The Stone Wife (14 page)

Immediately ahead of them was a drum kit and beyond that a stack of tall wood-and-canvas scenery flats. Other large hazards, less easy to identify, appeared to bar all progress.

“I’m blowed if I’m giving up now,” Diamond said. He was going to see where the
Wife of Bath
had lived before coming to him, come what may.

“It doesn’t smell too fragrant,” Carroll said.

“You’re telling me,” Leaman said.

Diamond could have admitted he was having an attack of flatulence, but there were more elevating matters to pursue.

They persevered by pushing the drums to one side and forcing some of the scenery far enough to the left to make a space that even a man of Diamond’s girth could pass through. Stacks of plastic chairs were easier to move aside. Beyond them were three massive papier mâché animal heads, a lion, a rhino and an elephant.

“The carnival is a very big deal here,” Carroll said.

Now the flashlight picked up some bulky forms covered in drapes. “That’s what we’re looking for,” Carroll said. “But if you’re hoping to find another of the Chaucer pilgrims, you’re in for a disappointment. It’s only junk that’s left.”

“There’s the source of the smell,” Leaman said.

On the stone floor behind the animal heads were a sleeping bag and some blankets that clearly hadn’t seen the inside of
a washing machine for many a year. There were also empty cider bottles and pizza boxes.

“Someone’s little secret,” Diamond said, encouraged that his own little secret hadn’t been detected.

“It wasn’t here when I was on the payroll,” Carroll said.

“That’s the problem, I expect. The volunteers don’t come down here.” He sidestepped the bedding, and lifted one of the drapes. “What are these?”

“Chimney pots. Early Victorian. You wouldn’t put them on display, but you wouldn’t want to dispose of them either,” Carroll said.

Leaman dragged the covering from a longer object the shape of a coffin. “Someone found a use for this.”

The inside of the horse trough was filled with yet more empties.

Diamond turned his attention to another draped item, interesting because it was approximately the shape and size of the stone carving. “What’s this, I wonder?”

He unveiled a small stack of weather-beaten gravestones. “I’ve heard of identity theft, but this is a step too far.”

“Seen enough, gentlemen?” Carroll said.

“Where was the
Wife of Bath
among this lot?”

“Against the wall there.” Carroll picked out a space with the torch. “It was facing inwards, so you couldn’t tell what it was.”

“I couldn’t tell when it was in my office and pointed out to me,” Diamond said. “You saw it here yourself, then?”

“Actually, I’m the guy who first dusted it off and took the trouble to find out what the inscription said.”

“Really?” Diamond said in surprise. “And they still sacked you?”

Carroll shrugged. “There was nothing personal about it. First the Arts Council withdrew the funding and the county council followed and we all lost our jobs.”

“They could still make good money out of your discovery.”

He laughed. “Not enough to pay my salary even if they gave it all to me.” If this young man was entitled to be bitter about his treatment, it didn’t show. “Shall we get some fresh air?”

They used Leaman’s car to drive the couple of miles through farming country to North Petherton. Diamond could feel more gas collecting in his stomach. He hoped he could hold on until they got out of the car. This pilgrimage had a subtext that Chaucer himself would have found amusing.

“It’s hard to visualise,” Tim Carroll said from the rear seat, “but in Chaucer’s time all this was forest—royal forest. The king would come here to hunt. Well, it’s known for certain King John did in the century before. He would stay at Bridgwater Castle, so it’s quite possible Edward III and Richard II came as well.”

“And Chaucer was deputy forester?”

“Towards the end of his life, yes. A reward for good services rendered.”

“If he was the deputy, who was his boss?”

“I couldn’t tell you without checking the records.”

“Doesn’t matter. Hardly a tree in sight these days. It’s all farming round here, is it?”

“Used to be. When they built the motorway the village of North Petherton was turned into a commuter settlement.”

The M5 ran in parallel, east of the A38 they were travelling along. “Bit of a shake-up for the locals.”

“And how. It went straight through Petherton Park, where we’re going.”

“Did they make any interesting finds when they put the road through?”

“None that I’ve heard about.”

“You must hate it.”

“The motorway? Not really. We can’t stand in the way of progress. The canals and the railways opened up the rural areas in their day. This is the modern equivalent. Take the next left and I’ll show you Parker’s Field, where the Chaucer family lived.”

“Is that a known fact, about Chaucer actually living here?”

“A known fact? Maybe not. It’s believed in these parts, I can tell you. We’re proud of our connection with him.”

“You don’t think the forester thing was just a sinecure and he stayed in London?”

“Absolutely not,” Carroll said as if he was speaking of his own career. “Being forester was a proper job. The forest brought in revenue for the royal purse. It was all enclosed and the locals had to pay to graze their cattle and pigs and there were tolls for using the forest tracks. Acorns and beech mast were particularly prized for pig feed. Managing all this was a big responsibility. You couldn’t possibly do it from London.”

“And you even know the house?”

“We know where it was sited. Tradition has it that the Chaucers lived in the Park House, or Parker’s Field House, and there’s usually some truth in tradition. The house was recorded as early as 1336. The family would have moved in later, of course, towards the end of the century.”

The rows of modern housing they were driving past made it impossible to visualise how the view must have appeared to Chaucer. Tim Carroll gave directions from the back and they worked their way through a dull estate towards a more open area. “You can stop here.”

“We’ll need to,” Leaman said. “The road ends.”

“That’s a mercy,” Diamond muttered.

“What was that?”

“Touch of cramp. I’ll be glad of a stretch.”

“The developers never give up,” Carroll said. “I don’t give this much of a future as open country.”

They got out and stood at the edge of a recently ploughed field. Diamond eased his stomach more audibly than he intended. “Noisy,” he said at once. “If I was deputy forester I wouldn’t buy a house here.”

“That’s the motorway you can hear.”

“Thought so.”

“Do we need to go any further?” Leaman asked. “We’ll be up to our knees in mud.”

“It’s living history,” Diamond said. “We didn’t come all this way to sit in the car.”

“I can show you the general area of the house, but there’s nothing to mark the spot,” Carroll said.

“We’ll be right behind you,” Diamond said. What he wanted most was a few more minutes in the open air.

After trudging some distance through the freshly tilled soil, Carroll stopped and looked right and left, trying to get his bearings. “To the best of my knowledge, this is where Park House was. There was a dig here a dozen years ago. Reading University.”

“Led by John Gildersleeve,” Diamond said. “They traced the foundations, but found damn all else.”

“That isn’t surprising,” Carroll said. “Park House didn’t last beyond the Tudor era. In those days the builders reused materials. It would have been cannibalised. It’s likely most of the fabric was used for Broad Lodge, a house in Petherton Park erected in the seventeenth century.”

“Still standing?”

Carroll shook his head. “And there’s another reason why the Reading dig was unsuccessful. A local archivist has recently discovered a
Bridgwater Mercury
report of an earlier excavation in 1843. A vicar from Taunton brought a team here and they were digging for about six months.”

Diamond chuckled at that. “And Gildersleeve hadn’t heard? That’s rich. I bet the Victorians dug up everything that was worth having.”

“There’s no record of what they found. My society made an intensive search of all the local press and documents held at the records office and came up with nothing more than that five-line report tucked away in the newspaper.”

The laughter was working like a dose of Rennies. The discomfort eased.

“How about this for a theory?” Diamond said with more enthusiasm than he’d shown all day. “The Taunton vicar unearthed the
Wife of Bath
. She’d been sculpted especially to decorate Chaucer’s house and lay buried right here where we’re standing for all those centuries. Along comes the local magpie, William Stradling, and makes the vicar an offer he
can’t refuse. It would explain how it got into Stradling’s collection.”

“I rather like it,” Carroll said after a moment’s thought. “One thing we do know about Stradling is that he was alert to anything of interest turning up. And the date is about right. By that time he’d built his museum at Chilton Priory just a few miles north of here and by 1843 he’d be looking to add to his collection.”

“We were there this morning,” Leaman said. “It’s all coming together rather neatly.”

And so it was that out here in a Somerset ploughed field, with nothing to look at except mud, Diamond was moved to feel elated. The mystery of the
Wife of Bath’
s past was reasonably explained to everyone’s satisfaction. They would never know the precise details, but this was a pretty good guess. The local expert approved. Even the hypercritical John Leaman had given his nod.

And the indigestion had all but gone.

A curious moment followed. They were returning to the car when Diamond had something like a vision from the remote past. The back view of Tim Carroll in his padded tunic, flannel shirt and black trousers, with his long hair swaying gently on his shoulders, made him appear remarkably like a flashback to the fourteenth century when it was fashionable to look like that. It was as if Geoffrey Chaucer himself had materialised to add his blessing.

11

“What I don’t understand,” Paloma said, “is why you had to go there.”

After his stressful day in Somerset with John Leaman, Peter Diamond was restoring his sanity, having an evening in with Paloma at her house on Lyncombe Hill, enjoying a supper of baked salmon and asparagus helped down with Prosecco. He didn’t mind discussing his work with Paloma. She was discreet, and she sometimes threw fresh light on the cases.

“The object of the visit was to get in the head that’s behind this mystery.”

“Do you know whose head?”

He smiled. “I wish. No, I’m coming at it obliquely, trying to understand why someone was so eager to own the
Wife of Bath
that they hired a team of gunmen to hold up the auction.”

“How does a trip to North Petherton achieve that?”

“By improving my understanding. I needed to find out the history of the stone. I’m certain the person I’m pursuing will have done the research. I’m thinking they learned something I’m still not aware of.”

“Even after visiting Somerset?”

He managed a wry smile. “I’ve barely scratched the surface.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I can’t understand why anyone is so eager to own the
Wife of Bath
. I wouldn’t want her if she was pure gold.”

“But you’ve got her.”

“Yes and she sits in my office and reminds me how little I know.”

“That lump of stone has really got under your skin.”

“Fair comment. I won’t be happy until I can shift it. I’m dealing with people who put a very high value on the thing. I can understand the victim, because he was a Chaucer expert. But the killer? What does he know that I don’t? The key to all this is the back story and I’m doing my damnedest to root it out. North Petherton was high on my ‘to do’ list.”

“Did Chaucer ever go there? Some of the experts say he didn’t.”

“The locals think he did. And there was a house—long gone—where Thomas the son definitely lived. It was in existence in the 1330s, so it’s well possible that Chaucer senior lived there towards the end of his life.”

“When did he get the job of deputy forester?”

“1391. He’d been incredibly busy up to then on all kinds of official duties that kept him in London, but with frequent trips to Europe. It’s amazing, the travelling people managed all those years ago: Spain, France, Italy. But in middle age, he seems to have looked for a place in the country—first in Kent, where he was a justice of the peace and MP—but that didn’t last and he came back to London as clerk of the king’s works. Two years on, he retires—so some experts believe—to Somerset. His wife Philippa seems to have died in 1387. It’s a fruitful period of his life when most of
The Canterbury Tales
are written.”

“So he was a widower, like you.”

“Mm.” He looked away, never comfortable when the spotlight shifted to him.

“And it turned out to have been the most creative time of his life. Did you find out anything you didn’t already know?”