by Alis Hawkins
I didn’t believe him. Montague Caldicot was the kind of man who’d always be prepared for whatever he was facing.
But that wasn’t the only thing that didn’t ring true. Those banknotes hadn’t been through many hands. I’d need to double-check but I was almost certain that their serial numbers had been consecutive. So, unless all five had been passed from hand to hand together, Montague Caldicot was lying.
Harry
I slept badly. The night before an inquest was invariably a restless one, my mind going over and over facts and questions, but this was different. When I was not endlessly replaying my conversation with Minnever, I was hearing John’s words again. ‘Caldicot must be lying. The numbers are consecutive – three, three, five, nought to three, three, five, four. He must’ve gone into the Mercantile Bank and asked for fifty pounds to be drawn on his account.’
He was right, of course. And there was only one plausible reason why Caldicot should lie about the money: Rowland had been blackmailing him.
But, blackmail or not, it would do me no good to pursue him. Minnever had made it perfectly clear that I could suggest no association between Caldicot and Rowland without cast-iron evidence. Anything less would be seen as a crude attempt to call Caldicot’s probity into question.
Eventually, accepting that sleep would not come, I got up and, after repeatedly thrusting a newspaper spill into the embers in the grate, managed to light the room’s candles and shake the last few coals from the scuttle on to the fire.
I wanted the candles’ glow not because they would allow me to see anything but to cheer me, and it was by blind touch alone that I pulled on my stockings, set the lukewarm hot-water bottle on the hearth and rested my feet on it.
Wrapped in the bedcover, I sat staring into the dark, the fire a faint red glow at the whirlpool’s consuming edge.
You’ve got to start seeing allies and equals instead of opponents … Believe it or not, sometimes people are actually on your side.
How easy it is to see other people’s mistakes, and how hard to see your own. If I had had a friend who found himself in my position, exiled from his London life, surely I would have advised him to associate himself with like-minded people, people who might suggest employment or advancement? So why had I been unable to apply the same common sense to my own situation?
Convenient though it would have been, I could not blame the shock of being told I was going blind. I had, after all, had months to come to terms with the idea. Months during which I had been forced to resort to the strongest available magnifying glass, to sitting at a window thrown open to every last speck of daylight like a medieval scribe, to employing an ever greater number of lamps once afternoon dimmed the office. My rational mind had tried to persuade me that I was simply overworking, straining my eyes but, despite days when things seemed slightly better, a more animal part of me had been undeceived and had known that I would never see properly again.
By the time I had consulted Dr Figges, an ophthalmological specialist at Moorfields hospital, I had more or less consciously been looking for an end to the torture of hope. And Figges had delivered the coup de grâce with pitiless compassion.
‘Your condition is incurable, I’m afraid. You will, eventually, see nothing at all in that central area.’
My days in London were numbered; and that number had been distressingly small.
I had told nobody; had not been able to bring myself to do so until I knew how to convey the news with some equanimity. Until I had some kind of plan with which to ward off pity.
But no such plan had presented itself by the time penury had forced me back to Glanteifi. And – as Minnever had forced me to realise – even when the discovery of dairymaid Margaret Jones’s remains had driven me to turn detective, instead of using the opportunity to forge helpful connections, my resentfulness at being forced to abandon my London life had led to unwise decisions.
Though I knew, now, that my attitude had been unjustified, at the time I had blamed my father. In my mind, he had always been a metonym for what I saw as a rigid, self-serving magistracy and, in defying him to investigate Margaret’s death, I had felt myself to be defying the whole system. It would not have occurred to me to seek support from those I thought of as my father’s cronies.
Subsequently, troubled by what I had discovered about my own part in Margaret’s fate, instead of capitalising on my success as an investigator I had allowed myself to sink back into a species of hostile torpor. Only the request that I stand in as coroner during Leighton Bowen’s last illness had roused me.
Why had that request not suggested to me that I might have allies on the bench? Though I had grasped at the post as a potential escape from the snare of filial duty, I had made no attempt to build bridges with the magistrates.
Sometimes, people are actually on your side.
If I had consulted the dying Bowen for advice, made overtures to other magistrates when my appointment as acting coroner was announced, would they still have connived at Montague Caldicot’s nomination as coroner?
I had certainly given them no reason to nominate me instead.
That I should have looked for allies seemed obvious to Minnever; but I was a barrister. I had not been trained in negotiation, compromise, give-to-get. The game at the bar was winner takes all.
If I had tried to tell a magistrate, or a judge, how the accused was forced to live, how poverty had made a criminal of him or her, I should have been a laughing stock. The clergy who supported the trust for which I had done most of my work as a barrister might understand the desperate lives of the poor wretches whose cases I pleaded but magistrates and judges never would.
And how are they to know any better if nobody bothers to educate them?
Was that the voice of reason, or the voice of Lydia Howell? It was certainly the kind of riposte our correspondence had led me to expect from her.
I leaned forward and felt about on the hearth for a poker to stir the coals. With darkness pressing in as an almost tangible thing all around me, the desire to see movement, a change in the glowing light as flames flickered around the poker, was overwhelming.
Would Lydia arrive the following day, while I was conducting the inquest?
As I imagined her slipping in at the back of the schoolroom to watch the proceedings, I realised that I was both longing for her arrival and dreading the reality of it.
John
I liked the Talbot. As well as comfortable beds, they made sure that you faced the day well fed. And I preferred their cutlery to the stuff at Glanteifi. Silver spoons and forks made food taste odd to me.
We were finishing our breakfast and discussing the order we should call witnesses in, when one of the Talbot’s servants brought a letter for Harry.
I recognised the handwriting straight away. Seen it often enough, hadn’t I? If Harry hadn’t been in the room, I would’ve kept it until after the inquest. As it was, I had no choice.
The note turned out to be mercifully short. Miss Howell had established herself at Glanteifi and was intending to arrive in Tregaron today. That was it.
‘So she’ll be here for the public meeting tomorrow,’ Harry said.
I looked at him. I’d been wondering for a while what his feelings towards Lydia Howell were. Reading her letters to him might not make me blush but they were quite intimate – she addressed him as ‘Harry’, like a brother. Was that how they saw each other? Or was it possible that he had romantic feelings for her?
She was ten years older than him and plain, so it didn’t seem likely. Not that he’d know what she looked like, of course, but he’d want a young wife, wouldn’t he?
I put Lydia’s note in my pocket and stood up. Time to get on with the day, take proceedings by the scruff of the neck. Harry needed this to be a well-behaved inquest. Couldn’t allow it to go running off in all directions.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘if you’ve finished, we should be off.’
Harry got up. ‘Just let me go and write a note to
leave here for Lydia.’
‘Haven’t you already packed your writing things for the inquest?’
‘I can unpack them again. It’ll only take a moment.’
‘We need to be there in plenty of time, Harry! We’ve still got to speak to Llewelyn Price.’
I could see that he’d forgotten about Price and whatever he wanted to tell us. Unusual for him.
I hoped he wasn’t going to live to regret it.
Harry might’ve decided not to hold the inquest in the Three Horseshoes, but the place was still packed as we went past. I wondered if Morgan Walters was intending to bring a barrel over to the schoolhouse on the back of a cart. He wouldn’t want to see all those paying customers walking away if he could follow them and have some more of their money.
It was one of those days where the weather couldn’t decide whether to cook you or drown you. Warm sun one minute, clouds racing over to rain on you the next. We’d managed to get down from Tregaron to Llanddewi without getting wet but the streets were more puddle than path and all the horseshit’d been washed into a slurry that splashed up with every step. I looked down at people picking their way through it, the hems of their betgwns and trousers soaked and filthy. I was glad to be in the saddle. It might make your arse sore but at least being on horseback kept you out of the muck.
The whole population of the village seemed to be turning out for the inquest. Some had put on their Sunday best, but most people’d be straight back to work after the verdict so they were in their everyday clothes. Women carrying babies in shawls shooed children in front of them and men carried little ones who didn’t want to walk. You’d have sworn they were going to a fair, not to hear the details of how a man they’d all respected had died.
‘Looks as if every shopkeeper and tradesman in Llanddewi’s shutting up shop till the inquest’s over,’ I said. ‘Apart from the pubs, of course.’
‘Are they all doing good business?’ Harry asked. ‘Or is it just the Three Horseshoes?’
I looked up and down the wet street to see how many doors were open, which had people coming in and out under their sodden thatch. ‘It’s mostly the Three Horseshoes,’ I told him. ‘Wouldn’t put it past Morgan Walters to’ve offered the jury free beer to bring the punters into his place with them. Everybody’ll want to know what they’re going to decide.’
Three months ago, Harry would’ve been horrified at the thought of a jury deciding on their verdict before the inquest. By now, he’d learned how it worked. Most jurymen relied on the view of the body and didn’t bother much with the rest of the evidence. They tended to think they knew what they’d seen. I grinned to myself. It was going to be entertaining watching Benton Reckitt trying to persuade them that they didn’t.
‘Ah, Probert-Lloyd. You’re here at last.’
I turned towards the voice, put my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun. It was the vicar, Tobias Hildon. He’d been waiting for us outside the schoolroom.
He ignored me and kept his eyes on Harry. ‘I need to speak with you before the inquest starts.’
Harry dismounted. ‘As do others, Mr Hildon. A moment, if you please.’
A pack of boys ran over to us from Morgan Walters’s beer-vending cart and started clamouring to look after the mares. I chose the two who were rubbing the mares’ ears instead of sticking their hands out and Harry paid them. Then he turned to the vicar. ‘Now, Mr Hildon,’ he said, as if the man’d been waiting patiently, instead of fuming and cuffing the boys round the ears for getting in his way. ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’
Hildon wasn’t going to waste time being polite. ‘I want to know who your appointed medical man is and why he’s been spouting damned nonsense. It’s quite obvious that this was an accident and rumours to the contrary are causing havoc in the village. There was a near riot the other night – it’s unacceptable.’
‘May I ask why you think it was so obviously an accident, Mr Hildon?’
If the vicar had known Harry like I did, he would’ve known not to trust that mild tone.
‘He shouldn’t have been going up and down a ladder at all times of the day and night with those useless hands of his! I don’t know what Phoebe Gwatkyn was thinking, installing him in a loft.’
He had a point. Or he would have, if he’d lifted a finger to change the situation. But he’d been too busy trying to get a National School set up in competition, hadn’t he?
‘And, as for her conniving with him to procure those two young women as his assistants. Disgraceful!’
A small silence gathered behind Mr Hildon’s words. Then Harry said, ‘Disgraceful is a strong word, Mr Hildon. What exactly was it that you found so reprehensible about Mr Rowland’s employment of Nan Walters and Ruth Eynon?’
‘He exploited them as unpaid secretaries for that atheistic academy project of his – absolutely improper! He should have incorporated it as a proper charity and employed somebody to oversee it in the conventional manner.’
‘I believe he did pay Nan Walters and Ruth Eynon,’ Harry said.
‘As teachers, yes. But only recently. And never for the other work they did.’
He seemed to know a lot more about Rowland’s school than I would’ve expected and an image of Tobias Hildon sitting in Mattie Hughes’s house came to mind. The two of them drinking tea made in that soldier’s tin of his, listening to Billy Walters telling them all about what his sister was doing for Nicholas Rowland.
Shakespeare had it right. Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, and anger’ll do the same. Because Hildon’d been angry about Rowland coming here with his atheisticacademy project, hadn’t he? Angry enough to start a campaign for a different kind of school entirely.
The sun was hot on my ear so I turned my head away from it and saw Billy Walters sitting amongst the celandines on a bank a little way off. Watching and listening. And, no doubt, everything he heard would go straight inside to Mattie Hughes before the inquest started. I thought of telling Harry but decided not to bother. It wasn’t Harry that was letting his tongue run away with him, was it?
‘Excuse me, Mr Hildon,’ I said. ‘Why do you call Mr Rowland’s school atheistic? He was a Unitarian, wasn’t he – a Christian?’
Hildon snorted. ‘If Unitarianism can be considered Christian. Denying the divinity of Christ rather calls that into question, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Was Mr Rowland proposing a denominational affiliation for his school?’ Harry asked.
‘No. It was to have no religious basis whatsoever. Just like the London colleges that deny God and enthrone science. Science will be the saviour now, according to them. But it’s a bleak kind of salvation that offers no hope beyond material success, wouldn’t you say?’
Neither of us had any answer to that. I wondered what Lydia Howell, a Unitarian to her fingernails, would have to say on the subject. She was no God-denier.
‘But none of that need concern us any more.’ Hildon had reined his tone in. ‘Though I wished the man no ill-will, at least his death has put an end to his pernicious scheme. Thank God.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him whether he was suggesting that God had brought about Rowland’s ‘accident’ so as to put paid to the collegiate school but common sense got the better of me and I kept my mouth shut.
‘Mr Hildon,’ Harry said, ‘did you wish to offer any actual evidence as to the manner of Mr Rowland’s death?’
Hah! That floored Mr Holier-than-the-Unitarians! Offering evidence at a public hearing? Well beneath his dignity.
‘It’s not my ability to present evidence that concerns me. It’s your medical witness’s. I trust that you’re not going to allow him to state, unchallenged, that this was murder?’
Harry sucked in a breath and stared in Hildon’s direction. ‘I’m afraid you must allow me to conduct my inquest as I see fit, Mr Hildon. But I can assure you that every possible step will be taken to ensure that the jury reaches the most informed verdict possible. Now, if you’ll excuse me,
we are in danger of running late and I would like to make sure that everything is in order before we begin.’
Hildon put out a hand to stop him. ‘Just one last thing. What became of the money you found in Rowland’s quarters?’
I didn’t like his tone but Harry replied as if it hadn’t crossed his mind to be offended. ‘It’s lodged now with Miss Gwatkyn who is one of the collegiate school’s trustees. Now, if you don’t mind—’
Fair play to Rat-face Jones, he’d done what he could with the schoolroom. The benches had been pushed into rows for the spectators and, at the end of the room, two chairs and a card table were waiting for Harry and me. The furniture’d seen better days but Jones had put some thought into how he’d arranged it. We’d be sitting with our backs to the south-facing window which would put us in silhouette to the witnesses sitting opposite, while their faces would be clear as day to us. Well, to me, anyway.
The place was warmish but that was thanks to the mass of people – the stove wasn’t lit. The schoolroom was already half-full of folk leaning against the walls, sitting on the low benches and perched on the big tables that’d been pushed to face the front. The nosey ones were still milling about at the door-end of the building, trying to look up into the loft.
Harry’d obviously realised what they were doing. ‘Where’s the loft ladder?’ he asked.
‘Can’t see it. Looks like somebody’s had the sense to take it away.’
He nodded, satisfied. ‘Can you see Llew Price?’
I scanned the room. ‘At the front, with the rest of the jury.’