Stephen Booth - The Corpse Bridge

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Mellor. ‘They were just across the way there. They lived here for many years.’

‘All these properties at Bowden still belong to Knowle Abbey, don’t they? The cottages were built for estate workers.’

Mrs Mellor poured the tea for them both. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘The earl himself is the landlord. Though I don’t think anybody sees much of him these days. Not this present one, anyway. We deal mostly with the estate manager or one of the office staff.’

‘So the people who live here are all workers at the abbey or on the estate?’

‘Knowle Abbey staff and pensioners.’

‘Pensioners?’ he asked.

‘You know, retired staff or estate workers. You don’t get kicked out of your house as soon as you retire. At least, that’s been the arrangement in the past.’

‘So Gary Blair’s father must have worked for the estate? Or he used to?’

‘He was a forester. Alan Blair was part of a team maintaining the woodlands around the estate. Mostly to keep the paths clear and remove any damaged trees. But they produce a bit of commercial timber too. He started working at that job a long time ago, under the old earl.’

‘The old earl,’ said Cooper. ‘He was popular, wasn’t he?’

Mrs Mellor sat down opposite him and sighed.

‘All the estate workers loved the old man,’ she said. ‘He was lovely. The old earl liked to ride round his land and see what was going on. Somehow he managed to know all the men personally and asked after their families by name. And he always gave them a big dinner at Christmas too as a “thank you”. The children of the estate were given two parties a year, one in the summer and one in December. Of course, Father Christmas always managed to make a surprise appearance. The earl used to love doing that job himself, until he got too old for it. I believe there was quite a lot of beer drunk in honour of the old man. But it doesn’t happen now.’

‘I see.’

Cooper felt torn over whether that was a good thing or not. Paternalistic employers had certainly disappeared. There might not be so many toasts in the present earl’s name, and he probably didn’t know all his staff personally, but the old-style landlords had exercised a kind of autocratic control over their workers. He bet that the previous earl would have had no hesitation in sacking a man on the spot if he misbehaved or was disrespectful. With workers living in these tied cottages in the estate villages, that meant a man would lose his home too, and his family would be evicted. At least the current earl would be expected to obey current employment legislation.

‘At one time there was even a school here for children of the estate workers,’ said Mrs Mellor. ‘It was set up by one of the Manbys who had a particular interest in his tenants. They say that school had as many as sixty pupils in its heyday. But it was demolished long ago. Children are picked up by bus to go to the local primary school now.’

‘So what happened to the Blairs?’ asked Cooper.

‘Oh, Alan dropped dead from a heart attack one day. It was quite a shock and Pat became very ill. She was in hospital for a long, long time. In fact, she never really recovered, poor woman. She died of pneumonia in the end.’

‘Gary and his wife Sandra lived with them for a while, I believe.’

‘Yes, they couldn’t get a house of their own. It’s difficult for young couples.’

‘I heard they wanted to start a family of their own. So they stayed here while trying to save up to buy their first house.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Mrs Mellor. ‘But I think they were hoping for a tenancy of their own here on the estate.’

‘Oh?’ Cooper hesitated, not sure he’d understood correctly what she meant. ‘Mrs Mellor, do you mean Gary Blair worked for Knowle Abbey too?’

‘Yes, of course. Didn’t you know that?’

‘No.’

For a moment Mrs Mellor looked as though she might regret having told him something he didn’t know. But it was just a fleeting confusion. Cooper must have given the impression he knew more than he actually did.

Diane Fry took up the opportunity presented by his silence.

‘What job did Gary do?’ she asked. ‘Was he a forester too?’

Mrs Mellor turned to her. ‘That’s right. He learned the work from his father and went into the job himself when he left school. He was very good at it, so I’ve heard. He knew how to manage a chainsaw.’

Cooper ate another digestive as he watched the two women in conversation. Fry hadn’t even touched her tea, let alone the biscuits. She was probably unaware of how rude it looked to people when she did this. Since Mrs Mellor had taken the trouble to make the tea, she ought at least take a sip or two out of politeness.

But Mrs Mellor didn’t seem to have noticed.

‘It was sad, but Gary got very depressed after his father died and his mother was so ill. I think they all went through a difficult time. And then there was the accident, of course…’

Fry’s ears almost visibly pricked up. ‘Accident?’

Mrs Mellor took a deep breath and shuddered. She leaned towards Fry and lowered her voice. ‘With the chainsaw. Horrible.’

‘They’re very dangerous things.’

‘I know. But Gary Blair, of all people. They all get the training and the safety equipment. But this particular day … well, no one knows what really happened. He was on his own at the time, working out of sight of the other men. I suppose he must have slipped.’ She shuddered again. ‘It’s too awful to think about.’

‘Was he badly hurt?’

‘Oh, yes. They had to remove his arm. Then he couldn’t work as a forester any more. He wasn’t qualified for anything else. They offered him a job in the car park, just a few hours a week. But he went downhill rapidly from then on. Well, you can imagine.’

‘Did Gary and Sandra have to leave Bowden after that?’

‘Oh, they knew they were going to have to leave,’ said Mrs Mellor. ‘They were told they wouldn’t be able to take over the tenancy of the cottage after Gary’s mother died. That was the biggest blow. I think that was what finished Gary off.’

Cooper brushed some crumbs from the table on to the now empty plate.

‘Mrs Mellor,’ he said, ‘how did Gary Blair die?’

‘You don’t know?’ she said, turning to Cooper. She looked at him as if he were the only one here who was ignorant.

‘I’m afraid you’re going to say that he took his own life,’ he said.

Mrs Mellor nodded. ‘Yes, he killed himself. He just couldn’t take it. It’s such a shame about that family.’

Outside Mrs Mellor’s cottage Fry stopped to ask a question.

‘Why do they need so many houses here,’ she said, ‘if they’re for workers at Knowle Abbey?’

‘Believe it or not, there are about three hundred people employed on the estate in various ways,’ said Cooper.

‘You’re joking. Doing what?’

‘They’re either in the abbey, working on maintenance and looking after the visitors, or they’re in the gardens, the restaurant, the shop. They’re on the farms, in the woodland, looking after the fisheries and game, or working in the offices. And probably lots of jobs I haven’t thought of.’

Cooper stood on the central green and looked around at the houses of Bowden. The Manby emblem was set into the gable end of the cottages and the larger properties featured stone carvings of the crest above their front doors.

Like the Devonshires, the Manbys had owned many of the local villages in their time. Their name wasn’t as ubiquitous, but it was certainly here at Bowden. It was on the church, the community hall and some of their workers’ properties. And so was their emblem. It was a profile turned to the right, with a hooked beak like a scimitar. An eagle’s head.