The Medieval Murderers - Hill of Bones

Joe Malinferno and Doll Pocket had hoped for at least a share in any great treasure they may have found on Solsbury Hill. Instead, they were left with the three guineas’ fee from the duchess, and two hobnails to give to Augustus Bromhead when they returned to London. They were the only visible return from the Hawkins map the antiquarian had possessed. The Queen would have liked to reward them for preventing the death of her equerry Guido Sacchi from tainting her already sullied reputation, but, as would be revealed not too much later, the Queen was bankrupt. A pall of silence hung over the three of them.

Finally, Daniel Orford entered the room, bowing courteously at Mrs Vaughan.

‘It is done. The body has been discreetly moved to the duchess’s country estate, where it will appear that some roving gypsy band cut Sacchi’s throat for his money. His death will not reflect on… Mrs Vaughan, and he will receive a decent Christian burial.’

Malinferno ground his teeth. ‘As will Houghton, which is more than he deserves, being Sacchi’s murderer. And all because he felt the man was betraying his mistress’s reputation. To slit a man’s throat over such a matter – he must have been insane.’

Doll might have agreed with him normally. But, deluded as he may have been, Houghton had been concerned for the reputation of a queen. She glanced over at the shrunken figure by the fire. Hattie was ignoring the conversation, deep in her own thoughts. Doll touched Joe’s arm.

‘Yes, but as there was no murder on Solsbury Hill, then there cannot have been a murderer. The lieutenant will be remembered as the unfortunate victim of a horseless carriage accident – perhaps its first victim – and there’s an end to it.’

She looked across again at the figure by the fire. It was dark, and for a moment she thought she saw the veil of death hanging over poor Caroline. She shivered and pulled Joe into an embrace.

Queen Caroline survived the Bill of Pains and Penalties, for though it got a majority in the House of Lords, the vote was so slender that Lord Liverpool abandoned the Bill. However, her attempts to attend her husband’s coronation were thwarted. She was turned away from Westminster Abbey on the pretext that she didn’t have a ticket. She went home and succumbed to an intense stomach upset. Not long afterwards, she died, removing one more embarrassing burden from those of an unpopular King.

Summer 2010

‘This is getting bloody ridiculous!’ muttered John Bolitho.

The detective superintendent looked around the top of Solsbury Hill and saw a scene that resembled a military operation.

However, instead of the holes in the ground being gun emplacements, they were meticulously organised excavations, replete with banded measuring sticks and yards of coloured tape marking off grids in the soil. A dozen sweating constables from the Avon and Somerset Constabulary were scraping and sieving, alongside a few press-ganged archeology students. Instead of army officers directing the operations, a couple of straw-hatted and baseball-capped academics were strutting around, clutching clipboards and peering down the holes.

Bolitho’s colleague DCI Bob Bryant mopped his sweating forehead with a handkerchief, for so far this was the hottest day this year.

‘I reckon that nutter has been leading us up the garden path!’ he grumbled. He was not referring to the senior archeologist, even though he thought Roger Humbolt was a pain in the arse. The nutter in question was a serial killer currently banged up on remand in Bristol’s Horfield Prison. While awaiting trial for the murder three years earlier of two women whose bodies had been discovered buried elsewhere in the West Country, he had recently confessed to the killing of another girl, known to have gone missing at the same period, and claimed to have buried her on Solsbury Hill.

‘Bloody Albanians!’ growled the superintendent. ‘You’re probably right, he’s been leading us up the garden path, just to cause us trouble.’

‘And expense!’ replied Bryant, waving a hand at the scene around them. ‘I’ll bet this circus has cost at least a few hundred grand. Think of all the police overtime, the forensic lab fees, the equipment hire, the pathologist and the dentist – and those archeologists are no doubt charging us a bomb!’

John Bolitho agreed gloomily. ‘Three weeks’ work and all they’ve turned up is a collection of junk, none of it remotely connected to Bierta Reka.’ This was the name of the third illegal immigrant who had vanished from the Bristol brothel within a week of the other two.

They walked slowly across the flat area to the top of the grassy bank and ditch, from where, through the heat haze, Bath was visible in the distance. Below them, a burly police sergeant and a constable were scraping soil out of the bank. Bolitho called down to them from above.

‘Anything else in there, Edwards? That was where they found that old knife, wasn’t it?’

The sergeant, stripped to the waist in the heat, straightened up and then shook his head. ‘Damn all, sir! We’ve gone a couple of feet deeper to where those boffins were scratching around, but there’s nothing more in there.’

The two senior officers wandered around several more of the scattered excavations, speaking to the people working there, but nothing new had been discovered.

‘I reckon we’ve got all there is to find now,’ grunted Bolitho.

‘I hope to hell the Chief will call this off now before we make even bigger fools of ourselves. The press is starting to get sarcastic and is muttering about the cost to the ratepayers or whatever they are called these days.’

The DCI shrugged. ‘What else could we do when that bastard claimed he’d buried her up here one night? He knew her name and had the right date, when she vanished from that knocking-shop in St Paul’s.’

Bolitho nodded gloomily. ‘Then said he couldn’t remember exactly where he’d dug the hole, because it was dark! Lying swine, I’ll bet he’s never set foot here.’

They made their way, slowly and reluctantly, towards a large fabric shelter made of white plastic stretched on a metal frame, which stood on the north side of the enclosure. As they approached, the two scientists with the clipboards vanished inside.

‘At least they’ve found three skeletons and a lot of spare bones, even if they have damn all to do with our case,’ observed Bob Bryant. ‘It beats me what’s been going on up here over the years. One skeleton had the bones of a whacking great dog lying alongside it.’

‘Yes, it’s a cross between a cemetery and a bloody junk shop up here!’ replied Bolitho, derisively. ‘Those two fellows in there are at each other’s throat over what it all might mean.’ He waved a hand at the white tent, which was the size of a double garage.

‘Thank God that butch woman is there to keep the peace, as best she can,’ said Bryant. ‘Otherwise we might have another murder up here!’

As they neared the exhibits tent, the entrance guarded by a uniformed PC, they heard voices from inside raised in querulous argument. Bolitho stopped with a sigh.

‘I’m not getting involved in another shouting match now,’ he groaned. ‘Let’s go over to the refreshment trailer and get a drink. It’s too bloody hot to listen to a pair of academics screaming abuse at each other.’

Inside the tent, two rows of Formica-topped trestle tables ran down its length to hold the bizarre collection of finds from Solsbury Hill. Another pair of tables were cluttered with papers, a couple of laptops, a microscope and a collection of surgical and scientific implements.

A tall, thin man strode agitatedly up and down between the tables, his straw boater now removed to reveal a shock of frizzy ginger hair. Prominent pale blue eyes bulged behind his rimless spectacles as he peered erratically at various objects lying on the white Formica.