Losing Ground by Catherine Aird Read Free Book Online Page B

intoned Crosby.
    ‘A lot of people made money then,’ she said seriously. ‘Mostly under Henry the Eighth.’
    Detective Constable Crosby started to hum the ditty, “I’m ’Enery the Eighth, I am, I am”,’ under his breath.
    ‘And Queen Elizabeth,’ said the young woman. ‘The Filligrees tried to curry favour with her by raising a regiment here at Tolmie.’
    ‘Good Queen Bess,’ said Crosby.
    ‘The document’s still in the archive.
“For the Lords of the Privy Council having sent to Francis Filligree as well as others to get the militia in a readiness, he made a muster at Tolmie”
in 1599.’ She scowled. ‘The Muster Green is one of the places the developers want to build on.’
    ‘So…’ began Sloan.
    ‘It was the Tolhursts who were the really old family here,’ she said, ‘but you know very few families last longer than three ash trees.’
    ‘Three ash trees?’ said Detective Constable Crosby, while Sloan added an ash tree to a mental list of bizarre English measurements that started with the length of Henry the Second’s foot and thumb.
    Melanie Smithers smiled sweetly at the detective constableand explained that ash trees seldom lived longer than a hundred years.
    Crosby’s face cleared, while the conservation officer turned back, looked up at Sloan and said earnestly, ‘So you see, Inspector, how important it is that we find out for sure about the first building, don’t you?’
    ‘But you’re just guessing about there being bits of an old building here, aren’t you?’ said Sloan, deliberately provocative. They had a very different benchmark of importance down at the police station and that didn’t include the early medieval.
    Or the jumped-up.
    No, that wasn’t true. The jumped-up caused problems all of their own.
    Melanie Smithers rose to her full height. ‘I’m certainly not guessing. There’s an old document in the Calleshire archives that’s been dated to about 1430 which refers to
“Tymbr for ye Roffs at Tulmie”
and that’s ages before this Tolmie Park was built – and then in 1441 Sir Lambert Tolhurst received a licence from King Henry VII to enclose, crenellate and furnish with towers and battlements his manor at Tolmie.’
    ‘Was that to pour the boiling oil out of?’ enquired Crosby with interest.
    ‘Probably.’ Melanie Smithers grinned. ‘You had to get your permissions even then. It didn’t all begin with the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, you know.’
    ‘And why is it so imperative that you find traces of this old building?’ Sloan asked, undiverted. ‘Isn’t Tolmie Park old enough for you?’
    ‘Sixteen hundred and something isn’t as old as fourteen hundred,’ she said ineluctably.
    ‘Granted, miss,’ said Sloan, ‘but it doesn’t answer my question.’
    ‘If there was a really ancient site here,’ she said, ‘it would need excavating before there was any further development and that would help in our battle to keep the developers up to scratch as well as insisting that there is a full archaeological survey carried out before work gets started.’
    ‘I see.’ Wheels within wheels was what Sloan would have called that.
    ‘They won’t like it, of course,’ she said.
    ‘I can see that they mightn’t,’ said Sloan moderately, making another note.
    ‘Besides…’ her voice trailed away and she suddenly looked younger still.
    ‘Besides…?’ prompted Detective Inspector Sloan, a man experienced in picking out useful leads arising during the questioning of suspects – and a great practitioner of what was known as repetitive listening. It was surprising what an echo brought out: often enough more than a question did.
    ‘Besides,’ she grinned suddenly, ‘I’m doing a master’s degree in the medieval houses of Calleshire and being the first to record this one would be a real feather in my cap.’

CHAPTER FIVE
    The second meeting to be held in the offices of Berebury Homes Ltd that day was more focused but not so