Murder at Maddleskirk Abbey (2 page)

I noticed on the proof of one section, a scene where the spear is plunged into Christ’s side to determine whether he was alive or dead, another where he hangs alongside two criminals and the final one where he is shown being nursed in death by his distraught mother, the Virgin Mary. I had never met this sculptor and did not know his name, nor had I ever seen any of his previous work although I’d heard he disliked observers whilst working and would walk away if people were too inquisitive or getting too close.

I wondered if he was aware of the dead man only yards away. The area contained lots of walled-off sections and alcoves as well as a number of small chapels so it was quite possible he had no idea what might be lying in the gloom not far away. Anxious not to disturb him, I moved steadily into the darkness and then heard the prior call, ‘Over here Nick.’

There was a beckoning flash of torchlight that illuminated my way across the uneven stone floor and I saw Father Prior standing in front of a heavy black curtain hanging from the ceiling and concealing the space behind. It appeared to be of very thick material, perhaps velvet, and I was not sure of its purpose.

Father Prior was waiting to unveil its secret.

O
n previous visits I had noticed the curtain but had never been sufficiently curious to push it aside to see what it concealed. There were no prohibition notices to excite curiosity and I would imagine few visitors would venture behind it, probably assuming it was a store for old furniture, or somewhere to preserve ancient stones from the original building.

‘Sorry to interrupt whatever you were doing,’ apologized Prior Tuck. Normally there was a smile on his face but not now.

‘Just trying to get myself properly awake!’ I smiled.

‘Anyway, thanks for your quick response. This is something beyond the scope of our monk-constables. It’s a man’s body, Nick. Behind this curtain. Now I know you are aware of my brief police experience, but it was very brief and never included a dead body, nor even a routine sudden death enquiry. I’m quite ignorant of modern procedures although I know that unexplained deaths require great care and special attention to preserving evidence. I’ve never forgotten that which is why I need your advice. I don’t want our
inexperienced
policemen making a mess of this incident.’

‘You did the right thing.’ I noted he had inadvertently slipped into police jargon by referring to the body as an ‘
incident
’ but I needed a more information before I ventured behind that curtain. ‘Are you saying it’s murder, Father Prior?’

‘Quite honestly I don’t know, but I thought it best to leave him alone.’

‘Good. The less interference, the better. So, how do you know he’s dead? Perhaps he’s asleep.’

‘No, he’s dead, Nick. I had him examined by Father Robin Bowman, he’s a qualified doctor as you know, and one of our monkstables. He confirmed the man is dead, but couldn’t, or wouldn’t, express an opinion about the cause or time of death.’

‘So what else has been done?’

‘Nothing. His was a very short examination. I called you immediately.’

‘What about the sculptor who’s working in the Lady Chapel? Is he or anyone else aware of the body?’

‘I doubt it. I haven’t informed anyone yet, not even the abbot. The sculptor – Harvey – arrived about half an hour ago, he leaves his tools on his workbench or in a cupboard near the Lady Chapel and does some of his work here and more in his studio, wherever that is. He’s never told anyone where it is. In fact, I don’t think many of us know his full name or anything else about him. He comes and goes as he pleases without
reference
to anyone, sometimes arriving very early.’

‘Has he a key to the crypt?’

‘No, it’s opened at five each morning by the duty monk. We get up to be ready for matins at six in the church. There are three doors – north, south and one that leads from reception. The crypt is open until eleven in the evening which is when the duty monk locks the north and south doors. The internal door in reception is locked by the evening receptionist, usually around eleven.’

‘So anyone can enter at other times?’

‘I suppose they can. Usually, visitors use the south door when they’re touring the whole site. The other doors are
generally
used by monks and staff. We’d never allow a drunk or a known troublemaker to enter unsupervised – that’s when we ask the monkstables to deal with them.’

‘There is some form of regulation then?’

‘Not overbearing, Nick. We’re very tolerant. To be honest, apart from people attending mass, few visitors venture into this rather creepy crypt.’

‘Who’s on duty at reception after normal working hours?’

‘We have civilian staff between eight in the morning and eleven at night, but if they are ill or something prevents them, then one of the monks – or a monkstable – takes over.’

‘It does leave the crypt rather vulnerable, Prior Tuck. Even when it’s closed anyone with access to the key in reception could enter.’

‘I suppose that’s possible. Perhaps we should tighten our procedures, but I must say there’s never been any difficulty until now.’

‘Well, I can’t see the sculptor’s presence is a problem because we don’t know if this death is suspicious. But let’s hope the crypt doesn’t become a crime scene! So how long do you think the dead man has been lying behind this curtain?’

‘That’s something else I can’t tell you – I don’t know.’

‘All right. My next question: Who is he?’

‘Sorry, Nick, I don’t know that either. I’m not being very helpful, am I? This sort of response is not good enough in a police enquiry, but the truth is I’ve never seen this man before and neither has Father Robin. We thought it wise not to mention it to anyone at this stage. He might be a visitor who has collapsed and died here.’

‘You did all the right things, but I must say this gets more intriguing by the second. Maybe he just went to sleep and didn’t wake up? It happens! Or a heart attack, or some obscure illness. So, Father Prior, before I have a look, tell me who found him. And how or why did the witness come to peep behind this rather forbidding curtain at such an early hour of the day?’

‘We call it the Coffin Curtain, Nick.’

‘Coffin Curtain? Why?’

‘Because it hides a coffin and nothing else. The dead man is lying in it. It’s carved in stone. A massive hollowed-out body shape in a huge lump of solid stone on top of a plinth cut from rock. All carved from a single piece.’

‘This isn’t some kind of bizarre suicide or even a joke, is it?’

‘I can’t rule anything out, Nick.’

‘So if anyone looked behind the curtain out of curiosity before this man arrived on the scene, they’d see nothing but an unoccupied stone coffin? The room is otherwise empty, isn’t it? And thieves would not be able to steal the coffin on its plinth because it’s far too heavy for anyone to move. Am I right?’

‘Yes, spot on. It’s far too heavy to manhandle. In fact there’s a tradition that it must never be moved. That dates to medieval times, but we think the coffin is much older, possibly dating to the Roman era before Christianity arrived in these islands.’

‘So, as far as you know, it has never been anywhere else? Not in another abbey? A Roman graveyard?’

‘We can’t be sure, but this community respects that ancient wish – we have never tried to move it. If we allowed visitors to enter unaccompanied, you can be sure they’d throw sandwich wrappers or other litter into it. You know what the Great British Public is like, they drop litter anywhere except in the bins – so because successive abbots have always wanted the coffin to be accorded respect, that heavy curtain is very
effective
in shielding it from unwelcome attention by casual passers-by – not that many casual passers-by come here. The usual reason is to visit the chapels and perhaps to spend a few quiet moments in one of them.’

‘It would be interesting to establish the coffin’s age and history.’

‘I’m sure there’s something about it in the monastery library and even on the Internet. It’s a well known artefact. We believe it pre-dates the earliest days of the old monastery and that it was possibly destined to be the final resting place of a very senior person, not necessarily a priest or abbot.’

‘I have seen similar huge coffins overseas,’ I added.

‘Quite likely. This might have been copied from an overseas example for a manorial lord or even a royal personage. A Roman leader of some kind? Its sheer size suggests that; it was not built to be moved anywhere.’

‘And now it contains a dead body! Not it’s first, I suspect. Who found the body?’

‘That’s debatable.’

‘Debatable? How can it be debatable? Was it you?’

‘I didn’t discover it. A note was left at our abbey police office, the cop shop. It had been pushed through the letter box. It just said
‘Look behind the curtain in the crypt.’
No name on it. Nothing to suggest who sent it, or when it arrived. So I went for a look, found the body then called you.’

‘So where is that note now?’

‘At our cop shop. It’s quite safe, I’ve made sure of that.’

‘Good, we must keep it. This is all a bit weird. All right, Father Prior, show me, but remember we must be careful what we touch and where we put our feet. If this is a crime scene we don’t want to contaminate it.’

‘I understand.’

He moved the right-hand side of the curtain far enough towards its centre for me to enter ahead of him and he followed, each of us realizing this might indeed be a crime scene. Once inside, he allowed the curtain to fall back into its closed position and then switched on a light. A solitary bulb in the ceiling came to life and its dim glow was brightened by his torchlight. I was surprised that an electric light had been installed here, but, after all, this was a modern monastic
establishment
even if the coffin and crypt were from ages past.

We were now standing in a bare room that reminded me of a featureless police cell, except it had no feeding hatch, no
lavatory
and no window, barred or otherwise. With rough stone floor and walls, it was about four metres wide, four metres long and four metres high with a stone roof and a stone floor. It was like a large hollow stone cube, albeit with the curtain forming one side.

There was nothing inside apart from the huge stone coffin on its knee-high plinth. It lay in the centre of the room with the head facing west and its foot towards the curtained entrance at the east. Inside the coffin there lay what appeared to be a middle-aged man dressed in hiking gear with his hands crossed over his chest. If he had been carved from stone and
adorned with colourful medieval clothing or armour he would have looked absolutely right in his surroundings – but this fellow was a modern man, not a statue or stone replica. And his clothing told me he was not a mummified survivor from former times.

Prior Tuck handed me his torch in case I wished to inspect anything more closely but I did not touch anything. I merely stood and shone the torch as I tried to absorb the key elements of the scene with Prior Tuck at my side. He appeared to be standing in an attitude of prayer with his head bowed and his hands clasped beneath his chin. For several minutes, we stood in absolute silence with not a sound anywhere near us in this dark, remote and eerie place. The beam of my torch scanned the entire floor, walls and roof but it revealed nothing, I couldn’t even hear the sculptor at work. We were standing in the midst of history in a dark and cold room that must have witnessed thousands of events over the centuries.

I reasoned that because there was such a huge heavy coffin here, the room itself might have once been a large tomb. Perhaps it was part of a former mausoleum or underground burial chamber of that ancient abbey church. Or had there been a pagan Roman graveyard here? Did the coffin pre-date Christianity? Certainly it would have been difficult if not impossible to move the coffin so it might have been carved
in situ
. But right now it was inside a windowless, stone walled room below a modern church and it contained the corpse of a recently deceased man. And the corpse also presented a mystery.

Because a doctor’s initial examination had confirmed the death and because we were refraining from walking
unnecessarily
around the coffin, I continued my silent observations aided by the torch. I had no means of accurately measuring the height of the dead man, but, because he fitted into the coffin, I reckoned he was quite small in stature. Such ancient coffins were not generally carved for large occupants. His clothing was typical of a modern hiker – a colourful woolly hat of
patchy red with a symmetrical white and blue pattern, with a pompom on the top. The hat came down over his ears but the loose knitting style allowed some of his greyish/brown hair to poke through. His eyes were closed and I noted he did not wear spectacles. He had rather pale skin, a moustache and short beard the colours of which matched the straggles of hair poking through his cap.

The body had a thick, plain white sweater, a coloured shirt beneath it with its collar showing, and sturdy plus-four style corduroy trousers fastened with Velcro below the knee just above long thick red socks. On his feet were a pair of well-used hiking boots of soft tan-coloured waterproof material, not leather. If this death was not natural there would need to be a forensic examination of the earth and other materials clinging to his boots and clothing. That might tell us where he had come from. In his pockets there could be documents to provide his identification, home address or a contact point, but due to the need to preserve the scene, I did not search him or his pockets.

Without disturbing his clothing, I could not see whether his body bore tattoos or other marks, there was no hiker’s stick beside him or haversack or back-pack of any kind. There were no binoculars and no map hanging around his neck in its waterproof covering. I estimated his age at around fifty but his hat prevented me from seeing whether he had a bald patch.

‘I’m going to touch him,’ I told Father Prior. ‘I know he’s been examined by Father Bowman but I need to be sure in my own mind that he’s dead, not merely faking death or lying unconscious. Mistakes can be made.’

Maybe I was arrogant in doubting Father Bowman’s
diagnosis
but I needed to be sure, so I moved closer to the coffin and touched the man’s cheek and then tested his pulses on both wrists. He wore a cheap wrist watch that showed the correct time and there were no rings on his fingers.

‘Stone cold and no pulse,’ I commented. ‘But that’s not surprising in here. So, yes, I’m sure he’s dead, Father Prior but I can’t guess the time of death.
Rigor mortis
is present but that
is never an accurate guide especially in a cold place like this. Father Bowman was correct but we do need to have him
examined
more thoroughly.’

In the brief silence that followed, I could hear the choir of monks in the church directly above us. They were rehearsing a Gregorian chant,
Veni Creator Spiritus
, a tenth-century hymn to the Holy Spirit. It produced a highly emotive moment. I took a deep breath and moved closer to the body shining the torch into the coffin to see whether any of his belongings had fallen down the sides. I could not see anything but the corpse and, as I looked at the head area, I realized why his hat bore a strange red design: it was soaked with blood.