The Way, the Truth and the Dead

by Francis Pryor

  When Alan returned to his friends, he knew what their response would be to the loud-mouthed incomer. All of them, and their families, needed the extra work and business the visitors to Fursey brought in. They knew, too, that the numbers would eventually settle down and that Fursey would never become another tourists’ Jorvik, nor indeed an Ely.

  But if tension was increasing between incomers and residents who worked in the village, the older generation were not exactly relaxed, either. Alan had detected quite a strong feeling that there was indeed ‘something’ behind the Curse of the Cripps. Of course they were too polite to raise the subject with him, a close friend of one of the victims, but he was detecting references to it on a daily basis, if not more often. People of a particular age would suddenly stop talking, or would exaggeratedly change the subject, whenever he approached. But he knew what they had been discussing, nonetheless. And he also detected a certain look behind the eyes. He couldn’t be certain, of course, but he was pretty sure he was right.

  But Davey, Jake and the lads around them weren’t bothered by stupid curses. They were a genial, straightforward bunch who liked nothing better than a good laugh and plenty of beer. Alan glanced up at the clock over the fireplace. Half past nine. Suddenly he felt his phone vibrate in his shirt pocket. He pulled it out. It was Richard Lane who at once detected he was in the pub – and having a good time.

  ‘Alan, I’ve been doing a bit of background research on some of the people you mentioned when we last met.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Suddenly Alan wished his head wasn’t fuzzy after three pints of Slodger.

  ‘But I can’t discuss it over the phone – even if you hadn’t enjoyed a skinful of Old Slodger. So I was wondering whether you’d care to have lunch with us in Whittlesey tomorrow?’

  * * *

  Sunday morning was fresh, bright and breezy: a fabulous spring day, and just the time, Alan thought, for a drive across the Fens. He opened the Fourtrak’s window to let in a blast of cool air. That felt better. It eased the nagging headache that invariably followed a hard night on the Slodger.

  On a whim, he decided to point the Fourtrak in the direction of Ramsey, rather than straight north, which would be a shorter route to Lane’s house in Whittlesey. It had been a while since he’d driven across the bed of the old Whittlesey Mere. And besides, he thought, I’ve loads of time.

  As he drew closer to the old mere, the roads got increasingly uneven as the deep peats beneath them shifted and shrank. An engineer friend had said it was like building a causeway across blancmange, or custard. As he passed the mere, just south of Peterborough, Alan could see the East Coast mainline that Stevenson had floated on bundles of brushwood in the mid-19th century, just as the Romans had done with their roads, two millennia previously.

  Alan drove out of Ramsey Heights, one of the lowest-lying settlements in Britain, and was heading due north in a dead straight line. He loved that name. So very Fenny. The story went that two old boys were leaning on a gate surveying the grass in a meadow when a passing young surveyor for the first edition of the Ordnance Survey 1-inch map, asked, ‘I say, can one of you good men tell me the name of this village?’

  The nearest turned round, pushed the cap to the back of his head and slowly replied, ‘It be Ramsey Eyots.’

  He then turned back to his companion and the meadow and the surveyor departed.

  Eyots, pronounced ‘eights’ is the old word for island, but the surveyor mistook it for ‘heights’. And it stuck, immortalised by the map. Alan smiled, mistakes with place names can easily become fossilised forever, and they do matter, because they’re not just dots on maps. Towns and villages are where people live; their names are part of their sense of place and have the power to create passionate loyalties – and not just for football clubs.

  This turned Alan’s thoughts to the Penance, which was starting in just four days’ time. He was sure that it was all based on an error, but would it prove to be harmless, like Ramsey Heights? He wasn’t so sure. And as time passed he found he was feeling less and less certain. He didn’t like the word Penance – too melodramatic; it went with Curse and Retribution – but there was no other way he could describe it. No, the more he thought about it, the more he had a sense of foreboding. Religious people liked penance. It let them do what they wanted, and then they asked God to wipe the slate clean.

  Halfway across the bed of the Mere, Alan turned left and headed towards the uplands of old Huntingdonshire. It was a vast and largely open landscape. On the edges of the deep black dykes were heaps of old tree trunks, the so-called ‘bog oaks’ that were dragged up by the plough every autumn. It was a sign, of course, that the surface of this fen was still shrinking, as drainage ate away at the layers of peat. In his father’s day the bog oaks were Roman or Iron Age, today they were more likely a millennium earlier. Whittlesey Mere had been the largest body of freshwater in England before its drainage around 1850, and had partly survived because it was used as fishing, wildfowl and game reserves for great landed families, particularly the Rothschilds. He had seen photographs of their huge fishing and shooting parties. He smiled at the thought: that was how very influential people networked in the 19th century. It was strange to think that this bleak open fen with its huge and very wild birch wood had once been such an important social centre for the banking elite.

  For a moment, Alan thought again of the great stone blocks with the mason’s marks that were pushed out of barges when they grounded while on their way to Ely from the quarries at Barnack. Those marks were the medieval equivalents of brands; they were in effect ‘Keep Off’ signs. They proclaimed ownership and authority. Nobody in their right mind would have chipped or damaged them deliberately. It would have risked the wrath of God. Such fears can be very long-lived – especially in people of Faith. Maybe, Alan wondered, that was another reason why the man – or just as possibly, the men – who filled Thorey’s pockets, chose to use bricks alone?

  He was now in a hurry to get out of the deepest Black Fen. It was magnificent, yes, but it could also get him down. It was so black, so flat and sometimes, too, so oppressive. He reached the crossing over the East Coast Main Line, which was closed. Then he remembered. It was Sunday. Engineering work. He’d been stuck here previously, for ages, on a Sunday. So he did a U-turn and headed back the way he had come. Twenty minutes later, he turned off the main road towards Lane’s house.

  * * *

  Alan eased the Fourtrak into Straw Bear Close and parked on the gravel in front of number 6. Good roast dinner smells wafted through the air. Mary liked to spoil Alan. Sometimes he thought it was because she was trying to tame him by example: find a nice woman like me and you could eat food like this whenever you chose. But other times he thought differently: maybe she was always like this and wasn’t trying to be clever at all. Maybe she just liked to cook well. Maybe life wasn’t that complicated. Sod it. He rang the bell.

  Mary answered the door. She was wearing an apron, and Alan could smell beef cooking in the kitchen. She kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Come in, Alan. I’m just basting the joint. Lunch will be ready in about half an hour. Richard’s in the front room. He’s looking something up. Told me to welcome you.’

  ‘And that was convenient?’

  ‘Yes.’ She raised her eyes to the sky. ‘Just what I needed when trying to start a Yorkshire pudding.’

  Gingerly Alan opened the door to the sitting room. ­Richard Lane was in front of his computer. He waved Alan to a seat and after about a minute turned off the screen and joined him. He poured a glass of beer.

  ‘Sorry about that, Alan, but I’ve been following up a few leads about your friend John Cripps. I was intrigued by what you told me about the religious stuff—’

  ‘You mean him and Dean Jason?’

  ‘Yes, the Fen dean. He’s causing a bit of a ripple – waves even – with this Penance. I don’t think we’ve seen the dear old C of E generate quite so much local interest in years. And I was surprised that Joh
n Cripps was a part of it.’

  ‘Yes, and a key part too, from what I can see. The thing is, he’s quite an expert on tourism. And what’s a pilgrimage involving probably dozens of people—’

  ‘No, Alan,’ Lane interrupted. ‘According to our sources there are likely to be hundreds, maybe even up into the low thousands, of pilgrims.’

  ‘Blimey!’ Alan paused as the implications of this sank in. It was going to be a rerun of the live shoot. ‘But as I was saying: what’s a pilgrimage if it isn’t a form of tourism? People travel and then spend money. It worked very effectively in the Middle Ages and the Church certainly exploited it economically – indeed everyone did – and I bet it’ll work just as well today. And of course John Cripps is a consultant who understands these things. He’d have been involved, even if he was an atheist.’

  Lane was sitting back nodding in agreement while Alan was speaking. He took a sip from his beer.

  ‘Well, anyhow,’ Lane eventually said. ‘After our chat last month about the estate, Historic Projects Management and the new manager, I thought I’d do a little quiet research into our religious friend John Cripps.’

  ‘Yes, John has always struck me as a bit contradictory. I don’t know much about him, but he got a good history degree at Cambridge—’

  ‘That’s right,’ Lane broke in, ‘A 2:1, “a workaday upper second” as one old man described it to me.’

  Alan was aware that even given ten years of study, he could never hope to achieve a Cambridge 2:1.

  ‘So he’s very bright. D’you think he had intended to get a first?’

  ‘What, and become an academic?’ Lane asked rhetorically. He took a sip from his glass. ‘Possibly – I don’t know. But he would certainly have had to abandon any such thoughts after his third year, when he fell in with a crowd of rich young men who spent most of their time at Newmarket.’

  ‘But presumably he didn’t have the money?’

  ‘Precisely. By the mid-1980s Barty had done a lot to raise the fortunes of the estate, but we also know he was heavily indebted to the bank and there would have been very little cash floating around. Both John and Sebastian’s school and university costs had been met by a private trust fund established by the second baronet when he rationalised the estate after the war.’

  ‘So in other words,’ Alan continued, ‘he had the background, but not the cash.’ It was his turn to take a sip of beer. ‘So what happened next?’

  ‘I can’t discover anything about the two years after he graduated. That’s something we’d have to learn from a close family member – and I’m certain it’s not worth it, as it would alert everyone.’

  ‘Yes, I agree.’ Alan nodded.

  ‘The next thing we know for sure, is that he was part of a trading partnership set up in 1989 to manage a series of small, mostly amateur, visitor attractions in east London. At the time, money to fund tourism projects was becoming much more freely available and several local volunteer groups were restoring and repairing the Napoleonic and later defences on the shores of the Thames, on the eastern approaches to London.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alan said. ‘I was reading about one in an archaeological magazine. They’re still very popular.’

  ‘With the volunteers, yes. But they never seem to generate many actual fee-paying visitors. None of them are in the same league as Jorvik, for example.’

  Alan wasn’t sure where this was all leading. ‘OK, so he formed a partnership. What happened then?’

  ‘One of the partners was Blake Lonsdale – and I have been able to find out a bit more about him. By all accounts, he’s a very bright bloke, but completely unqualified. In his early twenties he got involved with drug dealing and illicit gambling and served two short terms inside. During his second spell in prison he “found Jesus”, as he puts it.’

  ‘Ah, just like his colleague—’

  ‘And now, it would seem, his close friend: John Cripps.’

  ‘I must admit,’ Alan said. ‘I didn’t know that Lonsdale was religious too?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lane replied. ‘They both are. And it goes back a long way, too. One of the older volunteers at Fort Marlborough, just outside Tilbury, told me that Lonsdale persuaded a local vicar to hold a short service of blessing in one of the casemates. That was back in 1990, before any work had started, and he clearly remembered that both Cripps and Lonsdale attended.’

  ‘But when did HPM begin?’

  ‘That was also in 1990.’

  ‘So the partnership was very short-lived?’

  ‘Yes. The two other partners left—’

  ‘Or were they pushed?’

  ‘That’s hard to say, Alan. Put it this way: they’re both still actively involved in business – and the businesses are entirely legit, so far as the local force is aware. One runs two greengrocers, the other’s an insurance broker.’

  ‘So they dissolved the partnership to set up HPM?’

  ‘Yes, that’s how it seems. HPM is a management company. It doesn’t have charitable status itself, but the visitor attractions that it services all do.’

  ‘Right …’ Suddenly the jigsaw was starting to fit together. ‘It’s all starting to make sense now. I know about Fursey and White Delphs, and the last time we spoke, I remember mentioning another one that Barty had just told me about – something to do with water – in east London. Can you remember it?’

  ‘Oh yes, I wrote it down then and there. And since then I’ve started checking up on it. It’s the Water World historical theme park on the edges of Hackney Marshes. According to their accounts lodged at Companies House, it’s been a great and growing success – and for some time too. Thousands of school children visit every week of the winter season, and in summer the place is packed, too. I spoke to a senior exec in the leisure industry and she sang their praises. It’s the wintertime when visitor numbers always collapse at historical attractions, but not at Water World.’

  ‘No, nor at White Delphs or Fursey, either,’ Alan added. ‘HPM obviously know what they’re doing.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right, they do. My source also said they were incredibly well-financed and capitalised. That’s how they could afford to build all the winter walkways and observation platforms. She told me that visitor-flow management is a key part of their “offer”.’

  And that continuing supply of money, Alan wondered, has got to come from somewhere. Now, however, he was feeling far less frustrated. Once more, a discussion with Richard Lane had clarified his mind. He realised he had become too concerned with Sebastian. Sure, he was no angel, but he wasn’t the brightest of people, either. The more he considered John’s early career, the more he wondered how far the younger brother was pulling the elder brother’s strings. And then there was Candice. Alan was becoming increasingly convinced it was she who had got Stan back on the booze. She could be so charmingly persuasive. Now he realised she may not have been acting alone: together with her husband they made a mean team. Effectively, they now controlled everything: Sebastian, the estate and probably Barty, too.

  Alan leant back in his chair, his eyes closed. Lane looked on. He knew he mustn’t interrupt while Alan was having one of his thinking blitzes.

  OK, Alan thought, I don’t know all the details; I don’t even understand the means or the mechanisms likely to have been employed, but he now knew when, and possibly even why, it had all started. Families, especially declining high-class ­families, can do the strangest things in their desperation to avoid humiliation. And once you had grasped the history, the truth often followed close behind. Suddenly his thoughts had become grim: and as for the perpetrators and their motives, they would all come out – in The Wash? He hoped not literally, but feared the worst. Suddenly his imagination flashed up images of Stan in the river and Thorey at the sluice.

  Mary called from the kitchen door. She, too, had been observing Alan.

  ‘Come on, Alan, time to eat. You can’t put the world to rights on an empty stomach.’

  Her words rang bells. Alan
remembered John’s enthusiasm for the physical side of the Penance, as he’d expressed it in the press release: ‘Our aim is to achieve purity of mind through fasting and strenuous physical labour.’ Maybe that would be the catalyst that would force things out into the open? For the second time that Sunday, Alan was gripped by a strong sense of foreboding.

  * * *

  The rain had started overnight on Tuesday, and by Thursday it was well set in. It wasn’t so much stormy and dramatic, as springtime weather can often be, but dark, gloomy and persistent. It was the sort of weather that reminded Alan of backstreets in some big city: no sky, nor skyline, just enfolding pavements, tall walls and low cloud ceiling; not like being outdoors at all.

  Before the bad weather started, Alan had been dreading the opening ceremony – and it wasn’t just the little speech of appreciation of Stan’s achievements that he’d agreed to give at the unveiling of the plaque in the Stan Beaton Archaeology Centre – and anyhow, he quite liked public speaking. No, it was the forced smiles and endless networking which went with it – that was what he found hard work. It would be an event where everyone involved with the Fursey project would be present. Yet another Agatha Christie all-in-the-library moment. His heart sank. Despite his depression he had become increasingly convinced that behind-the-scenes pressures were starting to reach a point where something had to give. Maybe the heightened emotions leading up to a big public event might provide the trigger, or the tipping-point? Whatever happened, Alan knew he had to be ready for it. And he determined to keep a close eye on John Cripps and Peter Flower. They were the men to watch.

  For Alan, the impending opening ceremony was horribly reminiscent of Stan’s wake, a bare five months earlier. Such a long time ago, but the days, the hours, seemed to be passing so much faster. And it wasn’t just time; other things were different, too: at last he had solid facts to work with.

  * * *

  Alan didn’t possess a suit, but he did have a fairly respectable jacket and just one pair of smartish, dark-blue trousers. His black Oxford shoes weren’t exactly shiny, but at least they were clean. He’d done his best to look formal.