In Two Minds

by Alis Hawkins

  ‘I’d understood,’ he said, ‘that Pomfrey was having the finder summoned to the inquest.’

  ‘As had I. Nevertheless, he did not appear. In common with the publican of The Ship Inn and every single member of the public. Hence the adjournment.’

  My father ignored my implied criticism of the way the supposed inquest had been organised and concentrated on the missing witness. ‘You should have sent the constable to fetch him.’

  I took a long breath in through my nose. ‘Be that as it may, I made my way to Cardigan after seeing him with the express intention of visiting Inspector Bellis. But he had already left for a meeting with the magistrates. Which is, I assume, where he complained of me to you.’

  ‘Whining does not become you, Henry. It would have been politic if, instead of haring off to recruit young Davies, you had gone to see the inspector in the first instance.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because you and he are both officers of the law at the behest of the magistracy, and you would be well advised to work with him instead of alienating him.’

  The need to contain my temper made me officious. ‘Actually, Father, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that coroners do not make their investigations at the magistrates’ behest. The coroner is an officer of the crown.’

  My father did not hurry to reply. Giving me time to repent of my tone, no doubt. ‘You seem unusually conversant with the office,’ he said, eventually, ‘for so new an incumbent.’

  ‘As it happens, William Payne – the founder of the Society of Coroners – has a brother-in-law in my chambers. Erstwhile chambers,’ I corrected before he could. ‘The Society was quite the talking point in legal circles.’

  A repressive silence was his only response but I was determined to make my point.

  ‘Payne was concerned at the number of deaths that magistrates were allowing to go uninvestigated. Unexplained deaths that coroners were finding it necessary to investigate at their own expense. He established the Society so that the financial burden should not fall too heavily on individuals.’

  My father steepled his fingers. ‘In other words, he set up a society of men who would take the law into their own hands, in defiance of magistrates who have the public good in mind?’

  I put my own elbows on the table and leaned forward. ‘In defiance of magistrates more concerned with keeping the rates down and their own authority inviolate than seeing justice done.’

  I expected a scathing riposte, but instead, he fell silent for a few moments. When he spoke again, his tone was strained.

  ‘Is that what you think I am about when I sit on the bench?’

  I could not answer him. Until three months ago I had always thought my father an honest man, a scrupulous one, but his role in attempting to deny Margaret Jones an inquest had shown me a different facet to his character. The truth, I had come to understand, was that my father had worked hard for almost fifty years to be accepted by the Cardiganshire gentry, to prove himself a useful and deserving addition to their ranks, and he was wary of anything that might threaten his position.

  Which now, it seemed, included me.

  John

  You wouldn’t’ve known there was a castle in Cilgerran if you lived on the high street – you had to go down a small, cobbled street towards the river before you could see it properly. But there the ruins were, overshadowing a little row of houses on the left, and, in one of them, lived Benton Reckitt. Not exactly a gentleman’s house but then I wasn’t sure Reckitt was exactly a gentleman.

  I’d been to the house once before with Mr Schofield, to see about drafting a will. I would’ve told Harry, warned him what to expect, but that comment of his about me having nothing to lose if we weren’t going to work together in futurehad stung.

  Was that how things were going to be? Now I’d told him he wasn’t going to be able to click his fingers and bring me trotting to heel whenever he wanted me?

  As usual, I was the one to knock at the door. It swung open far more quickly than I was expecting and there was the doctor – feet in slippers, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and no neck tie. Had we caught him dressing? It was getting on for midday.

  ‘Yes?’ Benton Reckitt looked from me to Harry and back again. Didn’t recognise me, but then he wouldn’t, would he? I’d just been Mr Schofield’s note taker, a person of no importance.

  I introduced us.

  ‘Yes?’ Reckitt said again, as if he hadn’t heard me. ‘Yes? Yes? Yes?’As if he was shaking us with it.

  ‘I’d be grateful for a few minutes of your time,’ Harry said. ‘If we can just step inside? Is there anybody who can take the horses–’

  ‘Livery stable down the high street,’ Reckitt said, and slammed the door in our faces.

  A quarter of an hour later we were back. This time, I noticed the cobwebs in the corners of the door frame and under the lintel. Lazy servants. Or a careless employer. I knocked and, again, Reckitt yanked the door open himself. He still wasn’t properly dressed.

  ‘You’re back then.’

  ‘As you see,’ Harry said. ‘May we come in?’

  ‘What for?’

  Harry blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘What do you want to come in for? Can’t you say whatever you want to say out here?’

  ‘If it’s all the same to you, I would prefer not to conduct confidential business in the street.’

  Benton Reckitt opened his mouth as if he was about to say that it wasn’t all the same to him but then he closed it again and peered at Harry.

  ‘Are you blind?’

  Harry’s eyes jerked up, as if surprise had made him forget he couldn’t see. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Harry hesitated. ‘What’s what?’

  ‘What type of blindness are you suffering from?’

  ‘Oh. Loss of central vision. Detail and so on.’

  ‘But your peripheral vision remains intact, unchanged?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Reckitt nodded as if he’d scored a point, and stood aside. ‘Come in then, if that’s what you prefer.’

  ‘You want me to perform an autopsy examination?’ Reckitt said once Harry’d given him the bare bones of the situation. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to make any lazy assumptions.’ Harry was dealing with the doctor’s directness by giving as good as he got.

  Reckitt stared at him without speaking. Neither of them seemed bothered by the silence. Reckitt was studying Harry as if he’d have to draw him later in some examination and Harry just sat at his ease in an old, wing-backed chair, the newspapers he’d had to take off the seat in a pile on the floor beside him.

  It looked as if Dr Reckitt was one of those people who never finish one thing before starting something else. The table was a mess. Piles of books, pages of notes in messy drifts, newspapers and periodicals on top of one another, half a dozen small bottles and a few pill-boxes scattered about.

  ‘Are you paid?’ Reckitt asked suddenly.

  Harry didn’t blink. ‘No. But as long as the magistrates feel I’ve conducted the inquest appropriately, my expenses will be refunded.’

  ‘And if they don’t?’

  ‘Then I’ll cover my own expenses. In either case, I’ll hold an inquest once I have sufficient evidence. Which includes reliable information as to whether the dead man succumbed to natural causes or was killed by a blow he’d taken to the head.’

  Reckitt’s nose went up like a pointer’s. ‘Is that the police’s opinion? The blow to the head?’

  Harry half-smiled. ‘I don’t know, yet. I chose to come and see you first.’

  The doctor nodded. Just once, as if he was settling something in his own mind. ‘Blow to the head – somebody biffed him. So, somebody’ll need to be arrested. That’s how the Bobbies think.’

  I watched Reckitt while his eyes were busy with Harry. Rumours or not, he didn’t look like a drinker. No broken veins or cherry-ish complexion. His face was the co
lour, and not far off the texture, of risen dough. His eyes were wide and blue, not yellowish or bloodshot like the sots I knew. Difficult to say whether drink might’ve aged him because he could’ve been anything between thirty and fifty. He wasn’t bald, there was no grey in his brown hair and his face was as smooth and as chubby as the rest of him.

  Harry was gazing calmly at him. Well, in the direction of the chaise-longue where he was sitting, at any rate. ‘I’m not interested in what the police think. I want to get to the truth of the matter.’

  ‘Why ask me though? I’m not in with the magistrates. Far from it.’

  It was easy to see how Reckitt’d got his reputation for being difficult – he had the accent of a gentleman and the manners of a simpleton.

  ‘I believe you’re a surgeon.’ Harry said.

  ‘By training, yes. I was an anatomy demonstrator at Guy’s Hospital. I’m more than skilled enough to do what you ask.’ He wasn’t boasting, just saying.

  ‘Then will you?’

  ‘Am I required to under the terms of my contract with the Union?’

  ‘No. Tresaith belongs to a different workhouse union anyway. But this is a different contract. A doctor is paid two guineas for a full autopsy.’

  Reckitt looked astonished. ‘Two guineas?’ I wondered how much his retainer for the Cardigan Union was. Not much, if the thought of two guineas had that effect on him. ‘Where would you want the examination carried out?’

  ‘That question’s been exercising me somewhat,’ Harry confessed. ‘I think, for the purposes of allowing people to see him so that we can get him identified, I’m going to have the body moved to Cardigan workhouse – it’s not exactly in town but it’s more accessible than Tresaith beach. Would you prefer to examine him before or after he’s been moved?’

  ‘If it’s all the same to you,’ Reckitt said, standing, ‘I shall open him up on the beach. Such fluids as are in him can be flushed away by the tide, and I’ll have him neat and tidy for the mortuary.’

  Harry

  The sun was luring hedgerow birds into voice so John and I cantered along the road from Cilgerran to Cardigan to the accompaniment of fleeting snatches of song from blackbirds and robins. I pictured them, beaks agape, plumage coming into its lustrous prime.

  ‘Spring’s on its way’ I said.

  John grunted. ‘Going to be another couple of months before the leaves are anywhere near out. That’s when I think of spring coming in.’

  It was a trivial disagreement. Ordinarily it would barely have registered as such but it put me on edge. I had let John down and it was clear that I could no longer expect his unequivocal support.

  I shivered and spring slipped away.

  At the police station, we were greeted by the constable we had seen the previous day. This time, however, his tone was entirely different.

  ‘Good day, Mr Probert-Lloyd, sir.’

  ‘Good day, Constable…?’

  When he did not reply, John snapped, ‘Mr Probert-Lloyd’s asking your name, man!’

  ‘Oh! Morgan, sir. Constable Morgan.’

  I nodded, embarrassed on Morgan’s behalf, and asked him to let the inspector know that we were here. Bellis was probably already aware of our arrival. The constable simply opened a door at the back of the room and spoke through it. ‘Mr Probert-Lloyd to see you, sir.’

  ‘Show him in, please.’

  Inspector Bellis did not look up from his work as John and I entered his office. ‘Do excuse me while I finish this sentence, gentlemen, or what I wish to say will have slipped my mind entirely.’

  His tone was civil but the implication was clear. In this office, you are not as important as the most trivial task I am required to do.

  Finally, he put down his pen and rose to his feet. He was unusually tall. ‘My apologies. Good afternoon, Mr Probert-Lloyd, Mr Davies. Or should I address you as Acting Coroner?’

  ‘Good afternoon, Inspector. You may address me as you see fit.’ In response to his English accent I made sure that my own would not have been out of place amongst the Queen’s Council; any hint that Welsh was my native language would simply give him leave to despise me.

  ‘Acting Coroner, then,’ Bellis said. ‘It helps us all to know where we stand, does it not?’

  Because I was watching for it, I saw him extend a hand, indicating the chairs on our side of his desk. I sat, carefully; it was not always easy to gauge the nature or height of a seat.

  ‘I must confess,’ the inspector said, ‘I had rather expected to see you before this.’

  I forced a smile. ‘I did actually make my way here after the viewing of the body, as I hope Constable Morgan informed you. But I was told that you were otherwise engaged. Be that as it may, let me not waste your time now, Inspector. I’m here to give you formal notice that I have adjourned the inquest on the body found at Tresaith beach to allow further investigations into the circumstances surrounding his death.’

  Bellis’s chair creaked slightly as he shifted his weight in the silence with which he greeted my words. ‘I wouldn’t have thought an adjournment was necessary, Acting Coroner,’ he said, finally. ‘Surely a body washed up on a beach has drowned unless there are witnesses to say otherwise?’

  So, John had been right. Bellis wished to dismiss this death as no concern of his. Or mine. ‘This man did not drown. I am quite sure of that.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Moreover, there were other injuries, to his face and head which–’

  ‘Then, surely, there is your verdict? Murderous blows to the head dealt by persons unknown. After all, as I’m sure you’ll be aware, it is not the coroner’s job to decide who dealt the blow, merely that it represents the cause of death.’

  Hoofs clopped past the office window and there was an audible exchange of greetings. I allowed the voices to fade before responding. ‘I wish to be satisfied that the blow was exactly that and that his injuries were not caused by something less culpable – an accident or a fall, for instance.’

  ‘You think he fell and hit his own head?’

  I did my best to ignore Bellis’s tone. ‘Since it seems unlikely that he died where he was found, it’s impossible to say how he came by the injury to his head. I don’t want to go looking for homicides where nothing more malign than an accident has taken place.’

  ‘But if he fell,’ Bellis said, ‘then hit his head and ended up in the water, surely he would have drowned? And yet you say, categorically, that he did not.’

  ‘There are physical indications that drowning was not the cause of death. But the autopsy will provide us with more absolute proof. Also, I wish to be satisfied as to the cause of the grievous injuries to his face.’ Was the inspector even aware of the flayed state of the dead man’s face? He had not referred to it though it was hard to imagine such a detail being omitted from reports made to him.

  Bellis leaned back in his chair and rested one ankle casually on the other knee as if it was important to him that I should understand how completely at ease he was in his command of the situation. ‘I admire your thoroughness, Acting Coroner, but surely an autopsy is an unnecessary expense for an unknown man who – however he died – has merely been washed up in our jurisdiction?’

  I did not miss the significance of the plural pronoun.

  ‘Unknown, as you say. If we can find out how and where he died, we may be able to find out who he is and attempt to inform his family.’

  ‘You think he is missed?’

  ‘He was well-nourished and in the prime of his life. He was no vagrant. Somebody, somewhere is waiting for news of him.’

  ‘And you think the ratepayers should bear the expense of an investigation to provide it?’

  ‘Is investigation not what the ratepayers expect of the police, Inspector?’

  ‘It may be what they expect of the police force in London, Acting Coroner, but here, our function is to keep the peace. And, as the death of this unknown person is in no danger whatever of disturbing that peace, it seems who
lly unnecessary that it should be the subject of such excessive diligence.’

  ‘I must confess, Inspector, I have never been taken to task for diligence before.’

  Bellis uncrossed his legs and leaned on his desk. Some primitive, watchful part of me reacted as if he had picked up a weapon. My muscles tensed.

  ‘I gather,’ he said, ‘that you intend to stand for election as coroner.’

  I already regretted telling Charles Schofield that. It was beginning to hang about my neck like the albatross of Coleridge’s mariner.

  ‘If that is your intention, you would be well advised to reconvene your inquest as soon as possible. Nobody wants a coroner who is going to search officiously for crime.’

  His presumption in advising me raised my hackles. ‘Would they prefer one who overlooked murder for the sake of a quiet – or should I say inexpensive – life?’

  ‘Murder, Acting Coroner? I thought you favoured a theory of accidental death? The fall. The bumped head.’