A Dark and Stormy Night (6 page)

‘It works the same way for bread. If you have patience enough, the bread will toast. If not, or if you get too close, it burns.'

‘I used to like burnt marshmallows.'

‘I
don't
think you'd care for burnt toast. Anyway, it falls in the fire. There's cold ham, or the pot over there' – she pointed to a spot in the corner of the hearth – ‘has boiling water for eggs or tea.'

I ladled some of the boiling water into a teapot. ‘Where is everybody?'

‘The Bateses are helping Jim and Joyce clear away the tree that fell in the cloisters. So is Tom, and I think some of the other men. I don't know where the women are. Joyce said we were just to help ourselves to anything we could find. Dorothy, I'm
so
sorry I let you in for this.'

‘You didn't conjure up the storm. And we're lucky, really. We can keep sort of warm, and I'm sure there's plenty to eat – if we can figure out how to cook it. Lord knows there's enough firewood for ten years – and most of it's already in the house.'

‘It's green wood, Dorothy,' said Alan, a little grumpy now that I had someone else to help me cope. ‘Won't burn for months.'

‘You're hungry,' I replied. ‘You always get cross when you're hungry. How about a nice ham sandwich? And I just made a pot of tea.'

We both felt slightly better when we had some food inside us, and Lynn came up with an idea. ‘Look, Dorothy, why don't we see if we can put together a meal? Everyone will be starved when they come in. Surely we can concoct something besides boiled eggs and ham sandwiches.'

‘Do you think Mrs Bates would mind us invading her domain?'

‘I doubt it. She seems like a sensible woman. Anyway, she's busy elsewhere, and somebody has to think about food.'

So we foraged. ‘Make sure there's an inside latch on that door,' said Alan as Lynn and I walked into the cooler. ‘I'm going out to help with the clean-up effort, and I don't want the two of you getting stuck in there and turning into ice sculptures. Yes, I do know the power's out, but it's going to be very cold in there for a long time.' He gave us a dubious look and then left the room.

‘There's a lot of round steak we could cut up into stew meat,' said Lynn after a moment or two.

‘That might do for supper, if it thaws fast. Can't have it ready in time for lunch. Oh, here's five pounds or so of hamburger!'

‘We could make that into a soup with canned vegetables, and heat it in a big pot in the fireplace. I knew all those years in Camp Fire Girls would come in handy some day.'

There were obstacles. We had no way to brown the hamburger, so we just chopped it up into the smallest chunks we could manage and put it into the biggest pot we could find. Then the can opener was electric, but I had my Swiss Army knife with me. Slowly, laboriously, we opened tins of tomatoes and corn and green beans. I chopped onions and found herbs. ‘Potatoes, do you think?'

‘Not sure they'd cook in time. Better cook some macaroni in the boiling water, if we can find any macaroni, and add it at the last minute.'

The pot had no bail handle, which didn't really matter, because the fireplace hadn't had hanging hooks for generations, probably. We used other pans to improvise a platform for the big pot, thrust it into the fire, and hoped for the best.

‘And that's enough of that,' I said, dusting ashes off my fingers. ‘I wish we could bake some cornbread, but even if we had the ingredients, I do
not
know how to bake on an open fire, and I don't intend to try to find out. What do we do now?'

‘Why don't we see what we can do outside? We might find roof slates that are reusable, and some of the plants might be salvaged.'

I had serious doubts about the plants, but it was worth a try. I'm no gardener, but I do love flowers, and the sight of the ruined garden was painful. ‘I didn't bring my wellies. Do you suppose there are some I can borrow?'

‘Bound to be. Shall I go ask Jim?'

‘No, don't bother him. We'll manage.'

We found our coats and hats and a variety of footwear. Lynn slipped into somebody's garden clogs and I found a pair of wellies so big I could wear them over my shoes, and we went out into the hard, bright sunshine and the devastation.

The wind was still blowing steadily, a cold, insinuating wind, but by comparison to the storm winds it was as a gentle zephyr. We wandered more or less aimlessly, and soon stopped trying to pick up slates. They were heavy, and so many of them were chipped or broken that I doubted they would be of any use. As for the garden, it was heartbreaking.

‘Still,' said Lynn after we had looked in silence at the stripped rose bushes and the flattened annuals, ‘the perennials will come up again in the spring, and the bulbs. Small plants are sturdier than trees, in a way.'

‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall,' I said glumly. ‘Look at that oak, with its roots in the air.' I pointed to one on the edge of the wood. ‘It's fascinating, in a macabre sort of way. Do you suppose they ever save trees that are uprooted that way?'

‘I wouldn't think so.'

We walked in that direction, squishing through the mud. ‘Well, but they wouldn't have to dig a new hole,' I argued. ‘The hole is there, see? Darn it all, if they could just get to it with a crane or something, before it dries out, I'll bet—
what's that
?'

We were at the edge of the deep cavity left by the fallen giant. Tangled in its roots was . . . something . . .

‘Dorothy Martin, if you faint I'll never speak to you again! You've got to stay sensible, because
somebody
has to, and I don't know if I can.'

Lynn's voice seemed to come from far away, but her hand gripped mine painfully.

I cleared my throat and gave my head a shake. ‘Tell me that isn't what I think it is.'

‘Oh, yes, it is.' Her voice rose higher and higher, and she began to laugh. ‘You can't really mistake a skeleton, can you?'

SIX

I
have seen a few dead bodies in my life. I didn't enjoy it. If I had ever thought about it, I suppose I would have expected a skeleton to be less disturbing. A body, after all, looks like a person. A skeleton is just bones.

Or so I would have thought. It isn't so. There was something so absolutely final about that skeleton, so utterly and irretrievably dead, that it turned my own bones to water.

Once when I was a teenager I went into a ‘fun house'. For me it wasn't fun. I've always been claustrophobic and a little afraid of the dark, and I didn't, even at that age, like things that jumped out at me and made loud noises. But the worst thing, the absolutely worst, was the skeleton that dropped down an inch from my nose with a horrific shriek. The word ‘blood-curdling' is overused, but I felt exactly as if my blood had turned solid and stopped my heart. I had nightmares for weeks afterwards, that grinning skull looming closer, closer . . .

That skull had been plastic, or something. This one was real. I turned away from it and sank down on the nearest fallen branch.

My friend was still giggling. ‘Lynn!' I said sharply. ‘Pull yourself together and go get Alan. You can run. I can't. Don't tell him what's happened yet, just bring him out. I'll stay here.'

‘Why?' said Lynn, still in that high voice, near hysteria. ‘He–she–it isn't going anywhere.'

‘I don't want anyone else seeing it yet, if I can prevent them. Lynn,
go
!'

She went. I took a deep breath, and then another, and tried hard to think.

The skeleton was not intact. The ligaments that had held the bones together had gone the way of all flesh. But the smaller roots of the tree had intertwined with the bones, creating a kind of net that held them in some semblance of their original alignment. I shuddered at that thought. Roots, weaving their tough, mindless, inexorable fingers through muscle, through heart and brain and . . .

I shook myself, nearly dislodging my hat, which was being teased by the wind. I replaced it more firmly and gave myself a lecture. Dead tissue feels no pain, knows no indignity. What happens to our bodies after we're dead doesn't matter a hoot. It's what happens when we're alive that counts.

That skeleton had once belonged to a living, breathing human being. If its owner had met a natural death, he or she would have been buried in the usual way in a churchyard. The implication was obvious.

On the whole, I came down on the side of ‘she'. The sad fact is that it has never been uncommon for a young lord of the manor – or an old one, for that matter – to seduce a serving maid or village girl. If the girl, discovering herself pregnant, or humiliated past endurance by her ‘ruin', killed herself, she might well have been buried to prevent talk. Some story would have been put about that she had left for greener pastures. Or, if the seducer was someone whose reputation would have suffered, he might have killed the girl. Murder in either case, according to my way of thinking.

I wondered how long ago the murder had taken place. I had no idea how long it took for flesh to decay and leave clean bones.

My stomach was getting queasier and queasier. Better stop thinking about that sort of thing. There was no point, anyway. The place would soon be swarming with Scene of Crime Officers, some of them with enough knowledge of forensics to make a very good guess about the age of the skeleton.

And then, with sinking heart, I remembered. No, there would be no SOCOs. There would be no one to help, no one to study the scene and then take away that pathetic evidence of murder, no one to set in motion the efficient machinery of homicide investigation.

We couldn't call the police. We couldn't get to a police station. Or if someone managed to walk to the village, the constable there would have no way to summon the nearest homicide team.

We were cut off, alone here with a group of people who barely knew each other and the skeleton of a murdered person. I wrapped my coat more closely around me and wished Alan would come.

It seemed a long time, but was probably only a few minutes before I saw him striding across the muddy, littered lawn. He was alone. Lynn had undoubtedly sought the comforting presence of her own husband. I could understand that.

When Alan was close enough, I simply pointed.

My husband, bless him, can meet almost any occasion with aplomb, and he'd seen lots of corpses and probably a few skeletons in his long and distinguished police career. He studied the bones, then took my hand and grinned. ‘I can't take you anyplace, can I?'

I was able to smile back. ‘Now really! I know I've managed to get involved in a few crimes over the years, but you can't blame me for a body that's been there for . . . how long, would you say?'

‘Probably years, but I don't know how many. It would take some time for the roots to entwine themselves around the bones like that. As for the decay of the body, there are so many variables – type of soil, temperature, whether the body was naked or clothed, what insects are in the soil – sorry, love. Not pleasant, I know. But only an expert would be able to say with any certainty, and even then, it will be an estimate.'

‘And we can't get an expert here,' I wailed. ‘Alan, what on earth are we going to do?'

‘First we tell our host. It's on his property, after all. Then we're going to have to try to get through to the authorities.'

‘How? Smoke signals?'

‘A satellite phone, if someone here has one and I can find someone at the other end. Or I'll walk to the police station in the village and see what, if anything, they can do. At the very least, a constable might be sent to guard the remains, though given the storm emergency, I'm not sure if that will be possible. The village probably has only the one constable.'

‘Shall I stay here and keep watch?' I asked. ‘I don't mind, now.' Alan has a marvellous gift for steadying me in a crisis.

‘That would be a help, love. I'll send someone to relieve you. I can trust Tom. Then I'll talk to our hosts and see what can be done, given the circumstances.'

‘Jim and Joyce will be shattered.'

‘They already are. Blast this storm! There are times when I'm tempted to move to some place with dependable weather.'

‘If there is any such place, which I doubt, you'd be bored to tears.'

‘I've heard parts of Australia— ah.' His voice took on a speculative tone.

‘What?' I asked apprehensively.

‘I believe I remember someone saying Laurence Upshawe lives now in Australia.'

‘New Zealand,' I murmured, but Alan wasn't listening.

‘Do you have any idea when he sold Branston Abbey and moved away?'

‘Not a clue.' I was getting impatient. ‘Alan, shouldn't we—?'

‘Because,' Alan went on with maddening calm, ‘depending on how long the body's been there . . .'

‘Oh! Oh, obviously. My head's getting soft in my old age. But Alan, I
like
Mr Upshawe!'

‘So do I.' But he said it grimly, and strode off toward the house.

I sat back down on the uncomfortable branch, left alone once more to listen to the wind and commune with a pile of bones.

In the few minutes before Tom Anderson came to take over the vigil, I was able to notice a few things in that huge cavity left when the tree toppled. I dared not approach too closely. The ground was soft and unstable, and I shuddered at the thought of falling into the embrace of that grinning horror. But from where I sat I could see some dark fragments of something hanging from the tree roots, moving in the wind as if alive. They could almost have been leaves. Oak leaves are tough, and decay very slowly. But how would leaves have made their way deep into the earth?