Shadow of the Raven (22 page)

N
ews of the acquittal was carried back immediately to Brandwick by Abe Diggott's supporters. By the time Thomas arrived in the village with the newly freed coppicer by his side, crowds lined the street to greet them. Some of the women even threw flower petals at the carriage as it drew up outside the old man's cottage.

To cheers and shouts of encouragement, Thomas helped his charge down from the vehicle and lent him his arm as he turned to scan the sea of smiling faces. Rachel Diggott was at the fore. She scrambled forward and hugged her father-in-law, who seemed reluctant to be the center of attention, dipping his head bashfully.

Latching her arm through the old man's, she smiled broadly at Thomas. “Thank you, Dr. Silkstone,” she said, her voice taut with emotion.

“Justice has prevailed,” he replied. He looked about him. “Your husband—he is still in hiding?”

At the mention of Adam, Rachel's features hardened. “ 'Tis not safe. They'll come for him no matter, Dr. Silkstone.”

Thomas knew what she said was true. Until the real killer of Jeffrey Turgoose was unmasked, Adam would be forced to live in the woods like a common outlaw. The doctor had decided he would head back to the Three Tuns when, in among the throng, a tall man suddenly appeared, his face half-hidden under a large-brimmed hat. Thomas watched him make his way up to Abe Diggott and hug him. It was Adam.

The doctor sidled up to him. “Take great care, Adam,” Thomas told him.

“I will, sir,” said the coppicer with a nod, and tugging the brim of his hat to pull it down even further, he disappeared once more.

The pushing and shoving continued around them, and Thomas feared for Abe Diggott's safety. “Your father-in-law needs to rest,” he told Rachel above the din.

“I'll see to it, sir,” she replied.

Thomas nodded. “And remember, no more gin!” he said firmly. He turned to find a path away from the melee and began to walk down the High Street, away from the crowd. The carriage had taken his luggage on to the inn. He felt quite drained. The past few days had taken their toll on his own well-being. Above all he needed a good night's sleep. Then and only then could he hope to apply himself to his next challenge—finding out who really did kill not just Jeffrey Turgoose, but Aaron Coutt, too.

 

“How was this allowed to happen?” Sir Montagu Malthus banged a clenched fist on his desk.

In front of him Nicholas Lupton was floundering. His usual bluffness had deserted him and his forehead was furrowed by a frown.

“It was Silkstone.”

Sir Montagu scowled. “I should've known he had a hand in the acquittal.” He clenched the edge of the desk until his knuckles went white. “So now these troublemakers are at liberty once more. A fine state of affairs!” He rose and began pacing the floor. “And Charlton?”

Lupton recalled the young surveyor's unconvincing performance as a witness for the prosecution. He had returned with him to Boughton Hall and seen for himself his mental anguish. “He still suffers in the aftermath,” he said, not daring to catch Sir Montagu's eye.

“Where is the lily-livered fool now?”

“He is resting, sir.” Lupton had watched Charlton sob and wail all the way back from Oxford. He wondered he had any tears, or energy, left.

The lawyer had not been in court to witness what he considered to be a mere formality; the accused would be found guilty of murder, hanged, and gibbeted for all to see at Milton Common, and the people of Brandwick would have learned a valuable lesson—that he, Sir Montagu Malthus, was not to be crossed. Their protests and petitions counted for naught; they were merely pawns in his game. Now, however, he had arrived at Boughton to be greeted with news of this preposterous acquittal. Such incompetence could not be tolerated.

Standing at the French windows, he looked out onto the lawns, his balled fist tapping on his chin. Finally he said, “We need to get rid of Charlton.”

“Sir?” Lupton's startled gaze shot up.

“He needs to be gone. Just get him out of here.” The lawyer took a deep breath and fixed his hooded eyes on his steward. “Do you understand?”

Relieved that he had misinterpreted his master's original instruction, Lupton nodded. “Yes, sir. I shall see to it right away.” He knew, however, that such a dismissal would not be well received.

The steward decided to deliver the message in person. In the hallway he saw Howard and instructed him that Mr. Charlton would be leaving. He was to be packed and ready to go by the end of the afternoon. He then proceeded to Charlton's bedroom. The chainman had been staying in a room in the servants' quarters since the murder. He seemed in no fit state to resume his normal duties.

Lupton knocked. There was no reply. He knocked again. Still no reply. He tried the door. It was locked. He called for a key. He unlocked the door and entered. The room was darkened, the shutters half-closed. The steward made his way toward the bed and stood stock-still. There, slumped across the counterpane, his left arm outstretched, lay James Charlton. And in the semi-gloom, the blood from a slash on his wrist dripped relentlessly onto the rug below.

I
n the Three Tuns, dozens of villagers had crammed into the pump room to toast the release of the old woodsman. The threat of rain had brought them all inside to enjoy the tavern's hospitality and Peter Geech's cheap gin. Thomas had no wish to join them. While he felt a great relief at the acquittal, he was in no mood for celebration.

On his return journey from the Diggotts' cottage, he had been forced to stop and press himself against a wall in the High Street to allow a heavily laden cart, accompanied by two outriders, to go ahead. Other riders and pedestrians had also been obliged to stand aside to let the wagon pass. Its cargo was wooden poles, each cut to the same length. Fencing for the common, he thought. Malthus and Lupton were intent on making a show of their power. The wagon did not have to travel through the main thoroughfare to reach its destination, but here it was, with escorts, as if in some sort of a religious procession for all to see. The message to the people of Brandwick was clear. The Boughton Estate would countenance no opposition. Enclosure of the common land would proceed, with or without the consent of Parliament.

Above the muted din from below, there came a knock at Thomas's door.

“Enter,” said the doctor, shutting the open casement.

In walked Peter Geech carrying the supper tray that Thomas had ordered. The noise of laughter and singing from downstairs suddenly invaded the room through the open door. He had not seen the landlord since he had conducted the postmortem on the stableboy. There were several questions that needed answering. He seized his chance.

“You are busy,” commented Thomas.

“Aye, sir. There's some carousing to be done tonight.” He smiled as he set down the tray. “Thanks to you, I believe, sir.”

Thomas thought of the revelers celebrating the release of Abe Diggott. Pints of poisonous gin would be sold to punters that evening along with the plugs of untaxed tobacco that Geech dealt in. He suspected the relatively low levels of lead he had detected in the gin could be attributed to the still heads and worms of the landlord's apparatus. What concerned him more, however, had wider implications.

“You'll turn a pretty profit tonight, no doubt,” he commented as he sat himself at his table.

“That I will,” replied the landlord with a chuckle.

Thomas tucked his napkin into his stock. “And the excise man won't see a penny.”

Peter Geech suddenly seemed keen to focus all his attention on placing a fork on the tray. “Sir?” he queried with a shrug.

Thomas smiled. “Come, come, Mr. Geech. There's no need to play the innocent. You ply a lucrative trade in smuggled goods on the sly.”

Geech proceeded to set down a plate of cold meats in front of Thomas. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Dr. Silkstone.” His eyes slid everywhere but on his guest.

“So your late-night excursions into Raven's Wood are for pleasure?”

The landlord's head whipped 'round and his eyes fixed on his accuser. “How do you know . . . ?”

“I saw you and Coutt go up to the woods. Meeting with your business associates, were you?”

The color suddenly drained from Geech's face. It went as pale as the pastry on the mutton pie he had just served. From somewhere, however, he managed to draw on a little courage.

“You can't prove it, Dr. Silkstone.”

“What about the note:
Beware of Raven's Wood
?” Thomas reached for a bill, written in Geech's scrawl. “ 'Tis your hand and no mistake. I found it in Mr. Turgoose's pocket.”

“It don't prove I killed the mapmaker, nor young Coutt.”

Thomas fixed him with a glower. “Ah, yes. Coutt. Shocking business. You should've seen the poor lad's body, all twisted and burned. It—”

Panic now registered on the landlord's reddening face. “I didn't kill him!”

Thomas could tell he had touched a raw nerve. “I'm not saying you did, but I do know you are involved in a smuggling ring in the woods.”

The accusation riled Geech. He paused for a moment, like a cornered rat, then hissed his reply through thin lips. “ 'Tis your word against mine, and you are . . .”

The innkeeper could not bring himself to say the word “American,” but Thomas took his meaning and was able to trump him.

“I am afraid I can prove it, Mr. Geech. You see, I have samples from your secret stash of smuggled goods at the ruins. Tobacco and your famous gin,” he told him. “But I shall not go to the law if you answer me this. Were you with Coutt on the night he was murdered?”

Geech bit his lip. His customary swagger suddenly deserted him. He stood back from the tray and his gaze dropped.

“ 'Tis to my regret I was not, Doctor,” he said.

Thomas sensed that the landlord might wish to unburden himself. “Will you sit?” he said, gesturing to a second chair by the grate.

Geech accepted the invitation, sighing deeply as he sat. He looked at his hands and fingered his knuckles.

“It was my wife, see. She had the gripes again. We was busy here, and besides, she didn't want me to leave her.”

Thomas thought of the businessman he had seen in the bar. “But you had an order to deliver and so you sent Coutt on his own?”

Geech swallowed hard and nodded.

“So you helped the boy load the gin, then saw him off. But something went wrong, didn't it?” Thomas rose and walked to the mantelshelf.

Geech began twisting his fingers. His face was reddening and he was becoming increasingly agitated, shifting in his seat. “Piece of piss, I said it would be. Just deliver the gin and get the money.” For a second he looked up, but then let his gaze drop once more.

Thomas pictured the rendezvous in the woods. This so-called businessman, dapper and sophisticated, was no fool. He called himself the Raven. Sir Theodisius had told Thomas all about his exploits. He was a notorious highwayman turned smuggler in the area. He paid a good tailor and drank fine French wine. He would drive a hard bargain and he would not stand for being duped. He would have checked his goods before taking delivery.

“Only you didn't keep your part of the bargain, did you?” pressed Thomas. “Did you?” he repeated, looking down at the miserable innkeeper. “When he tasted your gin, he knew you'd deceived him. Water, was it, or did you fill the barrels with the piss the night-soil men couldn't collect?”

It was as if the doctor had plunged a knife into the landlord's guts and twisted it. Geech's head jerked up and his face was contorted.

“We couldn't make enough. We were that busy that week.” He began to crumble.

Thomas had come to the nub of the matter. He bore down on the landlord. “So you let the boy draw the smuggler's fire. He pleaded with him. Told him he had no idea that there was water in the barrels, because he didn't know, did he? You deceived him in the hope you would get away with deceiving the Raven. Only he was too smart for you, wasn't he? He took out his pistol and he shot young Coutt as he pleaded for his life.”

The landlord's shoulders slumped. He closed his beady eyes for a moment, then, through his shame, Peter Geech mouthed an affirmation. With his thin lips quivering, he mumbled, “I knew if I didn't deliver the goods, he'd make me pay in other ways.”

Thomas frowned. “What did you say? Who would make you pay?”

Geech looked up and retreated in his chair, as if regretting his aberration.

Thomas eyed him warily. “Does Sir Montagu Malthus have a hand in this, Geech?” he asked him.

The landlord shook his head vigorously. “No, Doctor,” he replied. “He knows nothing of this, I swear.”

“Then who—?” Thomas broke off and in the silence the realization dawned. “It's Lupton, isn't it? You are paying him money to run this smuggling ring under his protection.”

It had troubled Thomas seeing Geech and Coutt break the curfew the other night. The pair had driven the cart, laden with contraband gin, virtually under the noses of the Boughton thugs who were there to impose the emergency law, and yet they were allowed to pass unimpeded.

“Has Lupton sanctioned this operation?” he pressed.

Geech gulped hard, as if he wanted to swallow the words that were already halfway up his throat.

“I can't say, sir.”

“Can't, or won't, Mr. Geech? I am sure you would be able to tell the excise men were I to inform them of your little racket.”

Such a threat seemed to loosen the landlord's tongue, and he could force down his words no longer. He nodded. “Aye, sir. He lets us do it in return for a cut.”

Thomas remained stony faced. “How much?”

“Half, sir.”

He had guessed as much. Lupton had a vested interest in the continued terrorizing of the village by this so-called Raven and his ruthless gang. He suspected, too, that it was these brigands who had attacked Turgoose and Charlton. It was a bungled attempt at robbery that had gone seriously awry. It would make sense that Lupton would not wish them to be caught and tried for murder, thus depriving himself of a lucrative source of income. He and Malthus were trying to pin the blame on innocent villagers, indeed, the very villagers who were so vociferous in their opposition to enclosure. By making an example of them, Lupton was hoping his problems would be dealt with in one fell swoop.

“Thank you, Mr. Geech,” Thomas said to the landlord. “You have been most helpful.” He picked up his knife and fork and began to eat. For the first time in many days, he found himself feeling very hungry.