The Best British Mysteries 3 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Maxim Jakubowski

  ‘Has his horse returned yet?’ Simon demanded. Perhaps he was being unjust. The man might simply have taken a toss and be lying unconscious.

  The answer was negative. But that was inconclusive, too: a foot in a rabbit hole could injure a horse as well as a man. More ominously, the ability of the Saxons to spirit away a valuable horse was legendary.

  The search parties returned with nothing to report.

  ‘No tracks? No signs of a scuffle?’ he demanded. ‘Did the dogs pick up no scent?’

  ‘Only the smell of pigs, my lord. That young woman’s let the damned animals range the whole forest.’

  ‘Come, the man couldn’t have vanished into thin air! Have you questioned the villagers?’

  ‘Villeneuve was the only man who could talk to them,’ came the predictable reply.

  Simon knew what Villeneuve’s counsel would have been. It was standard, if illegal, policy. They kill one of ours, we kill as many of theirs as we can lay hands on. But what was the point of such measures if those punished didn’t know what they were being punished for? A baser thought struck him. Mass executions would delay the building of his private quarters, and the Lady Rosamunde was joining him on the understanding that the nearest he could achieve to civilisation was awaiting her. Damn Villeneuve: an irritation in life, and now irritation in what was almost certainly death.

  There must be some in the team of workmen who spoke French well enough to assist him in the interrogations he knew he must carry out. He summoned Luc, his clerk of works, a man, like himself, of middle years.

  ‘It’s hard to tell, my lord. There’s plenty that understand without wanting to let on, if you see what I mean. Sullen, some of them. But there’s one that’s grown into a sort of foreman -thickset man, early twenties. Listens more than he talks, it’s true. But there’s a look about his eyes, if you know what I mean - like a good alert dog.’

  ‘And he speaks French?’

  Luc shook his head. ‘I don’t say that. I do say he’ll understand enough to find someone who does or just to get the whisper going round that you’re going to torch the village if they don’t come up with news of Villeneuve. That’ll bring some action.’

  ‘I don’t like making threats I can’t fulfil,’ Simon said, almost to himself.

  The clerk looked at him. ‘Ah, you’re the sort that’d rather build up than pull down! And...’

  ‘Go on, man.’

  To his astonishment, Luc blushed. ‘I’ve - well, I’ve got my own reasons why I don’t want the village destroyed.’

  ‘The usual?’ he asked tolerantly.

  ‘She’s what they call a comely wench, my lord.’

  ‘So you can speak their tongue?’

  ‘Who said anything about speaking, my lord? But we’ve got one on the way, and to my mind - well, isn’t conquest by the cock kinder than conquest by the sword?’

  ‘So it’s a political bedding, is it?’ Simon laughed. ‘Go and fetch your foreman, Luc, and we’ll see if we older ones can achieve what the younger ones can’t.’

  Within a few minutes a familiar figure bent a polite but not obsequious head. Beom. So that was the foreman. Simon wasn’t surprised. Beom listened with an air of calm dignity, but, as Luc had predicted, gave little away. Little - apart, perhaps, from a tiny frisson of - of fear?

  Surely not. Within the tiniest of moments, his face was phlegmatic again. Nodding, he listened to Simon, raising a hand to his ear when he wanted a phrase repeated.

  ‘You know this knight of mine?’ Simon asked at last.

  Beom’s features assumed a sneer, and he mimed the big-balls swagger of a man set on sexual conquest. Oh yes: He knew him, all right.

  ‘And does he have enemies?’

  Beom’s disbelieving shrug would have put a Norman’s to shame it was so expansive. Such a man undoubtedly had enemies. Beom even managed an ironic smile, pointing to the scar left by Villeneuve’s whip.

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  Eyes meeting his lord’s, Beom shook his head.

  ‘Do you know the man who did?’

  The same response.

  ‘Tomorrow morning I shall question every man in the village, and you will tell me their answers. If the murderer confesses, I shall spare the rest of the village.’

  Beom nodded. Simon waved him away. But he stood his ground, and for the first time spoke. He had to repeat what he said several times before Simon could understand him. At last it seemed to make sense: ‘Have you found this man’s body yet?’

  Simon decided to treat the man honestly. He shook his head.

  Was it relief that flashed across Beom’s face? Ah, a man like him would know the law, wouldn’t he? Wherever a Norman body was found, the nearest village would find itself paying a punitive fine.

  * * * *

  Simon had no compunction in ousting what had been the thegn from his hut and appropriating his chair. The only chair. My God, no wonder these people shuffled round older than their years if they squatted all the time! He asked each villager, freeman or serf, the same questions, making them lay their hands on his Bible as they replied. And Simon, even without this, would have believed them. There was an air of bafflement about them, not to mention the terror of losing more of what little they had.

  At the end of a tedious morning, Simon waved them all away. ‘Beom, get them all back to work. My wife will be coming next week: everything must be ready for her.’

  * * * *

  It was the sort of day that you wished you could cram into a flask and keep forever. The sun was warm on his back, the air full of birdcall. And the news, that the Lady Rosamunde had but this morning whispered that she was soon to offer him another pledge of her love for him, still sang in his ears. Simon rode gently down to the village. Another hut was being built: Beom had told him it was his and his new wife’s. Aedburgha was nowhere to be seen. She must be near her time now. The squeals of her charges told him where he might find her, and he never had any objections to being smiled on by - what was the term? - a comely wench. He reeled in shock when he saw what she and another woman were doing to the young pigs they’d penned immovably in a tight wattle tunnel. It was all very swift, of course, but the very thought brought tears to his eyes.

  If Beom was now speaking a little of his tongue, Aedburgha still relied on sign language. She pointed to the sows, the sleekest and best looking he’d seen since he’d come over from Beaune. Then there came piglets. She mimed a fierce boar, then a snip. She smiled, waving her hands to show all fierceness was over, and that the desexed animals would grow big and fat and healthy. Next came a fearsome pregnant sow. She gestured a slit: The female ones, untroubled by pregnancy, would do the same. Suddenly she reached for one and held it up, still bleeding after surgery. Heavens, she was giving him a pig.

  He took it graciously, but handed it swiftly to the soldier escorting him. He hoped and he trusted that the villagers were coming to appreciate his humanity and realise they could get a man six times worse in his place, but he didn’t take risks. This, however, must be the ultimate peace offering - a woman who had been insulted by one of his henchmen giving something she could ill afford. She waved away the coin he offered. A good woman. The sort who might attend the Lady Rosamunde when her time came.

  ‘Pig?’ he said carefully, pointing at the wriggling animal. No, it would be another word for the female. ‘Sow?’

  She shook her head. ‘Gilt,’ she said. She pointed to an animal which had not yet been on the receiving end of her ministrations. ‘Sow.’ Then she pointed to the one she’d given him. ‘Gilt.’

  * * * *

  Lords might do as they liked, and if Simon chose to visit a small wattle enclosure to check his animal’s daily progress, there was no one with the temerity to laugh. In fact, it was while he was scratching her ears and speculating on the quality of the meat she would produce that Luc came up to him. One look at his face told Simon he’d rather not hear his news.

  Luc produced from his tunic a ring. ‘F
ound it when I was casting a line yesterday evening. Villeneuve’s, isn’t it, my lord?’ He polished it before he handed it over. ‘See - that’s his crest.’

  Simon took it. Yes, it looked like it, didn’t it? ‘The river you say?’ He held Luc’s gaze. ‘The man must have dropped it and tried to save it. The water’s very swift, and of course his helm and hauberk would weigh him down. Even Villeneuve wasn’t so stupid as to go round without them. Drowned, swept away. Poor bastard. Still, it’s good to have the mystery solved. I’ll get the priest to write to his family. Thank you, Luc.’

  Alone once more, Simon stared at the sow, currently tucking into scraps from last night’s venison and some mouldy bread. Her little eyes were contented, almost benign. Not like those of the raging sow that had almost done for Villeneuve. The pregnant ones were dangerous under provocation. Aedburgha had shown him. He shivered. Provocation? What if Villeneuve had renewed his assault on Aedburgha? What if the sow —? Or, God help him, what if pregnant women were equally dangerous. God knew she’d been provoked...but sufficiently provoked to kill? There was no doubt how she’d have disposed of the body - her pigs would have fallen readily upon anything they thought edible.

  He buried his face in his hands. He represented law and order and justice here. If there was a crime, it must be punished. But Beom had told him only two days before that he was now the proud father of a hopeful son, and Simon had offered to be a sponsor at the child’s christening. In his mind’s eye he could see the little family, the newborn suckling at its mother’s breast - a breast that he’d hoped would nourish his and Rosamunde’s own child when the time came. Could such a woman really have killed a man and fed his flesh to those remarkably healthy sows? If he ordered Beom’s hut to be pulled down, would they find the contents of Villeneuve’s purse buried under the foundations? He looked at the ring.

  The armour! That would provide the answer.

  But a woman who knew the forest as she did would have had no difficulty hiding a helm, even bulky chain mail - up one tree, inside another.

  Simon looked across at the mass of green, pulsing in the gentle wind. The sky was blue again, with fluffy clouds. The pastures were dotted with sheep and cattle cropping their way to a prosperous future. Wheat and corn were greening the fields.

  No, he told himself, there’d be no reopening of the inquiry. If wrong had been left unavenged in his life, the Almighty would deal with it in the next. And if he felt a tremor of remorse as he called for the priest to convey his condolences to the Villeneuve family, he knew he’d just have to endure it. He’d live with the guilt.

  And with the gilt. He leant over and scratched her ear again.

  <>

  * * * *

  Peter Lovesey

  Window of Opportunity

  ‘There is a window in your life. All you have to do is open it and let the sunshine in.’

  Nikki listened, fascinated. She’d come here expecting a con, but the man spoke like a prophet. He had his audience enthralled. He was a brilliant speaker. Looks, perfect grooming, charisma. He had it all.

  ‘How many times have I heard someone say, “You should have been here yesterday. It was glorious”?’ He smiled. ‘A comment on our English weather, but it sums up our attitude to life. “You should have been here yesterday.” My friends, forget about yesterday We are here today. Seize the day. Open that window and let the sunshine in.’

  The applause was wild. He’d brought them to a pitch of excitement. And this wasn’t evangelism. It was about being effective in business. The setting was Lucknam Park in Wiltshire, where the government held its think-tank sessions. Companies had paid big bucks to send their upcoming executives here. Lives were being changed forever. Not least, Nikki’s.

  This was her window of opportunity. She’d been sent here for the weekend by the theatrical agency to help with the role play. Inspired by what she had heard, she was about to act a role of her own. She stepped to the front, scythed a path through the admirers, and placed a hand over his arm. ‘If you don’t mind, Julian, there’s someone you should meet upstairs, in your suite.’

  To his adoring fans she said, ‘He’ll be back, I promise.’

  It worked. In the lift, he said, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Me.’

  His amazing blue eyes widened. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’ve seized the day.’

  The moment he laughed, she knew she’d succeeded. He was still high on the reception he’d got. When they entered the suite, she put the Do Not Disturb sign over the doorknob. The sex was sensational.

  * * * *

  They had a weekend in Paris and a Concorde trip to New York. Nikki found herself moving in circles she’d never experienced before. Royal Ascot. Henley. Her drama school training came in useful.

  They married in the church in rural Dorset where her parents lived. She arrived with Daddy in a pony and trap and after the reception in Dorchester’s best hotel, she and Julian were driven to the airport in a stretch limo. The honeymoon was in Bermuda. Julian paid for almost everything. Daddy couldn’t have managed to spend on that scale.

  ‘It’s no problem,’ Julian said. ‘I’m ridiculously well-off. Well, we are now.’

  ‘You deserve to be, my darling,’ Nikki said. ‘You’ve brought sunshine into so many lives.’

  They bought a huge plot of land in Oxfordshire and had their house built to Julian’s design. As well as the usual bedrooms and reception rooms, it had an office suite, gym, games room, and two pools, indoors and out. A tennis court, stables, and landscaped garden. ‘I don’t want you ever to be bored,’ Julian said. ‘There are times when I’ll be away.’

  Nikki was not bored. True, she’d given up her acting to devote more time to homemaking, but she could not have managed both. When Julian was at home, he was forever finding new windows of opportunity, days to seize. His energy never flagged. He got up at five thirty and swam a mile before breakfast and made sure she was up by seven. Even in her drama-school days she hadn’t risen that early. Actors work to-a different pattern.

  He had each day worked out. ‘We’ll plant the new rockery this morning and clear the leaves out of the pool. This afternoon I’ll need your help fitting the curtains in the fourth bedroom. This evening the Mountnessings are coming for dinner and I want to prepare an Italian meal, so we’ll need to fit in some shopping.’

  Nikki suggested more than once that most of these jobs could be done by staff. They could afford to get people in.

  ‘That goes against my principles,’ Julian said. ‘There’s immense satisfaction in doing the jobs ourselves.’

  ‘One day I’d like to sit by the pool we keep so clean,’ she said.

  ‘Doing what, my love?’

  ‘Just sitting - or better still, lying.’

  He laughed. He thought she was joking.

  In bed, he showed no sign of exhaustion. Nikki, twelve years younger than he, was finding it a trial to match his energy.

  At such a pace, it didn’t take long for the house to be in perfect shape, all the curtains and carpets fitted, the pictures hung. Nikki had looked forward to some time to herself when the jobs were done, but she hadn’t reckoned on maintenance.

  ‘Maintenance?’

  ‘Keeping it up to the mark,’ Julian explained. ‘We don’t let the grass grow under our feet.’

  In the middle of their lovemaking the same night, the thought occurred to her that he regarded this, too, as maintenance. From that moment, the magic went out of their marriage.

  What a relief when he went to America for a week on a lecture tour. He left her a maintenance list, but she ignored it and lounged by the pool every day watching the leaves settle on the surface and sink to the bottom.

  When he returned he was energised as ever. Jet lag was unknown to Julian’s metabolism. ‘So much to attend to,’ he said. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think you’d ignored that list I gave you.’

  He was as active as usual in bed. And
up before five next morning. He’d heard some house martins building a nest under the eaves above the bedroom window. They made an appalling mess if you didn’t do something about it.

  When Nikki drew back the bedroom curtains she saw his suntanned legs right outside. He’d brought out his lightweight, aluminium ladder. His feet, in gleaming white trainers and socks, were on one of the highest rungs. She had to push hard to open the window and force the ladder backwards, but she succeeded. And let the sunshine in.