Читать книгу St Oda's Bones - Marcus Attwater - Страница 9

The village of Abbey Hill, owing its name to a large church set on a modest elevation, had imperceptibly changed into a suburb over the last two decades, housing professionals from town and lecturers from the university. But it still had a green, a pub and a primary school, and a secondary school once private, now comprehensive. The university campus, built in the nineties, abutted the village on the north-east. St Oda's church was its greatest, perhaps only, claim to distinction. Much too large for the parish, its solid presence spoke of a grander past. Collins' professional eye took in the old fabric of the building as well as the bright signs of recent activity, the modern parish rooms on the Rood Street corner, the children's drawings adorning the white-washed walls inside. John Davidson was waiting for him in the nave.

'The shrine is in the apse, you said?' Collins asked, as they shook hands.

'You're well-informed,' Davidson said, finding he didn't need to explain the lay-out of the church.

'I can tell an apse from a transept,' Collins replied, leading the way to the former. He didn't really want to think about how he came by that knowledge, and stuck to policemanlike questions.

'Had the shrine been moved before your arrival here?'

'Yes, it had been placed some way to the south, and the layer of tiles beneath it removed. Directly under that was rubble packed with sand, on top of a supporting arch from the previous building.'

'That shrine must weigh a ton, are rubble and sand strong enough to support it?'

'No, you could see where the floor had subsided a bit. But of course it was filled in again after we finished.'

'I was afraid of that. Poured concrete into the hole, did they?'

'Probably. I'm afraid so.'

'Lovely. I've never seen what concrete does to evidence before. To get back to my original question, you say the floor subsided. In your professional opinion, did this subsiding occur when the space was first filled in, or after the retiling 30 years ago?'

'I'd say it was recent. I don't think the shrine was placed over the rubble right away, it may have had a hundred years or more to set. Whereas it was placed back immediately after the disturbance 30 years ago.'

'Sounds logical. So this is it?'

St Oda's memorial was a heavy limestone coffin on an equally heavy base, with ornamentation Collins reluctantly identified as Perpendicular.

'The artefacts you found in the - shall we call it the crypt? - have you dated them?'

'Not precisely, but fourteenth-century at the latest, we believe.'

So the archaeologist was right, and the shrine post-dated the filling in of the crypt. But that didn't get him anywhere with the more recent find.

'So there was nothing later? There must have been something to indicate the bones were buried in the twentieth century, not the twelfth.'

'We would have noticed if there was, I promise you. Maybe not single hairs or fibres like your CSI team would, but we'd have bagged anything larger. There were no fabric remains, no metal - coins or denim studs or the like - just the tatters of a winding sheet.'

'A winding sheet?'

'That's what we assumed, naturally. Plain linen. It will probably turn out to be a modern bedsheet now.'

'So they buried him wrapped in nothing but a sheet? That's strange.'

'They?' the archaeologist asked shrewdly.

'It would take a lot of nerve and organisation, not to mention hard work, to bury a murder victim in a church on your own. There may have been only one killer, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that there was an accomplice. We may know more after the autopsy. Oh, and we'll need that winding sheet.'

'They're only small fragments, but I'll make sure you get them.'

'And I would like to speak to the person who actually uncovered the bones - Laura Fox, you said? - to hear what her impressions were. Can you give me her contact details?'

'Of course. Incidentally, I did inform the rector when we found out that the remains were recent, and told him what I intended to do with them. So people here may already know about the find.'

'I suppose that was inevitable. After several decades I was hardly going to have surprise on my side anyway. Thank you Mr Davidson. I'll look around here some more.'

He hoped he hadn't given the archaeologist the impression that he had a special sixth sense which could sniff out information from a crime scene just by walking around it. He just thought that this would be as good a place as any to think about how to get on with this enquiry. There was nothing much he could do when he didn't know yet who the victim was, besides interviewing the people who had found the remains. And he supposed he should speak to the vicar, before strange stories started to circulate around the parish.

It was quiet in the church, there was just a middle-aged woman hoovering the choir and a murmur of voices from the vestry. Collins turned around from contemplating the shrine when the voices got closer, ready to explain his presence if necessary. But what he saw stopped him from coming forward with a professional smile and enquiries after the vicar's whereabouts. He hurriedly pretended to be interested in the stained glass window in the next chapel along - which was quite a horror - and checked from the corner of his eye to see if they had noticed him. But the two men who had come from the vestry were too deep in conversation, leaving Collins time to regain his composure. He strolled on through the ambulatory, all thoughts of murder gone from his mind. What the hell was Dominic doing here? From the shadow of a pillar, he eavesdropped unashamedly.

'We may have a problem,' a thin, severely suited man was telling Dominic, 'I think I had better tell you, the rector got a call from that archaeologist - what was his name? - Davidson. Apparently the skeleton they found cannot possibly be St Oda's. Of course I have informed the bishop at once.'

'So that means no relics for the exhibition. How do they know?' Dominic asked.

'Apparently they are too young. In fact, they have handed the remains over to the police.'

'As recent as that? But then how did they get under the shrine?'

'They may be as much as 30 years old, Davidson said, the shrine was last moved back then. Well, I don't see how else a body would have got under it. But I really don't know anything about it. What I mean to say is, if you are not to have the relics in your exhibition, that changes things.'

'Yes, yes, I suppose.'

'Of course, I have never found the idea of showing the relics quite comfortable. It reeks too much of Rome. But in an historical context, one must admit, they were just the thing.'

'Oh, I agree. Excuse me, I think that is someone I know.'

'I'll see you at the meeting on Tuesday then?' the other man asked, sounding a little put out at what must have come across as a feeble excuse.

'Of course. Until Tuesday.' Dominic turned around, and waited until the ecclesiastical type was out of earshot. 'I can see you, you know.'

'Dominic. What are you doing here?' Collins said ungraciously, stepping out of the shadow.

'And hello to you, too. I'm the consultant historian on this rigmarole. St Oda's Millennium. They turned up at the university asking for a medieval historian, so James shook his head fastidiously and cited his imminent retirement, and here I am, on the committee.'

'I see. I'm afraid I'm going to have to talk to the lot of you.'

'So you're here about the body they found under the shrine?'

'Yes, I might as well tell you, it is probably a murder case.'

'So I was just told. That was the diocesan representative you saw over there, Mark Ecclestone. But the bones were old, weren't they? 30 years, he said. So what's it to do with us?'

'I hope nothing. But I have to start somewhere,' Collins said.

'I suppose so. Why you, though? Last I knew, you were in Oxford.'

'I got transferred back to my old job. I've only been back since yesterday.'

He felt a need to reassure Dominic that he hadn't been back for ages without letting him know. But would he have let Dominic know if he hadn't bumped into him here?

'Do you like being back?'

'Oxford was all right. But this, yes, it feels more like home. To get back to the case, can you give me some background? I talked to the archaeologist in charge of the dig, but he couldn't help me with what it was all for.'

'Sure. Come into the vestry, and I'll tell you what I know.'

Collins followed him into the untidy room off the south transept. 'So what's your job here, exactly?' he asked.

'I'm the historical conscience of the outfit. The exhibition is supposed to show the history of the abbey as a religious centre - convent, pilgrimage site, parish church - and I'm there to make sure anachronisms like 'religious centre' don't obtrude too much, and explain the aspects of medieval religion which sound plain weird today.'

'Such as?'

'Oh, the habit of digging up saintly men and women from their graves to see if they were holy enough to make relics. By the time someone mislaid St Oda's bones half a millennium ago she had been buried three times already.'

'There's a thought. If the bones they found here weren't St Oda's, where is she?'

'We really don't know. And that's not so strange after 1200 years. Anyway, I joined the project and I got interested despite myself. But that's not why you are here. Do you want me to do a rundown of the committee?'

'Go ahead.'

'First there's Reverend Hollis and his wife. They are a no nonsense kind of couple. He's mostly concerned with maintaining the church as a vital function of village life, and St Oda's Millennium is part of that. Elly does the PR for the project, the leaflets and posters you see are her work. Wait, let me give you one. She normally works at the library in town, but she'll be on maternity leave soon. Then there's Ecclestone, who you just saw, officially he's something to do with the use of church buildings in the diocese. I think the bishop dispatched him here mainly to see that we don't turn St Oda's into a secular show. Ecclestone is more Anglican than the queen, and he and Aidan Hollis don't always see eye to eye on matters liturgical. He's also handy with computers, which is just as well. The parish website is an amateur affair, and he set up a new one for us just for the Millennium, which looks much better.'

'I'll have a look at that.'

'Then there's Gabriel Butler from the PCC, he's an old hand at this kind of committee. He has lived in the parish all his life, and his great enemy is Miranda Weir, the lay reader. She's a newcomer to him, been here only ten years or so, and what's worse, she has rather new-age tendencies. Organises moon circles in the parish rooms, that sort of thing. Oh, and there's Jessamy of course, Jessamy Baker who conducts the choir. She is an atheist.'

'You do realise you've described them all in church terms?'

'I'm sorry, if you wanted a summary of their criminal tendencies, you should have said.'

Collins smiled. He'd almost forgotten that teasing way they used to talk to each other.

'Seriously, though,' Dominic added, 'I know them through the church, and naturally we're all a bit preoccupied with the work of the committee. What else can I tell you? 30 years ago I was a six-year-old in Canterbury.'

'For a start, I would like to know whose idea it was to go digging in the first place. The vicar, was it?'

'The rector. I think so. But all that had been organised before I became involved.'

'I'll ask him. Right. Well, thanks for the explanations. I'd better go and get my enquiry under way.'

He should, he realised as he walked out of the church, have added something like 'I'll see you around' or 'let's keep in touch'. But then, Dominic hadn't said anything like that either.

Before going to the Rectory he looked at the leaflet. Building work on the replacement of the Anglo-Saxon church of St Oda had started in 1014. The new church had been enlarged in later centuries when its attractions as a site of pilgrimage demanded a more impressive Gothic edifice, but the Romanesque foundations survived, and now celebrations were afoot for St Oda's Millennium. A special service would be held on the saint's feast day, and the diocese had authorised an exhibition in the chapels and ambulatory to celebrate the life of St Oda. Artefacts unearthed during the recent excavations would be shown, together with mementoes of Abbey Hill as a pilgrimage site. For the first time in many years, the public would have access to the crypt, where St Oda's holy spring still welled up. It all looked completely innocent and quite professionally done. At least, he thought, no one who had argued in favour of the excavation could have known what was buried in the church.

Aidan Hollis looked only a few years older than Collins himself, which shouldn't have been surprising since Dominic had told him the rector's wife was expecting. But somehow his mind insisted on assuming all Anglican priests had to be middle-aged to elderly. Ridiculous really, they must come from somewhere. And Hollis was clearly the Church of England's young hope, enthusiastic, practical and sincere.

'Tell me, Reverend Hollis-'

'Aidan, please.'

'Aidan, I understand you have already been told by Mr Davidson that the remains found in your church are not objects of archaeological interest, but much more recent. In fact, it looks like we shall be treating this as a murder enquiry.'

'Murder!'

'We cannot be sure until the bones have been examined by an expert, but it seems likely that they were buried when the shrine was moved for the retiling in 1983.'

Hollis appeared relieved that the unpleasant event was so far in the past, but of course for many of his parishioners it must be well within living memory.

'You haven't been here long?'

'Since Martha Danvers left. Before that I was a curate in Basingstoke.'

Collins had quite forgotten that Jake's aunt had this living until recently. But never mind, nothing untoward had happened during her tenure. 'And you look after other churches as well as St Oda's?'

'Yes. Normally, a parish like Abbey Hill would have been merged with the urban one, but because we have such a large old church it was decided to centre a parish of several different villages here. There are services in Bishopfield and Kingfield alternating with Sunday mass at St Oda's, and all other church activities take place here.'

'And you've been here about a year, you say. When you arrived, had the plans for St Oda's Millennium already been made?'

'No, the liturgical committee had discussed a special service, but nothing more. But I felt it was a good chance to put the church at the centre of the community again, so setting up the Millennium project was one of the first things I did. Fortunately we have a very competent musical side in Jessamy Baker, and there were plenty of ideas once the decision had been made.'

'Whose idea was it to excavate in the church?'

'Mine, actually. Well, not my idea, but I made the proposal. It was in response to a letter from a parishioner, Valerie Harwood.'

For a moment the name didn't mean anything. Then he recalled the picture of the white-haired woman in the CID room.

'Mrs Harwood wrote to you about what could be found in the church?'

'That sounds unpleasant, put like that. And the poor woman has died in such sad circumstances only last week. But yes, she pointed out that it might be worth investigating.'

That was strange. Valerie Harwood had known something was buried beneath the shrine, but committed suicide when it became apparent what it was. But he hadn't got the sequence of events right, had he? Unless Davidson had told her, she would have believed the bones to be St Oda's when she died.

'Can you find me Mrs Harwood's letter?'

'Certainly, if you think it may be important.'

'And any others documents you may have on the excavation? Did anyone object?'

'Some of our older parishioners didn't like the idea of St Oda's resting place being disturbed, even if only symbolically. They were reasonable objections, of their kind. I don't quite see-' the rector fell silent, apparently seeing all too well.

'The person who buried the body in the church would certainly not have wanted it to be found.'

'Surely you can't think-' again, he didn't complete the thought.

'At the moment I am keeping my options open. Could you find Mrs Harwood's letter?'

'Of course, but I don't have it to hand. When are you likely to be in Abbey Hill again?'

'Sergeant Holmes and I will be conducting interviews here next week. I'll drop in again.'

He noted that Aidan Hollis' goodbye was decidedly more frosty than his welcome. Is that because I have been throwing aspersions on his parishioners, he wondered, or is there something else? He was used to innocent members of the public becoming a little nervous by being questioned, but acting guilty looked odd in a parson.

He was still thinking of this when he met Sergeant Pardoe on the corner of Rood Street and Lyke Lane.

'Afternoon, sir. Are you here after those bones they dug up?'

'Hello, Pardoe. Yes, I've just been talking to the vicar. And you, still on the Harwood case?'

'The rector. Yes, I just saw Mrs Harwood's daughter, she flew in from Australia for the funeral. Said her mother had been mulling over the past in recent months, reckoned that's what tipped her over the edge.'

'And you agree?'

'I think so. Her account of the old lady rings true. And there's no getting around the fact that she did it herself. Suicide, and no more concern of ours.'

'Mulling over the past, you say? Hollis mentioned something like that. It was Mrs Harwood who suggested they have a dig in the church. Do you know if she'd been in the parish long?'

'Her husband became rector here in '78.'

That would mean she had been here when the shrine was moved in 1983. But he was getting ahead of himself. Better wait to hear what the pathologist had to say about the age of the remains.