The more support I can get at those meetings from people like you, the easier my job becomes.’
‘Ah.’ Suddenly what Carole was about to say had become more difficult again.
They had reached the entrance to the stable block. ‘But if there’s something you want to talk about, come on in.’
‘Well . . .’
Carole’s indecision was interrupted by the ungainly arrival across the yard of a stocky young man in clean blue overalls. He moved with the suppressed excitement of a child with a secret to tell, and his face was childlike too. Though probably in his twenties, he had the flat face and thick neck that characterized Down’s syndrome. He was ruddy and freckled from outside work. Excitement sparkled in his watery blue eyes.
‘Gina. Gina.’
‘Yes, Jonny. Look, you can see I’m talking to someone,’ she reprimanded with surprising gentleness. ‘You shouldn’t interrupt.’
‘I know, but sorry, I . . . There’s something . . .’
‘This is Carole Seddon. Jonny Tyson.’
The young man held out his hand very correctly, then thought better of the idea, and wiped it on his overalls. ‘Bit dirty. Been digging.’
‘Jonny’s one of the Volunteers. They’re working in the kitchen garden, preparing the space where the Museum will be built.’ Gina smiled, again with great compassion. ‘We couldn’t manage without Jonny.’
His beam of gratitude for the compliment nearly split his face in half, but he was still agitated, bouncing uneasily on the balls of his feet, as if trying to contain the power of his muscular body. ‘Please, Gina. There’s something . . . where we’ve been digging. Could you come and have a look?’
‘Yes, all right, Jonny.’ The Director moved towards the stable block door. ‘I’m just going to have a word with Carole, and then I’ll—’
‘Please, it’d be better if you could come straight away.’
There was no panic in his voice, but the urgency communicated itself from the trembling intensity of his body.
‘All right. Carole, we can talk as we go along . . . if that’s all right with you?’
‘Fine.’
‘No, I don’t think . . .’ But the two women had already moved on before Jonny Tyson could articulate his objection.
The kitchen garden of Bracketts was between the main house and the field which had been tarmacked over into a car park, so it had the ideal position for a Visitors’ Centre. Every new arrival would have to pass by at the start of their tour, and as they left they would hopefully visit the gift shop to load up with Esmond Chadleigh mugs and tea towels, as well as copies of those of his books that remained in print.
Though the building of the new Museum would be done by professional contractors, the basic clearing and digging over of the space had been delegated to the Bracketts volunteer force. The kitchen garden had long ago given up its original function and been used increasingly as a convenient tipping ground. (The wall that surrounded it left tourists blissfully unaware of the accumulated mess.) Old farm machinery and garden implements had ended their life there; so had generations of superseded visitor signs. There were collapsed chairs and tables from the old tea rooms, broken glass display cabinets and rejected souvenirs.
When Carole had arrived earlier that afternoon, the clearing process was well advanced. Through the open gates to the kitchen garden, she had seen the Estate Manager organizing some half-dozen workers of various ages. All wore faded blue overalls palely emblazoned with the words ‘Bracketts Volunteer’ and the logo of some long-defunct or merged insurance company. They appeared to be enjoying their work. Piles of rubbish were being enthusiastically dragged to a large bonfire outside the walls. The acrid smell of burning plastic tainted the autumn air.
As Carole and Gina approached after the meeting, almost all the debris had been removed, and the fire subsided to glowing embers. Within the kitchen garden walls, freshly turned earth showed that a start had been made on digging over the surface soil.
But the work had stopped. The Bracketts Volunteers in their faded blue overalls were clustered round a corner near the gate, and turned uneasily at the approach of Jonny Tyson and the two women.
‘I found it,’ said Jonny, with a mixture of pride and trepidation. Then, treating the words as if they were too big for his mouth, he confirmed, ‘Yes, I found it.’
The Volunteers moved back, Gina and Carole looked down at the ‘it’ they revealed.
Though only partially uncovered by Jonny’s spade, ‘it’ was undoubtedly a human skull.
Chapter Four
‘Right, can we just deal with this calmly, please?’
Carole turned to see the tall figure of Sheila Cartwright approaching through the kitchen garden gates.
‘Of course, we’ll deal with it calmly,’ said Gina Locke, determined not to allow another usurpation of her authority. ‘Has anyone notified the police yet?’
The Volunteers shook their heads, and instinctively looked to Sheila Cartwright for their next instruction. At Bracketts old habits died hard.
‘And does the Estate Manager know?’
More shaking of heads. ‘Jonny only just found it,’ said one of the girl Volunteers.
‘Well, could you go and tell him?’ The girl set off obediently towards the stable block.
While Sheila Cartwright issued further instructions, Carole looked down at the skull and tried to analyse her reactions. The way it lay suggested that further digging would show the skull to be attached to an entire skeleton. And the neat circular hole in the back of the cranial dome raised the possibility that its owner had met an untimely end. But to her surprise, Carole realized she felt only the mildest shock at the sight. The predominant emotion she felt was curiosity, a need for explanations.
Another incipient conflict between Sheila Cartwright and Gina Locke brought her back to the present. The fuse was lit by Sheila’s assertion that she would notify the police of what had happened.
Gina instantly dug her toes in. ‘I don’t think that’s your job.’
‘Why?’ The older woman withered the younger one with her stare. ‘I rather doubt whether you know the Chief Constable as well as I do.’
‘This is hardly a matter to go up to Chief Constable level.’
‘If I may say so, Gina, that shows how little you know. The finding of a dead body somewhere like Bracketts is the kind of thing that must be kept from the press for as long as possible. If it can be kept quiet till the house closes for the end of the season, that will save a lot of disruption. Paul – the Chief Constable – will know exactly how to control the publicity. I’ll go and make the call.’
Then she turned her dominant eye on the little group that stood around the skull. ‘I need hardly say that this is something you
