The Heiress of Linn Hagh (28 page)

‘Turn over,’ he said gently.

Matthew Carnaby ceased crying and obeyed. He gazed pitifully up at Lavender from the bed, out of blackened and swollen eyes. Even by the dim light of the flickering candle, Lavender could see that the man had been beaten up. His nose was also bloodied.

The gaoler read his thoughts.

‘He put up one heck of a fight when the beadles tried to arrest him,’ he reminded Lavender. ‘They had to rough him up a bit to get him into the prison cart.’

Lavender sighed, looked down at the wretched creature and tried to ignore the distorted features and silver scars that snaked across the right side of his face into the matted hair of his dark cropped head.

‘Do you know who I am?’

Matthew Carnaby stared back blankly.

‘I’m Detective Lavender. Mr Armstrong in Bellingham asked me to try to find your sister, Helen.’

He might have imagined it, but he felt sure he saw the man nod slightly.

‘You saw me once in the woods, do you remember? You were with Laurel Faa Geddes.’

A large tear rolled down the man’s face from his good eye, and he opened his mouth.

‘La la.’ The two syllables were more like growls that emanated from the depths of the man’s throat. Lavender looked at him in surprise. He had thought the young man was mute.
How to progress?

‘I need to know what happened yesterday—at the fire.’

Silence.

‘If you’re innocent, I’ll do my best to get you out of here and back home to Linn Hagh. I know that there is another man in Bellingham who has tried to harm your sister—a bad man.’

Silence.

‘Can you try to tell me what happened? Can you show me, somehow?’

The younger man just stared at him blankly. Beneath his disfigurement, he had a strong similarity to Helen Carnaby; Lavender remembered the portrait of the missing heiress. Summoning all his patience, he tried once more.

‘I’m here to try to help you,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t believe for one minute that you harmed your sister, Helen.’

‘Ela.’ It was the same unmistakable throaty growl of sorrow. Lavender saw something pass across the youth’s eyes. Some flicker of recognition.

Suddenly, Matthew rose from the squeaking bed to a sitting position and swung his legs off the mattress. Lavender sat back in his chair and watched him lollop across the room towards the writing desk.

By the door, the gaoler stiffened as Carnaby approached.

‘Steady there, fellah,’ he warned, but the prisoner ignored him. He picked up the quill, leant over the table and jabbed it awkwardly into the ink bottle. Ink slopped across the surface of the table.

Lavender didn’t move. He and the guard watched in surprise as slowly and awkwardly, Matthew Carnaby dragged the feather across the parchment on the table. The only sound in that room was the scratching of the quill, the tearing of paper and Matthew’s laboured breathing.

What now?
Lavender thought.
An illiterate man can suddenly write?
Katherine Armstrong had told him that Matthew Carnaby had never been schooled.

Lavender rose to his feet and moved across to peer over the young man’s shoulder. The letters were large, crudely drawn and splattered with ink. He couldn’t quite make them out yet, but it didn’t matter. The illiterate ‘idiot’ from the Carnaby family was writing, giving him some clue about the terrible events back in Bellingham.

The answer now came to him in a flash. Helen Carnaby was a ‘pupil teacher’. She had obviously spent some time teaching her brother to write.

Matthew Carnaby strained with the effort like a child with its first chalk and slate; his tongue flopped out of his slack mouth.

Finally, he stood up straight and handed the parchment to Lavender.

‘La la,’ he said again, and with his free hand he drew his finger across his throat like he was slicing it open. In this unmistakable gesture, he demonstrated murder; he must have witnessed the crime. He was showing Lavender that the girl had had her throat cut.

His job now done, the young man scrambled back to his bed, where he curled up in a ball with his back to the room.

The gaoler moved to Lavender’s side.

‘Has he given you the name of the killer?’ His gabbled voice rose with excitement. ‘They never said he could write when they brought him in. ‘What does it say?’

Lavender glanced down at the page and was overwhelmed with bitter disappointment.

In large, childish letters, Matthew Carnaby had written: ‘BAXTR CARNBY’.

‘Who’s this
Baxtr Carnby
?’

‘His dead father.’

At the other side of the prison cell, Matthew Carnaby resumed his plaintive sobbing.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

T
he beadles and Peter put Miss Helen’s body in the barrelled vault beneath the tower. Miss Isobel would not have the burnt corpse in the house until they had got a coffin.

‘’Tain’t right,’ Mistress Norris complained as she wiped a tear from her watery eye. ‘She shouldn’t be lyin’ out there in the cold on a pallet—with only the sheep and a couple of cows fer company.’

Anna stared blankly at the tearful cook and wondered why she couldn’t cry. Even when they’d told her that Master Matthew had killed Miss Helen and had been hauled away to Morpeth Gaol, she had felt nothing. It seemed like she was in the middle of a bad dream. She would wake up in a minute.

‘Make sure you all stay away from my sister,’ George Carnaby snarled at the servants. ‘I don’t want anyone gawping at her body, do you understand?’

Doctor Goddard arrived to examine the corpse. It didn’t go well. She could see from the window that when he and George Carnaby emerged from the underbelly of the house they were arguing. She could hear their muffled shouts through the glass. Doctor Goddard leapt onto his horse and thundered back to town with the master’s curses ringing in his ears.

The cook burnt herself on a pan and swore.

‘Do you think I should bring out one of her favourite dresses?’ Anna asked suddenly. The sound of her own voice startled her.

She would get out the black one with beading, she decided. Miss Helen had always liked that. The peacock blue dress was spoilt now; Miss Isobel had sullied it.

‘What fer?’ The cook stared at her blankly.

Anna could hardly say the words.

‘To lay her out . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

The irascible cook stopped whisking eggs, patted Anna’s arm and watched her with pity in her eyes. ‘I don’t think there’s much point, pet. From what Peter said, she’s in too bad a state to wear a dress.’

Still, Anna couldn’t cry.

When she began to carry the dinner up to the Great Hall, a sudden wave of dizziness made her stop and steady herself against the wall. Alarmed, she waited until the feeling had passed, then she did the rest of the journey slowly.

As she neared the entrance to the Great Hall, she heard the unmistakable sound of low laughter. Unable to believe her ears, she climbed the last few steps silently and listened outside the door.

Miss Isobel laughed again.

‘This couldn’t have worked out better,’ she said. ‘Matthew will hang, the faws have gone, and we should soon have our giddy sister’s inheritance.’

‘I agree.’ There was a note of triumph in George Carnaby’s voice.

Anna heard the chink of brandy glasses and realised that the Carnabys had just made a silent toast.

‘Robert Goddard is a bloody fool,’ the master continued. ‘But I’ll fetch Horrocks over from Newcastle—he’ll identify the body—and the lawyers will have to accept that she’s dead. We’ll soon have the money.’

They paused and Anna suddenly became aware of her own breathing. She began to panic that they could hear her. Had she made a noise?

Oh, for God’s sake, did it matter? Anger welled up in her like a flash flood in a spring stream. She knew what she had to do. She walked into the room and dumped the tray on the table with a crash.

Isobel Carnaby looked up in surprise.

‘Careful, girl,’ she warned.

Anna didn’t reply or look at her mistress as she walked out. Her legs didn’t take her back down to the kitchen either. Spurred on by anger and disgust, she found new strength and leapt upstairs to her room at the top of the tower.

Within five minutes, she had pulled out all her things and stuffed them into her tatty old carpetbag. At the bottom of her drawer, she found the note Constable Woods had sent her:

Anna,

You must be very careful, treacle. There is a murderer in Bellingham. Take care and don’t go out alone.

For a moment, she paused, then shook her head and grabbed her darning pile from the top of the dresser to stuff it into the bag.

Stick to the road,
the constable had continued.
If any strange man is seen around Linn Hagh, can you send me word? And if George Carnaby meets with any men you don’t know, I want to know about that as well.

She pulled a scrap of parchment out of the drawer and stared at its fire-blackened edges. She had found this strange little note a few days ago while cleaning out the hearth in the Great Hall. She had assumed that Mr George had thrown out some old papers of his father’s. This one had fallen out of the fire, and she had kept it in case Miss Helen wanted it as a souvenir of her da; it was signed by Baxter Carnaby. But there was no point in keeping it for her now. She felt sorry she had let Constable Woods down, but perhaps this note might show him that she had tried?

She stuffed it into her apron pocket and felt the brittle, flaking edges of the burnt piece of cloth from Miss Helen’s dress. Yes, she would give him that, too. She needed to go—now.

Two minutes later, she had on her cloak and was at the bottom of the stairs. The startled cook saw her at the door.

‘Where d’ya think yer going?’ she demanded.

‘I’m leavin’ ,’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough.’

‘What, just like that?’

Anna ignored her. She opened the heavy door, walked out and slammed the door shut behind her. The cold night air slapped her viciously in the face, but she didn’t care.

She scurried down the icy steps and ran down the dark road, desperate to put as much distance between herself and Linn Hagh as possible. As she neared the bend in the road, she threw a last frantic glance over her shoulder, but no one followed her. She rounded the corner and slowed down to catch her breath. Her chest ached with the exertion, but she didn’t care.

She was free.

An hour later, she was sobbing in the comforting arms of her mother, in the warmth of their tiny kitchen. After she had cried her eyes out, her mother made her a cup of sweet tea, and she started to feel a bit better.

‘Eee! I nearly forgot,’ the elderly woman said. She left her chair and fetched Anna a letter from the old dresser.

Anna stared at it in amazement. ‘
To Miss Anna Jones
,’ it read.

‘It were pushed through the door yesterday. Go on,’ her mother said with excitement. ‘Open it and tell us what it says.’

Anna’s hands trembled as she reached for a kitchen knife to break the seal.

The handwriting belonged to Helen Carnaby.

Chapter Thirty

Saturday, 27th November 1809

L
avender arrived at Linn Hagh just before ten o’ clock.

The manservant, Peter, met him at the steps to the tower and grasped the reins of his horse.

‘The master’s not in,’ the servant said. ‘Shall I tell the mistress yer here?’

Lavender shook his head, relieved that he didn’t have to see Carnaby. ‘No, don’t bother your mistress; it must be a difficult time for her. I’m only here to examine the body.’

‘Ye’ll find her in there.’ The old man jerked his head towards a small wooden door at the base of the steps. Grief contorted his leathered face. ‘Don’t expect me to come in with you—I can’t stand it.’

Lavender dismounted slowly. Woods had told him that the old man was the most tight-lipped of all the Linn Hagh servants, yet the death of Helen Carnaby seemed to have shaken the taciturn old fellow quite badly. Without Carnaby there, he seemed quite garrulous.

‘Where’s your master gone?’ Lavender asked.

‘He’s gan to the toon. He went yesterday to fetch Doctor Horrocks so as he can identify Miss Helen.’

‘Surely Doctor Goddard from Bellingham can do that?’

‘Aye, he coulda . . .’ Lavender heard the hesitation. ‘He were here, like, two nights ago.’

‘What happened?’

The servant shook his head and led Lavender’s horse away towards a stone water trough at the base of the tower. The old man had clearly said enough.

Lavender pushed open the creaking door and paused to steady himself. He had attended several house fires in London in his time, and had helped to drag out the bodies afterwards, but it never got any easier to deal with the horror.

The gloomy ground floor of the pele tower had an uneven earth floor and a barrelled stone ceiling. Several animal pens lined the rough-hewn sides. The only light came from the open door behind him and two grimy, deep-set windows, built low in the walls. The ancient wooden stalls were riddled with woodworm. Scattered with straw, the whole place reeked of animal excrement. He felt thankful for that. It would cover the smell of roasted flesh that would still hover over the body.

Suddenly the poor light dimmed. He turned round to see Peter stood in the doorway behind him. ‘She were found in the old quarry farther up the road. Him at Thrush Farm found her.’

‘Thank you.’ Lavender said. He sensed that the old man had not finished.

‘The master had a right fight with Doctor Goddard aboot it all; they were yelling their heads off.’ Then the servant disappeared from the doorway.

Lavender struck a light and hung a lantern close to the wooden table where the corpse lay covered with sacking. Next, he braced himself and lifted the cloth.

The whole of the body was badly burnt. The flames had eliminated all body hair and charred the tissue to darkened leather, which stretched tightly across the bones on the young woman’s face and limbs. Her remaining flesh was so taut that it revealed the contours of the muscles and skeleton beneath. Her eyes were welded shut, but her jaw and teeth gaped up at him in a grotesque grimace of agony.