The Taxidermist's Daughter

by Kate Mosse

  Jennie.

  Last night, Gifford had said that Jennie could be trusted. Then, later, that ‘not even Jennie knew’. Connie had registered the name and stored it in her memory.

  ‘What are Mary’s little sisters called?’ She asked quickly.

  ‘Maisie and Polly. Twins, though they don’t look the same.’

  ‘Not Jennie?’

  Davey looked at his boots. ‘I didn’t mean any disrespect by saying that.’

  Connie put her hand under Davey’s chin and tilted his face up.

  ‘Disrespect to whom?’

  ‘Mrs Christie,’ he said, still looking awkward. ‘Given she’s a grown-up, and everything. Calling her by her Christian name.’

  A memory of a round, comfortable-looking face looking down on her, nursing her through her illness. Not Cassie, an older woman.

  Jennie Christie?

  No, that wasn’t right. A different surname. Not Christie.

  Connie thought back to their meeting at the post office. Mrs Christie’s odd question, and how she had seemed familiar, though they’d never met before.

  *

  North Street

  Chichester

  Harry stood back and looked at the canvas.

  His hands were shaking from the repeated cups of coffee laced with whisky he’d had to keep him going through the night. His clothes, and the room, were impregnated with cigarette smoke, one lit from the tip of the one before. The only way to withstand the bleak, night-time fears for his father was to drink and smoke and to paint.

  Not think.

  He hadn’t shaved and he was still in his clothes from last night, but he had finished. She – the portrait – was beautiful. A perfect picture of Connie. He tilted his head to one side. Her hair was the right mixture of autumn browns. Had he caught her direct, clever stare? He thought so. The texture of her skin? The only fault, if he was pressed to find one, was the bird. The jackdaw’s feathers were a little too black, its eyes too dull. It didn’t matter. Connie was perfect.

  He put down the brush, wiped his hands and walked to the window.

  What if she didn’t come?

  He placed his hands on the frame and, for a moment, rested his forehead against the cold, steam-slicked glass. Rainwater was streaming down North Street, lapping at the steps of the Wheatsheaf Hotel. From time to time, a carriage went past, its wheels sending a spray up on to the pavements, like sparks from an anvil.

  Harry’s thoughts spiralled, tying his stomach in knots. Each worry drove out the one before. Trying not to despair, hoping his father would return of his own accord led him back to Connie’s father, then from Gifford back to Connie herself. The whole cycle beginning all over again.

  How could she possibly get through? How could he be so selfish as to want her to attempt it? He couldn’t expect her to venture out in weather like this, it would be madness.

  ‘Do you think it would be wise to eat something, sir?’

  Startled, Harry turned to see Lewis standing in the doorway. The old servant looked grey, as if he also hadn’t slept.

  ‘Any news, Lewis?’

  ‘No, sir.’ He paused. ‘Mrs Lewis could prepare some eggs.’

  ‘My stomach’s not up to it.’

  ‘Perhaps some dry toast and tea?’

  Harry shook his head. ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  ‘A quarter to seven, sir.’

  Harry let his head rest back against the window. So early, too early. Nearly three hours before Connie came. If she came at all.

  ‘I will ask Mrs Lewis to lay breakfast in the dining room,’ Lewis said.

  Harry was about to argue, then realised that Lewis also needed something to do to keep his worries at bay. Routine, keeping up appearances, what else could he do while they waited for news?

  ‘Thank you, Lewis,’ he said. ‘Quarter to seven, did you say?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Harry lit another cigarette and smoked it to the very end, wedged between the second and third fingers of his right hand, then went through to the dining room.

  The letter addressed to his father lay untouched on the salver on the hall table.

  Harry stopped. In normal circumstances, he wouldn’t dream of opening the old man’s private correspondence. But these weren’t normal circumstances.

  He tore open the envelope. Dated yesterday morning, it was a terse, clear request that his father should immediately be in touch. His eyes jumped to the signature at the bottom of the page. He read the name, and turned cold.

  This couldn’t be right?

  He checked the time scrawled in a rushed hand at the top of the letter. Twelve o’clock on Thursday the second of May. Before Harry had returned to Fishbourne, before his conversation in the Bull’s Head, before Sergeant Pennicott had paid his visit to Blackthorn House.

  How could this letter have been written before that?

  Harry gasped as the reality hit him. They had been seeing everything from the wrong point of view. He’d been taken in; they all had. He grabbed his hat and mackintosh.

  ‘Lewis,’ he shouted.

  He and Connie had wanted to avoid talking to Pennicott yesterday until they were sure of what they knew. Now, there was no time to lose. The policeman was honest, Harry had evidence of that. With Pennicott, right was right and wrong was wrong. He would pursue the truth, regardless of how unpalatable that truth might turn out to be.

  He pushed from his mind the question of why his father came to be receiving such a summons in the first instance.

  ‘Lewis!’

  The butler came running into the hall. ‘Is there news, sir?’

  ‘Soon, I hope,’ Harry said urgently. ‘A Miss Gifford is due to arrive at ten. I should be back long before then. But if not, ask her to please wait. She must wait.’

  Whyke Road

  Chichester

  Ten minutes later, the rain streaming off his hat and coat, Harry was standing beneath the blue light of the modest police house off St Pancras.

  ‘Pennicott?’ he yelled, out of breath from running across town. He banged on the door again, not caring who he disturbed.

  The policeman answered the door in his shirt sleeves. ‘Mr Woolston?’

  ‘Sergeant, we weren’t completely frank with you yesterday.’

  Pennicott wiped the last of the shaving soap from his chin, then flicked the flannel over his shoulder.

  ‘Who might “we” be, sir?’

  ‘Miss Gifford and I. We . . .’

  Harry stopped, not sure where to begin. Connie was protective of her father, mindful of his poor reputation. He felt Pennicott’s cool, appraising eyes on him, but he could see there was sympathy, too.

  ‘I was at Blackthorn House yesterday afternoon when you called. Miss Gifford told me of your conversation, and I think . . .’ He stopped again. If he confided in Pennicott now, there would be no going back. He looked at the policeman’s honest face. ‘There are things we need to tell you.’

  Pennicott peered out into the rain-drenched street. ‘Is Miss Gifford with you?’

  ‘Not yet. She and I arranged to meet at ten. It’s just . . .’ He thrust the letter at Pennicott. ‘When I saw from whom this had come, I had to come at once. Don’t you see? He can’t have known. When he wrote this letter to my father, he can’t have known. Not unless he was responsible.’

  Pennicott scanned the letter, saw the signature at the foot of the page, then stood back.

  ‘You had better come in, Mr Woolston.’

  Chapter 41

  Mill Lane

  Fishbourne

  Connie walked as fast as she dared, her boots sliding in the mud. Despite what she’d said to Davey, she couldn’t remember conditions as terrible as this. Water was lapping over the first of the bridges across the creek. It was impossible to know if it was the sheer volume of fresh water making its way from the chalk Downs to the sea, or the powerful tides forcing salt water up and over the land.

  The stream where Vera’s body
had been found was now a river, swollen by the overnight rain and the surge of the neap tide. Only the tops of the reedmace were visible; the rest was hidden beneath the angry surface of the sea. With each pulse of the current, more of the brackish, swirling water came up over the banks and on to the grass.

  The wooden handrail on the second of the bridges was slippery, green beneath her glove, and Connie almost fell, but she held firm and carefully made her way over. The third bridge was covered by leaves and broken branches.

  Water was roaring through the sluice gate by Fishbourne Mill. The driveway to Salt Mill House was already under an inch of water. It wouldn’t take much for Slay Lodge to flood too. She looked at Pendrills, where yesterday she had seen the magpies. Today, the roof was empty. The birds had taken shelter.

  For the third time, Connie stopped and looked back in the direction she’d come. Should she turn back? If Blackthorn House was cut off, what would happen to Gifford in his fragile condition? Then she strengthened her resolve once more. She hoped she could trust Davey. She wasn’t going to be long, after all. This was her only chance, before the next high tide.

  She peered through the mist and rain and thought of Harry, waiting for her. She had to tell him what she had found out.

  Slay Lodge

  Fishbourne

  From an upstairs window in Slay Lodge, Charles Crowther caught a glimpse of Connie Gifford’s back, before she turned the corner on to the main road and disappeared from view.

  He was worried about the young woman. She was carrying a great deal on her shoulders, and he wondered what could possibly have brought her out in such dreadful conditions. News about her father?

  Crowther went quickly downstairs and followed her out into Mill Lane, holding his mackintosh over his bare head.

  ‘Miss Gifford,’ he shouted, but his voice was lost in the cracking of the wind.

  West Street

  Chichester

  The bells of the cathedral were striking eight as Sutton fumbled with the keys, struggling to open the front door. Rain dripped down the inside of his collar, and his fingers were cold and stiff.

  He stumbled into the entrance hall. He stamped his feet on the mat, turned his umbrella into West Street before propping it open to dry. The same familiar sinking feeling came over him at the thought of another day’s work. Being shouted at, menaced, pushed and prodded, made to feel foolish.

  Hanging his sodden coat on the hat stand, hoping it wouldn’t drip too badly – Mr Brook wouldn’t take kindly to that – he picked up a crumpled ball of waste paper from the floor. He wondered how he’d missed it when he’d gone home last evening.

  He opened the glass doors and walked into the vestibule. He wrinkled his nose, detecting whisky and cigar smoke, and his heart sank further. The smell, held in the damp air, gave away the fact that Mr Brook had returned to the office from Goodwood. Sutton had left at his usual time, not a minute before, but Brook nonetheless would have been furious to find the office unattended.

  Sutton sighed. The best he could hope for was that Harold Woolston took it upon himself to turn up today. If he did, having been absent for two days without permission, then Mr Brook might take his anger out on Woolston instead and leave his clerk alone.

  He dropped the screwed-up letter in the rubbish bin, got out the appointments diary and ledger and arranged his pen, ink and pencils. Whatever time Mr Brook did arrive, he wanted to be ready and waiting.

  Main Road

  Fishbourne

  ‘I don’t need you to come with me, Ma,’ Mary argued. ‘I only nipped back to let you know I was all right. What will Miss Gifford think if I turn up with my mother in tow? It makes me look half-witted.’

  ‘No it doesn’t,’ Mrs Christie said. ‘And if even part of what you tell me happened last night is true, then Miss Gifford will be glad to see me. I should have gone yesterday, but I let myself be talked out of it.’ She shrugged her arms into her coat. ‘As for him, someone’s got to take him in hand.’

  ‘Him?’ Mary stared at her mother in disbelief. ‘But you don’t hold with Mr Gifford. Neither use nor ornament, that’s what you said.’

  ‘And I’m sure it’s not right for me to turn my back on a fellow Christian in time of need,’ she said tartly, adjusting her hat in the mirror. ‘Well, are you coming, or am I to go on my own?’

  ‘What about the twins?’ Mary said, making a last-ditch attempt to stop her. ‘You can’t leave them on their own.’

  ‘Kate Boys is going to mind them.’ Mrs Christie pushed a hatpin through her hair. ‘There. Now, are you ready?’

  ‘Ready,’ Mary conceded defeat.

  The truth of the matter was, for all her complaining, she was glad of her mother’s company. After the events of last night, Mary was nervous about what else might have happened at Blackthorn House in the hours she’d been gone, and what she might find when she returned.

  Chapter 42

  South Street

  Chichester

  Connie rushed out of Chichester railway station.

  Because of the atrocious weather, there were only a couple of hansom cabs waiting at the Dunnaways rank. The horses were restless, jittery in the wind.

  ‘Taxi, miss?’

  ‘Reasonable rate,’ said the next. ‘Anywhere you want to go. Save your boots.’

  Connie shook her head. ‘I’m not going far.’

  Only nine o’clock, but there was already a handful of men outside the Globe Inn, huddled tight against the wall, sheltering from the squall. It seemed quiet, though every week in the local newspaper a list was published of men up before the bench for brawling and bound over to keep the peace. If Davey was right, this was where Gregory Joseph had got caught up in the fight that had seen him sent to prison. Defending a lady, Davey had added with a touch of admiration. Got sent away for three months all the same.

  Connie hurried by, ignoring the mumbled compliments or insults – they sounded the same – and up into South Street. Past the Regnum Club and the main post office, the tobacconist and fishmonger. All familiar landmarks but she barely noticed them.

  A flower seller and Joe Faro, nursing his pie oven, sheltered from the rain under the Market Cross. One or two black-suited juniors from Chichester businesses – law firms, doctors, property managers – who met each morning under the clock to exchange letters by hand. She knew Sergeant Pennicott often stationed himself there, hoping to pick up gossip.

  Not today.

  She glanced up at the clock and saw she was early, though she didn’t think Harry would mind. And the sooner they talked and decided what to do for the best, the sooner Connie could be on her way back to Fishbourne and her father. Away from Blackthorn House, her sense of foreboding had grown stronger. More than ever, she regretted not seeing last night’s conversation through to its conclusion. But her father had been so confused and exhausted, she couldn’t possibly have bullied him.

  She arrived at the Georgian house at the top of North Street. She was cold and very wet, yet she felt her pulse accelerate.

  A tall, grey-haired servant answered the door and stood back to let her step under the porch and out of the rain. He looked worn, tired.

  ‘I’m Constantia Gifford,’ she said. ‘Could you tell Mr Woolston I am here.’

  ‘He is expecting you, miss,’ he said. ‘Mr Woolston has gone out, but asked if you might wait.’

  Connie looked back down the street. ‘I don’t suppose you know where he has gone . . .’ She broke off. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Lewis, miss. Mr Woolston didn’t say. Only that he would be back soon.’

  It obviously made sense to wait. They had an arrangement for ten o’clock. Of course, Harry would keep to it. Perhaps he’d decided to go to Graylingwell to see what he could find out.

  ‘Has there been any news, Lewis? About Dr Woolston?’

  She saw the old servant’s expression waver. ‘No, miss, I regret to say there has not.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear
that.’

  Connie looked down at the rain running off her coat on to the floor and, suddenly, was overcome with fatigue. The succession of revelations, her recovered memories, the lack of sleep – she felt it had stripped every bit of flesh from her bones. She was completely exhausted.

  The butler gestured to the drawing room. ‘If you would like to make yourself at home, Miss Gifford, I could bring you a tray of coffee?’

  She pulled herself together. She couldn’t allow her resolve to fail now.

  ‘Thank you, Lewis,’ she said, handing him her hat and coat. ‘I will wait.’

  Blackthorn House

  Fishbourne Marshes

  Gifford was turning his bedroom inside out. Checking everything, his hands pulling at his bed sheets, shaking out every book, searching the pockets of his clothes in the wardrobe.

  Someone – Connie most likely – had tidied the room, he could see that. All the bottles had gone and the ashtrays emptied. But she wouldn’t have taken the letter, would she? He stamped from one side of the room to the other. Despite his ordeal, he was steady on his feet. The letter had to be somewhere. He needed to check exactly what it said. The postmark and the address, all the details he’d barely registered before.

  He forced himself to stand still. For a moment, all he heard was the howling of the wind down the chimney. It was so dark, though it was past nine o’clock in the morning. He checked his trouser pockets again, trying to piece together the sequence of events.

  Where had he put it?

  The letter from the asylum had arrived in April. A Wednesday. Was that right? Who had brought it? He couldn’t recall that either. Only that from the second he had read the words on the page, he’d felt as if his chest had been sliced open and his heart torn out.

  Then what? Drinking. Attempting to drown his grief, a grief he could share with no one. Not even his daughter.

  Gifford paused. Jennie would have understood. For a moment, he allowed himself to remember the woman of whom he’d been so fond, then he shook his head and continued to search.