The Treason of the Ghosts

prosperous,
and as rambling, as the fleece on a sheep’s back.’
    ‘And Molkyn’s mill is at the church end of the
town?’
    ‘That’s right. There’s the mill, Thorkle’s farm is
nearby. In fact, it’s almost a small hamlet. There’s the mere, the millpond.’
    ‘And Goodwoman Walmer’s cottage?’
    ‘About a mile from the mill.’
    ‘And lanes and trackways aplenty?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘Oh,
Sweet Lord, yes,’ Tressilyian laughed. ‘If you read the report of the trial,
one witness actually described Melford as a rabbit warren. There are lanes and
trackways out. You’ve seen the gates and stiles. Footpaths crisscross the
meadows. God knows,’ he sighed, ‘as a justice I am always
having to rule on what is trespass and what is not. You see, Corbett,
the land round here has changed. Sheep, not corn, is the measure of a man’s
wealth. So woods are cleared, hedgerows planted, fences and gates put up.’
    ‘If I catch your drift,’ Sir Maurice said, ‘an ideal place for murder,
yes, Sir Hugh?’
    ‘Any
place is ideal for murder,’ Corbett replied. ‘Ranulf dislikes the countryside.
He claims it’s more dangerous than the alleyways of London . For once I agree with him. Once
darkness falls, a man who knew his way around here could slip along the lanes
and gullys and do what he wished. He’d be as well protected as he would in the
dingy slums around Whitefriars or the maze of Southwark alleyways.’
    ‘I
have seen both those places,’ Tressilyian replied. ‘ I prefer Melford.’
    They
continued along the lane. The fields gave way to a copse of woods on either
side. Corbett felt as if he was going down a hollow, darkened passageway. The
lane rose, dipped, then rose again. Corbett identified Devil’s Oak before
Tressilyian pointed it out: a great, squat tree once used as a boundary mark.
The huge oak had been struck by lightning but its branches, now stripped of
their leaves, still stretched up to the evening sky. Corbett dismounted. He
looked across the fields to his left: a water meadow which ran down to the
banks of the Swaile. Corbett glimpsed the tumbled ruins just near its bank.
    ‘What’s
that?’ he asked.
    ‘ Beauchamp Place ,’
Chapeleys explained. ‘It was once a small manor house: piggeries, dovecotes,
stables, but the man who built it was a fool. The land is waterlogged. After
heavy rains it tends to flood. It’s been a ruin for about thirty years now. The
last relic of the Beauchamps was a madcap old man, found drowned in one of the
cellars. The townspeople still say it’s haunted.’ He pointed to the oak. ‘They
say the same about this and poor Elizabeth ’s
ghost.’
    Corbett
stepped across the ditch. There was a gap in the hedgerow on either side of the
oak. Corbett slipped through one of these.
    ‘ Elizabeth ’s corpse was
found here?’
    ‘Yes,’
Chapeleys replied. ‘That’s what Blidscote said, to the right of the great oak
tree, on the field side of the hedgerow.’
    Corbett
squatted down. The grass was cold, catching at the sweaty skin on his wrist. He
brushed this aside and looked along the hard, gnarled branches of the hedge but
could see nothing amiss. Feeling with his gloved hand, he searched the area
carefully, digging with his fingers.
    ‘What
are you looking for?’ Tressilyian asked.
    Corbett
got to his feet. Tressilyian was leaning against the oak tree, Chapeleys on the
far side of the ditch. Corbett repressed the feeling of unease at the
atmosphere of danger. He did not like Devil’s Oak. Here he was with two
strangers in a place of brutal murder. He half wished Ranulf was with him.
    ‘Why
is it,’ Corbett murmured, ‘such places have a feeling of desolation? Is it the
imaginings of our own souls, a lack of wit? Or does a spot like this still reek
of the terrors which visited it?’
    Corbett
brushed past Tressilyian and leapt across the ditch. He took the reins of his
horse, stroking its muzzle.
    ‘What
were you looking for?’ Tressilyian asked again.
    ‘I
don’t know,’ Corbett replied. ‘I am curious. Why should a young woman like Elizabeth come to a
lonely place like this? She wouldn’t, would she? No woman in her right mind
would travel so far from her town to meet a man in the open countryside.’
    ‘Are
you saying she was killed elsewhere?’ Chapeleys asked.
    ‘I
know she was killed elsewhere,’ Corbett replied. ‘You see, when those two young
boys found her corpse they would be frightened, yes? They’d run back to