Chords and Discords (16 page)

“It was dark,” she said, scornfully.

“No light in the yard?”

“Waste of money,” she said. “Anyhow, I flung open the door, called to him to stop meddling and come in. He’d gone into the workshop, I thought, so I started out for it.
And the next thing I know, someone brings an old piece of wood down on my head.”

The maid lifted her head. “It’s in the yard still,” she said in her faintly Scotch accent.

“Quiet, girl!” her mistress snapped. “God, you’d make a saint full of wrath. Well, fool I may be but I still had the wit to grab him. And I yelled, my God, I yelled. I
can tell you, it took some noise to rouse this slut!” She tugged at the maid’s sleeve. “Get rid of this water.”

The maid took the bowl to the door and threw the bloodied water across the yard.

“You didn’t see your attacker?”

“Nay.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Why should he do that?”

“Were you carrying a candle?”

“What’s that to say to anything?”

“It was dark,” I pointed out. “You said so yourself. If he could not see you properly, he might have imagined you to be your husband – you’re much the same
height.”

She nodded begrudgingly, even though my words were hardly complimentary. “There was a candle in the house. On the table. But I left it there when I went to the door.”

“Why not take it with you?”

“You’re a fool,” she said. “That’s an old door, heavy – you need both your hands to pull the bolt and drag it open.”

I looked round. The maid stood just inside the open door – a pool of light from the kitchen fell across the cobbled yard outside but beyond that all was darkness. Mrs Bairstowe was right
about the door. But the ruder she became, the more determined I was to hold her to the point.

“Did the attacker run off?”

“Aye. I daresay.”

“You didn’t hear anything?”

“I was lying on the ground with my head split. Nay, I heard nothing.”

“Did your maid see anything?”

“Not an ounce of sense in her head,” she said.

I turned to the maid and caught an odd look in her eye just as she lowered her head. What was it? Distress?

“I saw the girl,” she said in her soft voice, very flat, timid. “The fisher girl. Last night after you’d gone. She was talking to the spirit. They were
arguing.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said dryly. Her lips twisted but she did not look at me. If she realised I was referring to her own dalliance with the lad she was not acknowledging
it.

“But you didn’t hear anything tonight – before your mistress shouted for help?”

She shook her head. At least she was looking at me now, carefully, from under her lowered eyelids. “I was asleep,” she murmured.

“And when you heard your mistress shouting what did you do?”

“I came down.”

“Aye,” said her mistress. “But she stopped to put on her shoes and her robe first.”

“And when you got down here?”

“I saw the mistress.”

“Where was she?”

“At the door. On her hands and knees.”

God, but it was hard, dragging the information out of her. “Did you see anyone else?”

“No, sir.”

“Or hear anyone?”

“No, sir.”

The attacker had probably run off as soon as the mistress started screaming. I looked back at Mrs Bairstowe. “I would like to search the yard.”

“In the dark?” she said, scornfully.

“To begin with, yes.” I looked at her steadily; she did not lower her gaze. “I’ll come back when it’s light enough to do the job properly but I want to check now
too. There might be something that could blow away, or get carried away by a dog.”

“I’ll help,” Holloway said eagerly, snatching up the branch of candles.

That was the last thing I wanted. “Indeed,” I said, coolly. “I’d be grateful for you holding the lights.”

He followed me out into the yard with a spring in his step. I stopped him just outside the kitchen door, said in a low voice: “Where’s her husband?”

“Where he always is,” he said. “Drinking and whoring. There’s a place on the Keyside; he sometimes stays there all night.”

I had expected something of the sort. The question was, did he have anyone to witness to his activities tonight? Could he have attacked his wife himself? And if so, why?

I asked Holloway to hold up the candles. The light was feeble and erratic, but it sufficed to show me the heaps of wood in the yard. One was piled on the other side of the yard near the alley,
made up of ruined wood from the workshop – splintered fragments of pipes, the smashed soundboard. I glanced all around the yard but could see no trace of anything suspicious. No hint either
of the graveyard I had glimpsed in that other world. No chill beyond the normal night chill. Might someone have ‘stepped through’ to our own world to threaten the Bairstowes? Heaven
forbid that was the case!

In the flickering light of the candles, I saw a dark patch on the ground near the woodpile close by the alley; I beckoned Holloway closer. His hand was shaking and hot globules of wax sprayed on
to the back of my hand. “Keep those candles still!” I bent and dabbled my fingers in the patch. Still sticky – unquestionably blood. Holloway made a choking noise.

One of the pieces of wood lay apart from the others. I left it where it was and squatted to look more closely. Yes, there was a splash of darkness on the end of it that looked like blood.
Holloway gagged, but stood his ground. I shifted. and caught a glimpse of white under the debris.

“What is it?” Holloway asked.

“Just a shadow,” I said, straightening. “I thought it was more blood.”

We searched the rest of the yard as best we could in the darkness. Stars sparkled overhead, a waning moon gleamed. I saw nothing else of significance, nothing that the attacker might have
dropped, for instance, no footprints or fragments of cloth torn from the attacker’s clothes.

“You found nothing then,” Mrs Bairstowe said, when we went back indoors. She had a tone of grim satisfaction.

“No,” I agreed.

“I frightened him off.”

“I think so, yes.”

“Well,” she said. “I daresay he’ll be back.”

I stood with my hands on the back of a chair, looking down at her. She met my gaze while Holloway fussed around her, placing his coat across her shoulders, patting her hand.

“Mrs Bairstowe,” I said at last. “Why do you not leave your husband?”

That shook their composure, as I had intended it should. They stared at me, Holloway in outrage, the lady with a nod, as if to say ‘what do you know of things like this?’ It was the
maid’s reaction that interested me the most; she glanced up quickly, bit her lip, looked down again. As if I had promised her something, then disappointed her.

“Leave him?” Mrs Bairstowe said. “Abandon my duty as a wife?”

“A wife should not have to live in danger of attack because of her husband’s quarrels.”

“It’s my duty,” she said firmly. “A wife stays with her husband until death, his or hers. I swore that in the church and I stick by what I swear.” Her lips curved
in derision. “I am a stupid woman, Mr Patterson, but no one can say I am an undutiful wife.”

I saw she meant it. I said: “Forgive me.”

“Anyhow,” she said, apparently deliberately spoiling her effect. “What would I do for money?”

“You know I’d look after you,” Holloway said, earnestly.

“Aye,” she said. “But I’m staying.”

I stood up straight. “Then get yourself a vicious dog,” I said, “and tether it in the yard. That’ll stop this business.”

She pushed herself up from the table. “Nay, I’d rather get the thing sorted here and now. And you’re the one that’s supposed to sort it, Mr Patterson.” She glared
at me in a kind of triumph. “So you’d better get on with it, hadn’t you? If you want your money.”

I insisted upon their sending for Bedwalters, pointing out that after this attack on Mrs Bairstowe, the death of Tom Eade took on a different aspect. They looked at each other
at that; Holloway protested that Tom Eade’s death had been an accident. But I stood firm, determined not to be bested by them, and they sent the maid off for Bedwalters.

When the maid went, we were left, the three of us, in the kitchen, looking awkwardly about. Holloway started murmuring to his sister, privately, as if in confidence. I could not bear to stay
with them; I went out into the yard, shutting the house door behind me.

In the darkness, I stood for a moment trying to sense the other world so close to our own. Nothing. It had been this way before Christmas; sometimes the world opened up, sometimes it did not.
Others had said they could control it; I could not.

Reluctantly, I returned to more immediate matters. I scanned the walls for the faint gleam of a new spirit. Nothing. I wheedled and cajoled Eade, promised him justice if he told what had
happened to him. No response. What the devil was the spirit doing? Or – the thought struck me suddenly – was he even in this world? Might he not have been trapped in the other world? It
had happened before, with my unlucky apprentice, George.

I walked across the yard, paused by the wood pile at the entrance to the alley. Just at the point of dipping down for that white something I had seen before, I heard a noise behind me, like a
cough. I turned, saw Holloway at the window, staring out at me. I strolled nonchalantly on into the alley.

Out of Holloway’s sight, I called softly for the girl’s spirit. She danced about me at once, sparkling faintly on the wall, laughing and crooning her ancient song.

“Did I see anyone?” she pondered, in answer to my question. “I’ve seen so many people.”

“Tonight,” I said. “Did you see anyone tonight?”

She mused, then said teasingly: “Shadows.”

“Male or female shadows?”

“Both.” She giggled.

“Mrs Bairstowe?”

“Oh, yes.” She sighed. “So pretty. I was pretty like that.”

She was plainly thinking of the maid, or some long-dead mistress.

“And the man?”

“Oh, yes, he was handsome too,” she said.

“Did you see him hit her?”

“Oh he didn’t hit her,” she said, shocked. “I’m sure he’d not do anything of the sort. Such a handsome man. The other one was ugly – I didn’t like
him.”

“Two men?”

“And then there’s William, of course,” she said. “He was such a nice child. He was the one who taught me to sing, you know. But – ” (another sigh) “he
died so long ago.”

And she broke into a cry, a cry of pain and grief. “Where is everyone?” she said. “Oh please, where is everyone?”

And she began to weep, a terrible broken sound that came and went like the wind ebbing and flowing.

They did not enjoy talking to Bedwalters, whom Mary Bairstowe was so ready to castigate as a fool. He came remarkably quickly for such a late hour, still in his working
clothes, ink staining one sleeve. He was accompanied by the streetwalker who dogged his steps at night, a watchful girl of about eighteen years old; she was so regularly in his company that I could
not believe his wife was ignorant of it.

As Bedwalters questioned Mrs Bairstowe about her ordeal, listening gravely to the maid’s quiet interpolations and Holloway’s indignant outbursts, the street walker lingered in the
yard. I went out to her; she was shivering in the cold, drawing a threadbare cloak around her shoulders.

“Will you not come inside?” I asked.

She smiled, wryly. “She’ll not have the likes of me under her roof.”

I glanced through the open door; Mrs Bairstowe still sat at the table, with an air of weary suffering. “She’s not a woman overendowed with Christian charity,” I admitted.

“No thought for anyone but herself,” she said, with no trace of bitterness. “Funny how many ladies are like that.”

We avoided each other’s gaze; I knew she must be talking of Bedwalters’ wife.

“And him,” she said, nodding at Holloway. “You’d think he was meek enough, wouldn’t you?”

“He isn’t?”

“He likes a good beating.”

I was startled. “He’s hit you?”

She shook her head, vehemently. “Never! I’d not let him get away with that. No, the other way.” For a moment, her young face looked infinitely tired. “Wanted me to tie
him to the bed and beat him.”

“Good God!”

She caught hold of my sleeve. “Don’t tell
him
.”

“Bedwalters?”

“It’ll only distress him. He likes to pretend he’s the only one. It hurts him to think what I have to do to earn a living.”

“I won’t say anything.”

“Anyhow.” She drew her thin arm back into the comfort of the cloak. “There is only him, in one way of speaking.”

I was silent, staring into the house through the open door, through which light spilt. Bedwalters, stocky, grey-haired and sombre, had Holloway and Mrs Bairstowe under his thumb now; they were
docile, answering every question although Mrs Bairstowe curled her lip as if in contempt. I knew hardly any man who would condemn Bedwalters for his liaison with the girl, though plenty of women
would protest. And the difference in age would go unnoticed, whereas if the lady had been the older...

I dragged my attention back from my own affairs. There was no point in setting my heart on Esther Jerdoun. Better to concentrate on what I could do something about – my financial
circumstances. And justice for a dead young man. “Did you know the dead lad – Tom Eade?”

She shook her head. “Only by sight. He was all taken up with that other girl. No eyes for anyone but her.”

“The maid?”

She frowned. “The fisher lass.” A slight smile. “She’s a canny one. Like her brother.”

“The fisher girl’s brother?” I repeated to make sure I had heard her aright. “I didn’t know she had one.”

“Aye,” she said. “Thinks a lot of himself, that one.” Her tone told me the brother was probably another person Bedwalters would not want to know about. “And what
does he look like? Nothing but a stick with hair on top. All grown up and not out.” She gave me a tight smile. “And nothing much to interest a girl.”

We shared a knowing look.

“Tall, is he?” I said, suddenly struck. “Does he work in Holloway’s shop?”

“That’s the one.”

So Richard Softly was the brother of Tom Eade’s discarded love. Which might give him reason to want revenge on Eade and, for that matter, on the maid. Was it possible that the mistress had
received the attack meant for the maid? Surely there was not the slightest chance one could have been mistaken for the other. But if Richard Softly had found himself trapped in the yard, he might
have panicked and hit out in order to escape. And that might explain the silence of Tom Eade’s spirit, torn between revealing the identity of the man who had killed him and protecting him
because he was the brother of his former lover.