“Space looks to be at a premium,” says Rowan, glancing at the shark’s mouth of gravestones crowded in the small space.
“He was the last one to be planted,” says Crow, his hands in his pockets – a cigarette suddenly clamped between his teeth. He rocks on his heels, the heel of one shoe grinding into some greenish gravel atop the nearest plot. “He got preferential treatment because he’s from the valley but even then there were some buggers kicked up a fuss.”
Rowan can’t help but imagine what lays beneath his feet. He crouches by the grave, a tired sort of tightness across his back.
“Some people come and scatter their ashes here without asking permission,” explains Crow, as Snowdrop looks for the right expression for her face to relax into. “They’ve had to put a stop to it because it was starting to look like there’d been a dirty snowfall round here, so your chances of buying a plot are zilch. You can still be buried if there’s a family plot though even then it’s a pain for the ground staff.”
“I didn’t know he had children,” says Rowan, focusing on the space on the headstone that waits for the next inscription.
“That’ll be for her,” says Crow, a smile in his voice. “He must have had to properly twist the vicar’s arm to get him to agree to that. An unmarried couple in a joint plot? It’s a good job everybody in Wasdale’s so open minded.”
Rowan glances back at him. “Go on….,”
Crow grins, delighted to know something that the younger man doesn’t. “She told me at Millward’s funeral. They’re going to be buried together. She wouldn’t marry him but she’s happy enough to go in the ground with him. She said she agreed to it because it was what he wanted. They’d been thick as thieves for 30 years and neither have any kids so I guess it was a comfort to him. By the end he deserved all the comfort he could get. Not that he’s been allowed to rest in peace.”
Rowan stands up, legs creaking. He turns and leans against the grave, willing to flatter Crow if it means filling in another piece of the puzzle. “Go on Damian, educate your junior reporter.”
He sheds the years like an exotic dancer casting off veils. He makes himself comfortable, one flabby buttock wedged atop the headstone of a hard-working Borrowdale farmer. Locates a cigarette and lights it from the tip of his last one and blows out a plume of absolute satisfaction.
“You’ll know the name Rideal,” says Crow, and seems gratified to receive a nod in return. “He’s the money behind the hippy school.”
“Silver Birch,” chips in Snowdrop.
“Well done, love. Aye, that’s the place. I was still in short pants when it opened but it was always one of the schools that people knew little bits about – always a rumour about some celebrity or pop star or an artist having a nipper boarding there. It had decent enough grades from what I recall but it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny now. You can have all the New Age philosophies that you want – Ofsted wants to know you’re doing things properly. That wasn’t the case back then. They couldn’t even give you a straightforward price on tuition fees and boarding. None of that was particularly important as the people at the top. They ran it more in a spirit of philanthropy than as a business.”
“Rideal was happy to lose money?” asks Rowan.
Crow smiles. “I don’t know about ‘happy’, but ‘willing’, certainly. Never had to struggle, that one. The way I heard it, he met Tunstall when he was at university.”
“Tunstall was the head teacher?”
“Aye, that’s him. Scholarship lad from Consett, over near Newcastle. Went to one of the posh universities in Edinburgh. Rideal was studying economics while Tunstall was studying philosophy. Unlikely bedfellows but it was obviously a firm friendship because when Tunstall wanted to start his pioneering new alternative education provision, his old pal Rideal bankrolled it.”
“To the tune of how much?” asks Rowan, looking down the lake in the direction of the stately home where Silver Birch had previously flourished.
“Hard to say,” shrugs Crow. “Rideal already owned the old Hall and the building that’s now Tunstall’s pad – up there through the woods. Even so, it can’t have been cheap.”
“What was in in for Rideal?”
“You cynic,” smiles Crow. “It was a chance to do good, of course. Though he was a slippery sod, there’s no doubt about that. It took Marlish a lot of his creative writing skills to come up with something good to say about him at the memorial service.”
Rowan shoots Snowdrop a look. She doesn’t see it in time to keep quiet. “He’s dead?”
“I should hope so, love,” says Crow, licking his palm and stubbing out his cigarette. “Took ill on the mountain, out hiking with Tunstall. This must have been ten years after the sale had gone through. Tunstall came barreling back down the Screes for the Mountain Rescue but they couldn’t pinpoint him. The smart money says he’s under the mountain. Under the Screes. There are mineshafts and crevices and smuggler holes all over this valley. I’ve no doubt that wife of his didn’t wait the obligatory few years to have him declared dead. That’s somebody who knows how to spend.”
Rowan realises he’s rubbing his sore hands along the smooth edge of the headstone. “The Mountain Rescue have had their money’s worth out of that school,” he muses. “I’ve heard an intriguing whisper about the two girls they found.”
“Three, wasn’t it? There were three, I’m sure.”
“No, two were found out at Borrowdale. We’re interested in what happened to them – and whether there are any truth to the rumours about the third girl. Some say she’s in the lake.”
Crow closes an eye, staring a hole in Rowan. “I think I’d know if that were true, lad.”
“There was something on Facebook,” protests Snowdrop, unimpressed with his attitude. “And Pickle says Violet has remembered all sorts of horrible things.”
Crow looks scornfully from one to the other. “Facebook? And if you mean Pickle the stoner, I wouldn’t trust him to count his own legs.”
“Rude,” mutters, Snowdrop, pouting and turning away.
Rowan suddenly feels utterly ridiculous. He needs this to be rule. Needs to be onto something with meat at its centre.
“There’s more,” he says, trying to sound positive. “I’ve heard whispers about them being found not wearing a stitch – strange markings on their bodies …,”
Crow shakes his head. “Hey, if it helps it sell you say what you like, mate – I just don’t know anything about that. You’d be best speaking to Eve Cater, though she can be a cantankerous sod. I heard some charity was going to establish an award in her name. She’ll be loving that. Always was a proud one.”
Rowan pulls a face. “I can’t make sense of it, Damian,” he admits. “I’m not saying she wasn’t a good copper but of the two cases she was involved in that I’ve looked into, she came up blank both times.”
Crow cocks his head. “You mean the old hippy? What was his name? Arthur Farthing, or something?”
“Arthur Sixpence,” he corrects him. “Caretaker-cum-spiritual adviser.”
“We got about 15centimetres out of that, nowt more,” says Crow dismissively.
“I don’t understand,” butts in Snowdrop.
“It’s the way you measure columns in newspapers,” says Rowan. “It’s not very much.” He gives Crow his attention. “I’m surprised it wasn’t worth more – even if you’d just got a couple of complaints from parents about police traipsing over the posh school where they sent their little darlings, it’s worth more than that.”