Strange Tombs

by Syd Moore

  ‘The light was fading fast,’ said Starla, her fingers fraying the bottom of her skirt. ‘We all knew it was Halloween. But you could feel there was something in the air, something preternatural was stirring.’

  Robin sighed. ‘Blue hair, purple prose. Laura,’ he went on, ‘had chosen the setting on purpose of course. And it was stimulating too. Ma writing in the afternoon gave rise to a piece which referenced Arthurian legends. Very good work too.’

  I scrunched my forehead. ‘Why? Is that what you’re writing about? King Arthur? Don’t sound very crimey.’

  ‘No,’ he said tersely. ‘Ah’m saying the setting brought the quality to the writing.’

  I still didn’t get it. ‘But how?’

  ‘The tombs,’ he said and gestured angrily towards the door. ‘The famous tombs! In the church.’

  Tabby coughed and lengthened her spine. ‘Ms Strange and Mr Stone may not have heard the stories,’ she pointed out.

  It occurred to me now that we had never actually introduced ourselves but Tabby knew our names. She had evidently been briefed by Monty.

  ‘Call me Rosie,’ I said and sent her a grateful grin. ‘And he’s just Sam.’

  ‘Well, Rosie Strange and “Just Sam”,’ said Robin in something of a patronising fashion. ‘You should have heard about the tombs.’

  ‘St Saviour’s,’ said Sam and wiggled his index finger at him. ‘Yes, yes. Of course! The pickled knights of Damebury. But I thought that story went back to the eighteenth century?’

  ‘Clearly not,’ said Robin and drummed his fingers on his kneecap.

  ‘What’s with the pickled knights?’ I asked Sam. ‘More attractive than onions? Or are we talking winos here?’

  Then I cast a glance at Starla just in case she was going to take offence to the term and insist on calling them sobriety-impaired or something. People these days could be very touchy about the most unexpected of words.

  But it was Robin who tutted, then reached into a pile of papers on the table. ‘Read this,’ he said and thrust a photocopied sheet into my hands. It looked like an ancient tract, headed Curious Leaden Coffin Found in Damebury, Essex. There were however lots of curly bits in the script that made deciphering the text quite hard.

  I handed it to the expert who said, ‘My, my, my. Haven’t seen this for a while.’

  ‘What’s it about?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Sam and began. ‘It refers to an incident at the church in 1779.’

  ‘Specifically the sixteenth of October. Just in time for Halloween,’ Robin chimed in the blue-haired woman’s direction.

  Starla caught his glance and said with pointed determination, ‘As the veil between worlds grows thin.’

  Robin tutted again. Both Tabby and Starla scowled.

  Averting another imminent combustion Sam went on, ‘Some diggers were working on the north aisle of the church, preparing a grave for an esteemed lady of the parish. As they dug deep into the ground they struck upon something hard. When they started to clear it, what emerged from the earth was an effigy of a man in stone dressed in armour. Certainly a crusader, perhaps even one of the Knights Templar. It was remarkable. About thirty inches beneath the effigy they came upon a lead coffin. Lead! Strange in itself, however it turned out to be the beginnings of a Russian Doll!’

  ‘Do you mean a nesting Russian Doll of coffins?’ I asked, thinking that was a totally brilliant idea for museum merchandise. Visiting goths would go wild for them. I filed it under ‘Ways to Get Rich Quick’ in my mental filing cabinet, above ‘Selling the Witch Museum’.

  Sam nodded. ‘I do.’ His eyes were sparkling and full of energy. It was weird but, just then, they made me suddenly feel sad. ‘That outer layer,’ he said, ‘was consequently opened to reveal a further oak coffin, then a powerful seal of resinous quality.’

  I sighed out my sadness unconsciously but then tried to disguise it by commenting on what Sam had said. ‘Someone wanted to make sure the occupant definitely didn’t get out of his tomb,’ I said and tried to jazz myself up a bit by winking at Sam. ‘Happens a lot. Especially with witches. Though it’s usually graves with stones moved over the top. Sometimes they stick iron rivets through the thighs and ankles of the so-called witch’s remains. To keep them down.’

  Sam smiled at me, indulging his protégé, but Imogen shuddered and Starla gave out a little howl.

  We both jumped slightly. It was easy to forget this sort of knowledge, the horror of it all, wasn’t customary fare for most people.

  ‘Yes, it’s a bit hideous,’ Sam acknowledged their discomfort with a glum nod. ‘Sorry. Anyway, inside the next coffin was a strange liquid. I quote,’ he said, looking at the sheet. ‘“A liquor or a pickle, somewhat resembling mushroom ketchup.”’

  ‘Ew,’ I said and wrinkled my nose. ‘You mean they tasted it?’

  ‘So it would seem,’ Sam continued. ‘And here’s the rub. Within the mixture there was a body.’ He took a breath. ‘It was perfectly preserved. The skin was white and unblemished. Leaves, lilies and herbs in the liquor were also in full bloom and showing no signs of corruption. Only the pillow, on which the corpse had lain his head, had decomposed over time and “the head unsupported, fell back”.’

  ‘Ew,’ I said again. ‘So what did they do after that?’

  ‘Do?’ said Robin, with indignance. ‘They let the villagers gawp at it then they fastened him back in. And that was the end of that. Centuries rolled past. Then in June this year builders were excavating, this time to add a meeting room to the church. They hit on a similar tomb at the back of the church.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Sam’s eyebrows rose with interest.

  ‘Indeed, I would have thought you might have heard about that given your supervision of something called a Witch Museum. Wouldn’t this type of thing be of interest to your visitors?’

  ‘Um,’ I said out loud, remembering Monty’s words. June. He had certainly heard about it. I guess he’d kept an eye on the situation to see if anything odd occurred. But nothing had. Until now.

  Sam darted me a quick shush-now glance and said, ‘We were involved in another case at that time.’

  Robin did the eye-roll thing again, which moved me this time to react.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The Bodies in the Witch Pit, although some papers called it The Murder Pit.’

  Imogen’s eyes widened. ‘Oh I heard about that. In Adder’s Fork, that’s right isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said and clamped my eyes onto Robin. ‘And we solved it thank you very much. So forgive us if we didn’t pick up on the discovery of some ancient dead bloke’s grave.’

  Robin opened his mouth to speak but Tabby got in before him.

  ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘we did our workshop in the church, amongst those very same tombs and, I think, to add to the mystery of it all, Laura had us all look at Man-Sized in Marble by E. Nesbit. Do you know it?’

  Both Sam and I shook our heads.

  ‘Oh. It’s a damn good read,’ she said. ‘About a young couple, very much like yourselves.’

  I looked at Sam who began to colour. We weren’t that sort of couple. Yet. One day though. Maybe. Possibly. Maybe not. Sigh.

  To save his blushes, I said, ‘We’re partners in the museum, that’s all!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tabby, clearly unfazed or uninterested, and continued to potter on. ‘Well, this couple, they find a delightful cottage in the country. But their housekeeper says she needs to leave.’

  ‘Before Halloween,’ Starla piped up and eyed Robin again. He fluttered his eyelids. It was getting annoying.

  ‘She tells them,’ continued Tabby. ‘That the local church is cursed and that the marble effigies of knights entombed there come to life each year on All Saints’ Eve to wreak revenge.’

  ‘The husband is sceptical,’ said Robin. ‘But on Halloween he goes to the church and finds that the stone slabs on which the knights rest are empty.’

  There was a creak at the French windows, then two much
younger people entered the room. A whiff of tobacco floated in with them.

  ‘When he gets back to his wife,’ Starla went on, ‘he finds her dead, heart attack. But in her hand she grips a cold stony finger.’

  ‘Which,’ said the young graceful man who had just stepped inside, ‘is what Cullen found in Graham’s this morning.’ He wiped his feet on the door mat.

  ‘Oooohhh,’ I said, beginning to get why Monty had wanted us to pay a visit.

  Sam had got it too. ‘Life imitating art?’

  ‘Ach!’ said Robin, from his stiff wooden chair. ‘Or someone’s intending it appears that way. Certainly if we assume marble statues don’t animate themselves on Halloween and commit murder.’ Then he laughed at his suggestion. But it was thin and weedy and nobody else joined in.

  ‘Did you tell them about my story?’ The newcomer asked, and tossed his hair back. Dark and collar-length and pushed over his ears, it was kept in a kind of romantic but wild style. Slightly Byronesque. Some youngsters loved a bit of that. And this bloke had amplified the likeness with a sexy silk shirt with a paisley pattern across it, and ripped jeans. He was clearly going for a kind of punked-up poet-fop hybrid. ‘It’s very good,’ he said and winked at me. The accent was dead posh. Like proper posh. Upper-upper-class posh. Possibly even posher than Monty and Tabby. And he constantly sounded like he was holding back a laugh.

  ‘What story?’ I asked, wondering what else was on its way now. We’d already had King Arthur and some woman who wanted a different body.

  The girl by his side rolled her eyes. ‘Oh shut up Nicholas.’ She sighed.

  ‘You should read it,’ said the young man, presumably Nicholas, raising an eyebrow. ‘About a guy who goes off the rails once he’s taken MDMA. Starts hallucinating spectres. Happened to a chum of mine.’

  Sam blinked hard, then said, ‘Is this relevant?’

  ‘Only to my genius,’ said Nicholas. I couldn’t tell whether his face had settled into a smirk or a smug grin.

  ‘I’m Jocelyn,’ said the young woman and came over and shook my hand. I was impressed. She was the first one to do it so far. She had a shrewd look about her and an undeniable beauty. Radiant, unblemished skin, deep brown eyes and dark hair; when she took my hand her shake was firm. I liked her immediately.

  ‘Ignore him,’ she said. I detected a hint of South London in her voice. Then turned to Sam. ‘No. It’s not relevant. Have they told you about the police?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said.

  ‘Graham had a dicky heart. Very sad, but it seems like he might have been frightened by local kids. One trick-or-treat too far. Pure bad luck.’

  ‘Didn’t any of you see it?’ I asked the rest, as Jocelyn went and got herself a chair from the table at the back of the room and brought it forward to sit next to Imogen and Tabby. Self-sufficient and self-motivated too, I noted.

  ‘Goodness, no,’ said Aunt Tabby. ‘We all partook of some rather large whisky chasers and succumbed to bed early. It had been quite an eventful day.’

  ‘Not as eventful as this one,’ said Imogen and yawned.

  At that moment the door to the hallway opened and the woman Tabby had called Sophia came in with a tray.

  ‘Oh,’ she said looking from Nicholas to Jocelyn. ‘I’ve not made enough for you two. Would one of you mind refilling the kettle?’ The wrinkles under her eyes deepened as she exhaled.

  ‘Where’s Carole?’ asked Nicholas. He fidgeted in his seat. ‘Can’t she do it? She’s the housekeeper, after all. She should keep the house and its guests – us.’

  ‘I gave her the rest of the day off.’ Sophia frowned then tried to make it into a smile. But it clearly pained her. ‘She was very upset about Graham, as you can imagine. They worked here for years together.’

  Jocelyn glared at Nicholas. ‘Please tell me you know how to make a cup of tea, Nick?’

  He sent her a puckish grin and ran his hand through his hair. ‘Indeed. Call Room Service.’

  Jocelyn sighed and left the room. I was surprised when Nicholas dawdled out after her, hands in pockets.

  ‘Right. Good,’ said Sophia. Despite the expensive blouse and skirt, I could tell she’d dressed in a hurry. I’m good like that. I can read people well. Or at least I used to be able to. I wasn’t so sure these days. But Sophia was shedding clues left, right and centre: her cardigan was inside out and buttoned squint, and there was a ladder in her tights visible at the top of her thigh, for part of that beautiful designer skirt was tucked into her knickers. As she passed by the Chesterfield, a flushing Starla yanked the hem down, protecting Sophia’s practical Marks and Sparks modesty, without her noticing a thing.

  Just in time really, because she went and bent over the large table at the back of the room and dumped the tray, teapot and mugs down on it noisily. Robin took over the pouring and handing out of mugs.

  ‘Here you go,’ said Sophia and handed mine over. ‘I haven’t introduced myself – I’m Sophia Adams-Braithwaite. The events organiser for the Essex Writers Retreat. Came down today. As soon as I heard about Graham.’

  She backed away with her own mug in her hands and settled in the chair that Jocelyn had vacated. ‘Terrible,’ she said and blew on her tea.

  There was a pause in conversation as everybody sorted out their brews, during which time I considered the information.

  When everyone resumed their places I said, ‘So Graham has a heart attack and is found clutching a stone finger. Was it actually made of stone?’ This detail seemed important. ‘Or marble?’

  ‘Cullen, who saw it, said it was fashioned from stone just like a statue’s.’

  That was good to get confirmed. The Devil, I found, was always in the detail with these things. ‘And so, I’m guessing what some of you are thinking,’ I continued raising my voice so they could all hear me over the clatter of teaspoons and cups. ‘What you perhaps are realising is that this, therefore, uncannily echoes the short story you had to read?’

  ‘Man-Sized in Marble, yes,’ said Starla. ‘And it was Halloween. Exactly the same time of year that the story is set.’

  Before Robin could respond with any sort of cynical comeback, the door was thrown open again and a huge man and a slight woman walked through. Their gait was distinctly hurried and irregular and they both wore expressions of extreme disquiet.

  ‘Laura, Cullen!’ said Tabby. ‘Whatever is the matter?

  ‘You both look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ Starla exclaimed, who was looking pretty limp herself.

  The Laura-woman held a trembling hand out for support which Starla grabbed and then used to guide her onto the Chesterfield. She really did look very unwell. There was something about her eyes that gave her a pinched, uncertain look. She had quite a few fine lines and a redness on the cheeks that somehow suggested it was permanent.

  The young man remained standing near the doorway, his bulk almost filling it, eyes glittering wildly. ‘We walked to the church,’ he said, his voice higher pitched than might be expected from such a hulking torso. It had a squeaking discordant sound to it: he clipped his vowels and spoke quickly, punctuating his words with pants. ‘And you’ll never guess what we found.’ He glanced at Laura, whose face was clammy with perspiration.

  She swallowed, staring straight ahead. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ she said at last. ‘It’s the tombs. One of the knights has lost a finger.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  The hysteria and wailing brought Jocelyn and Nicholas back into the room, with more cups of tea. Once that had settled things down a bit, the gathered writers and Sophia divided into four camps: those who thought the avenging knights had killed Graham (Starla and Imogen), those who believed the trick-or-treaters had done it, either accidentally or on purpose (Jocelyn, Laura, Robin), those who were just trying to calm everyone down (Tabby and Sophia), and those who believed Cullen had done it (Nicholas).

  ‘You found him, didn’t you?’ he pointed his finger in Cullen’s direction. The latter had gone and perched on the arm o
f the Chesterfield, next to where the Laura chick was. His bulk looked dangerously heavy for the patched leather sofa.

  ‘You could have easily stuck the finger in Graham’s hand.’ Nicholas’s voice was heavy with icy provocation. ‘Then you come back now and tell everyone it’s gone from the knight’s tomb. I bet it was your idea to go in there, wasn’t it?’

  Cullen twitched and started picking at something on his eyebrow but it was Laura who spoke. ‘No Nicholas – it was my idea to go and check the church. I wanted to go there. I was hoping to find some …’ she paused and shook her head ‘… peace. This is my fault.’ She gave way to a sob.

  So this was interesting. ‘Why is it your fault, Laura?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I drew their attention to the discovery of the knights’ tombs. Both recent and of old. It occurred to me that Nesbit might have been inspired by this real-life event.’ She put her hand across her brow and rubbed it. Her hair was highlighted with ash blonde, and she looked quite trendy for her age, which I put around the late forties. Nice red lipstick, which I approved of, was brought out by a little accent poppy brooch on her black cardigan. She had a short stretchy skirt on and leggings. Her boots were great – a dark leather with buckles at the sides, which made her look rather swashbuckling, despite the teary eyes. ‘And it was I who insisted everyone read Nesbit’s terrifying story. Graham included. I wanted him to take part. I don’t like the separation between staff and writers.’ She shrugged. ‘Was a signed-up member of The Socialist Workers Party when I was at University.’

  ‘Where was that?’ Sam asked, absently.

  ‘Leeds,’ she said. ‘Long time ago.’

  Sam smiled, ‘Not that long I’m sure.’ I didn’t like that smile. It was a bit too familiar. ‘Did you know about his heart condition too?’

  Laura’s eyes grew wide and her head trembled. ‘Well … we talked and I … I … what are you suggesting?’

  Sophia stood up and went to Laura. ‘Laura dear, it doesn’t matter.’ She spun round and glared at Sam. ‘Staff Medical records are confidential.’