Revenge

Revenge

If there was one thing DI Mallory disliked, it was a case he considered beneath him. And a bit of grave desecration, even in as sleepy a town as Hampden, was definitely not his usual fare. Sure, the last real murder in the area had been that bloody business up at Hawkesley Towers, fourteen years ago. But there were enough nasty vendettas between neighbours and lust triangles causing trouble to keep him occupied most of the time.

Occasionally, there were even outbreaks of mindless teenage violence and property destruction. But this latest thing did not fit that description. There was something a little too personal about it.

In Mallory’s experience, graveyard desecration was a more general event, a matter of drunken youths going berserk late at night and breaking things for the sake of it. And, in that case, damage was never limited to just one grave. There would be many graves disrupted and stones broken over a wide area.

Which is what made the present instance almost worthy of his deductive powers. Why was only one grave affected? And why so completely and with such attention to detail, every element of the grave being disturbed and toppled or broken? The headstone thrown down and then battered until cracked and defaced, the stone edges scattered and the lone corner pillar wrenched from its dais and hurled upon the ground, the soil kicked and gouged as if in fury.

This was definitely personal. It was sure evidence of rage and hatred toward one individual, even beyond the boundary of death. The dead man had been detested by someone with a grievance, his sin made worse by his being dead, thereby escaping the full retribution of the culprit’s ire. The ruined grave spoke eloquently of revenge thwarted, of the frustrated fury of the one he had wronged.

Mallory bent over to read the inscription on the headstone. It was still legible, although some attempt had been made to obscure the words. Karl Avery Garman was the deceased’s name, born 18th September 1917, died 6th January 1992. The name meant nothing to Mallory. There was a brief poem inscribed below this bare information and Mallory continued reading.

Seek not me here your wrath to teach
For I am long gone beyond your reach

That seemed appropriate to present circumstances, in Mallory’s opinion, but he felt no better for it. The mystery merely deepened as a result. He called to a uniformed officer standing nearby.

“Constable, d’you know anything about this Garman guy?”

“Not me,” replied the officer. “Seems he died before I was even born.”

Mallory reflected on the old saw of policemen getting younger in the eyes of the aged. Not that he was exactly aged, he told himself. But he could remember the nineties as if they were yesterday.

“Okay, Constable, your next job is to find out all you can about the deceased and then report back to me.”

The policeman had a puzzled look on his face. “How would I do that, sir? I mean, where would I look?”

“Think about it, lad. Start with the local newspaper offices - you’ve got a date of death here - and then there’s the library, parish church, undertaker’s that kind of thing.”

The policeman turned and scampered off. Mallory stood by the grave for a while. To his surprise, he was beginning to enjoy the challenge presented by the case. Digging around in the past in search of the odd little bit of information that cracked the whole thing wide open, that was his bread and butter. It was always about motivation in the end. People did nothing without there being a clear benefit to themselves involved.

Mallory spent the afternoon in the graveyard, trying to imagine what exactly had happened at Garman’s grave and failing. Whatever circumstances he proposed for the event seemed to lack the passion and loathing so obvious from the damage done. Forensics came and went without contributing anything worthwhile. Those onlookers attracted to anything out of the ordinary in a village as small as Hampden drifted away as the day neared its close and the shadows lengthened, settling around the gravestones and marble angels.

The young constable turned up, looking satisfied with the information he had succeeded in amassing. Mallory sat on the steps of a small mausoleum near Garman’s grave while the officer gave his report. There was a lot to tell.

It seemed that Garman had been one of two prospecting partners who had discovered gold near Hampden in 1951. This had been the cause of a minor gold rush and resulted in the town’s only claim to fame. The boom had been brief, the gold having been mined out very quickly, and Hampden returned to its former obscurity.

It had been sufficient to make Garman a wealthy man, however, and he had built Hawkesley Towers while the money lasted. This had taken no more than a few years and Garman had been forced to sell up in 1958. The rest of his life was spent in fruitless prospecting of the area as he tried to repeat his success. He never married and had no known children. In ‘92 he died and his family, a cousin and a brother living in another county scraped together enough to give him a decent burial and a gravestone to match.

And that was about all the constable had to say about Garman. As far as he knew, the man had been popular enough, without obvious enemies, and had never been in trouble with the law. There was one more interesting fact that the constable had gleaned, but it was unlikely to have any bearing on the matter.

Mallory waited patiently, knowing that there was always something, and that it was usually the most unlikely detail that forced open a crack in the most resistant cases.

It concerned the other half of the partnership that had discovered the gold. This was a man called Jimmy Bancroft, several years younger than Garman, and, apparently, the one who did most of the physical work involved. Garman was always regarded as the brains of the outfit, at least.

The most interesting thing about Bancroft was his disappearance. About a week after the find, he was gone and Garman explained that the younger man had cashed in his share of the business and left to seek more adventure in other lands. It was a little suspicious and the police did what they could to dig into it, but gold fever was running high, the town in chaos as hopefuls poured in, and crime multiplied. Without a body or some other damning evidence, there was really nothing to investigate anyway.

By the time the gold rush was over, the affair was largely forgotten.

It was a pity but the only man who might have had a reason to hate Garman could not possibly be the culprit. Mallory thanked the constable for his efforts and sent him off duty.

He remained in the graveyard as the light faded from the sky and the night drew on. It looked as though the case would not be solved but Mallory hated to leave it at that. There must be something, either that they’d missed in their investigation so far or that remained to be discovered.

It was quite late when Mallory surfaced from his reverie and looked around. The night was dark, the moon being a mere sliver peering occasionally from ragged clouds that skudded across the sky. The graveyard was a mysterious place in this setting, a matter of vague lighter shapes in the deep black of the shadows. A green glow came from the direction of Garman’s grave and, as he tried to make sense of this strange phenomenon, he heard the sound of voices.

Certain now that the grave despoilers had returned, intent on creating more mayhem, Mallory rose and began to make his way towards the grave. Very quickly he became aware of two figures standing at the site and arguing furiously over something. He slowed and approached more cautiously.

Mallory could see no source for the glow that illuminated the scene. Neither figure carried a lantern and the light seemed to be concentrated only on them, almost as a ghostly spotlight. It was insufficient to allow any identification, giving only an outline to the figures without detail.

But he could hear what they were saying now and he stopped to listen.

The taller figure was shaking his fist at the other, clearly enraged over some wrong he had suffered.

“You bastard, Garman, don’t you stand there denying it was you. You were the only one within miles of our camp and were always a greedy blighter. It had to be you.”

The shorter, stocky man raised a shovel over his head and threatened the first speaker. “Shut yer lyin’ mouth, Jimmy. You know damn well it was always yer plan to steal the gold when I weren’t lookin’ and leave me for dead. It ain’t my fault if you got drunk and some bastard did fer you that night. It were all yer deserved anyway.”

“And you have the brass to accuse me of your crime. You’re nothing but a lying thieving mongrel, Garman, and I’ve a mind to rip your black heart from your chest this night. Give me the gold now and I might not make you suffer.”

The other laughed. “You always were a stupid bastard, Jimmy. The gold’s no good to us now, you idiot. Even if I ‘adn’t spent the lot ages ago. You’ll not see a penny, that’s fer sure.”

This seemed to enrage the one called Jimmy, for he leapt across the grave to grapple with Garman. The shorter man swung the shovel at his head but Jimmy ducked and tackled him so that they fell, locked together in hatred and fury. Mallory took the few paces to stand over them as they fought.

“Alright, you two,” he shouted. “This nonsense has gone far enough, I think. Explain this silly masquerade and stop this foolish scuffling.”

At the sound of his voice, the two on the ground froze into stillness. They looked at each other and then up at the detective standing over them.

“It’s the rozzers,” said Jimmy.

“Well, one of ‘em,” answered Garman. “Shall we do as ‘e says?”

“Yeah. It would be a pity to disappoint him.”

They disentangled themselves and stood up.

“What was that yer were sayin’ about a masquerade?” asked Garman.

Mallory had been convinced that the two were just a couple of drunks with a scheme to make a fool of him but now, when they were this close yet still as vague and shadowy as ever, he wasn’t so sure. Still what light there was seemed to radiate from them and he had the impression that he could see through them.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked. He tried to grab Garman by the shoulder but his hand passed through nothingness.

Garman grinned. “Ah, ‘ell. That’s about what it is, awright.”

Then the two spectres gave each other a look before falling on Mallory, dragging him down into the dirt and driving his head into the dust until he could no longer breathe.

Jimmy sat up from their handiwork. “Shoulda known better than to interfere in a fight between mates,” he said.

“Too right,” agreed Garman.

With that, they set upon each other again and struggled until the moon went down and utter darkness descended upon the graveyard.


Word count: 1,922
For Horror Writing Contest, June 2023
Prompt: As per illustration.