by Alis Hawkins
John dismounted. ‘Shall I knock?’
Before I could answer, we heard a voice behind us.
‘Good day. Who’s this paying a visit to me and my family?’
Though the greeting was civil enough, I detected a hint of displeasure in the voice. I turned, my pulse quickening.
‘Good day to you. I’m Henry Probert-Lloyd, Acting Coroner, and this is John Davies, my assistant. Am I speaking to Mr Theopilus Harris?’
‘Teff. Teff Harris. That’s me.’
His tone was not welcoming. Perhaps he was surprised at my addressing him in his own language. He certainly did not want to speak to me in Welsh; despite my use of the vernacular, he had answered in English.
I saw his head turn to follow John who was leading the horses to one side. ‘Don’t tie them to that hurdle, ngwas i,’ he called. ‘One good tug and they’ll have it over.’
‘Where shall I tie them, then?’ John sounded belligerent. He’d been ‘Mr Davies’ to the jury and clearly did not appreciate being addressed as ‘my lad’ by Teff Harris.
‘You don’t need to,’ Harris said. ‘I’ll get my son to come and see to them. He can let them graze.’
We waited as he called the child from the house.
‘You’re here to ask me about the body on the beach, then?’
‘Yes.’ Given my suspicions about Pomfrey, I decided not to take Harris to task about his failure to attend the viewing of the body. ‘I wondered why you didn’t go to the magistrate to report it? It was obviously a suspicious death.’
Harris sucked in a breath. ‘I’m not on terms with any of the magistrates,’ he said.’ But I know Jaci Rees, the registrar. Thought he’d know what the standing orders were.’
‘You thought he’d tell the magistrate himself?’
‘What they pay him for, isn’ it?’
John spoke from behind me. ‘Surely you knew that the first finder has to alert the magistrates? Or the police, in Cardigan. Procedures or not, everybody knows that.’ His belligerence told me he was still smarting from that ngwas i.
Harris did not respond immediately. Was he considering John’s use of that technical term ‘first finder’ and wondering who exactly this lad was?
‘Cardigan’s a long walk,’ his voice was carefully neutral. ‘I’d’ve lost a whole day going there and back.’
‘Is there a reason you didn’t want to go to the police or the magistrates?’ John demanded. ‘Do they know you?’
Harris was no fool. He knew what was being implied. ‘Now look, boy – there was nothing forcing me to tell anybody. I could’ve dragged him into the sea and let him float away. Gone about my work as if I’d never seen him.’
I took over. ‘But, Mr Harris, I’m sure you would never have done such a thing.’
Always flatter your witnesses, an old barrister once told me. Let them believe you think they’re more law-abiding, more trustworthy than they really are. They’ll be so keen to prove you right that they’ll trip themselves up. Go after them and they’ll give you nothing but monosyllables.
It was clearly advice I needed to pass on to John.
During the last few minutes, the sky had become noticeably darker and now rain started to fall.
‘Come inside,’ Harris said. ‘You don’t want to stand about in this.’
We left the boy outside with the horses. I hoped he would think to put something over the saddles or we were going to be unpleasantly damp on our onward ride.
‘Your wife not home?’ John asked. Unless she was hiding in the box-bed that stood against one wall, she was clearly not indoors. The cottage was small and bare to the point of austerity though somebody who knew what they were doing had made up the floor which was hard and clean.
‘No.’ I did not expect Harris to elaborate but he surprised me. ‘Gone to her sister’s. She’s poorly.’
He did not clarify whether it was his wife or his sister-in-law who was unwell, and I felt we had no reason to ask.
‘I can make you some tea if you’d like?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ I was cold and hungry; even weak tea made with leaves that had already been used once would be very welcome.
As Harris filled the kettle from a big jug on the side, John started interrogating him once more. ‘So. What were you doing on the beach, Mr Harris?’
Did Teff Harris dart a meaningful glance at me? Why don’t you teach your boy some manners? I could not tell, but he certainly took his time in answering.
‘I was checking that the limestone had come in. Didn’t want men arriving ready to bring it up the beach if it wasn’t there.’
‘You’ve been carting the stone up the beach?’ I asked.
Because I was watching for it, I caught his nod. ‘Last six weeks. Gets unloaded into the sea at high tide, we collect it off the beach at low tide and bring it up. It’s there ready for the kilns, then.’
‘We?’ I could see John fidgetting uncomfortably on the stool he had perched on. It was probably meant for Harris’s young son and was far too small for John’s longer legs.
‘Gang of men I bring in.’
‘So, you’re in charge?’ John had mastered his irritation, and was now sounding more as I would wish.
Harris did not answer straight away. As we waited, I tried to get an impression of him. A small face under light-coloured hair; a feeling of sharpness, both of intellect and of temper. Not a big man, but one you would not wish to cross.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Come to an arrangement with Mrs Parry. She pays me to get the stone up the beach, I do it as I see fit.’
‘Mrs Parry?’ I asked. ‘The wife of The Ship’s owner?’
Teff Harris spooned tea into the pot. ‘Widow.’
‘I see. So, she’s taken over his business?’
I heard the sound of the lid going back on to the tin tea-caddy. ‘Always was her business,’ Harris said, ‘husband or not.’
Interesting. But the widow Parry’s business acumen was not something to be pursued just now. ‘Describe to me how exactly you found the body, if you’d be so good.’
Harris stood and stretched his back. ‘Went over to Tresaith as soon as it was properly light. Like I said, didn’t want men arriving if there was no work to be done. But the stone was there. Could see it from the top.’
‘From the headland?’
‘Yes. So then, I went to get the horses.’
I had the impression that he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye, wondering. ‘You use a cart to bring the stone up the beach, then?’
‘Yes. Quicker than barrowing it. Don’t need so many men, either.’
‘Did you fetch the men as well?’ John asked. ‘Once you’d made sure the stone was there?’
‘Didn’t have to. They knew to come Tuesday morning.’
The kettle started to sing and Harris crouched at the hearth to pour water into the pot to warm it. I heard a knee popping and wondered how old he was; for all I knew, that fair hair of his could be greying, and his face lined.
‘Whose horses do you use?’ I phrased the question so that it was just possible to infer that I believed he might have horses of his own. It seemed unlikely, given the poverty of the cottage, but Teff Harris’s accent and demeanour were not those of a labourer and I did not want to underestimate him.
‘Got an arrangement to use a ploughing pair,’ he said. ‘Owner’s glad to get them out of the stable and fit for the field.’
‘And once you had the horses?’ I asked. ‘Did you get down onto the beach before any of the other men arrived?’
A pause, then I heard John’s voice behind me. ‘Mr Harris, can you answer, please? Mr Probert-Lloyd’s sight is poor. He can’t see well enough to notice you nodding.’
Though I had admitted as much to the jury, it rankled to hear John tell Harris. It was my admission to make, not his.
‘Yes.’ Harris bit the word off as if he would like to spit it at John. ‘I got there before anybody else.’
I kept my
face impassive, as if both my inability to see properly and John’s drawing attention to it were things hardly worth mentioning. ‘And, once you were on the beach, you saw the body. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you wait for the other men or did you go and look at it straight away?’ John asked.
‘I went straight over. Didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. All I could see was somebody lying amongst the stones.’
‘Amongst the stones, or on top of them?’ I asked. If the body had been dumped along with the limestone then it might well have been half-buried.
‘On top – right in the middle of the pile.’
As if somebody had placed him there. ‘And then?’ I prompted.
‘Close up, I knew he was dead. That face didn’t belong on a living man.’
I waited.
‘So I put ’im in the cart and brought ’im up to the beer store.’
‘Was he naked when you found him or did you take the clothes off his back?’ From the harshness of his tone, I knew John had been rattled by the reference to the dead man’s face.
Harris took his time before answering and I wondered whether he was trying to make John feel uncomfortable. ‘And why would I do that?’
John did not answer but he did not have to. Clothes, especially the kind that a man with a gentleman’s hands might wear, were valuable.
‘Please, Mr Harris’ – I allowed just a hint of pleading to enter my tone – ‘just answer the question.’ I would have to have words with John; personal antipathies could not be allowed to influence our investigation.
‘As you saw him, so I found him.’
‘Thank you. May I ask why you didn’t leave him on the stones until the other men came?’
Harris stirred the tea, the spoon clinking against the rim of the pot.
‘Two reasons. First, we had to get the load shifted before the tide caught us out, so I didn’t have time to waste. Second, if that lot’d clapped eyes on him, half of them would’ve thrown their guts up on the beach and been useless for the rest of the morning. And the other half would’ve spent all their time gossiping about who he was and how he’d come to be there. I wanted to get on.’
‘You didn’t throw your guts up then?’ John asked.
‘I was in the Afghan War. Saw things a lot worse than his face.’
A soldier. That explained his English; not to mention his air of self-reliance.
‘So, you just took him up to the shed then went about your business with the limestone as if nothing had happened?’ John asked.
Harris got up and fetched some cups from a shelf on the back wall. ‘Took the other men in when we’d finished. See if any of ’em knew ’im.’ He crouched down again at the hearth. ‘They didn’t.’ He began pouring the tea. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got no milk. The cow’s dry and my wife usually fetches milk but with her being away…’
I assured him that I had drunk milkless tea before without ill-effect, and accepted a cup.
‘How long have The Ship and the cottage stood empty?’ I asked.
‘You make it sound as if the one’s empty because the other is,’ Harris said.
‘Isn’t it? Wouldn’t The Ship be open and welcoming people if the limekilns were burning?’
‘Possibly,’ he conceded. ‘But Mrs Parry isn’t generally one to be ruled by other people’s comings and goings.’
‘Where is she?’ John asked.
‘Seeing to business somewhere.’
I did not press him on that; I would speak to the lady myself as soon as she returned. ‘And the lime burner?’
‘Out with the herring-boats. Can’t take to idleness. Needs the company.’
‘How long has he been gone?’
Harris supped his tea. ‘Wasn’t here last time we got lime in or the time before. More’n two weeks that’d be.’
The lime burner was, therefore, unlikely to have had anything to do with our corpse’s death. Nonetheless, it would be prudent to speak to him. ‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’
‘Heard the herring boats were back in Cardigan yesterday. So, soon, I ’spect. Unless he’s planning on drinking all his earnings.’
As we rode away – on saddles that were, thankfully, no more than slightly damp – I tried to decide how best to address the subject of John’s tetchiness towards Harris. I could not afford to have him alienating witnesses. But, the more I struggled to find the right words, the harder it became. I did not want to reprimand him; if I did so, I reduced him to the rank of servant, a mere amanuensis, and I both wished and needed him to be far more than that. But I had to say something.
‘He didn’t mean anything by calling you ngwas i,’I began.
Nobody in Newcastle Emlyn knew that John had once been a gwas bach, a boy servant on a farm. But he could not forget the fact, and he did not like to be reminded that he had run away from that life in terror.
‘He’s an old soldier,’ I said. ‘He might just as well have called you “son”. You’re just a boy to him, that’s all.’
‘No. A servant. That’s what I am to him. Specifically, your servant.’
‘Assistant.’
‘That’s not what Teff Harris saw. He saw a servant, leading the horses.’
‘What does it matter what Teff Harris thinks you are?’
‘Easy for you to say.’
‘What? Me the blind man?’
He made a sound that uneasily straddled dismay and dismissal. ‘Still Harry Probert-Lloyd though, aren’t you? Blind or not, you’re still the heir to the Glanteifi estate.’ He was working hard to keep his tone even, to point things out in a reasonable manner. But, underneath his attempt to be measured, I could feel something waiting to erupt. ‘And I’m just your assistant.’
‘Just?’
He did not reply but the set of his shoulders suggested an apple on his head and an arrow on the nock.
‘Just the person without whom I wouldn’t have considered taking on this job?’ I insisted.
The lenses of his spectacles caught the sun as he turned his head and I felt his eyes on me. ‘Why have you taken it on, Harry? What happened to being a solicitor?’
What happened to being a solicitor? My rebuke to myself.
‘I told you. Pomfrey just turned up at Glanteifi and presented me with – effectively – a fait accompli.’
‘You could have said no.’
‘What? “No, Mr Pomfrey, don’t be ridiculous, I’m blind?”’
‘No.’ John’s tone was a study in reasonableness. ‘Not “I’m blind”. “I’m busy.” Busy becoming a solicitor.’
I turned my head away. The grey-blue of the sea, away to our right, curved around the central whirl of my blindness. I longed to be able to gaze at it directly, to see the patches of darker blue as cloud-shadows flitted across the surface of the water, the white horses racing in as the wind picked up the edges of waves and drove them into spume. But such things were invisible to me now.
Abruptly, I pulled my mount up, forcing John to do the same.
‘Pomfrey asked me, as a favour to the magistrates, if I’d take on this one case.’
‘One case in the first instance. But you’re already talking about elections–’ As I had anticipated, John had listened at Schofield’s office door. ‘So it’s not just this case, is it? You want to be the coroner.’
‘Is that such a bad thing?’
‘It is if you think you’re just going to keep dropping in to Schofield’s office and borrowing me whenever you feel like it!’
I did not know what to say. I was mortified that John should feel so poorly used but, at the same time, I could not deny that his feelings were justified.
Finally, the chilly wind nudging at us like an impatient elbow, John spoke once more, his voice quieter now, more earnest. ‘I don’t want to be a solicitor’s clerk all my life, Harry. I’m capable of more. I want more.’
‘Of course, that’s why I’m–’
‘I’m going to ask M
r Schofield if he’ll article me. I wouldn’t need the full five years, I know a lot already.’
From the resignation in his tone, it was clear that, following our investigations before Christmas, John had expected to hear from me. To be offered employment as my legal sine qua non.
Of course I could be a solicitor, I had told him, our success in finding Margaret Jones’s killer filling me with bravado. I just need the right solicitor’s clerk.
John’s new ambition was entirely of my own making.
‘I’m only telling you this because, if you want to stand for coroner, you need to think about an assistant.’ John’s tone was that of somebody discharging a disagreeable but necessary duty. ‘That’s all I’m saying. I can’t be at your beck and call, Harry.’
I swallowed disappointment and self-reproach. ‘Of course. I should have realised. I appreciate your making things clear, John.’ I paused but he deserved honesty from me. ‘I suppose I’d assumed… well, that you wouldn’t mind if Mr Schofield didn’t. I thought it might make your life more interesting.’