The Skeleton Man

‘He ran the garage on Church Street?’ prompted Dryden, but he was thinking of something else; Magda Hollingsworth labouring over her diary, struggling with her conscience over the death of a child, before deciding to confront the mother over the rumour that she had killed her son. And the diary code entry for the child’s mother L.O. – each letter one place on in the alphabet from K.N.

Lake didn’t hear the question, wrapped now in his own memory. ‘Walter, the father, odd bloke – I guess aloof is being kind. He loved Kathryn, but it was sadly not the unqualified love that kids really need. Walter’s wife had died fairly young and I think he saw Kathryn as a kind of reincarnation – a symbol that she wasn’t gone completely from his life. Weird, but then the Ferry wasn’t a living example of robust mental health at the best of times. Anyway, it’s pretty clear Kathryn’s unwanted pregnancy didn’t fit Walter’s vision of his daughter, let’s put it like that.’

Lake turned his head up to catch the thin slats of sunshine. ‘Sadly the boy didn’t survive. The delivery was at home and premature. There were complications – jaundice, I think – and he died less than forty-eight hours after the birth from heart failure. Kathryn, a child really, was in bits, not surprisingly, but that lack of maturity made it worse, if that’s possible to imagine. She came to me, alone, and asked if the baby could be buried at St Swithun’s. I’ve often thought what a clever idea that was. She could visit him then, but only once a year when the villagers were allowed back for the annual service. It was a way of limiting her grief, I think, but still honouring her son.’

Lake was rolling up a fresh cigarette, agitated by the story he was telling. A wave broke out on the sand, the white water catching the sun.

‘So, did you bury her son?’

‘Yes. It was the last burial at St Swithun’s. But it wasn’t easy – there were two hurdles to jump. First, we had to rush through the paperwork and get the coroner to issue the death certificate. But we were lucky – I had contacts, and even in bureaucracies people can sometimes let kindness bend the rules. But the real problem was where to bury the child. Legally we’d been banned from burials in the graveyard from the point at which the MoD served its notice. They did not, and never have, guaranteed that the churchyard will not be damaged, you see – it’s technically part of the range. But the church is listed so they had at least to give an undertaking that they would seek to preserve it – especially as they’d told many of the villagers that they’d all be back within the year. But obviously a burial in the church is very difficult. Happily, there was a solution.’

He turned to Dryden, the stripes of shadow shifting over his soft features. ‘You know of the Peyton family?’ he asked, and Dryden felt the hairs on his neck rise.

‘Sure. There’s a tomb in the nave. It was damaged in the bombardment that went astray.’

Lake nodded vigorously. ‘Quite. Well, they were the patrons of the church – the Peytons – and we used to get visitors from the US on a very regular basis. It’s a very distinguished family, Founding Fathers and such. There’s actually a family association – in Baltimore – which made regular and substantial donations to the cost of the upkeep of the church and the tomb. Crucially, they similarly fund a church in Lincolnshire which holds the family vault of the other senior branch of the original family. They clearly had to be informed about the MoD’s plans for Jude’s Ferry, and they were pretty upset.

‘The long and the short of it is that they paid to have the vault emptied at St Swithun’s, and the remains transferred to Lincolnshire. I did try to argue for a year’s grace to see if the MoD would let the residents back but their view, an understandable one, was that they needed prompt and reliable access for their members. Their solution means visitors can pay their respects in one spot. There was also talk of moving the funeral casket and its statuary but I’m afraid English Heritage put their foot down there. Perhaps not the best decision, considering what’s happened.’

Lake stopped, and seemed to have lost his thread.

‘So, when Kathryn Neate’s baby…’

‘Indeed. Technically the Peyton tomb had been handed back to the parish and because the army had suggested the villagers might soon be returned to Jude’s Ferry the church remained consecrated – as it still is, by the way, although I suspect not for long. So St Swithun’s was available for burials. Kathryn Neate’s baby won’t be the first cuckoo in the nest in St Swithun’s – over the years I’m sure many of the vaults were reused. The bones were often dug up and put in the ossuary – the bone room, it’s just off the nave and a very fine, and rare, example in England. They’re much more common on the continent of course, where graves are reused all the time to save space.’

Dryden nodded, recalling the small Gothic doorway in St Swithun’s he’d tried on the morning of the bombardment.