Skin and Bone--A Mystery

by Robin Blake

  ‘Aye, there’s a politician for you. He has no method except shouting the loudest.’

  ‘I don’t believe he’d waste money chasing a skinner’s daughter around the country.’

  ‘No, you’re right. He loves money as he loves himself. That is why he is for Scroop’s and Grassington’s projects. It is a vicious marriage of vanity and avarice. He can feather his nest as an investor in the bath, the racecourse, the skin-yard, or whatever it is, and have his term as mayor fondly remembered for them into the bargain.’

  ‘That could be a point in their favour, though. These improvements may turn out useful for Preston. I’ve been reading a book that argues private vices have a way of turning into public goods.’

  ‘That sounds an ungodly sort of book, Titus. Vice is vice, after all. And I don’t like to see Thwaite, Grimshaw, Thorneley and Scroop treated like public benefactors when they’ve acted only in their own interests. And then, what if it all goes wrong, which it probably will? What if Thwaite and company have killed off our tried and tested way of doing things, only to find that their wonderful new projects don’t work? The skin-yard for instance. It’s been there for centuries and these men will sweep it away without even telling us where our leather will come from after.’

  He snorted dismissively.

  ‘Cobbler Thwaite, Rag-and-Bones Scroop, Trimmer Thorneley and Grubber Grimshaw: the Cabal of Improvement. God help Preston, that’s what I say.’

  Chapter 21

  THREE HOURS LATER, after a refreshing nap and dinner with Elizabeth, I was ready to go out once more. I had to collect Dr Hume’s letter from Fidelis, for I meant to take it to Kathy’s mother and let her see that her daughter was exonerated by it.

  I found my friend, not in his rooms, but by the chicken coops in the yard at the back of the Lorrises’ house. He was not in a position to pay me much attention as he had the Sultan of Scrafton in his arms and was much too agitated to listen to a tale of conspiracies and a Cabal.

  ‘Two days to go before the Main and look! The Sultan is still off his feed. The case is desperate. He will be in no shape to fight if he doesn’t eat. I attribute it to him being lodged near to Lorris’s chickens.’

  ‘Is he love-sick?’

  ‘It’s lust, my friend, not love. He thinks he’s acquired a harem. But I’m going to disappoint him. I’m moving him further down the yard to the rabbit run where he’ll not be distracted by lascivious thoughts.’

  I followed Fidelis as he carried the cock to the rabbit-run, remembering how he had once used it as the location for an inspired experiment with a rat. Now the enclosure was to be the gamecock’s training paddock. Tenderly he placed the cock inside the gate, shut him in and stood back to watch what he did about the bowl of feedstuff that lay waiting for him. He stalked around for a while, making his small woodwind clucks, the aquamarine feathers of his neck and crop gleaming in the watery sunshine.

  ‘What are you feeding him?’ I asked. ‘Maybe he doesn’t like it.’

  ‘If only I knew what he liked! Every cockman has his favourite feed. Some say sunflower seeds, others swear by hemp or flax. I’ve heard of men putting garlic juice in the feed, and others that use dried ground beef. I’ve been unable to compare the merits of all these diets in the short time I’ve owned him, so I’ve decided to combine them.’

  He pointed at the Sultan’s feed bowl.

  ‘And there you have the result. Apart from the dried beef, which I think is against nature, there is everything in that bowl that I have ever heard was good for a gamecock. It was the only logical way – a grand composition.’

  Having paced the enclosure from end to end, the Sultan was now approaching the feed bowl. He inspected it, turning his head this way so he could use one eye, and then that way to bring the other eye to bear. Finally he seemed to make up his mind and picked out a speculative seed.

  ‘Good! Very good!’ whispered Fidelis, pulling me a few steps further back.

  The Sultan raised his imperious head, looked around, then lowered it to peck again a little less tentatively.

  ‘Not until he takes a third peck will I feel vindicated.’

  But now the Sultan went for another walk. Stepping with the exaggerated care peculiar to many birds, and jerking his head to left and right, he made another complete circuit of the pen. We waited.

  ‘Infuriating bird,’ hissed Fidelis. ‘Why doesn’t he make up his mind? Ah! That’s better, look.’

  The Sultan was back beside the feed bowl, where he began pecking, selectively no doubt, since he had so much choice from Fidelis’s mixture, but now with more will. Husks and unwanted elements of the recipe flew this way and that as he began at last to help himself with appetite.

  ‘Come away,’ said Fidelis. ‘We must let him enjoy his dinner in peace. Later I will be able to check which ingredients he has rejected.’

  We walked back towards the house where Fidelis, coming some way back to himself, asked about my health.

  ‘I feel much better, but I would be glad to sit down for a moment.’

  We went up to his room, which was untidy as usual with a litter of glass retorts, vials of differently coloured liquids and papers dark with dense figures and calculations. The fire was lit and I sat down at the hearthside to enjoy its warmth, but Fidelis still could not relax either his body or his mind. So he fidgeted about the room, lifting a paper here, a book or a bottle of something there, while I gave an account of my conversation with Nick Oldswick.

  ‘He used the word Cabal,’ I said. ‘Thwaite, Scroop, Thorneley and Grimshaw making secret decisions that will greatly affect Preston, but entirely for their own profit.’

  ‘Profit from what?’

  ‘The skin-yard, certainly, and perhaps the Marsh.’

  ‘A few pits making cheap quality leather. A riverside bog. I don’t see big profits there.’

  ‘Well, the other burgesses are feeling left out, even before they know what they’re being left out of. They see the nobility joining in – Grassington, Strawboy and even Lord Derby, in his usual cautious way – and they suspect underhand dealing.’

  ‘I will agree there has been some of that.’

  ‘Not least in the treatment of Kathy Brock. She stands condemned by Thwaite, who was determined to do it, and yet we know she’s innocent. My conscience isn’t easy about her, or about the murdered baby, who deserves justice.’

  ‘You are no longer concerned in this now, Titus. What can you do?’

  ‘The least I can do is show Kathy’s mother the letter from your friend in Warrington. The poor woman must be miserable after being so vilely abused by Thwaite, and hearing her daughter branded a murderer.’

  A few minutes later, and carrying Hume’s letter, I left Fidelis’s rooms and set off for the skin-yard and Margery Brock.

  * * *

  The laborious production of leather went on at the skin-yard just as before. I found Margery on the job that was usually done by her daughter – giving the tan-pits their daily agitation by the procedure of ‘handling’ with a long-handled paddle. She continued this work impassively as I read out the Warrington’s doctor’s account of his meeting with Kathy. When I finished the message her face still showed no expression until, suddenly, she frowned.

  ‘She would not tell the doctor where she was going?’

  ‘No, just where she wasn’t going – neither back to Wigan nor back here.’

  ‘But this doctor – Hume, did you call him? – he’s proved she did not give birth. So why can’t she come home? I know what my brother can be like: we wouldn’t have let her go there except it looked so bad for her in this town that it seemed the lesser evil. But that’s all changed now. She should be safe in Preston now that she can prove her innocence.’

  Very gently, I said, ‘Not necessarily, Margery. The Mayor is powerful. If he really wants her to be guilty, he can make it so. Your daughter is a clever girl and she knows this.’

  ‘But you know the truth! You can tell them.’


  ‘I have been turned out of the Coroner’s job now. I have no influence. I am just a citizen, like you.’

  When I left Margery I walked along the lane towards the wharf, where the remains of the inn had now been completely removed. I saw nothing but flattened brick-dusty earth, bordered and divided by pegs and string to denote the footprints of what looked like more than one new building coming in the old inn’s place.

  The vessel Maid of Man, that had taken Clarkson and his family away, was tied up once more, leaning at a drunken angle as it rested on the low-tide mud against the side of the jetty. Large bales were being unloaded on to the wharf. I asked the Captain what news of the former innkeeper and his family.

  ‘They went ashore in Liverpool, which is where we turn around. That were the last I saw of ’em. He were a good innkeeper – said fool things sometimes, but honest.’

  ‘Do you merely shuttle between here and Liverpool?’

  ‘This is an Isle of Man boat. We do a three-way trip. We bring all sorts of goods from Liverpool to Douglas, which we exchange mostly – this time of year, after harvest – for this raw flax here for the linen manufacture, which we ship here to Preston. From Preston, it’s mainly passengers like Clarkson and family, which we unload at Liverpool dock and so do it all again.’

  He sighed, as if disappointed with his lot.

  ‘It is a repetitive life,’ I said. ‘You would like more adventure in it, no doubt, being a seaman.’

  He looked at me doubtfully.

  ‘You’ve never been to sea, if you say that. The elements give us all the adventure we require. No, I’d only like to turn around faster at this port here. I am always standing off the mouth of the estuary waiting for the tide, or I’m waiting for a berth here at the Wharf. More room for more ships, that’s what they need. We’d land a deal of Isle of Man flax here if they had more berth-room. We won’t be able to leave here now until Sunday.’

  I took my leave and wandered back along the lane. Looking to my right across the Marsh, I noticed a slight figure at the far edge of it, close to the largest of the Marsh’s ponds, known as Colt Hole. He was looking through some sort of sighting device mounted on a tripod. I immediately turned on to the Marsh, following a raised path that snaked around the clumps of tree and reed and the claggy holes containing a mixture of fresh and salt water. Here and there cattle and sheep grazed. A curlew cried and a small flock of shell-duck got up and flew away.

  I reached him in little more than five minutes.

  ‘How do you do, Mr Kay?’ I said shaking hands. ‘I looked for you at the Assembly on Saturday but did not see you.’

  ‘I do not attend assemblies,’ he said. His response to me was a little cold.

  ‘Oh! You should. You cannot work all the time.’

  ‘I have much to do – sightings to take, and measurements. The figures are many, making the work extremely mathematical.’

  ‘But what are you doing out here on the Marsh? I did not think your business was here.’

  He looked warily at me.

  ‘I am doing exercises. I am testing my apomecometer.’

  ‘You are not surveying any part of the Marsh, then?’

  ‘We have been working at the site of the Skeleton Inn: they need new buildings after the fire – another inn, harbourmaster’s office, customs house and so on.’

  ‘Not the skin-yard? You talked about your interest in tanneries when you supped with us.’

  ‘Did I? No, I have not just been asked to survey the skin-yard.’

  ‘“Not just” you say – then part of a larger survey, is it?’

  Kay did not answer but asked me instead, and a little huffily, to kindly leave him, if I pleased, to his work. Nonplussed by the man’s lack of friendliness, I left him to it and returned by way of the meandering footpath towards the road.

  * * *

  You will remember that there are two ways from the top of Watery Lane to Preston, and that the broader and easier of these is Water Lane, the address of the neighbours Burgess Abraham Scroop and Doctor Basilius Harrod. It was the way that, on this occasion, I took in making my way home.

  I was striding along when I came to the Scroop house. A small crowd had gathered around the gate that opened into the short drive, at the end of which, in front of the house, I saw a small funeral carriage. This was drawn by a single plumed black pony and stood ready to receive the coffin, for the bringing out of which the house’s front door stood open. But who I wondered was dead?

  I approached the group of watchers.

  ‘What has happened here?’

  The nearest of the spectators, a toothless woman called Jean Garnish, shushed me and clattered my elbow with hers.

  ‘Look, Mr Cragg,’ she said, pointing.

  The coffin was now coming through the front door carried fore and aft by two undertaker’s men. As they turned to slide it on to the carriage, we could see the coffin broadside. It was barely two feet long.

  ‘One of the children,’ said Jean, crossing herself. ‘And the babby, by the size of that box.’

  Following the coffin out of the house were the Scroop family, the adults looking sombre, the children in tears. Bringing up the rear was Dr Harrod. They walked in this order behind the carriage as it circled around and headed towards us at the gate.

  ‘Requiescat! Rest in peace!’ called out some as the cortege passed into the road, and several crossed themselves. But the mourners paid no attention, looking neither to right nor left.

  ‘Where are they going?’

  Instead of turning in the direction of Preston and of one of our two churches, St John’s or St George’s, the little funeral procession turned down Water Lane and towards the junction with the road that led westward along the shore of the estuary. Some of the group around the gate began to straggle after them. Jean Garnish, who did not follow their example, banged me with her elbow once more.

  ‘Likely they’re burying it at Kirkham church. It’s a bonny graveyard they’ve got there, and more than one Scroop grave’s in it already.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the woman standing on her other flank. ‘It’s a bonnier spot than St George’s, is Kirkham. And quieter.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jean, looking after the funeral carriage. ‘You don’t want a big to-do when a babby dies. You want to let it go quietly. I did with three of ours. Quietly and quickly, that’s all that me and Charlie wanted. A few prayers, word of the Book, nod of the head, and into the ground sharp.’

  She sniffed. I took a sideways look but she showed no emotion.

  * * *

  ‘The Scroop’s baby son has died.’

  I found Elizabeth at home counting washing and making entries in her washing-book.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It had been sickly in the afternoon, I’ve heard, and then in the evening it had a fit and seconds later was dead. Very sudden.’

  ‘Strange, how all their sons die, while their daughters thrive. Scroop will be sorry. I wonder if this new Coroner of ours will be holding an inquest.’

  ‘There’s no call for that. Doctor Harrod was in the house at the time. He pronounced it dead of natural causes and made a certificate. Oh dear! I’ll be patching this sheet soon. See?’

  She held the sheet up to the light to show where it was worn.

  ‘Ah yes,’ I said, looking. ‘A bit threadbare. If it was me, I would have Luke examine it first.’

  ‘Why would Luke examine this sheet?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. I mean the body. What’s niggling me is the way that, the whole time I was investigating the tan-pit case, the Scroop family kept getting in the way.’

  Elizabeth looked at me in kindly exasperation.

  ‘Titus! Let it go! You’re not Coroner now. Whatever goes on in that house is no longer your business.’

  ‘I expect you are right.’

  I went to bed early, immediately after supper. ‘Let it go’, Elizabeth had said. Yet I couldn’t. My habits of thought remained those of a coroner. I had traine
d myself for years, as assiduously as Fidelis was training his Sultan, to apply myself to death, the reasons for it and the consequences of it. So this dead baby girl – found in a tan-pit, denied the chance to grow up, and now buried in the unmarked grave of a pauper – would not relax the grip of her tiny fingers on me. I lay in the dark, thinking the whole case through, from the very beginning when sensible Ellen Kite had found the body while ‘handling’ the tan-pits, to the end when Thwaite took over my duties and so mishandled the inquest and wilfully – I couldn’t help this, I really did think it was wilful – pointed his finger at a purely innocent girl.

  No, it would not let me go, and nor could I let it go.

  Chapter 22

  THE NEWS OF the arrest of Jon O’Rorke, and his incarceration at the House of Correction, came early in the morning. The Mayor had decided to question the servant after Oswald Mallender’s return from Wigan, where he’d gone with his constables the Parkin boys in an attempt to pick up Kathy Brock. Returning without her, Mallender had not had much to say publicly about his reception at the irascible Terence Pitt’s house. The plausible speculation was that the two rival headboroughs had locked horns, and that Mallender had a few points broken off his antlers. It is also said that Pitt had told Mallender that, if he was looking for a murderer, he should forget about Kathy, wayward though she be, and look no further than the servants’ hall at the house of Abraham Scroop.

  There was a set of cramped and stygian prisoner cells beneath Moot Hall, where men were kept under suspicion awaiting either the magistrate’s questioning or the grand jury’s decision whether to commit them for trial. O’Rorke could therefore not normally have expected to be held in the relative comfort of the house of correction, but on this occasion the lock-ups at Moot Hall were even less habitable than usual, being flooded by the building’s water tank leaking directly into them.

  I was on friendly terms with the keeper of the House of Correction, Arnold Limb, who had frequently helped me by looking after bodies awaiting inquest. This time, however, he was a little less sure than usual that he wanted to help, and needed persuasion.