Sarah Rayne - What Lies Beneath

He was just thinking he would have to admit to a dead end as far as the Bramley Advertiser was concerned when his eye was caught by a much later article that the search request had turned up. It was headlined ‘Distressing Incident at Cadence Manor’, and the date was the late 1940s. It could not have anything to do with what he was looking for, but none the less he called it up on the viewer’s screen.

It was not a very long article. Jan skimmed it, at first with only slight interest, then with growing attention.

Police today issued a statement that a violent assault had been made on a local girl in the grounds of Cadence Manor – the ancestral home of the once-famous banking family.

The assault on young Brenda Ford (19) has shocked the community, and Miss Ford, interviewed briefly at her home, could only tell our reporter that she had been on her way to her home, having spent an evening with two friends in Priors Bramley village. She was taking the well-known local short cut around the manor towards Mordwich Meadow, intending to cross Crinoline Bridge, when the man attacked her. Miss Ford, who suffered some bruises and a sprained wrist, managed to beat him off and to run away.

Since recent reports that German spies could still be hiding out in rural backwaters, there has been some concern that Miss Ford’s attacker may have been just such a person. However, police have said this is very unlikely and have advised the public not to panic.

The article was interesting for its insight into the mood of English village life in the years after the Second World War, with people still suspicious of strangers, and any incidents of this kind instantly put down to Germans unable to make their way back to their own country. Probably if it had not been for that, the incident would not have been reported.

But the real interest was in the attached photograph. It was clearly an existing snapshot that the paper had made use of, and it showed Brenda Ford in a garden. She was smiling rather warily, as if she did not much like having her photo taken but as if she was prepared to indulge whoever was wielding the camera.

Allowing for the difference in ages and hairstyles, it might have been a photo of someone Jan had just recently met. Amy’s grandmother. Ella Haywood.

‘It wasn’t part of my research,’ said Jan, seated opposite Amy in a corner of the Red Lion. ‘But I thought you might be interested in it.’

‘So that’s my great-grandmother,’ said Amy, propping up the printout Jan had made from the microfiche, and studying it with interest. ‘I never knew her – I think she died ages before I was born. She’s very like Gran, isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘Poor old great-grandmamma Brenda, being attacked and thinking it was a Germany spy,’ said Amy, still looking at the printed photo. ‘Could I borrow this to show Gran? I’m sure she’d be interested. I don’t think she’s got any photographs of her mother. Actually, I don’t think she’s got any of her father, either. If she has, I’ve never seen them. I could let you have it back.’

Jan started to say he did not particularly want the printout back, then realized her returning it would set up a further meeting and said, ‘All right.’

‘And now tell me how you got on grubbing around the churches for music and musical legends,’ said Amy.

‘I think I found the source of that engraving at St Anselm’s,’ Jan told her. ‘At least, I found a reference to it.’ He told her about the report he had found at St Luke’s, describing how the choirs had joined forces, and how some unknown Cadence man had apparently requested the Wordsworth stanza be set to music and added on.

‘That’s brilliant,’ said Amy, her eyes glowing. ‘I’d love to know who he was, wouldn’t you? I know the Cadences aren’t the last of the Romanovs or anything, but they’re starting to sound really romantic and mysterious. Imagine it: they were once a famous banking house, only they went bust, and when you think about that crumbling old manor inside the poisoned village…’

‘You shouldn’t be studying archaeology, you should be writing Gothic fiction,’ said Jan, smiling. ‘When did the Cadences go bust?’

‘I don’t know. They were going strong in the early 1900s, I think, because there’s a lot of references to them in the library archive stuff.’

‘And in 1920 one of them donated an organ to St Anselm. Don’t laugh at me, one of us was going to make that pun sooner or later.’

‘Well, anyhow, they’re not around now,’ said Amy, still grinning ‘Maybe the Wall Street Crash got them. When was that?’

‘In 1928 or 1929, I think.’

‘D’you know what I’m thinking about that plaque?’

‘That it probably came off the organ itself?’

‘Exactly. And I think,’ said Amy, ‘that I might go back to St Anselm’s to see if there’s anything else among the rubble. If the police have stopped searching Cadence Manor I might see if I can get into the grounds as well.’

‘Why the manor particularly?’

‘I’d like to find out a bit more about the Cadences. And houses say a lot about their era and the people who lived in them. Even ordinary houses like we live in.’

Jan said, ‘Benjamin Britten wrote an opera based on Henry James’s story Owen Wingrave . The theme running through it is “Listen to the house”.’

‘I love that,’ said Amy, at once. ‘What does the house say?’

‘The central character comes from a family of soldiers, but at heart he’s a pacifist, and he struggles with that while the voice of the house tells him he should fight in the Great War like his ancestors would have done.’

Amy said, ‘Even ordinary houses have a voice about people who’ve lived in them.’

‘They do, don’t they? I’ve got a tiny house on the edge of Oxford, which is supposed to have been a farm labourer’s cottage when it was built,’ said Jan. ‘I keep meaning to track down its origins.’

‘You should,’ said Amy, enthusiastically, trying not to take too much notice of the fact that he had said ‘I’ and not ‘we’. ‘Start with land searches and work back.’

‘You do dash from one thing to the next, don’t you? Like quicksilver.’

‘Well—’

‘Don’t worry about it. Quicksilver is very attractive.’

‘Really?’ said Amy.

Jan had been about to reach for the Red Lion’s bar food menu but he looked across the table at her. As their eyes met, he said, very softly, ‘Oh yes, really.’ Then, before she could think how to respond, he said, ‘It’s half-past twelve. Shall we have some lunch while we’re here?’

Amy was pleased to have the small piece of family history from the Bramley Advertiser to show Gran. She had been a bit glum since Clem Poulter’s death, poor old Gran; several times Amy had caught her staring blankly into space, and even Gramps said, ‘My word, old girl, you’re looking a bit pasty-faced these days.’ Amy thought for a moment that Gran would throw something at him, which might have been disastrous since she was chopping parsley at the time. But if Amy had been married to a man who called her ‘old girl’ and said she was ‘pasty-faced’, she would have tipped the entire saucepan of parsley sauce over him and added the gammon steaks as well.

Gran merely said, ‘Oh, I’m just a bit tired. And I was very upset at Clem’s death,’ and Gramps looked contrite and said at once that of course she was upset, he had been forgetting about poor old Clem. How about Ella coming along to the rehearsal that evening, just to cheer her up?

‘No thank you,’ said Gran, a bit too quickly. Then, seeing his expression, said, ‘But it was a very kind suggestion, Derek.’