The Scent of Death (31 page)

‘What do you mean?’

‘My father would talk of God’s providence and the certainty of heaven – ay, and he believes it all too. And he would quote all the philosophical gentry at you, from old Socrates onwards. As for Froude, he was as cold as charity: he’d have said at least it was only a girl, and what we needed was a son and heir. But me—’ He hit his chest with sudden violence. ‘I’m no good at thinking or talking or praying, Edward.’ He straightened up and added, in a much quieter voice: ‘I merely thought – I hoped – that there would be something of her left. Something of my daughter.’

We walked a turn or two in silence.

‘Come,’ I said after a while. ‘I’m hungry. And we need to decide what we are to do.’

He looked at me and blinked. He was like a man waking from a dream. ‘Yes. I want to see what’s left in the patroon’s house.’

‘Why? Have you not seen enough already?’

He ignored the question. ‘And we haven’t looked at the mansion yet, either.’

‘When are we leaving?’ I asked. ‘Why not tonight? It would be safer, would it not? We could put ten miles between us and Mount George by dawn.’

‘I wonder if those thieving Whigs found the wine cellar.’ Wintour’s voice had a rasp in it. ‘Froude knew what he was about in that direction at least.’

‘Jack, we cannot linger here.’

‘Why not?’ He gave a shout of laughter, so loud and reckless that Grantford stared at us and even Abraham turned to see what was happening. ‘No one will disturb us, Edward. They’re all cowards, you know. They are afraid of the ghosts.’

The mansion was barely more than a memory. The fire had gutted it, destroying most of its contents. The storms of three winters had ravaged what was left. The heat of two summers had baked the remains.

Fragments of wall rose fifteen or twenty feet into the air. Doorways linked one vacancy to another. Chimneystacks of blackened brick and stone served rooms that no longer existed. Weeds, shrubs and saplings sprouted from every cranny they could find. In a year or two, there would be no trace at all of the great house at Mount George.

We left Abraham and Grantford to mount sentry outside – indeed, I doubt we could have found any inducement to persuade Abraham to enter the place. Wintour and I picked our way through the ruins. Under our feet was a blackened litter of broken glass, china and a multitude of other objects that I could not begin to identify.

‘This must be the hall, I apprehend.’ Wintour scraped at the rubbish with the toe of his boot. ‘Yes, it had a flagged floor. So here was the great parlour, with the dining room beyond, and then the library.’

‘Jack – we dare not spend too long here. We should go.’

‘Soon. A few hours, that’s all.’

‘But there’s nothing left. And it’s too dangerous to stay.’

He scowled at me. ‘I shall do as I please, sir. I’m my own master here, I think.’

He led the way out of the ruin and turned towards the farmstead. After a few yards, however, he turned back.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I should not have spoken like that to you.’

‘It doesn’t matter. But we cannot stay. It is not only our own lives we put at risk. It is Grantford’s and Abraham’s as well.’

‘I know. I’m truly sorry for it but there are reasons.’ The argument had touched him, as I had known it would. ‘Give me a little more time. I beg of you.’

‘Why?’

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he sighed. ‘Soon you will know everything, Edward. I swear it. But for now will you trust me?’

We turned the horses out to graze in a small, grassy enclosure beside the larger barn. Abraham and Grantford took turn and turn about mounting guard. There was the remains of a dovecote in one corner of the yard, the top of which commanded a view not only of the immediate approach to the farmyard and the garden front of the house but also of much of the desmesne below.

By this time it was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. Wintour went back to the patroon’s house and began to examine the rubbish on the floor more carefully. Meanwhile, I walked about the yard and wandered through the barns, sheds and enclosures.

Hard by the Dutchman’s dwelling was another, smaller building constructed of similar materials and retaining its roof. It had only one storey. Inside was a single chamber with a brick floor sloping down to a central drain. In one corner was a wooden cover that concealed the head of a well. There were also two stone sinks and several ovens built into the side of the massive chimney. Clearly it had once been a scullery and bakehouse, built apart from the dwelling-place to lessen the risk from fire.

It was equally obvious that the building had not been used for this purpose for many years. But I noticed a number of rings had been let into the walls, some of them nearly at the level of the floor. Dusty ropes were attached to them. They caught my attention because there was little else in the room – and that in itself was unusual, for the other buildings were crowded with rubbish. Near the drain in the centre of the floor was a great iron plate. A heavy hammer had been discarded beside it, along with a pair of pincers. I speculated that a blacksmith might have worked here, though there was no evidence of that in the form of rusting horseshoes or nails.

This conundrum occupied me for several minutes. In truth I was so worried about our dangerous situation – and about Jack Wintour’s erratic behaviour – that I would have seized with fervour on any distraction, however trivial.

The floor was covered with a fine, gritty dust that had probably lain undisturbed for years. It was perfectly dry for the roof was sound. An irregular patch of the dust, some of it on the iron plate, some of it immediately to one side, was slightly darker than the rest. I bent to examine it.

At that moment – and on such small events, whole countries may rise and fall, let alone the life of one man – a fly entered my mouth. Instinctively I spat it out. Along with the fly came a silver drop of my spittle, which landed on the darker section of the iron plate.

On a whim, I touched it with my forefinger and rubbed at it to expose the metal beneath the encrusted layer of dust. But the iron held no secrets. I learned only that it was free from rust and slightly indented, as though it had been hit many times by a hammer.

I straightened up and went to the doorway. I took out my handkerchief. I was about to clean my finger when I realized that, though the iron had no secrets, perhaps the dust did. My fingertip was tinted rusty-red.

Suddenly I remembered my games of backgammon with Jack Wintour in Warren Street. I remembered the splash of madeira on the board and the colour it revealed.

Blood, I thought. More blood. Always blood in this damned country, ever since I had seen Roger Pickett’s body with the bloody gash in his neck.

I chided myself for allowing my imagination to run riot. No doubt it was the trace of rust on my finger. Even if it were blood, there was nothing strange in that. This was a farm, after all, a place where animals lived and died.

My reason should have calmed my heart. But still my own blood thudded through my veins. I told myself my nerves were overwrought. There was nothing strange in that.

I heard running footsteps in the yard. My panic surged back. I swung to face the door, my hand groping for the pistol in my belt.

Grantford’s figure filled the doorway, which was so low he had to duck.

‘Sir. It’s Abraham. I can’t find him.’

Jack Wintour was on his hands and knees, picking through the trash scattered over the floor of what must once have been the patroon’s parlour.

‘I shall search the barns after this,’ he announced, glancing towards us. ‘And then—’

‘Abraham’s gone,’ I interrupted.

‘What?’

‘He was meant to be up in the dovecote keeping watch. But when Grantford went to relieve him he wasn’t there.’

Grantford coughed. ‘Begging your pardon, your honours, but his satchel’s still over there in the corner.’

‘But where would he go?’ Wintour said.

‘Perhaps he didn’t want to go anywhere,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it was more that he didn’t want to stay here. He was terrified of the ghosts. But if he’s picked up and questioned by the enemy—’

‘He’ll hold his tongue,’ Wintour said. ‘He’d never betray us. Why, he’s never known any other family than us.’

‘He’s a slave,’ I said, suddenly angry. ‘Why should he owe you any loyalty, Jack? He never had any choice in the matter before. But now he has.’

Wintour blinked. ‘Are you sure he’s not somewhere about? He – he could have fallen asleep in a corner. Depend on it, that’s what happened, or something like that.’

‘We should search for him,’ I said. ‘And if we don’t find him we’ll know he’s gone.’

Grantford suggested we look outside first. If Abraham had run away, he could not have gone far; and we might be able to see him in the relatively open terrain of the parkland surrounding the mansion.

By unspoken agreement, the three of us kept together. Once outside the farmyard we walked in the direction of the orchards. The path led us beside the outer wall of one of the yard’s barns. This was supported by brick buttresses. We found Abraham between two of them.

He was lying on his side with his breeches about his ankles. It was clear that he had been interrupted in the urgent business of evacuating his bowels. The body stank for the process of evacuation had begun in life and finished in death.

I could no longer afford to be squeamish. I crouched beside him and felt for a pulse that I knew I would not find. His face was suffused with blood. I could see a single, staring eye. Around his neck was a circular contusion. There was no sign of his cutlass.

I straightened up. Grantford was scanning the countryside. Wintour looked at me without speaking.

‘Strangled,’ I said. ‘With a cord, I think.’

The horses were restless. They knew something was wrong.

We carried Abraham back to the yard and laid him in a byre with a piece of sacking to cover his face. I said a short prayer for I thought no one else would do it and we owed it to him that someone should. Wintour and Grantford stood bareheaded beside me. All of us were alert for movement outside.

Afterwards the three of us lingered in the sunlit yard.

‘Why should someone strangle him?’ Wintour said with a touch of petulance as if he took the action as a personal affront.

‘I agree – it makes no sense.’ I turned slightly, to include Grantford in the conversation. ‘Soldiers would attack us or call on us to surrender. So would militia. But this?’

‘Skinners, sir?’ Grantford said.

It was possible. The stealth and brutality of the attack certainly suited those predatory irregulars who infested the Debatable Ground on behalf of Congress.

‘Unlikely,’ Wintour said. ‘It’s not as if he can have surprised them. The killer took him unawares.’

‘True. It’s almost as if he wanted to kill Abraham and he seized the chance when it was offered. It’s as if—’

I broke off. But in my mind I followed the thought to its conclusion: it was as if the strangler desired to kill us all for some unknown reason, and was content to pick us off one by one as the opportunity arose. So now all three of us who remained had another reason to be afraid.

‘We must leave,’ I said to Wintour. ‘I insist, Jack. Now.’

‘I need more time.’

‘Safer by night, your honours,’ Grantford said.

‘Exactly!’ Wintour turned towards him, delighted to have an ally of sorts. ‘The corporal’s in the right of it. We shall—’

Three things happened at once.

Grantford grunted and flung himself on the caked earth of the farmyard.

Wintour swore.

The sound of a shot bounced to and fro among the farm buildings.

And I did nothing.

Wintour shouted: ‘Take his other arm.’

His words broke into my stillness. We seized Grantford and dragged him towards the doorway of the patroon’s house. He left behind a trail of blood pooling and puddling in the ruts.

We gained the shelter of the house and laid the corporal on the flagstone floor. His face was the colour of old wax. I knew by the amount of blood he had already lost that the bullet had probably hit an artery. He tried to speak but no words came out, only a spray of blood shot through with bubbles.

The wound was in the neck. I tore off my neckcloth and tried to stop the bleeding. It was fruitless even to try. I pressed his hand and told him he had been a good and faithful friend. I don’t know whether he heard me.

It took him a minute or two to die, though it felt like as many centuries. After his soul had left his body, I stood up slowly, feeling like an old man.

Wintour had positioned himself so he could not be seen from the doorway or the windows. He was laying out his weapons. ‘Is he dead?’ he said without looking at me.

‘Yes.’

‘The bullet was meant for me. If I hadn’t moved—’

‘They mean to kill us all, I think.’

We were both whispering as if our enemies were among us, invisible sprites bent on our destruction. I stared at Grantford’s face, already skull-like and strangely fragile. This was my fault, I thought, I brought the man to his death.

I said, ‘Remember Abraham. There was no need to kill him unless they wanted to. Which suggests they mean to kill us all.’

‘But why?’

I ignored the question. ‘We must get to the horses. It’s our only chance.’

He let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘We need to divert their attention, then.’ He glanced at the stairs. ‘Go up and fire a shot or two from an upper window. That’ll make them keep their heads down. I’ll fetch the horses.’

‘What if I throw something, rather than fire a shot, to see if it flushes them out? It might fool them into thinking there are others of us concealed about the yard. Then we can fire if they show themselves.’

Wintour nodded. I cast around for a moment and gathered a hatful of small pieces of rubble and metal scraps from the wreckage of Froude’s laboratory. I carried my missiles and my pistols up the stairs. The treads groaned under my weight and one gave way altogether. I contrived to save myself only by throwing myself forward. The hat tipped, and at least half the missiles fell to the floor below.