The Scent of Murder (23 page)

What a fool you are, he admonished himself. Where’s your soldier’s discipline? What kind of world would it be if everyone acted on their first impulse? And how would Dody feel if you embarked upon a murderous, revenge-induced rampage? That kind of reaction would not help her. You would be hanged and she would be ruined.

No, there had to be another way — but what?

He couldn’t think clearly in this place. He needed fresh air. Gun bag in one hand, he scooped up the saddle with the other and all but staggered into the yard to draw the sharp air into his lungs. His only course of action was to make Fitzgibbon pay through legal, non-barbaric means. If he could prove that one of Fitzgibbon’s guns had killed that girl, perhaps Dody would receive at least a little satisfaction. Who cared if Fitzgibbon was hanged for mutton or for lamb? It might not be so satisfying, but the result would be the same.

Slightly calmer now, he made for his trap. When he came to the section of driveway where he had earlier seen Dody at the window, he paused, lowered the saddle to the ground and gazed up again. There she was once more, standing at the window looking down. For Pike, that brief moment lasted an hour. As she gazed down at him, he felt as if she was reading his mind. Did she know he had discovered her secret? Did she blame him for what had happened?

She drew the curtains sharply. Perhaps that was her answer.

Picking up the saddle, he continued towards the trap, the fingers of one hand clenching and unclenching around the buckles of the girth. When he finally climbed into the trap, he found his palm daubed with his own blood.

Lady Fitzgibbon insisted that Dody take Florence with her to the Green Witch so she could be tucked into bed and given a sleeping tonic. Dody suspected that Florence’s weeping presence at the Hall was not the kind of support Lady Fitzgibbon wanted — she needed to regain her strength in order to provide comfort to Tristram’s mother. Tristram’s father, unfortunately, was away on business and unable to come immediately.

The public house was neither popular with nor accustomed to overnight guests and there were rooms available for both Florence and Annie. That evening, they sat in the smoky parlour, the sisters next to one another on the sofa, Pike in a worn armchair opposite. He left his seat and filled Florence’s brandy balloon from a bottle of fine cognac he had purchased from the publican. Florence had ceased weeping, but contributed little to the conversation, staring deeply into the fire, which, thanks to Pike’s ministrations, was finally roaring more loudly than the wind outside.

Dody caught Pike’s eye and mouthed, ‘Tell her?’

He nodded. ‘Florence, my dear, are you recovered enough to speak about Tristram?’ he asked gently.

She curled up in the sofa, her feet tucked under her like a child. ‘I suppose so, Pike.’

‘When I was at the Hall today I discovered something that led me to believe that Tristram’s death was no accident.’

Florence stared back at him woozily. Dody took the glass from her sister’s hand and placed it on the table beside her. ‘Listen, darling, this is important.’ Pike had already shared his discovery with her and they were anxious to hear Florence’s opinion of the mystery. She might have noticed or overheard something that would help bring whoever had caused Tristram’s death to justice.

‘Warrior’s girth had been deliberately cut,’ Pike went on. He reached into the pockets of his overcoat, drying on the back of his chair, and pulled out both sections of girth, pointing out the cut ends to her.

Florence shook her head. ‘What? I don’t understand. Who would want to kill Tristram?’ Her eyes filled anew.

Dody squeezed her sister’s hand. ‘That’s what we need to find out,’ she said.

‘Had Tristram been riding in the days before the accident?’ Pike asked.

Florence pointed to her brandy. Dody let her have a sip, then put it back on the table. ‘Well, first there was the hunt, and the next night he went out alone, didn’t he, Dody, after you surprised us in the library?’

‘Where did he go?’ Pike asked.

‘To the seminary. He gets …’ Her voice faltered. ‘He got on well with Father Flood.’

‘Is the seminary an easy ride?’

‘Usually, but he was in a hurry, he told me, and rode fast. He was late to dinner, but said how satisfying it was to burn off some of Warrior’s and his own restless energy.’

Pike rubbed his chin. ‘That ride would probably have snapped the girth if it had already been tampered with. It must have been cut after that.’

‘He wasn’t himself when he returned from his visit to Father Flood at the seminary,’ Florence said. ‘Not exactly in a bad mood — Tristram’s moods were never bad — but he did seem troubled.’

Dody glanced at Pike. Words were not required. They would visit the seminary and talk to Father Flood together.

‘He still seemed troubled when we went for our ride yesterday, before the accident.’ Florence paused to take a trembling breath. Dody handed her a dry handkerchief from her own sleeve. ‘But I think I managed to cheer him up.’

Annie entered the parlour. ‘Your bath is running, Miss Florence.’ The maid carried a long-handled copper bed-warmer. Their conversation ceased while she bent down to the fire, tonged some hot coals into it and closed the ventilated lid. ‘This should make your bed nice and cosy — ’fraid the sheets are a bit damp.’ Annie cast a scathing eye around the shabby parlour. ‘Like everything in this place.’

Dody pulled Florence to her feet. ‘Off you go, then. A warm bath then a long sleep will do you the world of good.’ She kissed Florence on the cheek and said to Annie, ‘When she’s tucked up, make her some warm milk. Bring it to me and I’ll put some chloral hydrate in it to help her relax.’ She shot Florence a smile. ‘Doctor’s orders.’

Pike rose and kissed Florence good night and Dody walked her sister to her bedroom. On her way back to the parlour she remembered she had left her muff by the fire in the downstairs inglenook. Cursing her forgetfulness, she pushed her way through the crowd at the bar, heading for the secluded corner lounge, where she and Florence had met up with Pike earlier before retiring to the private parlour. A couple seated at the small table, leaning towards one another, heads almost touching, saw her approach and stiffened, unclasping their hands. It was Mr Montague and Mrs Hutton. Well, well, what a relief, Dody thought. It looks like Lady Fitzgibbon is not involved with that boorish man after all. The unpleasant housekeeper and Sir Desmond’s equally unpleasant friend deserved each other. She gave them a cool nod, slipped from the inglenook with her muff and returned to Pike.

‘If you want to talk to that man from the Hunt about organising some beaters for the search, he’s in the bar by the fire,’ she told Pike upon entering the parlour.

‘No, not yet. I have another plan up my sleeve.’ Before Dody could enquire what it was, he asked, ‘How do you think Florence is coping, really?’

‘Fortunately she is young. She’ll bounce back, eventually.’ Dody returned to her seat on the sofa, and Pike moved across the room to join her.

‘But she will never forget.’

‘No, never.’

Pike took Dody’s hand. ‘And will you ever forget?’

To what was he referring? she wondered. Did he know her secret, and, if so, how much of it? She should have guessed he would have found out somehow. He was a detective, after all.

‘Oh, Matthew.’ She sighed and dared herself to rest her head against his shoulder. He said nothing; did nothing but caress her cheek.

‘Is that all right?’ he asked softly.

She managed to nod.

He kissed her forehead. ‘And that?’

Again she nodded, far less aware this time of the scent of his hair oil. It had been a long, trying day and she fought the desire to drift off in his arms. He walked her upstairs and kissed her goodnight at her bedroom door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The girls’ dormitory was one long room of flaking whitewashed walls and unpolished floorboards; two rows of ten single beds, each shared by two girls and sometimes more, separated by a narrow aisle. Beside each bed stood a small chest for the girls’ belongings. And on each chest stood an oil lamp exuding greasy fumes into two half-filled cups of water.

Water, water, lead me to the slaughter,

And I’ll make your nightmares come true.

Mr Clover always sang grisly songs when they queued up, extending their cups to him for their night-time ration. He didn’t mean to scare them, though. Half of the time he didn’t even understand what the words meant; all the girls knew that.

There was not much more to be found in the dormitory. A plain white chamber pot resided under each bed, positioned exactly halfway so it was equally accessible from both sides. The girls made rag mats in the workroom, but weren’t allowed to have them in the dormitory on account of bed-wetting. Sometimes the floor was puddled with piss. Shame no one had thought to replace the stinking mattresses, Edie thought bitterly, yearning for her cosy, sweet-smelling attic room in the Hall.

Cold wind blew through the open sash windows — so as to keep the place hygienic, Matron told them. Wouldn’t be very hygienic if they all caught pneumonia, would it? Edie thought, shivering as she knelt for prayers alongside the bed she shared with Bessie Teadle. She was lucky, she supposed, that no one else could be squeezed in alongside them, on account of Bessie’s hump.

Right now Matron was getting more irritated every minute by the interruptions to prayer time. It seemed they couldn’t get through a single ‘Our Father’ without one of the girls coughing and spluttering. Some of the beds were empty on account of inmates being sent to the infirmary with the measles.

Matron stood at the head of the dormitory, swaying backwards and forwards on the toes of her indoor shoes. Her skirt came down to her ankles, leaving the shoes plainly visible. They were black patent leather with big square buckles that printed themselves onto her thick-stockinged feet, little pillows of fat puffing between the gaps in the leather. Edie rarely looked at Matron’s face because she could imagine too well her scowl, the barely suppressed snarl. In fact, if she were ever asked to describe the woman’s looks, she’d have a hard time doing it. It was her feet that she always concentrated on, even when she wasn’t in trouble.

Matron walked the boards with a heavy tread. Birch slapped flesh. Ruth again, getting a walloping for not saying her prayers loud enough. It happened almost every night.

‘Just what I’d expect from a Jew girl,’ Matron said, wiping her cane with her apron to get rid of the Jew germs. Jews were wicked because they had executed Our Lord, and that was all Edie knew about them. Still, it was odd, she thought, that Matron should take it out on Ruth when she surely didn’t have nothin’ to do with it — wasn’t old enough, was she?

Matron thumped up and down the aisle once more like an officer inspecting her troops. Jane Wilkins was whacked on the legs for leaving her boots untidy. Bessie was whacked for slumping instead of kneeling up straight.

At last they were allowed into their beds. Edie and Bessie snuggled up and for once Bessie felt warmer than a hot-water can.

After a bit more pacing, Matron returned to the head of the dormitory and produced a sheet of paper from the pocket of her starched white apron.

‘Saturday’s activities have been drawn up.’ She cleared her throat. ‘A working party consisting of Ethel Creed, Martha Baptist, Madge O’Brien, Claire Pertwee and Caroline Mew will spend the day at the Piltdown seminary to assist staff there with the heavy winter clean. Lottie Clark and Patricia Melon’ — Edie held her breath, hoping to hear her name, then released it when it did not come — ‘will spend the weekend with their regular employers. Susan Smith and Mary Watson will work in the vegetable garden. The rest of you girls will help Miss Bland in the laundry.’

So Edie was to be sentenced to a day in the hot, smelly laundry. She had hoped she would be needed at the Hall, but they obviously weren’t having weekend visitors. Looked like she would have to wait till Monday before she could return.

‘All except Edith Pratt.’ Edie held her breath when she heard her name. ‘Edith, you have been surprisingly well behaved over the last few days. The beating obviously did you good. As your reward, the Master has chosen you, personally, to help him exercise the hounds.’

Edie froze. Her heart almost stopped beating. She’d given everyone nits, hadn’t she, and surely that wasn’t a good thing? She gripped Bessie’s hand tightly. Alice said something catty to Edie under her breath. Edie was no longer in Coventry, obviously. ‘You take my place, then,’ Edie hissed back.

Matron clapped her hands. ‘Enough, girls. No more talking, and heaven help any of you I catch at it. Lights out now!’

The girls obediently extinguished their lamps. The punishment for talking after lights-out was to stand on a chair in the dining room with a basket of washing on your head. They called this punishment ‘basketing’. If the basket was dropped, you were whacked with Matron’s belt. No one, as far as Edie knew, had ever managed to balance the basket successfully. She wondered why it was used at all. Surely a simple leathering would be easier for everyone, as well as saving any amount of washing. Master and Matron loved thinking up different games to intimidate the girls and Edie could never understand why. Joe said they got their jollies on it — whatever that meant.

As soon as the door had shut behind Matron, Edie jumped from her bed and closed all the windows. Whoever woke up first in the morning would open them again.

She stuck her cold feet between Bessie’s legs. ‘Ow! Give over, your feet are like ice blocks!’

‘And you feel like a furnace, Bessie Teadle.’

Bessie sniffed. ‘I’m poorly, that’s why. Told Matron so the other day, didn’t I?’

‘What’s wrong with you? Is it the measles?’

‘Maybe. Me throat’s killin’.’

‘Please let me catch it too, please, please!’ Edie said, breathing in the fumes of Bessie’s putrid breath.

‘Shut yer cake ’oles!’ Alice hissed. ‘Or I’ll be tellin’ Matron on you.’

‘If I catch what you’ve got, I won’t be goin’ to the dogs,’ Edie whispered in Bessie’s ear.