Grave Matters
Grave Matters
First published in 1973
© Margaret Yorke; House of Stratus 1973-2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of Margaret Yorke to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of
Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,
Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.
Typeset by House of Stratus.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
| | EAN | | ISBN | | Edition | |
| | 0755130146 | | 9780755130146 | | Print | |
| | 0755134702 | | 9780755134700 | | Kindle | |
| | 0755134818 | | 9780755134816 | | Epub | |
This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.
Born in Surrey, England, to John and Alison Larminie in 1924, Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Nicholson) grew up in Dublin before moving back to England in 1937, where the family settled in Hampshire, although she now lives in a small village in Buckinghamshire.
During World War II she saw service in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a driver. In 1945, she married, but it was only to last some ten years, although there were two children; a son and daughter. Her childhood interest in literature was re-enforced by five years living close to Stratford-upon-Avon and she also worked variously as a bookseller and as a librarian in two Oxford Colleges, being the first woman ever to work in that of Christ Church.
She is widely travelled and has a particular interest in both Greece and Russia.
Margaret Yorke’s first novel was published in 1957, but it was not until 1970 that she turned her hand to crime writing. There followed a series of five novels featuring
Dr. Patrick Grant
, an Oxford don and amateur sleuth, who shares her own love of Shakespeare. More crime and mystery was to follow, and she has written some forty three books in all, but the Grant novels were limited to five as, in her own words, ‘authors using a series detective are trapped by their series. It stops some of them from expanding as writers’.
She is proud of the fact that many of her novels are essentially about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations which may threatening, or simply horrific. It is this facet of her writing that ensures a loyal following amongst readers who inevitably identify with some of the characters and recognise conflicts that may occur in everyday life. Indeed, she states that characters are far more important to her than intricate plots and that when writing ‘I don’t manipulate the characters, they manipulate me’.
Critics have noted that she has a ‘marvellous use of language’ and she has frequently been cited as an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She is a past chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association and in 1999 was awarded the
Cartier Diamond Dagger
, having already been honoured with the
Martin Beck Award
from the Swedish Academy of Detection.
I
Miss Brinton paused before the row of maidens who supported the temple’s portico roof on their heads. She gazed at each one of them in turn. Dr. Patrick Grant, Fellow of St. Mark’s College, Oxford, seated nearby on a broken marble pillar also contemplating the Caryatids, watched her and wondered if she, too, deplored the fake. In the bright light that shone from the sinking sun, her five sisters seemed to glow with a mellowness denied to her. He could hear a guide telling a group of tourists in bitter tones about the removal to England of the original. Many of Greece’s ancient treasures would have been lost forever without the interest of foreign archaeologists, he reflected. He stood up and looked to the west, where the great columns of the Propylaea stood out against the sky. He had come up to the Acropolis this evening to watch the sun setting behind the great entrance monument. There was still a little time to wait, so he wandered off in the direction of the museum, behind the Parthenon.
Miss Amelia Brinton was bound for the museum too; she walked ahead of him, paying no heed to the flocks of tourists with their shepherd guides and clicking cameras, an erect, white-haired figure carrying a faded green and white woven bag; a relic of a much earlier visit to Greece.
Patrick had first noticed her a few days before, at Delphi. She had been sitting half-way up the theatre with a small volume on her lap, sometimes reading it, and sometimes looking down at the stage, her head tilted, as though she were listening. There was something familiar about her, and later, when he saw her walking slowly down from the temple of Apollo in her sensible rubber-soled shoes, her linen hat in her hand, he realised where he had seen her face before: a portrait of those strong features had hung in the hall of the school which his sister Jane had attended; she had been the most forceful headmistress of its history, ruling over it for fifteen years and retiring just before Jane went there. Ever since, legends about her reign had been handed down to succeeding generations of pupils, and Miss Amelia herself had appeared in person on Speech Days and other such celebrations. She must be nearly eighty now. Patrick had not spoken to her at Delphi, and he had not seen her again until today. He remembered that she was the daughter of E. C. Brinton, a celebrated classical scholar in his day.
He watched her in the museum. She clearly knew it well, and paused before particular exhibits as though greeting old friends, unaware of anyone around her. Patrick’s own appreciation of the past was often interrupted by his interest in the present, and his attention wandered now from the archaic smiles of the charming Korai to the equally archaic responding expression on the face of the old woman looking at them. Then he got sidetracked by the strange, three-bodied
daemon
with its bearded faces still bearing traces of colour that had once been vivid, and he forgot about her, until he realised that the museum was about to close and he was almost the last to leave.
The sun was dropping now, fiery above the columns of the Propylaea. Patrick walked slowly up the steps at the eastern end of the Parthenon, into the great space within, and emerged on the northern side, facing the Erechtheum once again. He stayed there for a while, watching the sun as it sank lower and lower. The crowds had thinned out, and against the light one could not easily distinguish individuals. He did not see Miss Amelia Brinton until he had passed through the columns of the Propylaea; then he recognised her below him. Beside the marble, glowing golden in the light of the sinking sun, the moving human figures on the stairway looked insignificant. Everyone walked slowly. A few people were still coming upwards, for the Acropolis did not close until the sun had fully set. Patrick saw Miss Amelia standing still to gaze back at the great mass of the huge entrance. She had paused on a transverse slope with her back to a steep drop above a long, straight flight of steps. She was right at the edge: if she were to lose her balance, or step backwards, she might slip over. With an urgent sense of impending disaster Patrick began to hurry down towards her. At first he did not notice a youth who was hurrying upwards, elbowing his way through a cluster of people on the lowest steps. The accident happened in a flash: the youth knocked into Miss Amelia as he hurried past her; Patrick saw the long, dark hair, and the slight figure in jeans and an open battledress jacket as the boy thrust on upwards heedless of the old lady. There was a little scream, repressed because even in the ultimate experience the training of a lifetime is not swiftly cast aside, and with arms outstretched to grab helplessly at the air the frail figure of the old scolmistress arched outwards, struck the landing at the foot of the drop and rolled over, bowling down to end in a sprawling heap at the foot of the stairs. No one caught her. No one broke her fall. Patrick raced down the stairs himself, to arrive beside the crumpled little heap just as a horrified Greek tourist policeman was pulling down the grey skirt to cover the thin thighs that had been so crudely exposed. Miss Amelia Brinton was quite dead. Her faded eyes stared sightlessly up at the Grecian sky, and there was no vestige of any archaic smile on the mouth that was stretched in the shocked rictus of sudden death.
Patrick was not wearing a jacket, but he had a clean handkerchief in his shirt pocket. He bent, closed the staring eyes, and covered up the wrinkled face. Someone brought down the woven shoulder bag which Miss Amelia had dropped as she fell. Someone else brought the worn pigskin purse which had fallen from it, and a small leather-bound volume. It was Euripides’
Alcestis
in the original Greek, Patrick noticed, as he replaced it in the bag. Maybe that was what she had been reading up at Delphi, hearing in her mind what must have been to her familiar words.
The whole incident ended in minutes. The Greek police were extremely efficient, swiftly guiding away from the body all the appalled witnesses who were exclaiming excitedly in several languages. A stretcher appeared as if by magic, and the sad little corpse, wrapped in a blanket, was soon decently concealed behind the ticket office, waiting for an ambulance. Only then did Patrick remember the heedless youth who had gone thrusting upwards through the crowd to cause the tragedy.
‘It was an accident,
kirie.
The
kiria
was old and slipped,’ Patrick heard the Greek policeman who seemed to be in charge saying anxiously.
‘Yes,’ Patrick agreed.
‘She was your mother?’ the Greek was asking, with concern.
‘No,’ Patrick said. ‘The
kiria
had no sons.’
‘Po, po, po
.’ The Greek tossed his head in sympathy at such a serious misfortune.
‘I will go with the
kiria,
’ Patrick said. ‘But first – that young man who hurried past her – it was his fault. He knocked against the
kiria.’
Patrick looked upwards at the mass of the Acropolis, gold now in the fading light. The Greek policeman followed his gaze.
‘The Acropolis is closed now,
kirie.
There is no one up there,’ he said.