‘Enid?’ Ben blew out his cheeks. ‘I don’t think so, Nik. I mean, how? Seriously, I have to lift her into a wheelchair when we go to Derriford. Guillemot really isn’t set up for someone like her, is it?’
‘Not…yet, no.’
‘I mean…you know…stuff…andthings.’ He was actually colouring. Aleksey wanted to stretch out and cup his face and kiss him. So he did. Ben ruffled his hair. ‘It was a nice idea though.’
‘Oh, ye of little faith, Benjamin. I have my spies. I will discover…stuff…and things…and then they will be provided.’ At Ben’s expression he sat back down and explained, amused, ‘I have asked DS Mailer to enquire what Enid’s needs are—bathroomsand sleeping—and if Enid thinks she can manage, Sunshine will go there with the moron this week and prepare the place. We won’t sail this time but hire a motor cruiser, and she can travel in style.’
‘Wow. All of us. Cruise down together. That would be...brilliant.’
Aleksey heard the kettle boiling and flicked his finger towards it. ‘Yes, I thought we might go to Topsham tomorrow and see what boats they have for sale…’
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
Topsham was at the end of the Exeter canal between that waterway and the river which went on out to the sea. It was notable for many interesting things, but particularly for its shipyards. Sir John Franklin’s ship, HMS Terror, which had been lost on its attempt to find the North West Passage in 1845, had been built there thirty-two years before this tragedy. Now many of the warehouses and wharfs had been turned into boutique shops and apartments, restaurants and holiday accommodation, but away from the tiny town’s centre more original areas around the old abbey could be found. Aleksey was busy reading an interesting plaque which had been placed alongside the river with all this history related, when Ben came up to him. ‘According to the guy in the cafe, the best yard to look at boats is Woods Marine. They’re—’
‘Abbey marshes look interesting. Come.’
Ben caught up to him, glancing back over his shoulder.
‘We’re not looking at boats, are we?’
‘Ack, what are all those things on the river? Look, they’re everywhere.’
‘Oh, bloody hell. Harry.’
Aleksey smiled. It had genuinely taken him this long. They passed a small bookshop and Aleksey paused, then turned back and went in. Something Sister Agnes had said made him think that Harry might frequent a local bookseller’s. It was a quaint shop, mainly full of second-hand volumes about boats and sailing, which was not entirely unexpected. They even had a copy of a book about Franklin’s doomed expedition, and a newspaper clipping framed above this which announced the recent discovery of the wreck of The Terror off King William Island in Canada.
Sir Francis Chichester’s exploits had their own shelf, which as Devon’s most renowned pilot-sailor was only to be expected, he supposed. He picked up a book about this local hero’s famous off-course navigation flight from New Zealand to Australia and handed it to his budding pilot, and chose for himself the story of Chichester’s record-breaking single-handed sail around the world, hisimpossible voyage, a record he set in the 1970s, and which was unbeaten until the attempt which took Commodore Staveley-Bathurst’s life thirty years later.
Paying for the books, he casually asked the woman behind the counter if she knew Harry. Or Snodgrass—he remembered this vital identifier this time.
She did. Somewhere in the old abbey grounds. He’d been right.
Topsham Abbey had once been one of the most thriving priories in Devon, until Henry VIII had decided he didn’t like the French or his current wife. Wanting a war with the former and a divorce from the latter, he broke from the Roman Church. To make hisGreat Matterappear more based in deep spiritual misgivings with catholic doctrine and practices, and less as it probably was on a pair of sparkling eyes and an inability to get laid, Henry then set about breaking up all the religious houses in his realm. Literally in most cases: stained glass smashed, statues defaced and desecrated, stone-vaulted ceilings reduced to rubble, monks and nuns and those in their care turned out into the streets to beg. The monasteries’ extensive land holdings and vast revenues didn’t go to waste, however. They went mostly into the pockets and purses of Henry’s men in the Court of Augmentations.
Clearly, the plaque on the path leading to the ruins didn’t explain Topsham Abbey’s history in theseexactwords, but Aleksey had always been good at reading between the lines.
There was nothing left of the actual priory buildings themselves but a few crumbling walls and broken arches, which might once have been part of their defensive perimeter. Inside these ancient fortifications, the site was full of rubble and weeds with the occasional hint of foundations, from which the church might once have risen, dominating the flat river lands around. Aleksey stood toeing some of the broken stones, thinking once more about dissolution.
Ben wrapped his arms around his neck from behind, pressing pleasantly against his backside and kissing his hair. ‘What are you thinking? I don’t like it when you’re thinking things.’
‘That’s my line. I was just recalling what someone recently told me about famine.’
‘Yeah, me too. I’m starving. Let’s go back to that café we saw. Looked okay.’
Aleksey put his hands back, pulling Ben tighter against him. ‘I meant famine when these places were being destroyed. There was one in England in the 1540s when the crops failed, and often the only places the poor could get fed was by the monks and nuns. When the monasteries came down thousands of people starved to death.’
‘Huh. I thought the monks were all buggering little boys and worshiping the devil so that’s why they got kicked out.’
‘Ah. English education; I had forgot.’ He smiled inwardly, recalling a long conversation over dinner, and asked, genuinely amused, ‘So, what do you think about Richard the Third?’
‘Who? Dunno. Why? Wasn’t he the hunchback who murdered his sons in the Tower of London? Hacked their heads off or something? And one of the boys stood back up and picked up his own head and accused him—said he would die within seven weeks and dogs would eat his blood? And people still see this little headless ghost sometimes?’
‘Interesting.’
They wandered around for a while until they came to an area right down by the river. A small dinghy was tied securely to a bollard opposite an old wooden door set in one of the ancient stone walls. The door was hanging half off its hinges, so they scraped it fully open and pushed through.
