An Inquiry Into Love and Death Read online

  “My father was his only brother.”

  “And you’ve come here to handle things?” Her eyes flicked over me again, and I realized I was seeing curiosity, politely contained.

  “Yes. You speak of my uncle as if you knew him.”

  “He came to the store for supplies. Papa liked him.”

  I felt a low hum of excitement at finding someone who could tell me about Toby, who could perhaps help me fill in the gaps. “Did he talk to you about what he was working on?”

  She tapped the ash from her cigarette. “I’m not certain I know what you mean.”

  “Well, there’s no other way to say it, I suppose. I’m not sure if he mentioned it, but my uncle was interested in ghosts.” Inspector Merriken had told me to do research, so I may as well try. “I think he was here looking for your local ghost, Walking John.”

  She looked at me. Her eyes were a lovely hazel color, gray and green in the shifting light. Her expression was carefully contained and hard to read—suspicion, amusement, world-weary tolerance, and a touch of fear. “Looking for Walking John?” She put a slight emphasis on the word looking, as if it were something no normal person would do.

  “Yes.” I was rather embarrassed. “He was . . . that is, some would call him a ghost hunter. I think it’s why he was here. Did he ever talk to you about it?”

  “I see. No. He didn’t talk to me very much. He came by one day when I’d put Papa outside in his chair to get some sunshine. He did sit with my father for a while, chatting, which I thought was kind. If your uncle came looking for ghosts, he came to the right place.”

  “Are you saying Rothewell is haunted?”

  “Not the town proper.” She gestured with her cigarette. “The woods, and the bay over the other side of the cliffs. People in the farthest houses by the woods hear things. Are you staying at Barrow House?”

  I was suddenly cold. “Yes.”

  “They say no one stays there long, though I think it’s a bit of claptrap, and I’ve lived here all my life.” She took a drag. “People don’t stay there long because it’s a boardinghouse.”

  “I see,” I said faintly.

  “My father says Walking John was an old smuggler; that’s why he haunts the cove. That there are strange lights in the woods from the old smugglers’ lanterns. It’s why the sailors haven’t gone into the bay in centuries, because Walking John overturns the boats. Especially at this time of year.”

  I leaned toward her, interested despite myself. “This time of year?”

  “Autumn. October. Coming up to All Souls’ night, when the dead walk among the living.”

  I remembered something of the folktales, of leaving food and drink on the table for the dead when they came in the night. “And have you ever seen the lights? The ones in the woods?”

  She shook her head, not in a negative, but to indicate the conversation was over. She had finished her cigarette and she tossed the butt to the ground, stepped on it. “Every child in Rothewell grows up with Walking John,” she said. “‘Behave, because Walking John carries off naughty children. If you lie or steal, Walking John will know.’ I’ve used it on my own son, I admit.” She gave me a tired smile. “I wouldn’t go looking for lights in the woods for all the gold in the treasury, and then some.”

  “Who else might my uncle have spoken to?” I asked.

  “The vicar, perhaps. He’s our local historian in Rothewell. If your uncle wanted to know about Walking John, he’d likely start there.”

  “I see. Is there anyone else?”

  “William Moorcock, I suppose. He fancies himself an expert.” I noted the name was the same as her own, but I didn’t ask, as a note of bitterness entered her voice as she spoke it. “He lives at the top of the hill—near Barrow House.”

  I thanked her, but my uncertainty must have shown on my face, because she gave me a sympathetic look as she turned to go.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “He doesn’t usually bother strangers. Good luck, but I must get back to the store.”

  Seven

  I did not believe in ghosts. Of course I didn’t—no sane person believed in ghosts.

  I believed in Oxford, and cobblestoned squares, and old bricks thick with ivy, and rainy days curled up reading books. I believed in my mother’s strong coffee and in the lonely, aching scent of early dawn before anyone else in my boardinghouse was awake. I believed in my favorite men’s cardigan and the way the wind felt on the back of my neck. I believed in life as it lay before me, spinning out slowly, day after day of warm springs and thunderstorms and laughter. These were the things I believed in.

  And yet, for a few long moments as I’d talked to Rachel Moorcock, sitting on the stone wall, looking at the cliffs as the clouds lowered over the water, Rothewell had seemed just the place where ghosts would dwell.

  • • •

  I returned to Barrow House as the clouds threatened rain. I had just finished putting away the extra food when a commotion sounded in the back garden—the bark of a dog, deep and heavy, but pitched with excitement; the shouts of a man; and a wild, outraged screech that could only have come from a cat. I opened the back door to see what was going on.

  The barking was coming from the other side of the garden wall. I had made my way only partway toward it when something streaked past me, fast and low to the ground. A stripe of orange, black, and white disappeared through the open kitchen door behind me and into the house.

  The barking had not ceased; a large, shaggy brown and white head appeared over the garden wall, accompanied by two massive front paws larger—and much muddier—than my own hands. The head barked again, and slobbered like a predator, but its eyes were the soft, dark brown of a beast who, in the excitement of the hunt, is used to being more hopeful than vicious.

  “Poseidon!” came the man’s voice from behind the slobbering head. “Down, boy! Down!”

  I approached the back gate, and at once the dog’s head and paws disappeared. I nudged the gate open to find a great black nose pressed optimistically in the gap, hopeful of pursuing its quarry through the garden and into my kitchen.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” The nose pulled back, and I leaned out to see that the dog was leashed, and its owner—the man whose voice I heard—had finally gotten it under control.

  The dog’s owner was slender, not overly tall, and not above thirty. He wore a peaked cap, the brim of which he touched in greeting; under it I could see dark brown hair. He had a narrow face, unremarkable though not unhandsome, and his gray eyes regarded me with amusement. He wore a plain jacket and trousers, and had obviously been walking his dog along the trail that skirted the woods.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, miss.” His accent said he’d had some education. “I lost hold of Poseidon’s lead for a moment. He doesn’t bite; I promise.”

  I looked doubtfully down at the dog, which was sitting next to its master, its head higher than the man’s waist. “Poseidon?”

  The man gave a rueful smile. “A dignified name for such a ridiculous specimen, I know. I’m afraid I had high hopes when I named him.” He took a step forward and held out his hand. “William Moorcock.”

  I shook his hand, thinking the name sounded familiar. Rachel Moorcock had mentioned it, though I hadn’t missed her intonation. He fancies himself an expert, she had said. “Jillian Leigh. I’m very glad to have run into you, in fact.”

  “Oh? And why is that?”

  “I had heard—that is, someone mentioned that you may have met my uncle. Toby Leigh.”

  “I did. I’m terribly sorry about what happened to him. Are you all right?”

  The question was a little touching in its directness. “Yes, I think so. Thank you.”

  “It’s awful; it truly is. I live just down the road a way—the one with the sloped roof, just at the fork of the road toward town. You likely passed me on your way in. Did you
r uncle mention me?”

  I paused, embarrassed. “We weren’t close, I’m afraid. I’m just here cleaning up his things. Did he perhaps tell you what he was working on—why exactly he was in Rothewell?”

  “Ah.” William Moorcock petted his dog’s head and smiled. “You’re asking whether he confided in me about being a ghost hunter.”

  I was embarrassed again, but relieved as well. “It must seem eccentric.”

  “In some places, perhaps. Not here.” He looked at me for a moment and smiled again. “Let me guess—you’ve never been to Rothewell before, and you’re not quite sure what to make of this place.” He shook his head as I tried to speak. “You needn’t explain. Since it seems I’ve unintentionally saddled you with a cat, I’ll tell you what I can. Poseidon needs to stretch his legs. Can we walk?”

  “Yes, of course.” I shut the kitchen door, then the gate. “Lead the way.”

  “Your uncle was rather fascinating,” said William as we took the path to the woods. “He came to my door, wanting to know about our local ghosts. I’m always happy to oblige. Though I thought Toby was particularly troubled, myself. Do you know whether he was ever a subject of psychotherapy?”

  “Er—no, I don’t know, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, that’s too bad. I read a book about psychotherapy last week, and it made me think your uncle would have been a crack subject.” He saw my surprise, and his shoulders sagged a little. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean these things as I say them. My sister tells me I’m terrible for saying just the wrong thing. I don’t mean to put you off.”

  “No—no, it’s quite all right.” We were taking the path through the trees now, the shade dappling and growing thicker. “It’s just that I really wasn’t very close to him, you know.” The ground sloped here, and I felt myself growing warmer with the walk. “And now he’s died, and I feel torn about it, as if I’ve left something terrible undone. As if I could somehow have done something more.” It felt good to say the words aloud to someone, though I didn’t mention the coroner’s findings, or Inspector Merriken’s suspicions. I wondered where the inspector was now, and what, if anything, he had learned.

  “That’s likely very common,” William said. “I felt something similar when my parents died.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “No, you mustn’t say anything. There I go again. It was years ago, while I was at war. I just felt a similar way, that’s all. Who was mentioning me, may I ask?”

  “It was Rachel Moorcock, who runs the sundries shop.”

  “A ringing endorsement, I’m sure.” His smile was wry. “Ah, now, you needn’t be embarrassed. There are a lot of tangled connections in a small town like ours. Rachel is my sister-in-law, and she’s never liked me.”

  “Oh?”

  “She married my brother, Raymond. She disliked me from the start, and now that Raymond is gone, she has as little to do with me as she can. I wouldn’t mind, except I don’t get to see my nephew very much.”

  “Sam,” I said. “I met him. I would never have guessed. He looks nothing like you.”

  “Ah, no. He looks like Raymond.” William’s gaze grew wistful as he led me down the path. “Raymond and I were very different.”

  I didn’t miss the note of pain in his voice. “What happened to him?” I asked gently.

  William shrugged. “Belleau Wood.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Now I’ve made you say that a second time.” He managed a smile, one that wished to please. “Can we start again?”

  I smiled back. “Of course.”

  We had turned along the curve of the woods now, and from the sight of the unbroken sky through the trees I could tell we were at a high vantage point. “Can we see the water from here?” I asked.

  “We can. Just this way.” William turned from the path and we cut through the woods, Poseidon bounding with excitement over the departure. “Calm, you great fool,” William told his pet with obvious affection. “Show a little dignity in front of the lady.” Poseidon barked happily, undeterred.

  Soon we broke through the trees, and I looked around in amazement. We were at the top of the cliffs I had seen from town, but we were not looking down the south coast toward Rothewell. We were on the other side, looking north down a long, tangled, wooded slope to sea level, and the view was just as breathtaking. The woods ended at a long sweep of beach, rocky, dark sanded, and wet, battered by relentless water in a bay that curved like a large, perfect shell. Through the mouth of the bay we could see the open expanse of whitecapped ocean; inside the bay the water surged choppily, like a bowl of water that was being gently sloshed. There was not a soul, not a single building to be seen, only the green of the tangled woods and the unbroken water.

  “Blood Moon Bay,” William Moorcock said, indicating the curved cup of beach.

  I hunched my shoulders against the biting wind, remembering what Rachel Moorcock had said. “These are the woods haunted by Walking John,” I said. “These woods and the bay.”

  “Oh, yes—our famous haunted woods.”

  “Who was he?”

  “A smuggler,” William replied. “In the seventeenth century, when smuggling was everywhere in England.”

  “He was a ship’s captain?”

  “Actually no. He worked the land side of things—arranging with the sailors when the boats would come in, unloading, hiding the goods, transporting them. If you go farther down this path and over to the east—you see that promontory, just there?—you’ll find a signal house, where John kept his lantern. He’d light it on nights when a ship was due to come in, signaling that the coast was clear and it was safe to land. The structure is still there, though of course it’s very old now.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. “He must have been rich.”

  “Not quite, though he wasn’t poor either. A lot of men grew rich, though not in this part of the country.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, we’re on the wrong side of England for an easy trip from France. And with the currents, and these waters, and the rocks . . . there are easier places to land a boat in the middle of the night. Still, there was enough money to be made that the risk was worth it, at least some of the time. Am I boring you?”

  “Not at all,” I said truthfully. “Go on.”

  “Very well. Even with the risks, John Barrow did rather well, and he never got caught.”

  “Wait.” My skin had gone cold. “Did you just say John Barrow?”

  He regarded me with a twinkle of amusement. “You’re staying at Barrow House, aren’t you? Yes, that was his name, and that’s his house you’re in, in easy reach of the cliffs. It’s actually modern; the original burned down in the 1740s, the site was left alone for a good long while, and what’s there now was merely built onto the foundation. The house isn’t haunted that I’m aware of, but it is close to the woods, and there are stories of strange sounds.”

  “Yes, so I’ve heard.”

  “You mustn’t look so worried. It’s a strange thing, having a local ghost—every time an animal pulls down a clothesline or a bird gets caught in a chimney, it gets blamed on the poor spirit. But Blood Moon Bay at night . . . that’s a different matter.” He gazed out over the water. “No one comes out here after dark. The bay is where he died, you see, rather tragically.”

  “What happened?”

  “A shipment came in one night,” William said. “Barrow’s wife had died and they had one child, a boy of about seven, whom he doted on. On this night, after his father had left, the boy slipped out of his room and out of the house to follow his father to the bay. He was probably curious; most boys are. He would have come right by where we’re standing, I think, and gone on down the path through the woods.”

  He was deep into the telling of the tale now, and I could tell he was relishing it. I could do nothing but give in and follow where it
was going.

  “Barrow knew nothing about it, of course,” William went on. “No one knows quite what happened, but somehow the boy ended up slipping in the water as the men unloaded the ship, hitting his head in the dark, and drowning.”

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  “It gets worse. When Barrow saw what had happened, he lost his mind with grief. He pulled the boy’s body from the water and held it. He wouldn’t let go. He crouched over the body and wouldn’t be moved, making horrible sounds.

  “Now, the operation depended completely on speed and stealth, as you can imagine. Barrow’s madness threatened to bring down the entire plan. They tried to talk to him, but he was having none of it. Finally, the rest of the crew decided he had to be moved. But when one of the men tried to take the body from him, Barrow pulled his pistol and shot the man in the head. Then he took the dead man’s pistol from his belt and turned it on himself as he knelt over his son’s body.”

  “My God! This is horrible.”

  “Yes, and there’s more. They buried the boy in the churchyard, but they buried John Barrow just outside it. They’d never had a murder here, you see, and they didn’t want to put him in with the other good citizens of Rothewell.

  “Within a few days, Barrow’s grave was found dug up, his body lying sprawled a few feet away. They buried him again, and it happened again. And again. Those who saw it said it looked like he had been crawling, trying to get to the churchyard and his son.”

  I crossed my arms. “Now you’re pulling my leg.”

  “That’s the legend, Miss Leigh. I’m just repeating it.”

  “My name is Jillian, please. And do tell—what happened next?”

  “All right, I’m William then. The citizens of Rothewell used plain common sense, of course, for those days. They dug John Barrow up, beheaded him, burned him, and reburied him somewhere in the woods so he’d be away from the village. He stayed buried this time, but his spirit started walking. That’s why he’s called Walking John, by the way—because he was dead, and then he was walking. He can’t rest, you see, having been buried so far from his beloved child, and now it can never be put right.