Stick in the Mud: A riveting murder mystery

by Leo McNeir

  “Hang on,” said Marnie. “I don’t think Philip should be kept in the dark, not when the rest of us know what’s happened.”

  “You’re right, of course,” said Ralph. He nodded at Donovan.

  “Dick thinks … in fact he’s certain, he’s discovered the lost treasure – for want of a better word – of King John.”

  Philip screwed up his face. “It got lost in the Wash or something … is that it?”

  “Yes,” Donovan said. “We’ve just got the whole story from Dick. Apparently, the king was travelling in the east of England between Lincolnshire and Norfolk when he was taken ill.”

  “When was this?” Philip asked.

  “It was … 1216, I think,” Donovan said. “Yes, the year after Magna Carta. It was autumn … October. He decided to return to Lincolnshire.”

  “Why not go home to London?”

  “That was tricky. Prince Louis of France had invaded the south of England in support of the English barons who opposed King John. Going back north was a safer option, and the most direct route involved crossing the Wash.”

  “By boat, presumably,” Philip said.

  “No. In those times the Wash was quite different, penetrating much further inland. It was a shallow marshy region with mudflats and quicksands. If you knew the route, it was possible to ford it in various places. The King and his entourage crossed by Wisbech, seemingly fording the mouth of the river Wellstream.”

  “Wellstream?” Philip repeated. “Never heard of it.”

  Donovan explained, “It’s all changed now. It roughly coincides with the place where the river Nene enters the Wash. Anyway, the King and his cohorts got across safely, but the baggage train ran into difficulties. It was travelling more slowly and, by the time it began crossing the ford, the tide was turning. By some accounts they were caught by a kind of bore, a powerful wave that swept in and overturned everything.”

  “And this baggage train was carrying what exactly?”

  “Opinions differ on this, but it now seems fairly clear that the goods included the royal regalia … what we’d call the Crown Jewels … plus similar items that he’d inherited from his grandmother, the Empress of Germany.”

  “Might’ve known there’d be a German connection,” Anne said, grinning.

  Donovan smiled back at her.

  “Okay, so what happened next?” Philip asked.

  “The king travelled on to a monastery, Swineshead Abbey in Lincolnshire, where -”

  “Hold on,” said Philip. “You’re saying he just abandoned his treasure, made no attempt to recover it … just like that?”

  “I think there were probably several reasons for that,” said Donovan. “First, the tide was racing in and the whole expanse of land would soon have been flooded. There was nowhere to hang around in that wilderness. The water would’ve covered a huge area. Also, don’t forget, the king himself was unwell and needed to be taken care of.”

  “There was another factor,” Ralph joined in. “That part of the country had long been hostile to the Norman kings. John was immensely unpopular with his subjects, but nowhere more so than in those parts. This was dangerous territory, and they had to move quickly to get him to a place of safety.”

  “And he never went back to try to reclaim his lost treasure?” said Philip.

  “No,” Donovan said. “In fact, he died within a week. There were no reliable maps in those days, and the whole area comprised water courses that were constantly shifting.”

  For a while they ate on in silence until Philip spoke again.

  “And Dick thinks he’s located this treasure? This episode sounds like it’s being scripted by Robert Louis Stevenson.”

  They collectively resisted the temptation to mutter, “Arr, Jim lad,” though they all thought it.

  “It isn’t quite as fanciful as it might appear,” said Donovan. “Dick didn’t just go out with a metal detector and strike lucky.”

  “Metal detectors don’t work in water, do they?” said Philip.

  Donovan shook his head. “I’m not yet sure if water actually comes into it. The topography in all that part of the country has changed beyond recognition. For example, Wisbech used to be on the coast; now, it’s miles inland.”

  “And therefore easier to survey,” Philip added.

  Another shake of the head from Donovan. “Not quite. What in those days was ground – or sea – level, could now be as much as ten metres below the surface.”

  “Like the lower levels in our building site.” Philip inclined his head towards Horselydown. “So how did Dick find this treasure? Strikes me as being a bit of a long shot that he just happens to come along and dig it up when people have been searching for it for nearly eight hundred years.”

  A waiter cleared away the dishes from the first course and adjusted the cutlery while another poured the remains of the wine. After a subtle exchange of glances with Philip, he went to fetch a second bottle. Moments later, the main courses arrived, and they settled down again. In between mouthfuls, Donovan continued the story.

  “Dick wasn’t in fact working on King John’s lost regalia. It was one of those instances where you study one subject and turn up something completely different.”

  “Like Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin,” said Ralph.

  “Exactly. Dick was investigating the impact of Hereward the Wake’s revolt on the governance of eastern England when he came upon documents referring to King John. He became interested in these and read further. Then, by chance, at a conference he met a landscape archaeologist from the University of East Anglia, who was researching something like wetland development in the Middle Ages.”

  “That was Gerald Parfitt,” Marnie said.

  “That’s right. Dick described what he was working on, and Dr Parfitt offered to show him aerial photographs from the drought summer of 1976.”

  “What was the point of that?” Philip asked.

  “To show how volatile the region was. It made it clear how Hereward was able to operate without being detected for so long. The photographs showed all sorts of patterns of watercourses, causeways and tracks that had been covered up for decades, even centuries.”

  “And presumably Dick spotted something in the photographs?”

  “No. It didn’t work like that. He kept in touch with Parfitt and spent a weekend at his place outside Norwich. Among other things Parfitt showed him more aerial shots, this time from the long hot summer of 1975. He was able to compare them with ’76 and see how patterns changed even from one year to the next. Dick decided to trace a route across the Wash using the aerial photos plus ancient maps and field plans.”

  “But he couldn’t be sure he was on the right track, surely?” Philip sounded sceptical. “Not if there were no real fields.”

  “The king’s itinerary was documented to a certain extent and by comparing different accounts, Dick was able to make an educated guess at his route back to Lincolnshire. What had started out as a casual enquiry was turning into a serious study. Dick outlined his ideas to Dr Parfitt, and eventually the two of them set out to retrace the king’s steps.”

  “And they actually found the lost baggage train?”

  Donovan nodded. “After waiting till a few weeks ago. They’d spent the winter building up a theoretical model of the topography of 1216 in relation to the tidal patterns of early October that year. Quite a lot of work had been done by others, taking into account such things as leap years, the lunar cycle, exceptional tides and so on. Now, Parfitt has a yacht that he keeps at King’s Lynn.”

  “I thought you said –”

  “I know, but their calculations put the position of the baggage train somewhere around the present-day mouth of the river Nene.”

  “But doesn’t that fly in the face of the evidence you described earlier?” said Philip.

  “Potentially, yes. But Dick factored in two elements that no-one seemed to have taken on board. More than one account of what happened that day stated that the k
ing himself witnessed the destruction of the baggage train and was dismayed at what he saw.”

  “So he wasn’t miles ahead of it.”

  “No, and remember, the landscape is very low-lying up there. There’s no chance he was looking down from a hill and seeing the train in the distance.”

  “Okay. And what’s the other element?”

  “They knew roughly what time of day it was, what time the tide would flood in and what time the king’s party arrived at Swineshead Abbey.”

  “So they could pretty well pinpoint the position of the king from those cross-references,” Philip said.

  “It wasn’t all plain sailing,” said Donovan. “They had to plot three different routes because of minor variations in the recorded accounts of eye witnesses.”

  “Presumably, this is where the sailing – plain or otherwise – comes in,” said Ralph.

  Donovan nodded. “And diving.”

  “Surely that would be no task for amateurs,” Philip said. “I thought those waters were treacherous.”

  “They are,” Donovan agreed. “But I’ve done some investigating of my own and come up with something potentially interesting.”

  “About the location of the treasure?” said Marnie.

  Donovan shook his head. “No. That’s out of my league. But I checked the UEA website and found the archaeology department has some of the most experienced marine archaeologists in Britain.”

  “You think they were involved, too?” said Philip.

  “I’m guessing, but it must be a possibility.”

  “I knew about them,” Anne chimed in. “They were on the Timeline programme a couple of years ago, when they were looking for wrecks of the Spanish Armada.”

  “Did Dick say those divers were involved?” Marnie asked.

  “No,” Donovan said, “not exactly. He was fairly coy about the details, but he did say he’d made some significant finds. The first of these were animal bones.”

  “So not boxes filled with jewels,” said Philip.

  “Sadly not, but when analysed in the lab, they turned out to be remains of heavy horses dating back around … eight centuries.”

  “So they’d found the baggage train?”

  “They couldn’t be certain, at least not until earlier this week when Dick produced more finds.”

  “Some actual artefacts?” said Philip.

  Donovan nodded. “Three actual artefacts. They’d found a plate, a cross and a chain.”

  “All of them preserved and recognisable?” Philip sounded sceptical again. “After all those centuries under water in mud?”

  “They were all made of gold,” Donovan said simply.

  “My God …”

  “And they’ve been authenticated by experts from the British Museum.”

  With the implications of the latest developments hanging in the air around them, they ate on in silence. Philip was first to finish that course and put his knife and fork together on the plate. Picking up his glass, he spoke quietly.

  “I seem to be playing the part of devil’s advocate, but it’s just … I suppose I’m lagging behind the rest of you in this matter.”

  “No harm in that,” said Ralph. “As an academic, I spend much of my life questioning people’s opinions and judgments. Do you have reservations about Dick’s story?”

  “Not exactly. In any case, I’m not qualified to raise doubts about any of his findings. It’s only that … I’m not sure … there’s something in all this that I don’t quite follow.”

  “Is it the different accounts of eye witnesses that lead to three different locations?” said Marnie. “I must admit, that bothers me.”

  “The names vary,” said Donovan. “I know that a knight in the entourage referred to a place by the name of a nearby village, while a chaplain used the name of the marsh they were crossing. There was more than one route, apparently, so that gave rise to different possibilities.”

  “That didn’t bother me so much,” said Philip. “No. I found myself thinking, so what? Why all the secrecy?” Why did Dr Fennimore insist on that?”

  Donovan was the first to reply. “Again, I’d have thought that was pretty obvious. There were probably two main reasons. One is, they didn’t want to be overrun by treasure hunters.”

  Philip looked doubtful. “Out there in the middle of the Wash?”

  “Why not? There’s potentially a king’s ransom – literally – waiting to be raised. Archaeologists are always careful about naming sites on land for fear of intrusion by metal detectorists. And there are their counterparts who dive on wrecks around the coast, all hoping to find an Armada galleon. The personal effects of an aristocratic Spanish captain would be small change compared with the discovery of the Crown Jewels of a Norman king.”

  “And a German empress,” Anne added.

  “Quite.”

  “Did you say two main reasons, Donovan?” Philip said.

  “At least. Another reason is, they don’t want to release information until they’re absolutely certain of what they’ve found.”

  “But I thought they were convinced –”

  “Not the same thing,” said Ralph. “They’ll want more artefacts. They’ll want them all to be authenticated by independent experts and, ideally, they’ll want an identifiable piece, something they can put on show that proves beyond any doubt that what they’ve found is genuine.”

  “That makes sense,” said Philip. “They wouldn’t want their discovery to be held up for criticism before they’ve had the chance to evaluate everything.”

  Donovan spoke again. “But having said all that, they do know what they’ve found. My guess is, Dick wants to prepare the ground carefully before revealing that he genuinely has solved the last great mystery of the Middle Ages.”

  Philip stared into the distance. “Bloody hell.”

  *

  That Friday afternoon was a time for regrouping, ready for work starting again the following week. Philip spent the rest of the day on health and safety matters. Hugely relieved that he had not been singled out for blame, he threw himself energetically into getting the project back on track.

  Marnie found herself rather at a loose end with her design work largely completed. Reminding Ralph that they were supposed to be on holiday, she asked if he had any ideas about how to spend the rest of the day. He pointed out that they had each had a couple of glasses of wine and neither had brought work with them.

  “Compelling arguments for easing off,” Marnie conceded.

  “And there’s the small matter of Thyrsis,” said Ralph. “We still have to bring her into Little Venice.”

  “This is true.” Marnie turned to Anne. “What about you, Anne? Have you in fact had any time off this week?”

  “Well …” she began.

  “She’s spent most of the time working with me on the filming,” Donovan said.

  “And it was very interesting,” Anne added.

  “But not the cultural programme you’d planned,” said Marnie.

  “We could rectify that.” Anne pointed beyond Butler’s Wharf in the opposite direction to the building site. “The Design Museum is just down there. I was hoping to visit it some time. Anyone fancy going?”

  “Why not?” said Marnie. “We could treat it as a works outing. Any takers?”

  The plan was accepted, and the four of them strolled along in the sunshine, two couples on holiday without a care in the world. Or at least that was how it appeared on the surface.

  As they approached the museum, they were surprised to find a large crowd of Japanese tourists gathered in front of the entrance. Rather than push their way through the group, Marnie suggested they walk on a little further to the point where a small tributary joined the Thames. She had spotted a display board and wanted to see if it gave any information about the history of the district that might be useful for her murals in the hotel complex.

  While Marnie, Ralph and Anne read the panel, Donovan walked the few yards to the end of the bank and l
ooked up the inlet where the tributary joined the main watercourse.

  “Any idea what this is called?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder.

  “It’s the river Neckinger,” Anne replied.

  “Neckinger?” Donovan repeated. “How odd. It sounds German.”

  “Well, it isn’t. It’s a short form of the Devil’s neckinger, meaning neckerchief. Apparently, that was the nickname used for the noose they used on the gallows. They used to execute river pirates here.”

  The last words stuck in Anne’s throat as she realised she was standing in the place where Daring Jake Pepper had been hanged with his own Devil’s neckinger. On that very spot all those years ago he, and others like him, had danced in the air and swung in the breeze as an example to passers-by. Here he had come to a sticky end.

  14

  Images

  Monday 9 July, 1997

  On Monday morning construction work at Horselydown was back in full swing.

  The Glebe Farm team had split forces for the day. Marnie and Ralph had spent the weekend together on Thyrsis in Little Venice, catching up with friends from the time when Marnie had kept Sally Ann there. On Sunday evening she had returned to Northamptonshire by train to take charge of the office.

  Anne had offered to go with her, but Marnie had insisted she should at least have the weekend off. They would review the work situation on Monday. In the meantime Donovan was welcome to stay with Anne in the flat at Butler’s Wharf.

  This left Ralph on Thyrsis in Little Venice, where he happily resumed his research. He suspected, rightly, that he was probably the only academic economist in the world whose duties for the day included filling a boat’s water tank, having its fuel tank filled with diesel and its holding tank emptied at the nearest pump-out.

  That Monday morning was cooler than before with high clouds obscuring the sun and a fresh breeze wafting between the old wharf buildings. Anne and Donovan left the block for the short walk to Horselydown, prepared for any eventuality. Donovan carried the filming equipment in his rucksack. Under her arm Anne held the project file.

  They entered the compound soon after nine and found the student archaeologists already gathered beside the excavation hole. In full safety gear they stood talking quietly as if waiting for someone. The atmosphere was subdued. It was the first time they had returned to the site since Dr Fennimore’s death.