The Merchant's House (33 page)

He fell silent and reached across and stroked the boy’s hair. The fair roots were just visible. In a few weeks his piebald hair would look strange, but it would grow out. Everything would be normal again; all crises pass. Daniel looked up at Stan earnestly, took hold of his finger firmly and placed it on one of the electronic buttons. A sound like a police car siren sprung from the brightly coloured page. Daniel, delighted, took Stan’s finger again and repeated the action.

Rachel watched as Stan put his arms around the child and gave him a hug. The boy responded with a giggle and crawled along the seat on all fours back to his father’s knee.

As they left, she saw Stan’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I’m getting too involved,’ he said, avoiding her gaze. ‘I’m thinking of taking early retirement. It doesn’t do to get involved, Constable. Remember that.’

‘But it means you’re human, sir,’ said Rachel quietly. ‘We’re all human.’

Chris, watching from the window of the caravan, took his son’s hand and waved it at the departing police car.

Rachel had driven only a few yards when she saw a familiar figure approaching one of the caravans. She stopped the car.

‘Excuse me, sir. I’ve just seen someone I want a word with. I won’t be a minute.’ She fumbled frantically to undo her seat belt. She had to get to him before he disappeared. She stumbled out of the car and walked quickly – she didn’t want to run – towards the young man knocking on the door of a dilapidated caravan. He heard her and swung round, surprised. He looked a little guilty; she put that down to her profession.

‘Hello, er, Constable. Er, I was just calling on some old friends. They put us up for a few days when we first came down here. I haven’t seen them for a while.’ Dave’s Australian accent, Rachel thought, was very attractive; it put her in mind of sun-drenched beaches and wide open spaces.

‘Where’s your girlfriend?’

He looked sheepish. Sheepish, Rachel thought, but very good-looking. ‘Er, we’ve decided to split. She’s off up north and I fancied staying down here for a bit, getting more casual work. I was hoping these friends could maybe put me up for a while. The hostel’s a bit, er …’

She thought quickly. ‘If you’re wanting somewhere to stay, there’s a flat in the old barn at my parents’ place. They’ve got a farm just outside Tradmouth. We rent it out to holidaymakers in the summer but in winter it’s mostly lying empty. If you want me to ask …’

Dave’s face lit up with an open smile, showing an array of well-maintained teeth. ‘That’s great. Thanks.’

She wrote down the address and handed it to him. ‘Call round this evening. I’m off duty. I’ll probably be there.’

She smiled shyly. As Rachel returned to the police car Donna opened the caravan door. She looked at Dave, not seeming in the least surprised to see him. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Sludge is still in bed – you know what he’s like. Was that that policewoman you were talking to?’

‘Yeah. She said she might know of somewhere to stay. She’s quite nice.’

‘Pigs are pigs,’ Donna announced dismissively. ‘Where’s Jules?’

He explained.

‘We’re off up north ourselves some time. Thought we’d try Glastonbury maybe.’

‘When are you going?’

Donna shrugged. ‘Dunno. Soon maybe. You got to keep moving on, haven’t you?’

Dave nodded. Donna was right. You’ve got to move on. And that policewoman really did seem quite nice …

It is full six months since I wrote in this journal. It hath been a goodly season and my fortune in trade doth increase, yet I feel my life accursed. I am a man most wretched.

I watch my son, Thomas, grow. He is a strong, lusty little fellow who smiles and cries heartily for his food. He is my only blessing.

Elizabeth did depart this life full three months past. I know not whether it was by accident that she did drown in the river, but on the word of some common sailors the coroner did judge that she did take her own life. I know she never did sleep easy after what she did to Jennet, but that she did take her life … I truly know not. But maybe ‘tis justice.

She was buried in unconsecrated ground with myself and Thomas the only mourners. I pray for her soul daily.

I had a new stone floor laid in the cellar. I do pray that they rest in peace … Jennet and the babe.

Extract from the journal of John Banized,
2 October 1624

25 March

Neil thought that having wine at an exhibition opening was a bit extravagant, considering the cuts in the museum’s budget threatened for the next financial year. Still, if it was there he might as well help himself. He took a glass from the buffet table and drank it down thirstily.

He had been watching the entrance. They were late, he thought, as he fidgeted with his watch. He picked up a vol au vent and munched it absent-mindedly.

The exhibition was impressive, even Neil had to admit that. The museum had done him proud. After viewing a video about the history of the site and the dig itself, one walked through an avenue of brightly lit glass cases displaying the important finds, and eventually reached a reconstructed Elizabethan street. Even the sounds and smells were there, lovingly recreated. Neil wondered about the wisdom of recreating the latter.

The frontage of the Banizeds’ house, copied from Victorian photographs, was the centrepiece of the exhibition. One could pass through the doorway into the shop itself. The Banizeds had lacked the display skills of their modern counterparts: the shop was filled with barrels and chests; leather goods, wool and bolts of cloth lined the lath-and-plaster walls.

An area beyond the shop was dedicated to its more gruesome history. The journal of John Banized was displayed in a glass case on the far wall, and as one circled the room, the story unfolded through photographs and extracts from the journal with transcriptions underneath. The ring was on prominent display, along with the buckle of the belt that had killed the unfortunate Jennet. In the centre of the room stood Jennet herself, reconstructed, looking so lifelike that Neil felt if he’d spoken to her she would have replied. It was a pity, he thought, that no one knew what John Banized looked like. His spirit – and that of Elizabeth, his wife – hung in the air, insubstantial. Only Jennet seemed real.

At last Neil heard Wesley’s boss’s voice; it was unmistakable, that Liverpool accent. He went through to meet them.

Heffernan spotted him first. ‘Here’s your mate, Wes.’ To
Neil he said, ‘Good spread here. Don’t get this down at the station, do we, Wes? All right for some.’ He was rewarded by scathing looks from a couple of lady councillors standing near by.

‘It’s not always like this,’ said Neil, embarrassed. The hospitality was a touchy subject. Neil had heard that it was all to impress some potential commercial sponsors of the museum: a couple of men in sharp suits stood near the entrance watching the proceedings with jaded speculation.

‘It’s very impressive.’ Wesley attempted to rescue the situation. ‘Pam sends her apologies. She’s not feeling too good.’

Heffernan came up and put a large arm around Wesley’s shoulder. ‘Did you know my sergeant here’s going to be a dad? I reckon it was that posh hotel you went to at New Year did the trick.
En suite
jacuzzi indeed.’

Neil smiled weakly, trying to look happy, trying to hide the fact that his heart had sunk in a quicksand of disappointment at the news. ‘Congratulations. Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘I’ve not seen you much since the dig finished, and we didn’t want to say too much yet. It’s early days. You know how it is.’

Heffernan mumbled something about sleepless nights, winked at his sergeant and went off to forage for chicken legs and a glass of Chardonnay. Wesley watched him go.

‘Where is she, then?’

‘Just through the shop. I’ll show you.’

Wesley followed Neil through the exhibition. Things had certainly picked up in museums since the days when his parents had marched him round the V and A as a child for the good of his soul and his education. ‘What’s that awful smell?’

‘Authentic smells of the period,’ replied Neil matter-of-factly.

‘I’ll take your word for it, but I reckon someone should check the drains.’

They reached the room where Jennet stood. Wesley stopped dead as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘Now then, Inspector, what you think?’ Wesley turned, amused by his sudden promotion. Bill Boscople continued, ‘Good, i’n’it? I got me name up there, by yon old book I
gave you.’ He quoted proudly. ‘ “Kindly donated by William Boscople Esq.” ‘ He stood in his Sunday suit, well scrubbed and beaming with pride.

‘And you can put your mind at rest, Mr Boscople,’ Neil said comfortingly. ‘The murderer was no blood relation of yours.’

Boscople looked confused. Wesley decided that an explanation was needed. ‘You’re a descendant of Thomas Banized, Mayor of Tradmouth: Boscople nodded. ‘And he was the son of that lady there, Jennet. It was her who was murdered by John Banized’s wife.’

‘Aye.’ There was a glint of mischief in the old man’s eyes. Wesley realised he had underestimated him. ‘I’d worked that much out, Inspector.’

They approached the figure of Jennet, which stood in the centre of the room. She wore a plain russet gown and apron; a white cap covered her fair hair. She looked young, trusting, vulnerable. Wesley felt pity for her. But wasn’t Elizabeth just as deserving of his compassion? Perhaps poor tortured Elizabeth needed his sympathy more. Who was to say?

‘She’s a right beauty, i’n’t she?’ Bill Boscople said softly, almost reverently.

‘Yes,’ replied Neil, considering Jennet the woman for the first time. ‘She was lovely … really lovely.’

The Armada Boy

Kate Ellis

Norman Openheim is an American veteran of the D Day Landings, on a sentimental journey with his old unit to their West Country base. His is the last body archaeologist Neil Watson expects to find in the ruins of an old chantry chapel…

Neil naturally turns to his old friend from student days, Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, for help. Ironically, both men are looking at an invading force – Wes the WWII Yanks and Neil a group of shipwrecked Spaniards reputed to have met a sticky end at the hands of outraged locals as they limped from the wreckage of the great Armada. Local memories are retentive, and Wes is soon caught up in old accusations, resentments and romances from fifty years before. But the coolness of Openheim’s wife Dorinda, and her reliance on a fellow veteran in the party, offers an all-too-familiar motive for murder.

A belligerent group of homeless youths are also under suspicion: then another veteran’s wife disappears. Wes’s case grows more perplexing, while Neil uncovers a tragic story from the distant past. Over four hundred years apart two strangers in a strange land have died violently – could the same motives of hatred, jealousy and revenge be at work? Wes is running out of time to find out.

The Marriage Hearse

Kate Ellis

When Kirsten Harbourn is found strangled and naked on her wedding day, DI Wesley Peterson makes some alarming discoveries. Kirsten was being pursued by an obsessed stalker and she had dark secrets her doting fiancé, Peter, knew nothing about.

But Kirsten’s wasn’t the only wedding planned to take place that July day in South Devon. At Morbay register office a terrified young girl makes her wedding vows. And a few days later her bridegroom is found dead in a seedy seaside hotel. As Wesley investigates he suspects that this death and the bride’s subsequent disappearance might be linked to Kirsten’s murder.

Meanwhile the skeleton of a young female is found buried in a field that once belonged to the family of Ralph Strong, an Elizabethan playwright, whose play, ‘The Fair Wife of Padua’ is to be performed for the first time in four hundred years. Is this bloodthirsty play a confession to a murder committed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1? Or does it tell another story, one that might cast light on recent mysteries?

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