by Will North
“You know what?” Morgan said finally, her voice softening. “I think I always knew that about you. It’s how you get by in this job. Me, I just get angry and drink alone at home.”
“I hear you. I’m sorry. So what’s this job we’ve got?”
“It’s time your lads went through Hansen’s farm.”
“Morgan, look: we do scene of crime, in case you’ve forgotten. It’s your people who investigate.”
“I’ll wager it’s a scene. It was you reminded me that some of the cuts on the floater were old and some fresh. Where’d those older cuts happen? I’m thinking maybe his own farm.”
“Gone fishing, have you?”
“That some kind of a joke?”
“Don’t play dumb, Morgan, it doesn’t suit you. Using us like that is fishing which, even you, the force’s resident rule-breaker, must know SOCOs can’t do. We can only enter a house if it belongs to a suspect. Hansen’s not a suspect, he’s the victim.”
“Oh, bugger.”
“On the other hand, you’ve got the oldest laws of the land on your side: you can have your own people conduct a preliminary intelligence search under Common Law if you’re permitted access.”
“Which means getting the nod from Charlotte Johns…”
“Right the first time, but she has no reason to deny it; she’s the one who reported Hansen missing in the first place.”
“I knew all this, you know.”
“But you’re always in a hurry. You want a suspect who can be convicted, yeah? Then procedure’s your protection, Morgan. Follow it, and it can’t be questioned by the defense. Ignore it, and you’ll never convict. Remember the Chynoweth case?”
“You love to lecture, don’t you?”
“No, I love to protect you from yourself.”
Eighteen
ON TUESDAY, FIRST of May—Beltane on the pagan calendar—the members of the Lizard Druid Grove met at noon, just as the late spring sun hit the mouth of the sacred well close by the Bronze Age burial mound at Roscruge, less than a mile from Hansen’s farm. The well had been discovered in the late eighteenth century by the antiquarian W. C. Borlase. Acting on local lore, Borlase had followed a tributary of Gillan Creek upstream and found its source beneath a thicket of bramble and gorse: a spring in a low, manmade stone grotto barely large enough to accommodate a crouched figure collecting fresh water.
On this particular day, the moist joints of the prehistoric walls of the well were studded with pale yellow primroses and emerald maidenhair ferns. The ground above was carpeted with the bell-flowered indigo spires of native wood hyacinths. A gnarled blackthorn—a “May tree”—twisted skyward from the stony ground at a distance of three yards exactly to the south of the well. In full, frothy blossom, it was white as a bridal bouquet.
At Charlotte’s insistence, Archie Hansen had been elevated to High Priest of their grove three years earlier, pushing aside the aging Philip St. Martin, whom everyone called “Gandalf,” not just for his long mane of silver hair and beard, but for his wisdom as well. Charlotte had been St. Martin’s lover before she met the much younger Hansen, and she used St. Martin’s frequent heart-related absences to persuade him to step aside. St. Martin had begged off today’s ceremony, too.
There were eight of them gathered at the well, and Archie was pleased with the symmetry. Besides himself and Charlotte, the celebrants included Don and Phyllis Braxton, a dithery couple of naturalists who oversaw the Lizard National Nature Reserve a few miles away. The erotically-charged spring Beltane celebration was an event which always made them blush, but that did not keep them from participating with the enthusiasm of hormone-charged teens. Brad and Cheryl Winters, husband and wife in their forties, who owned a florist shop in Helston, also attended. And Ryan Durgan, the young cook at the Ship Inn at Cadgwith Cove, was there with his twenty-something partner Katy Anthony, who ran the bar. Both of them were marking time, waiting for the aging publican at the Ship to pop off so they could take over the pub.
Though the day was warm, Charlotte had lit two small fires of dried brush and branches to the left and the right of a straight line between the well and the blackthorn tree. Hansen, cloaked in an ankle-length white cotton robe like the other members, used the tip of a double-edged steel broadsword to describe a wide circle in the ground encompassing both the well and the tree. He walked counterclockwise as he did so, and when done he divided the circle into the quarter ways: north, south, east, and west. Then, deliberately mixing the couples, he placed a man and woman in each quarter, finally taking his place with Charlotte in the southern quadrant. In addition to the sword, Hansen wore a horned leather Viking helmet on his balding head. The other grove members had never quite taken to Archie’s curious merger of Druidic practice with Viking lore, but they did not voice their misgivings. It was Archie’s grove now; he was their acknowledged leader. What’s more, the newest members had only the vaguest idea of the history and practices of the Druids, about whom there was no written record. St. Martin had been the grove’s teacher and he'd drawn from what little the Romans had written about the sect, but he was seldom involved anymore. Archie had other objectives for the members of this grove. He had been studying the blacker arts of witchcraft and experimenting with spells and potions. Indeed, had used a potion earlier this day.
Having placed the members in the circle, Archie raised the sword with both hands, swung it through the smoke of the two small fires, and touched its blade to his forehead in a sort of salute. Then he called out their traditional Celtic welcome:
“Sláinte agus failte!”
The group returned the greeting.
Next, he passed around a large silver chalice filled with honey mead generously spiked with vodka, and each member of the grove drank deeply as he blessed them.
Finally, he began the rite:
“Now the earth grows green, now the shoot has become bud and bud is flowering with the kindling of love’s fire. Today we celebrate the heat of the lusty month of May, and the greater heat of summer yet to come.
“Long ago on this day, the elders extinguished their winter fires and kindled the two which burn here with us now, left and right, between the sacred well and the ancient blackthorn. They would dance between the two fires for luck and then they would re-light their home fires from these fresh embers to signal the renewal of life, the rebirth of the season of plenty. We are come to this sacred place to honor these ancestors, to bid goodbye to the God and Goddess of Winter, and to celebrate Aine, the Queen of the May and of fertility, and her consort, Aengus the Harper, the God of Renewal. In this season of new seed flourishing, of bounty beginning, we dance between the flames of these paired fires which represent the duality of all things, the male and the female, the light and the dark, the sun and the moon.
“And then, as did the elders”—Archie paused for effect—“we retire to woods and fields to bring those dualities together in ecstatic union! This is our festival of life renewed, of abundance ahead, of the fecund spirit of the coming summer and, as with every living thing, the sensual potential in us all.”
Charlotte, dressed as the aging Goddess of Winter, her face made up to accentuate its lines and creases, watched her partner closely. She had never seen him so enthralled in a rite, so poetic in the words he chose, so overtly suggestive of what was, indeed a festival of the sensual. It thrilled her and she felt her desire rising.
At this point Archie splashed rose-scented oil from a small flask onto the embers and, as the flames flared, the paired couples skipped between the two fires. Then his voice rose again, and he pointed his sword to the ancient hawthorn:
“Now in the hinge of time
Wise ones are calling
Show us your wonder
O Maiden of May!”
A figure cloaked in a hooded white robe, face in shadow, emerged from behind the tree’s thick trunk and approached the well. As it approached, Archie pointed his sword and cried:
“Hail, the Queen of the May!”
Charlotte gasped, but the other members cheered, having got well into the spirit of the fest.
Joey circled the well with slow, clockwise steps, scattering her flowers: bluebells, primrose, white anemone, lemon yellow celandine, and tiny wild violets.
“In this season of renewal,” she said, her voice just above a whisper, “we do honor to the goddess of the wells, for the sacred well is the eye of the earth, the giver and receiver, womb of creation.”
When she arrived at the center of the circle between the two small fires, Hansen added more scented oil to each and, once again, they flared.
“Surely it is true,” he called as he entered the circle’s center to face Joey, placing his hands on her bare shoulders, “that when the Maid of May appears in any place or any heart, the delight of love cannot be far behind. So it is that Aengus the Harper, whose music awakens longing and fulfillment in mortal hearts, calling to all to come away from earthly care and join in the joy of May. Listen now to the elders calling the young lord!” he continued, facing Joey:
“The young son
Aengus the Harper
Son of the Dagda
Whose staff is the strongest
Born of enchantment
Son of the Mother
Sing, O enticer
Delighter of Maidens
Sap in the branches
All making merry
Bee to the blossom
Hei to the Maying
Raise now the May-rod
Aengus we name you
Wonder child rising
Come to our calling!”
At this, Joey Tregareth stepped forward, grasped the hilt of Archie’s sword, lifted it upright, kissed the blade, and walked the circle bidding each woman to do the same. When she completed the circle, she thrust the blade into the earth, saying:
“Awake, Aengus, O King-to-Be! Enter now the maiden Earth and bring joy and blessing to us all!”
There was moment’s silence, during which the only sound was birdsong from the surrounding heath, and then the members of the Lizard Druid Grove cheered, paired off, and slipped away. Hansen collected Joey’s cloak and held it for her as she wrapped it around her body. Then she retreated in the direction from which she’d come. Archie, flushed with his performance, turned to Charlotte.
“Shall we join the others in play?” he said.
Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, Archie Hansen, but I suggest you remember who takes care of your deepest, darkest needs.” Then she turned and walked back toward the farm. Archie scattered the dying embers of the little fires, crushing them with his boot, pulled his sword from the ground, and smiled.
It worked…
Nineteen
AT NINE SHARP on Wednesday morning, twenty-third May, Morgan strode into the new incident room at the St. Michaels Hotel.
“Bates!” she barked at the young woman bent over a computer keyboard. “Whatever you’re doing, stop.”
Terry Bates smiled. She was getting used to working with “Miss Congeniality.” She spun her chair and stood.
“At your pleasure, ma’am.”
Morgan frowned. “Oh stop. It’s Morgan. Got that?”
“Yes ma’am…Morgan.”
“I want you to pay Hansen’s partner, Ms. Johns, another visit. She’s an interested party, and another interview is warranted. But what I really want is a bit more quiet reconnaissance of that house. Tell her we’re trying to know Hansen better, to get the big picture of his life. She acts a bit of a cold fish, I know, but that also could be shock. She loved him, that’s clear. She should be happy to help.”
Bates nodded.
“Take a PC with you from the crime team here. Then have her walk you around the farm to learn how he worked. Meanwhile, make an excuse and have the PC investigate the house.”
Bates smiled. “Have someone in mind, do you Morgan?”
“Novak. Plenty distracting. Plenty smart.”
BATES AND NOVAK stood with Charlotte Johns at the edge of the field closest to Hansen’s house. The desiccated yellow blossoms of the daffodils planted there nodded in a light breeze like sleepy pensioners at a rest home.
“He rotates; I mean rotated,” she corrected, placing her hands on the stone boundary wall and gazing across the field. “I don’t seem to be able to get the verb tenses right. Can’t get my mind around the notion that he’s gone…”
Bates touched the woman’s shoulder.
Johns nodded. “Yes, he rotated his crops in his various fields, so as not to wear the soil out, he said. So it might be daffs like these, followed by grain, followed by clover, and then maybe potatoes or cauliflower. Gave the fields time to rest, not planting the same thing, he said…”
“My Dad farmed,” PC Novak said. “That’s what he did, too. Good husbandry is what that is.”
Charlotte Johns looked at him. “Husband,” she whispered. And then her knees seemed to give out.
Bates knelt beside the tiny woman. “Ms. Johns, have you eaten anything yet today?”
The older woman shook her head.
“Constable,” Bates ordered. “Get back to the Hansen house and put a kettle on and see what else you can rustle up. Sugary biscuits of some kind. I’ll stay here with Ms. Johns. We ladies will talk.”
“I could get the tea…” Johns said.
“Yes, but no. I suspect your blood sugar’s perilously low. Let’s us rest here a moment and we can talk more about Archie. Novak’s just a PC, not a detective. Getting tea’s the sort of thing he’s supposed to do.”
Johns watched Novak walk across the farmyard. “I work at the hospital at Helston,” she said finally. “I’m only an orderly, but I’ve heard of that blood sugar thing. Takes the strength right out of you, it does.”
“You’ll be better in a moment or two if you rest. So tell me, are all of Archie’s fields right here, around the house?”
“No, scattered, they are, but nearby. His family bought them up over the decades as they came available, but only the best ones. Clever devils, the Hansens are...were.”
“Did Archie work alone? Did he have any hired help?”
“Archie? Hire help? Not a chance. Too tight-fisted for that, though I know the work was getting harder for him now he’s—was—getting on in years. It’s a hard, physical life.”
The two of them sat on the grass, their backs supported by the dry stone wall behind them.
“I’m sorry to ask, Ms. Johns, but what happens to the farm in the event of Mr. Hansen’s death?”
Johns shook her head and said nothing for a moment.
“I’ve no idea. He’s—he was—so very private. I don’t even know if he had a will. He had a family, years ago, a wife and two children. She divorced him and he never saw his children again. Up north somewhere, they are. Cumbria, he said. I suppose they’re his next of kin. Margie, his wife was called, Margie Hansen. No idea whether she kept his name. Maybe she’s remarried. The eldest, he was called Erik, after Erik the Red, I suppose. Archie was into that Norse legendry. The daughter’s called Brynne. No idea how old they are or whether they’d inherit. Never said a word about them, they’d hurt him so. He’d locked the door behind them.”
“But you two have been together for several years; wouldn’t he have provided for you?”
Charlotte Johns rose, steadied herself, and looked back toward Hansen’s house.
“I don’t know. I just don’t.”
“Are you all right to walk back?”
“Yes, thank you. I’m sorry I collapsed.”
“Don’t apologize for being human, Ms. Johns. Can you show me around his barn?”
“’Shed’ is what he calls—called—his main outbuilding, thou
gh it is so big. Where he kept farm machinery and such…”
NOVAK FOUND THE electric kettle on the counter beside the kitchen sink, filled it, switched it on, and raced upstairs. He and DC Bates had worked out a plan that whoever got free would have a look-about. Like a prowling cat, Novak padded around the main bedroom, but found only the man’s personal belongings and nothing else apparently out of place. The other two bedrooms seemed little used. The bathroom was spotless.
From the window, he saw Bates guide Johns into the biggest outbuilding, and he slipped back down the stairs. The table in the formal dining room was coated in dust, and the adjacent lounge, while clean, smelled of disuse. It was as he was rummaging around the kitchen for something to go with the tea that he found the tiny room, not much bigger than a closet, that apparently was Hansen’s office. It had a desk and computer with a grubby keyboard and a single overhead light bulb. On one wall there was a shelf of jumbled farm journals and file boxes. On the opposite wall was what looked to Novak to be a collection of antique swords, dominated by a polished broadsword straight out of a movie.
THE KETTLE HAD boiled and he’d just laid out mugs and plates as the two women crossed the farmyard. He had a cupboard open and was searching for biscuits when they entered.
“I’m at a loss, Ms. Johns,” Novak said over his shoulder. “Can’t find a box of biscuits anywhere!”
Johns smiled. “He hid them. On a shelf too high for me to reach. He knew I had a weakness…” She pointed to a round tin atop one of the cupboards ringing the big kitchen. That’s it, up there. Dark chocolate whole meal biscuits, unless I miss my guess. His favorite. Mine, too.”
At this, she seemed to wilt again, and Bates guided her to a chair beside the scrubbed oak kitchen table.
Novak poured the tea, added plenty of sugar and milk, and offered Johns the opened tin of biscuits. She took three.
“Who taught you how to pour tea, constable?” she chided, her eyes bright. “It’s milk first, tea second.”
