Blood Ties (3 page)

News arrived at Kirkwood Hall at about seven o'clock on the morning of July the sixth, 1685, just an hour or two after the battle of Sedgemoor had ended and Monmouth fled the field. Henry's son was dead. One man returned to the estate to give news, but the others were either felled or fled. The returning man, we know from Catherine's letters, was Elmer Grove, and he seems to have been a trusted servant and an educated man. It is possible he was even Henry's secretary or similar
.

Whatever he was, Henry acted fast. He told Elmer Grove to change his clothes and burn what he'd been wearing on the battlefield. To get himself a fresh horse and saddle it with the pillion behind the saddle, and within the next hour, or so Catherine states in her letters, she and Elmer Grove, together with much of the Kirkwood wealth, were sent out to get as far from the scene as possible before the King's men arrived
.

I don't imagine they were the only family to take such measures or the only people on the move that day, hoping to escape recriminations, but at that point no one could possibly have foreseen the widespread and callous bloodletting that would follow this little uprising or know that more lives would be claimed in the aftermath than had been lost in all the battles and skirmishes of the campaign, combined
.

So, when Catherine and Elmer left that day, they must have known that things would be bad, that they would have to use their wits and their skills to talk their way through the King's lines and reach safe haven in the Scottish lowlands, where the Kirkwoods still had close kin, but they could not possibly have known just how bloody and cruel events would be, and Catherine could, I'm sure, never have foreseen just how her father would meet his death
.

TWO

T
hey spent their first holiday day like tourists, Naomi in her new striped wellingtons climbing Glastonbury Tor and coming down breathless and windswept. The conversation of the previous evening had been set aside, almost as though Alec was now back-pedalling and the conversation had been the result of a momentary impulse. Naomi wasn't sure what to make of it, but she let things lie. Alec was happy, laughing, joking, describing the wonderful carving high on the walls of the ruined abbey, commenting on the prices of assorted crystal displayed in the shop windows, delighting in the wood panelling in the medieval inn, The George and Pilgrim, where they ate their lunch. The rain had held off, though the air was damp and chill and Alec said the sky was solid grey.

‘What you said last night,' Naomi started as they waited for their dessert – a sure sign that Alec was in a happy mood; he rarely indulged in puddings.

‘I meant it,' he told her, suddenly serious again. ‘Naomi, I've enjoyed my life so far, loved my job, met you, have good friends in the force, but suddenly it isn't what I want any more. I want more of . . . this. More of us. More of just being happy, I suppose.'

‘Sounds to me like you're just feeling burnt out,' she said quietly. ‘The job gets to you, we both know that. Even in a place like Pinsent, which isn't exactly crime central. Alec, you might feel totally different in a week or two, and I don't want you, don't want either of us, to . . .'

‘Rush into things? No, of course not and I've thought of all that, about feeling burnt out and tired and just, as I said, thoroughly pissed off. And I know I'm reacting to what might have happened to Miriam. I know I'm wondering what I'd have felt if it had been you, but Naomi, love, I'm not just reacting to the fear, I'm ready for a change and I think, I hope, that you are too?'

Beneath the table, Napoleon harrumphed, and conversation paused as the waitress delivered chocolate brownies and cream. Naomi felt for her spoon and poked thoughtfully at the cake. ‘I am,' she said. ‘I do
think
I am, but Alec, let's take it slow. Decisions like this shouldn't be made in anger or out of frustration. Let's make a deal. We take this time just as holiday, enjoy it, and in a week or two, when we've both had time to think, we talk it all through again.'

‘Deal,' Alec said. ‘Eat your pudding and we'll drive to Wells. I want to see the cathedral.'

‘You do know we don't have to do it all in one day,' she reminded him.

‘Oh, but I have a list,' he said. ‘You want to hear it?'

She heard him rustling about, exploring his coat pockets. Heard the sound of paper being unfolded. Several sheets from the sound of it. ‘How long is this list?'

‘Oh, long enough, a couple of pages. This is an interesting part of the world, you know. Abbeys and battlefields and fossils and—'

‘Alec, when did you write this list?' Naomi felt caught between amusement and concern.

‘Oh, this morning.'

‘No, you didn't. We got up, had breakfast and came straight out. When this morning?'

Alec hesitated. ‘I'm not sure what time it was,' he admitted. ‘Naomi, love, I couldn't sleep. There were all these guide books and tourist pamphlets in the drawer and I thought, well, I didn't want to wake you up, so I made a list.'

‘Alec . . .'

‘Naomi, don't. Please. I just made a list. Just enjoy it with me and let me work the rest out for myself.'

‘It shouldn't just be for you. Two of us in this, remember?'

‘I know and I'm not trying to shut you out. I'm just . . . I don't know what I am.'

Naomi hesitated, questions jostling for position, so many things she felt she ought to say. Instead, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, a leftover habit from her sighted days. She felt Alec tense, knew he recognized the ancient tic and what it meant. ‘OK,' she said finally, trying to keep her tone light. ‘No questions, no discussion, no mining of the psyche.'

‘Glad to hear it! You probably need a license for psyche mining.'

‘For now.' Naomi finished firmly. ‘I'll go along with whatever you feel you need to do. We'll work our way through your list and we'll pretend nothing else matters. You never know, by the time we reach page three – Alec, I can hear the difference between unfolding two sheets of paper and three, so don't try and kid me. By the time we reach the bottom of page three, maybe nothing else will matter any more. But if it does, we have to talk. We really do.'

‘Deal,' he said. He seemed to be using that word a lot lately, Naomi thought. She fixed her attention on her brownie, wondering where all this was leading to and what on earth Alec, a career police officer, could find to do that would fill such a massive place in his life.

THREE

T
heir days fell into an easy pattern. Leaving the B&B after a very substantial breakfast, working through the items on Alec's list, eating lunch in a rural pub and then returning to the B&B in time to shower and change before going next door to The Lamb for their evening meal and a drink or two.

The Lamb was a friendly place, mostly locals at this time of the year but also a few diners from round and about. They found that its reputation was well founded and the food was simple but all locally produced and tasty. The company was good too; Susan, the manager, a woman in her mid thirties, Alec judged, was a fount of local gossip and information. The next village having lost its pub in the latest round of rural closures, The Lamb served quite a broad local community – essentially anyone within walking or staggering distance home. By the second night, Naomi and Alec had been apprised of the effects down on the Somerset Levels of three bad summers, the lack of tourists adding to the loss of crops and grazing:

‘
Had to get the boat out and pull three sheep off the island. Lost another when the rhyne spilled over
.'

‘
Rhyne?
'

‘
Dykes, big drainage ditches
.'

‘
Oh, those
.'

Had been shocked to find that Susan had never even climbed the Tor:

‘
What would I want to go scrabbling up some damned great hill for?
'

Had been apprised of the merits of the various vineyards in the immediate area and the local microbreweries; had been informed of the best cider makers; and knew the debate from both sides regarding the sale of a now unused local church:

‘
What damn fool would want to buy a place you can't even convert?
'

‘
Convert, that's a good one. Church, get it?
'

‘
Tied up with covenants. No electric, no water except that tapped-off spring. And whoever buys it has got to allow access for the graves
.'

‘
Graveyard still in use then?
'

‘
Up to a couple of year ago, yes
.'

‘Why can't it be converted?' Alec asked.

‘Bishop of Bath and Wells says not, I suppose.'

‘A church should stay a church,' someone else said, putting in their tuppence worth, ‘especially one that's got recent burials.'

‘But it's going to rack and ruin up there on the mount. There's not been a service there in years. Not even a burial in the last twenty years that I know of.'

‘Mount?'

‘That bit of a blip, just before you have to turn left by the pink house at the crossroads. Half a mile before you get here. It was an island before the drainage. Site of an earlier church, some say, but it's a little brown Victorian jobbie up there now.'

‘Right.' Alec could picture it now; he had noticed it but not taken any particular notice. He smiled at the last speaker, left the ongoing debate and took his beer back to the table, thinking how nice it was to be able to go out for a drink and not have to worry about either getting home or getting up for work the following morning.

‘What kept you?' Naomi asked, though she had overheard the debate. ‘And, no, Alec, we're not buying a disused church. That's going just a bit too far.'

‘Well, from the sound of it, unless you're planning on starting a cult, it wouldn't be a lot of use anyway. What can you do with a disused church except use it as a church?'

And then there was ‘Eddy' and his map, sitting in his accustomed corner night after night, nursing a pint for as long as he could make it last. Generally, Alec observed, one or other of the locals would buy him a second at some point in the evening and only then would the first glass be drained. He rarely seemed to join the conversation, though he listened with careful attention.

By the third night Alec felt comfortable enough to contribute the second pint. He took it over, noting the scatter of books and what looked like maps that Eddy habitually laid out on the table and studied intently. No one else, Alec noted, ever seemed to ask him about them, so he figured this daily scrutiny, like the habitual nursing of the pint, must also have continued for some considerable time.

Alec set the beer down in the one tiny patch of unused space and Eddy looked up to see who his benefactor might be. He nodded his thanks and drained the dregs of the first glass, setting it carefully on the seat beside him. Alec glanced at the scatter of papers. ‘Interested in history?' he asked.

‘History is where we come from.'

‘Um, yes. I suppose it is.'

Eddy jabbed at the map. Alec looked more closely. It appeared to show some sort of battle plan. Cavalry and cannons were marked in ranks and arrows showed the direction of attack. Sedgemore, he read. ‘Oh, James the second? Monmouth's lot? Wasn't that—'

‘The last pitched battle fought on English soil. It surely was.'

‘Right,' Alec said. That wasn't going to have been his next comment, but it sounded more intelligent than what he'd had in mind so he accepted it gratefully. ‘We're, er, thinking of walking the battlefield sometime while we're here,' he said. ‘There's this leaflet I found at the B&B, tells you all about the trail.' He broke off. Eddy had fixed him with a stern gaze and Alec suddenly felt oddly inadequate.

‘Set up for the tourists,' Eddy said. ‘You'll learn nothing about anything that way.'

‘Right,' Alec muttered again, feeling thoroughly inadequate. ‘Well, have a good evening, won't you?' He went back to the bar to collect their drinks, feeling like a child who'd just been chastised for infringing some mysterious adult rule.

‘Oh, don't mind Eddy,' Susan said fondly. ‘Not quite right in the head, some ways, though in others he's sharp as a tack.'

‘What's with all the maps and the history books?'

‘Them's his treasure maps,' one of the locals laughed. ‘Goes out with his metal detector and his papers. Looking, always looking. Got this idea in his head he'll strike it rich.' He turned away with a shrug. ‘Good luck to the old nutcase, I say.'

‘Treasure?'

Susan shrugged. ‘Supposed to have been what some landowner buried to keep it from the crown,' she said. ‘He backed the wrong side in the rebellion, knew he'd lose the lot, so, the story goes, he sent his daughter off with a servant and told them to get as far away as they possibly could, to avoid the repercussions, you know. The king sent that Judge Jeffries down here and he hanged folk just for talking to the rebels.'

‘And did the daughter escape?'

Susan shrugged. ‘Depends who tells the story. One tale is the servant killed her and ran away with the lot; another says they had to hide it to keep it from the army and that they never did get back to collect it. That's what Eddy believes. Been looking for it all the time I've known him and I've known him since I was a teenager. He used to come to the farm with his metal detector and such. Dad always gave him a meal and—'

‘And so now you do,' Alec said.

‘And why not? He's got no one to look after him, poor old bugger.'