It was the simultaneous death of Mr Thomson Bonar, at age 70, and Mrs Anne Bonar, at age 59, on the night of Sunday 31st May, which brought unfortunate notoriety to the village in 1813.
Their tomb in St Nicholas Churchyard recalls their fervent prayer, that they might leave this world together, a wish so horribly and mysteriously fulfilled.
Loaded with the blessings and the veneration of all who knew them and each unconscious of the other's fate, they were cut off together in their beds at the midnight hour.
They only slept to wake in heaven.
These are the bald, shocking facts of the tragedy, the retelling of which would be brief, indeed, if merely concluding with the conviction and execution of the murderer and so the tale has here been embroidered into a more substantial story about him and his co-conspirators.
The detective, Lavendar Reed, of the Bow Street Runners, is an invention, as is his clever and precocious daughter, Calista, of the same ilk as Elizabeth Fry, with whom she collaborated in pressing for reform of prisons and the convict transportation ships.
Grosvenor House Publishing Limited Murder most foul, paperback/colin yardley
