Murder was then a capital offence, but following Barnes’ own version of events, it seemed that there had been a tragic accident with Barnes losing his footing during a fast-moving sequence and stumbling with his sword outstretched. The point had entered Lumsden’s stomach to cause massive wounds of his internal organs. Other members of the dance team, and several spectators had been called to give evidence but Barnes’ defence counsel had, during cross examination, persuaded the jury that Lumsden’s death was a tragic accident. There was no proof that the unborn child belonged to Lumsden, and no proof of an affair between him and Barnes’ wife. The jury was asked to discount the rumours of an affair and after due deliberation, found Barnes not guilty of murder. As there was no alternative charge of manslaughter, he was acquitted in spite of the inquest verdict of ‘murder by person or persons unknown’. It was a highly controversial verdict and it divided the village, some believing Barnes to be innocent and others firmly of the belief he had murdered Lumsden in cold blood under the cover of an accident while sword dancing.
It was the aftermath of this case which had brought the Aidensfield Sword Dance to a premature end. Its continuation would remind the village every year of the tragic events of that Plough Monday and so it had been decided to bring the custom to a conclusion. Because of the powerful local feelings, the families and personalities involved, the village has never talked about it since that time.
In the file, I found another note from a constable which said that after the verdict, Barnes and his wife moved away from the area to work on a farm in Northumberland and nothing more was recorded of them. His mother and father, however, continued to live at Blue Wath Farm and during my time at Aidensfield, the farm was still owned and farmed by members of the Barnes family.
So far as Frost Hollow was concerned, the family was no longer called Willis or Lumsden, so I did not know whether the present occupiers had any connections with that old case. Even so, there was every possibility that relations and descendants of both families continued to live and work in or near Aidensfield.
Having made my discovery, it was easy to anticipate the local distress which would be created if Aubrey Fletcher managed to revive the Aidensfield Sword Dance. For my part in the affair, I felt it necessary to inform him of my findings. I replaced the files in the police station attic and told Alf Ventress of my discovery. He agreed with my intended course of action and said he would not mention the case to anyone else.
Aubrey was in full agreement.
Now that he understood the reluctance of the villagers to talk to him, coupled with the roots of the problem, he decided not to pursue the idea of a sword dance revival. I did inform the vicar of my findings too, because it had some bearing on his Plough Monday services; he decided to go ahead with his ceremony of Blessing the Plough, but understood the reason for not referring to the long-abandoned sword dance.
And there the matter rests.
The Aidensfield Sword Dance has never been resurrected, but to this day no one knows for certain whether young Joseph Lumsden was murdered or whether he died in a tragic accident. Quite simply, no one ever talks about it.
8
This is the generation of them that seek him.
Psalms 24.6
There has long been a belief in urban areas as well as rural, that memorable incidents tend to come along in threes, rather like city-centre buses. Nothing happens for ages, then it all happens at once, usually with three examples of a particular event occurring in rapid succession. A variant of this is that bad things happen in threes or that one severe disappointment is followed by two others. Even one’s domestic appliances tend to break down in threes — if the cooker develops a fault, you can guarantee the kettle and washing machine will expire very soon afterwards.
The superstition about bad things coming in threes is said to have arisen after St Peter denied Christ three times but that apart, country people will say that if a death occurs within their village, it will be followed very quickly by a further two. Likewise if a traffic accident occurs nearby, then it will be followed by a further two. Having worked as a policeman, I know it is remarkable how many times this old belief comes true, with nasty things frequently happening three times in rapid succession. Time and time again, I have dealt with a sudden and unexpected death, only to have to cope with a further two in a very short time. Some years ago, there was a succession of RAF plane crashes within the county; they always seemed to occur in threes. Three crashes once happened in as many weeks, for example. Several months passed without another and then came a further three within days.
It is certainly very odd.
It was with this kind of thing in mind that I pondered the odds that such a sequence could happen following the story of the sword dance death in Chapter 7. In that case there was the problem of keeping secret an event which had happened in the past. For the finest of motives, secrecy was maintained in the belief that the circumstances of the killing be kept from modern descendants of the families involved. Contemporary sensitivities would be protected.
But suppose a highly embarrassing event had occurred in the midst of a family of, say, only a generation or two ago? Should the present generation be told about it? And if so, by whom? If the indiscretion had come to the notice of the police, should the police inform a bona fide enquirer about the known facts, or should they keep such secrets for ever? I found myself pondering the morality of this on two similar occasions which arose very soon after the revelations of the Aidensfield Sword Dance death.
The first concerned a family who were trying to trace their ancestors, or to be more precise, it was the wife of the couple who was conducting the search for her forebears. The couple were Martin and Kathleen Melrose and they came from Staffordshire, Kathleen’s maiden name being Barr. Although born and reared in a village not far from Stone in Staffordshire, Kathleen had once heard her Grandmother Barr say that her ancestors hailed from villages within the North York Moors. During her childhood, Kathleen Melrose had heard her granny mention the names of several villages in and around the moors, one of which was Aidensfield.
Kathleen’s juvenile attempts to persuade Granny to provide further details had failed. She wouldn’t say anything else about that part of her life. Determined to solve the mystery of her links with the North York Moors,
Kathleen had therefore established the practice of visiting the moors villages during weekends and even during her holidays. She was fortunate in her mission because her husband provided his support, along with the necessary finance and transport.
In the 1960s, the hobby of tracing one’s family roots was very much in its infancy with little professional assistance available to such researchers. Thereafter, genealogy developed to such an extent that, by the mid-1990s as I compile these notes, it has developed into a thriving activity supported by magazines, professional advisers, computer-aided research facilities and clubs with thousands of enthusiasts.
But in the 1960s when Kathleen Melrose was trying to find her roots, the hobby usually meant long hours of diligent research in old churchyards, musty parish records and local newspaper files, particularly the notices of births, marriages and deaths. There was all manner of official records to trace and peruse after gaining official access. Not forgetting Somerset House which was the office of the Registrar General and central registry of the nation’s birth, marriage and death certificates. There was the thrill of asking ancient people to trawl their memories for the tiniest of snippets of information and the greater thrill of discovering someone who could remember something of importance and then securing that link with some kind of supportive documentary evidence.
The whole affair is rather like a perpetual criminal investigation, with a complete family tree being the distant and sometimes impossible objective. Some researchers persist in their quest because they feel their ancestors have connections with the royal family or the gentry of the region, others wanted to know if their family has produced someone famous, adventurous or
in other ways meritorious, and others just want to know about their hazy origins.
But most, if not all, must begin their quests in the knowledge they might uncover something most unpleasant about their forebears; many, I am sure wonder if they will rattle an infamous skeleton in the family cupboard.
And that was the problem with the researches of Kathleen Melrose née Barr.
As a village policeman, I was rarely involved with the people who came to search Aidensfield parish records or who came to scour the tombstones for names and dates. That kind of thing was the vicar’s problem and responsibility but Martin and Kathleen Melrose were more determined than other compilers of family trees. For them — or for Kathleen to be precise — it was almost an obsession and my first contact with them came one wet Friday morning in March. Someone rang the bell of my office door and when I responded I found a dripping couple standing there. Each would be around forty, I estimated, the woman being more generously built than the man. He was a thin fellow with a tiny moustache and rounded spectacles; she looked the picture of health and happiness with a ready smile and blonde hair peeping from beneath her hood.
They were dressed in waterproof hiking gear complete with coats, leggings and boots, and around the man’s neck was a map in a plastic folder. I thought they were hikers seeking a recommendation for a bed-and-breakfast establishment or perhaps coming to report a lost wallet or some other item of personal property.
‘Come in,’ I invited them.
‘We’re dripping wet,’ said the woman. ‘And our boots are dirty — we won’t come in, thanks, we’ve only a small bit of information for you. It’ll only take a minute.’
‘Oh.’ I wondered if they had witnessed something I should know about. ‘So how can I help?’
‘We are Mr and Mrs Melrose,’ the woman told me. ‘From Staffordshire, and we are staying at Elsinby, in the Beckside Guest House. For the weekend.’
‘Yes?’ Lots of people stayed in local guest houses for the weekend.
‘We are seeking my wife’s ancestors,’ said Mr Melrose. ‘We shall be searching the churchyards at Aidensfield and Elsinby and maybe some others if we have time, and we might be knocking on the doors of some of the residents to ask if they can remember members of the Barr or Sinclair family — Barr was Kathleen’s grandfather’s name and her grandmother was a Sinclair. And if we can find a starting date or two, or a name, we might ask the vicar if we can see the parish records.’
‘I see,’ I said.
‘We like to tell the local constable what we are doing,’ continued Mr Melrose. ‘In case he gets reports of suspicious activities in the churchyards or churches. We look at memorials in the churches too. Some of the local people might be suspicious of us, wandering around graveyards or spending along time in village churches, or peering at village houses and chatting to people.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, thanks. I’m pleased you have taken the trouble to inform me.’ It was a thoughtful gesture. ‘I do hope you find what you are looking for.’
‘Have you been here long?’ was his next question.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not a native of Aidensfield, so I have very little knowledge of the family histories of the local people, although I do know that a lot of them are related. But if I can help, then of course I will.’
Having informed me of their presence during the coming weekend, they went off and I saw them trudging in the rain towards the churchyard. To notify me of activities which might be construed as suspicious was most thoughtful and I hoped their search would produce something useful. I made a quick note in my official diary, highlighting their address at Elsinby should I wish to contact them for any reason, and then went about my own daily routine. After dealing with the morning post and a few circulars, I prepared for a day’s duty, my patrol that morning coincidentally being around Aidensfield and Elsinby. In such a compact area, I’d probably encounter the couple during my rounds.
I did.
Within a couple of hours, I was plodding through the rain in Elsinby, heading for an address where I had to interview a lady who had witnessed a traffic accident in York, when I saw the Melroses. They were leaving the churchyard as I approached and although I was some distance away, I hailed them.
‘Any luck?’ I called.
‘A little, there’s a lot of Barrs in this churchyard but no Sinclairs, at least not in the period I’m checking,’ shouted Mrs Melrose. ‘We’ve got a note of the tombstones and we’ve some more to check before we get our heads stuck in parish records.’
‘You don’t start with parish records?’ I asked.
‘No, we try to shorten our investigations by getting a firm starting date if at all possible, that’s where tombstones are so useful. And they often give us the full names, ages and dates of death of the deceased. Some give the year of birth too, or the means of calculating it. That’s the best way of getting a good start. There’s a good chance that most of the graves we’ve found are distant cousins or relations of mine,’ she told me.
As we were having our chat, a muddy Land Rover halted at my side. It was Jim Ross, a farmer from High Barns at Elsinby. Ruddy-faced, flat-capped and in his late fifties, he wound down his window and asked, ‘Are you heading my way, Nick?’
‘I’m in the village for a while, I can call if you want to see me.’
‘Aye, there is summat I’d like to talk to you about. I’ll be home in ten minutes or so, I’ll make sure Jenny has t’coffee on!’
And he drove away as I took my leave of the Melrose couple. Within half an hour, I was sitting in the spacious kitchen at High Barns enjoying one of Jenny Ross’s scones and a big mug of milky coffee. As we chatted, it emerged that Jim’s nephew, who worked on the farm at weekends, was thinking of joining the police service and he wanted some information about the police service as a career. He was anxious to know the qualifications required, the salary offered, the promotion prospects, how to make application and the distinctions between the various police forces throughout Britain. I was happy to explain things to Jim who would pass the details to his nephew, and I promised I would get our recruiting department to send some literature to the lad in due course. The nephew, called Philip, wasn’t there as we had this chat — he’d taken some calves to Northallerton Mart.
As I was saying my farewells in the yard outside, Jim followed me to my minivan and said, ‘I saw you chatting to that couple near the church. Quizzing you, were they?’
‘Not really.’ I then wondered if Jim’s ploy to get me to his farm for a chat was really because he wanted to discuss the Melrose couple! ‘They’re researching their family tree. They came to see me this morning, just to let me know they’re in the area for the weekend, and what they are up to. I was asking about their progress.’
‘Barrs. She’s looking for Barrs.’ He adopted a serious expression.
‘And Sinclairs,’ I added.
‘You know about them?’ he asked.
‘Sinclair was her grandmother’s maiden name; she married a Barr. The lady I was talking to is Mrs Melrose from Staffordshire, that’s her husband with her. She was told by her grandmother that her family originated in this area,’ I informed him.
‘You’d tell her nowt, I would think?’
‘I don’t know anything about her family,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t help them.’
‘Aye, well, they’ve been here, to my house, asking, but I said nowt.’
‘Why have they been here?’ I asked him.
‘This farm used to be in her family,’ he said. ‘A hundred years ago that was. Sinclairs. She’d found that out but wanted dates and names. But I said I knew nowt about it. I bought the place off a chap called Sanderson whose family got it from the Sinclairs way back, but I never told her that. I just said I knew nowt about things back beyond Sanderson.’
‘Why aren’t you willing to tell her what you know? Why pretend you know nothing, Jim? She’ll find out one day; there’s all kinds of records she can locate. The information’s all there
, all she has to do is find it. It’ll take her some time, but she’s the sort who’ll never give up.’
‘Mebbe so, but it’s best they don’t get it from us, Nick.’
‘Best they don’t get what?’ I asked.
‘You don’t know, then?’
‘I know nothing, but what is it that it’s best I don’t know.’
‘Well, if you don’t know, you can’t tell ’em, so I shan’t tell you then you can’t tell them. I reckon that’s the best way of dealing with it.’
‘Jim, you’ve lost me now! What are you trying to say?’
‘I’m trying to say that some folks is best knowing nowt, and if you know nowt, you can’t let the cat out of the bag, can you? So I shan’t say owt to you, then you’ll never let things slip.’
‘You’re trying to tell me there’s a family secret — her family secret — and it’s connected with this farm? Is that it?’
‘I’m saying nowt,’ he grinned.
‘And I’ll say nowt either,’ I assured him.
‘Things is best left as they are,’ he nodded sagely. ‘Sleeping dogs and all that.’
‘I suppose you are right,’ I said after this odd interchange.
The snag with discovering there were unsolved mysteries in the district was that anyone, especially a police officer, would then want to find out what had happened. I was no exception. I could not really think of anything that was so bad it should be concealed from members of the family concerned, especially when it was in the past and they were making legitimate enquiries into their own background. Whatever the family secret, had anyone — especially someone who was not related — the right to hide such information from the descendants?
As I continued my patrol of Elsinby village, I pondered the mystery which had come to my notice and wondered how I could discover what it was.
CONSTABLE ABOUT THE PARISH a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 17) Page 13
