The Taxidermist's Daughter (26 page)

Chapter 43

Blackthorn House

Fishbourne Marshes

‘Davey,’ said Mary, ‘what are you playing at?’ She shook his shoulder. ‘Wake up.’

The boy was awake and up on his feet, fists in front of him, before Mary had the chance to shake him again.

‘It’s all right, boy,’ Mrs Christie said softly. ‘Nothing to be scared of.’

Davey looked at her, then at Mary, with bleary eyes. He remembered where he was and lowered his hands.

‘Sorry, Mrs Christie. For a moment . . .’

She put her arm around him. ‘I know, lad. No one’s going to hurt you here.’

Davey put his hands in his pockets. ‘What time is it?’

‘Nearly ten o’clock,’ Mary replied, ‘though you wouldn’t think it. It’s as black as pitch outside.’

‘Ten!’ he said. ‘Miss Gifford told me to put out the sandbags, but I must’ve nodded off. And she wanted me to tell you to check the pails in the attic.’

Mary raised her eyebrows. ‘And since when do I take my orders from you? I’ll wait until Miss Gifford tells me herself.’

‘It’s good she’s still asleep. It’ll do her the world of good.’

Davey shook his head. ‘She’s not sleeping, Mrs Christie. She went to town.’

‘What in the name of heaven possessed her to do that?’

Davey glanced at Mary, not sure how much she might have told her mother about what had taken place at Blackthorn House. He had a healthy suspicion of all adults, but Mary was half-and-half.

‘I told Ma about what happened last night,’ Mary said.

‘All of it?’ Davey asked.

‘Most of it.’

‘What didn’t you tell me?’

‘Nothing, Ma.’

Mrs Christie looked from one to the other.

‘Honest,’ Davey said, crossing his fingers over his chest.

‘Why’s she gone out in this weather? Something her father said?’

Davey shook his head. ‘None of what he was saying made sense.’

‘Don’t be cheeky,’ Mary scolded.

‘I’m just saying it as it is.’

‘Why has Miss Gifford gone to Chichester?’ Mrs Christie repeated.

‘She arranged it before. To meet Harry.’

Mrs Christie was silent for a moment, then she looked at the rumpled day bed. ‘And what about Gifford? Is he all right?’

‘Seems to be,’ Davey said. ‘Took himself upstairs a couple of hours ago. He woke up about eight, give or take. Asked where Miss Gifford was. I told him. Then he wanted to know if anyone had come to the house. I said they hadn’t, except for Mr Crowther, who came to enquire after Miss Gifford first thing. That was that. The master went back upstairs. Haven’t seen hide nor hair since.’

‘I wonder if I should take him up a tray,’ Mary said.

‘I wouldn’t if I were you, love,’ Mrs Christie said quietly.

Mary folded her arms. ‘You’ve got an opinion on everything now, Ma.’

‘I’ll tell you something else for nothing,’ Davey said, turning to Mrs Christie. ‘Miss Gifford made quite a palaver about your name.’

‘Oh? And why might my name be of the slightest interest to anyone?’

Her voice was calm, but Davey and Mary both heard the strain in it.

‘Don’t ask me,’ Davey said. ‘I was talking about the floods back in January and said your Christian name – I didn’t mean any disrespect by it – and Miss Gifford got all somehow. Wanted to know who “Jennie” was, and when I told her, she went all quiet. I think Mr Gifford mentioned someone called Jennie earlier, so I reckon it struck a chord.’

‘Did he now?’ Mrs Christie said softly.

‘And it’s funny,’ said Davey, running on, ‘because before – not that I was listening, mind – he came out with a different name when he was talking to Miss Gifford.’ He frowned. ‘Cassie, I think it was.’

Mrs Christie turned white. ‘I knew it.’

To her daughter’s astonishment, she sank down in one of the armchairs.

‘Ma,’ Mary said urgently. ‘Get up! What if the master comes down?’

‘Let him,’ she said. ‘It’s high time. By the sounds of things, he won’t be surprised to see me.’

‘What are you saying?’

Mrs Christie gave a deep sigh, then pulled up another chair and patted the seat. Mary glanced at Davey, and sat down beside her mother.

‘Me and Crowley Gifford go way back,’ Mrs Christie said.

‘He’s never said so,’ Mary said, looking even more confused.

‘No reason for him to know,’ said her mother, half smiling. ‘It was a long time ago. I was Jennie Wickens then.’

Davey sat down cross-legged on the floor to listen too, the sandbags quite forgotten.

North Street

Chichester

A loud crack of thunder overhead shook the cup and coffee pot on the tray.

It was ten forty-five. Harry still wasn’t back. Connie went out into the hall again, hoping to find Lewis, but the butler was nowhere to be seen.

In her sleep-starved state, she felt as though time and space, all the hours and minutes, were rolling into one continuous present. Now that the wall in her mind had been breached – the wall that for ten years had divided her present from her past – reminiscences, scenes from her childhood, sights and sounds and smells were coming back to her.

Most of all, Connie remembered Cassie.

She had arrived at the age of twelve, when Connie was four. Cassie had been brought up by an aunt, then come to Lyminster when her aunt died. Bright and spirited, everyone loved her. Connie’s father had employed Cassie as a tutor, a big sister
manquée
, a friend to look after Connie while Gifford worked in the museum.

It was Cassie who taught her to write and read, to quote poems and learn plays off by heart. Cassie who told her about how swans mated for life, she remembered now, and Cassie who’d tied a yellow ribbon around the neck of the preserved cob in the entrance hall of the Museum to show Connie how pretty it was, not frightening at all. Was it the same yellow ribbon Gifford had been hiding in the ice house all these years?

She saw flickering images of the years passing, as they both grew up. Cassie wearing a smart ruffled shirt and a long black skirt, her hair pinned up. They were happy then. Her father, for all his salesman’s patter, his charlatan ways and lapses of judgement, had been a good man. He was going to pay for Cassie to train to be a teacher, as soon as Connie was grown up enough to manage without her.

The smile faded from Connie’s face. She didn’t believe Gifford would have harmed a hair on Cassie’s head. But if her recollection of the night in the museum was accurate, then at the very least, he had colluded in covering up her death?

Would he have done that?

Connie didn’t think so. He would have done anything in his power to bring her attackers to justice.

Piecing together her father’s comments, his terrible collapse over the past few weeks, and the ways in which secrets were leaking out now, though he’d held his peace for all of these years, it all pointed to the same conclusion.

The bells of the cathedral started to chime eleven.

Connie rushed through to Harry’s studio. She scribbled a brief message on a scrap of rough paper, asking him to join her at Blackthorn House as soon as possible, then charged back into the hall. She feared for Dr Woolston and she feared for Harry. Most of all, she felt sick with fear for her father.

‘Lewis?’

The butler still did not appear. Connie dropped the note on to the salver on the hall table, grabbed her hat and coat from the stand and rushed out into the storm.

The rain was flooding in torrents down North Street. Men were hauling sandbags and propping pieces of timber and board in front of the doorways. Even so, the rainwater was sweeping up against the stone steps of the Georgian houses and over the lower thresholds of the shops and hotels. She hoped Davey had done what she’d asked of him.

Was her father’s life in danger? If he saw no reason to keep quiet any longer, then what was to stop them silencing him? Someone had killed Vera Barker and covered up her death. Connie was certain it was a member – members – of the Corvidae Club. The four preserved birds, each seemingly representing the men there that night. They were murderers. Witnesses to a murder.

She started to run, not caring who saw her.

Chapter 44

The West Sussex County Asylum

Chichester

‘I told you,’ the cleaning woman repeated. ‘Dr Woolston came in when I was cleaning the theatre. Said he had an appointment with a gentleman at six o’clock. “Room’s not in use,” I told him. He went up the steps, through the curtain on to the stage. That was the last I saw of him. I don’t know nothing more.’

Pennicott wrote another methodical note in his pad. Harry looked from the policeman to the medical superintendent and back again. He wished he could ask his own questions, but the superintendent had only agreed to allow him to be present at the interview on the understanding that he did not speak or interfere in any way.

‘When you say “gentleman”,’ Pennicott said carefully, ‘did Dr Woolston say as much?’

‘Not in so many words,’ she admitted.

‘So he could have been meeting a man or a woman?’

She shrugged. ‘Could’ve been.’

‘And he gave no indication as to whether this person was a patient or a visitor?’

‘It don’t matter how many times you keep on at me, I’ve told you all I know already.’

‘No need to take that tone,’ Dr Kidd said.

‘It’s as wise to be clear.’ Pennicott looked back to his notes. ‘So Dr Woolston went on to the backstage area, and you left the theatre and began work in the corridor. Is that correct?’

‘Correct,’ she said sullenly.

‘You heard nothing more?’

‘No.’

‘And you did not see Dr Woolston come out again?’

‘No.’ She turned to the medical superintendent. ‘Can I get off now, sir? Some of us have got work to do.’

‘Sergeant?’ Kidd asked.

Pennicott nodded. ‘You can go. Thank you.’

He returned to his notes. Dr Kidd waited patiently.

Harry was impressed with how helpful the medical superintendent was being. Having received the telegram Pearce had sent on Harry’s behalf asking if Dr Woolston had been summoned to the hospital on Wednesday, Kidd had already made discreet enquiries, so he had been able to answer many of their questions.

Because of the fine weather, he explained, more patients and visitors had been in the grounds during Wednesday afternoon than usual. One of the senior attendants, who knew Dr Woolston by sight, had noticed him heading towards the administration buildings. Further enquiries revealed that the cleaners had been working in the theatre at about the same time. So far, though, no one had seen him leave the premises.

Pennicott turned to a fresh page.

‘You’ve examined the backstage area?’ Kidd asked.

The policeman nodded. ‘We did.’

Harry had searched everywhere. Costumes and painted flats, a few loose feathers from a headdress, but nothing to suggest his father had been there.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ Kidd called.

A servant handed him a piece of paper, and withdrew. The doctor quickly scanned the page.

‘You were right, Pennicott,’ Kidd said. ‘Vera Barker was here, some years ago. During that time, she made the acquaintance of one of our private patients, though I can’t imagine how. The fee-paying patients are housed separately, well away from the main women’s wards. The lady in question was one of our longer-term patients. Very charming, but delusional. Unable to separate truth from falsehood. The kind who makes all kinds of accusations.’

‘What kind of accusations?’

Kidd waved his hand. ‘I’m afraid that is confidential information, Sergeant.’

‘May I have her name, sir?’

Kidd looked back to the note. ‘Miss Cassandra Crowley.’

‘Crowley,’ Pennicott muttered. Harry glanced at him, but his face gave nothing away. ‘Might it be possible to talk to her? Or does her . . . illness make that difficult?’

Harry noticed Dr Kidd’s expression alter.

‘I’m afraid to report that Miss Crowley is one of our rare escapees, Sergeant,’ he said.

Harry couldn’t help himself. ‘She got away?’

‘That is not how we care to think of it, Mr Woolston,’ Kidd reproved him. ‘This is a not a prison facility.’

‘No. I’m sorry. But she’s no longer here?’

‘She is not.’ Dr Kidd looked down at the piece of paper. ‘I wanted to be sure of the details before I spoke to you. Miss Crowley came here ten years ago. Admitted having made an attempt on her own life, she was diagnosed with general delusional mania. Her health is good and she is – was – popular with the other patients.’

‘Who pays the bills?’ Harry asked.

Dr Kidd checked his notes again. ‘An anonymous benefactor.’

‘Is that usual?’ Harry put in again.

‘It’s not unusual,’ Kidd replied carefully. ‘Even these days, there is a stigma attached to having an association here. Some, therefore, choose to conceal their involvement. In this case, in fact, there is no family. To my knowledge, she never had any visitors.’

‘When did Miss Crowley abscond?’ Pennicott asked.

‘At the beginning of April. Before Easter weekend. Our rules are very clear. If a patient succeeds in getting out, and remains at large for a period of fourteen days, then they are automatically discharged from our books.’

‘How often does such an occurrence take place?’

‘It’s very rare,’ Kidd replied. ‘Very rare indeed.’

‘How easy would it be?’ Harry asked. ‘When we came in, I noticed there weren’t the kind of high fences or gates I was expecting.’

Kidd smiled. ‘It is part of our philosophy to create a natural, calming environment. We pride ourselves on our modern approach. But, to answer your question, it is difficult. I would go so far as to say that someone must have helped Miss Crowley, though no one has admitted to doing so. And as I said, she was popular. Helped those who could not read or write. Wrote letters for them, and suchlike. If other patients or even nurses knew of her intentions, they kept it to themselves.’

Pennicott shut his notebook. ‘Thank you, sir. We won’t take up any more of your time. You’ve been very helpful.’

Kidd showed them to the door. ‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, Woolston,’ he said, holding out his hand to Harry. ‘All the same, you will let me know if there’s any news?’

*

Harry and Pennicott got back into the carriage.

‘When Kidd came out with the woman’s name,’ Harry said immediately, ‘you frowned. Why?’

‘Didn’t you notice, sir?’

‘Notice what?’

‘Her surname. Crowley. It’s Mr Gifford’s Christian name.’ Harry felt the policeman’s eyes on him. ‘Odd coincidence, don’t you think?’

*

Gregory Joseph was not the only person sheltering from the storm beneath the Market Cross.

Sooner or later, it was said, if you stood at the Cross, everyone in Chichester would walk past. Joseph turned his collar up. All well and good, if you were prepared to wait long enough.

His patience had been rewarded. He’d seen Constantia Gifford rush from North Street into South Street. Coming from Woolston’s house, he supposed. He tailed her as far as the station, where she picked up a taxi cab and he lost track of her.

He had returned to his post at the Cross in time to see Sergeant Pennicott and Harold Woolston come out of Gerald White’s offices. He’d loved to have been a fly on the wall while White tried to explain away his black eye and broken nose.

Pennicott and Woolston then leapt into a carriage waiting at the kerb and headed for Frederick Brook’s offices in West Street. Joseph had known, then, that Crowther’s concerns were justified. The police officer had put two and two together. Had worked out that Brook, White and Woolston were connected.

He quickly slipped from his hiding place at the Cross and rushed down West Street, to keep a better eye on what they were doing. He found shelter in the doorway of St Peter’s Church, almost opposite Brook’s front door, and waited.

Gregory Joseph had no illusions about the sort of man he was. A brawler, a petty thief, a man not averse to making the most of information that came his way. Free with his fists from time to time, but only with those who had it coming. He was prepared to take his chances when standing at the Pearly Gates.

But this? This was different. When she’d asked for his help – told him what they had done – for the first time in his life Joseph believed himself to be on the side of the angels. Administering justice when the law was blind. One rule for the rich, one for the poor; always been the same way. He’d no doubt Pennicott wouldn’t see it like that, but it was natural justice.

He was proud to help. Proud to be righting a wrong.

He stamped his feet and shook the water from his shoes. What was starting to bother him, though, was Gifford’s place in the scheme of things. He had assumed that Gifford was involved with Brook and the others and had for some reason fallen out with them. That was why he’d been set to spy on him from the Old Salt Mill.

But was that right?

And how did Connie Gifford and Harry Woolston fit into things?

Suddenly he realised that Woolston and Pennicott were back out on the street and heading towards him. He shot across the street and threw himself into the doorway of the Bell Tower. He heard their raised voices, shouting to be heard over the noise of the wind. He gave it a couple of seconds, then stepped out and followed them back up West Street.

*

‘Well?’ Harry demanded. ‘What did he say?’

They had agreed it was better if Harry – given his relationship with Brook – stayed out of sight.

‘Mr Brook has not come in today either,’ Pennicott said. ‘The clerk found a letter lying on the hall floor this morning. He swears it wasn’t there when he went home last night.’

‘Sutton would know. He never leaves anything to chance.’

Pennicott held out the sheet of paper. The wind nearly ripped it out of his fingers.

Harry took it, then frowned. ‘Isn’t this the same address that White’s office said was in his appointments diary for yesterday?’

‘It is.’

‘What are we going to do? Go there, or wait for reinforcements?’

‘There’s no evidence that any crime has been committed,’ Pennicott said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Harry said fiercely. ‘Four men are missing, Pennicott. And what about Vera Barker?’

‘I only have your word for that, at present.’

‘Someone forged my father’s name on her death certificate,’ Harry ploughed on. ‘It must be possible to find out who.’

The bells of the cathedral began to strike twelve. Suprised, Harry looked up at the time.

‘Damn,’ he said, ‘I had no idea it was so late. Miss Gifford will have been waiting for hours. I’ve got to go to my house and tell her, if she’s still there – God, I hope she’s still there – what we’ve discovered. Will you wait for me? For us? I want to come with you. If there’s any chance my father might be . . . I want to be there.’

Pennicott put his heavy hand on Harry’s shoulder.

‘Best to leave it to me from here on in, sir,’ he said firmly. ‘You’ve been helpful, I don’t deny it, but this is an official police matter. As you say, four men are missing, all it appears with a connection to one another.’

‘You can’t do this, Pennicott,’ Harry said in disbelief. ‘I have the right to be present.’

‘With respect, Mr Woolston, you do not.’

‘Pennicott, I insist.’

‘Get out of the storm and into the dry. Talk to your Miss Gifford. Tell her as much as you think is appropriate, without giving her further cause for alarm.’

‘For the last time, I’m coming with you.’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’

Harry suddenly realised that Pennicott was as much trying to protect him as wanting to stick to the rules.

‘You think my father’s on the wrong side of this, don’t you?’

Pennicott held his gaze. ‘It’s a police matter now, sir.’

‘My father wouldn’t be caught up in . . .’ Harry heard his voice rising. ‘How dare you even consider that a man like him would in—’

‘Go home,’ Pennicott said, this time with a touch of steel in his voice. ‘Look after Miss Gifford.’

‘You must report this, Pennicott. You can’t do this on your own.’

‘Mr Woolston, given what we know now – the sort of men who appear to be involved in this business – don’t you think it’s better for us to keep it to ourselves for as long as possible? As soon as I have the evidence I need, I will act.’

‘But—’

‘Go home, Mr Woolston.’