The Scent of Murder (25 page)

Pike looked over his shoulder. ‘A motorcar, damn it. Nasty, filthy thing,’ he muttered, increasing the horse’s pace. They trotted past hedgerows still dotted with autumn’s shrivelled blackberries and pulled into the gateway of a field, rotting hazelnuts crunching beneath the wheels of the trap. The motorcar roared past, leaving a trail of black exhaust fumes in its wake. Unfazed by either the car or their intrusion, a single magpie took a break from pacing the stubbly field and gave them a quizzical look.

One for sorrow, two for joy,

Three for a girl, four for a boy.

Five for silver, six for gold,

Seven for a secret, never to be told.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Magpie. Please give my regards to your wife.’ Pike took his hat off to nullify the bad luck the single bird was said to harbinger.

Pike, superstitious? Dody pondered. Surely not.

‘Doesn’t do any harm,’ he responded to Dody’s look of amused incredulity.

Instead of continuing with their journey, Pike delved into his coat pocket for his cigarettes and lit one for both of them. They smoked and watched the magpie.

‘What is it about the countryside,’ Dody wondered aloud, ‘that makes the people in it so insufferably superstitious? A desire to gain control and understanding of life’s mysteries, perhaps?’

‘Possibly. A sense of timelessness also?’ Pike offered. ‘Moments when the past and the present co-exist.’ His words hung on the cigarette smoke floating above them in the still, grey air.

Pike exhaled. ‘The evidence is building around Philips: first I find the tampered girth in his possession, the stable boy and under-groom confirm that Philips tacked up Warrior, and then the priest tells us Tristram caught someone red-handed — Philips, we suspect — stealing from Sir Desmond’s stables. But is that motive enough for Philips to kill Tristram?’

‘The staff at the Uckfield workhouse were aware of Tristram’s search for his sister at the time of his fall,’ Dody replied, playing devil’s advocate. ‘Someone covering up Jessica’s death would have far more motive to kill than Philips, who, we surmise, was merely stealing. Perhaps they were worried Tristram would discover the truth about her disappearance and so sent someone from the workhouse to tamper with the girth. It is only logical that we should consider the workhouse too.’

‘True, we have to consider every possibility. But I doubt the workhouse would have been able to act so quickly between Tristram’s phone call at Flood’s after the seance and his accident. I’ll have to question Philips myself, try to get to the bottom of this. I can’t trust the locals to do it properly.’ Pike paused for a final puff on his cigarette. ‘It seems that no sooner have we solved one mystery than another rears its head, eh, Dody?’

Dody agreed. ‘Or re-rears its head — we’re back to the skeleton.’

‘Which might well be that of Tristram’s missing sister.’

‘If only I could find conclusive proof of its identity,’ Dody said. ‘If Jessica Wilson was sent to Australia, surely there would be some kind of record of her passage. If we could find that, we could at least eliminate the possibility that the skeleton belongs to her.’

‘I’ll visit the workhouse tomorrow and urge them to check their records. Meanwhile,’ he flicked his stub into the hedgerow and pulled out his watch, ‘I have an appointment. We’d better get going.’

‘An appointment?’ Dody asked, grinding her cigarette with the sole of her button-boot before flicking it from the trap. ‘With whom?’

‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’ he said with the hint of a smile. ‘I’m going to the dentist.’

Dody turned to examine him. He did not appear to be suffering from a toothache.

Ignoring her perplexed look, he clicked his tongue and set the trap in motion.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

They left the horse and trap in the livery yard of the Green Witch and walked towards the sound of ringing iron from the blacksmith’s shop next door. Outside the light was beginning to fade and the damp to rise. Inside the smithy, the coal in the forge burned bright as the sun, and the close air was a pungent mix of molasses, freshly sliced horse’s hoof, sweat and smouldering charcoal. A tethered grey, all bones and attitude, snorted at their arrival and flung its head around impatiently as if to say, ‘Now what?’

‘Mr Pike,’ the smithy said, tonging a horseshoe from the forge and tossing it into a bucket of water. ‘I’d all but given up on you.’ Steam hissed from the bucket.

‘My apologies, sir. I had to pick up supplies,’ Pike said. ‘Doctor McCleland, meet Mr Buller.’

The blacksmith wiped his hands on his leather apron and gripped Dody’s hand hard enough for her delicate bones to protest. Dody squinted up at him through the smoke haze. He was not a large man, about the same height as Pike, but his shoulders were massive and his neck as thick and red as a ham. He cocked his head in Pike’s direction. ‘Has he told you what he’s up to, miss?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Dody said.

‘Did you manage to find me the rivets?’ Pike asked the blacksmith.

‘Aye, here ya go. Bought a bagful, like you asked. Why you want ’em’s a mystery to me, though.’

Pike rummaged in his canvas bag and produced Fitzgibbon’s revolver and the small rifle. ‘I need two rivets beaten out just a tad smaller than the diameters of each of these gun barrels — understand?’

Buller and Dody exchanged puzzled looks. The blacksmith shrugged. In a stage whisper, he said to Dody, ‘What’s ’e want to do that fer?’

Dody sighed. ‘Don’t ask, Mr Buller. Don’t ask.’

‘And then I need you to puncture a small hole in the dead centre of each,’ Pike added.

Buller picked up each of the guns in turn and examined them under one of the many lanterns hanging from the smithy’s walls, visually measuring them up.

‘Well, can you do it?’ Pike asked.

‘Might take a few practice goes to flatten them to size. And the hole in the centre’ll be tricky.’ He laughed and extended huge, calloused hands. ‘Not exactly made for needlework, these.’

‘Well, do your best,’ Pike said. ‘Before you start, though, I’ll trouble you to find me a large, heavy-based pan.’

Buller found Pike a copper saucepan then moved over to the forge to commence his side of the project.

Meanwhile, Pike produced two packages he had picked up from the village dentist on their way, playfully refusing to reveal what the packages contained. Dody identified the contents as soon as Pike peeled the wrapping off one.

‘Dental wax?’ This was usually sold in small sheets, but Pike had managed to get hold of two large lumps.

‘Yes. And a lot of it too.’ He shrugged off his jacket.

Dody followed suit with her shawl. The forge was becoming uncomfortably warm. Sparks flew from the pellets of steel that Buller was pounding. Whenever he misjudged a hammer blow, he cursed, complaining good-naturedly that he was not used to such intricate work, then letting out his frustration on a whooshing pair of bellows jammed into the coals. The first time he did this, Dody was forced to leap back to avoid the blast of heat. It was less stifling next to Pike, who stood at an oily work table some feet away from the open front of the blacksmith’s shop.

Pike peeled the paper from the second lump of red dental wax and tossed it into the copper saucepan to join the first. Wrapping his hand in a rag, he heaved an anvil, much smaller than the one on which the blacksmith worked, over to the forge and placed the pan of wax on it, close enough to the hot coals for the wax to melt but not close enough to burn it. Soon his waistcoat, collar and tie joined his neatly folded jacket and coat. Sweat glistened on his face as he stirred the melting wax.

Dody blew some escaped hair from her eyes. All around the forge the air pulsated with heat. Outside a cold wind howled. Raindrops blew through the open front of the shop and evaporated before they hit the ground.

‘Are you acquainted with the story of the Devil and Saint Dunstan?’ Pike asked Dody as he stirred the wax with a long piece of wood.

When Dody said she was not, he went on.

‘Long ago the Devil appeared to Saint Dunstan at his forge in the village of Mayfield, where he tried to tempt the saint into putting his blacksmith’s skills to evil purpose. Affronted by this, Saint Dunstan grabbed the Devil by the snout with his red-hot tongs and twisted it tight. Looking around the landscape in agony, the Devil spied the natural springs of Tunbridge Wells and plunged his burning snout into the cooling waters there.’

Dody smiled. ‘And ever since then, there have been hot springs in Tunbridge Wells.’ More local superstition. She thought about her sighting of the black dog, opened her mouth to tell Pike about it, then closed it again. She would contribute no more to this superstitious talk. That she had seen the dog only days before Tristram’s death was nothing but coincidence.

A few minutes passed. ‘Just about done ’ere, Mr Pike,’ the blacksmith shouted, throwing several hot metal discs into the water bucket. ‘Though I still think you’d ’ave been better off with a silversmith. A jeweller, even.’

‘It doesn’t have to be pretty, Mr Buller,’ Pike said. He moved the wax away from the fire, pulled some cotton twine from his pocket and measured it against the length of the rifle barrel, cutting it to size with his penknife. Reaching into the water bucket, he selected a cooled metal disc and threaded the twine though the small hole Buller had made, knotting it at one end.

‘Fix the gun by the stock with the clamp, please, Buller, business end up.’ To Dody he said, ‘I’ve already oiled the barrel so the wax shouldn’t stick.’

And then what he was up to finally dawned on her. ‘You’re going to drop the discs into the barrel, pour in the wax, and when it has cooled, pull the hardened wax out by the string,’ she said with excitement.

‘Well, I never,’ said the blacksmith.

‘And why would I wish to do that, Doctor McCleland?’ Pike enquired.

‘It’s all about ballistics. The gun barrels will leave marks upon the wax that can be matched to any bullet fired from them.’

‘That is what I’m hoping for. At the moment all I know is that the bullet that killed the girl came from some kind of a .22. The bullet’s the worse for wear and the barrel marks on it are barely visible to the naked eye. But when I send it to London, together with the wax plugs I’ve made of the gun barrels, the gunsmith will photograph the wax and the bullet with his powerful camera and match one to the other. Or not. Making the wax plugs ourselves means that the gunsmith will not need to see the actual guns and Sir Desmond can have his weapons back at the designated time.’ Pike paused. ‘I hope I can count on your discretion here, Buller.’ The blacksmith responded with a solemn nod. ‘Now, I’ll hold the string and you pour the wax. The beaten disc at the end should protect the firing mechanism.’

When the wax began to harden, Pike was able to let go of the twine and repeat the procedure on the revolver.

He stepped back from the workbench and wiped the sweat from his forehead onto his shirt sleeve. Moving over to a water barrel at the back of the smithy, he scooped out a ladleful, and, after first offering some to Dody, took a long draught himself. He tipped the remainder of the water over his head and scrubbed it into his short hair. Dody found herself enjoying the sight.

‘What do you mean, you have to give the guns back at the designated time?’ she whispered out of the blacksmith’s hearing.

‘I wanted to send them to the Yard’s gunsmith for examination, but the magistrate was against it. He is only allowing me to keep them for forty-eight hours. This is why I have to do this part of the test myself.’

‘The magistrate is under Sir Desmond’s influence too?’ Dody queried.

‘Perhaps. You know, Dody, there’s something about this tight-knit community that I don’t like at all.’

‘But it’ll take days to hear back from the Yard gunsmith. What do we do in the meantime?’

‘There is another test we can perform ourselves to narrow the field a little more. We’ll try it tomorrow at first light, if you’re game.’

‘Of course I’m game.’

Pike smiled, reached for an old towel hanging on a nail and dried his dripping face. Rarely had Dody seen the dapper Mr Pike in such a dishevelled state. She noticed how the wet shirt clung to the contours of his back and was reminded of how, in their intimate moments, she had clasped onto that back and marvelled at the understated strength of it. Yes, the desire was still there, she thought with a pleasant flush of realisation. Despite Sir Desmond’s best efforts, he had failed to beat that out of her.

Pike hung the towel back on its nail and turned to face her again, oblivious to her train of thought. ‘This other test will either eliminate Fitzgibbon’s weapons or provide us with valuable evidence against him.’ He paused, caught Dody’s eye and put his hand lightly on her arm. ‘I’d be rather pleased if Sir Desmond was the guilty party, wouldn’t you?’ he whispered even more softly.

Dody did not shake off his hand, though she turned away, unable to look at him. What was the reasoning behind his question? she wondered. Had he really worked out for himself what had happened in the tack room? Yes, of course she wanted Sir Desmond to pay for the crime he’d committed against her, but that was impossible; she was incapable of speaking to anyone except Florence about it. Even if she were able to speak frankly, a court of law would doubtless twist the evidence around. Once Sir Desmond let it be known that she had been giving herself to a professional colleague out of wedlock, there would be no stopping people from saying she was a woman generous with her favours and that she had lured her host willingly.

She stared into the glowing coals of the forge. From the corner of her eye she saw the blacksmith untie the grey and lead it to a fenced yard outside the smithy.

Her thoughts gained momentum. If Sir Desmond had been able to assault her in such a shocking manner without scruple, what had he been capable of doing to a vulnerable young girl? Despite the heat, her hatred of him made her shiver inside. This physical reaction to her emotional turmoil surprised, but did not shock her. On the contrary, it filled her with a sense of empowerment such as she had never known before.