Miss Seeton Flies High (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 23)

by Hamilton Crane

  “I had thought,” said Miss Seeton, “of visiting the Abbey first, as it is closer, and also to see the tomb, or rather the site of the tomb, of King Arthur and Guinevere.” She explained the reasons for her interest, and Miss McConchie’s eyes gleamed.

  “Friends of the Abbey Ruins!” She jumped to her feet and hurried to the large pine dresser that stood against one wall. From the left-hand drawer she retrieved a bundle of raffle ticket booklets. “Everyone who stays here has to buy at least one,” she said, “or their breakfast toast is charcoal, I promise you.” Miss Seeton returned the landlady’s mischievous threat with a smile. “It’s for a good cause, preserving and maintaining the Abbey ruins—and a book of ten tickets costs the price of nine singles, so you get one free. There are some splendid prizes, too. Just look.”

  Miss Seeton accepted one of the raffle-ticket books and studied the list. “Certainly,” she agreed, feeling even more at home than ever. Plummergen, just like Glastonbury, would in a good cause cheerfully tempt the charitable with a pair of tickets for a Mystery Coach Tour, or a bottle of whisky; a hamper of groceries, or a rich Dundee cake; a meal for two at a well-known hostelry (she was pleased to see that Glastonbury also had its George) or a feather cushion in a crazy patchwork slipcover. But ...

  “A ride in a hot air balloon,” she breathed. “Good gracious. How very unusual—and how interesting it would be to view the earth from so different an aspect. Some time ago a small aeroplane flew over my village and took photographs, which we were given the chance to buy, but an aeroplane flies so much higher and faster than one supposes a balloon would do, and some of the houses were hardly ... distinct.” She paused. Her own dear cottage had seemed so insignificant, from the air. “One could, of course, charter—if that is the word—a helicopter, as they can hover, but as far as I know the chance to ride in a balloon is rare, unless one happens to know somebody who owns one.”

  “Vincent Weaver,” said Miss McConchie at once. “His father is Weaver’s Consolidated Northern Industrials. Our Vince will tell you he used to be quite a tearaway until he grew up, and came to his senses, and came here. He hang-glides as well, but he prefers the balloon. Like your aeroplane, he takes photos—he can afford the best equipment, and he knows how to use it. You may have noticed his work when I showed you your room.” Miss Seeton had indeed wondered about the creator of such splendid images. Miss McConchie continued to enthuse. “Elongated shadows at sunrise and sunset, flocks of birds in the nature reserve, huge murmurations of starlings in the autumn, reflections of light from ditches and rhynes.” She pronounced this last as reens and explained, in answer to Miss Seeton’s query, that rhynes are the major drainage channels for the peat moors and levels of Somerset, the first phase having been begun by thirteenth-century monks, to be followed by further work in the 1700s, and again after the Second World War.

  “It looks like a huge patchwork quilt, from the air,” went on Miss McConchie. “Squares and oblongs in different shades of green, all joined together by strips of silver.”

  “Sashing,” murmured Miss Seeton, but Miss McConchie did not hear.

  “There’s one of his prints in each bedroom as well as up the stairs. A local craft shop sells them on his behalf and donates ten per cent to charity—which reminds me,” she added, brandishing the rest of the raffle tickets in the direction of the one book held by Miss Seeton. “Are you tempted?”

  Miss Seeton recalled the landlady’s earlier threat, and smiled. “Dear me, as I don’t care at all for burned toast, and you have made me so welcome that I really shouldn’t wish to move to a different hotel, I will certainly buy, now let me see ...” She opened her handbag to find her purse.

  Lyn McConchie smiled back, deliberately misunderstanding. “A different hotel? You mean bigger? I’d love to expand, but the house next door, which would have been perfect, was rented out right under my nose before I even knew it was on the market. So I still have no more than five rooms, which means ten people at most, and there are plenty of singles, like you—not that I mind,” as Miss Seeton began to frame an apology. “Not at all. I enjoy meeting my guests and making new friends, but ...” She sighed. “I could have taken down part of the fence at the back and built a little walkway with a roof for when it rained, which would save having to knock holes in the dividing wall—but there it is, I missed my chance.” She fixed Miss Seeton with a stern eye. “But you mustn’t miss yours, Miss Seeton. How many raffle tickets would you like?”

  After this pleasant transaction had been concluded the tea-cups were refilled, more cake was cut, and Miss McConchie proceeded to advise her guest of what else she must be sure to see after her visit to the Abbey ruins. She explained that her stock of tourist leaflets was not extensive, space being limited, and suggested a visit to one of the local bookshops. “Bedivere Books is the closest, halfway up the High Street near the church, on the same side. You can’t miss it.”

  She saw Miss Seeton’s twinkle of amusement. “You really can’t,” she insisted. “It has a sort of balustrade thingy—a decorated line of hollow stone triangles, right across the top. She stocks a fair selection of guide books, as well as the more ...” She hesitated. “The more unorthodox sort, for hippies and suchlike—people on the fringes of logic, with quaint ideas.” She laughed. “I once walked up the High Street and overheard a tourist say to her companion, '‘Isn’t there anybody normal in this place?’ and I could have told her, all right! Don’t be surprised to see people wandering about in long robes and beads, or if you catch a whiff of incense from shop doorways. The Flower Power generation never lost a single one of its petals in Glastonbury, believe me!”

  A tall, rangy, fair young man sporting a wispy beard, with a braided headband holding back tangled hair that brushed slim shoulders, drifted from the bench where he had been sitting to enjoy the sunshine, threw away the half-smoked aromatic cigarette on which he had been puffing, and climbed gracefully into the bus that wheezed to a halt at the nearby stop. He bought his ticket, commented unfavourably on the capitalist system, and dropped heavily on a seat as the driver told him he could always walk there and back if he wanted, couldn’t he? The young man leaned against the seat, closing his eyes as if still dreaming of summer. The bus rattled on its way. The young man waited thirty seconds and then opened his eyes.

  “Sheep,” he muttered to himself, closing them again with a shudder. “Cows. Fields, hedges, wide blasted open spaces ...”

  His eloquence was even greater once he had left the bus in the neighbouring town of Street, and ambled down a side road to a public telephone box standing out of the general sight. Here, he could let his sentiments rip—and did. “Talk about the ruddy sticks, sir,” he summed up his miserable situation to the voice of authority at the other end of the line. “Huge great cows with shaggy red coats and enormous horns—”

  “Highland cattle,” interposed Authority, as eloquence failed and the young man drew breath. “On Wearyall Hill—they’re famous, remember?”

  “And sheep,” moaned the young man, who, announcing himself as Detective Sergeant Brumby, had been put straight through to Authority by the switchboard. “If it isn’t cows—beg pardon, cattle—it’s sheep. They both eat grass, so it’s all the same to me. And birds—you can’t believe the racket birds make in the country!”

  “No worse than the racket your generation makes with its pop concerts,” countered Detective Superintendent Snowe of the Drugs Squad. “When you’re safely back I’ll see about fixing you a transfer to Mr. Kebby’s lot. He’s not too keen on nature, either.”

  Dick Brumby spluttered, but was ignored by Superintendent Snowe, whose fuse could be short. “Right, you’ve had your moan, now let’s have your news. Anything doing?”

  “I’m not sure, sir.” Sergeant Brumby knew how far his superior could be pushed.

  “Why not? Have you been spotted?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve hung around a few likely places and met a few likely types, though it doesn’t go beyond sh
aring the odd joint when they’re in what you could call party mood. I’ve dropped one or two hints, but nobody’s offered to supply me or introduce me to anyone—but they’re not giving me the cold shoulder or trying to chase me out of town, either.”

  “They do say incomers are suspect for a lifetime, in the country,” Snowe informed him brightly. “You can call me back in twenty or thirty years’ time—say, around the turn of the new millennium.”

  “Ha bloody ha, sir,” retorted Brumby. “With respect,” he added, just in case, though he had heard Snowe’s wicked chuckle at the other end of the line. “But what I have noticed is a house that seems rather too busy for its boots. Visitors of all shapes and sizes, but more or less the same sort, if you get me.”

  “Our sort,” said the Drug Squad chief quickly.

  “I think so, sir. From what I can gather, the house belonged to an old lady—last of her family, lived there for generations, died a few months back. The place never got on the open market, but someone bought it and rented it out ...”

  “Curtains closed at the windows? Lights on day and night?”

  “No, sir. I don’t think it’s a cannabis factory. I’d say it was the end of a supply chain, where you’d go to get your own fix and collect enough stuff to sell on to other idiots willing to pay the price, so that you yourself could pay for your next fix.”

  “A very vicious circle,” growled Snowe. “Stupidity, dependence, greed.” He snorted. “That the only lead you have? Nothing about what got dumped the other day and sent those sheep off their heads?”

  “Only people saying it was a bit of a laugh and a waste of good weed. And hoping the better stuff shows up before long, but not an idea when it will, or where it’ll come from.”

  “Just your over-busy house, then. I wonder the neighbours haven’t reported it to the local cop shop. Neighbours generally spot unusual behaviour.”

  “And like to mind their own business, sir—or are far too busy themselves to notice.”

  “Or too scared,” added Snowe. “What sort of area is it? Narrow streets, concrete gardens, broken windows?”

  “Corner shop and des.res. mostly, sir. The neighbouring house to one side has been converted to bedsits, mostly students from the local college. Extra people wandering about would really have to stand out to be noticed. The other side’s a small guest-house, landlady and a couple of part-timers, rushed off their feet half the time and putting their feet up the other half, at a guess.”

  “Too busy to notice,” Snowe agreed. “Whoever chose the place, if you’re right about what’s going on, chose it well. I’d wonder about some of our own lads, the ones who keep doing the vanish-and-reappear act, but of course they’d have to be tipped off by someone with local knowledge. I wonder how the word got about the place was empty? A crooked solicitor? A dodgy estate agent? Or might it be squatters?”

  “It might. I haven’t looked too closely at the locks, but if they’re new—or if there’s any sign of broken windows—”

  “Don’t get too close,” warned the superintendent. “Discretion, Brumby. Find out what you can without risking being seen. If anyone from the Smoke’s involved, at least we could stand a chance of bagging them even if the super-powered stuff you were meant to be after proves too elusive. Keep a watchful eye on things—and keep the other eye open for familiar faces, while you’re watching.”

  Miss Seeton, with her bag and umbrella over one arm, with her sensible shoes and respectable tweeds marking her out as a tourist—only her hat struck that note of creative individuality for which Glastonbury is famed—walked with great interest up the High Street hill. So much to see, though less about King Arthur than she had expected. She now understood what Miss McConchie meant about unorthodox. Shops on both sides of the road displayed in their windows jewellery and gemstones, amulets, star charts and packs of Tarot cards. There were crystal balls for scrying; there were cauldrons, there were mysterious glass bottles with elaborate stoppers, there were books about witchcraft. There were candles in every size, shape—some very strange shapes indeed—and colour. There were shops selling statuettes of wizards and elves, of The Goddess, The Mother, The Green Man; there were shops selling costumes, robes, pointed hats and glittering crowns. It was all somewhat overwhelming, like the occasional whiff of incense on the gentle breeze. And—dear me—Miss Seeton’s nose twitched—perhaps some other substances, as well. But not exactly unpleasant, in the way oil paints and cleaner fluids could be. Miss Seeton sneezed just once, and blinked.

  It was a relief to reach Bedivere Books at last.

  “Good gracious.” There on the threshold, eyes glowing, tail curled, sat Hodge—no, now she looked more closely, not Hodge, but a very close resemblance. Plummergen’s Tibs had notoriously loose morals, and after two illicit and productive unions had been denied the opportunity for a third. Could her progeny have travelled from Kent to Somerset? It seemed unlikely. “Excuse me,” said Miss Seeton, and stepped carefully around the large, disdainful feline figure into the bookshop.

  “Don’t mind Graymalkin,” called a woman’s voice from above. Miss Seeton looked up to see a tall, willowy woman in sandals, a long caftan, several strings of beads and a necklace of tiny bells standing on a step-stool, busy shelving an assortment of volumes with bright covers. “He’s friendly enough—he doesn’t bite, or scratch—but he can be a bit standoffish sometimes, and this is one of them.”

  Miss Seeton recalled the comments of Miss McConchie. “Just like Hodge,” she said. The willowy woman pushed the last book into place and jumped down, her hair drifting out from her headband in an explosion of gossamer blonde.

  “You’re staying at the Farside Hotel,” she deduced. “Hodge is some sort of cousin to Graymalkin. They’re often mistaken for each other. Did Lyn send you here? She’s a star. Octavia Callender, by the way, in case she mentioned my name, and this is my shop. Do you want anything in particular, or shall I leave you to browse?”

  She contemplated Miss Seeton, who was gazing about her with interest at some of the more blatant titles ranged around the various display units and shelves. “At a guess, you’re after a guidebook. Over here.” She placed a gentle arm on Miss Seeton’s shoulder and steered her to a set of shelves beside the till. “Anything else you want, just ask.”

  Miss Seeton smiled her thanks, and began to browse. A book with photographs, she had decided, and certainly with a reliable index, though nothing too bulky ... Octavia settled herself behind the counter, repositioned a green glass vase of tissue-paper flowers, and set about unpacking the next layer from a large, half-empty box of books on the floor. She began cross-checking one title after another against a list on flimsy paper, marking them in pencil, a slight frown between her brows as she concentrated.

  “Move, you.” The voice from outside the shop was male, and peevish. A thick-set man in late middle age trod stiffly into Bedivere Books to confront the owner as she rose from her chair to face him, with a smile, across the counter.

  “I’ve read those books you sold me the other day,” he informed Octavia in a voice Miss Seeton, disturbed from her browsing, felt held a challenge, if not a direct accusation, though of what and for what reason she had no idea. Was it not, after all, the job of a bookshop owner to sell books?

  “The whole thing is nonsense,” said the middle-aged man. “I thought it would be!”

  Miss Seeton’s quick ears thought she heard a sigh from Miss Callender, quickly stifled.

  “Not so much nonsense, perhaps, as something seen from a different point of view,” said Octavia. “A very different point of view, I agree,” at which the middle-aged man snorted, “but many people believe in the Zodiac, and say they can see it—only, in the same way some people are tone deaf, not everyone is in tune with the necessary vibes. With the natural sympathies of the landscape.”

  “Natural poppycock!” snapped the middle-aged man. “This Maltwood female said she had a vision of a supremely important mystic secret that had been kept hidd
en for hundreds if not thousands of years. Well,” and he leaned forward, wincing, to fix Octavia with a stern glare, “if these secrets were so important, why write books telling everyone about them?”

  “The Age of Aquarius was about to dawn. The time was at last right for their revelation to the world,” said Octavia.

  “Time? The very word, young woman! I’ve been to your Museum. I’ve read all about the archaeological digs, I’ve seen the Lake Village finds. They date from the Iron Age, not more than a couple of hundred years BC at the very earliest. Until then, the Lake Village swamp was never anything but sea! At the very time Katherine Maltwood said the ancients were mapping out the constellations of a giant Zodiac on the ground, more than half that ground was under water!”

  His face was turning red. Octavia reached to pull a tissue flower from the green glass vase, and held it out. “Peace, my friend,” she said kindly as he automatically took the delicate stem from her hand. “Just cool it. Open your mind and let the flowers bring you peace, as the negative vibrations fade away.”

  “Mrs. Maltwood,” he persisted in a marginally less aggrieved tone, “couldn’t even make up her mind about when these ancients were supposed to have laid the figures out. In one book she says it was two thousand seven hundred years BC, but in the next book she takes off a full seven hundred years!”

  “Her calculations were refined as her researches progressed,” countered Octavia.

  “If it’s genuine, an inspired vision ought to be accurate the first time, young woman.” He tossed the flower down on the counter and dusted his hands, drawing a deep breath. “Then along comes some other woman and starts to refine, as you call it, the Maltwood figures to her own design—and even draws one of them completely the other way round!”

  “Scorpio,” murmured Octavia, but he rushed on.

  “Scorpio? According to these Zodiac people the original Scorpio was twice the size, and made smaller later to accommodate Libra—and what kind of astronomer, astrologer, whatever you want to call the Chaldeans—what kind of person works with a system that has to divide by eleven?”