Dark Waters

by Robin Blake

  This was greeted by howls of mirth and audible thigh slapping. After a few moments I could feel Elizabeth, too, shaking with laughter beside me.

  * * *

  I knew that, once we heard Luke Fidelis’s evidence of the rat, the Allcroft inquest would be all about a possible poisoning. So I reckoned the jury should hear something about poisons in general, and a little in addition about poisons in Preston. Since Wilson was the obvious man for this, I had decided during the night I would definitely call him to give evidence. It would be of added interest to me to have the apothecary answering questions. How would he answer my suggestion that he might be the source of the poison in Allcroft’s case? What would he say to the suggestion that he had already been the supplier of atropinum to unscrupulous men? Would he sweat, develop a tic in the face, stammer his replies? Or try to swagger his way out of it? From such telltale minutiae momentous matters turn.

  On my way to interview Mrs Fitzpatrick at the Gamecock Inn, I therefore called at Wilson’s shop to give him his summons. As he looked at it his mouth dropped open in surprise.

  ‘What’s this, Mr Cragg? Legal summons?’

  ‘Yes, to attend the inquest on Mr John Allcroft who lately died at the Gamecock Inn.’

  ‘What do I know about that?’

  ‘I think you may know something, even if you don’t know that you know it.’

  A ray of understanding lit his face.

  ‘Ah ha! There was that preparation Dr Fidelis sent down to me for that night. It was you yourself that came with the receipt, wasn’t it, Mr Cragg?’

  ‘Yes, it was me.’

  ‘So that is what you want me to speak to the inquest about, no doubt. There was nothing amiss with it, I hope?’

  ‘Not as far as I know, Mr Wilson,’ I said cheerfully, content to leave him thinking he would be giving evidence purely on his skills as a mixer of medicines, and not his wider business activities as a purveyor of rat poison and other materials. ‘Be there at ten in the morning, if you please.’

  And so I left him.

  * * *

  The Gamecock Inn was recovering from a disorderly night. In the dining room some men took breakfast; others sprawled asleep, or sat and stared through bleary eyes, with cold pipes dangling from their fingers. On the other side of the hall, in the coffee room, groups of voters were beginning to come together in their tallies, ready for their appointments at the polling hall later in the day. Between outbursts of laughter and partisan singing, rolls were being called, and missing men enquired after.

  In the office the innkeeper told me she could not spare a room for my inquest.

  ‘It is not for today,’ I explained, placing my coroner’s requisition order on the table in front of her. ‘The hearing is tomorrow. You do realize, don’t you, that I have the power to insist, Mrs Fitzpatrick? This paper means you have to make a room available. I don’t mind if it is your dining room, coffee room or dancing room, but you must let me have one of them.’

  ‘I’ll apply to the mayor—’

  ‘The mayor has no authority in this matter. The coroner is a representative of the Crown, you know. I am not accountable to the corporation.’

  She read through my order, written out in Furzey’s prime legal hand. Then she planted her elbows on top of it and clapped her hands to her face.

  ‘All right,’ she said, when she’d rubbed her eyes. ‘The assembly room upstairs. People have been sleeping there: I’ll have to move them out.’

  ‘Thank you. And here is something else for you.’

  I now put the witness summons down on top of the room order. She glanced at it, and looked up at me in sudden fright.

  ‘You want me to give evidence?’

  ‘Of course. Mr Allcroft died under your roof, after eating one of your meals.’

  ‘What’ll I say?’

  ‘Anything you know about Mr Allcroft and his end.’

  ‘That’s very little. He came last week, Tuesday. He said he’d have a gang of fellows out of Gregson coming at the weekend, and they’d need accommodation. They were all going to vote together, then go home, so he said. You were here with the doctor when he was taken sick, so you know as much as I do about that. And the next day when he was dead the family came and took him away, which I was very relieved about.’

  ‘What happened to the gang of people he said were coming to join him?’

  ‘They never came at all. I don’t know why. We had three rooms set aside for them – not that I’ve had trouble filling them.’

  ‘There, you see? It won’t be too hard, giving evidence.’

  Kathleen Fitzpatrick still looked suspiciously at me. She was a substantial figure in two senses: she was amply proportioned, but she was also a woman of authority, who knew well how to run a large inn like this. At least ten people worked for her every day, and she dealt astutely with her many suppliers. But appearing at a coroner’s court was a very different matter – it was outside her own experience and its findings might put the business in danger. I was not surprised to find her wary of the process.

  I mentioned that I needed to see Maggie Satterthwaite, Joe Primrose, and the boy Peterkin. Did I also have her warrant to go about the inn, look at the inquest room, and refresh my memory about Allcroft’s bedroom?

  ‘You’ll find Joe and probably the boy in the kitchen. Go and look in the bedroom and the assembly room if you want, but then you’ll wish you hadn’t. Don’t worry, I’ll have it empty and clean by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘And Maggie?’

  ‘She doesn’t work here now.’

  ‘Oh? What happened?’

  ‘She upped and left. I don’t know why.’

  So I went upstairs, to the bedrooms. These were on two floors, and ranged along a passage with a stair at each end – one an open oak staircase descending to the hall, the other a narrow, boxed-in servants’ stair that led down to the kitchen and the courtyard.

  The room in which Allcroft had died was at the far end of the second-floor corridor, the last before the entrance to the back stair. I tried the handle and found the door unlocked. It had been cleaned and reoccupied since I’d seen it last, and the new tenant was apparently another politician. He was not there but an open book lay on the bed, which I picked up. It was entitled The Idea of a Patriot King and a passage on the page that lay open had been heavily underscored:

  To espouse no party, but to govern like the common father of his people, is so essential to the character of the Patriot King that he who does otherwise forfeits the title.

  A comment had been scratched in the margin: ‘The true Charter of the Land!’

  Young Lord Strange would be delighted at this evidence that the ideas from Alfred were infecting the town. They were spreading like a genuine contagion.

  Leaving the room, I walked the length of the passage from the back to the front stair, which I descended to the first floor. A man was sweeping the bedroom passage. This had fewer bedrooms than the floor above since a proportion of the area was occupied by the assembly or dancing room, which stretched across the width of the inn on the side overlooking Stoney Gate. This was to be the inquest room: I had a quick look inside to make sure of its suitability, but could see little in the gloom, except huddled shapes across the floor. The curtains were drawn and snores filled the fetid air, but it looked spacious enough for my purpose.

  I walked the length of the passage again and dropped down the back stair to the kitchen. Joe Primrose must in the meantime have been told of the inquest – Mrs Fitzpatrick, I supposed – and he greeted me without surprise, and with the sunny lack of guile that was his hallmark.

  ‘Give evidence? It’s a good job you’re not having this anywhere far away, Mr Cragg, as I do have dinner to prepare. But seeing as it is all on the premises, I shall be happy to oblige you.’

  The kitchen boy Peterkin had been sent out to buy a bag of suet, but Primrose took his summons and promised to bring him to the inquest, by the ear if necessary.

  When I
walked out into Stoney Gate I had already served six of the eight summonses on my list, Fidelis having had his the night before. There remained Maggie and Isaac Satterthwaite to find. On a chance I turned left, away from Church Gate and towards the Grammar School, where as a lad I had struggled to construe Horace and suffered the tortures of Euclid. The lane on the left was Brewery Lane and on the opposite corner stood Drake’s haberdashery.

  Michael Drake, dressed for riding, had just come out and was locking his door. I approached.

  ‘Mr Drake!’ I called. ‘I wonder if you have seen Isaac Satterthwaite today. I have a communication for him and would save myself the trouble of a ferry ride.’

  Drake’s eyes narrowed for a moment, and he shook his head.

  ‘No, not seen him this morning.’

  ‘Do you know if he is still engaged in destroying rats at Lacey’s?’

  ‘He’s always engaged there, I am glad to say. The animals are a curse. They nest in my cloth. If Isaac did not continually attack them I’d be overrun.’

  He made a move towards Brewery Lane and I accompanied him.

  ‘Was it Thursday you last saw him – when I found you both at the brewery talking to Mr Lacey?’

  ‘Aye, that would be it,’ he said. He pushed open a gate that led into the yard of his premises. I saw a horse inside, saddled and waiting.

  ‘Do you know when he inspects or resets his traps next door?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Lacey that.’

  ‘And you haven’t seen him at Porter’s? I know he regularly plays cards there.’

  ‘Cards? No, I never seen him play cards. Now, I’d best be on my way. Good morning to you.’

  I walked on to Lacey’s and found the brewer supervising two apprentices as they scoured out a brewing tun, a process in which the boys climbed down naked into the vessel with brushes and buckets, watched from above by their master. I enquired after the rat catcher but Lacey, his eyes never leaving the two scourers, told me he had not seen him. Before leaving I strolled around the building, to the place where Satterthwaite had shown me his trapping technique the previous week. I crouched to look at the pipe in which he had rammed his doctored grain. It was now empty.

  It was only after I returned past the shuttered haberdasher’s that I wondered why Michael Drake had not opened for business today.

  * * *

  Less than an hour later Battersby deposited me on the southern shore of the river and I walked with rapid steps along the track to Satterthwaite’s cottage. It was Maggie who answered my knock, her pretty face showing alarm when I handed her the summons, and told her what it was. Yet she asked me, with some grace, to step inside and we stood in the parlour, into which I had peered through the window on the previous day.

  ‘You have lost your job, I hear.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I just wanted a change.’

  ‘You mean after what happened to Allcroft?’

  She looked down at her hands, that were clasped at her waist. I took her silence to mean yes.

  ‘Are you living here with your grandfather now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You haven’t found other work?’

  ‘No. Why do you want to know all this?’

  ‘Forgive me. I should put a check on my curiosity. Now, do you understand what this summons means? You are required to be at the inquest tomorrow morning and to answer the questions I put to you.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  ‘About what happened to Mr Allcroft. About the hotpot dinner that he ate. It will be nothing very different from what we talked about the other day in Market Place. You must not be afraid.’

  ‘I won’t be.’

  ‘Excellent. Now, I need to see your grandfather. Do you know where he’s working today?’

  ‘He’s not. He’s having one of his voters’ meetings. It’ll keep him busy till evening. They’ll be voting tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  I took the election timetable from my pocket and we both inspected it. The Middleforth Green tallies, we saw, were due in front of the mayor at half past eleven on Wednesday morning. Voting took precedence over everything, and I knew my court wouldn’t be able to hear his evidence until after that.

  ‘Where are they meeting?’

  ‘At Porter’s.’

  I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to eleven.

  ‘I’ll be on my way, then. Happen I’ll catch him.’

  Maggie walked with me to the gate.

  As I passed through, I asked as casually as I could, ‘Did your granddad play cards this last Sunday evening?’

  ‘He told me no cards this week because of the performance at the theatre.’

  ‘I didn’t see him at the theatre.’

  ‘He didn’t go. Said it would only be a puff for the Tories, which I heard it was.’

  ‘Mr Wilson went.’

  ‘Mr Wilson is one that likes to have his prejudice confirmed.’

  She was no fool, was Maggie.

  ‘Who else played in your grandfather’s regular card games, apart from Thomas Wilson?’

  ‘It was just four. They played four-handed crib. There was Mr Reynolds, you know, and—’

  ‘Reynolds? You don’t mean the candidate for Parliament?’

  ‘Yes, him. And the other one was usually Mr Drake, that has the haberdasher’s shop in Stoney Gate.’

  Well, I thought, as I walked back towards the ferry, it’s been a proper little nest of Whigs, this game of four-hand cribbage. And Michael Drake had denied all knowledge of it.

  Battersby was loading up on the far bank and I had to wait for him. So it took me twenty minutes to get back across the river and another ten to complete the uphill walk to Fisher Gate. All the time my head was buzzing with questions. Why had Drake lied to me about the card game? And what about Reynolds – had he also been present on the night Antony Egan died? Satterthwaite knew the answers, but they would have to wait. If I brought that up now I would confuse it with the matter of the Allcroft inquest, which had to remain uppermost and separate.

  I pushed my way into the inn on Fisher Gate. Porter must never have known such business: a brim-full apple barrel would have had more space to spare. I forced my way through the press to the landlord, who directed me to the adjoining room, a smaller one sometimes used for private dining parties. Going through I found at the least three groups of men distributed the length of the refectory table, quaffing, arguing and laughing, some sitting, others standing around them. One end of the table was occupied by a distinctive group of carousers, one or two of whom I recognized as coming from south of the river. At their head sat Isaac Satterthwaite.

  A heavily built member of the company had stood ponderously up to render ‘Fill Every Glass’ in a deep, almost a growling voice. Satterthwaite was listening intently, and tapping his hand on the table in time. I touched him on the shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Isaac. May I have a quiet word?’

  He twisted in his chair and shushed me with a finger to his lips. I waited out the song. Later, we retired through an inner door, which gave onto the foot of the stairs. I handed him the summons and the rat catcher looked it quickly over.

  ‘What does this mean? Tomorrow – attend the inquest into John Allcroft? What has this matter got to do with me?’

  ‘We want to tap your expert knowledge.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I can’t say any more. This summons requires you to attend as a witness, but I know that your tally will be voting, which takes precedence. May I ask you, immediately after you have polled, to come to the Gamecock Inn, where the inquest will be in progress?’

  Satterthwaite grunted what might have been his assent, folded the paper, slipped it into his coat pocket and brushed past me as he went back to the dining room to rejoin his colleagues. I did not take exception to his curtness. My chance to hear him speak would come tomorrow.

  Rather than force my way through t
he crowded rooms towards the street door, I went out by the rear and found myself in the dark and crooked alley that joined Fisher Gate with Theatre Lane. I turned left and began to make my way towards the light but was soon impeded by a stationary cart left unattended. As I edged with difficulty past it a figure slipped out from the black shadow of a doorway up ahead and barred my path. He was holding something like a cudgel or bat. A hat pulled low over his face made him impossible to identify.

  ‘What do you want, fellow?’ I called out in as commanding a voice as I could muster. I was now standing at bay, between the shafts of the parked cart. This meant it was impossible for me to take to my heels, and bluff defiance seemed the only stratagem remaining to me.

  ‘To crack your head, Mr Lawyer.’

  The voice was extraordinarily gruff.

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’

  I was expecting this to be a simple robbery, the town being full of strangers and some of them undoubtedly desperate.

  ‘That’s not for you to know.’

  ‘You could have my purse instead. What is the need for violence? I cannot recognize you, so you will be quite safe getting away.’

  I reached into my pocket for the purse and showed it to him.

  ‘Give it over,’ the man snarled, raising his weapon high. ‘Throw it down, and then take your payment from this stick.’

  A tremor of fear like a sudden chill seized me. Whatever I did, it seemed I was not going to escape the promised beating. I took a step backwards until I was pressed against the cart. My assailant advanced by the same distance, still brandishing his club and breathing out a mixture of sour beer and tobacco smoke.

  At that moment he emitted a sound – ‘Oof!’ – and shot forward, cannoning into me. His weapon missed my head and smacked down on the cart. He was so obviously surprised by whatever had impelled him from behind that I had more than enough time to drive my knee into his groin, causing him to emit an exquisite yelp. I grabbed his arm and brought it down two or three times on the cart’s tailgate until he dropped the cudgel. The next moment a hand grasped his collar and jerked him away from me. There was a tussle, punches were thrown, and all of a sudden the attacker was staggering away, pushing past the cart and going down the alley at a run, his silhouette shrinking in perspective as the clatter of his footfall died away.