Chapter Nine
The next morning, James got up and went to work, as ever, as if nothing had happened.
“You’ll need to get back out there and look for his bag,” he said as he left.
It took me a minute to work out what he meant, but of course, James thought Lennie’s bag had been in the mausoleum with him, so he now thought it was out there, evidence waiting to be found.
I waved him off promising I would not rest until it was safely back in the house, then I fetched some early-morning chocolate from the priest hole, tucked away behind Lennie’s satchel, and watched some cartoons for a change.
But the cartoons could not stop me from rerunning the events of the night before in my head, wondering if I could have done something differently, such as, be more accurate with the spade.
Then I could’ve been a merry widow that morning, maybe even a local hero, depending on the tale Mr. Newman chose to tell, or believe.
Instead, I was involved in the death and disposal of not one, but two casualties.
I made myself go through the usual routine: shower, breakfast, sewing, and tea and biscuits with Mrs. Billings, trying to sound interested in the goings-on at the amateur dramatics society.
As she talked, I kept an anxious eye on Mr. Billings and his shed, having realized we’d forgotten to check the spade for blood the night before, but he was busy with a trowel and a flowerbed, so it seemed we’d have a second chance at hiding that evidence.
Then a knock on the door, which Mrs. Billings answered before I could run away.
On the doorstep were a young police constable and an older man wearing a tweed suit with a waistcoat and an old Victorian-style watch hanging by a chain from his top pocket.
At the sight of the police uniform, my knees went a little weak and I wondered how did they know so soon?
I’d have thought that even in the worst-case scenario, I’d still have a day or two of freedom left to me, at least until they found the bodies.
The police officer introduced himself as PC Applegate and the older man as Mr. Earnest Winkleman, who was the local coroner. The coroner! Imagine! Although it was not my first experience of a coroner.
“Are you the property owner?” PC Applegate asked me, and I wasn’t sure how to reply.
“My husband,” I said in the end.
The coroner did the rest. “You may have heard about a number of bones that have appeared in Upper Iffley?” He was smiling, so either it wasn’t all that bad, or he enjoyed delivering bad news.
“I saw it on TV,” I said, then taking my inspiration from Mrs. Chambers: “It’s a mystery.”
“Perhaps not quite such a mystery as it seems. I believe there’s a graveyard attached to this property?”
I nodded; I didn’t trust myself to speak.
“We think that’s where they may have come from.” He took an Ordnance Survey map from his pocket and began unfolding it. “I believe the river runs along the edge of it.”
I nodded again.
“We’d just like to nip down and take a look?” he said, making it sound like something I could say no to.
I felt myself starting to shake. This was it. They were going to arrest me and lock me up for life.
“Don’t you need a warrant to search the property?” Mrs. Billings spoke up.
“There’s a public right-of-way through it,” I said to her.
No doubt they already knew that from their Ordnance Survey, and I realized at that moment that there had never been a chance it was all going to go unnoticed.
It was only a matter of time—and not a long time—before another dog walker strolled past the ruined mausoleum and on, back to his house, where he mentioned to his wife that the tomb up by Langley Hall had come down and there was a skull in the river.
And the wife would look at the pelvis in their vegetable patch and say, “I wonder if that’s where this is from? ”
“We like to speak to you first as a courtesy,” the coroner said.
“Are you going to arrest poor Lord Langley?” Mrs. Billings asked the police officer.
Or “Lady Langley” I thought, feeling the blood drain from my head.
Mr. Winkleman gave a short laugh. “Goodness me, no! It’s time and tide will have shifted those bones, no one’s being arrested.”
“I’m just here as a precaution,” PC Applegate said.
“A precaution for what?” Mrs. Billings asked, but we never got to the bottom of that.
Well, at least I wasn’t going to be arrested.
For now—Lennie and Mr. Newman were still out there somewhere—but I was still apprehensive as the “all will be revealed” moment approached.
I kept imagining that somehow their bloated corpses might have made their way back upstream and would be found lying just to the side of a skull.
Nevertheless, I said, “No problem.”
“Well, if you’re sure, Lady Langley,” Mrs. Billings said. “But we should go down with them and keep an eye on things.”
“It’s quite a walk,” I said, thinking of her creaky knees and wondering if we’d have to get the wheelbarrow out for her, as we should have done for Lennie.
“I’ll manage,” Mrs. B said. And so she did, moving over the lawn, through the copse, and across the field to the graveyard with a speed and surefootedness that eluded her in the house.
We picked up Mr. Billings en route, Mrs. B feeling sure this was a spectacle he wouldn’t want to miss, and nor did he.
I marched ahead of them, leading the way, practicing my surprised face as I went.
When Mr. Billings saw the toppled mausoleum, he whistled in amazement.
“Never thought I’d see the day,” he said.
“Thought this would outlast the pyramids.” He bent down to pick something up off the ground and rose with a small bone in his hand.
He crossed himself and muttered something under his breath.
“Makes you wonder what’s next,” Mrs. Billings said, and she cast a wary eye back toward the house.
“When did this happen?” the coroner asked. “Are you alright?”
I closed my gobsmacked mouth. “Just surprised,” I said. I think I might have overdone it. I hoped the dog walker wasn’t going to appear and reveal that I’d known about it for days. And ask after Tibs.
The coroner asked me again when the mausoleum had collapsed, and I said I didn’t know.
He picked his way through the overgrown grass, scanning the ground for more bones as he went.
Occasionally he would stoop and pick one up.
He went to the entrance of the mausoleum and looked inside.
I waited, breath baited, but he came away showing no sign of anything untoward.
Or more untoward than he expected it to be.
He wandered to the riverbank, and we all held our breath in case he slipped in the mud and was washed downstream to the village, proving his own theory as to where things that entered the water here ended up.
But he didn’t slip; he made his way back to us, a small collection of bones in his hands. “Yes,” he said. “I think we’ve found the source. There’s a fairly recent-looking coffin still in the ruins, do you know whose that would be?”
“That’d be the old lord,” Mr. B told him. “He passed a few years ago.”
“Thirtysomething years ago,” I said.
“Aye,” Mr. Billings said, “a few years.”
The coroner nodded. “Well, that’s the only one looks like it might be recent, so PC Appleby, I think we’re done with your services after today, just as we expected.” He turned to me. “Who’s responsibility is it to maintain that building?”
I did my best to look shamefaced as I said, “The property owner.”
“So, what happens now?” Mr. Billings asked as we made our way back to the house.
“The archaeologists come into it,” the coroner said. “They’ll gather together the bones and try to identify which goes with which. Then, they’ll need a proper reburial.”
“Will we be haunted?” Mrs. B asked.
“You’d have to ask the vicar about that,” the coroner said. He turned to me. “Do you have a record of who was buried in that mausoleum?”
“It’s on the wall, if you can read it,” I said. We walked round to where the slab with the names and dates on it had fallen. It was there but in pieces.
“Never mind. We might be able to put it back together. If not, there’ll be something somewhere. Maybe in the church logbooks, if we have an idea of the dates we’re looking at.”
And I thought of the original family tree, which, at least, would have given us the years.
Mrs. B led them back to the house, with promises of tea and biscuits.
I stayed a moment; I’d seen the skull James had thrown in anger the night before, still lying on its side in the long grass.
I picked it up and examined it for damage.
It had hit a rock and was fractured. There was nothing I could do, other than to set it carefully on its jaw beside the mausoleum.
“Sleep tight, Richard, Eleanor, Edward, Catherine, Margaret, Mabel, Henry, or Hugo. You probably didn’t expect to see sunlight again,” I said, before following the others back to the house.
After the Billingses had gone that day, I fetched the spade and the rake and gave them a wash, then I stuck them into the soil a few times to stop them looking too clean.
When James came home that night, he insisted we go back out and look for Lennie’s bag and its contents.
I told him I’d been out there looking countless times that day and I was exhausted, and in the end, he went by himself.
That set the pattern for the following days, until he decided that wherever it was, it must be far away from Langley Hall.
***
“No one’s seen Doug Newman for days,” Mrs. Billings said on Monday morning. “Jo took the kids to karate last Wednesday evening and when she came home, Meg was there, but no sign of Doug.” Jo was Mrs. Newman, Mr. Newman’s second wife, and Meg was Mr. N’s favorite sheepdog.
“Oh,” I said, reflecting, with relief, on the fact that Meg hadn’t been there that night. Would James have drowned her as well? I didn’t like to think.
“He never leaves Meg if he’s going to be more than a few minutes.”