The Bone Garden (5 page)

Jacintha looked round furtively as she opened the pavilion door, but there was nobody about. Nobody had any reason to come
to the small cricket ground on the edge of the estate. It wasn’t the most salubrious of trysting places but at least it was
private. They would be quite safe.

She swung her canvas handbag over her shoulder, picked up the bulky carrier bag she had brought with her, and stepped inside
the wooden pavilion, shutting the door carefully behind her. Unlike some pavilions, which housed carpeted bars and comfortable
chairs, Earlsacre Cricket Club made little concession to modern sporting comforts with its splintery benches, rusty lockers
and worn linoleum floor. The place had been converted from an army hut, left behind by the Americans when they had used Earlsacre
as a base during the war, and its atmosphere was still decidedly utilitarian.

A pair of ornate and battered garden statues stood incongruously in the corner, but otherwise the room was bare and austere,
smelling faintly of sweat and linseed oil. Jacintha breathed in deeply. The smell was masculine, sexy. She wrestled a stained
double duvet out of the carrier bag, laid it carefully on the hard floor, and looked at her watch. He had said eight o’clock.
He was late.

At seven minutes past eight Jacintha heard a noise, a scrabbling at the door. She stiffened and held her breath as she watched
it open slowly. The hinges creaked like in some horror-film. She could see a shape in the doorway against the fading light.

‘Jake? Is that you?’ she asked breathlessly, staring at the door.

Jake stepped forward. He reached out for her and pulled her towards him. ‘Who else were you expecting?’ he asked softly. They
kissed passionately, his tongue exploring her mouth and his hands her body.

She began to unbutton his shirt. ‘How did the meeting go?’

‘Fine.’

Her busy hands fell to her side. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said.

Jake stepped back, a little relieved. ‘Okay. They’ve roped in some
more archaeologists to give me a hand, so there’s a good chance that the work will be completed on schedule. Charles Pitaway’s
working on the garden plans. They’re good.’

‘I wonder if Charles ever feels sad about losing Earlsacre. If it had been mine it would have broken my heart to sell it.’

Jake looked mildly embarrassed by the passionate sincerity in Jacintha’s voice. ‘I don’t think it bothers him. He was telling
me that his parents moved out and let the place when he was five. And the trust paid him a good price for it. I mean, would
you swap a brand-new apartment overlooking Dukesbridge harbour for this old ruin?’

He put his hand out to stroke Jacintha’s long, auburn hair, but she turned away, and picked up the capacious canvas bag that
she had discarded on the floor in the first moments of passion. She began to search through it. ‘I want to show you something,’
she said earnestly. ‘I’ve been working on it today.’

Jake Weston sighed. It would be another of Jacintha’s poems. If the duvet that lay stretched out so invitingly on the floor
of the cricket pavilion was to be used that night, he would have to try to feign interest.

Jacintha drew a sheet of creased paper from the bag. ‘It’s only a draft. It’s probably best if I read it to you. It’s called
“Earlsacre Awakened”.’ She cleared her throat and began, squinting to see the words in the dim light that seeped through the
large, mesh-protected windows.

The centuries pass: a house and garden lost in weeds and time.

Built by Lantrists in the first Elizabeth’s mighty reign.

Laid out with trees, parterres, walls and strange grottoes.

Its beauty flourished then withered to earth like leaves of fall,

And was lost to Lantrists when the first George reigned.

Then others; Wiltons, Cramers, Pitaways …

Jake nodded encouragingly, anxious to get it over with. ‘Go on.’

Came to know its secrets and its mournful ghosts.

Till Earlsacre fell asleep beneath its eiderdown of briars,

Awakened only at millennium’s dawn.

But what secrets lie within?

What ghosts still walk in Lantrists’ lost land?

She looked at Jake like a puppy eager for approval. ‘Well? What do you think?’

‘Marvellous,’ he said quickly. ‘Very good.’ He knelt down on the duvet and held out his hand.

Jacintha hesitated for a moment, then fell to her knees beside him. They kissed once, then again. Then, as the fevered scramble
to remove clothing was reaching its inevitable conclusion, Jacintha let out a muffled cry.

Jake rolled his eyes. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

‘A face … at the window. Someone was watching us.’

Jake zipped up his jeans. ‘I’ll go and have a look,’ he said with a weary sigh.

He opened the door slowly. The resultant creak would have alerted all but the deafest of peeping Toms. ‘There’s nobody there,’
he called to Jacintha. ‘You must have imagined it.’

‘But I didn’t. There was someone there.’

‘Probably the resident ghost,’ he said with a laugh, unzipping his jeans. ‘Now where were we?’

Five minutes later Jake and Jacintha were far too preoccupied to hear the retreating footsteps outside treading softly on
the cricket pavilion’s rickety wooden veranda.

Craig Kettering had lain awake all night. At first he had blamed the heat, the unbearable stuffiness, as he stared at the
cracked ceiling of his shabby bed-sit on the top floor of a crumbling Edwardian house in Morbay. He had wriggled and rolled
from side to side in a search for comfort, but had only succeeded in pulling the sheets out to expose the stained mattress
until they lay crumpled in a wrinkled mess. He pushed back the top sheet and lay there naked.

The corpse in the caravan had been naked from the waist up. Craig couldn’t get the image out of his head, and when he finally
drifted into an exhausted half-sleep he dreamed that the body, surrounded by a halo of buzzing flies, had risen from the caravan
floor and was walking towards him, pointing accusingly. He woke, sweating, and sat up, still wrapped in the grubby, clinging
sheets. He should never have gone back for that money.

The glowing red numbers on the dusty radio alarm clock told him that it was eight o’clock. Too early. He had been out delivering
pizzas until two o’clock the night before, and he usually slept in until
ten at the earliest. But that was before he had discovered the corpse in the caravan.

He should never have gone back, he kept telling himself. It had been a mistake. But then he thought of the cash – sixty-five
pounds in all; enough to pay off a few debts and keep him in burgers and lager until Mr Bonnetti gave him his wages for the
pizza deliveries. Perhaps it had been worth it after all.

He lay down again in the crumpled bedding and closed his eyes tight against the light that streamed in through the thin curtains.
He must have drifted off to sleep because the next time he glanced at the clock it was 10.15. The night had left him exhausted;
his mouth was dry and his brain fuzzy from lack of sleep. He rose from the single divan bed and stumbled over to the sink,
where he picked up a chipped cup from the draining board and poured himself some water.

He knew what he should do. He should call the police. But in Craig’s circle of mates, casual acquaintances and dealers in
illegal substances, nobody made contact with the police: if they were unlucky the police would eventually contact them.

But there was no need for the police to know his name. All he had to do was to report it anonymously. Craig looked in the
cracked mirror above the sink and gave himself a smug smile.

He would ring from the phone box at the end of the street. Problem solved.

I am not of a fanciful disposition but I did detect a strange atmosphere around the house at Earlsacre which I at first did
attribute to an unseasonable chill in the air and the manner in which the breeze blew around the walled garden.

Yet I seem not alone in my misgivings. In that most excellent of establishments, the King’s Head, I hear strange tales of
footsteps and sounds in the night when there is no person present. It is said that one of the maidservants disappeared from
the face of the earth, that another died of fright there and a third lost her wits at the horrors she witnessed and was confined
to the attic. It is said that the gardener there dabbles in witchcraft and evil deeds. But I possess no evidence of these
events and as a rational man I do not believe what I do not experience with my own eyes and ears.

Yet there is a strange chill about the place.

From Jacob Finsbury’s Account of his Travels Around the Houses of England, 1703

At 8.30 on Friday morning Wesley Peterson felt that he was at last getting the better of his paperwork. A lull in criminal
activity had been just what was needed to get the backlog clear. Then Colin Bowman had rung to say that he’d completed his
examination of the Earlsacre bones.

‘Is our journey really necessary?’ asked Gerry Heffernan as Wesley pushed open the swing-doors that led to the mortuary.

‘Got to go through the motions, sir. If human remains have been found we have to get official confirmation that it’s not up
to us to investigate the deaths,’ replied Wesley officially but with a very unofficial smile on his face.

‘I might have known you’d be over the moon about looking at a couple of old skeletons, what with you having spent three years
learning how to dig things up at the taxpayers’ expense.’

Wesley ignored his boss’s last comment. He had learned from experience to take Gerry’s jibes with a hefty pinch of salt. ‘Colin
called me and, as things seem to be quiet at the station at the moment with our local villains working to rule, I thought
we should check with him that these skeletons are really as old as everyone seems to think they are. If Colin’s discovered
that they’ve got a mouthful of modern fillings we need to know.’

Gerry Heffernan had been in CID long enough to recognise an excuse when he heard one. Wesley was intrigued by the gruesome
discoveries at Earlsacre and was itching to find out more about them. And Gerry Heffernan had to admit that he was a little
curious about them himself.

They found Colin Bowman in his office. He was sipping tea from a bone-china cup while studying a pathology report. He looked
genuinely delighted to see the two police officers lurking in his doorway. ‘Gerry, Wesley. Come in.’ He stood up and headed
straight for the large china teapot that stood on a table in the corner of the room. When Wesley and Heffernan were safely
seated, each furnished with a cup of the finest Darjeeling, and after the social niceties had been observed, Wesley was able
to broach the subject of bones.

‘Both skeletons certainly seem fairly old,’ began the pathologist. ‘But of course I can’t say exactly how old unless …’

‘You do further tests and that takes months,’ Wesley interrupted. ‘We know, Colin. We’re not asking for miracles. I’m just
curious to know what you’ve found out so far.’

Colin Bowman took a deep breath and stood up. ‘Well, if you’ve finished your tea, I’ll take you to meet the objects of our
curiosity.’

He led them down the corridor and into a bright, white room. In its centre were two trolleys, each covered with a crisp white
sheet which lay in snowy peaks over the irregular shapes beneath. Colin whipped back the sheets to reveal two complete skeletons.
‘There you are, gentlemen. Our mystery guests from Earlsacre gardens.’

‘What can you tell us about them?’ asked Wesley.

‘I know it’s considered politically incorrect but I’m going to say ladies first and start with the female here,’ said Colin
mischievously. ‘From the position the archaeologists found her in, she had almost
certainly been buried alive.’ He pointed to the grinning skull, which was surprisingly small, almost as delicate as a child’s.
‘Dark stains on the facial bones indicate rupture of blood vessels suggesting that asphyxia was the likely cause of death,
which all fits in.’ The pathologist shook his head in disbelief. ‘Nasty business, very nasty.’

Wesley said nothing but nodded in agreement.

‘So you reckon someone just dumped her in a hole and buried her alive, then?’ asked Gerry Heffernan, who was leaning against
the wall with his arms folded. ‘You wouldn’t think it’d be that easy to bury someone alive.’

‘Who knows, Gerry? Whoever killed her might have knocked her out or drugged her, then she regained consciousness in the grave
and tried to claw her way out. Only by that time there was a dirty great stone plinth on top of her. As I said … very nasty.’

‘How old was she?’ asked Wesley, staring down at the small, frail-looking bones.

‘She was in her late teens, I’d say. She was around five foot tall; never given birth; a few bad teeth and no sign of modern
dental work; no obvious indicators of disease. That’s about all I can tell you. Poor girl,’ he added with sincerity.

Wesley stood in silence for a while, trying not to visualise the horror of this young girl’s death. Being unimaginative, he
thought, would have its advantages.

‘What about the other one?’ he asked quietly.

Colin Bowman turned to the other trolley. ‘Ah, yes. Now as far as I can tell he was well and truly dead when he went into
the ground. Probable cause of death was a fractured skull. The proverbial blunt instrument. He was found a couple of feet
below the young woman, so we can assume that he was buried first and then for some reason the grave was opened up and the
unfortunate girl was placed on top of the first body while she was still alive, then the plinth was put on top of them both.
All very macabre, don’t you agree?’

‘You can say that again.’ Gerry Heffernan scratched his head.

‘So what can you tell us about the man?’ asked Wesley.

‘About five foot ten; average build; mature adult … probably in his thirties or forties; moderately good teeth and again no
sign of modern dental work; healed fractures on three of the ribs and the left tibia but no obvious indications of disease.
I think our friend here had been in the wars at some stage in his life.’