Murder on the Old Road

by Amy Myers

  Peter considered this for more than the token protest it was. ‘There’s no guarantee you’ll get any further,’ he replied. ‘On the other hand, from what you’ve related of the not so formidable Jessica Wayncroft, plus the hard work I’ve put in,’ he added meaningfully, ‘I’m fairly sure that even if we paid a hundred more trips to Chillingham we would get no further without pushing very heavily. Something that has been buried for forty years or more needs dynamite to disgorge it.’

  ‘Wrong word. We don’t want to blow it to bits, merely uncover any bones that might lie hidden.’

  Peter looked at her quizzically. ‘Do you speak metaphorically?’

  ‘Metaphorically?’ She was thrown for a moment.

  ‘Thomas Becket’s bones,’ he reminded her gently. ‘I believe you mentioned a legend that they are hidden in Chillingham. It’s worth bearing that in mind.’

  Georgia sighed. ‘Even supposing it has a grain of truth in it, or even that it is one hundred per cent correct, it would be hard to prove whose the bones were.’

  ‘Unless there was other evidence with them?’

  ‘A certificate signed by the Abbot?’ Georgia asked drily. This was surely an avenue leading nowhere. ‘Whatever the evidence, it could never be conclusive.’

  ‘It seems to me you lack the spirit for the hunt. Does not man’s questing soul interest you?’

  For a moment she was afraid Peter was right, but then she rallied. ‘Not in this case.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because even if the bones were unearthed, it would be a diversion from Hugh Wayncroft’s murder. And that’s where we have to start.’

  ‘Only if he was killed for personal reasons. If the motive was that he was standing in the way of others’ plans for their own aggrandizement then it’s very relevant. Now do you see the point of joining the pilgrimage?’

  Standing on the platform at Chartham railway station waiting for the Victoria train with her backpack making an uncomfortable hump under her enveloping rainwear, Georgia could see no point at all. Why on earth was she standing here on a Saturday morning in the drizzling rain? It was not only damp, but also chilly for the end of June; nor was there any sign of Simon, although she had arranged to meet him here. Anne Fanshawe, who would also be walking this stretch of the pilgrimage, had left for Otford yesterday evening, but Georgia and Simon preferred to join the group near the ruins of the Archbishop’s Palace. Simon had told her Julian had fixed a press interview at nine thirty.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Luke had assured her, secure in the knowledge that he at least would not be walking in the rain.

  At last she saw Simon’s car drive past towards the car park, and he joined her just as the train pulled in. Georgia struggled out of her rainwear and sank thankfully on to the seat. ‘Will the walk go ahead if this rain continues?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Come rain or come shine, Tim says,’ Simon told her gloomily. ‘If it’s a real downpour before it starts then it’s agreed we can leap into the coach and do it the easy way. If it’s just drizzle, hard luck. We walk.’

  Usually, Georgia had no problem with walking in the rain. Out on the Yorkshire or Cornish moors with Luke it never seemed a hindrance, but today, when her job was not to enjoy Mother Nature, but to work with all her antennae operating at full strength, the prospect was far from appealing.

  ‘Are you in for the duration?’ she asked Simon, ‘or coming back with us tonight?’ When she’d spoken to him on the phone yesterday he’d been undecided whether or not to accept her offer of a lift back home with Luke, who had been persuaded into joining her at the pub that evening.

  ‘Daft I may be, but Lisa’s picking up my car later on so that I can stay on for another day,’ he told her. ‘I had an SOS from Tim this morning; he needs support.’

  That didn’t sound good. ‘Mutiny in the ranks?’

  ‘In spades, but nothing to do with the play. That’s what is infuriating Tim. Our darling vicar arrived yesterday evening and told them flatly that she’s going to speak out at Julian’s press interview if there’s one word said about our plans to develop Chillingham. He can only talk about the play and pilgrimage, decrees our vicar. Julian won’t cancel, and he’s hardly the diplomat that Val can be, so the fireworks may be starting early in the day.’ A pause, then: ‘I’m damned glad Lisa isn’t coming.’

  ‘Why?’ Georgia was genuinely puzzled. ‘Because she’d be support for Anne?’

  Simon flushed. ‘No. Lisa’s too gentle a soul to get mixed up in a verbal punch-up before the cameras. She’d feel bound to voice her views – and where would that leave Tess and Matthew? They’re looking forward to the play, not the infighting en route.’

  Lisa Moon, gentle soul or not, seemed to Georgia well able to cope in any situation. She would state where she stood, nothing more and nothing less, so Simon’s explanation failed to convince Georgia. She decided to move on to safer ground, as she and Simon would be viewing the central battle at closer quarters all too soon.

  She was correct. The short walk down from the station to the remains of the old palace was a brief respite (except from the rain) before joining the pilgrims, and even in this weather the ruined tower made a good backdrop for an interview about a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Even as she glimpsed the bedraggled group standing on the grass, clad in modern rainwear over their robes and hats, it was clear there was tension. It was already divided into two camps. Anne was standing in the smaller group, together with a pleasant-looking middle-aged man and a pretty girl, so far as Georgia could judge under the waterproofs.

  As she and Simon walked up the lane towards them, she could see and hear Julian in full flow before the TV cameras. She caught the words ‘part of a greater plan in honour of St Thomas Becket’ and her heart sank. Julian was igniting the fireworks already, and she watched Anne Fanshawe with foreboding as the interviewer turned to her and a hiss of disapproval ran round the pro-group. She could not hear all Anne’s words, but those she did set the fireworks off. She caught the phrases ‘plans admirable in themselves . . . ruins of St Thomas’s chapel and Thomas’s well . . . private land not open to the public . . .’

  As Georgia listened to the shouting match that then broke out, no doubt captured by the cameras, she hardly dared look at Simon. Would he think that any publicity, bad as well as good, would help his cause, or grieve for the probable damage to Tim’s production?

  These ruins must have seen plenty of strife in their time, no doubt seeming just as insignificant in the great scheme of things as this issue surely was. Very little remained of the palace to suggest its former grandeur, apart from the tall tower that still stood, and some pieces of the outer walls now in cottage gardens. The old manor house that had preceded it would not have rivalled it in splendour, but now both buildings were chiefly stones and memories. If, as legend had it, Thomas Becket had lived in the manor house, he, too, would have wrestled with strife, been depressed by the rain and had his daily battles to struggle with – those unruly nightingales who had persisted in irritating the saint now made a much more convincing story. So did the story of the Chillingham well, Georgia thought. Rain and drizzle were water, which was the staff of life, whether dropping from the sky or gushing out from a well spring.

  Eventually, with a grin all over his face, the interviewer thanked the warring parties and the pilgrims were free to set off.

  ‘Are we really walking in this?’ Simon asked Tim, who had come over to join them.

  ‘Val says yes,’ Tim told them gloomily. ‘I’d have plumped for the coach, but he’s in charge of this – um – side of things.’ He’d clearly only just refrained from using more explicit words and chosen the stiff upper lip. As the unhappy band of pilgrims rejoined the road to the station, passed the pond and walked over the railway crossing towards the Old Road, Georgia fervently wished that she could leap on the next passing train, no matter where it was going. Judging by the silence of her fellow travellers she was not the only one.

  A
s they turned on to the Pilgrims’ Way path, however, and began the climb to the top of the downs, the atmosphere began to feel less tense, and damp or not, people were beginning to spread out and talk. Simon and Tim were working their way to the front of the column, but Georgia decided to remain near the rear where she might have more choice over whom to approach. There was a group of youngsters behind her, and their laughter made a welcome change in this gloomy weather. Issues such as the future of the village would not weigh so deeply with them, and it helped her keep this pilgrimage in proportion. The girl in the bright red waterproof with fair hair straggling from beneath her hood, caught her up.

  ‘You were talking to Seb Wayncroft just now,’ Georgia said lightly.

  The girl grinned. ‘Yes. Don’t tell Grannie Moon, she doesn’t approve.’

  ‘That row at the palace won’t be good publicity for the play.’

  ‘Seb says there’s no such thing as bad publicity.’

  ‘Not too sure about that. Are you Tess, by any chance?’

  The girl nodded. ‘You’re that journalist, aren’t you?’

  ‘Almost right,’ Georgia replied lightly. ‘I gather you’re playing Fair Rosamund. It must be hard to concentrate on that with all this uproar about the Becket ruins.’

  ‘Yes. I get sick of it,’ Tess said frankly. ‘Goes on at home all the time too. Uncle Derek’s all for it, so he and Gran are always rowing. Dad’s against it, but he keeps out of it. Can’t wait to get to uni in the autumn.’

  So Lisa Moon wasn’t always as calm and gracious as Simon had suggested. The Moons were a divided family. ‘There are always two sides to a question,’ Georgia replied diplomatically.

  Tess seized on this. ‘That’s what I say to Seb. It’s the vicar’s land. She can do what she likes with it.’

  Unfortunately, not everyone here took that view. Georgia could hear raised voices in front as the group came to a halt at the top of the downs. One shrill woman predominated: ‘What do you want, Vicar? To put us all out on the streets?’

  ‘That’s Sue Smith,’ Tess muttered. ‘Helps Mum in the shop.’

  There were more people than Sue Smith involved though. Georgia could see Anne, boxed in by Val and Julian, and she was clearly having a hard time – and perhaps vice versa. Anne appeared to be taking the rebellion in her stride, luckily, and was making some diplomatic reply that Georgia could not hear. She was much relieved when the situation seemed to calm down, whether through Anne’s diplomacy or the sheer glory of the view from the top of these Downs. Such sights should dwarf human battles, but rarely seemed to do so.

  When Tess rejoined Seb, Georgia made her way forward to catch up with Anne, thinking she might be isolated.

  ‘And what might you be here for?’ There was only a slight barb in Anne’s voice.

  ‘What do you think? Reconstructing what might have happened in 1967.’

  Anne shrugged. ‘Not a good idea to stoke up the fires.’ Then she grinned. ‘I suppose one might say I’ve done that myself.’

  ‘You’ve every right to do so.’ Georgia hesitated, but she’d get nowhere that way. ‘I still don’t understand, but today’s battles are not my business.’

  ‘Good. I seem to recall, however, that I’ve already explained my reasons to you.’

  ‘You told me the general area of your concern.’ Keep it cool.

  ‘That’s as far as I go. It’s not my decision to make. Thanks be,’ Anne added wryly.

  Georgia asked no more. If Anne was still convinced it was Robert Wayncroft’s decision not hers, she would get no more out of her. Nevertheless, she itched to know why he had been so set against development that he’d partly disinherited his own family. Marching along in waxed rain jacket and trousers, Anne didn’t look in the least fazed either by the spat that threatened this pilgrimage and play or by Georgia’s presence – even though both implied a reawakening of tragic events in which her father had been involved, and indeed she herself as a child. Anne had the confidence of one who knew she was in the right, and no earthly voice was going to change her mind.

  Anne went ahead to talk to Simon, and Tim promptly fell back to take her place, obviously having overheard some of her conversation with Anne. ‘See what I’m up against?’ he whispered.

  Georgia responded cheerfully. ‘You know what drama groups are like. Everyone’s suffering from pre-performance nerves, even though it went well at Winchester. When the curtain goes up again, everything will calm down.’

  Anne and Simon were striding some way ahead now and Tim watched them gloomily. ‘If it was only Anne and the Moons, I’d agree. But there’s a whole body of opinion in the village that thinks as they do. I’m all for development, as you know, but I wish everyone would consider the play at the moment and not how much they’d like either to ring Anne’s neck or raise her to sainthood.’

  Time to play disinterested observer. ‘Perhaps she’ll come round once the play is over.’

  ‘I’d love to think so, but no way. Even if we managed to get her out of office, what’s the point? She owns that land personally. The first sign of someone in that field without permission and she’d whip an injunction out.’

  ‘Is compromise possible? Maybe she would open the ruins a few days a year?’

  ‘Sounds good, but she’s not the compromising type.’

  Which, Georgia thought, is one of the reasons Robert Wayncroft might have left her the land. Again she wondered what the others might have been. Could it have anything to do with her family background? ‘What was her father like?’ she asked.

  ‘Bill Riding? Si and I never knew him of course, but he seems to have been generally popular. In his teaching career, he taught half the village, and no one has an ill word to speak of him.’

  ‘Wouldn’t his daughter have inherited some goodwill?’

  ‘At first she did. But Bill’s long been dead, and now she has to earn it for herself. Bill was a historian, he loved those ruins, and he and the Wayncroft brothers were good friends. It would have made some sort of sense if Robert had left the ruins to him, but apparently it was only when he returned to England in 2002 that he changed his will and left them to Anne.’

  ‘It’s odd, isn’t it?’ Georgia frowned. ‘I see why Robert might have left them to a historian friend such as Bill Riding – because Jessica certainly isn’t a fan of history, and Julian probably showed no signs of interest either, as he grew up. But why leave them away from the family after Bill’s death, especially since he clearly took his duty to the Wayncroft family seriously?’

  ‘I suppose that is odd,’ Tim replied with surprise. ‘Si and I have got so used to the idea of their belonging to Anne now that we hadn’t thought it through. It’s bugged us so much in the last couple of years. You could have knocked the village down with a feather when Robert died and the bequest became public knowledge. The surviving Wayncrofts were not pleased. Quite a furore there was, but Madame Vicar just sailed through it. It’s my guess she knew about it in advance. Maybe it was even her idea. Since then she’s blocked every move we’ve made to try to get even limited public access.’

  ‘Are the ruins listed?’

  ‘Sure. But that’s all the more power to her elbow.’

  ‘Even if she fails to maintain them?’

  ‘Ah, but she does maintain them. Matthew Moon went in to do some restoration work on them last year.’

  ‘I thought he was a carpenter, like his father.’

  Tim laughed. ‘He is. A brilliant one. But the Moons can turn their hands to anything in the building trade and most of what else needs to be done in the village. Derek Moon is the same, and young Will looks as if he’s in the same mould – except that they don’t have quite Matthew’s skill at the lathe, do they, Matthew?’ He turned to the pleasant-looking man ambling behind them, whom Georgia had noticed in the crowd at the Otford palace.

  Matthew grinned as he caught up with them. ‘As the Good Lord giveth, Mr Hurst. Tess has a good eye for a piece of wood too, so maybe she’l
l be chipping and carving away one day. You’ll be Miss Marsh then?’ He nodded at Georgia. She was struggling with her waterproof hood, which kept slipping off, and Matthew came over to achieve the impossible by persuading it to stay in place over her head. One clip and it was secure.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Moon.’

  ‘Mum told me about you,’ he replied. There was no hint of blame or curiosity in his voice, just acceptance – and Georgia liked that. He was, she thought, a man who would make up his own mind, a good father for Tess.

  ‘I’m afraid I upset your mother. I’m sorry about that,’ she said as he caught hold of his daughter’s hand as she swung past them with Seb.

  Tess laughed. ‘Easy to do, isn’t it, Dad? I wanted her to tell me all about her playing Rosamund way back in history, but she wouldn’t even do that. Told me I had to find my own way through the dratted thorn bushes.’

  ‘Are you enjoying playing Rosamund?’ Georgia asked. They were catching up with Anne again now, and concentrating on the play rather than village affairs seemed a good idea.

  Tess nodded vigorously. ‘Bit hard pretending that I’ve got a ten-year-old kid though. I’m only nineteen.’

  ‘There’s drama groups for you,’ Tim commented. ‘There’s never anyone the right age with the right talent.’

  Anne must have overheard because she turned round to joke: ‘I offered to play my old part. You said I was too old, Tim.’

  Good humour seemed to have been restored, Georgia thought thankfully. Something about the presence of the Moons perhaps, a placid acceptance of life’s foibles. Matthew was one, and Tess another. And Lisa? Perhaps if she found the right way to approach her, Georgia thought. But ahead of her she could see Julian and Val striding ahead, two dark figures against the hill’s horizon.