The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries) (5 page)

“And his mother?”

Sledmere shrugged. “I think she is London. If she is still alive, she is beyond hope. She took to a life that...”

“She was very pretty,” put in Mrs Sledmere. “In a showy sort of way.”

“And you brought him up as your own? A great act of charity.”

“The idea was that he should take over the business,” said Mrs Sledmere.

“He was your apprentice?” Sledmere nodded.

“And before that? He was a singer, I understand. Was he at the Minster school?”

“He was. A grave mistake. He got his schooling free and I thought it was in God’s service, but I see now it was a snare. He was corrupted by it. I thought myself a Christian then, sir, but I was not. I did not know the Truth. I had not opened my heart to the word of God. Mercifully God showed me the Way, but that boy...” Sledmere shook his head, and turned away a little, showing something that might almost be interpreted as grief. “He would not be guided. He would not. He was seduced by all that vain pomp and show.”

“Mr Watkins tells me he was an extremely talented musician.”

“Music is the work of the devil, sir!” said Sledmere with something of his former fire. What wretched sect do these people belong to, Giles wondered, to preach so hotly against something as innocent as music?

“It is music that is at the heart of that boy’s destruction!” Sledmere went on. “And Watkins and those Vicars Choral, are the tools of Satan himself. We can only pray that they will see this business for what it is – a dreadful warning from their true and loving Redeemer!”

“Amen,” muttered Mrs Sledmere, her head bowed.

Giles had a great fear that the pair of them were about to sink to their knees and start to pray, so said quickly, “Perhaps I might see Charles’ bedroom? Mrs Sledmere, would you show me? I am keeping you from your work, I think, sir.” He was anxious to speak to her alone. He had hoped she might give a more straightforward recitation of the facts, without the constant embellishment of hell fire. And he was also anxious to speak to the mysterious Rose.

“If you think it necessary,” said Sledmere, “but I do not know how you will profit from it.”

“God sets us all to our labours,” Giles said. “And we must endeavour not to disappoint Him. I must do as my duty directs and find the man who killed your nephew, Mr Sledmere.”

Sledmere went off downstairs – rather reluctantly, Giles felt. He knew he would not be allowed to leave the house without a few tracts, or at least being asked if he knew his Saviour. He would have to have a response ready for that.

Mrs Sledmere showed him up another two flights of stairs (the house was like a tower, the rooms stacked one above the other) and stopped in front of a closed door, indicating with a brief wave of the hand that he might go in. Even in the gloom of that top landing, Giles could see the reason for her reluctance to do anything more. Her emotions had overcome her.

“You should go and sit down,” he said. “You have had dreadful news today. Sometimes it takes a little time to feel the smart.”

She nodded and turned away, her hand over her mouth. She let out a muffled cry and then she hurtled downstairs and Giles feared she would tumble head over heels and break her neck. Then a door slammed and he was alone. Or so he thought.

A moment or so later he became aware that he was being observed again, this time through a chink in another door on the landing. He could hear the person breathing.

“Rose Sledmere?” he inquired. “Is that you?” The door opened a fraction more. “You should go to your mother if you are able. She needs you.”

The door opened slowly, but still not entirely, but enough for Giles to see the spy: a fair-haired, grey-faced girl in a white dress. She was extremely thin and not very tall. She did not look seventeen, he thought.

“I have come to look at your cousin’s room,” he said.

At that she dashed in front of him and stood with her back to the door to Charles’ room. She shook her head, and all her wild, unbrushed hair with it, and mouthed “No, no, no...”

“I’m afraid I must, Miss Sledmere. I want to help you. I am going to catch the man who killed your cousin.”

“No!” she shouted, and stamped her foot. “You cannot go in there. You cannot!”

He would have answered, but he found he suddenly could not.

A memory, rising up unbidden, awakened by the girl’s demeanour: Laura barring the door to him.

It had been one of the first manifestations of her illness – those violent but childish tantrums. On that occasion she would not allow him into the now empty room that they had used as a nursery. She had stood in there, in her nightgown and bare feet, her hands clasping the knob behind her, a manic expression on her face, while he had reasoned with her, then wheedled and begged, and then, his temper breaking, he had raged at her, which had of course made her own hysteria all the worse.

He tried to tell himself this was just a girl suffering from shock, wild with her grief. But he could only think of Laura and the wretched degeneration of her mind, the decay and waste of it all, and for a moment he stood there unable to do anything but try and master himself, let alone deal with this creature in front of him. Every painful scene that he had ever witnessed with her, every step away from him and into the possession of her demons, seemed to rise up in his mind like a noxious vapour and threaten to choke him.

It was with some difficulty that he managed to speak, reminding himself as he did so that if there was any profit in such trials, then this was a moment to realise it. He knew what he must not do. He had done it all wrong with Laura. A hundred times he had done it, and more, and he had paid dearly for every lesson. But he had, he realised, a faint glimmering of what he must do now, and it would be easier. As his clouded mind cleared he remembered that this girl was nothing to him. She had not shared his bed or his breakfast table. She had not slapped or bitten him, or broken his heart a hundred times over.

He went and sat down on the top step, so that his back was to her. He took out his notebook and began to make some notes. He was not sure for how long he waited but at length he heard a door latch being lifted and the door being opened. He waited another long moment, slowly putting away his notebook, before he got to his feet and turned.

Rose Sledmere had vanished but the door to Charles Barnes’ room was open.

“You mustn’t touch anything,” he heard he say as he came quietly, cautiously into the room, as into the lair of an animal.

A plain white quilt covered the bed, with a cross lying on the pillow. Rose stood making minute adjustments to its position.

Giles glanced about him: white walls, a scrubbed floor, a shelf of folded linen and a row of hooks upon which Barnes’ clothes were hanging. There were rather more clothes than might be expected for a young man in such circumstances. There were several coats, a silk hat, some fancy waistcoats, and a striking dressing gown in crimson satin, which Rose now took down from its hook. She wrapped her arms about it, as if she were cradling a child, stroking it. She walked away with it towards the window.

Giles used her distraction to take a slightly closer look at the coats – they were of expensive cloth, with vivid silk linings. There were only a few tailors in Northminster who would make such coats, and they did not look as if they were second-hand. Charles Barnes had been particular about his clothes, even extravagant. He would have run up large debts for clothes like this.

He turned his attention back to Rose. She was still standing in the window, cradling the dressing gown. Could it be possible that she had something to do with his death?

“Is there anything you would like to tell me, Rose?” he said softly.

He saw her bend her head and sniff at the satin.

“Are you sure?” She shook her head, but he could see she was shaking. “Do not be afraid,” he went on, but in asking her to trust him he felt the lie sting his lips. If this poor, unhappy girl was the author of her cousin’s death, then she had a great deal of which to be afraid. He wished he did not have to ask. He wished he might leave her there alone with her grief. Her pain and distraction was too tangible to him, and the possibility of her guilt too easy to contemplate.

The light was fading now, and his zeal for the task in hand seemed to be fading with it. He left without another word.

Chapter Seven

“Cause of death: asphyxiation, by strangulation, using a ligature,” said Felix. “Time of death: sometime this morning. Can’t be more precise than that. There was a partially digested meal in the stomach. His breakfast, most likely.”

Major Vernon was pinning his notes to his office wall. “Do you have your sketch?”

Felix handed it to him.

“Excellent,” he said. “A good likeness. You are perfectly justified in being an art critic.”

He went to the wall and pinned it up at the centre.

“So what do we have?” he said, stepping back, his arms folded, and regarding the collection of papers. “A handsome young bookbinder’s apprentice, strangled and then laid out with care. Not just left in a heap, but laid out.”

“Out of remorse?” said Felix.

“That occurred to me. A fit of destructive rage leading to a horrible outcome – and then an attempt to make it better. So this person, our murderer, will they be in mourning? Has he perhaps destroyed something he loved?”

“Watkins seemed quite distressed,” Felix said. “And very quick to talk about murder, don’t you think?”

“Given that he is apparently the keeper of the only key to that room, we cannot rule Mr Watkins out,” said Major Vernon. “However, is it possible for a female to strangle a young man?”

“Barnes was not well-developed for his age,” Felix said. “Undernourished, certainly.”

“So a woman – it’s possible? Would one put up a struggle with a sweetheart? It would help if there had been some witnesses about the place, but we have so little to go on. Nobody in the Precincts seems to have seen anything – or if they have they are not admitting to it yet. We shall have to be patient.”

Vernon turned from his display of papers on the wall and looked at Felix for a moment.

“You are clearly dressed to go somewhere,” he said.

“I have been asked to dinner at the Deanery. I don’t know why they asked me, though. I’d rather not have to go. If you need me this evening...”

“No, you had better go. It is a great honour. They are sparing with their invitations.”

“Then why on earth have they asked me?” said Felix.

“You will find out when you are there, I am sure. And you can be useful to me, pouring bland assurances in Dean Pritchard’s ear. Tell him that our investigation is perfectly in hand and will be solved in the blink of an eye, without any attendant scandal.”

“That’s not very likely, surely?”

“One can at least hope for such a miracle. That this puzzle is not a puzzle at all.”

“I’m not sure I can manage bland assurances,” said Felix.

“You’ll find they come easily enough,” said the Major. “There is always very little to excite anyone in that house.”

Felix had not dressed with such care simply for his dinner at the Deanery. He intended first to look in at Mrs Morgan’s open rehearsal – the one to which she had invited Lord Rothborough.

He had sat in his bath, debating whether or not to go. The more he thought of it, the more he was convinced he must go. It would be in the nature of an experiment. He wanted to know if the dazzling, confusing impression she had created in him was anything more than a momentary madness – something like the temporary damage to the eyes made by looking directly at the sun.

Yet he profoundly wanted to see her again. He felt thirsty for her presence. Yet at the same time he wished to be free of her allure. His rational mind wanted to be swiftly disillusioned by her. He hated the feelings she had produced in him. He felt wretched for being enslaved by her smile yet at the same time extraordinarily alive. As he had gone about his business that afternoon, performing the post mortem on Charlie Barnes, he had felt a heightened awareness of every action he took, as if the brightest of lights was shining upon him. It was disturbing and yet incredibly invigorating.

He had put on for the first time the new suit of clothes that he had had made by Major Vernon’s tailor. After his old rusty black coat had been ruined by bloodstains, the Major had gently suggested he think about replacing it, and had invited Lockley to call upon him. Lockley had made the case for two new suits, one in professional black and one for dress in a deep inky blue, and at such a price that Felix could not object. After being sneered at by the servants at Holbroke he felt the need of a little armour, and the dress coat, with its dove-grey satin lining, gave him the air of a gentleman without veering towards dandyism. He was slightly shocked at himself for entertaining such worldly considerations. The Rev. James Carswell would have had some sharp words to say about it, but his father was not there, and he felt that Major Vernon’s advice in such matters ought to be heeded. However, he had not replaced his old overcoat nor his broad-brimmed hat, and these made him feel less like a stranger to himself as he set out for Mrs Morgan’s rehearsal.

If he had hoped for objectivity, he knew the moment he pushed open the hand-door in the great west door of the Minster that he would not find it. A woman was singing, and with a voice of such unbearable beauty that he knew it must be her.

It was like a heady, potent scent escaping from a flask. It surrounded him, embraced him and then seeped its way into every pore of his skin. It was as if he had never heard a woman sing before. Those high, pure notes slicing through the chilly air of the Minster were like a well-honed blade through his heart. He was astonished at the corporeal nature of it. It caused him pain and pleasure in the same instant. He wanted it to cease and at the same time he wished she never would be silent.

He stood, hardly daring to look for the source of the sound, but then forced himself to look directly at it, and saw she was standing, alone, in the great transept crossing under the canopy of stone arches. She was dressed in black, a close bonnet covering her glorious hair, looking more austere than she had done in her pale morning gown, more majestic and even less approachable. She held no music. She knew the aria perfectly, and she was entirely given up to the performance. It felt as he looked at her that she seemed to be singing to him, and this increased both his discomfort and his joy. A tender, rippling succession of sweet notes reached out to him as she entered the ending of the piece. “Of endless light” were the final words, and he was left, astonished by the raw emotion she had produced in him, while the organ accompaniment continued to the end. He scarcely heard it.