The hallowed grail, p.19
The Hallowed Grail, page 19
‘Maybe. Though it means going back a few years, to the death of Wynn’s brother Caleb. Were you involved in that investigation yourself?’
‘A bit of door knocking, that’s all. Too junior for anything more.’
‘Okay, so as I understand it, Wynn would have inherited his brother’s estate, except that he was automatically barred from it after being convicted of his manslaughter, so that it went to some cousins instead. Now imagine you’re one of those cousins. You hear on the family grapevine that your cousin Caleb has just died, and that the police are looking at your other cousin Wynn for it; and you already know that neither of them have kids, so you’ll be next in line if he gets convicted. Pretty tempting to put a finger on the scale, no? Say by making an anonymous phone call claiming to have seen him coming out of the farmhouse at the key moment, looking all flustered.’
‘It’s possible, I guess.’
‘Wynn swore blind he’d never been there that day. He’s a liar, so a pinch of salt and all that. But the way he tells it, that phone call was a deliberate act to get him convicted. Let’s say he’s right. He may be an addict, but I don’t think he’s dumb. He’ll have figured out the cui bono by now. I only spoke to him for ten minutes or so, but he made it pretty clear that he had someone particular in mind, and that he intended to make them pay for it too. So I’d be very surprised if I was the only person he’s mouthed off to.’
‘You think he meant it?’
‘Probably not. Too much to lose, and too much like hard work. But my opinion isn’t the one that matters. The one that matters is that of whoever made that phone call. And you know those idiot criminals who keep coming back to the scene of their crime. It’s not to gloat, not in my experience. It’s because they’re scared. They’re scared that they’ve left some telling piece of evidence behind that’ll lead straight back to them, or that the police have made some new breakthrough. So they can’t sleep, they can’t eat, they can’t sit still. They have to know. They follow the investigation obsessively on TV and the internet. They visit the site to be on hand in case there’s something that needs dealing with. It only ever increases their chance of getting caught, and they know it too. They just can’t help themselves.’
‘Is this going somewhere?’
‘Imagine it was you who’d made that phone call, and that it’s been eating away at you ever since. That fear of being found out. So you’ve been tracking Wynn ever since his conviction, his various appeals and hearings. Finally the dreaded day arrives when Wynn gets released. Wouldn’t you be feeling sick about it, wondering what he was up to, and whether he’d be coming after you? Wouldn’t you be praying that he’d slip up somehow and get his parole revoked? At one blow, all that weight would be off your shoulders for another five or even ten years. But only if it gets reported. So you decide to make sure it does get reported, even if you have to do it yourself. Unfortunately for you, Wynn knows where the lines are, and he stays well behind them too. But then a hoard is discovered in a field that Wynn clearly believes should rightly belong to him. Wouldn’t you be tempted to put your finger back on that scale?’
‘Do you have any evidence to back this up?’ asked Ransome.
‘Not a scrap, no,’ admitted Elias cheerfully. ‘But I’d still want to find out more about those cousins, if this was my case. I’d want to know what they were up to back then, and what they’re up to now, and whether any of them have been down this way recently.’ Then he turned and nodded across the courtyard at Orlando Wren, standing outside his stable, pretending to check something on his phone, only glancing anxiously every few seconds at the squad car in the back of which Ransome and Elias were sitting. ‘And, while I was at it, I might just want to ask him if he was one of them.’
THIRTY-ONE
The five-barred gate that separated Samantha’s paddock from Grove Farm’s back field looked to be secured with a chain and padlock. But only looked to be. The padlock had actually rusted shut years ago, but had been left draped over the junction of gate and post in the hope of fooling anyone who didn’t check too closely. The real security was the gate itself, for it dated back to when the paddock had been part of the farm, and was so old and heavy that it had sagged on its hinges and dug deep into the sodden earth, forcing Anna and Samantha to heave it up and shuffle back with it in baby steps until it was open wide enough for the digger to make it through.
‘You think I’m nuts, don’t you,’ said Samantha, rubbing her sore palms on her trousers after setting it back down.
‘Not nuts, no. I might well do the same, in your position. And I can’t deny that I’m dying to know what’s down there. Plus we archaeologists can get a bit precious sometimes about our methods. But there’s a good reason for that. Excavation is inherently destructive, you see. You only get one first go, and if you mess it up…’
‘Oh god. I’m not going to get Quentin into trouble, am I?’
‘I don’t think so. He’s good at this. Let him take it at his own pace and it should be fine. But please bear in mind that it wouldn’t only be heartbreaking if we were to damage something historic, it could prove extremely costly too. To you personally, I mean. Anything found on your land legally belongs to you. How would you feel if you broke it?’
‘Ah. Yes. I see what you mean. And you think that’s possible? That there’s something valuable down there?’
‘It’s possible, yes. Though I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much. If we’re right about this, the owners of the villa weren’t just proud of what was here, they rather showed it off too. Everyone who lived around here back then would have been certain to know about it, as would any invading armies too. That’s a recipe for getting robbed, frankly. So the chances of finding anything of intrinsic value are pretty small. But you never know.’
Quentin came lumbering through the gate on the digger, its caterpillar treads churning a pair of muddy tracks in the paddock’s wet grass. He arrived at where they were standing then jumped down from the cab before reaching back inside for the metal detectors that had been stowed in there during the storm. ‘At least let us check it first,’ he begged Samantha.
‘Don’t worry,’ she told him. ‘Anna’s talked me down. Slowly slowly it is. But you two obviously know far more than you’re letting on. Isn’t it time to tell me? Come on. It’s only fair.’
Quentin glanced at Anna. Anna nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But this has to stay between us, okay?’ He waited until Samantha had agreed before carrying on. ‘Right, then. So we found a large bowl or cauldron the other night with some intriguing markings on it – markings that suggest that there was something right around here that was very important to the owners of the villa. They were Christians, so maybe it was a shrine or chapel. But both Anna and I think it’s more likely to have been the family mausoleum. Probably not the whole thing. It’s too small for that. But what the Romans often did was, they built their mausoleums underground, then covered the access to it with some kind of grand superstructure. And this would be exactly the right size for that.’
‘What do you mean by access? Do you mean some kind of staircase?’
‘We think that’s most likely, yes. And what makes it even more exciting is that we think there’s a real chance that the villa – and indeed everything else around here – might have belonged to members of the Aurelian family.’
‘The Aurelians?’ She looked a little dizzily from Quentin to Anna and then back again. ‘But wasn’t King Arthur an Aurelian? The man you always thought to be King Arthur?’
‘Ambrosius Aurelianus,’ said Quentin. ‘Yes. Exactly.’
‘And you think this is his family tomb?’ she said, sounding almost indignant. ‘Are you seriously telling me that I may have King bloody Arthur buried beneath my paddock? But what about Avalon? Wasn’t he buried there? And isn’t that Glastonbury. And didn’t they already find his body there, hundreds of years ago?’
‘The monks there claimed that, yes,’ said Anna. ‘But it was almost certainly a hoax.’
‘Though not necessarily in the way most people think,’ added Quentin.
Anna glanced curiously at him. ‘How do you mean?’ she asked.
Quentin hesitated a moment, long enough for her to sense that this was another nugget that he’d wanted to hold back for his book. But then he went ahead anyway. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘So the hoax theory runs something like this. Glastonbury was ravaged by a terrible fire back in 1184. Many of its buildings were destroyed or badly damaged, and repairing them was going to cost far more than the monks could afford. One of the best ways for such places to raise significant funds back then was by attracting pilgrims. But pilgrims didn’t go just anywhere. You needed to give them a reason to visit. This was right around the first peak of Arthurmania. Possession of his relics would therefore have been immensely valuable. That obviously gave the monks there every incentive to make it up, as Anna rightly says. I certainly can’t prove otherwise. All I’ll say is that it may not be quite so cut and dried as that. For a start, precisely because relics were so valuable, abbeys and monasteries were constantly bickering over who had whose bones. Yet no one ever challenged Glastonbury’s claim to having Arthur, which strongly implies there was a pre-existing tradition of some kind to connect him to the place. And it wasn’t even their own idea to look for him. It was Henry II’s. Why would he have thought of it, if no such tradition had existed? Then there’s the grave itself. It included a headstone claiming it as the grave of Arthur and Guinevere.’
‘Yes,’ countered Anna. ‘But in the wrong script.’
‘It wasn’t a sixth century script, if that’s what you mean. But it wasn’t a twelfth century one either. That’s the point. The headstone itself is lost, but we have a drawing of it that suggests a likely tenth century creation. Which is telling, because the tenth century was when St Dunstan became abbot of Glastonbury, rescuing the place from an earlier malaise.’
‘So?’ asked Anna.
‘So pilgrimages didn’t start in the twelfth century. They’d already been a major source of income for religious institutions for hundreds of years by then. And St Dunstan is a fascinating character. Highly spiritual, yet worldly wise enough to become a key advisor to a succession of Anglo-Saxon kings. But he’s especially fascinating to proponents of a West Country Arthur like myself, because he was born and raised in a village called Baltonsborough that claimed to have supplied a disproportionate number of men for Arthur’s army. So you’d expect him to have had a special affinity for the man.’
Anna shook her head. ‘I still don’t follow.’
‘Of course not,’ said Quentin. ‘I haven’t got there yet. You just need the background for it all to make sense. So then. Baltonsborough is maybe three or four miles south east of Glastonbury, close enough for Dunstan to have studied there as a boy, despite it having largely fallen into ruin. It’s why he was so attached to the place, and why he became its abbot while still a very young man. An extremely well-connected and wealthy young man, true, but not so wealthy that he could afford to rebuild the place himself. He’d therefore have needed to raise funds somehow, and – as I say – pilgrimages were a great way of doing that. We think Arthur was already becoming a major folk hero by then, and he had strong links to the area, so it would have made perfect sense for Dunstan to want to associate Glastonbury with the man.’
‘You think it was Dunstan who was behind the hoax?’
‘I think it was Dunstan who was behind the claim. Not necessarily that it was a hoax. Because there’s something else you need to know. One of the parts of Glastonbury that had fallen into disrepair when he took over was its cemetery. The same cemetery in which Arthur and Guinevere were to be found two and a half centuries later. So here you have Dunstan, a devotee of Arthur and with a pressing need to raise funds, at a time when the best way to do that was by attracting pilgrims. And what do you suppose he did, while in favour with the king?’
‘What?’
‘He had him grant the village of Badbury here – and all these surrounding lands – to Glastonbury, even though it was the best part of a day’s ride away. And why would he have done that, do you think, unless there was something here of great value to him?’ He looked down at the pale grass beneath his feet. ‘Something, perhaps, that he coveted for his abbey.’
THIRTY-TWO
Ransome followed Elias’s gaze across the cobbles to Orlando Wren, even as he turned away from them and made his way back inside his converted stable. ‘You seriously think he’s one of the cousins?’
‘I seriously think it’s worth asking him the question,’ said Elias. ‘He came here at around the time Wynn was released on parole. He took a room overlooking Grove Farm. He hides his face behind a baseball cap and that bushy great beard. And he spends his days out on long walks, doing god knows what.’
‘One hell of a risk. What if Grant recognised his name?’
‘Yeah. Except doesn’t Orlando Wren have the ring of a pseudonym to you? Samantha told me he’s paying cash. Maybe there’s a reason for that. I heard him giving his statement earlier. He sounded pretty edgy when your people asked him for his name and address. Plus he managed to get all his clothes out of his room last night, yet apparently he somehow left his wallet behind, with all his cards and other ID. So yes, I’d say it’s definitely worth asking the question.’
‘Okay,’ said Ransome. ‘But you’re coming with me.’
‘So you can blame me if it turns to shit?’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Well done.’
They got out of the squad car, made their way across the courtyard together. Ransome knocked loudly but then went in without waiting for an answer, even as Wren came out of the bedroom carrying his overnight bag. ‘Off somewhere?’ she asked.
‘I’m a writer,’ he said. ‘How can I be expected to write with all this going on?’
‘Fair enough. Are you okay to get home, though? They tell me you don’t have a car here, and I understand you lost your wallet in the fire.’
‘I’ll be fine, thanks. I found some cash in one of my pockets.’
‘How about a lift? I could have you taken to the station.’
‘That’s okay. You have far more important things to do.’ He gave them a polite yet cool smile, the kind designed to declare the conversation over. Unfortunately for him, it was also the kind of smile that had the opposite effect on experienced detectives like Ransome and Elias.
‘What was your name again?’ asked Ransome.
‘Wren,’ he told her. ‘Orlando Wren.’ But his swallow was visible even beneath his beard, and despite his effort to hide it.
‘That’s your real name, is it? Not your pen name?’
‘What is this?’ he asked. ‘Why would I give you a pen name?’
‘That’s not an answer, though, is it, sir? Well?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Wren is my real name.’ But he couldn’t hold her gaze. He turned his back on her instead, made his way stiffly over to the kitchen area where he ran some hot water into the sink, scrubbing the dirty mugs and plates that the previous occupants had left to soak. ‘Is that all?’
‘Not quite,’ said Ransome. ‘One last question. Are you a cousin of the Grants, by any chance?’
‘I’m sorry? The who?’
‘Caleb and Wynn Grant. Surely you’ve heard of them. We arrested Wynn yesterday on suspicion of the murder next door. It was all over the news.’
‘Ah. Yes.’ He rinsed out a mug and teaspoon, dried them both vigorously with a sheet of kitchen paper. ‘So that was his name, was it? Why would you think me his cousin?’
‘She doesn’t, as it happens,’ said Elias. ‘It’s my idea. Specifically, I thought you were maybe one of the cousins who got to inherit Grove Farm after Wynn was convicted of killing Caleb.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Wren. ‘This is slander.’
‘How on earth is it slander?’ asked Ransome. ‘It’s just a question.’
‘Yes. But I’ve already answered it. I’ve answered all your questions.’
‘Not this one, you haven’t,’ said Elias. ‘And it’s a pretty straightforward one, I’d have thought. Eight billion people on the planet, and all but a handful can answer no without a blink. So why do you have a problem with it?’
Wren hung the mug up on a hook, put the teaspoon away in a drawer. ‘I have a problem with it because why are you even asking? Am I suspected of something?’
‘Yes,’ said Ransome. ‘I’d have thought that was obvious by now.’ She turned to Elias. ‘Wouldn’t you have thought it obvious?’
‘It’s obvious to me.’
‘Suspected of what, exactly?’
‘Of making the phone call that placed Wynn Grant at Grove Farm at the time of his brother’s death,’ said Elias. ‘And a word of warning: don’t even bother trying to lie. You wouldn’t believe how good voice analysis software is these days. They tried it on me last year, before I quit. Nailed me every time, even when I was putting on my best Scottish accent. Even when I was speaking French. Don’t ask me how they do it, exactly. Apparently there’s some combination of timbre, pitch and cadence that’s impossible to disguise, no matter how you try. Better than fingerprints, they tell me.’ He held up his phone to show him that he’d been recording the conversation. ‘So I’m going to take a wild guess here. I’m going to take a wild guess that when we test your voice against that phone call, it’s going to come up cherries.’
‘You’re bluffing,’ said Wren, but the croak in his voice was so pronounced that it might as well have been a confession. And all three of them knew it.
THIRTY-THREE
The wooden rail fence at the back of the paddock ran slantwise across the patch of paler grass, cropping off its far left corner, which was given over anyway to much longer grass, some thick bushes and then the steep foot of Liddington Hill. Anna and Quentin swept the remaining area briskly with the two metal detectors, netting themselves some rusted nails, an old 10p coin and a buckle with a length of frayed brown leather still attached, likely torn from some piece of horse-tack. But that was all. ‘Are you still sure about this?’ Quentin asked Samantha, before climbing back up into the digger’s cab.
