by Alis Hawkins
‘You heard nothing else?’ Harry asked.
‘Only some bumps.’ He hesitated. ‘Must’ve been Nan and Ruth jumping down. The ladder’d gone, they had to come down without it.’
I imagined the two girls sitting on the edge of the loft, nerving themselves for the seven- or eight-foot fall. Or had they turned around and lowered themselves down on their arms for a shorter drop? That’s what boys would’ve done. But boys have stronger shoulders than girls.
Bumps when they hit the flagstones. Had there been a third when one of them banged Nicholas Rowland’s head on the floor, like Reckitt had said?
‘How many bumps?’ I asked. ‘Two, three, four?’
He shook his head, not looking at me. ‘I don’t know. Just bumps.’
To be fair, he probably hadn’t been in a fit state to count. ‘When did you look up again?’
Billy looked to his father, as if he wanted to ask why he wasn’t protecting him from questions he didn’t want to answer, when they could go home. ‘Go on, son,’ Morgan Walters said. ‘Answer Mr Davies.’
The boy swallowed, hard. ‘I didn’t hear anything for a long time. When I looked up, they were both kneeling over him.’
‘What were they doing?’
‘I don’t know. They had their backs to me.’
Had they been just trying to help Rowland? Or, as Reckitt had suspected all along, had they been making sure he was good and dead?
Harry
No sooner had I released Billy to his father than John was at my side. ‘Harry, we need to go now. Minnever’s going to be going spare. He sent me here half an hour ago to tell you that the Tories are putting up another candidate.’
It was an effort to fix my thoughts on the election rather than on what we had just heard but, once I was able to concentrate, I realised that the Tories’ decision was hardly surprising. With Caldicot having disappeared, it was the obvious course. Nevertheless, it was a risky strategy. The moment when candidates were nominated couldn’t be more than an hour away.
I wondered if the Tory contingent was aware that Caldicot had re-surfaced, that he was here in Lampeter.
John grabbed my arm. ‘Harry! Now!’
‘We can’t just let Nan and Ruth go. I’ll need to talk to them.’
I turned my attention towards the ladies who were in audible discussion with Morgan Walters. ‘I’m sorry Mr Walters but I can’t allow you to take your daughter home just yet. Miss Gwatkyn, Miss Howell, would you be so good as to take Miss Walters and Miss Eynon to the Black Lion, please? There is evidently more that we need to discuss but I must attend to the election first.’
As Miss Gwatkyn addressed the girls, I drew Lydia aside. ‘Use one of the rooms we’ve taken and, if you wouldn’t mind, please stay with them. I don’t want them conferring. I’ll come and speak to them as soon as I may.’
The words were barely out of my mouth before John began to hustle me from the room but, as we left the building, he suddenly stopped at the top of the steps.
‘Caldicot’s not going towards the hustings. He’s leaving.’
I could tell from his voice that he felt uneasy. He turned back to me. ‘He knew about the erotic literature. Was involved, even—’
‘Yes, he must’ve been Rowland’s scribe at the very least—’
‘No. That was the girls.’
‘What? No, that’s—’
‘Harry, trust me. I’ve read the books. It was them.’
I felt everything shift, like the image in a kaleidoscope when the barrel is turned.
‘I’ll go after him,’ John said. ‘You go on to Minnever. He’s down by the election platform.’
With that, he left and I stepped out into the street to join the general flow of people towards the square, my mind scrambling to see the new picture John’s words had created. If Nan and Ruth had been complicit with Rowland in producing the kind of book sold in Holywell Street, surely Billy’s story was more likely to be true? If his sister and Ruth Eynon had stepped so far beyond what any right-thinking person—
I pulled myself up, disconcerted by my own thoughts. Writing pornography might be scandalous – might be seen, even in free-thinking circles, as decadent, if not exactly as degenerate – but it was not illegal. And being a party to it did not inevitably lead to pushing a man out of his own loft or banging his head on the flagstones of his own schoolroom until he was dead.
Snatches of conversation intruded on my thoughts and I looked about me. Minnever’s cohorts had exerted themselves to great effect. Blue rosettes were being sported by a significant number of my fellow-pedestrians and I was passed by a cart swathed in blue and carrying a dozen or more Liberal supporters in high spirits.
But the election could not hold my thoughts. I needed at least half my attention for not tripping over or bumping into people and the other half was fixed on what I had just learned. If Nan and Ruth’s collaboration with Rowland had become common knowledge, their reputations would have been ruined and any chance of them remaining as teachers forfeit. Which meant that Ruth must have been desperate not to be married to Shoni Goch if she had truly been prepared to make good on her threat to tell the whole parish that not only had Rowland been a purveyor of pornography but that he had coerced them into helping him.
In my mind’s eye, I saw the scene Billy had described. Ruth pleading, threatening. Rowland laughing, dismissing her.
It sounded as if his face was up against hers like this, Billy had said. You wanted to do it, Ruth Eynon, he said. You know you wanted to.
Abruptly, in another turn of the kaleidoscope, the dayroom in Cardigan gaol appeared in my mind. Her father’d told me she wanted me, Shoni Goch had said. But, when he had put that suggestion to Ruth in so many words, she had screamed at him like a banshee and issued blood-chilling threats.
Rowland had accused Ruth of wanting to write pornography with him and, a few seconds later, Billy had heard a scream and Rowland had fallen from the loft after what seemed to have been a scuffle. Was it the injustice of his accusation that had led Ruth to turn on him, too, or simply the way he had phrased it?
You wanted to do it. Had those words been Nicholas Rowland’s death warrant?
Minnever saw me as I pushed my way clumsily through the crowds that were steadily packing the square around the stage.
‘Harry!’ He took me by the arm to steady me. ‘Finally!’
‘What’s this about the Tories putting up another candidate?’ I almost had to shout over the general din. ‘Caldicot’s here. In Lampeter. He was at the will reading.’
‘What?’ Minnever stopped in his tracks. ‘Where is he now?’
‘Last seen walking up the Tregaron Road. John’s gone after him.’
‘The Tories are billeted on that road. If Caldicot’s going to talk to them, we need to be there, too. We can’t let them nominate him.’ And he set off again, my arm still in his grasp.
‘Who is this new candidate?’ I said, as we fought our way clear of a group of newcomers jostling their way nearer to the stage.
‘One of the election committee. Old buffer by the name of Verwick. Has a house in the county but spends most of his time in London. Ridiculous choice. The Tories are panicking.’
‘Then shouldn’t we just let them?’
‘If Caldicot’s not headed to parley with the party now.’ Minnever elbowed his way through a thicket of young men already audibly the worse for drink. ‘We run the risk of a public confrontation if he turns up on the stage and demands to be reinstated. We both know that he can’t stand. But there’d be a riot if people thought we’d nobbled him in front of the whole town. We’ve got to tell the Tories what we know now. Stop Caldicot getting anywhere near the nomination.’
Two minutes later, we were being shown into the drawing room of a substantial, stuccoed house.
‘Crowther!’ Minnever marched up to the Tory agent. ‘Ten minutes ago, Montague Caldicot was seen in Lampeter, fit and well. What the devil is going on?’
In the ensuing confusion of questions and bluster, it became clear that George Verwick had allowed his name to be put forward by the town’s Tory supporters but had not yet been formally adopted as the new candidate. The committee’s preference was that Caldicot remain as their nominee and they were, naturally, encouraged by the news that he had reappeared.
Minnever drew the Tory agent aside. ‘Is there somewhere we can speak in private?’
Crowther led us to a small but well-furnished study. The fire was lit and the smell that hung in the warm air suggested the frequent smoking of cigars. Crowther ignored both armchairs and sofa and we all remained standing.
‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Say your piece, Minnever.’
As far as I could tell, Minnever was not remotely intimidated by this de haut en bas manner. ‘Are you aware of the reason for Montague Caldicot’s departure from the army?’ he asked.
‘He wanted a more settled life. He’s relatively recently married and the army’s not conducive to domestic harmony.’
‘So goes the fig-leaf. But do you know what hangs behind it?’
Did Crowther glance at me? Did he glare at Minnever, defying him to breathe a single scandalous word? Or did he know that the game was up?
He took a step backwards and perched on the desk behind him. ‘You’re obviously under the impression that you do.’
‘I do. And I want to know whether you put him up for election despite knowing, or whether you were sold a pup.’
Crowther rose to his feet again. ‘Now, look here, Minnever—’
‘Spare me the display of Tory rectitude! Did you or did you not know that Montague Caldicot failed to report a capital crime to his commanding officer? And that his failure to do so allowed the perpetrators to desert from their regiment?’
Sometimes, in the wake of a gunshot, there is a silence so complete that the explosion seems to have obliterated all ambient sound. Minnever’s words produced the same effect.
When Crowther finally found his voice he did not prevaricate. ‘No,’ he said, carefully, ‘as it happens, I was not aware.’ He hesitated. ‘What was the crime?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘It might.’
The two men were standing far enough apart for me to be able to keep both in the extremities of my peripheral vision. While Crowther now stood unnaturally still, as if any movement might grant us some advantage over him, Minnever was characteristically twitchy, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back. ‘Buggery,’ he said, after a few moments.
Crowther made no response and, if his demeanour betrayed any emotion, the change was so slight as to be invisible to me.
‘The point being,’ Minnever went on, ‘if I can come by this knowledge, so can anybody.’
‘Meaning you’ll make it public?’
‘Meaning that it shouldn’t have come to this! With that sitting in his recent past like a turd on a drawing-room carpet, he shouldn’t even be contemplating public office!’
‘But he is. So I’ll ask you again. Will you make it public if he is nominated as our candidate?’
‘I think the wisest course of action is to withdraw. As I say, if I can discover the truth, so can anybody. And it would be very embarrassing for your party if that happened. Especially as Caldicot has made so much of knowing his duty.’
Crowther sighed but anything he might have said was interrupted by a knock, followed, without invitation, by the appearance of a head and shoulders in the half-opened doorway. ‘Crowther, time’s marching on. We need a decision.’
John
As I hurried along the street after Montague Caldicot, a group of young people flaunting blue rosettes and ribbons tried to turn me around and take me with them. ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ they laughed. ‘The election’s this way!’
I ignored them, pushed their hands away. ‘Mr Caldicot!’
I’d expected him to pretend not to hear me. But he stopped and turned. ‘Mr Davies.’ He looked me up and down as if I was on the parade ground and didn’t quite pass muster. ‘How was your visit to London?’
That surprised me. How did he know? ‘Enlightening, thank you.’
He eyeballed me as if I couldn’t possibly have discovered anything that would trouble him.
‘Nicholas Rowland and those assistant teachers of his were writing erotic fiction,’ I said. ‘But you already know that. Because you fetched and carried for him.’
Caldicot didn’t look away but something in his eyes changed. He waited to hear what I’d say next.
‘As they were keen to tell me,’ I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder at the blue-ribboned crowd who were calling out to bystanders to come along with them, ‘the hustings are that way.’
‘Which is why I’m going the other way.’
‘Have you told them you’re withdrawing?’ I asked. ‘The Tories?’
There was a flash of the soldier then, a flash of How dare you, private? And then it was gone. He shook his head as if it didn’t matter.
‘Until today,’ I said, ‘I thought you’d killed him. Rowland. I’m sorry.’
Why had I said that? I wasn’t usually one to fill a silence with babble. But Caldicot’s silence was more than just a lack of words. It was as if something had gone out inside him.
‘Those girls,’ he said, eventually. ‘They’ll claim he corrupted them. But the books were their idea. When support for his school began to fall away.’ Montague Caldicot seemed to be looking through me, now. ‘They enjoyed it. Making Nicholas say the words. Humiliating him. They enjoyed the transgression.’ He drew out the last word, as if Nan Walters and Ruth Eynon were some kind of wonder to him.
‘This’ll be enough for Harry to re-open the inquest—’
‘Nicholas Rowland is dead! What difference will it make?’
‘Shoni Goch isn’t dead. Would you let him hang?’
‘Tell Probert-Lloyd to go to the police.’ He turned to walk away.
‘D’you know what Harry did at the meeting in Newcastle Emlyn?’ I asked. ‘One of the grooms at Glanteifi told me all about it. He praised you. Made excuses for you not being there. Said he was sure you had good reason. Said he’d learned things from you. Things he’d have to bear in mind if he became coroner.’
Caldicot looked away, a look on his face as if what I’d said had caused him actual pain. Behind him, I could see a crowd of people coming down the street – a whole village-worth, it looked like, having a day out at the election. They’d be on us in a minute and Caldicot might easily use the bustling about to escape.
‘We all know what this contest is really about,’ I said. ‘Next year’s election. If you stand in front of people and tell them that … tell them that you don’t want politics to be involved with things it shouldn’t concern itself with, that Harry’s obviously the better candidate for coroner—’
‘Is he? Despite his antipathy towards the magistrates and the police?’
‘Yes, he is. You know he is. He risked losing this election because he was so determined to find out the truth about Rowland’s death. He sent me to London at his own expense—’ I cut myself off. Harry wouldn’t thank me for advertising Glanteifi’s financial state. ‘I truly believe that, if he’s elected, he’ll try and work with the magistrates and the police force. He knows he can’t go on the way he has. But he’s not going to roll over and just do whatever they say. They’re going to have to reckon with him and his tenacity.’ Desperate as I was to convince him, I was pleased with tenacity. So much better than stubbornness. ‘Harry cares about people. About the truth. About what’s said of the dead.’
I waited for a response but Caldicot just stared at me.
I took Harry’s watch from my pocket. ‘It’s five minutes to midday. We’re running out of time.’
The younger villagers at the front of the crowd broke into a trot. One of them must’ve had a watch as well.
‘I had a subaltern like you, once,’ Caldicot said, looking me right in the eye. ‘Smart as a wh
ip. Wasted in the army.’
‘I was wasted as a solicitor’s clerk. But not as assistant coroner.’
Montague Caldicot stared at me for a few seconds longer. Then he nodded.
Harry
Once we’d left Crowther’s house, instead of marching towards the waiting crowds as I had expected, Minnever stopped and took a flask from his pocket.
‘Snifter?’
I took it from him and swallowed a single mouthful. On an empty stomach it would have an immediate effect and I did not want to appear drunk on the election platform.
‘What do you think they’ll do?’ I asked, returning the flask.
Minnever drank no more deeply than I, then slipped the flask back into his pocket. ‘They can’t put Caldicot up. Not now. It’s just a question of whether they decide to do the sensible thing and let you go forward uncontested.’ He took my elbow. ‘Come on. Let’s bear ourselves in a calm and collected manner. It’ll contrast nicely with the Tories’ hectic disarray.’
