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Authors: Robin Blake

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‘It may have nothing to do with the case, your lordship, but if I can put it like this, the natural affection of the marriage had somewhat cooled lately, as far as I have heard from members of the household.'
Lord Derby snorted.
‘The natural affection always does, sir. It's no reason to resort to assassination.'
‘No, not usually,' I agreed.
I felt it better to treat what the Reverend Brockletower had told me about his nephew's wish for a divorce as a confidence.
‘There is also the question of her body disappearing,' I went on.
‘Ah, yes, that. Most interesting. In addition to killing her, did the young fellow also purloin her body from the Ice-house? That's the first question. And the second is, if he did, why did he?'
I gave a submissive cough and said, ‘The only reason that comes readily to mind is that the murderer wanted to make it impossible for me to hold an inquest. However, I think it quite as likely that a third party stole the body, as an act unconnected with the reasons for murder itself.'
Again Derby smartly caught my underlying meaning.
‘Body-snatchers, you mean?'
I shrugged. ‘There's no record of such a crime ever having been committed in this town. On the other hand, it is on the increase in our nation, we are told. So I cannot discount the possibility that body-snatching has indeed come to Preston.'
‘Hmm. We must hope not. And we shall have to find her, anyway. Nat Blackburne tells me you are unable to proceed to an inquest else.'
‘For an inquest we must have a body. That is why I wonder if you would sanction the dispatch of a party of soldiers to form a search party in the grounds and park of Garlick Hall.'
‘Soldiers, you say? I don't see why not. We need this matter cleared up one way or another. If I am to endure the strain and expense of a borough election, I would like to know as soon as possible.'
‘From where will you detach the soldiers, if I may ask?'
‘From my own regiment, naturally. Some of them are at camp not far away. I will send to their captain and instruct him. I would think the search might be instigated tomorrow or at latest on Sunday. The captain's name is Fairhurst, Frederick
Fairhurst. I shall send him a warrant and tell him to cooperate with you in person.'
‘I am obliged to you, your lordship.'
‘And I to
you
, Titus. We must speak again when I return from London in ten days, but keep me informed of any discoveries in the meantime. And make good use of Fairhurst's men. WINSTANLEY!'
The painter and his sullen boy returned to the room as I was going out. Closing the door behind me, I looked back. Lord Derby had replaced his wig, turned his head towards the window and was adjusting his chin to the required position.
 
A note from Ned Talboys awaited me when I returned to the office. It told me that his daughter Abigail still refused to come out of her room, and was being kept alive on little other than warm milk and biscuits. But she had expressed a wish to talk to me specifically. Would I pay a call at my earliest convenience? As it happened my earliest convenience was now.
I quickly picked up my hat again and hurried away to Friar Gate.
 
 
T
HE DRESSMAKER LED ME, as before, up the narrow flight of stairs to the attic. He knocked on his daughter's door.
‘Abby! This is your father. I have Mr Cragg the coroner with me.'
After a moment we heard her voice, a little shrill and evidently from just behind the door itself.
‘Father, you are not to come in. Please go down. When you have gone I shall let Mr Cragg in.'
Grumbling about the whimsy of all young girls, Ned stumped back downstairs. As soon as his footsteps were no longer audible, the catch on the door was released, the door swung open and Abigail stood before me, wearing a white nightshift and heavy woollen shawl.
‘Please come in, Mr Cragg.'
I did so, feeling oversized and ungainly under the low and sloping ceiling. It was a plain bedroom with a bed, a washstand and a tiny iron fireplace in which a thin spiral of smoke drifted up cheerlessly from a single blackened log. Beside it was an armchair. Abigail motioned me towards it.
‘Sit there, if you please, sir.'
I did as she asked while she perched herself on the edge of the bed, pinching her hands between her knees and fixing me
with an intense gaze. She was an undeniably pretty young woman, though at this moment her hair was tangled and the whites of her eyes showed pink traces of weeping.
‘Mr Cragg, are you enquiring into the terrible thing that happened to Mrs Dolores Brockletower?'
She spoke hoarsely, almost in a whisper, but I noted that she spoke well, and with intelligence.
‘Yes, that is so,' I replied. ‘I understand you knew her particularly, Abby. I wonder, is there anything she said to you that would help at the inquest?'
Abigail appeared taken aback at this word, as if she had not foreseen it.
‘Oh! I wanted to speak only to you, sir, in private. I should not like to … give evidence in the court.'
I spoke as gently as I could, as a parent tries to coax a child out of its hiding place.
‘You might have to, Abigail. But it isn't difficult, truly. You would be among friends.'
‘Oh, but it would be difficult! It would be right hard to speak these things publicly and in front of people.'
‘You have some evidence to tell, then?'
‘Yes, to tell you. But not the whole world.'
‘Let's start with that, then; with you telling me. Shall we?'
She closed her eyes and hesitated for a few moments, then made up her mind to plunge in.
‘See, I was always Mrs Brockletower's choice for a dress-fitter. She said she didn't like my father fussing around and mumbling at her with a mouthful of pins. She said dressing a woman was a woman's business, and that was that. She liked coming here, though. In the end she was visiting us such a lot that she was not just a customer. She seemed more like a sister – to me, anyway. And don't say: as if I didn't have enough
sisters already. I am the eldest and have not the consolation of an older one. So I welcomed it when Mrs Brockletower called me her dearest little Abby, and petted and kissed me when we were alone, and said I was her only friend.'
‘Are those the words she used – her only friend?' I asked.
‘Yes, and she would tell me things, too, private things about her and the squire.'
She saw that I wanted to interrupt her again, and held up her hand to stop me.
‘No, sir, let me go on. I will answer your questions after, if I can.'
I nodded and composed myself to listen to the remainder of her tale.
‘It was like this. I have a beau, sir, and Mrs Brockletower used to want to know all about him and what happened between us when we walked out alone together. Intimate things, you know, the sort of things that no respectable girl could repeat without blushing. But she coaxed such things out of me and she did make me blush a great deal, but in return (as she said) she would tell me similar intimate matters about the squire and how it was between them. Not that I asked, you understand. Only that she seemed to want to requite my tales about G—, about my young man, with tales of her own. To make things equal between us, that's how she put it.
‘So that's how I learned that Mr and Mrs Brockletower had become unhappy in their marriage since arriving in England. In the West Indies, when he was a naval officer, they had been happy and now here in Lancashire she could not forget what she had lost. She said it was like her happiness and pleasure in her husband had slipped from her hands. Now he was cold towards her, and she to him, without wanting or meaning to
be. I was sorry for her. She had a rough side to her, as everyone knows, but I could also see the sweet side.
‘About four months ago something happened. It was partly because of Mrs Brockletower's questions about me and my young man, and me wanting to have something new to tell her. Anyway I was walking with him in the fields down near the river one Sunday afternoon, and we came to a barn, and he took me inside, and we … we lay down in the straw. I didn't mean it to happen, sir, not for a moment. But it did and now I think in a way Mrs Brockletower had inflamed me, with her questions and that. She had kept pressing to know if I was still …'
‘Still what, child?'
She answered in a whisper I could only just catch.
‘A maid, sir.'
After another moment's pause she cleared her throat, squared her shoulders and continued more audibly.
‘She would taunt me shockingly, sir. “Don't tell me you are still intact,” she would say, not believing me when I said I was. And so, after that particular Sunday, I was able to tell her I was no longer, she seemed delighted, laughing and praising me for doing this thing that, in my heart, I knew I ought to be ashamed of. But I got over my shame, and the young man and I still took our Sunday afternoon walks, and that haybarn still saw quite a lot of us, until … well, it happened.'
‘What happened?'
‘You must be able to guess, sir.'
‘I think I can, but you must tell me.'
Again her voice diminished to almost nothing.
‘I was with child.'
Having been sufficiently prepared for this news I showed no surprise, though I tut-tutted and dear-deared a little, before I asked her when this had happened.
‘At the start of March, sir. That was when I began to feel the changes, like.'
‘I see. Go on with your tale, Abby.'
‘Well, first I told my young man, and his response was spiteful. That's the only way I can describe it. He said he would not marry me and would deny everything, and leave the town for London, or the colonies, if need be. I was so terribly afraid of what would happen to me. So I turned to Mrs Brockletower and asked her for advice when she next came to the shop. And she was right good to me, and promised that she
would
help me. And she did, and all, or would have done. She had thought of a way. But now she is gone and I've got no hope.'
She began sniffling.
‘How was she intending to help you, Abigail?' I put in gently.
‘She said she would arrange everything.'
‘In what way?'
‘She said she would give me money and a place to go where I could … have the baby. And then after a while she said she would take the baby to Garlick Hall, and bring it up as her own.'
I had maintained an unshockable front up to this point but suddenly surprise burst through.
‘Good God, child! Is that what she proposed to do? Adopt? Truthfully?'
‘Yes. Yes. She told me that she was certain she herself could never have children, but that Mr Brockletower wanted an heir, which was part of the reason for the difficulties between them, you see. So this appeared to her as the perfect answer, for everybody.'
I found myself speaking rather severely.
‘I don't think she was speaking for everybody. The perfect
solution for you, young lady, would be marriage, as I am sure you are aware. Everything else is more or less an imperfect solution. Have you not spoken to your father about all this?'
She shook her head.
‘And what about the young man? Can he not be induced to do his duty?'
‘It doesn't matter, sir. I do not love him and I no longer want him. I would refuse him even if he trailed behind me all day on his knees.'
I sat and pondered for a moment.
‘Let me get something clear,' I went on. ‘Before Mrs Brockletower spoke to you about whether or not you were a maid, you had done nothing untoward in that regard. Is that right?'
‘No sir, I had not.'
‘So Mrs Brockletower can be said to have encouraged you, even
incited
you to, er, misbehave with your young man. Would you agree?'
‘Well, yes, sir, I suppose she did that.'
‘And she had already gone to considerable lengths to gain your friendship, your confidence.'
‘She was very friendly, sir. I believe we
were
friends.'
‘Now tell me one more thing. You are explaining all this to me. Not your father, or the vicar of the parish, or anyone else who might reasonably be expected to direct you rightly in the matter. Why? Is it because you want my help, or because you want to help me?'
‘Because you came to call on me the other day, sir. I asked why and my sister told me it was because you were enquiring about Mrs Brockletower's death. I wanted to help find out why she is gone. I want to know who did it, and why. To get justice
for her, that would be something. Me, I cannot be helped, not now. I am past help.'
She started crying properly now, pressing her hands to her face so that the tears leaked through between the fingers. I thought it time to speak sternly to her.
‘Nonsense, Abigail. No one is ever beyond help, unless one is to believe the theology of John Calvin, which I personally do not, and nor should you. Now, I want you to promise me you will tell your father about your condition. If you like, I will speak to him also. But I want you to tell him first. The poor man needs to believe his eldest daughter trusts and loves him enough to confide in him. Will you do that?'
Abigail raised her head and wiped the back of one hand across her mouth and nostrils, and then did the same with the other, sniffing loudly as she did so. It seemed her courage was returning.
‘All right, sir, I will do as you say. I will tell him today. If he should strike me dead, do not be surprised.'
I allowed myself to smile.
‘Your father is not a man of violence. He will be distressed, of course, but he knows these mistakes have been made before, and have been resolved before.'
And so I left her, and went back down to the shop, where I found Ned carefully cutting a length of cloth.
‘You will be glad to hear,' I said, ‘that Abigail is of a mind to speak to you now. It is an unhappy tale, but you had better hear it from her own mouth. Don't be hard on her, will you?'
‘Hard on her? I shall only be happy that she can trust me with what's getting at her.'
I nodded at what he was doing.
‘So you found your cuts at last?'
He held his scissors up with the blades separated to form an X. ‘No, we didn't find them. I had to buy new.'
I left him and returned to the office. Furzey greeted me with a sardonic smirk.
‘Don't put your feet up just yet, Mr Cragg. Now Captain Fairhurst's sent a note round to say he will be at your disposal in the Magpie and Stump tavern at one in the afternoon. That would be about now.'
 
I found the captain in civilian clothes and drinking wine. He was accompanied by another man who wore the uniform of a sergeant and was sipping from a tankard of beer. The pair sat at their table with what looked like a sketch-map open in front of them, conferring together.
To drink familiarly with one's sergeant may seem an unsoldierly thing to be doing, and to my eye Fairhurst seemed an unsoldierly figure. He had bow-shoulders, gap-teeth, and a squint that gave his round and dimpled face the superficial appearance of a gargoyle, partly comic, partly malign. He introduced his companion as Sergeant Sutch.
‘My sergeant is fittingly named, Mr Cragg,' Fairhurst told me with a momentary giggle. ‘Can you guess in what way?'
I paused and looked the sergeant over. He was a grey-haired and weatherbeaten figure who seemed by comparision with the officer, every inch what he was supposed to be: upright, commandingly tall and very squarely built. But I had to confess I could not see in what sense his name was so suitable.
‘Because he will lead his men in “sutch” of the missing corpse – you see?'

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