The Heiress of Linn Hagh (The Detective Lavender Mysteries Book 1)

by Karen Charlton

  As soon as Lavender and Isobel Carnaby had disappeared, Woods spun round to Anna.

  She had already pulled the laundry list out of her bodice.

  ‘Good gal.’ Woods grinned. ‘Let’s just check and see that nothing has been taken in the weeks since her disappearance, shall we?’ He pulled open the doors of the closet and the crushed material of her gowns splayed out and swayed in the draft. Anna held up the list and began to check off the dresses with her finger.

  ‘I don’t know how you and that detective gadgie think she gets in and out of her bedchamber unseen,’ she grumbled. ‘I can tell you . . .’

  She stopped and frowned—glanced at the closet—and then back at the list.

  ‘Is something missing?’ Woods asked hopefully.

  Anna’s frown deepened.

  ‘There’s two dresses gone.’

  ‘Ah.’ Woods sighed with relief. This was more evidence that Helen Carnaby was still alive—and somewhere nearby.

  ‘What about the linen?’ he asked. ‘Undergarments and so forth.’

  Anna moved towards the dresser and opened the top drawers. A few moments later, she glanced up.

  ‘Her two best sets are missin’ .’

  Woods nodded and smiled.

  ‘Unfortunately, I think I may know where they are,’ she said. ‘You’re not goin’ to like this.’

  ‘Oh?’ His face fell.

  ‘Follow me.’

  She led him down the stone staircase back into the Great Hall. There was still no sign of Miss Isobel or Detective Lavender. Anna moved swiftly across the flagged floor towards the bedchamber at the back of the hall. She entered the middle room, and Woods realised at once that she had taken him into Isobel Carnaby’s bedchamber. The dressing table was scattered with hairpins and powders; a heavy scent hung in the air. Woods compared the richness of the furnishings, bed hangings and ornamentation of this room with the spartan little garret of Miss Helen, upstairs. Anna threw open the doors of Miss Isobel’s dark mahogany closet, sighed and pointed to two gowns hanging there.

  ‘That’s them,’ she said. ‘Miss Isobel’s takin’ Miss Helen’s clothes again.’

  Woods swallowed his disappointment.

  ‘What about the undergarments?’

  Anna opened a drawer and nodded. ‘They’re here.’

  He glanced down at the delicate lace chemise that lay across the top of the drawer and fingered the ribbon laced through it. Something silver caught his eye at the bottom of the drawer.

  ‘We had better get back,’ Anna warned.

  Woods pulled aside the clothing and found a small tin snuffbox. He smiled.

  ‘Does Miss Isobel take snuff ?’

  ‘No, that’s where she keeps some of the seasonin’ .’ She was becoming nervous; her eyes kept straying towards the open door.

  ‘Seasoning?’

  Woods flipped open the lid of the snuffbox and sniffed the crushed, pale green vegetable matter in the small box.

  ‘Yes, sage and such like.’

  It smelt like finely chopped sage. He dipped his finger into the seasoning and licked it. Yes. Sage.

  ‘We should go.’

  He went to replace the tin snuffbox in the drawer but at the last moment hesitated and slipped it into his coat pocket. Anna was too distracted to notice.

  ‘Quick! Someone’s comin’ .’

  They left the bedroom, closed the door and reached the centre of the room just as Lavender and Isobel Carnaby entered the Great Hall. She collapsed into one of the faded chairs in front of the fireplace, her face puckered with anguish.

  ‘Fetch your mistress a glass of brandy,’ Lavender instructed Anna. ‘I think she has had a shock. Would you like a fire lit in the hearth, Miss Carnaby?’

  Isobel shook her head about the fire and apologised to the detective for making such a fuss. When the brandy arrived, she drank deeply.

  ‘I’m sorry, Detective,’ she said again. ‘It’s just so upsetting to think that Helen has been defying my instructions over yet another housekeeping issue.’

  ‘I can understand it must have been difficult for you all to adjust since her return—’

  ‘Very much so!’ Isobel Carnaby interrupted. ‘Yet who would see it from my point of view? Helen was like a stranger when she returned last February. She was unused to our ways and unaware of the pecuniary problems we’ve faced since our father’s mine closed. She has been cosseted since she was a child—and safe in the knowledge that one day she would be a very wealthy young woman. My pleas for economy and frugality in the household just fell on deaf ears.’ She drained her glass and sighed heavily.

  Lavender nodded sympathetically and held out the brandy decanter towards her. ‘Another brandy, Miss Carnaby? I think the circumstances decree it might be acceptable.’

  ‘You’re very kind, Detective.’

  Woods grimaced inwardly as he watched Lavender fill Miss Carnaby’s glass with more of the fiery amber liquid. The old tabby can certainly put it away, he noted. Both of them were acting out a part: Lavender was the embodiment of calm, reassuring solace; Isobel Carnaby, the distraught little housekeeper, was nearly hysterical over a couple of missing candles. Lavender’s concern was no more genuine than the sly-eyed woman’s distress. Fascinated, Woods watched the charade unfold before his eyes.

  ‘It’s often the difficulty with second families,’ Lavender agreed. ‘And younger children always tend to be spoilt.’

  ‘You’re so understanding, Detective.’

  ‘Do you have any family portraits, Miss Carnaby?’

  ‘Not of Helen,’ she snapped.

  ‘No, I meant of yourself—your brothers and your parents.’

  She rose and smoothed down the creases in her bombazine dress with one hand, while the other still clutched the brandy glass. She led them to one of the few remaining oil paintings in the room.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure how it will help you in your search for Helen, but that was painted when we were very young. Happier times.’

  Woods and Lavender glanced up at the dark painting in the soot-blackened frame. Baxter Carnaby, clean-shaven and thin-faced beneath his tightly curled wig, stood stiffly behind his family, who were seated on a rose-coloured chaise longue. He looked like a severe and worried man. Woods had the impression that Carnaby’s vivid blue eyes were glaring down specifically at him. Behind the family, the unmistakable, deep-set mullioned windows of Linn Hagh peered out over the grounds of the pele tower—grounds that looked like they had been tended far better then than they were now.

  Reluctantly, Woods shifted his gaze to the dark-haired, bright-eyed woman who smiled and gazed boldly out of the canvas. The mad first wife: Martha. Woods stared into the dark pools of her eyes and searched for signs of the insanity that he knew would soon overtake her. He could see none. Beside Martha Carnaby, a small boy in a miniature version of his father’s jacket, waistcoat, breeches and stockings stood bashfully at the end of the sofa. He clutched a wooden sword. Another child, perhaps three years old and enveloped in the short shift and tumbling curls of the nursery, stood by her knee. A baby of indeterminate gender lay swaddled in lacy blankets in Martha Carnaby’s arms.

  ‘Delightful,’ Lavender said. ‘A lovely reminder of happier times. Is this you, Master George and Master Matthew in the portrait?’

  Whether it was the strong drink, or her mask of deceit slipping, Woods could not tell, but Isobel Carnaby’s eyes suddenly slid away from Lavender’s gaze.

  Yes, she confirmed. Those were her two brothers in the portrait.

  Woods could have sworn he saw the corner of her thin mouth twitch in a slight smile.

  ‘It’s always sad for young children when they lose their mother,’ Lavender continued. ‘I can only hope that your stepmother treated you kindly?’

  Isobel Carnaby shrugged her shoulders.
<
br />   ‘She always favoured her own daughter.’

  ‘Tell me, do you ever visit her grave?’

  ‘No, not recently. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No particular reason,’ Lavender lied. ‘I just noted on Sunday that Esther Carnaby’s grave was very overgrown compared to the careful tending you obviously give to the grave of your own parents.’

  The mistress of Linn Hagh snorted and bristled with self-righteousness. ‘Huh! Typical! Helen can’t even tend her own mother’s grave properly!’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The gypsy encampment near to Linn Hagh had clearly been established a long time. Lavender’s eyes flitted quickly across the traditional tents that crept across the muddy ground like ragged, gaudy caterpillars. Most were ranged in a rough half-circle with their backs to Hareshaw Woods. The faded blankets and felts laid over the arched hazel rods of the tents were damp and torn. He could smell the rot and decay. A few small carts rested on wheels that had sunk deep into the muddy ground. One had lost a wheel entirely; its back corner balanced on a cairn of large rocks. Cluttered and littered with debris and abandoned articles, the camp sprawled across the field. There was a rough-hewn stone pigsty, a privy, and some sort of meetinghouse, which leant precariously to one side.

  A series of large, circular and smoking hearth fires blazed in the centre of the arc formed by the tents. Gaunt, dark-skinned women stirred food in charred pots hung over these fires and glared suspiciously at the two men as they approached. Black-coated and sloe-eyed, the women looked dirty and hungry. Other women lounged on small stools at the entrance to the tents. They paused with half-made reed baskets in their laps and stared sullenly at the two Londoners.

  A crowd of curious, ragged children raced over, holding out their filthy hands and begging for coins in a gabbled, breathless mixture of English and Romany.

  ‘Spare a copper, mister.’

  ‘Gi’ us a groat!’

  Lavender smiled but kept his hands still and firmly placed over the pockets in his greatcoat. Woods did the same. Lavender’s eyes scanned the encampment, looking for a man who might answer the description he had been given back in Bellingham of Paul Faa Geddes, their leader.

  An elderly man climbed stiffly from his seat by the fireside; a piece of tin and a pair of hand snips hung limply from his cold, arthritic fingers. By his feet lay sheets of metal, ornamental cake stands and plain pastry cutters. Another younger man rose quietly, picked up a dead goose and disappeared inside one of the tents. For a brief moment, Lavender wondered if the elderly man was the leader of the faws, but then a crowd of six swarthy gypsy men came out of a wooden meetinghouse at the edge of the camp.

  Now Lavender realised who was in charge. Paul Faa Geddes had the same swarthy complexion, high cheekbones and penetrating dark eyes of his kinsmen, but he stood half a head taller, and a vicious scowl etched his scarred and leathered face. He was broader than the other men. His long black hair fell down from beneath the brim of his hat and draped around his shoulders. A silver ring dangled from one ear.

  ‘Whadd’ya want?’

  ‘Paul Faa Geddes? I’m Detective Stephen Lavender from London. I’m investigating the disappearance of Miss Helen Carnaby.’

  ‘Aye, we’ve seen ya comin’ and goin’ from the tower.’ He had the same unusual accent used by the girl they had met earlier in the wood.

  ‘We’re working for Mr John Armstrong of Bellingham—Miss Carnaby’s uncle. We’re not working for her brother.’

  A faint shadow of amusement flitted across the brawny gypsy’s face. ‘It don’t mek no diff’rence to me who you’re werkin’ for.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Lavender said crisply. ‘I don’t want to disturb any one. I would like to speak to your daughter, Laurel Faa Geddes.’

  The swarthy tinker spat contemplatively onto the ground. ‘She ain’t my daughter.’

  ‘I need to speak to her.’

  ‘Well, you can’t—she ain’t here.’

  Lavender paused. The gypsy glared at him arrogantly.

  ‘I’m concerned about the safety of Miss Carnaby. I need to find her as soon as possible. I believe that Miss Geddes can help me.’

  ‘Miss Geddes?’ one of the other gypsy men queried. ‘Be that our Laurel he’s tokkin aboot?’ A snicker of amusement rippled around the group.

  Paul Geddes lifted his hand for silence.

  ‘You mean well—but you know nowt,’ he said. Then he turned his back, walked away. The interview was over.

  Lavender became suddenly conscious of an angry hissing and muttering to his right. An elderly woman glowered at him and Woods from the nearest stone hearth while she chanted. The language was Romany, the words indecipherable, but the intention was clear; she was cursing them.

  A fair amount of daylight remained, so Lavender decided that they would return to Bellingham through Hareshaw Woods. He told Woods he hoped to catch another glimpse of the Geddes girl. They paused for a while at the top of Hareshaw Linn and watched the water thundering down onto the slimy, fossil-strewn rocks below.

  Woods shivered. There was something unnatural about this desolate forest. The overhanging sandstone cliff face dripped dampness and misery onto them as they passed beneath it. The tangled briars of the undergrowth sliced into the flesh of their legs like glass wire. Felled trees took on the shape of prehistoric monsters when glimpsed out of the corner of his eye—and always, always he had the sensation of sharp eyes boring into his back like a pair of daggers.

  Dusk fell rapidly as they wound their way back to the town. Candles glimmered softly in the windows of the houses, and the smell of roasting meat and coal fires drifted in the air around them.

  Woods sighed with relief when he felt and heard the hard cobbles of Bellingham beneath his boots. His legs ached, and he had to drag himself through the last few streets to the tavern. Even the welcoming warmth of The Rose and Crown did little to cheer him. It was as if Hareshaw Woods had sucked the soul out of him.

  Back in the comfortable taproom, Lavender ordered their supper and tried to engage him in a conversation about Isobel Carnaby, Linn Hagh and the faws, but Woods struggled to concentrate. Lavender’s voice drifted in and out.

  ‘What did you notice about that family portrait of the Carnabys?’ Lavender asked.

  ‘They were a funny-lookin’ set of nippers,’ Woods commented moodily. He fought back a sickening wave of dizziness, which threatened to swamp him. ‘Isobel Carnaby looked more like a lad when she were a toddler.’

  ‘She’s not the most delicate or feminine-looking woman in England, is she?’ Lavender grinned. ‘She’s as flat as a cake board and almost as angular as one.’

  ‘I know it’s hard to tell with those fussy pantaloons they made little uns wear in those days, but I thought at first Miss Isobel was a lad.’

  Lavender eyed him curiously.

  ‘Mmm, a rather indifferent portrait painter, I suspect. I also noticed that the artist had given the oldest child—George Carnaby—the same blue eyes as his father. This was wrong of course—George Carnaby has the dull mud-brown eyes of his mother and sister. Ned, are you feeling alright?’

  ‘No.’

  Woods staggered to his feet. The nausea made him sway. His upper body, his stomach, his gullet and his mouth burned like they were on fire. He staggered out of the taproom, out of the back door of the inn and reached the stinking privy just in time. He vomited up the entire contents of his stomach.

  He groaned and retched again, dimly aware that one of the other customers of the tavern had just left the adjacent privy and was grinning at him through the open door.

  ‘One of them Bow Street runners is foxed in the privy,’ Isaac Daly declared loudly when he returned to the taproom. He was in such a rush to report Woods’ indisposition that he was still buttoning up the front fall on his breeches as he hurried back inside.

  ‘Ohh!
It looks like yer constable’s a bit of a tosspot,’ Jethro Hamilton smirked, goading Lavender across the taproom. ‘Has he bin having a sip or two from his hip flask while he’s s’posed to be helpin’ you find that missin’ lass? I’m guessin’ that Mr Armstrong won’t like to hear about this.’

  Lavender looked up, alarmed.

  ‘He hasn’t been drinking,’ he retorted coldly.

  ‘He ain’t touched his veal either,’ Mistress McMullen, the landlady, commented. Lavender glanced down at the pewter plate beside him and frowned. She was right; Woods had hardly eaten a thing.

  ‘He likes his food an’ all, does that one,’ Mistress McMullen continued. ‘I reckon that summat’s amiss.’

  Grim-faced, Lavender sat silently while the woman continued to prattle on about Woods.

  ‘They’ve bin up to the faw camp today,’ she told the farmers.

  The mood instantly darkened amongst the gang.

  ‘He’ll have bin cursed by that young witch.’

  ‘Or the old hag.’

  ‘Oi, you—detective gadgie—you didn’t happen to see me missin’ goose while you were up there, did you?’

  Jethro Hamilton slammed his tankard down onto the table. ‘This here town’s crawlin’ with bloody constables and detectives—yet still them damned faws thieve and threaten folks into handin’ over what’s not theirs to own.’ An ugly murmur of agreement rippled around the taproom like poison.

  Tight-lipped, Lavender got to his feet, left the bar and went upstairs. Woods was not in the bedchamber. Increasingly alarmed, he hurried back down and went out the back of the building. The freezing night air hit him sharply in the face as he stumbled outside, then groped his way through the blackness towards the privy. His boot slammed into something solid lying across the path.

  Woods was unconscious at his feet, sprawled in a pool of his own vomit.

  He had no choice but to ask the help of the amused farmers from the bar to get the heavy constable up the narrow stairs and into bed. Most of the men remained convinced that Woods was drunk, but they helped him nevertheless. Lavender sent for the doctor while Mistress McMullen stoked up the fire in their grate and did her best to clean up the constable.