Island of Bones (25 page)

‘But what . . .?’

‘Whisht, lad, we’re nearing Portinscale. From here on you say nothing. Walk a few paces behind now, keep silent and keep an eye out. Watch.’

‘What am I watching for?’

‘You’re watching for whatever you see. Now quiet yourself.’

There was something dream-like about the next hour as Casper, with Stephen trailing respectfully behind, made his way through Portinscale, along the road to Keswick and up the hill through the marketplace.

Women began to emerge from their cottages and kitchens, or stopped fussing over their animals or weeding their patches to turn and watch him come. They looked somehow both scared, and happy to see him. Small children joined them from the fields and ran ahead of them like dolphins dancing through the bow wave of a great ship. As they turned into Portinscale, a woman hurried to Stephen’s side and put a cloth wrapped round something that smelled of warm ovens into his hands. Stephen slipped the package into his bag, and smiled at her. She only nodded to him in return, her face serious, then stepped away. When Stephen had walked through the village with Casper the day before, he had seen people smile and raise their hands, give Casper their greetings and turn at once back to their work again. It was not so today. Where the fields ripened between Crosthwaite Church and the town, men laid down their tools and approached the roadside, then, as Casper came close, took off their caps and held them in front of them with their eyes down. It was as if he were a walking church.

The children must have carried the news of their coming in front of them. Before they reached Keswick itself, Stephen had begun to feel as if he were following a parade. The doors of the cottages opened. Fires and animals were abandoned for a little while as men and women emerged to respectfully observe Casper pass. Stephen’s eyes darted about, trying to catch each expression as he passed. Another woman trotted up to him; the flesh of her face was heavy and her hair was thin and greasy. She gave him a narrow package of paper and string. He smelled the tang of hard cheese, nodded his thanks and put it with the loaf.

In Keswick his bag became so heavy the strap was starting to cut into his shoulder. At the bottom of the village he looked up to see Mr Askew in his smart waistcoat emerge from the museum and watch them approach from the top of his neatly swept steps. As they drew level, he ran lightly down them. Like the others he did not approach Casper, but fell into step with Stephen. For a moment he looked as if he might want to say something, but in the end he silently removed from his jacket-pocket a silver flask. It made a little sloshing noise as he tucked it into Stephen’s swollen satchel. He then stepped back to the side of the road and waited for them to pass. At the Royal Oak the landlord came out and stood quietly at the door.

Casper did not pause, or stop to lean on his stick. He kept his eyes on the road in front of him and at the same steady pace led Stephen, and a couple of younger children who seemed to have joined them, up the hill in the shadow of Latrigg. Stephen had guessed where they were going now. His back was aching and he wondered how Casper was managing it, but aware of his duties he kept watching the people who came to see them pass. At last Casper turned off the road and unlatched the gate to the field where the stone circle stood. Stephen glanced about him and followed. The other children hung around the gateway, punching each other on the shoulder, or murmuring as Casper crossed the cropped turf and entered the circle.

Stephen hovered between the gateway stones until Casper had reached
the centre of the circle and slowly knelt down. Something stopped the boy from following. Instead he circled round, and slipped between the two stones to the south where there seemed to be a smaller inner oblong of slabs, like a sanctuary within the church. Without taking his eyes off Casper he settled himself on the ground between them and, gratefully, lifted the strap of the satchel over his shoulder.

After some time the children dispersed at the gateway, and Stephen was startled out of his contemplation of the falling ranks of hills around them by Casper’s voice.

‘Come then.’

He took the satchel in his arms, and jogged over, keeping low and quiet as if he were in some holy place. Casper gave him time to settle, then said: ‘Well?’

Stephen drew the flask that Mr Askew had handed him from his pocket and passed it to Casper, who raised his eyebrows at it, then smiled slowly, uncapped it and drank.

‘Everyone looked very grave,’ Stephen said.

‘So they might.’

‘The third cottage on the left in Portinscale . . .’

Casper nodded. ‘Thin man in back. Woman at the gate.’

‘He didn’t look up as you went by, just kept turning the muck.’

‘And the woman?’

‘Eyes all over, kept glancing back at him, and her hands were twitching.’

Casper smiled, creasing the sunset of his bruises, then took another swig from the flask. ‘You have sharp eyes. Get them from your mother, did you?’

Stephen hugged his knees and looked at the turf in front of him. ‘Her eyes are green. Mine are blue, like my papa’s.’

Casper pulled at the flask again. ‘As may be, but I reckon you got your manner of seeing with them from her. What else?’

‘There was a man in his stable yard at the Oak kept his back turned.’

Casper was looking north at the curve of Latrigg and the upward
swell of Skiddaw. He upended the flask into his mouth and shook the last of the liquor out of it, then screwed the little silver top back on and handed it back to Stephen.

‘Time for you to go now, Master Westerman. Take that food back to my cabin if you would, and untie Joe.’

Stephen looked around him. ‘Are you going to ask the fair-folk for their help? Will they tell you who beat you, or who killed that man?’

Casper gave him a lopsided grin. ‘I’ve already learned what I intended, youngling. I shall sit here for a while longer though.’ Stephen looked very confused, opened his mouth and shut it again. ‘My business is more with people than magic. Herbs, yes. Seeing how people are, knowing them and protecting our faith.’ He frowned suddenly. Stephen followed the direction of his eyes and saw a thin, older man at the entrance to the field. ‘Take the flask back to Mr Askew, and thank him,’ Casper continued. ‘Don’t go in. Just stand at the steps till he comes out. For the rest, say no word and keep your eyes low. And that man by the gate is Mr Kerrick. Tell him he may come to me.’

‘Can I come and see you later, Casper?’

He nodded. ‘Do that. I may have need of you, fool that I am.’

On enquiring at the vicarage, Harriet and Crowther were told that Miss Scales and her guest were taking a turn in the church grounds, so Ham turned the horses down the slope to deliver them to the church gates. The situation of Crosthwaite Church was a splendid one, nestled as it was under the curving arm of Skiddaw. Around the wooded churchyard, fields of well-grown oats rolled down to the main road and the edge of the lake. The church itself was a good-sized building, with a square, crenellated tower and white-washed. Thus it provided both a place of worship for its community, and an appropriate point of interest for Lakers sketching from their rowboats on the water.

Crowther handed Harriet down from the carriage and they left Ham and the horses to enjoy the scenery as they liked while they went in search of Miss Scales and Miss Hurst. Before they could enter the
churchyard, however, they heard themselves hailed from the road and turned to see Mr Sturgess just dismounting from a rather showy-looking roan horse, and making his way towards them, leading it by its halter.

‘You let him just walk away?’ Mr Sturgess said at once.

Neither Harriet nor Crowther replied until he was within a pace or two of them.

‘To whom do you refer?’ Crowther said, with a slight drawl.

‘That charlatan, Casper Grace, of course!’ The magistrate was rather red in the face. ‘It is obvious to a child he must have killed this German in the same brawl where he was injured. He brought the body to you and you let him go.’

Crowther shook his head very slightly. ‘The man was Austrian. He did not
look
guilty, Mr Sturgess.’

‘Look?
Look
! I have no objection to you and Mrs Westerman amusing yourselves with guessing games over some skeleton, but a murder here and now does great injury to the town. Grace must be taken at once and held in Carlisle till the quarter sessions.’

‘On what evidence?’ Harriet asked.

‘How could it be anyone else? The man is known to be half-crazed, and he delivered himself into your hands. It is nothing but plain sense. Though I do not know why I speak to
you
of that. Mr Grace is at the Druidic circle. I know this why? Because I saw him from my window processing through the village with your son at his heels, moments before I received your note.’

Harriet would have given a great deal not to appear surprised, but she feared by the satisfied smile on Mr Sturgess’s face that it must have been clear she had known nothing of this. Guiltily, she realised she had not even thought of her son after the moment she sent him into the house for Ham and Isaiah.

‘I am shocked, madam!’ Sturgess said, drawing himself very straight. ‘What would your husband say if he were to know you allowed your son to run around with a person of that type?’

It would have been better for Mr Sturgess if he had simply enjoyed
her discomfort and left the matter there. He had now invoked her husband, and that made her angry. Somewhere behind the white light of fury in her mind she was aware that Crowther had very slightly edged away from her.

‘Did you know my husband, sir?’ she demanded. Mr Sturgess began to look a little less sure of himself. ‘Did you serve with him? Were you acquainted in any way? You did not – yet you presume to tell me what he would think of my behaviour! It is the same arrogance which is sending you after Mr Grace, and in my experience, arrogance is seldom rewarded!’

‘Mrs Westerman, a cunning-man with your son . . .’

Harriet smiled at him. ‘Get back on your horse, Mr Sturgess. My husband was once cured by a witch-doctor on one of the Polynesia Islands. He would have the greatest respect for Casper Grace.’

Mr Sturgess still managed to retain some of his air of outraged righteousness, but he did as he was ordered and climbed back onto his mount, then with a savage pull at the animal’s mouth, turned it out onto the road again.

‘Was that true, Mrs Westerman?’ Crowther murmured as they watched him retreat.

‘About James? No, though it happened to a friend of his. No, Crowther, I am afraid James would be as shocked as Mr Sturgess that I did not know what Stephen was about. But he was my husband; that would be his right. Mr Sturgess does not have it. I shall speak to Stephen later.’

Crowther offered her his arm and she took it, telling him, ‘I notice Mr Sturgess had no interest in finding Miss Hurst.’

‘He has his suspect, he has no need for the girl. Let us find her ourselves.’

The ladies were among the shade in the walks behind the church itself, hoping to find some relief from the heat. In the heavy stillness of the air it was difficult to imagine the sudden shout of rain the previous
evening. Harriet saw the two women arm-in-arm and paused, and with that strange instinct humans have of sensing when they are watched, the women turned and waited for them to approach. Harriet expected to see some sign of either dread or hope on Miss Hurst’s face when she noticed them. She gave no mark of either, however; it was Miss Scales whose ruined face flitted with hope or concern.

‘Miss Hurst,’ Harriet said as she reached them. ‘This morning a man called Casper Grace brought a body to Silverside from the hills. Mr von Bolsenheim recognised it as that of your father. He is dead, I am afraid.’

The girl lowered her head and sighed, murmuring something in her own tongue that Harriet could not catch.

‘Some accident?’ Miss Scales said, clinging tightly onto her companion’s arm.

‘That seems unlikely,’ Crowther replied.

Miss Hurst looked up quickly. ‘When?’

Crowther rested his cane on the ground between them. ‘Some time yesterday before the storm, I believe.’

Miss Hurst watched Crowther for a moment, then said precisely, ‘Thank you, Mr Crowther. I also thank you for your actions this morning. You have been kind to a stranger. Heaven sees what you do.’ She turned to Miss Scales who was trembling on her arm. ‘I should like to return to my lodgings now, Miss Scales.’

‘My dear, there is no question of you returning to the Oak. You shall stay at the vicarage with my father and myself as our guest. But what are you saying, my lord? That Mr Hurst was attacked? Can there be some doubt, some mistake?’

‘I am afraid there is no mistake, Miss Scales.’

‘Oh, how very terrible. How shall we manage?’

For a moment Harriet thought that Miss Hurst was going to refuse the invitation to the vicarage, but as Miss Scales pulled a little on her arm, she yielded. Miss Scales looked very distressed, and Harriet thought she saw the younger woman pat her arm. They turned towards the back way to the vicarage. Harriet watched them go with a confused frown.

‘Miss Hurst seemed a great deal more distressed this morning when her father was only missing,’ she said. ‘Is it some trick of the national character? No screaming, no fainting, no tears. I have never seen such news being taken in a like manner. Shall we follow on, Crowther? I feel a great curiosity to know more of her father. What did she say?’

‘Indeed.’

Harriet turned towards him and saw he was looking at a granite monument before which Miss Scales and Miss Hurst had been standing. She followed his gaze and read the engraving.
Julia Penhaligon, wife of William Penhaligon, Baron Keswick, died 5th January 1750 aged 41 years
.

‘Your mother’s grave. I am sorry, Crowther.’

He looked at her down his long nose. ‘Why, Mrs Westerman? I do not think she hears us.’ He sighed then continued a little more easily, ‘I think we must speak to the Fräulein. I thought she looked worried rather than grieved. As to what she said, she spoke in her own language but I recognise the quotation. It was a favourite of one of my tutors in Wittenberg, from the Book of Isaiah:
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord
.’