Death on Lindisfarne (15 page)

“A
re you sure it's going out?”

Melangell peered out of the side windows of Elspeth's car. The water was still lapping close to the causeway on either side. “Yes,” Aidan assured her. “The tide turned a couple of hours ago. And we'll still be able to get back for supper.”

With only eight of them left, Lucy had decided that two cars would be enough. She was driving in front of them now, with Peter and the Cavendishes. Aidan and Melangell had hitched a ride with Elspeth and Valerie. Aidan decided he would rather watch the seascapes rolling away to left and right than Elspeth's cavalier driving across the narrow roadway.

He had thought of a causeway as a raised road above the sea, but the tarmac here was on the same level as the expanse of wet sand.

They passed the refuge on stilts, where the deep tide channel swung closer to the coast, and then the salt marshes were speeding towards them.

The mainland again. Melangell craned her neck to the car park where they had left their own vehicle for the week.

“Hello, car!” She waved. “Bye bye. See you on Saturday.” She turned to Aidan. “Do you think it's lonely without us?”

“It's probably enjoying a week's rest. A seaside holiday.”

He sensed they were all glad of the break this afternoon. A chance to get away from the island and its dark memories. Holy Island shouldn't have been like that. It was not what he had hoped for when he brought Melangell here.

But he knew the history of Lindisfarne better than most: conflict, betrayal, heartbreak, Viking massacre. Yet still the island kept its aura of sanctity. They would go back this evening, refreshed, and rediscover what they came for.

He wondered how Lucy was bearing the loss of the girl she had loved and done so much to try and help.

Would she take a possible suicide personally?

Suicide? He pushed away the thought that had closed its colder hand over his heart this morning. There must be a sad but unthreatening reason why they had found Rachel's body on that particular stretch of beach, mustn't there? The alternative was unthinkable.

“There!” he cried, suddenly seizing Melangell's arm. “That's Bamburgh church, where St Aidan was leaning when he died.”

Valerie turned round from the front seat. “You really must go and look inside, Melangell. That half-burned beam I told you about. It's up in the roof now.”

The road led down through the village to the foot of the castle crag. Melangell craned up in awe.

“It's
massive.
”

A long line of ramparts marched across the sky above them. Buildings rose within it, dominated by the sturdy square keep.

They drove up the ramp and parked the cars at the foot of the walls. Across the road, the way led uphill through the gateway. Fran, predictably, was complaining in a low voice to David. When they stood at last on the broad terrace of the middle ward, looking out to sea, the wind tugged at Aidan's hair. He turned to face the lively waves. Far below, beyond a wilderness of tumbled dunes, the beach ran long and level. Its pale gold sands threw back the light, even on a grey day. Instinctively he raised his camera. Through the long-range lens, the level slabs of rock that formed the Farne Islands sprang into view.

He lowered the Nikon and took deep breaths of salty air.

“There! Doesn't that make you feel great?”

Melangell was manning the cannons.

Lucy came towards them. Aidan was glad to see her face was brighter too. With a sweep of her arm she gathered the group around her.

“You're standing now where generations of Northumbrian kings stood. And queens too. Bamburgh is named after one of them: Bebba. She wasn't an Angle. She was a British princess who took the brave decision to marry an Anglian king, one of the leading invaders who was taking over her country. Her people had lost, but she could still put her own son on the throne.

“This is the place that King Oswald, who founded Holy Island abbey, took as his coastal capital after he marched south from Iona to drive the Mercians out. Forget the Norman castle, of course. Think of a great wooden hall with soaring gable ends, bright with painted carvings. Here Aidan came to talk to the king. And here, after the Mercians killed Oswald, his brother Oswy became ruler of northern Northumbria. He too married a British princess. But when she died, he took his second queen from Kent. She was a very special princess: Eanfled. I've told you how, years before, when King Edwin ruled in Northumbria, the Roman missionary Paulinus tried to convert him. Edwin resisted until one day he barely escaped assassination. He was wounded, and his Christian queen went into labour. After all that danger, little Princess Eanfled was born safely. Paulinus proclaimed the survival of all three as a miracle. King Edwin allowed his baby daughter to be baptized as a Christian with twelve Northumbrians to accompany her. And when the king himself was converted, thousands more Northumbrians followed him.

“When the Mercians invaded, King Edwin was killed, and little Eanfled was whisked away to Kent with her mother. Now she was coming back to her birthplace to marry King Oswy.

“But it wasn't an entirely happy marriage. Eanfled had been brought up in the Kentish court as a Roman Christian. Oswy had found his faith on Iona, among Celtic Christians. They had different ways of doing things – different dates for Easter, and that meant for Lent beforehand, and all the festivals after Easter. While the king was celebrating the greatest feast in the Christian year, the queen was still fasting for Lent.

“Into this divided royal household came a handsome teenage boy: Wilfrid.”

Aidan's modern namesake heard the tightening in Lucy's voice at that controversial name. She evidently thought the same about Wilfrid as he did. He saw the wind tugging her short hair.

A pang of grief hit him. The image of Jenny's head after they had called a halt to her chemotherapy. The tiny hairs beginning to grow back in a golden fuzz.

The world rocked around him. Then he steadied himself to the sound of Lucy's voice.

“Wilfrid asked for the queen's help to make a career in the Church. Since there were no Roman monasteries in Northumbria, she sent him to Lindisfarne, to take care of a veteran warrior who was now disabled and was going to Holy Island as a monk.

“But Wilfrid had his eyes on more splendid things than Aidan's leaking church on Lindisfarne. As long as Aidan lived, Wilfrid held his tongue. Everyone loved St Aidan, whether their churchmanship was Celtic or Roman. But when he died, things fell apart. Wilfrid heard scholars disputing the two traditions. He spent his spare time studying in the library, and became fired by the dream of seeing Rome. He appealed to the queen again. She sent him to her brother, the king of Kent. He found Wilfrid a reliable escort, the former warrior Benedict Biscop, who went on to found the great monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow.

“The young men set out. They stopped at Lyon, and Wilfrid was so blown away by the magnificence of the Church there that he let Benedict Biscop go on without him. The archbishop of Lyon even offered to adopt him as his son. Eventually Wilfrid tore himself away and arrived in Rome.

“He got the pope's archdeacon to teach him. Then he set off to return to Britain, filled with the ambition to make the backward Northumbrian Church fall into line with the glory of Rome.”

Lucy shrugged her shoulders in her windproof jacket.

“He was a brave young man. Passing back through Lyon, he was persuaded to stay with the archbishop again and took his vows as a monk. But the archbishop had fallen out with the local queen. He and eight of his bishops were sentenced to death. Wilfrid rashly jumped onto the scaffold to join them, until somebody spotted that he was an
Englishman and threw him off.

“So back he came to Northumbria. Here he began to plot with Oswy's son, Prince Alchfrith, the downfall of the Celtic Church.”

Lucy stopped. Even Elspeth had held her tongue for the story. Now they were all looking at Lucy, their eyes demanding to know what happened next. Aidan knew, of course, but he had still been trapped in the magic of the story.

Lucy's blue eyes sparkled, as they had not since Rachel's death. The spell of Lindisfarne's story had held her too.

“Enough,” she said. “It's only Monday. There's more to come. For now, try to enjoy yourselves. Of course, this isn't the early fortress of Oswald and Oswy, but once you're on the inside looking out, it could be. What better place to build a stronghold than on these cliffs, commanding the seashore and the Farne Islands and the coastal roads? Treasure the experience. Like the Celtic Church, the things we hold dear may not last forever.”

The sadness returned to her eyes.

Aidan was glad to see the burst of energy with which Melangell raced through the castle rooms, chattering about the exhibits as she passed. Sometimes she would whirl around and dive for a particular display, to become enrapt with its details: a table made from oak scavenged from a bridge the emperor Hadrian built in ad 120; the gigantic chains hung either side of a doorway in the Keep Hall.

“That's what shire horses used to drag the shipwrecks ashore,” the attendant told her.

“Did they have lots of wrecks, then?” Melangell demanded.

“Could be as many as four a week.”

It was what she needed, a break away from the sadness of death, Rachel's drowning, the bloodstained figure of James, the ominous presence of the police.

“Look, Daddy! They must have umpteen million swords. They've made a star of them over the fireplace.”

Everywhere Aidan looked there were weapons. Looking closely, he saw that they had been used.

He led her to the window. Bamburgh might have its own dark history, but here, today, the wind blew strong, the white foam streamed and horses galloped along the sands.

Aidan surveyed the seascape before them. Through the lens of his camera he could pick out the mêlée of seabirds on the stacks of Inner Farne, St Cuthbert's refuge.

He put his hands on Melangell's shoulders and turned her to look northwards.

“Can you see that smudge on the horizon? The bit on the right is Lindisfarne.”

“That's funny.” She screwed up her eyes. “When we're on Lindisfarne, we can see Bamburgh and it looks, like, really big.”

“That's because it is. Remember how much smaller Lindisfarne Castle was? You can only just pick it out from here with the naked eye.”

“But Bamburgh's huge, isn't it?”

“Would you like to live up here? I mean, would you have liked to be a princess in King Oswald's time?”

Melangell thought about it and pouted. “No. Because the Mercians killed him, didn't they? They put his head and his hands on a cross. I wouldn't want anyone to do that to you.”

“Thanks!” He ruffled her hair.

“Well said, Melangell. Those were rough times in Northumbria.”

Aidan turned at the sound of Lucy's voice.

Hers was not as expressive a face as Jenny's had been. She had a healthy outdoor look under her short-cropped hair. But still he noticed the lines of strain about her eyes. She was smiling for Melangell, but he sensed the cheerfulness was assumed now. A professional necessity. Today, she wore a black sweatshirt and jeans, with a dark blue windcheater. A white shirt collar showed at her neck. The austerity might well be mourning for Rachel, but it also made her look more like the minister of religion she was, even without her dog collar.

“Are you all right?” he said quietly, as Melangell scampered away to admire a suit of armour. He was still embarrassed by the way he had shouted at her.

“I'll manage.” She gave him a brief, surface smile.

“You'll be glad the police enquiry is over. Or it will be by the time we get back. They should have finished with James by then.”

“Yes.” She sounded less sure.

“What's wrong?” he asked, after a moment's hesitation, though he knew.

“Probably nothing.” She had her hands in her pockets, turning away from him into the wind.

“But?”

“Oh, I don't know. That hunch you learn to get in the police, that something's not quite right. You put your finger on it this morning. Those coastguards. They weren't too happy about it looking like a suicide, were they? And DC Chappell. He thought he was on to something more than an accidental drowning. Even the detective sergeant asked more questions than her boss. It's only DI Harland who seems ready to wrap it up.”

“I think you touched a sore point about police budgets.”

“Yes.” She made a face. “I didn't mean to be hard on him. But if you know you may have a bill for a million pounds staring you in the face, you can't help feeling relieved if you see a way to close the book on it. I'm not saying the police would ever do that deliberately, but, well, things work on your subconscious.”

Even indoors, the hollow sound of the wind haunted Aidan's ears.

“Then…” He looked at her sideways, suddenly anxious. The implications of what they were saying hovered on his lips. “We're thinking it wasn't an accident? Not even suicide?”