The Summons

Chapter Twenty-nine

By one of those contradictions that enhance the charm of the English countryside, the parish church at Steeple Ashton has no steeple. A storm removed it in 1670. The tower survived and dominated the village and the landscape north of Westbury Hill, for even in its truncated form St. Mary’s is a tall church. Knobbly pinnacles in profusion compensate for the lack of a steeple, and, if anything, the building looks over-ostentatious rather than incomplete. The lavishness of the decoration is a testimony to the profits of the wool trade in medieval Wiltshire and curiously most of the gargoyles carved on its hood molds and battlements have the chunky character of knitted toys.

All this was lost on the group of senior policemen stamping their feet and rubbing their gloved hands while they stood under the south porch like mourners waiting to line up behind a coffin. A hard frost had whitened the churchyard and a sharp east wind was blowing.

Precisely as the hour of eleven showed on the blue and gold dial of the church clock, Peter Diamond and Julie Hargreaves came around the side of the building.

“Good day to you, gentlemen. Is everyone here?”

It was a gratifying turnout. As well as Farr-Jones and Tott, there were John Wigfull, Keith Halliwell and a pair of uniformed inspectors who had earlier been assigned to Commander Warrilow. The latter, to everyone’s relief, had returned in triumph to the Isle of Wight the same morning with his patched-up prisoner.

Diamond and Julie had arrived more than an hour before and made use of every minute; their comings and goings in the frost showed as gray tracks between the graves in the section of churchyard to the west of the church.

“Would you care to follow me, then? This won’t take long.” Diamond picked a fresh track over the crisp turf, leading the others in single file toward a layout of graves as regular as an actor’s teeth. Eventually he stopped beside a plot with a short stone cross as headstone. On it was a simple inscription: