The Taxidermist's Daughter (18 page)

Chapter 30

Harry listened in silence as Connie told him about the man Davey had seen watching the house, about the peculiar note Mrs Christie had given her; how she believed Vera had been murdered and how she had recognised the coat, first from the woman she’d noticed outside Blackthorn House, then a week later in the graveyard of Fishbourne church on the Eve of St Mark.

‘I knew I shouldn’t have left you here alone,’ Harry said, furious with himself.

‘I gave you no choice,’ she said, smiling.

‘No, I suppose you didn’t. I thought I’d done something to offend you, to be sent packing so suddenly.’

‘Not at all.’

‘It’s odd, though,’ Harry said after a moment. ‘The old man went out that night. He came back after midnight, soaking wet. Went straight to his study.’

Connie frowned. ‘How can you be so sure it was that night?’

‘April the twenty-fourth is my birthday, so I’d been expecting him home for dinner to mark the occasion. He’s big on that kind of thing.’

‘Is he a large man? Broad-shouldered?’

‘Not particularly, why?’

‘There were several gentlemen there that night. They stood out, among the local people from the village.’

‘Were there women too?’

‘A few.’

Harry thought. ‘Do you think the woman you saw watching the house was Vera?’

‘I did at first, but no. I think they are two different people. The first woman was tall and slender, elegant. The coat was a perfect fit. Vera was shorter and stockier. Also, as the bells finished tolling, a flock of songbirds came flying out of the church and—’

‘Vera was known for feeding the birds – it was the one thing people knew about her – so it would make sense she had been involved in setting that up.’

Connie looked surprised. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Crowther told me,’ he said. ‘I ran into him earlier in the village. Why did you go to the churchyard that night? I hadn’t imagined you to be a superstitious person.’

‘I’m not,’ she said. She met Harry’s gaze. ‘I was there because I’d followed my father from the Bull’s Head. He is inclined, from time to time, to drink more than is good for him. On those occasions, it’s unwise for him to make his way home, unattended, across the marshes. As you can imagine.’

‘I can indeed,’ Harry said formally, and she was grateful he made no other comment.

‘You didn’t recognise any of the gentlemen there?’

‘No. But I think someone must have invited them to be there. I can’t see how they might have stumbled on such a local tradition by chance. They were so out of place.’

‘Invited by whom?’

Connie shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Or why?’

‘For the past week, I’ve tried and failed to come up with any plausible explanation,’ she said.

‘What does your father say about it?’

Connie took a deep breath, deciding to make a clean breast of it. ‘The truth is that, having been in a rather terrible condition this past week, my father went out sometime during the course of the afternoon yesterday. I don’t know when and I don’t know where he is. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’

‘No apology is necessary,’ he said quickly. ‘You had no reason to trust me. Forgive me for asking, but is this something that happens often?’

Connie chose her words carefully. ‘It’s not unusual, in certain situations, for him to take himself off – though this is longer than usual. When Sergeant Pennicott came this afternoon . . .’ She stopped, to gather her thoughts. ‘I assumed he had come to take a statement from me about Vera Barker. In fact, it transpired he knew nothing about the fact that her body had been found.’

Harry frowned. ‘Then why was he here?’

‘He had come to speak to my father. He wanted to know if he was acquainted with a Dr John Woolston.’

Harry’s face expressed open bewilderment. ‘
My
father? But why?’

‘Pennicott claims that your father and mine have a prior acquaintance.’

‘What?’

‘I know. I was able to say, with complete candour, that Gifford had never once mentioned your father’s name.’

‘I can confirm the same.’

‘He mentioned another man too. A Frederick Brook.’

Harry slumped back. ‘What the devil . . .’

Connie’s eyes widened. ‘You know him?’

‘Worse than that, I work for him. My father fixed it up. A favour from an old friend, as he put it, though it’s more like a life sentence. Shipping china from one end of the country to another.’ He stopped, his eyes glinting. ‘Brook is a very substantial man . . .’

‘Like the gentleman in the graveyard,’ Connie said, finishing his thought for him.

‘I still don’t understand why Pennicott was here,’ Harry said eventually. ‘Even if the old man does know your father, what of it? There’s no crime in that.’

Connie took his hand.

‘Harry, there are two things that came out in the course of my awful interview with Pennicott. I should have told you sooner, I admit, I just didn’t know the best way to do so.’

She felt him squeeze her fingers tightly.

‘First . . .’ She hesitated. ‘The gossip in the village – and I’m sure it is only gossip – is that it was your father who signed Vera’s death certificate.’

‘But that’s absurd,’ Harry flushed. ‘If what you say about the ligature around the woman’s neck is right, he’d never miss something like that.’

‘That’s what I thought too. The second thing is that Pennicott claims someone – a Mr Pearce – has reported your father missing. Or rather, as Pennicott put it, that there were concerns for his absence. That’s why he had come to speak to Gifford.’

‘Pearce! He’s my father’s clerk, though what the hell gave him the right to go to the police, I can’t imagine,’ Harry said angrily.

Connie turned cold. ‘Are you telling me it’s true? Your father is also missing?’

He raised his eyes, and this time she saw such despair in them, such confusion, that it was as much as she could do not to take him in her arms.

He nodded. ‘It’s true. No one’s seen him since yesterday lunchtime. That’s why I was in Fishbourne yesterday in the first place.’

‘Tell me,’ she said, their roles now quite reversed.

Chapter 31

Main Road

Fishbourne

Charles Crowther stood in the narrow hall of Mrs Christie’s small cottage beside the laundry on the main road.

‘It’s lucky you came when you did, sir,’ she was saying. ‘Five minutes and I’d have been gone.’

‘I was concerned about you, Mrs Christie. You looked distressed when I saw you talking to Miss Gifford outside the post office. Since I happened to be in Salthill Road, I thought I would check that nothing was the matter.’

‘It’s very decent of you to come in person, sir.’

‘Nonsense.’ Crowther waved his hand. ‘I don’t keep a large staff at Slay Lodge in any case. A couple of manservants, a gardener, a cook. It didn’t seem appropriate to send any of them.’

‘There’s not many gentlemen as would be so thoughtful, Mr Crowther. In my time, I’ve worked in a number of houses – large and small – and you learn to appreciate things. Maybe it’s different abroad, I dare say.’

Crowther frowned. ‘Abroad?’

Mrs Christie flushed. ‘Sorry, sir. I’d heard you were out in Africa.’

‘Ah. Well, yes, I was. Transvaal, though it’s a long time ago now.’ He smiled. ‘I wonder who told you that, Mrs Christie?’

‘I don’t rightly think I can remember,’ she said. ‘It was all round the village when you took the Lodge, sir. It had stood empty for such a long time. Always prone to flooding, you see.’

‘How long have you lived in Fishbourne, Mrs Christie?’

‘Only since my husband died, sir. Two years now.’

‘And before that?’

‘I was married before. Mr Wickens – he’s Mary’s father – died young. Then I met Mr Christie and he took us both on, me and Mary. I was in service to make ends meet, though I never lived in. Always a daily, could come and go. A few places around Boxgrove and upalong. Then Mr Christie inherited a little money from his aunt and I didn’t have to work any more. We settled in Lavant. Very happy there.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

Mrs Christie’s face clouded. ‘So you don’t think I should worry?’

‘It sounds as if you did all the right things already. You talked to Miss Gifford and told her about the note.’

‘I didn’t know who else to ask. It’s not been easy since Mr Christie passed away.’

Crowther smiled. ‘I’m more than happy to be a listening ear.’

‘But you don’t think I should take it further?’

‘I wouldn’t, if I were you. There’s no call to distress Miss Gifford. She had an unpleasant shock yesterday – as indeed, of course, did your Mary.’

‘But if something happens to Miss Gifford and I . . .’

He smiled kindly. ‘Nothing will happen to Miss Gifford.’

‘Begging your pardon, Mr Crowther, but how can you be sure? Who’s to say where the note came from? It’s a threat, that’s what it is.’

‘Remind me what it said,’ he asked.

‘“Do not be afraid. I am watching you.” That’s all.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a threat to me. If anything, the opposite. A Bible quotation, even?’ He paused. ‘There was no signature on the note, initials? No indication where it had come from?’

‘Nothing.’

‘And left on the mat at Blackthorn House on Wednesday morning?’

‘The back-door mat, so Mary says.’

‘As I said, I’m sure it’s nothing more than some kind of unpleasant prank.’

‘Nasty sort of a prank.’

‘I regret to say Blackthorn House attracts more than its fair share of such things, does it not?’

‘That’s true enough, sir. Mary says she’s more than once had to chase boys from the village off. Throwing stones and what have you.’

‘They are scared of what they don’t understand. Ignorant souls respond in the only way they know how.’

She frowned. ‘The thing is, I saw the handwriting and it brought a lot of nasty things back, sir. Things I thought were over and done with.’

Crowther was still smiling, but his eyes sharpened. ‘What sort of things, Mrs Christie?’

Immediately, she clammed up. ‘I couldn’t possibly say.’

‘It will remain between ourselves, if it would help to talk about it further.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve never been a one for gossip, Mr Crowther.’

‘Very well.’

‘I’ve held my tongue for ten years, sir. I’m not going to let him down now.’

‘Him, Mrs Christie?’

She blushed brick red. ‘No one. In any case,’ she went on quickly, ‘now I’ve had time to think, I realise I must have been mistaken. One person’s handwriting’s much like the next. This business with Vera Barker has got me all somehow.’

Crowther thought. ‘Did you tell Miss Gifford why you were so shaken?’

She looked scandalised. ‘No, sir, I wouldn’t want to upset her. She’s so much better now and I wouldn’t want to stir things up. In any case, the rain came on ever so heavy just then – you remember, Mr Crowther, you were caught in it too. That’s why she invited me to Blackthorn House.’ She looked anxious again. ‘But you don’t think I should keep the appointment? I don’t want Miss Gifford thinking badly of me.’

‘It seems to me, Mrs Christie, that talking about it more might achieve the opposite to your intention. She’s a rather troubled young woman.’

‘I wouldn’t say she was troubled, as such.’

‘I’m sorry, I heard that she was sometimes ill.’

‘When she was younger. That’s all in the past now.’

Mr Crowther stared. ‘Well, that is good, good. Even so, let me put it another way. I’m sure it would be better not to add to her difficulties.’

‘How do you mean, sir?’

‘If you go to talk to her, especially in this dreadful weather, don’t you think it suggests you
do
think there is some cause for concern?’

Mrs Christie frowned, then nodded. ‘I see that it might.’

Crowther peered through the small cottage window. ‘And the weather is deteriorating as we speak.’

‘But I don’t like the idea of her waiting and me not arriving, not without any explanation.’

Crowther nodded. ‘I tell you what, since I’m going back that way – almost halfway there, in fact – why don’t I go and see Miss Gifford and give your apologies?’

Mrs Christie’s face flooded with relief. ‘Would you?’

‘It would be my pleasure to help. You stay dry. Keep an eye on those charming little girls of yours. You can always go to Blackthorn House tomorrow, if the weather lifts.’

‘So you will explain, Mr Crowther? That on reflection, there didn’t seem the need?’

‘Leave it to me, Mrs Christie.’

‘It’s funny though, isn’t it, that she can’t remember a thing about when she was little?’

‘Nothing?’

‘Not a thing.’ Mrs Christie shook her head. ‘A wonderful thing how the mind protects itself.’

The Bull’s Head

Main Road

Fishbourne

Crowther strode back to the Bull’s Head.

‘Any messages for me, Pine?’ he asked.

The barman jumped. ‘You startled me, Mr Crowther.’

‘Sorry, Pine. Any word?’

‘No,’ he said, sliding a glass of whisky across the bar. ‘Very quiet.’

Crowther nodded his thanks. ‘What do you know about the Christie family?’

‘Nice, respectable woman,’ the barman replied. ‘Nursed her husband through a long illness.’

‘Did you know Christie?’

Pine shook his head. ‘I knew of him. She moved here after she was widowed. For the second time, I heard. From Lavant, I think it was. She doesn’t come from round here, though.’

‘Oh?’

‘I have a mind she originally came from Slindon or Crossbush, somewhere Arundel way. Maybe it was Lyminster?’

‘Are you sure?’

Pine flicked his cloth over his shoulder. ‘Just something I heard, but it might be wrong. Before my time.’

Crowther carried his drink to the window and looked out. The trees on the far side of the road were plunging in the wind, and the gables of Fishbourne House and Willow Cottage were shrouded in mist and rain.

The moment Brook had told him of the summons to the churchyard, Crowther had worked out what was happening. But now he was starting to wonder if he’d been mistaken. The note concerned him, though since Mrs Christie had handed it back to Connie Gifford, there was no way of Crowther learning anything for himself from that quarter.

Where was Dr Woolston? It had seemed a perfect solution to use his name on the death certificate. Two birds with one stone. But now the man had disappeared. Had he seen or heard something in the Old Salt Mill that had caused him to bolt?

In the background, Crowther registered the sound of everyday conversation from the public bar. Men coming in to shelter from the rain. Drowning their sorrows for an hour or two.

He looked down at the amber liquid, then downed it in one. He’d promised to pass on Mrs Christie’s apologies to Miss Gifford. Perhaps Gifford himself would be back.

Crowther put the glass on the counter and set off for Blackthorn House.