A Death at Fountains Abbey Page 3

  ‘Mr Hawkins,’ Sneaton nudged. He was wheezing a little.

  ‘Is that Mr Aislabie?’

  ‘Yes. From thirty years ago.’ His damaged hand hovered at my elbow. ‘Please, sir. He is impatient to meet you.’

  I followed him into a narrow corridor. ‘Has something happened, Mr Sneaton?’

  He knocked on the door to Aislabie’s study. His face was grave, beneath the tangle of scars. One eye blind, the other bright with anger.

  ‘Yes, Mr Hawkins, something has happened. Something devilish.’

  Chapter Two

  I smelled the blood as soon as I entered the room. The air was thick with it. Some months ago I had woken in a prison cell to find a man murdered in the next bed. Aislabie’s study was tainted with the same stink: the unmistakable scent of freshly butchered meat.

  ‘Mr Hawkins. You’re late, sir. I needed you here this morning.’

  Aislabie stood behind a desk covered in bills and estimates – a tall, neat gentleman with an excellent bearing. He was watching through the open window as his men toiled on the new building. I saw in his profile the handsome young man from the portrait next door, grown older – the same lean face and cleft chin. His jawline had softened and his brows were grey, but at six and fifty, time had treated him well.

  A trestle table stood in the centre of the room, in front of the desk. Something lay stretched out upon it, covered in bed sheets. The body of an animal, six feet in length. The sheets were streaked with blood. I slid my gaze across its bulk.

  Outside there was a shout of alarm, followed by the low rumble of rocks pouring from a cart. ‘You stupid arsehole!’ The words drifted into the room from a hundred feet away. ‘Y’almost killed me you fucking idiot!’

  Aislabie breathed heavily through his nose and turned to face me. His eyes were large and dark. With one swift sweep he took me in, from the top of my head to the silver buckle of my shoe. His lips pressed to a thin line. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Given his own uncivil greeting, I found no reason to be polite in return. I focused my attention on the blood-soaked sheets. A fresh kill. Fresh meat, not yet tainted.

  ‘Five and twenty at most,’ Aislabie muttered.

  Six and twenty, in fact. I had celebrated my birthday upon the road with a few bottles of claret, amazed that I had survived so long. ‘The age you entered parliament, Mr Aislabie.’

  I used Sneaton’s pronunciation – Aizlabee – and placed emphasis upon the word Mister, just in spite. Aislabie’s public disgrace had ensured that he would never be granted a title. His jaw tightened, at this, or perhaps at the mention of parliament. Old humiliations, old resentments, still raw under the skin.

  I tilted my chin to the trestle table, the bloodied sheets. ‘What’s this?’

  His nostrils flared in disgust. ‘An outrage.’

  ‘It was left on the front steps this morning,’ Sneaton explained. He began to roll back the sheets then paused, scarred hand gripping the cloth. ‘You’re not womanish about blood, Mr Hawkins?’

  Womanish. I thought of Kitty, cheering at the edge of a cockpit as the birds slashed each other with silver spurs.

  ‘It’s not a pretty sight,’ he added. And winced, realising how that must sound coming from one so ravaged.

  ‘When you’re ready,’ I replied.

  Sneaton pulled at the linen to reveal a russet haunch and a dainty black hoof. A deer. I breathed out slowly. I’d been holding my breath without realising it, expecting something much worse. How quickly my mind turned to murder these days.

  The blood was much thicker at the animal’s middle, and the sheets had become stuck to the wound. Sneaton put his hand under the cloth and tugged it free.

  The doe had been slit open from its throat, down along its belly to its hind legs. Its innards had been scraped out, but something was stuffed inside the carcass.

  I put a hand to my mouth. It had been carrying a fawn.

  I bent down, forcing myself to examine the thing more closely. The fawn had been cut from its mother’s womb and then placed back inside the cavity, its tiny head poking out in an obscene parody of birth. Another few weeks left in peace and it would have lived, making its first steps on trembling legs. It must have been alive when it was pulled from its mother’s body. Whoever did this must have held it for a moment, warm skin and beating heart. And then wrung its neck.

  ‘Who found this?’

  ‘Sally Shutt. Our youngest maid.’

  I rubbed a patch of linen between my thumb and fingers. ‘You’ve ruined some good sheets carrying it here.’

  He nodded at the deer. ‘She was laid out on ’em when we found her.’

  I straightened up. Neither man seemed to appreciate the importance of this fact. I was not sure if Aislabie was even listening. His gaze was riveted upon the dead fawn. ‘May I ask your position here, Mr Sneaton?’

  ‘I’m his honour’s secretary – and superintendent over the servants. House and gardens.’

  I had guessed as much. He could not be head steward, given his broken body. Studley Royal was a huge estate, and one would need to be strong and healthy to walk all its fields and woodlands. But it was plain that Aislabie trusted Sneaton above all others. ‘I suggest you ask the housekeeper to count all the linens and see if any are missing.’

  Aislabie snapped from his trance. ‘You suspect one of the servants?’

  I shrugged. Anyone could slip a few bed sheets from a linen cupboard: servant, guest, or family member. ‘I’ll need the names of everyone living and working on the estate. Mr Sneaton, if you would be kind enough to draw up a list for me, perhaps we might study it together after dinner.’

  ‘Mr Sneaton is busy with estate work,’ Aislabie interrupted. ‘You must make your own investigations, sir – that is why I sent for you. If you had arrived when you promised, you would know my servants are honest, decent souls. There are no idle rogues at Studley, I do not permit it.’ He gave me a scrutinising look, as if I had just ruined that perfect tally.

  ‘Would it not be best, sir, to keep an open mind?’

  Aislabie snorted. ‘This is clearly the work of a lunatic.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ I said, making it clear from my tone that I thought otherwise. ‘If so, we are looking for a lunatic who knows how to field dress a deer. Who can carry the weight of it on his shoulders, or wheel it unnoticed to your door. Who can do all this under the cover of night, crossing through your estate without fear of breaking his neck in a fall.’

  For the first time, Aislabie looked at me with approval. ‘The Gills. Yes! That was my first thought, was it not, Sneaton?’

  Sneaton shifted on his hip to ease his bad leg. ‘Family of poachers,’ he explained. ‘Jeb and Annie Gill. They’ve a smallhold a few miles from here. And nine children, last I counted.’

  ‘Every one raised crooked, no doubt,’ Aislabie muttered. He had returned to his desk, searching through his papers for something. ‘My old steward hired Jeb Gill to work on the gardens. When was it, Jack – twelve years past? Never again. Thieves and poachers, the lot of them.’

  ‘But the sheets,’ I protested. ‘Where would they have found them— ?’

  ‘Here. This’ll prove it to you.’ Aislabie thrust a folded sheaf of papers at my chest. ‘Poachers.’

  I opened out the papers to discover four letters, two of them spattered with blood. I began to read the top one, the longest of the four.

  ‘That was the first,’ Aislabie said, watching me intently.

  Dam you Aiselby, it began,

  dam your Pride you son of a hoar You are nort but a Theif.

  I squinted at the page. The hand was exceedingly poor and the paper was very thin. The writer must have composed the note in anger – it was torn in several places where the quill had pressed too hard against the paper. I could not make much of it without a closer study – the spelling was eccentric, and the meaning hard to follow. But its ending was plain enough.

  If we doe nott
here from You be sertain you will die and your Body will be bathed in Blood dam you.

  ‘See this, here,’ Aislabie instructed, poking a long finger at one of the more tortuous lines. ‘They’re demanding free passage on the moors to graze their wretched sheep. Demanding it! Damned bloody impudence.’

  I picked my way through the sentence.

  Sir we ask only free passidge on the Moors theres coneys plenty for all and Growse and graising for our sheep we aske no more than what our Fathers and Grand Fathers was grantid.

  ‘They claim an old right of use.’

  Aislabie coloured. ‘The land is mine, bought and paid for. I will show you the deeds if you wish it—’

  I shook my head vehemently. As a child, during my short visits home from school, my father would often sit me down and force me to read and recite from thick stacks of family deeds covering every parcel of land we had ever bought, every patch of woodland. ‘This is your inheritance, Thomas,’ he would say when I stumbled over some cramped Latin phrase. ‘You must know it all, by heart.’ My God, the hours I had wasted in that stifling, dusty room while the sun blazed brightly and the days of summer dwindled. If I gave it but a little thought, I was sure I could remember every damned word of those deeds even now, down to the last inch of land. Which was somewhat ironic given that – following an unfortunate misunderstanding in an Oxford brothel – I had lost my inheritance to my stepbrother.

  I examined the second note, written in the same rough hand.

  God who is Allmitey Dam your Soul Aiselby why doe you not anser us you Villain.

  You nowe that there is no Law for a pore man but If this is not alterd we will Turn Justiss our self. Tell the world the Kirkby moors are free land or Depend upont you Shall not last a Month longer. You will Die and your Carkase will be fed to your Dogs.

  ‘Do you have dogs, Mr Aislabie?’

  ‘Of course I have dogs,’ he snapped. ‘That is scarcely the point, sir.’

  I moved on to the third note. This one was shorter still and again, the writing was poor – but different from the last. An accomplice, then, unless the same man was disguising his hand. There was a great deal of blood staining the back of it, but the paper was also much thicker, leaving the message clear.

  ‘The first two were hammered to the front door,’ Sneaton interjected. ‘That was left upon the steps, a week ago – wrapped about a sheep’s heart.’

  Aislabie – your Crimes must be punnished. You have Ruined Good and Honest Familys with your Damn’d Greed. Our mallis is too great to bear we are resolved to burn down your House. We will watch as your flesh and bones burn and melt and your Ashes scatter in the Wind. Nothing will Remain. You have ’scaped Justice too long damn you.

  I could not help myself. My eyes flashed to Sneaton, a man so clearly burned by some terrible fire. But it was Aislabie who seemed most affected – and who might blame him? He had lost his wife and daughter in a fire, many years ago. Surely whoever had written those threats had known that, choosing to play upon an old and terrible tragedy. There was something particularly cruel about this note – the gloating tone, devoid of pity, and the determination clear in every word.

  ‘The latest one was pinned to the deer,’ Aislabie prompted, in a flat voice.

  I shifted the papers, pulling out the final note.

  Aislabie you Damned Traitor. This is but the beginning of Sorrows.We will burn you and your daughter in your beds. You are not alone by night or day. We will seek Revenge.

  Now I understood Aislabie’s urgency this morning and his irritation at my late arrival, even if it was only by a day. His impatience and incivility could be explained by the most natural and tender of causes: the love of a father for his daughter. I considered the doe with fresh eyes, its fawn dragged from the womb and killed. Now its meaning was clear. Your child. We will murder your child. You will die together.

  ‘Where are your daughters, sir?’

  Aislabie sighed, visibly troubled. ‘Jane is at home in Beaconsfield with her husband. Mary is in London visiting her brother.’

  ‘Then they are safe.’

  ‘Quite safe,’ he said, distracted.

  I glanced at Sneaton, hoping for some explanation. He remained silent, watching his master with a careful eye. I read the note again. ‘Is there . . .’ I began, then hesitated. How to be delicate? ‘Might there be a third daughter, sir?’

  A flash of astonishment crossed Aislabie’s face, as if I had made a great and unexpected deduction. Then he scowled as he took my meaning. ‘A bastard child? No.’

  ‘A daughter through marriage, then? Or a young ward – someone you might consider a daughter, if not by blood?’ I waved the note. ‘The threat is quite specific.’

  Sneaton cleared his throat. ‘Your honour . . .’

  ‘In my own time, Sneaton!’ Aislabie poured himself a glass of brandy. His hand was shaking.

  I took out my watch. Past noon. I could be sitting down to dinner with Kitty at the Cocked Pistol. Better still, chasing her upstairs to bed. I shoved the watch into my pocket. ‘Mr Aislabie. I have travelled for five days to reach you. I am tired, sore, and to be frank, sir, I’m not sure what you want of me. What is this matter with your daughter? Will you oblige me with an explanation? Or should I summon another carriage and return home to my wife?’

  Aislabie turned in surprise. ‘Mrs Hawkins did not accompany you?’

  ‘She was called back to London. The note, sir?’

  He settled his brandy glass. ‘We have a guest staying with us at Studley – a young widow, from Lincolnshire. I had hoped your wife might be company for her. A confidante. You know how ladies are.’

  Kitty – a lady? A confidante? I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing.

  ‘Her name is Mrs Fairwood. Mrs Elizabeth Fairwood. I fear she is in great danger.’

  ‘Indeed? How so?’

  Aislabie smiled sadly. ‘Because she is my daughter, sir. My youngest girl, returned to me from the grave.’

  I stared at him in dismay. His youngest daughter had died in a fire with her mother. Glancing at Sneaton, I saw he had composed his face in that cautious expression practised by all wise servants – that is to say so neutral one might believe he had stopped thinking altogether.

  Aislabie reached out, as if possessed, and put his hand upon the dead fawn’s head. He gave a shudder, and drew his fingers away.

  ‘Mr Aislabie, forgive me . . . I understood your youngest daughter died many years ago.’

  ‘Lizzie?’ Aislabie blinked. ‘Yes. She died in a fire, with my wife.’ For a moment I saw the grief of a young husband, fresh and raw upon his face. Then he pulled the shutters tight across the memory.

  ‘But you believe this visitor to be . . .’ What, precisely? Mr Aislabie had a reputation for being haughty and obstinate, not unbalanced.

  He sensed my confusion. ‘I’m a straightforward man,’ he said, gruffly. ‘I’ve no time for tales of ghosts and demons. There is this world and – God willing – the next. I do not believe there is a path between these worlds, except in death. And yet . . .’ He fixed his jaw. ‘Mrs Fairwood is my daughter. I cannot explain it easily. And yet I am certain of it.’

  The thud of horses’ hooves cantering up the avenue took him back to the window. ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, ‘They are returned.’ And then he smiled in such an unaffected way it quite transformed him. He strode to the door, no doubt expecting me to follow.

  Sneaton hurried after his master, his wooden peg putting softly as it hit the oak floorboards. I could see where it had worn a hundred little dents in the wood over the years.

  I tucked the letters in my pocket, thinking on a line from the first note – one that neither Sneaton nor Aislabie had chosen to mention.

  You robbed England, you rogue.

  It was a fair charge. And here he resided at Studley Royal, stranded in splendid exile on his enormous estate. There must be plenty who thought he deserved a harder punishment than that. Could one of them be plotting to
burn down his house? Or worse?

  To be blunt, it was not my concern, and my interest – in the main – was counterfeit. The queen had not sent me to Yorkshire to protect John Aislabie, or to solve his troubles. He could burn in his bed and she would take the news with exquisite indifference, before reaching for another macaron. My true mission was clear and very simple: Find the green ledger, and bring it to me.

  I might begin now, here in Aislabie’s study.

  A sharp tap at the window brought me to my senses: Sneaton, beckoning urgently before limping away. I became conscious again of the stink of blood and meat wafting from the deer. If I had arrived yesterday evening as planned, I would have witnessed its discovery this morning. Had this butchery been a warning to me, as much as to Aislabie?

  You are not alone by day or night.

  I threw the sheets over the deer and its fawn. What a waste. What a damned waste.

  Chapter Three

  ‘How’s your riding, sir?’ Mrs Aislabie asked again.

  ‘Tolerable,’ I replied, distracted by the sight of her.

  ‘You are too modest, Mr Hawkins,’ she said, patting the thick-muscled neck of her dark bay stallion. Her gaze snagged upon my hips. ‘I’m sure you have an excellent seat.’

  She must be near fifty, I warned myself, though she didn’t look it. We were a small group, gathered upon the gravelled drive: Mr Aislabie, Mr Sneaton leaning upon his walking stick, and the two women on horseback, their faces flushed from their morning ride through the estate. Aislabie had introduced his wife as ‘My Lady Judith, daughter of the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Vernon’. Her Ladyship had winked at me, clearly not as impressed by her title as her husband. Near fifty, I warned myself again. Perhaps older.

  Lady Judith was a handsome woman with strong features, as if God had sketched a man’s face then changed His mind, adding wide, full lips that curved up at the sides. The silver collar of her riding coat was turned up in the gentleman’s style, the effect softened with a froth of lace about her neck. She wore a velvet cap over her pale blond hair, pierced with a white feather that fluttered in the breeze.