The Taxidermist's Daughter (30 page)

She had to force herself not to put her arms around him but to keep trying to make him think.

‘What was the patient’s name?’ she said. ‘You must remember.’

Harry closed his eyes. Connie waited.

‘Her name was Cassandra Crowley.’

Connie’s hands began to shake. ‘Cassie.’

‘She escaped,’ he said in a dead voice. ‘Kidd told us. In April. She was never caught. No one knows where she went to ground . . .’ He broke off, registering what Connie had said. ‘Did you say Cassie?’

She looked at the journal lying on the hall table, filled now with someone else’s words, written in black ink. And finally accepted what she had dreaded to believe. Quickly, she picked it up and put it in her pocket.

‘I think she’s here, Harry.’ She glanced at the room. ‘And she hasn’t finished. There’s one more chair to be filled.’

Their eyes met, both suddenly thinking the same thing.

‘Where’s Gifford?’ Harry said.

Chapter 50

Apuldram Woods

Crouched in the undergrowth between the oak trees, Gifford struggled to catch his breath. As the tide rose higher and higher, it brought with it greater gusts of wind. He had a partial view of the front of the cottage, though he hadn’t gone in.

After struggling over the marshes, he’d made it as far as the path before he heard the sound of hooves and wheels on the sodden ground and stepped back, not knowing who it might be. He’d seen a trap pull up and a man in a heavy country coat and hat lift something out of the back and stow it in the outhouse.

Gifford had moved and the man had turned and seen him. Without waiting to think, he’d run back into the woods and hidden.

Now he heard the crack of the undergrowth beneath the howling of the wind and turned in the direction of the sound. He saw the muzzle of the gun as the man scoured the untended paths through the wood. He had pulled a black scarf, a muffler, over his jaw and nose now as well, so his face was almost completely obscured.

It seemed Gifford’s instincts to hide had been correct.

‘Gifford? I know you’re here.’

How long had it been? Half an hour? Longer? Gifford’s muscles still ached from the desperate dash across the drowned fields, and his hands were shaking, though from exertion or from the cold, he wasn’t sure.

Where was Cassie? Was she inside? It was torture to be so close but not able to see her.

Methodical, backwards and forwards, searching for him. Gifford had managed to evade him so far, but wasn’t sure how much longer it would be before the man found him. He recognised the voice, but couldn’t yet put a face or a name to it.

In ten years, Gifford had never come to the cottage. He’d settled the bills and had liked knowing it was there, on the far side of the water from Blackthorn House, ready for when Cassie was well enough to come out.

Was he right? Was Cassie here?

‘I saw you. I know you’re here.’

To his relief, the man was moving further away. All the same, Gifford pushed himself back deeper into the protective shadows of the drowned wood.

For ten years, Gifford had been haunted by the memories of the night at the museum. Leaving Cassie for a few minutes, never imagining for a moment that she would be in any danger. They were gentleman. They were waiting for the dancers to arrive, girls well used to looking out for themselves. He wasn’t gone for long. Waiting at the end for the entertainers, who never came, then seeing a carriage careering at breakneck speed through Lyminster and having a premonition of disaster. Filled with unnamed dread, he ran back to the museum to find all but one of the men gone and Cassie lying dead on the floor. Over time, he’d identified three of the four men present that night: John Woolston, Gerald White, Frederick Brook. But the fourth had never removed his mask, not even at the end.

An accident, he’d been told. Most unfortunate.

The situation was, the man continued, simple. He – Gifford – was in an invidious position. People would assume he was responsible for the girl’s death. After all, no one knew of the impromptu party. The girl worked for him. However, if Gifford was prepared to come to some sort of arrangement, then there would be no problem.

Too late, Gifford understood the sort of men he was dealing with. Men with no conscience, no respect for life. The fact that Cassie was dead meant nothing to them. Their only concern was for their own skins.

But even as the vile terms were being proposed, he realised there was a chance Cassie’s life might still be saved. He was accustomed to death. He knew the way in which skin changed its colour as life drained away. The slipping from pink to white to blue. He’d picked up birds – stunned by being hit by a carriage or flying into a window – who’d appeared dead but had come back to life beneath his hands in the workshop. It wasn’t the same, of course, but as his eyes darted to Cassie’s body on the floor, then back to the man in the mask, Gifford realised that she might survive. If he could only get her away, he might still be able to save her.

Quickly, he agreed with the man. He promised cooperation, knowing that every second counted.

It seemed like an age before the man turned and left, without even glancing at the body on the floor. Gifford rushed Cassie to a doctor in Arundel who was prepared to accept his story that his niece, Miss Cassandra Crowley – the first name that had come into his mind – had attempted to kill herself. She needed care and understanding. Her reputation had to be protected; no one could know she was there.

The country doctor, a regular visitor to the museum, did not question Gifford. He proved willing to commit Cassie to the county asylum, where, Gifford knew, she would be cared for. She would become invisible for a while, protected by a false name. Safe from harm.

Gifford had kept his word. He realised that the only way to keep Cassie out of danger – to stop them coming after her again – was to continue to pretend she had died that night. For ten years, he’d settled the hospital bills from the money paid to him to keep his mouth shut about what had taken place in the museum. A rash promise – though he’d had no choice but to make it – and one that cast a shadow over his soul. It was years before Gifford knew how badly hurt Cassie had been that night. The violation by one man, as others watched, the violence of it. The horror of the birds’ masks and the feathers. Not a harmless drinking club, but men of venial and depraved tastes. But, by then, Gifford was committed to his course of action and he needed the money for her treatment.

Everything was done through Brook, though Gifford had always known that the man was simply following instructions.

Hidden within the wood, Gifford wiped the rain from his face with the sleeve of his coat. He had saved Cassie then, though at what cost? Physically she grew stronger, but her spirits were troubled. The light-hearted, cheerful girl was quite gone. Lost in the violence of that night. The fiction of her melancholia and need for solitude became, in time, a reality.

Gifford dropped his head in his hands as he thought of his daughter, only twelve years old at the time. He hadn’t even known Connie wasn’t safe in her bed until the following morning, when Jennie Wickens, their nearest neighbour, came with news of the accident and to reassure him that his daughter was expected to survive. It was Jennie who’d told him how Woolston had found Connie lying unconscious at the foot of the stairs, rushed her out of the house and sought Jennie’s help. Gifford was unaware of how much Jennie knew, or what she suspected, but their friendship was another casualty of that night. She nursed Connie back to health while he was wounded by grief and silent guilt. In preserving the secret of Cassie’s disappearance, he lost another chance of happiness. The last he’d heard, she had married and moved away.

‘I know you’re there.’

Gifford’s head snapped up. The man was very close. And he recognised the voice, even after so many years. The man who thought he’d killed Cassie and paid Gifford to cover up the murder.

Blood money.

‘Gifford!’ he shouted again.

Gifford pressed himself back into the shelter of the trees, relying on the storm to cover the sound of his breathing. The man was bluffing. He was trying to flush him out. In the cracking of the wind and the rain, Gifford didn’t believe he could see much through the mist and haze hanging between the oaks.

In April, Gifford had believed Cassie was dead. In his grief and self-pity, he’d failed to see what was under his nose. Who else but Cassie would have sent the letter from Graylingwell? Who else but Cassie would have summoned those who had harmed her to the graveyard? Gifford frowned. Had it been a warning of what was to come, or to give them a chance to make reparation?

Why had Cassie not confided in him? Why had she sent him a letter telling him she had died?

Now all he wanted was to ask her why she had turned her back on him after ten years. He had to reassure her that he would look after her. He and Connie would look after her. He wouldn’t let any harm come to her this time.

Was she here?

He heard the snap of a branch underfoot. The man was closer still, pushing his way through the sodden undergrowth.

‘Everyone knows what you’ve done. You won’t get away with it.’

Gifford didn’t know what he meant, only that it was time to bring things to an end. The secrets and lies had eaten away at him, poisoned everything that had ever been dear to him. It was only a matter of time until the man also realised Cassie wasn’t dead and tried to silence her too.

Gifford thought of the crow mask, the sharp black beak and sequinned eyes. He remembered the way the man had threaded Cassie’s yellow hair ribbon through his fingers, as if it was a thing of no consequence. As if
she
– the girl lying dead at his feet – was a thing of no consequence. He could see only one way to end this, and with that acceptance came a quiet kind of peace that had eluded him all these years.

In the final moments, Gifford thought of his courageous, principled, kind daughter. Connie had cared for him and loved him, even though he’d done everything to drive her away. He was proud of her, her character and patience, her skill and dexterity. He had known, from the first time he allowed her into his workshop, that her skill would far outstrip his. His preserved birds were accurate, but Connie had the rare gift of capturing the living essence of a creature. In the set of a bird’s wing, the tilt of a head, she hinted at a more beautiful life to come. Perfection, not an echo of death. All these years, Connie had stood by him. Now, it was time to bring the story to a close and let her – let Cassie – be free of the past.

Gifford looked down and saw that his hands were no longer shaking. He drew in his breath and smiled. His salesman’s smile, just like the old days. Getting ready to charm a customer.

‘I’m here,’ he said, breaking his cover.

*

Crime, punishment, justice.

Everything was done. The last part of her plan was ready. Nothing left to chance, and with that, the courage to finish what she had started.

Then peace. Silence.

Her confession – her testimony – was finished, explaining what she had done and how and why. In the end, it was simple. That while they continued to live, showing no remorse or contrition, she would find no rest. Knowing that the memory of the violence of what had been done to her that night would never let her go. With each passing year, her spirits grew worse, not better. She suffered more, not less, at the thought of their lives continuing without consequence for what they had done.

There was only one course of action. She had taken it.

Nothing now remained other than to bring the last of them – the worst of them – to account. He had enjoyed watching them destroy her, like animals, then taken his pleasure in killing her. Taken her life as if she was no more than a bird or a fly beneath his boot. She’d never doubted he would come, any more than believing the others would not. The seeds of their undoing lay in their own characters. To each according to their desires: reputation, appetite, violence, power.

Gregory Joseph had proved steadfast, a good and loyal servant. He had delivered this last invitation to Mill Lane this afternoon, battling through the wind and the storm. Joseph had no idea of what horrors he had set in train, any more than did Gifford.

Gifford had never recovered from the guilt of having left her alone that night with such men. She did not blame him, but he blamed himself for trusting their word, for his naivety, for letting his need for money cloud his judgement.

She had tried hard to spare Gifford, even writing of her death on stolen asylum notepaper, though she knew it would break his heart. There had been no choice. He would have tried to stop her. He would not have understood that she could have no life after the asylum while they were free in the world. After ten years, no one would have believed her. A woman, with no income or support, a former hospital patient. And she wanted no blame to be attached to him. Nor to Connie either. Joseph’s final act would be to return Connie’s journal to Blackthorn House for her to read what Cassie had written.

Everything was ready. The sight of her macabre tableau was intended for the eyes of her final victim only. She wanted him to see how his partners had suffered, to see the empty chair and the mask set upon it, and understand.

She knew she could not take any risks with him. He was cleverer than the others. There could be nothing persuasive or subtle about this last act of killing. She intended to use John Woolston’s revolver to disable him, and then begin her work.

But as the storm came in, things had started to go wrong.

She saw his carriage arrive, but rather than coming to the cottage as he was supposed to do, he had dragged something from the back of the trap and gone to the outhouse instead. He turned, as if something had suddenly caught his eye, then ran towards the woods that separated the end of the gardens of Themis Cottage from the marshes.