BLACKDOWN (a thriller and murder mystery) (5 page)

Budge looked at the musket and inspected the hammer. True enough it was empty of flint. He realised that in his hurry to accompany the anxious shepherds he’d grabbed the musket he’d been cleaning the previous night. He watched as the man claiming to be Blackdown’s son gave a short wave and headed down the hill towards the valley below.

‘It’s a dog,’ said the shepherd.

‘Damn you, this isn’t a dog!’ snapped Budge.

‘So what does that mean, if it isn’t a dog or the work of a man?’ said the other shepherd.

‘How should I know?’ said Budge, still smarting at his embarrassment over the missing flint and watching the back of the stranger. ‘There’s an answer somewhere.’

‘It’s just as before,’ said the shepherd, nervously glancing beyond the hedge to Devilbowl Wood.

‘We don’t know that,’ said Budge.

‘Gabriel,’ said the shepherd pointing emphatically at the sheep, flies gathering in clouds on its decomposing flesh, ‘what more evidence do you need? It’s the beast returned.’

Gabriel Budge shook his head. ‘You keep those lurid thoughts to yourself, do you hear? Not a word of it is to leak out. Tell that loose-tongued boy of yours if he spills a single word about this to anyone I’ll cut that wagging tongue out of his head with my own knife.’

‘It’s the stranger…’ said the shepherd. ‘Strangers always auger ill.’

‘That’s foolish superstition and you know it,’ said Budge. ‘Clean this mess up and I’ll inform Lord Tresham myself of the loss of his sheep.’

‘And will you mention how we found them, how cut up they were?’

‘I will say what I feel is best. Get to your work.’

Budge looked down the hill. The figure of Thomas Blackdown was a thin dark streak against the lush green of the dawn-soaked hillside.

The field was occupied by a number of carts and covered wagons, horses tethered nearby in a crude corral made of stakes hammered into the ground and rope slung between them. Campfires were already lit, the smell of wood smoke and horse dung strong in the still morning air. Blackened pots of water hung over the flames to boil.

As Thomas Blackdown scaled the stile and approached the crude camp, making his way in the direction of the town of Blackdown, tramping across the field to the exit at the far end, he made out a stout man dressed in a fine coat and breeches and wearing a silver-laced hat. He was animatedly addressing a small body of brightly dressed men and women. Blackdown recognised them immediately as a troupe of entertainers. Some of them were being given handbills to dole out, others were putting the finishing touches to their crude makeup or straightening out tawdry, well-worn costumes. The women wore flounced skirts, spangles and gaudy multi-coloured feathers, the men sported embroidered waistcoats and hats decorated with feathers and silk. At the stout man’s orders a small boy with an overly large drum strapped to his shoulders came to stand behind him and began to beat a steady, almost militaristic tattoo. The remainder of the company lined up behind the boy, and as Blackdown drew level with the small crowd the man with the silver-laced hat tipped it and smiled broadly.

He said, ‘Commodore Pettigrew’s Most Marvellous Company of Entertainers Extraordinaire bids you good morning! And a fine morning it is, too!’

Blackdown nodded his greeting. He had no liking for the entertainment fraternity. ‘Are you to play in the town?’ he asked.

The man nodded. ‘Every year now for ten years. Every August without fail. The town of Blackdown always gives us a spirited reception. I am the said Commodore Pettigrew, manager and magician both.’ He held out his hand for Blackdown to shake, which he did so reluctantly. ‘We arrived early this morning. Lord Tresham has given us permission to lodge in his field for the next few days.’ At this he turned around to the young drummer boy and slapped him across the head. ‘This is not a funeral dirge, boy! Speed things up! Do you want the good people of the town to think we carry a coffin with us?’ Pettigrew smiled at Thomas Blackdown again. ‘He is new. My last boy died of the pox. He could rattle the sticks against the skins like an angel plays the harp, but this cur is hardly worth the bread he takes from my table. Do you hear that, boy? Practice, practice and still more practice! You are about as far from becoming an angel as a pig is from becoming a prince!’ He chuckled. ‘Though we have a pig for a prince in London, do we not?’ He caught sight of Blackdown’s red uniform beneath the greatcoat. ‘Ah, a man returned from the wars! Heroes all!’ He gave a mock bow. ‘Your humble servant, sir.’

‘You say you had permission from Lord Tresham?’ said Blackdown.

‘I have proof, in writing,’ he said, suddenly very suspicious.

‘I don’t need to see it,’ said Blackdown. ‘Does Tresham own this land also?’

He nodded. ‘He bought it in the grand sale of Lord Blackdown’s land last year. A sad state of affairs, to be sure. Lord Blackdown was always so kind as to let us lodge in the town, at the inn and thereabouts, but Tresham is having none of it and consigns my company of entertainers to the fields. We, who have played in front of a prince of Persia and a German king no less, find ourselves sharing beds with sheep and cows. But ever resilient, like the rain that slides off a duck’s back we do not let such a slur on our good characters dampen our spirits.’ He gave Blackdown a handbill. ‘Come to see our show tonight, tell your friends, tell your family, tell everyone that Commodore Pettigrew’s Most Marvellous Company of Entertainers Extraordinaire will transport them to new and wondrous worlds of boundless colourful delights and mysteries. And when the booths are set up in the field, a veritable feast of magical sights from the world’s most mystifying and darkest corners will be laid out for hungry eyes to feast upon.’

Blackdown crumpled up the handbill and stuffed it into his pocket. ‘And what of Blackdown Manor? Does that still belong to Lord Blackdown?’

Pettigrew eyed the man. ‘Do I know you from somewhere? Have we met before? You look familiar.’

‘We have never met. What of Blackdown Manor?’

‘Lord Blackdown hangs onto the manor still, but whether he hangs onto his sanity is another matter entirely.’

‘He is unwell?’

‘Do you know Lord Blackdown?’ asked Pettigrew. He peered at the red jacket beneath the open greatcoat. ‘Your insignia, the piping – the Guards, perhaps? You are with the Guards? 2
nd
, 3
rd
? Which regiment is it?’

Blackdown drew the flaps of the coat together and buttoned it. ‘I’m no longer in the army. Lord Blackdown is unwell, you say?’

‘I heard the Guards fought bravely at the chateau of Hougoumont at the glorious Battle of Waterloo. Indeed we have only recently put together a tableau of the true events as related to us by a man who lost both his legs there. We have cannon and horses and trumpets and drums and a dwarf who plays the Emperor Napoleon. We have a most dashing young man to play Wellington, though he wears a large false nose, and at the end he leads our brave army to victory, repelling the French from the field with loud and hearty huzzahs. You must come and see it! It is the most terrifically stirring stuff, guaranteed to strengthen any Englishman’s heart!’

‘You know nothing of the horrors of war,’ said Blackdown. ‘It is not all trumpets and glory. It is a great deal of blood and pain.’

‘Would you like a part in our tableau, sir?’ said Pettigrew. ‘I can have someone write in a few lines for you. People will pay good money to see a real live hero of Waterloo.’

Blackdown turned away angrily. ‘I have business to attend to,’ he said.

‘Do you have a sword or a gun that you used during the battle that day?’ he called as Blackdown made his way down the field.

‘What does it matter if I have?’ he replied shortly.

‘Has your sword lopped off any Frenchmen’s heads? Did your pistol fire a ball into a foreigner’s black heart? I will be willing to buy such a thing from you if you have them. People will pay good money to feel the sword or pistol that despatched a Frog or two! Name your price!’ But Blackdown did not turn round. He strode to the stile at the far end of the field. Commodore Pettigrew slapped the boy around the head again and signalled for the troupe to follow him. ‘To the town!’ he cried. ‘And make a damn good show of it, all of you, or, damn your eyes, you’ll have nothing to eat tonight!’

The town of Blackdown was hardly a town at all. It was nestled in the deepest of the local valleys, and had grown up along a single drovers’ road that had been in use since before Roman times and which led to Exeter in the south and Bristol in the north. Its collection of mean, thatched hamstone cottages strung out along the road’s course followed neither rule nor plan. At the town’s so-called centre was the green, and nearby its oldest building, the squat-towered Saint Cuthbert’s church, built by the Normans hot on the heels of their invasion and now serving the town’s few hundred souls. Serving their bodies were two inns and a multitude of other beer-sellers operating from the cramped rooms of houses. During harvest times the population swelled with workers pouring into the town to find work. It held a bustling livestock market every second week, and an even bigger annual fair in August that had grown out of all proportions to the town’s small size. It was so popular it attracted the likes of the troupe that Thomas Blackdown had come across, and many others eager to feed off the fair’s coattails. There were posters pasted on walls advertising the fair and Blackdown managed a bittersweet smile at past memories of the event.

The first Blackdown was a Norman knight given lands by William of Normandy for his part in the invasion. What the noble’s real name had been nobody was quite sure these days, but the French word had probably been so difficult for the native tongue to get round that it finally became Blackdown for ease of pronunciation. He eventually gave the then village its name, he named the hills after him. He gradually stamped out all the old names and supplanted them with his own, so much so that nobody had any idea what the old names had been. The land became Blackdown; Blackdown became the land.

Blackdown Manor became the Blackdown family’s seat of power, and had remained so for generations. Their influence extended far and wide. They had the ear of various monarchs through the ages, became lords and ladies, dukes and earls, financed great expeditions abroad, grew fat off looted Spanish gold and silver, this long period of influence coming to an end with the Civil War, the Blackdowns siding with the king and feeling the wrath of Cromwell afterwards. The family was never quite the same after this. Its influence shrank and was never to be as powerful again. It remained, until recently, though, thought Thomas Blackdown, extremely influential in this small corner of Somerset, possessed of much land and wealth.

But something drastic had happened to alter that.

He paused outside the church of Saint Cuthbert and looked across the road to the green. There was a carved stone monument to the original Blackdown in its centre that had been standing there for centuries, much weathered but his proud armoured figure standing on his coat of arms still recognisable. It had been commissioned to mark the very spot where he knelt and gave thanks to God, and proclaimed he would build a church to honour Him. The very church Thomas Blackdown stood outside now.

Yet all was not well. The statue had been defaced. Blackdown strode over the still-wet dirt track road to the monument. The face had been hacked off with a chisel. And judging from the paleness of the stone where the pieces had come away it had been done relatively recently.

‘It has been there for so long that it is a crying shame to see it so mutilated,’ said the voice behind him.

Thomas Blackdown turned. ‘Reverend Bole? Erasmus Bole?’ he said. ‘Is it really you, after all these years?’

The old man grinned and held out a hand to shake. ‘Thomas – I never thought I would see the day when you came back to Blackdown. How long has it been? Eighteen, twenty years?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Twenty-three!’ he said, whistling. ‘So long. So long. You were such a boy then. But you haven’t changed one little bit! I recognised you standing at the gate, and thought I must be imagining things. That is Thomas Blackdown, I said to myself. My eyes do not deceive me. It is the boy returned.’ He shook Blackdown’s hand again, more vigorously. ‘You stole apples from my tree!’ he said.

‘I paid for them with a beating from my father. My backside looked as rosy as your apples.’

The man laughed. ‘Will you come inside, take a drink?’

‘I was making my way to the manor,’ he said hesitantly.

Reverend Bole’s face clouded over. ‘Perhaps a drink first. There may be things you do not know. Things that have happened in all those intervening years.’

Thomas Blackdown glanced at the disfigured effigy. ‘That I can see. Are we so reviled now after being so long beloved? What has befallen this place? I have learnt that my father’s close friend Lord Tresham has bought up a good deal of my father’s estate. Is this true?’

The man put an arm around Blackdown’s shoulder. ‘Come inside. Let’s talk.’

At that moment there was a loud trumpet call and the familiar beating of a drum. Blackdown’s heart quickened at the sound and for a moment he was transported back to the battlefield. The two men looked down the street to see the troupe of entertainers dancing noisily through the town, handing out handbills to people and pasting more posters up on walls.

‘It is that time of year again,’ said Bole. ‘The town goes a little mad. Too much drink is taken, too much money is spent, and too many hearts are broken. The Blackdown Fair brings as much trouble these days as it does benefits. Though I am sad to hear it is not now called the Blackdown Fair…’

‘It’s not?’

The reverend Bole looked away. ‘By the voice of the people it is to be called the Tresham Fair.’

‘And will my father’s closest friend rename the town, too?’ he said, feeling quite heated under the collar.

‘You must understand there has been much upset, Thomas.’

‘I know a little of it. I received a letter from my brother Jonathan. It is why I am here…’

‘Jonathan? You have been in contact with your young brother?’

‘Just a single letter. When I left home he was but ten years old. His letter dated 1814, three years ago.  Jonathan said he needed help and didn’t know who to turn to. He said that my father and he were in desperate trouble. In spite of what went off between father and me, I felt I ought to answer my brother’s urgent call and come home as soon as I could.’

Home. The word sounded strange to him. He had never known a proper home since he was thirteen years old. Since he’d been banished.

‘You do not know about Jonathan?’

‘He tells me in his letter he intends to marry Lord Tresham’s daughter. Did they marry?’

Bole shook his head. ‘They were going to marry, that is true…’

‘Were?’

‘Then you truly do not know what has befallen your brother?’

Thomas Blackdown shook his head. ‘What ails him, Reverend? Is he ill, too, as I have heard my father is ill?’