The Way, the Truth and the Dead

by Francis Pryor

  ‘That sounds unfortunate.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Alan lowered his voice. He was surrounded by Cripps family members. ‘Surely, family splits are never easy to live with, are they?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Barty smiled. ‘It was never like that. We knew why John and Candice felt as they did, and they could see why we didn’t want to join them. But we all knew we’d come to some arrangement in time. Sarah played an important part. She could see that HPM knew what they were doing and were highly experienced. She also appreciated that they could lay their hands on capital. And all of these things matter if you’re to run a successful visitor attraction.’

  Alan also detected Barty’s calming hand at work here.

  ‘So you all think that it’s time to hand the day-to-day management of Fursey over to them?’

  ‘We do. And Blake has proved a huge success with the staff and volunteers here at Fursey.’

  Alan had met Blake Lonsdale, HPM’s very successful and hands-on CEO, who took an active role in the management of White Delphs. He remembered his matching suit and Bentley and had been immediately impressed by his manner. He could see that he knew what he was doing and where the company should be heading. He was a businessman to his fingertips. Alan also knew from the notice board at White Delphs that HPM’s head offices were in east London, and the man himself had the stage Cockney’s bright, humorous directness. Alan, like everyone else at Fursey, had been completely won over by him.

  ‘They’ve certainly introduced a lot of practical improvements.’

  ‘Yes,’ Barty replied. ‘And more to the point they can lay their hands on the capital sums needed, too. You’ll be amazed by the improvements we’ll be seeing in the next few weeks here.’

  * * *

  Alan was returning to the table from the buffet carrying a plate of venison casserole, when Candice called across.

  ‘Come over here and sit with us, Alan.’

  It was an instruction, not a request.

  She moved one chair to the left and Alan sat down between her, John and Sarah. A few moments later Peter Flower took a seat on her other side. They began the main course with a few words of praise for the food. Alan had never really enjoyed venison, which was usually either too rich or too gamey, but this was superb.

  ‘It’s muntjac,’ John told him. Recently muntjac deer had reached his brother Grahame’s farm in the Lincolnshire fens, where they had decimated his vegetable garden in one night. Alan had always thought of them merely as a pest, but now he felt rather differently. Out of politeness he was about to ask Candice about the sauce, but noticed she was deep in conversation with Peter Flower. So he started to discuss the decision to bring in HPM to handle the day-to-day management at Fursey.

  Before he could say anything, though, Sarah spoke. ‘Aren’t they delicious?’ she said, pointing at the venison steaks.

  ‘Yes, they are.’ Alan took another mouthful. He was about to discuss the taste of the meat, but then he remembered: you must be more proactive, less observational. Move the conversation to them: ‘Do they come from the estate?’

  It was hardly the Spanish Inquisition, but it was a start. And it worked. Sort of.

  ‘I’m trying to persuade Sebastian to start farming them. But he isn’t too keen. Wants to grow things – which would be fine if prices weren’t so unstable. I think it’s essential to diversify. A few hundred muntjac in a purpose-built barn could well be the way forward. It wouldn’t prevent him from growing oilseed rape or wheat, now, would it?’

  John, and now Candice, were listening. Alan could see their ­sympathies were with Sarah, not her husband.

  ‘And how do you feel about diversification?’ Alan asked John.

  ‘Well, actually,’ he replied, ‘when it comes to tourism, as opposed to farming, I’m more in favour of integration than diversification. Our long-term goal is to integrate the Abbey and White Delphs. That’s the only way we will ever persuade visitors to spend a full weekend out here, at Fursey.’

  ‘So you’re planning a hotel as well?’ Alan enquired.

  ‘Yes, we’re currently thinking about building an extension onto the Cripps Arms, but so far planning aren’t being very helpful. They seem to think it would be out of character in a rural village.’

  Alan didn’t have much time for bureaucrats either, but for once he was glad they were there.

  ‘I suppose that’s only to be expected, isn’t it?’

  ‘And dear brother Sebastian also isn’t being particularly helpful.’ He took a long drink and refilled his glass. He lowered his voice, then continued: ‘He’s a councillor, dammit. You’d have thought he could use a bit of influence to help out the family.’ Alan could see the wine was going to his head. ‘But, no, he told Candice that for once he agrees with the planners.’ He took another drink. ‘Can’t understand him. Just can’t.’ He sighed loudly. ‘Ah well, that’s brothers for you.’

  The rest of the ‘conversation’ with John was one-sided and hard work. Why was Sebastian being so seemingly un-­cooperative? Candice would know. So he tried to intervene, but she remained deep in conversation with Flower. After a bit, Alan gave up the unequal struggle and helped himself to some more wine. What the hell – and he didn’t have to drive home. He looked across the table. Frank Jones was discussing something very earnestly with Barty, who was looking slightly shell-shocked; at the other end Tricia was listening politely to Sebastian, but Alan could see by her fixed smile that she was being bored stiff. Then for a brief, charged moment their eyes met. Immediately they both looked away.

  Alan was about to make another attempt to converse with John, when his idle gaze was caught by the two bottles of very unusual vintage port that stood alongside the decanters that now held their contents. The small labels on the back bore the very distinctive coat-of-arms of Fisher College, ­Cambridge.

  * * *

  Tricia was standing by the sideboard helping herself to home-made mulberry flan and ice cream. She leant close to Alan and whispered under her breath, ‘Your turn, Alan.’

  ‘OK,’ he sighed resignedly, spooning thick clotted cream onto his slice of flan.

  Deftly, Tricia handed Sebastian over to Alan, then made her escape.

  ‘Alan, I’m so glad we’ve managed to catch up. I thought Candice’s musical chairs would mean we’d pass like ships in the night.’

  Alan smiled: he always enjoyed a good mixed metaphor. Maybe with a few sharp nudges Sebastian could be tempted to reveal rather more than his wife or Candice. Alan framed a leading question, but Sebastian got in before he had a chance to speak.

  ‘When I came round with the councillors on Saturday, you told us that the Roman layers continued out into the fen. That intrigued me because, as you know, Stan had told me something similar. So are you more convinced now that he was right?’

  ‘Well, we haven’t discovered anything new, if that’s what you mean?’

  ‘What, not even with those exciting new Libor images.’

  Alan smiled. Sebastian had a unique way with words.

  ‘No, and sadly we can’t manipulate them either.’

  The weak topical joke was for his own benefit entirely and Alan immediately felt slightly ashamed of himself. But he needn’t have worried, it had passed Sebastian by completely.

  ‘Really? You can’t even enhance them?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Alan said. ‘We can do that sort of thing, but we can’t get them to show anything that isn’t actually above the surface of the ground. You mustn’t confuse Lidar with geophysics – although lots of people do.’

  ‘So the – what did you call it? – Lidar only works down to the edge of the fen?’

  ‘Sort of. That’s where we stop discovering new things. Once the alluvium and fen deposits get too thick, everything buried beneath them remains hidden.’

  ‘And that’s still the situation?’

  Alan hesitated, but decided not to tell him about geo­physics. He wanted Sebastian to speak, not himself. �
��That’s right.’

  Sebastian thought this over. Then his face brightened up. ‘Now tell me about the bodies,’ he asked eagerly. ‘What happens next?’

  * * *

  After the meal, the ladies withdrew and the gentlemen drank port. Alan couldn’t believe that such things still happened, but secretly he rather enjoyed being a part of it – and the port was to die for. After less than half an hour John suggested that they rejoin the ladies. Alan could see he wasn’t entirely at home acting like a Victorian country gent. And by then Alan, too, was starting to feel a little uncomfortable: it was so anachronistic; he felt they ought to have been wearing starched white collars and tailcoats.

  When they entered the drawing room they discovered Tricia, Candice and Sarah sitting on two sofas in front of the huge fireplace, complete with their own bottle of port, plus a box of dark chocolate peppermint creams from ­Charbonnel et Walker. Alan smiled to himself: had he really expected Haribo?

  ‘Alan, come over here.’ Candice summoned him to her, for the second time that evening. ‘And bring over a chair.’

  Alan did as he was bid, and sat down opposite Candice and Tricia, each of whom had reclined decoratively at either end of the large sofa. There would have been space for two Alans between them. Tricia proffered Alan her glass.

  ‘Do be a dear, Alan, I’m positively parched.’

  She gave him a wonderful smile and he topped her glass up, pouring himself one in the process.

  ‘Tell me, Alan,’ Candice asked. ‘How long do we have to wait before we know more about the bodies?’

  For a second Alan couldn’t believe his ears. This was like the worst blockbuster thriller, the murderer brazenly challenging his – or in this case – her investigator. But then he realised, of course, what they were talking about. The bones from the dig. And Harriet. He hoped his expression had not given away his thoughts.

  ‘I’ve worked with Dr Webb before, and I can tell you, she really knows what she’s doing, and when she gets going she works quite fast. It’s all about confidence—’

  ‘Oh, so you know her?’ Tricia broke in.

  ‘Yes, we worked on the same project almost two years ago.’

  Despite the conviviality, the warm fire and the three glasses of port, Alan couldn’t help blushing. He turned away to top-up his almost-full glass. He was now furious with himself.

  * * *

  Alan slipped away from the post-dinner drinks and somehow found his way upstairs to the bedroom Candice had shown him to earlier that evening. He thought he would have no trouble sleeping, but although his body felt tired, his mind continued to work. That question of Sebastian’s worried him: ‘So the Lidar only works down to the edge of the fen?’ Was Sebastian trying to tell him something? Or were his words a thinly disguised warning: stay off my land if you know what’s good for you? Or again, was he interested in what actually lay below the ground, but was ashamed to admit it? And then there was Candice: as friendly as ever, but this evening she seemed to have eyes for one man only. And it wasn’t her husband. No, Peter Flower seemed to have his feet very comfortably under the table.

  He looked at his phone to set the wake-up call, but saw the battery was very low. So he turned it off. Time for Mother Nature’s daylight alarm. He took off his clothes, turned off the light and made his way over to the window, where he pulled back the heavy, lined curtains. He eased the sash window down an inch or two and felt the cool night air fall lightly into the room. Outside it was clear, with a near-full moon, whose pale light was reflected back off the frosty lawns. Across the gardens the abbey ruins looked serene and timeless. For a lingering moment, Alan was captured by the beauty of the scene before him. Then suddenly he heard something in the room behind him.

  He turned round and stared in horror as the door handle slowly turned. Suddenly he realised he was very scared. Could the person who had killed Stan now want him out of the way too? He took a step into the shadows of the hanging curtain and watched. But the slim figure who slipped silently into the room was not intent on malice. The moonlight was on the floor and back wall and did not illuminate the bed, as she tiptoed across the carpet towards it. For a second she paused, then she slipped off her dressing gown.

  Tricia was standing in the moonlight, wearing nothing at all. Alan had never seen such a perfect figure.

  * * *

  Mother Nature’s alarm did the trick and Alan was wide awake just before seven. Tricia lay snuggled up alongside him, her hair spread across the pillow. Alan looked down at her. Even without the heavy make-up she wore during filming, her delicate face was still very beautiful, in fact, Alan thought, even more beautiful without it.

  The curtains moved, as outside a light breeze got up. Alan could hear the faint sound of a powerful diesel as a tractor began its new working week somewhere in the fen, out ­Chatteris way. And he had to return to work, too. Reality was returning, and with it a sense of guilt, or was it shame? He felt as if he had betrayed Harriet – and himself. Or had he? Wasn’t it she who wanted things between them to be ‘professional’ from now on? He looked at Tricia beside him. She stirred. His gaze moved from her face: her hands were beautiful too and she still wore a sparkly evening watch. Then the guilt returned – and lingered, as he knew it would. The tiny hands of the watch showed five to seven. Time to get going.

  Quietly Alan reached up onto the bedside table and fumbled for his phone. He didn’t want to wake her. He pressed the on switch and waited while it searched for a signal. A new text message flashed up, and Alan quickly selected it, as the battery warning light was now flashing. DCI Richard Lane had sent it at 5.08 this morning.

  Alan just had time to read: Phone me ASAP. Thorey found in river at Denver.

  Then the screen went dead.

  Part 3

  Facing the Dead

  Fifteen

  Alan loved Denver Sluice. Its massive green-painted steel gates and wide embanked artificial channels were the ultimate symbol of man’s prolonged and continuing struggle to dominate nature. This was engineering that made a real difference to people’s lives: without Denver, not only would large areas of eastern England flood, but east London’s water supply would fail and of course supermarkets right across Britain would rapidly run out of salad greens and vegetables, which were grown in their tens of thousands of tons in the southern Fenlands.

  Denver was the complex of water-courses and sluices that regulated the outfall of the rivers of the Great Ouse system into the shallow waters of The Wash. It was all about retaining river flood water in huge collection areas, also known as washes, and then releasing them out to sea when the tides were low enough. If the floods coincided with a period of unusually high tides, as happened in springtime, the results could be catastrophic: like in 1947, when 10,000 homes were damaged, and 1953, when over 300 people died.

  In its strange, open, unearthly way, Alan had always found Denver just as moving and spiritually uplifting as Ely Cathedral, which would revert to a remote island abbey if the great gates at Denver failed, and he could never come here without emotion. This vast landscape was so fragile: disaster lay in the strength of a sluice; one of the towers at Ely Cathedral had collapsed because the footings gave way. Fortunes had been made and lost on the rise or fall of water levels and not just in times of flood, either. The waters below the ground were even more crucial, as poor Sebastian had learnt to his cost. The land he farmed would always be second best and he would never be able to grow a crop that was really profitable: no salads, no vegetables, no cut flowers. For a moment Alan found himself sympathising: it must be so frustrating – and with the good land around Isle Farm, which the family had once owned, within sight. But that was the Fens for you: one dyke was all it took to separate the best from the merely second-rate.

  On this unexpected visit to Denver, his natural respect for the place and all that it stood for, was enhanced by a feeling of profound concern. As he had driven along the Great Ouse itself, and over the banks of the many tributaries
, dykes, delphs and engine drains that fed into it, he pondered what he would find when he met Lane. The body itself would probably have been removed, but the cause of death? Accidental? Probably – or at least, he thought, that’s what it would seem. But the reality: what would that prove to be? By now he had no doubts at all: Thorey’s death was more than one too many. And as for the Curse of the Cripps? Barty was wrong, it was far from over. It was being used. Someone was deliberately manipulating the superstitions to fuel the family’s bad reputation. He was 100 per cent certain of that.

  * * *

  The uniformed sergeant took Alan’s details, and entered them into the Scene of Crime log. Then they stepped out of the mobile unit and walked along the bank to the small sluice that managed day-to-day river flows in quiet weather. DCI Lane was waiting for him.

  Before his friend could speak, Alan had to ask, ‘Don’t tell me, Richard, it was an accident?’

  ‘No, Alan.’ He smiled. ‘For once you’re wrong. I’m afraid it was suicide.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ Alan was genuinely astonished. ‘But Thorey was a big, loud-mouthed …’ Suddenly he realised they were talking about a dead person. Some respect at least was needed.

  ‘Yob?’ Lane suggested with a quizzical look.

  ‘Well, perhaps that’s a bit strong. The thing is, I first met him at Stan’s wake and he was extraordinarily rude to ­Candice: very self-assertive. I just don’t see him as the kind of person with the sensitivity to take his own life.’

  Briefly Alan had a strong sense of déjà vu. They’d had almost exactly the same conversation beside the Mill Cut when Stan had died.

  ‘So you’re suggesting somebody else stuffed his jacket pockets full of bricks and pushed him into the water? And don’t forget, he was a big man. Just over six foot two.’