Chords and Discords (14 page)

“Money!” he repeated, “Money, money, money! There are no children, sir, and no male relatives. She will inherit all!”

“But there isn’t any money,” I pointed out. “Your brother is in debt to half the town.”

The spirit scoffed. “He’ll have money hidden away. Or she’ll have some under a floorboard. Or she’s passed it on to that brother of hers.”

He was accusing everyone at random, I realised, no doubt looking to pay back a few old scores.

“Wants to go off to London,” he said snidely. “To get herself fancy clothes and set herself up in luxury. To buy a rich husband.”

I had a ludicrous vision of plain, middle-aged, sharp-tongued Mary Bairstowe tricked out in satins and laces and ogling naïve young gentlemen with big fortunes.

“And of course there were the children that never came. Well, what can you expect? She must have been nigh on forty when they married.” The spirit cackled with laughter. “No
one else would have her! That brother of hers couldn’t get her off his hands.”

“She was living with Holloway before her marriage?”

“Ran away from home to do it. Walked out on her invalid old mother.”

We were back to the sentimental tale; I felt like dashing home for my fiddle and playing a plaintive tune to accompany the story. But the spirit was in full flow, the stain on the stone shifting
excitedly.

“William grew more preposterous by the day. If I failed to appear at the manufactory every day, I was shirking my responsibilities. Even if I was out taking an order for an organ! If I so
much as stopped to watch a thimble-rigger, I was accused of gambling away our inheritance. If he saw me talk to a woman in the street, I was spending a fortune on whores! I confess, Mr Patterson,
that I grew very low under his tirades. And I suffered my own loss – the dearest of girls whom I had hoped to marry...”

Oh Lord, this grew worse. I hurried to bring him to the point; my irritation made me more brutal than I intended. “And how did you die?”

A pause. There was a new note in his voice when he said: “You do not sound as if you believe me, Mr Patterson.”

“Forgive me,” I said. “I am charged to find out who is threatening your brother and that must surely have its basis in something recent.”

“You asked if I knew who might be threatening him,” he said, offended. “I am telling you. Allow me to continue, sir.”

I stifled a sigh, and stretched out to stroke the cat. Its fur was damp with the drizzle; it lifted its head and rubbed itself lazily against my hand. “Very well.”

He continued. A note of querulousness had crept into his voice which told me that time had increased, not lessened, the bitterness of old resentments. When he talked of William envying him for
being given responsibilities, it was plain it was the other way about: Edward had envied William for being the spoilt darling of the maiden aunt. And that might explain William’s behaviour
too – children who are spoilt often grow up bad-tempered when they discover the world in general does not treat adults with the same indulgence.

The cat dozed, children played in puddles, and I half-listened to Edward Bairstowe’s litany of self-justification, the insults he had suffered, his grief at the death of his dearest love,
the debts he had run up. William’s refusal to pay those debts. Edward’s despair. I had to remind myself that all this had occurred only five years ago and that Edward had been over
fifty years old at the time. He sounded like an overwrought young man of twenty or so.

“And the day you died?” I said, losing patience at last.

“The night,” he said. “Gone midnight. One November, a day or two after the birthday of his Majesty. We argued. William would give me no more money.”

Two carts needed to pass; I pushed myself to my feet to leave more room. One of the cartwheels came perilously close to Bairstowe’s stone; I let the cart pass then hunched down again. The
cat butted up close to me. It was skeleton-thin, the bones showing through the fur. I wished I had food to give it, but I might be sharing its fate in a month or two.

“He said he had given me all the money he would, when he bought me out of the business.”

“William bought you out? When was that?”

“A year or two before my death. And little enough he gave me for it. He said it was hard times, that no one wanted organs any more.” The spirit’s voice was scornful.
“When will that day ever come? Churches will always need organs. Gentlemen will always buy them for fashion’s sake. But no, he wouldn’t give me any money. And I told him they were
after me – ”

“Your creditors?”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “That’s right, my creditors. You know what tradesmen are like. Always after you if you delay only a day or two after the bill arrives.” There
was something in his voice that suggested he was not being entirely frank with me. “Would William listen? Would that wife of his take any heed? Not a bit of it. So I told them. I
couldn’t bear it any longer, I said. I was going to kill myself.”

They probably thought ‘good riddance’, I mused.

“And off I came here to do it!”

“ To jump into the river?”

“And they came after me – ”

I scratched the cat. “Why did they try to stop you, if they disliked you so much?”

“The disgrace of it,” he said sharply. “The taint of self-destruction in the family.” He plainly did not like the suggestion that they might have been glad to be rid of
him.

“I daresay they could have covered it up,” I said. Many a similar case has been glossed over by justices and constables with a murmur of ‘no point in distressing widows and
children with the thought of burial in unhallowed ground’
.

He surprised me by chuckling; the gleam of the spirit slid right to the edge of the cobble. “As a matter of fact, there
was
something they wanted.”

“Oh yes?”

“The deed to the manufactory. The deed of sale for the land. Father bought it off the vestry of All Hallows years ago, when he first set up in business. He gave me it to look after and I
had it still when he died. They didn’t know where it was. They still don’t know!”

I stared with distaste at the oily stain on the cobble. Edward Bairstowe was plainly the vengeful type of spirit, the type that likes to keep what little power they have over the living. I heard
in his voice a spiteful pleasure at thwarting his enemies. Or those he perceived as his enemies.

“What did you do with it?”

“Buried it.”

“Where?”

Another chuckle. “No, no,” he said. “You don’t catch me out like that, sir. Not a word. I’ve kept quiet all these years and I won’t say anything now. But you
see the problem, don’t you?”

I worked through the implications. “William can’t prove he owns the land.”

“The church vestry wants to extend the graveyard,” the spirit said gleefully. “My brother could get good money for that land. He could give up the business and live in idleness
the rest of his life. If he could prove the land is his.”

I sat, stroking the cat absent-mindedly. The drizzle had eased almost to nothing. Now I was embroiled in a hunt for buried treasure! Preposterous. Was this how William intended to pay me? But
why had he not mentioned the deed?

I begged the spirit to go on with his story, since it would plainly put him in a good mood to tell it. They had come to the bridge, he said, all three of them. He climbed up on to the parapet
and threatened to throw himself into the river. From the sound of it, I guessed he had been drunk. Mrs Bairstowe had advised him to make a good job of it. William Bairstowe had had more sense, had
pleaded with him to reveal the hiding place of the deed. Edward had bargained for money and eventually won the day. He had climbed down from the parapet.

“But then how did you die?”

“It had been raining,” he said. “Or sleeting rather. The first cold falls of winter, the ground was wet and slippery. As I climbed down off the parapet, my foot
slipped.”

At this late stage in the tale, he revealed that he had been carrying a knife. There had been a preliminary to the story. In the kitchen of the Bairstowes’ house, Edward had seized a knife
from the table and threatened to cut his throat. That had not frightened them – perhaps they knew he would not do it. So he had run out into the freezing cold of a November night, knowing
that they would follow, must follow in case he meant what he had threatened. On the bridge, he had had the knife still in his hand when he had slipped and fallen.

“It was an accident,” he said plaintively. “Not self-destruction – I had given that idea up entirely.”

The fact that he was anchored to one stone gave the lie to that – Edward Bairstowe’s tale was at the very least only half the truth. But it was plain I would get no more from him. I
seized the bridge parapet to pull myself upright. The cat heaved itself to its feet and stretched luxuriously.

“You’ll come back?” Edward Bairstowe said urgently.

“Why?”

“No one ever talks to me.” Now he sounded like a sulky boy. Was this how he had worked on his family and friends when he was alive? The cat twined itself around my legs. I looked
down at the livid stain on the cobblestone.

“I might tell you where the deed is,” Bairstowe said, wheedling.

“Your brother tells me he was attacked by spirits.”

“Really?” the spirit said, mockingly. “My dear sir, half of what William says is fabrication, the other half imagination. I warrant he was drunk!”

“I’ve no doubt of it. But he was attacked by spirits. As was I, yesterday.”

Edward chuckled. “My dear Patterson, there are criminal elements, even amongst the dead.”

“Yes, I know. I want you to find out who they are.”

A silence, then the spirit said in a mock-humorous tone. “Me, sir?”

“I hear you had certain connections in life.”

“Alas.” He sighed. “I was young and foolish and didn’t take too much care over my associates.” I reminded myself again that he had been over fifty when he died. He
added carelessly: “But I have long since lost track of them.”

“Nevertheless, you could find them again, ask them a pertinent question or two.”

A longer silence this time. He sounded annoyed when he spoke again. “Can you give me a good reason to help you in this, Patterson?”

“Yes. I’d have to come back to talk to you again.”

A cart rattled past. The cat bounded away after an unwary hen.

“Very well,” he said at last. “Though I tell you plainly, sir, a spirit should not have to barter for a little Christian charity.”

I ignored this blatant attempt to put himself back in command of the situation. But there was no harm in being polite now I had achieved my object.

“Thank you.” I dusted stone dust off my coat. “Just send word when you know what happened.”

“All this fuss,” the spirit said, snidely. “You’ll learn better, sir. My brother is an out and out liar. You may believe nothing he says. Least of all any promises to pay
out money!”

I thought of Tom Eade’s death. Of the spirits’ attack on me.

“It’s gone beyond money,” I said.

As I came off the bridge the female spirit called to me again. “Sir! Mr Patterson? I have a message for you!”

I hesitated, waited for two horsemen to pass between us. The cat came trotting up to me again; it was a remarkably unappealing animal, brownish in colour with a hint of tabby stripes.

“A message?”

The female spirit was lodging on a timber on one of the houses that clung to the edge of the bridge. “From a Mr Duncey.”

I stared blankly for a moment. “Mr
Demsey
?”

“That’s right, sir. He wants to meet you outside the shop.”

“Which shop?”

“Your shop, sir.”

“I don’t have a shop.”

“He said you did,” she said in an offended tone. “He said it’s a matter of money.”

“What money?”

“You’ll know that, sir.”

I was silent. She plainly had no idea what Hugh had really said. Sometimes a message comes through garbled, muddled as it passes from spirit to spirit. Or perhaps, I wondered, deliberately
confused?

No, I told myself, this will not do. I could not suspect every spirit of duplicity. I had never before had cause to fear any spirit. Occasionally they are tediously voluble, or irritating, but
that is all. I must not allow one bad experience to prejudice me against them all. I turned away.

“It’s urgent, he said,” the spirit called after me. “He needs to see you straightway.”

If it was that important, I told myself, Hugh could send the message again, by more reliable means.

I couldn’t shake off the damned cat. It was at my heels every step of the way down the Key to the Printing Office, seizing every opportunity to rub itself against my legs
or to look up at me in some kind of expectation. Perhaps I was the only person who had been kind to it.

It was otherwise totally wild. When it saw dogs it snarled them into submission; it even faced down a stray pig that was wandering along the Keyside, forced it on to the gangplank of a boat and
sat placidly guarding the landward side while the sailors in the boat roared at the pig to be off. The pig struggled in the middle of the plank deciding whether to risk the wrath of the cat or the
wrath of the men. In the end, it opted for the men as the lesser of two evils and stampeded on to the boat. The ensuing chase entertained an entire crowd.

I seized the opportunity to sidle away,
sans
cat, to the Printing Office.

Inside the office, with its pungent smells of ink and paper, Thomas Saint, the printer, a kindly Christian man who bears with the foibles of his fellow men more patiently than anyone else I
know, had a sheaf of papers in his hands and was listening attentively to an elderly woman who wanted to tell him her life story. Fortunately the lady had to hurry off to a daughter who was
lying-in and Saint gave me a courteous nod.