Midsomer Demons
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Chapter Two
Are there any Walnut trees in England?
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Robert Walpole strode down the path through his woods, firmly poking at the ground with his walking stick in a manner suited to the current Earl of Orford. He walked his grounds for an hour every morning while digesting his English breakfast, having considerable pride in his Midsomer estate. As he walked, he eyed his lofty trees, occasionally making a mental note if he felt one was getting near the end of its life and could be cut down and sawed into planks so it could be given a second life – many second lives really – as fine furniture – or perhaps intricate paneling for the main hall, or even fine musical instruments. He came around a stand of gorgeous English Oak trees, then down a short steep section of the path to a partial clearing with an ancient Black Walnut – he stopped short. Why was the sun shining in his face? He looked incredulously at the empty space ahead of him. His great Walnut tree? Where was it?
He stepped closer and was bewildered by the hole in the ground where his finest tree used to be. He looked beyond and saw truck and tractor tracks along the path. He shook his head angrily, grabbed his felt hat, threw it to the ground and stomped on it.
He finally gathered his wits and calmed down enough to call the police on his mobile.
"Jones!" DCI Barnaby said, "anything for us on the overnights?"
"No sir, but the Earl of Oxford, Robert Walpole..."
Barnaby interrupted, "Walpole is the Earl of Orford, not Oxford. Don't mix them up, the respective Earls will be indignant and think you a fool."
"Orford? Not Oxford? Really? I thought that was typo. Okay, so anyway, the Earl of Orford called in this morning. It seems someone stole a tree from his forest." Jones frowned at the paper. "Sounds a bit barmy to me, sir."
"He may sound dotty, but in this case, no. Theft of trees can be a real problem."
"So you really think CID should investigate a missing tree?"
"Yes, I know, it's crackers, but the Earl is influential in the County, and has the ear of both the Superintendent and the Chief Constable, and enough money to cause a great deal of trouble if we should displease him, so it won't do to antagonize him unnecessarily. So go ahead and take Stevens and go talk to him."
"What? Seriously? For a tree?"
"Yes, depending on the type of tree and how big it was, it could well be felony."
"Really?"
"Oh yes."
PC Stevens straightened her uniform as she got out of the car and looked around the estate. She said, "What are we doing here again? Somebody nicked a tree? It's a bit early for Christmas and there seem to be rather a lot of them left – I wouldn't have thought one less would matter that much."
"Yeah, the guv'ner has his knickers in a twist about this toff. Evidently we have to make nice."
"Huh. That doesn't really sound like Barnaby."
"Maybe he just wanted us out of the office for a bit."
They walked up the impressive stone pavement to the even more impressive carved wood front door of the country house of the Earl of Orford.
"Doesn't look like the Earl is short of readies," said Jones, looking around at the perfectly coiffed landscape.
The door opened just before Jones could pull the old-fashioned bell rope. "There you are! It's about time! Some bastard has stolen my very best walnut tree! You can follow the tracks and nab the bounders!"
"Ah, Lord Walpole?"
"Yes, yes, follow me to the scene of the crime!" The Earl hurried off, confident that Jones and Stevens would follow. They glanced at each other and took off after him across the side yard and into the woods, following a nicely maintained path that wound prettily through the forest.
After about ten minutes, Jones asked, "Ah, sir, how much further is it?"
"Not far, young man, not far at all. No more than another ten minutes. Hurry along now, there's not a moment to be lost!"
They finally puffed up to a small clearing with a freshly dug hole in the ground. Jones and Stevens stood next to the Earl and stared down into the hole. It looked about five or six meters across, and maybe four or five down.
"Sir," asked Jones, "why did the vandals go to the trouble of digging out this rather large hole?"
"Vandals? Oh no, not vandals, they were thieves, blackguards, the worst of the worst. You see, the value of a walnut tree is increased many times by digging down to cut it below the major root ball, that way you can get the most valuable planks."
"Planks? You think your tree was stolen to make furniture?"
"Of course. This tree should yield about thirty thousand pounds worth of raw lumber."
"Ah, by 'pounds'," Jones said, a little puzzled that he wasn't using kilos, "you mean weight?"
"Of course not, you bloody imbecile – I mean it's value. This was a very fine example of the juglans nigra, or the eastern black walnut. Originally from North America, walnuts were introduced into England back in the late 1700s. This one was more than a hundred and fifty years old, which is getting on for a walnut tree. It was near the end of it's life, past the end really, and was ready to be harvested. This tree, it was beautiful, really, truly, beautiful." Jones was startled to note that the Earl had tears in his eyes.
"This tree, young man, was worth a great deal of money. But more than the money, the fact is this tree will make beautiful works, fine furniture in the best tradition of English woodworking: tables, chairs, desks, carved panels, prie-dieu, sideboards – all glowing with an inner fire after accomplished artisans have finished working the wood into beautiful forms. The loss of this tree, is, is, is… well, I'm speechless with fury!"
"I see." Not too speechless, Jones thought uncharitably, but wisely kept his mouth shut.
"No young man, I don't think you do. You see, walnut usually grows either tall and slim if grown under forest competition, or short and wide with a broad crown when grown in an open area. This one was started in a clearing by the old Earl of Orford, Lord Weston, and after having grown to a significant girth in the trunk, the next Earl, my father Lord Walpole, planted trees around it, quite close, so as to foster vertical growth. So you see, this tree has been tended by three generations of Earls, and I have reason to be bereft that some dodgy arsehole has lifted it from under my nose! When I saw that hole it was a right kick in the gut, detective, let me tell you if it wasn't!"
"I see," said Jones, writing a note in his notebook. "Can I have the particulars of the tree, sir?"
"Particulars?"
"Description."
"Oh I see, yes, well it was about one hundred a twenty feet tall, and around eight feet in diameter, but increasing to at least ten feet at the base, probably more at the root ball. And of course, it was a Black Walnut, you know what they look like, right?"
"So how many people could actually handle a tree this size? Dig this hole and cut it down in the middle of the night and haul it off without you noticing?"
"Hmmm, it was here yesterday morning, I suppose they could have started working on it around noon. If they had maybe half a dozen men they could have dug it out and cut it down by nightfall. The tracks tell me they had a logging truck, a backhoe, and a skidder to load it. So they had to be professional loggers."
"And you heard nothing? I would have thought the sound of chain saws and skidders would carry through the woods."
The Earl sighed unhappily. "I probably did hear it, I just didn't realize it was coming from here. You see, I had loggers at work on another part of the grounds, about quarter a mile from here off in about the same direction as this tree is from my house. So the sounds, well, the sounds would have merged, wouldn't they?"
"Ah, yes I see. But how could they make off with a log that's ah, forty meters long?"
"No doubt they crosscut the trunk in two, or possibly three pieces depending on how big the root was. More to the point, there's only about three places in a reasonable distance that would accept a tree like that to process. There's other sawmills, of course, but they would be mostly filled up with their own trees, or wouldn't have equipment big enough to handle a trunk this size, or they would be a very long drive from here. So let's get back to the house, I'll give you a list of dodgy mills to look up, and you can put them under surveillance until you pinch the bastards!"
"I'll see what we can do, sir."
On the drive back to the station, Jones and Stevens had a good laugh.
Stevens said, "Yeah, I can just see the Chief Superintendent authorizing the dosh for a massive surveillance operation to find a stolen tree!"
"Yeah, I suppose we'll have to visit a couple of sawmills, but even if we found it, how would we identify it?"
Stevens, effecting a stern voice, said, " 'Sir, are these your logs? Or does it belong to the Earl of Orford!' Yeah, that'll go over well – they'd be shaking in their boots, I'm sure."
In the year of our Lord, 16 February, 1896, Orford House, Midsomershire
My Dearest Sweet Clara,
And when I have reasoned it all out, and set metes and bounds for your love that it may not pass, lo, a letter from Clara, and in one sweet, ardent, pure, Edenic page, her love overrides my boudaries as the sea sweeps over rocks and sands alike, crushes my barriers into dust out of which they were builded, o'er whelms me with its beauty, bewilders me with its sweetness, charms me with its purity, and loses me in its great shoreless immensity.
I am bereft until our eyes, our lips, our hands, meet again,
Yours forever,
Charles
The next morning, in my black skintight jogging outfit, I was indulging in some tai chi exercises out on the dock. After a few minutes I saw Cully Barnaby at the top of the dock wave at me.
"Morning Dawny! You ready for a run yet?"
"Hey, Cully, just a sec, let me finish my set."
I sped up the last few forms, then joined Cully at the path.
About a quarter of a mile down the path, I asked Cully (puffing a little), "You hear about Kitty?"
"Yes, how awful. Have they found Sir David yet?"
"Not that I know. Old 'call me sir!' is a bit of a berk, isn't he?" I answered.
"Well, aren't you all British sounding these days. And you know, we probably shouldn't speak ill of the dead."
"I am a linguist, I pick up foreign languages easily. I didn't know you were superstitious."
"Foreign language? You mean English?"
"Yeah, foreign. At least the way you guys speak it on this island."
"Hah! I think you're all topsy-turvey, after all, we invented English so it's you colonists who speak foreign. And no, I'm not superstitious, I just think it's tacky to insult dead people."
"To be sure, we don't know that he's dead."
"So that makes it all right to insult him?"
"Umm, perhaps not. And anyway, you didn't invent English, you inherited it from the Germans and then started speaking it badly when the Vikings got here and intermarried and didn't bother to master the more complicated bits of Olde English."
" 'got here and intermarried'? Really? Is that supposed to be a euphemism for rape and pillage? And I really hate the sound of 'got'."
"It could have been a violent intermarriage in many cases, and while the Danes ran roughshod through England, overthrowing kingdoms and such until old Alfred stopped them, but behind the battles and such a lot of the Northmen settled down rather peaceably with willing wives. And you better get used to 'got' – I've heard it on the telly."
"Humph. I thought the Vikings were pretty damn violent when they invaded. Of course, modern humans are pretty violent, too. My dad is the DCI over in Midsomer, in the Causton CID. For a quiet idyllic English rural county, we have an utterly astonishing number of murders. And it must have been an American who said 'got'."**
"What does DCI stand for?"
"Detective Chief Inspector."
"So he's kind of a big deal."
"Yeah, I guess. I mean, to me he's my dad, but he reports to only one guy, so I guess he's high up in the coppers."
"Cor blimey that's corking!" I said.
Cully laughed at my exaggerated imitation of British vernacular English as we jogged side by side down the path.
Barnaby sipped his morning tea in the back garden with a couple of scones. He could hear his wife puttering around in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. He couldn't help but wonder if was to be bacon and eggs, or some creative atrocity so inedible even the dog turned would up his nose.
His phone rang, it was Jones. "Yes Sergeant?"
"We have a murder, sir. I'll be at your house in ten minutes."
Barnaby very nearly blurted 'oh thank god' but managed instead, "I'll be ready." Joyce was just coming out of the house with a plate of what was supposed to be breakfast. Barnaby marveled at how his wife could get such awful results after trying so hard for so many years to improve her cooking.
"I'm so sorry dear, but I have to run, although this smells delicious. Jones is picking me up in a moment."
"Oh, but your breakfast? You have to eat!"
"I'll pick up something on the way to the scene, don't worry dear, I'll be fine."
He kissed her, then hurried around to the front of his house just in time to meet his sergeant; he got in the passenger side and they took off in a hurry.
"So what've we got?"
"Constables were called out to an industrial woodworking facility just outside of Lesser Horsepath, which is down the road from Greater Horsepath, although I'm not sure why 'Greater' would actually apply to such a small village, but there it is. Anyway, there was a murdered man in the middle of the sawing shed. Murder by sawmill, apparently."
"Erm, could it have been an accident?"
"Constables on the scene don't have any doubt."
"Hmmm."
They arrived about thirty minutes later. Barnaby and Jones got out and looked around. There was a large wooden structure, open on the ends, that had stacks of logs at one end and neatly piled stacks of planks at the other. There were various other buildings and sheds, evidently devoted to the care of wood in various stages. They walked into the large building and Barnaby could see an outsized industrial dual-bladed circular saw in the middle, flanked by a log carriage on rails and various other supporting equipment. It was huge, he'd never seen one that large, the thing wasn't quite big enough to cut his car in half, but it wasn't far off – a very small car would probably fit on the carriage. Just beyond the works was a man, or what used to be a man, lying forlornly on the ground, partially covered in woodchips.
"Dr. Bullard, good morning."
"Ah, morning Tom."
"So, what do we have?"
"A dead man, or rather, two halves of a dead man."
Barnaby raised his eyebrows involuntarily as he took in the remains. "Yes, well, are we certain this was murder and not an accident? By the looks of it, this machine could certainly make short work of someone who tripped and fell at the wrong time. It's not exactly a computerized marvel with an excess of safety devices."
Bullard agreed, "Yep, back in the day they didn't see much need for blade guards or automated emergency stop systems."
Jones had to turn away from the sight of the sawed man and held his hand up to his mouth. He was just able to keep from vomiting his breakfast all over the scene.
"But," Dr. Bullard continued, "according to the workers here, the machine was shut down when they got in this morning, which would tend to preclude suicide. Accident? Possible I guess, but there wasn't anyone supposed to be working during the night."
"Can you tell if he was dead before he was, ahhh, ripped in half lengthwise, as it were."
"Not until I get the pieces of him on my table."
Jones wandered outside the shed, looking at logs. He stopped and stared at three in particular.
"Excuse me," he asked one of the despondent workers sitting outside, sipping tea. "These three logs, these wouldn't by any chance be from a black walnut tree, would they?"
"Why yessir, it tis. A good eye you 'ave sir. There aren't a lot of walnut trees in England, ye see, sir."
"Would you happen to know where they came from?"
"No, but the guv'ner would."
"And where would I find him?"
He pointed down the middle of the sawmill shed. "There sir, or rather wot's left of 'im. Pur' bastid."
"Surely there's someone else who took care of paperwork?"
The man stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Ye kin try old Molly. She's over at the office building, down that away," pointing at another building with his cup.
"Okay, thanks, I will." He turned back towards Barnaby, but didn't move any closer; he just stood and waited.
A few minutes later Barnaby did come towards him. "You have anything?"
"Yeah, see these three logs? I think it's the Earl's missing walnut tree."
"Really? Surely Walpole wouldn't have committed murder over his logs, would he?"
"I dunno, he actually had tears in his eyes when he was describing the particulars of his stolen tree to me and Stevens."
"Seriously?"
"I could hardly credit my eyes, but yes, seriously. Apparently this tree had been in the family for three generations. He said it was worth thirty thousand pounds, minimum."
"Well, we've certainly seen murders committed for far less than that."
"Yeah, but I don't think the Earl would've done this, he seemed convinced we'd pull out all the stops to recover his tree."
"We've also had to arrest members of the aristocracy for murder, Jones. Just because he's an Earl doesn't make him any less susceptible to adopting criminal solutions."
"Still, I don't think he'd be the type. Of course, I've been wrong before." He stared at the tree thoughtfully. "On the other hand, I don't think he would have had the time to find the logs since Stevens and I talked to him last."
"Well, that's a good reason to keep an open mind, at the very least."
In the year of our Lord, 12 March, 1896, Causton House
Oh my dearest Charlie!
It is not within me to to tell you how I have been affected by this dearest of all letters, it was so unexpected, so new a thing to see your inmost thoughts upon paper that I was quite o'rpowered, & now I sit down to answer in the loneliness and depth of love that unites us!
I scarcely know how to proceed, but proceed I will, for I am agitated with excitement, my eyes half shut as I remember our secret delights. Oh to be with you again, my love, to feel your your heartbeat with your chest against mine, as our hearts beat in synchronicity! I am ready, I am yours forever just as you are mine!
4 more weeks, a lifetime, or a bagatelle?, just a little more time, and my lips will be on yours, pressed together, your arms around me, holding me tight. Upon close of this letter, I am going to bed, to think of you, to dream of you!
Love Forevermore, your soulmate,
Clara
I was in my study, trying to work on my research, when I heard a car drive up. I leaned back in my chair with a sigh, saved my work, and waited for the doorbell seeing as my concentration was completely ruined.
The theme from the Imperial March reverberated throughout my house as I answered the door – I was gonna kill Andrew one of these days. "Oh, DS Hathaway," I gushed before noticing he brought a colleague.
"Hello Dr. Summers, this is Detective Inspector Lewis, we'd like to follow up on a few items, if we may?"
I held the door open for them; I still never issued verbal invitations even though it had been years since I had seen a vampire – the lack of same being one of my favorite things about Oxford. Although some of the more introverted scholars secluded in the further recesses of some of the ancient structures in the city looked suspiciously pale to my eyes.
"Would you like some tea or coffee?"
"No thank you Dr. Summers," said Inspector Lewis, "I wonder if you could give us a little more detail on the conversations you had at the pub last night, before Miss Parkinson left?"
"Oh sure, we were arguing about how accurate our reconstruction of the early Indo-European languages could be. I tend to be a little vehement when it comes to defending my work – I think we will eventually be very accurate indeed, if not perfect about the regional pronunciations, but Kitty thinks – I mean thought – that we could never even get close." My eyes watered.
Hathaway handed me a handkerchief.
"Sorry, I just realized I'll never be able to argue with Kitty again. It hit me hard."
Lewis said, "And the others in your party? What were they discussing?"
"I don't know, something about boys and their balls."
Both men looked at me quizzically. I added, "Sports, balls and sports. I really wasn't paying attention to their conversation."
The doorbell rang again and the damn Stars Wars theme echoed throughout the house. Hathaway and Lewis looked bemused. I said over my shoulder as I went to the door, "One of my idiot friends thinks it's funny to reprogram my ring tones – and I didn't even realize my doorbell could be re-programmed until it was too late."
I opened the door and I swear it looked like a more rural version of Lewis and Hathaway.
"DCI Barnaby and DS Jones of Causton CID." The older one said as he held out his credentials. "Is Miss Kitty Parkinson in? We were told at the college that she might be here."
Hathaway and Lewis come up behind me. Barnaby said, "Inspector Lewis! What are you doing here?" as Jones said, "Hathaway, how ya doin'?"
Lewis said, "Miss Parkinson was found dead last night."
Barnaby frowned. "Now that's alarming. Was it a violent death?"
"Very," said Sergeant Hathaway.
Sergeant Jones said, "We're here to inform the next of kin of the death of the death of Nathaniel Parkinson, Miss Parkinson's brother."
"And how did he die?" asked Lewis.
"He was sawed in half."
"Ohmygod!" I blurted out, "Alive?!"
"At first," said Jones. Oh god, another fucking joker in the face of death. He'd get along well with Xander and Buffy these days.
"Erm," said Hathaway, "what kind of saw?"
Seriously? What kind of saw? Men! I thought.
"It was an industrial sawmill – a large circular saw for logs. The perpetrators shoved him onto the carriage which feeds into the blades, where he was cut in half lengthwise from head to crotch. Our ME believes he was probably unconscious since he didn't make any effort to climb off the feed table. But, conscious or not, he surely died more or less instantly. The perpetrators left the two halves of the victim spilled all over the floor, shut off the machine and the lights, and drove away."
"AHHH! I didn't need to hear any of that!" I practically yelled at them.
Barnaby said, "Oh, I am sorry miss, uh..."
Hathaway said, "This is Dr. Dawn Summers. She was Miss Parkinson's research partner. Former research partner."
I calmed down and asked, "So is the Causton CID and the Midsomershire police related somehow?"
"They're both part of the Thames Valley Police, just different stations."
"Oh, so you guys are all colleagues, right?"
"Yes."
"And, Mr. Barnaby, are you related to Cully Barnaby?"
"Yes, she's my daughter."
"Ah, she's often my running partner during the run of her play here. She described you quite well, I think.
"Oh, good."
In the year of our Lord 20 March 1896, Oxford House
Oh my dearest Clara,
Your letter touched me in ways that I can hardly countenance. Were there ever two souls more harmoniously matched? A week, a week and a half perhaps, and I shall pull you to me, face to face, eye to eye, finally to touch your lips with mine. The wait is interminable, the cruel calendar keeping us apart in our time of desire. But, the days will pass, never fear, and we will be together again, of this you have my absolute certainty.
And, it is my great relief to tell you that my father has written at last – your father and mine have reached agreement and we will be wed, the families agree. I never doubted for an instant, but, if father had disallowed this marriage, I surely would have disobeyed him!
We will be together forever, with love,
Charles
Author's Notes:
*In Midsomer Murders, DCI Tom Barnaby not only gets called out to solve murders on a regular basis while on duty, but even when he's just enjoying a country weekend at a local fair (or faire, or even fayre) with his wife and daughter, he comes across murders which he then has to solve. He's kind of like the Jessica Fletcher of Midsomer (except more official) in that regard.
Midsomer is a mythical English county, but if it was real it pretty much would be part of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. The actual town of Wallingford is the stand-in for the fictional Causton, and that's not far from Oxford (about twelve miles as the crow flies according to Google Earth), so it's a doddle to mash up Inspector Lewis and Midsomer Murders and then add BtVS to get a little spice into the story. Also, on Inspector Morse, (Inspector Lewis's progenitor), they always identified themselves as 'Thames Valley Police', which, as far as I can tell from my research, would be absolutely correct. For some reason on Inspector Lewis they changed that to 'Oxfordshire Police', but a search for Oxfordshire Police gets redirected to Thames Valley Police.
So anyway, it seems reasonable that Midsomershire is also in the Thames Valley Police jurisdiction, therefore DCI Lewis and DCI Barnaby would both be in the same police department, just different stations. The real Thames Valley Police have forty-eight police stations, plus the one in Causton that they don't know about.
**If you have any interest at all in linguistics, you owe it to yourself to listen to this:
watch?v=3x2SvqhfevE
***WPC Stevens didn't show up on the series Midsomer Murders until around season 10 or 11, but presumably the character was at the station doing ordinary police work in the background. After all, she had enough seniority to get promoted to Detective Constable after she was on just a few episodes.
**** I didn't write the first letter from 1896, I lifted it from a website of actual letters from the Victorian era.
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