by Alis Hawkins
‘You know I’m right,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why you’re trying so hard to avoid Bellis.’
‘Because he thinks I’m a know-nothing foreigner.’ I’d never heard Harry’s voice so clipped, so tight.
A seagull screamed and I turned. A dozen or more were following a fishing boat in on the tide. I shook my head. ‘He can think what he likes, can’t he? You just have to hold your ground.’
‘What ground?’ His voice was bitter. ‘My barrister’s training? My position as heir to Glanteifi? What is my ground, John?’
We’d been through this before. Harry’d grown up here and thought of himself as a Welshman but, the truth was, he’d gone to make his fortune in England and everybody assumed that he saw things through London-tinted specs.
‘Well?’ he tilted his chin up.
I was uncomfortable. Didn’t want to tell him unwelcome news. But then, as he’d said himself, we weren’t going to be working together in future so what did it matter?
‘Like it or not,’ I said, ‘people see you differently from the way you see yourself. Not just Bellis – everybody. If you’re going to be coroner’ – God knows whether that was a reasonable ambition but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him not to try – ‘you’re going to have to work with the police. With Bellis. And the magistrates. To work in the way they’re expecting. Or, at any rate,’ I said when I saw him draw breath to object, ‘more in the way they’re expecting than you do now.’
‘That’s what you think, is it?’ His voice was flat but I could tell he was surprised. I should’ve stopped there. But that ‘well?’ of his had been a challenge.
‘Yes, it is what I think. And another thing, stop speaking Welsh to people who can speak English perfectly well. It just confuses them.’
‘Welsh is my mother tongue!’
‘Maybe so, but you’re the squire’s son. It makes people uncomfortable when you speak the language of their own hearth to them.’
‘What am I supposed to do – pretend I can’t speak Welsh and use you as an interpreter?’ He was getting angry now and I felt a little rush of fear. I stamped it down.
‘Just try and sound a bit more formal. Help people out. How are they supposed to take you seriously as coroner if you sound like them? It’d be like the minister reading the Bible out in everyday speech.’
He’d turned his head away, now, as if he could see the birds and their little red legs.
‘I know you don’t want to be Harry Glanteifi, heir to the estate,’ I said, ‘but that’s who you are. You’d be better off making use of that and not trying to pretend that you’re some gwas bach made good.’ Like me.
Without looking round, he gave a sudden bark of a laugh. ‘No, please, don’t hold back, John, tell me what you really think!’ Sarcasm. He only ever turned that on me when he was feeling hurt. Seren tossed her head suddenly and I had to grab the reins to stop them being pulled through my fingers. She didn’t like the way the wind was blowing up her tail.
I sighed. ‘I’m sorry. But you need to behave properly if you’re going to get yourself elected.’
He still didn’t look round, but I didn’t need to see his face. The mixture of surprise and acceptance was in his voice. ‘You wouldn’t give me so much as an opinion when we first met and now you’re telling me how to behave.’
I tried to smile for him. ‘You’ve taught me well.’
He dropped his chin to his chest in defeat and I sucked in a deep breath. The air smelled of salt, stinking mud, and traces of old fish and tar.
‘Come on then,’ he said, his head coming up again. ‘Let’s go and see if Billy Go-About is at home. And I’ll see what I can do about being emollient and squire-ish at the same time.’
Harry
After the sharp, frosty air outside, Inspector Bellis’s private office was stuffy and, by the time I had shared with him the evidence we had gleaned from Benton Reckitt and Gwyn Puw, I was sweating beneath the coat I had not been invited to remove.
‘And Mr Puw brought this information to you rather than to the police?’
I felt a stab of childish pleasure at the question but was careful not to show it. ‘He’d already met me. As had Mr Vaughan. In fact, Mr Vaughan is a member of the inquest jury.’
‘But he himself had no actual evidence to present?’
‘No. I believe he came simply to help Mr Puw articulate his evidence more clearly.’
But, as I spoke, I wondered whether that was true. Though we knew that Puw had gone to Obadaiah Vaughan for advice once he suspected that the limekiln waste had been tampered with, we had not asked who had found the coins. Bearing in mind John’s suggestion that somebody wanted the body to be discovered, could the coins have been ‘found’ so as to identify him? If so, the articulate Vaughan seemed a likelier suspect than the lime burner.
Bellis was speaking. ‘Of course, this Jenkyn Hughes had already come to my attention. Plenty of people emigrate but the sort of scheme Hughes had devised was unusual enough to be of note.’
‘How so?’ I asked, grinding my teeth; if I had followed my instincts and gone to speak to Mrs Parry before coming here, I would not have been forced to display my ignorance.
‘Emigrants generally just get on a boat and hope for the best at the other end,’ Bellis said. ‘Or they join family who’ve gone before and can help them get established. But Hughes was offering guaranteed employment and somewhere to live. No need for family support or letters of introduction. More expensive, of course. Jenkyn Hughes wasn’t just selling a ticket for passage, he was selling a bond for a whole new life.’
Possible motives for Hughes’s murder sprang to mind as Bellis spoke: rivalries, exclusions, arguments over cost. ‘How long had Hughes been in Cardigan?’ I asked.
‘He seems to have been coming and going for a number of months. He has two partners, I believe. Mrs Parry, who runs an inn and builds ships at Tresaith–’
‘And Mr Philips of Philips and Lloyd.’
‘I see you’re well informed.’
I said nothing. I was not going to admit that I had come by the information fortuitously at a family reunion. Let him think I had means of obtaining intelligence which did not rely on his officers.
‘Perhaps Mrs Parry or Mr Philips could provide more information.’ He paused. Was he expecting me to respond or thinking before he spoke again? I waited. ‘Are you intending to ask Mr Philips if he would view the body in order to attempt an identification?’
It had not occurred to me but, now that Bellis suggested it, I saw that it was the obvious course. ‘I am, yes.’
‘Good.’ Bellis’s tone was decisive, as if we had just shaken hands on a bargain. ‘Assuming he is able to make the identification to your satisfaction, when can we expect the inquest to be re-convened?’
The question took me aback. ‘I believe we are some way off from that, yet.’
‘You surprise me, Acting Coroner. I understood your autopsy to have confirmed that a deliberate blow to the head killed him.’
‘Deliberate, yes. But we have no evidence as to whether it was murder or manslaughter. Or indeed the remotest idea why he should have been killed.’
‘I do not believe that is the coroner’s business.’
‘Then we shall have to agree to differ, Inspector. I mean to continue my investigations in order to satisfy myself that the witnesses I call will provide the public, and Mr Hughes’s family, with an adequate explanation of how he died.’
‘Then it is fortunate for the ratepayer that investigations by you and your assistant will not be necessary, Acting Coroner. My officers are already speaking to Theophilus Harris’s neighbours. I believe they will be able to supply adequate evidence to reach a verdict.’
How I wished I could stare defiance into Bellis’s eye! His insistence on pursuing Teff Harris seemed, at best, lazy and, at worst, vindictive. From everything we knew about Harris’s relations with his neighbours, evidence was likely to be in shorter supply than dislike and hearsa
y. But, given the way that reputation quickly solidifies into accepted character, such testimony might well be sufficient to prejudice a jury’s verdict.
‘I would like to speak to Harris, myself, if I may.’
‘You think he will give you different answers from those he has given my officers?’
‘I suspect that I will ask him different questions, Inspector.’
Of course, Bellis had no good reason to deny me, and within five minutes John and I were in the lock-up at the side of the police station. If I had been uncomfortably warm in Bellis’s office, I had the opposite affliction now, and shrugged my way further into my coat as we waited for the stools we had been promised. Harris sat in the corner on what I assumed was a mattress of some kind.
‘How are you, Mr Harris?’ I asked.
‘Never mind me. How is my boy? Did you take him to the workhouse as I asked?’
I tried not to bridle at his assumption that he could hold me to account. ‘I will let John tell you about your son. He went to Banc yr Eithin while I was busy with other matters.’
Just then a constable appeared with two stools and set them down before standing himself in the corner of the cell.
‘Thank you, Constable,’ I said. ‘We won’t need you for anything else.’
‘I need to be here to lock up again, sir.’
‘Then one of us will come and find you when we need to leave.’
The constable out of the way, I turned to Teff Harris. ‘Have you been well-treated?’
‘Well enough. They haven’t beaten me. I’m fed, after a fashion. But they can’t just hold me here!’
‘No. The inspector has his officers out trying to get evidence against you at the moment. Unless there is eye-witness testimony or a strong suspicion that you had a compelling motive, I will ask for you to be released.’
‘When will that be?’
‘Tomorrow at the latest.’
‘Meanwhile, my son is in the workhouse!’
‘No,’ John said, ‘he’s not.’
While he explained his encounter with the boy, I tried to get an impression of the cell. Despite persistent rumours of medieval treatment, there was no stinking straw on the floor and, if there was any water trickling down the walls, then I could neither hear nor smell any evidence of it. The air was cold but not damp and the flags underfoot felt dry. Since my sight had failed, I had begun to take a great deal more notice of the ground under my feet and I had learned to notice the difference in texture between dry and wet paving. There was a surprising grittiness to damp that was not there in a dry surface.
‘Why do you think Clarkson didn’t tell you about the men trying to steal your cow?’ I heard John ask.
‘Didn’t want trouble, did he? But my wife told me what had happened.’
‘About your wife,’ I began. ‘When do you think she’ll be back?’
Did he guess at my suspicions? There was no suggestion of it in his voice. ‘Her sister was sick with a fever. They’re generally over pretty quick, one way or the other. She’ll be back soon, I dare say.’
One way or the other. If I wasn’t mistaken, that was the phrase John had reported Clarkson using to estimate when his mother would be back. Perhaps Mrs Harris really had gone to look after her sister.
‘Where does her sister live?’ I asked.
‘Llandysul.’
‘It might be necessary to talk to her before she comes back. Where exactly would we find her?’
‘Her husband’s a shoemaker – Dai Davies. If you ask for him in the town anybody’ll know where his shop is.’
An artisan. It was a decided social rung above tŷ unnos builder. Either Mrs Harris had come down in the world or her sister had gone up. If it was the former, I could not help wondering whether Harris’s wife had had enough of privation and begun to look elsewhere.
I hesitated before asking my next question. I wanted John to take careful note of Teff Harris’s reaction and I needed to think how to make sure he did. ‘Mr Harris. I would like you to think very carefully, now, and tell me whether you are acquainted with a man called Jenkyn Hughes.’
Clarkson had told John that his father knew Hughes. If Teff denied it, now, Bellis might be right in his suspicions.
‘Hughes? Yes, I know him.’
‘How did you become acquainted?’
‘He’s in business with Mrs Parry. He’s often at The Ship and so am I.’
‘And away from The Ship?’
‘What d’you mean?’
I was trying to find out whether he had other dealings with Hughes. Interestingly, Teff Harris suddenly sounded wary, as if he suspected me of setting a trap for him. ‘Do you only see Mr Hughes at The Ship or do you see him elsewhere?’ I followed Harris’s lead and referred to Hughes in the present tense.
‘Why do you ask?’
I stared into the whirlpool that hid Harris from me, willing John to follow my gaze. ‘We have reason to believe that the body you found was that of Jenkyn Hughes.’
He said nothing which was a point in his favour. Guilty men are apt to be too obviously surprised when told things they already know.
‘You saw the body,’ I went on. ‘Do you think it could be that of Jenkyn Hughes?’
‘If you were able to see his face, Mr Probert-Lloyd, you wouldn’t ask me that.’
I nodded, allowing him to understand that others had expressed the same opinion. ‘But the body’s general features – height, build and so forth?’
‘Mr Harris?’ John prompted. He had his notebook on his lap and was, presumably, waiting to record the answer verbatim.
‘I’m trying to remember what the body looked like.’ Harris said. He drew an audible breath. ‘Jenkyn Hughes is average height and well-built. As I recall, the body was pretty well-fleshed, so that fits. The hair was wet and tangled so I couldn’t say about that.’ He paused, as if he was weighing up the evidence. ‘It could’ve been him. But I can’t say definitely that it was.’
‘Can I just ask you, again, to describe how you came to find the body and put it in the shed?’
I had half expected him to complain at the request, but he did not, simply repeating the same story we had heard from him at Banc yr Eithin. He had seen the body lying on the limestone, he had gone to investigate, seen that the man was dead and, not wanting the limestone-carting to be delayed, had taken it upon himself to remove the body to Mrs Parry ’s beer shed.
‘What state was the tide in when you arrived at the beach?’ I asked, remembering, as I did so, that we needed to ask Gwyn Puw about currents and so forth.
‘About an hour off bottom tide.’
‘So, was the limestone load still covered?’ John asked.
‘Not when the waves drew back. That’s how I saw him.’
There was nothing to be gained from questioning Harris any further, so, assuring him that we would petition for his release as soon as practicable, we took our leave.
John had found a boy to take the mares back to the Black Lion before we went in to the police station and we were walking through the inn’s carriage arch towards the stables when I suddenly realised that the unidentified body had now been on display at the workhouse for more than twenty-four hours. Given that the workhouse master had been instructed to send anybody who recognised the corpse to the Black Lion, we might be awaited inside.
I put a hand on John’s arm, halting him. ‘Let’s just ask whether anybody’s here to see us. I don’t want people hanging around indefinitely and making me unpopular.’
We were scarcely inside the door before I heard my name.
‘Mr Probert-Lloyd!’
I turned. ‘Twm?’ Twm James, one of the grooms from Glanteifi, was standing there. I knew him by his weak ‘r’.
‘I’ve been sent to bring you home, sir.’
I was about to protest, then the tone of his voice registered. ‘Why, what’s happened?’
‘It’s your father, sir. He’s been struck down by an apoplexy.’
Part Two
John
Harry’s reaction to Twm James’s news took me by surprise. I’d seen Harry with his father. Only briefly, but I’d seen how they treated each other. Civil, distant. When we’d worked together before Christmas, I’d heard a dozen stories about how, when Harry was a boy, he’d been closer to the servants at Glanteifi than to his own flesh and blood. So, if you’d asked me to tell you how he’d react to news that his father was gravely ill, I would’ve been a long way from guessing that it’d drive every sane thought from his head and make him rush around issuing orders, asking questions and achieving nothing but distress for him and confusion for the rest of us.
Maybe it’s harder if you can’t look around you and see the people you need to speak to, right there. Maybe only being able to see the edges of things made Harry feel like a man in the dark, not knowing which way he was going, stumbling against things he’d seen in their places every day of his life. Whatever the reason, it was hard to watch.
In the end, I took him by the shoulders. ‘Harry. Just go. Sara’s saddled and ready. I’ll pack your things and send them back with Twm.’