Home From The Sea (39 page)

Tomorrow, Jim thought as he picked his way east along a path that was littered with a random clutter of flotsam from the beck as well as the sea. Tomorrow would be a challenge, but with John Hardesty and Roger Dixon satisfied the dead could be laid to
rest,
and the living …

The living could begin to
live
, Jim told himself, as they had never been able to before. A hundred paces from The Raven, the ghosts seemed to pare away from him. Two
hundred,
and he felt as it he were seared clean by the white moonlight and pure, unsullied sea wind. He could already glimpse the lights of the village ahead, and picked up his pace.

Chapter Nineteen

“You’re damned lucky to be alive, Jim. You get between brigands and valuables they’ve set their sights on, and they’ll shoot you in your tracks without a second thought. And
these
–” John Hardesty turned his hand to the morning sun to display the gems, which he has washed clean at the rain barrel. “To such cutthroats as murdered each other last night, these stones would be worth the price of twenty lives, not merely yours!”

 
“I know all this, John, believe me.” Jim permitted himself a physical shudder. “I tried to stay well out of it.
Certainly out of the firing line.”
He was leaning on the west wall of the tavern, which caught the sun in the afternoon and grew warm enough to grow beans as early as March.

With slitted eyes he watched the four dragoons who had marched over from Exmouth with Roger Dixon, and did not envy them the job. One of them, a young lad not yet twenty, had spewed up his breakfast already when he made the mistake of looking at Willie Tuttle’s face. Dixon, much older, far more wise in the ways of battlefields, firearms and wounds, had barely glanced either at the body or the retching soldier, and continued to ask Jim probing, leading questions.

But the questions were easy to answer. In any case, Dixon was inclined to trust Jim, who had arrived at the garrison in the company of John Hardesty at ten o’clock the previous night, after fetching Vicar Morley to attend to the dead. Hardesty had found the gems almost at once. Pledge’s was the first body he had examined in detail, since it was still sitting in the chair and was the easiest to reach.

Dixon was not unlike Hardesty. He was forty, with a growing paunch and hard, capable hands, but his body was muscular, tough, and he had a lifetime of experience with men of all kinds. He cut quite a fine figure in the red uniform coat; his wig was freshly powdered, well dressed, very smart, as befitted a gentleman. His accent had something of the Cornish and a little of the Welsh, and on Hardesty’s recommendation, he treated Jim as an honest, intelligent man.

“You say didn’t recognize the faces,” he was musing as he read through a long list of the names of men wanted in this region for crimes Jim could not even begin to guess.

“Not one of them, Captain.” Jim had answered this question before, and it was an honest response. “The most I can tell you is
,
the bastards came here looking for Chegwidden, who’s been dead a long time.”

“Whatever their business was,” Hardesty speculated, “it was old. It might go back eight or ten years, Roger, long before you arrived in Exmouth, so I doubt you’d have known these scallywags, even if they delivered themselves to your doorstep!”

“Indeed.” Dixon’s brows rose, creasing his forehead. “What were those names again, Master Fairley?”

Careful, cautious, Jim had told him only that he had overheard the men calling each other by first names. “The one who carried the gems was Joe. The big one – the one your lads fetched back from the path, yonder, was Nathaniel. The one whose face is mostly missing was Willie. The one with the knife thrust from jaw to brains was Eli.”

“Such common names,” Dixon observed. “I’ve got at least ten Williams, Wills, Willies, Bills and Billies on this list.
Six
Nathaniels
, Nathans and
Nats
, a good dozen assorted Josephs, Joes, Joeys, and two sharing the name of Elijah.”
In frustration, he folded up the list and thrust it back into his jacket.

“You’d do better to ask the local gentry,” Hardesty suggested, “who lost those gems, and when. Mark my words, Roger, they were stolen. There’s a lord or a lady in these parts who’ll know them on sight, and might remember having handed them to a ruffian at pistol point.”

“I’ll give you long odds on that, old man.” Dixon’s fingers were busy with a snuffbox. “If the
theft were
eight or ten years ago, and you’d glimpsed a face in the dark, would
you
remember?”

“Still, worth asking around, surely.” Hardesty frowned at the four bodies which had been laid out in a neat row by the path, under the sheets of sacking. They were waiting for the undertaker now. “Mind you, I’d get these bodies buried, Roger, and quickly.” He eased his collar, where he was sweating lightly in the morning warmth. “They’ll be rank in a day or two, and you
won’t
want to be asking milady to try recognizing faces when they’re bloated and green. Good God, it could be worth your commission, when milord heard how his delicate little wife fainted dead away at the stink of three-days-rotten corpses!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, John, what
kind of fool d’you take
me for?” Dixon chided. “I’d have liked to know who they were, but the cause of all this is lying right there in the palm of your hand! Even if I learned who these men ever were … even if they’d been the worst criminals on this coast … what would I do with ’em? Show ’em to a magistrate, and hang ’em. They’re already dead!”

Jim pushed away from the wall as the vicar appeared around the corner. Old Richard Morley had a mug in either hand, and proffered one to Jim with a wan little smile. “Mrs. Clitheroe insists, my dear boy. She says you’ve not eaten in a day.”

It was true, and Jim was feeling light headed. He took the coffee with a murmur of thanks while Morley wandered along the path to talk to the undertaker. It was the second time in less than a week that Hardesty and Marcus Stiles had attended The Raven on the account of death here. Morley had buried the Spanish girl whom Barney Bellowes had struck. The vicar was getting along in years now, starting to feel his age. His back was arched even when he was standing straight, and he squinted to see anything past the pages of the big, black Bible which was battered, dog-eared after a lifetime’s study. His eyes were fading to a misty, filmy gray, and Jim wondered how much he saw – how much he
cared
to see, when he was asked to pray over men like Nathaniel Burke and Eli Hobbs.

“You could talk to the doxies at The
Cattlemarket
,” Jim said in a deliberately doubtful tone. “Willie and Eli were there for some time after Joe and Nathaniel arrived here. As I told you, the balladsinger and I took the boat along to bring them here.” They had made the journey on Burke’s orders, he had said, with a shilling in his pocket for his trouble if he
complied,
and the dead body of Edith Clitheroe at his feet if he refused.

“Doxies,” Hardesty grumbled, “
never
remember their clients’ names. If they did, they’d have no more clients.
Eh, Roger?”

“Very true.”
Dixon’s lip curled at the idea of going there. “I could send a squad over to fetch that corpulent idiot – what’s his name?
Polgreen – up to the garrison.
He damn’ well ought to know who was under his roof, drinking his rum, humping his women.”

“But he wouldn’t tell.” Hardesty chuckled. “Artie
Polgreen’s
certainly a buffoon, Roger, but he’s not going to name his clients. The
Cattlemarket
would be so empty it echoed, like
that
.” He snapped his fingers. “No, no, you’d be wasting your time there, old boy. It’s yours to waste, of course, but … you said it yourself. Even if you learned this Nathaniel character was the villain who put a pistol ball in Lord Cranmer’s belly last year, you could only hang him for it. And it’s a bit late for that, what?”

“Entirely too late.”
Dixon held out the little
enameled
box.
“Snuff?”

“Thank you, I will.” Hardesty helped himself.

“And this balladsinger,” Dixon mused. “He was here for a few days, you said?”

“He was stuck here when we flooded.” Jim jerked a thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the beck. “He was handy, battening the place down, and he helped me row over to The
Cattlemarket
– which probably saved Edith’s life.” He slapped his leg. “You know I’m lame. I’m ashamed to confess, I needed the help. I can’t row a boat that size on my own. If the balladsinger hadn’t been here, I’ve a dreadful intuition Nathaniel would have made good his threat, and shot the old woman. He assumed she was my grandmother.”

“Then, it’s just lucky for you the balladsinger was here,” Dixon decided. “And he didn’t know the bastards, I suppose?”

Jim answered with a shallow shrug. “They treated him like a stranger, and he never mentioned knowing them from anywhere. If he’d seen them before, it would surely have been in taverns like this one. He’s very good – sang for his supper, as they say, on a couple of nights, and I did grand business in the middle of the week. I’ll tell you this, Captain. If he comes back, I’ll be happy to have him stay as long as the rummies who drink here want to listen to him.” He cocked his head at Dixon. “I’m afraid he left as soon as Eli and Willie marched into The Raven, and if it hadn’t been for this leg of mine, I swear to God, I’d have gone with him. In fact, I told him to get out while he could. At the time, we wondered if he might be able to get through to the garrison and bring back a squad. But the way was still flooded, as you know. He could only have gone east … he could be in
Branscombe
by now. The truth is
,
I only stayed at The Raven myself because of this bloody damned leg. If I’d been one whit less lame, you wouldn’t have seen hide or hair of me till next week!” Jim mocked himself with a crooked,
humorless
grin. “If the balladsinger comes back this way, do you want him to come up to the garrison? I’d be glad to tell him.”

For a moment Dixon considered it, and then the white-wigged head shook. “No need, Master Fairley. As I’ve said already, I could only hang the buggers, no matter who they were, what they’d done, and they’ve saved me the hangman’s wages. If your balladsinger returns one day … give him my compliments. It was charitable of him to lend a hand when he could, and wise of him to get out when he did. I don’t blame him – and wouldn’t have blamed you, if you’d been five miles away when the shooting started.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Jim took a deep breath and began to relax.

“Well, John, I’ll leave the rest to you,” Dixon decided. “Give the gems to me – I’ll see if I can find out where they were stolen, of course, and from whom. After that, death certificates and the parish register are your affair, and Vicar Morley’s – and you’re welcome to them!” He took the stones, pocketed them and frowned along at the vicar and undertaker, who were talking in whispers by the rank of bodies. “Get the dead properly underground before they start to reek, I’ve no more need of them.”

With that, he accorded Jim a polite half bow and turned away to his men. Jim’s shoulders leaned back against the sun-warm plaster of the west wall, and he closed his eyes for a moment in relief.

“Not concerned, were you Jim?” Hardesty asked softly. “Surely you’ve done nothing to be held accountable for.”

“No, but …” Jim gestured after Dixon.
“The law, the dragoons.
I’ve not dealt with them often enough to be comfortable with them.”

“Oh, Roger’s a decent chap,” Hardesty said dismissively. “Any man who does right by his horses and his footmen can be trusted to keep the peace and see the common folk are fairly treated.”

“Common folk?”
Jim echoed, and indulged himself in a wry chuckle.

“Odd sods like you and me, and old Edith and this balladsinger of yours.”
Hardesty chuckled. “In fact, I’ve heard about him – he has the best new songs and stories, so I was told as far away as Exmouth. He tells one particular tale about a hunt for pirate treasure. Just the kind of story I’d like to hear. Would he tell it again?”

Jim disguised a smile behind his mug. “I imagine he’d be glad to tell it, so long as he hears a healthy rattle of coins on the floor. Seriously, John, he had my usual old boozers wrapped around his little finger.”

“Then, I hope he wanders back this way.” Hardesty dropped a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Let me write up the death notes, so I can let Master Stiles take the bodies. And if you could manage it, find Vicar Morley a bite of breakfast. He’s a sweet old duffer, but nowhere near as strong as he thinks he is. He’s been here all night?”

“Most of it, bless him.” Jim finished the coffee in one swig. “In fact, I’m going to set the best table we can,
given
the bloody mess we’ve got in the kitchen. Anybody with half
an
appetite can sit down and eat his fill. You’re invited, John. I’ll even open something …” He gave Hardesty a wink. “Something very French, very rare, and very under the counter,’ at least till His Majesty’s man has cleared off back to the garrison.”

Hardesty slapped him on the back. “Smuggled French brandy? Well now, I don’t believe Roger Dixon would refuse a drop. He’s quite partial now and then so long as it’s, shall we say,
circumspect
.”