Airs and Graces (11 page)

I hauled him into the nearest tavern, on the other side of the street. It wasn’t the smartest of places but a huge fire was roaring in the grate and the straw on the floor was reasonably clean. I pushed Fowler on to a bench in a quiet corner and signalled for beer. He was losing some of the first flush of anger; he put his head back against the wall and swore at a spirit who came across to chat. I said, ‘Just found out his wife has been
entertaining
the neighbour,’ and the spirit chortled and withdrew.

Fowler’s thin mouth twisted in derision. ‘Not likely
that
will happen, is it?’

I’ve been acquainted with Fowler about a year now, and known his secret almost from the first. No woman is likely to find herself marrying him; his tastes run in entirely another direction. It’s not information he gives out freely, given it could get him hanged. I’ve never considered it any of my business, any more than my marriage is any of his.

But the boy’s death
was
my business. I said in a deliberately mild tone, ‘Have you known him long?’

He shrugged. His voice was still sharp, his accent aggressively London, but he was calmer now. ‘Six months maybe. Damn it, Patterson, he was seventeen years old – did his tasks well, never answered his master back. Trustworthy, honest and lighthearted. He talked of having his own shop. And all that taken away by a girl who never gave him the time of day! Why? Damn it,
why
?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘There was money involved but not enough to warrant killing four people.’

‘Money? In the house?’

I nodded.

‘That was something new, then.’

The landlord brought a jug of beer and two tankards. I paid him and poured it out. The spirit had joined two or three others singing in a corner – there are always drunken spirits in taverns; I was glad of the noise that covered our conversation. ‘Did Gregson not keep much there, then?’

‘Hardly anything, according to Ned. Just enough to pay his bills. The rest he invested.’ Fowler bared his teeth at me. ‘Heron has most of it – good investment, Heron. All that coal, all those ships. Gives four and a half per cent on every pound invested with him, just like government stocks!’

He was in the mood to mock everything and everyone, I perceived; Heron’s the only man who’s ever gained his loyalty and Fowler usually won’t hear a word against him. Years ago, during that disreputable period in London, Fowler took it into his head to rob a mild-looking, slight gentleman. When he found himself at Heron’s swordpoint, he must have expected a hempen end to his career, but Heron somehow saw possibilities in him that no one else ever did, and offered him an unlikely life as a manservant. It would be wrong to say Fowler has led a blameless life since, but his crimes have been small ones, and discreet. As far as I know.

‘Did you ever meet Alice?’

‘Saw her once in the shop while I was waiting for Ned. A wishy-washy little thing, with yellow curls. Dressed up as if she was going to a ball – I’ve seen countesses in London dressed simpler. Wide hoops, material worth a fortune over them. Lace and ribbons on her petticoats, and jewels on her shoes.’

He drank beer, poured more. With any other man, I’d have worried but Fowler knows how to hold his drink. ‘Her father came in and said
Go and talk to your mother, Alice. She’s got work for you to do
.’

‘And did she go?’

‘She turned to Ned, and said
Don’t stand there being lazy, boy. Get me my cloak – I’m going out
.’

Defying her father, scandalizing his customers and insulting a harmless boy all in two sentences. ‘And what did you say?’

‘Nothing!’ he said savagely. ‘Nothing, damn it! What
could
I say? What was there to say that wouldn’t draw attention to Ned all the more?’

That must have hurt. Fowler’s not a man to do nothing. ‘And then?’

‘Gregson told Ned to serve a customer, took the girl’s arm and marched her into the back of the house. Ned told me later there’d been a huge row. Screaming and shouting and swearing.’

‘And this was when?’

‘Thursday, about noon. Told me all about it Friday night when I saw him.’ His mouth twisted. ‘The night before he died.’

He took another long draught of the beer. His lean face was less flushed, more weary – he looked as if he’d not slept. Fowler’s loyalty is rarely given and never retracted. He’d never have betrayed the boy in any way, and wouldn’t let his death go unpunished now. The spirits sang on in their corner; a keelman in yellow waistcoat puffed out acrid clouds of smoke from a long pipe.

‘She was always after getting back to London,’ Fowler said. ‘Ned thought she’d decided to annoy everyone so they’d get exasperated and send her back. Not that there was ever any chance of that.’

‘No one left there for her to go to, I take it.’

‘There was a brother but he wouldn’t have her. Got a wife and family of his own and she was always arguing with them, or something of the sort. Besides, the other girl was getting married.’

‘Sarah? The youngest daughter?’ I was surprised.

He nodded. ‘She was the one supposed to stay at home and care for her parents in their old age. But one of the Baltic merchants took a fancy to her – he’s old but she liked the look of him. And his money, no doubt,’ he added waspishly. ‘If she married, Alice would have to stay at home.’

From what I’d heard of Alice, she’d not have liked that in the least. I sipped my own beer. It was surprisingly good, and my estimation of the tavern went up. ‘Did she have a lover, do you think?’

He nodded. This was the old Fowler, in control of himself, perhaps even a little too much so. ‘Ned said she was always on the look-out for someone. Staring out the windows all the time, glancing at the clock. She slipped away from the shop more than once but he couldn’t follow, of course, so he didn’t know where she went.’

He finished his beer and I poured more. ‘When did you last see Ned?’

‘Saturday night.’ Fowler met my gaze. ‘If I’d kept him an hour longer, he’d be alive now.’

‘You couldn’t have known that.’ The spirits roared with laughter over something the keelman said. ‘Did he mention anything about her demeanour that day?’

‘There was another argument. Alice was supposed to take over from Ned in the shop about noon, so he could have his afternoon off. Sarah and her mother were shopping, and there was no one else who could do it. But she went out late morning and never came back, so Ned was stuck there. I went in to see why he wasn’t leaving the shop, and Gregson was in a foul mood. I made some excuse about wanting his catalogue for Heron, and got out quick. Ned said she didn’t come back till teatime.’

‘Did he know where she’d been?’

He shook his head. ‘But she’d had a good time – she went out all whiny and sullen, and came back insolent and laughing. Seemed a different girl, he said. She got a message too – she had three or four of them in the time she was there. Ned took one from a boy and said he could hardly read the writing.’

I thought of the dreadful scrawl on the note Mrs Fletcher had given me. More and more, I was convinced Alice hadn’t been acting on her own.

‘She had it in mind all the time, didn’t she?’ Fowler said savagely. ‘She was planning to kill them all from the moment she got here.’

I wasn’t prepared to go that far. I sipped my beer. ‘
Something
was certainly planned. Alice probably removed a box of money from the cellar in advance and spent some considerable time knotting together a rope from sheets. But how long it was planned, or
what
was planned, I don’t know. Perhaps she – they – only intended to rob the house and something went badly wrong.’

‘
I want her
,’ Fowler said again. ‘And if this lover had something to do with it, I want
him
as well.’

‘The killer goes to the Assizes.’

‘The devil she does!’

‘Heron didn’t save your neck in London to have you run it in a noose now!’ I said, exasperated. ‘She’ll not get away, I promise you that.’

As soon as I said it, I knew it was foolish. Alice had not one but two worlds to hide in. But I’d said it now, and I wasn’t about to take it back. Fowler was right in one respect: Ned was the least regarded of those who’d died. The others had been respectable, fine upstanding citizens and Ned a mere apprentice, and, worse, an apprentice with a secret most people would regard with abhorrence. But he deserved justice as much as the others.

I finished my beer. ‘I must go – I’ll be late for my lesson.’ No chance of seeing Esther now, I thought ruefully. ‘Will you be there tonight, for the disembodiment?’

Fowler nodded. ‘He’ll be distressed – he’ll need me.’

I hesitated. But Fowler didn’t need telling to be careful; he’d been living with this secret all his life. I nodded farewell and left him sitting, dark and silent amongst all the jollity of the other customers, reaching for the last of the beer in the jug.

Fourteen

They have no literature of speak of, although they are always speaking of it.

[Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe

Froidevaux, 19 January 1737]

I spent the afternoon going from one lesson to another, from one giddy girl to another, rebuffing all attempts to drag the details of the murders out of me. Emma Blackett, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a very wealthy family, was typical of the breed. She spread the score out on the harpsichord music stand, wriggled herself comfortable on the stool, raised her hands melodramatically as if to strike the first chord, then looked winningly sideways at me. ‘Were you at the inquest yesterday, Mr Patterson?’

‘Play the piece at half speed,’ I said. ‘I want to make sure you get the notes right.’

She pouted and started off at least three times too fast.

‘This is an
adagio
,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s supposed to be slow and heartfelt.’

She fluttered her eyelashes at me. ‘Was
that girl
so dreadful?’

‘Very. Now  . . .’

‘She must have found Newcastle very dull after London. I’d love to go to London,’ she added wistfully, ‘but Mama says it’s not suitable for a very young lady.’

‘It’s very noisy,’ I said repressively.

She looked excited. ‘Is it? Have you been there?’

A fraught few minutes ensued, while I attempted to redirect her thoughts from parties and balls and shops, to one of Mr Handel’s best works. As soon as I’d lured her away from thinking of London, she was back on the subject of Alice Gregson. ‘She can’t be as bad as they say! She couldn’t have killed
all
those people!’

Gossip had clearly given her a mistakenly glamorous view of Alice.

After an afternoon of conversations of this sort, I staggered back home, longing for peace and quiet. I could easily escape the starry-eyed curiosity of adolescent girls, but I couldn’t escape the confusion of my own thoughts. I had to go out again for the disembodiment of the Gregson spirits too, and the thin snow was falling with more determination – a bad night to wait in an unheated house.

Esther was browsing through the latest edition of
The Ladies’ Magazine
in the drawing room and looking bored. ‘I was too tired to make the accounts add up,’ she admitted, ‘and the
Ladies’ Magazine
is not what it once was.’ She was pale again; I frowned and was about to comment, when she put her hand on my arm and said severely, ‘Dinner, Charles, or the cook will leave!’

If anyone was running the risk of offending the cook, it was Esther. She picked listlessly though the fish and meat, although she attacked a syllabub with some relish. Which was odd; she was not usually fond of sweet things.

She hardly let me finish my soup before she murmured, ‘So what have you found out?’

I could hardly tell her about Fowler but I did regale her with his tales of Alice’s behaviour, saying merely I’d had them on reliable authority. When I’d finished, Esther said, ‘So you are no longer sure Alice killed them?’

‘There was certainly a lover.’

‘A man would have the necessary detachment to kill.’

‘Detachment?’

‘It must be easier to kill someone you do not know. To kill the parents who bore you, the family that gave you life, is entirely a different matter.’

I helped myself to meat and bread; the bread was still deliciously warm. ‘But Alice hardly knew them. They can’t have seemed like family to her.’

She shook her head. I thought of the insolent, mischievous girl I’d seen today; could I imagine her killing her family, and in such a brutal way?

I had to force myself to leave the warmth of the house an hour or so later and the cold was deep in my bones long before I reached the bridge. A swirling shower of snow came out of the heavens as I climbed the slope towards the shop. I’d anticipated the only people there would be myself and Abraham McLintoch, with perhaps one or two of the other watchmen as support. There’s nothing dramatic about these events; spirits generally disembody silently, often unseen – one moment there’s nothing, the next you become aware of a faint gleam somewhere in the room, a sense of a presence that wasn’t there before.

These spirits would be distressed, of course, and there would be some uncomfortable moments as everything was explained to them. But there was plainly a general expectation of some exciting revelation. There was a huge crowd. All the neighbours had turned out, muffled up in warm clothing; sailors had wandered up from the Key, tankards in hand, and more than one whore was taking the opportunity to drum up some business. The man who sells buttered barley at the Cale Cross had come up in the well-justified hope of customers. And all of them speculating on the story the spirits would tell, relishing the thought of wild arguments, horrible fights and spurting blood  . . .

At the back of the crowd, I saw a figure I recognized at once: Fowler, lounging in a doorway on his own. He saw me, curled his lip. I would have liked to speak, but that would only have drawn attention to him, which was decidedly not a good idea.

McLintoch was smoking a pipe in the shelter of the shop doorway; he greeted me with a grimace. ‘Reckon we should go in, Mr Patterson, sir. That way we can speak to the spirits private. And it’ll be warmer.’