Dark Waters

 

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Map

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Epilogue

Background Note

Copyright

 

For Fanny

Chapter One

A
HUMAN BODY IN
the salmon traps was not such a rare event. The one they caught in the spring of 1741 was the fifth during my first eight years as coroner in the borough of Preston. On the other hand, from my point of view, there was something very particular and personal about the latest one. This corpse was my kith, if not quite my kin.

But I had no idea of that when the call to the riverbank came early on that Monday morning, exactly seven days before we were due to begin a week of voting in that year's general election. I immediately hurried out to perform the coroner's first duty – that of answering the summons to a questionable death, and judging the need for an inquest. On my way to the stretch of the river Ribble in which the traps were laid I naturally had to pass along Fisher Gate, where my friend Luke Fidelis lived on the upper floor of the premises of Adam Lorris the bookbinder. Reaching Lorris's door I mounted the steps and pealed the bell. If Fidelis was at home he could usefully come with me. When bodies floated in the river, the initial questions were always the same. How long had they been there? How far had they travelled? Dr Fidelis's knowledge of physiology, and such things as the progressive effects on a corpse of its total immersion in water, was far ahead of mine.

Mrs Lorris went up to tell Fidelis I had called and of course, as was his habit, my friend was lounging late in bed. I chatted for a few minutes at the foot of the stairs with Lorris and Mrs Lorris. He told me of his progress with my old childhood book of Aesop's
Fables
that I had brought to him for rebinding.

‘I read the book through with Mrs Lorris before I started, and we were vastly entertained, were we not, my heart?'

‘Oh yes, Mr Cragg!' Dot Lorris exclaimed, her face breaking into dimples of remembered enjoyment. ‘Such tricks those animals got up to.'

‘Yes, Mr Aesop was a clever fellow,' I agreed. ‘He had a charming way of translating human nature into the behaviour of beasts.'

I glanced up the stairs for a sign that Fidelis might be stirring himself. There was none.

‘There's some of the fables, mind, that a husband would do better not to put before his wife,' observed Lorris.

‘Oh? And which are those, husband?' Dot challenged.

‘
The Scarecrows and the Foxes,
for one. Remember it, Mr Cragg?'

I said I had a vague memory of it.

‘That vixen,' said Lorris, shaking his head, ‘she stayed under cover and let the fox run from the farmer by himself. There's little wifely love in that, or trust.'

‘Trust!' laughed his wife. ‘What was there to trust? He calculated that if both of them ran, his wife would be caught and he would get away. The farmer could only chase after one of them, and that would be the vixen, as she were the slower.'

‘No,
she
calculated that if she stayed under cover, she'd save herself and damn the fox.'

‘The fox damned himself when he lost his nerve,' was Dot Lorris's pitiless rejoinder.

Before the discussion grew too heated I turned it towards the election. Preston was excited at having a contested vote at last. In the previous parliament, and the two before that, our borough members had simply walked over, as no one could be found to stand against them. This time four men would be fighting over the two seats, making for a much livelier prospect.

After a couple of minutes of touching on the pros and cons of Whig and Tory we heard Fidelis's voice calling down.

‘Cragg, I'm in my nightshirt, but come up if you like.'

Instead I called up to him.

‘Get dressed, Luke. It's almost seven and I'm taking you for a walk by the river.'

‘A walk? Before
seven?
Surely it can wait.'

‘No. It is now or not at all.'

At length the tall, fair-haired figure of Preston's youngest and most adventurous doctor appeared on the stair. He was grumbling, as usual when asked to do a thing before eight in the morning.

‘I only wanted half an hour more of sleep, Titus,' he growled. ‘I was drinking until past midnight.'

In consideration of Luke's aching head I did not set too sharp a pace as we went along Fisher Gate and then, by a turning to the left, into the lane that passed the playhouse and headed down from the bluff along which the town is ranged towards the riverbank.

‘Well, what is it?' Luke asked. ‘I don't suppose this outing is for the improvement of my health.'

‘No. It's for a body in the river.'

‘Ah!'

We walked on in silence to the bottom of the steep path, before striking across the meadow beside the riverbank. But I sensed an increased spring in Luke's step. He was stimulated by the opportunity to assist me in my inquiries; more so, I think, than I was in leading them.

*   *   *

In many towns, the river is a high street. The buildings line up expectantly alongside it, waiting for trade to come across its wharves and quays, while locks upstream and down regulate the water for the traffic of lighters and barges. None of this is so at Preston, for the river is at a distance, and on a lower level. Abreast of the town to the south, it is at this point wide and, being close to the estuary, tidal. But it drains a great area of uplands to the east and, after heavy or prolonged rains combined with a tide, it can go so high that the water meadows flood up to 100 yards on either side. To keep its skirts dry, therefore, the town stays aloof on its ridge, a quarter-mile distant from the waterside, and it is possible to live one's life there without any particular consciousness of the river, except as a barrier to be crossed when travelling south, and the regular provider of fish suppers.

On this morning, breezy after yesterday's downpour, the current was big and tumbling, but it had stayed within the banks. A group of men wearing knee-length boots of greased leather were working the traps from boats that bobbed and pitched in the boiling stream. They were gaffing the last of the fish that had come into the traps during the night, and bringing them ashore to add to the neat row of those already landed. As we came near enough to see the display of salmon, like spears of bright polished pewter in the riverbank grass, we saw a gaggle of women in bonnets and full-length cloaks, advancing along the bank towards us, laughing and singing. It would be their job to pack the fish in rush parcels and carry them up to the market.

The women arrived at the same time as we did, and immediately their laughter died as they saw the thing lying stretched companionably alongside the row of fish, as if it were an enormous fish itself. It was wrapped in a net like a parcel but this did not fully hide the fearful truth: the head end was rounded, from which the shape swelled smoothly up to the belly in a small mound before tapering away again. At the end where – had it really been a monster salmon – the tail should be, two splayed feet protruded. They wore the wooden-soled clogs of the countryman, strengthened like a horse's hoof with curves of steel nailed into them.

The sight provoked immediate cries of dismay from the women.

‘Quiet yourselves,' shouted one of the men, as he carried the last of the fish up from his boat and slapped it down with the others. ‘Coroner's here. You should be respectful.'

I asked who was in charge of the fishing party. It was the man who had just spoken, whose name was Peter Crane.

‘Was it you that first saw it in the water?' I asked.

‘It was. Me and the lad spotted it first.'

Crane nodded towards a youth who looked like a younger edition of himself.

‘What time was that?'

‘An hour ago, or a bit more.'

I took out my watch. It was half past seven.

‘Before half past six, then.'

‘If you say so.'

‘And did you find him just like that?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Wrapped in the net.'

‘Oh, no. We wrapped him when we brought him ashore, like. Out of respect.'

Or, I thought, to stop him getting up and running away. It was a common thought: you can never be too sure of those that drown.

‘Would you kindly uncover him for me now?'

It took three men to undo the parcel, so heavy was the body, and so well wrapped.

‘Did you know him?' I asked as they struggled.

‘Oh, aye, we knew him.'

‘Who was he?'

‘Don't think you won't know him yourself, Mr Cragg. Take a look.'

Finally, with two of them pulling his feet and a third at the other end hauling the net, they managed to disencumber the body. The dead man was wearing a coat, shirt, breeches and the aforementioned clogs. His grey hair was tied at the back. His eyes were closed.