This time he was the one who held out his hand. As I took it, he said, 'You know, I thought your name was familiar. Didn't you write a book on the Ulster troubles last year?'
'That's right,' I said. 'A nasty business.'
'War always is, Mr Higgins.' His face was bleak. 'Man at his most cruel. Good-day to you.'
He closed the door and I moved into the porch. A strange encounter. I lit a cigarette and stepped into the rain. The sexton had moved on and for the moment I had the churchyard to myself, except for the rooks, of course. The rooks from Leningrad. I wondered about that again, then pushed the thought resolutely from my mind. There was work to be done. Not that I had any great hope after talking to Father Vereker, of finding Charles Gascoigne's tomb, but the truth was there just wasn't anywhere else to look.
I worked my way through methodically, starting at the west end, noticing in my progress the headstones he'd mentioned.
They were certainly curious. Sculptured and etched with vivid and rather crude ornaments of bones, skulls, winged hourglasses and archangels. Interesting, but entirely the wrong period for Gascoigne.
It took me an hour and twenty minutes to cover the entire area and at the end of that time I knew I was beaten. For one thing, unlike most country churchyards these days, this one was kept in very decent order. Grass cut, bushes trimmed back, very little that was overgrown or partially hidden from view or that sort of thing.
So, no Charles Gascoigne. I was standing by the newly-dug grave when I finally admitted defeat. The old sexton had covered it with a tarpaulin against the rain and one end had fallen in. I crouched down to pull it back into position and as I started to rise, noticed a strange thing.
A yard or two away, close in to the wall of the church at the base of the tower, there was a flat tombstone set in a mound of green grass. It was early eighteenth-century, an example of the local mason's work I've already mentioned. It had a superb skull and crossbones at its head and was dedicated to a wool merchant named Jeremiah Fuller, his wife and two children. Crouched down as I was, I became aware that there was another slab beneath it.
The Celt in me rises to the top easily and I was filled with a sudden irrational excitement as if conscious that I stood on the threshold of something. I knelt over the tombstone and tried to get my fingers to it, which proved to be rather difficult. But then, quite suddenly, it started to move.
'Come on, Gascoigne,' I said softly. 'Let's be having you.'
The slab slid to one side, tilting on the slope of the mound and all was revealed. I suppose it was one of the most astonishing moments of my life. It was a simple stone, with a German cross at the head - what most people would describe as an iron cross. The inscription beneath it was in German. It read Hier ruhen Oberstleutnant Kurt Steiner und 13 Deutsche Fallschirmj„ger gefallen am 6 November 1943.
My German is indifferent at the best of times, mainly from lack of use, but it was good enough for this. Here lies Lieutenant-Colonel Kurt Steiner and 13 German paratroopers, killed in action on the 6th November, 1943.
I crouched there in the rain, checking my translation carefully but no, I was right, and that didn't make any kind of sense. To start with, I happened to know, as I'd once written an article on the subject, that when the German Military Cemetery was opened at Cannock Chase in Staffordshire in 1967, the remains of the four thousand, nine hundred and twenty-five German servicemen who died in Britain during the First and Second World Wars were transferred there.
Killed in Action, the inscription said. No, it was quite absurd. An elaborate hoax on somebody's part. It had to be.
Any further thoughts on the subject were prevented by a sudden outraged cry. 'What in the hell do you think you're doing?'
Father Vereker was hobbling towards me through the tombstones, holding a large black umbrella over his head.
I called cheerfully, 'I think you'll find this interesting, Father. I've made a rather astonishing find.'
As he drew closer, I realized that something was wrong. Something was very wrong indeed, for his face was white with passion and he was shaking with rage. 'How dare you move that stone? Sacrilege - that's the only word for it.'
'All right,' I said. 'I'm sorry about that, but look what I've found underneath.'
'I don't give a damn what you've found underneath. Put it back at once.'
I was beginning to get annoyed myself. 'Don't be silly. Don't you realize what it says here? If you don't read German then allow me to tell you. "Here lies Lieutenant-Colonel Kurt Steiner and thirteen German paratroopers killed in action sixth November nineteen-forty-three." Now don't you find that absolutely bloody fascinating?'
'Not particularly.'
'You mean you've seen it before.'
'No, of course not.' There was something hunted about him now, an edge of desperation to his voice when he added, 'Now will you kindly replace the original stone?'
I didn't believe him, not for a moment. I said. 'Who was he, this Steiner? What was it all about?'
'I've already told you, I haven't the slightest idea,' he said, looking more hunted still.
And then I remembered something. 'You were here in nineteen-forty-three, weren't you? That's when you took over the parish. It says so on the board inside the church.'
He exploded, came apart at the seams. 'For the last time, will you replace that stone as you found it?'
'No,' I said. 'I'm afraid I can't do that.'
Strangely enough, he seemed to regain some kind of control of himself at that point. 'Very well,' he said calmly. 'Then you will oblige me by leaving at once.'
There seemed little point in arguing, considering the state of mind he was in, so I said briefly, 'All right. Father, if that's the way you want it.'
I had reached the path when he called, 'And don't come back. If you do I shall call the local police without the slightest hesitation.'
I went out through the lychgate, got into the Peugeot and drove away. His threats didn't worry me. I was too excited for that, too intrigued. Everything about Studley Constable was intriguing. It was one of those places that seem to turn up in North Norfolk and nowhere else. The kind of village that you find by accident one day and can never find again, so that you begin to question whether it ever existed in the first place.
Not that there was very much of it. The church, the old presbytery in its walled garden, fifteen or sixteen cottages of one kind or another scattered along the stream, the old mill with its massive water wheel, the village inn on the opposite side of the green, the Studley Arms.
I pulled into the side of the road beside the stream, lit a cigarette and gave the whole thing a little quiet thought. Father Vereker was lying. He'd seen that stone before, he knew its significance, of that I was convinced. It was rather ironic when one thought about it. I'd come to Studley Constable by chance in search of Charles Gascoigne. Instead I'd discovered something vastly more intriguing, a genuine mystery. But what was I going to do about it, that was the thing?
The solution presented itself to me almost instantly in the person of Laker Armsby, the sexton, who appeared from a narrow alley between two cottages. He was still splashed with mud, still had that old grain sack over his shoulders. He crossed the road and entered the Studley Arms and I got out of the Peugeot instantly and went after him.
According to the plate over the entrance, the licensee was one George Henry Wilde. I opened the door and found myself in a stone-flagged corridor with panelled walls. A door to the left stood ajar and there was a murmur of voices, a burst of laughter.
Inside, there was no bar, just a large, comfortable room with an open fire on a stone hearth, several high-backed benches, a couple of wooden tables. There were six or seven customers and none of them young. I'd have said that sixty was about the average age - a pattern that's distressingly common in such rural areas these days.
They were countrymen to the backbone, faces weathered by exposure, tweed caps, gumboots. Three played dominoes watched by two more, an old man sat by the fire playing a mouth-organ softly to himself. They all looked up to consider me with the kind of grave interest close-knit groups always have in strangers.
'Good afternoon,' I said.
Two or three nodded in a cheerful enough way, though one massively-built character with a black beard flecked with grey didn't look too friendly. Laker Armsby was sitting at a table on his own, rolling a cigarette between his fingers laboriously, a glass of ale in front of him. He put the cigarette in his mouth and I moved to his side and offered him a light. 'Hello, there.'
He glanced up blankly and then his face cleared. 'Oh, it's you again. Did you find Father Vereker then?'
I nodded. 'Will you have another drink?'
'I wouldn't say no.' He emptied his glass in a couple of swallows. 'A pint of brown ale would go down very nicely. Georgy!'
I turned and found a short, stocky man in shirt-sleeves standing behind me, presumably the landlord, George Wilde. He seemed about the same age range as the others and was a reasonable enough looking man except for one unusual feature. At some time in his life he'd been shot in the face at close quarters. I'd seen enough gunshot wounds in my time to be certain of that. In his case the bullet had scoured a furrow in his left cheek, obviously taking bone with it as well. His luck was good.
He smiled pleasantly. 'And you, sir?'
I told him I'd have a large vodka and tonic which brought amused looks from the farmers or whatever they were, but that didn't particularly worry me as it happens to be the only alcohol I can drink with any kind of pleasure. Laker Armsby's hand-rolled cigarettes hadn't lasted too long so I gave him one of mine which he accepted with alacrity. The drinks came and I pushed his ale across to him.
'How long did you say you'd been sexton up at St Mary's?'
'Forty-one years.'
He drained his pint glass. I said, 'Here, have another and tell me about Steiner.'
The mouth-organ stopped playing abruptly, all conversation died. Old Laker Armsby stared at me across the top of his glass, that look of sly cunning on his face again. 'Steiner?' he said. 'Why, Steiner was...'
George Wilde cut in, reached for the empty glass and ran a cloth over the table. 'Right, sir, time please.'
I looked at my watch. It was two-thirty. I said. 'You've got it wrong. Another half-hour till closing time.'
He picked up my glass of vodka and handed it to me. This is a free house, sir, and in a quiet little village like this we generally do as we please without anybody getting too upset about it. If I say I'm closing at two-thirty then two-thirty it is.' He smiled amiably. 'I'd drink up if I were you, sir.'
There was tension in the air that you could cut with a knife. They were all sitting looking at me, hard, flat faces, eyes like stones and the giant with the black beard moved across to the end of the table and leaned on it. glaring at me.
'You heard him,' he said in a low, dangerous voice. 'Now drink up like a good boy and go home, wherever that is.'
I didn't argue because the atmosphere was getting worse by the minute. I drank my vodka and tonic, taking a certain amount of time over it, though whether to prove something to them or myself I'm not certain, then I left.
Strange, but I wasn't angry, just fascinated by the whole incredible affair and by now, of course, I was too far in to draw back. I had to have some answers and it occurred to me that there was a rather obvious way of getting them.
I got into the Peugeot, turned over the bridge and drove up out of the village, passing the church and the presbytery, taking the road to Blakeney. A few hundred yards past the church. I turned the Peugeot into a cart track, left it there and walked back, taking a small Pentax camera with me from the glove compartment of the car.
I wasn't afraid. After all, on one famous occasion I'd been escorted from the Europa Hotel in Belfast to the airport by men with guns in their pockets who'd suggested I got the next plane out for the good of my health and didn't return. But I had and on several occasions; had even got a book out of it.
When I went back into the churchyard I found the stone to Steiner and his men exactly as I'd left it. I checked the inscription once again just to make sure I wasn't making a fool of myself, took several photos of it from different angles, then hurried to the church and went inside.
There was a curtain across the base of the tower and I went behind it. Choirboys' scarlet cottas and white surplices hung neatly on a rail, there was an old iron-bound trunk, several bell ropes trailed down through the gloom above and a board on the wall informed the world that on 22 July 1936, a peal of five thousand and fifty-eight changes of Bob Minor was rung at the church. I was interested to note that Laker Armsby was listed as one of the six bell-ringers involved.
