Page 10 of The Peculiar Incident at Thistlewick House

The following day and the weather was even more miserable than previously.

The skies had taken on a gloomy hue that promised rain.

Edward idly tapped at the glass of the barometer in the hall with his fingernails as he passed it on his way to the study.

He was seeking out his cousin to ask that provision be made for the arrival of his manservant, who had replied by return of post and would be in Thistlewick Tye by nightfall.

The bottom needle dropped quite dramatically, pointing to stormy with definite assertion.

Mrs Drayton walked past and shook her head.

‘There’s some really squally weather on its way, sir.

Keep yourself indoors, today. Even the Cromer fishermen’ll be staying home, if they have any sense.

I was supposed to be dropping off some socks to the church that I’ve knitted for one of the poorer families, but I’ll not head out in this.

We’ll be seeing horizontal rain, floods across Low Road and more of the cliffs falling away, to be sure. ’

Talk of the rapidly eroding coastline reminded him of the skull.

‘Was there a burial you know of, up the hill, where the common land meets the top of the cliffs?’

‘All good Christian folk are buried in the churchyard,’ she said.

‘Everyone from the village is there, apart from a few heathens and a suicide, who are just outside the church boundary.’ She coloured, realising the insensitivity of her words, and lowered her voice.

‘But the Reverend Fallow has been most gracious in allowing Mrs Shaw to be laid to rest within the walls.’

‘I only ask because I think a graveyard might be falling into the sea,’ he explained.

‘There’s always bones and fossils found on the beach,’ she said.

‘Some of the things in those cliffs go back thousands of years – a woolly mammoth was found there sixty years ago. It’s likely those pagan sorts who were here before the Romans.

They worshipped many gods and buried people willy-nilly. ’

‘I doubt the bones are that old,’ he said. ‘They’re very near the surface.’

Mrs Drayton shrugged. ‘Animals, then,’ she said, clearly not particularly interested in his discovery, and she carried on her way, so he didn’t mention that there was at least one human buried up there.

He wasn’t sure why the vacant eyes of the skull wedged in the soil were haunting him so, but if a bad storm was about to hit the village, then it was highly possible it would be dislodged and fall to the sand below.

A more unscrupulous chap than he might consider acquiring it for himself to add authenticity to his séances, but he was strangely content with his plaster skull.

Besides, the bones could be from someone who’d passed in living memory and still had relatives to grieve for them, or even someone who’d been murdered, and deserved justice.

He felt uncomfortable messing with the dead and wanted any falling bodies treated respectfully.

Perhaps he was more afraid of an afterlife than he cared to admit, because he felt it was important that he got to the skull before Maude Grimmer.

He could then properly assess the right course of action – especially if she was just going to sell it on without any proper investigation.

Carl had indicated he’d arrive in Cromer by the late afternoon, and then planned to get a seat on the mail coach to Thistlewick Tye.

Borrowing one of his cousin’s mackintosh coats and a sou’wester from the boot room, Edward told Barnabas he was going to the hostelry for a drink, where he would await the arrival of his manservant.

‘Damn foolish to venture out in this, Edward. I’ve another bottle of absinthe in the cellar, if you feel the need for a drink.

It’s a strange public house anyway. Mr Palmer is a landlord with a conscience and keeps a strict eye on his patrons, refusing to serve them after a couple of drinks.

You’d think he’d wring them for every penny he could, but he won’t even sell to the Grimmer woman.

Besides, your man can make his own way up the lane.

It’s not for you to be of service to him. ’

Edward shrugged and gave an excuse that sounded convincing. ‘I don’t mind. I feel the need for some fresh air and to distance myself from the confusing and powerful psychic energy in this house.’

‘You can sense her?’ Barnabas jumped to his feet, his face eager and his voice hopeful. ‘Is she with us now? Let me call for the table to be set up and we can contact her this very afternoon.’

‘I told you; I won’t perform the séance until she’s in the ground. You must stop pressuring me, cousin.’

‘Of course, of course.’ He returned to his seat, wringing his hands, and Edward took his leave.

* * *

Five minutes later, he set off down the lane, hypnotised by the swirls of dancing brown leaves before him, as a strong gust whipped them into a frenzy.

The skies were oppressively dark, suggesting the storm was imminent and, indeed, the first heavy raindrops started to fall as he approached the village common.

There was a flash of jagged lightning above the swirling sea, as he began his descent down the rift, and he walked headlong into a buffeting wind that was determined to push him back from whence he came.

A few seconds later and a loud crack of thunder echoed about his muffled ears.

The rain was suddenly falling like stair rods.

He knew it was madness to be heading to the beach but had decided, if he kept away from the bottom of the cliffs, he’d be safe enough.

Should the skull be dislodged, perhaps it would roll towards the sea and he could safely retrieve it without courting danger.

The pocket telescope would help him ascertain whether it was still in the cliff face.

He didn’t want Maude Grimmer picking it up and selling it to be ground down to powder – although he hoped that even a desperate drunk might stop short of turning dead men into fertiliser.

But to his horror, as he arrived on the sand, she was already scurrying about beneath the teetering tree, her cloak buffeted by the fierce winds rushing from sea to shore.

It was obvious that some of the land had recently collapsed, as there was an enormous slump of soil cascading towards the crashing waves.

He looked up and, in the half-light, he could see the earthy browns, streaked with burnt umbers and pale yellows, where fresh soil had been exposed on the cliff face.

There was a skittering of stones and tumble of earth as more of the land fell away and, alarmingly, he realised that the tree was now almost parallel to the beach.

Did the stupid woman not realise how much danger she was in?

As he made his way over to her, there was another flash of piercing white light, splitting the black sky above, and a much shorter interval before the following rumble.

The centre of the storm was almost upon them.

An angry sea hissed to his right, even though the tide was half out and not near enough to be an immediate danger.

The waves, however, were high and the wind was howling about his buffeted body, stinging his cheeks, as he stumbled a couple of times in his haste to reach her.

She had her back to him and was clawing at the wet earth with her bare hands.

There was a hessian sack at her feet and she was frantically thrusting objects inside.

A ferocious rush of wind almost flattened him and he was glad the sou’wester was tied tightly under his chin.

Finally, she turned to put what appeared to be a pelvis into the sack, and her face registered her horror at being observed.

She stood upright and shouted something but it was carried away by the escalating winds, up over the clifftop, and his gaze was distracted by a movement in his peripheral vision.

The tree no longer had enough of a grip on the land to anchor it to the soil and it cartwheeled, surprisingly slowly and elegantly, from above.

He grabbed Maude by her shoulders and pulled her towards him, spinning her about, so that she could see why he’d taken such sudden and intrusive action.

She wriggled free, turned and scowled at him, before shoving him violently in the chest, with so much force it was a wonder he wasn’t pushed over.

‘This is utter madness!’ he shouted. ‘Go home. If more land should fall, you’ll be killed.’

Whatever her reply, it was again swallowed by the roar of waves and wind.

She turned back to the cliffs, but at that moment, the very thing Edward had feared happened right before their eyes.

A further section of cliff suddenly slumped and fell towards them, like a dying man collapsing to his knees.

Even more of the pale bones were now visible in the rich red-browns of the earth – ribs, maybe a tibia or femur, the small spiky discs of a spine, and another pelvis, jumbled and separate, big and small, as they both froze to watch the horrifying spectacle unfold.

He instinctively reached for the brim of the borrowed sou’wester, ensuring it remained firmly on his head, as she took a couple of steps backwards, this time willingly embracing the shelter of his body.

The air and the sea were both thrashing about wildly, as though engaged in mortal combat, but the sliding earth had come to an eerie halt.

There was a beat and then a pale ball rolled down the slope and past their feet.

It was a skull, but Edward had no idea if it was the one he’d seen the previous day, or another altogether.

She turned her head to his, and a thick lock of her damp, wavy hair, flecked with grey, slid from inside her cloak hood to fall across her face, obscuring one eye.

There was a delicate fan of crow’s feet at the corner of the other, highlighted by her weather-beaten skin.

It made her difficult to age but she must have a good ten years on him.

They stared at each other for a moment. She was assessing him, he realised, almost waiting for something…

and then, as suddenly as it had materialised, the moment of connection was gone.

She turned to the sea and refused to look at his face again.

‘These bones are human,’ he shouted, trying to be heard above the wind. ‘And from the number that have fallen, and that remain visible in the cliffs, I’d say we’re looking at several bodies. Shouldn’t the constable be notified?’

She ignored him but, if she’d been collecting them over the past few weeks or months, she’d know this.

Instead, she bent down and grabbed the skull, carrying it to the sodden sack, which was now partially covered in fallen soil.

She tugged it free, and added the find, as something nearby caught Edward’s eye.

There was a glint of metal in the earth behind her and he bent down and pulled out a thick gold chain.

Despite the driving rain, she saw it in his hands, lurched forwards and snatched at it.

It slid easily from his wet gloves and before he realised what was happening, she’d gathered up her sack and was scrabbling across the scattered flints for home.

So, it was grave goods she was after, he realised. Sell the bones for pennies, but these people, whatever century they were from, had been buried with treasures, and the despicable Maude Grimmer was merely here to steal from the dead.