The Silent Boy (26 page)

‘What about a mutton chop or two, sir?’ Mrs Fenner suggested, her head on one side. ‘There’s a good fire in the kitchen. It wouldn’t take much above five minutes. Ten at the outside.’

‘An excellent plan, Mrs Fenner, thank you,’ Savill said. ‘With a touch of caper sauce, if you have it? And perhaps you will take a glass with us, ma’am, while we discuss our business beforehand?’

‘With pleasure, sir.’

‘But our business will not brook delay, Mrs Fenner,’ Horton put in.

‘Indeed, sir. If I might just ring the bell and tell them what you need and to make haste, we shall deal with it directly.’

‘A stranger has been seen in Norbury, ma’am,’ Horton said, when the refreshments had been ordered. ‘I desire to question him on a matter of importance. We have intelligence that he was riding that pony of yours. The piebald.’

Mrs Fenner sipped her wine in a markedly genteel manner. Her doughy cheeks acquired a slight rosy glow. ‘Ah.’ She glanced from Horton to Savill. ‘You mean Mr Irwin. The artistical gentleman.’

‘Does he wear a blue travelling coat?’

‘Yes, sir. A very quiet gentleman. Out of the ordinary way, perhaps, but a lady in my position learns to be broad-minded. So long as a gentleman pays his way and gives no trouble.’

‘Is he in the house?’

‘Oh no – he paid his bill and left several hours ago. Or rather, his servant did, on his behalf.’

Savill leaned forward. ‘But did Mr Irwin lodge with you?’

‘Of course. Where else would he stay?’

‘But why on earth did he want to put up here?’ Horton said.

Mrs Fenner bridled. ‘Why shouldn’t he? I’ve had the Duke of Marlborough himself under my roof. Well, my father-in-law did, which comes to the same thing.’

‘I’m sure you made His Grace very comfortable, ma’am,’ Savill said. ‘I think the Vicar meant to ask whether Mr Irwin had a particular reason to come to this locality.’

‘His servant said his master thought the country around here was particularly fine. “A place of inspiration,” he said. It’s all very well, I’m sure, but it’s only fields and woods when all’s said and done, and far too much mud. And there’s no society at all. “If I wanted inspiration,” I told Mr Fenner, “I’d be off to Bath or Bristol in a flash. Whoever heard of a painting of a tree or a bit of mud or a cloud in the sky? He won’t find much else around here.” Anyway, Mr Irwin was out at all hours, making his sketches. To tell the truth, I think the poor man’s wits were mazed. Indeed, his servant as good as told me so. He said artists are often peculiar folk.’

‘Irwin?’ Horton sniffed. ‘I cannot recall an artist of that name.’

‘There are artists and artists,’ Savill said. ‘Some hide their light under a bushel and perhaps they are wise to do so. But tell me, ma’am, was this Mr Irwin a young man?’

‘Oh no, sir. He must have been thirty or more, if he was a day. Not that I saw much of him, after that first day – he had a private parlour next to his bedchamber and stayed up there when he wasn’t outside. His man waited on him.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Well enough. Nearer the Vicar’s height than yours. Lovely black hair, though, so fine and glossy, like a girl’s.’

Gradually, with glass after glass of sherry, Mrs Fenner disgorged what she knew about Mr Irwin, and much else besides, including a wealth of speculation about a range of subjects from the state of His Majesty’s health to the probable antecedents of Mr Fenner’s late mother. The artistical gentleman had arrived over a week earlier, on the evening of 11 October. He had not written ahead, but simply arrived in his own chaise, driven by his servant, who was named Plimming. The horses had been hired from the post-house on the new road.

‘Where did they come from?’ Savill asked.

‘I don’t know. I did ask, but Mr Plimming said they were travelling all over the country because his master was on a sketching tour. Mr Irwin was a very open-handed gentleman – nothing but the best. He liked his glass – he didn’t stint himself in that direction, I can tell you – but when he left he paid up very handsome, as a gentleman should, not quibbling about trifles or any such nonsense.’

‘How did he seem when he left? In a hurry?’

‘I told you, sir, I didn’t see him then – it was Mr Plimming paid the reckoning.’ She shivered with obvious pleasure. ‘Highwaymen, were they?’ Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Or worse? We could have been murdered in our beds.’

‘Nothing like that, ma’am,’ Mr Horton said. ‘You have no reason to concern yourself.’

The investigation came to a natural pause when the maid brought the chops. They ordered more sherry to wash it down. Savill, whose mouth was still sore, was obliged to cut the meat up into very small pieces, which he tried to swallow without chewing. Mrs Fenner stayed with them while they ate and played the hostess.

‘The first thing Mr Irwin did was hire the pony,’ she told them. ‘He was out on him at all hours. Off he went, at the crack of dawn sometimes, rain or shine.’

The Vicar examined a piece of fat and popped it into his mouth. A smile spread over his face.

‘What about this morning?’ Savill asked. ‘Did you know he was leaving today?’

‘Yes, sir – he ordered the bill to be made up last night. But he went out on the pony again this morning as usual. Not that I saw him. He used to rise so early he’d saddle the pony himself.’

‘What about your ostler? He must have seen him when he brought the pony back.’

‘Not today, sir. Mr Plimming brought it back. Mr Irwin waited in the chaise.’

Mr Horton swallowed the remains of the fat and belched. ‘I don’t understand, ma’am.’

It transpired that Plimming had taken an early breakfast and ordered the horses to be harnessed to the chaise. He had settled the bill and driven over the heath to meet his master. On the way down to the turnpike road that had stolen Mrs Fenner’s trade, he had left the pony with the ostler.

‘So no one has seen Mr Irwin today?’ Savill said.

‘No, sir. I did see the chaise though, when Mr Plimming brought the pony. I was in Mr Fenner’s chamber and I just happened to glance out of the window. But there wasn’t anything to see, really. The blinds were down. Then Mr Plimming led the pony into the yard. A moment later he came back and they drove away.’

‘Which direction is the turnpike road?’

She turned to the window and pointed to the left. ‘That way, sir. A matter of five or six miles. And not a bad road, excepting in winter, though—’ She broke off. Her eyes widened and she stared out of the bay window. ‘Now there’s something you don’t often see. A gentleman on a donkey.’

Dr Gohlis was not a happy man. It was fair to say that the donkey was not a happy donkey, either. Between them, they had done their best to mar each other’s day with a considerable degree of success on both sides.

In an attempt to keep the donkey moving, the doctor had lashed it mercilessly, drawing blood even from its thick, scarred hide. For its part, the donkey had contrived to stumble on its way up the pack road, choosing to do so at a point where the road doubled as the bed of a stream. Having stumbled, it had rolled over as if to sleep with Gohlis partly underneath its body. It had tried this trick on several occasions, only to be whipped and tugged back to its feet again.

Gohlis was bruised and soaked. His neat black suit of clothes was covered on one side by a layer of mud. He had lost his hat. He was also hungry and cold. His outraged feelings had festered on the ride, creating animosity directed equally towards the donkey and the Count de Quillon.

‘The Count insisted I ride after you,’ he said when Savill and Horton met him in the passage. ‘And that beast of burden was the only mount available. He simply would not listen to reason.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Horton said. ‘But what’s happened? Has Bessie tracked the boy down?’

Mutton-flavoured bile rose in Savill’s throat. ‘Is he …?’
Dead
. He found he could not say the word. ‘Is he safe now?’

‘Alas no. But a man came forward, a cowman or some such, he works for Mr Bradshaw. He was walking to the farm earlier this morning, and he saw a man riding over the hills—’

‘You should go in the kitchen, sir,’ Mrs Fenner cried, joining them in the passageway. ‘Stand by the fire and have a glass of something warm.’

‘Hold your tongue, madam,’ said Horton. ‘A rider, sir. Coming or going?’

‘Going this way, sir. But the point is—’

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ Mrs Fenner said in an awful whisper. ‘My ears must have deceived me.’

‘Indeed, madam,’ Horton said. ‘Well, Doctor?’

‘Never in all my life have I—’

‘He had a boy up in front of him,’ Gohlis said, enunciating his words with precision. ‘A man in a blue coat, on a piebald pony. There can be no doubt about it.’

‘No doubt!’ cried Mrs Fenner. ‘I should say so! I heard it with my own ears. A man of the cloth, too.’

Savill wheeled round to her. ‘Mrs Fenner, we most humbly beg your pardon.’

She blinked. ‘That’s all very well, sir—’

‘Mr Horton and I are dealing with a matter of the utmost gravity and urgency. But we should not have forgotten our manners. May I present Dr Gohlis, the personal physician and confidential adviser of the Count de Quillon? The kitchen fire, you say? What an admirable idea, ma’am, and thank heaven you proposed it. Let us go there at once, before the doctor catches a chill.’

With Gohlis leaning on Savill’s arm, the four of them set off for the kitchen. They were joined by the maid on the way.

‘One other thing, sir,’ Gohlis said. ‘When Monsieur Fournier brought the intelligence, I was examining the ground near the place where we found my
écorché
figure this morning.’

‘This way, sir,’ cried Mrs Fenner. ‘Out of the way, you silly girl. Stay, you’d better fetch the brandy. Here is the key. Mind you touch nothing else, and I shall uncork it myself.’

The kitchen door opened as they approached it. Savill had a confused picture of a crowd of servants, their faces turned towards the doorway. Gohlis fumbled in his pocket and stopped.

‘I found this,’ he said.

The servants stared blankly at him. The doctor held up a small, brass cylinder, four or five inches long.

‘A spyglass,’ he said.

All he does is stand there in the stream with his mouth hanging open.

And the man in the blue coat steps into the water, which comes halfway up his boots, and takes Charles by the arm. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even laugh. He merely tows Charles after him, out of the stream.

Charles stumbles as he climbs out and falls on the bank. The man turns. For the first time, they look at each other properly. The man has very black hair and a sunburned skin. His eyes are large, brown and moist – not unlike Bessie’s, now Charles comes to think of it. His face is covered with dark bristles.

The man frowns. He lunges forward, seizes Charles under the arms and swings him up as if Charles is no more than a baby.

‘Don’t move and don’t speak,’ he says in English, which is the first thing Charles hears him say. His voice is high-pitched and sometimes it wavers as if someone is shaking him up and down. ‘Or – or it’ll be the worse for you.’

So, with Charles in his arms, he walks on, forcing himself to hurry. His breathing grows laboured.

‘Good God, you’re heavier than you look. You’ll have to walk now.’

He drops Charles to the ground and seizes his wrist. He is not a tall man but he is broad and muscular. His fingers grip so tightly that needles of pain shoot up Charles’s arm. Together they fight their way through the wood. Something scratches Charles’s face and the blood trickles into his mouth. He licks it greedily, feeding on himself.

The blood drips on his left forearm. And he sees it.

When Charles sees the blood, he remembers everything. All he wants to do is scream and scream.

Hush now.

Charles struggles, trying to escape the man’s grasp, trying to run from the slippery blood, just as he ran long ago on that hot night in Paris. But he cannot run from this blood any more than he can run from himself and what is trapped inside his head.

‘Stop it, you little fool, or I’ll have to hit you.’

The trees are thinning. On the edge of the wood, hard by the lane, they come to a roofless barn with walls of crumbling stone. The piebald pony waits, tethered to the branch of an elder tree, for the woods have begun to colonize the barn in its decay. The pony raises its head and looks at them with a complete absence of interest.

Still holding Charles’s wrist, the man fumbles in the saddlebag and takes out a length of cord. He ties Charles’s wrists together in front of him and, for good measure, circles his body twice with what remains of the cord, binding his arms just above the elbows to his body.

‘There,’ he says, smiling. ‘Trussed like a chicken.’ He screeches like a chicken. ‘Time for a celebration.’ He is speaking very quickly, the words tumbling on top of each other. ‘Elevate our spirits before the journey? Just by the merest trifle. Yes, an admirable idea.’

Out comes the bottle for the first time. Afterwards, he places Charles on the pony and mounts behind him. They ride on to the lane and climb, up and up.

The pony sways. The poor beast is labouring beneath the double burden. They are ascending a steep, rocky path with sides so high that it’s almost a tunnel.

It is still early. The lane twists and rises, and there is a rare glimpse of the narrow valley below. A mist clings to the invisible village. The pale stone of Norbury Park gleams on the far slope. Charles wonders whether the Charnwood servants are about yet, whether the water has been sent to boil on the kitchen fire and whether George White, the gardener’s boy, has come into the garden.

A cock crows in the distance.

Charles is sitting directly in front of the man with the blue coat, and he feels every movement his captor makes. His arms are bound to his side so the man is obliged to support him to keep him upright on the pony. His feet and lower legs are very cold.

On and on they go, jolting and swaying up the lane. Charles is stiff and sore and cold. In a while, the misery converts itself to a waking doze.