7. The Beautiful Graveyard

BOB SKELLINGTON’S REMAINS aprt 7

The head that looked as though it might be made exclusively of matted hair resting on a pristine hospital pillow groaned.

“So how did it happen?” demanded Rosie Baur, her most severe frown seeming to dim the light in the hospital ward.

“The nurse,” whispered the hairiest face in the hospital ward

“The nurse?” queried Sheila Robinson.

“Went mad with a javelin in her hand. I need a drink.” the thatch replied.

“There’s water here,” pointed Rosie.

“I said a drink!” groaned the patient.

“I’ve no time for this!” snapped Rosie. “Officers are at this moment dismantling what you fondly call a clinic!”

“Wanna drink!”

“Try sucking your own liver!” advised Sheila as she and the D.I. walked out of the ward.

A nurse walked past with a cut-throat razor and a large white bowl.

“I’ll give him a shave. Then you might understand what he’s saying,” she said.

“I doubt it would make much sense,” grinned Rosie, “now I really understand what insanity looks like. We’ll come back when he’s dried out a bit just in case.”

“What next, Rosie?” asked Sheila.

“Well, that religious enclave you mentioned. What was it called?”

“Bethany’s Hell, seems an unlikely name for anywhere devoted to faith and whatever, but it’s mentioned once or twice on the web. I couldn’t find a site of its own, though, but I’ll bet there’s one somewhere if you know where to look.”

“Bethany’s Hell? Crikey! What a name! Would it get up your nose if I tagged along, Sheila? After all, it is your investigation and on your shoulders will descend all the kudos.”

“It’s my investigation because I’m the only one of the three of us not on holiday this week,” replied the D.C. “And because investigating the latest movements of a mouldy old skeleton isn’t on the top of the Super’s list of priorities.”

“Cheer up, dear. Now you take the wheel again and we’ll find our way to Bethany’s Hell.”

The good thing about this investigation, thought Rosie, is that nowhere’s far away from anywhere else. That was because it seemed to take no time at all for Sheila to steer the car down a lane that was marked BETHANY’S HELL in a floral script that made the words almost impossible to make out.

“They probably like to keep their name a secret,” suggested Sheila, “that small sign could say just about anything.”

“True enough,” replied Rosie thoughtfully, “but what strikes me as odd for a bunch of elderly hippies, and that’s what they must be if they’ve been here since the sixties, is the way they’ve kept this lane almost beautiful. Stop here a moment, Sheila, and look at the road we’re on. Those flowers aren’t weeds! The whole roadside has been planted with carefully chosen wild flowers. No, this is the work of a gardener, and not any old gardener either.”

“Yes. I see,” replied Sheila thoughtfully, and after taking a few moments to understand what Rosie had said set off again. The lane itself had been treated to traffic calming humps, meaning she had to drive slowly.

“Good job this is a four wheel drive,” she muttered as they lurched over a particularly vicious hump.

Eventually the arrived at Bethany’s Hell, with a sign welcoming them to a floral representation of the name of the place.

It had clearly started off as ab ordinary farmhouse, probably old enough to be Georgian, but that’s where its origin parted from reality. Everything about it was either pretty or beautiful, the two police officers were unsure which term suited it best. Every part of the land surrounding the house was set with a colourful display of flowers that echoed the roadside display they’d paused to admire and a small field adjoining was obviously an extremely well tended vegetable garden. Rosie had seen pictures of monks in a monastery garden, but what she could see here was something else with half a dozen figures in a variety of coloured robes going about gardening business.

An elderly man in a multi-coloured robe emerged from an elegant golden door and approached them.

“You are welcome, ladies,” he said, “but this is private property and only the sacred may enter our cloisters.”

“We are police officers,” replied Rosie, trying to make her smile look as friendly as possible, and that wasn’t difficult, “we’re looking for, what did you say his name was, Sheila?”

“Brother Poppledickem,” contributed the detective constable.

“You want to see Robert?” queried the man who may or may not have been some kind of technicolour monk.

“If that’s what you call him, Mr er…?

“You may call me Father Absintheum,”

“Father Absintheum… I see. Well would it be possible to have a few words with Brother Poppledickem or Robert Montclare or even Howling Hyena, whatever he currently wants to be known as, concerning a family member of his.”

“Of course you may. This way, please. You’ll have to get out of your car.”

They climbed out and followed Father Absintheum along a verdant multi-coloured and certainly very beautiful grass path to an isolated patch of garden, and from everything they could see, it’s purpose was quite clear.

“He is resident beneath that stone of the third entrance along there,” he pointed.

It was obviously a well tended grave and the garden was the most sombre yet beautiful cemetery Rosie had ever seen.

“He’s dead?” she asked.

“We prefer to say he’s on his way to another, better place,” replied the Father, “he was never a happy bunny, you know. Cast out of his home by his father and eventually finding his way here via a chemical road that almost killed him, he ended in our gardens where he recovered enough life to die in peace.”

“I see,” murmured Rosie.

“I very much doubt if you truly do,” Father Absintheum told her, shaking his head gently, “the Lady Bethany taught us to respect those who pass this way and fall at an early fence. Dear Robert did that. Fell at an early fence. I named myself after him, becoming Father Absintheum in honour of his poison.”

“Oh,” asked Sheila, “what did you call yourself before that?”

“Father Earlgreyeum,” smiled the other. “You see, my poison lay in the humble teacup. And, sadly, still does, though in honour of the dear brother lying in this sacred plot I take a small tot of absinthe on special days.”

“That aside, do you know anything of Robert Montclare?” asked Sheila, “like family matters?”

The other shook his head. “Of course not,” he replied, “when we enter this haven of love and trust we leave the old world behind, and his old world was the tormented life his family bestowed on him. No, every scrap of that life was left behind, and he became a saint.”

“Then who was Bethany?” asked Rosie, “I ask out of curiosity, that’s all.”

“Ah the woman of our founder,” smiled Rather Absintheum, “the blessed Bethany. It’s her birthday tomorrow, and she’ll be one hundred and two. Now is that’s all? I must ask you to leave. We have no criminals here, just lost souls wandering the fringes of life before the whole of eternity takes them.”

“Say happy birthday to Bethany for us,” said Sheila as they made their way out of the truly beautiful cemetery.

“You can say that yourselves,” smiled Father Absintheum, pointing, “she rests in peace third plot to the left, over there…”

© Peter Rogerson 06.02.21