Unholy Rites (2 page)

As the song ended, Danutia lifted her head to find Arthur staring at her, plainly surprised and pleased. Eyebrows raised in a silent question, he mimed taking a drink and nodded towards the low white building next to the churchyard. How different he seemed from when she'd first known him, almost three years ago now. He still looked like a young though slightly flabby Michael Caine—curly, coppery hair, slightly bulbous nose, thin lips. But then he was still smarting from his divorce, and his face and body had been tight with anger, disappointment, cynicism. Grief had opened him up—at least for the moment.

His hand dropped and he began to turn away. Quickly she gave him a nod, though she'd planned just to say a few words of condolence and then explore the village until time for her bus back to Buxton.

When she reached the church hall, the black-gowned priest was standing at the top of the steps, greeting people. As she passed, he said, “I'm Father Marple. Thank you so much for coming out in this dreadful weather,” smiling as though she'd done him a personal favor, his lips large and rubbery. She couldn't help but feel that the Reverend Mr. Marple considered himself the star of God's latest television show.

She nodded and stepped inside. A long corridor stretched ahead, a row of closed doors on the left. From behind the doors she could hear chalk squeaking, small voices singing “Frère Jacques,” a teacher reading about Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. This must be the primary school Elizabeth Hazelhurst had mentioned, still in use. At the end she emerged into a large open room, where a few people talked in quiet murmurs.

From behind a table, a stout woman in an apron said, “Tea and coffee on your left, luv, sandwiches and sweets on your right if you're peckish.” She had a bright, open face and curly white hair that escaped in all directions. She nodded towards the church. “Friend of Arthur's, are you? Sad business, this, with him so far from home. Ethel doted on that boy, but that's the way of it, isn't it? We always dote on our sons, whether they deserve it or not.”

“Some people dote on their daughters,” Danutia retorted, angered by the all-too-common cultural bias. Luckily the woman had already turned her attention to a newcomer.

Arthur seemed trapped near the door, surrounded by people. Danutia picked up a coffee and filled a cracked china plate with crustless finger sandwiches, egg salad, ham, cucumber. Spying a hissing radiator with a broad windowsill above it to serve as a table, she made her way over. She might as well be warm.

A knot of women balancing cups and plates formed around the woman who'd given the eulogy. Elizabeth Hazelhurst's shawl was now draped loosely over her arms, revealing a large silver pendant carved with a Celtic knot. She had a strong face, with broad cheekbones and heavy dark eyebrows. She wore no makeup, as though proud of or indifferent to the deep furrows across her brow and the fine lines around her mouth.

“Lovely eulogy, Liz,” said an anxious-looking woman. Straight ash-blond hair hung like a curtain over her forehead and cheekbones, but didn't conceal the dark circles under her tired blue eyes, or the fact that she'd been crying. Another special friend of Ethel's?

“Thank you, Alice.” Liz Hazelhurst gave the woman a quick hug. “I felt so sad writing it, but comforted too, as though Ethel was sitting there beside me.”

A quiet murmur ran around the group.

“And that story about the trains,” Alice went on. “I can still remember hearing them rumble across the viaduct when I was a child, and how frightened I was of all that noise.” Her breath caught when she said this, as though she still knew what it meant to be frightened. Danutia found herself wondering about the woman, about the story behind the makeup applied a little too heavily and the navy blue dress that hung loose, as though she'd lost weight. Illness? Family problems?

A slightly older woman in a smart black dress chimed in. “You could have said more about the problems we'll have now that Ethel's gone, but I guess it wouldn't have been appropriate.”

Intrigued by this suggestion of a problem concerning Mrs. Fairweather, Danutia moved closer. “Excuse me,” she said. “I'm from Canada, and I've never heard of well dressing, but I gather it was very important to Mrs. Fairweather and to the village.”

Liz Hazelhurst introduced herself. “You must be Arthur's friend. Bev said she'd spoken to you. Have you had one of her sticky buns?” She lifted a half-eaten pastry.

Before Danutia could respond, the woman in black cut in. “I'm Justine, Justine Clough. I'm chair of the well dressing committee.” Her pixie haircut revealed good bone structure, but there was nothing pixieish about her rapid speech and forthright manner.

“It's the money from the well dressing that keeps this building open and the primary school going. If the school closes, the families will leave and the village will dry up again. Without Ethel, we may be in trouble.”

“That's what happened when the trains shut down,” Alice explained. “The village dried up. First the railway people left, and then with no railway to ship the stone, most of the quarries closed down and the workers moved away. Like a sleepy little ghost town, it was, Mill-on-Wye, until a few years back. It was the well dressing as brought us back to life.”

Justine carried on as though Alice hadn't spoken. “Giving thanks for the water that sustains us is an ancient custom, going back to pagan times, isn't it, Liz? It has persisted here in the Peak District because this whole area is limestone—”

“Give off, Justine, the lady doesn't want a lecture on quaint Celts,” said the man who had planted himself in the circle of women. He was short and chunky, with stylishly cut light brown hair, a downy mustache, milky blue eyes hard as marbles, and a supercilious grin. “Geoffrey Nuttall,” he said, his accent flatter, more clipped than the speech around him. “Dr. Geoff to my patients.”

“I'll try not to get sick,” Danutia said, put off by his condescending manner. She turned back to Justine Clough. “What were you saying about well dressing?” She caught a surprised look on the doctor's face as he murmured to Liz Hazelhurst, “Now what did I do to deserve that remark?”

Justine didn't need any urging to talk about well dressing, it seemed. “It's an ephemeral art form, like ice sculptures or Tibetan sand paintings, only it's created out of flower petals and other natural materials. We spend a week making it, and a week later, it's falling apart.”

“Sooner, if the vandals get at it,” piped up a fourth woman, hitherto silent.

“Oh, you know how lads are,” Justine said with a pitying look at Alice. “Mothers do what they can.”

“Eric had nothing to do with that,” Alice retorted, her face reddening.

After a moment's uncomfortable silence, Justine said, “No, no, of course not.” Then she began to explain the history of well dressing, most of which Danutia missed. Her attention had shifted to the conversation behind her.

Liz Hazelhurst and the doctor had moved away a few steps and dropped their voices.

“Why did you call Ethel's death ‘untimely and unexpected?'” The doctor's voice was quiet but intense. “She was a woman with heart problems, for Chrissake.”

“Because when she left my house, it was her stomach she was complaining about, not her heart.”

“No doubt you gave her one of your potions, and she died, and now you're feeling guilty.”

“That's unfair,” Liz protested.

Danutia became aware that Justine was waiting for an answer to some question. “I'm sorry, I missed that,” she said.

“Our well dressing celebration is the first Saturday in May,” Justine repeated with a frown. “Will you still be here?”

“Until June first,” Danutia said. “I'm—” Liz and the doctor had returned to the circle and everyone stood looking at her expectantly. “I'm doing some research.” No point in mentioning her police connection. The news would get around soon enough.

Disturbed by what she'd overheard, Danutia looked around for Arthur. He was making his way towards her.

“I'd better have a word with Arthur,” she said, gathering her cup and plate.

“Tell him I'll see him later in the week,” Liz said. “I have some things of Ethel's to return.”

Danutia nodded, unaware that those “things” would plunge her into the search for a killer.

Barely conscious of hands
reaching out, voices murmuring words of sympathy, Arthur wormed his way through the chattering crowd. Ancient hands plucked at his sleeve.

“Excuse me, but I must say hello to a friend from Canada,” he said, pulling free. A few more steps and he wrapped Danutia in a bear hug. “Am I glad to see you,” he said. “Let's get out of here.”

“I was so sorry to hear about your mother,” Danutia said the moment they were outside the church hall. “I found your note when I went to work this morning. Her death must have come as a shock.” She touched his arm, her brow furrowed with concern and, he thought, pity. “How are you doing?”

That was the last thing Arthur wanted to talk about. “You know what, I'm starving. Too many people talking to me to eat anything. How about a drink and a bite at the pub?”

“I'm stuffed, but I'd love a coffee. I should warn you, though—I don't have a car.”

Arthur couldn't resist teasing. “No checkerboard police car with flashing lights?”

Danutia didn't smile. “I have no status as a police person here, remember? Buxton Constabulary did arrange a rental car, but I didn't want to risk driving on the wrong side while the roads are icy.”

“No problem. The pub's just over there. Even I can walk that far.” Arthur pointed down the slope and to the left, where a row of buildings stretched along the River Wye. Leafless beeches and horse chestnut trees overhung the river and marched upwards, creating an intricate latticework of branches below jagged limestone cliffs. A ragged flock of crows—a “murder” of crows—disappeared behind the high cliffs, cawing noisily.

At a break in traffic they dashed across the main road and down the public steps to Mill Lane. On the corner stood his mother's whitewashed cottage with its triangular garden tucked between the two roads. Not trusting his emotions, he hurried past without a word.

His gaze fell on the old village well on the other side of the road, a moss-covered stone chamber with a heavy grate. The well hadn't been used in years—except by his mum, he thought ruefully, remembering the buckets he'd hauled up for her during her illness.

Other memories came flooding back, memories of a childhood he'd left behind when he followed Thea to Canada. “I did a lot of walking around here with my father when I was a boy. This road leads to the notorious Monsal Mill. After lunch I'll give you a tour.”

Danutia glanced at her watch. “It will have to be quick. I thought you'd be tied up with relatives and such, so I have a ticket for the two o'clock bus back to Buxton.”

Arthur tried to hide his disappointment. “Not much left of the Fairweather clan, I'm afraid, just an uncle and cousins in Australia. First things first then. To the pub.”

“What was so awful about the mill?” Danutia asked as they walked.

“The owners abused the children who worked there, mostly orphans from Bristol and London. They were called apprentices, but they were slaves, working from dawn to dusk with virtually nothing to eat or drink. Many of them died.”

“I noticed a lot of children's graves at St. Anne's,” Danutia said. “Are some of the apprentices buried there?”

“No, St. Anne's wasn't built until later. But that's enough gloom and doom.” Arthur stopped in front of a two-storey stone building with gabled windows, its walls almost completely hidden by ivy. He gestured towards the wooden sign hanging above the door.

“Here we are,” he said. “The Anglers Reward. When I was a kid, we used to call this building Heaven. In Sunday school we were told our reward would be in heaven. When our dads talked about popping up to the Reward for a quick one, we put two and two together and made five, as kids so often do. Though maybe we weren't so far off.”

Danutia laughed at his story, and Arthur felt encouraged. He ushered Danutia through the pub door, then hesitated. Voices and the rattle of cutlery drifted into the hallway from the pub's main room. “The main bar will be full of people who knew my mum. Let's share the Hiker's Bar with the dogs and muddy boots.”

As he'd hoped, the Hiker's Bar was almost empty, just a fit-looking older couple with a black Lab at their feet. Settling Danutia at a table invisible from the corridor, Arthur went to the bar and ordered fish and chips and India Pale Ale for himself, coffee for his guest. He carried their drinks back to the table. “So, you've been in England for how long now, two weeks, three? I've rather lost track of time.”

“Just over two. My posting in Buxton officially started on February 1. I came early to play tourist. My nephew wanted photos and postcards from all the famous places, the Tower, Buckingham Palace, the wax museum.”

Arthur took a long and appreciative pull at his
IPA
. “The innocent abroad. I'll drink to that. So what do you make of us, the English at home?”

“There are so many of you, all in a hurry. Except for ticket sellers and shop clerks, who seem too busy filing their nails or reading the paper to take any notice. In London, at any rate. It was a relief to discover there's so much open countryside here in the Peak District, even if there isn't anything I'd call a peak.”

“Don't be fooled by the name. It's thought to come from the Pecsaeten, Anglo Saxons who moved into this area in the sixth century, killing off or absorbing the local Celts. If it's mountains you want, you'll have to go to Wales.”

“I'm no rock climber,” Danutia said. “There are fabulous trails in this area, from what I've read. I'm itching to get out when the snow's gone, as I'm told it will be in a few days.”