Island of Bones (40 page)

‘I hope,’ Crowther said, turning aside, ‘that Sturgess does not think he will be able to revive the man.’

Harriet shook her head. ‘They were friends, Crowther. It is natural. But he must have seen what we did through the window. He can have no doubts.’ She took his arm and they walked up the steps far more sedately, then turned into the main space of the museum to see Mr Sturgess knelt over the body, one hand on Mr Askew’s chest, the other held over his own eyes.

The remains of one of the high display cabinets that had stood between the two tall street windows lay about the body. The glass doors had smashed, dusting the floor with glass that shined like a confectioner’s dream of winter. The remains of the case itself lay beside their former owner like a companion on a tomb.

‘Mr Sturgess?’ Harriet said gently. He breathed deeply and stood up. He seemed dazed and lifted his hands for a second then let them fall.

‘What horror. Poor Askew! He could be a troublesome neighbour at times, but he loved this place and this country. Do you think he suffered greatly?’

Crowther looked at the body on the ground. The wreckage in the room showed that Askew had struggled, and the distorted face made it clear he had been strangled, which took some minutes as opposed to a knife in the right place or the up-thrust of some sharp object into the brain, but pain, panic and hopelessness left no marks on the body that Crowther could find with his knives and saws. He had no answer for the dead man’s friend. It was Harriet who replied.

‘While my husband lived, I heard many men tell stories of moments they thought they were about to breathe their last in violent times . . .’ She hesitated, and Mr Sturgess looked up at her. ‘They told me they
were too busy fighting for themselves and their friends to feel afraid or suffer great pain. Perhaps that was the case here.’

Mr Sturgess turned away for a moment. ‘Thank you, Mrs Westerman. You have given me what comfort you can.’ He stood. ‘Casper Grace must be found at once.’

‘You persist in thinking Casper guilty of these crimes?’ Harriet said. ‘On what basis?’

He spun round to her. ‘Madam, Grace is a charlatan and a madman. I have no doubt we shall find proof of his crimes, but his guilt is beyond doubt!’

‘And the young girl who has gone missing? And what of these two men, the Fowlers?’ Harriet asked, her tone still civil.

Sturgess put his hand to his forehead and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Mrs Westerman! When a young man leaves the area with a woman, I see no need to construct criminal conspiracy! The father is no doubt drinking the profits of his latest bit of thievery.’

‘And the beating Mr Grace received?’ Crowther added.

Sturgess turned on him, his arms outstretched. ‘Why do you support this delusional female, Mr Crowther? No doubt Casper cheated the wrong person with his tricks and has paid for it. Perhaps it was that which changed him from a local curiosity into a dangerous lunatic.’ His breathing slowed. ‘Now may I ask what business you have here?’

Crowther spoke clearly. ‘I know of no other qualified surgeon with experience of such cases in the area. I shall make my observations and place them at the disposal of the coroner. And, Mr Sturgess, it is not myself who supports Mrs Westerman’s delusions, as you describe them. It is the evidence.’

‘Do what you will,’ Sturgess said and left the museum.

Crowther walked carefully to the windows and pulled the wooden shutters completely across the glass, shutting out any curious faces beyond. He turned to see that Harriet had retreated to a high stool in the corner of the room.

‘Mrs Westerman? I hope Mr Sturgess’s rudeness has not distressed you. The man is an idiot. We have met other fools.’

She raised her head with a deep sigh, and tried, briefly, to smile. ‘No, Crowther. Not Sturgess. Poor Mr Askew, I do not for a moment believe his death was a pleasant one. I fear we are become creatures to be fled from. All these deaths! That girl not found, two men missing from the village. These disasters cluster about us. I feel like Job, though I’ve no strength to praise God over these bodies. What did Askew ever do that he deserved
our
visitation?’

Crowther frowned. Her eyes had an unhealthy light in them and she was speaking more quickly than usual, even for her. He said cautiously, ‘Mrs Westerman, unless you came down here in the night and throttled Mr Askew yourself, we bear no responsibility for this death.’

She spoke sharply. ‘Yes, we do! Look the thing in its face, Crowther! Mr Askew is dead because someone wished to hide something from
us
.’

‘You cannot know that.’

‘Oh, I am certain of it. He called on us, he left word for us. I was too tired to call on him, and you were too busy with your knives. We have shaken something loose with our questions and it has fallen on this man’s shoulders and knocked him down. We are like children throwing stones at a mad dog, only it is never us that get bitten. Only those with the misfortune to know us.’

Crowther watched the shadows on her face. Since her widowhood there had been one thing unspoken between them, one truth unacknowledged, one point of their last enterprise together that had been too tender for them to touch on. It was neither the time nor the place that Crowther would have chosen to speak of it, but it seemed his hand was forced. Crowther had thought on how the spymaster in London had known to send his assassin to James Westerman. He had considered the circumstances and come to a conclusion. But he had never spoken of it, not until now.

‘You did not kill your husband, Mrs Westerman.’

She stood up quickly and turned her back to him. ‘You know that I did, Crowther. You would have realised it the night James died. I believe it took me a little longer.’

‘I saw the man who killed him.’

‘Do not attempt to be so exact with me.’ She turned towards him again. ‘I am not a fool, Crowther. Did you really believe in all these months I had not worked it out too? James was murdered because I was chattering to an earl with a glass of champagne in my hand and said . . . and I know who overheard me. I know what the result was. You cannot protect me from that.’

Crowther crossed the space between them and placed one hand on her shoulder. ‘Harriet . . .’ She pulled away from him, but he took hold of her again and turned her towards him. Her head was bent forward and her shoulders were shaking. ‘Harriet, my dear woman, do listen to me. You are right. It was your words that condemned James, but no one, no one would ever blame you for his death.’

She looked up at him. ‘But they do, Gabriel! They do! They all whisper I have no business involving myself in such matters, that I bring shame on my family and friends. That horrid little lawyer yesterday will be saying the same thing, I could read it in his face. And
I
blame myself. How can I not? If I had only managed to keep my tongue still . . . I spoke carelessly, even knowing that there might be people in the room whom we could not trust. Let me take the blame when it falls on me. I am stupid. James, you would not have spoken as I did. God, my own husband! I loved him so, Gabriel. No woman has ever been as lucky . . .’

Her words trailed off into tears. Crowther kept his fingers tight around her thin shoulders as if he could keep her from falling into herself with the pressure of his hands. He did not speak until he felt her breathing slow, then said gently, ‘Mrs Westerman, you are a remarkable woman, but you cannot take on responsibility for crimes not your own. Say this happened, and so this. Very well, that seems to be our task, but
you
have killed no one. Your husband would not blame you for his death. He
would thank you for the service you have done for the men with whom he served.’ Her breathing was becoming more even.

‘Please, permit me to take some of the fault for your current distress,’ he continued. ‘I allowed a veil to be drawn over this. We never discussed why your husband was made a target at that time. I guessed, but I did not ask. And I should have realised by my advanced age that turning from what troubles us is no escape.’ She looked up briefly at that with a crooked smile, and he returned it. ‘I do not ask you to draw up a balance-sheet, but you have saved lives, you have served a greater good. How many deaths go unremarked, killers unpunished? Would you let the being who killed Herr Hurst, or Mr Askew, go free to murder again? Would you let Casper be taken off and hanged for the convenience of the authorities because you have decided that you should stop asking questions? Because of that little lawyer and his kind? Your husband married a braver woman than that. I wish to God I had had the pleasure of your friendship in fifty-one. I might have saved my brother from the gallows, had I known you then. Now dry your eyes, do! I need you to see this clearly.’ He slowly released his grip.

Harriet pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and began to wipe her eyes. She blew her nose and inhaled deeply.

‘Very well, Crowther. Though I think I should retire to some nunnery when we are done with this business.’

‘I doubt they would have you,’ he replied dryly. ‘I have never seen you stay still for more than half an hour at a time. Hours of silent prayer would be beyond you.’

He went back to the body again, then heard her follow him to the centre of the room. He heard her voice, and the tone was more like the woman he knew.

‘As it happens, I was three years old in fifty-one,’ she said quietly, and knelt down beside him.

Agnes jerked awake in the gloom, scrambled to her feet and called out, thinking some movement beyond the barrier must have woken her.
Silence. She had spent most of the night too afraid to close her eyes. Then she could not be wakeful and frightened any longer. Sleep had taken pity on her. Since her waking at first light though, she had sung to herself whenever she was able, hoping that someone might pass by and hear her, but she could not help shutting her eyes from time to time, and whenever she woke, it was with this cold panic that someone might have passed the mouth of the tunnel while she slept, and left her here. She knew she would be looked for, but if Swithun was right and her people were looking on the wrong side of the lake, thinking she had lost her way in the storm, and if Casper hadn’t seen her arrive in the rainstorm . . . She was sure neither of the Fowlers would be back now. She had a little bread left and a few mouthfuls of water.

It was a truth she knew of magic that each spell cast had a cost. She had been so angry at Stella that she thought she was willing to pay it, but now, curled and hungry in the darkness, she thought perhaps it was Thomas she should have been angry with, not the girl – and rather than get bitter and crooked, that she should have only held her head high and laughed at them. Casper had tried to take the hurt of the spell away from her by sending her up the hill with the poppet, but she had wandered away from it to see the fireworks. If she had stayed by them as she had been told, she would not have seen Casper being beaten, would not have been taken herself.

Drying her eyes, she then put her hands together and began to whisper church prayers. The hills would hear them, and know she had learned what she needed to know. She accepted her punishment then, and prayed for forgiveness. When the idea came to her it dropped like a stone into the cool centre of her mind and she opened her eyes with a gasp.

Crowther reached forward and twitched Mr Askew’s collar to one side.

‘Tell me what you see,’ Harriet said.

Instead of replying he pointed to the neck and Harriet saw a thin groove across the man’s throat, sharp-edged. It cut like a purple furrow
across his windpipe. She bent forward, steadying herself among the broken glass with her left hand, then wet her lips and said, ‘Too narrow and straight-edged for any rope, yet it was certainly wrapped round his throat. Leather perhaps?’ She looked around the room and without waiting for him to reply, continued, ‘Someone comes at him from behind. At some point in the struggle he grabs on to this display case and pulls it forward.’ She paused. ‘It might have saved him.’

Crowther nodded. ‘But the debris from the cabinet seems to extend below him.’ He lifted Askew’s shoulder and the glass crackled under the body. ‘He was pulled clear before the cabinet fell. His assailant obviously managed to keep his grip. A brave attempt though.’

‘The noise must have been terrific,’ Harriet said, getting to her feet again.

‘Perhaps that is why the killer made no attempt to hide the crime, beyond partially closing the blinds, though perhaps Mr Askew might have been doing that himself as he closed up his business. In either case the killer might well have left as soon as he was sure Askew was dead in case his neighbours came to investigate the noise.’

‘You believe it was a man?’

Crowther rose to his feet and felt his knees complain. ‘Probably. This required some strength, and Mr Askew was not a small man.’

She had ceased to listen to him but turned to the broken doorway. ‘The door was locked. There must be another way out of this house.’

Crowther continued to stare at the dead man and the varied minerals scattered about him. Some still had their labels attached, written in Askew’s punctilious script.
Black wad of the Borrowdale Plumbago Mines
;
Quartz with silver trace from the old mine above Silverside Hall
.

Crowther had not warmed to Mr Askew during their brief acquaintance. He did not like the hordes of cooing pleasure-seekers the man encouraged into the town with his fireworks and regattas, and had thought his understanding of the geology of the region was probably superficial at best. However, looking at the scattered minerals he saw the workings of a methodical mind. He had heard Mr Askew’s maps
of the area praised, and no one creates a decent map without difficult and detailed work. Examining the labels now, Crowther had to admit that to an extent Mr Askew had been a man after his own heart. He had sought to understand the world around him by breaking it into tiny pieces and giving each part its proper name, attempting to understand the whole by comprehending the detail. Such were Crowther’s concerns in his anatomical studies, yet whatever expertise he had developed, he had never managed to arrive at an understanding of living human beings, their sensitivities and concerns. He wondered if Mr Askew had ever sensed a similar paradox. He had charted and measured each fold in the hills around him, ferreted out its history and its mineral treasures, its legends, but had he ever understood the place entire, how it flowed into its people, and how its people fed it in return?