Life and Death in the Woods

By Cecilia Peartree

A woodland building project unearths truths that might otherwise have remained hidden, and causes people to question aspects of themselves and others that they hadn’t taken any notice of before.
More or less against his will, Max, a curator in a small university museum of natural history, becomes involved in a project to create a museum of trees in the woods on the outskirts of a town in central Scotland. He has a fraught relationship with two other members of the project group, Philippa and Keith, and with his ex-wife Tricia, but he finds an unexpected kindred spirit in Janice, who works in a sandwich shop not far from the woods, and also enjoys sparky encounters with Samantha, a reporter who is too inquisitive for her own good. Philippa urges the team on in their efforts to drive the project forward, despite the news that a police investigation is taking place at the proposed museum site following the discovery of a body.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cecilia Peartree
• Release date: Feb 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005778712

Cecilia Peartree

Cecilia Peartree is the pen name of a writer from Edinburgh. She has dabbled in various genres so far, including science fiction and humour, but she keeps returning to a series of 'cosy' mysteries set in a small town in Fife.The first full length novel in the series, 'Crime in the Community', and the fifth 'Frozen in Crime are 'perma-free' on all outlets.The Quest series is set in the different Britain of the 1950s. The sixth novel in this series, 'Quest for a Father' was published in March 2017..As befits a cosy mystery writer, Cecilia Peartree lives in the leafy suburbs with her cats.

Book preview

Alan’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen and gave a long-suffering sigh.

‘Sorry, I’d better get this.’

He moved away from Janice a little, and she couldn’t hear everything he said, but from his resigned expression as he came back towards her at the end of the call, she guessed at both the caller’s name and the reason for the call.

‘I’ll have to leave you here, sorry. That was my mother. She’s having some kind of crisis with her electricity. I’ve told her to have those squirrels removed from her loft, but… Sorry, I’ll just run to the corner and get the bus there. You’ll be all right, won’t you, Janice?’

With that, he was gone, jogging on ahead down the hill. She wondered for a moment whether she should follow him, but just as she was considering it, a bus swooped past her, and she saw Alan putting on a burst of speed just in time to reach the stop and put out his hand to alert the driver. Within moments he was gone, spirited away round the corner and into the distance, and she was alone in the dark.

It wasn’t completely dark, of course, thanks to the light pollution Alan had often grumbled about. There were street lights on this stretch of road, and Janice even had a torch in her bag. She had begun to take it everywhere with her after the first of these calls from Alan’s mother. They had been walking by the river that time, and after he had rushed off she had been lucky to get home on her own without falling in.

With the woods on her left and a clump of trees and then a series of small blocks of flats on her right at the other side of the road, she still didn’t feel entirely safe walking alone here, although maybe she wasn’t all that far from home as the crow flew. She fished the torch out of her bag. It gave her something solid to hold on to, at least, and if the worst came to the worst, a potential weapon. Not that she could imagine herself using it in that way.

She walked briskly on. At the other side of the road, a man came out of one of the blocks with his dog and vanished round to the back of the building. Her steps speeded up a little. If she didn’t watch out, she would be running.

Janice hadn’t even considered taking the short-cut through the woods. Even during the day it seemed like too big a risk.

But when the group of teenagers came round the corner further down the road, she had second thoughts. Maybe they wouldn’t notice her at all… maybe they would cross over before they got to her… As they approached on her side of the road, however, she feared they had seen her and were deliberately heading in her direction.

She glanced to her left. As it happened, there was a footpath through the woods only a couple of metres ahead that she knew would take her home in ten minutes… maybe fifteen, in the dark.

Gritting her teeth to stop them chattering, she plunged into the woods without waiting to reach the path, pushing through a patch of nettles and almost tripping over an inconveniently placed rock in her haste. Belatedly she switched on the torch, and saw the path winding along to her right.

Of course this was exactly the kind of situation that, if she had seen it unfolding on the television or cinema screen, would have left her aghast at the heroine’s carelessness. But this was Murieston Woods, the scene of various childhood games of hide and seek, and only ten minutes from home. The only danger, surely, was the chance of falling over some courting couple and experiencing their wrath.

Nevertheless she had to suppress the odd whimper that threatened to escape her as she picked her way tentatively along the path, alternately shining the torch on to the way ahead and down to her feet.

It seemed to take longer than fifteen minutes in the dark. Janice had no idea where she was in relation to any familiar landmark in the woods – a fallen giant of a tree, an invasive rhododendron that had spread its branches enough to form a kind of cave, a fragment of an old wall. All she could do was follow the path, marching grimly on and trying not to think about the darkness of the trees closing in around her.

She couldn’t help feeling a bit annoyed with Alan for having abandoned her without so much as a second thought. Of course he hadn’t known she would do something as ridiculous as plunging into the wood just to avoid a bunch of harmless teenagers – after all he faced groups of young people at school every working day – or to get home a little faster.

Where were the voices coming from? For one hideous moment Janice thought they must be in her imagination. It hadn’t taken long for her mind to be turned by darkness and fear, had it?

She paused and listened.

The voices were real enough, although she couldn’t make out what they were saying. The sound was accompanied by what seemed to be heavy breathing and a kind of metallic scraping. Then she heard a dog barking, and relaxed slightly. If they were just dog-walkers they’d be harmless enough… She was slightly surprised they weren’t on the same path as she was, but then maybe the dog had run off into the undergrowth after something and they had gone after it.

The metallic scraping was quite rhythmic. She tried to think of anything dog-walkers might do to cause it. If anything, it sounded a bit like digging. Maybe the dog had caught a rabbit and they were burying the remains in case some child should come across them and get a fright. Handy that they had brought a trowel or spade with them. Unless this wasn’t the first time they had needed one.

The scraping stopped, and all at once something rushed out at her from the trees and almost sent her flying. She dodged out of its way, but by that time it had already run off in a different direction.

Janice stilled her racing heartbeat by telling herself firmly that the thing had been a dog, and not some malevolent spirit of the woods. She had to get a move on – this shortcut had already taken twice as long as it would have done to go round by the road – and now she moved on as fast as she dared, conscious that the owners of the voices seemed to be getting closer too.

She abandoned the path and headed directly downhill, scratching her legs as she pushed through the undergrowth. Goodness knows what these vicious plants were. With her luck, the scratches would probably become infected and her leg would fall off or something.

She burst out of the woods a few moments later, startling a passing cyclist who wobbled perilously and glared at her. She crossed the road quickly, making for the side turning at the other side that would take her home. Two men were standing close together, conversing in low tones, right at her turning.

‘… got to push it through planning, or I’ll be in trouble,’ said one of them clearly as she passed them.

‘Sssh!’ said the other, glaring at Janice. ‘Evening, love.’

Janice disliked being called ‘love’ or the unisex ‘pal’ by people she didn’t know. If he hadn’t said it, she probably wouldn’t have looked at him properly. The nearest working street light was some distance away, but he seemed to have fairish hair and very pronounced features, particularly his nose. She thought she might know him again. The other man turned away, almost as if to avoid being recognised.

‘Evening,’ she muttered, and scurried off down her turning. The encounter had shaken her up a little, but that was probably only because of the fright she had already got in the woods. She was almost sure the men had been quite harmless. Maybe they’d been talking about football, or darts, or golf, or growing vegetables.

She was no longer just a bit annoyed, but extremely miffed with Alan. None of these unsettling encounters, or almost-encounters, had exactly been his fault, of course, but if he hadn’t given into his mother’s demands – again – she certainly wouldn’t have had to walk through the wood on her own. Or even down the road.

She resolved to make her feelings plain to him the next time she saw him. Of course, there was no knowing when that might be, if his mother had got her hooks into him. She might keep him overnight, or for a week or more.

The woman was welcome to him, she told herself firmly, squirting cream on top of her hot chocolate and then sprinkling chocolate flakes on top of the cream. If she had had any marshmallows in the house, there was no doubt in her mind that she would have deserved them too.

Chapter 2

The day started off badly. As usual Max had the radio on in the background while he had a sketchy breakfast and reflected on the day ahead. It was just unfortunate that unexpectedly hearing the name of the head of his department caused him to take a huge gulp of scalding coffee, which in turn made him curse out loud and miss the rest of the news item. Had it had something to do with trees? Perhaps the local council had culled a few more of them from one of the leafy squares around the New Town, or something equally reprehensible.

On the way to work on the bus, he admired the blossom on the cherry trees that fringed Princes Street Gardens, and his spirits lifted very slightly. Ah, the natural world! - so predictable in its seasons, so reliable in its behaviour.

‘Morning, sir,’ said Colin the caretaker, opening the side door of the museum for him. Max puzzled all over again, as he did most mornings, about why everyone referred to him as a caretaker, when actually he turned his hand to almost everything around the museum, including things that were not in any way within his remit. The man was ubiquitous – and creepy, although Max had never worked out the reason for this either.

Maybe it was the way the caretaker’s brown eyes - or were they green? - slid sideways at the end of each sentence, as if he were looking to see if anyone better had come along in the meantime. Or maybe the way his face and body appeared to have been assembled from ill-matched components, so that his face didn’t fit the shape of his head and his body was too long for his legs. Max mulled this over on his way along the corridor. He resolved to try and keep his eyes focussed on the person he was speaking to in future, in case he was in danger of being referred to as ‘the creepy curator’.

‘What about this museum of trees, then?’ said William Forsyth, the schools visits co-ordinator, at morning coffee time. His voice reverberated round the basement photo-copying room into which the three of them squeezed twice a day every working day of their lives, perched on hard chairs, exchanging rumours from their various departments. The custom had evolved from a regular illicit coffee-break Max used to have in his office during a period when Howard the head of department in his infinite wisdom had banned coffee-breaks. Max had welcomed Amanda because he had recognised her as someone who had a life outside the place, in contrast to most of the other staff. When William had arrived and had been placed, after some deliberation, in the same category, the three of them had graduated to the photo-copying room which, while not being much bigger than Max’s office and even hotter and stuffier in the summer months, had the great advantage of no telephone connection to the outside world.

‘It’s a lot of nonsense,’ said Amanda, looking slyly at Max over the top of her spectacles.

‘Why do you say that?’ said Max and practised his new focussing technique. She began to go pink in the face.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she began, tried to break off eye contact with him and couldn’t, went pinker and snapped, ‘What’s the matter, Max? Have I got cream on my nose? Broccoli on my teeth?’

Max slid his eyes away, trying not to look shifty, and stared instead at the photo-copier instructions which were stuck on the side of the machine and were in very small print. The print seemed to have got even smaller since the last time he looked. He wondered whether to go and get his eyes tested. Wearing glasses might make him look more like a real academic and stop people from asking for id when he bought alcohol.

Amanda was still waiting for an answer.

‘No, of course not,’ he mumbled. ‘You look fine.’

This was of course a bit of an exaggeration. Amanda’s beige complexion, beige hair and beige clothes merged into each other to create an impression of complete colourlessness. Max wondered if she did this on purpose so that her appearance didn’t distract people from the force of her personality.

‘It’s the usual story,’ said Amanda. ‘They think it sounds good, but they’ve got no intention of following it through - thank God. It’s just something they can stick in the Queen’s Speech and be reasonably sure nobody will object to. It won’t come to anything.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ said William, taking an inelegant slurp of coffee from the South Park mug which the cleaners hid every night at the back of the cupboard because it offended them so much, but which he took out again defiantly every morning. Max could remember having an argument with the same cleaners about football soon after he had first joined the museum staff and finding his Spurs mug in pieces in the bin the next morning. ‘The word is that they’re determined to do it.’

‘Word?’ said Amanda, inadvertently imitating some theatrical dame playing Lady Bracknell. ‘Whose word?’

‘Ah, that would be telling,’ said William. He liked to pretend to have the inside story on everything in the museum world. This was mainly based on an on-off relationship he had with a woman who worked in one of the places where decisions were made. Max was quite envious of the relationship, not having had any kind of romantic encounter of his own for some time.

‘It’s got nothing to do with us anyway,’ said Max, resolving to try and find out what they had been talking about as soon as the coffee-break finished.

It turned out that the Scottish government had allocated funding to a project to create a National Museum of Trees – it must have been one of these cases where they needed to spend the money before the end of the financial year – and that somehow or other Howard Baines-Fullerton had got himself on to the steering group by virtue of running their own very small museum, part of the university department of natural history, which meant the staff were forced to give lectures to bored students from time to time. In fairness to Howard, though, it was obvious that there had to be a bit of an overlap between a museum of trees and his own remit. Max still didn’t see what it had to do with him.

Only a few days later he discovered he had spoken too soon to the others.

Max had been meaning to spend Friday morning auditing the stuffed bats. He hoped to make a case for disposing of the more moth-eaten specimens to make room for more of the woodland mammals, his personal favourites. He was annoyed to have his anticipation of this activity interrupted by the telephone and alarmed to hear the whisper of Howard’s secretary.

‘... come and see him...’

‘When does he want to see me?’

‘... now...’

‘What, now?’

‘Yes, now, Max!’ said Howard’s much less tentative voice suddenly. Max jumped, which was what people did when Professor Howard Baines-Fullerton said ‘jump.’

On the way through the galleries he passed the Fauna of French Revolutionary material. Howard had chosen to interpret this as anything at all connected with the Revolution, one of his hobbyhorses, so the display cases contained the snuffboxes, fans and trinkets of the doomed aristocracy, bought up with morbid eagerness by their British counterparts, but, apart from the exhibits made of ivory, of course, having very little to do with animals. Max experienced a faint echo of the fear these people must have felt on the way to see Robespierre or one of the others.

Colin the caretaker had materialised outside Howard’s office, polishing at an invisible smear on the display case housing a fragment of shirt that was said to have belonged to Napoleon.

Max knocked at the door. Citizen Falconer reporting.

‘You’ve probably heard about this feasibility study thing,’ said Howard with the vagueness of manner which masked the ruthlessness of a Marat or worse, of a Charlotte Corday.

‘The National Museum of Trees?’ hazarded Max.

Howard nodded.

‘So, we’re going to be monitoring it?’ suggested Max.

Howard shook his head. Max felt that the revolutionary tribunal was going against him. Any minute now it would be the thumbs down - no, that was the gladiators, surely?

‘Lobbying against it?’ Max tried to keep the panic from his voice: he had learned from experience that it was fatal to show signs of weakness. Howard didn’t even bother to shake his head but instead looked grim. The walls of the Bastille loomed in Max’s imagination.

‘We’re not going to take part in it?’

‘I’ve been asked by the Principal to put forward a name,’ said Howard, and paused. Max felt as if the tumbrel had stopped by the steps to the guillotine.

‘So, did you have anybody in mind?’

‘Yes, Max. With your varied experience in - um - all aspects of museums, I thought...’

‘I’d really like to do it, but I can’t see myself being able to abandon any of my other projects at this stage,’ Max said in a voice that diminished as the sentence went on.

‘And your other projects are?’ said Howard, velvet glove temporarily cast aside.

‘Well, there’s the ongoing programme of replacing the showcases on the west side of the Small Woodland Mammal Gallery,’ Max began. Howard waited.

‘And getting the capybara conserved,’ said Max with increasing desperation. Howard waited.

‘Cataloguing the British seashells?’ ventured Max.

Howard jumped to his feet.

‘No, no, no, Max! That isn’t good enough. This is your chance - our chance - to get a higher profile by taking part in a national feasibility study. To get out of the back room and on to centre stage.’

Theatrical metaphors made Max nervous. He hadn’t recovered from a bad experience at an experimental Fringe show the previous summer.

‘But there are some very important shells…’

‘The Museum of Trees is important! The Scottish government are pushing it! The politicians are going to be on our backs. They’ve already appointed consultants. I need somebody I can trust on this one.’

Somebody you can trust to be a yes-man, not to make waves, to follow orders for the sake of a quiet life, thought Max ruefully. He didn’t like change – he had been hoping when he had moved to Scotland a few years before that things would never have to change again - and he had a horrible feeling that, whether he followed orders or not, the quiet life he had hoped for was about to become a museum exhibit in its own right.

Just outside, Colin was fiddling about with the little model guillotine, the placing of which not far from the Director’s door seemed only too apposite. He gave Max one of those sliding-away glances. Max looked away, embarrassed by the man’s very creepiness.

‘Well?’ said Amanda Urquhart, thrusting her chest at him on the stairs. ‘What did Our Mighty Leader have to say for himself? De-briefing on his trip to Timbuktu, was it? Or something worse than that?’

Max backed away slightly. He had to press himself against a hot radiator to get clear of Amanda’s chest, but it was worth it.

‘No, nothing like that. He’s put me on a working party.’

‘Working party? A contradiction in terms, surely?’

Max started to sidle up the stairs. He could only take so much of Amanda’s irony on one day, particularly as he suspected it was her idea of flirtatiousness. He didn’t want to fall into the trap of imagining that now he was effectively single again every woman he looked at fancied herself in love with him, but it was hard not to see some sort of lust in Amanda’s gaze, even if it was refracted through the glass of designer spectacles with tiger-striped frames.

‘Max!’ called William across the nocturnal mammals display, startling the infant class who were scaring each other with inaccurate tales of taxidermy. ‘How did it go? You haven’t been fired, have you?’

‘Not yet,’ said Max. The words had a hollow ring, or maybe it was just the acoustics in the gallery.

Somehow he got as far as his own office and sat in the rickety wooden chair he had inherited from his predecessor. Perhaps it was time he cast off the purely metaphorical old cardigan and worn-out slippers of his life in the university museum of natural history and went boldly forward into the modern hi-tech world of the new venture. Perhaps he’d be able to learn something from the consultants. And after all he was the one Howard had personally selected for this rather high-profile