Death of a Radical (22 page)

The boy had his ferret back in its box. It had taken them more than an hour to dig down the line to where they found the old hob, still tearing meat from a bloody mess of fur and bones. They were approaching the overhang that ran above the pack-horse trail that cut across by Grateley Manor and down Quarry Fell, when they heard the protesting creak of a metal handle rubbing against a tin socket and saw a glow moving along the track. There was a figure in the shadows below. The lantern the man carried illuminated his feet, throwing the rest of him into black relief. The broad brim of a hat tilted and a pale shape glimmered a moment. Quickening his pace, the man hastened off into the gloom at a startled half-run.

A few minutes later they found the horse standing, tacked up and forlorn.

“Eh up,” said the boy. “Belongs to the gentleman, do y'think? But why leave him?”

“He wasn't dressed for ridin'.” As Duffin approached
the animal it rolled its eyes and stamped its front foot. “Easy, boy.” With a deft movement he caught the reins, making low, soothing noises. “He's not happy. What's up?” The horse dropped its head and sighed. He stood quivering as Duffin checked him over for signs of harm. “You look familiar.” The poacher picked up a foot and ran the pad of his thumb over the iron shoe. “I know that mark. You're one of Mr. Jarrett's down at the Old Manor, you are.”

“How did you like the play, Miss Lonsdale?”

They stood in Bedlington's yard waiting for the carriages to come round. The cobbles wore a fresh coverlet of snow. A few picturesque flakes drifted down, catching the light of the lamps.

“Quite as amusing as I had been told, Mr. Jarrett.” The play had ended with a dance and a rousing chorus of “God Save the King.” Macheath had been reprieved. Such was the skill of author and actors, it would not have seemed justice to have seen the highwayman hanged. “Tho it presents a sorry view of both sexes,” she added, “every man and woman set on betraying the other.”

“Save perhaps for poor Polly,” he suggested.

“Poor Polly indeed. I should pity her were she a real woman shackled in truth to such a man.”

“You do not believe love may reform a man, then?”

“I should like to believe it, Mr. Jarrett, though I have yet to come across an example of it myself.” She smiled at him. “Perhaps such things only occur in novels—or in the light of the stage lamps.”

“You do not believe in redemption?”

“I should say rather that a person must redeem themselves, Mr. Jarrett. Love alone cannot do it for them.”

“You are a philosopher ma'am.”

She looked up at the flakes falling white against the night sky. Her face lit up with pleasure.

“I love snow as it falls. There is something so peaceful, on a still night, when there is no wind to drive it. It makes everything so clean and fine.” She slid him a humorous look. “But once it falls to earth it is only a matter of time before people trample it and everyone is complaining of the mud.”

“I think I have mud on my shoes now,” he said absurdly, looking down at the thin leather of his evening shoes.

“So have we all,” responded Miss Lonsdale. “But it is a pretty illusion.”

“There you are, girl.” Lady Catherine's voice was thin but penetrating. “I am chilled to the bone. Come give me your arm to the carriage. I have a horror of snow. Wretched slippery stuff!”

“Mr. Jarrett, sir!” He turned to find Tiplady behind him. His manservant was packed tight within the numerous layers he had donned as a preservative against the cold. His roman features lent his expression of alarm a histrionic grandeur. “There's foot warmers filled in the carriage and blankets—it is a bitter night—but I can't find Master Favian! I am fearful, what with the young master's chest.”

Charles approached them humming an air from the
opera:
'Tis Woman That Seduces All Mankind.
His foot slipped. Jarrett grabbed his arm. Charles leaned into him.

“What?” his lordship asked.

“Tiplady's lost Grub.” Charles looked about the yard.

“Rode over, didn't he? Where's his horse?”

“Good point.” Jarrett beckoned to a stable-hand. “Can you show us Mr. Adley's mount?” he asked. The man led them to an empty stall.

“Dear Lord!” exclaimed Tiplady, nervously patting his mittened hands together.

“Don't fuss,” Jarrett responded shortly. “He's not a boy any more.”

“But where could he be?” Tiplady asked piteously.

Jarrett's foot disturbed something foreign in the straw. He bent down to pick up a folded square of scarlet cloth. He thought of the girl in peach.

“He has his own affairs—let him be. He'll make his own way home.”

Lulled by his consumption of Lady Catherine's wine, Charles was fast asleep by the time they reached the old manor. They left him in the care of his valet. Tiplady was still fretting about Grub. Jarrett dismissed him to his quarters, suppressing a blossoming sense of unease. He found himself standing at the window of his chamber staring out toward the moors. The boy must be on his way back by now. He had no desire for sleep. Why not ride out and meet him? He changed his clothes and pulled on his boots.

There is something about the combination of moonlight
on fresh snow. It is unsettling; as if normality is suspended in the silver light. He made an effort to mock the sensation of doom lurking at the back of his neck. You'll be believing in fairies next, he chided himself. They were passing a plantation of trees. Beyond the land opened out, smoothed and simplified in its shroud of snow. A group of figures moved against the blank canvas: a dog, a boy and a man leading a horse. His heart thudded. Duffin waved. He raised his hand in acknowledgment and Walcheren sprang forward, throwing up plumes of white snow.

“Here's where we found him,” said Duffin. Favian's horse snorted as if in agreement. Jarrett looked about. They were above the cross lane that led up from the Carlisle road toward Pennygill.

“He was with us at the play.”

“When did you see him last?” the poacher asked.

When had he seen him last? Bess was singing and Grub was watching the girl in peach. When was that? With a jolt he realized it must have been during the first act.

“Four, five hours ago now.”

“What could've taken him all the way out here?”

“Lord knows.”

“We can cut down this way.” Duffin moved swiftly over the rough land; this was his natural habitat. “What with snow, there'll be tracks in t'lane if he rode by there.”

On the cross lane they found a sequence of shod hoof prints cut into the covering of fresh snow.

“Keep off!” Duffin shouted, as the boy slid on the verge. “Tread clean ground! Where's your head?” He crouched over the tracks. “There's been more than one horse this way this night; snow was still falling,” he said, pointing. “There's a smattering over the tracks. Two horses. One after t'other. Then this one's come back after snow stopped.”

“Back, you say?” Duffin straightened up, meeting Jarrett's look.

“Just one back.” They were coming to a fork in the road marked by a thick thorn bush.

“Is that the track to Dewsnap's farm?” Jarrett pointed to the left.

“Aye, and the Anderses' place,” Duffin answered, “or a back way up to High Top.”

Mr. Hilton's farm. All three were tenants of the duke. He had ridden out this way before.

At the foot of the thorn there was a mess of bruised and frosted grass. A horse had stamped with sufficient force to turn up the earth beneath. Jarrett bent down to finger the curved indentation. The hoof had cut deep.

“A horse stood here a while.” Duffin's voice came from behind the bush. Jarrett followed, watching where he placed his feet. A set of four hoof prints, evenly spaced, showed dimly against a patch of scuffed snow. Beyond, the ground was covered with heather. It stretched out into the distance, a mysterious blend of shadows in the pewter light. Duffin's dog pushed its head under his arm. The poacher rubbed its coat absently.

“Got anything with his smell on it?” he asked. Jarrett remembered the scarlet handkerchief in his pocket.

“It's been on a stable floor but he carried it up his sleeve some time.”

“Worth a try. How's about this, Bob?” The poacher held out the fabric. The hound sniffed at it. He looked up at his master with pricked-up ears. “Go on. Find it!”

Bob set his nose to the ground, darted hither and thither a moment and then headed out across the moor.

At first it was just a shape, long and low, maybe fifteen yards ahead. Bob barked, a sharp, urgent sound. Favian lay straight on his back, his pale face luminous in the moonlight. One arm rested across his breast. The snow lay over him as if it sought to absorb him into the land.

Jarrett fell to his knees in the springy heather and picked him up, brushing the snow from him with feverish hands. He was so light. He leaned close, ear to mouth, listening, but the rush of blood in his own ears drowned out all else. He pulled off a glove and pressed a finger tip. There seemed to be no blood in the boy. He bundled the fingers in his palm and brought them to his lips, seeking to warm them with his breath. Under the pale lids the eyes were slits of glass. The mannequin spasmed. A soft, grotesque sound bubbled from its mouth. The brief, slight spurt of energy expired. The blind eyes focused. A glimmer of Favian flickered out.

“Raif,” he said, looking straight at him. “I knew you would come.”

“I'm here now,” he heard his own voice answer, calm and casual as if it were the most normal thing in the world to find each other like this in the icy wilderness. “What's all this, eh?”

He was gone again. The eyes were open but there was no sign of Grub in them. The muscles of the boy's face were relaxed, all expression smoothed out. At least he didn't seem to be in pain. Grub frowned.

“Take it.” The sound was as insubstantial as a wisp of air.

Jarrett felt the boy's free hand move under his. He looked down. Favian uncurled his fingers. On the palm of his glove lay a button. He had held it so tight, its edges had pierced the leather. From somewhere in front of him Jarrett heard Duffin speaking low.

“I've sent the boy for help.”

What help? They were so far from warmth or light out here. Jarrett tugged the heavy wool of his cloak around them both. Grub's left temple was stained with blood. There was a cut in his hairline; it was barely a scratch. He fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief. The boy turned his face into his shoulder like a sleepy child.

“Now I am comfortable,” Grub said and he sighed. Jarrett's breath suspended white in the cold air before him.

If nothing moved, time could be held here, like this. There need be nothing next. He was hollow under the vast sky. His one purpose was to hold on to the white-faced boy in his arms. There was a church tower chiming
the hour down in the valley. One. Two. Three, and no more.

A rough, warm tongue dragged the skin of his cheek. Time was churning again. He was powerless to stop it. A yellow muzzle rested on his forearm. Bob's golden eyes looked up at him. The poacher crouched between him and the sky.

“Let me take him,” he said. Jarrett brushed his eyes with the back of his hand.

“I'll do it.” He made as if to stand and lost his balance. “Yes, take him a moment, if you will,” he conceded. Duffin lifted the weight from him and he stood up, his head feeling oddly far from the alien earth. He took off his cloak and spread it out on a piece of level ground near the thorn bush. Carefully, decently, Duffin laid the earthly remains of Favian Adley upon it.

There was a whitening at the horizon. A bitter, insistent breeze had sprung up. Dawn was coming. He felt in his pockets. Taking out a pencil and paper, mechanically he began to sketch a map of the ground. Grub had ridden out from town. Just there, before the fork in the road, someone had waited for him … His fingers were numb. He couldn't control the scratches of his pencil properly. He shook himself like a dog.

They had found him fifteen to twenty yards from the road, out of sight of the casual passer-by—even by daylight—but not buried or hidden. The attacker had been short of time. Jarrett was aware of warmth to one side. He looked up. Duffin was staring at him.

“Someone did this.” It surprised him, the effort it took to speak. It was as if the sound of his voice drove the whole world to turn. Deep within his hollow self anger flickered. It built and filled him like a thirst—a cold, pinching rage.
I will know him and he will pay.
“Where were you?” he demanded.

“Knot Hill,” Duffin answered as if he had been asked a civil question. “Grateley land—over the rise there.” Jarrett pulled back his fury, feeling ashamed. He stared at the markings on the ground. The story they told was plain as day.

One rider followed the other. Where was Grub going? Why had the boy come out here in the middle of the night? Was he followed? No. The attacker waited concealed behind this thorn. Grub had been following and someone caught him unawares. Was it robbery? He'd have to check the body.

Grub was a “body.” He swallowed hard against the bitter regret. The button. The button Grub gave him; where was it? Feverishly he felt in his pockets. He had no recollection. He saw it on the boy's palm, nestled in the indentation it had cut into the leather glove.

I knew you would come.

But he had come too late. What if he had listened to Tiplady and his fussing? What if he had ridden straight out then; could he have prevented this? Duffin's big hand trapped his arm and held it steady like a vice.

“What you looking for?”

“The button. The boy had a button in his hand …”

“So we'll find it.” The poacher glanced over at the shape on the ground. “Maybe it's in t'cloak.”