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Grave Matters

First published in 1973

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The right of Margaret Yorke to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

Typeset by House of Stratus.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

EAN	ISBN	Edition
0755130146	9780755130146	Print
0755134702	9780755134700	Kindle
0755134818	9780755134816	Epub

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

www.houseofstratus.com

About the Author

Born in Surrey, England, to John and Alison Larminie in 1924, Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Nicholson) grew up in Dublin before moving back to England in 1937, where the family settled in Hampshire, although she now lives in a small village in Buckinghamshire.

During World War II she saw service in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a driver. In 1945, she married, but it was only to last some ten years, although there were two children; a son and daughter. Her childhood interest in literature was re-enforced by five years living close to Stratford-upon-Avon and she also worked variously as a bookseller and as a librarian in two Oxford Colleges, being the first woman ever to work in that of Christ Church.

She is widely travelled and has a particular interest in both Greece and Russia.

Margaret Yorke’s first novel was published in 1957, but it was not until 1970 that she turned her hand to crime writing. There followed a series of five novels featuring Dr. Patrick Grant, an Oxford don and amateur sleuth, who shares her own love of Shakespeare. More crime and mystery was to follow, and she has written some forty three books in all, but the Grant novels were limited to five as, in her own words, ‘authors using a series detective are trapped by their series. It stops some of them from expanding as writers’.

She is proud of the fact that many of her novels are essentially about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations which may threatening, or simply horrific. It is this facet of her writing that ensures a loyal following amongst readers who inevitably identify with some of the characters and recognise conflicts that may occur in everyday life. Indeed, she states that characters are far more important to her than intricate plots and that when writing ‘I don’t manipulate the characters, they manipulate me’.

Critics have noted that she has a ‘marvellous use of language’ and she has frequently been cited as an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She is a past chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association and in 1999 was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger, having already been honoured with the Martin Beck Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection.

PART ONE

Miss Brinton paused before the row of maidens who supported the temple’s portico roof on their heads. She gazed at each one of them in turn. Dr. Patrick Grant, Fellow of St. Mark’s College, Oxford, seated nearby on a broken marble pillar also contemplating the Caryatids, watched her and wondered if she, too, deplored the fake. In the bright light that shone from the sinking sun, her five sisters seemed to glow with a mellowness denied to her. He could hear a guide telling a group of tourists in bitter tones about the removal to England of the original. Many of Greece’s ancient treasures would have been lost forever without the interest of foreign archaeologists, he reflected. He stood up and looked to the west, where the great columns of the Propylaea stood out against the sky. He had come up to the Acropolis this evening to watch the sun setting behind the great entrance monument. There was still a little time to wait, so he wandered off in the direction of the museum, behind the Parthenon.

Miss Amelia Brinton was bound for the museum too; she walked ahead of him, paying no heed to the flocks of tourists with their shepherd guides and clicking cameras, an erect, white-haired figure carrying a faded green and white woven bag; a relic of a much earlier visit to Greece.

Patrick had first noticed her a few days before, at Delphi. She had been sitting half-way up the theatre with a small volume on her lap, sometimes reading it, and sometimes looking down at the stage, her head tilted, as though she were listening. There was something familiar about her, and later, when he saw her walking slowly down from the temple of Apollo in her sensible rubber-soled shoes, her linen hat in her hand, he realised where he had seen her face before: a portrait of those strong features had hung in the hall of the school which his sister Jane had attended; she had been the most forceful headmistress of its history, ruling over it for fifteen years and retiring just before Jane went there. Ever since, legends about her reign had been handed down to succeeding generations of pupils, and Miss Amelia herself had appeared in person on Speech Days and other such celebrations. She must be nearly eighty now. Patrick had not spoken to her at Delphi, and he had not seen her again until today. He remembered that she was the daughter of E. C. Brinton, a celebrated classical scholar in his day.

He watched her in the museum. She clearly knew it well, and paused before particular exhibits as though greeting old friends, unaware of anyone around her. Patrick’s own appreciation of the past was often interrupted by his interest in the present, and his attention wandered now from the archaic smiles of the charming Korai to the equally archaic responding expression on the face of the old woman looking at them. Then he got sidetracked by the strange, three-bodied daemon with its bearded faces still bearing traces of colour that had once been vivid, and he forgot about her, until he realised that the museum was about to close and he was almost the last to leave.

The sun was dropping now, fiery above the columns of the Propylaea. Patrick walked slowly up the steps at the eastern end of the Parthenon, into the great space within, and emerged on the northern side, facing the Erechtheum once again. He stayed there for a while, watching the sun as it sank lower and lower. The crowds had thinned out, and against the light one could not easily distinguish individuals. He did not see Miss Amelia Brinton until he had passed through the columns of the Propylaea; then he recognised her below him. Beside the marble, glowing golden in the light of the sinking sun, the moving human figures on the stairway looked insignificant. Everyone walked slowly. A few people were still coming upwards, for the Acropolis did not close until the sun had fully set. Patrick saw Miss Amelia standing still to gaze back at the great mass of the huge entrance. She had paused on a transverse slope with her back to a steep drop above a long, straight flight of steps. She was right at the edge: if she were to lose her balance, or step backwards, she might slip over. With an urgent sense of impending disaster Patrick began to hurry down towards her. At first he did not notice a youth who was hurrying upwards, elbowing his way through a cluster of people on the lowest steps. The accident happened in a flash: the youth knocked into Miss Amelia as he hurried past her; Patrick saw the long, dark hair, and the slight figure in jeans and an open battledress jacket as the boy thrust on upwards heedless of the old lady. There was a little scream, repressed because even in the ultimate experience the training of a lifetime is not swiftly cast aside, and with arms outstretched to grab helplessly at the air the frail figure of the old scolmistress arched outwards, struck the landing at the foot of the drop and rolled over, bowling down to end in a sprawling heap at the foot of the stairs. No one caught her. No one broke her fall. Patrick raced down the stairs himself, to arrive beside the crumpled little heap just as a horrified Greek tourist policeman was pulling down the grey skirt to cover the thin thighs that had been so crudely exposed. Miss Amelia Brinton was quite dead. Her faded eyes stared sightlessly up at the Grecian sky, and there was no vestige of any archaic smile on the mouth that was stretched in the shocked rictus of sudden death.

Patrick was not wearing a jacket, but he had a clean handkerchief in his shirt pocket. He bent, closed the staring eyes, and covered up the wrinkled face. Someone brought down the woven shoulder bag which Miss Amelia had dropped as she fell. Someone else brought the worn pigskin purse which had fallen from it, and a small leather-bound volume. It was Euripides’ Alcestis in the original Greek, Patrick noticed, as he replaced it in the bag. Maybe that was what she had been reading up at Delphi, hearing in her mind what must have been to her familiar words.

The whole incident ended in minutes. The Greek police were extremely efficient, swiftly guiding away from the body all the appalled witnesses who were exclaiming excitedly in several languages. A stretcher appeared as if by magic, and the sad little corpse, wrapped in a blanket, was soon decently concealed behind the ticket office, waiting for an ambulance. Only then did Patrick remember the heedless youth who had gone thrusting upwards through the crowd to cause the tragedy.

‘It was an accident, kirie. The kiria was old and slipped,’ Patrick heard the Greek policeman who seemed to be in charge saying anxiously.

‘Po, po, po.’ The Greek tossed his head in sympathy at such a serious misfortune.

‘I will go with the kiria,’ Patrick said. ‘But first – that young man who hurried past her – it was his fault. He knocked against the kiria.’ Patrick looked upwards at the mass of the Acropolis, gold now in the fading light. The Greek policeman followed his gaze.

‘I suppose you’re right.’ Patrick still scrutinised the hill. Later tonight the monuments would be picked out in brilliant floodlights, while thousands of people watched the spectacle of Son et Lumiere. He walked away from the little group of officials and climbed the steps once more. Apart from himself, there were only a few policemen making sure that all the tourists had, in fact, gone. There was no trace of any long-haired youth in jeans. He must have left with the last stragglers, and there would be no way of finding him. He could have been Italian, British, French – any nationality, even Greek, though few young Greeks wore their hair so long. He might even have been quite unaware of his responsibility for the accident.

A patch of white caught Patrick’s eye in a cleft between the rocks. He picked it up and saw that it was a page from Benn’s Blue Guide to Athens and Environs, jaggedly torn from its binding. Patrick looked at it for a moment; then he folded it carefully and put it in his wallet. After that he went back down the steps.

‘But certainly, kirie.’ The Greek officials were thankful that the poor dead kiria at least was not alone. Though not her son, the English kirios was clearly her friend, and a man of authority who would take charge of things on her behalf.

After making his telephone call, Patrick followed Miss Amelia in a taxi to the mortuary. There, he witnessed the listing of what was in her woven woollen bag – a few drachmas in her purse, some boiled sweets, a grey woollen cardigan, and the small leather-bound Alcestis he had seen before.

‘And I suppose you went to the funeral?’ Patrick’s sister asked him. They were in his set at St. Mark’s, where Jane had come to lunch before a dental appointment in Oxford. They had eaten cold beef and salad, and now Jane was sitting on the window seat in his room while she drank her coffee. Below, in the Fellows’ garden, two middle-aged dons were engaged in their fierce daily croquet duel. ‘Was anyone else there?’

‘A chap from the Embassy and the proprietor of the hotel where she was staying. And the undertaker’s men hovered around.’

‘It was, a bit. When the Embassy realised who she was – E.C. Brinton’s daughter, I mean, as much as the esteemed former headmistress of Slade House, they gave her the full works – service in St. Paul’s, with Bach and Elgar on the organ, though of course no hymns, since there was no congregation. It was all done very correctly.’

‘She had a niece. The hotel man knew about her, because Miss Amelia stayed there every year and had told him. He said she used always to come with another old lady, a Miss Forrest, but she has a bad heart now and wouldn’t come this year.’

‘No one could get hold of her. She was out of England herself – on holiday too, probably. So the Embassy carried on. In that climate you can’t delay. It seems they often have to cope with this sort of thing, when Britons die alone in foreign spots. I can think of many worse places to leave one’s bones in than Athens.’

‘There’s a Protestant section in the main cemetery. It’s divided from the main part by low walls, and there’s a gate from it to the road – the chaplain disappeared through there after the service, instead of processing back through the rest of the cemetery. It took about ten minutes to walk from the gates to the grave.’

‘It wasn’t, really. It’s an incredible place, the cemetery. Immense, with huge, ornate monuments in the Greek part, some with photographs of the dead person in little shrines. There are lots of priests around – you know, the papas in their tall black hats with their beards and their hair in buns. And widows. So many widows, all in black, some quite young. A Greek widow wears black for the rest of her life,’ Patrick said. ‘And they weep. They show their grief in other countries. It’s only in Britain that this stiff upper lip stuff goes on. Nearly every other nation displays emotion.’

‘You’re a great one for displaying it yourself, of course,’ she said, with irony.

‘I suppose you’ve written all this to Miss Amelia’s niece? About the funeral, I mean?’

‘Er—well, yes. Even if she doesn’t care a hoot, I thought she should know it was all properly done,’ Patrick said.

‘You’re a funny old thing, aren’t you?’ Jane said. She looked round his elegantly furnished room. Three oars were suspended high upon one wall, above a pair of impressionistic paintings by an artist in whose future Patrick had faith.

‘So tough, you’d like us all to think, but inside you’re a veritable marshmallow.’

‘You mean because I went to Miss Amelia’s funeral and then wrote to her niece? You’d have done the same.’

‘The niece had a right to know the details. And I was able to tell her that her aunt had died instantly – she can’t have known a thing.’

‘No. It would have been quite impossible to trace that feckless youth, just as you can’t catch the demon driver who cuts in and causes two other cars to have an accident while he disappears, scot-free.’

‘Valerie Brinton? Yes—just a rather formal note of thanks. She would have heard from the Embassy too, of course.’

‘Valerie Brinton,’ Jane mused. ‘She didn’t go to Slade House. I think her parents lived abroad, I remember her being talked about. And I do remember Miss Forrest. She was there in my time - little and ancient, it seemed even then. She taught art. It must be the same one. She retired while I was there. Old Amelia had a country cottage somewhere.’

‘Near Winchester,’ said Patrick. ‘Valerie Brinton wrote from there. A village called Meldsmead.’

‘Well, it’s time I left for my appointment with the torturer,’ said Jane. ‘I’ll just wash first.’

She went through the door that led into his large, comfortable bedroom, off which opened a landing with a tiny kitchenette installed where once there had been a cupboard. At the far end of his bedroom a door disclosed his private bathroom. No wonder Patrick couldn’t be bothered to marry, she thought, as she often did when she visited him here. Everything was laid on for him; he had a scout to minister to his daily wants; good food provided to the accompaniment of first-class conversation and even, on gala occasions, eaten off gold plate that had been bequeathed to the college by a long-dead former member; and spacious accommodation in part of the original college building. At least he hadn’t embarked on croquet yet, though. She looked out of his bedroom window and saw the two combatants below, still warring. They were a chemist and a sociologist who sincerely hated one another and fought each other over matters of college politics whenever they got the chance, as well as joining battle of any other kind that offered. Jane feared that Patrick might get like this as he grew older, and she was sighing over this problem when she rejoined him.

‘No,’ Jane answered. ‘I’m sighing over you. Even if there exists upon this earth a woman who would put up with your ways, how could she compete with all this?’ She waved her hand around, gesturing at the high ceiling of his large room, the cornice decorated with elaborate plaster-work. ‘You’re much too comfortable as you are.’

‘You’re right, my dear. I am, and I don’t plan to change a thing,’ Patrick said. He kissed her. ‘Can you find your way down? I’m expecting a pupil any minute. Mind he doesn’t barge into you, he won’t see you coming through his tangled mane.’

‘He’s got terrible acne, poor boy. Perhaps it’s better not to have to look at all those pimples.’

‘He’ll clean himself up soon and face the world, when he feels a bit braver,’ Patrick said. ‘He’s a nice lad. Very bright, but rather insecure.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Jane said. Even you, in your way, she thought. ‘Thanks for lunch. Come and see us soon.’

She went away, and it was only as she entered the dentist’s waiting room ten minutes later that she realised because it was still the vacation, Patrick’s pupil must be coming to consult him about some problem, not for a tutorial.

III

Among the Fellows of St. Mark’s was a venerable don who lived in honourable retirement in a tiny cottage owned by the college. Once a year he visited an equally ancient Canon who lived in rather similar circumstances in Winchester, except that he had a wife who, though bent with rheumatism, was still able to cook and administer the household. The two old men had been friends from youth. Dr. Wilmot’s sight was very poor now, and no one thought it safe for him to make his annual pilgrimage by public transport any longer, so Patrick drove him down to Winchester on the Saturday after Jane’s visit.

It was a lovely morning in late September when they left Oxford, with the sun gilding the leaves that still clung to the trees. The harvest had been early, and the farmers were well ahead with their ploughing; there were still some fields of bleached or burnt stubble standing, but in most of them the rich, dark earth had been turned up in neat furrows. For a while they talked about a new building in a corner of the college grounds. Dr. Wilmot deplored the modern architecture of its design, but Patrick felt one could not ape the old. This discussion kept them going happily for half an hour until the old man suddenly fell asleep; Patrick drove on, enjoying the scenery in silence. Some way south of Newbury he noticed, on a straight stretch of road, a signpost pointing to the left which read Meldsmead 2 miles. Meldsmead was the village where Miss Amelia Brinton had lived, and from which her niece had written to him.

Dr. Wilmot woke suddenly and carried on at once with the conversation they had been having from the point where they had left it. Patrick, who had been mentally back in Greece reviewing Miss Amelia’s fatal fall, had some trouble in returning his thoughts to plate glass windows.

He delivered his passenger and remained for a glass of sherry with Canon Fosdyke and his wife; then, despite pressing invitations to share their cottage pie, he left. He would call at a pub somewhere on the way back and have a sandwich.

It was such a lovely day that he felt reluctant to stop, and drove past several likely places. Then he realised that he was near the turning to Meldsmead. It was only ten past one; there must be a pub in the village. He felt curious to see where Miss Amelia had spent her retirement; somehow he would have expected her to choose a spot handy for the British Museum or the London Library, not a remote Hampshire village. He slowed down to watch for the sign, and soon came to it. After he had turned off the main road he found himself in a narrow lane with high hedges on each side; it was twisty, and he went slowly, for there was not much space to pass if he met another car. He passed a farmhouse and a few cottages before he reached the village, and at a bend in the road a red mini came hurtling much too fast towards him. The side of the Rover brushed against the hedge as he pulled in to give it room to dash past. He had time to see that it was driven by a woman with auburn hair, but no more; then it was gone, scattering dust behind it as he saw in his mirror. He drove on, even more slowly than before, but met no one else, and was soon in Meldsmead. The main road, such as it was, straggled through the village, with two turnings off to the right, each saying No Through Road. Another, to the left, led on to further villages, according to a signpost. There were more houses further on, but The Meldsmead Arms was at the junction of the main road and the first of the dead-ends, so Patrick stopped there. He would have a beer and a snack, and look round the village afterwards.

There were several cars parked outside the pub, and the public bar was very busy. He went into the saloon bar, where his entrance caused very little interest. Three youngish middle-aged couples, the men in polo-necked sweaters and the wives in smart trouser suits, sat at a table talking hard and barely glanced at him. They were discussing some trip by boat they planned for the next day, and Patrick, eavesdropping as he drank his beer, gathered that one of the couples owned some sort of yacht or cabin cruiser.

The publican was a large man with an almost totally bald head and a small, neatly trimmed moustache. Patrick mentally labelled him an ex-serviceman; he discovered later, in fact, that Fred Brown was a retired regimental sergeant-major. The girl helping him behind the bar was obviously his daughter. Despite an unruly mop of dark brown curls she looked exactly like him.

The sailing group were talking about tides. Patrick drank his beer and listened to them. The boat seemed to be moored somewhere in the Solent. Besides them, there was a trio of men at the window all talking together. Patrick was too far away to hear what interested them, but soon one of them came to the bar to order another round for all three, and while he waited asked Patrick if he were just passing through.

‘We do well when there’s racing at Newbury, though,’ he allowed. ‘People think it’s worth turning off the main road then.’

‘Yes.’ Patrick knew very well that it was the only strange car drawn up outside the pub.

‘Hra. Nice car. Wish I could run to one. I have to use a pick-up for the market-garden. My wife has a mini. We use that on smart occasions.’

‘Going rather fast, eh?’ said the other man, and Patrick nodded. His new friend chuckled.

‘She’s not a real native of Meldsmead, though she may become a permanent fixture,’ he said. ‘I say,’ he called out to the pair remaining by the window. ‘Someone else has met our Valerie in the lane and managed to survive.’ He added to Patrick, ‘George Kent there met her bonnet to bonnet last weekend. A narrow miss, he had, ha, ha! Miss Valerie,’ he added, in case anyone had not got the point of his quip.

The crack provoked satisfactory mirth, and on its wave Patrick found himself included in the group. He supplied his own name, and learned that his sponsor was Denis Bradshaw. The third man was Paul Newton.

Patrick had been alerted at the mention of Valerie. From what had been said it seemed that the wild driver he had met might be Miss Amelia Brinton’s niece. The other men were continuing to talk about her.

‘The lady Jehu you met has just inherited a cottage in the village,’ Denis explained. ‘It belonged to her aunt, an odd old woman, very brainy, but nice with it, if you know what I mean. It’s down one of the dead-end lanes up there.’ He gestured in the direction of that part of the village where Patrick had not yet been. ‘The old girl died about a month ago, rather suddenly. Some sort of accident. Fell down some steps in Greece.’

‘That’s right. Had you heard about it? There was a bit in some of the papers. Turned out the old girl was rather well known in her day. Had a famous father, it seems.’

‘She’s inherited the lot. Not that there’s much except the cottage, I don’t suppose, and it’s in pretty poor nick. Every wall smothered in books, I should think that’s what holds it together, stops the walls falling down. Isn’t that right, Paul?’

‘There’s something in what you say, Denis, as always. But I think the cottage is sounder than you imply. It’s been standing a good few years now.’

‘Yes – beamed and thatched,’ said Denis. ‘Too quaint for Valerie, I’d guess.’

‘You hope, you mean,’ grinned George Kent. ‘You don’t want to risk your neck every time you go down the village street.’

‘It’ll be too quiet here for Valerie,’ Denis said in a hopeful voice. ‘Anyway, she’d only use the cottage for weekends. She’s got some very high-powered job in London,’ he told Patrick.

‘Easily,’ said George. ‘I do.’ He finished his beer and glanced at his watch. ‘Well, I must be off now or Winifred will be after me.’

He left them, and through the window Patrick could see him walking briskly down the lane.

‘George doesn’t spend long in here these days,’ said Denis. ‘He’s got a pretty new wife – plump, you know, but comely, like the poet said.’

Patrick had a feeling he was really quoting the Bible and had got his adjectives confused, but kept silent.

‘Here comes Valerie again,’ said Paul Newton, who seemed content to remain in the conversational background. ‘Hope George hears her coming.’

They watched the red mini skelter past; it sped on and then swung wildly round to the right.

‘Must have been to fetch her from the station,’ said Denis. ‘We’ll have to train Valerie if she’s going to stay on here. Or get her copped. Can’t have our lane a death trap. Still, you’re usually around, aren’t you, handy enough. Paul’s a sawbones,’ he said to Patrick.

Patrick had been wondering what the quiet man did. He was tall and very thin, and had an abstracted expression.