by Robin Blake
‘The fire broke out as we were coming to the end of the evidence. And, as it happened, we had just heard something very unexpected, something which might have changed my idea of the case. It is frustrating.’
‘Do tell me, Titus. If it does not pain you too much to speak.’
‘No, I can speak, and I want to tell you. You remember that I meant to call the girl Kathy Brock as a witness, after she had been accused by those women of being the dead child’s mother? Well, I was unable to serve Kathy with the summons, you see, because she took herself off this morning to Wigan, to visit some relatives. Just like that. I had meant to give her the chance to answer her unjust accusers, but she’d upped and left town. What do you make of that?’
‘It certainly looks a very convenient visit to Wigan, if she wished to avoid speaking at the inquest.’
‘But that isn’t the only thing: Margery Brock her mother came forward, quite unexpectedly, after most of the evidence had been heard. She meant to defend Kathy, but she only made the matter worse. She stoutly denied that her daughter had been pregnant recently, but ended by blurting out that Kathy had been with child before, last year in fact, but miscarried.’
‘Oh no! Poor Kathy. Who was the father?’
‘Margery Brock claimed not to know, and I was just about to cross-question her on the point when the shout of “Fire” was raised.’
‘That is frustrating, as you say. And, oh, poor Kathy!’
‘Yes, poor Kathy, but if she had been pregnant before, perhaps she was again.’
‘It does not necessarily follow.’
‘It is suggestive. And the real nub of the matter is that Luke had already given evidence that proves deliberate murder in this case absolutely. This is not the legal presumption of murder that you and I talked about the other night. This baby was unquestionably born alive and deliberately killed.’
‘How unquestionably? Did anyone see it happening?’
‘No, but Luke saw it after the event.’
She laughed merrily.
‘What a wizard he is! Did he look into a glass ball?’
‘No, he looked into the body.’
I told her about the injured ear and brain that Fidelis’s dissection had found.
‘But that is horrible! Who would have done such a thing?’
Her hands had gone to her cheeks and her voice was hushed in horror.
‘The mother is the most obvious suspect.’
‘No, Titus. Would a woman who has just given birth do that – a desperate woman, as she would need to be? I can imagine her smothering the baby or even dashing it down in a fit of madness. But for her to kill the baby in such a way seems impossible. The violence is too … precise. Too deliberate.’
‘Well, if she did not do it, she must have an idea who did. And that in turn might make her terribly afraid – afraid enough to run away.’
We lay together quietly for a moment, just holding hands. Then she said, in a whisper, ‘If there be a house in Paradise for the people that are murdered, I hope there is a very comfortable apartment reserved there for those that die before ever they are people.’
‘Does not your religion call them holy innocents, and say that they lodge in limbo?’
‘Yes. The priests say it is because they have never sinned, so it is a kind of blessing that they die. I call that rubbish! A baby dying is sad because it never learns what it is to be a person. It isn’t just that they don’t know sin. They are ignorant of everything human: of learning, laughter, beauty, taste. They will never solve a puzzle, or make a drawing, or sing a song, or write a letter. They will never love as we love, or reflect as we reflect, or know any of the things that make us what we are.’
She let go of my hand, clenched her fist and beat the covers.
‘How can some women not see that, Titus? How can they not want to hug the baby in their arms, and watch it grow to enjoy those things? And how can some be so wicked as to even countenance that it be stopped from ever really being!’
‘It is impossible to understand.’
‘My church says those babies are innocent of sin, but really that is not the point. They are – what do you call it? – potential. Yes, potential for everything. But that everything will never be. It is a world that dies with them.’
‘My love, I see you have thought deeply about this, and of course you are right. Any woman who does this knowingly and deliberately must be extremely wicked.’
Chapter 8
‘CLARKSON IS HERE TO see you and wants money,’ rasped Furzey, with his head round my door. ‘You’re a fool if you pay him a penny.’
James Clarkson was a lanky and (on this particular day) a drooping fellow with plum-purple lips, a bloodshot eye and a sickly sallowness of complexion. When I had seen him yesterday, before the destruction of his inn, he had been a strutting, red-cheeked braggart.
‘You see a man ruined, Mr Cragg,’ he stated gloomily. ‘You were there, so you know what happened. I have nothing now in the world and I’m very much in need of money and therefore I’m collecting what I can of it. So I am here for my fee in your use of my upstairs room.’
‘How much are you asking, Mr Clarkson?’
‘The full amount is four shillings and sixpence.’
I didn’t much like James Clarkson, but I was still surprised. His ramshackle establishment had burnt down and stopped my inquest, and yet he had the brass to ask for the whole amount of the room charge.
I said, stiffly, ‘You will remember we were contracted for the room between the hours of two and six in the afternoon. In the event, we were unable to use it beyond four and could not finish our business. I would therefore say that half the fee is due at most and certainly no more.’
‘Half, you say? That’s less than I had hoped.’
‘It’s all you will get, and I am being generous.’
‘Now, see here—’
He had raised his finger for emphasis, but then in his mind the point collapsed. He drooped a little more.
‘Well it’s better than nowt, which is all I shall likely ever again earn out at the inn.’
‘You had no insurance?’
‘No.’
‘The lease may be worth something, even with the building in its present state.’
‘I’ve borrowed against it. I shall be lucky to escape prison.’
Clarkson now became more agitated and a little more upright.
‘Now see here, Mr Cragg, whoever started that fire should be prosecuted. I deserve satisfaction on that account. The arsonist should restitute me.’
‘Arsonist, you say. That is a serious charge. Who do you mean? Did you see someone setting the fire?’
‘Not exactly. I was in the pantry when the shout went up. But there are those that wish me harm. The wolves have been prowling around me for more than half a year. Now they have torn out my throat.’
‘That is strong language indeed, Mr Clarkson. Who are these enemies?’
‘I will name no names, not until I have proof.’
‘That is wise.’
‘But I mean those plotting to have me out of the Skeleton Inn by any means, and the inn destroyed.’
‘Why would they wish for that, Mr Clarkson?’
The colour had returned to his cheeks now and his voice was more fervent.
‘Improvement and Profit, Mr Cragg. The great pagan gods that rules those vultures’ hearts, and which my inn stands in the way of. Chasing them, they will let the rest of us go to hell. For the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul.’
This talk of wolves and vultures, attack and ruin – I had heard like words from the mouth of Dan Gogarty in the skin-yard only yesterday morning. Did Abraham Scroop, then, have designs on the wharf as well as the tannery? Or was Clarkson referring to someone else?
He rose from his chair and stood, more upright than before. He seemed to have charged himself with a little courage now.
‘You will pay me the
money?’
‘My clerk will give it to you. You will be asked to sign a receipt.’
‘Thank you. I hope to have like indulgence from Moot Hall, where I go from here. In spite of all, I shall ask for an advance of money to rebuild. I shall tell them the Skeleton Inn is needed by this town, greeting mariners as they moor up and giving shelter to travellers from the sea.’
‘I wish you luck,’ I said, feeling a little sorry for the man in spite of myself.
I saw him back into the outer office and instructed Furzey to pay over two and threepence in exchange for a receipt. My clerk had come to work in the morning with his voice no less hoarse than my own, and a bottle with the word ‘Lohoch’ written on the label, from which he took periodic draughts. The contents had edged his lips with a black rime, from which I guessed the preparation included liquorice.
‘Aye,’ he’d whispered, ‘it’s the mother’s linctus: licky and rosewater and gum. Says it can’t fail to do me good – I don’t think. But since I must come to work, I go on swigging it all the same.’
Now he pouted his blackened lips rudely at Clarkson and reached for the cash box and receipt forms.
‘Innkeepers do talk about warm hospitality, Mr Clarkson,’ he croaked, shovelling out the cash. ‘But they should not mean scorching. They should not mean searing a man’s lungs. Here’s your money.’
When Clarkson had gone I reminded Furzey of my request that he visit the jurors and see how each of them fared so that we could restart the inquest. The day was Friday. If possible I wanted to do this on the following Tuesday – it could not be before – but first we must know if our jurors were well enough to attend. He agreed with some enthusiasm: Furzey seized any opportunity to be away from his writing desk.
‘And while you are doing that, I shall go back to the skin-yard. I fancy Mrs Margery Brock has more to tell about her daughter.’
* * *
It was beginning to drizzle as I came up Spaw Braw Lane and caught my first glimpse of the mastheads and pennants of the ships tied up at the wharf. At the brow of the hill, the hulls of the vessels themselves came into view and I saw how, as the bottom of the tide approached, the deeper-draughted vessels had been grounded on the mud and were canted at various angles out of the vertical. These would not be sailing anywhere until high tide returned.
I saw, too, the buildings alongside the dock and the blackened shell of the Skeleton Inn amongst them. In spite of the rain the wharf was bustling, particularly around one of the largest of the ships. Her rail leaned against the jetty’s stonework as she was prepared, evidently, to catch the top of the tide.
Then the tannery, more immediately below me, became visible but, by contrast with the quayside, I could see little activity there. The usual ribbons of wood smoke were rising from its fires, and a lone figure was crossing the yard, bent under a load, but no one else could be seen at work.
I found Margery Brock five minutes later, sitting under shelter with Ellen Kite, Mrs Kite, Ellen’s mother, and a third woman whom I had also seen at the inquest. They were sitting around a thick wooden table working on cowhide. One of them pierced holes along the edge of her piece of leather with an awl, while the others sewed the pieces together with big needles and thread almost as thick as string. All three looked equally dejected and all spoke in the same hoarse manner as I did.
‘None of us that were in the fire can speak, hardly. We’re that smoked in the lungs.’
‘I am the same myself, as you can hear.’
‘You were champion-like yesterday, Mr Cragg, you and Mr Furzey, helping folk through the windows to get out. We are grateful, don’t think we’re not.’
‘That is kind of you, Ellen. But I did no more than my duty, and no more than you yourself and your good father. Now, it’s Mrs Brock I came down to see. Could we…?’
The other three women left us with good enough grace. The delinquent’s mother stayed where she was but looked uneasy.
‘What’s it about?’ she asked.
‘I would like you to enlarge a little on the evidence you were giving to the inquest when we were, as you know, interrupted. You had just been telling us that your daughter had previously been expecting a child, and that was only last year.’
She looked suspiciously at me.
‘Do I have to tell you about it?’
‘No, I cannot compel you to speak now. But you may have to when the inquest starts again. If you can answer my questions now it makes it easier for both of us. It saves me from wasting time putting the wrong questions in court, and it saves you the worry of facing the unexpected.’
‘Oh, I see. All right.’
‘So, did you have any suspicions about who the man was? Or maybe it was a boy that she’d been with. Was it one from here in the skin-yard?’
‘Oh, no. Not from here. It must have been a boy she saw in her job.’
‘Her job? But her job was here, was it not?’
‘Not then. She’d been working out. She started when she were twelve, as a domestic.’
‘A servant? Who did she work for?’
‘It were at Mrs Scroop’s, housemaiding. It were like hard spit in that house, so she told me, with all them children. But she were doing all right, so we thought, until one day she just came out with it – she wanted to chuck in and come back to work here. In the end I got out of her why and she confessed it all.’
‘So you think it was someone in the Scroop household responsible for this pregnancy?’
‘I reckon it were some lad that called there – a milk-boy, or maybe someone that worked for Scroop that came and went to the house.’
This was not unlikely: Scroop’s yard was perhaps three hundred yards from the house, up the road in the direction of Preston.
‘You never found out?’
‘She kept it close who she’s been with, never said a word.’
‘Now, I want to know about Kathy’s visit to Wigan. People are saying that she went there to avoid appearing at the inquest. Is that true?’
‘Oh, no, Your Honour. She’s gone to look after my brother Terence’s children and that’s the honest-to-God truth. His wife’s leg’s broken, see? She’s got five young’uns. He wrote me asking for Kathy to come and help.’
‘Can you show me the letter, if you please?’
‘No, I put it on the fire.’
‘What is your brother’s name and occupation?’
‘He’s the town Headborough. Terence Pitt.’
‘You don’t mean the Constable?’
‘Yes.’
Having gathered this interesting information I left the skin-yard and turned my steps to the left, along Watery Lane. I meant to have another look over the site of yesterday’s events, for Clarkson’s accusations had aroused suspicions of my own and I knew that, should anyone die as a result of the fire, I would have to hold an inquest into the circumstances.
The inn was a desolate sight. Smoke had blackened its walls, which were of wattle and daub over a wooden frame. The door and windows had been smashed in. The roof was entirely gone except for its beams, charred and thinned by flames, which reared emptily above the structure like scorched bones. It had been called the Skeleton for years. Now, it was one.
A few yards from the main door, which opened directly on to the quayside, a woman in her middle years, and with her head covered by an old grey blanket, was sitting on a heap of fishing nets and cork floats, bemoaning her lot. A team of boys and girls – her children no doubt – were carrying bundles out of the ruined inn and depositing them around her; the worldly belongings, I supposed, of the Clarkson family.
‘Mrs Clarkson, do you know me?’ I asked.
‘We are thrown out and nowhere to go,’ she wailed, not so much to me as to the world in general. ‘We are destitute. We are houseless. Oh, improvidence! Oh, cruelty!’
‘I am the Coroner, madam. If you please, I must take a look inside.’
I retreated, not thinking she was likely to converse rationally, and wen
t in by the damaged doorway to carry out my inspection. I was in what had been the common room, where everything had been battered and soaked by the sailors with their fire hoses. The centre of the ceiling had collapsed, leaving a gaping wound through which appeared the sky filled with rolling slate-grey rainclouds. I went over to what remained of the stair, which stood to my right at the east end of the building. The casing remained in place, but the treads and handrails had all gone, burned away, so that I looked up in effect at another hole in the ceiling, through which showed, once again, the sky. Walking around the staircase I opened the small door set in its side, which gave access to the triangular under-stairs cupboard. The door itself had burned on the inside and the wall opposite was also fire-damaged. The floor of the cupboard into which the stairs had collapsed was filled with charred wood and wet ashes.
In the wall at the other end of this large room were set the fireplace and chimney, the only stone-built parts of the structure. I examined this from all sides and found little evidence of direct fire, except where one would expect to find it, in the fireplace itself. The kitchen was reached through either of two doors on each side of the chimney. Here, too, the floor of the room above had collapsed, and there was much confusion and damage. Above it had lain the private family apartments which, with no remaining thatch above them, were now open to the elements. The stair that led up to them, however, was only lightly scorched. It was clear to me that the flames had spread along the roof from the eastern end, and that the seat of the fire had been there, in the cupboard below those stairs.
Outside again I interrupted the children in their work and gathered them around me, a little way from where their mother continued to complain.
‘Does anyone know how this fire started? Did any of you see anything?’
They looked up at me, a circle of pinched, dirty faces.
‘Did you see anyone standing by the cupboard below the stairs there. Or even opening the cupboard itself?’
No one had seen anything of the kind.
I fished in my purse for a sixpence, which I pressed into the hand of the eldest of them.