A Knight on the Town

by Hermione Moon

  It rained briefly last night, but today the sun is shining, and the air smells fresh. Arthur seems eager to get out and explore the town, and experience this brave new world.

  “Do you want to get some breakfast in a café?” I ask him, knowing the toast wouldn’t have filled him up.

  “In a bit,” he says. “Can we go to the abbey?”

  “Of course.” I’m surprised. He must have seen it every day out of the window, but he obviously wants to experience it first-hand.

  I live about a five-minute drive out of town, but Arthur says he wants to walk, so we leave the car and stroll with Merlin along the streets. For a while we walk quietly. I’m happy enough to just be with him and watch him looking at everything around him as we go. He stares at the cars, the motorbikes, the people and what they’re wearing, a mum with her baby in a pushchair, and a man who runs past us, his earbuds in his ears.

  “Why’s he running?” Arthur asks.

  “He’s jogging. It’s a way to keep fit.” I realise the concept would be new to him. “We no longer have to train for battle, and food is plentiful, so it’s easy to over-indulge and not exercise enough.” I pat my hips ruefully. “The pounds soon mount up.”

  “There’s nothing attractive about hunger and need,” he says. “Believe me.”

  That makes me think about the things he’s been through in his lifetime. I know there were famines in the sixth century, and plague. Life must have been hard.

  “I’ve upset you,” he says, obviously reading my expression.

  “No, not at all. I don’t want you to think I’m callous and unthinking, but of course I am, because I have no idea what you’ve been through, and what life was like when you were young. We have so much nowadays. We have it so easy.”

  “Different, not easy,” he states. “The most we could hope for was to be content—to be warm, dry, comfortable, and safe. Happiness wasn’t a factor. And therefore we didn’t feel we’d failed when we didn’t achieve it.”

  “I can see you’re going to give me more to think about than I’ll be giving you,” I tell him as we reach the high street.

  He smiles and goes to walk into the road, but I grab his hand and hold him back. “We have to wait for the green pedestrian light.”

  His fingers close around mine, and he doesn’t let go while we stand there, waiting for the traffic to stop. I don’t complain.

  When the light flashes, we walk across the road and circle the building housing the Arthurian Adventure and the museum, heading for the abbey.

  “I’ll have to take you around the Adventure later,” I tease. “You can see how you’re the star of the show.”

  He gives a short laugh, but he doesn’t say anything. I can see him looking ahead, toward the ruins of the old abbey. It would have been built after he was taken to Morgana on the Isle of Avalon, when the area was still surrounded by water, but he obviously has memories of the site.

  Of course, this is where the graves of King Arthur and Guinevere are supposed to have been. It gives me a funny feeling in my stomach to think that. Is that why he’s gone quiet? We cross the car park, Merlin at our heels, and approach the building housing a shop and the entrance to the abbey.

  “Hello, Oscar,” I say to the elderly man working in the kiosk.

  “Morning, Gwen.” He smiles at us. “Having a walk around the abbey?”

  “Please.” I don’t bother showing him my membership card as he knows me well, but I slide the cash for Arthur’s entrance fee over. “My friend’s visiting and wanted to have a look around.”

  “Beautiful morning for it.” Oscar gives us both a ticket, his gaze curious when it settles on Arthur, but he doesn’t say anything more, and we leave the building and head toward the remains of the abbey.

  “Oh, it’s a living history today,” I say with pleasure. When the weather starts warming up, guided tours of the abbey are given by people dressed in medieval costume. One woman in a long dress is leading a small group of visitors down the nave.

  I start walking toward the main part of the abbey, but Arthur doesn’t move. “Let’s go there, first,” he says, gesturing to the Lady Chapel.

  “Okay.” Wondering whether he’s bothered by the idea of seeing the graves in the nave, I walk beside him as we head toward the smaller building.

  Oscar was right; it is a beautiful morning. As we walk, though, an odd frisson of unease prickles down my spine. Something’s not right. The place seems unnaturally still. I can’t hear any birdsong. I can just about hear the guide talking to the visitors on our right as she walks down the nave, but other than that, it’s oddly quiet. Even the sound of the traffic in the distance seems muted.

  “Arthur…” I say, not sure how to put it into words.

  But he says, “I know.” He holds out his hand, and I slip mine into it without being asked. “This way,” he says, as Merlin changes angle and heads toward the stairs that lead up to the first floor. There’s a viewing platform there that looks down over the rest of the Lady Chapel.

  Dogs are supposed to be on leads in the abbey, and Merlin usually stays glued to my side whenever we walk around, but for the first time he runs ahead and disappears up the stairs. Arthur speeds up too, and I have to jog to keep up with his long legs. Heart racing, I run up the stone steps that curve toward the viewing platform. Arthur gets there first, leans on the barrier, and looks down at the central part of the chapel. I can see from his face that he doesn’t like what he sees.

  I join him at the barrier and look down. And there I see the exact same scene I saw in the crystal ball last night. A woman lies on the grass, on her back, dressed in a white medieval gown, just like the painting of Ophelia. Her eyes are open, unseeing. There’s blood beneath her head, as colourful as the cut flowers that lie scattered on her dress and across the grass.

  Quite clearly, she’s dead.

  Chapter Four

  “Oh Goddess.” My hand comes up to cover my mouth as I stare down at the body of the woman, at her pale face. Her head is at an odd angle. I think she fell from the viewing platform.

  My gaze slides to Arthur, whose mouth is set in a thin, firm line. “You knew,” I whisper as I lower my hand. “That’s why you wanted to come here.”

  “Merlin knew,” he corrects. “Do you know who she is?”

  “Her name’s Valerie Hopkins-Brown. She’s Matthew Hopkins’ sister.” Matthew is the local journalist, an unpleasant guy who’s doing research on witchcraft in the area. He suspects I’m a witch and is determined to prove it. He’s the one who had Sir Boss—the suit of armour that Arthur inhabited before I released him—removed to the museum. I dislike him intensely.

  “Poor woman,” Arthur says in a tone that suggests he’s referring more to her being Matthew’s sister than to the fact that she’s dead.

  “I’d better ring Imogen,” I tell him, taking out my phone. My best friend is a Detective Chief Inspector at the local police station. She’s just finished solving the case of Liza Banks’s murder, so she won’t be happy to have another unexplained death. Still, it looks as if this one was an accident.

  I dial Imogen’s mobile number as we descend the steps that will take us to the ground floor.

  “DCI Hobbs,” Imogen answers within a few rings.

  “It’s me,” I tell her.

  “Oh… good morning.” Her voice is filled with smiles. “How are you? How’s Arthur?”

  “Yes, good. Um… I’m really sorry, but I’ve got another death to report.”

  “What? Where? Who? How?”

  “It’s Valerie Hopkins-Brown. She’s lying on the floor of the Lady Chapel in the abbey.” We reach the bottom of the steps and walk across to the motionless woman. “I think she fell from the viewing platform. It looks as if her neck is broken.”

  “Oh, no. Gwen, you seem to be making a habit of this. Stay put and don’t touch anything,” Imogen says. “Try to keep other people away. Is Arthur with you?”

  “Yes.” He’s dropped to his haunche
s beside the body, but he isn’t touching her. A shaft of sunlight falls across them both, like a spotlight on a stage.

  “Good. I’ll call it in. We’ll be there soon.”

  “Okay, thanks, Immi.” I end the call and slide my phone back into the pocket of my jeans.

  I walk over to stand beside Arthur. I feel shaky and a little nauseous as I look down at Valerie. “She was nice,” I say. “It’s such a terrible shame. She must have fallen.”

  She’s wearing a medieval-style long white gown. She was obviously one of the living history tour guides. She has a simple leather belt around her waist, and the brown hair she usually wears in a braid is loose, fanned out around her head, the way it was in the picture in the crystal ball. She’s older than me, maybe late thirties or early forties. I know she has a husband and two teenage children. I swallow hard as sorrow rises within me.

  Arthur looks up at me. His eyes are very blue in the sunlight. It occurs to me that I’ll have to get him a pair of sunglasses. Then I think it’s a weird thought to have right at that moment, and I’m probably in shock.

  “Have you seen this?” he says.

  I look at where he’s pointing. The grass beneath our feet is soft, as it’s been raining the last few days. Next to Valerie’s body, an object is pressed into the earth, as if someone has trodden on it. It’s a watch.

  “Merlin says it’s yours,” Arthur states.

  I blink. “What?” I drop to my knees and stare at it. It’s a Tissot, with a small face, the hours marked by tiny lines rather than numbers or Roman numerals. It has a brown leather strap. About halfway along the bottom half of the strap is a small red mark.

  My jaw drops, and my head spins with confusion. “I lost it a few weeks ago,” I whisper. “The red mark is paint—I leaned against one of Beatrix’s paintings just before I lost it. I kept meaning to clean it off.” I glance at my wrist—I’m currently wearing a waterproof watch with a plastic strap that I bought on holiday in Devon for going in the sea. I don’t like it as much, and I was planning to get another nicer one from Mackenzie’s Jewellery Shop at some point.

  “Why is it here?” I ask him.

  Arthur purses his lips. “There are a couple of possibilities. Maybe Valerie found it and has been wearing it, and it came off when she fell.”

  “If that was the case, why is it trodden into the ground? If it fell off her wrist, wouldn’t it just be lying on the top of the grass?”

  “Yes. The other option is that someone else was here, and either dropped it, or placed it here.”

  “Someone else?” I stare at him. “You’re saying you don’t think this was an accident?”

  Arthur doesn’t reply. Instead, he glances at Merlin.

  “What’s he saying?” I whisper.

  “He says maybe they’re trying to implicate you in the murder.”

  “Me?” My mouth opens, but no words come out. “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re wrong. You have to be wrong.”

  Arthur’s frown lifts. “Okay,” he says gently. He pushes up to his feet, puts his arm around my waist, and steers me away from the body. I turn and bury my face in his chest, and his arms come up around me.

  “Why would anyone want to kill Valerie?” I whisper. “She was nice. I can’t imagine she’d done anyone any harm.”

  “I don’t know.” He kisses my forehead. “Shall we pick up the watch?” he murmurs, his mouth close to my ear.

  I screw up my eyes. “I can’t do that. It’s evidence.”

  “You can’t. I can.”

  I move back a little and look up at him. “You’d do that for me?”

  His blue eyes stare into mine. “I’d do anything for you.”

  I look back at his chest, at the black jacket, the zip pulled halfway up. He doesn’t understand what it means to interfere with evidence. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t commit the crime. The presence of the watch will tell Imogen something about what happened here. I can’t remove it simply because I’m worried that someone is trying to involve me in Valerie’s death.

  I rest my cheek on his chest, and his arms tighten around me. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had a man hold me like this. Luke was never very good at consolation, anyway. He wasn’t a cuddly man.

  Arthur appears to be a hugger. I like that.

  We stand that way for a few minutes, in the warm spring sunshine, while we wait for the police to arrive.

  “I saw her,” I whisper, enjoying the close contact. “When I looked in the crystal ball last night. I saw Valerie lying there exactly like this, only the picture was upside down and I didn’t recognize her.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ve never been any good at divination before,” I tell him. “Why now? Is it because you’re here?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe you’re starting to develop your powers.”

  I look at Merlin, who’s sitting there, watching us. “How did he know to come here?”

  “He gets messages from people who are in need of help.”

  “Dead people?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only I would have a psychic dog,” I mumble.

  “He’s very special,” Arthur says, stroking my back. “I think maybe we’re here to help him help others.”

  Merlin’s tongue lolls out of his mouth as if he’s smiling at me. I give him a little smile back, but it’s not easy.

  In the distance, the wail of sirens grows louder, and I sigh and withdraw from Arthur. “The police are here.”

  “Do you want me to go?”

  “Of course not. Why would I want that?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t want you to feel you have to keep explaining my presence here.”

  “You’re my friend,” I tell him. “Come to visit. Nobody needs to know anything more than that.”

  In less than a minute, we’re surrounded by uniformed officers and paramedics, who attend to Valerie and quickly confirm that she has indeed passed away.

  “Well, well, well,” Imogen says, walking over to us. “You could at least have given me one day off.”

  “I know you get bored.” I try to joke, but I’m still shaking a little. She eyes me shrewdly, then turns her attention to the man standing quietly beside me as she strokes Merlin’s head.

  “Hello, Arthur,” she says.

  “Good morning, Imogen,” he replies.

  She grins, showing dimples in her cheeks, taking in his outfit and the way he’s standing with his hands in his pockets, but she doesn’t say anything more. Her gaze slides back to Valerie, and her smile fades. “What a shame,” she says. “I wonder how she fell.”

  I exchange a glance with Arthur, take a deep breath, and lead her forward to Valerie’s body. “I have to show you something.” Making sure that I don’t interfere with the paramedics, I indicate the watch in the ground. An officer has already discovered it and is bending to examine it. “It’s mine,” I tell them.

  Imogen glances up at me. “You just dropped it?”

  “No. It was squished into the mud when we arrived.”

  She straightens and looks me in the eye. “What are you saying? That Valerie had it, and it came off when she fell?”

  “That’s one possibility.” I rub my nose. “Arthur also suggested that someone else planted it there.”

  Imogen looks at me for a long time.

  “You want to put handcuffs on me?” I ask her.

  She gives a small smile. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I do need to take a statement from you, though. Will you come to the station?”

  “I’d be happy to.” I glance at Arthur. “Can he come with me?”

  “Yes, of course, if he wants to.”

  Arthur’s listening to us, and he nods.

  “All right,” Imogen says. “I’ll get someone to take you there. Let me just give a few instructions.”

  We stand to one side while she explains how she wants the area roped off and secured
, and her team begins to follow her directions, ushering away the small crowd that’s starting to gather, while the pathologist inspects the body.

  “Are you okay?” Arthur asks me.

  I nod, even though I’m not. “I don’t like the idea that I’m going to be involved with dead people from now on.”

  “We don’t always get to choose what we do in life,” he says.

  “Do you think that’s why all this is happening?” I ask. “Why you’ve woken up, and Merlin came to me? So we can help people?”

  “Yes,” Arthur says.

  “So I’m, like, going to be busting ghosts from now on?”

  “You know who you’re gonna call.” He gestures to himself and Merlin, and smiles. He was obviously watching when I had the movie on the TV a few weeks back. “Actually it’s Merlin who does the busting. We’re just his assistants.”

  I try to laugh, but the scene is too surreal, with poor dead Valerie lying there, her blood soaking into the grass. “So did her ghost talk to Merlin? Does that mean someone’s cast The Star Sign Spell on her?” That was how Liza Banks was chained to this plane.

  “No,” Arthur replies. “Merlin says that when a person passes in a dramatic fashion, sometimes they become encased in the moment of trauma, reliving it over and over again. If a ghost has been here a long time, he’s sometimes able to communicate with them. But if they’ve recently passed, he senses their pain. Unfortunately, he can’t ask Valerie what happened. He can just feel her here, imprisoned by the shock of the incident.”

  “He helps them move on to heaven?”

  “He calls it the Summerlands, but yes, in essence that’s right. He finds out how they died and helps them come to terms with it. But he says it’s been hard on his own, and he’s glad we’re here to help him.”

  “I do want to help Valerie,” I tell Arthur and Merlin. “I don’t like the idea of her being stuck here.”

  “Did you like her?” Arthur asks. “Even though she was Matthew’s sister?”

  “They were estranged and never spoke. I’m not sure why. She was nicer than he was, although she could be quite outspoken, too. But she was important in the community—she did a lot at the high school where her children go, and she ran clubs and did charity work. She will be missed.” I feel sad at the thought. Imogen will have to tell Bradley, her husband, that she’s dead. That’s going to be hard.