In Two Minds

by Alis Hawkins

  Dr Reckitt believed that cutting a lump out of a person’s brain might make them well again, turn them back into what they’d been before. And, if everything he’d said was true, one day doctors would be able to cut out growths in the head as easily as cutting out an eye in a potato.

  But nobody’d ever be able to cut out pain and grief, would they? They say time heals but perhaps, sometimes, it doesn’t. Perhaps, in a case like Maggie Abel’s, the mind is altered for ever – damaged, like a spring stretched so far that it can’t pull itself back into shape.

  It wasn’t my day for finding people in.

  ‘Inspector’s not here,’ Morgan told me, as if it was the best news he’d heard all week. Perhaps it was.

  ‘When will he be back?’

  Morgan picked his nose and looked at the wad of snot he pulled out. At least he didn’t eat it. Just wiped his finger under the table. ‘Dunno. Tomorrow, for definite – for this meeting the emigration scheme’re having. Dunno about today. Might just go home when his meeting’s finished.’

  ‘Who’s he meeting, then?’

  Morgan had a go at the other nostril. ‘Not your business.’

  Why were people so keen to tell me what was and wasn’t my business today? ‘You don’t know, then,’ I said.

  He pulled his finger out. ‘Not my business either, is it?’

  I’d never’ve made a policeman. Not my business indeed. I sniffed. The police station smelled of pie. While the cat was away the mice’d been having a little feast. Was that gravy on Morgan’s chin?

  ‘I’d like to see Teff Harris, please.’

  ‘You can’t. He’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? Where?’

  ‘Home. Mrs Harris went to a magistrate, didn’t she? Got him to come and say that Mr Bellis couldn’t keep her husband here without charging him with something. So he did. Charged him with failing to report a death and the magistrate bound him over to appear at the next sessions. Then off he went.’

  So. Even Billy Go-About wasn’t allowed to keep people locked up just because he felt like it. Perhaps he wasn’t as popular with the magistrates as Harry thought. ‘Right. When did he let him go?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  I nodded. ‘All right. Good.’ I had a pretty shrewd idea that Harry’d be pleased if Billy Go-About had to find out who was responsible for Jenkyn Hughes’s death at the inquest, like everybody else.

  Harry

  After a late breakfast, when I had left my father resting on his bed, Moyle intercepted me on the way from the stairs to the library.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Henry, I have a communication for you.’

  I stifled an automatic irritation. ‘What kind of communication?’

  ‘A note, Mr Henry. From Dr Reckitt. At least, that’s what the person who brought it claims.’

  A person was Moyle’s designation for anybody he regarded as inferior, a class which included included every Welsh person drawing breath.

  ‘Where is it?’ I asked.

  ‘I have it here.’ As he spoke, he produced it, holding it out to me.

  I drew in a long, calming breath. Moyle was making a point; I had not seen fit to inform him, personally, of my diminished sight so he would behave as if he did not know. ‘If you’d be so good as to read it to me, Moyle, I would be grateful.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Henry.’

  Moyle removed his pince-nez from his waistcoat pocket and took his time unfolding them. I wondered if they were the same antiquated, uncomfortable-looking pair he had worn when I had last been able to see them clearly. Then he unfolded the note. Evidently Reckitt had had no sealing wafer to hand and had simply folded the ends in on themselves.

  ‘There is no salutation,’ Moyle began. ‘The doctor was obviously in some considerable hurry.’

  Being somewhat acquainted by now with Reckitt’s habits, it seemed more likely that he simply saw no point in addressing me when he had sent the note specifically to be read to me.

  ‘I have been summoned to the Abel household,’ Moyle read. ‘Mrs Abel has attempted to end her own life. I am going to do what I can but you may wish to attend. Her husband tells me you want to speak to her. Reckitt.’

  End her own life? Given the religiosity her minister had described, I could not imagine the state of desperation the poor woman must have fallen into even to contemplate such a thing. I wondered how near she had come to succeeding and what Reckitt meant by ‘do what I can’.

  I decided to take the Cardigan route to St Dogmaels. If John had gone to the police station only after visiting the Abels – as I would have – there was a good chance that I would meet him on the way back.

  And, half way to Cardigan, on the long hill up from Ponthirwaun, I saw a rider approaching. Sara knew Seren before John could hail me, and there was much whickering and tossing of heads as the stablemates greeted each other.

  When I told John what had happened, he swore softly. ‘Back we go then,’ he said, turning Seren around. ‘If she was lying at death’s door inside, that explains why her husband’s workshop was closed up.’

  Abel’s apprentice was waiting for us. ‘The master and Dr Reckitt are inside.’

  We gave him the mares’ reins and went through the workshop into the Ables’ lodgings at the back.

  Reckitt’s voice greeted me before my eyes could accustom themselves to the ill-lit kitchen. ‘Ah, the coroner’s here.’

  My heart sank. ‘Am I here to view a death?’

  ‘No. Thanks be to God.’ The voice was Abel’s. Faith restored? Or simply falling back on old forms? ‘Sit down, sirs.’ He moved aside, leaving us to occupy the settle opposite Reckitt.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  I had directed the question at Abel, but it was Reckitt who answered me.

  ‘As I understand it, in the early hours, Mrs Abel swallowed an immoderate amount of laudanum. With a presence of mind few would have shown, Mr Abel induced her to vomit and sent his boy to fetch me. On my arrival, finding Mrs Abel still living, I put the boy on my horse and sent him to you, Probert-Lloyd.’

  I nodded. ‘How did you know that I wanted to speak to her?’

  There was a brief silence during which I formed the distinct impression of some wordless communication between the doctor and David Abel.

  ‘Dr Reckitt came to see me yesterday,’ the cabinet maker said. ‘He’d heard from you what a desperate way Maggie was in, and he wanted to do whatever he could for her.’

  He paused as if he was inviting Reckitt to speak for himself, but the doctor said nothing.

  ‘I thought it’d be good for her to hear from the doctor’s own mouth that he had no intentions of–’ Abel pulled himself up, then went on. ‘Well … you know. So, I went to fetch her from the stable. I brought her back here last night. Dr Reckitt was going to come this afternoon and talk to her.’

  Now Reckitt did intervene. ‘From what Mr Abel has told me, it seems that Mrs Abel had descended into a state of delirium while she was at the stables. Some food and a bath may have calmed her nerves and restored her sufficiently to herself to attend to what he was saying but not enough to hear the news rationally. Early this morning, while her husband was procuring a drink for her after she had woken in distress, she consumed all the laudanum that I had brought here.

  ‘As I intimated,’ he continued, ‘if it had not been for Mr Abel’s prompt and decisive action in forcing her to bring up the contents of her stomach, she would, very swiftly, have fallen into a comatose state. And she would not have awoken.’

  I saw John turn away from Reckitt towards Abel. ‘Where is your wife now?’

  ‘Through that door. In our bed.’

  ‘Alive and well?’

  ‘Alive, at least. Go and see, if you wish, Mr Davies.’

  John did not move, though whether from a wish to take Abel’s word for his wife’s wellbeing or from fear of what he might find in the bedroom, I could not say.

  ‘It might be as well, John,’ I said. ‘For Mr Abel’s sake as
much as for our own.’

  For a second or two, John hesitated, then he rose and crossed the room.

  ‘After I had made her bring up the medicine,’ the cabinet maker said, ‘I walked her up and down to keep her awake.’

  ‘Again, showing an enormous presence of mind,’ Reckitt contributed. ‘I doubt that one man in a thousand would have thought to do such a thing. Including some who are medically qualified.’

  ‘I thought, if I made her walk, made her stay awake, then she couldn’t just slip away,’ Abel said. ‘So I dragged her up and down, in and out, even when she begged me to let her be.’

  John closed the bedroom door behind him and rejoined us.

  ‘Asleep,’ he confirmed. I imagined him standing over Maggie Abel, watching for the rise and fall of breath, desperate not to wake her and cause her to throw herself, once more, into a delirious fit of self-harm.

  ‘Why did she do it?’ he asked. ‘When you’d told her that the doctor didn’t mean Lizzie any harm?’

  I saw Abel shaking his head. ‘I don’t know. She isn’t in her right mind. And, after all she’s had to bear, I don’t wonder at it.’

  He knew. I was sure of it. ‘You know what happened between your wife and Jenkyn Hughes, don’t you, Mr Abel?’

  Abel sank his face in his hands and I heard the scrape of calloused palm on stubbled skin.

  ‘Shoni Jones saw what happened,’ I said. ‘He’ll give evidence that your wife struck the fatal blow in self-defence.’

  The cabinet maker sighed and sat up straight once more. ‘Will you grant me one favour?’

  I heard the immense weariness in his voice. ‘I will if I can.’

  ‘Don’t call Maggie to bear witness. Call me. She’s told me everything.’

  I thought I knew what he meant. It transpired that I was mistaken.

  Part Four

  John

  I hadn’t expected to see David and Maggie Abel at the bondholders’ meeting. But there they were, standing quietly at one side of the Corn Exchange floor. I can’t say Maggie Abel looked well but she didn’t look mad either. Just gaunt and tired.

  I bent to speak into Harry’s ear. ‘Abel’s here with his wife. Do you want to speak to him?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Best not to agitate Maggie. It may just be that Abel’s persuaded her to go to Ohio after all.’

  That seemed about as likely as her deciding to swim all the way to America. Far as I could see, Maggie Abel was here to get her bond redeemed and for no other reason. She wouldn’t be able to rest until Reckitt was paid off.

  I looked about for Shoni Jones. I’d been all for going to see him the day before, after we’d left the Abels, but Harry wanted to hear more from Benton Reckitt. Over a pint in the White Hart he’d made the doctor go over his autopsy findings again. Was he certain that it was the blow to the head that’d killed Hughes? How long would it’ve taken him to die? Was it possible the blow on the head hadn’t killed him – that he’d been smothered afterwards?

  You might’ve expected Reckitt to be irritated at his conclusions being questioned but he wasn’t. Matter of fact, he seemed pretty taken with Harry’s questions – even started asking his own. Did Harry have evidence of suffocation? Did he think Hughes might’ve fallen face down and suffocated on the sand, for instance? And, if not that, then what? Obviously, with his face in the condition it was, there’d be no signs of pinching or small cuts around the nose and mouth to show that they’d been held closed. He’d noticed no sand in the airways and, yes, he had looked for that.

  ‘You have to understand, Probert-Lloyd, that though I’ve undertaken many autopsies I’ve always been looking for disease processes, not for evidence of murder. Our victim certainly wasn’t strangled – there was no damage to the trachea, no bruising to his neck. And he didn’t drown, as we’ve already established, so he wasn’t left face down in the surf after he’d been hit. But, beyond that, I can’t tell you more than I have already.’

  So, no evidence to say that Shoni Jones’d found Hughes alive and finished him off.

  A big crowd had gathered for the meeting. As well as bondholders, a lot of people would’ve come just out of curiosity or hoping to hear more about the murder. But I still couldn’t see Shoni Jones.

  Harry’d asked for a few minutes with the emigration scheme’s partners before they addressed the meeting. Perhaps Shoni was waiting with them in the Shire Hall upstairs.

  I forced a way for us through the chattering and gossiping with a combination of politeness and a sharp elbow. All around us, voices were raised so they could be heard above the hubbub and I caught snatches of what they were saying as we pushed through.

  ‘… gambled their money away.’

  ‘Soldier Harris out of …’

  ‘… farms as big as Cardiganshire.’

  ‘… surprised Billy Go-About’s not …’

  I excused my way between two women in Sunday best who were arguing about chapel ministers. One thought a pastor would be chosen to go out with the emigrants but her friend didn’t agree. ‘There’ll be a chapel there already, for the people building the houses and everything. They won’t need another minister.’

  How many of these people were bondholders? Emigrants needed to be sure what was happening but nobody’d want to lose even half a day’s pay. More than likely, families that knew each other would’ve sent one person on behalf of them all.

  Once we were through the crowds, Harry and I made our way up the stairs to the Shire Hall. I’d never had any reason to go up there before, and I looked about as we reached the top of the stairs. The meeting hall turned out to be a high, panelled room that ran the whole length of the building. After the gloom of the Corn Exchange downstairs, it was very light, with one row of tall windows looking up the high street and another, less grand row facing down towards the docks. A raised platform at the front must be where the judge sat when the assize court was in session.

  Off to one side there was an oddly shaped room, open to the main court, where Mrs Parry, Mr Philips, and Shoni Jones were standing. Apart from a table and chairs, the room was bare but still impressive with its own many-paned windows and high ceiling.

  Harry walked over. ‘Good day to you.’

  Shoni Jones sprang up and James Philips raised his arse a few inches off his chair before Harry made a ‘sit down’ gesture and we took our seats. Mrs Parry returned his greeting but, all the while, kept her eyes fixed on me. It made me uncomfortable – people weren’t usually so barefaced about Harry’s blindness. And that half smile of hers was unsettling. Brought to mind what Bets had told me about her mother and Hughes.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to organise the bondholders’ meeting,’ Harry said. He was speaking English, out of deference to his cousin, I supposed. James Philips probably thought it was beneath him to speak Welsh.

  ‘We’re happy to help.’ Mrs Parry’d elected herself spokesman again.

  ‘I trust you’ll all be at the re-convened inquest on Monday?’ Harry asked.

  James Philips’s face looked as if Harry’d asked him to come and watch a dog pissing up a tree but the other two nodded.

  ‘You may all be called as witnesses,’ Harry went on. ‘You most certainly will, Mr Jones.’

  ‘Of course.’ Shoni Jones’s eyes flicked from me to Harry and back again. Wondering if I’d passed on everything he’d told me to Harry, more than likely. ‘I suppose the will won’t be read until after the inquest?’

  Harry nodded. ‘The solicitors will be happier if probate’s not applied for until then.’

  ‘But what if people ask? Everybody downstairs is expecting to hear who’s taking over from my cousin. Here and in America. What are we going to tell them?’

  Mrs Parry opened her mouth to say something but Harry got in before her. ‘As you’ve pointed out, Mr Jones, many of the bondholders already know you. They’ll accept you as agent in Mr Hughes’s stead without question as long as Mrs Parry and Mr Philips are agreeable.’

&nb
sp; He turned his face towards Mrs Parry, then his cousin. He was asking for that agreement, now.

  James Philips didn’t look too pleased to be put on the spot. ‘Haven’t much choice, have we?’

  Mrs Parry fixed her eyes on Shoni. Then, just as I thought she was going to refuse, she said, ‘That would seem sensible. For the time being at least.’

  In other words, till the will’s been read and we all know where we stand.

  ‘Very well’ Harry said. ‘That’s all that matters today, I think. The will is a private legal matter and can be dealt with, as such, after the inquest.’

  ‘Right then.’ Mrs Parry rose from her seat and headed for the stairs. We went to follow her but James Philips hung back. ‘Mr Probert-Lloyd, a moment of your time, if you please?’

  I saw Mrs Parry look over her shoulder, but she didn’t break stride. Shoni Jones followed her.

  Harry turned to face his cousin with a smile. They hadn’t met before today and Harry looked as if he assumed James just wanted to acknowledge him.

  Philips glared at me. I obviously didn’t rank anywhere near the organ grinder’s monkey at that moment, more like the shit on the monkey’s arse. ‘It’s of a personal nature.’