Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

'Comfortable?'

'Better than anything you or I will ever live in,' Mackeson said, then he clicked his tongue and the horses' ears twitched back as he flicked the leaders' reins and they turned smartly towards a tall pair of gates hung between high flint pillars.

Sandman opened the gates that were latched but not locked, then closed them after the carriage had passed. He climbed back onto the box and Mackeson walked the horses down the long drive that twisted through a deer park and between fine copper beeches until it crossed a small bridge and there, amidst the overgrown box hedges of an untended garden, lay a small and exquisitely beautiful Elizabethan house with black timbers, white plasterwork and red brick chimneys. 'Cross Hall, it's called,' Mackeson said.

'Some marriage portion,' Sandman said jealously, for the house looked so perfect under the afternoon sun.

'All mortgaged now,' Mackeson said, 'or that's what they say. Needs a fortune, this place, and I need to look after these horses. They want water, proper feed, a rubdown and a good rest.'

'All in good time,' Sandman said. He was watching the windows, but could see no movement in any of them. None was open either, and that was a bad sign for it was a warm summer's day, but then he saw there was a smear of smoke coming from one of the tall chimneys at the rear of the house and that restored his optimism. The carriage stopped and he dropped down from the box, wincing as his weight went onto his damaged ankle. Berrigan opened the carriage door and kicked down the steps, but Sandman told him to wait and make sure that Mackeson did not simply whip the horses back down the drive.

Sandman limped to the front door and hammered on its old dark panels. He had no right to be here, he thought. He was probably trespassing, and he felt in his tail pocket for the letter of authorisation from the Home Office. He had not used it once yet, but perhaps it would help him now. He knocked on the door again and stepped back to see if anyone was peering from a window. Ivy grew round the porch and under the leaves above the door he could just see a shield carved into the plasterwork. Five scallop shells were set into the shield. No one showed at any of the windows, so he stepped back into the porch and raised his fist to knock again and just then the door was pulled open and a gaunt old man stared at him, then looked at the carriage with its badge of the Seraphim Club. 'We weren't expecting any visitors today,' the man said in evident puzzlement.

'We have come to fetch Meg,' Sandman replied on an impulse. The man, a servant judging by his clothes, had plainly recognised the carriage and did not think its presence strange. Untimely, perhaps, but not strange, and Sandman hoped the servant would assume it had been sent by the Marquess.

'No one said she was to go anywhere.' The man was suspicious.

'London,' Sandman said.

'So who be you?' The man was tall and had a deeply lined face surrounded by unkempt white hair.

'I told you. We came to fetch Meg. Sergeant Berrigan and I.'

'Sergeant?' The man did not recognise the name, but sounded alarmed. 'You brought a lawyer?'

'He's from the club,' Sandman said, feeling the conversation slide into mutual incomprehensibility.

'His lordship said nothing about her going,' the man said cautiously.

'He wants her in London,' Sandman repeated.

'Then I'll fetch the lass,' the man said and then, before Sandman could react, he slammed the door and shot the bolts and did it so quickly that Sandman was left gaping. He was still staring at the door when he heard a bell ring inside the house and he knew that urgent sound had to be a signal to Meg. He swore.

'That's a good bloody start,' Berrigan said sarcastically.

'But the woman is here,' Sandman answered as he walked back to the carriage, 'and he says he's fetching her.'

'Is he?'

Sandman shook his head. 'Hiding her, more like. Which means we've got to look for her, but what do we do with these two?' He gestured at Mackeson.

'Shoot the buggers, then bury them,' Berrigan growled, and was rewarded by two of Mackeson's fingers. In the end they took the carriage round to the stables, where they found the stalls and feed racks empty except for a score of broody hens, but they also discovered a brick-built tack room that had a solid door and no windows and Mackeson and the stable boy were imprisoned inside while the horses were left in the yard harnessed to the carriage. 'We'll deal with them later,' Sandman declared.

'Collect some eggs later, too,' Berrigan said with a smile, for the stable yard had been given over to chickens, seemingly hundreds of them, some looking down from the roof ridge, others on the window ledges and most hunting for grain that had been scattered among the weed-strewn, dropping-white cobbles. A cockerel stared sideways at them from the mounting block, then twitched his comb and crowed lustily as Sandman led Berrigan and Sally to the back door of Cross Hall. The door was locked. Every door was locked, but the house was no fortress and Sandman found a window that was inadequately latched and shook it hard until it came open and he could climb into a small parlour with panelled walls, an empty stone fireplace and furniture shrouded in dust sheets. Berrigan followed. 'Stay outside,' Sandman said to Sally and she nodded agreement, but a moment later clambered through the window. 'There could be a fight,' Sandman warned her.

'I'm coming in,' she insisted. 'I hate bloody chickens.'

'The girl could have left the house by now,' Berrigan said.

'She could,' Sandman agreed, yet his first instinct had been that she would hide somewhere inside and he still thought the same, 'but we'll search for her anyway,' he said, and opened the door that led into a long panelled passage. The house was silent. No pictures hung on the walls and no rugs lay on the darkened floorboards that creaked underfoot. Sandman threw open doors to see dust sheets draped over what little furniture remained. A fine staircase with an elaborately carved newel post stood in the hall and Sandman glanced into the upstairs gloom as he passed, then went on towards the back of the house.

'No one lives here,' Sally said as they discovered yet more empty rooms, 'except the chickens!'

Sandman opened a door to see a long dining table draped with sheets. 'Lord Alexander tells me that his father once completely forgot about a house he owned,' he told Sally. 'It was a big house, too. It just mouldered away until they remembered they owned it.'

'A dozy lot,' Sally said scornfully.

'Are you talking about your admirer?' Berrigan asked, amused.

'You watch it, Sam Berrigan,' Sally said. 'I've only got to lift my little finger and I'll be Lady Whatsername and you'll be bowing and scraping to me.'

'I'll scrape you, girl,' Berrigan said, 'be a pleasure.'

'Children, children,' Sandman chided his companions, then turned sharply as a door opened suddenly at the end of the passage.

The tall, gaunt man with the wild white hair stood in the doorway, a cudgel in his right hand. 'The girl you're looking for,' he said, 'is not here.' He raised the cudgel half-heartedly as Sandman approached him, then let it drop and shuffled aside. Sandman pushed past him into a kitchen that had a big black range, a dresser and a long table. A woman, perhaps the gaunt man's wife, sat mixing pastry in a large china bowl at the table's head. 'Who are you?' Sandman asked the man.

'The steward here,' the man said, then nodded at the woman, 'and my wife is the housekeeper.'

'When did the girl leave?' Sandman asked.

'None of your business!' the woman snapped. 'And you've no business here, either. You're trespassing! So make yourselves scarce before they arrest you.'

Sandman noticed a fowling piece above the mantel. 'Who'll arrest me?' he asked.