Island of Bones caw-3 Read online

  Crowther looked at her very steadily. ‘I am no murderer.’

  The Vizegrafin froze and Harriet thought of them as twinned dragons facing across a family shield. They had the same eyes, the same trick of holding themselves absolutely rigid when angry.

  When the Vizegrafin spoke it was as if she had licked each word with something bitter before letting it leave her mouth. ‘No, Gabriel, you only pick amongst the leavings of murderers like a butcher’s dog. My father never murdered any man. Rupert de Beaufoy died at the hands of the law as a traitor to his King. My father did his duty.’

  She crossed the room and left the library, her skirts hissing and crackling over the floor. Harriet sank into the chair thait she had vacated. ‘We might have managed that better. Your poor sister will soon run out of rooms to leave in high dudgeon.’ She folded her hands. ‘Who might Rupert de Beaufoy be?’

  Crowther sighed and sat down opposite her. ‘He was the brother of the last Lord Greta, whom my sister mentioned to you a little while ago. The one who was caught in the Second Rebellion and executed in forty-six.’

  Harriet stared hard into the carpet in front of her, her fingers tapping at the fabric of her dress. She could feel the thoughts and questions plaiting into a braid in her mind like rope in the chandler’s shop.

  ‘Crowther, when was your father awarded his peerage?’

  III.5

  Stephen had pulled Felix’s arrows free from the straw bed of the target and was now wrestling his own from the slight rise in the lawn either side of the painted roundel. He was just fastening his fingers round the second of these when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Careful there!’ Felix said. ‘Those arrows are delicate things. Free them gently at the angle they went into the ground, or you will weaken them.’ Stephen adjusted his grip, and slid rather than yanked the shaft free from the grass. ‘That’s better. A weak arrow can split under the strain of the string, you know.’ He showed Stephen his palm. In its centre was a faint puckered scarring. Stephen touched it with his finger.

  ‘Did it hurt?’

  ‘What do you think? Treat these things with respect, Mr Westerman.’

  Stephen squinted up at him. Felix did not seem a man who treated many things with respect. Last evening in the drawing room he had seen him pick up and twirl on his fingertips a tiny porcelain dish of Mrs Briggs’s that he himself would have feared to breathe on in case his lungs might shatter it.

  ‘Tell me more about hunting boar, sir,’ Stephen said. ‘You must be very brave.’

  Felix shrugged, resting the tip of his bow on the ground in front of his feet. ‘I suppose I was. My heart was thudding, certainly. I was mostly excited though. It is one of those times that you are too engaged with the task at hand to think of anything else. The world becomes small and all your worries disappear. No bills, no thoughts of your own future. Just you and what is in front of you. It makes one feel free.’

  Stephen was confused. To be a man was to be free, surely? Out of the schoolroom, no longer having to ask permission for anything. He tried to say so, and Felix shook his head.

  ‘I am sorry, Stephen. We are never free. It is simply as we grow older, the negotiations become more complex.’

  As they walked back towards the firing line Stephen watched Felix grow serious; his eyes were clouding and he handed the bow to him without comment or further instruction. Stephen felt his companion’s sudden gloom fall on his shoulders. He thought of his mother, the way she could be so bright at times and quick, then of the number of occasions over the last year when he had found her curled up in her chair in the drawing room looking so still she might have been carved. He knew she was thinking about his father then, and seeing her so sad with her memories meant he did not speak of Captain Westerman as often as he would like. He would lie in his bed trying as hard as he could to remember how it felt to be lifted in his father’s arms and have the air pressed out of him. He would wriggle as if he wanted to get away, but laughing and only in truth trying to get closer to the man, his scent of salt and sweat, the rough stubble of his face.

  ‘Do you have a father, sir?’ he said suddenly.

  The question shook Felix out of his thoughts and he looked down at Stephen with eyebrows raised. ‘I do. Everyone does, you know.’

  Stephen lifted the bow, but found he could not see the target very clearly. He felt Felix’s hand on his shoulder, slightly correcting his posture. ‘I do not,’ he whispered to the feathers of the arrow’s flight and then released the string. The arrow fell short and skidded through the grass. Felix said something swiftly in German under his breath.

  ‘Damn stupid thing to say. Sorry, Stephen. I know your father was a fine man. My mother is right — I am an idiot not fit to be let out.’

  Stephen let the bow drop to his side. ‘It does not matter. You are being kind to me.’

  Felix shook his head. ‘Do not trust me, Stephen. I have bad blood.’ He looked up, distracted by some movement at the edge of the garden, and his expression changed from curiosity to sudden shock. ‘Good God!’ Stephen turned to see where he was looking and saw Casper emerging onto the upper lawn from the path into the woods. He was leaning heavily on a stick. Slung around his shoulders was a thick rope, and with it he was dragging something that looked like a sledge. There was a body on it.

  Felix set off up the hill at a run with Stephen at his heels. When Casper saw them heading towards him he came to a stop and waited, breathing deeply. One of the gardeners who had been working on the beds outside the front door turned, then dropping his trowel, raced into the house. Felix arrived by Casper’s side, and as he looked at the body, went completely white. He turned at once to Casper.

  ‘What happened? Where? You are injured! Did you have some sort of fight with this man? Did you kill him?’ Casper looked at him coolly but said nothing. Felix flushed. ‘I said, what happened? Answer me!’

  Stephen moved away from him and closer to Casper, who put his hand on the boy’s shoulder but still said nothing. The door to Silverside Hall burst open again and Harriet and Crowther appeared, the Vizegrafin following behind them.

  Casper leaned over to Stephen. ‘Is the lady with the red hair your mother?’

  Stephen nodded. ‘And the man with her is Mr Crowther.’

  ‘Him I know, I think. Don’t be frightened, lad.’

  Harriet was in the lead of the little group from the house. As she reached them and saw the body on the sledge, she slowed her steps, then put out her hand.

  ‘I think you must be Casper Grace,’ she said.

  Casper took her hand and shook it. ‘I am, and glad to know you.’

  ‘I am sorry to see you have been hurt. Stephen told us.’

  ‘I shall mend, madam.’

  Crowther had crouched down beside the body and having touched the neck for a moment, stood again. ‘And who was this gentleman?’

  Casper lifted the ropes from around his shoulders, wincing as he did so, and dropped them to the ground. ‘I cannot tell you that, my lord. Though by his looks, I’d say this man,’ he nodded towards Felix, ‘knows what name he went by.’

  Stephen watched as Crowther turned his cold blue eyes on his nephew. Felix put his hand briefly towards his throat before replying.

  ‘Hurst, his name is Hurst. I knew him in Vienna.’

  Stephen started. ‘Casper! He is Sophia’s father!’

  Casper squeezed his shoulder, but continued to speak to Crowther. ‘I found him in the old mine on the flank of Swineside. You know the place?’ Crowther nodded. ‘He was hidden beneath rocks and branches, just in the lip of the workings. If I had not had business there, he might have lain a year.’

  ‘Hidden?’ Harriet repeated, looking intently into Casper’s face.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Someone had aimed for him to stay there.’ He sniffed, and settled his satchel under his arm. ‘Good morning to you,’ he said, and with another squeeze of Stephen’s shoulder he was gone. Stephen looked at the body. It was a man
about the age and size of Ham, the coachman. Old, but not as old as Crowther. He had black hair, curled over his ears and very shiny like his daughter’s. Mr Hurst was wearing a buff jacket with gold buttons, and a high, pale waistcoat, a little dusty. There was a twig sticking out from under his collar. His face looked very grey, and his lips were a strange pale purple. The only corpse that Stephen had seen before now was that of his father. James Westerman had looked in the first minutes after death as if he were sleeping, his eyes closed. Mr Hurst’s eyes were still wide open and his mouth a little agape. He lay in the sledge as a man might in a hammock with his ankles together and his arms by his side. His shoes had gold buckles on them and the skin on his face looked very smooth. Stephen could see no blood.

  ‘Why has he left?’ the Vizegrafin asked, suddenly shrill. ‘What are we supposed to do with the body?’

  She was ignored. Stephen felt a pressure on his arm. His mother had crouched down until she could look him in the eye, and was turning him away from the body. ‘Stephen, would you go and find Isaiah and Ham for me?’ she asked, and looked up at Crowther. ‘We shall carry Mr Hurst into the brewery. .’ She seemed to be asking Mr Crowther something. He nodded and she stood again. ‘Quick as you can, young man.’

  Stephen shook himself, and set out for the house.

  Only someone who knew Harriet as intimately as Crowther did would have noticed the set of her mouth, and slight paleness in her cheeks. To anyone else she would seem almost unnaturally calm in the circumstances. She turned to Felix.

  ‘This man’s daughter was here only half an hour ago, Felix, asking for you and concerned about her father. Miss Scales took her to the vicarage. Perhaps you should go and give her the news that his body has been found, since you know the young woman.’

  Felix put his hand to his face; he was still staring at the body. ‘She was here? I did not kn-’

  His mother interrupted. ‘There is no reason my son should be sent to talk to the girl! Let one of the servants carry a note. And why should the body be left here? Let it be taken away.’

  Crowther listened to the rising notes of her voice, and once again thanked the fates that Mrs Westerman was not inclined to be hysterical.

  ‘Felix, perhaps you should take your mother into the house. Mrs Westerman, I suggest once the body is secured, that we send a note to Mr Sturgess. He is the magistrate, and the coroner must be summoned. Perhaps then we may go to the vicarage and speak to Fraulein Hurst and Miss Scales.’ He looked again at his nephew. He was waiting, perhaps even hoping that the boy would insist on accompanying them. Felix, however, only took his mother’s arm and Crowther felt his lip curl.

  When they were out of earshot he turned to Harriet. She had crouched down next to the body, and lifted the head between her palms, turning it carefully to left and right. ‘I can see no signs of injury, Crowther. The skull seems intact.’ She gently lowered the head. ‘Our skeletal friend is safely boxed then, I take it?’ She took hold of the far shoulder of the corpse and attempted to roll it towards her.

  Crowther knelt by her side and assisted her until they could gain sight of Mr Hurst’s back. The limbs were rigid. His tight jacket appeared unmarked, only dusty, as his waistcoat. They let the body rock onto its back again.

  ‘Nothing,’ Harriet said. ‘But the body is quite dry. His daughter was concerned for him before the fireworks last night.’

  ‘We can assume he was in his hiding-place before the storm of yesterday evening then,’ Crowther said softly. As they stood again, the two servants of the Hall came trotting out towards them. Both exclaimed at the corpse. Harriet was surprised to see Ham pull one of Casper’s rowan crosses from his pocket and kiss it. Crowther gave them their orders and they picked the rough sled up like a stretcher and headed towards the old brewery. As they followed a few steps behind, Crowther leaned towards Harriet. ‘Let us delay sending to Mr Sturgess half an hour.’

  Harriet said nothing, but nodded.

  Having delivered his message in the house, Stephen hesitated on the steps a moment then turned and ran off in pursuit of Casper. He was haring down the track he thought most likely when he heard a whistle and Joe’s rough call and turned. Casper was sitting among the shadows a little higher than the path. His clothes and skin so matched the colours around him, Stephen would have run straight past him unless he had been summoned.

  ‘Are you feeling better, Casper?’

  The man looked up. His left eye was still almost completely shut, and the bruising on his face had already moved from raw red to purple and yellow, spotted with black and blood blisters. Stephen’s eyes widened, and Casper smiled.

  ‘You’re better than a looking-glass, lad.’

  Stephen looked away, embarrassed. ‘I told Miriam you had been hurt, and she wanted me to give you this.’ He reached into his satchel and produced a half loaf, a cheese and a hunk of sausage that was greasy between his fingers.

  ‘I’ll have eaten all of Mrs Briggs’s store cupboard in a day if those women have their way. The food is welcome. Set it out then, and I’ll go about my business all the easier with a full stomach. Pulling that man free and down the slope took all the food in my belly.’

  Stephen set his treasures down on a flat stone at his feet, then sat beside it cross-legged and began to carve the cheese and bread into pieces with his penknife.

  ‘What business?’ he said at last. ‘Are you going to tell the magistrate about you getting beaten, after all, or finding Mr Hurst? Or about the Black Pig?’

  Casper looked at him. ‘What of the Black Pig? Think on, youngling. I’ve seen no one but yourself, that poor lass and her da today. And he had no news.’

  Stephen stuttered a little. ‘Miriam said, Miriam said someone had been in during the storm and knocked it all about! Knocked over the plates and jugs and dragged things about. The man who owns it didn’t hear because of the storm.’

  ‘You’re speaking to the man who owns it. But it’s indoor work, so Tom and Issy run the place in my stead. How is your tutor?’

  ‘A little better. Cook is giving him the tea.’

  Casper drew a clay pipe from his waistcoat, and a little tobacco pouch, and set about filling the bowl.

  ‘I have some things to think on, youngling. Can you stay quiet an hour while I walk them about in my head? Then if you are willing to keep me company, I might have need of you in a little while.’

  Stephen settled himself and nodded. ‘Why did you bring the body to Silverside?’

  ‘For good or bad, that is where it belongs. And I thought Lord Keswick might want to see it.’

  ‘You mean Mr Crowther.’

  ‘He may call himself what he will elsewhere, but when he walks this land he is Lord Keswick whether he likes it or no. No more talking now.’

  He lit his pipe and began to draw on it, his eyebrows bunched together and his bruised face cloudy with thought.

  ‘He looks as if he was killed by witchcraft.’

  Crowther looked up at Mrs Westerman. She was standing at the head of the table gazing down into the dead man’s eyes.

  ‘In that case, so do most men,’ he said dryly.

  ‘But not many men are found with their pockets stuffed with mistletoe.’

  They had found the plant bundled into the man’s pockets within moments of being left alone with the body, along with some money and an elaborate pocket-watch. Harriet had liked the look of Casper Grace, but nevertheless, as soon as she saw the tear-drop leaves she had thought of him and wondered. ‘I suppose Casper might have done that on finding the body, as a mark of respect to the dead.’

  ‘Then I wonder he did not close the man’s eyes.’

  Harriet nodded. ‘Do you think he might have killed him? Why then bring the body to us?’

  ‘Mrs Westerman, do stop asking me impossible questions.’ Crowther’s sudden snap of irritation took him by surprise. There had been something in his nephew’s face as he looked at the body that chilled him, something in his refusal to be the beare
r of the news to Miss Hurst that had disgusted him. He felt angry in front of the body, harried by questions from the past and present. He thought of a man he had seen in a hospital in Padua. His leg had become black with gangrene, and in the damp heat of the summer he was tormented by flies buzzing and settling on his stump. They had all been grateful when he died. He had a sense of fellow feeling with that patient now which troubled him.

  ‘My apologies.’

  She did not look directly at him. ‘We only have a little time, Crowther. You are right, I may speculate as much as I like — later. For the moment let us only observe.’

  Crowther removed his coat and began to fold up his sleeves, trying to discover his usual calm. ‘The body may conceal any number of hurts within it, Mrs Westerman. If a man falls down dead and another says before he did so he clutched his chest, I would suspect his heart and look for signs of disease there. If our putative witness says his speech became slurred and his movements awkward I would look first for signs of bleeding in the brain.’

  ‘And where there is no witness?’

  ‘I examine all the organs and see what they can tell me. I have told you before, sometimes people simply die, they are dead because they ceased to live. That is not witchcraft, just the usual fate of man. Will you help me remove his coat?’ She did so. He was grateful she had let his spasm of bad temper pass without comment.

  Much of Crowther’s work meant he dealt with small samples, animals or parts of the human body transported to his desk by colleagues interested in his opinion. They came packed in straw and ice or pale and floating in preserving solutions. It still astonished his animal mind how heavy a body becomes when the life has left it, how awkward and unwieldy a thing. It was lucky the coat was not overly tight and could be pulled free of the body without cutting it. He suspected that the rigor was just beginning to pass, and began to speculate on what that might tell him of when the man died. Mrs Westerman held the coat up, then frowned.