The Scent of Murder (22 page)

‘And lose me job? Not likely. Weren’t my fault I’m overworked. There’s only so many hours in a day. I can’t do everyfink meself. I told ’im ya can’t expect kids to do men’s work. That’s when ’e laid into me.’

‘Where did the damaged girth end up?’

The single eye narrowed. ‘I dunno. Got knocked on me noggin, didn’t I? Can’t remember nuffin’.’

Pike sat on the edge of the bed and broached a topic that had been bothering him ever since he’d heard about the accident. ‘Why weren’t you sacked for negligence? Even if an inexperienced lad saddled Mr Slater’s horse and didn’t notice the damaged girth, you are the one ultimately responsible for keeping all the tack in good order.’

Philips attempted a shrug. The movement brought with it a wince of pain and a coughing fit. He spluttered and caught his breath. ‘’Cos I’m too good to lose, I s’pose.’

‘So your employer just beats you to a pulp and puts you out of action for a few days instead?’

‘Won’t make that mistake again though, will I? From now on nuffink gets put on an ’orse what ’asn’t passed my eye first.’

Philips closed his eyes and seemed to drift off.

Pike gazed around the loft. There wasn’t much more he could do and he had no warrant to search for the girth, which he was now keen to examine. Then a way of circumventing the problem came to mind.

‘I need to check for more guns,’ he said. The groom opened his eye, caught the wry smile on Pike’s face and cringed back into his pillow.

‘That one in the wardrobe’s all I got,’ the man whined.

‘Have to make sure, all the same. Magistrate’s orders.’

Pike opened the sea chest and rifled through the contents, finding some old clothes and a pair of highly polished riding boots. He sat back on the edge of the bed, reached into one of the boots and discovered a wad of notes stuffed into the toe. Philips, his swollen eyes widened with fear, took some pathetic swipes at him, but Pike kept well out of reach. The man cursed and grumbled, calling him nothing a policeman had not been called before, and calming down only when Pike shoved the money back where it had come from.

‘You’ve no business interfering with me savings!’ Philips muttered, collapsing back onto his pillow.

‘Twenty-one pounds. There’s a lot of money there.’

‘So? I’m good with me money. None of your business, neither.’

‘Just looking after your interest, Mr Philips. You haven’t got anything else squirrelled away, have you?’

Pike slid from the bed and peered beneath it.

‘Oi! There’s no guns down—’ Philips exclaimed, all but falling from the bed. He finished his sentence with a squeak ‘—there.’

Pike pulled out a floral china chamber pot and peered inside. No, no guns there. Instead, curled like a snake at the bottom of the pot, lay the missing girth.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Tristram had not woken since his night-time conversation with Florence, his connection with the living world becoming more tenuous by the hour. Dody left her seat by his bed to stand at the window and stretch her stiff muscles. Earlier, she had seen Pike exit the Hall and head towards the stables. She had not seen him leave and she wondered if he was still there. If only she were with him now. Even the uneasiness she felt in his presence would be preferable to what was going on here. This deathwatch was hard enough for a specialist like her; what it must be like for Florence and Lady Fitzgibbon was almost beyond imagining.

Florence continued to deny the inevitable, seeing in every one of Tristram’s twitches and moans some kind of deliberate communication with her, even when he had begun a Cheyne–Stokes pattern of breathing — deep, rapid breaths diminishing towards apnoea: always an ominous sign. Lady Fitzgibbon sat quietly in a corner for the most part, her eyes closed, the thumb and forefinger of each hand pinched together in a way that made Dody wonder if she was communing with the spirits.

Sir Desmond looked in on Tristram briefly after his meeting with Pike. His mood was foul. First he bellowed about the upstart policeman who’d ransacked his gun collection, then almost broke down in tears when reprimanded by his wife.

Her voice had held an assertive edge that Dody had not heard before. ‘Desmond, this sickroom is no place for your ranting. Apologise to the ladies and then leave us alone, please.’

His shoulders sagged; his whole body spoke of misery and defeat. ‘Pardon my language, please, ladies,’ he mumbled.

With no explanation, he took out his penknife and scratched some strange geometric shapes in the stone above the fireplace. Lady Fitzgibbon nodded, as if he had finally done something that met with her approval. Florence caught Dody’s eye and shrugged.

‘Apotropaic signs,’ Lady Fitzgibbon said, noticing their puzzlement. ‘To protect Tristram and keep out evil spirits.’

Of course, Dody thought to herself, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. The more she saw the two of them together, the more Dody was sure that Lady Fitzgibbon’s eccentric behaviour was an act put on for the benefit of her superstitious husband.

Dody’s musings were broken when Florence cried out, ‘He’s woken up, see? I told you he was getting better.’ She clasped Tristram’s hand in hers and brought it to her lips.

Dody and Lady Fitzgibbon hurried over. Tristram’s eyes were wide open and staring at something far beyond the room. Lady Fitzgibbon stifled a cry, took hold of Florence’s arm and forced her away from the bed. Dody reached for her stethoscope and listened to his chest, hearing nothing but the sobs of the women who loved him.

She peered into Tristram’s eyes, searching for life, and found it for a moment, a thin thread passing fleetingly across a beam of light before vanishing into darkness.

Half an hour later, with uncharacteristic timidity, Mrs Hutton crept into Tristram’s room, the keys on her belt jangling gently. ‘Lady Fitzgibbon sent me to see if you needed some assistance, Doctor.’

Dody threw a flannel back into a bowl of soapy water. ‘Thank you, I could do with another towel, please. And some help to turn Mr Slater over.’

Mrs Hutton stared at Tristram’s body for a moment, her expression a mixture of horror and sadness, before fetching a towel from a linen press on the landing. As she dried Tristram’s damp legs, her mouth remained fixed in a grim line, her eyes watery with tears that refused to fall.

She put down the towel and competently helped Dody turn Tristram over so his back could be washed. With a very slight shiver, the woman reached out and touched the scarring on the back of Tristram’s legs. When her eyes alighted on the lividity already patterning his back she stifled a sob.

Not everyone was as used to the colours of death as she was, Dody reflected. She attempted to conjure up some kind of sympathy for the woman, whom she had disliked from their first meeting. Someone like Mrs Hutton, who had worked as a servant for so long in the house, would surely regard every one of its occupants as family, and was entitled to grieve as much as anyone.

The housekeeper soon restored herself to her usual rigid imperturbability, and together they dressed Tristram in his best suit. While they worked, Dody tried unsuccessfully to make conversation. The dour woman barely said a word. Grief would have accounted for the silence, of course, but so would resentment. The housekeeper had not forgotten the reprimand she’d received from Dody over the scullery maid’s shaved head.

When they had finished Dody stepped back and admired their handiwork. Unlike many of the corpses she had viewed, Tristram appeared to be genuinely at peace. She could only hope that this would be of some comfort to his mother, still journeying from Cumberland to see him one last time.

She told Mrs Hutton she could go. But strangely enough, despite her apparent discomfort with the corpse, the housekeeper seemed in no hurry to return to her normal duties. Her eyes lingered on the mantelpiece, on the apotropaic signs Sir Desmond had carved, and then dropped to the open packet of buttons Florence had shown Dody earlier.

Dody had meant to ask Lady Fitzgibbon if she knew anything about the buttons, but had forgotten during the distressing turn of events. She wondered again why Tristram had not mentioned finding them, why he had hidden them under the Bible in his drawer.

‘They’re buttons, Mrs Hutton,’ Dody said. ‘I believe Tristram found them with the skeleton he exhumed.’ Dody retrieved the packet and unwrapped it fully, placing one of the buttons in the housekeeper’s palm.

At once the woman lost all her colour. If Dody hadn’t caught her and manoeuvred her to a chair, she would have fainted to the floor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Pike held the two detached pieces of the damaged girth above Philips’s head.

‘I didn’t put it there, I swear it! It’s a plant! Someone’s after my job, I tell ya!’ Philips cried.

‘I’ll take this away to be examined,’ Pike said impassively. ‘Meanwhile, get some rest, Mr Philips. You will be needing it.’

Outside the barn he examined the girth in natural light. It consisted of four straps, all of them broken. The clean, straight edges of three of the straps suggested they had been cut, but the fourth was only partly so, the ends wispy from being over-stretched before snapping. Even the lowliest of stable hands could not fail to notice such sabotage, sabotage that would have left the girth literally held together by a thread.

Had the old groom tacked up Warrior and hidden the pieces of girth after the accident, before anyone had a chance to get a good look at them? Florence had witnessed the beating Philips had received; did Sir Desmond know he was the one who had saddled Warrior? What, Pike wondered, could the groom possibly have had against Tristram Slater? Was he following orders, and if so, whose? Surely not Sir Desmond’s; Dody seemed to think the older man had a genuine avuncular affection for the younger.

Before he jumped to any conclusions, he needed to be certain the girth matched Warrior’s saddle — and that meant another trip to the tack room. He also needed to establish who had saddled Tristram’s favourite mount.

The girth was a match for the saddle all right: not only was it the same colour leather and make, but the same hair — Warrior’s dark-bay — could also be clearly seen clinging to both items. The saddle and both pieces of girth would have to be confiscated as evidence. Pike wrote a note to that effect and left it on the polishing table. Then he caught sight of a shape just outside the door — the stable hand he had seen earlier — and explained what he was doing, adding almost as an aside, ‘Who tacked up Mr Slater’s hunter yesterday?’

‘Mr Philips, sir.’

Pike nodded. No surprises there. He told the boy he could go and attempted to view the room with fresh eyes. What else had Philips been hiding? he wondered. Looking around, he noticed that the place wasn’t quite as clean as he had first thought. The careless under-grooms had not swept up properly. The junction between the wall and floor was edged with shreds of hay, horse hair and small, drying clumps of mud.

A crumpled cloth lay wedged between the wall and the combustion stove. Pike stooped to retrieve it and discovered it to be a man’s handkerchief, dotted with brownish smears and trails of what appeared to be blood. Sir Desmond’s initials were sewn into its corner. Did the master of the Hall suffer from nose bleeds? Had he been injured in some way, kicked by a horse perhaps, and staunched the blood flow with his handkerchief?

Pike brought the handkerchief to his nose and caught a faint feminine scent — Lady Fitzgibbon’s? He didn’t think so. More likely that of Fitzgibbon’s mistress, if he had read the man correctly.

He unwrapped the handkerchief, holding it over a sheet of newspaper on the polishing bench. A single mahogany hair dropped to the paper below. Lady Fitzgibbon’s hair was almost white; this did not belong to her. His stomach clenched. Gingerly he brought the cloth to his nose and inhaled the scent once more.

Dody’s scent.

Pike attempted to unravel the tightening knot in his stomach. Fitzgibbon must have offered Dody his handkerchief to staunch her bleeding shoulder after she had been bitten by the horse.

‘Yes, that was it,’ he said, startled by the sound of his own voice, loud in the empty room, the false ring of hope clearly evident. He knew too well the bite Dody suffered had not drawn blood. Whatever was troubling her was less in the body than in the mind; her recent strange and distant behaviour sprang from no physical ailment.

‘Oh God, no,’ he murmured as the horrible truth began to crystallise in his mind.

He bent and examined the area around the stove. Peering closely at the wood-bin, he saw blood on its corner and a few mahogany hairs. Signs of a scuffle showed through the dust and the loose hay on the floor. Vague footprints were also evident, some large and some small.

Pike played through the events in his head. There had been a struggle. She had fallen and hit her head on the wood-bin. Then she had been restrained somehow, possibly gagged with the handkerchief — the pattern of the blood trail implied a creeping down from a head wound. The larger smears of blood may have come later, when the wound had been wiped.

Then, once she had been restrained, what had Fitzgibbon done? Pike shivered, his knees weakened and he put his hand on top of the cold stove for support.

This was his fault. Despite the risk of discovery, he should have walked her to the back door and not left her to make her way alone. He had failed in his duty of care as a man.

What had Dody suffered because of him — at Fitzgibbon’s hands, no less?

The need for vengeance surged through Pike’s chest like a hot flood. Gun in hand, he would storm into the Hall and confront Fitzgibbon, make him pay for his abominable actions, blow his brains out. To hell with blasted principles; where had they ever got him? Both his army and police careers had suffered for his high and mighty rules of conduct. He would be held hostage by them no more.

He lashed out at the wood-bin with the toe of his boot, kicking it until his foot felt as if it might break. The accompanying pain brought him to his senses and gave him something to focus on. Pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, he urged himself to take deep breaths until his heartbeat returned to a manageable rhythm.