by Alis Hawkins
‘Yes. But I’m wasting my time learning all that other stuff. Mr Bowen can teach me mathematics if I’m his apprentice.’
It was less than a fortnight since I’d seen him, but Lleu seemed to have grown. Then again, perhaps it was just his attitude that’d changed. He knew what he wanted now; he wasn’t just the promising little boy who wanted to please his mistress. ‘I’ll take you over and introduce you tomorrow,’ I said. ‘But I’m warning you, I don’t think there’s much chance he’s going to want to take on an apprentice. Especially one who doesn’t know any mathematics.’
Lleu beamed. He obviously thought he’d have no trouble bringing Amos Bowen round to his way of thinking.
‘I assume you’ve written to Phoebe Gwatkyn to tell her he’s safe?’ Harry asked Lydia. Miss Gwatkyn’d be beside herself if the school had told her that Lleu’d disappeared.
‘Yes, though she’s still in Italy at the moment, so she won’t even know he’s been gone until she gets back. More to the point, I’ve written to the school and told them he’s here.’ She gave Lleu a look that told him she didn’t approve of him taking matters into his own hands, which coming from her was a bit rich, to be honest. Still, Lleu wasn’t to know that.
We found somewhere for the pair of them to sit at the side of the room, out of the way of hecklers and drunkards. While they were getting settled, Harry spoke to Lydia. ‘By all accounts, Nathaniel Stockton didn’t speak Welsh, so I assume his parents won’t either. Would you mind translating for them if it turns out to be necessary?’
‘Of course. I’ll help in any way I can. But speaking of the Stocktons, have you given any thought to how you’re going to stop their son’s inquest turning into a proxy hearing for Lizzie Rees?’
Harry didn’t even blink. We’d both got used to Lydia not beating about the bush. ‘Actually, I’m going to make sure it is a proxy hearing. As I see it, the first thing we have to do is quash the rumours about Nattie’s involvement in Lizzie’s death. He won’t get a fair hearing for his own death otherwise.’
Lydia nodded thoughtfully. ‘When you say “quash”…?’
‘I’m going to force Mic Rees to name whoever was with his daughter on the night she died.’
Over Harry’s shoulder I saw a couple come in and speak to the landlord. He pointed in our direction.
‘Mr Probert-Lloyd?’ Harry turned to see the couple coming towards him. ‘I’m Edgar Stockton, and this is my wife.’
Nattie Stockton’s parents were in their late forties or early fifties, both going grey, him a bit thicker round the middle than he’d have been when they courted, her tired-looking with lines on her face she probably hadn’t had a week ago. Edgar Stockton was wearing a suit that was a cut above anything a village tailor could produce – what we’d been told about him owning his own farm must be true – and his wife was in a holly-green gown with lace trimmings. Didn’t look like she had to turn her hand to farm work.
‘Mr and Mrs Stockton, I’m so sorry to be making your acquaintance under such tragic circumstances,’ Harry said. ‘But rest assured, if it’s within my power, I will see justice done for your son.’
‘Do you know who did this to Nathaniel?’ Mrs Stockton asked.
‘I believe I do, yes. But it wouldn’t be wise to name anybody yet. Not until the jury has heard all the evidence.’
‘May I ask why you didn’t conduct an inquest into the death of this young woman he was infatuated with?’ her husband said. ‘If you’d done so, if you’d ruled definitively that she died of natural causes, our son might still be alive.’
Wherever they’d stayed last night, the Stocktons’d obviously been given all the local gossip. Harry raised his chin a bit to take the criticism, but I knew he blamed himself just as much as Edgar Stockton did. ‘At the time, there seemed to be no suspicious circumstances. Two doctors – including my usual medical witness, a man of unparalleled skill – concluded that no foul play had been involved.’ He took a breath. ‘I’m afraid the powers-that-be don’t see inquests into natural deaths as being in the public interest.’
‘But where suspicion lingers…’
‘Unfortunately, I didn’t discover the rumour that Lizzie Rees had been courting in bed on the night she died until after Nathaniel’s body had been found. If I’d been aware of that, I assure you I would have held an inquest.’
The Stocktons looked at each other. Their son’d been murdered because of a rumour the coroner hadn’t heard. But in truth, Harry would never have heard it in time to save Nattie Stockton. Nattie’d already been dead by Sunday afternoon, while we’d still been asking questions at Rhosdywarch.
Harry
At ten a.m. precisely, John and I walked from the crowded parlour where a few minutes before I had addressed the jury and I took my seat at the coroner’s table.
I unstopped the ink bottle set ready for the purpose, dipped my pen and made an entirely unnecessary note of the date on the paper in front of me, something I did habitually, partly to calm my nerves and partly to remind both jury and spectators that though I might be ‘the blind coroner’, I still retained some sight. My wooden writing frame, constructed to my own design with a ratchet-wound ruler, enabled me to find the location of the last words I had written without obviously searching the page, and gave the impression that I wrote without difficulty. Anybody who had attempted to read the resultant scrawl knew how far that was from the truth, but nevertheless, I found it expedient to have paper and pen in front of me, not least so that I might communicate unobserved with John.
Sitting there waiting for the incoherent noise of dozens of overlapping conversations to die down, I was in the place where I felt most at home: the coroner’s chair. I might never practise at the bar again, but for the duration of an inquest, I was both barrister and judge, the truth my only concern. It was so much clearer and more focused than my role as squire, which seemed to demand that I be simultaneously businessman, philanthropist, sage, archivist and patriarch.
Though my usual practice was to conduct my hearings in Welsh, offering translation as necessary for any monoglot English speakers, today I made my opening remarks in English out of deference to Nathaniel Stockton’s parents.
‘As the death of Mr Stockton seems inextricably linked with that of Miss Elizabeth Rees of Rhosdywarch in the parish of Meline, my intention at the outset of this hearing is to demonstrate that he played absolutely no part in Miss Rees’s natural death. Once that has been established, we will hear from witnesses as to the circumstances of Mr Stockton’s own death.’
Ignoring an outbreak of very audible interest and speculation, I called Dr Cadwgan Gwynne to give testimony. Once he had outlined his observations of Elizabeth Rees’s body and confirmed that he had found no evidence of foul play, I asked him if he would cast his mind back to the previous time he had seen Lizzie, when she had been very much alive.
‘What was the question Miss Rees had come to ask you, Dr Gwynne?’ I asked after we had established the date of her visit.
This time Gwynne did not prevaricate with protestations of confidentiality. He knew the burden of my question and the necessity of its being answered.
‘She wanted to ask me whether, having given the birch crown to Nathaniel Stockton, she might marry another man without the union being cursed.’
‘In other words, Nathaniel had a rival for her affections?’
‘Yes.’
I ignored the spectators’ sudden chatter and forced them into quiet by simply continuing. ‘Do you know who that man was?’
‘No. She didn’t tell me, and I had no reason to ask.’
I dismissed Dr Gwynne and called out to Caleb Richards over the great swell of speculation that arose instantly amongst the spectators. ‘Mr Richards, be so good as to ask Dr Reckitt to come forward.’
John and I had briefed Reckitt the previous evening. ‘I know you still have questions in the absence of a definitive cause of death,’ I had told him, ‘but we can’t let those questions infect othe
rs. There can be no lingering doubts left in the minds of either jury or spectators. You must say that all your examinations showed that Lizzie’s was a perfectly natural death.’
And to his credit, he did so with commendable, not to say unprecedented, brevity. I then turned to the rumours.
‘Dr Reckitt, I have heard it suggested that Lizzie Rees was not alone when she died. That in fact she was courting in bed. Did you find any evidence to support that suggestion?’
‘I found no direct evidence, no. However, there were indications that certain facts had been hidden from me. And indeed from Dr Gwynne.’
At my invitation, he explained – with as few details as I could confine him to – the body’s tendency to void with the relaxation of muscles at death and the puzzling dryness of both Lizzie’s petticoat and her mattress.
‘When presented with this evidence, Mr Rees did in fact admit that he had allowed his daughter to sleep in the box bed rather than her own, and that he had changed her undergarments prior to Dr Gwynne’s visit, did he not?’
‘He did.’
‘But he claimed that she had been alone and that giving up his own bed to her had been motivated only by a wish to have her recover from a cold more swiftly – is that correct?’
‘It is.’
I turned to the jury. Before beginning the inquest, I had asked them whether they would require a translator, but all had claimed sufficient English to manage without. ‘Do you have any questions for Dr Reckitt?’
One of the jurymen stood. ‘Why do you think Mr Rees lied to you?’
Before Reckitt could respond, I held up a hand. ‘You may ask Mr Rees himself that in due course. Do you have any medical questions to ask Dr Reckitt?’
The jury did not, and I asked Reckitt to step down but to remain on hand in order to give evidence as to his examination of Nathaniel Stockton’s body. I then called Evan ‘Cadi’ Evans. Before he sat down, he made a small bow to the front row of spectators, where Stockton’s parents were sitting. It was a gesture that I found both courteous and curiously moving, and spoke of his affection for the dead man.
Cadi’s testimony as to Nattie’s whereabouts on the night of Lizzie Rees’s death having been laid before the jury, I asked if they would like to question him.
A figure rose to his feet. ‘You say Mr Stockton wasn’t with Elizabeth Rees on the night she died,’ he said in the kind of well-modulated English that spoke of frequent use. ‘But had he been courting in bed with her on previous occasions?’
‘No.’
‘You’re quite certain?’
‘Yes. As I said, three of us slept in the same loft. I’m quite certain.’
Another juror stood. ‘Did Mr Stockton know that there was another man courting Lizzie Rees?’ No doubt he was wondering, as John and I had, whether Nattie had come to Cilgerran to have it out with somebody and had picked a fight that had proved fatal.
‘No, I don’t think so. He was still talking about asking her to marry him when she got back from the south.’
There were no more questions, and I released Evans, pending his later testimony when we came to the inquest proper.
My heart beat a little more quickly as I turned once more to Caleb Richards. ‘Bring Mic Rees in, if you’d be so good, Mr Richards.’
Now, finally, we would get to the truth.
As Rees came to the witness chair and sat down, I saw the inn’s door open and a figure slide in, head bowed guiltily in acknowledgement of his lateness. There were always latecomers to any hearing, and I ignored him.
‘Mr Rees,’ I began, ‘the members of the jury are keen to know why you tried to hide the fact that your daughter was courting in bed on the night she died. Would you like to tell us?’
Mic Rees’s previous lies and half-truths had prepared me for reticence and hostility, but the question had hardly left my lips when his response came.
‘I was trying to avoid exactly what happened to poor Nattie,’ he said in heavily accented English. ‘I knew there’d be trouble if people heard that Lizzie was courting somebody from outside the parish – a stranger. I thought the two of them should be left alone to see if they suited each other without people criticising and judging.’
‘So just to be clear, Lizzie was courting in bed on the night she died?’
He hesitated, then nodded. ‘Yes.’
I made a note in order to allow the spectators a moment to react. Some crowed, vindicated, while others speculated as to who this other man might have been. After half a minute or so, I signalled to Caleb Richards, who called for silence.
‘Mr Rees,’ I continued, once I could be heard, ‘you allowed your daughter to stay at home when her mother and sisters went to the mansion at Ffynone to work for a few days. Am I to assume, therefore, that you knew what Lizzie was planning?’
‘Yes.’
I held up a hand for quiet. ‘Why did you and Lizzie conceal her intentions from your wife?’
Rees turned slightly towards the crowd. Was he looking at his wife? Was Esther Rees even here?
‘Because she disapproved of any young man Lizzie became fond of.’
‘Did she disapprove of this one in particular?’
Mic Rees sighed. ‘She would have if she’d known. And I didn’t want my daughter forced to run away and marry in secret, only to regret it later.’
Did that reveal something about his own courtship and marriage? Curious though I was, it was not a relevant question.
‘Will you now tell us who this young man is?’
‘No.’
The room erupted. This time, there was no quieting the outraged spectators with a raised hand, and I could only listen as a violent stream of invective was hurled at Mic Rees.
Eventually Caleb Richards’ bellows of ‘Silence!’ prevailed and Rees was able to speak.
‘What business is it of anybody here?’ he demanded, facing the crowd and effectively turning his back on the jury; he knew it was not them he must convince. ‘My Lizzie died a natural death. Why is that so difficult for people to understand? Two doctors – not one, two – have given sworn testimony that it was a natural death. We all know Dr Gwynne’s abilities, and Dr Reckitt cut her open…’ I thought for a horrified moment that he was about to weep, but he sucked in an audible breath and continued. ‘He cut her open to be sure, to be absolutely sure, that there was nothing suspicious. And there wasn’t! You’ve heard it wasn’t poor Nattie with her the night she died; why should I give you another man’s name? So you can blame him instead?’
Rees’s defiance gave rise to a further outpouring of discontent in the crowded taproom, though I detected a diminution in the collective outrage after his impassioned plea.
I raised a hand for Caleb Richards to intervene, and in response to his bellowed orders, the crowd settled into a muttering that did duty for silence. ‘Mr Rees, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that you tell this hearing who the young man concerned is. Your failure to be candid when I first visited you makes you a less than entirely reliable witness, and I would feel happier – as would everybody at this hearing, I’m sure – if I was able to receive the young man’s own testimony.’
The drone of mumbled speculation fell away as every person waited to see whether Mic Rees would continue to refuse. The seconds ticked by. I was alert to John’s posture, ready to insist once more if he leaned forward to indicate that I should press the witness. But he did not move. Wait.
‘No,’ Rees said finally. ‘Cadi Evans has told you that Nattie wasn’t there. That should be enough. I’m not going to put another young man at risk.’
As he was speaking, I saw movement in the crowd. A man was pushing his way towards me. I could not be sure, but from the downward tilt of his head, it looked like the latecomer.
Concerned that whoever this was meant to harm Rees, I beckoned for Caleb Richards, but then the man reached the front of the crowd and I saw his eyepatch.
‘I-it was m-me. I w-w-was with Lizzie.’
&nbs
p; Amos Bowen. Barti Ddu.
John
I stared at him. I couldn’t believe it. Amos Bowen? With the pick of every unmarried man in the parish, why on earth would Lizzie Rees choose a stranger with a squint and a horrible stutter? I didn’t know exactly what women looked for in a man, obviously, but Amos definitely wasn’t who you’d expect to see with the prettiest girl in the parish on his arm.
As Mic Rees and Amos swapped places, I glanced around at the crowd. Everybody was staring at Amos and his eyepatch, and a few people – probably those who’d come up from Eglwyswrw and Felindre Farchog – seemed to know him.
He’s the one from Dolbannon, I heard. Soft in the head.
He’d kept his good eye lowered all this time, but now he looked up at me and I gave him an encouraging smile. He wasn’t getting friendly looks from anybody else. Even Mic Rees, at the front of the crowd, was staring at him with an expression I couldn’t put a name to.
The to and fro of questions and answers between Amos and Harry was long and painful because of Amos’s stutter. It seemed to take him five minutes to get a single sentence out, and I could tell he was trying to use as few words as possible to answer the questions. But that didn’t suit Harry. Not at all. He wanted every detail, so he kept prompting Amos, over and over, then waiting patiently for him to answer. Prompt and wait. Prompt and wait. And while he was coaxing the story out, Harry leaned further and further over the table, as if he wanted to reach out and physically pull the words out of the poor man’s throat.
All the while, the crowd stared at Amos like a freak in a show and heckled him with insults and mockery.
For the life of me, I couldn’t work out why he’d come forward.
Anyway, in a nutshell, the story Harry dragged out of him went like this. Right at the end of his apprenticeship in Newtown, Amos had been working with his cousin, Jem Harborne, to adapt standard steam-powered machines to work off water power. Then, out of the blue, a letter had come from the chapel minister back home, telling him that his mother was very ill, and Amos’d left Newtown to go back to Llandysul.