The Body in the Trees

by Richard James

  He gave in to the water. In his delirium, he welcomed it. And then he saw her.

  It was as if the water was fathoms deep and there she stood, beckoning him. Her dress twisted about her in the water, her chin turned towards him. An outstretched hand gave Bowman to understand there would be no pain in his death, and he gave himself up to it.

  And that’s when he saw the bullet. It fizzed and popped in front of him, leaving a glittering trail in its wake. As he stared at it, uncomprehending, Bowman saw the faintest twist of blood dissolving in the water about it. Suddenly, Prescott was lying in the river next to him, his face contorted into a mask of pain. Bowman felt himself being dragged from the water. Away from her. He wanted to cry out, to reach for her. His heart leapt into his mouth as he realised he was losing her all over again.

  The river receding behind him now, Bowman thrashed violently in Graves’ hands. The young sergeant tried his best to soothe him, fighting against the pain in his own head.

  “I’ve got you, sir!” he screamed. “I’ve got you!”

  Bowman’s eyes rolled in his head. He coughed river water. As the world whirled around him, he saw Inspector Hicks standing with a revolver in his hand. Greville Whitlock stood before him, his hands upon his head while there, in the river, Prescott swayed unsteadily, doubled over, clutching at a wound to his shoulder.

  “Sergeant Graves saw Prescott’s coach from his room at The King’s Head,” Hicks was booming. “Reckoned it odd that Lord Melville would take a coach so short a distance to go to church.”

  “Turns out it wasn’t Lord Melville at all,” Graves soothed as he let Bowman sink to the ground. Bowman was looking about him with unseeing eyes, his chest rising and falling with a ghastly rhythm. Spluttering painfully, he began to shake. “Anna!” he cried, the tremors increasing. His eyes bulged from their sockets as he fought to breathe. “Let me go!” he screamed.

  “Sir!” called Graves, his eyes wide. “It’s me! I’ve got you!” The young sergeant tried to hold the inspector’s arms by his side. A flailing hand caught him by surprise and Bowman scratched at his cheek in a fury. “Let me go!” he roared in a voice Graves had never heard him use before. “Let me die!”

  Graves cast a look to Inspector Hicks and swallowed hard. Motioning with his gun, Hicks gestured that Prescott should step from the water to join him. The bluff inspector could not help but be enthralled by the spectacle before him. Inspector Bowman thrashed and sobbed on the filthy ground, taking great, gulping breaths that shuddered through his entire body.

  “Get Melville,” Graves commanded. “And send a boy to the police station.”

  The revolver stretched out before him, Hicks led Prescott and Whitlock from the slipway. As they rounded the corner onto the street, Graves saw the coroner look back to the water, a ghastly smile spreading slowly across his face.

  XXIII

  Coda

  Sergeant Graves could barely look. For his own safety, Detective Inspector George Bowman had been strapped to a low bunk in the back of the dray, leather thongs pulled tight across his chest, his waist and feet. Bowman grit his teeth as he writhed on the bed, his eyes staring madly about him. Still in his wet clothes, a rough blanket had been thrown across him for warmth, the only concession to kindness that Graves had noticed. The dray had been provided by Lord Melville and Cooper the groom directed to meet the detectives on the drive to collect his most unusual cargo. He had slung a makeshift awning across a simple frame to protect its contents from the elements. Its floor was strewn with straw and discarded tools. Graves hung his head at the indignity of it all.

  Hicks had requisitioned a carriage from The King’s Head and led Whitlock and Prescott away at gunpoint, Constable Corrigan by his side for surety. Graves was certain Whitlock’s journey to the gallows would be undertaken in a stubborn silence. Given his adherence to the Lodge, he would never implicate his fellow freemasons. Looking beyond the row of trees that separated the manor from the causeway, Graves squinted into the low sun as it sat, heavy on the horizon, lending a red hue to the evening sky. Lifting a hand to his head, he unravelled the wet bandage that Maude had tied there. Aside from a dull ache around the bruise beneath his hair, he felt sufficiently recovered from his ordeal. Graves would spend the next few days in Larton with support from Reading Police Station, mopping up those suspected of having a direct hand in recent events. For now, he stood alone on the drive to Larton Manor, watching as the horses were prepared for the journey. Perhaps, he mused, this was how it was always going to end. Since the affair of the head in the ice, Bowman’s condition and general health had been in decline. The wonder was he had prevailed for so long. Graves sighed as he rubbed his eyes. In some intangible way, he felt he had failed the inspector.

  Without acknowledging the sergeant, Cooper lifted the rear door to the carriage to secure it, whistling through his teeth as if he had been engaged upon nothing more than a mundane errand for his Lordship. Climbing aboard his seat, he gripped at the reins and clicked at the horses in their harness. With a tap from his stick, the two bay mares turned in the drive and started on their way, passing Sergeant Graves where he stood near the gatehouse. As the carriage rattled clear of the drive and onto the road beyond, Graves stood in silent contemplation. If he had been a religious man, he might well have offered up a prayer. Breathing deeply to steady his nerves, he watched as Bowman’s makeshift ambulance clattered away into the distance. Finally, running his fingers through his curls and allowing himself another sigh, Sergeant Graves turned his heels towards his room at The King’s Head and the solace of an understanding barmaid.

  Bowman was falling. He had been falling for so long, he thought he might never hit the bottom. Around him, the wind whistled in his ears. Beneath him, he could see the alleys and passageways of Southwark. He was alive to every moment. He was the hard ground beneath and the clear sky above. At first he thought he must be dead, and with that thought came the attendant relief he had craved for so long. All too briefly, he survived in a state of grace beyond himself. He was beyond Time, able to exist in any moment. He pulled at the strands of his life with his mind, struggling to find the thread that would lead him there. To where he longed to be. As last, he found it, a delicate silver weft that shone like a cobweb heavy with dew. A gentle tug was all that was required and slowly, sedately, he began his descent.

  Hanbury Street was all too familiar. From where he was delivered on the path outside the Women’s Refuge, he could see the shops, sawmills and workhouses he had come to recognise. A squabble of urchins stood in line to accept their charity with outstretched hands.

  Bowman turned his head, fully expecting to see the carriage on its grisly progress, but the road ahead was clear. By now, he knew, he should have been within sight, standing alongside Graves and Williams, his revolver raised in anticipation of the shot. By now he should have heard the shout and seen the passersby scattering in the carriage’s path. He should have heard the hooves. Instead, there was silence. A light, bright silence such as one might experience on a crisp winter’s morning. The world seemed held in ice, the air clear about him. There, as he turned his head to where he knew she would be, stood Anna. Bowman was flooded with relief. At last, once more, he could see her face. The slope of her nose enticed him, the arch of her brow beguiled him. It was as if he beheld her for the first time. From across the road, she dazzled. In her eyes he saw the world and every possibility it might afford.

  In a moment, he was in a house he did not recognise, sitting in an armchair that he sensed was his favourite. A fire blazed beside him and, on his lap, he held a child. A beautiful boy gurgled up at him, his eyes full of wonder. The child reached up for Bowman’s moustache and tweaked it playfully between his chubby fingers. Bowman smiled. He felt such love for the child that he could not doubt but that it was his son. And then he smelled her perfume.

  “Be gentle!”

  Anna sat on the arm of his chair, her skirts arranged about her. Reaching out, she took a tender hold of
the child and lifted him into her arms. “Let’s leave your father to his thoughts,” she said, gently. “Time for bed.” She kissed the infant on his forehead, glancing back at her husband with such a look of love that Bowman caught his breath.

  “Hello, George.”

  He was back on the roadside. Anna stood opposite, unmoving. For a moment, Bowman was fearful she would step into the road, unleashing a chain of events to unfold as they always had. But not this time. The world had stopped. There was no carriage. No shot had been fired.

  “Anna,” he breathed. He lived within the confines of that little word. He placed it on a table to complete a jigsaw and he was whole. He had forgotten how it felt to be complete. “Anna,” he said again. “I am sorry.”

  She nodded, slowly. “Me too.”

  The grass grew long here, and Bowman traced his fingers along a stem, releasing the seed from the palm of his hand into the breeze. He could hear the river gurgling nearby and, turning, he saw them. The young girl hitched her skirt above her knees, laughing gaily as she splashed the water towards her older brother.

  “A rainbow!” She squealed in delight as the summer sun arced through the spray, leaving a daub of colour in its wake. Their joy was unconfined. The young boy waded through the water with a stone, a flick of his hand sending it skimming to the other bank.

  “Did you see?” he giggled, turning to Bowman in triumph.

  “I saw,” he heard himself say. “Well done!”

  The girl flashed him a gap-toothed smile. Her hair was lighter and curlier, but the curve of her neck and the slope of her nose marked her out as her mother’s daughter.

  “A penny for your thoughts?”

  He felt a hand curl around his, warm and inviting. Anna stood beside him, watching their children at play. He noticed the fine tracery of laughter lines around her eyes and a fleck of silver in her hair. He reached up to hook it behind her ears.

  “If I could live in a moment forever,” he said, quietly. “I would choose this one.”

  “Oh, George,” she laughed, smoothing his frown gently beneath her thumb. “Nothing lasts forever.”

  Bowman caught his breath, aware the scene was fading. “Can I stay here?”

  He was back on Hanbury Street, caught between moments.

  Anna shook her head, sadly. “You know you can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You are sick, George.” Her eyes were wide with concern. “You are broken.”

  Bowman was full of pain. “I cannot live without you.”

  He was old now, older than he had ever expected to be. The fire crackled and spat before him. He knew he did not have long. Drifting in and out of sleep, he felt her hand upon his shoulder. Her face was lined about the eyes and mouth, her almond eyes a rheumy blue. Her hair, a steely grey now, was tied back behind her head. Her lips were as full as they had ever been. She lifted a hand to his face, smoothing his moustache. Bowman’s breath was coming in fitful gasps. She looked deep into his eyes as if to find some connection there. He swam in her gaze. He wanted to speak. Shifting in his chair, he licked his lips.

  “I am here, George,” she soothed. “What is it?”

  His voice cracked as he spoke. “My god,” he began, the words stilted and raw. He held her face in his hands, marvelling for a moment at the translucent quality of the skin stretched over his knuckles. Leaning forward to rest his forehead on hers, he felt her skin against his. He gasped for breath. The fire was fading, the room growing cold.

  “My god,” he said as tears pricked at her eyes. “You are beautiful.”

  Bowman’s eyes snapped open. The swaying of the carriage confused him for a moment. The air felt chilled, the light fading. Feeling the straps around his body, holding him fast against the wooden bench beneath, he struggled to make sense of his surroundings. He was in motion, that much was certain. His heart raced and his mind whirled. He could not settle on a single, coherent thought. He was both here and not here. He could hear the sound of horses” hooves and somehow, in his confusion, reasoned he was being taken somewhere. He grasped for meaning. His sense of self abandoned him and Bowman felt his lungs fill with air. Feeling a pressure behind his eyes as if his head would burst, he gave himself to the swell of his grief. Heavy tears traced their course down the sides of his head. He wept until he was empty, slept, then wept some more.

  At last, he sensed the carriage was slowing. Bringing his horses to a halt, the driver rapped at the wooden sides of the dray to be sure he was awake. A cold terror gripped Bowman by the heart. It squeezed and squeezed as if every drop of life would be taken from him. He already knew where he was. He heard footsteps around the side of the carriage, the unsteady gait of one who has been too long seated. With a grunt, the driver released the bolts that secured the wooden door to the rear of the dray. Bowman lifted his head to see beyond the awning.

  The building loomed before him. Bowman opened his mouth to scream, flexing his limbs against the leather straps that secured him.

  “Careful now,” the driver called, a note of fear in his voice. “Don’t make it worse for yourself.”

  As Cooper stood aside to accept the help of the two men who had joined him from the imposing entrance beyond, Bowman was afforded a full view of the building before him. There, crouching low on the drive as if poised in anticipation of its new arrival, stood Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum.

  ~

  End Note.

  To live a village life in Victorian Britain was to live a life concerned with the basics. There was a shift throughout the nineteenth century towards greater industrialisation and urban living, which saw many rural workers out of work. The enclosure of land led to unemployment and hardship for many farmers, particularly where a rent was paid to the local country estate. As with Lord Melville in The Body In The Trees, the landowner would provide land for the tenant farmer who is then bound to provide his labour. By the nineteenth century, nine out of every ten acres of farmed land in England and Wales was tenanted. Farm labourers lived in small, overcrowded cottages, spending most of their wages on rent and food.

  Under such harsh conditions, suicide or ‘self-murder’ amongst agricultural workers was by no means uncommon. In fact, it was far more common that homicide. As the century drew on, however, attempts were made to understand the phenomena as something more than an agitated state of mind. Sociological and financial matters were considered to be of import and, although a stigma remained, the English criminal justice system largely abandoned a punitive approach towards the act of suicide. Whilst the bodies of those who committed suicide were no longer buried at cross-roads (in the belief that any resurrected spirit would be confused by which direction to take) it was not unheard of that burial within Holy ground should not be admitted.

  The fictional village of Larton is based on Cookham in Berkshire, a village in which I lived for almost twenty years; so much so that, should the reader ever visit, they might well recognise certain landmarks from The Body In The Trees. Like Larton, it sits on the Thames and is made up of three disparate parts; the Village, Cookham Rise and Cookham Dean. Unlike Larton, the inhabitants are welcoming and friendly to a fault.

  Richard James, April 2020

  SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER

  If you enjoyed the third book in my Bowman Of The Yard series, The Body In The Trees, why not subscribe to my newsletter? You’ll be the first to hear all the latest news about Bowman Of The Yard - and I’ll send you some free short stories from Bowman’s Casebook!

  Just visit my website bowmanoftheyard.co.uk for more information. You can also search for and “like” Bowman Of The Yard on Facebook and join the conversation. I would love to hear your thoughts.

  Finally, I would appreciate it if you could leave me a review on Amazon. Reviews mean a lot to writers, and they’re a great way to reach new readers.

  Thanks for reading The Body In The Trees!

  Richard

  Body in the Trees