Condemned

by R. C. Bridgestock

  Once settled, Lily’s suspicious grey eyes looked up at Charley, in her smart navy suit and brilliant white shirt. All indications pointed to the old woman’s general frailty, but the detective’s intuition told her something different.

  ‘The money pot,’ Lily said, as if the weight of responsibility had all become too much for her, ‘it’s gone, and truth is, I thought I’d be dead long before that ’appened.’

  ‘The church’s money pot?’ said Charley, looking about her for the ‘pot’, but all she could see were bottles, bottles of all types, containing liquids and items only known to Lily Pritchard. ‘Is that a metaphor?’

  Lily Pritchard frowned. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Charley shook her head. ‘Never mind, tell me, Lily, where did the money in the pot actually come from?’

  The old lady sighed heavily, tossing her head in the direction of a church pew that stood against the wall. ‘It’s a long story, so you’d better sit down. Who’s died or can’t you tell me?’

  Charley looked taken aback. ‘Well we could tell you, if we knew who ‘they’ were, but we don’t.’

  Lily Pritchard looked puzzled.

  Charley pushed aside a stack of hymn books and indicated to Annie that she should sit down too. Charley made herself at home amongst the rest of the rubbish, sitting down where the music sheets used to be stacked. An old electric heater spewed hot air up into her face.

  ‘And you think I might know who they are?’

  ‘We thought you might be able to shed light on the history of Crownest, and maybe you could tell us about the recent occupiers.’

  The sexton’s eyes left Charley’s face. ‘I’d offer you a cup of tea, but the kettle went bang, and it hasn’t worked since.’

  Annie’s wide eyes invited Charley to look at the straggly bare wires leading out of the plug.

  Charley raised her eyebrows. ‘May I suggest you call an electrician?’

  ‘Oh, I did call an electrician. In fact, I called all the electricians in the Yellow Pages, but everyone was surprisingly busy.’ Lily paused for a moment, before turning her head towards Annie.

  ‘You could always go into the crypt and boil a pan on the gas stove m’love,’ she said. Was that a spot of mischief Charley saw flash in the old woman’s eyes? When Annie looked at Charley for her reaction, Lily pulled a face.

  ‘Odd that, people always decline. Probably the prospect of going down into the black hole where coffins gape horribly amongst tattered shrouds, bones and dust which time and mortality have strewn!’ she hissed. A single light bulb with a dust-coated red shade hung on a strand of wire above a table at her side, upon which there was a bottle and two upturned glasses.

  Tittering, Lily poured herself a glass of blood-red port, swirled the beverage in her glass, and held it up to the light. Dramatically she sniffed it once, took a taste, and savoured the nectar, before looking towards the detectives with a wicked smile upon her face. ‘I’m jesting.’ She paused and smacked her lips together. ‘There is electricity down in the cellar. Will you join me in a drink?’

  Charley politely declined.

  Annie shook her head, produced a notepad from her bag, and sat with legs crossed and her pen hovering above the paper.

  ‘I’ll start from the beginning, shall I?’ said Ms Pritchard.

  Charley nodded. ‘Please. In your own time.’

  ‘Crownest House stands on the site of a former farmhouse, but there was a fire back then when the lightning struck. A long way back. A man known as Jeremiah Alderman was the beneficiary of the farmhouse in the will and he built Crownest using the ruins of the original house. It was a bad idea. He should have demolished the lot, but wasn’t allowed to as the will had certain conditions attached. The farmhouse had been long been cursed, you see, by the farmer’s wife who, losing the only child she’d borne, had renounced her faith, and turned to witchcraft for her vengeance.’

  At that moment the sun must have been crossed by a cloud, and the light shifted. ‘Go on, what else do you know?’ said Charley, in a hushed tone.

  The old woman raised her arms in the air. ‘Jeremiah Alderman donated money to help rebuild the church buildings, including the place where I grew up, God’s house, bless him.’

  ‘Would you know if there is a tunnel leading from here through to Crownest, by any chance?’ Charley asked.

  For a moment it felt like the unthinkable had been spoken, to Lily. She appeared guarded. ‘There are lots of stories about all sorts of ridiculous things that supposedly relate to the Aldermans and to the church. Comes with the territory when you have a murderer or two in the family’s history, I suppose, but that one is true.’

  Annie couldn’t disguise the excitement in her voice. ‘So, you know about the tunnel?’

  The nod of Lily’s head was confirmation. Lily’s demeanour had changed. ‘Oh, don’t you go getting yourself all excited. It’s bricked up, on Master Seth Alderman’s instructions. He was Jeremiah’s youngest son, and Lucinda’s husband. She grew up here, daughter of the caretaker.’ Lily dipped her head to place her hand to her brow. When she raised her hand, she looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Are you okay, Ms Pritchard?’ asked Charley.

  ‘I will be,’ she replied. ‘You see, I shouldn’t be telling you this because Seth Alderman forbade anyone to mention the tunnel ever again.’

  Charley was puzzled. ‘Why?’

  But Lily sat staring up at a photograph of a priest hanging on the wall. When she lowered her eyes to face the detectives, she briefly closed them, and shook her head.

  ‘Seth was only nineteen years of age when he was left in charge of the family business after his elder brother Felix was executed, but he secretly loathed it, so much so that he turned to drink and to drugs.’ Lily sighed heavily.

  ‘I read that,’ said Charley.

  Lily’s eyes were downcast. ‘They said he was a selfish, selfish man,’ she said, quietly, but with feeling.

  ‘I read that he had an older sister. What became of her, do you know?’

  Lily frowned. ‘Catherine; I was told she went to Australia.’

  ‘Do you know why Seth Alderman didn’t go with her?’

  ‘They say Lucinda was carrying his child,’ said the old lady.

  ‘What else do you know about what happened after Catherine left?’ asked Charley, gently. Without knowing why, she sensed that she needed to tread carefully, but she had two sets of human remains to identify, and she suspected that the earlier murder would be the most difficult to solve.

  ‘It is said that Seth beat Lucinda. One night, the pregnant teenager is said to have fled through the tunnel to take sanctuary in the church, afraid of what he might do to her, or so the story goes. Seth was apparently heartbroken when he sobered up, but fearing that he might actually kill Lucinda in one of his drunken stupors, he ordered the door to be bricked up and, and the gates to Crownest barred. Reportedly, he never saw Lucinda again.’

  ‘What happened to Lucinda and the baby?’

  Lily shrugged her shoulders. ‘No one knows.’

  The silence in the room was such that Charley could hear the pen scratching the paper on which Annie was writing.

  ‘Moving forward, do you know anything about the latest occupiers of Crownest? We are led to believe that they were called Dixon.’

  Lily’s glum face brightened up the instant the Dixons were mentioned. She leaned conspiratorially towards Charley.

  ‘They were bad ’uns,’ she growled. ‘I heard they had guns. I saw the estate agent, old man Raglan, waiting for them one day. He’s a bad ’un too, truth be known. He has a gun, so rumour has it.’

  ‘An estate agent with a gun; business must be bad,’ said Charley.

  Lily’s face was serious. ‘You might mock young lady, but that’s what I heard,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Charley. ‘I didn’t mean to joke, but why would an estate agent have a gun?’

  ‘I don’t know the answer to that, but he might if
he’s mixing in violent circles.’ The old woman pulled herself to the edge of her seat. ‘Now, I suppose you won’t be leaving until you have taken a look at this bricked-up door, will you?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Charley, ‘but before we do, are the church documents archived here? There may be something amongst them that will help our investigation.’

  ‘All there is, is stored in the attic,’ she said.

  ‘Excellent!’ said Charley. ‘Maybe I could send a couple of my officers round to have a look?’

  Lily looked pensive. ‘Of course. I haven’t been able to get up there for years. Can I be nosey and ask if you can tell me any more about the bodies you have found in the house?’

  ‘It’s no secret. We’ve found the remains of a female that we are advised may be around eighty to a hundred years old. We think there may be some pagan history owing to the way she was laid to rest. The other is a male whom the pathologist thinks may have been in the house for a few weeks, months at the most.’

  Lily’s face drained. She fell back onto the cushion. Charley and Annie rushed to her aid.

  ‘It must be all the excitement,’ she said when she came round from her faint.

  ‘Well there is going to be a lot of activity around for a while, and a lot of media interest. Maybe you would like to take a break from your duties for a while?’

  Lily looked shocked. ‘Where would I go? This is my home. I’ve lived here all my life, and my mother, and father before me. I don’t think so.’

  Chapter 11

  Behind the red-and-gold, heavy brocade curtain there was nothing for the women to see but a blank wall. Although in knowing that there was once an opening that led into a secret passage, Charley fancied she could make out the shape of the porthole. She laid the palm of her hand on the cold stone, and imagined that the masonry would reveal what was hidden. ‘I wonder who bricked it up?’

  ‘What does it matter?’ asked Annie.

  ‘The wall’s not rough, the plaster is perfectly smooth; whoever did this was concerned about how the final results looked.’

  Lily scowled. ‘The artisans of yesteryear had pride in their work, not like today.’ She turned and walked away, stopped at the tabernacle that doubled up as the altar and appeared to be searching for something in her deep pocket. Three keys were produced, and then she held them up to the stream of jewel-toned rays of light pouring from the stained-glass window.

  Annie lifted a brow. ‘She’s got a point.’

  With a nod of her head to indicate to Annie that she should observe the old woman, Charley lowered her voice.

  ‘I was thinking it was more to hide any trace of the door’s existence.’ Her attention swiftly moved from Lily to Annie’s face. Charley frowned. ‘Don’t you see why it would it matter? Let’s face it, a rough bulging wall would have served just as well as a smooth one, if the intention to stop Seth having access to the cluster of church buildings from the tunnel, was only to keep Lucinda safe from her husband’s alcoholic episodes.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Annie looked thoughtful, ‘you’re right, but wouldn’t a lock and key serve the same purpose? Plus, if it’s true what Ms Pritchard says, and Seth instructed it to be done, then why didn’t he wall up the fireplace entrance instead, or both for that matter?’

  Charley shook her head. ‘It doesn’t make sense, does it, or am I just thinking too deeply?’

  All of a sudden Annie’s eyes dimmed. ‘If only we could speak to the brickies?’

  Lily Pritchard was kneeling on the floor, her arm on the recessed cupboard door, her head inside the ambry. ‘You’ll ’ave a job on. They’ll be long dead and buried.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with the hearing,’ said Annie cocking her head. The two detectives walked slowly towards Lily. Looking over her shoulder, they could see that the ambry was lined with purple silk, and appeared to contain a variety of highly decorated, precious metal chalices amongst other fine objects. Charley turned to see the silent Annie’s mouth was wide open, as she focused on the bejewelled antiques. She nudged the younger detective. ‘Shut it. You’ll catch flies!’

  Lily clung to the tabernacle. On one knee she made an attempt to stand, and puffed and panted. Annie stepped forward and put a helping hand on the old woman’s elbow. ‘Let me help you find whatever you’re looking for,’ she said, peering further into the cupboard as she did so.

  ‘I need to find the donation boxes. They were in here, if my memory serves me right.’

  ‘Why?’ Annie mouthed to Charley. ‘You expecting visitors?’ she said to Lily.

  Lily opened the drawer beneath, and immediately stopped rummaging when she had found what she was looking for. One by one she took out several dark wooden boxes and laid them on the faded carpet. ‘You, more than most, should know what folk round ’ere are like. They’re nosey, they are. When they hear about this palaver on the news they’ll be like bees around a pot ’o jam. We’ll have visitors all right, mark my words.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why would you need donation boxes?’

  Lily looked from Annie’s face to Charley’s. ‘Are you sure she’s smart enough to be a detective?’ Charley found herself unable to suppress the laugh that rose in her throat. Annie scowled.

  Lily pushed tendrils of stray hair from her forehead, damp from the exertion, with a crooked finger. ‘Do they pay for interviews these days? Tell ’em, there’ll be a charge for filming ’ere, too.’ Standing, with Annie’s assistance, Lily looked towards the figure of Christ, which stood next to one of the burning altar candles. She put her head on one side and her face softened. ‘One way or another, you’ll find He always provides.’

  With the donation boxes, which would have benefited from a coat of varnish, in their arms, the three women walked through the arched chapel in a slow procession. Turning to walk up the aisle was like heading into a wind tunnel. By the time Charley had reached the outer door of St Anne’s, she could feel that the chill had reached her bones. Maybe the old woman was a witch of some kind, for how else had she survived on these moors in winter, alone for so many years? Charley was glad to put the boxes down at the top of the aisle. In an attempt to feel the benefit of her jacket, she grabbed its lapels and pulled them together with one hand. With the other hand on the door handle, she stopped and turned to face Lily. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to share with us? Anything that you think might help us with our investigations?’

  Charley followed the direction of Lily’s eyes and, for a moment, was distracted by the dramatically beautiful design on the ceiling. The shiver that ran down her spine broke her reverie. ‘For instance, have you seen anyone acting suspicious around here, recently?’

  Lily pondered for a moment, paused, and then a thought struck her. ‘A young man knocked at the church door, I wouldn’t say recently, it must be at least a couple of months ago now.’

  ‘Is that unusual in a church?’ said Annie.

  ‘As it ’appens clever clogs it is, especially when he wasn’t from around here,’ she said with a smirk on her face.

  ‘What did he want?’ Charley asked.

  ‘He wanted to know if I knew the Dixons, and what was the best time to catch ’em in.’

  ‘He didn’t say why he was looking for them by any chance did he?’

  ‘No, and contrary to Mr Raglan’s beliefs, I’m not a mind reader,’ Lily said, with a flash of impatience in her eyes.

  Charley was not to be distracted from the job in hand. ‘What did this chap look like?’

  Again, Lily’s eyes rose to the ceiling. ‘Smart. In fact, I thought he might ’ave ’bin a police officer. Although, come to think of it his English wasn’t too good.’

  Charley frowned. ‘Where did he come from?’

  ‘How do I know?’ Lily paused. ‘I suggested he speak to the estate agents, and he thanked me and went on his way.’

  ‘So apart from looking smart, is there anything else that you can tell us about him? His name?’

  ‘I don’t think he told me his name
, if he did, I don’t remember. He was polite. He had a strange accent. He wasn’t from round ’ere.’

  Annie opened her mouth to speak. ‘Do you know if he saw the estate agents?’ said Charley, before Annie could get the words out of her mouth. Lily’s facial expression, and the rolling of her eyes, told Annie the question she was about to ask was another stupid one. ‘No!’

  ‘Would you recognise him if you saw him again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Lily Pritchard stood at the door watching the two detectives walk down the church path. Purposely, Charley chose to avoid the graveyard, and chose to walk down the path and along the road. They now had Lily Pritchard’s contact details and new leads to follow up. Charley strode out like a woman on a mission, and Annie found herself running to keep up with her.

  ‘Tell me, if the church is in such a bad way, why don’t they sell some of that gold?’

  ‘How should I know?’ said Charley.

  Annie fell silent. A few steps later she spoke again, her breathing heavier and harder as she walked at Charley’s side. ‘According to Lily,’ she said, ‘the tunnel is bricked up…’ Annie turned and her eyes fixed once more on the church door, in the distance. ‘Did you see the jug of milk outside?’ she said, with a giggle.

  Charley nodded.

  ‘A woman of God, and yet she believes in the Hobgoblin?’

  Charley shrugged her shoulders, a smile on her face. ‘I suspect most of her generation wouldn’t dare upset the Hob!’

  ‘Bet that cat has a field day,’ the younger woman sniggered.

  Charley stopped and spun round on the ball of her foot. ‘You’re daring to doubt the existence of the Hob, my girl?’