Chapter 5
Works stops over the weekend when the Castle is busy with visitors, but Francis is back in early on Monday morning. Felicity is waiting for him in the Estate office when he arrives.
‘Francis, I’m glad you’re here.’ Her speech is rapid, distracted. ‘Francis I’m sorry. I don’t know how they got past the security cameras. We haven’t had something like this for years. I’ve called the police, they’re on their way.’
Francis interrupts, putting his hand on her arm. ‘Felicity, slow down. What’s happened.?’
‘I’m sorry; we had a break in.’ She looks towards the chapel.
‘The skeleton?’ Francis starts to walk towards the old building.
‘No, that’s fine, at least I think it is. They broke into the groundsman’s shed and nicked some gardening equipment. And the door to the chapel was open, it had been locked but they forced one of the windows. I don’t think they have taken anything from the chapel or the vestry, but could you come and check?’
But Francis is ahead of her. The narrow path down to the chapel is overgrown with trees and they brush wetly agains him as he strides through. The door is open, one of the Castle staff standing next to it. Inside the chapel is as you’d expect, nothing seems to be out of place. But the vestry door is ajar and nervously Francis enters, not sure what he might find. The skeleton is where he left it on Friday, lying on its back, the skull now missing. But the hands are across its belly again. He turns to look at the shelf where the other items were stored. There are a few coins, a crucifix, and a dagger, and the neck chain and the candlestick; all in their places.
Felicity has been jogging to keep up with him and she comes in a few seconds later. ‘Anything missing?’
‘No,’ Francis shakes his head. But he is looking at the skeleton, resting his hand on one of its arms. ‘It’s all here, nothing missing, but someone has moved him.’ He gestures to the table. ‘His arms have been moved.’
‘Why would they do that?’ says Felicity. ‘It looks as if he is praying.’
‘Yes, I see what you mean. It happened before.’
‘Before?’
‘As I said. This isn’t the first time his hands have moved. I’m not sure whether it has anything to do with the break in, I think someone is playing tricks on me, or perhaps,’ he pauses, ‘anyway. Nothing missing.’
Felicity looks up at Francis to see if he is going to say anything else, but his face gives nothing away.
‘Are you OK?’ she says.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You, you just don’t look well. Sorry.’
‘No, it’s fine. Just tired I think… I don’t know. I’ve got some paracetamol somewhere.’ He is looking at the bones.
‘What is it?’ she says.
He turns slowly to her. ‘Perhaps he is getting to me. And there is something here that I don’t understand. But I suspect it is just someone playing games. Could we move him somewhere more secure?’
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘We should have installed proper security. But that’s not it, is it? I know you. What are you worried about?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, It’s OK.’ He looks around, and steps out into the chapel. ‘It’s this place. We only need a couple more days and we can finish the dig, but we need to move everything to somewhere secure. Somewhere in the Castle.’
‘That’s fine. We can do that today. There’s a store room in the main building – not open to the public. I’ll get a couple of the guides to move everything there this afternoon. One of you can supervise. So you don’t think there is anything else, anything else to find?’ She waves her arm in the direction of the dig.
‘It depends how far you want us to look. There are only a few bones missing now, but we may not find them, and they won’t really add anything. We’ll just finish going through the area we have cleared and call it a day. There could be more, but I doubt it. We have a nearly complete skeleton, we’ll soon have a reconstruction of his head, and we have some artefacts that may well have been with him at the time he died.’
‘Enough to make a display anyway.’
‘Sure.’
‘So what do we know?’
‘He was a middle aged man. He was possibly clergy – but that is just based on what we found with him. Killed about 1550. Religious persecution was a national sport at that time. He may have been tortured before he was killed, we can’t say for sure but I think it is likely. His leg was broken shortly before death. That could have been minutes or days, it’s impossible to tell, but I think it was just before he was killed. The death blow was with a heavy object to the back of the skull. Possibly the candlestick, but we would never be able to prove that. It was probably one from the Castle, possibly from the chapel, and one of the kneelers in the chapel has embroidered candlesticks that are similar. The kneelers are much more recent of course, within the last 50 years I would expect, so perhaps the other candlestick is around somewhere and they copied it. They usually come in pairs. It would be fantastic if we could find it.’ He looked up at Felicity. She shook her head.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘It would be worth double checking old store rooms. And also any paintings or old record. I think his body was just dumped after death, which is consistent with the religious persecution angle.’
‘What about the skull?’
‘It is on its way back from Canterbury now, Simon is bringing it back this morning. They took a small sample to do some tests, carbon dating, DNA, that sort of thing. And they have made a plaster cast and are working on a reconstruction of the face. Should take a few more days. Still, enough for an exhibition if you want to do one.’
‘Is that it? No other insights?’ Felicity is clearly disappointed.
Francis pauses. ‘I don’t know. When you work on something like this, someone like this, you sometimes start to get an idea of the person you are working on. 500 years ago he was a living breathing person. Possibly living in the Castle – possibly unconnected. But I sometimes feel that the person is trying to communicate with me. Insights into what they were thinking; flashbacks even. Probably just my imagination trying to put together a picture. Here, I think there’s a story. Perhaps who he was, or what he had done. Or who he knew? What sort of records do you have of that time?’
‘Not much I’m afraid. We know a bit about the family that owned the Castle, parish records and so on, but no old books or documents, they didn’t survive the years. Lots of old pictures. Some we know who they are, when they were painted, who by, but many of them we can only guess. Some pieces have unsubstantiated stories attached to them – the bed the Henry VIII slept in, that sort of thing. We’ve never had the money to investigate in detail. Enough to interest the tourists, but we don’t have access to the sort of expertise that the National Trust has. But the candlestick and the neck chain might be worth following up. Did you take pictures of them?’
‘Sure, we took pictures of everything.’
‘I don’t want to carry them round with me. If you could send me pictures I’ll go through the paintings and tapestries and see if I can find anything that looks like them.’