The Scent of Murder (24 page)

‘I wish
I
could help to train the dogs. Why doesn’t the Master ever choose me?’ Bessie whined. ‘You’ve already been out with him once and I never. I’d rather be runnin’ about in the countryside than workin’ in the stinkin’ laundry, washin’ out other girls’ sanitary rags.’

‘No, you wouldn’t, Bessie,’ Edie said. ‘Believe me, you wouldn’t.’

‘Better kissed than whacked,’ Bessie muttered.

If Bessie didn’t have the nous to guess what really went on, then she didn’t deserve to know. Edie turned onto her other side, drew her knees to her chest, screwed her eyes shut and tried to think of good things, like her life at the Hall. Thoughts of Mrs Plummer’s cakes didn’t work this time; all she could think of was the dogs, and the things that followed. A tremble built up in her body, turning her bones and organs to jelly. She prayed: Please God, dear God, keep me safe from the hounds.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

‘Off you go, Weedon,’ Pike said. ‘Philips will be in his quarters above the barn; I doubt he’s in any state to offer resistance.’

‘Right you are, sir.’ The young constable hopped from the trap and headed towards the Hall’s stables to make the arrest.

Pike turned to Dody, sitting next to him in the front seat. ‘I think you had better stay here while I talk to Sir Desmond — just in case.’

Dody had no intention of staying in the trap like the compliant little woman Sir Desmond had once taken her to be. ‘I am a part of this investigation, Matthew, and I think it important that I accompany you.’

Pike did not argue. He helped her down from the trap and they walked to the Hall together, though several feet apart, Pike having no idea that Sir Desmond suspected them to be anything but professional colleagues.

They waited on the draughty front porch for Alistair to summon the master of the house. When Sir Desmond finally appeared, his visage matched his black mourning suit.

‘What the devil, Pike! Have you no sense of decency, man?’ He glanced at Dody and back to Pike. ‘And what’s she doing here?’

‘I’m sorry to hear about the passing of Mr Slater, sir; please accept my condolences,’ Pike said.

‘That’s not why you are here.’

‘This is a courtesy call, Sir Desmond,’ Pike continued evenly, ‘to inform you that we have arrested your groom, Philips. He is being charged with the manslaughter of your nephew, Tristram Slater.’

‘What?’ Sir Desmond took a threatening step towards Pike, who stood his ground.

‘You can’t tell me you did not have your own suspicions. Why did you beat him if you thought he was blameless?’

Sir Desmond slammed the heavy door in Pike’s face.

Pike turned to Dody. ‘Well, that went well, didn’t it?’

Dody could not help her smile.

A young priest showed Dody and Pike into Father Flood’s draughty study before being dispatched to fetch tea. Floor-to-ceiling shelving covered two walls and bowed under the weight of hundreds of desiccated tomes. Cobwebs trembled from cracked cornices. A painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall failed to conceal a patch of damp creeping through the plaster beneath it.

Flood greeted Dody warmly, taking her hand and pumping it. Once she had extracted herself, she introduced Pike and they were shown to two well-used visitors’ chairs in front of Flood’s desk.

‘First of all,’ Flood said, as he settled into his chair, ‘let me express my sadness at Tristram’s death. Please tell your sister that I am praying for her and for his family. I have written to his aunt, expressing my sympathies. Lady Fitzgibbon and I …’ he paused, waved a hand in the air as if trying to select some tactful words, ‘… do not share the same spiritual beliefs, but even though she is a practising Anglican I think she will be comforted to hear that I will be dedicating a Mass to Mr Slater.’ Dody was surprised to hear a man of the cloth speak with such lack of prejudice. ‘I mentioned at dinner the other night, Doctor McCleland, that the refectory needed a new roof; do you remember? Well, I’m delighted to inform you that Sir Desmond has come to our rescue. A generous man indeed.’

That explained it. Dody had a feeling she knew how Her Ladyship had orchestrated her husband’s burst of generosity; she had probably threatened him with some kind of hex. Dody could not help admiring the woman’s strategy; marriage to Sir Desmond would need its consolations, surely.

The priest touched on various good deeds the Fitzgibbons could be credited with, while a dying Christ writhed upon a wooden cross in an alcove to one side of the desk. Christ’s mother stood in another alcove, crushing a bloody-mouthed snake with her bare feet. Dody glanced at Pike, staunch Anglican that he was, and smiled to herself as he fidgeted, his gaze everywhere but on the gruesome statues.

When Flood paused in his litany of praise, Pike took out his notebook and guided him back to the topic at hand. ‘You might be aware, sir … er … Father, that we are no longer viewing Mr Slater’s death as an accident, and that we have, in fact, made an arrest.’

‘Yes, I was horrified to hear it. My cleaning woman told me. How have the family taken it?’

‘They’re distraught, naturally,’ Pike said.

That was putting it mildly, Dody thought.

‘May I ask the name of the unfortunate man, Chief Inspector?’ Flood asked.

When Pike told him, the priest muttered, ‘The head groom? Lord have mercy! How dreadful! When Tristram was here the other evening he did mention in passing that he’d found someone stealing from the stables. Could that be the man, do you think?’

‘He did not tell you the thief’s name?’

‘No, Chief Inspector, he did not care to disclose it.’

Dody and Pike exchanged glances. They might not have a name, but the case against Philips would be stronger if he was the thief and had a motive for scaring off or silencing Tristram.

‘Are you prepared to testify to this?’ Pike asked.

‘Of course. Tristram said he was going to report the fellow to his uncle.’

‘Did the matter appear to be worrying him?’

‘No, not all, Chief Inspector. The poor boy had other things on his mind that overshadowed that incident.’

‘Other things?’ Pike repeated.

The priest waved his arms around the room in general. ‘Yes — this place, actually. He was very interested in its history; wanted me to tell him all I knew about it.’

‘What is there to tell?’

‘Well, that the building was bought by the Catholic Church about eight years ago. Prior to that it was owned by the Anglican Parish of Uckfield and used as a workhouse.’

Dody caught Pike’s eye and saw her own interest reflected there.

‘Since then, the workhouse premises have been located in Uckfield proper.’

‘But why would Tristram be interested in the workhouse?’ Dody asked.

The priest hesitated. ‘I’m not sure if I’m in a position to help you—’

Dody broke in, saying gently, ‘I understand your reservations, Father. They are no different from a doctor’s reluctance to breach patient confidentiality. But once a patient has passed away …’

Flood sighed. ‘I see your point.’

‘And it’s not as if Mr Slater was a Roman Catholic,’ Pike added.

‘No indeed, although he did show an interest—’

‘Tell us of your conversation with Tristram Slater, Father,’ Pike said firmly, cutting off Flood’s discursiveness.

At this point the young priest entered with a tray of tea things. Dody sensed Pike’s frustration at the interruption. He refused the offer of tea with a curt ‘No, thank you.’ Tea was poured for Flood and Dody.

When the young priest at last left, Pike reminded Flood of Dody’s earlier question.

‘Why did Tristram want to know about the workhouse?’ Flood repeated. ‘Well, apparently he originated from the place.’

Dody raised her eyebrows and turned to Pike. ‘He was adopted. I found out the other day from Lady Fitzgibbon. Though I had no idea that he was adopted from the workhouse.’

‘Indeed, Doctor McCleland. He was a workhouse boy adopted by Lady Fitzgibbon’s sister when he was about four years old,’ Flood said.

‘And he wished to return to the old workhouse — why?’ Pike asked. ‘Surely he did not have any desire to relive what must have been painful old memories?’

‘No, I’m sure he did not. It was not the kind of place in which pleasant childhood memories were forged, believe me.’

Poor Tristram. This must explain the scars on his legs and buttocks, Dody thought sadly.
Spare the rod and spoil the child.

‘No, Chief Inspector,’ the priest added. ‘He came here hoping to trace his sister.’

This was the first either of them had heard about a sister. Pike lifted his eyebrows and turned to Dody.

‘Please go on,’ Dody said to Flood.

The priest shrugged. ‘There’s not much to tell. Jessica Wilson was her name. Tristram’s memories of her were understandably very vague. He wanted to find out more; seemed to think the old records might still be here — but I explained the workhouse took all its records with it when it moved. I suggested he take his enquiries to Uckfield.’

‘What did he know about Jessica?’ Pike asked.

‘She had long brown hair, he remembered, and was quite a lot older than him — eight to ten years, he guessed. She brought him up after their parents died until some well-meaning soul reported them to the authorities. After that they were sent to the workhouse and separated almost immediately. A few months later, the Slaters, visiting the Fitzgibbons, heard from the vicar about the eligible, disease-free little boy at the workhouse, and, as they could not have children of their own, they adopted him and took him north to live with them.

‘Jessica wrote to Tristram about fifteen years ago, care of the Slaters,’ the priest went on, ‘but they did not give him the letter until fairly recently. Apparently Jessica told her brother she was either going into service or being sent to Australia. She said the workhouse was an evil place and she would be glad to see the back of it. That was the only time he ever heard from her.’

An evil place.
Dody pondered the priest’s words. Before commencing her autopsy training, she would have denied the existence of true evil, believing that circumstance drove men to perform evil deeds. How naive and idealistic she had been.

‘Why did his parents withhold the letter?’ she asked.

The priest shrugged. ‘They wanted him to forget about her, forget about his origins. But he was a fair-minded man, he couldn’t forget, and eventually his mother succumbed, thinking the letter might put his mind at rest. But of course, it didn’t.’

‘Quite the opposite,’ Pike commented.

‘Indeed,’ the priest said. ‘He wrote to the workhouse and was told they had no Jessica Wilson on their records. No one had heard of her.’

‘And so he decided to visit the site of the old workhouse, I presume, himself,’ Pike finished. ‘Was the interest in archaeology a blind, then, something to hide the true purpose of his visit?’

‘Oh, no, the boy was very keen. He studied the subject for quite a while, I believe.’

But the fate of his sister must have continually weighed on his mind, thought Dody. The remains Dawson found at Piltdown, while of genuine interest to Tristram in an archaeological sense, would also have given him all the reason he needed to remain in the area and make subtle enquiries about his sister. He might have suspected there was something sinister behind her disappearance; had a hunch she was buried in the vicinity. It was hardly surprising that he’d jumped to conclusions when they found the skeleton in the dried river bed. Dody’s discoveries must have given him further hope. The length of time the bones had been in the ground, the skeleton’s gender and estimated age, meant that they might well belong to Jessica Wilson.

Dody reached into her pocket and showed the priest the buttons Tristram had given Florence.

‘Ah, yes. Tristram showed me these. I identified them for him.’

‘HMdO?’ Dody queried. ‘The letters mean nothing to me.’

‘Turn the button the other way, Doctor. There. Now do you see?’

Pike leaned towards Dody. ‘OpWH?’ he read.

‘In actual fact, the O is a U, sir.’

‘Uckfield Parish Workhouse!’ Dody exclaimed. ‘Of course!’

‘Good Lord,’ Pike said. ‘No wonder Florence thought the young man troubled.’

‘Troubled is putting it mildly, Chief Inspector. Tristram was disturbed by the find, obsessed even. And all the more determined to discover what had happened to his sister.’

‘How had he planned to do that?’ Pike asked.

‘First, he wished to visit the workhouse. I let him use my telephone. He rang the workhouse and made an appointment to see the workhouse Master. He explained that he was trying to trace Jessica Wilson.’

‘When was the appointment to take place?’

‘The afternoon of the accident, Chief Inspector. Unfortunately, as we all know now, he was unable to keep it.’

The first half of the journey back to Piltdown passed in relative silence. The pensive set of Pike’s brow, the tightly held reins as he negotiated the narrow winding road, told Dody he was reflecting on the priest’s words with the same sense of disquietude as she was. Florence had been correct when she’d said there was a lot more to Tristram than met the eye, Dody thought with regret. Her own tendency to favour facts over natural intuition, to take Tristram on face value rather than delve beneath the surface of the man, proved on this occasion to have let her down. She liked to think she was a good judge of character, but in Tristram’s case her judgement had failed her. If only she had given him as much attention when he was well as she had when he was dying. If only she had bothered to get to know him better. Had she but known the motive behind his actions, she might have been able to help him with his quest.

‘What ifs and maybes, eh, Dody?’ Pike said, following her thoughts.

Now,
there
was a good judge of character. She wondered briefly if this talent of Pike’s had anything to do with his musical ability, the unique way he listened to the manner in which people spoke, the attention he paid to cadence and tone, as would an artist to light and shade.

Before Dody could answer, the chestnut mare tossed her head and shied.