Drowned lives, p.25
Drowned Lives, page 25
‘I came about the body that was found at Fosseway,’ I said.
‘Ah yes. An interesting case.’
‘I wondered if you’d established the cause of death?’
‘Well, we don’t normally give out such information. But we’ve recently released details to the press, so I suppose I can tell you. First of all, we’re fairly certain the remains are those of an adult male.’
‘He was murdered, wasn’t he?’ I blurted.
‘Well, hold on,’ said Graham, looking at me curiously. ‘Let’s take one thing at a time.’
I forced myself to appear relaxed. ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’
He looked happier. ‘Well, we may know a bit more when the forensic anthropologist has finished his work. But one thing is clear. The back of the victim’s skull had been smashed with several heavy blows. Then his body was concealed in a heap of lime, which must have preserved it for a while. It looks as though the lime was never moved. There were the remains of some wooden barrels nearby too.’
‘A forensic anthropologist? I know there are all sorts of specialities these days, but I’m not sure what that one involves.’
‘Oh, we call him in when it’s a question of old bones. You see, there was nothing left but a skeleton. We’re talking about an ancient crime here. Two hundred years, by initial estimates.’
I felt nervous, and had to swallow rapidly before I said: ‘I think I know who it is.’
‘I thought that might have been what you were getting to. You have some information for us?’
‘Well, it’s more of a deduction.’
‘Deduction?’
‘I’ve been putting two and two together. And I think the remains you found may be those of one of my ancestors.’
‘Does he have a name?’
‘William Buckley.’
Graham wrote it down. ‘A distant ancestor, I take it?’
‘He disappeared in mysterious circumstances in 1800.’
‘I see. I presume you have some particular reason to think he might have been at Fosseway Wharf?’
I told him the known facts about William Buckley’s disappearance and Rachel’s theory to explain it. What had once seemed far-fetched when she first aired it had slotted into place when the remains were unearthed, as if the proof had been produced on cue. But now, as I repeated it in that soulless room to DS Graham, it all felt horribly tenuous again.
‘I’d say that wasn’t so much deduction as guesswork,’ he said when I’d finished.
‘Well – it seems a possibility. I’d thought I’d better tell you.’
‘Oh, quite right. But you understand that, due to the age of the remains, we aren’t able to identify them in any of the usual ways?’
Despite his cool response, I blundered on with an idea that had occurred to me when he mentioned the anthropologist.
‘Yes, obviously. But there is one way you could establish for certain whether the victim is my direct relative, isn’t there?’
Graham tapped his pen on the desk and stared at me. ‘How is that, Mr Buckley?’
‘A DNA test.’
‘Well, but I’m not sure …’
‘According to what I’ve read, all you need is just enough marrow left in the bones of the skeleton to get a DNA profile. If I give a sample of my DNA, then you can see if there’s a familial match. That would prove it fairly conclusively. Of course, if there isn’t a match …’
‘Well, in theory it might work.’
‘Absolutely. In fact, it was done in the case of the Tsar Nicholas II and his family, the Romanovs. You know – the Russian royal family?’
‘Of course.’
‘I read about it in one of the Sunday papers. They were killed following the Bolshevik uprising in 1918. Their bodies were left buried in a mass grave for years and years, because the Communists didn’t want to know about them. But with perestroika and all that, people got interested again, and the bodies were dug up. Some said they weren’t the Romanovs at all. But in the end they were identified by a DNA match to a blood sample from the Duke of Edinburgh, no less. He’s a distant relative of the Romanovs via Queen Victoria. I’m a bit weak on the history of the royal family, I’m afraid.’
‘I believe Prince Philip is related to the Tsarina Alexandra, Nicholas’s wife,’ said Graham, surprising me.
‘There you are then,’ I said. ‘It works all right. If it’s good enough for the Duke of Edinburgh …’
He smiled. ‘Nice try.’
‘Can we do it?’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t think there’s any justification for it at the moment. But we’ll bear your suggestion in mind.’
I sagged back in my chair. ‘You’re not interested in finding out who it is.’
‘It’s purely of academic interest. There’s hardly going to be any prosecution. On that basis, we couldn’t justify the cost.’
‘I see. It all comes down to money, in the end?’
I got up, ready to go.
‘By the way,’ said DS Graham, looking as if he suddenly felt sorry for me, ‘would you be interested in knowing what possessions were found with the remains?’
‘I doubt it.’
He shrugged. ‘Well, there wasn’t much, admittedly. A few coins, pretty worn away. Part of a shoe, a buckle. I’m sorry they’re not more interesting.’
‘No.’
I was already putting on my coat to leave.
‘But there was this. It’s the best preserved item of all.’
He was holding a small leather pouch, wrinkled and rotting into holes.
‘It doesn’t look very well preserved,’ I said.
‘I meant what’s in it. It’s survived pretty well.’
‘What has?’
‘The water has got to the handle a bit,’ he said. ‘But it’s basically okay, even after all this time.’
‘But what is?’ I was aware that I was starting to sound like a parrot, but I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.
And then I had a blinding surge of conviction. I knew what was in the pouch.
‘It’s a key, isn’t it?’ I said.
But DS Graham frowned. ‘A key? Why would you think that? No, it’s a hand stamp. The SOCOs tell me it’s made of rosewood and brass. Look, Mr Buckley. It’s a stamp for making wax seals.’
36
In the post next morning was a manila envelope with my address showing in a little window, except that it was simply headed to ‘The Occupier’.
The letter came from an Executive Officer in the Traffic Management and Tolls Division at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, who was writing in response to a printed card I’d signed and sent in protesting against the link road. He informed me that the statutory decision could not be altered, but that the Secretary of State had weighed all the various material considerations in taking his decision.
The tone of his letter was very reasonable. The thing that annoyed me most was that they hadn’t bothered with my name. I was sure the card had included my name as well as my address. Addressing me as ‘The Occupier’ made me feel like a statistic rather than an individual. It diminished me, and denied my identity.
I wondered again about Samuel’s name change. Why had he done that? He’d deliberately denied his identity as a Buckley. It didn’t make sense for a man who’d been so concerned about family. It was just one of the contradictions in my great-uncle’s life. I had bits and pieces of information in my hands, but could see no way to fit them together, like an incomplete jigsaw. And the more I found out about Samuel’s life, the further away it seemed to lead me from the truth about his death.
Rachel came in almost straight after breakfast and found me looking glum.
‘Chin up, number six,’ she said cheerfully. ‘What’s the matter?’
I showed her the ancient stamp DS Graham had given me. It had a nicely turned wooden handle – rosewood, Graham had said. And at one end was an impression of the Ogley and Huddlesford Canal Company’s seal set into brass, the image of a pit-head with a stylised beam-engine.
Rachel cooed over it as if it had been a diamond-encrusted tiara.
‘So much history right here,’ she said, turning it over in her hands and stroking its blackened sides.
‘And none of it good.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘From the police. I went to see them about the body that was found at Fosseway Wharf.’
‘So you do think William Buckley might have been murdered. And the body could be his?’
I shrugged. ‘It was a theory, that’s all. We’ll never know, since they won’t do a DNA comparison.’
I was conscious of Rachel studying my face, but I avoided meeting her eye.
‘Well, there’s something I want to ask you about anyway,’ she said. ‘That’s why I called round.’
As if she needed any excuses to ‘call round’, I thought. But of course I didn’t say it.
‘Oh, what’s that?’ I asked.
‘This continuing feud.’
‘What?’
‘In one of his letters, Samuel has written a phrase I don’t understand: This continuing feud. What feud was he talking about?’
‘There was some kind of dispute within the Buckley family. The split between the two brothers, Samuel and my grandfather.’
Rachel wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t think he means that. He seems to be talking about a feud between two families.’
‘But who could that be?’
‘I don’t know. Rivals to the Buckleys? Somebody William upset over the canal scheme? A family angry with Thomas over some girl he got pregnant? And wasn’t Josiah supposed to have got into a fight with someone? It could be anybody.’
‘Hold on, there’s something there – an idea at the back of my mind.’
‘Best place for it, probably, given the sort of trouble your ideas land you in. It’s getting a bit dangerous, Chris.’
‘Find the first bit of Samuel’s manuscript. It’s in the file there.’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘There’s a name on the tip of my tongue.’
She pulled out the file. ‘What exactly am I looking for?’
‘Go back to the beginning of the manuscript. Look for the names of the canal company proprietors.’
‘Okay.’
She turned over the pages until she reached the beginning. She didn’t need to read the opening paragraphs, because I could remember the exact words. ‘Major international events in the closing years of the eighteenth century were the key to the future of Britain’s inland waterways system.’
‘There was Anthony Nall and his brother Joshua, who was Deputy Lieutenant,’ said Rachel. ‘There was the doctor, James Allwood. Edward Wilkinson, an apothecary. Adam Henshall … Now that Nall – he sounds a nasty piece of work.’
‘No.’
‘Or there’s Robert Sykes the publican. John Frith the solicitor, and his partner Daniel Metcalf, who was company secretary. The Parker family – Seth and Isaac, the bankers. Did you know that Seth’s son Francis was transported to Australia for theft? That must have caused a bit of upset. And then there was the visionary, the Reverend Thomas Ella, of course.’
‘Parker.’
‘What?’
‘The Parker family. I knew there was something ringing a bell. What were their names? Seth and Isaac?’
‘Why them?’
‘Leo Parker, that’s why. There’s the connection.’
‘There are nearly two hundred years between them.’
‘So? There’s the same amount of time between William Buckley and me. And why else should Leo Parker turn up now? Of course there’s a connection. That man did his best to get the manuscript and the letters off me when he came here. And with that break-in, I think he’s succeeded.’
‘But why? I don’t understand. It’s all ancient history, isn’t it?’
‘There’s at least one person who doesn’t think it is.’
First of all, I tried Leo Parker’s number from the card he’d left me, but I got his voice on an answering machine and had to leave a stumbling message.
I knew Laura was back in London, but she’d left me the phone number at a house she shared in Shepherd’s Bush. I’d imagined a couple of girls, and I was taken aback when a man’s voice answered and offered to fetch Laura for me.
‘Who was that?’ I asked, rather abruptly.
‘Just one of the people I share with. His name’s Ian.’
‘Oh.’
She laughed at the tone of my voice. ‘Are you jealous, Chris? Don’t worry, Ian’s gay.’
‘Yeah, okay.’ I couldn’t say any more, for fear of presuming too much on our new relationship.
‘But you weren’t phoning to check on my sex life, I suppose,’ she said.
‘I’d thought you’d want to know about the developments here.’
‘Ah. Do tell.’
She listened intently as I told her about the remains found at the wharf and about Frank, and summarised the information Rachel had come up with, which led me to think that the body might be William Buckley’s. I almost told her about the hypothetical feud, but hesitated, and kept it to myself.
‘She’s been busy, this Rachel, hasn’t she?’ said Laura.
‘I think she’s got interested in the project. She hasn’t much else to do, you see. Not since her divorce.’
‘And this woman is living right next door to you? It sounds as though you might need protection.’
I realised I’d told her nothing of the break-in. But I reflected that it might sound as though I was too concerned about Rachel’s welfare, and I kept quiet.
‘Is there an inquest then?’ she asked. ‘Even though the body is so old?’
‘Er, I don’t know. DS Graham didn’t say.’
‘I suppose there might have to be, by law.’
‘They can only give evidence of cause of death anyway. There’ll be no formal identification.’
‘Unless you have this DNA test.’
‘Even that wouldn’t prove conclusively it was William Buckley,’ I said. ‘Only that it was someone related to me. It could be – I don’t know – Thomas Buckley, say.’
‘Who?’
‘My great-great-uncle. Rachel says he died in the Great War.’
‘Was there a famous First World War battle fought at Lichfield then? Will they unearth thousands of dead Germans at Fosseway?’
‘I’m only suggesting him as an example.’
‘I know.’
She sounded vague, as if she was doing something else while I was speaking. ‘Laura, are you listening?’
‘I’m just checking my diary,’ she said. ‘I could run up to Lichfield this weekend, if you think I can be of any help.’
‘Yes, I think you could,’ I said, trying unsuccessfully to hide my delight at the prospect of seeing her again. ‘Will you book into the George again?’
‘I expect so.’
‘Laura – have you managed to call at the Family Records Centre?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a few things to share with you when I see you.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
The Lichfield Echo that Thursday also contained my article and a spread of photos on the visit by Lindley Simpson to Fosseway. I cringed slightly at what they must have said at the Echo office about my report making no mention of the sensational developments at the end of the visit, when the excavator had unearthed human remains. What sort of a reporter missed that?
My professional reputation must be pretty low with the Echo now, just at a time when I might need to call in old favours. But at least they’d used the feature, which meant a bit of valuable income. It was a good spread, too, which the restoration trust would be pleased with.
As if to emphasise this, a call came from Andrew Hadfield, who’d seen the Echo.
‘Your piece was brilliant, Chris,’ he said. ‘Exactly the sort of publicity we need. The committee are delighted with it. They’re all ordering prints of the pictures showing them with Lindley Simpson.’
‘It didn’t get the same prominence as the other story, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, the old skeleton. Never mind. There’s no such thing as bad publicity.’
‘Have the police mentioned anything to you about who they think it is?’
‘No,’ said Andrew. ‘Presumably it’s just some Irish navvy. They died in droves on the old canal projects.’
‘Yes, that’s probably it.’
‘Anyway,’ he said briskly, ‘thanks again for the article. I thought I came out of it particularly well. Remind me some time that I owe you a favour.’
Dan Hyde had left two more messages on the answerphone asking me to contact him urgently, and finally I had to face up to it. He wanted to tell me that he’d made an appointment to see the bank manager in a few days’ time to discuss our loan for the start-up – specifically, our inability to pay it back.
‘If he’s in a bad mood, it could be curtains, you know, Chris.’
‘Yes, thanks a lot.’
‘Had the house valued yet?’
‘It won’t come to that,’ I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. ‘Anyway, I wanted to ask you something. About this anonymous backer.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Did this person ever exist?’
‘That’s hurtful. Of course he existed. It’s just that he made it a specific condition of the agreement that he should never be identified. Don’t ask me why. In fact, I don’t even know it was a “he”. I only ever dealt with a lawyer anyway – and you know what lawyers are like. They’re almost as bad as bank managers.’
‘Right.’
It was all very unsatisfactory. I no longer felt I could trust my business partner, or anyone else for that matter. The world was shifting around me, and it felt very uncomfortable.
Later that day, Leo Parker returned my call.
‘I believe you’ve been trying to contact me,’ he said. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’
‘I need to talk to you. Not on the phone.’
‘Well, my diary is rather full. I could give you half an hour later in the week.’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I’m afraid that’s out of the question. I’m very busy.’
