The Body in the Boat

by MacKenzie, A. J.

  He had gone a little pale. His bulging eyes were troubled. ‘It is quite true,’ he said. ‘My dear Mrs Chaytor, I would never lie to you.’

  ‘I am sure you would not, Mr Faversham. But I think you need to acquaint yourself with the possibility that all is not well, and that the bank may be in a good deal of trouble without your knowing of it. I wish you to do a favour for me.’

  ‘Of course, ma’am. Anything, anything at all.’

  ‘I have advised my friends to transfer their money to my own bank. When I hear from London, I shall bring them to you in Rye. Their names are Rosannah Godfrey and Clara Roper. Please arrange for them to withdraw all the money in their accounts. The withdrawal should take the form of bills of exchange payable to Thomas Coutts & Co. in London. I will arrange for the bills to be forwarded to Coutts.’

  ‘Ma’am, we can do that for you. We can send the bills directly to London.’

  ‘I think the ladies will be more reassured if they see me do this myself. They trust me, you see. Will you make the arrangements?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said again, bowing. ‘All will be done as you ask, I give you my word on that.’

  She studied him. He was desperately anxious to please her. ‘This is very important to me,’ she said. ‘I must ask you to see to this personally. Will you do so?’

  ‘Mrs Chaytor,’ he said, ‘I would never fail you, or your friends. You have my word on that.’

  He stood before her, clearly expecting she would dismiss him, and hoping she would not. She sighed, recalling her purpose. ‘Do sit,’ she said. ‘There is still tea in the pot.’

  They sat, Grebell looking both worried and relieved. ‘Mr Faversham,’ she said directly, ‘do you remember Mr Munro coming to see your father? It would have been a couple of days before the birthday party.’

  ‘Yes, I recall he came to the bank. He and Father were closeted for about two hours.’

  ‘Do you know what he discussed with your father?’

  ‘No, I don’t, ma’am. Father rarely discussed partnership affairs with me.’

  ‘Did you see Mr Munro yourself?’

  ‘I saw him in the clerks’ room as he was leaving. I remember he had a face like thunder. He was not happy about something, that’s for certain. And when I went into Father’s office, he was furious. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was about.’

  ‘Before that time, did your father and Mr Munro get along? Were they friendly?’

  Grebell frowned. ‘They were at first. Father thought highly of Mr Munro.’ He flushed. More highly than of himself, was the inference. ‘They got along well, right up until last month. But hard words must have passed between them at that meeting. Father was angry with Munro, no doubt about it. They still hadn’t patched things up when Munro was killed.’

  ‘Do you think your father regrets that?’

  ‘I fear I have no idea, ma’am. I’m sorry.’ Grebell was still anxious and embarrassed. ‘Will you excuse me? I fear it is coming on to rain, and I really should return to Rye.’ He stood up, looking at her, and he reminded her suddenly of a lost boy. ‘I am so sorry for the distress of your friends. If there is anything else I can do to help, anything at all, will you be sure to let me know?’

  ‘I certainly shall. And, Mr Faversham; thank you.’

  *

  Hardcastle had been expecting to hear from Cotton, but the letter came sooner than expected, in the last post of the day from New Romney. He read it quickly.

  STOURBRIDGE MILLS, CANTERBURY

  1st of September, 1797

  Reverend Hardcastle,

  I have considered further the matter we discussed. I find upon reflection that there are some other, highly pertinent facts which I would like to lay before you. In return, I expect the clemency you spoke of will be forthcoming. If this is still the case, then I think I can answer your questions to your satisfaction.

  If it is convenient for you, I shall call upon you on Monday morning, the 4th inst.

  Yr very obedient servant

  SYL. COTTON, ESQ.

  *

  A gloomy Sunday evening, the Marsh shrouded with drizzle and low cloud. The tollbooth keeper at Ham Street woke from his doze to the sound of an approaching carriage. He looked out to see a small gig with a single horse approaching, driven by a cloaked figure hunched against the rain. The gig drew up at the barrier.

  ‘Don’t see many travellers on a Sunday,’ the keeper commented as the driver fumbled in his pocket for coins. ‘Specially not on a wet day like this.’

  The driver said nothing, handing over the toll. One of his driving gloves dangled limply, as if the man was missing some of his fingers. The keeper weighed the coins in his hand. ‘Going anywhere in particular?’ he asked.

  ‘Mind your own business,’ snapped the driver.

  The keeper shrugged and went back inside. The driver whipped up and the horse trotted forward down the high road towards Snave. Just beyond that village, however, the driver pulled up and halted. He looked around carefully, checking to see if he had been followed. Around him the Marsh lay open and empty, dull green-grey in the rain.

  The driver knew the Marsh a little, and realised he had a choice. He could follow the high road to Brenzett and then turn east, keeping to the main road to New Romney. Or he could cut across country, following the green lanes and tracks through the heart of the Marsh; roads seldom travelled, where the likelihood of encountering a stranger on a wet Sunday evening was very small. If he could get to New Romney without being seen, then he could make his rendezvous the next morning. Once he had told Hardcastle what he knew, and provided the evidence he had brought with him, he would be safe. The law would protect him. Hardcastle had promised it would be so.

  Sylvester Cotton shook the reins again and turned the horse off the high road and down the grassy track towards Ivychurch, driving carefully in the slippery grass and mud. The rain increased and he hunched forward still further, pulling the hood of his cloak over his face.

  ‘Halt there! Stand and deliver, I say!’

  Cotton sat up straight, staring in disbelief and then pulling hard on the reins. The horse and gig halted. Two men stood a few yards away, one on each side of the track, both holding pistols. ‘Get down,’ said one of the men.

  ‘I have very little of value,’ gasped Cotton.

  ‘We’ll be the judge of that,’ said the other man. He had a deep, booming voice. ‘Keep your hands where we can see them, bucky.’

  ‘I’m a Quaker,’ said Cotton. ‘I’m not armed. Look, I’ve a little money. You can have that. Take the horse and the rig too. Just let me go.’

  The first man walked up to him. He had a rough, lined face and gapped yellow teeth. His eyes were unearthly, deep-set, with the pupils mere dark points on either side of a badly broken nose. Looking into those eyes, Cotton saw nothing but grim intent. He knew he was facing death; he knew he ought to run, but those pitiless eyes bored into his soul and left him rooted to the spot.

  He saw the other man raise his arm, the pistol coming up and pointing straight at his face. Cotton looked down the black, yawning barrel. ‘Please,’ he said, his voice soft with desperation. ‘Please.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ said the other man, and he pulled the trigger.

  14

  Ricardo’s Revelation

  Half a mile beyond Ivychurch, a gig stood empty and abandoned by the side of the track. There was no sign of a horse. A huddled shape lay on the ground beyond the gig. Two men stood guard over it, looking wet and unhappy. One turned and touched the brim of his dripping hat as Hardcastle pulled the dog cart to a halt. His name was Honeychild, and he was the parish constable in Ivychurch.

  ‘Who found him?’ Hardcastle asked.

  ‘One of the boys from the village,’ said Honeychild. ‘He went out early to go shrimping in the sewer.’ The little freshwater shrimp that lived in the drains in this part of the Marsh were a staple of the local diet. ‘He found the body and came running straight home. This here’s Caleb A
tkins, the boy’s father.’

  Hardcastle looked at the other man. ‘Did your son see anyone? Hear anything?’

  ‘Nothing, reverend,’ said Atkins. ‘This fellow’s been stiff and cold for some time, I’d say.’

  It was Monday morning; Hardcastle had been about to sit down to breakfast when a runner from Ivychurch brought Honeychild’s message. The rector dismounted and walked across the wet grass to the body.

  The dead man lay on his back, arms outstretched. His clothes were dark and soaked with water; as Atkins had said, he had clearly been lying there in the rain for some time. He had been shot in the face at point-blank range. The dark entry wound of the ball was surrounded by burnt skin and the black stains of powder residue, making him almost unrecognisable. But Hardcastle did not need the face to tell him who this was. One look at the left hand, with two fingers missing and a third curled and bent, was enough to confirm that this was Sylvester Cotton.

  Oh, dear God. Not again.

  Cotton had a wife and two children. Before the day was over there would be more tears, more misery, more loss and loneliness and emptiness. As if there was not already enough grief in the world.

  He straightened and looked at the constable. ‘Send to New Romney for Dr Mackay, if you please. Where is the horse?’

  Honeychild nodded to Atkins, who hurried off through the rain towards New Romney three miles away. ‘I reckon they took the horse, reverend. See here; there’s tracks going up the road towards Snave. I’m thinking they both rode off on it together, trying to get away quickly before someone heard the shot and got curious.’

  The rector squinted at the hoofprints in the mud, already filled with rainwater. ‘You think there were only two men?’

  ‘Looks like it. At least, I’ve only found two sets of footprints.’ Honeychild frowned. ‘It’s strange, reverend. If this was a robbery, why did they only take the horse? The gig is worth a lot more than the beast.’

  ‘This was no robbery,’ said the rector. He knelt down on the wet grass and opened Cotton’s saturated coat. Once again, his watch was still there. The notecase in his inside pocket had not been touched either. Yet . . . someone had gone through his clothes, quite thoroughly. One pocket was turned inside out, and the seam at the hem of the coat had been cut and the lining partly torn away. The killers had thought Cotton might have something sewn into the lining of his coat. Perhaps he had, and they had taken it away with them.

  Standing up, the rector walked over to the gig. Honeychild was right; it was an expensive little carriage, well made and well sprung. He examined the seat and the hood behind it, looking for blood or signs of damage, but saw none. Cotton must have dismounted before he was shot. That made sense; confronted by highwaymen, demanding his valuables or his life, a sensible man would step down and hand over everything, without hesitation.

  But these were not highwaymen. These were executioners.

  Hardcastle turned to the constable. ‘See if you can track the horse. Whoever took it will be long gone, I am sure, but try at least to find out where they went. Also, find out if anyone saw this man in the hours before he was killed. The gig will be recognisable, and some people might remember the disfigured hand.’

  ‘That’ll take some time, reverend.’

  ‘Send a runner to St Mary and fetch Joshua Stemp. He will assist you. This man was coming from Canterbury, so he probably drove down the Ashford turnpike. Start with the tollbooth at Ham Street.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Carry on. I’ll wait for the doctor.’

  He waited two hours in the drizzle, the day growing no brighter, the wind hissing around him. The corpse lay silent, its ruined face staring up at the sombre sky.

  Hardcastle heard the sound of rattling wheels and turned as Dr Mackay drove up the lane. ‘What have we this time?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘Sylvester Cotton,’ said the rector.

  ‘Cotton!’ The doctor looked shocked. He knew Cotton, of course; they had met at the birthday party at Magpie Court, if not before.

  ‘Man, that’s bad.’ Mackay stepped down from the driver’s seat and tethered his horse, then collected his medical bag. ‘What the devil was he doing out here?’

  ‘He was coming to see me,’ said Hardcastle.

  Mackay glanced at him sharply and then knelt down beside the body. Hardcastle watched bleakly. He was coming to see me. Someone learned of it, and sent men to waylay him.

  If I had not bullied him and threatened him, he would not have come to make his confession. And he would still be alive.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked Mackay after a while.

  ‘Shot dead, as you can see. As to the time of death, I’d hazard it was some time yesterday evening. Certainly before midnight, and probably well before.’

  Cotton would have driven down yesterday, then, intending to stay somewhere overnight and then, as his letter had said, call at the rectory this morning. They could ask at the Bell in Ivychurch or the Ship in New Romney, or even the Star, to see if he had written ahead to ask for a room. And Honeychild’s search should allow them to be more precise about the time; the tollbooth keeper at Ham Street was bound to remember, if no one else did. Not many gigs would have come through on a wet Sunday afternoon.

  None of this would help them identify the killers.

  ‘Someone’s gone through his clothing pretty thoroughly,’ commented Mackay.

  ‘Yes. When you do the autopsy, check again. They may have missed something.’

  ‘Of course.’ Mackay stood up. ‘I’ll take him away now, so I can finish my work in the dry. Help me load him into the cart, will you?’

  Lifting Cotton’s remains into the cart was unpleasant; the corpse was stiff with rigor mortis, and the ball that killed him had passed clean through his skull, meaning there was not much left of the back of his head. Mackay wiped his hands on the grass when they were finished. ‘Right, I’m off. My report will be ready by the morning.’

  Hardcastle smiled suddenly. ‘You’ll drive it out to deliver it yourself, I suppose.’

  ‘I might.’ The doctor reddened a little as he understood Hardcastle’s meaning. ‘Do you object?’

  ‘Not in the least.’

  Mackay drove away. The rector, too, leaned down to clean his hands on the wet grass. As he did so, he glanced up at the gig. He paused, and looked again. From this angle, close to the ground, he could see the underside of the driving seat. There was a little compartment beneath the seat, really no more than a flap of leather like a wallet, where a traveller might put valuables or papers that he wished to keep dry. He could see now what he could not see before: that there was something in the wallet.

  Rising, he walked over to the gig and reached inside, pulling out a folded paper sealed like a letter. This he tucked inside his coat, out of the rain. There was nothing else in the wallet.

  Back at the rectory, he ordered Amos to dry the horse and give him some oats, but keep him in harness; the gig would be needed again soon. Inside, Hardcastle changed into dry clothes before packing a small valise and taking it downstairs. Here he ordered coffee from Biddy and then took the letter into his study. When the maidservant brought the coffee a few minutes later she found him frowning over a single sheet of paper. ‘Whatever is it, reverend?’

  ‘I’m blessed if I know.’

  On the page were columns of numbers, written in a plain, workmanlike hand.

  Rmt fm Gh

  1st of 11th

  120

  23rd of 11th

  672.5.0

  30th of 11th

  258

  27th of 12th

  1,431.11.6

  29th of 12th

  310

  25th of 1st

  1,705.10.11

  30th of 1st

  355

  24th of 2nd

  1,917.8.2

  26th of 2nd

  620

  20th of 3rd

  3,162.17.4¼

  29th of 3rd

 
4,327

  20th of 4th

  20,769.12.1

  28th of 4th

  1,290

  23rd of 5th

  6,063.5.10

  27th of 5th

  2,566

  16th of 6th

  11,547.12.7½

  25th of 6th

  4,014

  15th of 7th

  17,661.13.8

  22nd of 7th

  4,418

  16th of 8th

  19,218.7.6

  23rd of 8th

  3,100

  18th of 9th

  5,720

  The rector scratched his head. The heading over the right-hand column was meaningless to him. The first and third columns might be dates, but he could detect no sequence to them, apart from the fact that they were roughly a month apart; sometimes less, sometimes slightly more. What the link between those two columns might be, he could not fathom. The right-hand column might be sums of money, written in pounds, shillings and pence, but it was impossible to know what this money was or who it belonged to. He could make no sense of the second column from the left at all.

  And yet, Cotton had driven from Canterbury to the lonely fields of Romney Marsh to bring him these numbers. This was what the killers had been looking for when they searched the body. This was why Cotton had died.

  Hardcastle made a careful copy of the figures and then pulled out the top-left drawer of his desk and reached inside. His fingers found the spring catch and released it, opening the door to the secret compartment at the back of the desk. He put the copy inside, closed the compartment and replaced the drawer. There were times in the past that this room had been searched, and there was a fair chance it might be again. He knew, now, exactly how ruthless the men he was searching for could be.

  He collected his valise and walked into the drawing room without bothering to knock. Calpurnia sat at her writing desk with sheets of paper spread before her, tickling the end of her nose with her quill while gazing out at the rain. There were not many words on the pages.