Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

The children must have carried the news of their coming in front of them. Before they reached Keswick itself, Stephen had begun to feel as if he were following a parade. The doors of the cottages opened. Fires and animals were abandoned for a little while as men and women emerged to respectfully observe Casper pass. Stephen’s eyes darted about, trying to catch each expression as he passed. Another woman trotted up to him; the flesh of her face was heavy and her hair was thin and greasy. She gave him a narrow package of paper and string. He smelled the tang of hard cheese, nodded his thanks and put it with the loaf.

In Keswick his bag became so heavy the strap was starting to cut into his shoulder. At the bottom of the village he looked up to see Mr Askew in his smart waistcoat emerge from the museum and watch them approach from the top of his neatly swept steps. As they drew level, he ran lightly down them. Like the others he did not approach Casper, but fell into step with Stephen. For a moment he looked as if he might want to say something, but in the end he silently removed from his jacket-pocket a silver flask. It made a little sloshing noise as he tucked it into Stephen’s swollen satchel. He then stepped back to the side of the road and waited for them to pass. At the Royal Oak the landlord came out and stood quietly at the door.

Casper did not pause, or stop to lean on his stick. He kept his eyes on the road in front of him and at the same steady pace led Stephen, and a couple of younger children who seemed to have joined them, up the hill in the shadow of Latrigg. Stephen had guessed where they were going now. His back was aching and he wondered how Casper was managing it, but aware of his duties he kept watching the people who came to see them pass. At last Casper turned off the road and unlatched the gate to the field where the stone circle stood. Stephen glanced about him and followed. The other children hung around the gateway, punching each other on the shoulder, or murmuring as Casper crossed the cropped turf and entered the circle.

Stephen hovered between the gateway stones until Casper had reached the centre of the circle and slowly knelt down. Something stopped the boy from following. Instead he circled round, and slipped between the two stones to the south where there seemed to be a smaller inner oblong of slabs, like a sanctuary within the church. Without taking his eyes off Casper he settled himself on the ground between them and, gratefully, lifted the strap of the satchel over his shoulder.

After some time the children dispersed at the gateway, and Stephen was startled out of his contemplation of the falling ranks of hills around them by Casper’s voice.

‘Come then.’

He took the satchel in his arms, and jogged over, keeping low and quiet as if he were in some holy place. Casper gave him time to settle, then said: ‘Well?’

Stephen drew the flask that Mr Askew had handed him from his pocket and passed it to Casper, who raised his eyebrows at it, then smiled slowly, uncapped it and drank.

‘Everyone looked very grave,’ Stephen said.

‘So they might.’

‘The third cottage on the left in Portinscale. .’

Casper nodded. ‘Thin man in back. Woman at the gate.’

‘He didn’t look up as you went by, just kept turning the muck.’

‘And the woman?’

‘Eyes all over, kept glancing back at him, and her hands were twitching.’

Casper smiled, creasing the sunset of his bruises, then took another swig from the flask. ‘You have sharp eyes. Get them from your mother, did you?’

Stephen hugged his knees and looked at the turf in front of him. ‘Her eyes are green. Mine are blue, like my papa’s.’

Casper pulled at the flask again. ‘As may be, but I reckon you got your manner of seeing with them from her. What else?’

‘There was a man in his stable yard at the Oak kept his back turned.’

Casper was looking north at the curve of Latrigg and the upward swell of Skiddaw. He upended the flask into his mouth and shook the last of the liquor out of it, then screwed the little silver top back on and handed it back to Stephen.

‘Time for you to go now, Master Westerman. Take that food back to my cabin if you would, and untie Joe.’

Stephen looked around him. ‘Are you going to ask the fair-folk for their help? Will they tell you who beat you, or who killed that man?’

Casper gave him a lopsided grin. ‘I’ve already learned what I intended, youngling. I shall sit here for a while longer though.’ Stephen looked very confused, opened his mouth and shut it again. ‘My business is more with people than magic. Herbs, yes. Seeing how people are, knowing them and protecting our faith.’ He frowned suddenly. Stephen followed the direction of his eyes and saw a thin, older man at the entrance to the field. ‘Take the flask back to Mr Askew, and thank him,’ Casper continued. ‘Don’t go in. Just stand at the steps till he comes out. For the rest, say no word and keep your eyes low. And that man by the gate is Mr Kerrick. Tell him he may come to me.’

‘Can I come and see you later, Casper?’

He nodded. ‘Do that. I may have need of you, fool that I am.’

On enquiring at the vicarage, Harriet and Crowther were told that Miss Scales and her guest were taking a turn in the church grounds, so Ham turned the horses down the slope to deliver them to the church gates. The situation of Crosthwaite Church was a splendid one, nestled as it was under the curving arm of Skiddaw. Around the wooded churchyard, fields of well-grown oats rolled down to the main road and the edge of the lake. The church itself was a good-sized building, with a square, crenellated tower and white-washed. Thus it provided both a place of worship for its community, and an appropriate point of interest for Lakers sketching from their rowboats on the water.

Crowther handed Harriet down from the carriage and they left Ham and the horses to enjoy the scenery as they liked while they went in search of Miss Scales and Miss Hurst. Before they could enter the churchyard, however, they heard themselves hailed from the road and turned to see Mr Sturgess just dismounting from a rather showy-looking roan horse, and making his way towards them, leading it by its halter.

‘You let him just walk away?’ Mr Sturgess said at once.

Neither Harriet nor Crowther replied until he was within a pace or two of them.

‘To whom do you refer?’ Crowther said, with a slight drawl.

‘That charlatan, Casper Grace, of course!’ The magistrate was rather red in the face. ‘It is obvious to a child he must have killed this German in the same brawl where he was injured. He brought the body to you and you let him go.’

Crowther shook his head very slightly. ‘The man was Austrian. He did not look guilty, Mr Sturgess.’

‘Look? Look ! I have no objection to you and Mrs Westerman amusing yourselves with guessing games over some skeleton, but a murder here and now does great injury to the town. Grace must be taken at once and held in Carlisle till the quarter sessions.’

‘On what evidence?’ Harriet asked.

‘How could it be anyone else? The man is known to be half-crazed, and he delivered himself into your hands. It is nothing but plain sense. Though I do not know why I speak to you of that. Mr Grace is at the Druidic circle. I know this why? Because I saw him from my window processing through the village with your son at his heels, moments before I received your note.’

Harriet would have given a great deal not to appear surprised, but she feared by the satisfied smile on Mr Sturgess’s face that it must have been clear she had known nothing of this. Guiltily, she realised she had not even thought of her son after the moment she sent him into the house for Ham and Isaiah.