Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

Harriet said nothing, but nodded.

Having delivered his message in the house, Stephen hesitated on the steps a moment then turned and ran off in pursuit of Casper. He was haring down the track he thought most likely when he heard a whistle and Joe’s rough call and turned. Casper was sitting among the shadows a little higher than the path. His clothes and skin so matched the colours around him, Stephen would have run straight past him unless he had been summoned.

‘Are you feeling better, Casper?’

The man looked up. His left eye was still almost completely shut, and the bruising on his face had already moved from raw red to purple and yellow, spotted with black and blood blisters. Stephen’s eyes widened, and Casper smiled.

‘You’re better than a looking-glass, lad.’

Stephen looked away, embarrassed. ‘I told Miriam you had been hurt, and she wanted me to give you this.’ He reached into his satchel and produced a half loaf, a cheese and a hunk of sausage that was greasy between his fingers.

‘I’ll have eaten all of Mrs Briggs’s store cupboard in a day if those women have their way. The food is welcome. Set it out then, and I’ll go about my business all the easier with a full stomach. Pulling that man free and down the slope took all the food in my belly.’

Stephen set his treasures down on a flat stone at his feet, then sat beside it cross-legged and began to carve the cheese and bread into pieces with his penknife.

‘What business?’ he said at last. ‘Are you going to tell the magistrate about you getting beaten, after all, or finding Mr Hurst? Or about the Black Pig?’

Casper looked at him. ‘What of the Black Pig? Think on, youngling. I’ve seen no one but yourself, that poor lass and her da today. And he had no news.’

Stephen stuttered a little. ‘Miriam said, Miriam said someone had been in during the storm and knocked it all about! Knocked over the plates and jugs and dragged things about. The man who owns it didn’t hear because of the storm.’

‘You’re speaking to the man who owns it. But it’s indoor work, so Tom and Issy run the place in my stead. How is your tutor?’

‘A little better. Cook is giving him the tea.’

Casper drew a clay pipe from his waistcoat, and a little tobacco pouch, and set about filling the bowl.

‘I have some things to think on, youngling. Can you stay quiet an hour while I walk them about in my head? Then if you are willing to keep me company, I might have need of you in a little while.’

Stephen settled himself and nodded. ‘Why did you bring the body to Silverside?’

‘For good or bad, that is where it belongs. And I thought Lord Keswick might want to see it.’

‘You mean Mr Crowther.’

‘He may call himself what he will elsewhere, but when he walks this land he is Lord Keswick whether he likes it or no. No more talking now.’

He lit his pipe and began to draw on it, his eyebrows bunched together and his bruised face cloudy with thought.

‘He looks as if he was killed by witchcraft.’

Crowther looked up at Mrs Westerman. She was standing at the head of the table gazing down into the dead man’s eyes.

‘In that case, so do most men,’ he said dryly.

‘But not many men are found with their pockets stuffed with mistletoe.’

They had found the plant bundled into the man’s pockets within moments of being left alone with the body, along with some money and an elaborate pocket-watch. Harriet had liked the look of Casper Grace, but nevertheless, as soon as she saw the tear-drop leaves she had thought of him and wondered. ‘I suppose Casper might have done that on finding the body, as a mark of respect to the dead.’

‘Then I wonder he did not close the man’s eyes.’

Harriet nodded. ‘Do you think he might have killed him? Why then bring the body to us?’

‘Mrs Westerman, do stop asking me impossible questions.’ Crowther’s sudden snap of irritation took him by surprise. There had been something in his nephew’s face as he looked at the body that chilled him, something in his refusal to be the bearer of the news to Miss Hurst that had disgusted him. He felt angry in front of the body, harried by questions from the past and present. He thought of a man he had seen in a hospital in Padua. His leg had become black with gangrene, and in the damp heat of the summer he was tormented by flies buzzing and settling on his stump. They had all been grateful when he died. He had a sense of fellow feeling with that patient now which troubled him.

‘My apologies.’

She did not look directly at him. ‘We only have a little time, Crowther. You are right, I may speculate as much as I like — later. For the moment let us only observe.’

Crowther removed his coat and began to fold up his sleeves, trying to discover his usual calm. ‘The body may conceal any number of hurts within it, Mrs Westerman. If a man falls down dead and another says before he did so he clutched his chest, I would suspect his heart and look for signs of disease there. If our putative witness says his speech became slurred and his movements awkward I would look first for signs of bleeding in the brain.’

‘And where there is no witness?’

‘I examine all the organs and see what they can tell me. I have told you before, sometimes people simply die, they are dead because they ceased to live. That is not witchcraft, just the usual fate of man. Will you help me remove his coat?’ She did so. He was grateful she had let his spasm of bad temper pass without comment.

Much of Crowther’s work meant he dealt with small samples, animals or parts of the human body transported to his desk by colleagues interested in his opinion. They came packed in straw and ice or pale and floating in preserving solutions. It still astonished his animal mind how heavy a body becomes when the life has left it, how awkward and unwieldy a thing. It was lucky the coat was not overly tight and could be pulled free of the body without cutting it. He suspected that the rigor was just beginning to pass, and began to speculate on what that might tell him of when the man died. Mrs Westerman held the coat up, then frowned.

‘Crowther!’

She approached, her finger on the collar of the coat. The buff material was stained. It was a small patch, he could have covered it with his thumb, but it was there. Crowther wet the end of his finger and rubbed it into the stain, then put the finger to his mouth for a moment. He nodded then turned round to spit onto the floor.

‘Blood.’

Harriet gathered the coat in her hands and lifted it towards the light. ‘There is so little of it.’

Crowther had turned back to the body.

She laid the coat on one of the benches and joined him. The corpse was still lying on its front. Crowther took the head between his hands and gently shifted it, moving it further onto its face so the chin was tucked into the chest.

The black hair of Mr Hurst was as thick as his daughter’s. Crowther placed his fingers at the place where the spine and skull touched; it was matted and slightly gritty under his touch.

‘There is a wound there?’ Harriet asked.

He went to his roll of instruments on the table and withdrew one of his scalpels — it sighed out of the leather. ‘There is more blood in his hair. I think there is a wound. I wish the man had worn his hair shorter. I hate to blunt my knife. Will you hold his head steady for me, Mrs Westerman?’

She put her hands either side of the man’s head again without flinching. She had the pale skin common to most red-heads. The black of her mourning ring stood out against it like coal in snow. Crowther cut away the bloodied clump of hair, gradually uncovering a two-inch square of skin. At its centre was a bloody spot the size of a shilling. He placed his little finger on it, then began to work the tip into the wound. The head shifted and he looked up; Mrs Westerman had turned her head away. He returned his attention to the wound; his finger met no significant resistance. He nodded to himself, then carefully freed his finger before wiping it on his handkerchief.