The Grave Tattoo (16 page)

Which was broken by the unmistakable sound of Mrs Gallagher’s front door opening. Tenille heard the familiar raucous throat-clearing of Jane’s neighbour, then, ‘You must be freezing your bollocks off out there. You might as well come in and get a drop of tea.’ Her voice sounded grudging enough to be genuine.

Tenille crept into the hallway, the better to hear what was going on. She heard the reply clearly, although the officer spoke more quietly than Mrs Gallagher. ‘That’s very kind of you, ma’am, but I have to stay at my post.’

A thick, gurgling snort of laughter. ‘Anybody would think you were guarding the crown jewels, son. Listen, you heard what I told your boss. These walls are so thin, there’s no way anybody could be in there without me hearing. If Tenille turns up, you’ll hear her knocking the door. Or, if she does have a key, you’ll hear the door opening. There’s no privacy on the Marshpool, believe me. Besides, you’ve no chance of catching her, standing out there like a lemon. The minute she comes on the landing, she’s going to see you, looming up there like a big palooka. And she’ll be off, like a greyhound that’s seen the hare. Whereas, if you’re sitting in my living room, you’ll hear her and you’ll be able to sneak up and take her by surprise.’ Tenille could picture Mrs Gallagher, arms folded across her skinny chest, cigarette jammed in the corner of her mouth, a look of sly certainty on her face.

And she could hear the indecision in the cop’s voice. ‘You think?’

‘I know. Listen, I can tell you when they’ve had beans for their tea next door. Come on, come away in. The kettle’s boiled, it’ll not take me a minute to mash you a nice cup of tea.’

Tenille heard the heavy tread of the police officer as he crossed the threshold and walked into Mrs Gallagher’s living room. She heard the clatter of the front door closing. She heard the rumble and murmur of conversation. She didn’t know why Mrs Gallagher was intent on giving her a chance, but she knew she was going to take it.

Tenille crept back to the living room for her jacket and her backpack then tiptoed to the door. She eased it open a crack and listened. Nothing she wasn’t expecting to hear. She inched the door back until there was just room to slip around it. Then she put the key in the lock and turned it so the tongue slid back into its housing. She gently pulled the door to, then let the lock return, sliding her key free. She turned on her heel and moved out along the gallery, taking each step as gently as if she were walking on bubbles.

The next part of her plan required darkness, which was at least an hour away. But that was OK. The Marshpool was her ground. She would have no trouble keeping out of sight until then. The hard part was over with. She’d be cruising now.

16

By the time Judy arrived at Dove Cottage, Jane’s natural enthusiasm had reasserted itself. As they drove home, the bike stowed in the back of the car, Jane told her mother what she’d found.

‘I’m not sure I follow all the ins and outs,’ Judy said. ‘But from what you’re saying, you think your idea might really be true? That Fletcher Christian came back and told his story to Wordsworth?’

Jane pulled a face. ‘I’ve no proof, as such. But the circumstantial evidence just keeps getting stronger.’

‘That must be exciting for you,’ Judy said. ‘I suppose it’s quite a big thing in your world, this manuscript?’

‘It would be a sensation, Mum. Imagine, being able to read a Wordsworth poem that’s hardly been seen since it was first written two hundred years ago.’

Judy laughed. ‘Don’t expect me to read it. I’ve always thought he was a boring bugger.’

‘Well, he made our way of life possible,’ Jane said.

Judy flashed her a surprised glance. ‘How do you reckon that, then?’

‘He made the Lake District fashionable, popular. People came here because of him.’

‘Thank you, William, for the tourists, with their litter and their exhaust fumes and their path erosion,’ her mother said, acid in her voice.

‘Well, yes. But also thank you, William, for the sheep.’

Judy looked incredulous. ‘What’s he got to do with the sheep?’

‘If Beatrix Potter hadn’t come here on her holidays and fallen in love with the Herdwicks and made them her life’s big project, they would probably have died out, and what would we be farming then? And what would the landscape look like? It wouldn’t be open country like it is now, with smart Herdwicks that don’t wander from the fell they were born on. It would be fenced off into fields, like the Cheviots, to keep in the stupid sheep. What Dad calls the lesser breeds. So, while I dislike being overrun by townie tourists as much as you do, I’ll take that as the price of the sheep and the landscape.’

‘Point taken,’ Judy said, knowing from long experience that there was no arguing with her daughter’s passion for the land. She sometimes thought Jane was as hefted to Langmere Fell as the sheep themselves. ‘Thank you, William, for the sheep. So what’s your next step? Have you got to look for more papers?’

Jane shook her head. ‘I’ve been through all the uncatalogued material. I couldn’t find anything else. No, what I’ve got to do now is find out whether Dorcas Mason has any living descendants and go and talk to them to see if they know anything about the manuscript. I need to get Dan to go to the Family Records Centre in London and I need to start dredging the parish records up here.’

‘You need to talk to Barbara Field.’

‘Bossy Barbara Field, the chairwoman of the WI?’

‘How many Barbara Fields do you think there are round here?’ Judy said drily. ‘Yes, bossy Barbara Field from the WI. It’s her hobby, family history. She gives talks on it to other WIs. Tells people how to go about finding stuff out. Matthew’s doing a project on family trees with the kids and he got a lot of his info off Barbara. She’s very helpful, you know.’ Judy drew to a halt in the farmyard. ‘Leave the bike till the rain stops,’ she said, opening the car door and running for shelter.

Jane ran after her, shaking her head like a wet dog as she entered the house. ‘Maybe I’ll give her a ring.’

‘I’ll call her now. No time like the present.’ Judy tossed her waxed jacket on its peg and went through to the farm office. Jane followed her nose to the kitchen, savouring the aroma of some rich meat stew.

Her father looked up from his copy of
Farming Today.
‘Good day?’

‘Better than good. I found another brick in the wall. A letter that backs up my theory.’

‘Good for you. If you find this poem, is it going to make you rich?’

Jane shook her head, a wry smile twisting her mouth up at one corner. ‘I shouldn’t think so. What it will do is make me famous in academic circles. It’ll fast-track me on the career I want.’ She registered the faint look of disappointment in her father’s eyes. ‘Was there a particular reason for you asking?’

Allan rubbed his palm against his cheek. ‘Cockeyed optimism,’ he said. ‘A bit of money never goes amiss on a farm, you know that. I just thought, with you saying last night that it would be priceless, there might be a few bob in it.’

‘There will be, but not for me. Whoever can establish legal title to it, they’re the ones who’ll get rich. Sorry. But if I do find it, there’ll be a book contract, maybe some newspaper articles.’ She reached out and covered her father’s work-worn hand with hers. ‘I’d be happy to share it.’

Allan shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t take money you’d worked for. A windfall, now that would be different. But I won’t have you working for my benefit. We’re doing fine, your mum and me. Don’t worry about us.’

Before she could reply, Judy bustled briskly into the kitchen. ‘That’s that sorted, then. Bossy Barbara’s expecting you round at hers at eight o’clock.’

Jane rolled her eyes. ‘You’re too good to me.’

Judy patted her on the head as she made for the stove. ‘And it’s beef olives for dinner.’

‘You can tell she doesn’t want you to go back to London,’ Allan said.

‘That makes two of us,’ Jane said, heading for the door. ‘I need to call Dan.’ She settled down at the cluttered desk in the office. ‘Hi, Dan,’ she said. ‘I’ve got good news and bad news.’

He groaned. ‘Give me the bad news first.’

‘You’ve been researching the wrong family tree. Sorry, I wasted your time having you chase up the Wordsworths.’

‘You say that like there’s another family tree I should be researching,’ he said warily. ‘What happened? Did you find something?’ Jane explained what she’d discovered, reading the letter over the phone. ‘But that’s terrific,’ he said when she reached the end. ‘It’s not conclusive, I know, but it indicates there’s definitely something there worth chasing. Even if it’s not the
Bounty
poem, it could be something else that’s just as significant in the field. So you want me to start on Dorcas Mason and her family?’ he asked.

‘That would be a big help. I’m going to do what I can up here–Anthony says there’s a lot available in Carlisle, and Mum’s got me hooked up with one of her cronies who apparently is the bee’s knees when it comes to family history. Between us, we should be able to come up with something to have a crack at.’

‘It’ll be a slog, but it’ll be worth it if we turn something up.’

‘I’ve never been to the Family Records Centre, have you?’ Jane said anxiously.

‘No. But family history’s such a huge thing these days, I bet they’ve got it all streamlined and user-friendly. Leave it to me, I’ll get it sorted.’

‘I appreciate this.’

‘No, I’m the one who should be grateful to you for letting me in on it.’

‘How did the seminar go today?’

Dan groaned histrionically. ‘You’re right, Damien Joplin is a pain in the arse.’ He went on to give her an account of the seminar he’d taught for her that afternoon. By the end of his recital, they were both giggling, mimicking students and their less than perceptive responses to
Lyrical Ballads.
‘You’re not missing a thing,’ Dan concluded.

‘Sounds like it. OK, we’ll talk again soon.’ They wound up the call and Jane sat for a moment, staring out of the window at the valley below. Never mind the money, never mind the fame. What she wanted was to hold that manuscript in her hands and read it.

River traced an outline on the CAT scan with a pensive finger. She’d spent the day with the film crew, who were her new best friends, moving Pirate Peat back to the hospital, supervising the full-body X-rays and CAT scan before escorting him back to Gibson’s funeral parlour. Everything had taken twice as long as it should have because of the demands of filming, but she didn’t much mind. The advantages provided by their money far outweighed the inconveniences this far. But she’d agreed to get together with Ewan Rigston for a drink, and there hadn’t been enough time to head back to her office and drop off the films and pictures before meeting him in Keswick at seven.

So instead she’d found a quiet corner in the hotel bar they’d fixed on as a rendezvous and had spread the CAT pictures across the table. Truth to tell, this was probably the least informative process she would subject the body to, but even so, she had learned a little more about her man. She couldn’t help wondering if Ewan Rigston would be as much of a challenge to unravel.

It had been a while since River had been drawn to the idea of any relationship other than the purely professional. Bitter experience had taught her that most men were either turned off by what she did or inappropriately turned on by it. Neither response was what she craved. She had no strong conviction that Ewan Rigston would be different, but she wasn’t about to dismiss him out of hand either. She took a thoughtful sip of her tomato juice and gave herself a mental shake, returning her thoughts to the images in front of her.

She was studying what seemed to be a depressed skull fracture when Rigston pulled out the chair opposite hers. ‘I’m not interrupting, am I?’ he said, his brow furrowed in apology. ‘I know I’m a bit early. I can sit up at the bar till you’re ready, if you’ve still got work to do.’

‘No, I was just passing the time,’ she replied, somewhat surprised at how pleased she was to see him. ‘I’m early too.’

‘You ready for another one?’ He indicated the lacy dregs of scarlet trailing down the glass.

‘Yes, thanks.’ She handed it to him.

‘Virgin or bloody?’

‘Virgin. I’m driving.’

He nodded and crossed to the bar. He was a substantial man, no denying that; broad shoulders and strong thighs that his off-the-peg suit did nothing to disguise, a large head with a close-cropped fringe of hair round the bald dome, big hands that dwarfed the slender tumbler. She imagined he would have been handy on the rugby field. He probably had ten years on her, but he was still winning the race where muscle lurches headlong towards fat. She suspected his size made him wary with women, nervous of hurting them unintentionally. An unexpected bolt of desire hit her. She wanted to break down that presumed gentleness, wanted to get down and dirty with him. ‘Get a grip,’ she scolded herself softly.

By the time he returned with her tomato juice and a pint of bitter for himself, she had herself under control, though still wondering where that moment had come from. She accepted her drink and shuffled her papers together.

‘That our bog body?’ Rigston asked.

‘The same. We just did the full-body X-rays and CAT scans. It confirmed what I thought when we spoke before.’ She pulled out an X-ray. ‘Look–’ She ran her finger round the area in question. ‘Definitely a skull fracture. It seems to have been caused by a blunt instrument, rounded end, probably a bit less than five centimetres in diameter. If I had to hazard a guess, given the time and place, I’d go for the knob of a walking stick or something similar.’

Rigston stroked an eyebrow, his face the impassive mask of someone trained not to give anything away. ‘Suspicious death.’

River shrugged. ‘I’d say so. Murder. Or maybe he was trying to rob someone who turned on him?’

‘We’ll never know.’ Rigston took a deep drink of his beer.

‘But we already know quite a few other things,’ River said. She pointed to the seams where the bones of the skull came together. ‘Look at the sutures. They gradually fuse as we age. I can tell from this that our man was around forty, give or take a few years either side.’ She flicked through her pile, pulling out another X-ray and a couple of CAT scan sections. ‘And we also know that he was shot in the shoulder in his mid-twenties.’ She pointed to the shoulder blade, where an irregular circle looked puckered and uneven compared to the smooth bone surrounding it. ‘Classic penetrating injury’