The Murder of Busy Lizzie

chapter seven

The Body in the Sea

‘Adieu! farewell earth’s bliss,

This world uncertain is:

Fond are life’s lustful joys,

Death proves them all but toys.’

Thomas Nashe

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Wednesday was an anxious day for Marius. The boat was not due until the middle of the afternoon if the previous Wednesday, the day of his arrival on the island, was anything to go by, and the time of waiting was tedious. He breakfasted late, and intended to lunch early and then sit out on the cliff top with his binoculars.

Sebastian and Margaret had departed immediately after breakfast, but upon what errand he did not enquire. His mind was occupied elsewhere. Indignation with Eliza was giving place to anxiety and he found it impossible to banish the thought that she might not even be on Wednesday’s boat and that he might have to face the alternatives of quitting the island and washing his hands of her or of setting on foot all sorts of enquiries which might involve seeking assistance from the police. Neither course recommended itself to him and more and more he wished he had never resumed contact with his sister or come to spend a holiday on her island.

The returning steamers carried mail to the mainland and he had written to Clothilde on Thursday announcing safe arrival and giving an impression of the hotel, but he had not mentioned anything about Eliza’s absence from it. He did not know how the mainland postal service operated, but he had hopes that, whatever the delay in the delivery of his letter, his wife’s reply would come on the boat which, with any luck, would also bring back his sister. If it did not, he tried to persuade himself that he was determined to return home on the following day.

Meanwhile his children were setting out on an expedition proposed, organised and provisionally financed by Margaret. There was only one shop on the island. As she and her brother had already noted, it formed the other half of the public house.

‘But they won’t sell turpentine,’ Sebastian had objected when she disclosed her plan for their morning. ‘Besides, why should we clean up the local yobs’ horrid insignia?’

‘I aim to keep Britain tidy. I shouldn’t think it’s the islanders, anyway. They’ve probably had a boatload of skinheads or some such types come over from the mainland all ripe for mischief. It looks like that to me.’

‘Would they bring red paint with them?’

‘Of course, if they came prepared to paint their filthy slogans over everything.’

‘Those aren’t skinhead slogans.’

‘Why aren’t they? You didn’t mean it when you talked about satanists, did you?’

‘They’re all satanist symbols.’

‘The swastika?’

‘If you noticed, it’s not a true swastika; it’s a crooked cross.’

‘There’s the Star of David.’

‘Nonsense. That was a black magic pentagram.’

‘How do you know so much about it?’

‘I don’t, but a fellow on my staircase was talking about it, an American. Interesting chap. Got on to Voodoo and what-have-you.’

‘Some little lunatics in the third form at school started a witches’ coven, but they soon got into trouble about it.’

‘Why? The last of the witchcraft acts was repealed in England in 1951.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t the witchcraft the Head objected to. It was because they broke out at night to dance in their nudery on All Hallows Eve and caught the most dreadful colds. Anyway, they were kept in bed all over the half-term holiday. That put paid to the coven, I expect’

They made their way to the shop, but no turpentine was procurable and it was not even possible to get a drink, for the pub, although it did not recognise the statutory licensing hours, was closed.

‘So that’s that,’ said Sebastian.

‘No, it isn’t. We’ll call at Ransome’s cottage and ask for a drop of turps there.’

‘You can. I’m not going to. I’ve something better to do on holiday than clean up other people’s tombstones. It’s the business of the parish, anyway. Look, there’s the monthly service in the church next Sunday. Somebody will see the muck then and arrange for action to be taken. You’ve no need to concern yourself. Besides, if you’re spotted cleaning up, somebody may think you did the job yourself in the first place.’

‘Oh, nonsense! I’m going to talk to Ransome about it, anyway.’

‘He won’t thank you. He’s bound to be busy. A smallholding doesn’t run itself, you know. Let’s do as we said we would—trace the river to its mouth and then go back along the west cliffs.’

‘They’re bound to be crawling with bird-watchers. I was out of our chalet at six this morning and they were setting off in their hundreds, all armed with ropes and rock-climbing things and telescopes and binoculars and cameras.’

‘Hang it, there are only forty of them all told. They can’t be everywhere.’

‘I bet they are,’ said Margaret. ‘Anyway, that’s what it will seem like. Well, let’s just go and look at the churchyard again. It’s more or less on our way.’

Arrived at the church, Margaret, followed slowly by her brother, sought out the desecrated tomb-stones. The staring red paint was still in evidence, but was smeared and smudged as though somebody had made an attempt to clean it off. She approached the graves more closely. It was now possible to make out the inscriptions. In each case the head-stone bore the name of Chayleigh. No other graves had been touched. There was something else which the Lovelaines had not noticed on their previous visit. Somebody had attempted to deface one woman’s name and substitute another. The work had been done very roughly, but there was no doubt about the result. On the stone which had borne (and still faintly bore) the capital s and the word murder, the name of Gwendolyne Chayleigh had been chipped out and the name Eliza Lovelaine crudely substituted.

‘Well!’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘Somebody doesn’t like Aunt Eliza!’

‘Not very nice,’ said Sebastian, ‘but not terribly significant of black magic. More like plain malice, I’d say. I think perhaps we will go and see Ransome. Hullo! There’s somebody coming out of the church.’

The person who emerged from the south porch was a woman carrying a bucket and a broom. Sebastian, leaping over the intervening graves, caught up with her.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but do you know about some tombstones on which somebody has been at work?’

‘At work? How do you mean, at work?’ she asked, looking at him with deep suspicion.

‘Painting them—daubing them with red paint—and altering the inscription on one of the headstones.’

‘Done it yourself, like enough.’ She eyed disparagingly his towelling shirt of sailcloth red and his very brief, bright-blue shorts.

‘No, no, really, I assure you! Do please come and look. I think there ought to be a witness, somebody who has to do with the place. I mean, the Vicar, or the Churchwardens, or some such, ought to know, what?’

‘Well, what?’ said the woman, putting down the bucket, retaining the broom (as a weapon, Sebastian fancied) and accompanying him to the grave by which Margaret was standing. ‘Be you having me on?’ But when she saw the altered inscription and the traces of paint, her attitude changed. ‘Well, that’s a nice thing, that is!’ she exclaimed. ‘You come with me.’ They followed her into the church. It was plainly furnished and ugly. ‘Mind how you step. Floor’s still wet and tiles might be slippery,’ she advised them. She led the way to the back of the nave to the space under the tower and, taking a key from her overall pocket, she unlocked the small door which led up to the belfry. ‘Just you take a look up there,’ she said, ‘and tell me what you see.’

‘I’ll go. You stay here,’ said Sebastian to his sister.

‘I want to see what it is, too,’ she said.

‘You may, when I come down.’

‘Don’t trust me not to lock the door on you both, is that it?’ asked the cleaner ironically.

‘Something of the sort may have crossed my mind,’ said Sebastian. ‘I don’t care for the look of those grave-stones.’ He mounted the stone steps and found that, after the first turn of the narrow staircase, the treads were made of open-meshed ironwork and were treacherously slippery. Beyond the bell-chamber the rest of the ascent had to be made by means of a latter. Wound in and out of the rungs of this ladder was an elaborately woven one made of strands of rope into which were twisted some black feathers. Sebastian did not touch it. He knew, from what his college acquaintance had told him, what it was. He descended to the foot of the tower steps and nodded to the cleaner. ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘Who, on the island, goes in for black magic?’

The woman shook her head.

‘There’s only one on the island as was born wrong side of the blanket,’ she said. ‘Oh, well, him being churchwarden, the less said about that the better. I’m your witness and you be mine, and best neither on us meddle with what we’ve seen. You go your ways now, while I lock up.’

‘Do you always keep the church locked?’ asked Margaret. ‘Do wait just a minute while I climb the tower.’

‘Nothing much to see,’ said Sebastian. ‘Come on. We’re keeping this lady waiting.’ He hustled his sister towards the south door.

‘Us keep it locked, certainly,’ said the cleaner, producing a large key when they reached the porch. ‘Oh, yes, us keep it locked, but them as knows where to look can always lay hands on the key. Go you before me. No call for strangers to find out where I put it.’

Ransome was lifting shallots. He straightened up and smiled at his cousins.

‘What-ho!’ he said. ‘Any news of my mother?’

‘They’re expecting her back today,’ Sebastian replied. ‘There’s something else we want to talk about.’

Ransome stuck his gardening-fork into the soil.

‘I was going to knock off for my elevenses, anyway,’ he said. ‘Can you drink home-brewed cider?’ He led the way into his cottage. It was simply furnished and in peasant fashion except for a long wall of bookshelves which must have held several hundred volumes, for the shelves went from near the floor almost up to the ceiling and were so crammed with books that many of these were lying on their sides on top of those which were right-way-up on the shelves. Marius had a considerable library and Sebastian and Margaret had been allowed the run of it—subject to a certain amount of supervision when they were very young—but Ransome appeared to possess more books than Marius. He followed the direction of Sebastian’s eyes and smiled. ‘I must say I like a bit of a read,’ he said. ‘What did you come about, then?’

While they drank his cider and ate delicious fruit-cake which, Ransome told them, the farmer’s wife had supplied, they told him all about the tomb-stones and Sebastian described the black magic rope ladder which he had seen in the church tower.

‘I thought the church was always locked,’ said Ransome.

‘The cleaner took us inside.’

‘Chief witch of the local coven, you know.’ He appeared to be about to add to this information, but checked himself.

‘No, really?’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Perfectly serious. She’s a white witch, of course. No black magic or satanism about her—well, not so far as I know. However, she’s head of the coven.’

‘But she cleans the church!’

‘Why shouldn’t she? Gets paid for it, like any other woman. Not that she’s kept short of money. Looks after our fowls and hangs on to all that she gets.’

‘But witches are not churchgoers, are they?’ persisted Margaret.

‘Well, no, I reckon not, but there’s no harm in this one. Goes in for herbal healing, and when any woman on the island is with child they always send for her to assist at the birth. They say she’s better than any trained midwife and wonderful at easing labour pains.’

‘What will happen about the headstones?’ asked Sebastian. ‘I mean, the way they’ve been treated is sheer vandalism. Have you had anything of the sort before?’

‘Not to my knowledge. Makes you wonder what has triggered it off, doesn’t it? Well, I’ll see the vicar is told about it. Not that he takes much stock in us, only seeing us once in four weeks, and this Sunday it won’t be the regular parson anyway, because he’s on furlough, so it will only be a stand-in, and lucky to get him, I reckon. Still, he can report it in the proper quarters, I daresay, although whether that will do any good, with all the lawlessness there is nowadays, is anybody’s guess. Oh, well, I’m afraid I must get back to work, if you’ll excuse me. Promised dad I’d do a couple of little carpentering jobs for him this afternoon if I get time.’

‘Oh, are he and his wife back, then?’ asked Margaret.

‘Dad’s back. Didn’t bring my mam back with him, though. Said he looked out for her, too. Lucy is staying with friends for a day or two.’

‘Forty bird-watchers came over, but not Aunt Eliza,’ said Sebastian. ‘Well, thanks very much for the nosh. Mrs… er… the farmer’s wife—’

‘Lucy Cranby. Dad’s name is Allen Cranby.’

‘Mrs Cranby must be a first-class cook.’

‘Yes. Pity she’s still away, you must meet her when you’ve got time. Of course,’ Ransome went on, ‘dad would have married my mam, you know, if only he had been free. That being so, I’ve never felt all that much of a bastard. Not that the islanders would care. Still, you know how it is. My mam gave my dad the farm. It was part of old Gwendolyne Chayleigh’s estate, she whose name my mam took.’

‘It’s the Chayleigh headstones in the churchyard which have been daubed and desecrated,’ said Margaret.

‘Is it now? That’s interesting. I wouldn’t put it past Connie Crimp to have done that. She’s an odd sort of woman altogether. Well, sorry I’ve got to go. Stay as long as you like, so long as you shut the front door behind you so the cows won’t get in.’

‘Oh, we’re ready for off,’ said Sebastian.

During its short course from the centre of the island down to the sea, the river—dignified by this title simply because it happened to be about twice as wide as the brooks which flowed to the east side of Great Skua—dropped four hundred feet from its source to its mouth. It rushed, yelled and tumbled down the narrow gorge which it had cut for itself and at first, as they followed the narrow path along its bank, the walkers felt that there was no sound in the world except the roar of falling water.

Margaret and Sebastian, therefore, did not attempt conversation. Not only would it have involved shouting at one another, but the path, in any case, was too narrow to allow them to walk abreast. To begin with, it was almost at water level, but soon it ran high above the river, which then appeared to be a thread of brown and silver, almost hidden from view by the trees which clothed its banks.

The trees thinned out as the river approached the sea, and gave place to short, brown, springy turf, and while, far below them, the river poured itself towards the sea in a series of small waterfalls, the brother and sister found themselves on top of the magnificent cliffs which formed the west or Atlantic seaboard.

A footbridge over the small ravine gave access to the northern end of the island, but the walkers turned southwards along a footpath which followed the line of the cliffs and led towards the hotel. On their way they came to the second of the disused lighthouses which had been supplanted by the two modern ones.

‘Somebody up on the gallery,’ said Margaret.

‘One of the blasted bird-watchers, I expect,’ said her brother.

‘He’s seen us. What does he want?’ asked Margaret.

The man had come to the shoreward side of the gallery and was engaged in violent gesticulation.

‘It can’t be us he’s signalling. Probably spotted one of his mates and wants to show him the snake-headed sharktail or something equally ridiculous,’ said Sebastian.

‘No,’ said Margaret, ‘it’s us he wants. I think he’s coming down.’ The man had disappeared from the gallery. In a few moments he came galloping over the turf towards them.

‘Hi! Hi!’ he shouted. ‘Hi! Just a minute! Hi!’

‘Swing low, sweet chariot!’ muttered Sebastian. ‘Better stop and see what he wants, I suppose.’

The man, middle-aged and breathless, was dressed in tweeds and a deerstalker cap. Waving a pair of binoculars, he came charging up to them, spluttering out his message.

‘Could you come?’ he panted. ‘Something on the rocks out there. Doesn’t look right. Come and look. Please!’

‘Not particularly interested in sea-birds, I’m afraid,’ said Sebastian, recoiling. ‘Wouldn’t one of your own lot…?’

‘Oh, no, nothing like that. Please do come. I can’t spot any of the club members and I’ve got my wife with me. She is most upset. If we investigate—and I think we must—another lady—to be with my wife you know. You see—well, I rather think it’s somebody drowned out there. A body. Washed up, you know. Do please come and see, and then we can decide what to do.’