A Full Churchyard Read online

  ‘I’m sure there must be an old unsolved crime that will keep our CID officers fully occupied. Could you search your records, Sergeant, and we shall do likewise with CID files? We need something serious, like an unsolved murder or rape.’

  ‘I feel sure there must be something outstanding, sir. I will conduct a comprehensive search, beginning immediately.’

  And so, having alerted the station’s complement of officers to his plans, Detective Inspector Pluke led once more with his right foot and climbed the stairs where the magnificently upholstered Mrs Plumpton, his secretary, would be waiting with undivided attention. As he ascended he recalled that the arrival of a pigeon could herald death and wondered if any of the Crickledale deceased had been visited by pigeons? But the sergeant had said no stray pigeons had arrived at the police station. So had they gone elsewhere?

  It was not the sort of occurrence a doctor or police officer would have recorded but it was something which he, with his specialist knowledge, could consider with due solemnity.

  Chapter 2

  Right foot first, Montague entered his office and removed his panama, then with a practised swing threw it towards the hat-stand just inside the door. With all the precision of a thrown discus, it settled on its regular hook. Years of practice had polished that modest display of useless skill and then he hung his voluminous old overcoat on another hook before approaching his desk.

  But he did not immediately sit down. As always, the office cleaner had moved his desktop treasures to unwelcome locations and so he returned them all to their proper places. He inched his blotter and its load of correspondence to the right, put the coaster for his coffee mug even further to the right so that spilt coffee would not stain official papers, and then moved his model horse-trough full of paper clips towards the rear. He aligned his in-tray, out-tray and pending-tray, and took out of his drawer a rounded stone paperweight known as a witch-stone. It served as a useful paperweight which he placed on top of the correspondence heaped upon his blotter. It would prevent papers blowing all over the office should anyone open the window.

  Witch-stones, known also as hag-stones, were circular pieces of rock about the size of one’s hand, and they had a hole through the centre. They were formerly thought to deter witches or protect livestock when displayed in houses or stables but Montague preferred to use his as a paperweight. He had found it during one of his trough-hunting expeditions on the North York Moors and had recently discovered it made an ideal resting place for his mobile phone.

  Having restored his desk to its state of normality he sat down. Mrs Plumpton in her adjoining office with the door open heard the movements of his chair and recognized it was time to visit him.

  She floated into his office amidst a dress of flowing gossamer-like fabric in soft purple shades. It did little to keep her warm or conceal her well-rounded figure but she liked the dress and often wore it because she sensed it intrigued Mr Pluke. However, he wasn’t unduly distracted by the vision that regularly confronted him and with an immense display of willpower, was able to dismiss all erotic thoughts and so avoid accusations of sexism. After all, he was the Detective Inspector in charge of Crickledale Sub-Divisional CID and must distance himself from any such carnal distractions especially when on duty. After all, he enjoyed a very comfortable home life where he had Millicent and her boiled eggs to admire.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Pluke,’ Mrs Plumpton beamed as she bore down upon him with a mug of steaming coffee in her hand. As she bent low to place it on his desk, she remarked, ‘A nice morning for the time of year.’

  ‘There is an old Greek saying, Mrs Plumpton, that if January had its own way, it would be a summer month. It is quite often the case that we can enjoy fine and sunny weather in January.’

  ‘I pretend it’s summer all the time, Mr Pluke. I do believe in being cheerful and sunny.’

  ‘An admirable trait. So did you know there is an old saying in France that if the sun shines on the feast day of St Vincent, we shall have more wine than water?’

  ‘You know such a lot of interesting things, Mr Pluke.’

  ‘It comes from years of experience and research, Mrs Plumpton. And you should know that St Vincent’s Day occurred on January 22nd. You may recall that the sun did shine that day. Now, am I right in thinking there is not the usual amount of incoming correspondence? My pile of mail seems smaller than usual.’

  ‘Certainly that’s true, Mr Pluke. Computers and emails are combining to reduce your morning mail. However, there are one or two items that require your signature and a few emails for attention but there’s nothing of an urgent or contentious nature. There are a few circulars and routine matters I can deal with.’

  She left him in a cloud of something that smelled like hyacinths, whereupon he promptly started to sneeze. Hyacinths had that effect on occasions but once she was inside her own office, his sneezing stopped. Was he allergic or sensitive to Mrs Plumpton, her perfume or hyacinths? Or all three?

  ‘Bless you, Mr Pluke,’ her voice wafted through the door. ‘I hope it wasn’t my perfume.’

  ‘Perhaps I should unearth my wartime gas mask,’ he retorted.

  With his morning’s entertainment over, he found most of his correspondence was boringly routine. There were Home Office Circulars announcing new regulations about motor scooters, crash helmets for invalid carriage drivers and a new range of controlled drugs. In addition, there were leaflets providing details of forthcoming changes and improvements to the Force’s official computers along with a new system for checking motor vehicles via the Police National Computer (PNC) and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). He initialled all the documents to indicate he had seen them, then placed them in his out-tray for Mrs Plumpton to deal with. He didn’t know what she did with all the paper that flooded in and then disappeared.

  With no new crimes reported over the weekend, therefore, it was time for his daily conference with Detective Sergeant Wayne Wain, his deputy. Rather than use the intercom or his mobile, he called to Mrs Plumpton.

  ‘Mrs Plumpton, would you contact Detective Sergeant Wain and tell him I am available to receive him when convenient.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Pluke.’

  Detective Inspector Pluke never used an informal manner of addressing his work colleagues and always addressed his secretary as Mrs Plumpton, never using her forename. In fact, he didn’t know her first name. Likewise, he always referred to Detective Sergeant Wain by his surname but because his forename sounded exactly the same as his surname, everyone thought DI Pluke was mellowing. He wasn’t, of course and would never contemplate a change of routine or a decline in standards. Soon afterwards, there was a knock on his door and he called, ‘Come in.’

  Detective Sergeant Wayne Wain entered. In his early thirties and not yet married, he was very tall, dark and handsome with winning ways among all the female persons he encountered. His cheerful disposition endeared him even to some of the suspects he interviewed, especially females and they would readily confess to all manner of exciting things. Some wondered whether he would search them for drugs or stolen goods they had shoplifted but, of course, there was a very strict and formal procedure for searching everyone. Immaculately dressed as always in his dark suit, white shirt and blue tie, Wayne smiled at his boss, pulled out a chair and settled down.

  ‘Good morning, sir, I trust you had a pleasant weekend.’

  ‘Most pleasant, thank you, Wayne but I have not discovered any more new horse troughs. Even on fine days, the winter weather is not conducive to searching those moors but I believe I have discovered an ancient route across the heather, now obliterated but which in times past would have linked several villages. It is highly likely there would have been horse troughs along its route.’

  ‘If there are troughs to be found, sir, I’m sure you will trace them.’

  ‘Indeed I shall. We all know that horses and their owners would require
refreshments during their journeys but because this track is ancient and disused with troughs probably buried under earth and vegetation, or even stolen or destroyed, it will not be easy to locate them. But I shall ensure they all become a visible part of our moorland heritage and will take the necessary steps to preserve and protect them.’

  ‘And now it’s back to work. What have we on the cards for today? I can’t find anything that demands our attention.’

  ‘It’s abnormally quiet even by Crickledale standards, Wayne, but I have been thinking it is a splendid opportunity to re-examine old unsolved crimes. I think we should use this opportunity to initiate a cold-case review. I was hoping that with your astonishing memory you might recall some older case – serious or slight – that has never been detected.’

  ‘Leave it with me for an hour or so, sir. I’ll go through our records. Shall I check back, say, over the last ten years? And refer only to major crimes?’

  ‘That’s a good start and if it doesn’t produce anything, we can go back a further ten years. And if that doesn’t produce a task for us, we can examine minor unsolved crimes especially those that appear to be the work of serial offenders.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll find something. I’ll report back soon.’

  ‘Good, and while you are searching, I’ll take a short walk into town. Walks in the fresh morning air do provoke my brain into creative action and I might recall a few cases. I’ll return for coffee by which time you might have found something.’

  His walk took him past the churchyard and instinctively he checked to see whether any crows were lurking on tombstones or sitting on the boundary walls. In fact he noticed one – it was perched on a tombstone and he realized it was heralding Mrs Langneb’s funeral tomorrow in this very churchyard.

  As he walked, one regular and oft-recurring memory was that Millicent had referred to the high number of deaths this winter – nine, she’d said. All were due to natural causes and none was considered suspicious. But were they all buried in this Anglican graveyard or were some in other cemeteries? Had some been cremated? Millicent had said that all had been under the care of Crickledale Voluntary Carers. As he pondered the likelihood of something nasty in the filing cabinets, did their number and frequency give rise to suspicion? Indeed, should he and Wayne investigate those deaths as their cold case review?

  With that possibility in mind, he required a few moments of total peace and solitude to develop his idea. There was a lot to think about – would his review lead to scandal in Crickledale? Would there be rumours of a mass killer at large and suspicions against ordinary innocent people? By strolling through the churchyard, he might meet the vicar or one of the churchwardens or possibly the man who tended the graves and graveyard. Informal chats with people involved in local funerals would surely produce some useful gossip laced with valuable information. It was amazing how many times shreds of evidence arose from very diverse and unlikely sources.

  If he was officially investigating the deaths he would interview all the church officials, families, doctors and so forth, but this was not an official enquiry. Or so he told himself. As he turned into the churchyard and passed through the ancient oak timbered lych-gate to wander among the tombstones, the visiting crow flew away.

  During this very early research, he would seek fresh graves or newly installed cremation memorials. This simple task would advise him of those who had been buried recently. If the graves were too new to have attracted inscriptions or headstones, he could check funeral reports in the local paper and if that did not produce results, there was always the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages.

  As he began to realize the fear that would be generated by news of a serial killer at large in Crickledale, he accepted that, at the moment, his actions were unofficial. Nonetheless, his enquiries were bound to set tongues a-wagging and rumours abounding. That was precisely what he did not want. To maintain secrecy, he and Wayne must therefore resort to subterfuge. It was vital they avoided mass panic with lurid headlines in red-top newspapers. There would be letters in the press and questions in Parliament asking what the local police were doing about it.

  Meandering among the monuments, he became aware of a man working with a small digging machine and excavating mounds of earth. This would be Linton Farewell, the man who cared for the graveyard and dug the graves. His odd and rather apt name suggested links with the Potteries because that name was fairly common in that area, if little known in Yorkshire. There was no one else in the graveyard, not even Linton’s assistant, ‘Sooty’ Black. Sooty would be sweeping chimneys in town, which was his full-time profession, and only helping with funerals if he needed extra income.

  As Pluke wandered up and down the well-tended rows of tombstones, old and new, the noise of the digging machine came to a halt as the driver noticed Pluke.

  ‘Mr Pluke,’ he dismounted and headed in Pluke’s direction. ‘Good morning to you. It’s not often we see you in here.’

  ‘And a good morning to you, Mr Farewell,’ responded Pluke in his formal tones. ‘Indeed a nice morning.’

  ‘Just off for my break, Mr Pluke, so is there anything I can help with before I go?’

  Linton Farewell, the official gravedigger for Crickledale Anglican parish church and church caretaker (which included tending the graveyard, graves and grass-cutting) was a cadaverous fellow in his early fifties who always dressed in black. He wore smart black on funeral days and casual black when at leisure. At work he wore old black clothes, because tending the graves and graveyard necessarily involved a lot of wet earth, mud and clay. His black woolly hat, black jacket and trousers, and heavy black boots, all showed many signs of staining from the strong brown earth of this place. When away from work, he dressed in clean and well-tended clothes, but always black. A lifetime Crickledale resident, his father and his grandfather had been gravediggers here before him but Linton was unmarried and lived in a church-owned cottage in a corner of the churchyard. ‘Very handy for work, and dead quiet,’ he would often boast.

  ‘I’m not here on official police business,’ acknowledged Pluke. ‘I’m taking some fresh air as I ponder the pressures of work away from the constant demands of office. As a senior detective with heavy responsibilities, I do need to get away from telephones and callers if I am to think deeply and be creative. I find that the peace of a churchyard is ideal.’

  ‘I know what you mean, Mr Pluke, and this is normally a very quiet place but I’m busy this morning, making enough noise to waken the dead,’ and he laughed at his own joke. ‘So how can I help you? Is there something you want?’

  ‘Perhaps you can tell me who is going to occupy this patch of ground,’ Pluke indicated the newly dug patch.

  ‘Mrs Langneb, you’ll have heard she’s gone to meet her maker? Well, her husband Harold is already buried here, so I have to dig hers beside him without interfering with his patch of ground. East-to-west orientation, head to the west. Her funeral is tomorrow.’

  ‘It can’t be the easiest of jobs, Mr Farewell, accommodating two bodies in one grave without causing undue disturbance.’

  ‘True, but I am very experienced, Mr Pluke, a highly diligent craftsman, and I won’t disturb him. Even so, it’s not easy with a powerful and fast-moving digging machine, believe me. The old pick-and-shovel system had its merits, even if it was hard work. But Mrs Langneb was a lovely lady, Mr Pluke, I shall do my best for her.’

  ‘Most considerate of you, Mr Farewell.’

  ‘Well, she passed away very nicely and in peace, so I’m told, and the funeral’s at 2pm. We’re not expecting a big crowd, she lived alone, you know, since Harold died. Her sons are both living down south. There’s no family hereabouts so the CVC will rustle up a few mourners from regular churchgoers, then there’s always those who come only for the funeral tea. You’re welcome to join us.’

  ‘I didn’t know the lady, Mr Farewell, and will have to check my diary, on
top of which there is much to keep me busy fighting crime,’ but Pluke could not let this opportunity pass without a comment to the official gravedigger about the recent high rate of deaths. He said, ‘I hear you’ve been very busy in recent weeks.’

  ‘I have indeed, Mr Pluke, me and my mate Sooty. Lots of funerals close together but good for business. I’m sure the undertakers aren’t complaining and certainly their customers aren’t!’

  ‘Are all those recently deceased people buried here?’

  ‘Most are here but not all. Here we’ve got good Anglicans who think they’re Catholics and won’t tolerate the idea of cremation. They do like to be buried beside their friends or relations with a dash of papist pomp and ceremony.’

  ‘I can appreciate that thought, Mr Farewell.’

  ‘It’s very fitting they’re all here, Mr Pluke. You’ll find a graveyard plan in the porch with their names on it. All were members of this congregation, you know; all old folks living alone due to various circumstances but all remaining loyal to this church and to those who cared for them. They all used to come to our old folks’ teas and bingo games. We are very lucky in this small town, Mr Pluke, having people who care so well for others, and with such devotion, and who work in their spare time to provide entertainment and care for the elderly. Here in Crickledale, the CVC never lets lonely folks pass away uncared for or not remembered, even those buried away from the town. They make sure everyone has a happy death whoever they are, or as happy as a death can be, and they are not ignored later – the CVC see to the flowers, tidy the graves and so on.’

  ‘I find that very encouraging, Mr Farewell.’

  ‘Well, you’re very fortunate in having Mrs Pluke. She’s an excellent carer, always helpful and sympathetic to the needs of others. She’s not a boastful person, Mr Pluke, calm and pleasant, always willing to help in whatever way she can.’

  ‘You’re well acquainted with the CVC are you, Mr Farewell?’

  ‘My work brings me into very close contact with them. I help out sometimes on those jobs that need a man about the house and so does Sooty. He’ll always sweep a chimney free of charge, Mr Pluke, that shows you what sort of man he is. Lovely chap. I’ve known him do a chimney while I’ve been sorting out what trinkets the deceased wants buried with him or her. It’s amazing what folks want beside them in their coffins – everything from a good book to a ready-meal. All these deaths have kept us busy and they say it’s due to the mild winter, Mr Pluke, but I don’t think so. I think that when your time is up, you’ve got to prepare to go to meet your maker, irrespective of the weather or the time of year. Me, Sooty and Rolly all help folks do that in whatever way we can.’