Antonia Hodgson - A Death at Fountains Abbey

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?’