AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘You know about that?’ Hooper asked with surprise.
It must be somewhere in the lost part of Monk’s memory, which was all his life up to the point of the accident. Bits of knowledge came now and then, unattached to any experience. He did not want to remind Hooper about his mysterious past just now, though. All that mattered was proving Rand’s guilt.
‘Apples grow near the sea,’ Monk said with as much of a smile as he could manage. ‘Let’s take the spades and look for likely places. Not close to the roots. It would be much harder work. And if they cut a root the tree might show it. The gardener’d know that.’
‘Reckon he was in on it?’ Hooper asked, taking one of the spades and following him.
‘Have to be,’ Monk replied, leading the way to the orchard gate and opening it. ‘Couldn’t risk having him find out by accident. He would feel betrayed and could be dangerous. He’d see the spades, anyway, just as we did, and work out what they were for. Keep him implicated, and he’ll be twice as good a guard. Never betray them, or he’d be betraying himself as well. Rand’s quite clever enough to have thought of that.’
Hooper grunted his agreement.
Once in the orchard they walked on the grass between the trees, which were haphazardly planted. There were no straight rows. All the grass was deep, as if scythed no more than once a year, but entirely unevenly. If there were any undisturbed patches they would be hard to find.
It was quarter of an hour of steady searching before they found a place lush enough to raise a hope.
‘Could be a dog,’ Hooper said with a shrug. ‘Lots of people would bury an animal in a place like this.’
‘Didn’t see any sign of their having had a dog.’ Monk was determined to believe in success. ‘If they had one, it would belong to the gardener, and he doesn’t live in.’ He started to dig, driving the blade deep into the soft earth, still damp in the shade of the trees.
Hooper started several feet away, still in the greener grass. They worked in silence, just digging a spade’s depth, taking out the earth, then another. It was hard work, using muscles they did not normally exercise so hard. Hooper could not hide the fact that his arm still ach
ed from the injury.
It was Hooper who struck something hard first. He stopped suddenly, his face pale in spite of the exertion. He stared at Monk. Then they both put their spades down and bent to their knees to search with hands in the rich loam.
It was a thick bone, about a foot long, completely without flesh.
Hooper laid it on the grass. ‘Could be an animal,’ he said. His voice was soft, as if he were trying to keep the excitement out of it, the hope, but he still trembled very slightly.
‘Could be,’ Monk agreed, rising to his feet and picking up his spade again.
Be careful,’ Hooper warned him unnecessarily. ‘Don’t want to break anything if there’s more.’
It took them another hour, moving slowly, always finishing with hands now caked with soil. Eventually they found all the rest of the bones of an old, disintegrated skeleton. It was beyond question that of a child of about ten or eleven years old.
‘Do you suppose it’s the only one?’ Hooper said, his face grim, and smeared with mud and sweat. He wiped his hand across his brow, making it worse.
‘Probably not,’ Monk said unhappily. He had wanted to find exactly this evidence, but now that he had, all he could think of was how the child died, whether he had been terrified, in pain, even if he had been killed quickly. Had his parents ever known, or was he simply lost, still grieved over, still a mystery? If it had been Scuff, or even Worm, would he ever forget? Hester wouldn’t.
‘I’ll go on here,’ said Monk. ‘You go to the village and find the sexton from the local church. Tell him what we’ve discovered and bring him, and any other grave-digger he has.’
‘You go to the sexton, sir,’ Hooper responded. ‘You’ve more authority than I. It’ll be—’
‘I also don’t have a recent arm injury,’ Monk said tartly. ‘Do as you’re told. Don’t make me pull rank on you, Hooper.’
Hooper smiled broadly, straightening up his back. ‘You just did – sir.’
‘That’s right, so don’t stand arguing with me. Go and get the sexton.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Hooper gave a mock salute, and winced.
He returned a long half-hour later, bringing with him the sexton and another grave-digger, both carrying spades. Monk had spent the time searching the orchard for other spots out of the way of tree roots, and where the grass was greenest. He was filthy, his hands were bruised and his back ached.
They worked until the dusk was too deep to see any more. They found six further bodies; in all there were four children and three adults, so far as they could tell. The adults were young women, small in height, slender-boned, but – judging from the skulls and teeth – fully grown. They were in various stages of decay. Nature and insects had taken nearly all the flesh.
It took the men until after midnight to inform the parish minister and have the burial places marked. The bodies were taken to lie decently, crowding the small morgue, which had never before had more than two occupants at a time.
These bodies were evidence, but as soon as all notes and drawings had been made, the local Church would bury them decently, even if in graves no one could mark with a name.
