Phil Rickman - The Remains of an Altar

‘You all right?’

She shook herself, blinking, rubbing at her eyes.

‘Sorry, I was…’

‘I don’t know why I’m calling you, really,’ Bliss said. ‘I didn’t plan to. I was just tearing through the CID room with no time at all to spare – not now, no bloody way – but a little voice is going, ring Merrily.’

‘You’re not a man who responds to little voices.’

‘Nah, you’re right. You been listening to the local radio at all today, Merrily?’

‘Haven’t even had it on in the car. Probably afraid of hearing people talking about Jane. Just tell me this isn’t about Jane.’

‘Not unless she’s shot somebody.’

‘The problem was my grandfather,’ Mrs Kingsley said. ‘It seems Mr Watkins turned up at the door this day – quiet sort of chap, my grandma always said, according to my mother. Very polite, and could he have a look at their bottom meadow?’

Jane clung to an arm of the sofa. He came? He knew? He really knew about the Ledwardine ley?

‘My grandma was all of a flutter, of course, that such a man as Mr Watkins should be calling on the likes of them. She was quite young at the time, not so very long married. They’d all heard of Mr Watkins, quite a public figure by then, though not because of ley lines.’

‘This was… when, exactly?’ Jane asked.

‘About 1924, I would guess. The Old Straight Track hadn’t been published, I’m fairly sure of that, so not many people knew what it was all about. To be told you had an ancient trackway across your land which had been used by Stone Age people… well, it didn’t mean anything. Certainly not to my grandfather.’

Gomer said, ‘He’d’ve likely been in the First World War, then, your ole grandad?’

‘Yes, he was, Mr Parry. And came back a different man. Not the man Grandma married, my mother used to tell me. He just wanted a quiet life surrounded by his own land. Positively antisocial. It wasn’t a very big farm, even if you included the orchard, and he was determined to hold on to it. My grandma liked to go to concerts and the plays, but he would have none of it. Wouldn’t take a holiday. And was suspicious of anyone who appeared on his land. Particularly someone with strange equipment, like Mr Watkins. I expect you can guess what that was, Jane.’

‘Didn’t he sometimes use, like, surveying tools?’

‘Surveying tools?’ Mrs Kingsley laughed. ‘Good heavens, he wouldn’t have got as far as the gate. No, his camera… that was enough. Aunt Margaret, who would have been a very small child at the time, thought she remembered some of this, but I suppose the details were filled in for her later. As she described it, Mr Watkins stood for a while at the field gate then walked the length of the meadow to the other gate, near the foot of Cole Hill, and then he came back, and he said, “Mr Probert, would you permit me to take some photographs?”’

‘I suppose his camera was… pretty big.’

‘And on a tripod. In those days, there weren’t that many cameras in Herefordshire. Having your photo taken was a big occasion. Almost ceremonial. It was a matter of taking your place in history and you had to look your very best. And, of course, that field didn’t. Despite all Grandad’s efforts, it was still poorly drained and there’d been floods, and so Grandad says “No, absolutely not.” Because it would be a permanent reflection on him, you see, the state of that field, and he was a very proud man.’

Mrs Kingsley held out a faded sepia photograph of a couple standing in front of a fairly run-down-looking cottage. The man wore a tie and a waistcoat and a bowler hat, and he wasn’t smiling.

‘Well, Mr Watkins tried his best to explain that the field was very important, archaeologically, and he wanted to include it in a book… and of course this made things worse. A book! The state of that field preserved for all eternity, to be sniggered over by farmers all over the county. My grandad took what he believed to be the only reasonable action open to him and respectfully ordered Mr Watkins to leave his property at once. Mr Watkins appealed to him to think again and said he would call the next time he was passing. And he did call again, but in the meantime my grandad had been talking to some other councillor who told him not to worry as Mr Watkins’s ideas were nonsense.’

‘Nothing changes, does it?’ Jane said bitterly.

‘Mr Watkins said please could he just take some photographs if he promised they wouldn’t be used in his book or published in any way at all. Just as evidence of what was. But Farmer Probert, I’m afraid, refused to believe him. He couldn’t get his head round the idea of just taking a photograph and not doing anything with it. He didn’t think Mr Watkins would be so wasteful of an expensive plate, and he turned the poor man away again. Of course, my grandma was deeply embarassed by now. She was, as I say, quite a refined lady, with her books and her wind-up gramophone.’

‘Not many folks yereabouts had a wind-up gramophone back then,’ Gomer said.

‘Definitely not, Mr Parry. And, do you know, I think it was that gramophone that saved the day.’

Mrs Kingsley rose and went over to a sideboard under a framed colour photo of some children and a horse.

‘I’ve done quite a lot of research on all this since it came into my possession. As you’ll see, it’s our family’s claim to fame. Our small place in history.’

Gomer looked at her shrewdly.

‘Wouldn’t reckon Gerry Murray be all that interested in hist’ry?’

‘Nor as hard-up as he led my Aunt Margaret to believe.’ Mrs Kingsley snorted. ‘Bringing his accountant to convince her of the parlous state of his finances.’

Jane looked at Gomer.

‘Brung his accountant, did he, missus?’ Gomer said.

Mrs Kingsley didn’t reply. She unlocked the top section of the sideboard and took out a stiff parchment envelope.

‘Mr Watkins was always very polite but he was… canny, I think the word would be. The next time he came back, it was market day, when he knew my grandad would be in town and my grandma would be on her own. And this time… he had a friend with him.’

She brought the envelope back to the sofa where Jane and Gomer sat. It had a wing-clip which she undid.

‘A titled gentleman,’ she said, ‘of great renown. Great renown, and not only in Hereford. I should imagine my grandma was practically on her knees, when she saw who it was.’

Jane said, ‘The Prince of Wales?’

‘I’ll show you in a minute. But first I’ll tell you the result of it. Mr Watkins offered her a deal. If my grandfather let him take pictures of the meadow, for the record, he’d take some other pictures – of Grandma and the distinguished gentleman, together. And he would give her the pictures to keep.’

Cool, Jane thought. The man was a true Watkins.

‘Well, there was absolutely no way that Hazel Probert was going to turn Mr Watkins away. Certainly not with his distinguished companion, and the promise of the souvenir of a lifetime. And so the photos were taken that very day, while Grandad was at the market.’

‘Brilliant,’ Jane said.

‘And – do you know? – I don’t think they were ever shown to him or even mentioned from that day until the day he died. She kept them secret for the whole of her life. You can imagine her hiding them away in her bottom drawer and only bringing them out when her husband was at market. Sharing her pride with no one.’

‘Then how-?’

‘And they were only entrusted before she died – the week before she died – to Aunt Margaret, the eldest daughter. Her mother thinking she was the only one who would understand.’

Mrs Kingsley handed the opened envelope to Jane. Jane looked at her hands to make sure that they were clean.