by Robin Blake
The sight provoked immediate cries of dismay from the women.
‘Quiet yourselves,’ shouted one of the men, as he carried the last of the fish up from his boat and slapped it down with the others. ‘Coroner’s here. You should be respectful.’
I asked who was in charge of the fishing party. It was the man that had just spoken, whose name was Peter Crane.
‘Was it you that first saw it in the water?’ I asked.
‘It was. Me and the lad spotted it first.’
Crane nodded towards a youth who looked a younger edition of himself.
‘What time was that?’
‘An hour ago, or a bit more.’
I took out my watch. It was half past seven.
‘Before half past six, then.’
‘If you say so.’
‘And did you find him just like that?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Wrapped in the net.’
‘Oh no. We wrapped him when we brought him ashore, like. Out of respect.’
Or, I thought, to stop him getting up and running away. It was a common thought: you can never be too sure of those that drown.
‘Would you kindly uncover him for me now?’
It took three men to undo the parcel, so heavy was the body, and so well-wrapped.
‘Did you know him?’ I asked as they struggled.
‘Oh, aye, we knew him.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Don’t think you won’t know him yourself, Mr Cragg. Take a look.’
Finally, with two of them pulling his feet and a third at the other end hauling the net, they had managed to disencumber the body. The dead man was wearing a coat, shirt, breeches and the aforementioned clogs. His grey hair was tied at the back. His eyes were closed.
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Fidelis. ‘Look who it is.’
We all drew closer, and there was a murmur of recognition from the women. I knew the man better even than the others and, for a moment, was so disconcerted I could not speak. Not only did I well know his identity, I knew also that the contented impression conveyed by the corpse was false. For these were the mortal remains of poor Antony Egan, landlord of the Ferry Inn and the sadly troubled uncle of Elizabeth, my own sweet wife.
‘Did you close the eyes, or were they like this when you found him?’ Fidelis asked Crane.
‘No, Doctor, staring open they were. I closed them.’
As a simulacrum of sleep it made the man look at peace, an appearance reinforced by the hands being arranged comfortably over the swollen stomach.
I knelt down on one knee beside him, opened his sodden coat and went through the pockets. They were empty except for a tobacco pouch, a few coppers and his watch, its chain securely attached to a waistcoat buttonhole. Then I stood again and looked at Fidelis who was on the other side of the corpse.
‘He has his watch,’ I said.
‘He wasn’t robbed, then.’
‘When do you think he went into the water?’
‘I doubt it was long ago.’
‘Did he drown?’
‘Let’s see. Mr Crane would you and your men kindly turn him over for me, and bring him round so his head’s over the river.’
The dead man was placed, according to Luke’s instructions, on his stomach with head and shoulders over the stream and arms trailing in the water – the posture of one who throws himself down to drink, or a boy attempting to tickle a trout. Luke then crouched beside him and placed both hands palms down, with fingers spread out, flat on his back.
‘Look at the mouth, Titus, while I palpitate.’
I placed myself on the other side of the body and sank down on one knee, leaning a little over the water to see the profile of Antony’s head. Luke pressed his hands down sharply three or four times in a kneading motion just below the rib cage and immediately water gushed up and out of the mouth, like water from a parish pump. Luke stood up.
‘You saw it?’ he asked. ‘Lungs full of water. He sucked it in trying to breathe. It means he was alive when he went into the river. He died by drowning.’
I rose from my genuflection and considered for a moment. The cloud cover was disintegrating and patches of freshly minted blue sky had opened up over our heads. Then, in the east, the morning sun broke free and shafts of light set the swollen river surface glittering.
‘Well, Luke, I have a ten-minute walk upstream ahead of me. It’s a fine day. Will you come along, or have you other business?’
He said he had no patients to see immediately and would be glad to go with me. I asked Crane to get some sort of conveyance, and use it to transport Egan’s body along the bankside path behind us.
‘There will be an inquest but I see no reason why he can’t lie at home, and be viewed there by the jury. There’ve been inquests at the Ferry Inn before. It’s better that I go ahead, to break the news to his daughters. They will need time to prepare.’
Luke and I set off at a brisk pace to walk to the inn. It stood half a mile above the salmon traps, rather less than midway to the big stone bridge at Walton-le-Dale that bears the southern road for Wigan and Manchester. A road of sorts branched from there to connect with the ferry-stage, and for uncounted centuries traffic from the south had been transported across the stream in competition with the bridge. The Ferry Inn, lying on the southern bank, had served the needs of those waiting to cross, and a good business it had been, for the reason (which was really unreason) that, while a ferry crossing was cheaper than the bridge toll, many of those waiting to use it were happy to spend the saved money on drinking, eating, card-playing and, sometimes, a bed for the night. So business had come to the inn as naturally as fish got into the salmon traps.
But under Egan its prosperity had progressively dwindled, to such an extent that for the past few years the inn had been hesitating on the edge of ruin. It seemed to keep going only by the tenacity and good sense of his twin daughters, Grace and Mary-Ann.
‘Poor Egan,’ said Luke as we trudged along the bankside. ‘I was drinking at the Ferry only last week, on my way back from visiting a patient.’
‘I hadn’t seen him for a month or more,’ I said. ‘We see his daughters, of course, because they’re Elizabeth’s cousins. But we gave over inviting Antony two or three years ago. It had become impossible. What condition was he in – on the day you were there?’
‘Same as always; no better, no worse.’
‘I don’t think he’d enjoyed a waking hour of sobriety for five years.’
‘Is enjoy the right word, Titus? I enjoy a drink. But men like that can do nothing without a drink. Drunkenness is their sobriety; their accustomed condition.’
‘If so, what is their drunkenness?’
‘Unconsciousness, I think. Oblivion.’
‘Well, now poor Antony has found an eternity of that.’
‘What made his life take the turn it did? Was he always a sot?’
‘No. Once he was the model of moderation.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘The son that he cherished above all other creatures deserted him, and went south, without ever writing or sending word. And then, when word came at last, it was that the boy had died. His father took to drink because he could not bear to remember it.’
By now we had left the water meadows behind and reached the ferry’s landing stage, on the northern side of the river. From here we had to cross to the inn on the far bank, which meant waiting for the ferry. We could see the flat, raft-like conveyance labouring towards us, fighting the flood as two men turned the great winching wheel that hauled along the fixed rope that stretched from bank to bank. A short distance upstream, smoke was rising from the chimneys of the inn, which stood among a small cluster of houses and trees known as Middleforth Green. The day had started at the inn as it did every day. There was no sign yet that this might not be one like any other.
The ferry reached land with a crunch and lowered its ramp. Half a dozen passengers came off, and with them a cart laden
with leeks, sparrowgrass, watercress and other market vegetables. The ferryman, Robert Battersby, a fellow famous for his bad grace, tied off his ropes and came ashore with his son and crewman, Simeon, a muscular boy of seventeen. As they ambled towards the wooden hut, in which they sheltered from rain and sold tickets between crossings, I stopped them and said we required immediate transport over to the Ferry Inn. He muttered something about his timetable but I cut him short, saying it was Coroner’s business and that as soon as he had transported me and Dr Fidelis, he was to return and await the arrival of a body from downriver, for bringing across after us.
When he heard this, a smile broke across young Simeon’s face, and be began jiggling up and down.
‘Another one gone in, is it?’ he said, his voice lifting with sudden delight. ‘Another sacrifice to the water? Oh, aye. She’s a cruel one is the river goddess.’
‘Shut it and don’t be daft,’ said the father savagely to the son, then turned back to me. ‘Pay no mind, Mr Cragg. His head’s full of nonsense. We’ll take you now. It’ll be tuppence.’
I gave him the money, and a warning.
‘Let’s have a little reverence when the body comes after, Mr Battersby, if you please.’
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A DARK ANATOMY. Copyright © 2011 by Robin Blake. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
eISBN 9781466802582
First eBook Edition : April 2012
First published in Great Britain by Macmillan, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
First U.S. Edition: May 2012