Murder on the Old Road

by Amy Myers

  ‘Tenacious. Of all things, Seb Wayncroft’s just come out in favour of cancelling, which has swayed all the youngsters. He took the moral high ground and had the nerve to point out that those with large parts in the play seemed the keenest to continue.’

  ‘Not calculated to improve family harmony.’ Georgia was puzzled. ‘Weird. I thought he was firmly in the Carry-On Brigade.’

  ‘It can’t have been Tess’s idea,’ Simon said gloomily. ‘She’s got a leading part in the play. Seb hasn’t.’

  Strange, Georgia thought. She would have expected Seb to be gallantly standing by his sweetheart. ‘Is Lisa in there?’ Georgia asked.

  Simon looked more cheerful. ‘She is. But, guess what, she’s come out in favour of going on, bless her. Tim thought the battle was won then, until Seb started up in a big way.’

  At first Lisa’s attitude did not seem to make sense, but then Georgia saw the reasoning behind it. If the play was cancelled, the pilgrimage petered out and those involved retreated behind their own front doors, there might be another festering sore in Chillingham’s history. Anne’s murder could remain unsolved, as had Hugh Wayncroft’s. If the play went ahead, then there was a chance that light might be thrown on both deaths.

  ‘Let’s go in,’ Peter said firmly as Derek brought coffee over. ‘We won’t be booed as outsiders, will we?’

  ‘No way,’ Simon said. ‘Everyone’s so intent on the rightness of their cause, they wouldn’t notice if the Queen slipped in to listen.’

  He was right. The room was a large one, with a raised area at one end where Aletta, smartly dressed in black jacket and trousers, was currently holding the mike. Whether out of deference to her sex or because she was a Wayncroft, the forty or fifty people in the room were allowing her time unbarracked. Attention quickly returned to her after Peter had led the way to the back of the room. It was standing room only now, and Georgia found herself next to Stella, who greeted her with a whispered hello.

  Aletta had probably been summoned onstage by Tim to counter Seb’s bombshell, Georgia thought. She listened as Aletta’s dispassionate voice dispelled all the opposition’s arguments one by one. A Queen Eleanor indeed, politically ruthless, a role in which Aletta would excel. It might even have been a ‘political’ marriage between herself and Julian— Georgia firmly stopped her roving mind. That was mere speculation, theory without facts, save that Val seemed to have left the village in the eighties and Julian had married Aletta. Queen Eleanor – in the play, at least – had also been a would-be murderer. Georgia remembered Will Whitton saying it was possible that Anne Fanshawe’s killer had been a woman, but could she see Aletta in that role? No, she admitted, and at the time of Hugh’s death Aletta, like Julian, would have been a baby. A step too far, Georgia told herself. Imagination was roaming out of control.

  ‘We are playing Becket to commemorate a great saint on his Jubilee anniversary,’ Aletta was saying earnestly. ‘If we cancelled now, it would not be taken by the media or anyone else as a sign of respect. It’s far more probably that conclusions would be drawn that we had something to hide over our vicar’s murder. That one of us was guilty.’

  ‘One of us probably was, Ma,’ Seb yelled out.

  Aletta seemed to have won her point, however, judging by the general murmuring of her listeners as she ignored him and stepped down. Seb said no more, but Georgia’s relief on Tim’s behalf proved premature, as someone else took the microphone.

  ‘Who is that?’ Stella turned to Georgia in astonishment. ‘I haven’t seen that one before.’

  Today ‘that one’ was clad in a glimmering bright scarlet shirt over blue trousers, against which her white hair made a startlingly effective contrast. ‘That,’ Georgia answered with foreboding, ‘is Mrs Jessica Wayncroft, no doubt intending to weigh in on the side of the Wayncroft battalions, excluding the rebel grandson Seb.’

  ‘So what are you looking worried about?’ Luke asked. ‘All good news for Tim, surely.’

  ‘Jessica’s unpredictable.’

  How right she was. Jessica made a brave picture as well as a striking one, but as soon as she began to speak, Georgia feared the worst. Jessica looked out at her audience with a look of tremulous appeal that, given Jessica’s strong will, was surely as good as the act she must once have put on as Queen Eleanor.

  ‘I do believe that developing the St Thomas ruins is right for Chillingham, and I am so very pleased to know that it will now go ahead thanks to our dear late vicar’s foresight. But somehow – I can’t feel it’s right that the rest of the pilgrimage and play should take place. The next stage of the walk will take it past Peacock Wood where my own dear Hugh was found dead so many years ago, and—’ She faltered, braced herself and began again. ‘In the light of Mrs Fanshawe’s death it seems very wrong just to walk past that point, and then put on the same play in which my husband so brilliantly played Becket. I shall weep. I know I shall.’ She looked very distressed, and even Georgia was swayed. That was surely no act.

  ‘Mother!’ Julian rushed up to her, looking shell-shocked, as well he might.

  ‘I know you’re disappointed, darling, and dear Tim too.’ Jessica stretched out a hand in appeal towards Tim, who looked about to faint. ‘But perhaps next year we could put the play on ourselves, presented in front of St Thomas’s very own ruins. Val,’ she called, ‘we could do that, could we not?’

  Oh, what a politician we have here. Georgia was impressed. Simon was already at Tim’s side however, and Luke made his way to join them. It was Val, shattered out of his usual suavity, who lost control as he rushed up to the stage. ‘No. It won’t be ready,’ he shouted. ‘Not then. No way. It will take years, won’t it Ally? It has to be this year.’

  Even Aletta looked shaken as she went up on the stage to talk to Jessica and Val. Jessica looked stricken at Val’s outburst – and, for once, old and tired. ‘Have I said something to upset you, darling?’ she faltered very audibly.

  ‘I wouldn’t have missed this play for worlds,’ Peter whispered.

  He was loving every minute of it, Georgia thought, perhaps unfairly. It was his – their – job to analyse, not take sides, but oh how hard that could sometimes be. The general murmur of support for Jessica was growing louder, and she was going unchallenged. The battle was lost, Georgia feared, wondering what Stella was making of this. Even as the thought went through her mind, she saw Tim taking the mike, presumably to announce reluctant surrender.

  He was forestalled, however. Matthew Moon had followed him up and was taking the mike from him. Unfortunately, whatever it was he wanted to say, he couldn’t have a chance in hell against Jessica’s performance, Georgia thought.

  When Matthew began to speak, however, there was an instant hush as his soft voice held his audience. It had a remarkable power in it. ‘Mrs Wayncroft’s right on one thing. There’s grieving to be done in Chillingham, so we’ll do it. If there’s penance to be done, we’ll do that too. While we finish this pilgrimage and put on the play, we’ll be remembering St Thomas, riding along the Old Road into Canterbury, and I reckon Mr Wayncroft and Mrs Fanshawe will be walking right along with us in spirit as we do so. They’ll be there at the theatre too, so we’ll say a few words about them before the curtain goes up and as it falls.’

  That was all. There was a dead silence, broken only by a whispered, ‘Oh yes,’ from Stella as she pushed past Georgia and made her way to the stage.

  ‘No one’s asked me what I think yet, although I’m Anne Fanshawe’s daughter. But I’m going to tell you what I know. My mother would have wanted this play to go ahead. She loved acting, she walked part of the pilgrimage with you, and she wasn’t one to give up anything she believed in halfway. Tennyson’s Becket is about murder for political reasons in the interests of power-holding. Anyone disagree with that?’

  Silence.

  ‘And,’ she continued, ‘it’s a play in which the victim wins. A victim who’s more memorable than the villain. I want my mother to win. Next week, at the Stour Theat
re.’

  ‘And that,’ Georgia whispered to Luke, ‘is surely that.’

  Peter had been determined to come, despite the bumpy ground. When Stella had suggested at the Three Peacocks meeting that anyone who was interested in the Becket ruins could walk over to look at them now, some people had preferred to return to their homes to regroup for the final stage of the pilgrimage the next day, but quite a few accepted Stella’s offer with eagerness. Including Peter, who wasn’t going to be left out, no matter what the difficulties.

  In the event, Luke was having to help Peter negotiate his way across the field, and so Georgia seized an opportunity to talk to Julian. It was difficult to know whether to congratulate him or not, in view of the fact it had been his mother and son who had tried to throw a spanner in the works over the play. Should she tread carefully, or barge in? The latter.

  ‘You must be delighted that this land is coming back to your estate.’

  ‘Why?’ Julian asked coldly. ‘These ruins have always belonged to the Wayncrofts. They’re part of its heritage, and Anne knew this was the best answer.’

  Julian might look and sound the prototype country squire, but he was an actor too. Georgia decided to push further. ‘Yet your uncle left them to her, presumably because she was opposed to their development whereas your family is in favour of it.’

  She’d typecast Julian as a large, rather bad-tempered bear-like sort of man, who would ultimately be amenable to meekly following Val’s plans. Bears have large claws, however, and the look on Julian’s face definitely suggested they were being sharpened. ‘It hardly matters why Uncle Robert acted as he did, because I had understood that you were interested in my father’s death, not that of Mrs Fanshawe. Or have the police hired you as a civilian investigator?’

  ‘These ruins might have relevance both to Anne’s death and to your father’s. As Stella pointed out, Becket is about murder for political reasons.’

  ‘Obviously, you have not read the play,’ he rejoined. ‘Certainly, that factor comes into it. So do betrayal, passion, and human relationships. Tim is always asking us to remember that. I suggest you do too.’

  The bear was getting agitated. Time to switch tack. Georgia asked him a few neutral questions about the ruins, and then slid in gently, ‘You spoke of the Wayncroft heritage and the ruins being part of it. What’s the other part?’

  ‘You misunderstood,’ he said instantly. ‘The heritage is the Becket connections, of which the ruins are a part. The Wayncrofts kept to their Catholic faith during the Reformation, and when Queen Mary came to the throne she paid special favour to us. That’s why we are entrusted to look after the ruins.’

  ‘And what might lie in them, Julian,’ Val said softly as he and Aletta joined them. ‘Don’t forget those bones.’

  Julian turned furiously on him. ‘You’re wrong, Val, and you know it all too well, don’t you?’

  ‘The boot is on the other foot, brother mine,’ Val shot back at him.

  No pretence at cordiality between them now. Even Aletta looked thrown by the suddenness of the outburst. ‘If the bones are here,’ she said coolly, ‘one day they’ll be found.’ Both men turned to her, as if she were calling time on the battle.

  Georgia fumed at this intervention just as she might have been getting somewhere. Now she had to resurrect the subject. ‘Do you really think there’s a chance they’re buried here?’

  Julian made an effort to be civil. ‘According to Uncle Robert, yes. Every time he paid us a visit he impressed that on me.’

  ‘The poor chap was going gaga in his last few years,’ Val added calmly. ‘That’s why he left the ruins to Anne by mistake. He was pretty old by then so he probably never noticed. Anyway, Anne realized what had happened, and so we’ve now got them back.’

  ‘We?’ Julian asked acidly.

  ‘Sorry, Jules. Just identifying myself with your interests. Where do you think they’d be hidden?’

  Julian eyed him coolly. ‘In Chillingham Place somewhere. Not necessarily in these ruins.’ He turned to Aletta. ‘Stella wanted a word with us. Shall we go?’

  Both she and Val were clearly persona non grata. No problem, Georgia thought. She would take a look at the ruins herself. Val ostentatiously left her to it and strolled away, leaving her to walk round the ruins.

  ‘Bloody snoopers.’

  Georgia turned round at the unfamiliar voice. She knew the weather-beaten face though, and the piercing blue eyes. It was Vic Painter.

  ‘Miss Marsh, ain’t it?’ he asked. ‘Been talking to your dad, I have.’

  ‘And you’re the village historian,’ Georgia replied, ‘who helps Molly Jones at Becket House.’

  ‘Historian’s a big word.’ He grinned. ‘All stored up in my head, it is. Don’t have the skills to put it on paper like I should. It all came from my dad, see?’

  ‘John Painter. Was he another Bill Riding where history was concerned?’

  ‘Bill was a real historian, a teacher and all that. Dad just liked the local stuff.’

  ‘Such as Thomas Becket?’

  ‘Yeah. He did guide work in the cathedral at Canterbury in his later years. He was on fireguard duty during the big raid in 1942 and reckons he owes St Thomas because he weren’t hit himself. Parts of the cathedral were knocked to smithereens, but the main part of it came through. Ever thought it’s interesting how Canterbury Cathedral came through it all, like St Paul’s?’

  ‘Coventry Cathedral didn’t.’

  ‘Yeah. Reckon Lady Luck was asleep that night. ’Course, it was two years later when Canterbury copped it. St George’s went for a burton, and so did Rose Lane and a lot more of the town, but not so bad as it might have been. We had our own system of air-raid warnings.’

  ‘You’re not tempted to be a cathedral guide yourself?’

  ‘Nah. Too much on at Molly’s place. Besides, too much like hard work nowadays. I’d have to go on courses and that. I’d rather be at the pub.’

  ‘Did your father believe that Becket’s bones are buried here?’

  ‘No, bless you. Reckon he thought it all a legend, but then legends are sometimes based on some kind of fact, whether it’s twisted or not. Mind you, he was Becket-mad, was Dad. Makes me laugh all the stuff about not wanting tourists here on the one hand, and on the other telling me all about the pilgrims at the Becket shrine in the Cathedral before it got destroyed by that there Henry VIII. A real guided tour was laid on for them, just as grand as Mr Val’s got in mind for this place. First they saw where the poor chap was killed, then it was up the steps to the next station, and the next and so forth. At each one they were shown something special: the sword that killed him, the bashed-up skull, bits of this that and the other, and finally the golden shrine itself.

  ‘Those crafty old monks had an eye for showmanship, so they’d fixed a sort of lid on ropes over the casket with the bones so that when they’d got everyone’s attention they could pull up the lid and show the golden shrine to gasps all round. Covered in precious stones every colour of the rainbow, some bigger than eggs, so it’s said. Then the guides gave their sales pitch, hoping the pilgrims would put their hands in their pockets. The best jewel was the one from the King of France, the Regale ruby, which gleamed out ruby red even in the dark. That had them gasping all right. After that they couldn’t wait to get their badges and bits and bobs. And then what happened? You know what they did in 1538?’

  Georgia did, but wanted to keep Vic talking. ‘Not in detail.’

  ‘Henry VIII’s thugs smashed the shrine to bits and carted off the valuable stuff. What happened to the bones, we’ll never know. The old Regale ruby was made into a ring from Henry, and after that his daughter hung it round her neck. Never seen again after that, nor the bones. Plenty of theories though.’

  ‘In that case the bones could indeed be here in Chillingham. The Wayncrofts kept to the old faith, so the monks could well have brought the bones to them for safe keeping.’

  Vic’s eyes weren’t meeting hers, she
noticed. ‘Why come all the way here,’ he said, ‘when they could have buried them down in the Cathedral crypt, or in its graveyard amongst the other bodies?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she acknowledged, ‘but Robert Wayncroft seems to have believed they are here. Did Hugh too?’

  ‘I was only twenty or so when he died. Didn’t have time for no long chats about bones,’ Vic said carefully. ‘Dad was real upset when the squire died, though. I remember that, and he was that happy when the land all went back to Mr Robert. Mr Julian being a baby then, Dad was afraid Mr Val might take it over for all he was only a stepson, because Mrs Jessica thought the world of Mr Valentine. Still does. With Mr Robert, though, the land was in safe hands.’

  ‘And your father came to agree with him. And you too.’ There was something here that Georgia was not getting, and Vic was still looking evasive.

  ‘Tourism’s the thing, ain’t it, and with Molly living in a house with some of the stones from the old chapel in it, you’d think it a natural. But Dad was dead against development. The older he got, the more obstinate, and we’re the same, Molly and me. When Mr Robert came back here to live in 2002 Dad got real pally with him again.’

  Georgia fastened on this new piece of information. ‘Stones from the chapel? But Becket House looks as if it was built in the eighteenth century.’

  ‘So it was mostly, but if you look round the back you can see some ragstone: a few stones in the house itself, and one of the outhouses. Once the new church was built I reckon the old chapel was up for grabs and whoever wanted a few of its stones just helped themselves. A lot must have been used in whatever house was here before Molly and Bill’s, and when theirs came to be built the builders economized where it wouldn’t be noticed too much. You go and have a look, stay a night or two as you’re so keen on St Thomas.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Peter said when she related this to him the next morning. Luke had retreated into his office and she had driven over to Haden Shaw. The Fernbourne Museum was open on Sundays, and so it was unlikely she would be usurping Janie’s place. ‘I’ll come too if they can manage this thing.’ He patted the wheelchair.