Chapter 2
Francis Baker starts as his phone rings, and he looks up and smiles when he sees who is calling.
‘Hi Felicity… Yes good to hear from you. I was told you would call.’
‘Francis, hi. Yeah. I meant to call you yesterday but was busy, getting ready for the Easter holidays.’
‘Yes, late this year. Busy time. And how is Beechridge?’
‘OK so far. The daffodils and snowdrops were great, drew in a few people, but Easter is a big one for us.’
‘Yes, I imagine. I gather you might have something for me?’
‘You can probably guess, we have found some more bones. Not in the grounds this time, in a field nearby. The new car park.’
‘Old I assume?’
‘Yes, perhaps hundreds of years old. The police pathologist is satisfied that they don’t need to worry about whether a crime has been committed. We have the local archaeological society lined up but I need an expert to run the dig. I gather you are free?’
‘Yes,’ Francis hesitates. ‘It depends how much there is. I need to wrap up what I am doing here in Canterbury, I suppose a few days, and then I can come over next week some time. Is that OK?’
‘That’s fine.’
‘What’s the story?’
‘Some human bones and bits of metal – links from a chain. We found them as part of some building works, but the area is not time sensitive and we can give you a couple of months before we need to get the contractors back. Will that be long enough?’
‘It depends what we find, but it should be more than enough.’
‘Frankly if you find anything significant we can probably rearrange the works to accommodate it – make it a feature. But more likely there’s nothing interesting there.’
‘And what exactly have you found so far?’
‘A complete skull, a few finger bones, part of an arm. Enough to do some tests, and then they stopped digging. And some links of a chain. Most of it is still in the ground, but it looks like it may have been an old heavy necklace, silver plate, but very tarnished. The sort a dignitary might wear around his neck, you know?’
‘Interesting.’
‘You’ll like the skull. The back is caved in, the pathologist thinks it was the cause of death – blunt force trauma.’
Absentmindedly Francis rubs the back of his head. ‘OK, makes a change. Is anyone on site at the moment?’
‘No, it’s all fenced off, a warning sign and a security camera. There has been a bit of local interest but we’re downplaying it for now. No suggestion that there is anything much there, and I don’t think there’s much danger of anyone coming on site. We’ll try to keep it like that for you. Will it be just you?’
‘Yes, probably, just me to start. I’ll take some samples and send them back to the lab here, and I may bring an undergrad, I’ll see who’s about. But it depends on what there is there and now much local help I can get. I haven’t been back to the village for a while, I’ll going to stay with my parents for a few days. I can’t drive from Canterbury and back every day.’
‘Well, let me know when you are coming. It’ll be good to work with you again.’
‘And you. Say “hi” to Alex for me, and see you next week.’
Francis ends the call, and looks up from his desk. His department is attached to Canterbury Christchurch University, but his office looks out over a modern apartment buildling, designed with no apparent acknowledgement of the history of the city and the cathedral only 100 metres away.
A week later he drives over to Beechridge. It is warm and dry, and after dropping his bag off at his parents’ house he heads for the Castle and follows Felicity’s directions to the new car park. Builders are working on the foundations of a new building and for a moment he frowns, not sure what he is looking for. And then he sees at the side of the field an area where the grass has been cleared with a rope around it and in the middle a white canvas tent, the sort that roadside electricians use. He pauses, and then decides that Felicity can wait, and walks over to the tent. No one tries to stop him, and he looks inside.
The hole in the ground takes up most of the space, and next to it is a small trestle table. But there is nothing on it now, presumably the bones have been moved. He takes out a flashlight and looks into the hole. There he can clearly see about six links of a large neck chain emerging from the mud, and the surface of perhaps three or four small bones that have not yet been excavated.
He stands for a few minutes looking into the pit, then steps out of the tent and looks around, just taking in the scene. The ground slopes up gently towards woods to the north. He can’t see it from the tent, but the chapel is about 50 metres away on the other side of a high fence that surrounds the estate, hidden in the trees. It has been a while since he was last here, but his recollection is that it is a small family chapel with no graveyard, and any burials would have been at the village church a few hundred metres away. The land around slopes on up towards the Castle itself, which was built on a slight hill overlooking the village that was named after it. Francis walks a few paces back from the tent and studies the field round him. It is possible that the ground has shifted over the years, but more likely that it is similar to how it was when the Castle was built in the fifteenth century.
He takes out his mobile and calls Felicity. She answers after one ring, expecting his call, and they meet a few minutes later in the estate office.
‘Have you had a look?’
‘Yes, but there’s not much there.’
‘I know, we thought we’d better move the bones.’
‘Sure.’ He shrugs, smiles. ‘I just love this bit. All expectation. The disappointment usually comes quite quickly after.’
‘You’re being unfair. We have found a lot of interesting things around the Castle before. Well, you know.’
‘I suppose so. Not a full skeleton though. There may be nothing else there, but I can hope. It’s probably a Victorian murder. The neck chain might be interesting if that’s what it is; that may be the key to it. What’s the deal with the locals?’
‘It’s up to you really. They have a couple of volunteers who can help out for a few days, as soon as you want them to start.’
‘That’ll be fine. There isn’t much space to work with and I don’t want to make the site bigger than we need to. I want to keep well away from the workmen. One question, is there somewhere I can put what we find? I’d rather not leave them on a table in the field?’
‘Sure. I thought you’d want somewhere. The Chapel is near, you probably walked past it. It isn’t used very much. There is a small vestry, we have cleared that out for you, and the skull and the other bones we removed for the police pathologist are there. I’ll show you.’
‘Sounds perfect.’
‘I’d like to move the chain, if it is silver we should put it somewhere safe. But I don’t know how far down it goes.’
‘OK, that’s fine.’
They walk from the estate office through a gap in the low wall that surrounds the Castle. It was probably higher and more substantial once, a fortification, but much of the stone has been removed over the years, and in Victorian times it was rebuilt as part of a landscaping project. Further on past some tiered formal gardens that drop away from the Castle, the landscaping is more naturalistic and the path leads through a wooded area that curves gently down the slope away from the Castle. The old chapel is small, just a family chapel with six rows of pews on each side, each large enough to hold three or four people. The floor is tiled with uneven red and white tiles in a diamond pattern and the pews are dark and heavy. There is a stained glass window above the altar, a depiction of Jesus on the Cross with a saint on each side. The sun is shining through the window and the colours are reflected onto the floor below. The other windows are plain leaded glass. Brass plates on one wall have details of old family members, and on the other side are a couple of old paintings, the images faded and damaged by damp. Next to the altar is a pulpit, just a step up to a slightly raised platform with a wooden rail. And behind that a door to a small vestry a few metres square.
There isn’t much space in the vestry, but enough for a trestle table to be laid out and on it some bones – presumably all that have been found so far. A skull, the radius and ulna of a left arm, and a few finger bones. Francis looks at them for a few minutes. This is always the best part of a new investigation. He is looking at the remains of someone who was once alive. To start he knows almost nothing – just the possibility that the person was killed by a blow to the head. But already he tries to get a sense of the person whose flesh wrapped around these bones. He breathes slowly, just looking at the table. He arranges the skull and the two arm bones in roughly what would have been their position in the body if the person were lying on their back, and then stands back. After a moment he reaches out, moving their position slightly, his hands lingering, an excuse to feel the bones. The texture is surprisingly soft, and although they are discoloured and there are some rough edges they are in good condition. The length of the bones suggests it may have been a full grown man. There are four finger bones, but Francis can’t be sure at this stage whether they are from the same hand. He has arranged them next to the arm bones roughly in a position they might have had if they were the left hand. He closes his eyes and imagines a man standing in front of him, or perhaps kneeling. Perhaps his hands are bound, perhaps he is dressed in finery, his chain of office around his neck. He lets his thoughts travel back in time. The Castle was home to an influential family in the 16th Century. Hever is not far away and the Boleyns were known to have visited. It is speculated that Henry VIII once stayed at the Castle. Perhaps this figure dates back to that time? Francis will have to wait until more tests had been done, more information gathered. He is in no rush to find out, he knows from experience that if it does turn out to be someone of interest he will lose control of the story, suddenly his time will be taken up with press and historians. For now it is just him and a few bones on a table.
He looks more closely at the damage to the back of the skull, his hand moving again to the back of his own head as if in sympathy.
Felicity breaks his chain of thought. ‘I’ll give the locals a call, OK if they start on Monday? I think there will be two volunteers at a time on a rotation.’
‘Yes, that’s fine. thanks.’
Francis looks at his watch.
‘I’ll head off now, Mum’s expecting me. I’ll come over in the morning for a few hours, just to get my bearings, and I need to give the pathologist a ring. Then back to Canterbury for the weekend.’