|
© 2006 Brian Kavanagh.
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may
be transmitted, copied, entered
into or stored in a
retrieval system, or reproduced, in any way or by any
means without the prior written permission
of the
publisher, BeWrite Books.
ISBN 13: 978-1-905202-36-2
This is a work of fiction. All characters and incidents
are
entirely imaginary, and any similarity to any real
person or incident is coincidental.
The Embroidered Corpse
1
CHAPTER
ONE
‘Some days, I could just murder you!’
‘Mark, you say that at least once a week.’
Belinda
smiled at his reflection in the mirror. He sat
leaning against the bed-head, arms stretched behind his
head. His bare
chest rising above the crumpled sheets
was still brown from the past summer.
‘Well, you drive me mad.’
Belinda
dropped her robe and, teasingly, reached for
her bra. ‘With desire?’
Mark considered her sleek figure. ‘Well,
with that
too, but what I mean is, this crazy trip to York.’
Belinda finished dressing. ‘It’s not
crazy. We’re
going to the antique fair at Castle Howard.’
‘But you’ve got responsibilities here.’
Mark gestured
towards the window. ‘The house. The garden. The
tourists.’
Belinda looked out the window
onto the garden
below. The last of the autumn leaves had fallen. The bare
Elm trees, their skeletal limbs stark against
the sky,
reminded her of the garden the first time she’d seen it. It
had been a ruin then. The death of her aunt
had brought
the inherited pleasures of ownership of the cottage and
garden, plus a healthy bank-balance.
‘I’ve
arranged for Mrs Edwards to take care of the
coaches. Besides, in a week or so, the tours finish for the
The Embroidered
Corpse
2
season.’
‘I would have thought, after going to the trouble and
expense of restoring the damned
thing, you’d want to be
here.’
‘Mark, the tourists come to see the garden that
Capability Brown
created, not to see me.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing. You’re just being petulant because
I’m
going away for a couple of nights.’
Mark tugged at the sheets. Belinda was right of
course, but he’d
never admit it.
‘I’m not sure I like you gadding about—’
‘Gadding about? You’re
getting quainter by the
minute.’
‘—with that woman.’
‘If you mean Hazel, say Hazel.
Not “that woman”.’
‘She’s a bad influence.’
‘You sound like a maiden aunt.’
‘She’s
a tart, and you know it.’
‘Now you sound like a prudish maiden aunt. OK, so
Hazel likes the blokes. What’s
so wrong with that? I like
you.’
‘God knows what sort of things she’ll get up to in
York,’
Mark grumbled.
‘I don’t think there’s much to get up to in York. And
what about you? You’re
always gadding about, as you
call it.’
‘Selling houses means I have to travel.’
‘Well, we
buy and sell antiques, remember?’
Her friendship with the older, more capricious, and
gregarious Hazel Whitby
had given her a different slant
on life—and how it was to be lived. It was this influence
The Embroidered Corpse
3
that
Mark objected to.
A deafening squeal of brakes interrupted the
discussion as a large tourist coach came to a halt outside
the
cottage. Belinda glanced out the window. The coach
door opened and a mere handful of middle-aged men
and women emerged,
followed by a small group of
giggling Japanese girls.
Belinda gave a grunt. ‘Sometimes I wonder if tourists
will
ever travel again. Mad cows. Terrorists. Maybe I
should pack it in and head home to Melbourne. At least
there, all the
terrorists are already in Parliament.’
Mark frowned. He didn’t like the idea of her
returning to Australia.
For a number of reasons.
The tour guide, a young woman in a vivid yellow
uniform, gathered her brood together and began
her
lecture. She pointed at the house. Tourist eyes followed
her finger and the first of many cameras emerged from
under
cover.
Belinda drew back from the window and picked up
her overnight bag. ‘You’d better get dressed. They’ll
be
inside soon. We don’t want a repeat of last week.’
Mark smiled as he recalled the look on the woman’s
face.
The tourist had strayed from the designated area
downstairs into the private quarters upstairs. Her
scream as Mark stepped
from the shower had brought
the tour guide running and added a certain piquancy to
an otherwise dull day.
‘What
do you expect to get out of the fair?’ Mark
threw back the covers, not bothering to cover his
nakedness.
Belinda
smiled at his display. ‘Don’t think that’ll
work, mate.’
The Embroidered Corpse
4
Mark
raised an amused eyebrow. ‘It has before.’
‘Maybe, darling, but not now—I’m off.’ Belinda
blew
him a kiss and left the room. Laughing to herself, she ran
lightly down the stairs. It was the phone call last
night
that was bothering him. Returning from a dinner to
celebrate Mark’s thirtieth birthday, Belinda had received
a
call from Brad, her old boyfriend in Australia. They’d
chatted on for over an hour while Mark, ostentatiously
flipping
through worn copies of Country Life, failed to
hide the fact that he was listening to every word. Mark
was jealous!
How pleasing.
Mark punched the mattress with his fist, then
clambered across the bed to the window to watch her
departure.
Below, Hazel’s Mercedes was pulling up.
Hazel, now divorced from the formidable Mr Whitby,
had profited monstrously
by playing upon her exhusband’s
guilt; he had decamped with a nubile beauty
from a travel agency while booking
a second
honeymoon for himself and Hazel. The astutely newfound
wealth not only enabled her to expand her interest
in
objets d’art, but freed her to enhance her already
considerable intimacy with—as she lasciviously called
them—“spunks”.
By this, she meant any man under the
age of forty and preferably those given to athletics, not
necessarily of the Olympic
persuasion. A moment later
Belinda emerged from the house and threaded her way
through the tourists. She exchanged a
greeting with the
tour guide and without looking back got into the waiting
car. Then she was gone.
Mark became aware
of excited chatter. He also
became aware that he was standing at the window.
Naked. The click of camera shutters attended
him as he
The Embroidered Corpse
5
hurriedly pulled the blind.
*
After attending the Castle Howard Antiques
Fair,
Belinda and Hazel made their way home though the
early November gloom towards Somerset. Hazel’s years
of
experience in buying and selling Georgian silver had
whetted her appetite for expansion and she had
branched out into
sixteenth to eighteenth century
household furniture. Her enthusiasm had infected
Belinda, and the younger woman was
a ready pupil.
Today’s fair had proved enlightening, and the lure and
romance of antiques overwhelmed her.
When
darkness fell, a stopover at a small country pub
seemed the right thing to do. After inspecting their
rooms, Hazel,
as though guided by some in-built radar,
led the way to the bar. And to Joe the barman.
As she sipped her drink and
watched Hazel weave
her charm on Joe, Belinda smiled to herself and reflected
on the events that had brought Hazel and
Mark into her
life.
After her formative years in Australia, Belinda had
settled into her new life in England in the
village of
Milford. Her cottage on the outskirts of Bath, although
dating in part from the thirteenth century, was of
little
merit. It was the garden recently restored to the original
design by famed English landscape designer Capability
Brown
that was the main attraction. A small garden
designed by this genius was a rarity, so its rediscovery
had set the horticultural
world agog. Hazel had
replenished the house with the appropriate fittings and
The Embroidered Corpse
6
furnishings
of the period, and the two women had
entered into an agreement to share the not insignificant
profits from the endless
coach-loads of snooping tourists
that descended daily through the summer months.
At the same time Belinda had met Mark
Sallinger,
who seemed keen to buy the house. But instead he’d
fallen in love with her.
The two women differed
not only in disposition and
interests but also physically. Belinda, with her long
slender legs, slim build, short dark
hair and blue eyes,
had the relaxed stride of a feline that came from her
years in Australia and the casual way of life
there.
Somehow the cramped environment of Europe had not
restricted her frame of mind and she carried her twentysix
years
with an ease and vitality that added to her
physical beauty.
Hazel, on the other hand, openly described herself as
“mutton
dressed as lamb” and although Belinda thought
this to be too critical a description, there was no
doubting that
the older woman had seen her best days.
However, this did not deter her. If gravity and time were
her natural enemies,
she laughed in their faces and
proceeded to disguise their inroads on her form with
liberal use of dyes and pigments
that deluded the
observer into thinking her no more than forty-five. In a
dim light.
Belinda was brought back to
the present by a
lecherous laugh from Hazel.
‘If it’s antiques you want, you ought to pay a visit to
Kidbrooke
House.’ Joe placed a fresh gin and tonic on
the bar.
‘And what makes you think I’d be interested in
The
Embroidered Corpse
7
Kidbrooke House?’ smiled Hazel, whose interest at the
moment lay strictly within the confines
of the cosy hotel
and hopefully within the even more snug embrace of
Joe’s muscular arms.
‘Got some nice
pieces there, I can tell you.’ His eyes
strayed over Hazel Whitby’s obvious charms.
Hazel turned to Belinda.
‘Might as well check it out.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’
Belinda was not so sure she was referring
to
Kidbrooke House.
*
The Mercedes came to a halt outside a large thatched
Tudor house. The sign before it read:
“Kidbrooke House;
open to the public every day except Christmas Day”.
The two-storeyed half-timber and brick
structure
stood well back from the road. Wisteria, now bare and
inert, twined around the façade. A dovecote stood
nearby.
Belinda warmed to the seventeenth century
house, imagining the history it had seen; the people who
had lived and died
there; the romance of centuries past.
Smoke from a large chimney drifted lazily into the
winter morning sky and tiny
birds sought refuge in the
overhanging eaves. The glowing red bricks and tiles of
the structure looked out over well-kept
part-terraced
gardens in which an elderly white-haired man was
pottering. The man had a dignified, almost regal,
bearing
and although his clothes were a trifle shabby, he
wore them as though they had just been delivered fresh
and new from
his tailor. As the two women approached,
he looked up eagerly.
The Embroidered Corpse
8
‘He must be the
guide,’ said Hazel, wondering if he
would expect a tip. To the man she said, ‘We want to
look over the house.
Is that all right?’
The man dropped a spade and wiped his hands on a
large red towel. ‘By all means, madam.
I’d be delighted
to show you and your daughter through.’
Belinda bit her lip and swallowed her laughter.
Hazel
racked her brain for a biting reply but, stunned by the
man’s assumption, she meekly followed him towards
the
house. The front door opened into one large, open
hall. A compact dogleg staircase led to the first floor.
Chattering
on in an endless established patter, the man
led them from room to room.
‘It was built in 1602 by the ninth Earl
but was
enlarged by the third Duke. A costly exercise because
when he’d finished, the expenses were so great,
the
Duke left liabilities of £160,000.’ The old man chuckled.
‘That accounts for the house being thrown
open to the
public. Family debts are always with us.’
Lagging behind, Hazel enviously eyed several pieces
of
Jacobean and Elizabethan furniture. ‘I’d kill to get my
hands on some of this stuff,’ she whispered to
Belinda as
she caught up. ‘And that Sevres porcelain would fetch a
fortune. But I think two Canalettos is stretching
credulity,’
she concluded archly.
A framed tapestry portraying a mediaeval king
seated on his throne took Belinda’s attention.
‘This must
be very old?’
‘Well, it’s a bit of a mystery to me. Where it came
from, I mean.’
The old man wiped his glasses on a
spotless handkerchief and peered at the square of
framed tapestry that hung above
the Jacobean cabinet. ‘It
The Embroidered Corpse
9
certainly reminds one of the Bayeux Tapestry, at least in
style.’
He waved a finger at the embroidered king. ‘
That’s supposed to be William the Conqueror; and it
does have
a definite mediaeval flavour.’ He reached over
with a gnarled hand and lifted the frame from the wall.
‘But
I see that the glass is cracked. I must have it
repaired.’ He sighed at the thought of the anticipated
expense.
‘May
I have a closer look, please?’ Intrigued, Belinda
put out her hand to receive the framed tapestry. About a
foot
or so square, the faded tapestry showed a crowned
figure seated beneath a structure representing a church.
A Latin inscription
read HICRE SIDET: WILLELM REX:
AN GLORIUM. Beneath was the embroidered figure of
what appeared to be the corpse of a
monk in the process
of being buried, and some half-unstitched skulls and
bones.
Hazel snorted her contempt. ‘Probably
only a
Victorian copy. Like the one at Reading. Those frustrated
females spent their lives forever stitching ugly bits
of
tat.’
‘Oh, I’m certain it’s not Victorian,’ said the man,
throwing her a disparaging
glance. ‘Probably done about
late eighteenth century or very early in the nineteenth.
It’s been in our family
since 1832, or so the records tell
me.’
Belinda and Hazel looked at the man with new
respect. Hazel cleared
her throat. Sorry,’ she muttered
apologetically, ‘we thought you were the attendant.’
The old man
chuckled. ‘Most people make that
mistake. But no, this is my family home. And I enjoy
showing people around. It
fills in the day. At my age
The Embroidered Corpse
10
you look for distractions to make the minutes left to you
more
appealing.’
‘I don’t suppose that you’d care to sell this?’ Belinda
asked tentatively.
The tapestry had struck a chord in her
and she longed to own it. Yet even as she said the words
a sudden spasm of intense
grief overcame her as though
she had been touched by the iniquities of past centuries.
The man smiled regretfully and
shook his head. ‘I’m
afraid not.’ He took the frame with the broken glass from
Belinda’s reluctant
hand. ‘Everything will remain here at
least until I die. After that...’ He shrugged. ‘Well, after
that
I imagine it will all be sold.’
Hazel’s ears pricked up. ‘How so?’
The man opened a drawer in
the Jacobean cabinet and
slipped the framed tapestry inside. With a push that
suggested finality he shut the drawer
tight. ‘I am, I’m
sad to say, the last of my line. There are no more William
de Montforts left. William
was always the name given to
the eldest son and heir. That is my name, but alas, I have
no heir, no son. And I am the
last of my family.’
Belinda felt a wave of compassion for the old man.
‘That’s so sad.’
He
cast watery eyes onto her. ‘Sad? Yes, but the way
of the world.’ His glance took in the ancient room. ‘I
can
only hope that whoever acquires the property and
possessions treasures them as I have done.’
*
William
de Montfort accompanied the two women
out into the garden and they said their farewells. He
waved to them as Hazel started
the engine. Belinda
The Embroidered Corpse
11
waved back.
As they drew away from the house, a small black car
pulled
up. Two figures emerged and approached the
house. Belinda was surprised to see that they were
monks, both wearing long
grey habits tied at the waist
with rope. Both had very close-cropped hair.
‘That’s something you don’t
often see these days.’
‘What?’ Hazel’s eye was on passing traffic.
‘Monks. And very young
monks at that. They can’t be
more than twenty or so.’
Hazel grunted and turned the car onto the main road.
Monks
were not in her scheme of things. Competition
with a possessive wife was one thing but she drew the
line at fighting
Holy Mother Church.
As they sped off Belinda glanced back over her
shoulder at the house. She glimpsed the two monks
talking
to William. As they went out of her sight she saw
that the three men were arguing violently. One of the
monks was extremely
aggressive.
*
The car hummed along the highway as Belinda and
Hazel made their way south to Lincoln. Belinda found
that
her thoughts kept returning to the framed portion of
tapestry. It had a strange fascination for her and she
could not
put it out of her mind.
‘He said it looked like the Bayeux Tapestry, didn’t
he?’ she said, as she
popped a sticky caramel into her
mouth.
‘ What?’
Belinda forced her jaws apart, the adhesive caramel
The
Embroidered Corpse
12
cementing them together. ‘William de thingummy,’ she
said with difficulty.
‘Who?’
Belinda
swallowed and pushed the gooey caramel
into her cheek. ‘William de whatever. The old man at
Kidbrooke House.’
‘Oh,
him. Yes, he did.’
Hazel’s attention was given to overtaking a large
pantechnicon, no doubt returning antiques
from the Fair,
and for a few moments Belinda shrank down in her seat
and silently offered up a prayer for their survival.
‘It
certainly looks like the Bayeux Tapestry, or at least
in the same style,’ Hazel shouted through the roar of
competing
engines.
Belinda opened her eyes to find the large van securely
behind them. She relaxed a little and squirmed upright
in
her seat. ‘From what I remember of English History,
the tapestry is about the Norman invasion of 1066. Now
it’s
kept in France. In Bayeux. Right?’
‘Aren’t you a fountain of knowledge. At the Grand
Seminaire. It
used to be at the cathedral and only
dragged out on feast days.’
‘How big is it?’ Belinda sucked at
a fragment of
caramel that was bonded to her tooth.
‘How the hell should I know? Fifty, sixty metres or
something
like that. But why this sudden interest in the
Bayeux Tapestry?’
Belinda thought for a moment. ‘I’m
not sure. It’s just
that the bit we saw at Kidbrooke house interests me.
And I thought I’d like to see it,
the Tapestry I mean. But
that means a trip to France.’
Hazel glanced in the rear vision mirror at a snappy
The
Embroidered Corpse
13
sports car that was rapidly overtaking them. ‘Well, you
can always see the fake one at
Reading.’`
Belinda was suddenly alert. ‘That’s right. You
mentioned it before. You said it was Victorian.’
‘That’s
right,’ replied Hazel, her eyes skimming over
the young male driver of the sports car as it recklessly
zoomed
past. She gave a slight sigh.
Belinda, who hadn’t noted her companion’s
distraction, had a sudden idea.
She rummaged in the
glove compartment for a road map. ‘Hazel. Let’s go see
it.’
‘What?’
‘The
fake Bayeux Tapestry. At Reading.’
Hazel glanced at her watch. ‘It’s a bit out of our way.’
‘No
it’s not,’ cried Belinda excitedly, tracing a route
on the map. ‘We just veer off a bit after Lincoln
and head
south to Reading. We can have lunch there, see the
tapestry and be back home in Bath before nightfall.’
Hazel
sighed in exasperation. After all this driving
she wanted to soak in a hot tub with a cool drink in her
hand. ‘Well,
all right,’ she muttered grudgingly, ‘but you
can pay for lunch. And by that I don’t mean pub grub.’
*
The
replica of the eleventh century tapestry extended
its full two hundred and thirty feet. As she walked along
the length
of the embroidery, Belinda began to feel
involved in the unfolding drama, the drama of one of the
most legendary events
in the history of England, the
Norman Invasion of William the Conqueror. She saw the
representation of Harold swearing
allegiance to
The Embroidered Corpse
14
William—Harold enthroned as King of England—
William learning
of Harold’s accession—the Normans
arriving at Pevensey and attacking the English—
climaxing with Harold
being slaughtered on the
battlefield at Hastings.
There the duplicate tapestry came to an abrupt end
with the English
army in flight.
‘But what happened?’ exclaimed Belinda. ‘Why isn’t
it finished? Did those Victorian
ladies run out of cotton?’
‘It’s as complete as it is, my dear. No one knows if the
original was ever
completed or if part of it, the end of the
story if you like, is missing. And that’s not the only thing
missing,’
Hazel concluded with a snigger. Always
observant where men were concerned, she pointed to
the stitched outline of a
naked man. ‘He’s lacking his
fundamentals.’
Belinda saw that the Victorian embroiderers had
castrated
the man with needle and thread. ‘Oh, I see.
Queen Victoria was not permitted to be amused.’
Hazel allowed
Belinda to purchase a booklet that told
the story and history of the Bayeux tapestry, then herded
her back to the car
and set off for home. Belinda saw
little of the journey. The limited information in the book
fascinated her. When she
retired that night in her home
at Milford she read the contents for the third time.
*
The next morning Belinda opened
the newspaper as
she sipped her first cup of tea for the day. The usual
government debacles, plus the latest frivolous
antics of a
young woman once remotely connected with the Royal
The Embroidered Corpse
15
Family, completed the
headlines. Belinda was just about
to turn the page when a small item at the bottom
claimed her attention. As she read
it she felt a chill of
apprehension.
MAN FOUND MURDERED
Police last night were baffled
by the unexplained death
of
William de Montfort, whose
body was found in his ancestral
home of Kidbrooke House in
Yorkshire.
Mr de Montfort,
whose family
has been in the area for four
hundred years, was discovered
in a pool of blood by visitors on a
day-tour
to the historical house.
Police are treating the case as
one of murder but have not been
able to establish a motive
for the
killing. A police spokesman said
it was a particularly violent crime
and they are looking for a
sadistic
murderer.
The tour guide who found the body
revealed Mr de Montfort had been
stabbed in the eye and his thigh
slashed.
The
Embroidered Corpse
|
