Airs and Graces (8 page)

I set my head back against the chair. ‘Alice had only been here four days – she hardly knew any of them. What had they ever done to her?’

A spirit slid down the wall, hesitated on the edge of the table as if unwilling to interrupt us. It was an old spirit, rather faint. It said, ‘Pray excuse me, my dear sirs, but I have a message for Mr Patterson from Lawyer Armstrong. Would he oblige Mr Armstrong by visiting him in his rooms as soon as possible.’

Heron permitted himself a small smile. ‘There must be a problem with the will.’

‘I don’t see why it should involve me.’ I got up nevertheless. Armstrong is a sensible man, who wouldn’t inconvenience me for no reason.

Heron said, ‘Is there any point in telling you to be careful? You do, after all, now have a wife to consider.’

That brought to mind other occasions on which he’d told me to take care – and when I’d taken no notice of him and paid the price.

‘I’ll try,’ I said.

He raised one elegant eyebrow.

Nine

If there is one thing the English enjoy more than anything else, it is a good family argument; they can cosset these with the greatest enjoyment for decades.

[Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe

Froidevaux, 18 January 1737]

Lawyer Armstrong’s house stands in Amen Corner behind St Nicholas’s church, not far from the head of the steep Side. A brisk short walk from the Fleece, snow crunching underfoot and sunshine warming my back. Armstrong was waiting in the sunlit outer room of his office; he greeted me with a smile that had a great deal of relief in it, and thanked me for coming.

‘I have Mrs Fletcher with me. We’ve been reading the will.’

We went into the inner office, a room lined with books and boxes; dust motes floated in the sunlight. Mrs Fletcher, in her severe cap and neat practical dress, turned a look on me so expressionless it was daunting. We sat down, Armstrong cramming himself into the small space beneath his desk.

‘To reiterate,’ he said, ‘Samuel Gregson left all his property to be divided equally between his children, with arrangements made for the upkeep of his wife should she outlive him. There are three surviving children, two sons, in Exeter and London, and Mrs Fletcher.’ He nodded at her in acknowledgement. ‘There are strictly four surviving children but of course Alice cannot profit from her murderous acts.’

‘Assuming she did kill them,’ Mrs Fletcher said.

Armstrong said sharply, ‘The inquest has come to that verdict.’

‘The jury were fools,’ Mrs Fletcher said contemptuously.

Which was tantamount to saying that
Armstrong
was a fool. I hurriedly intervened. ‘Why do you believe your sister may be innocent?’

‘Look at the evidence! Alice is a slight girl who has never done a day’s work in her life, yet she’s supposed to have killed four people in a particularly brutal manner.’ She lifted her head in the face of Armstrong’s obvious annoyance. ‘It’s plain someone else was involved. Obviously, she disturbed a burglar and fled in fear.’

‘And what happened to this burglar?’ Armstrong said.

‘He ran off when he heard the child’s screams. With the money, and whatever else was stolen.’

This was patently not the first time the subject had been raised, and was, I suspected, the reason I was here. ‘There is nothing to suggest anything else was stolen,’ Armstrong said, with an obvious effort to be civil.

‘
I
will be able to tell you if that’s true,’ Mrs Fletcher said, ‘when I’ve had a look at the house and its contents.’

‘I have already said—’

‘My mother had some jewellery which would attract a thief.’

‘The watchman who searched the house said the jewellery was still in your mother’s room,’ I pointed out.

She smiled grimly, the sun catching her hard profile. ‘My mother had some trinkets which are no doubt still there, but she also had more valuable pieces, inherited from her mother.’

‘The house must be inventoried,’ Armstrong said firmly. ‘I will send one of my clerks to do it. Moreover, your brothers must be informed of what has happened before anything can be moved.’

‘And in the meantime the house could be broken into and the jewellery stolen!’

‘No one is to be allowed inside that house,’ Armstrong said sharply. ‘I have it in trust for
all
the beneficiaries.’ He turned to me. ‘You, of course, may go in and out of the property as you see fit, Mr Patterson, but Mrs Fletcher does not have my permission to do so.’ He glared at her. ‘I trust I make myself plain.’

Mrs Fletcher’s mouth set in a long hard line. Dust motes floated around her head. She held Armstrong’s gaze for a long moment, then got up. ‘Good day, Mr Patterson,’ she said, and swept out.

Armstrong leant back, sighing. ‘Just like her father –
he
was headstrong, would never be guided. Forgive me, Patterson, but I thought it best we confront the issue directly. Else she’d be at your door trying to sweet-talk you into letting her see the shop and you’d not know whether it was appropriate or not.’

‘I quite see your point.’ I hesitated. ‘You say you knew Gregson well. Would you describe him as a violent man?’

Armstrong pursed his lips. ‘Argumentative, certainly. He never raised a hand to me, or to anyone else in my presence, but a man will often behave differently in the bosom of his own family.’ He was being remarkably frank; I suspected he wouldn’t have said so much if he’d not already had some concern over the matter. He looked at me from under his bushy eyebrows. ‘Violent or not,’ he said, ‘Samuel Gregson should not have been murdered. His life was unjustly taken from him, and that is indefensible, in both legal and moral terms.’

I nodded. ‘I was hoping for some understanding of the girl. If Gregson was violent towards her, that might, in some part, explain what she did.’

‘Would it explain killing her mother and her sister? And the apprentice whom she hardly knew?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s the problem.’

The sky was clouding over as I stepped out of Armstrong’s office into the shadow of St Nicholas’s church. A few flakes of snow drifted down; it looked as if Hugh’s weather prediction was wrong after all – there would be more snow. The first concert of the year was due next week and I was beginning to doubt it could go ahead.

I decided to go home. I was still worried about Esther. She had been unwell for some days now; she really ought to see someone. If the illness developed into something like Philips’s, I would never forgive myself.

I turned into Westgate, the street where genteel folk live, in large houses and extensive gardens, above the fogs and smoke that drift up the river. Trees hanging over the walls were lined with white; a crow stood on a branch and cawed mournfully. The snow had been worn down into slush and I kept to the edge of the road, where the walking was firmer. The street was almost deserted, only one man, muffled in greatcoat and hat, hurried towards me, slipping as if his boots heels were worn and had no grip. He came abreast of me—

And with one swift moment, swung his arm.

I ducked out of his reach, slipped and fell. I hit the ground with a thump that knocked the breath out of me. As I foundered in the snow, I heard him grunt, saw his fist heading for my face. I jerked back – and hit my head against a house wall  . . .

Ten

An Englishwoman’s home is a stage; she invites all her acquaintance in to see the china and the tea and the little knick-knacks she herself has made.

[Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe

Froidevaux, 18 January 1737]

Somehow I managed to stagger up Westgate. Through the pain in my head, I could think of only one thing – getting to Hugh’s rooms near the top of the street above the clockmaker’s. The shop was shut; I stumbled down an alley to the side door, dragged myself up stairs that seemed endless  . . .

Hugh’s dancing schoolroom is directly over the clockmaker’s. I fell against the door; it gave way beneath my weight and I toppled in. At the far end of the long polished floor, Hugh was sitting at a small table, scribbling.

‘What the devil!’ He leapt up, seized hold of me and pushed me down into a chair. ‘Stay here! I’ll get brandy.’

He dashed out. I leant back against the wall, winced, sat upright again. There must be a bruise on the back of my head as big as the Tyne Bridge. At least it wasn’t bleeding. I put my head in my hands. Hugh came back with a bottle of brandy and poured me a glass. I downed it, squinted against the pain.

‘I was attacked,’ I said, thickly. ‘A fellow at the bottom of the street. Rifled my pockets.’

‘Did he get much?’

Grunting with effort, I hunted in my pockets. ‘I had a few shillings  . . .’

‘House key?’

‘Don’t carry it.’

‘Nice to have servants to let you in,’ Hugh said without rancour. ‘Careful!’ He moved something from the table under my elbow – the ancient ring. ‘Is money all he got?’

‘No,’ I said, with foreboding. ‘He got the key to Gregson’s shop.’

Hugh poured more brandy, dragged up another chair and sat down astride it. ‘Was there a label on the key?’

‘No – but if he didn’t know where the key was for, why should he have taken it?’

‘He might have known you,’ Hugh pointed out, ‘and thought the key was for your own house. Plenty in there to steal.’

The brandy was having a beneficial effect; I drank more. ‘There’s no sense in taking the key to my house. He couldn’t use it till dark, and by then we could have all the servants on watch and the locks changed.’

‘Thieves don’t always think sensibly.’

I stirred wearily. ‘I’ll have to go and look at Gregson’s shop.’

Hugh pushed me back. ‘Nonsense! Have more brandy.’

‘Philips entrusted me with that key! The least I can do is check no one’s broken in.’

Hugh sighed and gave in. ‘I suppose I’d better come with you.’

‘Haven’t you got lessons?’

‘Finished for the day. I’ll get my greatcoat.’

It took more effort than I’d anticipated to get down the stairs to the street, but once I was out in the cold fresh air, I felt better. Hugh strolled with me down Westgate in the gloom of the early winter evening, stopping where I’d been attacked and looking round. The snow had been scuffed and the place I’d fallen was very obvious.

‘He was audacious,’ Hugh said. ‘Or mad. Attacking you in broad daylight, in the street, where anyone might have intervened!’

‘Hugh,’ I said. I rubbed my aching temple. ‘Why should he want the key to the shop?’

‘He knows the place is empty and wants to rob it.’

‘What if it’s more than that? What if this wasn’t a casual robbery? What if he’s connected with the murders?’

‘Nonsense!’

‘Mrs Fletcher thinks her sister didn’t kill them.’

Hugh made a derisory noise.

‘She thinks Alice fled from a violent burglar. Presumably she now daren’t come forward and say so, because she’ll be apprehended and charged.’

‘You’re tired, Charles,’ Hugh said soothingly. ‘Get home to bed. You’ll be better in the morning. It was a common thief who just happened to see you in the street.’

My head was throbbing and I could hardly think straight, but I was absolutely certain I was right. ‘He’s connected with Alice, I know he is,’ I said obstinately.

‘If he’s the killer,’ Hugh said patiently, ‘why should he want to go back to the shop? If it was me, I’d get as far away as possible.’

‘Maybe he left something there.’

‘It would have been found by now.’

‘Perhaps it was, but we didn’t recognize its significance.’

Hugh sighed.

The snow was coming down in a more determined fashion by the time we got to the bottom of Westgate; negotiating the steep Side was difficult and we both slipped several times. On the Sandhill only a few people were about, mostly hurrying for shelter. The Key was busier, with sailors still loading ships, but there was none of the idling that is usually to be seen – everyone was doing what they had to, then getting inside again. Hugh shivered melodramatically. ‘I hate winter.’

We climbed the slope to the bridge; a horseman came the other way, a burly man on an ugly chestnut horse. The man’s coat and hat were dusted with snow; he looked weary as he reined in the horse.

‘Gentlemen.’

He was a rough but handsome man of forty or so with a weather-beaten face like a sailor’s. I was struck by an odd feeling of familiarity, as if I ought to know him.

‘Can you direct me to a good inn?’ he asked. ‘Clean but not too expensive?’

I gave him directions to the Golden Fleece. Hugh said, ‘Have you come over Gateshead Fell?’

‘Don’t know what it’s called,’ the man said. ‘It was damned unpleasant. Nearly didn’t get through.’

We watched him ride off in the direction of the Fleece. ‘Londoner,’ Hugh said, dismissively. ‘Soft.’

‘I’m sure I know him,’ I said. ‘But I can’t place him. I haven’t seen him recently, I know that.’ Maybe it had been in London; I was there four or five years ago, studying and gaining experience, playing in the opera orchestra and such like.

We turned for Gregson’s shop; I took hold of Hugh’s arm. ‘The door’s open.’ We looked for a moment at the thin line of darkness between door and jamb – it looked as if someone had meant to shut it, but not quite caught the latch. I cautiously pushed at the door. It swung, creaking. We hesitated; Hugh said, ‘If it is a thief, he won’t still be there surely.’

Cautiously, I ventured in. The house was pitch-black; I groped on the shelf by the door, hoping the candles and tinder box would still be there. They were; I lit a candle and held it high.

The shop had been ransacked, the furniture turned over and smashed, pictures thrown on to the floor in showers of glass, wallpaper samples torn up and scattered. We stood, staring at the mess. ‘The key’s in the lock on the inside,’ Hugh said.

I turned on my heels, fighting the ache in my head. At least the bodies had not suffered – they had been removed after the inquest. ‘The thief must have come in, locked the door behind him; with the shutters closed, no one outside could have seen him. When he’d finished, he simply unlocked the door and walked off, leaving the key.’

I put the key in my pocket, relieved to have it in my possession again so quickly. We avoided the debris and climbed the stairs to the drawing room above. That too had been turned over; cushions had been ripped and the stuffing thrown out, ornaments swept from tables.