THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY - OLD SINS CAST LONG SHADOWS

THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY - EPISODE FOUR

CHAPTER

SIX

“You knew that would be there?”  Lady Mabbott pointed at the passageway behind the bookcase.

            “I guess that something might be, yes, but the real question is, did you know about it?”

            Lady Mabbott was shocked by my question.  “I’d heard about them, but I didn’t think they were still accessible or very safe.”

            “Do you know where it leads to?”  I asked.

            “No idea,” Lady Mabbott replied.

            With Lady Mabbott, her daughter, and her brother-in-law, still protesting their surprise, DCI Shaw ushered them from the room and then fetched a couple of torches from his Land Rover. 

We were going to access an old escape route for priests on the run that clearly hadn’t been signed off as being safe by any structural engineer, and which would probably be full of unseen dangers.

            “Ready, John?”  Shaw asked.

            “Yes,” I replied

            “I’ll go first.”

            DCI Shaw stepped into the gap behind the open section of the bookcase and found himself looking at a set of rickety wooden steps that led vertically downwards.

            “Hold on, there’s got to be a light or something,” Shaw said, jabbing his torch around the cobwebby darkness until it illuminated an old switch that was attached to the adjacent bookcase.  He flicked it on, and light flowed up from the tunnel below.

            “Okay, we’re good to go,” Shaw said.

            I stepped up to the Detective Chief Inspector and looked over his shoulder at the eight or nine steps that led down into the tunnel.  It looked like a snakeskin turned inside out, slinking into an abyss. Whoever had built it had tunnelled from the softest soil, and not given a toss about how straight the line was. In just a few feet there was no daylight from behind, the dark walls absorbed all the light.

            Shaw descended to the bottom and I took a deep breath.  I stepped down onto the first step. It gave a protesting groan.  I froze.  I realized that if the ancient step had groaned as though it were about to snap, then it was wise to get it fast. I descended quickly to the bottom, each step giving a pantomime groan until I found myself standing in the narrow tunnel hewn directly out of the soil.

            From here I could see that the tunnel went off sloping downwards curving to the right and then to the left.  There were lightbulbs strung along the wall every ten feet or so, but the slope and the curvature meant that it was hard to see beyond forty or fifty feet.  I could smell the North Sea in the air.

            Shaw looked at me.

            “Shall we see how far this goes?” he asked.

             The tunnel wasn’t as high as I was tall, leaving me to stoop into the darkness, one hand on the mildewed tiles. The tunnel lights illuminated the sluggish water at my feet. Every step echoed like a ghostly cry ahead and behind.   I counted each bulb as I passed them, and I calculated that we’d gone a good 150 feet when the tunnel bent to the right and I could see that there was natural light at the end of the tunnel about a hundred feet away.

            “You can speed up now?” I said.

            At the end of this next section of tunnel, we stepped into a well-lit subterranean cave.  The floor, walls and roof of the cave were rough – it was clearly a natural cave formation – but it was a wide and roomy space, and although there were still lightbulbs shinning in a line around the side walls, holes had been punched directly into the rocks high up so shafts of sunlight shone down onto the floor from above.

            I realized that if there was light coming through the far wall, then we were certainly near the cliff edge.  And the stronger smell of sea air in the cave confirmed this.

            Shaw joined me and I noticed in the far corner of the cave opposite where we had come in, there was the glow of daylight where a second tunnel led out of the cave.

            I went up to this second tunnel and immediately felt the freshness in the air as I stepped into it.  In fact, the breeze was now whipping at my face as I took a few steps around a little jink, where I froze, both hands instinctively shooting out to jam myself firmly into the narrow width of the tunnel.

            I took a few calming breaths when I’d discovered what was around the tight bend. The tunnel opened out onto thin air and a precipitous dropdown to the sea fifty feet below.  All I could see – from horizon to horizon – was the grey North Sea and the grey snow-filled sky.  One step further, and I would have fallen fifty feet down into the sea.

            My arms trembled at the effort of keeping me wedged safely into the tunnel opening.  Because if this was a priests’ escape route or a secret smugglers’ route, it didn’t make sense that the tunnel would open directly out into thin air and halfway up a cliff face.

            I looked closer. The tunnel wall was shorter on the right-hand side – which allowed a little path to lead off to the right along the cliff face. 

            I carefully slid my left hand six inches nearer the end of the tunnel, and then I did the same with my left foot.  After a pause, I shuffled my right hand six inches nearer, and then my right foot.

            I was now only six inches nearer the opening and I still couldn’t see.  I repeated my crablike progress another few inches. Looking down, I saw the sea swelling against the cliff’s edge.  To my right, I saw that I’d been right. There was a wide ledge of rock to the side of the entrance.  What was more, it was directly behind a far wider outcrop of rock that had a scrappy sort of shrub on it which was almost as tall as me.

            I looked through the shrub and discovered a staircase cut into the cliff face on the other side of it.

            I ignored the absence of any kind of handrail or safety rail - it would only take a couple of steps to get along the ledge and into the safety of the bush, from there it would be easy to step onto the staircase.

            Excitement rose, as I shuffled back into the relative safety of the tunnel, my mind now in a whirl. 

            “John!”  Shaw called from back inside the cave.  “You need to see this.”

            I returned to the cave.  It took me a few moments for me to adjust to the darkness, but I saw that the DCI was over by the piles of junk that were on the far side of the chamber.

            “What have you found?”  I asked.

            “Hormone replacement therapy medication,” he said.  “I reckon these must have belonged to the sister-in-law.”

            “They must be historic,” I said.  “She left a while ago.”

            “And what have you found?”

            “A secret route out of here.”

            The stone steps were hewn, but they were a good four or five feet wide.  What was more, although there was a vertical drop to almost certain death if we fell over the edge, there was a little escarpment of dirt and scrubby bushes and thorns running along the edge of the stairs to give the false appearance of safety?  And to divide the challenge into more manageable chunks, I could see that the whole staircase doubled back on itself four or five times as it wound its way up the cliff face.  In fact, I realized, even if I fell over the edge, there would be a chance I would have my fall broken by the stone steps on the flight of stairs directly beneath.

            It took us six to seven minutes to pick our way upwards and into a graveyard.

            Stepping through the gate, I stopped, assaulted by the fading light that cut through the clouds giving a sepia tone, casting the gravestones in a nostalgic hue. Unlike the bones that were mostly gone, the stones weathered slowly, only their lettering showed signs of the passing of time.

            The gravestones cast shadows longer than they were tall and were cool to the touch. They were decrepit, and I doubted whether many had a relative alive to remember their face or voice. They were not all gravestones of the rich, hunks of marble with gold lettering. There were concrete ones, sometimes simple crosses of wood. Some were scattered with snow-covered flowers, others freshly dug, but to the dead what did it matter? Once the flesh was still the soul had moved on, and it was those left behind that mourn.

                       “How can we tell if any of the buildings are currently occupied?”  Shaw said suddenly.

            “Occupied by the living rather than the dead,” I joked.

            Shaw ignored me and started to head up the central avenue.  The snow continued to fall with the air still and silent. It was so thick that it almost obscured the view completely. I looked upwards, and I felt as if I was flying upward rather than watching the crystals fall, like oversized confetti, towards me.

            We wandered among the crypts, although I was getting increasingly irritated with the DCI. He repeatedly stopped to read the enamel plaques and painted wooden boards that detailed the virtues of those who had died.

            As I continued along the path, I noticed the central avenue glistened like white quartz, ice crystals on weary concrete were all it was. All this beauty over everything dead.  Beneath my feet, thinly frozen puddles cracked under my feet. The bitter cold seeped through my gloves, numbing my fingers until they felt thick and stiff, unable to handle the zipper on my parker. I made the most of cracking the thin ice, by midday tomorrow the thaw would have begun, and these would be no more than shallow pools of frigid water, not even deep enough to splash in.

            I soon found that there was one structure in the whole cemetery that was grander than all the others, and it was just off the main avenue.  As I approached, I couldn’t help but feel that – finally – there was a building that looked as though it might pass muster with the local building authority inspector with only the smallest of bribes and a nudge and a wink.  The crypt had two floors and a pitched roof – and together with the outside staircase, arched openings on the first floor, and alternating black white tiles plastered to every inch of the structure, the whole thing looked like the work of a graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints, look real.

            A narrow staircase led down to an iron-grilled door that had ancient plaques screwed to the wall all around the frame.  Most of the plaques were dedicated to various members of the Mabbott family.  This was it.  The Mabbott family crypt was by some distance the grandest in the entire graveyard.

            Inside the crypt, the air was musty, accompanied by a strange smell.  It was sweet and sickly.  Shaw took out a hankie and covered his nose.  Once I was accustomed to the gloom, I saw that the far wall was covered in small metal rusted and dented doors.  This was where the family coffins were placed.

            Two ancient stone sarcophagi were positioned on each side of the crypt.  They were very plain and dusty, and the stone lids didn’t fit properly.

            “Someone’s been here recently,” I said, breaking the silence.

            “How do you know?”

            “Look at the ground under the hinges,” I pointed to the groove drawn in the dust directly beneath the hinges of the barred gate.

            “You’re right,” Shaw inspected the hinges, and he saw a brightness to the metal where the rust had rubbed away.  “So, who’s been in here?”    

            There was something wrong.  I could feel it. 

            “Shh,” I said to Shaw.

            “I didn’t say anything,” he protested in a whisper

            “Quiet!”

            I stood stock still

            And then I realized.

            There was a buzzing noise.  Barely discernible, but it was there, I was sure of it.

            “Can you hear that?”

            “Hear what?”  Shaw asked.

            I took a few steps to the side of the room and stood still again.

            Yes, I was right.  There was a buzzing noise.  So, faint I could barely hear it, but it was there.

            I bent down a little – it felt like it was coming from the floor.

            I was wrong.

            The noise was coming from the stone coffin on the left-hand side of the room.

            A stone coffin that had a powdering of stone dust on the floor all around it.  Someone had recently scraped the lid off and then put it back on again.

            “Joe, it’s coming from inside this sarcophagus.”

            I had the Detective Chief Inspector’s attention.

            “There’s something in there.  Here, we’ll need to get the lid off.”

            We walked over to the sarcophagus, stood at each end, and grabbed the lid.

            “After three?”  Shaw asked.

            I gulped.  Despite my bravado, I was deeply unsettled opening an old sarcophagus-like this.  Especially since there was clearly something inside that was making a noise. 

            “Okay.  One . . . Two . . .”

            As Shaw said three, several things happened that was going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

            The stone lid shifted a fraction, and a cloud of black flies swarmed into the air in a sudden crescendo of buzzing as though released by Satan himself.  Before recoiling violently, I glimpsed a dead body inside the sarcophagus.

            A body that hadn’t been dead for long.

            But that wasn’t what would stay seared in my minds.

            It was the fact that we’d just found the body of Wendy Clark.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

Wendy Clark had been mutilated.  She was lying on her side in a puddle of dried blood that had spread all around her inside the sarcophagus.  One of her hands was stretched out and the first thing I noticed was that two of her fingers had been half severed as she’d flailed out, trying to protect herself from the knife that had cut her half a dozen times, and which had finally been left sticking out of her chest.  One of the blows had slashed her right across the face and this injury was more horrible than any of the others because when we meet someone it’s the first thing we look at.  Lose an arm or a leg, and you are still you.  Lose your face and everything known about you is taken away.      

            Wendy had a deep cut that had taken out one eye and folded back a great flap of skin all the way down to her mouth.  Her clothes hid the worst of her other injuries but here there was no disguising the madness of what had been done to her.  One of her cheeks was pressed against the floor of the sarcophagus and her whole head had taken on the melting quality of a punctured football.  She no longer looked anything like herself.  I’d only recognized her by her clothes and the tangled black hair.

            The same clothes she’d been wearing in one of the family photographs back at the house.  The smell of the blood filled my nostrils, rich and deep like freshly dug earth.

            “I’m just going to step outside and call the police,” Shaw said suddenly.  “I can’t get a signal down here.”

            “Go ahead.”

            He left the crypt and I leant against the stone shelf that encircled the interior, trying to ignore the body, trying not even to think of the dreadful injuries.  It wasn’t easy.  If I closed my eyes, I became aware of the smell.  If I opened them, I found myself glimpsing the blood, and sprawled-out body.  I had to turn my head away to keep Wendy Clark out of my line of vision.

            And then she groaned.

            I twisted around, thinking I’d imagined it.  But there it was again, a quite gruesome sound.  Wendy’s head was facing away from me.

            “Shaw!”  I shouted.  At the same time, I felt bile rising in my throat.  “Shaw!”

            He came hurrying back into the crypt.

            “It’s Wendy. I think she’s still alive.”

            He looked at me doubtfully, then went over to the body.  “No, she isn’t,” he said, tersely.

            “I just heard her.”

            Wendy moaned again, louder this time.  I hadn’t imagined it.  She was trying to speak.

            But Shaw just sniffed.  “Stay where you are, John, and forget about it, all right?  Her muscles are stiffening and that includes around her vocal cords.  And there are gases in her stomach which are trying to escape.  That’s all you are hearing.  It happens all the time.”

            “Oh.”  I profoundly wished that I wasn’t here. 

            I heard the stamp of feet on the steps leading up to the exit and a moment later, two uniformed police constables arrived.  They looked from the body to the two of us, trying to work out what was going on.

            “Stay right where you are,” the first one said.  “Who made the call?”

            “I did,” Shaw said.  “And you took your time getting here.”

            “And who are you, sir?”

            “Detective Chief Inspector Shaw.  I’ve already contact Assistant Chief Constable Angela White.  I’ve reason to believe that this murder may be connected to a current investigation.”

            The British Police have a way of addressing each other, a formal and slightly tortuous turn-of-phrase, as in ‘I have reason to believe’ and ‘contacted’ instead of ‘called.’  It is one reason I have always found them so difficult to work with.  It is hard to care about anyone who talks in clichés.  They were also so much less interesting than their American counterparts, with their white shirts, stab vests and hopeless blue helmets.  No guns.  No sunglasses.  These two police officers were young and earnest.  One was Asian, the other white.  They hardly spoke to us again.

            One of them took out his radio and called in the situation while Shaw set about examining the crypt for himself.  I watched him as he went around the crypt with great stealth.  Careful not to touch anything, using a handkerchief which he’d pulled out of his pocket.  Meanwhile, the police officers had made their calls, which didn’t seem to leave them with anything else to do.  They glanced uncertainly in my direction as I went outside for some fresh air.

            The grounds were still covered in a thick blanket of white, statues peeked out under from the snow, footsteps and paw prints criss-crossed each other around the labyrinth of paths. Aside from the brown of the denuded trees, the only other colour was the vivid saffron staining around the base of each tree and shrub.

            The cold that had seemed mild at first now numbed my face and extremities. With each breath, more heat rose in puffs of white vapour, with each gust of the wind more heat dissipated into the whiteness.  I went back inside the crypt.

            Over the next couple of hours, the Mabbott family crypt became increasingly crowded while the two of us waited patiently with nothing to do.  The police constables had called the Murder Investigation Team and about half a dozen of them eventually arrived.  They all wore plasticized paper suits with hoods, masks and gloves that made them almost indistinguishable from each other.  Every few seconds, the crypt seemed to freeze as a police photographer captured some section of it with a dazzling flash.  A man and woman, both part of the forensic team, were crouching over Wendy’s body, delicately swabbing her hands and neck with cotton buds.  I knew what they were looking for.  If there had been any bodily contact between Wendy and her attacker during the knife attack, they might be able to pick up DNA.  Both of her hands had been bagged, the opaque plastic securely taped.  It was extraordinary how quickly she’d been dehumanized – and worse was to come.  When they were finally ready to remove her, two men knelt and wrapped her in polythene which they sealed with gaffer tape.  The process turned her into something that reminded me of both Ancient Egypt and Federal Express.

           “Latent footprints,” she replied.  “We need to eliminate you from the enquiry.”

            “When will I get them back?”  I asked.

            The woman shrugged.

            “How long are we going to be here for?”

            Again, she didn’t answer.

 After a while, ACC Angela White arrived, signing herself in with the logging officer at the entrance to the crypt. She was wearing her smart uniform and peaked cap, which marked her as police top brass.  Slim, she held herself with an almost military bearing.  You could just about make out her dark hair beneath her cap, and on this occasion she was wearing little or no makeup.  Her mouth was full and curving; the lips hinting at sensuality the rest of her tried to deny.  I had worked with her before and built up a good working relationship of mutual respect but this time I saw a different side to her.  She was cool and authoritative, checking with the crime scene manager, talking to the forensic team, taking notes when she finally came over to us, she got straight to the point.

            “What were you doing here?”

            “Wrong place, wrong time.”

            “This is serious, John,” she snapped.

            “We were following a lead, Ma’am.”  Shaw tried to come to my rescue.

            “And what was that?”

            “John discovered a priest hold in the walls of Mabbott Manor, which led to a tunnel, which led us to the graveyard.”

            “I see,” White said.  “Was she already dead when you two impersonating Burke and Hare, got here?”

            “Yes.”

            “You didn’t see anyone leaving.”

            “No,” Shaw replied, firmly.

            “All right, then, you can go back to the house and continue with your enquiries.  And take Sherlock Holmes here with you.”

            She meant me.  Sherlock Holmes is something of a hero of mine, but I felt strangely offended.  She was playing to the masses and I didn’t like that side of her.

            I followed Shaw to the exit and then stopped and went back to where the Assistant Chief Constable was standing.  “Sorry to disturb you, but what’s with the Sherlock Holmes joke?”

            “I’m sorry?”  She looked at me puzzled.

            “Calling me Sherlock Holmes in front of everyone," I said, sharply.  “Was it really necessary to belittle me like that?  You were the one who recommended me to DCI Shaw.”

            “What are you talking about, John?”

            “You recommended me to DCI Shaw, to assist him in this case.”

            Her eyes flared with anger.  “I don’t know where you get your information, John.  But I can tell you now, I certainly did not recommend you to DCI Shaw.  I must admit I am glad you are helping him but if you ever talk to me like that again, you’ll never consult for the Suffolk Constabulary while I am Assistant Chief Constable.  Do I make myself clear?”

 "Crystal!"  I said sharply and padded across the crypt, still in my socks, and I was about to point it out when the woman in the plastic suit handed my footwear to me.

            “Thank you.”

            She smiled and even though I couldn’t see the smile behind the mask, I could see it in her beautiful green eyes. 

            On my way out I was handed my shoes and slipped them on. We stepped out of the crypt, passing more police officers that were just arriving.  There were three police cars parked outside and, next to them, a vehicle with the words ‘Private Ambulance’ printed on the side.  It wasn’t anything of the sort.  It was just a black van brought here to transport Wendy Clark to the mortuary.  More police officers were at work, erecting a screen from the front of the crypt to the edge of the pavement of the central avenue so that no one would see the body when it was carried out. 

            Through the snow came a grating noise, an engine, much like a motorbike. From the volume, I knew that it was heading in our direction, and I strained my ears, so I could make out what it was. I could see nothing until it sounded as if it was going to run us down. It stopped in front of us in just a few seconds, a bright blue painted chassis the shape of a throat lozenge on enormous black skis – a snowmobile.

            It had two people on board.  Butch was the driver and Lady Mabbott, was the passenger, dressed in a dark-blue, fur-lined snowsuit, which hugged her figure in all the right places.  She stepped off the snowmobile with such grace, it was almost beautiful to watch.  She stopped and looked around, shocked by all the activity.  Then she saw us and hurried over.

            “What’s happened?”  She asked.  “Why are the police here?”

            “I’m afraid you can’t go in there,” Shaw said.  “I’ve got some unwelcome news.”

            “Not more sad news.”

            “I’m afraid Wendy Clark is dead.”

            I thought he could have put it more gently.

            “What do you mean?”  She whispered.

            “She’s been murdered.”

            “No. That’s not possible.  She’s in Melbourne.”

            “I’m afraid not.”

            She looked at Shaw and then at the entrance to the family crypt.  She realized that the two of us had been on our way out.  “Where are you going?”

            “The Assistant Chief Constable is down there, and she is wanting us to continue with our investigation.  We’ll want to talk to you, though, but if you take my advice, you won't go inside, not yet anyway.  It's not very pleasant.  Why not just go back to the house?  We'll find you soon enough."

 "Can I do that?  You don't think...?"

 "We don't think anything."

            “That’s not what I meant,” she said, making up her mind at once.  “You’re right.  I can’t go inside.”

            “Would you like someone to come with you?”  I suggested.  “I don’t mind walking with you if you like.”

            “No.  I’ll get Butch to take me back on the snowmobile.”

            Once again, I didn’t know what to make of Lady Victoria Mabbott.  I couldn’t tell if she was being sincere or not.  She looked upset.  There were tears in her eyes.  She could have been in shock, but there was a part of me that felt it was all just a performance, and she had practised what to say from the moment she saw us from the back of the snowmobile.

 The snowmobile sat heavily on its skis, a testimony of the power of spreading the weight over a large surface area. Its sleek cherry paint shone but was made dark in comparison to what covered the countryside. Its nose was curved, aerodynamic and styled like the front of an Olympic bobsleigh. When Butch fired up the engine the sound reverberated around the manor grounds, and though the machine was designed for just this setting it was oddly juxtaposed to its surroundings. Everything else was silent, pristine, clean, and here was the snowmobile - sounding like a motorbike revving on a sleepy suburban street. But when Butch opened the throttle and moved away all doubts were erased, we all wanted a ride, to travel so effortlessly over the crystalline snow.

            “The grieving step-sister,” Shaw murmured.

            “Do you think so?”

            “No, John.  I’ve seen more grief at a Turkish wedding.”

            The snowmobile disappeared out of sight in a flurry of snow.

            “One thing puzzles me,” I said, absent-mindedly.

“What’s that?”

“Why she never asked how her step-sister had died.”

CHAPTER