Springtime for Murder Read online

  Springtime

  for

  Murder

  Debbie Young

  To my brother and sister

  “The grave’s a fine and private place,

  But none, I think, do there embrace.”

  Andrew Marvell

  “Being neighbourly isn’t a question of how long you’ve lived somewhere. It’s a matter of human kindness. You don’t need to have Wendlebury Barrow on your birth certificate to pick up its spirit.”

  Sophie Sayers

  1 Funny Bunny

  Sina slammed her skipping rope down on the trade counter to get Hector’s attention. “My brother and me have just found the Easter Bunny lying dead in a grave in the churchyard.”

  Hector looked up from his spreadsheet. “Are you sure, Sina?”

  “Yes, and Tommy said to fetch you to sort it out.”

  “I’m afraid dealing with mythical beasts isn’t in the bookseller’s job description.” Hector glanced at his watch. “Besides, I can’t leave the bookshop till the Battersby rep has been, and she’s due any minute now. But don’t worry, Sophie will come with you to have a look, won’t you, Sophie?”

  I set down a tray of crockery on the tearoom counter so abruptly that a cup broke. “And since when has it been part of my job description? You’re meant to be on my side.”

  As my boyfriend as well as my boss, Hector knew I didn’t like visiting the churchyard.

  “The Easter Bunny?” asked old Billy, pouring an extravagant amount of cream into his teacup. “He’s early. Easter’s weeks away.”

  I was glad about that. On Palm Sunday, I was due to start running the village Sunday School class. I still didn’t know how I’d let the vicar talk me into volunteering.

  Billy licked a drip off the cream jug’s spout. “What’s the Easter Bunny doing in my grave anyway?”

  Sina’s eyes widened. “Your grave? How come you’ve got a grave when you’re not even dead yet? Are you very poorly?”

  She went to perch on the chair beside his and laid a comforting hand on the sleeve of his ancient tweed jacket.

  I was touched by her concern. “Sina, when Billy says his grave, he means he’s dug it for someone else.”

  “But we all need graves eventually, Sina,” said Billy. “Even little kiddies like you. I don’t plan on meeting my maker just yet, but I shall be willing enough when the good Lord decides it’s my time.”

  Sina frowned. “Who will dig your grave, Billy?”

  Billy wiped his hands on his trousers.

  “Your brother, I expect. I’ve been training him.”

  “Is that like work experience?” asked Sina.

  More like work avoidance for Billy. He often gets Tommy to do his dirty work in return for pocket money or some dubious favour. Tommy would be an industrious digger, with the enthusiasm of a Labrador puppy and about as much accuracy. But I kept that thought to myself. I didn’t want to deter Billy from accompanying us to the churchyard. Besides, the graves were his responsibility, not mine.

  Hector chuckled. “An internship on interment. No doubt Tommy’s hoping to find buried treasure.”

  Billy’s mouth twitched. “I’m not saying I didn’t put that idea in his head to get him interested in helping me. But by rights, gravedigging is a two-man job: one to dig, the other to make sure the sides don’t collapse on top of him. Of course, you shore up the sides with wooden boards as you go, but it’s still a risky business if you don’t do it right. A couple of tons of earth falling too fast for you to climb up your little ladder, and within minutes you’d be stone dead.”

  I’d never seen a grave with a ladder in it. Sina asked exactly what I was thinking.

  “What’s the ladder for? In case the person you’ve buried isn’t quite dead?”

  Billy shook his head. “Quite the opposite. It’s for the gravedigger’s benefit. You must always leave a ladder at the end until you’re done digging. Them’s the rules. Health and safety, even in death.”

  “I hadn’t realised digging graves was such a complicated business,” I said.

  “It’s ain’t a business,” said Billy. “It’s a craft. I’d better come along with you for safety’s sake.”

  He got up, buttoned his ancient tweed jacket and headed for the door, Sina prancing after him like Puck after Bottom.

  When Hector got up from his stool to join me behind the tearoom counter, I thought he’d come to show solidarity. Instead, he put his arm round my shoulders and guided me firmly out into the street.

  “Go on, sweetheart, the fresh air will do you good.”

  Like a curly-haired sheepdog directing a reluctant ewe, he blocked the shop doorway behind me. There was no escape.

  As I caught up with the advance investigation party, Sina slipped her hand into mine, reminding me how young she was. I wanted to reassure her, despite my own nerves.

  “It’s probably just an old scarecrow that someone’s put there as a practical joke. Are you sure it’s not just your brother winding you up?”

  Zigzagging beside me, Sina took twice as many paces as I did.

  “If he is, I’ll push him in the grave on top of it and fill it in.”

  I was glad her usual spirit was returning. Being Tommy’s little sister would be enough to make any girl resilient.

  Billy scowled. “My churchyard ain’t no playpark. It’s sacred ground, consecrated for burials, not for kiddies to lark about in. Like the poet says, ‘The grave’s a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace.’”

  I had no idea where that came from. Billy grinned at my puzzled expression.

  “You and your clever-clogs boyfriend ain’t the only ones who can quote poetry.”

  Actually, only Hector could, but I wasn’t about to put myself down.

  “I recites poems about graveyards while I’m digging, to set a good rhythm.” He repeated his quote, punctuating it with a mime. ‘The grave’s (dig) a fine (throw) and private (dig) place (throw).’” He stopped shovelling to tap his forehead. “Grey’s Elegy is another good ’un.” Stretching his arms out towards the mid-morning sun, he began to declaim, “‘The curfew tolls the knell of parting day—’”

  “Does Tommy use the same method when he’s digging?” He might have been gaining more than muscles from his labours.

  “I don’t think my brother knows any poetry,” said Sina. “Unless you count limericks. He knows loads of them.”

  I bet Billy did too, but not the type suitable for young ears, so I tried to move the conversation on.

  “I don’t think a graveyard is the right place for limericks. It should be a serious place.”

  “Not necessarily, girlie,” said Billy. “You’d be surprised. I has long chats sometimes with them that comes to visit their loved ones there, and we often have a laugh thinking about times gone by.”

  “Isn’t that a bit disrespectful?”

  Billy gave me a reproachful look. “You’ve got this all wrong, you know. Graveyards are places full of memories, and who wouldn’t rather remember the fun times?” He looked away from me, his voice tightening with emotion. “A churchyard is a landscape full of love.”

  I turned to Sina to allow him to recover his composure.

  “Anyway, never mind about poetry, I’m sure Billy and I will help you get to the bottom of this Easter Bunny mystery in no time.”

  She stopped jigging about and fixed me with a wide-eyed stare. “But I don’t want to get to the bottom of it. I’m not getting down into a smelly old grave, even if you are.”

  “I don’t mean we will literally get into the grave, Sina, just that we’ll find out what’s going on and put an end to it.”

  “Besides, graves smell lovely,” said Billy. “The most natural s
cent in the world – freshly dug soil.”

  As we crossed the road to St Bride’s, I tugged at her hand, as if coaxing a stubborn puppy on a leash, and she carried on dancing about at my side. Fumbling to open the lychgate, I tried not to let Sina see my hands shaking.

  Tommy’s gangly teenage frame was pressed up against the boundary wall, which in the morning sunshine was the colour of local honey. He pointed towards a large rectangular hole in the grass a few metres in front of him. A sheet of artificial turf big enough to cover the hole lay crumpled on the ground beside it. The real grass, dotted with early daisies, was still glossy with dew, the spring sunshine not yet hot enough to burn it off. So many dead people beneath our feet pushing those daisies up, I thought with a shudder.

  Tommy, usually fearless, spoke in a low voice, as if worried about being overheard. “The body’s in there, miss.”

  Sina, gripping my hand even tighter, crept towards the open grave with commendable stealth. I had no option but to advance beside her. Billy followed.

  Together we stopped at the edge of the open grave. Below the perfectly incised turf, dense, rich soil the colour of coffee grounds – or of dried blood – was shored up by wooden boards. The hole, much deeper than I’d expected, exuded a pure, rich smell of wet earth. Towards the bottom, the colour and texture of the soil changed, becoming drier and stonier, reminding me of cross-section diagrams in geology books. At one end stood a narrow ladder.

  At the bottom of the grave, as still as a house brick, lay the body of a very old lady, about five feet long and clothed in an old-fashioned mink coat. One sugar-pink velour carpet slipper protruded beneath the hem. I could see how Sina and Tommy had mistaken it at a quick glance for the sole of a not-so-lucky rabbit’s foot. A giant rabbit’s foot, that is.

  But most striking of all was the pair of fake rabbit ears, in a blue floral sprigged cotton, that added twenty centimetres to the body’s height. I recognised the style of the ears from the Easter display in the village shop. Its proprietor Carol Barker sold home-made seasonal dressing-up clothes to boost her precarious takings. Currently, dozens of pairs of bunny ears were tempting small children from a basket on the shop counter.

  She lay with her hands raised beside her head, her body slightly twisted to one side, her left knee bent more than the right. My hand itched for a piece of chalk to draw around her, because she formed the typical shape of a dead body outlined on the ground in police crime scene investigations.

  The body lay too neatly on the ground for her to have fallen down the hole, but I couldn’t imagine anyone climbing down the ladder and lying down of their own accord. She looked as if someone must have carried her down and laid her out as if on a mortuary slab.

  Billy, swaying gently beside me, put his hand on my shoulder to steady himself. “That’s no Easter Bunny,” he said, his voice cracking. “That’s my Auntie Bunny. Bunny Carter. My mother’s late brother was her first husband.”

  “Oh my goodness, Billy, I’m so sorry—” I began, but he cut me off.

  “So what’s the silly old fool playing at now?”

  2 Down the Rabbit Hole

  “Billy!” cried Tommy, still rigid against the wall. “You’re always telling me to be more respectful in the churchyard. How come it’s all right for you to slag off dead people?”

  Billy crossed to the wall to pick up the long-handled scythe he used for clearing churchyard weeds. “What makes you think she’s dead?”

  Tommy steeled himself to leave his post and peer over the edge of the grave. “She doesn’t look exactly lively.”

  “Old ladies don’t usually move about much,” said Sina.

  “My Auntie Bunny certainly doesn’t.” Billy turned the scythe upside down and grasped the blade. “She’s hardly left her house for years.” I flinched, fearing for the flesh of palm. He lowered the handle of the scythe into the grave and gave the old lady a vigorous prod. A faint, low moan drifted up to reassure us that she was still alive.

  “There, told you so,” said Billy, retrieving the scythe and spinning it round to grasp the handle. “It would take a lot more than a tumble down a hole to kill this old bird. She ain’t ready to go yet.”

  The children brightened at the news.

  “Do you want me to go down and help her back up?” asked Tommy. He did so love to help. “I like going up and down that little ladder. I could try out my new fireman’s lift that I’ve been practising on Sina.”

  “NO!” Sina and I said at once.

  “We shouldn’t move her till a paramedic’s checked her out,” I continued. “Moving her at this stage could do more harm than good. Besides we shouldn’t be disturbing the ground around her. It might hold crucial evidence about how she got there.”

  “So you think it’s a crime scene, miss?”

  “It may well be. But as she’s clearly still alive, the priority is to apply first aid. Tommy, could you please run down the High Street and fetch Dr Perkins, if he’s at home? Tell him it’s an emergency.”

  “He’s bound to be at home since he retired last month.” Billy’s tone was grudging. “And him only sixty, too.”

  “Then can we call an ambulance?” asked Tommy, hopefully. The appearance of any emergency services vehicle in the village was always a cause for excitement and gossip.

  “We’ll let Dr Perkins be the judge of that,” I said, wary of making false accusations, and of frightening the children. I hoped there might be an innocent explanation for Bunny Carter’s dilemma. “Besides, he’ll get here much faster than an ambulance, especially now the humpback bridge on the Slate Green road is closed for repair. They’ll have to go the long way round. Those first few minutes could be crucial.”

  Sina grabbed her brother’s sleeve. “I’ll come with you, Tommy.”

  Billy followed them through the lychgate. “I’d better go and fetch Kitty, if I can persuade her to leave the house.”

  “What about me?” I called, alarmed at the prospect of being left alone with the body, even if it was still alive. “And who’s Kitty, anyway?”

  Billy shouted back over his shoulder to me. “Just keep an eye on Bunny and make sure she doesn’t try to get out of that hole by herself.”

  I hugged myself for comfort, unsure what to do in the meantime. Then, ashamed of my faint heart when an old lady might be dying in front of me, I crept forward and peered into the grave again. She looked surprisingly peaceful, and she was certainly wrapped up warm.

  Amid the stillness, a sudden loud fluttering and a rush of air at my back made me cry out in alarm. I looked round to see a large black crow alight on the grass before stalking confidently over to the nearest floral tribute, where it began pecking vigorously at the roses, seeking insects among the petals. I tried not to think of dead sheep’s eyes.

  Then it occurred to me that we might not be alone. If Bunny Carter hadn’t entered the grave of her own accord, her assailant might be lurking behind a gravestone, preparing to despatch any witnesses. The open grave was deep enough to take me too, and Billy, Tommy, and Sina, come to that. I pictured us piled unceremoniously on top of each other, limbs sprawling, heads lolling, like the cover illustration on a book about the Black Death that I’d just shelved in our children’s history section.

  What method might her attacker have used? There was no sign of a weapon, nor of any blood.

  Stubbing my toe against the scythe that Billy had left lying on the ground, I realised its sturdy handle could deal a hefty enough blow to the head of an elderly lady. Might Billy—? No, I couldn’t believe he would do such a thing to his own aunt.

  I looked about me for tell-tale footprints. There were footprints everywhere in the dew on the grass, from the children’s earlier antics and Billy’s labours, as well as from our recent arrival. It was anyone’s guess whether another party had been through, with or without Bunny Carter. There were also strange parallel lines in the turf, weaving in and out of the tombstones, as if a figure skater had been practising fancy manoeuvres between
the graves.

  Following their trail to the edge of the churchyard, I jumped at the sight of a new feature I’d not seen before. Against the wall, bathed in a shaft of sunlight like a spotlight from heaven, stood a dove-grey marble slab bearing my surname. For a split second, my heart stood still, until I realised the name etched above it was not mine but my aunt’s. Auntie May’s headstone had at last been installed.

  When I first came to live in the village the previous June on inheriting her cottage, I’d been upset to discover May’s grave was marked only by a small wooden cross no bigger than a bookmark, hand-lettered in blunt pencil with her name and date of death.

  When, in floods of tears, I phoned my father at my parents’ home in Inverness, he had explained that after a burial, the freshly-dug soil must be left to settle before a headstone can be installed, or else it will sit crooked or fall over. The monumental mason in Slate Green would install hers when the time was right.

  I tramped across the grass and crouched down to read the rest of the inscription. Its gilded lettering glittered in the sunshine. As I traced the words chiselled beneath May’s name, their sharp edges grazed my fingertip:

  “’Tis a better thing to travel hopefully than to arrive.”

  I smiled. I didn’t need Hector to tell me that was a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson, one of my travel-writer aunt’s favourite authors. What would St Peter make of her attitude when she pitched up at the pearly gates?

  I resolved to return later with some flowers for her grave – not shop-bought ones, or wreaths, such as those which lay on some of the plots nearby, but something gathered from her beloved garden that I was now doing my best to tend in her memory. Her garden was also proving a source of inspiration for my own attempts at literature, mainly my monthly column in the parish magazine under the title “Travels with my Aunt’s Garden”.

  Yes, as May could no longer spend time in her garden, I’d move the mountain to Mohammed.

  Then my reverie was cut short by a long, eerie moan.