Airs and Graces (20 page)

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘No sign of the girl yet? Or any accomplice?’

‘Nothing at all.’ I slid on to the harpsichord stool beside her, and she pulled in the voluminous petticoats of her pale gown to allow me more space. ‘Mrs Fletcher is increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress, McLintoch is enjoying himself, Heron can think of nothing but the coins he unearthed, and Balfour has been told to totally redraw the plans for the Assembly Rooms.’

Esther laughed. ‘Well, at least he knows he has work for some weeks to come!’

‘I think that’s exactly what he
doesn’t
want. And now I must go out again. The disembodiment must surely happen tonight. I’ve never known one put off so long.’

‘I wonder if it is because there are four of them,’ Esther mused. ‘Or the violent manner of their deaths. You know, Charles, I think I will come with you. I am
so
tired of sitting in the house, counting the pots and pans, and adding up the rents from Norfolk, and wondering whether you need more shirts.’

‘It’ll be very cold,’ I warned, worrying at once that it would make her feel worse again. ‘And there’ll be a crowd – you’ll have to wear a gown or risk scandalizing the entire town.’

She leant to brush a kiss against my cheek. ‘I scandalized the town when I married you, Charles. But I will endeavour to be respectable for once. I’ve asked cook to provide an early dinner so there is plenty of time to eat before going out.’

I hesitated. ‘I have such a sense of impending disaster. There was the oddest atmosphere in the shop.’

Esther tucked her arm through mine. ‘They will not be happy – how can they be? The last thing they will remember is going to bed, perfectly normally, as if it was an ordinary day. And to suddenly come to themselves and realize the truth, that they have been cruelly deprived of life— How can that be anything but distressing?’

I nodded. ‘I don’t see how anyone can ever live in that house again. Four spirits, and dead under such circumstances!’

‘Now, Charles,’ she said, lovingly. ‘Do not take all the cares of the world on your shoulders. It will be an unpleasant experience, no doubt, but if they can give you even a little information that helps you find Alice, or that accomplice – if he does indeed exist – it will be a very profitable night.’

She was right, but I could not shake off my anxiety.

Twenty-Four

They all – ladies and gentlemen both – enjoy making a fuss. About anything at all. The more trivial the cause the better. I confess I’m of the same inclination myself.

[Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe

Froidevaux, 21 January 1737]

The snow fell, in huge flakes that settled on the cobbles and piled up in corners. There was a bone-deep chill in the night air. Lanterns burning outside the shops flared redly on the white snow; patches of slush froze over.

Esther pulled her cloak about her and nodded at the butcher who supplied us with meat. He was not the only tradesman who’d turned out to see if the spirits disembodied. The bridge was crowded. Neighbours were standing about or hanging out of their windows; four young gentlemen, slightly the worse for wear, joked noisily with two whores. I spotted one pickpocket being apprehended by the Watch, who were there in force.

Mrs Fletcher was there too, standing at the back of the crowd, looking at the sightseers with considerable contempt. She came directly to me, saying peremptorily, ‘Mr Patterson! I trust you don’t intend to let this rabble stay here!’

I looked over the noisy crowd. A chestnut seller had set up a brazier, and a local publican had loaded a cask on to a cart and was offering beer to the sightseers with considerable success. ‘They’re not causing trouble,’ I pointed out, ‘And if they were, it’s up to the Watch to deal with it.’

‘This is not a fair,’ Mrs Fletcher ground out. ‘It’s undignified.’

I had to agree with that. ‘But the spirits will disembody
inside
the house. The crowd will see nothing and hear very little. Shall we go in?’

Abraham McLintoch was standing at the door of the shop, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands together; a lantern on the end of a pole was cradled in the crook of his arm. His gaze settled on Esther then on Mrs Fletcher and I fancied I saw a little exasperation in his expression. But he
sir
ed and
madam
ed us in his best manner and told the watchmen to keep the crowd off, while I unlocked the door. I stood back to allow Esther and Mrs Fletcher to go first – and felt a hard grip on my arm.

Fowler. His dark lean face glowered into mine. ‘I’m coming in.’

‘Now, now,’ McLintoch said, not wasting a
sir
on someone who was plainly a servant. ‘We can’t have everybody in the house!’

‘It’s all right,’ I said quickly. ‘Mr Fowler knows –
knew
the apprentice well. It would be a good idea to have a friend of the lad’s here.’

‘Knew him well?’ McLintoch said suspiciously. ‘How’s that?’

‘We went whoring together,’ Fowler said, baring his teeth.

McLintoch, to my relief, accepted this.

When we were all five in the shop, it seemed cramped and crowded. It was almost as cold inside as it was out; three days without fires had made the house almost uninhabitable. With the door closed, we were left in a darkness relieved only by McLintoch’s bright lantern, swinging at the top of its pole and casting erratic dancing shadows across the room. Esther, beside me, shivered; she said lightly, ‘Perhaps it would have been more sensible to stay at home!’

‘That’s where I’d like to be, madam,’ McLintoch said.

I called, ‘Hello? Anyone here?’

No reply.

I looked around. ‘Most of the victims died upstairs, so I think that’s where we had better be. Mr Fowler, will you stay downstairs to talk with the boy?’

He had the sense to moderate his language and his behaviour; he ducked his head, said in his most deferential manner, ‘Yes, sir.’ His dark eyes gleamed in the lantern light.

As we turned for the stairs, he lit a candle from the lantern and fixed the candle in its own wax on the counter. It gave me a fine view of his lean figure draped in a drab serviceable greatcoat; I saw the light glint on something protruding from his pocket. A pistol. Perhaps he subscribed to the idea that a killer liked to return to the scene of the foul deed. We needed to talk. The killer was going to the Assizes; I didn’t want to see Fowler there instead, charged with his, or her, murder.

A spirit may disembody anywhere in the house where the living person died, but it is most likely it will appear in the room where death occurred, so we went straight up to the bedrooms. On the landing, Mrs Fletcher withdrew into shadows; Esther hesitated in the doorway to the girls’ room, looking at the blood-stained bed, its sheets tumbled on the floor where the intruder on Monday had left them.

‘I think I will stay here,’ she said. ‘The girl – Sarah – might be glad of a woman’s consolation.’

McLintoch, with his bright lantern, planted himself in the doorway of the larger room where the parents had slept. There was a nervous energy in the air, a tingling; it set my teeth on edge. McLintoch said, ‘It’s going to be bad.’

The air seemed to shimmer then settled. We waited. Long minutes. Perhaps tonight was not going to be the night after all. Perhaps they were never going to disembody. It happens, occasionally. But to four people in one house? In such circumstances?

We heard a noise from the darkness downstairs. Fowler’s voice, speaking very quietly. ‘The boy,’ Esther said. Mrs Fletcher walked impatiently into her parents’ room, looked about at the debris of her parents’ lives: coins, jewellery, books. She sat down on the mattress with a heavy sigh of annoyance. In the dark shadows cast by the lantern, I imagined I saw figures, shapes, the scurry of rats or mice. Something squeaked.

And still Fowler’s voice downstairs. Then a cry of distress – unmistakeably a boy’s voice. I thought about going down, changed my mind. Better let Fowler deal with the lad. There were things they’d want to say that no one else should hear.

And still nothing up here. McLintoch said, ‘Never liked the waiting.’

Something seemed to scrape across my skin; I jumped. There was a scream of fury, a shout. The washstand in the larger bedroom toppled over. Candlesticks clattered on to the floor. Mrs Fletcher instinctively started up from the mattress. Light flashed; I closed my eyes against the brightness.

‘God almighty,’ McLintoch said hoarsely. I opened my eyes again. The books and coins on the bedside table shot into the air then clattered to the floor. The curtains danced across the window, whipped up. One ripped across with a great screech.

A great roar – a male voice.

‘He’s gone mad!’ McLintoch took a step back. I turned to tell Esther to go downstairs, but she was moving into the daughter’s bedroom. Through the open doorway I could see a feeble gleam of pale light on the bedstead.

Fowler called up. ‘What’s happening?’

I wished I knew – this wasn’t normal at all. ‘Stay down there,’ I called back. ‘We’ll deal with it.’

He was sensible enough not to argue; I heard his footsteps retreat. McLintoch said, ‘Don’t reckon we ought to interfere.’ He was poised with his weight on his back foot, ready to flee. The curtains flew up again and the tumbled bedding stirred. Mrs Fletcher took three swift steps to the door, on to the landing.

I tried to stop her. ‘Someone has to bring him to his senses.’

‘He never had any,’ she said.

I didn’t want to talk to Gregson, but it looked like I had no choice. I edged into the room. There ought to be a gleam where the spirit was – pale because new spirits are always weak.

The remains of the curtains swung. One of the books had fallen spine down and the pages riffled violently.

‘Samuel Gregson?’ I called. ‘My name’s Patterson—’

A gale swept through the room. The bedding at my feet leapt into the air. I was standing on a corner of it, realized too late and was already falling before I could take evasive action. I stumbled back against the door. The door jerked forward, catching me painfully in the back. It crashed back against the wall with a force that nearly took it off its hinges. I fell back with it, hit my head. The door bounced forward, and I leapt out on to the landing. The door swung, slammed shut, then crashed open again.

The entire house was shaking. The spirit must be mad! Fowler yelled up from below. The door to the girls’ room opened and Esther hurried out.

There was no reason the spirit should confine its havoc to one room. It had to be pacified. I gritted my teeth, called, ‘Mr Gregson? I want to talk. I know who killed you.’

There was a sudden overwhelming silence. The door had come off one of its hinges and was hanging oddly. From the girls’ room came the sound of soft, inconsolable weeping.

‘I think your daughter Alice was involved,’ I said. ‘And a man who was her lover. But I’m not sure
why
they did it. I was wondering if you knew anything.’

Silence still. I had to get the spirit thinking rationally, divert him from this wild fury. I edged nearer the door, hoping to see the spirit. Even
two
spirits – if Mrs Gregson had disembodied, she might be a calming influence on her husband.

I could see nothing.

A tingling crawled across my skin again. McLintoch said, ‘I don’t like this.’

I didn’t want Esther in this house any longer. This was too strange, too unpredictable. ‘Esther, Mrs Fletcher, leave the house. Now. And tell Mr Fowler to go too.’

Mrs Fletcher began to protest but Esther took her arm and turned her to the stairs. She glanced back, said, ‘Be careful.’ McLintoch looked as if he would like to follow them.

I turned back to the room. ‘Mr Gregson  . . .’

The bed jumped.

It was a big wide bed, good solid oak, and it jumped at least a foot off the floor at the head end. I felt the vibration as it thudded back down on to the floorboards. One of the boards broke and the end snapped up. I stood my ground, fighting the temptation to dash for the stairs. Surely even a spirit as out of control as this one couldn’t move anything as heavy as that oak bed more than a few inches.

Footsteps. I glanced round. Fowler hesitated behind me, his pistol in his hand. McLintoch barely waited for him to step off the stairs before he was on them himself, clattering down.

‘What’s going on?’ Fowler said.

‘The spirit isn’t happy,’ I said dryly. I nodded at the pistol. ‘That’s not going to do much good.’

‘It’s got me out of worse situations than this.’ Fowler raised his voice. ‘Gregson! Stop fooling around, man, and talk to us!’

The bed jumped again; Fowler swore. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘that thing’s far too heavy  . . .’

The head of the bed rose up, lifting until it was standing vertically. Books and candles and water jug and all the bits and pieces of jewellery and coins spun up into the air, came flying across the room towards us. I ducked, but was struck on the cheek by a coin; the sharp corner of a book caught the back of my hand. The bed started across the floor, the legs on which it stood screeching and screaming.

Fowler raised his pistol and fired at the far wall. Picture glass shattered.

In the sudden deafening silence, the air seemed to thicken. I gasped for breath. Fowler put a hand in my back, pushed me towards the stairs. We hurtled down into the dark shop below. A feeble spirit gleamed on the counter; a young voice quavered, ‘Fowler?’

‘Get on to the door!’ Fowler roared. ‘The outside of it!

We toppled out on to the bridge, slipping and sliding on the snow and ice. I stumbled, and Fowler hauled me up and dragged me across the bridge. The crowd scattered in alarm, screaming and shouting. McLintoch yelled for everyone to run.

We crashed into the parapet of the bridge opposite the shop. Twisting to look back, I saw a faint gleam on the door of the shop – the boy. The spirit was slipping and sliding in that odd way that new spirits do when they can’t quite control themselves; I could hear him crying out.

Fowler started back towards him. I tried to grab his arm but he was too quick. Devil take it, if he wasn’t careful, he’d let something slip, someone would guess  . . .