by Alis Hawkins
I have no doubt that there was some surprise in the kitchen about my off-the-cuff invitation. In recent years there had been so few overnight guests at Glanteifi that Mrs Griffiths must have been obliged to have the spare linen removed from the presses occasionally and aired, lest it develop mould where it lay.
Things, I resolved, must change. If I was to make a credible fist of standing for coroner, I would have to gain the support of at least some of the local magistrates and I would not achieve that by keeping my distance from everybody.
I discussed this with Reckitt.
‘Yes, going about in society is something of a necessary evil,’ he agreed. ‘If you’re not seen from one month’s end to the next, people are apt to forget that you exist. It’s not the way to gain employment.’
I recalled Pomfrey’s account of Reckitt’s insistence on diagnosing a footman’s ailment before a table of dinner guests, and wondered whether that was his idea of how to gain patronage. If so, it seemed an ill-advised kind of advertisement.
‘Speaking of employment,’ I began, ‘I need to speak to you further about the case of little Lizzie Abel and her parents,’.
‘I’ve told you – her father did not hasten her death. Unless it was by allowing her mother inadvertently to give her an excess of laudanum. It’s possible that Mrs Abel’s own dependence on the drug led to misjudgement.’
I had been intending to admonish Reckitt – one gentleman to another – for exerting undue influence over David Abel in the matter of the projected autopsy examination of his daughter but his answer distracted me. ‘Was it always Mrs Abel who administered laudanum to Elizabeth?’ I asked.
‘Yes. She was obsessive in her care of the child. She barely allowed Abel to go near her. And, if you’re going to ask if I believe that Mrs Abel deliberately administered an excessive dose of laudanum to end her daughter’s suffering, the answer is no. Mrs Abel had a fanatical attachment to the belief that a miracle would cure her child. She had closed her eyes to every other possibility.’
So much so that she had been heedless of the bargain her husband had struck with Reckitt, believing that they would never be called upon to honour their part? Or had she, as Abel believed, been unaware of it until she overheard the doctor issuing instructions as her daughter lay on her deathbed?
‘Reckitt, I know what you said to John, the other day about the necessity of conducting autopsies to further our understanding of disease.’
‘And I stand by that opinion!’
‘But, surely, offering Abel an emigration bond in return for the opportunity to dissect his child’s body oversteps the bounds of decency?’
‘Decency?’ Reckitt sounded outraged. ‘If you had seen the child in the last days of her life you would know that there was no decency in what that tumour inflicted on her. Its growth stripped her faculties from her, one by one. Walking, balance, sight, hearing, bowel and bladder control. By the end she hadn’t the faculties of a newborn. There is no decency in that!’
‘But does the indecency of disease justify your actions? Could you not simply have given Abel the laudanum and allowed him to make shift for himself as far as the emigration was concerned?’
‘I tried! Do you think I’m some kind of monster? But Abel wouldn’t take the laudanum from me. He has the stupid pride of those who are not quite poor. He was in agonies about it. He had saved so hard to take his family to America and now he was going to spend not only his savings but everything else he had on a medicine that would not save his child! And he was in fear for his wife. He truly believed that she would do something desperate to get the money she needed for laudanum.’
‘You genuinely thought that making a bargain with Abel was the only way to ensure that Lizzie got the laudanum she needed? Couldn’t you have commissioned furniture?’
‘He would have seen that for what it was. Charity by any other name. I gave him what he needed in exchange for what he knew, with absolute certainty, that I wanted. We were equal in the bargain as we would have been in no other way.’
There was an inescapable, if heartless, logic to it. ‘Would you do the same again, knowing the distress it has caused Mrs Abel?’
‘Mrs Abel’s distress arises from superstition and the debilitating effects of laudanum on her own system. It cannot be allowed to weigh against the future distress of other parents like her and other children like Lizzie.’
It was the first time I’d heard him say the little girl’s name. And, for the first time, I felt that I might agree with him.
John
I ate the kind of breakfast I was beginning to get used to, working for Harry, then made my way to the ‘Coroner’s Room’ to wait and see if Shoni Jones turned up. Seeing as Harry and I hadn’t had much use out of the room for our money so far, I’d got the servants to make up a fire in there for me. Mrs Weston hadn’t made any objection. Probably totting up the bill in her mind. Coal for a whole day – three scuttles at so many pence a scuttle, plus a bit more because the magistrates were paying.
Even in the warmth, I felt my spirits fall when I sat down and looked about at the cheerless little room. I didn’t want to have to wait for Shoni Jones. I wanted to be out there, investigating.
But I parked my arse on the chair nearest the fire and got my notes out. Accounting for expenses’d keep me occupied for a bit. Starting with Harry’s visit to Schofield’s office, I went through the ten days or so that we’d spent investigating Jenkyn Hughes’s death.
Jurors for the adjourned inquest – twelve, at one shilling a head.
Autopsies ordered – one at two guineas plus expenses.
Premises for the adjourned inquest – expenses to be paid to the proprietor of The Ship, Aberporth.
Witnesses for the adjourned inquest – two: Theophilus Harris, first finder; Jaci Rees, sub-registrar.
And so on and so forth. Stabling for our horses, dinners eaten at the public expense, rooms slept in ditto, sailors paid to produce informants and urchins paid to keep horses secure.
Once I’d finished the accounts, I went out to check that Shoni Jones wasn’t loitering somewhere in the Black Lion waiting for me. The servants’d jump to it if Harry was there, and send them to the Coroner’s Room but they wouldn’t be half as bothered seeing as it was just me.
I prayed I’d find him chatting up a maid or sharing a pipe with one of the bootboys. But no. No Shoni Jones. Nor anybody else wanting the coroner.
Back I went to the bare little room. Threw more culm on the fire. Went out again to get a pot of tea from the kitchen. Came back to my notes and started cataloguing evidence.
By the time I’d finished, things looked pretty bad for Shoni Jones. It didn’t even matter much whether he knew about the will made in favour of Mrs Parry. By then, he’d got everything he needed to do Hughes’s job.
The only unanswered question, as far as I could see, was what he’d seen through his telescope. According to the Whaler, Shoni had watched and watched. He wouldn’t’ve done that if there’d been nothing to see, would he?
I was hungry again already and the chair I was sitting on had no cushion. My arse was used to riding about now, and I’d got out of the way of sitting on a chair for hours at a time.
I closed my notebook, gathered my notes into a pile and put them in Harry’s writing box with the pen and ink. I could waste a bit more time taking it back up to my room, so that’s what I did.
Back in the main hall, I took my watch out. Half past nine o’clock! I couldn’t believe I’d only managed to fritter away an hour and a half.
It was no good. I couldn’t stay here all day with nothing to do. Not when I wasn’t even sure Shoni Jones’d come. It’d be a far better use of my time to go out to Penlanmeurig again and find him for myself.
Seren was getting more exercise than she’d probably had in years but she trotted out sprightly enough as we crossed the bridge and headed along the St Dogmaels road.
It was a sharp, bright morning. The sky was a high, clear blue t
hat looked as if it’d ring like a china bowl if you could only reach up and flick it with your fingernail. My cheekbones ached with the cold but at least there was no wind to speak of. If I could just get a pair of gloves from somewhere, riding on a day like this would be a real pleasure. Maybe I could ask Harry for some old ones of his.
I sucked my teeth. Harry. What was I going to do about his proposition? If I said yes, that’d be it. I’d be Harry Probert Lloyd’s man for the rest of my life. Was that what I wanted? Was that what he wanted? He’d taken great pains, when we first worked together, to treat me as his equal. If I was his steward, if he paid me, would he still do that? Could he?
It was becoming a lot clearer to me why he didn’t want to be squire.
When I trotted over the hump of the headland to Penlanmeurig, I was ready for that wind off the sea. But, compared to the day before where it’d almost frozen my specs to my face, it was gentle, hardly more than a breeze. I pulled Seren up and looked across the fields to the sea. Cold, it looked. Blue under the sky, but cold. And it stretched all the way to the ruler-straight horizon. To America.
Did ships coming this way across the Atlantic get here more quickly than emigrant ships going out? The wind seemed always to be blowing from America, not to it. Perhaps there was a lesson there for me.
I imagined Jenkyn Hughes standing on the deck of a ship, looking out towards the horizon that’d turn into the coast and then the estuary and then Cardigan docks. Standing there in his white trousers and chequered waistcoat. Had Shoni Jones met him on the dock? I knew from Wil Camlaw that they’d got to know each other when Hughes had been over before, so more than likely he had.
Jones’d gone about for weeks – months, perhaps – with Jenkyn Hughes. Would he tell the same story as other people – that Hughes’d altered, got unreliable, changed his mind with the wind? Or would he say that his cousin’d always been like that – rash, apt to let his mood take him as my mother might’ve said.
A couple of gulls started their dead-soul screech overhead. How did sailors put up with that sound day in, day out? It’d drive you mad. I pulled my coat closer to me, held the reins in one hand so I could put the other on the warmth of Seren and trotted her down towards the farm.
Even if Hughes’s behaviour had altered, it didn’t have to be because of Benton Reckitt’s famous lump in the head, did it? It could’ve been because he’d settled in, here. That happens, doesn’t it? People’re on their best behaviour at first so they make a good impression. Sit up straight, mind their pleases and thank yous. Then they relax, like a cat by the fire. Start showing their underbelly.
I arrived at Penlanmeurig in the middle of an argument. A big one. The kind families have before people decide they’re never speaking to each other again. From what I could hear – and I didn’t have to strain my ears – Shoni Jones had chosen today to tell his parents that he’d sold the farm.
I stood outside the door for a bit, listening. Not the best time to visit, was it, with everybody furious?
Then again, it might be the ideal time. Shoni’d be glad of the excuse to escape and relief might make him tell me things he wouldn’t do otherwise.
I thumped on the door. No point being timid – might as well sound as if I had a right to be there.
The voices inside stopped. Just like that.
The knock of clogs came towards the door and the girl who’d opened it last time stood there. I watched her remembering who I was.
‘Oh. It’s you.’
‘Here now, is he?’
She turned. ‘Shoni.’
‘What’s this, now?’ An older man’s voice. He came into view, then – a small, grey haired man who moved as if every joint in his body hurt.
‘Good morning.’ I took my cap off to him – didn’t hurt to be polite. ‘I’m John Davies, coroner’s officer. I need to speak to your son, please.’
He looked behind him. ‘Take him and welcome. He doesn’t belong here any more.’
I led Seren and walked alongside Shoni, same as I had with Wil Camlaw.
‘Not impressed, then,’ I said, jerking my head back towards his house. ‘The will and so on?’
Looked quite a lot like his brother, Shoni did. Same small, wiry frame. Same dark brown hair, except his wasn’t shaved as short as Wil’s. But his eyes had a sharper, harder look.
‘Can’t stand the thought of me getting away, can they? Well good riddance to the lot of them, I’ve had enough.’
‘Don’t blame you.’
He looked at me sideways.
‘I grew up poorer than you’ I told him. ‘Got farmed out for a gwas bach. But I wasn’t going to spend my life half-starving and working in all weathers. Went for a clerk instead.’ I didn’t mention my parents’ death. Let Jones think I’d stood up to my father, too. ‘Anyway, I’m not here to talk about that.’
‘What do you want?’ He sounded curious. Was he covering up nerves? If he’d murdered his cousin, I’d’ve expected him to be nervous. But he just looked at me, waiting.
‘Just so you know,’ I said, before I got to the point, ‘I’m not interested in whatever fiddle Jenkyn Hughes was playing with Mrs Parry’s coal. I’m with the coroner, not the police, so whatever you say about that’ll go no further.
‘Fair enough.’
‘You were on the boat that brought the limestone into Tresaith the night Jenkyn Hughes disappeared, is that right?’
‘Disappeared? He never disappeared-’
I held up a hand. ‘All right.’ Seemed like a good idea to stop him before he could start telling me that Hughes’d gone up the coast to Aberaeron. It’d be harder for him to come out and tell me the truth if he was going to start off behind a wall of lies. ‘To be clearer – you were on the last but one shipment of limestone to Tresaith. With Albion Thomas, Scrim Richards and the big sailor they call the Whaler?’
Jones looked at me. I thought he was going to ask why I wanted to know but, in the end, he just nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘And Hughes was on the beach? I mean, he stayed there while you all went up to Penbryn with the coal?’ I held my hand up to stop him denying that he had any involvement in swindling Mrs Parry. ‘I told you, I don’t care. I’m just trying to get my facts straight, that’s all.’
His eyes didn’t leave me. ‘Yes, Hughes stayed at Tresaith.’
‘Was there anybody else on the beach?’
His expression changed then. He could see I knew something. He’d be wary, now. ‘When we arrived? No.’
I filed away that when we arrived to come back to later. We turned off the farm track and on to the road. Apart from the ditch on each side, there wasn’t a lot of difference – the parish wasn’t working too hard to fill in ruts and potholes.
‘So you unloaded the stone and you left Hughes on the beach while you went on around to Penbryn?’
Jones shot a glance at me. ‘That’s it.’
‘And then you saw something, didn’t you? You took your telescope out – the one you’d bought off Hughes – and you watched the beach.’ I waited but he said nothing, just carried on walking, eyes forward. ‘Isn’t that right?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do.’ All right, he wasn’t admitting it but then he wasn’t arguing either. It looked as if the big sailor had told me the truth. ‘So what did you see?’
He sighed as if he was giving up a struggle. ‘Hughes.’
‘Doing what?’
When he didn’t answer, I stared at the side of his face, trying to make him look round at me. Didn’t work. All I got was a really long look at his thin face with its two-day beard.
I tried again. ‘What was Jenkyn Hughes doing? You may as well tell me. I’m not going to stop asking till you do.’
‘Think you’ve got a right to know, do you?’
‘I’m representing the coroner. Mr Probert-Lloyd. He’s got a right to know.’
Jones shook his head, and I only just caught his next words. ‘Some things’re better not known.’
/>
What did that mean? ‘Did you see who killed Jenkyn Hughes?’ I asked.
He was back to taking no notice of me. Eyes fixed on the road ahead as if his only concern was not tripping over something in front of him. But I’d’ve laid good money that he wasn’t seeing the road at all. That, in his mind, he was seeing Tresaith beach with The Ship and Pantmawr cottage and the kilns at the back of it. That he was seeing whatever it was that’d taken place there after they’d left Hughes.
‘If you know, you’d do better to tell me because, as it stands, all the evidence points to you. The will gave you the best motive to kill him. You went to Captain Coleman’s and fetched all his belongings before anybody knew he was dead. You had his ring. And,’ I finished, lit up by a sudden idea, ‘you wanted to stop him losing even more money, gambling, because you thought he was putting the emigration scheme in danger of failing. And that would’ve left you with nowhere to go. You’d burned your bridges at home, hadn’t you? If you couldn’t go to America, you’d’ve had nothing.’
He stopped and faced me. ‘You think I’d kill him?’
‘It’s what the evidence says. It’s what everybody’ll think after the inquest unless you tell me something different.’
He sucked his tongue, spat on the ground, started walking again.
I clucked Seren after him. ‘Billy Go-About’s got somebody locked up who looks a lot less guilty than you. When all this comes out at the inquest, he’ll have you in gaol so quick you’ll wish you were back at the farm listening to your father shout at you.’