The Treason of the Ghosts

told me how outlaws, if they killed
a traveller, would never take the body far but bury it
near the road or trackway where they’d planned their ambush. The places Furrell
told me to stay away from were always near a trackway or path. Now, you have
seen Devil’s Oak and Falmer Lane .
If you were a bird, master clerk, yes...’ She closed her eyes. ‘Imagine
yourself a falcon flying above the meadows and fields around Melford. Go on,
close your eyes!’
    Corbett
did so. ‘Strange,’ he murmured. ‘The day is not clear but grey and overcast.’
    ‘Good,’
Sorrel agreed. ‘Now, remember the fields on either side of Falmer Lane — they roll and dip, don’t
they? The lanes and trackways are deep, more like trenches through the
countryside. That’s what Furrell called them.’
    ‘Yes,
yes, I’ve thought of that,’ Corbett agreed. ‘It’s a vision enhanced by the high
hedgerows.’
    ‘That’s
the work of the sheep farmers—’
    Corbett
opened his eyes. ‘What are you implying?’ he interrupted.
    ‘A
poacher,’ she replied, ‘always stays within cover. Fie will, where possible,
always scurry along a ditch or a hedgerow. It’s common sense. One side is
protected and he does not want to be caught out in the open. Rabbits and
pheasants do the same. The night Furrell disappeared, he must have followed the hedgerows down to a certain place to meet someone. He
was probably killed there.’ She kept her voice steady. ‘And his poor corpse
buried. Good, I thought, that’s where I’ll begin.’
    ‘But
I saw you in a copse well away from Devil’s Oak?’
    ‘Patience,’
Sorrel murmured. ‘I mentioned one path Furrell would take but he also favoured
the secret copse, the hidden clump of trees. I searched both places. In my
first week, Sir Hugh,’ she tapped the skull, ‘I found this. It was behind a
hedgerow down near Hamden Mere, a place Furrell had warned me to keep well
clear of. I was curious. I dug, no more than a foot, and came across the grave,
just a shallow in the ground, the remains tossed in. I noticed the ring,
bracelet and piece of girdle. I was going to leave it there but my conscience
pricked me. Here was I, searching for poor Furrell’s corpse yet I couldn’t give
these pathetic remains proper burial. I don’t trust Blidscote, or any of those
wealthy burgesses. I thought of going to see Parson Grimstone, but who’d
believe me? I took the ring as payment, wrapped the skeleton in a leather sheet
and brought it here.’
    ‘This
was once the chapel, wasn’t it?’ Corbett asked. ‘In your eyes, a holy place?’
    ‘Yes.
I later regretted my charity.’
    ‘Why?’
Corbett asked.
    ‘I
found two more graves,’ she confessed.
    ‘What!’
    ‘I
tell you, I found two more graves. That’s why I called the killer of those
young women a weasel but...’ She paused.
    ‘What?’
Corbett asked.
    ‘How
do we know these poor women were murdered? I’ve examined these bones. There’s
no blow to the head. No mark to the ribs. Nothing!’
    Corbett
got to his feet. His fingers felt cold and he stretched out towards the warmth
from the sconce torch. What do we have here? he thought, staring into the heart of the flame. Sorrel was an expert poacher. She
knew the land around Melford. He’d met similar people on his own estates. They
could tell if the ground had been disturbed, what animals had passed along
which trackways. Furrell must have discovered these graves scattered around the
countryside. Being shrewd and clever, he must have disturbed them, realised
what he had found, covered them over and, because of superstition, kept Sorrel
well away from them. She, in turn, when looking for his grave, sharp-eyed and
remembering what she had learnt, had found one grave: out of respect or
superstition, she’d then moved the pathetic remains to this ruined chapel. But
were they murder victims?
    ‘What
do you think, master clerk?’
    ‘They
could be murder victims.’ Corbett spoke his own thoughts. ‘They could be the
prey of the slayer of Elizabeth Wheelwright and the others but, there again,
another killer could be responsible, years earlier. Look at the skeleton. The
flesh and clothes have all decayed — nothing but brittle, yellowing bone.
Indeed, these graves may have nothing to do with murder.’ He sat back on the
floor. ‘In London ,
Mistress Sorrel, beggars die every night on the streets, particularly during
wintertime. Their bodies are buried in the mud flats along the Thames , out on