Bones of Murder

Julius Falconer

Description

While renovating the derelict twelfth-century chapel attached to their new house in rural Worcestershire in 1972, Grace and Benjamin Hothersall uncover three skeletons, which have clearly been the victims of murder. When news of this reaches the newspapers, a series of anonymous letters and telephone-calls begins at the Hothersall residence. Clearly the murders are of not just historical interest, since someone very much alive seems determined to prevent further disclosures. Inspector Wickfield finds himself involved in a complex and baffling investigation, which embraces local witchcraft, a student of the cabala, abduction, a boy's curse, a hidden will, a stranger in Cornwall, death in a railway carriage - and a Latin textbook of 1563! It nearly proves too much for him, but light dawns eventually and leads to a tense trial which brings the case to a close.The narrative almost fails to see the light of day, because the inspector objects to its style and instructs Mr Falconer to destroy the typescript. Fortunately for us, Mr Falconer has more sense than the inspector. As always, the reader is given as much information as the detectives and is challenged to spot the crucial clue in the labyrinth, as Wickfield must.Julius Falconer's sure touch ensures another page-turner for the discerning reader, in which intelligent stimulation vies with sheer entertainment for pride of place.Book reviews online @ www.publishedbestsellers.com

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Pneuma Springs Publishing
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781782281450
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Bones of Murder


Julius Falconer
Copyright

First Published in 2009 by: Pneuma Springs Publishing
The Bones of Murder Copyright © 2009 Julius Falconer
Mobi eISBN 9781907728723 ePub eISBN 9781782281450 PDF eISBN 9781782280569 Paperback ISBN: 9781905809769
Pneuma Springs Publishing E: [e-mail] W: www.pneumasprings.co.uk
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Published in the United Kingdom. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, save those clearly in the public domain, is purely coincidental.
The Novel
One
The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress,
as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose.
Sir Edward Coke, Semayne’s Case , Reports Vol.5, p.91a, 1


The day of the first discovery was, in every other respect, entirely uneventful, typical of many days that preceded and many days that followed it. Grace and Benjamin could not, naturally, have foreseen the events that unfolded subsequently, but even if they had, nothing could have obliterated from their remembrance that first grim surprise.

May I interrupt myself there? Inspector Wickfield – Stan to his friends – was hoping to be able to relate this case to you in person, but the requirements of his job have defeated him. He has therefore, reluctantly, allowed me to proceed without him, but only on certain conditions, laid down with an admonitory finger over a plate of steak and kidney pudding on a recent visit of mine to the Wickfield residence in Worcester: I must adopt a more solemn style than I usually do (it seems), in order to do justice to his office; I must present him in as favourable a light as possible; there is to be nothing that I should not allow my grandmother to read; I am not to go off at a tangent in my usual irritating fashion (rich, that, coming from Wickfield); I am to give you no more information than he had at the time; I am not to attempt to parade an erudition I do not possess; I am to exclude irony, sarcasm, abuse, satire, scorn, cynicism, anything, in short, unbecoming an educated, cultivated, refined, urbane, respectable, church-going, highly regarded, discriminating, sophisticated etc inspector of police - and so on! (I am happy to relate that Beth raised her large brown eyes to heaven and sighed at every condition laid down. She is not for one moment deceived by her husband’s pretensions to importance.) My narrative skills (!) are thus so cribbed about with the inspector’s restrictions that it will be a wonder if there is anything of interest left in the case. Be assured, however, gentle reader, that I shall do what I can to entertain you.
The Hothersalls had bought a semi-ruinous property a quarter of a mile outside Little Witley, in quiet and gracious Worcestershire countryside. Wrought-iron gates set in a low stone wall surmounted by railings led off the road into the forecourt round which the property was set: a large barn on one side, a chapel facing it, and in the middle a three-storeyed house. Because the whole was built in local stone, and because the older buildings had been subject to some remodelling, it was not at first sight easy to distinguish three distinct construction periods. The chapel dated from the early twelfth century: a simple oblong building which retained its altar, statue-niches, lancet windows and an aumbry, but little of a liturgical atmosphere. The house, the second one (as it was surmised) on the site, was mid-fourteenth century. It was really two small houses in one, each of three large rooms stacked one on top of the other. The barn, finally, was late nineteenth-century and had been added by a previous incumbent when the owners of the house turned their minds to increased agricultural activity. The courtyard had at one time have been paved with rough stone slabs, but weeds had long since taken over.

When the new owners had first set eyes on St Mary’s Court, they had been enraptured by its possibilities, although neither could reasonably have argued that its state of decay was anything but depressing. Their imaginations stripped away the vegetative accretions of decades, added in window-panes and doors, renewed the roofs, stripped ivy and swept away decades of cobwebs, cleaned and painted and scrubbed and polished, until they had in their mind’s eye a delicious retreat from the twentieth century, in which they could grow old together in mellowness and calm. The orientation of the property was determined by the east-west sitting of the chapel. The early morning sun streamed down on to the half-acre ‘garden’ at the back of the house, while the setting sun poured gloriously into the front windows. No matter out of which window the new occupants of the house leaned, no neighbours were visible, although the village lay on a small plain not half-a-mile away. The wooded, gently undulating landscape, dotted with small fields and tiny streams, was a perfect setting for their stately retirement house.
Neither of the Hothersalls was adept at do-it-yourself, but they were willing learners and made up in goodwill what they lacked in expertise. Work on the house, with which they had begun, was nearly completed. The builders had put a new roof on, inserted doors and windows, replaced floors, put in electricity and plumbing, taken out surplus staircases. They had joined the two houses together by punching doorways into the thick, intervening wall, one door at each level. Wooden floors had been cleaned and waxed and buffed to a shine. Finally the Hothersalls were able to lay down carpets and rugs, move in furniture, hang pictures, scatter knick-knacks round the chimney-pieces and ledges and window-sills. Living-quarters emerged: a kitchen and a study on the ground floor, a sitting-room and a dining-room on the first floor, and two en-suite bedrooms on the top floor. Their new life had begun.

Grace Hothersall, née Wood, was the second child and second daughter of a market-gardener and his wife from distant Warwickshire. Her parents’ life was uneventful, tied as it was to the round of seasons. Closeness to the soil, its needs and its potential imparted confidence in the powers of nature to provide sustenance and livelihood, simplicity of life-style, the ability to be satisfied with basics. Entertainments were wholesome and healthy. The Woods lived much as their ancestors had done, engaging in what are now called ‘country crafts’, worshipping in the parish church, sending their children to the local primary school. However, success in their business had given them certain pretensions, among which was the ambition to send their two girls to a private secondary school. Accordingly Jane and Grace were sent to Grant College for Girls, not far from Pershore a little bit across the county, where they prospered and, their time served, left to go, the one to secretarial college, the other to nursing college with a view to radiography. Jane worked, married a local man, reared a family. Grace became a radiographer at Worcester General Hospital, married Benjamin and reared a family too.

Grace was blond, petite, vivacious and intelligent, but without pretentions to erudition. She read much - novels, books of history, biography and autobiography, some romantic fiction – enjoyed working with needle and thread, played the piano, not well but well enough to derive pleasure from the exercise, and liked to garden. She was perfectly satisfied with her life so far. Given that none can choose his or her parents or social context of birth, she considered that she had had a good start in life, had been able to make her own way and had achieved as much contentment as it was possible, given the precariousness of human life, to achieve.

Benjamin’s father Gordon was a prison officer married to a civil servant. When Benjamin was eight, war broke out; Gordon was called up and never returned. His broken-hearted widow brought her son up as best as she could, and she was proud when he announced that he was entering the probation service to continue his father’s work, in a manner of speaking, in an allied service.
Benjamin met the lively Grace at a dance and was captivated by her humour and sparkle. She responded to his quieter, more sombre manner, his gentleness, his unhurried calm. She was not to discover until after their marriage that his make-up encompassed an exasperating moodiness. Although both had a streak of egocentrism which sometimes made decisions difficult, because neither would yield to the other, their union was, as these things go, a successful and happy one. They had two children, a boy Timothy, now married with a family of his own, and a girl Eliza, who, for whatever reason, had never met Mr Right and preferred to stay on her own to contracting a marriage she knew would not bring her happiness.

Benjamin and Grace had brought up their children – in the absence of television, in those days, naturally – to entertain themselves at home, with card-games, board-games, word-games. Eliza played the piano, while Timothy painted. There was much reading and exchange of books. Once a year the family holidayed together, generally taking a fortnight at the sea-side when the children were younger, then graduating to the English lakes, the Highlands of Scotland, the West Country, or a tour of the cathedrals of the Midlands. There were trips to Stratford to see Shakespeare or Gilbert and Sullivan, to museums and art-galleries (although the children tended to dislike such visits, even, or perhaps especially, in their adolescence), and to occasional exhibitio