The Path of the Wicked (8 page)

‘I daresay men still exercise horses there, even when the races aren't on.'

‘Indeed they do. You'll see strings of horses out there most mornings.'

‘Very early in the morning, I suppose.'

‘Very early for the grooms, a bit later for the gentlemen. You're wanting to put some horses into your drawing?'

‘It might make it livelier.'

‘If you came up here straight after breakfast – around nine o'clock, say – you might see them. Have to draw fast, mind, to get racehorses in.'

He laughed at his own joke till he ran out of breath, raised his hat again and walked back downhill. I waited until he was out of sight and then put away my pencils.

‘So, are we coming all the way up here tomorrow to draw horses?' Tabby said. She'd been listening as usual.

‘No, we've got other plans and we'll have to be up earlier.'

I told her as we walked back downhill. She said it seemed a roundabout way of going about things. I said that sometimes the only way was roundabout.

T
abby met me by the paddock at daylight next morning and helped me bring in and tack up Rancie. Although beyond hope as a lady's maid, she had the makings of a useful groom. Before we parted, I asked her to unpack my plain blue cotton dress from my trunk and have it ready for a quick change out of my riding habit when I arrived back. As Rancie and I went at a walk along lanes and byways, the sun rose in a clear sky and the only people we passed were a few farm labourers on the way to work. We got to the foot of Cleeve Hill just as the distant clocks of the town were striking nine. A broad track ran up the flank of the hill, marked with many hoofprints. Rancie's head came up, sensing a gallop.

‘Not yet.'

I kept her at a walk, up a side track alongside some bushes. It was a noble sweep of hill, and although the summer had been dry, the turf was still green and yielding. About halfway up I glimpsed horses and riders coming up a broad track from the town, at right angles to our own. There were a dozen or so of them, loosely grouped together and keeping to a walking pace. Rancie and I came to the crest of the hill before them. This was clearly the racecourse, with a rough grandstand and a finishing post at one end, though no rails. Rancie was thoroughly strung-up by now, but I calmed her with voice and hands and made her wait, in the shelter of some bushes.

The sun was behind us, in the eyes of the riders on the other path, so they didn't see us. When they came to the top of the hill, they grouped together a couple of furlongs away from us, the first ones circling their horses and waiting for the others to catch up. They were a mixture of gentleman riders in top hats and grooms in caps, all mounted on useful-looking thoroughbreds. Then four of them were bounding forward, covering the ground in long galloping strides. Two more followed, one horse rearing in its eagerness, then the rest in a loose group. As far as I could see, they weren't galloping all out as they might in a race. This was a regular training session. Once they were on the way, I let Rancie follow on our separate track, keeping her with some difficulty to a canter and stopping well short of the point near the grandstand where the other riders had drawn up. They walked their horses in circles to cool them and there was some swapping around, with the gentlemen taking over their second horses from the grooms. I'd have liked to have gone closer and seen faces, certain that these would be men from the same set as the missing young Paley, but there was no point in going to all this trouble and spoiling it by impatience.

The men were settled in their saddles, getting ready to race back. I gathered up Rancie's rein, feeling her energy like an arrow in a taut bow the moment before you release it. As the group of riders galloped past us, I gave her the slightest sign with my heel and let her go. Divots of turf flew round us as she galloped after the other horses in a long curve that took us on to the same track. A groom on one of the back horses glanced round when he heard us, and his mouth opened in surprise. We went past him and two or three others without even trying. Not surprising, as Rancie was fresher than they were and raring to go. We came alongside the first of the top hats. A long pale face, also open-mouthed, turned towards us as we overtook him. It wasn't my intention to get to the front, even if we could have managed it, and the leaders were pretty fast. I contented myself with overtaking another pair of top hats and then gave Rancie the signal to turn off to the left, towards the track we'd come up on. As we went, I raised my riding crop in a goodbye salute, quite sure that some of the horsemen would be watching us. I hoped nobody would follow us – not today. Nobody did. The other riders thundered on their usual track. As the ground fell away, I slowed Rancie to a canter, then a walk, and went downhill on our path beside the bushes. On the long ride home, walking most of the way to let Rancie cool down, I imagined the conversation of the racing men as they rode home to their stables.
Nice-looking horse – woman riding, definitely sidesaddle. So where had they sprung from? Not seen them before. Anybody recognize them?
Sporting men have limited topics of conversation and it was certain that our appearance out of the blue would be discussed wherever they gathered to drink. Next time they'd be looking out for us.

We arrived back with only just time to change. The cob was already harnessed to the gig and Mr Godwit was looking anxious. I apologized and said my ride had lasted longer than expected. Like everything connected with my host's little estate, the cob was a good one, the gig well maintained and beautifully sprung, so the ride to Gloucester was uneventful. The gardener drove well enough, but with great concentration and he was not inclined to talk. That suited me, because now that I was about to come face to face with Jack Picton, I had some hard thinking to do. I'd insisted on meeting him because I wanted to know what kind of man he was. Some of the answers I had already: political, argumentative, impatient – and, so it was said, handsome. But it was a wasted opportunity unless I could find out something about the killing of Mary Marsh that I didn't know already and the prospects of that weren't good. It was unlikely that the arrival of a woman he hadn't met before would change Jack Picton's attitude. I was still without inspiration, so I asked the driver to put me down near the cathedral and come back in an hour, hoping he'd have the sense to find beer for himself and water for the cob.

I had directions from Mr Godwit and knew that the prison was downhill from the cathedral, near the river and the docks. I walked slowly, still thinking, but it wasn't long before I found myself facing a red brick wall about thirty feet high, closing off one side of a narrow street. I knew that Gloucester prison was no more than fifty years old, regarded as a model of its kind for the humane housing of inmates. Still, it looked grim enough from the outside. When I stood back, I could see over the wall to raw slabs of red brick buildings with small square windows. I walked round, looking for a way in. The river tide was high, seagulls swooping over it with a freedom that must have been taunting to the men and women inside the walls. I turned away from the river and came to a gatehouse. It seemed at odds with the rest of the design, shaped more like the gate lodge to a country estate than a prison, built of sandstone blocks, quite low, with a flat roof. I found out later that the roof was flat for a purpose. It was where they hanged people. The big gates were shut, with no sign of a bell or knocker. There were two ordinary doors on either side of them. I rapped with my knuckles on the left door. After a while a man's face appeared at the barred window alongside it. I held my visiting order to the window. The face disappeared and the door was opened by a pale and poorly shaved warder in a dark uniform. He let me inside, told me to wait and carried the order off to a side room. The temperature felt several degrees colder inside. Another warder came out, better shaven and completely bald, and told me to follow him. His manner was polite enough, so obviously a magistrate's influence had smoothed the way.

We went across a yard, into one of the slab-like buildings and up a staircase. Even in a hot summer, the air was damp, probably from being so near the river. A smell of drains and something half-remembered hung in the air. A rhythmic thumping and clacking came from a room below us and set the whole staircase vibrating.

‘Treadmill?' I asked.

‘Looms,' the warder said. ‘We teach them weaving – stuff for mailbags mostly.'

The smell was damp hessian. We went along a corridor. Apart from the thumping looms, the place seemed quieter than a cathedral, with not even a whisper of a human voice. The bald man opened the door to a small windowless room, told me to wait and went out, closing the door behind him. Some minutes later, two sets of footsteps came along the corridor, so briskly they were practically marching. The door opened and I had my first look at Jack Picton. It wasn't reassuring. He was glaring at me and, if he'd happened to be holding a piece of iron in his hand, I'd probably have ducked. As a man on remand, not yet sentenced, he wasn't manacled or wearing prison uniform, but his clothes were rough: canvas trousers, an old jacket and waistcoat in dark wool, a dirty shirt open at the neck, labourer's boots. They were probably the clothes he was wearing when arrested more than two weeks before. They looked too small for him. Everything looked too small – the room, his escort, my reason for being there.

After the first glance, I realized it wasn't simply a matter of size. He was tall certainly, probably six foot or more, and broad-shouldered, but what filled the room was the anger radiating off him. He'd marched in like a busy man sparing minutes he couldn't afford for an annoying client, leaving the warder trailing in his footsteps like a clerk. Even without the glare, it would have been a forceful-looking face, with a square brow and large but well-shaped nose, dark brows over eyes the colour of oak bark. It wasn't difficult to imagine him as an orator. He could have modelled as a general addressing his troops or Danton at the barricades. His hair was cut brutally short, his scalp stained brownish from some rinse, probably to kill head lice. His smell was frowsty.

‘So, you're doing me the kindness to worry about the state of my soul,' he said. ‘I thought they left that to the clergyman at the foot of the gallows.'

The bald warder said something about showing respect for a lady and then sat down on one of the chairs with his back against the door. This was disconcerting. I'd assumed that the prisoner would be allowed to take the second chair, but this arrangement left me seated and Jack Picton glaring down at me. I stood up and said the first thing that came into my head.

‘I'm not in the least concerned about your soul, but I'll have some clean linen sent in to you, if you like.'

He blinked, surprise in his face, then annoyance at being caught off balance. Then just a glimmer of amusement. It didn't last for long, but was just enough to show why women might think him a good-looking man.

‘They have charitable funds for that, do they? So that the smell of me doesn't offend the judges?'

He had the Gloucestershire accent, but spoke with sharpness and precision. His eyes were sharp, too. At first he'd been too angry to look at me properly; now he was taking stock.

‘Did you kill Mary Marsh?' I said.

Surprise again, and then a droll look came over his face. He spoke past me, to the warder sitting by the door.

‘I'm being given the quality, aren't I? I thought it was other prisoners you use if you want to get people to confess when their guard's down. I get pretty young ladies offering clean shirts.'

The way he said ‘pretty', rolling it around on his tongue, was so insulting that I felt like getting up and walking out.

‘Well, did you?'

I let my anger sound in my voice. That surprised him.

‘No, I did not.' That to me; then to the warder: ‘So that's that. Do we go now?'

The warder wasn't a quick-thinking man. He was staring from the prisoner to me, bewildered. I wondered if it was within his power to end the interview and hustle Picton back to his cell. Probably, yes. In that case, there wasn't much time.

‘So, who did kill her?' I said.

‘Somebody who wanted to keep her quiet, I'd say.'

‘Quiet about what?'

‘If you really want to know, you could try asking people about what happened at the race fair.'

‘Race fair?' I stared at him. ‘What race fair?'

‘Cheltenham races, of course.' He said it as if there could be no other.

‘But Mary Marsh was dead already,' I said. ‘She was dead before the races.'

He looked at me, grinning like a chess player who knew his opponent was cornered.

‘Have you any evidence against anybody?' I said.

‘The magistrates didn't seem too concerned about evidence. There's one kind of evidence for men like me and another kind for the quality.'

I repeated the question, though I knew it was a waste of breath.

‘Supposing I had, what would you do about it?' he said. ‘Tell the police or the magistrates?'

‘Yes.'

‘So that by the time I come up for trial, they'd have torn my evidence to pieces and used it against me? Picton accusing anybody and everybody, trying to save his neck? The jury would love that, wouldn't they?'

‘If you have evidence and you're not using it until the trial, you're playing a dangerous game,' I said.

‘Really? I hadn't thought of that. How kind of you to warn me.'

The smile that went with his words might have made it look as if he meant them, if it hadn't been for the coldness in his eyes. I changed tack.

‘I saw your friend William Smithies yesterday,' I said. ‘He gave me a message for you.' He waited, expressionless. ‘He said, “We're doing what we can for her, me and dad. We'll get her back if we can.”'