Bernard Knight - Fear in the Forest

‘Pass me a long stick or a pole, Gwyn,’ he called. The Cornishman, who was itching to look for himself, relayed the command to the villagers and in a moment one ran back with a long bean-stick, filched from the vegetable plot of the nearest cottage. It was about eight feet long, and with it de Wolfe could prod well into the centre of the fallen beams. They were mostly ash and either crumbled to the touch or rolled over easily. He poked about in various parts of the smoking heap for a few minutes, then walked back and asked the reeve to put the planks on the other side of the cindered plot. This was too much for his officer to endure.

‘Let me try this time, Crowner,’ he pleaded.’ You’ll be roasted if you stay there much longer.’

With the hot sun and the radiant heat from the hot ashes, John was sweating like a pig and gladly handed his bean-pole to Gwyn. The big redhead started poking vigorously at a different part of the blackened debris and almost at once let out a cry of triumph. He had rolled over a short, thick length of burnt timber, which had probably supported the upper floor of the main building. ‘There’s what looks like bone under here!’ he yelled over his shoulder.

Using his crooked pole like a lance, he leaned forward to carefully spear something, and a moment later backed down the plank, bearing a bleached white object dangling from the tip.

When he reached the edge of the scorched area, he laid it down gently on the grass and withdrew his bean-stick. The others crowded around, de Wolfe, the reeve and the bailiff in front. However, the sons and their mother were at the other side and a screech went up from the woman. As she burst into a torrent of wailing and weeping, a son and several good-wives clustered around and drew her gently away. What she had seen was the remains of a skull, partly blackened, but the cranium a brittle white from the incandescent heat of the fire.

John dropped to a crouch over it, almost nose to nose with Gwyn.

‘Looks like a man to me, by the size and those thick ridges over the eyes,’ said the coroner’s officer judiciously.

‘God’s teeth, Gwyn, it’s hardly likely to be a woman, in the circumstances,’ growled de Wolfe, but his officer just grinned at the sarcasm.

‘Talking of teeth, this one’s got big gnashers, like a man,’ he persisted. The lower jaw had fallen away, but in the upper there were still some teeth, blackened and split at the tips, but still intact.

‘What’s that big hole in the side?’ asked Juvenis.

‘Was our father struck on the head by those bastards who set the fire?’ shouted the tanner’s eldest son, in whom sorrow, revulsion and rage vied for priority.

Gwyn shook his untidy head. ‘That’s where my stick went through, I’m afraid. The burnt bone is as soft as dried clay, owing to the heat.’

John de Wolfe stood up and ineffectually brushed the grey dust that had smeared the front of his long black tunic. ‘We can never be sure that this is actually your father,’ he said gently to the sons. ‘Of course, there is every likelihood that it is, I’m afraid — but for all we know, it could just be one of the fire-setters, if that was what happened.’

‘So where is my father, if that’s not him?’ demanded the eldest lad, his attitude belligerent following the tragedy that had befallen their family.

The coroner nodded.

‘I agree that there is little doubt that this is your father, and for the purposes of my inquest that is what I will assume. I’m sorry, lad.’

He turned to the bailiff. ‘When the ashes are cold, you must make a careful search and retrieve any more bones you can find. What’s left of the poor man deserves a decent burial.’

John looked down at the pathetic skull on the grass. ‘Be careful with that, it will fall to pieces if it’s not handled very gently.’

The bailiff made a gesture to someone on the edge of the crowd and a fat man came forward, dressed like a farm labourer in a rough smock, a shovel in his hand.

‘This is Father Amicus, our parish priest. He will take care of any remains and give them a pious send-off in the church.’

The priest looked down rather ruefully at his very secular garb.

‘The stipend is poor here, Crowner. I work most of the time in the fields,’ he explained. ‘But I will do the right thing by poor Elias here.’

John nodded as Gwyn carefully handed the still-warm skull to Father Amicus.

‘I will need it to put before the jury when I hold the inquest later this afternoon. After that, see that he is put to rest in a dignified way.’

The priest took it, then hesitated before moving away. ‘There is something I should tell you. It may have some bearing on what’s happened.’

De Wolfe’s dark features stared at him questioningly, especially when the father steered him well away from the crowd and spoke in a low voice, his lips close to John’s ear.

‘One of the youngsters in the village came to me this morning, in a state of guilt. What he told me was not a confession, in the true religious sense, so I can divulge it.’ He suddenly looked rebellious. ‘Though maybe I would, even if it had been, given the awful thing that has happened in our village.’

‘What is it you have to tell me?’ asked John impatiently.

‘This lad was out in the fields late last night — with a girl, if you get my meaning.’

John nodded — the meaning was clear and by no means unusual in any place or at any time.

‘Just before the fire was seen, these two were lying under a hedge where the strip-fields meet the common land. They saw two men hurrying along the edge of the field from the direction of the tannery, then they went on to the common and vanished into the woods.’ He pointed eastwards, where the road ran down towards the deep valley of the Bovey river in the distance.

‘Did they see who they were?’

‘Not a chance, Crowner. It was a half-moon, but being in an awkward situation so to speak the lad could not move or let himself be seen. And at that moment, of course, he had no reason to think that anything evil was to come to light.’

‘Who is this young man?’ demanded the coroner.

Father Amicus shifted from foot to foot. ‘It’s very difficult, sir. If the village get to know about this, there’ll be hell to pay, both from his father and the girl’s family. You don’t need another murder on your hands, do you?’

De Wolfe considered this for a moment. By rights, everyone who had information should speak up at the inquest, but as the boy had no idea who the shadowy figures were — or even if they had anything to do with the fire — it seemed unduly harsh to expose him and the girl to the vendetta that might engulf them and their families in a closed community like Manaton.

He reassured the parish priest that he would keep the information anonymous, then arranged with Gwyn and the manor-reeve to collect as many men as he could for the inquest in a hour or two. This done, he turned to Matthew Juvenis.

‘Bailiff, I need to see your lord — and you said he wishes to talk to me.’

The bailiff inclined his head. ‘The manor house is just along the track, Crowner, hardly worth getting to horse again.’

They left Gwyn to organise the inquiry, but before they left de Wolfe took Thomas de Peyne aside and gave him some murmured instructions. The little clerk brightened up at being asked to assist his revered master and limped off in the direction of the church. The bailiff walked beside the coroner through the village to the crossroads and turned up the lane that ran northwards past the village green and the church. Most of the dwellings were typical of Devonshire hamlets, small tofts of cob or wattle and daub within rough-hewn wooden frames. They were separated by plots of varying size, crofts now harbouring summer vegetables and grass for goats and the milk cow. At the edge of the green was the alehouse and a small forge, and opposite stood the small stone church which in recent years had replaced an even smaller wooden structure bult in Saxon times. Alongside was a tithe barn and priest’s cottage, up the path to which Thomas was pursuing the man with the skull and spade.