A Crowded Coffin (16 page)

‘We’d better get back to the house,’ Rory whispered. ‘Wonder where they parked their car?’

‘It’s down the back lane.’ The voice, from about six feet behind them, made them both freeze. ‘Oh, don’t look so fed up.’ It was Brendan Whittaker, a gun in his hand pointed straight at Harriet. ‘You’re well hidden. It’s your bad luck that I missed the first turning or I’d never have spotted you. But now, oh dear me.’ His tone was mocking. ‘I thought you had more sense, Miss Quigley. No,’ as Rory straightened up, ‘no heroics please, Dr Attlin, or I’ll have to kill you both. Now get over there to where my, er, colleague is.’

Harriet stumbled along behind, achingly conscious of Brendan’s gun He whistled to the other man who had hastily donned his black balaclava – why on earth? – and who now stood, saw in hand, beside a pile of cut saplings. Without a word he gestured with his other hand to what was revealed as a hole, roughly a metre square, at the base of the ancient plinth. Neatly
set aside was a turf ‘lid’ resting on a wooden base, together with some of the uprooted scrub that had been scattered carelessly around. There was no sign of the heap of excavated soil that Harriet would have expected, she noticed, without properly registering the thought, but there was no time to wonder.

Brendan pushed Rory to his knees and with the other man covering Harriet herself, briskly lashed his captive’s wrists with baler twine that he took out of his pocket. Rory uttered a wrathful protest but to Harriet’s horror, Mike Goldstein who had so far not uttered a word, swung his shovel at Rory’s head. Even though he managed to twist away, the back of the blade still clanged viciously against his skull and he dropped to the ground, still and grey in the moonlight, and to Harriet’s extreme distress, apparently dead.

‘You
bastard!
’ She lost control then, shrieking with rage and anguish. ‘You barbarian, get out of my way, let me see to him.’ Kicking and screaming, beside herself with fury, she scratched and howled, fighting against Brendan’s restraining grasp. The other man ignored her completely and casually gave Rory a shove down into the ruins. As she landed a lucky punch on him, Brendan let out a yelp of pain and loosened his grip.

Harriet twisted away but it was no use. Rory’s captor reached out and caught her, then, barely pausing, picked her up and dropped her down after Rory.

Terrified and breathless she heard Brendan’s voice; he was arguing with the other man. ‘There was no need for that, they’re harmless. You can’t….’

As she dropped she heard the other man’s harsh grunt of laughter at Brendan’s protest, then nothing else mattered as she braced herself for the fall, but somehow, miraculously, she was jolted but undamaged, apart from scratching herself on the heaps of scrub and saplings that Brendan and his crony had thrown down out of sight. This, she realized, was what had
saved her from injury. Even more fortuitously, she hadn’t landed on Rory.

As she took a shuddering breath there was a further horror. The light from the moon vanished as the turf ‘lid’ was replaced over the gaping hole about ten feet above and Harriet winced as a scatter of earth and small stones bounced off her face.

Muffled sounds from above suggested that their attackers were replacing the uprooted scrub and then there was silence. Harriet’s bowels wrenched with an agonizing spasm of terror but somehow she managed to control herself, putting her emotions on hold so that she could attend to Rory. Where the hell was Rory? Fearfully, she blundered about on all fours, almost kneeling on him when she located him at last. She groped feverishly for a hand, a pulse, but although she
eventually
located his wrist, she could feel no pulse, not even a flutter.

Sam Hathaway couldn’t sleep. Although the dinner on offer at the meeting had been substantial, mostly what Harriet always called ‘a manly meal’, a roast with plenty of potatoes and a hearty steamed pudding and custard to follow, he had eaten sparingly. It felt strange, camping in the cottage, strange but not unpleasant and the cat in the next room gave him a comforting sense of not being alone. Harriet would laugh when she heard that after a trip to the bathroom just before 2.30 a.m., he had nipped downstairs: coffee for himself; cat treats for Fat Hector, who snoozed happily in a corner until Sam coaxed him out to be stroked and admired. It felt good, he thought, listening to the tentative purring. Although Avril’s severe allergies had made pets impossible, Sam was inclined to agree with his cousin that a house needed a cat to make it a home.

Harriet. He wondered how she was feeling, praying that her concussion was as slight as the doctor had assured him and shivered at the thought of life without her. Harriet had been his
mainstay in the dreadful days after Avril’s death and in the bleak darkness that followed, how could he manage without her? Fear made him reach out for his phone, to check on her.

Pure selfishness! He frowned in the darkness and withdrew his hand. His cousin would be tucked up in bed at the farm, doped to the eyeballs and waited on hand and foot. A panic call at this time of night was the last thing she needed. He settled down and managed at last to grab a couple more hours of
restless
sleep.

Harriet could safely wait till the morning.

At last, Harriet found a pulse. Thank God, Rory wasn’t dead after all. She almost broke down then but years of self-control came to her rescue and she forced herself to relax, steadying her breathing, keeping her fingers lightly but firmly on Rory’s wrist. The pulse seemed a little stronger and she swallowed once or twice, gulping with relief.

‘Rory? Can you hear me?’ Over the thumping of her own heart she heard a murmur, a breath taken and a thread of a whisper.

‘S’posed to be a cure, you know.’ The faint laugh in his voice was the most welcome sound in the world. ‘Country air, family reunion, nothing strenuous.’

‘Nonsense.’ Her brisk reply was undermined by a slight wobble in the voice, but she rallied as she ran her hands over him. ‘Always something going on in a country village, you know; you need to man up, put hair on your chest. Now, do you think there’s anything broken? I’m sure you hurt all over, but can you tell if there’s any serious damage? Here, I’ve got my Swiss Army knife, I’ll cut that stupid baler twine so you can poke about. We’ll need all our strength to get out of this
predicament
.’

‘Mmm, no, no bones broken.’ His voice was beginning to sound stronger. ‘There isn’t a single bit of me that isn’t agony and my knee hurts where I must have banged it as I landed, but it’s not broken.’

There was silence as he explored the extent of his injuries. ‘Got a headache, but I don’t think my skull’s damaged. What about you, Harriet? You’ve already got concussion. Did they hurt you?’

‘Not really.’ She sighed and gave his hand a companionable squeeze to reassure them both. ‘I felt sick with fright when he walloped you with the spade but they didn’t actually hurt me, just dropped me into the hole. I can’t believe we didn’t break our necks but when they cut back all the shrubbery, they must have chucked everything down here to hide the evidence. A lucky break for us.’

‘Don’t say break,’ Rory groaned, and shifted uneasily. ‘Ugh, I think I have got a cracked rib after all, that bastard kicked me when I fell. He was aiming at my balls, I’m sure of it. Good job I managed to hunch up just as I passed out, otherwise I’d be singing soprano for the rest of my life.’

The feeble joke made them both feel better and Harriet fished out her key ring again. ‘Here, there’s a torch on it,’ she grunted. ‘Stupid little pencil light but better than nothing. Let’s have a look at where we are.’

‘Swiss Army knife? Torch? Harriet, if I had to choose who to be thrown in a gloomy hole with, you’d always be my first choice!’ He rubbed his sore knee. ‘I suppose you were a Girl Guide?’

‘And a Brown Owl,’ she added, thoughtfully shining the sliver of light around the shaft above their heads. ‘Useful motto: “
Be Prepared
”. Unfortunately I forgot to pack a gun and a picnic tonight, let alone a JCB to dig us out of here.’

‘God, I’m stupid.’ He was feeling very gingerly in a pocket. ‘I forgot all about my phone. It’s got a light and we can—It’s gone.’ He sounded aghast and she patted his arm.

‘It probably fell out of your pocket while they were giving you a good going-over,’ she consoled him. ‘I’m just surprised
they didn’t search us as a precaution. Just as well.’ She held up her own mobile triumphantly. ‘It’s not one of those state-of-
the-art
gadgets like yours, just a bog-standard basic model, but it’s better than nothing.’ She peered at it and shook her head. ‘Just as I thought, there’s no signal down here.’ She shrugged, settling herself more comfortably as she tried to ignore the rank smell that pervaded the place; nothing mattered now she knew Rory was more or less in one piece.

‘Let’s take a breather before we start worrying about signals or trying to get out of here. I shouldn’t think that makeshift cover would take much pushing, but it’s ten or more feet up, so you’d certainly have to give me a bunk up (which you’re in no state to do) and I’ve no head for heights anyway. But we’ll keep that as a last resort. We’re safe enough down here for now.’ She held out her key ring. ‘Here, you have this and I’ll use my phone and pray the battery holds up.’

‘Safe? If you say so.’ He shone the light round. ‘What I’d really like to know is, what the hell is going on?’

‘None of it makes sense,’ Harriet declared. ‘I thought it looked as though John Forrester had something to do with Dr Sutherland’s death, though I don’t see what he could possibly gain by that. Even if it was John whom your Canadian lady saw in the cathedral, it doesn’t mean he killed the old man, though it’s a tad suspicious that he didn’t mention anything to you or Edith at the party. I also thought he must be involved with the missing items from the archives and with Colin Price; maybe that he knew where Price had gone.’ She shook her head slowly looking bewildered. ‘I just don’t see how. The police
interviewed
everyone at the time and as far as I know, word round the village was that John never actually saw Price. Besides, according to Sam’s mole in high places, nothing’s been stolen since Price disappeared.

‘Another thing I don’t get,’ Harriet paused, before continuing,
‘is what any of it has to do with oil, which is where you might expect Brendan to be involved, or at least Brendan and his boss. And none of it has anything at all to do with looking up ancestors, as far as I can see.’

‘I think you’re right about that,’ Rory added his two-
pennyworth
. ‘I think the whole ancestor thing could be a cover and that Mike Goldstein was brought over here to act as a dowser.’ He explained about Sam’s discoveries. ‘I know Sam’s friend said he wasn’t up to date on techniques, but maybe there’s still a place for a kind of human sniffer dog. Though it might just be that he’s connected with the oil industry anyway.’

‘Hmm.’ Harriet digested this snippet of information. ‘It’s a bit tenuous, isn’t it, solely based on the fact that he’s from Texas. Might be lying, after all. And what about the business with Walter Attlin? The vicar has a cast-iron alibi for that, but it could have been Brendan, or Mike Goldstein. But why would they want to do that?’

‘Maybe Walter saw something. Or it might be that they
thought
he could have seen something. Sounds a high-risk strategy, though, so maybe it was blind panic.’

‘And then there’s me.’ Harriet’s voice sounded very small and she was grateful when Rory reached out to clasp her hand. ‘Who was it who pushed me over the quarry? Someone on his way to the village via the short cut, no question, but who? The vicar’s car had a dent on the wing, but Edith spotted that
before
I went through the fence.’ She thought it over. ‘He dropped Edith home by ten that night, she told me. I suppose he could have gone out again later.’

‘Brendan’s car had a nasty scrape too,’ Rory offered. ‘He told Edith he got it in a car park, didn’t see who it was. But why would either of them want to get rid of you, Harriet? I mean the whole village is agog with rumours about prospecting for oil, at least three people told me so before I’d been here half a day. And
if someone thought Sam was asking too many questions, why attack you and not Sam? Might as well bump off the whole village while he was at it.’ He sucked in a sharp breath. This was definitely not the moment, he decided, to let Harriet know of Edith’s suspicion that Sam might have been the intended victim in the cathedral.

Harriet sat silent for a moment or two. ‘Right, let’s stop asking questions, we’ve no way of knowing what the truth is,’ she said firmly. ‘I vote we suss out what there is down here.’

The meagre beam from her phone showed that they were in a small, square space that had a shaft let in from above and a culvert leading off at the side. Harriet crawled over to take a look and let out a squeal of fright as she came face to face with a pair of bright golden eyes, reflected in the thin line of light.

‘
What
—’ She rocked back on her heels, gasping for breath, as a ginger cat prowled up to her and head-butted her with great affection. ‘It’s Toby, he’s Penelope’s cat,’ she called to Rory, who had rolled over onto his hands and knees, preparing to crawl somehow to her rescue. ‘But how on earth did you get in here?’ She stroked the cat with shaking hands and shone the torch into the shadows.

‘Rory, the brickwork is amazing. I’m sure it’s Roman.’ Sidetracked for a moment, she ran her hands over the arched roof of the low tunnel. ‘Oh, my Lord, I wonder if it could be the hypocaust. I can’t imagine what else it could be. Oh.’ She was breathless with excitement. ‘This means there really was a villa and we’re underneath it. And,’ relief suddenly hit her, ‘if the cat can get in, perhaps we can get out the same way.’

She crawled back to sit beside Rory, and the ginger cat
immediately
scrambled onto her lap, rubbing his cheeks against her chin. She stroked him absently, while shining the torch this way and that.

A few feet to the side of the main shaft, visible through broken
brickwork, was a fall of earth that looked to Harriet like the remains of a badger’s sett. She peered at it, shining the light towards the brick arch that might once have been the villa’s heating system.

‘Damn, it’s collapsed, of course it would have. I knew it was too good to be true. Look, there’s no way we can force our way through that rubble and hundreds of years worth of roots.’ She was bitterly disappointed. ‘But how did the cat get through?’

‘I think somebody’s been down here, you know, it’s in pretty good nick for something that hasn’t been seen in sixteen hundred years,’ Rory said slowly, frowning as he shone the torch over the tile and stone piers, obscured in most places by hanging roots, rubble and more earth falls.

‘But it
has
been seen,’ Harriet protested. ‘Look, someone’s been shoring up some of those pillars and if you look up at the shaft we dropped down, you can see it’s been added at a later date. The brickwork is rough and the opening up from here has been hacked about to make it bigger.’

She racked her brains. ‘It’s a while since I taught any Roman history,’ she confessed, ‘but I think we must be in some kind of cistern. According to that old book about the Attlin family history, the angel stone is supposed to be where the atrium was, you know, the centre courtyard-cum-entrance hall. In a Roman villa the atrium would have had an opening called the compluvium; it wouldn’t have been roofed right over and rain falling through would be collected in a shallow pool underneath, to be drained away into a water tank
underneath
.’

‘You mean we could be in the water tank?’ Rory’s
imagination
was fired and he swung the torch up and down the shaft. ‘I think you’re right. Look, it’s definitely made of lead, you can see where it’s drooped down into folds; lead does that when it’s neglected. It’s incredible it wasn’t stolen. Later generations
knew about this place, they must have done, and for some reason came down here and made some alterations. I wonder why.’

‘But it’s in that old book.’ Harriet was excited, their danger forgotten. ‘There’s a mention of a priest’s hole at the farm but nobody’s ever been able to find it. Suppose it wasn’t in the house at all, but that the family knew about this space and made it bigger, to use as a hiding place.’

An involuntary shudder made her hug herself for comfort. ‘Dear God, imagine being a priest in hiding, stuck down here till someone came to tell you it was safe, and terrified all the time that someone would give you away.’ She cast a fearful glance round at the shadows. ‘Think what capture meant; torture, hanging, drawing and quartering.’ A thought struck her. ‘Ugh, I just hope we don’t stumble over a skeleton, one of those poor devils who never made it out!’

‘You’re supposed to be the little ray of sunshine round here,’ Rory groaned. ‘Talk about a ghoul.’

She managed a laugh. ‘Someone’s made an opening at the side of the cistern,’ she went on, standing on tiptoe to try and make it out. ‘As well as making the hole at the top bigger, I mean. The water tank and the hypocaust were originally quite separate of course, but it’s been altered so you can get through from the shaft. There’s air down here and look, there must have been a proper hatch above us, cast iron perhaps? You can see the ledges it rested on.’ She was excited. ‘I bet it’s still in use; that temporary lid would disintegrate in no time. Thank goodness we haven’t got the original one up there. They were obviously in too much of a hurry to get rid of us.’

She felt carefully round the brickwork, wrinkling her nose as she came to the badger’s sett. ‘And who knows? The Attlins could even have used it in the Civil War, to hide royalist soldiers from the Roundheads.’

‘Harriet.’ Rory’s voice was harsh, his breathing ragged. ‘Shut up a minute and look over here.’

While she was thinking aloud, he had wriggled over to the culvert, so she joined him, shining her phone alongside his torch, her eyes squinting along the finger of light that shone into the darkness. The smell was much worse here, and she gagged just as she caught up with Rory, who was staring at something. Just visible, secreted in a blind alley that was part of the
ventilation
system, the long body of a man lay very still, his hand flung clear of the rough covering of stones. Not a Roman, not a skeleton, it was a man whose modern, casual trousers and
dark-grey
jacket were only too visible.