Bloodie Bones

by Lucienne Boyce

  “Go on! A lord and a gamekeeper?”

  “That shows how much you know of the world.”

  He wondered how the worldly knowledge of a country housewife and a Bow Street officer would compare, but only grinned sheepishly at her.

  “Josh’s father, John Castle, was the son of Lord Adam’s great uncle, Francis.”

  “Born out of wedlock?”

  “That’s right,” she confirmed happily. There was nothing like a bit of scandal among the upper classes to bring a smile to the face of the lower orders, no matter how stale it was.

  “Fell in love with an actress, did he?”

  “A Spanish girl.” She made this sound worse than being an actress.

  “How did he come across one of those around here?”

  “It was in America, where he’d gone to be a soldier after a falling-out with his father, a hard, mean man he was. He brought her back with him. Elena, she was called, and she was already expecting. Pass me that flour dredger, Dan.”

  Dan handed her the tin shaker. “He brought her back but didn’t marry her?”

  “Well, it was a sad thing. They thought they were, you see. Hold that oven door open for me, will you? No, use a cloth.”

  Though he was used to the blazing furnace in the forge, he meekly accepted the cloth she passed to him and wrapped it around his hand. She slid a tray of loaves into the oven and banged the door shut. When he turned round she was already taking another measure of dough out of the bowl to pound on the floury tabletop.

  “It turned out that it wasn’t a proper marriage, but Francis died of a fever he’d caught in America before they could make it right. It’s said his father was sorry for the way he’d treated his younger son, so he gave her a cottage on the estate and something to live on. When John was old enough he was apprenticed to the gamekeeper. In time he became head gamekeeper himself, and Josh followed in his footsteps.”

  “Did you know Elena?”

  “I remember seeing her when I was a girl, but no one knew her to speak to. She was too grand for the likes of us, as my mother used to say. She always dressed in black and wore a veil like those Spanish ladies do. She must have been a beauty when she was young. But she kept herself to herself. Kept her son close too. It was a wonder he managed to find himself a wife, and no one envied Sarah Jordan when she went to live under her thumb, which wasn’t for long, poor soul. She died when Josh was born. John wouldn’t look at another woman, or more likely his mother wouldn’t let him, and she brought the boy up herself. Didn’t do him any favours, either, letting him spend all his time with young Lord Adam.”

  “Thought he was a cut above too, did he?”

  “He did that all right, did Josh Castle. Him and Lord Adam were always together, trailing all over the estate after Josh’s dad, hunting and shooting, and never mind if they trampled someone’s corn or frighted someone’s animals to death. Even when Lord Adam went to school and university and then travelled about a bit, as gentlemen do, they kept friends.”

  “Castle. Why was he called that?”

  “It was her name. His grandmother’s. Called herself Mrs Castle because her name was castle in foreign. Castilliam? Castillar?”

  “Castillo?”

  “Something like that. Do you know the lingo, Dan?”

  “What lingo?” Singleton stood in the doorway. “What are you clacking on about now, woman? How many times have I told you not to keep him from his work with your bloody twaddle? And you, Dan, what are you doing standing there like a great gabey, listening to her?”

  Dan winked at Mrs Singleton and scurried off to the forge. The delay had put Singleton in a foul mood and he hardly said ten words all morning. Dan did not mind. It gave him time to think about what he had learned.

  Josh’s Spanish descent explained his exotic looks, and the story of his aristocratic background must have added a great measure of romance to the man too. His history might also explain his passion for self-improvement. Perhaps he thought there was a rightful place for him somewhere other than a gamekeeper’s cottage in a wood. A woman, such as a widow with a boy in need of a father, might easily have found him attractive, especially if he had expectations, or thought he had.

  Lord Oldfield had not mentioned that he and Castle were cousins. Natural enough, perhaps; no one likes to talk scandal of his own family. Besides, what relevance could ancient family history have on the case?

  Every relevance, if Josh had taken it into his head to make some sort of claim upon the Oldfields. Only what claim could the son of an illegitimate child press? And could it have been so compelling that only murder would rid Lord Adam of it?

  The fact that it had been Lord Oldfield who had called in Bow Street did not in itself prove he was innocent. Many a killer had tried to deflect attention away from himself by crying “Murder” first and loudest. Still, it was a risky thing to do for a crime that could so easily have been hushed up in Barcombe. The poachers were there to be blamed, and there was no need to have Dan in to fix it on them.

  If His Lordship was playing a double game, it was not a very clever one. He did not strike Dan as a stupid man – but he had kept something back.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tuesday was a mild, hazy September day. The air was full of mellow scents: damp leaves, straw, woodsmoke, horses. It was still warm when Dan and Singleton finished work. They stood in the yard cooling off, Singleton taking his last pull from the beer jug, Dan drinking water. When he had finished, Singleton washed while Dan tidied up the forge. Then Dan sluiced himself and followed Singleton indoors for a hearty meal. He went to his straw and blankets drowsy with hard work and a good supper.

  It felt like only minutes later that he was woken by the clanging of the church bells. He pulled on his clothes and scrambled into the yard. Singleton was already out of the house, a knife thrust into his belt, a hammer clutched in his hand.

  “What is it?” cried Dan.

  “Alarm,” Singleton said. “The Frogs.” He waited for Dan to come up to him and handed him the knife. “Here, take this.”

  There were already a number of men standing around the church door, and more running along the street, their wives calling after them. Doors slammed, dogs barked, lights flickered. Dan looked up at the church clock, a pale circle in the starlight. It was two in the morning.

  He and Singleton joined the others. Some had axes, billhooks, knives and cudgels. Drake had a blunderbuss. The farm labourer with the miserable face, Creswick, was armed with a swingel – a long stick with a shorter stick of hard holly wood attached by a loop of leather – a weapon poachers and keepers often used against one another in pitched battles. They were ready to defend their homes, waiting only to learn where the French were to be met. Even Travell, with his radical ideas, did not go so far as welcoming the invader.

  Ayres emerged from the bell tower where he had been with the rector, who was still working the bell rope. A tense, expectant silence fell.

  “There’s a fire at Oldfield Home Farm!” the constable announced.

  There was a stir of surprise, but otherwise no one moved or spoke. Dan could hear the distant, shrill clanging of the fire bell at the farm above the church bells.

  “What are you waiting for?” Ayres cried.

  Singleton spat into the churchyard. “We’d better go, or forfeit house and livelihood when the Lord marks our absence, damn him.”

  So, with no very good grace, they left their weapons in the porch and trotted after Ayres. They saw the arc of red light over the barn long before they reached it, and by the time they clustered in the farmyard the blaze was well underway. Flames fuelled by bales of hay roared out through the gaps in the barn roof, trailing sparks that threatened to set other buildings alight. The men had got all the animals out and driven the terrified beasts to a safe distance.

  Mrs Mudge and the female servants ran in and
out of the house carrying armfuls of belongings. Lord Oldfield, in his shirtsleeves, directed the stable boys and gardeners who had hauled the fire engine down from the Hall to the pond. It would take a while to get the pumps going. Mudge formed the villagers into a line to pass buckets of water along.

  Only Dan, Drake and Ayres worked with any sense of urgency, and Dan had to be careful not to be caught out. He was not the only man concealing his feelings. Many of the villagers were hard pressed to hide their grins. They passed the buckets slowly and managed to slop away most of the contents before they reached the top of the chain. But once the engine got going, the fire’s time was up, though it was not completely out until dawn broke.

  Lord Oldfield ordered beer to be served and there was a sudden surge of energy from the firefighters. Under cover of the hubbub caused by the arrival of the casks, Dan pretended he had a casual interest in the charred ruins and strolled off to look at them. He circled the smouldering heap, searching for any sign of what might have started the fire. The flames had burned from the inside out, but that did not mean the fire was accidental. It would have been easy for someone to sneak up to the rear wall, prise loose a board, and throw burning coals or wood into the hay.

  His foot kicked something hard. An irregular yellow globe rolled into the long grass beneath the paddock fence. He picked it up. When he saw what he held, he almost dropped it again. It was a human skull with two streaks of red paint running from the eye sockets and the initials BB daubed on its shiny head.

  The skull looked old. Dan thought of the graves of the dead kings in the barrow and wondered if the fire was Tom Taylor’s return to Lord Oldfield for the injuries to his daughter. Could the Romany write? The letters were not well formed. Anyone could have daubed them.

  He heard footsteps behind him, and a harsh, “Here, you, what do you think you’re doing?”

  Dan turned and saw the steward, Mudge.

  “Just looking,” he said, putting on a sullen face.

  “What’s that you’ve got there?”

  Dan handed the skull over. Mudge examined it, whistled and swore. “Right, you’re coming to explain this to Lord Oldfield.”

  “I found it,” Dan said.

  “You can tell that to His Lordship.” Mudge grabbed Dan’s arm and pushed him back towards the farmhouse.

  Lord Oldfield was talking to one of the herdsmen. He was as filthy as the workmen, his fine shirt stained with smoke and sweat, his breeches soaked and muddy. Even so, it was obvious that he was the authority here, the man with the power: a power Dan knew he had already abused, and that most cruelly, when he hanged Walter’s dog and set traps for Tom Taylor’s unsuspecting children. And when he enclosed Barcombe Wood? That was what the villagers, who had been forced to turn out tonight and offer him their services, thought. Travell would call it feudalism, though that was supposed to have been done away with in England.

  Dan kept his head down, secretly scrutinising Lord Oldfield. Was he a murderer? There was no way of telling what crimes someone had committed just by looking at them, though Dan had heard of men who thought it was possible to detect criminals by the shape of the head. One thing was certain: Lord Oldfield had not set fire to his own barn.

  His Lordship glanced at Dan and looked away again before any sign of recognition could escape him. He flicked his hand in dismissal and the herdsman hurried away.

  “What’s all this?” he demanded.

  “Caught him with this.” Mudge held out the relic.

  “I found it,” Dan repeated.

  Lord Oldfield turned the skull over. “Bloodie Bones. Of course. You have no idea how it got there?”

  “Whoever started the fire must have put it there, M’lud,” Dan answered.

  “Don’t be smart,” Mudge growled.

  “That’s enough, Mudge,” His Lordship said. “You’re the fellow who out-boxed the blacksmith, aren’t you?”

  “I am, M’lud.”

  “Wish I’d been there to see it. Tell me next time you’re planning to fight.”

  “I’m not planning to fight again, begging your pardon, M’lud.” It was enough that he was risking his life at His Lordship’s request; he was damned if he was going to fight for his entertainment as well.

  “Pity. Well, what am I to do about this? Did you put it there?”

  “No, M’lud, as God is my witness,” Dan answered.

  “Well, Mudge, there you are,” Lord Oldfield said. “Get rid of it.”

  The steward protested, but was interrupted by Rector Poole who came running up, mud-splattered, red-faced, almost sobbing with the effort. He must have run all the way from the church, and left his dignity there too.

  “Lord Oldfield! I must speak to you.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “No, My Lord. I hardly know how to put it into words. I have never in all my days seen anything so wicked. So diabolical – so foul – such depths of evil – ”

  “What is it, Mr Poole?”

  “When I went into the church to sound the alarm last night, I found the door unlocked. I was in too much haste to give it much thought at the time, given the urgency of the situation, though I do remember thinking that I’d locked it at the end of the day as usual, especially after what happened at the rectory the other night…those dreadful threats…Ayres of course has got nowhere with finding the culprits.”

  Lord Oldfield clicked his tongue. The breaking of the parson’s window was old news. Poole recollected the matter in hand, and continued, “It was only after everyone had gone that it struck me as odd, so I examined the door. The lock was covered in scratches and the wood around it was scored and splintered. Someone had picked it, and rather clumsily.”

  “I hardly think this is the time to report the theft of a pair of candlesticks.”

  “The candlesticks were untouched, My Lord, as was the rest of the silver plate. What had been tampered with was – was – your family chapel. The contents of one of the sarcophagi were scattered all over the floor.”

  “The devil! Not my father?”

  “No. You will remember that when we interred your father, we had to move some of the older coffins. The lid of Lord Mandeville Oldfield’s was broken in the process, leaving it easy to open. I gathered up the – the remains – but the – ”

  “The skull was missing,” Lord Oldfield said. “Here it is.”

  Poole reverently took charge of the skull and wrapped his black silk scarf around it. “I shall see that Lord Mandeville is properly reinterred. There must be a service, of course.”

  “I suppose so. Yes, Mother will insist on it. Private. Family only.”

  “But surely you should insist everyone in the village attends. It will be an ideal opportunity to preach to them about their crimes. Or would you prefer it if I admonished them on a Sabbath?”

  Lord Oldfield shrugged. “Mother will decide about that. Come in for breakfast. You can discuss it with her.”

  If Poole had been invited to take a seat among the saints in heaven, he could not have looked more pleased. His Lordship, who was more interested in hot coffee and rolls than stoking the rector’s ambition, moved off.

  “Mudge!” he snapped.

  The steward grabbed Dan’s arm and hissed, “I’m watching you, Fielding. Now clear off.”

  He shoved Dan away, caught up with Lord Oldfield, and was immediately drawn into a discussion about the arrangements for settling the livestock and rebuilding the barn. Poole trotted after, and it was hard to say who had the wider grin: the rector or Lord Mandeville Oldfield.

  *

  “I hear you’ve been having exciting times.”

  Warneford tamped down the tobacco in his pipe and reached for a spill from the mantelpiece. He stood by the fire in the Fox and Badger, one foot on the dog iron. It was Wednesday evening and could hardly have been wetter or more miserable. �
��Shame for Lord Oldfield it wasn’t like this last night,” Singleton had laughed.

  Apart from Girtin, who sat dozing in a corner, a strong odour of dirty, damp wool steaming off his coat, they were the only customers in the bar. Buller sat on a stool by the fire, a glass of brandy in his hand. His daughter had taken advantage of the lull in trade and had the night off.

  Singleton chuckled. “Oh, yes. Bloodie Bones has been busy.”

  “You and your Bloodie Bones. Bloody nonsense.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “It’s a way of bringing the law down hard, that’s what it is. And that’s bad for business. I tell you what, Singleton, you ought to tell your lads to lay off it.” He took a deep puff at the pipe. “Who lit up the barn anyway? Was it one of your lot?”

  “No, and I don’t know who did it,” said Singleton. “But it was well done whoever it was.”

  Girtin opened his eyes and made a great fuss and fidget about resettling himself.

  “Something to tell us, Girtin?” Buller asked.

  “Not me. I don’t look when there’s people sneaking around the churchyard of a night. Isn’t that right, Mr Fielding?”

  “Eh?” said Warneford.

  The old drunk was on the verge of giving Dan away, and from the inane grin on his face he did not even realise it. Dan kept his hand steady on the table while he sized up his situation: The door is ten steps to my right. There’s a window behind me. Singleton on my left: dangerous. Warneford’s hand has moved to his pocket: he’s armed. Buller’s no problem. Act innocent.

  He let his jaw drop open. “What’s he talking about?”

  “Just what I’d like to know,” Warneford said.

  Singleton guffawed. “Is it Dan you saw in the churchyard last night? Must have been in two places at once then. He was up at the fire with me. You was there, Buller.”

  “That’s right. Looks like what you saw was your bird-eating bugaboo, Girtin.”

  Girtin shook his fuddled head, looking uncertainly from Buller to Singleton. “I saw the fire. I saw him breaking into the church.”