Heartstone (63 page)

I turned to Wilf. ‘Did anyone from round here, apart from Master Fettiplace and your friend Gratwyck, go missing at the time of the fire? Someone who might have done this and fled?'

Wilf's face was streaked with mud and tears and rain. ‘No sir,' he said, ‘nobody.'

WILF INSISTED we put Fettiplace's body under cover, and we placed the desiccated corpse against an inside wall of the ruined foundry, protecting it with loose planks. It was sickening to carry; I feared it might come apart. Afterwards I looked over the cracked mud where the body had lain; already the space, and our footsteps, were filling with rainwater. Then we walked back, sodden and dripping.

‘Now I suppose we have to go to Buttress,' Barak said quietly, ‘as magistrate.'

‘Yes. He will have to set enquiries in motion, and notify the Sussex coroner.' I shook my head. ‘Murder follows me on this journey.'

‘The common factor in each is Priddis's involvement.' Barak lowered his voice to a whisper, though Wilf was ahead with Caesar. ‘You said Ellen's signature on the deed conveying the house was forged. Do you think Buttress knows?'

‘He could do. I didn't like what I saw of him.'

The vicarage came into view. I took Wilf's arm. ‘You should send for your sons,' I said gently. ‘You have had a shock.'

He came to himself, looked at me. ‘You'll say nothing about my poaching?'

‘No. I promised. We shall tell the story as we agreed, that I asked you to show me the old foundry buildings today.'

Seckford had seen us approaching and came into his garden. ‘What did you find?' he asked apprehensively.

‘The body of Master Fettiplace.' I took the curate's soft plump arm, and looked him in the face. ‘Sir, Wilf will need you sober now. We all will.'

He took a deep breath and turned to Wilf. ‘His body will have a Christian burial. I shall see to it.'

We went into the parlour. Seckford spoke with sudden firmness. ‘That jug, Master Shardlake, will you take it out to the kitchen?'

I took his beer to a filthy little room behind the parlour, where flies buzzed over dirty plates. Seckford seemed barely able to care for himself, but once he had cared for Ellen. I returned to the parlour, where Wilf was hunched on the settle. Seckford was in his chair.

‘Master Seckford,' I said, ‘I think we must go to Master Buttress, now. All four of us.'

‘Will the truth be found?' he asked. ‘This time?'

‘I hope so. Now listen please, both of you. I beg you to stay quiet about my personal interest. Let Buttress continue to think I have merely been trying to trace family links for a client.'

Seckford looked at me with sudden sharpness. ‘But if you found something out in London, surely that must come out now.'

‘There are reasons I should say nothing yet. Please trust me.' More than ever now I did not want Buttress, or his allies, to discover where Ellen was - assuming they did not know already. I hoped desperately that I had done enough to protect her, and suddenly wished Wilf had never stumbled on that body. The old man was looking at me doubtfully again.

Seckford came to my rescue. ‘We must trust Master Shardlake, Wilf. Do not say more than you have to in dealing with people like Buttress, eh, Master Shardlake?'

‘Exactly.' I felt a rush of gratitude for Seckford's trust. He stood, went over to Wilf and patted his arm. ‘We can call at the church on the way, I will write a note for the verger to take to your sons.'

AN HOUR LATER I sat again in Master Buttress's well-appointed parlour. There was a fresh vase of flowers on the table, their scent cloying. Seckford sat beside me, his plump cheeks sweating a little, while Barak and Wilf stood behind us. Buttress had offered chairs only to Seckford and me, though Wilf looked shocked and ill.

Buttress himself walked up and down the room, hands clasped behind his broad back, as I told him of the discovery in the pond. When I had finished he ran a big hand through his grey curly hair, thinking. Then he came and stood looking down at me.

‘What I do not understand, Master Shardlake,' he said with blustering aggression, ‘is why you went ferreting about at the foundry. When you came before your concern seemed to be in querying my right to this house.'

‘I did not imply anything of the sort, sir. I merely wished to see if there was an address for Mistress Fettiplace on the deeds. You agreed to show the document to me.' I had not questioned his ownership of the property, but the guilty, I thought, easily take alarm. Buttress, I realized, was quite a stupid man.

He grunted, little brown eyes narrowing. ‘In my experience, when a lawyer asks to see a conveyance it is usually because he wishes to query the title.'

‘Then I apologize if I caused you unnecessary concern. I see I must have done, since Master Seckford and Goodman Harrydance tell me you made enquiries about my visit afterwards.'

‘But why ride back all this way to look at the ruins of that foundry?'

‘I had a day without business in Hampshire, and felt like a ride. Master Seckford had told me Goodman Harrydance knew the site.'

‘And all this because you have a client interested in tracing family links. Who is this client, anyway?'

‘You know I cannot answer that, sir. It would be a breach of professional confidentiality.'

‘You'll have to tell the Sussex coroner when he gets here.' Buttress's eyes continued to probe mine a moment longer, then he turned away and made an irritated gesture. ‘I suppose now I must arrange for the remains to be fetched back to Rolfswood. It's market day tomorrow - this will be a rich piece of gossip for the goodwives. And I must write to the Sussex coroner at Chichester. Though heaven knows when he will be able to get here. Well,' he continued, looking round the four of us, ‘at least there is no urgency. Master Fettiplace was in that pond nineteen years; it won't hurt him to wait a little longer.'

‘With respect, sir,' I said, ‘this
is
still a newly discovered murder. Sir Quintin Priddis's old verdict of accidental death was clearly wrong.'

‘Ay.' Wilf spoke up boldly. ‘I always said that first inquest was not done properly.'

Buttress leaned his heavy body forward, glaring into the old man's face. ‘Are you accusing one of the region's leading men of incompetence? Watch your step, old nid-nod.'

‘Goodman Harrydance is upset,' Seckford said placatingly.

Buttress turned his baleful look on him. ‘I know you and this other old fool like a drink together, Master Curate. More than one. And I hear your services have a papist flavour. Don't provoke me into making life difficult for either of you.'

‘Sir,' I said. ‘I protest. You are the magistrate, it is not fitting you should bully witnesses.'

Buttress's face darkened, but he kept his control. ‘I brought Goodman Harrydance to order for insulting the former coroner. And Master Seckford is no witness to anything. He did not accompany you to the foundry.'

Seckford said quietly, ‘I am, though, a witness to the state of mind of Mistress Fettiplace after the foundry burned down, and to the fact she was hurried away by Master Priddis himself.'

I winced, wishing he had not drawn attention to Ellen's disappearance. I said, mildly, ‘If she witnessed a murder, that could explain her state of mind.'

‘And what,' Buttress asked, rounding on me, ‘if the death was suicide? What if Master Fettiplace, for some reason we do not know, set the fire, killed his man, then rowed out to the middle of the pond, tied a lump of iron round his leg, and drowned himself? Such things happen; there was a silly village girl a couple of years ago got herself with child and drowned herself in a local pond.'

I suddenly thought of Michael Calfhill, swinging from that rope in his lodgings. I said, ‘Then surely the empty boat would have been found floating in the pond next morning.'

‘Maybe it went unnoticed; everyone was concerned with the fire.'

‘Why should Master Fettiplace have killed himself?' I asked.

Buttress shrugged. ‘Who knows? Well, we shall have to bring the witnesses together. Some of the men from the foundry are still alive.'

‘I understand Ellen Fettiplace had spent the day with a young man who was interested in her, Philip West.'

Buttress flicked me an angry look. ‘The Wests are an important local family. Self-important anyway. Master West is now an officer on the King's ships.'

‘Nonetheless, he, too, will need to be questioned.' I realized that when all these people were brought together it would come out how thoroughly I had been investigating Ellen's history. But the important thing was to get them together and questioned properly. And I would be there.

‘It will take time to put these wheels in motion,' Buttress said. I realized he would do everything he could to delay. But why? To keep a forged conveyance secret?

He said, ‘I expect by the time the Sussex coroner has been able to get all these people together for an inquest, you will be back in London. He will write to you. Unless the French land and we are all so mired in war down here that nothing can be done about anything.'

‘I shall keep in touch with matters through Master Seckford.' I gave the old man a meaningful glance, and he nodded.

‘Yes, Master Shardlake,' Buttress said heavily, ‘I imagine you will.'

EVENING FOUND US lodging at Rolfswood inn; Buttress, unsurprisingly, had offered us no hospitality. When we left the house Wilf's sons were waiting for us a little way up the street. This time their manner towards me was friendly. After all, I had just lied to save their father from a possible charge of poaching.

‘You should have left that body be, Father,' one brother said chidingly. ‘Let someone else find it. Look at you, you're half dead.'

‘I couldn't leave Master Fettiplace there,' Wilf said. ‘Master Shardlake will keep me safe.'

‘I promise I will see justice done,' I said. I hoped I would be able to. Buttress might not be clever, but he was cunning and ruthless.

Seckford and Wilf came with us to the inn. The woman who had first introduced me to Wilf, a widow named Mistress Bell, turned out to own it. She agreed to give us a place for the night. When we parted I grasped Seckford's flabby hand. ‘Sir,' I said, ‘please protect Wilf so far as you can. A letter will bring me here.' I had given him the address of Hoyland Priory, and of my chambers in London.

He looked at me with bleary eyes, then smiled sadly. ‘You fear I will be too far gone in my cups to be of use. No, sir, I will control myself. God has given me a task to perform, as once he did with Ellen. I will not fail this time.'

‘Thank you,' I said, hoping he could keep his resolution.

Barak and I were shown up to a room where we both collapsed, exhausted, on the bed, until an hour later hunger sent us down to eat. The inn was full; I remembered Buttress saying tomorrow was market day. As we ate, someone brought the news that the body of old Master Fettiplace had been found in the mill pond and an excited hubbub of conversation began. Barak and I retired upstairs before we could be connected with the gossip.

‘Where does this leave us?' he asked.

‘With the chance to bring everyone involved together to be questioned. Buttress will drag his heels, I must keep on at him.'

‘From London? And Ellen? If this all comes out, will she be safe?'

‘I took steps to ensure she was protected. I will take more on my return.'

‘And now you'll have to keep coming back here.'

I sat up on the bed. ‘I must bring some order out of this chaos, Jack. I must.' I heard the rising passion in my voice. Barak gave me a long, serious look, but said nothing.