The Ellie Hardwick Mysteries Page 3

  I managed to evade the hypnotic stare of Wicked William and concentrated first on the sunny opulence of the wedding portrait. Robert and Mary. Even the names were reassuringly solid. Following the painter’s clues, I knew that this couple had married in the autumn, their betrothal according to Stillingfleet had been in the summer of 1662 and presumably Robert had been pursuing this heiress during the previous London season. At the very time Jayne Marston had been sent away to the country. Had he known the sorry story of his sister Comfort’s maid? It was a family with a reputation for large-heartedness in its dealings with its retainers. Yes, he would have known. He would have been concerned. But concerned perhaps for another reason.

  Mary’s fortune had saved the family and guaranteed his position in society. Robert would not have welcomed any breath of scandal to do with the family his golden goose was about to marry into. ‘Of Quaker stock’ Nicholas had said. I looked again at the heart-shaped face, framed by wispy golden tendrils, the modest dress, the tightly pursed lips and I wondered about Mary.

  ‘Was it to avoid offending you?’ I murmured, ‘that Jayne and her child were done away with? Too inconvenient, too vocal, a servant, yes, but so intertwined with the family she had forgotten her place and was making herself a nuisance? Would it have ruined Robert’s schemes if you’d discovered that his brother had seduced a family maid?’

  I couldn’t believe that.

  ‘And why did you flee?’ I asked turning at last to William. ‘Why didn’t you just tough it out?’ An Earldom, the King’s supporters back in power again—the future looked good for William Easton. What was he really fleeing? Not a family scandal—there must have been something more.

  The dark eyes taunted, enticed, seduced. I speculated again about the identity of the unknown painter and was struck by a devastating thought. A thought so obvious and yet so shocking I groped my way to a Chippendale chair and, against all the house rules, sat down on it. The painter’s message now screamed out at me. How could I not have seen it before?

  I heard Nicholas leaving the library and called out to him.

  ‘Ellie? You ok?’ He hurried to join me.

  ‘We’ve got it all wrong, Nicholas!’ I said. ‘Come and have a look again at Wicked William. He’s been wrongly accused! It couldn’t have been him!’

  I positioned Nicholas in front of the portrait. ‘Now, imagine you’re the painter. And that, of course, in the 1660s, means you’re a man. The sitter is reacting to you. What do you see?’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ said Nicholas. ‘I see it! And to think that all these years women have been blushing and averting their eyes thinking he was trying to seduce them. He wasn’t at all, was he?’

  ‘No. He was flirting with the young apprentice who was painting him. And, judging by the resulting image, the interest was reciprocated. I’m not sure they had a word for it in Cavalier England but this chap was gay and proud of it, you’d say.’

  ‘I’m certain they didn’t have a word for it in north Norfolk! And it was a capital offence at the time. ‘‘Death without mercy’’ according to the Articles passed by parliament in 1661. He could, technically have been executed if discovered.’

  ‘What if he were discovered?’ I speculated. ‘Caught in flagrante with a handsome young painter, let’s say?’

  ‘He’d have had to flee to somewhere more worldly—to France . . . to Italy . . . Poor old Stillingfleet, holding all this together! But this is just guess-work, Ellie.’

  ‘Oh, yes. But look at his hand, Nick! Do you see the flower he’s holding?’

  Nicholas peered at the tiny purple face.

  ‘Always assumed it was a violet but it’s not, you know! It’s Heartsease. Common little English flower. It’s got lots of names—Love-Lies-Bleeding, Love-In-Idleness, la Pensée in French, wild Pansy.’

  ‘Exactly! Pansy! A badge. The seventeenth century equivalent of a pink ribbon. That’s what you’d call flaunting it! So how likely is it that he’d be spending time in London undoing a lady’s maid? Possible, I suppose—but I can’t see it! No. I think we’ve got to look elsewhere for the father of that little scrap in the coffin.’

  Our eyes turned on Robert’s handsome countenance. I waved a hand at his line of progeny. ‘It’s pretty obvious in which direction his preferences lay!’ I said with more than a touch of bitterness. ‘And he had such a lot to lose if his puritan bride-to-be were to catch him with his hand up a maid’s skirt! Mary doesn’t look the understanding kind to me!’

  I looked at the pair in disgust. Their faces had taken on a cast of smug respectability. Their innocent children, healthy and happy, had thrived perhaps at the expense of that other unwanted child.

  Suddenly I found myself playing the role of judge in this case that would never come to court and I knew what was required of me. I knew the formula that would ensure undisturbed nights for Diana and Nicholas.

  I spoke aloud to the portrait and to anyone else who was listening on the stairs. ‘Robert Easton, I find you guilty of infanticide,’ I said simply. ‘May God have mercy on your soul.’

  ‘Deus tute eum spectas,’ said Diana who had come silently to join us. ‘God is watching him. God knows what he has done.’

  * * *

  A week later Charles waved a postcard at me.

  ‘Not much in the post. It’s for you from some boyfriend of yours in Norfolk. A picture of a bloke in a periwig and it says, “Thank God! At last a quiet night! Eternally grateful, love Nicholas.” What did you get up to in Norfolk, Ellie?’

  HERE LIES

  An Ellie Hardwick, Architect, Mystery.

  The two bodies were lying side by side in the south aisle of the church of Tilbrook St. George.

  The figure on the right, an armoured knight, his hands folded in prayer, his feet resting on a lion, was impressive enough but it was the pallid alabaster beauty of the lady at his side which seized and held my attention. Her delicate hands were peacefully folded below her breast, her feet rested on a tasselled cushion. The knight had lain here in this quiet place carved in white stone for nearly six hundred years. His lady was of flesh and blood and was newly dead.

  He had a dagger at his side; she had a dagger in her heart.

  I might have run screaming from the church. I ought to have checked for a pulse. I did neither of these practical things. I stood and stared. And it occurred to me even then that I was reacting to the scene as I was intended to react, for, in that moment of terrified discovery, the macabre display was not only weirdly beautiful but full of meaning.

  The early morning sun angled through the stained glass windows, stencilling the pammet floor with a pattern of rich colour: vert, gules and azure. The heraldic colours sprang easily to mind in this medieval setting. The peaceful couple were framed by a canopy of sunlit stone. Sir John Hartest, survivor of the Battle of Agincourt, lay in plate armour, gauntleted hands resting on his chest, helmeted head encircled by a jewelled wreath. At his left hip, on a richly sculpted baldrick, was carved a dagger with an ornate gilded hilt. His features were serene; as the sunshine slid across his face he seemed almost to smile.

  At first sight his lady appeared no less serene. Closed eyes, a dreaming face, her pallor a match for his alabaster. Her long fair hair had been arranged to frame her face before spilling over the edge of the tomb, the long white dress she was wearing had been carefully draped and folded. I brought my eyes back to her breast and to the head of the dagger, very slightly to the left and very precisely into the heart.

  I started as frozen emotion began to break up and run again and the paralysing spell of the scene lost its grip. I looked away and then forced myself to focus once more on the dagger. But how could it . . .? Surely not! I peered more closely at the hilt, professional curiosity taking over for a moment. And then I looked back at the one at Sir John Hartest’s side. A representation of a vicious stabbing dagger possibly of Spanish manufacture and designed to penetrate plate armour with a short, underhand stroke. A misericorde. The word meant compass
ion—pity. Such blades were often used to put dying soldiers out of their misery on the battle field. What kind of sick trickery was I witnessing?

  The carved stone dagger and the wrought steel dagger were identical.

  I had the clear impression my presence had been conjured up to bear witness to this theatrical offering. My fingers, of their own accord it seemed, reached for the camera I always kept slung around my neck when I’m working. Slowly I raised it and framed the scene. The shutter clicked and a zillion pixels preserved the horror on the memory card of a Nikon slr.

  With trembling fingers, I took out the memory card and replaced it with a spare. Wondering at my motives and with, already, a vague concern for police searches and confiscations, I tucked the original one into an inside pocket

  The click was discreet but enough in that deep silence to shatter the Sleeping Beauty bewitchment of the tableau. It was fading rapidly now and reality was crowding in. Hasty and fearful, I looked round the church, belatedly considering the possibility of a murderer lurking, watching me react to his work. Behind the pews? Under the velvet hangings? In the vestry? There were hundreds of places to hide in a medieval church and I knew them all. My eye roamed over the nave and was caught by the grotesque and inquisitive features of a carved oak devil, one of the bench end figures, eager, apparently, to enjoy this violent event which had shattered his centuries of unwelcome peace. Imperceptibly, the sun changed its angle and a rosy glow began to creep over the white cheeks of the dead girl, infusing her with life.

  Not with a shriek, but with a very female whimper, I fled down the aisle, terror snapping at my ankles, towards the heavy oak door. In my panic I wrestled with the massive box lock and the more I pushed, the more firmly the door remained shut. Was someone standing outside laughing at me? Or, and the thought made me whimper out loud again, was someone standing inside laughing at me? With a dry rustle and a clearing of the throat, the ancient machinery of the church clock gathered itself and launched into its ten o’clock strike. The chimes rang out over my head deafening and confusing me. A malevolent woodwose in the spandril of the doorway sneered down at my pathetic attempts to get out.

  ‘Stupid cow!’ I gained a little control by swearing at myself.

  I gained a little more by remembering that I should be pulling the door, not pushing and a second later I had worked the trick of holding down the latch and tugging the door at the same time.

  I erupted into the blessed spring sunshine, the cheerful birdsong, the cool breeze of a Suffolk morning.

  * * *

  I’m an architect. I spend my life working in old churches and ancient buildings—that sort of architect. I’ve seen ghosts—it goes with the job. I’ve unwittingly addressed a few words to one or two, I’ve even held a perfectly sane conversation with one, but I had never been truly terrified in an old building before. I ran down the path towards the safety of my old Golf.

  In the deep shadow of the lych gate I cannoned off a hard body marching briskly in the other direction.

  ‘Hey! Watch it! Where are you rushing off to?’ came a startled male voice. I looked up to see what must be my client, the man with whom I had a ten o’clock appointment. My client, Edward Hartest, or, as his letter head had it—The Honorable Edward Hartest J.P.

  ‘Not fleeing the field already are you? For God’s sake, Miss . . . er . . . the clock’s only just struck! I take it you are my church architect?’ He tapped the top of my hard hat. ‘Well, of course. Who else would wear one of these ugly things? Hang on—you’re upset! Has something happened? Now look here, Miss . . . er . . . I don’t know what’s happened but hysterics won’t help. Pull yourself together if you can and tell me what’s going on here!’

  He smelled of hay and diesel oil. Not unpleasant and the slight whiff of Givenchy Gentleman was reassuring. My grandfather used it. He was wearing an ancient checked shirt and jeans, the uniform of a farmer in May. I didn’t like him much and I certainly wasn’t going to be patronised by him. I glared.

  ‘Can’ t talk to you now! I’ve got to get to my mobile! I left it in my car.’

  He stood aside waving me past him with mocking formality and watched me, quizzically enquiring while I fumbled to unlock my Golf.

  ‘Mobile indeed!’ he scoffed. ‘You young people are so dependent! Just how many friends do you have to inform that you’re at the church?’ He looked pointedly at his watch. ‘Busy man, you know. No time to stand about listening to a string of inanities and whatever else does one hear spoken on those things?’ He curled his lip at the sight of my cell phone emerging from the glove locker.

  Praying that my battery would not be flat, I stabbed out 999.

  ‘Hello? I want the police please.’

  Pause.

  ‘Police? There’s a dead body in Tilbrook church. A recently dead body,’ I added quickly. ‘A very fresh corpse.’ I hoped the operator wouldn’t take me for a hoaxer. ‘Yes, that’s Tilbrook St. George, three miles west of the A140 and five miles south of Mendlesett. My name’s Ellie Hardwick. I’m the church architect. Yes, of course I can stay put. About fifteen minutes? As long as that? Okay. Yes, of course. Thanks.’

  I rang off and looked at Edward Hartest. His astonishment and dismay were all that I could have asked for. Without a word he turned and began to run up the path to the church.

  ‘Oy! Stop!’ I called after him. ‘Mr. Hartest, you shouldn’t go in there! Not until the police arrive!’

  He stopped and waited for me to catch up with him. ‘Now listen! It’s my church and if some clown’s dumped a body in there, I’ve a right to know about it. If you’re scared, you can wait outside.’ He paused for a moment, looked at me speculatively and went on, ‘On second thoughts, you’re right. I’d be a fool to go blundering around in a crime scene without a witness so you’ll have to be it. Come on!’

  He tucked my arm firmly under his, partially as support but more, I believed, to stop me running off again, pushed open the door and marched me into the church. We set off to walk up the aisle, the strangest couple to undertake this walk together in the thousand years of its existence, I thought: middle-aged farmer, boots treading grass and earth up the smooth red wilton and me, a Lego figure in the firm’s green overalls and white plastic hard hat.

  ‘The table tomb,’ I whispered. ‘She’s laid out on the tomb. East end, south transept.’

  He stood to gaze down at the scene which had held me spellbound moments before. I watched him closely. There was no mistaking his shock. He made the sign of the cross and went on looking, drinking in every detail. The shock melted into an expression of great sadness, sadness which burned away the irritation between us. It was clear the girl was known to him, possibly even well known.

  ‘My God,’ he muttered and again, shaking his head, ‘My God!’

  ‘Do you know her? Family?’ I asked diffidently.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well, very nearly family. Let me present . . .’ he gestured to the figures on the tomb, ‘on the right, my ancestor, Sir John Hartest, first Baron Brancaster, and on the left, the mortal remains of the future Lady Brancaster, my son’s fiancée. At least—she was the future Lady B. Not any more, it seems.’

  I didn’t know what to say. Polite phrases of condolence would have been out of place but he looked at me questioningly, expecting some sort of response.

  ‘She’s—she was—beautiful,’ I said hesitantly. ‘I think, no I’m sure, I’ve seen her somewhere before.’

  ‘You’d have had to have been living on Mars not to recognise her!’ he said surprisingly. ‘This is Taro Tyler. She’s staying with us.’

  ‘Taro Tyler! Oh, yes, how stupid of me not to have seen it! It’s just that . . . with her eyes closed . . . those wonderful green eyes . . . she’s not so recognisable perhaps.’

  Those remarkable eyes now growing milky under their stiffening lids—I’d seen them smiling out from the side of every bus in London, working their magic in countless up-market TV ads.

  ‘Thank you. It�
�s tactful of you to mention the eyes.’

  Was there irony in what he said? I didn’t doubt it and it made me angry. Her eyes, lovely though they were, had received less publicity than her famous breasts. Every man in the country knew their size and had run lustful eyes over them in the tabloid press. It shocked me that, however obliquely, he should be calling up the memory as we gazed in fascinated revulsion at the rust-fringed puncture in that glorious, money-spinning bosom.

  ‘On her left breast

  A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops

  I, the bottom of a cowslip,’ he murmured but he wasn’t really talking to me.

  ‘Why do you suppose there’s so little blood?’ I whispered, my eyes drawn to the red-brown patch encircling the dagger blade. ‘There’s just the merest trickle. Wouldn’t you have expected a gush?’

  ‘Not necessarily—with a heart wound. It’s been expertly done. The dagger was placed with precision and left in the wound. It’s a skilful job, a surgical job, not a wild, crazed stabbing. But perhaps it was just a lucky stroke?’ He shrugged. ‘At any rate I don’t think we’re going to find any blood-drenched overalls in the graveyard dustbin.’

  ‘But how do you get a girl to just lie there while you plunge a dagger into her heart? Or was she killed somewhere else and the body brought here and arranged like this? And where on earth would you come by precisely the same dagger as the old man’s got at his side? That’s a misericorde, isn’t it? It’s all so deliberate! Look at her hair. It’s been arranged to fall like that. Her dress—someone’s folded it. And what would Taro Tyler be doing wearing an outfit like that anyway? It looks medieval!’

  I gasped as the connection struck me.

  ‘Only just caught on?’ he asked acidly.

  ‘She’s meant to look like—be a replica of—the original figure . . . the figure I was supposed to be inspecting with you this morning.’

  ‘I think so. Your firm sent some chaps last week to remove Sir John’s alabaster wife, Lady Aliénore. She was in need of remedial treatment. We called your boss who said, ‘‘Awfully sorry, I shall be away on holiday in Puglia but—tell you what—I’ll send you my assistant. She’s young and highly qualified, sound art historian. Pretty girl too,” ’ he added. ‘Recognise yourself? I had the remains of the first Lady Brancaster placed over there in the corner on that tarpaulin.’