The Haunted Lady (3 page)

I was intrigued by something else. When Eve returned from the kitchen I asked Mrs Phillips, ‘Why did you choose to come here?’

‘I don’t know really, except that Michael has told me a lot about the things you’ve done and the mysteries you’ve solved, and I thought if anyone might know ways and means of finding things out, you’d be the ones.’

Eve and I exchanged glances before she said, ‘That sounds like a bit of a tall order. You mentioned three different things in one sentence. Perhaps it would be better to separate them and tell us one bit at a time.’

‘Eve’s right,’ I told her. ‘Why don’t you start with the haunting, Mrs Phillips?’

‘Please, call me Marjorie,’ she replied. ‘Very well, it’s the church that is haunted. Well, not so much the church, more the chapel.’

Her opening had me baffled, which was more the fault of my upbringing. In my mind ‘church’ indicated an Anglican establishment, whereas I associated ‘chapel’ with Nonconformists such as Methodists. My puzzled expression was mirrored by Eve’s. Seeing this, Marjorie hastened to clarify her statement. ‘Dinsdale Parish Church is dedicated to St Mary Magdalene. It’s a cruciform church, with one of the transepts made into a Lady chapel. It’s the Lady chapel that is haunted, has been for years.’

‘When you say haunted, what form does the apparition take?’ Eve asked.

I had a vision of a monk clad in robe and cowl pacing the cloisters of what might once have been a monastery. Either that, or a vicar wearing the frock coat, knee britches, and gaiters of a bygone age. Well – you can’t blame me, because it was hardly likely to be a headless horseman or Bluebeard. Not in a country church.

‘The vision is that of a woman wearing a grey gown. She has been seen several times, but only briefly. She appears for a second or two, standing in the entrance, not moving, and then vanishes. Naturally the rumours of the sightings have got out, and some of Michael’s parishioners won’t go near the church. Others can’t keep away. Trying to hold their attention during a service when they are staring sideways hoping to catch a glimpse of a ghost is taxing Michael’s patience. He can’t explain it, and neither can anyone else.’

‘I agree it must be difficult for him, but I hardly think you need to worry if that’s all there is to it,’ Eve reassured her. ‘Or is there more that you haven’t told us?’

As a prompt her final remark worked a treat. ‘Michael’s been told that the ghost only started to appear to people after the painting vanished. The problem now is some folk have started putting two and two together. They seem to imply something sensational and Michael is really concerned that if it got into the media it might cause hordes of people to descend on the church. The sort of folk who are fascinated by the supernatural, I mean.’

‘Sorry,’ I admitted, ‘but somewhere in the middle of that you lost me. What painting are you referring to? One that vanished, I think you said.’

‘There was a painting that used to hang in the Lady chapel. One edge of it was fixed to the wall of the chapel but it was on hinges so that it was also visible from the nave of the church. The painting was very old. In fact it was one of those double-sided paintings. There’s a name for them but I can’t remember it.’

‘You mean a diptych?’

‘That’s it. One side is said to represent Mary Magdalene fleeing for her life following the Crucifixion and the other is when she’s seen Christ after the Resurrection. I don’t think the painting was exceptionally valuable as a work of art, except possibly as a church artefact. I mean it wasn’t by Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, or anything like that. I admit I’m no expert but from what I could judge I understand it was little better than something an enthusiastic amateur could produce. However, someone mentioned that the apparitions only started after the painting was taken. Can you imagine the throng of gawping sightseers a rumour like that would provoke? Michael doesn’t want his church to be “turned into a circus”, as he puts it.’ She smiled fondly. ‘He can get a little fanciful at times.’

‘That’s OK, we do fanciful very well here. I can understand how he feels, though, it must be a worry for him, but I’m not sure how we can help. Except if perhaps we were able to recover the painting. When exactly was it stolen?’

‘We can’t actually be sure it was stolen. I can’t tell you the exact date, but it was somewhere around twenty years ago, before the church repairs were completed. Certainly a long time before Michael was appointed to the parish. He would only have been about six or seven then.’

‘That would make it far more difficult to trace. After so many years the painting could have gone anywhere.’

Eve winced at my blunt assessment of the problem, but asked, ‘Why can’t you be sure it was stolen?’

‘When the church had to have a new roof the building was stripped of its contents. It is possible the vicar at the time removed the painting. Unfortunately he died before the church was ready to be reopened. The painting wasn’t amongst his belongings at the rectory, but he might have given it to someone else to store and it hasn’t been returned.’

That seemed unlikely to me but I didn’t have the leisure to ponder it, because Eve, it seemed, was ready to move on. ‘Let’s leave that on one side for the moment. You mentioned something connected to Chloe. That’s the girl your son is engaged to.’

‘That’s correct, her name is Chloe Kershaw. Or at least that’s what everyone believed, but now we can’t be sure. The problem arose because she and Michael wanted to visit Italy for their honeymoon. That meant she had to apply for a passport. She sent in her birth certificate months ago and that was when the trouble started.’

‘What trouble?’

‘The passport people told her that the birth certificate was a forgery. They refused her passport application, and now the poor girl is in a terrible state. Apart from everything else, they’ve had to call the wedding off, which has made things even worse.’

‘Surely her family can confirm that she is who she believes herself to be, can’t they?’

Far from cheering Marjorie up, my statement seemed to make her even more perturbed. ‘That’s just the point; there is no one who can vouch for her. Both her parents are dead, and her uncle David and his wife Valerie can’t help.’

‘That sounds very odd. Why is that?’ Eve got the question out in a split second before I could ask.

‘David was the younger brother and he lived and worked in London. I understand Chloe’s mother and father were abroad when they married. Her father was in the Diplomatic Service and posted to various different countries, rarely returning to England, so they never saw each other. Chloe was only a baby when her parents came to Elmfield Grange and lived with her grandfather. I believe she has no other living relatives apart from her aunt and uncle, so she turned to them for help with the birth certificate problem, but they could tell her very little. Her uncle said he believes her father was in Europe during that time, but that’s all he can say.’

‘When was Chloe born – or rather when does she think she was born?’

Marjorie responded instantly. ‘The date given on the birth certificate was tenth of November 1961. The reason I know it by heart is that’s also my birthday. I teased Michael about it, telling him he had no excuse for forgetting either of us now.’

I was still dwelling on this when I realised the topic of conversation had moved on.

‘As if all that wasn’t bad enough, now there’s this horrid murder on top of everything else.’

‘Yes, we’ve heard something about it,’ Eve responded. ‘Our village policeman is involved in the inquiry. He popped in to see us this morning. Naturally, he told us a quite a bit about it, or as much as they seem to know, which admittedly doesn’t seem a lot. He said they were holding Mr Kershaw on suspicion.’

To be fair, what Marjorie had been able to tell us added nothing to what we had already learned from Johnny. I returned to my original statement. ‘I don’t think we can help, certainly not where the murder is concerned. That’s a job for the police and I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t be happy for amateur sleuths to go blundering around poking their noses into the investigation. As for the haunting, no matter what you might have heard about previous events, we are not ghost hunters. About the only thing we might be able to assist with is in helping to find out something regarding Michael’s fiancée, but there again we would need them to give us permission before we start asking questions.’

I noticed Eve watching me with a dubious expression on her face and hastened to add, ‘Of course, if you want to suggest to them that they come and see us to ask for help, then that would be quite a different matter.’

After Marjorie left, we brewed ourselves some coffee. As we were sipping it, Eve suggested that I might have been a little harsh on our previous visitor. ‘The poor woman was desperate for reassurance and some comforting words as much as a direct offer of help. You could have let her down a bit more lightly.’

‘I suppose so, but to be honest I’m a bit peeved. We’ve only been back a few hours and we’ve already had two people in here talking about murder, with one of them throwing in a ghost story and a case of lost identity as well.’

Eve’s expression changed and her attitude softened. ‘I agree that it would have been better to have been given a little more breathing space, Adam, but we have to live among these people and we can’t shut them out just because it’s inconvenient. Apart from any other consideration, it would create the wrong impression, and you know how people around here talk.’

‘I suppose you’re right. I just wanted a bit more time alone together, that’s all.’

Eve opened her mouth to reply, but I’ll never know what she was about to say, because before she could do so the doorbell rang again. She started to smile, and this turned into a fit of giggles when she saw the look of despair on my face.

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I
f I’d been given the chance to think about it, I might have guessed the identity of our next visitor before I opened the door but, deprived of that opportunity, I was surprised to see Detective Sergeant Holmes standing on our doorstep. He looked worried, as if uncertain of his welcome. As I had just been rebuked about my attitude to visitors, whether invited or otherwise, I smiled and invited him inside, curbing my sarcasm to nothing more than a muttered comment about having a revolving door fitted.

‘I appreciate that this is probably bad timing on my part,’ Holmes began. That had to be the understatement of the year. ‘To be fair, I wasn’t too keen on coming here, even though Johnny said he felt certain you wouldn’t mind.’

Did he really
, I thought, and made a mental note to have words with Johnny. However, I listened without interrupting as Holmes continued. ‘It was actually DI Hardy who suggested I speak to you.’

That made it two names to cross off our Christmas card list, which was shortening rapidly. ‘Hardy said that if I was to tell you what we know, you might be able to come up with some ideas as to how to proceed. I can’t actually talk to him about it, because it would contravene all sorts of silly regulations to do with him still being on sick leave.’

‘I assume you’re referring to the murder that Johnny Pickersgill told us about?’ Eve enquired.

‘Yes. I called on Johnny before I came here and he mentioned that he’d given you an outline. What do you think?’

‘OK, we’ll listen and if anything occurs to us, we’ll tell you, but that’s as far as it goes,’ I warned him. ‘We don’t want to become involved to any greater extent than that.’

As I spoke, I noticed Eve’s expression, which conveyed more disbelief than I was comfortable with, but I ignored it and concentrated on what Holmes was saying.

‘Some of this you’ve probably heard from Johnny but I’ll tell you anyway to avoid leaving a salient point out. The dead man’s name was Mark Bennett. He worked in London and Leeds before being appointed as curator of Dinsdale Museum twenty-five years ago. Apparently he was highly regarded by both historians and the art world, which apparently is quite rare. He took early retirement before the museum closed for refurbishment. According to what we’ve been told, the main reason behind his decision was that he disagreed with the plans for the new building. He was a fierce opponent of it, mainly on aesthetic lines, and disagreed strongly with the councillors who had backed the plan.’ Holmes paused and looked across at us. ‘There are copies of correspondence between him and the various members of the local authority on the subject. They were amongst his effects at his house. The terms used in some of them are vitriolic. On Friday before last, the groundsman for the cricket club went to the deer park to cut and roll the wicket and discovered Bennett’s body slumped against the back wall of the pavilion. He had been stabbed, a single blow to the heart. According to the pathologist he was killed several hours earlier, say around late morning.’

‘That would have been in broad daylight. It sounds terribly risky,’ Eve suggested.

‘Very true in most locations, but the cricket ground is secluded from one side of the park. The building is in a very quiet spot with evergreen trees surrounding it on three sides, so anyone at the back of it couldn’t be overlooked, particularly at this time of the year, when the foliage is dense.’

‘OK, what can you tell us about the victim?’

Holmes glanced down at the sheaf of papers in his hand, on which I guessed he had made notes at various stages of the inquiry so far, before responding to my question. ‘Mark Bennett was married, but separated, so he lived alone. He’d been married twice before and, by all accounts, had a string of other ... er ... relationships. The house he owned on the outskirts of Dinsdale was immaculate, both inside and out. It was mortgage-free too, which interested me, but I’ll get back to that later. According to neighbours he did most of the gardening himself, but he also had a man who helped him out on a weekly basis. I spoke to the gardener and he told me he’d last visited the property a couple of days before Bennett was murdered and at the time he seemed well and content. He also said ...’ Holmes paused, ‘... that Bennett was not alone. He had a visitor, a lady whom the gardener later identified as Mrs Valerie Kershaw. The gardener seemed to think they were on friendly terms –
very friendly terms
.’ Holmes placed strong emphasis on the last three words.