top of page

CRIME IN THE COUNTRY

Prologue

 

Jethro Benson, gardener at Langley Court in the village of Much Langley on the outskirts of Bromgrove, had always preferred the New Year to Christmas. His wife insisted that he would enjoy the festive season if he weren’t such a grinch and got into the spirit of things, but he was more than happy to be left out of all the reindeer games…. just couldn’t be doing with all that phoney “togetherness” and “most wonderful time of the year” bollocks. Especially seeing as most families ended up having a flaming row over the Brussel sprouts and bread sauce.

  Sitting on the bench outside his shed in the kitchen garden, he grinned sourly at the thought that his employers Camilla and Andrew Langley were no doubt grappling with thumping hangovers up at the house, while son George had most likely sloped off to join that Flash Harry estate agent friend of his down the pub….. Patrick Cole…. a real slick customer if ever there was one…. and that sister of his was something else…. she’d looked at him like he was something she’d scraped off her shoe when he got her name wrong. ‘It’s Arbella,’ she corrected him snootily, ‘not Arabella.’ Arbella, I ask you, Jethro reflected with an inner eye roll. I mean, who on earth would want to be called after some daft bint who might’ve been a minor royal but apparently ended up getting locked up in the Tower of London by James I and starving herself to death….

  Pretentiousness was the problem with everyone in Much Langley, overshadowed by the prestigious neighbouring village of Old Carton and its medieval gem of a manor house…. Carton Hall pretty much knocked Langley Court into a cocked hat, while the local antiquarians’ obsession with all things Tudor and Jacobean had a lot to answer for…. including folk calling their kids some seriously dodgy names.

  And now they were planning some arty farty exhibition down at Carton Hall on James I and witchcraft. Jethro didn’t know what to make of that, but no doubt it would bring the punters flocking. There had been a scandal at the Hall – involving murder no less – a few years back, and the whiff of notoriety made the whole package even more of a draw, though none of the family lived there now that the estate had been taken over by the National Trust.

  Much Langley’s vicar, the Reverend Cuthbert Dempsey, had been surprisingly relaxed when Jethro uneasily wondered if there wasn’t something, well, wrong – something downright godless – in putting on an exhibition like that. To say nothing of the other stuff about James having boyfriends, or ‘favourites’ as the poncey promotional bumf called them….

  Dempsey had just grinned with that funny lopsided smile of his.

  ‘It’ll all be done very tastefully,’ he said easily in his reassuring countryman’s burr. ‘James I is such a neglected figure really…. but a seriously interesting character…. the first monarch in the British Isles to become a published poet…. to say nothing of his book Daemonolgie about devil worship.’

  Of course, that was bound to appeal to the likes of Dempsey, who was now a bit of a local celebrity on the strength of having had a collection of his own poems recently published to some acclaim (not that he was at all big-headed about it, Jethro felt obliged to concede). And old Jerry Dawber, lead volunteer at the Hall and a keen amateur historian, was all over James I. ‘We’re reinterpreting James for the modern era,’ he insisted earnestly. ‘D’you know, he most probably suffered from ADHD and PTSD on account of childhood trauma.’

  Jethro didn’t know and frankly didn’t care. Mental health (or more accurately, lack of) was an excuse for pretty much everything these days, and there was something downright creepy and undignified about any ruler writing a book about devil worship – even if it apparently had something to do with storms and folk casting spells so his wife would drown on her way over from Denmark and never become queen…. You couldn’t imagine King Charles III getting up to anything like that!

  Jerry Dawber had been more restrained on the subject of royal favourites.

  ‘It ties in with a previous exhibition at the Hall on the French court,’ he said carefully. ‘The Trust is keen to re-evaluate James sympathetically as bisexual but with a strong preference for his own gender…. It’s a legitimate focus if we want to do justice to historically marginalised groups…. and you could argue that James managed his complicated private life heroically well.’

  Jethro wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that at all, but he supposed if the vicar and Jerry didn’t see anything amiss then it had to be okay.

  He was willing to bet Camilla Langley would find a way to muscle in on whatever was going down at Carton Hall. She had certainly developed a right old taste for publicity when Bromgrove TV came to the village to film that spin-off from Escape to the Country.….

  If were being honest with himself, Jethro had to concede that having the TV people around had been the most exciting thing to happen in ages. Obviously it helped that the presenter Ralph Appleby actually lived in Much Langley. The vicar’s growing fame as a poet didn’t exactly hurt either. Of course, somehow it was Camilla who managed to bag the most airtime, on the basis that ‘as the chatelaine of Langley Court, she was virtually lady of the manor’. Which hadn’t gone down well with other locals. Local gossip had it that Deborah Teasdale, chair of the parish council, was spitting feathers about it. Jethro suspected most folk hadn’t exactly minded the bossy old besom’s nose being put out of joint, but when it came to it they would take the side of the village stalwarts over Camilla Langley any time. Apparently Marguerite Chapman at the Old Rectory was equally outraged by the way Camilla had pushed herself forward…. this had something to do with Mrs Chapman having claims to fame as an ‘influencer’, though Jethro wasn’t sure what one of them even was….

  According to Irene Helsen down at the allotments, the Langleys were essentially “Johnny-come-lately” types. Nouveaux riches. When Jethro pointed out their roots had to go pretty far back, seeing as the village bore the same name, she had muttered darkly that she wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t changed their surname by deed poll to make it sound like the family line stretched back to the Norman Conquest. Jethro had been quite surprised that his hatchet-faced fellow allotmenteer could say anything he found funny.

  Jethro was pretty sure that Camilla fancied her chances of being picked up by Bromgrove TV for some kind of presenting job. She’d certainly thrown herself in front of that producer Bernie Maunder every chance she got, as well as huddling in corners with various executives along with that gofer of hers Theo Sandbrook. The gardener had a shrewd suspicion that Sandbrook’s days as Camilla’s PA or ‘digital media consultant’ or whatever the heck she called him were numbered judging by the way she’d shrieked at him the other day. That poor bloke certainly had his work cut out massaging the old bat’s ego and lining up “projects” to boost her profile. When Escape finally aired, the woman would be bloody insufferable….

  Jethro’s backside was starting to feel numb from the chill of the day but he was somehow reluctant to move. Though bitterly cold, the sun was out bathing the raised beds and glasshouses in a mellow glow that made him feel quietly content. Plus, he had tickets for tonight’s football match between Bromgrove Rovers and Medway Lions, which would round the day off nicely and get his New Year off to an excellent start – assuming Bromgrove won (if they lost, they would have been fouled, trapped, penalised, robbed or otherwise obviously the victims of circumstances).

  The gardener sat for a while longer engaged in intense speculation as to whether the Rovers’ new sweeper was likely to foil the offside trap with the team’s three-four-three plan. He wondered whether they’d get a decent ref. He had no time for all that talk about how umpires worked on “the diagonal system” cos it seemed to him it just meant players now got away with murder all over the field. And he couldn’t stand the way they blew their whistles as little as possible and settled for making weirdy hand gestures to suggest they’d “seen it all”; it always made him crack up when the players responded with vigorous hand gestures to suggest they hadn’t. Ah, happy days…..

  His wife complained bitterly about her menfolk’s football addiction which she claimed could be identified in the winter from their constantly twitching feet, choral groaning and enthusiasm for reliving great moments from the past while eating. She was also disinclined to show appropriate gratitude for his giving her those extra little treats that showed every woman she was still loved, like letting her entertain the lads from his five-a-side to coffee and sarnies after closing time at The Jolly Ploughboy. To Jethro, the footballing fraternity was a sacred brotherhood that knew no barriers (apart from crash barriers) of race, creed or class, and he knew a humble labourer like himself shared the same excitement as the likes of Andrew Langley who was not above reviewing the performance of the Rovers with him when Camilla was safely out of earshot. ‘I have a British passport – which makes me an expert on soccer,’ Andrew had chuckled affably, ‘though I’m more of a rugby man myself…. bit of a speed merchant actually.’ Given the other’s sizeable paunch (more useful for tug-of-war), this struck Jethro as unlikely, but he nodded along. Apparently his employer’s son preferred other sports. Andrew took this philosophically. ‘I thought you had to be queer to play netball,’ he confided with typically un-PC sang-froid. ‘But George has no problems attracting totty, so it just goes to show.’ Camilla would have blown a gasket at such indiscretion, but it was somehow oddly endearing. Jethro chuckled at the thought of ever having a chat about the Beautiful Game with the lady of the manor. She most probably imagined he had the kind of father who ran onto the pitch at Wembley chased by six policemen rather than possessing more respectable antecedents. As for the niceties of the sport, forget it…. The vicar joked that Camilla was the type of woman to reserve her sympathies for the referee owing to the fact of his being nice and clean or because all the others on the field kept shouting at him! Funnily enough, Ralph Appleby and the TV lot were quite keen to include a segment about Much Medway’s amateur league in the Escape programme, but Camilla had put the kibosh on that, doubtless fearing the nightmarish prospect of inebriated groupies chanting “Go Home You Bums” or other such partisan ditties, to say nothing of local footballing heroes fouling, swearing, spitting and squabbling in a manner highly detrimental to the village’s reputation.

  What a shame. It might have added a nice bit of local colour to include a scene with everyone down the pub debating burning topics like whether it was worth abandoning the defensive wall when opposing a free kick, or whether games overseas were starting to look a bit too Eurovision with all that embracing and kissing after every goal…..

  Ruminating on his number one passion, Jethro realised he had lost track of time. The sun was gone and the sky overhead had the white leaden hue that presaged a bitterly cold night.

He would just take a quick look at that trellis next door before calling it a day. The evergreeen clematis was doing quite well in his opinion, but Camilla was bound to start nagging him any day now about wanting more colour. A proper countrywoman would know to trust the gardener but not Mrs Bossy Knickers.

  Muttering to himself, with his earlier good humour rapidly evaporating at thoughts of his capricious employer, Jethro heaved himself up and stumped down the gravel path before passing through a low door which led to a quaintly formal little knot garden, its cobbled paths winding around flower beds with shrubs and winter perennials. The rear wall was covered in an impressive curtain of clematis while potting sheds along the right hand side were devoted to Jethro’s root vegetables, seedlings and plants destined for the main house. Over on the left, a small pond held Andrew’s beloved koi carp (thank God he didn’t have to worry about feeding them).

  Jethro surveyed the scene with satisfaction. It didn’t look as bare as all that and soon he would get round to sorting marigolds, salvias and sweet alyssum for the borders…. maybe some nice big pansies too. He felt a twinge of anticipatory pleasure at the prospect of planting them out.

  He was just turning away when something caught his eye.

  The door of the shed nearest to the back wall was ajar though he was fairly certain he had closed it behind him earlier. He never bothered with a lock (no need) but was meticulous about shutting up after himself lest foxes or other pests should sneak in.

  Perhaps Andrew or George had come out for a smoke away from Camilla. They did that sometimes but could generally be relied upon to leave things shipshape.

  Muttering to himself in a spasm of grouchiness as he felt his rheumatism suddenly threaten to flare up, Jethro hastened to put matters right.

  And almost tripped over something lying across the threshold.

  Not something.

  Someone.

 A body lay face downwards half in and half out of the shed, one arm flung out in front.

 Jethro had seen that voluminous dirndl skirt just hours earlier whisking around the main house.

  His gaze travelled fearfully upwards to the immaculate streaked blonde coiffure.

  Camilla.

   Somehow the gardener knew this wasn’t a case of sudden heart attack or stroke.

  Not death by natural causes.

  His every nerve end screamed one thing.

  Murder.

1

New Chapter

 

 

At the start of any new case, DI Gilbert (‘Gil’) Markham was accustomed to repair to his favourite bench in the terraced graveyard of St Chad’s Church round the back of Bromgrove Police Station for some quiet contemplation before the machinery of a homicide investigation cranked into gear.

  So the morning of Friday 2 January found him in his usual spot surveying the moss-covered graves and monuments with the satisfaction of an old friend. It was a mild day with that rinsed clean aspect typical of a January landscape and a sense of nature tentatively girding itself for new growth.

  Usually Markham found it comforting to survey the ancient obelisks and headstones with their touching inscriptions about “preparing for a better country”, “life being changed not ended” and “death being swallowed up in victory”, but on this occasion he found it difficult to dispel that ghastly image from the previous day: the soignée chatelaine of  Langley Court – so familiar to him from various civic bunfights – with the empurpled face of a hideous gargoyle, her death throes from strangulation a blasphemy against the beauty and tranquillity of the knot garden where she had been found. Despite his best efforts, he could not help his mind returning to the grim spectacle…..

  Tweedy pathologist Doug ‘Dimples’ Davidson, who knew the family socially and had more the air of a country vet straight out of James Herriot than a sawbones, was equally shaken at the sight of his former hostess murdered with what appeared to be garden twine. ‘No defensive injuries, so she never saw it coming,’ he told Markham, ‘and no signs of sexual assault,’ as if this was some consolation, even though they both knew those agonising seconds before unconsciousness intervened must have been the longest of her life. She had been dead for several hours, Dimples informed the DI, putting time of death as most likely somewhere between 9 pm and midnight on New Year’s Eve. Neither of them hazarded a guess as to how she came to be outside in the grounds or why nobody had reported her missing before the gardener stumbled across her corpse. Poor Jethro had been a gibbering wreck, as though he expected to be arrested on the spot seeing that the victim had been found in what was largely his domain. They’d got precious little sense out of him and Markham was grateful when DI Kate Burton arrived to organise preservation of the crime scene, having mercifully managed to intercept the husband and son before either clapped eyes on Camilla Langley in her current condition. As though sensing his thoughts, Dimples said quietly, ‘We’ll hide the worst of it before they see her, Markham…. otherwise they’d never get it out of their heads.’ With that, he summoned the paramedics and a sad little procession wound its way past plants and flowers the dead woman would never tend again….

  Now the DI bowed his head and said a quiet prayer for Camilla Langley, summoning his Christian belief that while his labours on her behalf were just beginning, she had embarked on a new story in which every chapter was better than the one before.

  Looking up after some minutes of sincere meditation, he smiled at the sound of birdsong nearby. Though he could not see the warbler, it gave him a feeling of optimism, of hope that he would in the end succeed in obtaining justice for the mistress of Langley Court.

  His thoughts turned with pleasure to his new ‘Heritage Crime Unit’ which had eventually proved to be flavour of the month after the success of the cathedral relics investigation. And, as though borne by an irresistible current, he came at last to the members of his team…. that tight-knit little unit enviously referred to as ‘Markham’s Gang’.

  He was under no illusions that he personally came across as distant and aloof and was generally considered a cold fish. Although he had established a reasonable working relationship with Chief Superintendent Ebury-Clarke (successor to DCI Sidney of late largely unlamented memory, the CS being known to the troops as ‘Toadface’), he was aware the boss – resentful of his Oxbridge credentials and dark good looks – called him ‘Bromgrove’s very own Inspector Lynley’ behind his back, snidely tapping into his station nickname of ‘Lord Snooty’.

  To an extent, he guessed it was true and that, just as a small child is made aware there are certain rooms it must not enter, he conveyed to his associates the sense that there was an inviolable force field around him that was not to be breached – indeed, that it would not be worth their while breaching. ‘Folk think you’re looking down on everyone from this great mental height,’ his wingman, retired DS George Noakes, suggested helpfully one day. Seeing that Markham didn’t look particularly cheered by this observation, he added hastily, ‘Don’ get me wrong, I think it’s cushty having a guvnor who’s into Big Words an’ all that….. You gotta remember with character assassination, a pound to a penny it’s down to jealousy.’ Markham had to laugh at the naked partisanship this displayed, being only too aware that his coterie had been the target of much envious sniping over the years.

  In truth, he sometimes felt as distant as an astronomer from the world around him, the effect he supposed of his troubled upbringing at the hands of a volatile mother and abusive stepfather (which led his brother Jonathan to drink, drugs and suicide). It was really only with his former partner Olivia Mullen, an English teacher at Hope Academy (popularly known as ‘Hopeless’), and the ‘Gang of Four’ – Noakes, DI Kate Burton, DS Doyle and DS Carruthers – that he had gradually let his guard down over the years.

  Noakes, a jowly, pug-featured Yorkshireman, was his oldest friend and staunch ally. Notoriously politically incorrect, there had been unfeigned relief in the higher echelons when he eventually retired, leaving to become security manager at a local private nursing home before setting up as a private eye (Medway Investigations). Aware that his friend missed the cut and thrust of CID, Markham inveigled his superiors into allowing Noakes back as a ‘civilian consultant’. He couldn’t be sure, however, how long Ebury-Clarke would allow this unorthodox arrangement to continue, though Noakes seemed to think the fact that his daughter Natalie – a former beautician and ‘late developer’ who now ran a fitness centre with her husband – had obtained a B.A. in History made him a perfect fit for the unit. His wife Muriel, a snobbish social-climber whom Noakes had met (most improbably) on the ballroom dancing circuit, was of the same opinion, making no secret of the fact that she welcomed anything that took her husband away from the kind of blue-collar crime, i.e. spying on adulterous couples, in which his little agency specialised.

  Noakes somehow always looked cross or down in the mouth, but this belied a kindly heart and a soft spot for the underdog. There had always been tremendous security for Markham in this friendship which had ripened through dedication to their job and the intervals of ordinary undemonstrative camaraderie in between; also through a certain something in each of them that answered a need in the other, Markham’s cultured refinement being prized by his wingman as something indefinably precious while Noakes’s unvarnished humanity and honesty stood out for his boss by contrast with the shameless careerism of colleagues in CID. The old warhorse might appear as though, to quote a station wit, he’d ‘arrived in a time machine from the 1950s,’ but his gnarly authenticity made his presence on the team non-negotiable as far as Markham was concerned, whatever pressure might be brought to bear by the top brass.

  Noakes was somehow a man superficially incapable of empathy and yet mysteriously full of it, so that it came bursting out in strange runnels. However unpalatable to high command, the DI could not do without him. A figure simply made for station folklore, his gaffes (he was ecumenically offensive) and unique vocabulary (‘Noakesypropisms’) were the stuff of legend. Ebury-Clarke’s retired teacher wife had never forgiven him when he interrupted her husband’s soaring rhetoric on the occasion of an after-dinner speech. ‘I forget who it was said that the English are a nation of shopkeepers,’ the Chief Super declaimed, preening slightly. ‘He prob’ly meant shoplifters,’ a well refreshed Noakes heckled to the startled indignation of the audience. Even worse was the time when he dropped a heavy hint to DCI Sidney, who was rumoured to fancy a career in TV punditry after retirement, by telling him what he fondly imagined to be a useful cautionary tale. ‘There were this gorgeous blonde who went up to a businessman guest at a conference pre-dinner reception an’ announced in a loud voice, ‘I’ve slept with you.’ “No, no, you’ve got it wrong,” he said, “mistaken identity. When was this anyway?” “During the first presentation after lunch.”’ Boom Boom. Notoriously xenophobic, he cared little for the sensibilities of visiting supremos from Abroad, treating  a Commissioner of the Garda Síochána to the immortal ice-breaker about ‘the Irish psychiatrist who said it was his duty to probe ‘what made people tick.’ And yet, with the injured, bereaved, damaged or downtrodden, he rarely dropped a clanger, showing a gentleness and delicacy which belied his blunt and uncouth exterior. Convinced that whereas Southerners were primarily interested in things, Northerners – and Yorkshiremen in particular – were interested in people, he could be a shrewd judge of character and there was nobody better when it came to puncturing pomposity or wrongfooting an uncooperative suspect. Although he affected to be dismissive of ‘arty-fartiness’, with a particular down on the Romantics, he loved hearing Olivia recite poetry, his expression the epitome of wistfulness – even if he then proceeded to joke about William Barrett Browning belonging to the gravy family (or was it ‘them shoe people’?) or John Milton having been in hospitality (‘“They also serve who only stand and wait”’). Altogether, he was the weirdest amalgam of conflicting traits and could be downright maddening at times, but also the staunchest and most indefatigable ally imaginable. He would be positively salivating at the prospect of disrupting drip-dry suburbia, but hopefully Kate Burton would apply balm to any outraged sensibilities.

  DI Kate Burton was Noakes’s polar opposite, being a fast-track Psychology graduate who was earnestly serious and circumspect where he was flamboyantly provocative and, on occasion, outrageous. Over time, however, he had developed considerable respect for her work ethic and loyalty to the guvnor, albeit he was far from happy when she became Markham’s girlfriend, the two of them having become increasingly close after he broke up with Olivia. The problem was that Noakes had an unshakeable allegiance to Olivia whose ethereal, almost witchy, good looks and spiky wit he regarded with almost reverential admiration (much to the irritation of Muriel who, while a great fan of the handsome inspector, disparaged the girlfriend she dismissed as a ‘neurotic clever clogs’). With a certain amount of exasperated amusement, Markham figured it was almost as though his ex was Guinevere and Noakes imagined himself pledged, like Lancelot from the Round Table in Camelot, to lay down his life for her as his liege-lord’s lady. At all events, despite his disapproval of the developments in Markham’s personal life, Noakes had an avuncular attitude towards Kate Burton and, like the two sergeants, was almost protective towards her, particularly after she sank into a deep depression following the death of her father and ended her engagement to  Professor Nathan Finlayson of Bromgrove University’s criminal profiling department (nicknamed ‘Shippers’ by Noakes by virtue of his resemblance to the serial killer Harold Shipman). No sycophant, Burton was respectful to those above her without being servile and possessed a sufficiently astringent (albeit long unsuspected) wit that enabled her to hold her own despite being the only female in the unit. As yet, she had declined to move in permanently with Markham, which made him think that she suspected there was unfinished business with Olivia. In fact this was not so. He and Olivia were much better friends than they had ever been lovers and he enjoyed her caustic analysis of his cases. With Kate Burton there were no sexual fireworks, more a case of feeling that he had somehow come home. Mysteriously, now that the barriers had come down, her generosity and gentleness somehow completed him and smoothed down his ragged edges. By contrast with Olivia, she was never jealous nor resentful of his emotional remoteness, though he wondered if deep down she truly believed him able to commit fully to anyone. Their connection was far less tempestuous and electric than his relationship with Olivia, but by her means he had discovered a more humane and restful aspect of himself, as well as somehow through her and the gang recreating the family he had lost. Given that he still frequently met up with Olivia, there was the impression somewhat of a triangular liaison, which no doubt provided fodder for the station gossips, but he and Burton had found a way of making things work – a kind of love affair without scars, was how he thought of it to himself.

  At least there were no complications with his two sergeants Doyle and Carruthers, though he was aware of mutterings that neither appeared to be in any hurry to take their inspector’s exams. Despite knowing full well this was because they were afraid promotion would result in them being transferred off the team, he was (selfishly) glad to hang on to them for the present.

  DS Carruthers, like Burton a Psychology graduate, disconcertingly resembled a poster boy for Hitler Youth, something he played up to with his slicked back hair, pallor, horn-rimmed specs and leather trenchcoats. Yet for all his languidly anaemic appearance, he had a nice line in wry sarcasm and a fidelity to Markham that was all the more remarkable for the fact of his being the nephew of Superintendent ‘Blithering’ Bretherton and initially suspected of spying for the higher-ups. He had weathered various sticky patches in his career, including money and romantic troubles, along with very nearly getting himself kicked off the team after leaking stories to the local press. Now, however, the worst was behind him and he was keen as mustard to remain in Markham’s orbit.

  DS Doyle, an easy-going red-head (the ‘ginger ninja’), was equally anxious to stick with Markham. As he was the proud possessor of a degree in criminal law through part-time study, his teacher wife Kelly was keen to see him rise up the ladder (‘make something of himself’) before they started a family. Touchingly uxorious, he was inclined to quote Kelly as the oracle on virtually everything. He had dug in his heels, however, when it came to his current position. ‘The HCU’s a completely new concept in CID,’ the youngster told her excitedly at CID’s Christmas party. ‘It’s kind of building on cases with historical connections…. castles, museums or stately homes,’ he added cannily, much to the amusement of the DI who could tell that Doyle’s other half might not be entirely averse to the idea of his moving up in the world. Maybe it was stretching a point, but they had tackled those kind of cases – Sherwin College and the Reynolds Museum in Oxford, Carton Hall and the Tower of London to name but a few – and their success rate fully justified the establishment of this new venture. The Much Langley investigation would involve enquiries being made at Carlton Hall seeing as their murder victim had been involved in curating an exhibition there. The fact of the village being what Ebury-Clarke sarcastically called ‘Miss Marple/Midsomer Murders territory’ apparently meant ‘the only possible choice for SIO on this one had to be our very own gentleman sleuth’. The Chief Super, like Sidney before him, could not be disabused of the notion that Markham was some sort of toff, despite this being a total misconception on their part. Still, he would be in no hurry to disabuse the boss if it meant being allocated the kind of cases he relished….

  A sudden noise to his left interrupted these meditations and he shrank down at the sight of the vicar of St Chad’s striding purposefully towards the church porch. The Reverend Simon Duthie, former bank manager and a “mature vocation”, was big in charismatic circles, which inevitably put him on a collision course with Noakes who didn’t approve of people being too forward or innovative in their approach to the Almighty and didn’t at all care for “happy-clappy types”.  ‘Folk didn’t go to church to be cheered up when I were a kid,’ he said stubbornly when reciting a catalogue of his pet hates, which with him generally passed for small-talk and had caused an exasperated DS Doyle to demand, ‘Is there anything you actually like, sarge (his honorary title)?’ To which Carruthers added slyly, ‘Apart from football,’ for when it came to that particular sport, Noakes was a true believer. He had thawed considerably towards Duthie’s curate Mr Pendergast (even overlooked his Welshness) on discovering a fellow enthusiast who was obsessed with getting up scratch teams and roping anyone and everyone in. ‘Bus drivers, park keepers, St John’s Ambulance Brigade cadets, hitch-hikers,’ Noakes guffawed appreciatively, ‘even, on one occasion, this harmless middle-aged bloke snatching forty winks in the graveyard who got asked if he wouldn’t mind standing in goal.’ Young Pendergast had become less fanatical once children came along and his wife insisted on more “home fixtures”, but he and Noakes had maintained a camaraderie of sorts (though very much sub rosa given Mrs Duthie’s intense dislike of Markham’s subordinate, that good lady having somehow got wind of Noakes having described the vicar as ‘having all the personality of a wet flannel’).

  With Duthie safely out of sight, Markham relaxed again, thoughts of St Chad’s football crazy curate reminding him that passion for the game had been a major factor in Noakes and Carruthers, so very different in character and background, eventually achieving some sort of entente cordiale against all the odds. Which wasn’t to say that Noakes didn’t nurse dark suspicions that the juvenile Carruthers had been a weedy specimen at the end of the selection line when it came to being “picked for teams” (the type of uncoordinated little runt in an immaculate school uniform whose glasses were always getting broken and who was more inclined to hide in the bogs than smash it out on the pitch). He had considerable respect, however, for the adult DS’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the game and compilation of scrapbooks that went back to the nineteen hundreds and included programmes from every ground in Britain. Yes, Noakes told Markham, in his misbegotten youth Carruthers may well have been the kind of schoolboy who used every trick in the book to avoid getting pounded to a pulp in the mud – one of those always whingeing about their “insulin levels” or bazookas on the feet – but he had redeeming qualities. And anyway, as Doyle had slyly quipped one day when Noakes confided his doubts about Carruthers’s youthful sporting prowess, given the state of the country it was only a matter of time before “hiding in the toilets” became an official games option! All things considered, Noakes pronounced, Carruthers was sound…… even if he did like to wind them up by describing the national passion for football as straightforward mass hysteria. ‘I always remember the American woman who went along to her first match,’ the DS drawled in his laconic way. ‘She couldn’t understand why there was all this excitement over encouraging eleven men to try and stop the other eleven men from kicking the ball into goal. “Why don’t they board it up?” she wanted to know.’ Kate Burton appreciated the joke but Noakes and Doyle looked very wrathful at this witticism. That was the thing about Carruthers. Just when you thought you had him worked out, he threw a googly (to borrow a cricketing metaphor)…..

  Markham smiled at the thought that his subordinates – though probably not Kate – would be much intrigued by reports that Much Langley’s football club were scheduled to make an appearance in this show about Much Langley commissioned by Bromgrove TV…. a spin-off from Escape to the Country….. now what was the title….. oh yes, There’s No Place Like Home…. pretty naff sounding but no doubt it had all the villagers going toe-to-toe with a view to establishing their photogenic credentials. To tell truth, the TV angle made him uneasy when he recalled some of the team’s previous investigations where similar rivalries had proved quite literally deadly. ‘It’ll be Gumby TV,’ Noakes reassured him. On Markham looking mystified, he explained patiently, ‘Programmes for “Gumbies” – older types who like watching property porn with folk going “ooh” an’ “wow” an’ “amazing” an’ some smarmy Gethin Jones type flashing his gnashers every five seconds.’ Despite this helpful elucidation, the DI had a bad feeling about the show which he suspected could well have stirred up old resentments and hatreds.

  The banging of a door somewhere inside the church reminded him that time was passing and he needed to head over to CID.

  Time to get this show on the road.

  There was, however, one unwelcome issue which had hung over the Christmas holidays like a pall and showed no time of lifting any time soon.

  His former colleague DI Claire Cassidy had gone to HR claiming historical sexual harassment and bullying from the time when they were both fast track sergeants finding their feet in CID. She had, apparently, also disclosed personal letters he had written to her dating from a difficult time in his life when they briefly dated. He was at a loss what to make of it all, being certain only that he had called time on their relationship as opposed to the other way around. He was yet to learn whether the whole affair was set to crystallise into a formal complaint or whether the DI, whose career appeared to have stalled after she reverted to the uniformed inspectorate in neighbourhood policing, was somehow being weaponised by others with a view to damaging his prospects. ‘Jealous much?’ was Noakes’s sardonic verdict, but his contemptuous dismissal of Cassidy as ‘a right loopy-loo’ failed to allay Markham’s fears about the mischief the woman could potentially cause, not just with reference to his professional career but also his fledgling relationship with Kate Burton.

  He shook himself, knowing that he could not afford to think of that now. Whatever plots were afoot, he had been assigned this Much Langley case and meant to give it his best.

  Onwards and upwards.

2

Gallery of Grotesques

 

The team briefing got off to a somewhat rocky start, with Noakes considerably irritated by the profusion of dogeared Christmas cards and decorations that hadn’t been cleared away, his dislike of hilarious Santas and over-red robins well-known to Kate Burton who had done her best to clear their own corner of CID of tinselled detritus.

  As usual, the radiator in Markham’s poky office (with unrivalled view of the station car park) was on the blink (you could bet it would start belching  out heat the minute summer arrived, Noakes muttered wrathfully), but Burton flipped on a portable heater and distributed goodies she had brought in from the neighbouring Costa. Noakes took “commissary” extremely seriously and the others rather liked getting up to speed over brownies and croissants. No amount of snide comments from the Chief Super (‘glad to see you’re not stinting yourselves’, ‘no danger of Markham’s team going out underfed’ etc etc) had put paid to this time-honoured ritual and so they now sat happily munching away as Burton, invariably more abstemious than the rest, rattled through the background information and list of possible suspects.

  ‘Our victim is Mrs Camilla Langley aged forty-nine,’ she began. ‘Married to Andrew Langley. Owners of Langley Court with one child, George, aged twenty-six. Strangled in the grounds on New Year’s Eve some time between 9 p.m. and midnight.’ She looked up from her notebook through the modish glasses that somehow magnified intelligent brown eyes to the size of lollipops. ‘Potentially everyone in Much Langley’s a suspect.’ Heartfelt groans at this but the DI surged purposefully on. ‘Obviously the village has to be checked out, but it’s essentially just a few lanes, pub, post office, high street and church. The likelihood is that Camilla’s killer was someone who was involved with her socially or professionally –’

  ‘Or a family member,’ Carruthers said bluntly.

  Not at all put out, Burton continued evenly, ‘We can’t discount anyone, including those closest to the victim. However,’ she flipped over a page of her notebook, ‘it appears a certain amount of ill-feeling had been stirred up by a Bromgrove TV project called There’s No Place Like Home…. that’s kind of a spin-off from the Escape to the Country franchise –’

  ‘For Gumbies,’ Noakes told them. ‘Saga telly, so no need to engage your brain.’

  ‘ Hey, my Kelly likes Escape,’ Doyle protested indignantly. ‘Always gets it right when they have to guess the price of a property.’

  ‘My mum likes it too,’ Burton confided. ‘It’s quite informative about different counties and  showcases local artisans….. massively popular…. and not just with oldsters,’ she added defiantly.

  Carruthers said nothing, just sat wearing a sphinx-like smile.

  ‘I’ve seen it a few times,’ Markham joined in the debate. ‘What’s not to like…. beautiful locations with a smattering of local history and likeable presenters.’

  Burton cast him a grateful look before continuing, ‘Speaking of presenters, one of them on the spin-off – Ralph Appleby – is a resident of Much Langley and neighbour of Camilla’s, so that probably explains why the village got the gig.’

  ‘Problem being Camilla went and gave everyone the hump by hogging the limelight?’ Carruthers opined with his customary shrewdness.

  ‘Something like that, yes,’ Burton agreed, checking her notebook again. ‘The chair of the parish council, one Mrs Deborah Teasdale, was unhappy about it and quite outspoken in saying so…. and a couple of neighbours – Marguerite Chapman at the Old Rectory and another woman name of Irene Helsen – voiced concerns…. The local vicar Mr Cuthbert Dempsey was called in to pour oil on troubled waters, but it didn’t stop the rumblings…. he’s by way of being a published poet … quite eccentric and otherworldly, so probably out of his depth refereeing that kind of dispute…. The show’s producer Bernie Maunder may be able to shed some light, and Camilla’s PA Theo Sandbrook can probably fill us in on why things turned poisonous…. according to Jethro, the Langleys’ gardener, Sandbrook was for the chop so he probably won’t worry about being discreet.’

  Carruthers narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘Wasn’t there a piece in the Gazette about Camilla making waves…. yeah, I remember it now, Terry Flaherty did some sort of takedown of her and she blew her top…. was threatening to sue the paper and all kinds of ructions.’ He trailed off somewhat self-consciously, looking momentarily downcast as he clocked the gleam in Noakes’s piggy little eyes. The memory of how close he had come to getting chucked off the unit after leaking stories when he was in desperate financial straits was still clearly an uncomfortable one. Markham, however, merely said kindly, ‘How about you check that out, Sergeant. Sounds like it might yield some useful intel.’ His face brightening, Carruthers nodded eagerly, grateful for this token of the guvnor’s trust.

  ‘Jethro said Camilla’s son George had started hanging around with “a bad lot”,’ Burton resumed. ‘A bloke called Patrick Cole who runs an estate agency in Old Carton… Patrick’s sister Arbella is George’s on/off girlfriend…. she and Camilla couldn’t stand each other –’

  ‘Arbella?’

  Burton suppressed a sigh. She might have known that would set sarge off.

  ‘As in Arbella Stuart… you remember, sarge, that cousin of James I who was imprisoned in the Tower of London then went on hunger strike and died there after an escape attempt went wrong…..she’s the one whose ghost is supposed to haunt the place after dark.’

  ‘Oh aye, I remember now.’ He digested this. ‘Not sure why anyone’d want her as a role model for their kid, though…. didn’t she go screwy an’ start scribbling all kinds of mad stuff about her family…. like she had some kind of persecution complex.’

  ‘The very same.’ Without the hint of a smile, Burton said, ‘Her parents probably weren’t thinking about that when they came up with the name…. more a kind of nod to Much Langley having been some sort of favourite royal hunting ground with connections to Jacobean aristocrats like the Stuarts.’

  ‘Anyone else in the mix, Kate?’ Markham asked before Noakes could launch into a verbal assault on the nduja classes.

  ‘Andrew Langley’s rumoured to be something of a Don Juan… likes to play the field…. current girlfriend is one Averil Fraser, a well-to-do divorcée. By all accounts Camilla took the unfaithfulness in her stride.’

  ‘Do we know if she was, er, consoling herself with anyone? Carruthers enquired.

  ‘Not as yet,’ Burton answered, ‘but sounds like the two of them knew how to play the game of sexual reprisals without there being any awkwardness.’ She snapped her notebook shut. ‘That’s pretty much it, sir.’ Markham’s fellow DI was always punctilious about according him due deference even though they were the same rank and engaged in an intimate relationship. He doubted that he would ever be able to break her of the habit, but perhaps it was just as well given the way station gossip tended to spread like wildfire and the fact that junior ranks would have a field day should it emerge that they were “an item”. His fellow DI was certainly looking good these days in a softly tailored burgundy wool shirtwaister which flattered her petite form and complemented the streaked highlights of her satin-smooth chestnut bob. Quite a difference from the frumpy look she had initially cultivated in those days when she had been uncertain both of herself and his regard for her.

  Noakes’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Is Toadface coming in this morning?’

  Burton grinned. ‘I wouldn’t have risked a working breakfast if the Chief Super was around,’ she reassured him. ‘He’s away at that conference in Manchester, due back on Monday.’

  ‘Don’ tell me…. another one of them gabfests about,’ Noakes screwed up his features, ‘“algorithmic polarisation” an’ bollocks like that. God,’ he shook his head sadly, ‘all that hot air an’ ass kissing instead of working out how to nab skanks an’ scrotes.’

  Doyle and Carruthers engaged in some eloquent side-eye, only too familiar with the former DS’s views on police social worker types with egg on their caps.

  ‘I like your outfit, sarge,’ Carruthers complimented him with a mischievous glint in his eyes. ‘Very appropriate for dealing with the squirearchy.’

  Noakes was notorious for his appalling dress sense and utter disregard for sartorial niceties such as colour co-ordination. Mrs Noakes had given up the battle long ago, insisting however on ‘parade ground clobber’ (Noakes’s description) for church. Today he had chosen to dress in what Carruthers termed his retired brigadier mode: battered Harris Tweed suit straining at the seams, teamed with a flapping purple waistcoat and his beloved George boots (indispensable for a former member of P company). Clearly well pleased with the figure he cut (despite an absolute unfamiliarity with regular exercise or healthy eating habits), he regarded himself with considerable complacency, stroking the bulk of his stomach while simultaneously pressing it down below the beltline of his trousers in a manner which Markham feared might induce apoplexy. There was no sign of his wingman keeling over, however, merely a certain heightened floridity of the corned-beef complexion and bulbous nose which at least matched the hue of his waistcoat.

  ‘I kinda thought this were the right choice for dealing with county folk an’ aristos,’ Noakes said happily after a pregnant pause during which his colleagues tried desperately not to catch each other’s eye.

  ‘Well, we won’t be crossing paths with too many aristos today, sarge,’ Burton said faintly. ‘I checked in with the FLOs at Langley Court and they said the family GP said a flat out no to any questioning…. “no fit state” was how he put it.’ She turned to Markham. ‘I thought we’d better leave it till after the weekend to be on the safe side.’

  Otherwise they’d be straight on to the Chief Constable claiming police brutality. The unspoken words hung in the air.

  ‘On the other hand, Carton Hall says we can interview people over there, seeing as most of Camilla’s contacts were involved with this special history exhibition.’ She consulted her notebook. ‘We can’t get in to see Bernie Maunder and the TV people until Tuesday,’ she continued, ‘but I made a few preliminary calls just to check the lie of the land…. Apparently they aimed to include a big plug for the James I display…along with segments on village life…. the vicar turned poet….local football rivalries…. quirky characters on the parish council…. gentle, relaxing stuff.’

  ‘Gumbies,’ Noakes muttered.

  Before his wingman could begin again on the iniquities of daytime television, Markham said hastily, ‘It’s useful that the Much Langley crowd are all so heavily invested in this Carton Hall venture…. volunteers and guides and whatnot…. makes it easier for us to grill them without appearing to do so…. maybe catch them off guard –’

  ‘In their natural habitat,’ Carruthers smirked.

  Burton ignored the levity. ‘These days Carton Hall’s owned and managed by the National Trust after they bought it last year… As things stand, staffing operates on a kind of goodwill basis, but the estate manager Tom Buckley tells me there’s going to be some sort of restructuring in Easter with a more formal chain of command.’

  ‘Do we know if Camilla Langley was in the running for some kind of executive position?’ Markham asked.

  ‘Well, she certainly had a lot to do with the exhibition and was always round the place…. hadn’t approached the Trust about anything like that…. but she already had an “in” with them by virtue of owning Langley Court.’

  ‘Could have got up someone’s nose if they ended up being squeezed out by her,’ Carruthers speculated.

  ‘From what Mr Buckley told me, it didn’t sound like there was any great jockeying for position amongst the volunteers, but there could have been tensions behind the scenes,’ Burton conceded.

  ‘D’you know James I had this pet otter he used to take for a walk on a special leash,’ Doyle piped up suddenly. As his colleagues stared, he blushed and said defensively, ‘It was Kelly told me that. She’s into history and all that Tudor malarkey.’

  ‘Jacobean,’ Burton amended punctiliously.

  King James and his otter had struck a chord with Noakes. ‘When I were a kid an’ wanted to get a dog, my mum gave me a leash and told me to walk the cat instead. Not the same though.’ He shook his head sorrowfully as the others stifled grins.

    ‘Anyway,’ Burton said heartily, keen to get things back on track before they got sidetracked by one of Noakes’s celebrated threnodies, ‘this exhibition’s a big deal…. lots of kudos for Much Langley with so many villagers getting in on the act…. Langley Court’s got its own Jacobean backstory, so Camilla maybe had plans to develop her own tourist revenue stream along the lines of the Carton Hall project…. transform it from an insignificant backwater into a heritage destination.’

  ‘The exhibition certainly appears to be a common thread,’ Markham concluded, ‘and seeing as formal interviews aren’t feasible until Monday, we might as well pay a visit to Carton Hall this morning.’

  ‘I’ve already rung ahead, guv… They’ve closed the exhibition for the foreseeable out of respect, but the head guide Jerry Dawber says a few people should be around.’

  ‘Excellent, Kate. We’ll see who’s knocking about and get a sense of the vibes.’

  Doyle looked alarmed. ‘You don’t reckon there’s something in the displays could’ve set the killer off do you, guv?’ he asked, his mind clearly roaming over their previous investigations at museums, galleries and historical sites and some of the disturbed individuals they had encountered.

  Carruthers’s eyebrows shot up. ‘As in some sort of Heritage Derangement Syndrome?’

  His fellow DS appeared slightly abashed but stuck to his guns. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ he said stubbornly. ‘Remember that gig at the Tower of London!’

  ‘The context is important, so you’re quite right to wonder about that,’ Markham said evenly, at which reassurance Doyle shot Carruthers a triumphant glance. ‘The whole heritage angle is why we’ve been assigned to this case.’ Along with my supposed credentials as Bromgrove’s very own Inspector Lynley, he thought grimly. ‘Right,’ he checked his watch, ‘see you at the car park in ten minutes. Noakesy, you’re with me.’

                                                            ……………………….

Carton Hall was a medieval timber-framed two-storeyed manor house with a fascinating mixture of historical styles, most notably various Georgian and Victorian mock-Tudor embellishments. Markham had been decidedly taken with its mullioned windows, baronial staircases, oak-panelled rooms and dimly lit corridors boasting all manner of tapestries, ancestral portraits and curios. It had been the scene of one of their most disturbing investigations, however, so it was with mingled feelings of disappointment and relief that he found himself directed to a converted stable block at the rear of the mansion.

  ‘Bit of a swiz if punters don’ get to see the suits of armour an’ cellars an’ closets,’ Noakes said as the team headed towards the building which housed the King James Experience. Markham smiled as he recalled  his friend’s fascination with the hall’s spookier attractions. ‘All of that belongs to a different tour, Noakesy,’ he answered patiently. ‘Carton Hall Through The Centuries.’ The other grunted. ‘The Trust plans to put that on later this year,’ Markham explained. ‘In the meantime, Camilla Langley and the Much Langley crowd were helping with this Jacobean affair.’

  ‘There’s been a real resurgence of interest in James I,’ Burton pointed out. After a brief hesitation, she added, ‘especially now that he’s seen as being so important for Queer History.’

Noakes grunted again, somehow infusing the sound with a wealth of meaning that suggested he regarded revisionist history as peak cringe. Burton shot him what the two sergeants privately termed one of her ‘dead prawn glances’, but luckily there was no time for debate on the subject as they passed through a small lobby and into a well-heated museum-style gallery where a volunteer bustled forward to greet them.

  Mrs Irene Helsen, who lost no time in informing them that she was the widow of a local dentist, eyed the visitors with no great warmth, especially Noakes. Small, sandy haired and with a narrow foxy face whose features seemed somehow tightly compressed, she was the kind of woman who combined minimum warmth with maximum efficiency, swiftly summoning  head guide Jerry Dawber and his fellow volunteer the Reverend Cuthbert Dempsey from an adjacent staff room.

  Introductions were made and conventional regrets expressed for Camilla Langley’s shocking murder. Markham didn’t judge the latter to be insincere, more as if the trio were somehow proceeding on autopilot which wasn’t unusual in the wake of such an event. He sensed their relief that there was no attempt to elicit information about the deceased or the circumstances surrounding her death. Rather, it had been determined by Markham to leave all such discussion, including establishment of alibis, until the formal interviews on Monday. His priority at this stage was to get a feel for the people with whom Camilla regularly mixed.

  Dawber was a short rather wizened little man with a sallow complexion, grey hair thinning on top and a nasal, reedy voice that betrayed his consternation at this sudden invasion by the police. The clergyman, vicar of St Stephen’s, was a Goliath by comparison – very tall with little spare flesh on him and craggy, almost beaky, features so that he seemed all forehead and chin. Despite this rather forbidding impression, however, it was clear that he and Dawber got on and were most likely allies when it came to evading Irene Helsen. Certainly he came across as congenial rather than austere, engaging in pleasant chit chat as Dawber ushered them round the display cases and cabinets. On Markham politely asking what advice he would offer to any would-be poets, Dempsey chuckled. ‘Just turning up really….. I think folk imagine my poems come bounding out of the vicarage walls when I’m in some kind of ecstasy, but it’s not like that at all…. I just sit down at my desk and cast around for something to write about. Other times, it’s all fairly haphazard…. when ideas come to me, I scribble them down on scraps of paper…. backs of envelopes, whatever comes to hand.’  Noakes’s suggestion that he might ‘become one of them celebrity types like Pam Ayres’, elicited a rueful smile. ‘Heavens no, Mr Noakes. If you go on the box, you get people gawping at you in shops…. that would never do at all. No way do I want to end up like “Famous Seamus”.’

  ‘Oh aye, that Irish guy who wrote about tractors an’ sludgy fields,’ Noakes sniffed. ‘Personally, I can’t see what all the fuss was about. Give me a decent rhyme any day.’ Dempsey chuckled again. ‘One bares one’s soul in poetry,’ he said. ‘I find it a naked enough affair without going in search of a loud-hailer.’ Markham found this distaste for publicity rather attractive and could tell that Noakes felt the same. He had the impression that the man didn’t really know how to cope with sudden fame. ‘It’s very difficult when someone is a priest and then for many becomes a god in his own right,’ Dempsey concluded. ‘I can only hope not too many of my flock try to get hold of my work.’

  Judging by his respectful expression, Jerry Dawber was most probably a devotee, but all he said shyly was, ‘I suppose one might say the parishioners are your real publications.’ The other looked pleased at this. ‘Yes indeed, Jerry…. They help to keep me grounded.’

  As though impatient of this mutual admiration society, Irene Helsen whisked away, suddenly intent upon some errand in an anteroom. With a detectable lessening of tension in the atmosphere, the little group continued to browse the exhibits.

  ‘There’s a weird poem here,’ Carruthers frowned as he scrutinised a cabinet containing a facsimile manuscript. ‘Apparently King James wrote it…. all about a phoenix getting killed…. the bird was meant to symbolise one of his lovers.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ Markham murmured as he leaned in to take a closer look at the accompanying sketch. He felt vaguely uneasy but could not for the life of him have pinpointed the source of his discomfort.

  ‘Looks like the bird’s hiding between some bloke’s legs… seriously weird,’ Doyle said queasily. ‘More than a bit creepy if you ask me.’

  ‘James allegorised his deceased cousin Esmé Stuart as a phoenix – symbolising purity and regeneration – hounded to exile and death by jealous lesser birds like the raven,’ Dawber explained patiently. ‘The poor king suffered dreadfully from misunderstandings about the nature of his feelings for male courtiers. Esmé was so devoted to the king that he asked that when he died his heart should be embalmed and sent to James. The male figure in that sketch represents James as the poet and Esmé’s…. admirer.’

  Noakes pulled a face. ‘Are you sure folk got it all wrong?’ he asked bluntly. ‘I mean, by the sound of it, er,’ he caught Burton’s eye and hastily rephrased whatever he had been going to say, ‘James batted for the other team.’ 

  ‘You have to remember same-sex intimacy back then was very different from how we understand it in the modern era,’ their guide told them cagily, looking at Noakes very much as though contemplating an unexploded bomb.

  ‘How’s that then?’

  Noakes’s tone wasn’t encouraging but the little man persisted gamely. ‘Well, we’re pretty obsessed with homosexuality being all about the biology, but in those times it would have covered a broad range of attraction that didn’t necessarily have to be crudely physical.’

 ‘It doesn’t appear that James had much time for women,’ Burton commented censoriously, reading a neighbouring text panel. ‘He said they were vain, couldn’t keep a secret and only cared for malicious gossip.’

  ‘You have to remember that as a child he had been indoctrinated by a scary tutor who convinced him that all women were monsters or imbeciles and that his own mother, Mary Queen of Scots was just one up from Satan,’ Dawber said earnestly. ‘Deep down, he was always fearful of them…. lots of demons in his subconscious, I think. Regrettably his prejudices towards women never really went away.’

  Burton’s face cleared and she smiled warmly at the volunteer who struck her as endearingly anxious not to give offence.

  ‘James married, though…. that’s right, isn’t it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, Inspector.’ The other was clearly relieved to move off the subject of misogyny and sexual demons. ‘He was devastated when Queen Anne died…. wrote some very moving lines in her memory.’ Fussily clearing his throat, he intoned piously,

  ‘So did my Queen from hence her court remove

    And left off earth to be enthroned above.

  She’s changed, not dead, for sure no good prince dies,

    But, as the sun, sets, only for to rise.’

  Somewhat startled, Burton recalled having heard that their guide was a widower and something of an amateur poet. Ignoring her smirking colleagues, she murmured, ‘That’s very touching.’  ‘Clintons eat your hearts out,’ Carruthers muttered under his breath.

  Burton shot the DS a stony look. ‘There’s something very, well, modern about James’s personal dilemmas,’ she told Dawber encouragingly.

  The vicar, who had rather stayed in the background up till this point, spoke up. ‘The king was clearly a lonely man…. might not have been enthusiastic about marriage but longed for conventional companionship.’ With a low, rumbling chuckle, he concluded, ‘The problem being that once he had a wife and family, he didn’t really know what to do with them.’

  Irene Helsen, who had suddenly reappeared out of nowhere, weighed in disapprovingly. ‘If you ask me, he was utterly selfish,’ she declared self-righteously. ‘At one point he kept his son and heir Henry sequestered away from the family and restricted Anne’s access to the child – insisted he was brought up by foster parents if you please. Small wonder if they had an unhappy marriage.’

  ‘James’s over-protectiveness was understandable in light of all the attempts made on his own life,’ Dempsey countered mildly. ‘Utterly tragic that poor Henry died at eighteen.’

  Mrs Helsen was having none of it. ‘He treated his wife cruelly,’ she pronounced with the cut-glass enunciation which set Burton’s teeth on edge. ‘And there was something downright pathological about the way he insinuated himself into other people’s families.’

  As she said this, Burton suddenly experienced an unwelcome memory from long ago – when a schoolfriend in the playground at primary school hinted that she knew a secret about one of the teachers and, beady little eyes full of gloating malice, goaded her to ask for details. Irene Helsen’s expression held the same almost prurient glee despite her prim and proper diction, making the DI feel reluctant to gratify her by pressing for further (no doubt salacious) details.

  Carruthers, however, had no such scruples.

  ‘How d’you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘He paid his favourites morning-after visits when they had just got married and demanded constant attention, practically controlling how often they could see their own wives. George Villiers – his principal love interest whom he later made the Duke of Buckingham – essentially had to incorporate James into his marriage…. a third wheel.’

  ‘Kind of like Charles an’ Diana,’ Noakes guffawed.

  ‘I beg your pardon.’ The woman sounded affronted.

  ‘Well… like Princess Di said when she did that interview, “There were three of us in the marriage so it got a bit crowded.”’

  Irene Helsen chose to ignore this allusion to the royals. ‘James certainly neglected Queen Anne,’ she said haughtily.

   Her disapproval was wasted on Noakes. ‘Judging by that picture,’ he jerked a thumb at a portrait on the far wall, ‘I reckon most blokes wouldn’t want to spend much time with James’s missus.’

  The woman bristled. ‘It’s quite possible the king also had a transgressive interest in children,’ she continued. ‘One of his letters speaks of looking forward to Buckingham providing him with “sweet bedchamber boys to play with”,’ she added triumphantly.

  ‘That sounds ugly, but I’d say it’s unlikely James had designs on children,’ Dempsey objected. ‘He was a solitary man who had missed out on family life and longed for the cosiness of traditional relationships.’ With a hint of steel, he added. ‘It’s not automatically the case that homosexual men are pederasts.’

  The other’s lips tightened. ‘Have it your own way,’ she said, her eyes cold. ‘Of course I appreciate that one mustn’t generalise, but there’s a case for arguing that James was a serial predator.’

  Markham detected a flash of dislike pass across the vicar’s face, but it was so fleeting as to be undetectable except by a close observer. There were definitely tensions between Dempsey and Irene Helsen. Judging from Jerry Dawber’s awkward body language – a kind of shuffling pirouette on the spot as he pivoted between the various display cabinets – he was deeply uncomfortable being caught in the cross-current. 

  Luckily distraction was at hand, Noakes having lit upon an adjacent glass case with some thoroughly gory illustrations. He turned to the vicar. ‘I reckon it must’ve been the quacks who killed that poor lad Henry…. Says here they shaved his head an’ stuck dead pigeons on it an’ slit open a cock so he could rest his feet on it…. I mean, what’s wrong with a hot water bottle!’

  Dempsey was clearly enjoying the cut and thrust with Noakes. ‘It was hard to distinguish between doctors and wizards back then. They were just as likely to cast your horoscope or conjure up the Archangel Michael as cure you. Buckingham was totally convinced that deaths in his wife’s family had been caused by black magic. Everyone in those days was utterly obsessed with the supernatural and fending off wicked spirits. James even wrote about a book about it…. the Daemonologie.’

  ‘What a weirdo,’ was Doyle’s withering verdict.

  ‘He almost certainly had what we think of as ADHD,’ Dawber explained, as though apologising for James’s deficiencies, Markham thought with an inward smile. ‘That’s why he was obsessed with riding and hunting – he just couldn’t sit still in one place for any length of time….. And there were other odd traits too…. when one of his noblemen mentioned that he had gone two days and nights without sleeping, James stayed awake for three just so he could beat him in the insomnia stakes.

  ‘Would have made him useful in CID,’ Carruthers drawled.

  ‘It says here, James were a real potty mouth….. swore like a trooper,’ Noakes exclaimed delightedly, alighting on another exhibit. ‘Told some interfering clergyman, “I give not a steaming turd for thy preaching!” Clearly he found such iconoclasm captivating. Doyle grinned as he bent down to declaim from a label: ‘“Liked best of any discourse to talk of dirt and turds” and on being told the people wanted to see him replied, “God’s wounds I will pull down my breeches and they shall also see my arse.”’

  Dawber looked somewhat embarrassed. ‘The Trust felt details like that made James more, er, relatable.’ From the look on his face and Irene Helsen’s pinched expression, it was obvious they didn’t see it the same way.

  ‘I rather had the idea that James was this slobbering, embarrassing sexual inadequate who couldn’t stop fiddling with his privates,’ Carruthers said bluntly.

  ‘Yeah, always pulling his pud,’ Noakes chimed in as Burton cast her eyes to heaven.

  ‘I remember some Jimmy McGovern thing on TV with Robert Carlyle – that actor from The Full Monty – playing James as a pervert,’ Doyle spoke up eagerly. ‘

  ‘Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.’ It was obvious from Dawber’s tone that he thoroughly disapproved of this stereotype. ‘Stories about him being uncouth and a sexual degenerate most probably arose from racial prejudice,’ he sniffed. ‘The Scots received a very bad press from English courtiers back then.’

  ‘Yeah, it talks here about them being stinking people,’ Carruthers grinned as he scanned another plaque. ‘Their beasts be generally small, women only excepted, of which sort there are none greater in the world.’

  ‘That’s calling ’em lardy arses,’ Noakes crowed delightedly.

  ‘Xenophobia,’ Burton said frostily, earning herself an approving glance from Mrs Helsen.

  ‘Jus’ a bit of bantz,’ Noakes protested jovially. ‘Being Scots, James probl’y enjoyed the swirl of the bogpipes an’ sowing his wild porridge better’n anyone.’ Belatedly realising their good-natured guide looked dismayed by the turn the conversation was taking, he said kindly, ‘No offence, Mr Dawber.’

  ‘That’s alright, Mr Noakes,’ Dawber said bravely. ‘The Hispanophobes were even worse than the anti-Scots faction….. called Spain a filthy puddle full of the most loathsome, infected and slavish people imaginable.... Of course King James was very different from his subjects on this…. wanted the two nations to be friends, but religious sectarianism posed an insuperable obstacle.’

  Seeing how Jerry Dawber struggled with Noakes’s brand of humour (which was, after all, an acquired taste), Markham said smoothly, ‘It must have been difficult for James having to reconcile the Scottish and English sides of his kingship.’

  Dawber nodded vigorously. ‘Very much so. Added to which, his childhood experiences in Scotland were very turbulent – endless abduction and assassination attempts and so forth – so that you could say his personality was permanently maimed…. a victim of what we think of as PTSD.’

  Having all too often heard Noakes’s opinion of ‘touchy feely psychobabble twaddle’, Burton jumped in before he could say something deplorable about ‘Mental Elf’ experts.              ‘You’re shedding new light on an underrated monarch,’ she said warmly, touched to see how their guide glowed at this tribute.

  Carruthers, however, ever the wind-up merchant, said slyly as he gestured to the portrait behind them, ‘He was no oil painting, that’s for sure…. looks seedy and decrepit with that red complexion and scraggy beard…. definitely the face of a boozer if you ask me.’ Ignoring Burton’s glare, he added, ‘I’m sure I remember reading somewhere that he had something wrong with his mouth – his tongue was too big or something like that…. and he couldn’t stand up straight so was always propping himself up on handsome young blokes.’

  Jerry Dawber clearly regarded these as unkind aspersions, his expression reproachful. ‘He had a speech defect that he worked hard to overcome along with a congenital condition that meant he staggered as he walked.’

  ‘Happen that’s why he wore them massive wide breeches with the huge pleats,’ Noakes observed helpfully. ‘Meant folk wouldn’t notice he were a spindleshanks….. Same with the big ruffs an’ jewellery an’ all that…. you’d be so busy gawping at all that, you wouldn’t clock the dodgy pins.’

 ‘Might explain why he loved hunting and all that,’ Doyle chipped in. ‘Spending all day in the saddle, it wouldn’t matter that he was unsteady on his feet.’

  A resonant chuckle from behind them greeted this observation and the vicar hastened to introduce the newcomer. ‘This is Theo Sandbrook,’ he told them. ‘Helps with PR, marketing and all manner of comms.’

  Camilla Langley’s erstwhile media consultant was a balding, chubby, bespectacled man with a cheerful manner. Despite his unprepossessing appearance, he had a beautiful voice, a cultured light baritone with a hint of self-deprecating laughter bubbling up from beneath the surface. Markham was particularly sensitive to voices and this one fell easily on the ear. Sandbrook laughed easily, ‘James gets such a mixed press, but he was a shrewd monarch and died in his own bed…. not short on achievements either…. So what d’you make of the exhibition then?’ he asked the team.

  ‘I’m not sure we’re totally on board with these “favourites” who curled their hair, plucked their brows and draped themselves in pearls,’ Markham replied lightly. Understatement of the century where Noakes was concerned.

  Sandbrook grinned. ‘Plenty of folk would have shared your unease,’ he replied. ‘Sexual indeterminacy aroused real hostility in some quarters….. and James’s preference for diplomacy and dialogue over warfare didn’t help…. He even wrote to the Pope in an effort to stop religious feuding.’

  Noakes frowned. ‘Sounds like he forgot about Henry VIII an’ the Reformation.’

 Before her colleague headed down a religious rabbit hole, Burton said quickly, ‘Were James and Villiers – the Duke of Buckingham – a couple until the king died?’

  ‘Well, James got needier and more abject as Villiers became more arrogant, even though he still called himself James’s humble slave and dog and James called him his sweet child and wife till pretty much the end.’ There was an eloquent snort from Noakes at this. ‘I suppose you could say the balance of power shifted…. Later on, Villiers became closer to Prince Charles…. called him sweetheart and –’

  ‘Became an abuser in his turn,’ Irene Helsen cut in. ‘And so the cycle perpetuates itself,’ she added sententiously.

  Sandbrook and Dempsey exchanged exasperated glances, giving Markham the feeling the two men were on the same page when it came to Mrs Helsen. Jerry Dawber, keen to defuse any tension, said, ‘Charles needed all the friends he could get seeing as he was quite sickly and effectively the child of a troubled marriage –’

  ‘Plus, weren’t he a midget?’ Noakes interrupted eagerly. ‘Five foot nothing an’ he had a lisp or summat.’ He didn’t have a daughter with a B.A. in History for nothing.

  Taken aback, Dawber replied politely, ‘Charles certainly struggled with certain, um, physical disadvantages… possibly why he and James hero-worshiped Villiers who was so much more athletic and aesthetically pleasing.’

  ‘Quite the cosy little threesome,’ Irene Helsen snapped disapprovingly as the vicar and Sandbrook exchanged another meaningful look. No doubt mindful of his pastoral duty to make peace, Dempsey said, ‘If you’ve had enough of James I and his court for the time being, why don’t we adjourn to the staff room,’ pointing to a door on the far side of the gallery. ‘I’m sure we could all do with some refreshment.’

  Suddenly there was a bang and a young woman stood framed in the door through which they had entered the gallery. Tall, extremely slender and long-limbed, even clad in a baggy track suit there was no missing her extraordinary good looks: a waterfall of red hair, generous mouth and wide spaced green eyes that gave her a faintly exotic appearance. As swiftly as she appeared, she was gone without having said a word but not before they registered her distraught expression.

  ‘Who was that?’ Carruthers asked.

  Irene Helsen’s lips had thinned almost to invisibility. ‘Arbella Cole, one of George Langley’s friends.’ No need to say a special friend, the tightly pursed mouth was eloquent enough. ‘I imagine she’s looking for George.’

  ‘George was interested in the collection,’ Dempsey told them, covering the woman’s abruptness with casual ease though his eyes were troubled. ‘He liked coming round to see what we’d got…. new acquisitions, that kind of thing. Always up for a bit of a chat –’

  ‘With you.’ The prickliness in Irene Helsen’s voice was unmistakeable. A chip on the shoulder or something else, Markham wondered.

  ‘He’s a nice lad,’ Jerry Dawber said in an attempt to smooth over the awkward moment.

  The vicar visibly pulled himself together. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘time for that cup of tea.’

                                                 ……………………………..

‘So you quite enjoyed the exhibition then?’ Olivia asked Markham that evening, having dropped by at his apartment in The Sweepstakes for a drink as she often did now that they had repaired their friendship. Sometimes he wondered what Kate made of this cosy habit of theirs but, typically phlegmatic, she appeared to take it in her stride – seemed to understand that he needed this ‘support system’ when wrestling with a complex case (to say nothing of the latest bombshell lobbed his way by DI Claire Cassidy). For all he knew, Nathan Finlayson was performing the same role in Kate’s life as Olivia did in his….perhaps the two of them were also now discovering the pleasure that was to be found in frank kindness and companionship where there was no romantic passion to hide or confess.

  ‘It was quite an education,’ he replied. ‘Looks like they’ve done a good job repackaging King James for modern consumption…. the man had quite a busy private life,’ he added wryly.

  ‘Wasn’t his boyfriend George Villiers a brilliant dancer?’ she put in eagerly. 

  ‘I believe the correct term is “favourite”, Liv,’ Markham corrected her. ‘But yes you’re right, apparently he leaped about like a gazelle at court masques.’

  She giggled. ‘Can’t imagine our own George caring too much for that.’

  ‘Noakesy behaved pretty well when Jerry Dawber – that’s the head volunteer – gave us the grand tour. He quite liked him so didn’t say anything too awful. It was more Carruthers who came out with the sarky quips.’

  ‘Good for George.’

  Markham chuckled. ‘He actually got quite drawn in despite himself when Dawber was talking about the difference between a theatre performance and court masque.’

  ‘Really?’

  He smiled at her sceptical tone. ‘Dawber said you had to think of it as being like the difference between ballet and football.’

  Now he could see she was hooked.

  ‘Ballet is all about impersonating characters from fiction or fairytales,’ he continued, ‘whereas with football it’s an actual contest with high stakes….. Ballet dancers are playing a part whereas footballers are acting in deadly earnest….. Well, apparently it was the same with Jacobean drama which was all about artifice and make-believe, while in a court masque the dancers were courtiers representing themselves and trying to catch the eye of the king with a view to furthering their career and getting a foot on the ladder. The theatre stands for fantasy whereas the masque is –’

  ‘Real life,’ she finished.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘That’s a good way of explaining it to George,’ she said. ‘I can imagine he liked the comparison with football.’

  ‘He said it made all those blokes in their tights and slippers and what have you seem less poofy and more like normal serious folk.’

  ‘God, he didn’t actually put it like that did he?’

  ‘I’m afraid he did. Kate looked like she was ready to sink through the floor but Dawber was really nice about it. By the end of the tour it was all quite matey.’ He grimaced. ‘Apart from a couple of dodgy Scottish jokes, Noakesy behaved pretty well.’

  She frowned. ‘James was a misogynist, wasn’t he?’

  ‘All down to his upbringing and childhood trauma. He was said to have likened women to war, as being a “necessary evil”.’

  She sniffed. ‘I’m surprised the National Trust leaves that kind of thing in.’

  ‘It’s all about giving a rounded picture apparently. And fair play to James, he and Queen Anna found a way of coexisting quite happily…. had a clutch of children into the bargain…. she was even responsible for recruiting Villiers in the hope that he’d catch the King’s eye and then she would have an ally on the inside.’

  ‘That makes her sound like a pander.’

  ‘All part of the political reality, Liv. Anna was nothing if not a pragmatist. Somehow she and James made things work.’

  ‘Though God knows what went on behind the scenes.’ Olivia frowned. ‘By the sound of it, James was pretty screwed up.’

  ‘He had a manipulative streak alright,’ Markham replied thoughtfully. ‘There was definitely some sort of indoctrination going on with the way he kind of trained young men up and moulded them in the way that he wanted…. Dawber called it a Pygmalion vibe…. said it was inherently unhealthy and today people would regard it as coercive control…. He insisted this made James even more relatable and relevant to a modern audience….. I wasn’t sure he had totally signed up to all the trendy revisionist theory, but that’s the Trust’s direction of travel – makes commercial sense – so I guess all the volunteers have to be on board with it.’

  ‘God yes,’ she groaned feeling, ‘whenever you visit a National Trust property these days, there’s all this stuff about power imbalances and oppressed minorities…. They’re so obsessed with bringing it all up to date and giving it a PC slant, they skew everything and ruin it.’

  ‘Hmm…. It seemed to me at Carton Hall they’ve done quite a reasonable job at getting the balance right…. though there was this woman Irene Helsen – an officious type – trailing round after us like a Greek chorus sounding off about James being some sort of pervert…. you could tell the vicar didn’t like it one bit.’

  ‘What about all the sex stuff?’ she asked. ‘It’s obvious James was really into men, but does anyone know for sure what went on behind closed doors?’

  ‘Some of the correspondence in the exhibition was really quite touching…. James seemed to see the relationship with Villiers in terms of parent-child as well as husband-wife (with Villiers as the wife)…. he actually signed off his letters as ‘your dear dad’.

  ‘Crikey, that sounds thoroughly creepy.’

  ‘Well, they regarded their relationship as being as good as a marriage… To be honest, the question of orifices and who did what to whom seems almost beside the point. There was something which almost transcended all of that. Somehow they just completed each other.’

  As his former partner shot him a shrewdly assessing glance, he suddenly realised it almost sounded as though he was trying to convince himself of the merits of a platonic relationship. Wary of giving too much away about the state of affairs between himself and Kate Burton, he said, ‘There was quite a lot of homophobic commentary on James in his day, full of self-righteous revulsion and rantings about “corrupt concupiscence”, but nobody will ever know for sure. Wasn’t it Elizabeth I who said she didn’t want to make windows into men’s souls…. seems to me like she had a point.’

  Olivia took the hint despite being intensely curious about how things lay with her ex and Burton.

  ‘I think Gloriana was talking about religious belief, but you’re right, I guess there’s something prurient in our putting James’s sex life under the microscope.’

  He smiled, relieved that the awkward moment had passed. ‘Things were so different back then….The vicar was quite unfazed by it all…. bent my ear about how during the Renaissance educated Europeans were massively into ideas from antiquity about erotic relationships between older teachers and their students.’

  ‘Very Oscar Wilde,’ she said deadpan.

  ‘Quite. Plus, it was usual for favourites to share the King’s bedroom and, on occasion, his bed, as well as all kind of intimate moments, so hardly surprising if all of that shaded into something sexual…. The fact of its being an unsolved riddle is all part of his fascination for visitors to the exhibition.’ With a quizzical expression, he added, ‘Noakesy says it’s bound to appeal to the dirty-minded, and opinion in the village was divided about whether or not there should be a segment about it in the TV programme, but it’s the kind of thing that appeals to a modern audience –’

  ‘More than stuff about ruffs and codpieces,’ she retorted.

  ‘Well, more than ruffs certainly,’ he grinned, ‘but as for codpieces…’ He waggled his eyebrows like a pantomime villain at which she dissolved in laughter.

  ‘Considering that James I was responsible for translating the Bible into English, it seems a bit unfair that there’s such a focus on his sex life,’ she frowned. ‘I saw this documentary on him a while back which suggested he’d a bit of an unfair press…. after all, he was a pacificist when most of his noblemen were bloodthirsty warmongers and had a vision of the European Union that was really forward-looking.’

  ‘The thing is, sex sells, Liv.’ Markham sighed. ‘The Trust has to tread a fine line between scholarship and sensationalism….. there’s some interesting stuff about how James’s favourites were almost like chiefs of staff who conducted all kinds of political business for him.’ He grinned. ‘And the exhibits aren’t exclusively male-centred…. Doyle and Carruthers seemed to enjoy items about how the court was a pretty scandalous place where,’ he assumed a mock pompous tone, “great persons regularly prostituted their bodies in lascivious appetites of all sorts.”’ Some of the sketches were pretty racy.’

  She laughed. ‘I suppose George averted his eyes.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. But he was more interested in some of James’s disgusting habits… like how one time after killing a deer, he opened up the belly and stood in it before bathing his bare feet with the warm blood because he was convinced it was a perfect remedy for gout.’

  ‘Oh my days!’

  ‘Yes, he just couldn’t get enough of all that… Poor old Dawber looked downright queasy but came up with a few more red-blooded (pardon the pun) anecdotes for him.’

  She chuckled. ‘Great customer facing skills…. If he can handle George, he can handle anyone.’

  Thoughtfully, she sipped her coffee before asking, ‘Did you get any sense of what they thought about Camilla Langley?’

  ‘Not really…. oh, they made all the right noises but wouldn’t be drawn….even her IT guy, whom she was supposedly going to sack, came across as perfectly normal…. You’d have liked the vicar Cuthbert Dempsey….up-and-coming poet no less…. very modest and self-effacing…. Noakesy was charmed to learn that he loves football…. I knew they would get on when I said that I supposed league soccer is practically the established religion in this country and he shot back quick as a flash, “I’ve always found it interesting that, in proverbial English, the only other thing you can be in league with is the Devil.”’

  ‘Ah…. Sounds like the right kind of padre.’

  ‘Noakesy certainly thought so. With a mischievous glint in his eyes, Markham did a passable impression of the Yorkshireman: “The Rev don’ push his own views or shove trendy woo-woo down folks’ throats….jus’ puts the Church’s views an’ makes sure everyone’s onside with the bible.”’

  She giggled.

  ‘Not everyone seemed so enamoured, though,’ Markham continued more soberly. ‘Mrs Helsen made sure to tell me – confidentially, you understand,’ he grimaced at the recollection, ‘that he’d got a bit of a reputation.’

  ‘Reputation for what?’

  ‘Well, as if the poetry isn’t bad enough, some of the villagers call him a wizard.’

  She boggled at this. ‘For real? As in Hogwarts?’

  ‘Some people took offence because they reckoned he was mocking parishioners in a few of the poems… apparently one of the vergers was giving him a hard time about it… and then the bloke ended up standing all night on a stone in the middle of Old Carton Beck.’

  ‘Blimey.’

  ‘He’s not what you’d all a conventional clergyman…. Theo Sandbrook the IT guy seemed to rate him, though…. told me that when he asked the Sunday School kids what kind of tree was in the Garden of Eden, he just laughed like a drain when one of the boys said Granny Smiths.’

  Olivia threw her head back at this with a full-throated peal that made him smile. ‘I thought you’d like that,’ he said.

  ‘They all sound quite fun…. not exactly a gallery of grotesques, the Helsen crone excepted,’ she remarked.

  ‘The grotesques were pretty much confined to the exhibits.’ And they had never even got round to seeing the death masks.

  He refilled his glass of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, experiencing a sudden flashback to Carton Hall’s strange depiction of antimasquers – the knockabout jokey clown types who enacted rowdy capers before the main performance by aristocratic dancers in their beautiful costumes. Jerry Dawber had said it was meant to be funny but also a bit frightening and grotesque – professional buffoons representing disorder, bad behaviour and discord in nature before the higher beings of the court restored order. ‘Like Hieronymous Bosch giving way to Botticelli,’ he explained helpfully.

  Now Markham wondered, what monstrous, sinister and aberrant deformity lurked within Much Langley’s idyllic universe? What dark secret lay hidden behind the radiant perfection of village life?

  He remembered too the way that the vicar had spoken of those court masques as being deadly serious – almost like competitive football matches in that the principal actors played for high stakes.

  What were the high stakes in this case, he asked himself.

  Which resident of this chocolate box world was pursuing a pernicious agenda unbeknownst to his unsuspecting neighbours?

  Aware of Olivia’s gaze, he shook off the sense of foreboding that had come over him.

  ‘By the end of our visit, Noakesy came round to deciding that James wasn’t such a bad

  fellow after all.’

  ‘Now there’s a turn-up for the books.’

  ‘I think he warmed to him when he learned that the king wasn’t fussy about his own clothes and preferred old gear that was often quite shabby and grubby…. not to mention the fact that he was rumoured never to wash his hands and only rubbed his finger-ends with the wet end of a napkin.’

  ‘Ah.’ She grinned thinking of their friend’s multiple offences against fashion and

hygiene. ‘I can see why that might appeal.’

  ‘Apparently he refused to wear a pair of shoes decorated with fancy rosettes on the

grounds that it would make him look like one of those fancy chickens with feathered feet.’

  ‘I’m rather warming to him myself now.’

  ‘You’d enjoy the exhibition, Liv…. there’s a good mix of sensationalism and seriousness.’

  ‘Well, I’m a sucker for a royal love story,’ she grinned.

  ‘Oh it’s that alright… James was totally smitten with George Villiers…. or “strucken”,

as he put it.’

  ‘All quite poignant really.’

  ‘As James said, “Christ had His John and I have my George”.’

  Her eyebrows shot up. ‘That’s blasphemous.’

  ‘Noakesy didn’t look too happy when the vicar came out with it…but he figured

Dempsey was on the level and didn’t even blink when the guy told us he was gay.’

  ‘I’ve just remembered where I’ve heard his name before,’ Olivia exclaimed. ‘Someone at school was talking about this clergyman poet…. called him the Next Big Thing.’

  With a pang, Markham wondered if that ‘someone’ was assistant head Mathew Sullivan, with whom Olivia had been briefly involved during one of their estrangements, before telling himself firmly it was none of his business any more. Whatever was going on in her personal life, she was looking good on it, the tumble of coppery hair (now grown out of the Joan of Arc bob) and witchy ethereality more striking than ever. Briefly, he wondered whether or not to tell her about DI Claire Cassidy but decided against it.

  ‘Enough of Jacobean grotesques,’ he said with a determined effort. ‘Have some more wine and then you can regale me with all the latest from the chalk face.’

  Night fell beyond the apartment windows, but inside all was cosy and for a time Markham was able to pretend he was just a normal man doing a normal job.

Catherine

Moloney 2026

 

Website designed by Pro Wix Website

Thanks for submitting!

bottom of page