by J. D. Oswald
An organ note sounded and he realised that all heads were turned in his direction, some faceless in the shadows, others eerily illuminated. The Dean was staring purposively at him from the seat opposite. Creswell had missed his cue. He scrambled to his feet, noticing the choirboys smirk and widen their eyes. He knew that their nickname for him was ‘Crazy Strange’ and he was living up to it this evening.
He raised his prayer book so that it was almost touching his nose. He had forgotten his spectacles and even though he could recite the Versicles in his sleep, he liked the reassurance that the book gave him. It was his own leather-bound copy, not one of the utilitarian ones covered in green baize that peppered the pews, and had been a gift from Mamie on his ordination.
‘O Lord, open thou our lips,’ he sang, and the Cathedral caught his light baritone in its stone belly, perfecting his voice by swells and echoes so that it no longer sounded like his own.
The choirmaster’s fingers moved as elegantly and deliberately as an Indian dancer’s and the choir responded. ‘And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise.’
He forced himself into attentiveness and completed the Versicles perfectly. He knew to take care with his consonants, to speak unnaturally slowly to prevent his voice dissipating into the Cathedral’s great space. He read the first Lesson without stumbling, and only thought about the murder twice during the Magnificat and only once when chanting the Collects. It was a relief when he could announce the Anthem and sit down.
‘God is our hope,’ the choir began, ‘our hope and strength…’ The choir’s tone was enfeebled by the shortage of lay clerks - five instead of the usual twelve. Women had replaced the men during the War but they disbanded earlier that year, rather prematurely in Creswell’s opinion.
As the music undulated like a sailing boat on swell, the Dean’s head began to droop, exposing his bald patch. Creswell regarded the florid skin with a mixture of distaste and resentment. He was still annoyed at the Dean’s insistence that the murder victim be immediately removed; she would be safely locked away in the morgue by now. Creswell had argued that it would be better for her body to lie in situ for a while, and the surrounding area examined thoroughly.
‘I think not,’ had come the Dean’s response. ‘We’ll be inundated by onlookers in no time. You know those police chaps, have them tidy it up.’
‘I should stay and help with the search.’
‘I’d rather you join me for lunch. Leave it to Sim’s mob.’
So all Creswell had been able to do was to string together a crude fence around the site, made from garden canes and spare rope donated by the Diver’s Gang. He tore a few pages from his diary, wrote ‘KEEP OUT BY OFFICIAL ORDER’ and positioned the notices along the sketchy border, the paper held in place by handfuls of pebbles.
The Dean roused himself to give the final blessing. ‘When this nation went to war in 1914, it never did a more Christ-like thing.’ He contemplated his folded hands. ‘The world has been redeemed by the precious blood of our sons, brothers and fathers shed on the side of truth and righteousness. We thank God for their glorious sacrifice.’ Creswell noticed one of the few soldiers in the congregation raise his head and scowl. ‘And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost…’
Creswell extricated himself from the handshakes and pleasantries as soon as was civil. He left through the ancient door in the south transept, known only to clergy and virgirs, emerging into a wide tunnel that led to the Inner Close. He remembered to raise his hood before stepping into the bitter wind. It was already dark and the gas lamps cast yellowy light over grass and stone. His fence, its outline blurry in the gloom, looked like an amateurish spider’s web.
He set off towards home, Number 61B Kingsgate Street, a few minutes’ walk away. Outside the Cathedral Close it was darker still. It was hard to imagine that the Kingsgate and the houses that abutted it had been built by man. They rose like organic forms, their walls fusing together as tree trunks sometimes do in a dense forest. He glimpsed familiar sights along the street through dimly lit windows: a College Don’s abandoned desk and jumbled bookshelf; a skeleton dressed in a cassock in the corner of a comfortable sitting room, the older scholars’ idea of a prank. He heard a violin playing, boys’ laughter.
Outside his door and fumbling in his pockets for his key, he noticed that the wooden number-plate was starting to rot. The number still seemed strange. The other day, he had walked straight past his house, only realising that he had done so when the sign of the Queen Inn came into sight, and last night, he wrote the wrong address on a letter: Master’s Lodge, Hospital of St Cross, the mock-Tudor house that had been his and Mamie’s home until last Spring. He had been the youngest Master for many years. Chosen at the start of the War, he was happy to come to a city where his maternal grandfather had once been a priest. He had been tired of moving – as a curate, parish priest and then Rector, he had served in Portsmouth, Croydon and finally Bournemouth where his daughter Lily was born and where she was buried. He needed somewhere with a sense of permanency and had believed St Cross Hospital to be such a place. Every aspect gave him pleasure: the monumental gateway; the tall compact church, a disorderly mix of Norman, Perpendicular and Gothic; the brethren’s houses arranged alongside the quadrangle, each one with a high chimney stack; the peaceful walled garden, its well-tended beds surrounding a large pond overhung by trees and shrouded in the summer with huge lily pads. He had hoped to stay until his body or mind became so enfeebled that he was no longer of use to the Brothers.
But he barely had time to get his feet under the table. When Mamie died, the message was clear: the Trustees would prefer him to give way to a married man. They already had such a man in mind, newly wed to a young woman who could contribute – unpaid – to the work of the Hospital. It had done Creswell no good to point out that when a married Brother died, it was the wife who was given six months to leave.
So he lost his position as well as his wife. 61B, a two-bedroom terraced cottage with compact back garden was something of a come-down, but it was all he needed now, or so everyone had assured him. It would be much easier to manage, and extremely convenient for his new duties at the Cathedral: Minor Canon ‘with special responsibility for town and gown,’ his duties in return for a house leased from the College. It was clear that the Dean did not know what to do with him. When Creswell volunteered to take over the duties of the two College chaplains who had been called to the Front, the Dean merely remarked that Creswell’s sermons would be infinitely less tedious. The chaplains themselves never returned.
Creswell pulled off his shoes in the hallway and eased his feet into his slippers. Ignoring the substantial pile of unopened post, he headed towards the parlour’s welcome warmth where his charwoman had lit the fire and refilled the decanters. He closed the curtains on the sight of his murky back garden, the spiky remains of the previous tenant’s bean and pea plants a reminder of the hard work awaiting him. A whisky poured, he settled into the armchair by the hearth. He glanced over at the opposite chair; she was not there. She was gone. The terror of remembering grabbed at his heart, squeezing as if to purge it of all joy. He hated these sudden moments of remembrance. At first, Mamie’s death, and her dying – the purple skin, blood oozing from nose and ears – would not leave him. His grief had felt like fear. He had all but abandoned his duties as Master, preferring to sit by the Hospital’s trout pond in companionable silence with the oldest Brothers. Eight months later, half a day might go by before her death burst back into his thoughts. In a way, it had been easier when he always remembered. But he could not bear to get rid of Mamie’s favourite armchair. Upholstered in a design of leaves and birds, and rubbed to a shine on the arms and seat, sometimes he thought he could still see her shape indented into the cushions. The rest of the parlour was his; he liked his wooden furniture dark and grained; his chair leathery and worn; his books hard-backed and well-thumbed; his pictures melancholy and brooding. There was little of Mamie’s left in the
rest of the house. Her clothes had gone to a succession of charity ladies, all doleful eyes and sympathetic smiles. He had wrapped the rest of Mamie’s possessions in tissue paper – hair pins, ivory brush, enameled mirror, wire-rimmed spectacles, sentimental trinkets from the seaside, her favourite copy of ‘Emma’, a few pieces of ‘good’ jewelry, her wedding ring – placing them inside three wooden boxes purchased from the market. Now one box stood on the sitting-room mantelpiece and other two on the chests of drawers in the bedrooms, like shabby reliquaries. It saddened him to think that there was no one else to cherish Mamie’s possessions. She had a brother but he was seventeen years her senior, practically another generation, and had not even come to the funeral. When Creswell was gone, the contents of the boxes would most likely end up on the white elephant stall or be thrown out with the rubbish.
He reached for his collection of bound Strand magazines, chose the year 1904 and opened it at The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton. He had no need to consult the index. These stories – of the triumph of logic, determination and goodness - always calmed and reassured him. Before he had finished the first paragraph, there were three sharp knocks on the front door. He sighed and went to answer it, finding himself face to face with Head Constable John Sim.
‘Ah, Strange, I thought you might be in. May I?’
‘Of course.’ Creswell’s irritation faded. ‘Come in.’
Sim made a show of wiping his boots on the mat before following Creswell into the parlour. He accepted the offer of a Bruichladdich. Creswell poured a generous glass, resisting the temptation to refill his own. ‘I take it this is about the body.’
Sim removed his peaked cap and settled himself into Creswell’s armchair, stretching his feet towards the fire. ‘Straight to business? Well, why not.’ Even after ten years in charge of Winchester City Police, Sim’s deep voice had not lost its Yorkshire accent. ‘Her name was Grace Mundy. Ah, you know that already do you? I should have known that you’d be one step ahead. Husband’s a retired navy chap. Both of them were pillars of the community according to one of the neighbours. Mrs Mundy did some secretarial work for the College Bursar and Dons a few days a week.’ He paused and looked pointedly at Creswell.
‘As you’re here, you must want me to look into it?’
‘Right again.’ Sim took a swig from his glass. Whisky droplets clung to the underside of his bushy moustache. ‘I have to admit that, without your help, we might never have got to the bottom of that Winnall beggar business last year. God knows how you knew the General was involved. And I just haven’t the men, not with your experience anyway. The Yard isn’t interested and the War’s left me with the old codgers and the one or two youngsters lucky enough to make it back in one piece. I’ve my hands full as it is – road hogs, Bolshie strikers, drunken tommies running riot…Don’t bust a gut though. She’s hardly top priority.’
‘Everyone deserves justice,’ Creswell interrupted.
‘No need to tell me, my friend.’
‘My apologies. I’ll do what I can.’
‘I’ve no doubt.’
And what of the desperate eagerness that Creswell had detected in Philippa Lambert’s eyes? There could be no harm in giving her a chance. ‘Any objections if I bring someone in to assist me?’ he said.
‘Entirely your concern.’ Sim drained his glass and handed over a scrap of paper. ‘Here’s Mundy’s address. I’ll have a man drop off the key. The husband’s staying with family in Alresford so you won’t be disturbed. Oh yes, her doctor’s name is Godwin. I always like to talk to the medics. Most of them can’t wait to spill the beans. Yes, I believe that’s all for now. I’ll leave you in peace.’ As Sim heaved himself to his feet, he nodded towards the open Strand. ‘Like those Sherlock Holmes yarns do you?’
‘They pass the time.’
‘A bit old-fashioned for my taste.’
Creswell smiled. ‘Ah, but they take me back to my time in uniform, a different uniform I should say.’
‘Military police, wasn’t it,’ Sim said. ‘Remind me again, when did you get out?’
‘1901, after South Africa.’
‘Got your calling eh?’
Creswell had come to realise that it had been less of a calling and more of a reparation, for those women, children and old men in the camp, starving, rotting, dying. A wrong of the worst kind, and he had let it happen. ‘Something along those lines,’ he said quietly.
‘Well then, good evening, Canon, and good luck.’
***
He had let it happen.
It was February 1901 when reports were received of brawling and thieving amongst the troops stationed at Standerton concentration camp, and Creswell was ordered to investigate. He arrived on horseback in the aftermath of a thunderstorm, with two morose lance-corporals, Wavell and Hope, trailing behind. By then he thought himself immune to the sight of bodies, uniformed and khaki, human and horse, torn apart by machine gun fire or toppled by snipers against a landscape of smoking homesteads and slaughtered cattle. But the camp had been different.
Decrepit tents covered both banks of the Vaal River, and the humid air pulsated with mosquitos. He could see hundreds of women and children, and the occasional man, standing or crouching on the churned turf. A few of the women were trying to wash clothes in the newly formed puddles. The younger children sat limply on a collection of mismatched chairs, spindly arms and legs dangling, as if in an outdoor schoolroom. They made no noise.
An old man with milky eyes began to hobble towards Creswell and his men. Glutinous mud coated the man’s boots and walking stick, slowing his progress. Eventually he reached them.
‘You are new here, sirs,’ he said in heavily accented English. ‘Please will you help?’
‘State your business,’ Creswell ordered.
‘My granddaughter sirs. She’s in the hospital.’ The old man waved his stick towards a nearby tent. ‘Please, she’s always been sickly. She needs proper food and water.’
‘I’m certain she is being provided for.’
‘Please sirs, look and see.’
‘Very well.’ Creswell agreed to get rid of the man, whose stink mingled unpleasantly with the earthy smell from the steaming ground.
Inside the tent, the air was so fetid that it seemed to coat his throat. His boots crunched over dead flies. A sweating woman sat at a low table, leafing through a magazine. She had her back to the beds, such as they were. One of the stained mattresses was occupied by what he took at first glance to be a corpse; he turned on his heel, thinking that he must have entered a temporary morgue by mistake. Then a skeletal leg twitched and the eyes in the oversized head flickered towards him. The lips opened. He went closer.
‘Ma. My ma.’
This was a girl; it was impossible to tell how old. The torn covering which he had taken to be a sheet was actually a dress, a pattern of pink roses just visible beneath the grime.
‘She wants her mother, sir,’ Wavell said. The younger of the lance-corporals was pale despite the heat.
‘You there,’ Creswell addressed the woman, ‘fetch food and drink for this child immediately.’
‘She’ll get her rations as and when,’ the woman replied without looking up from her reading.
‘Now I say.’
The woman heaved herself to her feet and went off muttering under her breath.
He turned to Wavell. ‘Speak to that man outside and find out which one is the mother.’
The woman reappeared with a beaker of water, a hunk of bread and a slab of grey meat.
‘Milk would be good for the child,’ Creswell said, ‘and some fruit.’
‘No milk, no fruit. Them’s the rules.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Her father’s one of them Boers still out there fighting, so this is what she gets.’
The girl died the next morning. Her mother sat with her through the night. She said nothing, just held her daughter’s hand, bone against bone. Creswell arranged for a decent burial: a sepa
rate plot, not the pit, and a plywood coffin that Wavell and Hope built themselves. Creswell watched from a distance as the rites were hurriedly performed. A boy of about five or six years old with bright blue eyes stared at him throughout. He found it rather unnerving.
He turned his attention to his orders. The thief was easily caught. Every sleeping quarter was searched meticulously, revealing the stolen items – money, watch chains, tobacco - hidden in the springs of the thief’s camp bed. Then a night-time patrol discovered a bare-knuckle boxing ring and two privates growing rich on the bets. With the culprits handed over for discipline, Creswell noticed that Wavell had begun to look at him expectantly. As the days passed, Wavell’s expression changed to one of disillusionment.
Creswell decided he must say something. ‘What’s on your mind Lance-Corporal?’
‘It’s…the girl sir. Shouldn’t we…shouldn’t something be done?’
‘Exactly so. I’ll write to the Colonel to inform him of the situation here and request that remedial measures be taken.’
‘Yes sir.’ Wavell seemed relieved; his burden had been passed.
The next day, new orders called them to Cape Town. The urgency gradually faded. Others were bound to take action, Creswell told himself, and anyway, the girl had been sickly from the start. He did not write.
3
Wednesday 12th November
Creswell looked at his pocket watch; it was too quiet for twenty to eight. By this time, he should have been able to hear the urgent chirruping of sparrows in his overgrown back garden; the chugging of a delivery van; the chatter of cooks and maids as they headed to the College boarding houses. This morning, there was none of that.
He opened his front door and stepped back hurriedly as a pile of powdery snow tumbled onto the mat. Cursing under his breath, he leaned around the doorframe and peered up and down Kingsgate Street. Half a foot of snow covered the ground, pristine apart from a solitary set of footprints and a few stains, the colour of dried blood, where autumn leaves had landed and then blown away. There was a gentle swoosh as snow fell from the flint-clad wall opposite.
