Wychwood--Hallowdene

by George Mann

  Nicholas knew that. So he does know. It was unsettling how calm and collected he was; how little his cousin’s death appeared to affect him.

  “What happened between the two of you to drive such a wedge?” said Elspeth, wondering if this, at least, might elicit some emotion. He looked thoughtful, and she quickly added: “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry. This isn’t for the article.”

  Thomas shrugged. “Prying is your job. And I’ve nothing to hide. Nicholas was always difficult. A bully, really. He used to prey on us younger boys, my friend Arthur and me. He’d shoot stones at us from catapults, tell tall tales to try to get us into trouble, steal food from the pantry and claim it was me, that sort of thing. We used to go up there a lot when I was a boy, and I grew to hate those visits. Then one day I decided I wasn’t going to put up with it any longer. We were out in the field, jumping off that old rock – the so-called witch stone – when Nicholas came sneaking through the long grass. He’d fashioned himself a bow and arrow, sharpening sticks with his penknife, and he barraged us with them. They weren’t sharp enough to break the skin, but they didn’t half hurt, and by the time he’d finished, Arthur was on the ground in tears, and I was smarting from half a dozen bruises.

  “I lost it. I grabbed him and punched him in the jaw, and he fell back and banged his head on the rock. There was blood everywhere. At first I thought I’d killed him. Arthur ran off to fetch our parents, and they carried him back to the house and sent for an ambulance.” He sighed. “It was nothing, of course. A concussion and a couple of stitches, but from that day things were never right between us, and we stopped going up to the old house. I tried to make peace with him in later life, but he was having none of it. He always had been one to hold grudges. And now he’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Elspeth.

  Thomas shrugged. “I hope they catch whoever’s responsible, but when they do, I’d bet my house on the fact that he brought it on himself, somehow. He was an expert at making enemies, and he’d developed a bit of a reputation in the village. Rumour has it he got a little… inappropriate with the ladies. Nothing that could ever be proven, but there were stories. Shameful, really, but there was very little I could do.”

  Elspeth decided not to mention what she’d witnessed in the tearooms yesterday. This man already had a low enough opinion of Nicholas. There was nothing to be gained by making matters worse. “So now you’re petitioning Hugh Walsey to let you buy the house back for the family? To restore that legacy for your own children?”

  “I’m trying. I suppose in some ways it’s about laying demons to rest. It feels as if I have unfinished business there, I suppose.”

  “And the witch stone…?”

  “Ah, yes. The reason you’re here. Well, I don’t suppose there’s much I can add, really. After what happened with Nicholas, we were told to keep away from the old rock. My aunt Jane – Nicholas’s mother – became rather superstitious about the whole thing. She said that Nicholas’s ‘accident’ had been a warning, that we all knew the stone was cursed, and that no one was to go anywhere near it ever again. All very melodramatic. Whenever someone petitioned to come and excavate, she was the one who always stepped in to block it, and I suppose the others just went along with it, even after she’d died. I’m not sure Nicholas really believed that the stone was cursed, but I imagine he felt he was honouring his mother’s wishes to leave it be. Not that he’d ever admit anything like that to me.”

  “And you don’t buy into it all? That the stone is cursed?” Elspeth sipped some more of her coffee.

  “Of course not,” said Thomas. “The only warning was from me – that Nicholas’s bullying had to stop. Besides, Aunt Jane had it all wrong. That’s not how the story goes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The stone isn’t cursed. The village is. Or so the story goes. When Agnes Levett was taken to the gallows, her last words were to proclaim to the villagers that she wouldn’t rest until she’d had her revenge. Or something along those lines, anyway. Then, in the days following her execution and burial, things started to happen to some of the people who’d accused her. Dying in mysterious circumstances, that sort of thing.” He gave her an apologetic look. “I’m not very good at storytelling, I’m afraid. Haven’t got the brain for details. But the villagers got spooked, and decided it was Agnes’s unsettled spirit, living up to her promise. So they moved her grave and buried her beneath that witch stone as a way of keeping her spirit at bay.”

  This chimed closely with what Lee Stroud had told her, and what she’d read in the book the night before. He was right – everyone was talking about the witch stone, but that’s not what the old legend said. It was the village that was supposedly cursed. “So now that she’s free?” said Elspeth.

  “I suppose we’ll find out,” said Thomas, thoughtfully.

  And there’s already been one mysterious death, added Elspeth, keeping the thought to herself.

  She heard voices out in the hall.

  “Ah, there she is,” said Thomas, as Susan appeared in the doorway. She was a tall woman, a little older than Thomas, with red hair scraped back in a taut ponytail and high cheekbones. She was wearing black leggings beneath a grey woollen jumper-dress, and her expression was austere, concerned. Behind her stood Peter, looking smart in his charcoal-grey suit, his hair unkempt and ruffled by the wind. He locked eyes with Elspeth, but didn’t say anything.

  “Tom, this is Detective Sergeant Shaw. He’s come to talk to you about poor Nicholas.”

  Thomas visibly bristled. He pushed himself away from the counter he’d been leaning against, drawing himself up to his full height. “To question me, you mean. We’ve already had one of your lot down here, breaking the bad news.”

  Peter stepped around Susan, hands outstretched in a placating gesture. “It’s just a few questions, Mr Abbott. I assure you, it won’t take long.”

  “It certainly won’t. I resent the implication that I might do anything to harm my family, DS Shaw. And for the record, I was at home all night with my wife. So whatever you think you know about what happened, I can assure you, I wasn’t involved.”

  Peter glanced at Susan, who nodded in agreement with her husband.

  Elspeth was taken aback by the sudden, fiery change that had come over the man. He’d seemed so placid, so mild-mannered, she’d have sworn he couldn’t have hurt a fly. And then to watch him suddenly transform into this… she wondered if this was what had revealed itself all those years ago, at the witch stone. Perhaps this was the side of him that Nicholas had seen, and the real reason for the rift between them.

  “And besides,” went on Thomas, “I’m not stupid. I’m petitioning Walsey to let me buy the manor house back for the family. Yes, I was furious at Nicholas for selling it in the first place, but I can hardly put that right from a prison cell, can I?”

  Elspeth felt a pang of sympathy for Peter. He was only trying to do his job.

  “Look, Mr Abbott,” he said. “I’m sure you understand, I need to explore all lines of inquiry, even just to rule them out. I’m as anxious as you are to catch whoever’s committed this awful crime against your family. Answering a few questions now could help us to identify the real culprit.”

  Thomas seemed to have lapsed into a sullen silence. Elspeth took the opportunity to interject. “I think it’s time I was making tracks,” she said. She placed her half-empty mug on the counter. “Thanks for the coffee, and for taking the time to see me.” She glanced at Susan. “I’ll see myself out.”

  Peter caught her eye as she quit the kitchen, and she knew he’d speak to her about this later. She let herself out the front door, and set off back down the driveway towards the car.

  Inside, she turned the ignition key. The radio stuttered to life. She’d left it tuned to an eighties channel, and was greeted with a sudden blast of Morten Harket. She drummed along on the steering wheel until the song had finished, and then switched modes, scrolling through her phone until she found the latest EP
from Gabrielle Aplin. She’d had this on a constant loop since downloading it a couple of months ago. Aplin singing dreamily about lost love seemed to speak to her recent mood. She pulled away along the slip road.

  The first song was just coming to an end when it cut off abruptly, replaced by the shrill trilling of her ringtone. She glanced at the display on her dashboard: Mum Calling.

  “Hi, Mum,” she said.

  “Ah, so you are still alive,” said Dorothy, her voice blaring through the car speaker system. Elspeth hurriedly turned it down. Had her music really been that loud?

  “Sorry, Mum, I’m on a new assignment. You know, about the dig at Hallowdene.”

  “You said. I just wanted to make sure you were all right, is all, and not mixed up in that business on the news. I heard something about it on the radio.”

  So the Nicholas Abbott murder had hit the news. Someone had obviously spoken to another journalist, although she’d not seen anyone around. She’d better hurry up and update her piece on the Heighton Observer website. She’d fired off a quick article that morning, suggesting that more news would be forthcoming soon. So far, she had very little to add.

  “You mean the murder?” she said, turning the car onto the main road.

  “Of course that’s what I mean,” said Dorothy, with an exasperated sigh.

  “Not really, no. I’m covering the news for the paper, but it’s nothing to do with the dig or the fayre. At least, there’s no obvious connection. Probably more to do with money and inheritance and all that sort of thing.”

  “All right, love. Well, keep safe, and say hi to Peter for me.”

  “I will, Mum. See you tonight. You haven’t forgotten I’m bringing Abi round, have you?”

  “No, no. It’s all under control. I’ll see you then.”

  “Thanks, Mum. Love you.”

  Elspeth ended the call. The music started up again.

  Five minutes later the phone trilled again. This time it was Peter.

  “That went well,” she said, by way of greeting.

  “Yeah. Talk about passive-aggressive.”

  “Less of the passive,” said Elspeth. “He seemed so nice and calm beforehand, too. To just flip like that, as if someone’s tripped a switch.”

  “Clearly a sore subject,” said Peter.

  “He’d hinted as much,” she said. “Before you arrived. He was telling me about Nicholas, and how they’d fought as kids, and he’d got the blame for Nicholas having an accident. It sounded as if he’s never really forgiven him for it.”

  “What were you doing there, anyway?” said Peter. “You haven’t taken it upon yourself to investigate without me, have you? He could have been dangerous.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that,” said Elspeth. “I already had an appointment to see him. I was there about the dig, trying to get to the bottom of why the Abbotts would never let anyone in to excavate. That’s why he told me the story about Nicholas. Or at least, I think that’s why. He was explaining how Nicholas’s mother, Jane, had forbidden any of them going near the place after that. She said the stone was cursed and that it was responsible for Nicholas cracking his head on it.”

  “Right. Because that makes perfect sense,” said Peter.

  “I’m starting to think that, to that family, it was all relatively normal.”

  Peter laughed. “Where are you? Fancy a coffee?”

  “All right. I’m on the road back to Heighton. Where to?”

  “Where do you think?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  They met back at Lenny’s in Heighton twenty minutes later. It was almost eleven and the place was filled with the familiar bustle, mostly comprised of office workers who’d sneaked out for ‘meetings with colleagues’, mums who were making the most of the fact their kids had been safely deposited at school, or shoppers taking a short break while they took stock of their purchases.

  Elspeth was first to arrive – unusual, given Peter’s typical driving style, which tended to veer towards the ‘heroic’, hurtling down country lanes, swinging the car around bends at the last minute, all as if he was constantly chasing a villain from an American TV show. She supposed he’d gone to drop off the car at the station up the road.

  She ordered him a latte with an extra shot, and a black Americano for herself, and then installed herself at a small table by the window, plugging her phone into the wall socket to boost the charge. Lately, she’d been having trouble with the battery life, and couldn’t quite afford a replacement.

  She watched the other patrons for a while, sipping at her coffee and tapping her foot to the tune playing in her head. The people in Lenny’s were a different breed to the clientele she’d seen in Richmond’s. Much more cosmopolitan, which was laughable, really, considering it was still just a small town on the outskirts of Oxford. Nevertheless, she supposed Heighton was at least three or four times the size of Hallowdene, and a destination for people from the surrounding villages. Richmond’s, on the other hand, traded on its parochial nature, packaging up that perfect ideal of a quaint, picture-postcard village and selling it to tourists in droves. She imagined Richmond’s would be heaving with tourists, come the fayre.

  “No cake?”

  She looked up to see Peter standing over her, a look of mock disappointment on his face. “I won’t lie. I thought about it, but then figured I’d be having lunch with Abi shortly, once I’ve picked her up from the station…”

  Peter shook his head. “You suffer, I suffer.”

  “Something like that.”

  Peter sat down, sipped his coffee and leant back in his chair. “I met with Daisy,” he said.

  “I don’t know why I told you about that, really. She seems like a nice girl. I can’t imagine she had anything to do with the murder.”

  Peter looked thoughtful. “And yet, there’s something not right. I got the sense she was hiding something from me. When you saw her that morning, was she wearing a bandage on her hand?”

  Elspeth tried to cast her mind back. “No, I don’t think so. I certainly didn’t notice anything.” He nodded, as if she’d somehow confirmed his suspicion. “Did she tell you what happened?”

  “She said she’d cut herself opening a tin of beans.”

  “But you don’t believe her.”

  “Like I said, she was keeping something from me. When I asked her about Nicholas Abbott, she confirmed your story. She didn’t have a good word to say about the man.” He was playing with the rim of his empty cup, peeling the cardboard away from the plastic lining.

  “Would you, about someone who’d repeatedly groped you and made disgusting comments?” said Elspeth. “Perhaps she’s just embarrassed about it.”

  “Embarrassed?” He glanced up at her, perplexed.

  “Embarrassed, ashamed, uncomfortable,” she said. “We’re talking about repeated sexual assault here, Peter. Can you imagine what that does to a woman? How it makes her feel?”

  “No. You’re right. I can’t imagine, and I wish I could prosecute the bastard for doing it. I just wish she’d reported it while he was alive, because now I’m forced to ask the question – what did it do to her? Was there more to it than what she’s let on?” He’d finished peeling the cup, and he dropped the remains of it onto the table. “She doesn’t have an alibi.”

  “And she does have a slight motive,” said Elspeth. “I understand. Look, I’m heading back there later. I’ll keep an eye on her, see if I can find out what it is she’s so afraid of.”

  “All right. But be careful.”

  She offered him a beaming smile. “I always am.”

  He laughed. “Now you’re lying to me as well.”

  She slapped his arm. “Busy afternoon?”

  “Paperwork. And waiting for forensics to come in from Abbott’s house. And trying to work out who else might have had cause to choke the old man to death in his living room.”

  “Nothing much, then.” She glanced at her watch. “Listen, I’ve got to run. Don’t forget about Abi comin
g tonight.” She stood, gathering up her coat and bag.

  “I doubt I can make dinner,” he said. “Sorry – I’ll probably end up working late. You know how it is. Maybe see you in the pub later?”

  She stooped and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Yeah, perfect.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “It’s so good to see you!” Abigail dropped her bag and came running across the concourse to bundle Elspeth up into a huge bear hug. Her friend had always been like this – unafraid to show her emotions, larger than life. Elspeth somewhat envied her that. She gave her an affectionate peck on the cheek, all while attempting valiantly to breathe.

  “Let’s have a look at you, then.” Abigail stood back, holding Elspeth by her shoulders, looking her up and down appraisingly. “Well, I have to admit, Oxfordshire does seem to suit you. There’s even a little bit of colour in those cheeks.”

  “God, you sound like my mum,” said Elspeth.

  “Heaven forbid!” countered Abigail. She rolled her eyes. They both laughed.

  “Still, you’re not looking bad yourself,” said Elspeth.

  Abigail always had a way of making Elspeth feel underdressed. Standing there in her jeans and baggy sweater, she felt completely self-conscious. Abigail just seemed able to exude confidence in a way that Elspeth had never been able to. Not that Elspeth held it against her – Abigail was probably her oldest friend, Peter aside, and during her split with Andrew and everything that had happened with her job, she’d been the only thing that had kept Elspeth sane. Yet she’d always felt she suffered somewhat by comparison, often coming up short in terms of men, and dating, and glamour.

  “How’s work?” said Elspeth.