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

by Karen Charlton

  Twenty feet below her, George Carnaby stood in a pool of white light, holding up a corner of the sacking. He peered down at the shapeless mass that lay in the cart. Jagged shadows flitted across the icy ground like knives.

  She could only see the top of his head and could hear nothing. At his elbow, Peter’s knees seemed to buckle. He staggered away from the group and retched into the weeds that grew against the wall of the building. The hairs rose on the back of Anna’s neck.

  Her feet dragged like lead as she returned to the Great Hall and gave the sal volatile to Isobel Carnaby. She heard the men returning up the stairs of the tower and watched in a trance-like state as her mistress blew her nose on her dry handkerchief and sat up.

  ‘Is it Helen?’ Miss Isobel demanded, when George Carnaby and Constable Beddows entered the hall.

  ‘Hard to tell,’ Carnaby said. ‘She’s such a bloody mess.’

  ‘Oh, my poor sister!’ Miss Isobel’s head bowed over her hands, and her shoulders shook as a new wave of tears overcame her.

  Constable Beddows stepped forward, embarrassed. He clutched a blackened piece of cloth in his filthy hands.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you at such a time as this, Miss Isobel, but we were able to get this small piece of her dress. It ain’t as badly burnt as the rest. Perhaps you could identify it?’

  Isobel Carnaby glanced up and blinked her watery eyes. The ammonia had made her cry.

  Her hands trembled as she took the limp rag of material from Beddows.

  ‘Why, yes! Oh no! Yes, yes—it’s part of one of Helen’s dresses.’ For a moment, she was wracked with another bout of sobbing. Then she turned abruptly to Anna and held out the scrap of material.

  ‘Here—Anna. You look at it. It’s my sister’s, isn’t it? You looked after her clothes.’

  Startled, Anna jerked out of her trance and felt herself flush under the scrutiny of the adults in the hot room. She slowly took hold of the flimsy material and gently brushed the soot from the charred cloth that had originally been pale blue. The outline of small spiky flowers and the winding stems of the print appeared beneath her trembling finger. She staggered and gasped for breath.

  ‘It’s alright, lass,’ Beddows said. He took hold of her arm to steady her. ‘It’s a shock to you, I know.’

  ‘Is it Helen’s?’ her mistress demanded.

  ‘Yes.’ Her squeaky voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. ‘It’s from one of Miss Helen’s dresses.’

  The Carnabys now had heard what they wanted to hear, and they turned their attention back to each other.

  ‘The maid’s word will not be enough. We still need a doctor to identify the body if we’re to claim the money,’ Miss Isobel snapped.

  ‘I’ve already sent Peter to fetch Robert Goddard.’

  ‘Hmmph, Goddard is a fool. You may need to call on Horrocks in Newcastle . . .’

  Quietly, Anna slipped the burnt cloth into her apron pocket and backed silently away towards the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Hexham Gaol loomed out of the gloom like a sleeping fortress as Lavender trudged up the hill. Silhouetted against the full moon, its squat bulk made it look formidable. The ground floor was solid wall. The gaol’s small windows were highly placed in its forbidding walls, and they reflected the moonlight like a set of black mirrors.

  The ostler at the coaching inn who had given him directions had told him that Hexham was the first purpose-built gaol in England. Originally built to imprison the Border reivers four hundred years ago, the building was still as bleak and inhospitable as it had been in the fourteenth century. Lavender pulled his scarf around his nose, trying to protect himself from the overpowering stench of urine, faeces and unwashed bodies, as he leapt up the worn steps to rap at the heavy, studded door.

  A nervous gaoler finally let him enter when he showed him his silver-topped tipstaff from Bow Street. ‘Ay, I’ve heard you were in the area,’ he said. ‘Theys sed you might turn up ’ere when they brought Carnaby in.’ The man had an appalling case of acne. He ran a filthy hand through his long, greasy hair and stared uncertainly at the detective.

  Behind him, Lavender could see a long ladder leaning against the rough stones of the wall and a large rectangular hole in the flagged floor. He could hear the ugly murmur of male voices that drifted up from the freezing bowels of the gaol.

  ‘I need to see him. Is he down there?’

  ‘Oh no!’ exclaimed the gaoler in mock surprise. ‘That’s no place fer our gentlemen murderers. No. Master Carnaby is in a special private room on the next floor, which we reserve fer our debtors and gentlemen criminals.’

  Surprised, Lavender followed the gaoler up the twisting flight of stairs to the next floor. A few lanterns glimmered forlornly against the bleak stone walls. Shadows lurked in every draughty corner. He could smell the damp that had seeped into the rotten beams of the ceilings and the doors, but thankfully the smell of human excrement was not as strong in this part of the building.

  The gaoler turned a huge iron key and pushed open the heavy door into a small, warm cell. The room contained an iron bed with blankets, a writing desk and an armchair in front of the fire, which spat quietly in the grate.

  ‘This is where we usually keep the debtors,’ the gaoler explained with a nod towards the parchment, ink and quills scattered across the desk. ‘That’s so theys can write to their friends fer money.’

  Silver moonlight poured down through the high, curtainless window, but it was dark in there. Lavender lit a candle on the desk and peered around.

  The sudden light disturbed his quarry. Slumped in a corner, his back pushed against the rough-hewn walls, Matthew Carnaby held his head in his hands and groaned.

  ‘Oi! You there!’ the gaoler yelled. ‘Get up! This detective gadgie wants to speak wi’ you.’

  Carnaby gave a miserable howl, scrambled to his feet and scurried across the room like a frightened animal. He flung himself on the bed with his back turned to Lavender and the gaoler.

  ‘Damn and blast him!’ the exasperated gaoler cursed. ‘He ain’t no more than a nick-ninny anyhows. I don’t know whatcha think you’re goin’ to get from him. He’s a saphead—the man canna speak.’

  ‘Leave him to me,’ Lavender said quietly. ‘First of all, you can tell me how they found him.’

  ‘Why, next to his sister’s dead body, of course. Rakin’ around in the ashes of her funeral pyre, the grisly bastard.’

  Pitiful sobbing now wracked the body of the young man on the bed.

  Lavender chose his next words carefully.

  ‘Did anyone actually see him murder his sister?’

  Carnaby howled, and the gaoler beside him paused and scratched the pustules erupting from his cheeks.

  ‘Why, no—not as I’ve bin told—but them constables up in Bellingham sez he did it.’

  Lavender’s lips tightened in a grim line. The say-so of Constable Beddows and his useless pack of law enforcement officers held little sway with him.

  ‘A softer, gentler young man you could not hope to meet,’ Katherine Armstrong had said.

  ‘He’s a sweetie,’ Laurel Faa Geddes had confirmed.

  Constable Woods had been adamant that the murderer he had disturbed in the graveyard was not the disfigured younger brother of the missing heiress.

  Was it possible that his instincts had been right all along? Lavender wondered. Was Matthew Carnaby innocent of the charge now laid against him? He wouldn’t be the first young man to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and find himself in gaol.

  ‘Who pays for this room?’ he asked. He knew it would not be George Carnaby.

  The gaoler shuffled uncomfortably and cast his eyes down onto the floor. His silence made Lavender swing around to face him. His eyes narrowed. The gaoler rubbed the boils on the back of his neck and tried to loosen his stained n
eckerchief.

  ‘I don’t care how much he pays you to keep silent. You give me the name of the man who is paying for this private cell, or I’ll have you tossed down into that hellhole below with the rest of the local cloyers.’

  ‘I canna tell you his name!’ The gaoler’s head jerked up, and he stared at the detective in alarm. ‘He never gived me his name. He were just some toff who turned up here this mornin’. Gave me the money and sed to make sure the saphead were well cared fer.’

  ‘Describe him.’

  The man scratched nervously.

  ‘I couldn’t. He were swathed in scarves and had his hat pulled down.’

  Lavender frowned. ‘Was he dark or fair—and how old?’

  ‘Dark. He were dark, youngish and a real gentleman, educated-like. I could tell by the cut of his coat, his voice—and his boots. He had good leather boots.’

  Lavender paused, incredulous. He had half-expected to hear that Matthew Carnaby’s benefactor had been the kindly John Armstrong—or one of his sons. But the Armstrongs had no need for such cloak-and-dagger secrecy. There was only one person who answered the description the gaoler had just given him: Helen Carnaby’s mysterious lover.

  For one horrible minute, he thought he had misjudged the man. Could this lover have been after her money as well? Had the cad enticed the girl to elope with him, married her and then persuaded her simpleton of a brother to kill her so that he could claim her inheritance? Were these comforts in gaol part of the deal, the payment to keep Carnaby quiet?

  He fought back a rising sense of alarm. No. It was not possible. No one needed to bribe Matthew Carnaby to silence—the man was a mute for Christ’s sake. Besides, why kill Helen Carnaby? As her legal husband, the ten thousand pounds would be his to do with as he pleased. There was no need to kill her off.

  He stared again at the poor wretch who cowered at the other side of the cell. Lavender found it harder and harder to believe that this Carnaby was a killer. He had no doubt that the simple fool had been framed by someone back in Bellingham. The real killer—the pipe-smoking beggar—was still at large.

  If Helen Carnaby’s lover had been moved by the plight of her brother to come here and pay for a private prison cell for him, then he had been motivated by compassion. That was the only explanation.

  He took the candle in one hand and picked up the hard-backed chair next to the desk with his other. Then he walked slowly over to the bed, put down the chair and sat next to the distraught young man.

  ‘Turn over,’ he said gently.

  Matthew Carnaby ceased crying and obeyed. He gazed pitifully up at Lavender from the bed, out of blackened and swollen eyes. Even by the dim light of the flickering candle, Lavender could see that the man had been beaten up. His nose was also bloodied.

  The gaoler read his thoughts.

  ‘He put up one heck of a fight when the beadles tried to arrest him,’ he reminded Lavender. ‘They had to rough him up a bit to get him into the prison cart.’

  Lavender sighed, looked down at the wretched creature and tried to ignore the distorted features and silver scars that snaked across the right side of his face into the matted hair of his dark cropped head.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  Matthew Carnaby stared back blankly.

  ‘I’m Detective Lavender. Mr Armstrong in Bellingham asked me to try to find your sister, Helen.’

  He might have imagined it, but he felt sure he saw the man nod slightly.

  ‘You saw me once in the woods, do you remember? You were with Laurel Faa Geddes.’

  A large tear rolled down the man’s face from his good eye, and he opened his mouth.

  ‘La la.’ The two syllables were more like growls that emanated from the depths of the man’s throat. Lavender looked at him in surprise. He had thought the young man was mute. How to progress?

  ‘I need to know what happened yesterday—at the fire.’

  Silence.

  ‘If you’re innocent, I’ll do my best to get you out of here and back home to Linn Hagh. I know that there is another man in Bellingham who has tried to harm your sister—a bad man.’

  Silence.

  ‘Can you try to tell me what happened? Can you show me, somehow?’

  The younger man just stared at him blankly. Beneath his disfigurement, he had a strong similarity to Helen Carnaby; Lavender remembered the portrait of the missing heiress. Summoning all his patience, he tried once more.

  ‘I’m here to try to help you,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t believe for one minute that you harmed your sister, Helen.’

  ‘Ela.’ It was the same unmistakable throaty growl of sorrow. Lavender saw something pass across the youth’s eyes. Some flicker of recognition.

  Suddenly, Matthew rose from the squeaking bed to a sitting position and swung his legs off the mattress. Lavender sat back in his chair and watched him lollop across the room towards the writing desk.

  By the door, the gaoler stiffened as Carnaby approached.

  ‘Steady there, fellah,’ he warned, but the prisoner ignored him. He picked up the quill, leant over the table and jabbed it awkwardly into the ink bottle. Ink slopped across the surface of the table.

  Lavender didn’t move. He and the guard watched in surprise as slowly and awkwardly, Matthew Carnaby dragged the feather across the parchment on the table. The only sound in that room was the scratching of the quill, the tearing of paper and Matthew’s laboured breathing.

  What now? Lavender thought. An illiterate man can suddenly write? Katherine Armstrong had told him that Matthew Carnaby had never been schooled.

  Lavender rose to his feet and moved across to peer over the young man’s shoulder. The letters were large, crudely drawn and splattered with ink. He couldn’t quite make them out yet, but it didn’t matter. The illiterate ‘idiot’ from the Carnaby family was writing, giving him some clue about the terrible events back in Bellingham.

  The answer now came to him in a flash. Helen Carnaby was a ‘pupil teacher’. She had obviously spent some time teaching her brother to write.

  Matthew Carnaby strained with the effort like a child with its first chalk and slate; his tongue flopped out of his slack mouth.

  Finally, he stood up straight and handed the parchment to Lavender.

  ‘La la,’ he said again, and with his free hand he drew his finger across his throat like he was slicing it open. In this unmistakable gesture, he demonstrated murder; he must have witnessed the crime. He was showing Lavender that the girl had had her throat cut.

  His job now done, the young man scrambled back to his bed, where he curled up in a ball with his back to the room.

  The gaoler moved to Lavender’s side.

  ‘Has he given you the name of the killer?’ His gabbled voice rose with excitement. ‘They never said he could write when they brought him in. ‘What does it say?’

  Lavender glanced down at the page and was overwhelmed with bitter disappointment.

  In large, childish letters, Matthew Carnaby had written: ‘BAXTR CARNBY’.

  ‘Who’s this Baxtr Carnby?’

  ‘His dead father.’

  At the other side of the prison cell, Matthew Carnaby resumed his plaintive sobbing.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The beadles and Peter put Miss Helen’s body in the barrelled vault beneath the tower. Miss Isobel would not have the burnt corpse in the house until they had got a coffin.

  ‘’Tain’t right,’ Mistress Norris complained as she wiped a tear from her watery eye. ‘She shouldn’t be lyin’ out there in the cold on a pallet—with only the sheep and a couple of cows fer company.’

  Anna stared blankly at the tearful cook and wondered why she couldn’t cry. Even when they’d told her that Master Matthew had killed Miss Helen and had been hauled away to Morpeth Gaol, she had felt nothing. It seemed like she was
in the middle of a bad dream. She would wake up in a minute.

  ‘Make sure you all stay away from my sister,’ George Carnaby snarled at the servants. ‘I don’t want anyone gawping at her body, do you understand?’

  Doctor Goddard arrived to examine the corpse. It didn’t go well. She could see from the window that when he and George Carnaby emerged from the underbelly of the house they were arguing. She could hear their muffled shouts through the glass. Doctor Goddard leapt onto his horse and thundered back to town with the master’s curses ringing in his ears.

  The cook burnt herself on a pan and swore.

  ‘Do you think I should bring out one of her favourite dresses?’ Anna asked suddenly. The sound of her own voice startled her.

  She would get out the black one with beading, she decided. Miss Helen had always liked that. The peacock blue dress was spoilt now; Miss Isobel had sullied it.

  ‘What fer?’ The cook stared at her blankly.

  Anna could hardly say the words.

  ‘To lay her out . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

  The irascible cook stopped whisking eggs, patted Anna’s arm and watched her with pity in her eyes. ‘I don’t think there’s much point, pet. From what Peter said, she’s in too bad a state to wear a dress.’

  Still, Anna couldn’t cry.

  When she began to carry the dinner up to the Great Hall, a sudden wave of dizziness made her stop and steady herself against the wall. Alarmed, she waited until the feeling had passed, then she did the rest of the journey slowly.

  As she neared the entrance to the Great Hall, she heard the unmistakable sound of low laughter. Unable to believe her ears, she climbed the last few steps silently and listened outside the door.

  Miss Isobel laughed again.

  ‘This couldn’t have worked out better,’ she said. ‘Matthew will hang, the faws have gone, and we should soon have our giddy sister’s inheritance.’

  ‘I agree.’ There was a note of triumph in George Carnaby’s voice.