A Baby's Bones Page 2

  Vincent Garland, Steward to Lord Banstock, His Memoir

  3

  Tuesday 26th March

  ‘Good morning.’ It was a deep voice, and it made Sage jump back and slip on the muddy edge of the excavation. She barely regained her balance. The morning had already been full of problems, and now she had a streak of clay down the inside seam of her jeans.

  ‘Shit. You startled me—’ Her words faded as she took in a dog collar on a tall man, late thirties maybe, with dark hair and round glasses. ‘Oh. You must be the vicar. Sorry, you surprised me.’

  He smiled at her, which made him look younger. ‘Dr Westfield?’

  ‘Sage. County archaeologist.’ She stretched out a hand, before realising there was mud on her fingers.

  He took it anyway, with the smallest of grimaces. ‘Nick Haydon. I’m the vicar of St Mark’s, Banstock church.’ His skin was warm, his grip firm.

  Sage wiped her hand on her jeans, which made him smile wider. ‘Are you here to see the Bassetts?’

  The smile faded. ‘Mrs Bassett doesn’t want me to visit. Actually, I’m here because the diocese has just been told about the bones. It’s likely any human remains will be interred up at the churchyard, once your investigation is complete.’ He looked towards the two students working under the flapping awning. Steph was working with a flotation tray, and Elliott was picking through the sievings from the day before.

  Sage walked over to the folding tables. ‘Would you like to see what we have? Be careful, it’s slippery. Can we see what you’re working on, Elliott?’

  The vicar followed her over to the tarpaulin, and Elliott carefully opened one of the bone boxes. ‘Don’t touch,’ the student warned. ‘They’re fragile. I’m cleaning them so they can go with the others.’ Leg bones from an adult: a tibia snapped like a twig; a kneecap; and about a dozen foot bones all laid out on bubble wrap. Elliott closed the box, and Sage moved to the table where she had started to lay out the cleaned bones. She removed the covering tarpaulin.

  ‘This is more of the adult’s remains.’ She found her voice naturally dropped. ‘The body seems to have been bent up, at least one leg forced above the head, fracturing the femur and lower leg bones. We’ve just uncovered the top of the head and a hand as well.’

  ‘The broken bones – did that mean he suffered some violence?’ The vicar’s face was animated by some feeling she couldn’t read.

  ‘Maybe. And we don’t actually know whether the bones are male or female. It wasn’t necessarily a violent death; the fractures may have been post-mortem. We’ll know more when we finish excavating the skull and pelvis.’ She picked up the sandwich box that sat next to the bone box and opened it gently. ‘These are bones from the baby we found with the adult.’

  The bones were tiny, a handful of ribs, vertebrae and a few long bones.

  ‘No skull?’

  ‘We haven’t found it yet. The baby seems to have been buried upside down.’

  The vicar looked back at her. ‘Would you mind if I said a prayer over these remains?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Sage stepped away, watching as he lowered his face and closed his eyes. He had long eyelashes the same black as his hair, and he seemed genuinely grieved for the people dumped in the well with the rubbish. Elliott stared at Sage; she wondered if he was offended by the ritual. He didn’t say anything, but Steph lowered her head.

  After a quiet ‘amen’, echoed by Steph, Elliott carefully covered the bones. Sage glanced up at the house, remembering the overshadowed woman from yesterday.

  The vicar walked over. ‘Thank you. When will you be able to release the bones for reburial?’

  ‘First we have to prove definitively that they are more than a hundred years old. Then we have to make sure we have as many as have survived – it’s likely a lot of the baby’s bones have just dissolved away. I’m surprised we have so many. We also need to make sure there aren’t any more bodies down there.’

  ‘Why would someone bury a body in a well?’ His voice was strained.

  Sage shrugged. ‘It’s too early to tell. Wells are valuable resources, they are expensive to dig out and line. We occasionally see burials in wells in disease events like plague. It was an easy way to dispose of remains. Other reasons include war or even murder. Sometimes bodies were used to foul the water and make the well unusable. But the pottery we are finding is too late for that. There were no wars being fought on the Isle of Wight at the time.’

  ‘Horrible.’

  She nodded towards the boxes of bones. ‘I can’t imagine why they would deny these people a Christian burial.’ She felt awkward talking to a vicar about faith, especially since she didn’t have any. ‘I mean, almost everyone was a believer at the time.’

  ‘Maybe it was murder, then.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Sage wrapped her arms around herself against the wind. Even with the sun out, it was going straight through her fleece.

  ‘Will you be here for the whole excavation?’ He nodded at her bump. ‘I mean, you seem to have your own deadline.’

  ‘I’m not due until June. I’ll let you know as soon as we finish with the bones. It will be some time, months rather than weeks.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He leaned towards her and lowered his voice. ‘The Bassetts. Do you know anything about them?’

  ‘I know her husband’s very ill. And Mrs Bassett, Judith, she—’ Sage couldn’t find the words to describe the wraith that she had spoken to the day before. ‘She seems frozen, you know?’

  ‘In what way?’

  Sage zipped up the fleece over her bump and pulled up her collar. ‘She didn’t react. I mean, we find the body of a baby in her garden, and she’s worried about how much the recovery will cost. Obviously, her husband’s illness is more important. Then she said the house is haunted.’

  The vicar smiled grimly. ‘Maybe it is. There are at least two bodies down the well. Ghosts are supposed to be associated with violent deaths or being denied Christian burial.’

  ‘You have to be kidding. You can’t believe in ghosts.’

  ‘I don’t “believe” in ghosts, it’s not a faith thing.’

  Sage folded her arms. ‘I just thought vicars wouldn’t be great fans of the supernatural.’

  He smiled, apparently with genuine amusement. ‘On the contrary. We’re all about the supernatural.’ He reached into a pocket and pulled out a dog-eared card. ‘Here’s my number, if you need to get in touch about the burial. The woman who used to own Bramble Cottage, Maeve Rowland, she knows all about the house’s history. She might be worth a visit. She always said the place was haunted too.’

  Sage took the card and stuffed it into a pocket. ‘Haunted? By what?’

  His forehead wrinkled. ‘I was never sure whether it was just a voice or she actually saw something. You should ask her. She moved into a local residential home, the Poplars, but she lived here for several decades.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll do that if we have time. The Poplars.’

  ‘It’s set back from the road at the top of the high street. She would love a visitor.’ The vicar smiled again, which changed his whole face, she thought, from long and serious to warm and friendly. ‘She’s had a stroke but is still sharp as a pin. Anyway, I’ve got visits to do. I expect I’ll see you again.’

  ‘We’ll be retrieving evidence for a few weeks. Possibly longer,’ Sage said.

  ‘Maybe we can discuss the procedures involved in burying these poor lost bones. I’ve never done anything like this before.’ He stared up at the sky, as a few spatters hit his jacket. ‘It’s really starting to rain.’

  ‘The forecast did say heavy showers.’ Sage scrabbled in her pocket for one of her own business cards. ‘Call me if you need more information. Oh, and, vicar—’

  ‘Nick, please.’ That smile again, curving up the corners of his mouth.

  ‘I’ll be speaking with Mrs Bassett. If I can help in any way, let me know.’

  He thought for a long moment. ‘If the opportunit
y arises, tell her that the support we offer is pastoral and practical, as well as spiritual comfort. Lifts, babysitting, someone to talk to. That sort of assistance. I promise not to overwhelm her with beliefs she doesn’t share. But I’m pretty handy with a lawnmower, and we have volunteers who do the school run.’

  ‘I’ll tell her if I can.’ Sage could feel her smile pulling at her cold cheeks. She watched as he walked away, and felt a little warmed, especially when he turned at the corner of the house and smiled back at her.

  * * *

  The late morning brought heavier rain, whipped around the garden of Bramble Cottage by a wind that slapped the awning against the poles that supported it. Sage kept most of the delicate finds locked in the van.

  The adult’s skull slowly emerged, crown first, like it was being slowly born from a womb of clay. The face was strong; she was unsure at first whether it was male or female. Elliott and Steph, invigorated by the jawless face overlooking the dig, redoubled their efforts to find more vertebrae, more ribs, more of the baby’s crumbling bones including half a tiny pelvis by lunchtime.

  Sage suggested they decamp to the village pub, the Harbour Bell, for a chance to warm up and dry off. Even in a padded jacket, Steph’s teeth were chattering. She treated Elliott to a soft drink, bought Steph a shandy, and ordered herself a large decaffeinated coffee while they waited for their food.

  The dig seemed to have made Elliott even more taciturn than usual, but Steph got up to look around the panelled walls and beckoned Sage over enthusiastically. ‘Have you seen these pictures?’

  Sage looked around the pub, which was perhaps as old as the cottage. The walls were decorated with old farming implements, harness for heavy horses, and leather buckets were sat on shelves. Between them were a series of sepia photographs.

  ‘Are they Friths?’ she asked. A Victorian photographer named Francis Frith had recorded thousands of scenes across Britain in the 1800s.

  Steph leaned in to examine one more closely, standing on tiptoes. ‘No – these look like they were taken by an amateur.’ She turned to the woman at the bar. ‘These are great,’ she said. ‘Are they pictures of houses in the village?’

  The landlady nodded. ‘They are. Some old rector of St Mark’s took loads. His widow left them to a previous landlord.’ She nodded at Sage and Elliott. ‘Are you the people digging up Bramble Cottage?’

  Steph smiled, flicking long blonde hair out of her eyes. ‘We’re looking into the history of the place. Are there any photographs of the cottage?’ Sage was impressed by her people skills, as Steph waved at the pictures. ‘I see there’s a lovely one of the pub.’

  The landlady lifted up the hinged end of the bar, and took down a framed print near the door. She placed it carefully on the table in front of them, and dusted it off with a tea towel tucked into her waistband. ‘That’s Bramble Cottage, I think.’

  The cottage looked different, the thatch thin and the chimney leaning at a perilous angle. A woman in an apron and holding a baby stood beside the house, at the side where the main door was now. She stared ahead with the serious rigidity of the Edwardian subject, but the baby was a blur of movement.

  ‘Oh, God, it could even be them,’ Steph breathed. Then she shook her head and grinned. ‘Of course not, I’m being stupid. No photography in the sixteenth century.’

  ‘It’s most likely the bodies are contemporary with the fill,’ Sage pointed out. ‘You’re also jumping to the conclusion that the baby in the well is buried with its mother.’

  The landlady stepped back. ‘A baby?’

  Sage winced. The last thing she wanted was speculation while they had so few facts. ‘We haven’t finished our investigations yet. But we have found a few bones. It would be better if we didn’t broadcast it until we have all the facts, though.’ That cat was probably well out of the bag; gossip ran around the Island like electricity. It was one of the things she disliked about coming back here to live. The Isle of Wight had less than two thirds the population of neighbouring Southampton on the mainland, spread over a hundred and fifty square miles, but it had a village mentality.

  The woman’s eyes were wide. ‘Oh my God, there have been rumours about that old cottage for years. It’s supposed to be haunted, you know.’

  Sage smiled up at her. ‘Old houses are always thought to be haunted. I’ve seen a lot of old houses in my job but I’ve never seen a ghost.’

  Elliott drained his drink, put his long forearms on the table, and frowned. ‘I wonder if we could look at the back of the photograph? There might be some useful information.’

  Sage turned it over, but it was sealed with paper tape.

  The landlady shook her head. ‘I don’t know if Den would want us messing about with it.’

  ‘Den?’

  ‘That’s the old landlord, Dennis Lacey; he’s my husband’s father. He lives with us since we moved in to help run the Harbour Bell. He’s very protective of all the old stuff.’ She pursed her lips, as Elliott brought out a hand lens to study the picture. ‘I’ll ask the old bugger, but he’s grumpy today.’

  As she left, the food arrived from the kitchen: toasted sandwiches and a bowl of chips to share. Sage, Elliott and Steph were halfway through their meal when the landlady returned, this time with an elderly man leaning on her arm. His slight frame produced a surprisingly hearty voice. ‘You them history folk, Carol tells me.’

  Sage stood up, and offered her hand. ‘Dr Sage Westfield, sir. These are archaeology students from South Solent University, Elliott Robinson and Stephanie Beatson. We were admiring your collection of local pictures.’

  ‘Don’t you “sir” me, young lady. Den’ll do.’ He glanced at the picture on the table. ‘You want to know about that old cottage, do you? What’s your interest, then?’

  ‘It’s a listed building. I’ve been asked to check there aren’t any archaeological features before allowing the building of an extension.’

  Den grunted something and settled in the seat beside Elliott. ‘You should have talked to me first. I could have told you to watch your step over there. That house is haunted, shadowed with evil my gran used to say. She should know, she lived in the village all her life.’

  Steph’s eyes were round. ‘Is there really a ghost?’

  Sage couldn’t help rolling her eyes but Den laughed, a crackle of sound that started him coughing. When he got his breath back, he explained. ‘Ghosts ain’t no trouble, girl, at my age you sees them all the time. No, there’s a nasty atmosphere over there. Bad luck.’ He paused. ‘You know about the grave in the woods?’

  Sage looked at the students. Steph stared back at her, Elliott shrugged. ‘We haven’t heard anything about it,’ she said.

  ‘When I was a boy, Bramble Cottage’s garden extended right to the boundary of the manor. Now it’s partly common land, because the Banstocks donated some of it to the village, and they sold the rest off for housing.’ He stretched in his chair, folded his arms. ‘The old grave was past the stream. We used to think it was haunted, a burial like that. We thought old Damozel – that’s what’s written on the stone you see – must be a witch, buried so far from the church. The headstone might even still be there.’

  Sage could see the conversation getting derailed as Elliott opened his mouth to ask more questions. She beat him to it. ‘We were wondering whether we could take a look at the back of this photograph,’ she said, holding it up. ‘We’re just looking for more history on the cottage.’

  He stared at it for a long moment. ‘No problem. Cut it off.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll be careful.’

  Sage turned the picture over in her hands and brought her mobile kit out of her pocket. She removed a small scalpel, gently slit the modern framing tape, and lifted out the card backboard. The reverse of the photograph had something written on it in pencil. ‘I can’t read it – have either of you got a light?’

  Both students offered pencil torches. Illuminated, the elaborate letters became clearer.

  Well Hou
se.

  * * *

  The afternoon brought relief from the rain for the archaeologists, but their work was interrupted by a small girl rushing around the side of Bramble Cottage. She careered towards the excavation and Sage had to grab her before she hit the flimsy barrier.

  ‘Whoa! Careful, it’s deep.’

  ‘Can I see?’ The child was pretty, blonde hair restrained in plaits. She stared at the mess they had made of the ground. ‘You made our garden really muddy.’ She strained to see down the well, already a hole seven or eight feet deep.

  Sage smiled at her, but subtly waved at Elliott to cover the human remains. ‘We’re learning about the history of your house. Of course you can come and have a look while we’re here, but I want you to promise you won’t come into the back garden on your own. It’s not safe. OK? Promise?’

  The child peered into the hole. ‘I promise. That’s really deep. I can see it from my bedroom.’ She scrutinised Sage. ‘You’re really pretty. Are you Chinese?’

  ‘My mum’s from a country a long way away, called Kazakhstan.’ She glanced at Elliott, who put up a thumb. ‘So, what’s your name?’

  ‘Chloe Eloise Bassett. What’s yours?’

  Sage introduced herself and the students, and showed the child the stones at the top of the well. Chloe soon lost interest and Sage handed her over to Steph, who got some of the pottery shards out, and started talking about Tudor history.

  Judith Bassett walked around the side of the house, trudging over the mud in unlaced shoes. ‘Chloe! Stop bothering these people, they’re working.’ Her face was pale, her lips pressed together.

  ‘It’s OK, Mrs Bassett,’ soothed Steph. ‘We were just looking at some pots.’

  ‘Steph says I can borrow some things to take into school to show them.’ The child held out a fragment of earthenware. ‘Look, this is a bit of a jug. It’s really old, like Henry the Eighth.’

  ‘Just artefacts from the well,’ Sage added. ‘Nothing upsetting.’