The Taxidermist's Daughter (28 page)

Chapter 47

Themis Cottage

Apuldram

Davey heard the sound of someone rattling the latch. He was about to shout for help when it occurred to him that it might be whoever had thumped him, coming back to finish him off.

Gregory Joseph? Davey shook his head; he’d been too far away up Mill Lane. Had the trap gone over? Had he been thrown out, bashing his head in the process? If that was the case, how had he ended up locked in here? Where was Mr Crowther? Was he hurt too?

Davey had no idea what he’d done to deserve this, but when had that ever made any difference? He stood his ground. In his short life, he’d learnt how to be knocked down and get back on his feet again. He’d also discovered that sometimes it was better to keep out of the way. Live to fight another day.

This was one of those days.

He looked around for a place to hide. The only possibility was to climb up into the rafters and hope they didn’t look up. Whoever ‘they’ might be. When the door opened, he’d have a chance to jump down and run. He reckoned he could outrun most people.

There was a metal manger on the wall. Davey hauled himself up on to it, regained his balance, and reached up to the lowest beam. His hands slipped. He tried again, this time gaining purchase and swinging himself upright. There was just enough height. Panting with exertion, he pressed himself back against the wall and tried not to breathe too loudly.

Apuldram Lane

Fishbourne

Harry stared at the narrow waterlogged track that led from Apuldram Lane towards the sea. He flinched at another clap of thunder overhead, pulled his hat down over his ears, and set off.

Immediately, he went down into deep mud. Black estuary water flooded over the top of his boots. Was he going in the right direction for Themis Cottage? The Dunnaways man said he’d taken a fare out to Apuldram the previous night.

Harry ploughed on. He couldn’t understand why the hell there was no sign of Pennicott. No sign of police activity at all. The sergeant had said he needed more evidence, but surely that wouldn’t prevent him coming to Apuldram to make enquiries. Both White and Brook had a connection to the cottage, Pennicott already knew that.

A fork of lightning split the sky, followed a few seconds later by another roar of thunder. Harry glanced up, wondering if he was safer under the trees or if he’d be better off out in the open.

When he’d left Pennicott and returned home to North Street, he’d discovered Connie had left having waited for over an hour. Then he’d seen the note she’d left him on the salver in the hall, asking him to come to Blackthorn House as soon as possible. That she had things to tell him. At the bottom of the scribbled letter, a postscript that, even in the midst of such darkness, had made him smile.

‘It is beautiful. No doubt, you are an artist.’ Then, beneath, the words ‘Thank you.
CG
.’

He’d set off intending to do what she’d asked, but when he got to the outskirts of Fishbourne, he realised it made more sense to go to Themis Cottage first. He desperately wanted to see Connie, but Themis Cottage was the only lead they had, and if Pennicott wasn’t going to act, then Harry would. Harry couldn’t abandon the old man now.

He knew Connie would understand. She loved her father too.

To his surprise, he saw a trap with no driver ploughing up the track towards him. Crowther’s trap? He could see the whites of the horse’s eyes, crazed by the thunder and the sound of the wind, and tried to grab for the reins. The horse reared, but Harry kept hold and fumbled with the harness until he’d got the animal free of the carriage. How the devil had the horse got all the way here without harming itself? Harry was no good with animals, so he didn’t know if it would be better to tether the horse until he could find someone to deal with it, or set it free. There was another clap of thunder, directly overhead, and the decision was taken out of his hands. The horse reared up again, ripping the reins from his hands. He couldn’t stop it. All he could hope was that it would find its own way back to Fishbourne.

Harry slipped in the mud and almost went over. He continued to battle his way down the track, his boots sinking deeper with each step. Finally, to his relief, he saw a small building ahead at the end of the track, set in a large plot of land. To the right, an area of woodland; directly ahead was the sea. He supposed this must be Themis Cottage, though it seemed a peculiarly ornate name for so modest a house.

He had convinced himself his father was inside. Now that he was here, he wasn’t sure what to do for the best. If the old man
was
here and being held against his will – despite Pennicott’s unspoken insinuations, it was the only explanation Harry was prepared to accept – the last thing he should do was rush in and run the risk of messing things up. He realised it was possible that Pennicott, though he’d not seen any sign of him, was here already.

A strong gust of wind nearly lifted him off his feet. His clothes were soaking, heavy against his legs and arms. He didn’t think he could stay outside for much longer. He looked around for a place from which to watch the house. He pulled his collar up, then crouched low and ran to what looked like a coal cellar at the back of the cottage. That would do for the time being.

As he took shelter, he thought again of Connie. He hoped that, whatever revelations did emerge about her father, she would be strong enough to cope. Whatever the situation was, Harry was determined to stick by her.

Mill Lane

Fishbourne

The mill pond had burst its banks. Water was flooding across the road, up and over the steps to the low-lying properties, streaming through the gaps between the doors and the stone thresholds of Pendrills and Salt Mill House.

Pennicott’s cape flapped in the wind as he raised his hand and rapped again on the door to Slay Lodge.

‘Sir?’ he shouted. ‘Open the door, please. This is the police.’

The house seemed to stare back at him. Every window was tight shut; there was no sign of life. Pennicott was cursing the time it had taken to get the evidence he needed. You couldn’t make mistakes with these kinds of men, whose wealth and standing in society protected them, so Pennicott had done it by the book. He glanced at his watch. His colleagues should have arrived at Themis Cottage by now, so long as Apuldram Lane was passable.

‘Sir?’ he shouted again.

This time, when there was still no answer, Pennicott stood back. He summoned the young officer waiting behind him.

‘We’re going to have to break it down,’ he said. ‘On my count.’

He and the lad jammed their shoulders against the door.

‘And again,’ Pennicott ordered. ‘Again.’

Little by little, the hinges started to splinter and crack. Finally, after one last attempt, the door came away from the frame and they were in.

Pennicott rushed inside and found himself staring at a huge preserved swan standing in the hallway.

He knew, immediately, that his man had gone. The house felt empty.

‘Check upstairs,’ he ordered.

Pennicott himself went through the study and the drawing room, noticing that all the drawers of the desk were open. He hoped the others would have better luck at Themis Cottage.

‘Found anything?’ he asked, as the boy reappeared.

‘Only this,’ the boy said, holding out a coil of taxidermist’s wire.

Chapter 48

Themis Cottage

Apuldram

Connie staggered into the entrance hall, out of the storm, then struggled to close the door in the teeth of the wind.

Her first sensation was relief. Her skin was thick with salt water carried off the sea. The cottage was utterly and completely quiet.

‘Father?’

There was an odd concoction of perfumes. Candles, with incense and something unpleasantly sweet underneath. An old and familiar scent that she knew well from the workshop.

Blood.

‘Gifford?’

Had he taken shelter here? Where else could he have gone?

Two doors led off the hall, with a third directly ahead at the end of the corridor. They were all closed. Connie tried the right-hand room first. A small parlour; it was empty, although there were signs of recent occupation. A plate and a knife, a stack of newspapers and a couple of books on a low side table. She was on the point of going back into the hall when she noticed the title of the book on the top of the pile. She picked it up.

‘
Taxidermy: or, the art of collecting, preparing, and mounting objects of natural history,
’ she read.
‘
Mrs R. Lee.
’

The same Longman edition, by the looks of it, as her father owned. Then she remembered how, when she and Harry were in the workshop, she hadn’t been able to lay her hands on it. She opened the flyleaf and saw her father’s bookplate on the inside cover:
MR
CROWLEY
GIFFORD
,
STUFFER
OF
BIRDS
.

Had her father brought the book here? Lent it to someone?

She looked down at the volume beneath Mrs Lee’s manual. Not another book, but her journal. The current one, missing since Wednesday afternoon. Could her father have taken that too? Brought it here too? She didn’t think so. He had been in a dreadful condition that day, almost unconscious with drink.

She flicked through the leaves, not sure what she was looking for, pages and pages of her own familiar handwriting. A sheaf of loose paper fell out; then, in the journal, she saw the colour of the ink change. Black ink, not blue.

Distinctive handwriting, but not hers.

Connie shook her head. It wasn’t possible. Cassie was dead. She could not have written these entries.

She thought again of her father’s distress. He was confused and his thoughts had gone round in circles, but he had admitted that Cassie was dead. When Connie had talked of the Corvidae Club, trying to get him to confess that he knew they had murdered Cassie ten years ago, he hadn’t corrected her.

The same chink of doubt.

Connie thought of the woman she’d seen watching Blackthorn House, about the man Davey had seen in the same spot. Ever such a small chap, Davey had said, something not quite right about him. The same thing Harry had said about the man he’d heard quarrelling with his father. She thought of the letter Mrs Christie had given her – hand-delivered to the house, that script familiar – and the strength of Gifford’s grief. A fresh, raw emotion, not something a decade old.

‘Cassie?’ she heard herself say.

Still no one answered. No one came.

Her heart thumping, Connie took the journal and walked across the hall to the room opposite. It was empty apart for a heap of black drapes, like curtains from a theatre, and a selection of butcher’s tools on the ground. There were brown stains on the teeth of the saw.

Blood, skin, bone
.

There was only one room left. Still holding her journal in front of her like a shield, she walked slowly down the corridor to the end.

Was her father here? Was Cassie? Someone pretending to be Cassie?

Every muscle in her body told her not to go on, but she had come too far to turn back. For a decade she’d lived with secrets poisoning everything. It was better to face the truth, whatever it was and however difficult it turned out to be. It was better to know than to spend the rest of her life, like the past ten years, wondering.

Connie put down the journal on the hall table, then walked forward towards the closed door at the end of the corridor.

*

Davey dropped down from the beam on to the straw, landing behind the figure standing in the doorway. He tried to make a run for it, but Joseph lunged for him, grabbing his jacket, threw the boy back on to the straw, and blocked the door with his body.

Davey flew at him. Joseph put his arms around the boy and lifted him off the ground.

‘Shut this row. He’ll hear us,’ he hissed.

‘Where’s Mr Gifford? What have you done with him? If you’ve harmed him . . .’

‘Gifford?’

The surprise in Joseph’s voice was so obvious that Davey stopped fighting.

‘Look, I’ll put you down, but I swear, if you start that racket up again, I’ll swing for you. Clear?’

Davey nodded. Joseph dropped him.

‘Where are we?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘No. Ma Christie sent me after Mr Gifford. He was heading this way, but I . . . To be honest, I’m not sure.’

Joseph shook his head. ‘Why’s Gifford here? What’s he playing at?’

‘The trap must have gone over,’ Davey said, thinking aloud. He looked at Joseph. ‘Was it you who slung me in here?’

‘Course not. I’d hardly be letting you out if I had.’

Davey thought and decided that made sense. ‘Who was it then?’

For a moment, their eyes met, and Davey remembered. ‘Vera’s hat,’ he said. ‘I found it in Crowther’s carriage.’

*

Connie couldn’t take in what she was seeing. Not at first.

The room was dark, with the exception of three candles burning behind three chairs, which threw the shadows forward to meet her. She waited. Allowed her eyes to adjust to the semi-light. She looked again.

Three life-sized mannequins had been positioned in Louis Quatorze chairs. Like Pierrots, though wearing black robes instead of white, and decorated with different embroidered patterns. Each wore a beautiful mask in the shape of a bird’s head: a jackdaw, with its silky grey hood; a magpie with the glinting purple-and-green of its tail feathers; the third with the woody beak and sooty black feathers of a rook.

It was a macabre re-creation of the display case her father had made and hidden in the ice house: jackdaw, magpie, rook. The fourth space was unoccupied.

Crow was missing.

Connie weakened, as she started to realise what she was actually seeing. She refused to let herself look away. She had to learn the truth. She took shallow breaths, trying not to let the overheated, sickly air of the room get into her nose and throat, waiting for her pulse to steady. Finally, the last missing memories of the night Cassie died came back to her.

*

Four men sitting in the museum on chairs that, to her child’s eyes, seemed like thrones. Peering down into the room from above, hiding behind the wooden banisters on the first-floor landing.

The candles and the smoke, the feathers. Noise, men’s voices.

Her father and Cassie arguing in the hall. Was that what had woken her? Gifford pleading with Cassie to keep the visitors well oiled while he went into the village to see what was keeping them.

Cassie folding her arms. ‘Them?’

‘A bit of dancing,’ he said, looking away. Not able to meet her eye. ‘Professional entertainment, no harm in it. He gave me his word.’

‘Dancing!’ she said contemptuously. ‘Working girls, more like. Shame on you, Gifford, with your daughter in the house.’

‘All above board, he gave me his word as a gentleman,’ he said. ‘I’ll only be five minutes, Cassie. He arranged it all, only they should have been here by now. I’ve got to go and check where they are. Lost their way, near as like. I’m only asking you to hold the fort for five minutes. Keep their glasses topped up. That’s all.’

Connie watching and waiting, then Cassie nodding. ‘Five minutes. No longer.’

The sound of the side door closing.

Connie pushing herself back into the shadows, knowing that she would be in trouble if Cassie knew she was out of bed. Hearing the voices of the men getting louder and more impatient. Listening for the sound of her father coming back, but he didn’t return.

Cassie pausing in the hall, holding a tray of drinks. She looked cross, not worried. Then she fixed a smile on her face and walked into the room. The door stayed open. Connie clutched at the spindles, pressing her cheeks against the wood to see.

Cassie still smiling, trying to keep smiling as hands pulled at her. Pushing her and pulling at her clothes, and Connie realising Cassie was angry.

Then frightened.

Glass breaking. Dropping the tray. The smell of brandy and whisky. The noise getting louder, and the shouting. One of the largest display cases tipped over and shattered, the songbirds thrown out, as if they had come back to life. All the tiny birds, the brambling and chaffinch, the siskin, greenfinch, linnet, her father’s beautiful handiwork trampled underfoot.

Black feathers of the masks. Four men in masks.

One of them telling Cassie not to be a silly girl, not to make a fuss. It was just a bit of fun. He seemed to think it was funny when she struck him. Made him pull at her skirts more, roughly now. Holding her wrists now, trying to kiss her.

Cassie tried to get away. The man in the jackdaw mask took no part, but he didn’t stop them. She ran for the door, but the man in the magpie mask blocked her way and put his hand on her throat. The sound of material and a flash of bare skin. Cassie fighting, trying to twist away, then the man in the rook mask hit her and she fell down, screaming now, as he hit her again. And him lying over her and doing something that made her shout, anger and then pain. Hurting her. Cursing her. Blood on Cassie’s face.

But she didn’t stop fighting, kept screaming.

The man in the crow mask had watched, his arms folded, but finally he stepped forward and grabbed Cassie by the hair. He dragged the yellow ribbon, turned it in his hands, then crouched down and pulled. Pulled again.

Connie didn’t understand what they were doing or why, didn’t know why her father hadn’t come back.

Then, abruptly, there was silence.

Cassie wasn’t screaming any more. She wasn’t making a sound. She was lying on the floor.

White face, blue lips.

‘Pity,’ said the man with the crow mask, standing looking down at her with the length of yellow ribbon in his hand. ‘Get rid of her.’

Connie caught her breath at the sharp stab of memory. Dust on bare floorboards, feathers.

Cassie was dead. She had seen her die.

And Connie not understanding, except she knew it was wrong. That it was bad. And not caring if her father told her off, or if Cassie told her off, but she couldn’t stay silent any more. Shouting at the top of her lungs, hurling herself down the stairs to try to get to Cassie.

Flying through the air. Falling, her shoulders and elbows and arms hitting the wall, the tread of the stairs, her head striking the stone floor at the bottom. The cold of the night air on her face, the sensation of being carried in someone’s arms.

She had never seen Cassie again.