory was curious. ‘The vicar’s wife, I mean. It can’t have been long ago, from what you’re saying, but he was hardly playing the heartbroken widower at that party yesterday.’

‘It was New Year’s Eve,’ said Harriet. ‘Sam and I were in Italy on a short break after a particularly stressful time. I heard about it when we came home. Apparently the move to the country wasn’t proving the success he’d hoped for, and Mrs Forrester reeled around most of the time in a daze. Nobody seemed sure if it was drink or drugs, either prescription or illegal, but the consensus was that she was out of it all the time. She wasn’t popular; she’d upset most of the village in the short time she was here, by being rude about everything. The pub was too noisy and needed smartening up, and the food they served was inedible.’ She broke off and grinned. ‘That was true enough when she first moved here,’ she said, ‘though it’s been in new hands since just before Christmas, and is doing very well. However, it was hardly tactful to complain loudly in the public bar one night, only days after she’d arrived in the place. She also moaned about the vicarage – too big, too draughty – and she was sarcastic about the village shop, said it was pathetic and run by amateurs. That really got up people’s noses as it won a prize last year for being a well-run community effort.’

Harriet sighed. ‘I tried, we all did, but the poor, silly woman alienated everyone who would have tried to make friends with her and there’s only so much you can do, or offer, without becoming a pest. Perhaps if she’d made an effort, responded to the various overtures, her health might have improved. However, the night she died the vicar was at bell-ringing
practice
in the belfry. Our bells are famous locally and the New Year changes are particularly fine. He was invited to bless the bells,
and I believe he had a go at ringing too. Apparently he got home around 12.30 a.m. after they’d toasted the bells with champagne, and found her dead on the hall floor. She’d obviously staggered out of bed – she was in her nightdress – and the supposition is that she’d been going down to the kitchen. Or maybe the
bathroom
, the stairs are next to it and it was thought she could have made a mistake. The inquest found she was doped up to the eyeballs and wouldn’t have known which way was up.’

‘That’s horrible.’ Rory was shocked. ‘I didn’t take to the vicar but that’s an awful thing to happen. What about him? You said people sympathized with him, and you can see why; do they like him, though?’

Harriet considered the question. ‘It’s early days yet,’ she said slowly. ‘Our old vicar was extremely popular and died in harness so it would be tricky at first for anyone new to come here, big shoes to fill, kind of thing. John Forrester had only been in situ for a couple of months before the tragedy struck so in a sense he’s not had time to establish himself in the normal way. He’s devastatingly attractive, of course, even though he’s not strictly handsome, and a lot of the females in the parish are rather taken with him.’ She grinned, looking slightly sheepish. ‘I can understand that; he’s very charming and he looks fabulous in his vestments. His sermons are well thought out, not too long but not skimped. He’s good at the pastoral side and the
committees
he’s inevitably on are pleased to find he’s firm and decisive, while managing to be tactful at the same time, and that’s quite a rare skill.’

‘You don’t like him,’ Rory accused her. ‘Never mind how attractive and charming he is, or how well he does his job, you still don’t like him.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ she argued but shrugged as he looked
sceptical
. ‘Oh all right, but this is strictly
entre nous
. He’s everything I said, and more, but I somehow feel, whatever he does and
says, that he’s acting a part. I can’t put it more directly than that and it’s not a crime. It may simply be that he finds that the way to cope with his wife’s death. Or it might just be that he’s an actor, as many clergy are at heart, politicians too; there’s certainly a kind of glamour about him and people who are born like that can’t help putting on a performance. It’s so instinctive to them that they don’t realize they’re doing it.’

‘I feel pretty confused, you know.’ Rory sipped his third cup of coffee. ‘All this talk of mysteries and missing people may be moonshine, but you can’t get away from the fact that Mr Attlin was hit by a car. And you’re adamant that he wouldn’t have imagined that?’ She nodded and Rory carried on. ‘Plus there’s the metal-detector guys last night. They were definitely there and up to something, but whether they’re part of the other weird stuff happening round here, or just a coincidence, is beyond me.’

‘Edith says John Forrester wasn’t the only one making up to her yesterday,’ Harriet said, watching him closely. ‘I noticed it myself. Brendan was hovering round her, but that’s nothing new. He was around at Christmas when she was home and I think she did go out for a drink with him, but nothing else happened, she says. What was odd, though, was that Gordon Dean was being very free with his compliments and that’s not like him; his tastes usually run to older, more sophisticated women. And of course the Texan chap, Mike Goldstein, he was buzzing round her too.’ She gave him a direct, blue-eyed glance. ‘Come to think of it, what do
you
think of Edith?’

He coloured slightly, the flush bright against the sallow, fading tan. ‘I like her,’ he said frankly, ‘but she holds back. We’ll be talking and laughing and getting on fine, really friendly, maybe something a bit more, and then she’ll suddenly stop and look upset. I don’t know what it is, whether I’ve annoyed her, though I don’t think it’s that. She was okay before we went to that party but since then she’s been really odd.’

‘She hasn’t mentioned anything to me,’ Harriet said, frowning as she thought back to her conversation with Edith. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much. She’s a very straightforward kind of girl so if there’s something about you that’s bothering her, you’ll find out sooner or later. And it can’t be anything too serious or she’d have had you booted out of the house by now, make no mistake.’