Archie's Battleflat Adventures: The Harriman Mystery (22 page)

Archie
sighed as he swept past the window and glanced outside. It was
going to be warm and sunny. A gentle haze had already settled over
the fields that would bask in golden glory until the orange embers
of dusk would settle them into darkness.

His eyes
landed on the church further away and his thoughts immediately
turned to Mr Harriman. Nobody had said anything about Mr Harriman
being buried yet. Had he missed it? Had Mr Harriman already been
buried, and nobody had mentioned it to him? Somehow, he doubted it.
Battleflat wasn’t busy enough for a funeral to be held and not
talked about, but Mr Harriman couldn’t still be lying in the tavern
– could he?

He made
a mental note to ask his mother as soon as he got home, and turned
his attention back to the dirty floor.

“
So can I?” Archie prompted later that night. He was tired
from several days of poor sleep and a long, exhausting day at the
corn mill, but it was of little consequence at that moment. As soon
as he had seen the telling look pass between his mum and dad, he
had known he had a battle on his hands.

“
I don’t know, Archie, maybe you would be better to stay at
work tomorrow,” his mum replied.

“
But I feel that I should go,” Archie persisted.

“
Why?” his dad asked. “You didn’t even know Mr Harriman, other
than to nod at him as you passed him in the street.”

“
None of us did though, did we?” Archie turned imploring eyes
on his dad. “But you are going, Dad. Why can’t I go? I was the last
one who saw him alive, after all.”

“
I’m not going,” Marjorie piped up from the depths of the
kitchen. “I’m going out to the fields again.”

“
I’m going in my official capacity as constable. Lord
Brentwood may be there,” Jack replied, staring sternly at Archie.
“He will undoubtedly take the opportunity to pester you about what
you saw. Have you remembered anything else?”

Archie
had to fight to keep his face bland and hope that his face didn’t
have that tell-tale flush of embarrassment that immediately made
him want to fidget. He shook his head slowly, dropping his eyes to
the table so he didn’t have to meet his dad’s gaze.

“
I want to go, Dad,” Archie said softly. “I need
to.”

The
silence that settled over the room was interrupted by the
occasional thumps on the ceiling from his brothers, who were
fighting again.

“
I’ll go and see what they are doing,” Marjorie said, dropping
her cloth on the table as she swept past and disappeared up the
stairs.

“
I just feel that I need to go,” Archie said, staring sadly at
his dad.

“
If you feel that it won’t upset you too much, then I suppose
it will be alright. But you must be ready first thing in the
morning. Because of harvest, the vicar has agreed to hold the
service early.”

Archie
nodded, relieved that it had been so easy to persuade him. Later,
during tea, after several moments of savouring delicious food, he
became aware of Edward’s curious gaze. His eyes silently warned
Edward to keep quiet for now, but the unspoken agreement that they
would discuss things at the earliest opportunity hung between
them.

“
Are you sure you want to go?” Edward asked later that night
as they lay settled on the blankets once more; this time, though,
they had every intention of staying there for the entire night.
After mulling over the clues once more, they had settled into a
companionable silence and now lay in the darkness waiting for sleep
to claim them.

“
I’m sure. Not only will it give me the opportunity to see Mr
Harriman buried, but I need to be able to check the churchyard and
see if I can locate that place marked with a circle on the
map.”

“
But what if it isn’t Battleflat Church?” Edward whispered,
wondering how Archie was going to get away from the funeral long
enough to search anything.

“
It must be. Why would Mr Harriman hide anything anywhere
else?”

“
We don’t know where he came from. It could be a churchyard
anywhere.”

“
Well, until we check Battleflat Church, we cannot cross it
off our list,” Archie argued reasonably. “Besides -” he said,
studying the map closely again, “- it is the same layout as
Battleflat Church. The gate is in the same place and the church is
positioned the same way, and I am sure the tree marked here is the
one that sits to the left of the gateway. I am sure it is
Battleflat Church.”

“
I suppose you are right,” Edward’s voice was laced with
doubt. “I wish I could go with you.”

“
I know, but I will report back later, I promise.”

“
You’d better,” Edward warned seriously, settling down with a
sigh.

The
following morning, with the sun being chased by ominous looking
clouds, Archie stepped out of the kitchen door after his dad. He
paused briefly as Mr Harriman’s coffin was slowly carried past on a
horse-drawn cart. Glancing swiftly at his dad, he remained quiet as
he began to walk slowly after the sombre procession.

“
Where is everyone?” he whispered when curiosity refused to
allow him to remain quiet.

Jack
glanced down at his son. “They are all going to harvest, Archie. I
am going too as soon as this is over.”

There
were only six or seven people walking alongside them. Two of them
were the gravediggers who usually attended every funeral, and would
fill the grave in after the burial. The rest consisted of the
innkeeper and his wife, followed by Archie and his dad. Not a large
procession, but at least some of the villagers had turned out to
pay their last respects.

“
People didn’t like him, did they?” Archie whispered, sensing
his dad staring down at him.

“
It wasn’t that they didn’t like him, Archie,” Jack protested.
“It is just that Mr Harriman didn’t mix with many people, that’s
all. I wouldn’t be here either if -”

“
If I hadn’t seen him die, and you weren’t the village
constable.”

Jack
sighed and placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, nodding to Mr
Tompkins as they passed. “You don’t have to do this, you know. You
can go home, get changed and go to work instead.”

“
I need to do it,” Archie protested. Not only was he driven by
something - something he couldn’t define – to go to the funeral,
but he also wanted to take a look at the churchyard and see if he
could identify the place marked on the map.

The next
hour passed in a blur of monotonous boredom for Archie. On more
than one occasion, while sitting on the hard, wooden pew in the
cold church, listening to the vicar drone on and on about sin and
retribution, Archie seriously regretted his decision to attend. He
would have actually preferred to be working hard in the stuffy corn
mill, getting dusty and itchy from endlessly sweeping the husks.
Anything was better than sitting and watching his breath fog out
before him, while the hard bench bit into his bottom. He felt his
dad shift uncomfortably next to him a time or two, and fought a
smile.

Eventually, his patience was rewarded and the vicar drew the
service to an end. Although it was supposed to be an abbreviated
service, it didn’t seem like it to Archie, who almost groaned aloud
at the discomfort in his sore bottom when he stood up.

He
followed the coffin solemnly as it was taken outside, and stood
respectfully beside the grave as it accepted the new occupant. He
took his turn sprinkling dirt over the coffin while the vicar began
to drone on once more until eventually the service drew to a close.
The grave diggers picked up their shovels and began to fill the
hole in, leaving Archie and his dad free to go on their
way.

Unfortunately – or fortunately as it later turned out - his
dad was waylaid by the vicar who seemingly wanted to chat about a
small theft of the church funds, leaving Archie with the
opportunity he needed to wander among the gravestones. He knew he
should be heading home to get changed so he could get to work
without losing too much in wages, but this was just too perfect an
opportunity to be missed.

Mentally
tracing the map, Archie began to wander around. Glancing toward the
entrance gate of the church, with the building about ten paces
behind him as shown on the map, Archie found himself standing at
the foot of a yew tree. Right there in the middle of the churchyard
to the left of the gate, exactly as shown on the map.

Frowning
in consternation, Archie wandered aimlessly around the thick trunk,
staring at the ground. The churchyard was right on the main street.
He didn’t know much about trees, but it seemed doubtful that
anybody could dig a hole in the churchyard for anything other than
putting a dead body in. Even if you ignored the fact that you could
be seen from the road – why?

He could
understand someone wanting to hide something where people were less
likely to search – he had done exactly that thing yesterday, but
the churchyard? In particular, why the tree?

Archie
frowned, lost in thought. A quick glance across the churchyard
assured him that his dad was deep in conversation with the vicar,
and the gravediggers were busy filling the grave. With their
attention diverted, Archie glanced closer at the ground at his
feet, but it was hard packed and certainly didn’t appear to have
been disturbed recently.

He
placed a hand on the rough bark, thinking about the huge oak tree
in the spinney. He missed climbing it, and wondered if he would
ever go to the spinney again. After that fateful afternoon when
everything in his life had changed so drastically, it suddenly
didn’t seem to be a very good place to play. He didn’t think he
would ever enjoy spending any time there again. It was a shame,
because he loved to climb that oak tree, but at the moment it held
too many dark and sinister memories.

As he
turned away, he glanced upward at the chirruping birds, and froze.
His eyes darted this way and that, his mind racing as he tried to
absorb what he had just spotted.

There,
high up in the dense foliage, nestled close to the tree trunk, was
a cloth bag that was almost the same colour as the tree trunk
itself. So close to the trunk that Archie wondered if it was tied.
The tree was thick and gnarled, and less apt to sway in the high
winds they had had over the past couple of days, which is probably
why the bag hadn’t fallen off.

Archie
casually leaned his back against the thick bark and glanced at his
dad still deep in conversation. Standing in the shade of the large
tree, out of the sunshine, he was able to study the area, but
couldn’t see anything or anyone untoward. There was nothing at the
back of any of the gravestones around the tree – he had
checked.

His
heart thumped heavily with suppressed excitement and he fought the
urge to clamber upward and snatch the bag down. Curiosity began to
burn within him until his fingers positively tingled with the need
to seek out the answers to the questions that began to bubble
furiously.

“
Archie!”

It took
all of his willpower to slowly push away from the tree and make his
way back toward his dad.

“
Can I ask you something?” Archie asked when they were almost
back at home. Keeping his eyes firmly on the track before them, he
sensed rather than saw his father’s look.

“
Where is Mr Harriman’s sister?”

“
Nobody knows, Archie.” Jack replied with a sigh. “Because
none of us really knew all that much about him, nobody knows how to
get hold of her - where she lives, or even what her name is. I am
not sure if she even knows he is dead yet. We can only hope that
come Sunday, when he doesn’t turn up as he usually does, she raises
the alarm with Lord Brentwood and her identity is revealed. I’ve
put a notice in the broadsheet, and sent notices out to the local
villages, but until she reads one, or someone tells her, then there
is nothing much more I can do.”

Archie sighed, and wondered if Mr Harriman’s sister really
existed after all. It seems that apart from where his house was,
nobody really knew
anything
about Mr Harriman.

“
Come on now, let’s get changed and get back to work. I’ve got
to go over to Farmer Smith’s again; someone has stolen another of
his sheep.”

Later,
as he made his way toward the corn mill, Archie’s thoughts turned
once more to Mrs Humble. A wave of guilt, stronger than ever
before, swept through him and he knew that he had to tell his dad
what had happened the night before, whatever the
consequences.

Although
another lie would get him into even more trouble at a later date,
he couldn’t tell his father what they had been looking for at Mr
Harriman’s house, or indeed that they had found anything at all.
That, he would have to save for another time, or else risk getting
his dad into serious trouble too. If he had to tell his dad
anything, it had to be that curiosity drove them to go. As long as
he protected Edward and made him appear to be a reluctant party in
all of it, everything would be alright. Archie would be in serious
trouble of course, but at least it would mean that Mrs Humble would
have a proper burial – sort of like Mr Harriman had just
had.