River's Edge Page 9

  “Maidstone, then?”

  He shook his head. “To Snodland, sir, which is sitting empty since Bill Henry went and…and it’s somewhat nicer, ma’am—more spacious. There’s a view of the ferry landing through the window, the people coming and going, which no doubt…” He stopped speaking, crossed his arms, and looked at his feet.

  “I’ve given the constable the means to see to Alice’s comfort,” Gilbert whispered to St. Ives, but before St. Ives could respond, Mrs. Langley and the children—Finn Conrad and Larkin along with Eddie and Cleo—were coming along from the barn. Mrs. Langley had said something to the children, because they were uncharacteristically quiet and serious. Larkin gave Brooke a hard stare when they drew near, and Cleo burst into tears.

  “I told them that you were going off for a day or two, ma’am,” Mrs. Langley said.

  Alice kissed each of them on the cheek, including Finn. “I’ll be home quite soon,” she said, then smiled convincingly and turned away. It wasn’t difficult to see that she was weeping, and Cleo cried all the harder. St. Ives and Mrs. Langley pinned the children when Alice and Constable Brooke walked toward the buggy in the wisteria alley.

  “We’ll serve the copper out, see if we don’t,” Larkin said to Eddie in a low voice.

  “We’ll have no talk of serving anyone out, Larkin,” Frobisher said to her. “Constable Brooke is doing what he must do. We’ll turn this entire business into a laughing matter in short order, as my old dad said before they pulled the trap.” He uttered a short laugh, but cut it off, as if realizing that perhaps it wasn’t quite appropriate.

  St. Ives watched until Alice was out of sight, the very idea of laughing seeming outrageous, and as they trudged silently back toward the house he considered what it was he would say to the children.

  Chapter 17

  At Breakfast

  AT WINDHOVER, YES,” Gilbert Frobisher said across the breakfast table next morning. “Townover possesses quite an acreage, but left wild for the hunting. He has no interest in growing crops, although he has a prodigious number of sheep, apparently. His gamekeeper was complaining of poachers when I was shown in, and Charles spoke of the merits of public hangings. I was never fond of hangings.”

  Frobisher, St. Ives, and Hasbro sat over the remains of breakfast, although St. Ives had scarcely eaten. Frobisher had acquitted himself well, however, and was helping himself to more rashers and toast. “He’s a hard man, is Charles, although he had an ancient dog sitting at his feet the entire time. He clearly had an enormous affection for it. He’s not without sentiment, I mean to say. I remain satisfied that he knows nothing of these cowardly machinations. If he’s responsible for any of it, he’s both a madman and a consummate actor.”

  “I wasn’t aware that he had a son,” St. Ives said. “It’s unfortunate that the son wasn’t there so that you could have had a look at him.”

  “The son—Henley—stands to inherit,” Frobisher said, “but he currently owns no shares in the mill. Charles is in complete control, legally speaking. His decision to sell direct shares is recent, apparently, perhaps to do with his health. He rejected the other investors because they were intent on having a controlling interest rather than being mere speculators, and because they were overly eager to talk about dividends. They wanted guarantees. Charles is considering my offer only because of the specifics of it. Our contract would necessarily cede me limited control in carefully defined areas. I listed them succinctly on a sheet of foolscap, keeping Mother Laswell’s concerns in mind, of course, and signed my name to it. I made it clear that my offer was complete and final, that I did not intend to invest without assurances. I made no mention of dividends or guarantees. To the contrary, I meant to put my own money into solving the mill’s troubles, such as they were.”

  “Given the nature of your discussion, I wonder that the son wasn’t on hand,” Hasbro said. “It seems to me that he would have an avid interest in the business, given that it will some day be his own. How old a man is Charles Townover?”

  “Very nearly my own age, sixty-six or seven.”

  “What’s the nature of his illness?”

  “His heart seizes, apparently,” St. Ives said. “Alice and I met him at a function when he was newly arrived in Kent, although he mightn’t remember it. He carried a vial of physic.”

  “He swilled the stuff when I visited the mill,” Gilbert said. “He was apoplectic when a girl spoke out of turn—a furious passion, really. He knew, it, however, and uncorked his vial.”

  “Does the son Henley live at Windhover?” Hasbro asked.

  “Apparently,” Frobisher said. “And he’s very much involved in the running of the mill. Charles has a high regard for his abilities. It would be Henley who would help carry out the changes that I proposed, apparently. Charles regretted that his son wasn’t at home, although to my mind it wasn’t altogether strange. He could have had no notion of my proposition, and Charles had already sent the two other investors packing. A young man like Henley would no doubt have better things to do than to listen to old men talk.”

  Mrs. Langley entered, carrying a basket, the contents wrapped in a cloth. There were newspaper-wrapped parcels along with it. “I’ve put up something to eat, gentlemen. The basket is for poor Bill. The others are for the three of you—sandwiches made up out of last night’s roast, with mustard. It’ll be a long day, perhaps, with all the troubles descending.”

  Frobisher looked at his pocket watch. “And it’s already drawing on. Finn Conrad has promised to show me the resident birds this morning, so I’m off. I won’t be far afield, however. Townover promised to send a reply this very afternoon.”

  “And I’m bound for Tunbridge Wells,” St. Ives said. “Will you give my best wishes to Bill Kraken, Hasbro? Speak to him privately if ever you can.”

  “Brooke will allow it, I believe. Perhaps Bill has some notion of where Mother Laswell has gone to ground. If he has, I’ll look out for her upon my return.”

  “We’ll rendezvous at four o’clock, then?” St. Ives said. “God willing we’ll have discovered something that will cast a light on all this darkness.”

  Chapter 18

  Roast Beef with Mustard

  RIDING ALICE’S HORSE Pennylegs, a name provided by Cleo when she was three years old, St. Ives entered Tunbridge Wells from the northeast along a disused track that had taken him through a long stretch of empty woods. On any other day he would have been on the lookout for mushrooms and low areas of marsh where he might find something interesting crawling along the bank of a pond, but today he was almost indifferent to these things, including a particularly clear-running chalk stream that was unknown to him. His sole intention was to avoid being seen.

  He rode out onto a broad, sheep-populated meadow now, seeing the back lots of buildings along the eastern edge of Tunbridge Wells, one of which would be Pink’s, if in fact it were as near to Dockett’s as Jeffries the porter had recalled. He had no desire to be recognized or challenged, but he fully intended to have a look inside Pink’s shop, and he had brought along a packet of bent wires and skeleton keys that might prove useful.

  He saw Pink’s sign now, above the rear door of a shop, and he dismounted and tied Pennylegs to a post. There were people about, although somewhat far off, and so he made no effort to be furtive. A tumbledown shack stood some distance away, the door slightly ajar. He would give it a quick look in due time. As for now, he contemplated the iron lock fixed to the door—a warded lock that was quite new, although it hadn’t helped Pink avoid his fate. The man had apparently been playing for dangerously high stakes. Or, he thought, it was possible that the police had put the lock on the door to secure the place, in which case he had best be quick about it. He withdrew the ring of skeleton keys and tried two before the third unlocked it. He pushed the door open, stepped inside, and closed it again.

  He had a look into the darkroom, suspecting that he would find nothing useful. There were glass photographic plates aplenty, but the images on them were
of no consequence—weddings, funerals, and several photographs of dead children in lifelike poses. Death photographs had always seemed both sad and awful to him, but right now they were evidence of nothing. He came across a dozen plates with images taken at the soirée, but, again, they weren’t evidence; it would be odd if there were not such images. Shards of broken glass plates lay scattered on the floor, as if, perhaps, Pink had hurriedly sought to destroy the evidence of his photographic chicanery or else had been frantically searching for particular plates. St. Ives studied pieces of them, and found what appeared to be a double image on one—one image laid over the top of the other—but it was a mere fragment of a picture. It showed that Pink had been experimenting with images, but it wasn’t enough to clear Alice’s name. He wondered what had been taken or destroyed—by Pink, by the men who had murdered Pink, by the police…

  There were heavy bottles of chemicals, the most interesting being potassium cyanide, but Pink wasn’t alleged to have been a poisoner: all of the chemicals were in keeping with his trade. There was a broad pool of dried blood on the floor of the office, and there were odd pieces of clothing tossed about, some of them blood-spattered. A broken chair lay in the corner, evidence, perhaps, of Kraken’s battle with Pink, if indeed they had battled. There was no knowing what had gone on, except that it had been uncommonly bloody.

  He opened the door again and stepped out, closing it behind him and locking it. Sixty feet away stood the tumbledown shack, the roof of which was collapsed at one corner, the boards along the mud-sill rotted and cracked, and the entire structure leaning precariously. The door was closed now. The wind? Someone lurking inside? There was a window looking out, with half the panes broken and with a ragged drape hung across. The place was evidently abandoned, and it was unlikely that Pink used it for storage in its ruined state—no evidence that it even belonged to him.

  Now the drape moved in the wind, and, as it shifted aside, a boy’s face was visible for a moment and then was covered again.

  St. Ives set out at once toward the shack, trying the door but finding it locked, then going up alongside through the weedy lot, close to the tilted wall. He rounded the corner at the rear just as the boy was crawling out through a narrow hole made by two broken slats in the far corner. He saw St. Ives and pushed through in a panic, but was brought up short when his shirt caught on a jagged bit of wood. St. Ives collared him, seeing straightaway that he was Pink’s lad. The boy struggled for another few seconds before giving up.

  “Why do you mind me?” he asked, now that his shirt was free and he was on his feet. “I ain’t done nothing. I worked for Pink, and that’s all, hauling and such. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  “The porter in Aylesford, on the station platform, said that Pink kicked you. Is that true?”

  “True enough, and worse’n that.” He sat down in a slump in the dirt, the fight gone out of him. He was thin, with a gaunt face and hollow cheeks, and he stared into the distance now. “They scragged old Pink, though. He got his.” He nodded, continuing to stare, perhaps replaying Pink’s downfall in his head.

  “Did you see it, then?” St. Ives asked. “Was it a tall, thin man, with windy hair who stabbed him? He was…”

  “No, it weren’t him who did it. It was another man, short like, and wearing a hood so that you couldn’t see his face.”

  “A broad man, then? Strong?” asked St. Ives, picturing the man whom Hasbro had brought down along the Eccles Brook three nights past—Davis’s companion.

  The boy nodded.

  “Where was the tall, thin one? He’s a friend of mine, you see, and he’ll surely hang for the crime if we can’t find the man in the hood.”

  “The man who burnt the town, you mean. He’s your friend?”

  “Burnt the town…? Of course! Yes, the man who burnt the town!”

  “He went into Pink’s, as you did just now, and then Mr. Pink came out a-running, and the other man in the hood came around the side and chased him, and Mr. Pink turned back and dodged him, trying for the door again, to save himself, and that’s when the man put a knife in him. He dragged Mr. Pink up the steps and flung him inside again. I seen it from the window. The short man went off. And then out comes your tall man, all bloody like, and off he went in a hurry. Mr. Pink never again came out. The coppers was there later, but I went out through the hole and hid.”

  “You didn’t speak to the police?”

  “My old dad told me not to. Never. There’s naught but trouble in it, no matter who you are.”

  St. Ives stared toward the distant woods, thinking this through. He was suddenly anxious to be away, but clearly he had to take the boy with him. “What is your name, then?”

  “Willum, they call me.”

  “Do you fancy something to eat, Willum? I’ve brought sandwiches along—roast beef and mustard.”

  He shrugged.

  “If you’ll wait for me here, I’ll fetch them. Are you living here, then? In the shanty?”

  He shrugged again. “Mayhaps I am,” he said.

  “Wait for me,” St. Ives said, and he ran to where Pennylegs was standing patiently and removed the lunch that Mrs. Langley had put up from the saddlebag. When he returned, the boy was sitting as he had been, and he took the proffered sandwich from St. Ives and set in on it, eating breathlessly. St. Ives left him to it, and in short order the food was gone. “I’ve another,” St. Ives said, “but you should perhaps let the first slide down your gullet before you pitch another one after it. How long have you worked for Pink?”

  “Since winter.”

  “Living here?”

  “Where else am I to live? When I did a spot of work for Pink, he’d pay me a shilling.”

  “No more shillings now?”

  He shrugged yet again, and St. Ives drew four shillings from his pocket and held them out in his open palm. The boy looked suspiciously into his face, but took the coins and held them in his fist.

  “Will you go along with me? To save my friend from hanging?”

  “Where to?”

  “To a better life, I believe. The farm where they burned the pasteboard town. Hereafter, the farm is called. They’ll take you in. You’ll have to tell what you saw, though.”

  The boy nodded and stood up, and the two of them walked toward Pennylegs, but before they arrived, a constable rounded the corner and started toward Pink’s door, a key in his hand. He looked up, saw St. Ives and Willum, and changed course, heading toward them now. Willum ran, down along the back of the buildings and around a corner, heading into the town proper. The constable gave chase, running hard when he passed St. Ives, but he was a stout man, easily past fifty years old, and he soon gave up the chase. His chest was heaving when he returned, and St. Ives waited for him to speak.

  “State your business, if you please, sir,” the constable said finally.

  “I’m looking for the photographer, Manfred Pink. His shop seems to be locked up.”

  “You have business with Pink, then?”

  “I do, sir. We paid him for work that he’s yet to deliver.”

  “And he won’t, neither. It’s your bad luck, because Pink is dead—murdered. That was Pink’s helpmate you were speaking to.”

  “Was it? He told me that he was an orphan, and I gave him four shillings.”

  “It simply encourages them, sir. You meant well, but now that Pink is dead, the boy has no business here.”

  “Perhaps the four shillings will help him on his way. Do you know how I can get hold of the photographs that are rightly mine? Pink might be dead, but he was paid for the work, and so they belong to me.”

  “Pink’s is locked and his wares confiscated, at least for the moment—evidence, you know. You can file a claim at the constabulary on Slade Street. Do you know it?”

  “I can find it. Thank you, officer. Good day to you now.”

  St. Ives walked to where Pennylegs waited and swung into the saddle, tipping his hat to the constable, who watched him ride away. He turned up along the
alley where Willum had disappeared and followed it north along Camden Road until he left the town behind. He turned back toward the woods then, in order to return to Aylesford the same way he’d come. He ambled along, however, now and then looking behind him. He had crossed the meadow and was at the verge of the woods when he saw Willum following, his head nodding along behind tall grass in the distance.

  He waited to allow the boy to catch up to him, but quickly lost sight of him. He ate the remaining sandwich, drank a bottle of ale, and listened to the flies buzzing in the lazy sunshine. A kestrel hovered over the meadow, and then swooped down and snatched up a small animal, too distant for St. Ives to identify it, a mole, perhaps. There was no sign of Willum, but it seemed odd that the boy would simply have been strolling across the meadow.

  St. Ives turned Pennylegs toward the woods and rode along for a quarter mile before reining up again and moving into a small glade within sight of the path. He waited there in the shade for the boy to come along. Perhaps he was merely shy. Perhaps his flight from the constable had confounded whatever decision he had made earlier.

  The waiting was futile. The afternoon was dragging on. He left the glade and set out in earnest for home at a leisurely pace, calculated to get him there in time for the rendezvous. He would have to put off his visit to Snodland until the evening. He admitted to himself that he had lost the boy, and in so doing had lost his chance to free Kraken and to prove that Pink was a part of a larger plot. Brooke would believe his story, of course: he and Brooke knew each other well enough. But a second-hand tale amounted to nearly nothing in a court of law.

  Chapter 19

  Lurking in the Kitchen

  ST. IVES LAY alone in bed, a state that he was no longer used to. He thought of what Alice had told him—that she had never been happier that they were husband and wife, but that simply made her absence all the more sorrowful. When he and Hasbro had gone into Snodland that evening, he’d been happy to discover that Alice was comfortable in her cell. It had a window in it, albeit a barred window, and the room itself was large enough, with an iron bed rather than a cot. She had eaten a plate of food from the Malden Arms, “the stout gentleman, Mr. Frobisher, having put up a sum to pay the reckoning,” as he had been told by the jailer.