The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton (22 page)

‘We should all thank you,’ he said to David. ‘You’ve done a fine job on the floor. When this window is in, I think Mrs Easton will have a really impressive memorial.’

‘Mr Bolitho showed me the design,’ David said, obviously trying to make an effort, pushing his damp hair out of his eyes. ‘It’s a downright shame he can’t be making buildings everywhere.’

‘You like it here, don’t you?’ Laurence said.

‘It’s the best place I ever lived,’ David said, with urgent intensity. ‘Like it was waiting for me, just a few miles away, but I didn’t know it. And I have to learn it—learn to work with it, winter and summer, day and night—because it changes all the time.’

‘I envy you. To find a place that feels like home.’

Laurence turned and moved to the back of the church, suddenly awkward. He hoped there was no question of Julian dismissing David because of one mistake. He walked to the west window, pulled off the cloth that covered the heavy table and laid it on a pew. David hung back, still looking down at the labyrinth. Laurence took hold of one end of the table.

‘David...’

Together they lifted the massive piece to one side, staggering in their efforts to manoeuvre it round the pews. He must have winced because David said, ‘All right, sir?’

‘Bad back. Nothing.’

He was sweating from the exertion. The carpet underneath showed a clear rectangle of brighter colour where the table had stood for years.

‘It’s old but it looks quite good,’ Laurence said. ‘Let’s roll it up.’

As they did so, it was not more stone floor that was revealed but a wooden door, set flush into the stonework with two inset metal rings.

‘What now?’

Laurence took hold of one of them. It lifted up the door a little but not enough to raise it fully.

‘You want to be careful of your back,’ David said, his expression solicitous. ‘Me and the Kilminster boy can do it later.’

David was right. There was no need to see where it led now. It was probably a store room or just possibly the entrance to a crypt. David looked relieved as Laurence let go of the ring and stood back. He obviously wanted to get on with his own tasks.

Then Laurence’s eye was caught by the odd column and brickwork he’d pointed out to Patrick. What if there were foundations from an earlier church here? It would be something to surprise William.

‘No, damn it. Let’s have one good go and if we can’t raise it we’ll come back with another pair of hands and some timber to use as a lever.’

David’s shoulders slumped but he took a deep resigned breath and moved into place. They stood either side of the door, each taking a ring.

‘One, two, three, pull...’

David closed his eyes and paled with the effort but with both of them pulling, the door rose surprisingly smoothly. Laurence was just registering that the hinges moved easily, and that it had obviously been used in the not-too-distant past, when he was hit by the overwhelming impression of something vile coming up out of the hole they’d revealed. He let go of his side of the weight, almost crushing David’s foot, and looked up, about to apologise, when he saw David’s ashen face. They stood frozen for a few moments and then, grimly, without a word, they picked up the rings again. The door finally fell right back with a muffled thud, splintering across two planks. The wood came away from one of the hinges. A short flight of stone steps led downwards but there was no mystery as to what they would find. The smell told them everything.

It never entered Laurence’s head that it might be merely a rat rotting in the blackness. David’s gaze had met his, almost frightened, yet whatever was down there was long past doing them any harm. Unlike Laurence, who could not look away from the gaping hole, David averted his eyes. He too knew what they had found, Laurence thought.

‘I’ll go down,’ Laurence said.

He took out his handkerchief and tied it over his nose and mouth. It was little better than useless. Grateful he’d brought his torch, he now turned it on, although the batteries were flickering, at the end of their life. As he forced himself to descend through the opening, he put his arm over his lower face as additional protection against the smell.

He didn’t even have to go right to the bottom. Beyond the steps lay what might have been a heap of old bedding, but with one bent, purple leg thrusting outwards still in its buttoned shoe, to assert that this had once been a woman. He held the torch out to get a glimpse of her face. A glance was enough. The uneven torchlight somehow added to the horror. The features were swollen but had once been human. Darkish hair fanned across the ruined face; beside it, one arm was raised almost defensively. He moved the light: there was some kind of dust scattered over the body, like fine plaster, and the splayed, blackened fingers were reduced to stumps. A few bones protruded, pale and shocking. He drew back slightly and this time he heard something small move in the dark. He had seen enough.

In the time it had taken Laurence to climb back, David had moved away towards the open door and was leaning against it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as if he’d been sick. He was grey-faced.

At that moment Laurence heard a noise. Julian came in from the porch with Scout whimpering at his feet.

David said urgently, ‘Mr Bartram wanted...’ Then, ‘There’s a body. We’ve found a body.’

‘We need to tell the police,’ Laurence said.

For a second they seemed frozen in time: Julian framed in the church doorway, David still leaning against a pew, staring at Julian, and the dog behind Julian’s legs, whining, while Laurence himself crouched just feet away from the pit in the floor, trying not to breathe.

‘Who is it?’ Julian said.

Chapter Twelve

Later he couldn’t remember returning to the house. His first instinct was to find William but when he reached the gun room he could hear talking inside. Eleanor was saying something in a low voice but he could pick up distress in her tone.

William looked up sharply when Laurence came in as if he knew at once that something terrible had happened. But Eleanor just seemed surprised at his interruption. Bright spots burned in her cheeks and her eyes were bloodshot.

‘I’m sorry,’ Laurence said. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he repeated, ‘but we’ve found a body.’

For a moment neither William nor Eleanor spoke. William seemed frozen with his pipe in his hand.

‘Maggie?’ he said.

‘I can’t tell. It’s female.’

His eyes went from one face to another. William had spent two years fighting in France, Eleanor had been a nurse behind the lines. Neither was any stranger to death.

‘A girl?’ Eleanor began and he could hear that her nose was blocked, as if she had been crying. ‘A skeleton?’

‘Not a child,’ Laurence said, as he realised what she was think-in g. A woman.’

Before he could go on, he heard footsteps running down the corridor. Frances burst in, agitated.

‘Lydia’s coming,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Susan came up to the house when Julian sent David off for help. We’ve had to tell Lydia.’

She radiated alarm and fear. William was shaking his head gently as if to rid himself of the news. Eleanor was standing, rigid, holding on to the back of his chair with both hands.

Lydia now stood in the doorway with Julian supporting her. For a moment she didn’t speak, but looked urgently from one face to another. Laurence found his eyes slipping away from the intensity of her gaze. Her hair was loose and slightly tangled, and she seemed dazed. Had she been asleep, Laurence wondered. For a second she stood there, her hand clutching the door handle, Julian’s arm around her waist. She was so thin these days that her bare white legs below her faded silk wrapper resembled fleshless bones.

‘I’ve sent David for the police,’ Julian said. ‘It may take a while.’

Lydia finally spoke. ‘Is it Maggie?’

Another silence. ‘It’s a woman,’ Laurence said eventually. ‘Not old, I’d say.’ He paused. ‘They’ll need a doctor.’

‘Where is she?’ Of course, she didn’t know.

‘Below the church.’

Frances looked confused. ‘Then it could just be an old burial...’

‘It’s not. I’m sorry.’

Lydia blinked a few times. Her hand rose vaguely to her head, in an almost theatrical gesture, but her pallor made it obvious that it was genuine. She swayed slightly and while Julian held her tighter, Frances pulled a chair towards her. The scraping of its legs on the old brick covered the arrival of Patrick.

‘Have you found her?’ he said as soon as he came through the door. He looked at Laurence.

‘We don’t know.’

Patrick’s whole posture seemed tense, almost excited. He glanced at Lydia, then at Julian, and looked away.

‘Was she...?’

Lydia’s hands were stiff in her lap, her fingertips touching.

Frances was crouched beside her sister. ‘Murdered? Is that what you think?’

‘How could she have got back to Easton?’ Eleanor said. Her face was puzzled. ‘I mean, without anyone seeing?’

Patrick’s head shot round and he stared at Eleanor uncomprehendingly. ‘Because she never left, presumably,’ he said sharply, but he looked at her as if in pain.

Laurence realised that, while the others were assuming the body was Maggie’s, Patrick was talking about Kitty.

‘It’s not a child.’

Patrick appeared shocked, if anything more so than when he’d first come in.

‘My God, it’s Maggie? You’re saying it’s Maggie?’

Slowly he had arrived at the same point as the others. Laurence shook his head. He hoped the police or doctor would come soon.

Frances was twisting the end of her sleeve.

‘What’s under the church? I’ve never seen a way in. Was she just in earth or was it a ... place?’

A vault of sorts. Under the west window.’

Patrick was frowning. ‘How did she—or anybody, come to that—know it was there? How did
you
know?’

‘It was only covered by a carpet and the table. We were clearing it for the new window to be installed.’

‘We?’

‘David helped.’

‘Did you know about the vault?’ Laurence said, turning to Patrick, and realising too late that it might sound like an accusation.

‘No,’ Patrick said. ‘Of course not.’

Frances seemed to gather herself together. ‘I think Lydia and I should go back upstairs. Lydia’s cold. I suppose we’ll all need to see the police later?’

Laurence was surprised that Frances had got straight to the point. It began to dawn on him that the police could ask questions that he was unable to ask himself, but of course he was the one they were most likely to question first. Frances was already helping Lydia to get up when Lydia spoke.

‘You didn’t say how she died.’ Her eyes were fixed on Laurence. ‘Did someone kill her?’ Her voice sounded urgent.

‘I’m sorry, I just don’t know.’

‘But did you see her?’

‘Yes, but only briefly. I really have no idea.’

He couldn’t tell her of the terrible, familiar smell, the mouldy fabric, the mess of hair and the blotched, blackened face where every feature was losing its boundaries, melting into one soft and ghastly mess of tissue. As soon as they’d started to lift the door, he’d known what was in there. With that first wave of corruption, a host of associations and fragments of memory had overwhelmed him.

‘I’ll come up and tell you if there’s news,’ Eleanor said.

When they’d left, Julian taking Lydia’s other arm, Patrick seemed less edgy.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said, ‘that’s just what we needed.’ He sounded angry but seemed close to tears. After a moment’s silence, he added, ‘You do think she was murdered, don’t you, Bartram?’

‘She could have been trapped, I suppose.’

Eleanor looked at William. ‘Somebody needs to tell Walter Petch,’ she said. ‘It isn’t right that the first inkling he should have of this is seeing policemen all over the place.’

‘Look, I can’t just sit here,’ Patrick said. ‘I’ll find Julian and go and see Petch.’

He got up clumsily, knocking over his chair, and they all jumped. He picked it up, made a rueful face at nobody in particular and left the room.

Laurence took a deep breath. His back was painful and his head was throbbing. He pressed his tender temples with his fingertips.

‘I’ll make us some tea,’ Eleanor said.

The usually affable William seemed unwilling to engage in any conversation, and Laurence was glad when Eleanor returned with a tea tray.

‘We’re all assuming it was Maggie,’ Laurence said slowly. ‘Maggie is missing, ergo, a body in the village is Maggie. But I suppose it doesn’t have to be. As Eleanor said, we can’t even account for how she got home from London, if so, or where she went.’

Eleanor regarded him without speaking, pushed her chair further back from the table and swung her feet up to rest on it. The pleats of her skirt fell away like a fan, revealing pale stockings and muddy buttoned shoes. William was tapping his pipe on the arm of his invalid chair. Eleanor’s eyes narrowed.

‘If it’s not Maggie, then who?’

Laurence moved to a window and opened it slightly to gaze at the yard outside. Patrick’s car was tucked away in the open barn and the Daimler was just pulling in. A stout suited man stepped out, carrying a Gladstone bag. Laurence guessed him to be a doctor. David rushed round to him with an open umbrella. A second car came into the yard. The driver and his passenger stepped out and, despite the rain, stood and looked up at Easton Hall’s bleak north face, before following David and the other stranger towards the church. He could see Julian come forward to greet them and then all five disappeared from view.

‘Might it be her mother?’ Laurence said, half-heartedly, knowing as he said it that it was far more likely, if far less easy to accept, that they had found Maggie.

‘Only locals would conceivably have known about the vault,’ William said. ‘Could you tell whether she was Maggie’s sort of age?’

Laurence shook his head. He had hardly been able to tell she was female.

‘No idea.’ And then he made himself linger at the memory. ‘I think it’s just possible someone had thrown quicklime over her.’

William frowned. ‘Then it would certainly be murder,’ he said, ‘and the quicklime would be in the hope of speeding up decomposition. There’s lime in the village, of course, for the cottage repairs. The villagers all know what it is and what it does because we warned them not to touch it.’ He looked anxious. ‘We should never have left it out there.’