Читать книгу St Oda's Bones - Marcus Attwater - Страница 15

Being the chief investigating officer, Collins had the doubtful privilege of being allowed to take home Inspector Clarke's file on Kester's disappearance. Home, since he had returned to the town, was a rented apartment in a former office building on West Borough - one of Councillor Delamere's projects, in fact. It was affordable and convenient for the station, but it showed its true nature a bit too much for him to want to live there permanently. The living room was an enormous and featureless square in which his furniture looked sad and lost. The bathroom and kitchen, by contrast, were cramped and obviously had not been part of the original design. His bedroom he guessed had once been the manager's office. It had a good view of a similar room across the road, which was still in use as such.

On Saturday morning, after a lie-in, Collins put the file on the dining table and crossed the several acres between it and the tiny kitchen to make a pot of tea. The offices opposite were deserted. He ought to be put out that his day off was being eaten into by police work, but if he was honest, he hadn't anything planned. At some point he would have to think about the two people he had left behind when he moved away from here a year ago, but somehow it seemed easier to deal with a dead boy first.

The file consisted mostly of transcripts of interviews and witness statements, as there had been very little physical evidence in the case. He wished witness statements allowed for more freedom of expression. Reading through the file you might be forgiven for thinking the inhabitants of Abbey Hill all spoke in the same terse, factual style, but probably all this meant was that the statements had been typed up by the same methodical sergeant. I spent approximately twenty minutes on the Green in the company of Miss Thompson and Miss Matthews. At 21:00 or thereabouts, we went to Silver Street… Collins had been smart enough not to mention to his colleagues his fantasy that after reading the file the solution would be staring him in the face, but he had hoped for a bit more than this! But the whole investigation back then had been conducted from the premise that the boy had run away from home. A bus driver had reported a fair-haired boy getting on at the Mill Road stop, and it had been assumed that was Kester.

Having finished with the statements Collins had a fair idea of who was where that night in Abbey Hill, and no idea whatsoever of who might have done away with Kester. He really would have to interview all of them again.

Some of Andy Clarke's handwritten notes were also in the file, painting a more intimate picture. He had a habit of writing down what a witness was doing when they met, and a short first impression. Arranging flowers - very excited but too genteel to show it. Burning rubbish in the garden - well-mannered and mature for his age. Practicing the organ - anxious but innocent. He wondered if he would recognise them by Clarke's descriptions after 30 years. But then, since the inspector had obviously got it wrong, maybe his first impressions counted for little.

At least they had a useful cut-off point now which Clarke hadn't been aware of. St Oda's shrine had been put back in its old place the next morning, so Kester must certainly have been buried there between a quarter past nine in the evening, when he was last seen, and half past seven in the morning, when the builders arrived. But what had happened to make a harmless sixteen-year-old lose his life that night was still a mystery. Collins made a few notes of his own, and thought he would ask Sally to tabulate the times and locations from the statements to check for discrepancies, she was better at that kind of thing than he was. And Robbins could be set to work tracking down the witnesses who no longer lived in Abbey Hill.

There was nothing more to be got from the file, and his tea had gone cold. Putting the folder away, Collins turned his thoughts to the more recent past. Dominic. As if he hadn't thought about him every day since he left. Their relationship, if that wasn't too grand a word for it, had lasted only a matter of weeks, but those weeks had made an impression. He had enjoyed being with Dominic, not just sleeping with him, but sharing space with him, listening to him. He had even used some of his own rare free time to read up on Dominic's greatest love, which was how he could tell his Perpendicular from his Early English and impress the likes of John Davidson. But when the case which brought them together was closed, and soon afterwards Collins was transferred to Oxford, their understanding proved too tenuous to hold. They hadn't had time to build up a pattern, hadn't known yet whether they wanted to. He kept telling himself he would call Dominic sometime, but when, after the move and a hectic first case in Oxford, Dominic hadn't called him, he knew it was no use. Now all that remained were a few memories and a thorough knowledge of Gothic architecture.

Seeing him at the church had been a shock. Not that it was very surprising, now he came to think of it, a combination of old church and old music, of course Dominic was involved. But he hadn't been prepared to see him again so soon. He couldn't deny the lift of his heart when he recognised him, for a moment forgetting why he was at the church at all. But he had kept things professional, and Dominic probably preferred it that way. He'dd been helpful, and, what was the word? Not polite, that was too cold. Courteous. He couldn't have hoped for a better introduction to the church and the festivities. But introduction was all it had been, and if he was honest, all he needed. So having read Elly Hollis' leaflet, it wasn't necessary for him to google St Oda and see what more he could find. But he had to do something on his day off, and he was curious. He clicked on the Millennium website and began to read.

St Oda, sister of King Offa and aunt of the lesser known St Aethelburh, founded an abbey in a place called Haeligwelle in 767. Many royal princesses of the age became holy women, fitting Anglo-Saxon customs of power into a Christian framework, but Oda appears to have been venerated as something special from the start. Bishop Cyneberht of Winchester praised her piety and wisdom, and unusually, the abbey became a pilgrimage site during her lifetime. The Life written by Sister Matilda of Holywell recounts how the saint's body was uncorrupted when exhumed for reburial and that the saint appeared in a vision to Bishop Eadnoth of Dorchester, which are both stock hagiographical elements. But the Life also states that Oda had the power over birds, keeping them away from the grain and sending them as messengers. This had a long afterlife: at least until the eighteenth century blackbirds were known as 'St Oda's birds' in Abbey Hill. The spring's healing waters were also incorporated into the legend. The later church was built over the well, which attracted many pilgrims. Early in the twentieth century, an elderly local woman still insisted that St Oda's waters were a cure for madness.

In her book on the pagan origins of British saints, Carol Waite speculates that Oda took on the attributes of an earlier Saxon goddess. The place where she founded her abbey may be significant here: Haeligwelle means 'holy well'. In the legends Oda appears not wholly benign, more capricious and vindictive than the traditional royal abbess, and even if we do not accept Waite's identification, there appears to have been a significant admixture of folklore through the centuries. So it is not surprising to find that even now some parishioners insist that the spectre of a white-robed nun can be seen moving across the churchyard on the eve of St Oda's.

That was all this case needed. A ghost.

Collins spent the rest of his time online reading articles and biographies about Councillor Delamere, in preparation for meeting him on Sunday. There really wasn't much that was in any way remarkable. The most recent attempt to discredit the councillor had been by a journalist who had argued that he was claiming unnecessary travelling expenses from the council, but it turned out that he actually paid for his hotel stays out of his own pocket. She had been very thorough though, it might have given someone an idea. Collins made a few notes, read another article on affordable housing, and remembered to look into the background of Delamere's wife. If the motive of blackmail was malice rather than gain, it could be that she was the target.

Although he had actually learned a lot, by early evening Collins felt as if he hadn't done anything useful at all. It was always better when he could be out and about, he would never be able to work from an office. He settled in front of Match of the Day, wondering gloomily whether an evening spent in the company of Gary Lineker was the best he could do. It had been nice to see Dominic again. Dominic probably didn't even know what Gary Lineker looked like. Forget about it, Owen. Think about other things. Mysterious finds in churches. Football. Frolicking councillors. If Dominic was involved with that committee, he'd probably run into him again…