Those Who Know

by Alis Hawkins

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘Like I said, I wanted to check.’

  ‘Right. We’d better go and have another look at those money bags, then,’ I said, thankful that I had not allowed Tobias Hildon to browbeat me into lodging Rowland’s finances with him. ‘And then, if you’re right, we must pay Mr Caldicot a visit.’

  John

  As soon as I’d changed out of my wet riding clothes and found a boy to take them to be dried, I went to Harry’s room. A servant was just leaving and Harry held up a sealed letter. ‘The man who came to light the fire gave me this. Said a boy brought it yesterday.’

  I took it from him and unfolded it. ‘It’s from Llew Price – the jury foreman.’ I scanned it. Short and to the point. And in English.

  ‘Dear Mr Probert-Lloyd,’ I read.

  ‘Forgive the liberty, but I wonder if you could spare a few moments to call on me at my shop? I believe I have information that will be useful to the inquest on Friday.

  Your obedient servant,

  Llewelyn Price.’

  I looked at Harry. ‘What d’you think he wants?’

  ‘No idea.’ Harry dumped his portmanteau on the bed and took out Rowland’s money bags. ‘But we’ll have to make time to go and see him before the inquest.’

  ‘Fine.’ I stuffed the letter into my pocket and started removing banknotes. Once I had them all, I shuffled them into a stack on my knees and quickly went through them. Had I really seen Caldicot’s name? Or had it just been something like Caldicot? You don’t generally look at anything but the amount on a banknote, do you?

  Halfway down, I found what I was looking for. ‘Here it is. Promises to pay M. Caldicot Esq., or bearer, ten pounds.’

  ‘Which bank is it from?’

  ‘Somewhere old-fashioned, if it’s got the depositor’s name on it.’ I read the line of copperplate script at the top of the note. ‘The Aberystwyth Mercantile Bank. Maybe they were using up old notes for bigger sums?’

  Harry took the note from me as if he could read it. ‘Aberystwyth Mercantile. I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘A shipping bank, most likely.’ I went back to the pile of banknotes and found four more with Caldicot’s name on them. All for ten pounds. All from the Aberystwyth Mercantile.

  Harry chewed the inside of his lip as he considered the five notes. ‘If Caldicot gave this money to Rowland in London, wouldn’t you expect the notes to be from a London bank?’

  I put the rest of the notes back into the money bag. ‘He might’ve thought it’d be better for Rowland to be able to cash it easily back here. In case he needed to buy land or something and the seller wanted cash.’

  ‘But Rowland wouldn’t have had any problem redeeming London banknotes. He evidently went back there pretty frequently.’ Harry had me in his peripheral vision again. ‘Remember? Llew Price said he had his hair cut whenever he went back to London.’

  ‘So you think Caldicot gave Rowland these notes recently – after he’d come back to Llysrheidol?’

  ‘Yes. But why would he part with such a large sum now, when he’d come home in disgrace and had no means of supporting himself?’

  ‘Maybe he’s prudent. Maybe he’s got income we don’t know about—’

  ‘Even so – now’s not the time to be distributing largesse, I wouldn’t have thought?’

  I knew what Harry was getting at. Blackmail. But I wasn’t going to encourage that type of thinking. I could just picture the Tories’ reaction if they thought he was trying to blacken their boy’s reputation. They’d cry ‘foul’ from here to Cardigan.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You could say it was exactly the time to be distributing largesse. Distract people from gossip about him getting thrown out of the army by giving them something else to talk about. Rowland’s school’d be bound to get tongues wagging. Education for all – boys and girls equally – all that.’

  Harry nodded, stared into space. ‘Possibly. I just think I’d like to hear it from Caldicot himself.’

  He wasn’t going to be persuaded. But at least I could try and stop us going on a wild goose chase across half the county. ‘Well, I don’t think we’ll need to go all the way to Llysrheidol to hear it,’ I said. ‘You’ll be on a stage together in two days. If the Tory agent hasn’t got him somewhere nearby already, he’ll be arriving today for sure. All we need to do is find out where he’s staying.’

  We already knew Caldicot wasn’t at the Talbot. When we’d got back from Llanddewi Brefi, Harry’d asked the landlord, Mr Thomas, whether any new guests had arrived for the public meeting on Saturday. I knew he’d been asking in case Lydia Howell had turned up but Mr Thomas’s ‘No, none, sir,’ held good both for her and for Caldicot. Most likely, our man’d be staying with a Tory family nearby. Minnever’d know. He would’ve made it his business to. But he was out somewhere, canvassing.

  ‘It’s probably worth our while having a look in the pubs to see if we can find Minnever,’ Harry said, once we were out in the main square.

  ‘If we do, you know he’ll grab you and make you start buying drinks for people again.’

  ‘I’ll take that risk.’

  ‘Are you going to tell him why you want to talk to Caldicot?’

  That made him snort. ‘No. I don’t think so, do you?’

  I didn’t like the look on Harry’s face and I didn’t want him doing anything stupid. I pulled him towards the churchyard, away from flapping ears.

  ‘Are you sure it’s a good idea to try and talk to Caldicot?’ He opened his mouth to protest but I cut him off. ‘You’ve got a fight on here, with the election – you know you have. And you don’t want to give Caldicot the chance to stand on that stage over there and complain that you’re trying to discredit him by dragging him in to an unnecessary investigation of an accidental death.’

  ‘Is that what you—’

  ‘No! Of course that’s not how I see it. But he could easily make everybody else think that!’

  ‘You think I should hold back from asking questions just because he’s standing against me?’

  Obviously! ‘Depends whether you want to win or not. It might be worth leaving Caldicot alone if it gives you a better chance of getting elected.’

  ‘Even if Rowland was blackmailing him? Even if that would make him Rowland’s most likely killer?’

  I sighed from my boots, so he’d hear. ‘There’s no evidence for blackmail! And you’re only assuming that Caldicot is strapped for cash because he’s been thrown out of the army. His wife might have money—’

  ‘I don’t know anything about his wife. But however you look at it, giving Rowland fifty pounds in Caldicot’s current circumstances seems suspicious. And,’ he said, before I could object, ‘so far, apart from prejudice against Mattie Hughes, we’ve got nothing resembling a motive for Rowland’s death. If we don’t want the finger to stay pointed at Hughes, we need to ask more questions.’

  ‘And Minnever’d say it’s not your job to do that! That if the jury decides for murder – even if they name Mattie – then it’s a job for the police and the assizes.’

  ‘And how far d’you think the police would look with a plum suspect like Mattie? Do you think they’d dare go near Caldicot?’

  ‘So you think that because they won’t, you should?’

  ‘Yes!’

  I stared at him, at his eyes which were fixed on my chest so he could see my face in his peripheral vision. ‘Harry, I swear, this inquest’ll lose you the election if you’re not careful.’

  So off we went looking for Minnever. If we found him, he might have more luck taking Harry in hand. Somebody needed to save him from himself.

  Tregaron had a lot of pubs. Most of them were simple alehouses – spare front rooms where all the drinkers were regulars and didn’t want any newcomers, judging by the looks we got when we put our heads round various doors. But some were more respectable. There was the Talbot, obviously, and The King’s Head, a modern-looking place with a smart si
gn hanging over the door. Inside it was clean and there were plenty of chairs and tables for playing cards or reading papers. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the beer pumps Harry’d talked about seeing in London. Still, the landlord wasn’t a fool. He might’ve given the place a city-sounding name but he’d hung paintings of cows and horses on the walls so the farmers and drovers would feel at home. Displayed his pewter tankards in shiny rows on shelves above the barrels, mind. No beer-cured wooden mugs for Mr Modern.

  If the election meeting on Saturday brought in the crowds Minnever was expecting, The King’s Head would see its takings shoot up, so it was no surprise when the landlord greeted Harry by name. He’d have made it his business to know all the candidates, at least by sight.

  ‘Mr Minnever?’ he said, when Harry told him who we were looking for. ‘He was in here earlier with a couple of other gents, chatting to people. Then they moved on. You might chance your health in The White Horse, they were going that way.’

  His slanderous little dig was about right. From thatch that looked about a hundred years old to the filthy sawdust on the taproom floor, The White Horse was a dump. Minnever should’ve taken one look in there and backed straight out. God knows why he hadn’t – I don’t suppose a qualifying voter ever went near the place. But, no, there he was, sitting with two very uncomfortable-looking Liberals and three rough-looking characters.

  As soon as he saw us, he jumped up and shook Harry’s hand. Glad of the improvement in company.

  ‘Could we have a brief word?’ Harry asked. ‘Somewhere private?’

  We got some dirty looks from the locals as they watched their drinks money walking out the door but Harry couldn’t see any of that so it didn’t worry him. The rain had stopped now and, with the sun dancing in and out of the clouds, the ground had started to warm up. Warm earth and growing things – the smell of spring. A big relief after the bad air in the pub.

  The hangers-on weren’t fools. They knew they were superfluous to requirements so they excused themselves. Minnever led the way to the churchyard and we sat on the benches in the lychgate, me and Harry on one side, Minnever on the other. All that was missing was the coffin on a trestle between us. I moved my arse about on the cracked slate slab to find a comfortable position. The whole lychgate’d seen better days and if I’d been the vicar, I’d have been getting up a public subscription for a new one. Mind, the church itself looked as if it needed a good bit of money spent on it, just like St David’s in Llanddewi Brefi. Lack of congregation to fund repairs, that was the problem. Most of the parishioners in both places would be chapel-goers.

  ‘Tomorrow, you must get down to some serious canvassing, Harry,’ Minnever said. ‘It’s the perfect time. People will want to talk to you after the inquest.’

  ‘I was hoping the inquest would speak for itself,’ Harry said. ‘Or, rather, that it’d speak for me.’

  Minnever slapped his hands on to his thighs as if he wanted to get up and walk about. ‘Oh, it’ll definitely speak! I’m just worried about what it’ll say.’

  ‘I’m sure the jury’ll make the right decision.’ Harry sounded confident. ‘The medical evidence is compelling.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on that.’ Minnever took his hat off and ran his hand over his head as if he was searching for his hair. ‘Your medical friend was here last evening and, in his cups, he became quite inflamed on the subject of autopsy. Seemed to feel that he’d have been able to make a more definitive judgement as to the cause of death if you’d allowed him to dissect the poor chap.’

  ‘Reckitt’s back?’ Harry asked, as if that was the most important bit of information he’d just heard.

  ‘Yes. I believe he’s trying to secure the support of local doctors. And, if he gets it, you could be in trouble. Doctors command a lot of respect.’

  I waited for Harry to put him straight about the exact amount of respect Benton Reckitt commanded, but he didn’t. Maybe it’d finally dawned on him that he’d better start listening to the advice he was given.

  Perhaps Minnever thought he’d scored a point because he slapped his hands on his thighs as if to say ‘right, let’s move on.’

  ‘So, what did you want to talk to me about?’

  ‘There’s a witness we haven’t been able to get hold of for the inquest. We hoped you might be able to help.’

  ‘Me? How?’

  ‘It’s Montague Caldicot,’ Harry said.

  Minnever jumped up, rubbing his arse. Those stone benches were cold, sucked the warmth right out of your flesh. ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Absolutely not! What could Caldicot possibly have to do with your inquest?’

  ‘We’ve discovered that he knew Rowland in London,’ Harry said. ‘And he seems to have donated quite a sum of money to Rowland’s planned school.’

  ‘Not good enough,’ Minnever said. ‘Unless somebody saw him at the school on the night in question, you leave him alone. Can you imagine the fuss the Tories’d make if you start making accusations against their candidate?’

  If he could, Harry would’ve stared Minnever down. ‘You have your ear to the ground. Do you know where he’s staying?’

  ‘No.’

  A stray raindrop blew in. The wind was getting up again and the clouds were hurrying back. The lychgate roof wasn’t going to protect us if the rain came in sideways.

  I watched Minnever weighing up his options. He knew as well as we did that Caldicot would be bound to come to the inquest. He’d want to see Harry at work. And, if Harry called him to give evidence, without warning, there’d be hell to pay.

  ‘Harry, listen to me. You have to be careful here. I know what Reckitt said when we saw the body, but the man’s like one of those Indian snake charmers, you can’t take your eyes off him while he’s speaking but when you think about it later, it all seems a tad incredible. Let’s put our cards on the table, shall we? All talk of hair-partings aside, doesn’t it seem more likely, to you, that the teacher’s death was an accident?’

  Rowland’s hair. Rearranged by Ruth Eynon, not the murderer. Harry hesitated. And if I saw it, so did Minnever. He leaned towards Harry. ‘Have you considered the issue of the new school Rowland was planning?’

  Harry’s head came up, smartish. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I received a visit today, from Mr Walters of Llanddewi Brefi. He was very cross that this soldier – Hughes, is it? – had been offered shelter by Miss Gwatkyn. Felt that a confession would’ve been forthcoming if she’d left well alone.’

  Was that what Llew Price wanted to talk to us about, I wondered.

  ‘Morgan Walters,’ Harry said, ‘is trying to keep his daughter from having to give evidence at the inquest.’

  Minnever shook his head, took his watch out and looked at the time.

  ‘Maybe that’s the story he’s told you, but I think there’s another motive at work. Money. Walters has seen the value of this school coming here and he’s leading the charge for it, telling all and sundry how prosperous it’ll make them, how it’ll be one in the eye for Lampeter. If Hughes had confessed, that would’ve made a martyr of Rowland and the sympathy money would’ve come rolling in. But you’ve muddied the waters. The mob may bay for blood but those with more intelligence will weigh the evidence. They’ll ask themselves who would want to kill him, if not Hughes? If somebody else wanted him dead, there has to be a reason. It’ll be concluded that our Mr Rowland had secrets and the school project will fail.’

  Harry waited for him to go on, but Minnever’d said his piece. ‘You think I should encourage an accidental death verdict so as to promote the cause of Rowland’s school?’

  Minnever sucked his tongue for a second or two, eyes on Harry. ‘What I think doesn’t matter. But the village is all for this school. A confession from Hughes would’ve made Rowland into a plaster saint in a week. An accidental death verdict would be good enough – it’d make him a victim of the hardship he was prepared to endure to realise his dream. The school cause would prosper.’

  I
watched Harry out of the corner of my eye. I’d expected him to laugh in Minnever’s face, tell him he wasn’t going to steer the jury away from what he believed had happened. But he didn’t. He sat, chewing his lip. And Minnever drove his advantage home.

  ‘If you become the man who cast suspicion on their beloved Mr Rowland and deprived them of the school they’ve come to think of as theirs by right, you’ll lose every vote in Llanddewi Brefi,’ he said. ‘Possibly Tregaron, too. You can’t afford that, Harry.’

  Harry

  Minnever had shaken my confidence and, suddenly finding myself at a low ebb, I was able to offer little resistance when he suggested that I would be well advised to accept an invitation from Tregaron’s Olive Leaf Circle to join them at their weekly meeting.

  Having made it clear that John was not needed at the event, Minnever steered me to a substantial house on the outskirts of the town and introduced me to the Circle’s hostess, a Mrs Jenkinson, who, in welcoming me, seemed to assume a proprietary right over me for the remainder of the afternoon. I was introduced to perhaps a dozen ladies and was soon drinking tea and discussing not only their work for the Peace Society – did I know that it was now led by one of Tregaron’s own sons? – but also the broader cause of humanitarianism and how I might further it in my role as coroner.