Painting The Darkness - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  Constance would be on her way by now, daring to act where he would have faltered. He could not have explained to her the secret dread that clutched him even if he had wanted to. His compunction, his instinct, his lifelong training, so nearly forbade him to recall it even to his own mind. He had to shut his eyes to prevent the memory causing him to shudder at the shame it inspired.

  They had spent the day on the downs and had returned to Cleave Court late in the afternoon. It was the last week of June 1855, its golden endless days wrapping their world in tempting warmth. Sir Lemuel had gone to see his bootmaker in Bath and taken little James with him – or so they supposed. In fact, after their departure, the little chap had complained of feeling sick: a touch of sunstroke, Nanny Pursglove surmised. He had been put to bed, and Sir Lemuel had gone alone.

  The house seemed strangely empty, the servants all below stairs or out on errands, the upper quarters silent but for sultry breezes sighing through open windows and stirring the heavy sunshades. It seemed reserved for them – and they for each other.

  In Catherine’s room, the half-drawn curtains billowed in the soft currents of air. Patches of invading sunlight spread across the carpet and reached the two figures on the bed, warming their flesh where it fell upon it, catching her smile as she took his hand and guided him, heightening the delirium of his abandonment: he was hers, body and soul, and she had seemed to be his.

  Then she froze beneath him. Her eyes opened wide. On her face there was a look of such horror as, even now, he could not erase.

  She cried out. ‘James!’

  All he glimpsed, as he twisted his head in the direction of her gaze, was a small scampering figure fleeing through the open door. It slammed behind him like a rifle shot. James had seen them – but not soon enough. She was his for one more moment – and then was lost for ever.

  Richard slipped Baverstock’s letter from his pocket and read it again. There were more secrets, it seemed, than he had supposed. Something linked September 1846 and June 1855 and the present. And there was only one way to find out what. He would have to see her again, would have to face that stare, that pitiless accusing stare, and wrest from her the truth. He would have to speak to Catherine of all that had lain so long silent between them. He rose from the bench and walked quickly down the hill.

  III

  Dr Fiveash’s consulting-room looked out on to a sloping chestnut-fringed lawn. Beyond, weak sun lit the pale stone of the city-swathed slopes. This very room, Fiveash said, turning back from the view, was where he had told James Davenall the true nature of his illness.

  ‘I little thought,’ he continued, ‘that our conversation would still be causing me sleepless nights eleven years later.’ He stood for a moment, lost in thought, then broke off and smiled. ‘Well, what brings you here, Trenchard?’

  ‘Your letter,’ I replied.

  Fiveash sighed. ‘I felt you ought to know. I only wish it were more … straightforward.’

  ‘Surely your discovery strengthens our case. Miss Whitaker was evidently interested in anything with a bearing on the Davenalls.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s clear. But a duel fought more than forty years ago? How does that help Norton?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought, by coming, I might be able to find out.’

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘I fear we’ve left it too late. It’s eight months since Miss Whitaker disappeared.’

  ‘She might have left some clue to her whereabouts – perhaps at her lodgings?’

  ‘You’re welcome to try. She lived in Norfolk Buildings, behind Green Park station. Miss Arrow will have the address. I’ll ask her to find it.’ He lumbered out into the adjoining office.

  While he was gone, I took a turn by the window, then caught sight of myself in a mirror mounted on the wall above the examining-couch. The last twenty-four hours had taken their toll, that was clear. I pulled out my watch and flipped it open. Constance would be on her way by now, entertaining Patience with a picture-book whilst the train ran down through Surrey. What would she tell her father? I wondered. What would I tell mine?

  Fiveash came back into the room. ‘Number thirteen, Norfolk Buildings. She lodged there with the widow Oram.’

  ‘Number thirteen. Thank you.’ I made a move towards the door.

  ‘Trenchard.’ He stopped me with a touch on the elbow. ‘Call it a doctor’s impertinence if you like, but you don’t look fit to me. Is there anything I can—?’

  ‘I’m quite fit, thank you, Doctor.’

  ‘Is all well at home?’

  ‘To borrow your phrase: as well as can be expected.’

  ‘You mustn’t let this wretched business get on top of you, you know.’

  ‘Must I not?’

  ‘Would you care to stop for lunch?’

  It was apparent that it was not my company he desired: he was genuinely concerned. The signs of strain were more obvious to him even than to me. Or perhaps it was simply that my mind had steeled itself to disregard them. I brushed aside his solicitations and left.

  Norfolk Buildings was a single terrace running down to the riverside in a genteelly decayed reach of Bath. Noise and smoke rose from the nearby goods-yard of Green Park station, but cheery window-boxes and fresh stucco redeemed at least some of the house-fronts. A shabbily dressed girl was playing whip-and-top outside number thirteen, where a bronze plate proclaimed a humble dentist trying to make his way; from an open second-floor window came the plangent strains of a violin.

  ‘I’m looking for Mrs Oram,’ I said to the girl.

  ‘Seems ’er be looking for you, too,’ she replied, her gaze travelling past me.

  I swung round to see a sharp-nosed whey-faced woman with small, twinkling, bead-like eyes staring at me from a ground-floor window. I signalled that I wished to speak to her, but there was no way of judging her reaction from the abrupt tug with which the curtain was flipped back to obscure my view.

  Then, quick as a flash, she was standing before me in the doorway, a breathless concoction of pink and sepia. ‘You’ll have heard the top room’s empty,’ she trilled, bobbing before me in some travesty of a curtsey. ‘It commands a fine prospect. Won’t you come in?’

  I did not disabuse her until we had reached her trinket-festooned sitting-room. From the corner, a large and ragged parrot, chained to its perch, eyed me suspiciously and fluttered its gaudy wings.

  ‘Fine parrot you have, Mrs Oram.’

  ‘Obadiah is a macaw, dearie.’

  Hearing its name, the bird screeched some few word-sounding noises to which Mrs Oram paid rapt head-cocked attention.

  ‘Did you catch what he said, Mr …?’

  ‘Trenchard. No, I don’t believe I did.’ It had been something like ‘Misterkin, Sunkysin’, but I had paid it scant heed.

  ‘Never mind. You’ll have ample opportunity to learn his little phrases. All my PGs do.’

  ‘Perhaps I should explain, Mrs Oram: I’ve not called about the room.’

  Her head was still fixed in the crooked position that seemed to command Obadiah’s attention; her eyes swivelled to focus on me. ‘Not … about the room?’ Obadiah loosed another ‘Misterkin, Sunkysin’, this time with the hint of a triumphant sneer.

  ‘No. But it is about one of your former lodgers. Miss Whitaker. She left you in February, I think. I’m trying to trace her.’

  ‘Miss Whitaker?’ She stared intently at me. At close quarters, her pale powdered cheeks could be seen to vibrate with every word. ‘You’ve left it rather late, dearie, rather too late, I should say, wouldn’t you, Obadiah?’ She shot a glance in the bird’s direction, where a downward twitch of the beak seemed to give her the confirmation she sought. ‘We had Dr Fiveash looking for her, too, six months back. Quite incorrigible, he was.’ She smiled. ‘Still, I should say she’d rather be found by you than by him. Not that that’ll help you, because I’ve no idea where she went.’

  ‘It’s very important I find her. There might be a reward for anybody who could help m
e.’

  ‘Hear that, Obadiah?’ She turned and grinned at him.

  ‘Misterkin, Sunkysin!’

  ‘I see you have more winning ways than drab Dr Fiveash, dearie, and I’d like to help you, really I would, but Miss Whitaker kept herself very much to herself, I’m afraid. She paid her rent in advance and had spotless habits. I’m not saying anything against her, but she wasn’t … sociable. And she left without notice. Staid and proper enough, but not … considerate. If you know what I mean.’

  ‘She might have mentioned where she’d lived before coming to Bath.’

  ‘Goodness, I was lucky to have two words out of her at a time.’ She leaned towards me. ‘Some would’ve called her secretive. I just call her … reserved.’ She swayed away again. ‘What would you call her, Obadiah?’

  ‘Misterkin, Sunkysin!’

  ‘Have you mastered his intonation yet, dearie?’

  ‘I can’t say I have.’

  ‘It’s a phrase my late husband taught him. Something of a card, my Oram, I’m afraid. The vicar called it blasphemous, but he’s a terrible sobersides. Quick to preach, slow to laugh. That’s always been my—’

  ‘Misterkin, Sunkysin!’

  ‘There! Catch it that time?’

  ‘No.’ I smiled and moved towards the door.

  ‘“Mr Quinn, sunk in sin.” I thought it was clear enough for a young pair of ears like yours.’

  I looked back at her with incomprehension bordering on revelation. ‘Quinn?’

  ‘Mr Quinn was a friend of my Oram. They liked a drink together, liked it overmuch in my Oram’s case. He made up that silly rhyme and taught it to Obadiah. I don’t really know why. But I’m glad to have a reminder of—’

  ‘Quinn was in service with the Davenalls at Cleave Court!’

  ‘That’s right, dearie. How did you know?’

  ‘He and your husband drank together?’

  ‘Regular, three times a week at the Red Lion. Never missed till the day he died. It was the drink that killed him. Mind you, my Oram always said water was more likely to kill him than spirits, which turned out true in a sense, if you can count falling in the river blind drunk and drowning. A card to the end, my Oram.’

  ‘What about Quinn?’

  ‘I’ve not seen him since the day my Oram went on. Seven years ago last Easter. Good Friday, it was. The vicar called it blasphemous—’

  ‘How could I find Quinn?’

  ‘I doubt you could. He was just as tight-lipped as that Miss Whitaker. He left Cleave Court, I do know – but that’s the last I heard of him. You might try the Red Lion, I suppose. It’s just round the corner, in Monmouth Place. If anybody would know, it would be Wally Fishlock. He was the third member of their drinking school. And I’m told he’s still to be found at their table in the tap-room. Isn’t that right, Obadiah?’

  ‘Mister Quinn, sunk in sin!’ This time, I understood his call.

  Fishlock was as good as Mrs Oram’s word. A lean, tanned, mournful figure in matted tweeds, stooped over a jug and glass in the musty ochre-lit corner of the Red Lion’s back bar, proved, on enquiry, to be the man I wanted. Drink had not loosened his tongue. But money did.

  ‘’Course I mind Alfie Quinn. We often supped together. ’Im and Charlie Oram. We ’ad … mootual interests. I’d not put it stronger. More’n old Mother Oram ever knew of, though. Least said, see?

  ‘Alf were an old soljer. ’Ard as nails – with more tricks ’n a monkey. Not what you’d call cut out for valetin’. But ’im and ’is squire – Sir Gervase Davenall, curse ’is memory – ’ad been in the Crimea together. Alf were ’is batman. So they stuck together, seemingly, like fleas and a dog. ’E left Cleave Court three year ago. First I knew of it’s when ’e stopped comin’ in ’ere. Reckon ’e moved away. Back to London, like as not.’

  ‘Is that where he originated – London?’

  ‘It’s where ’e spoke of.’

  ‘And you’ve not seen him since?’

  ‘Not a once. But Joe ’as.’ He nodded towards the stolid figure polishing glasses behind the bar. ‘Ain’t that right, Joe?’

  The landlord was a squarely built, slowly spoken, cautious man who treated me to a penetrating stare. ‘I may have done,’ he said at last.

  I tried to sound nonchalant. ‘Recently?’

  ‘February, weren’t it?’ put in Fishlock.

  Joe nodded in confirmation. I moved to the bar. ‘You saw him here? In Bath?’

  Joe sniffed. ‘Maybe. I keep a greyhound, see. I exercise him along the canal bank every morning. One morning last February, I was trotting him along the tow-path where it runs through Sydney Gardens. I noticed a man and a woman on one of the footbridges over the canal. The man looked like Alfie Quinn. I called out, but he moved away. By the time I got up on to the footbridge, he’d vanished.’

  ‘And the woman?’

  ‘She was still there. She said he’d just asked her for directions and that she’d no idea who he was. That may be so. But I knew her. It was that piece who lodged with the widow Oram.’

  ‘Miss Whitaker?’

  ‘I never knew her name. But I’d seen her around. It was her, right enough. As for Quinn … well, it was early, I didn’t have that good a sight of him – I could have been mistaken. But I don’t think I was. Still, it was pretty obvious he didn’t want to see me, for all the ale he used to sup in this very room. Took off like a hare who’d seen my hound.’

  The place, when I found it later, was as I might have imagined from Joe’s description: a quiet shady park bisected by the railway line and the canal. The canal passed under several bridges as it traversed the gardens and, on one of these, he had seen them that cold morning in February. To climb from the tow-path to the level of the bridge he would have had to pass through a gate and skirt round by a winding path, allowing ample time for Quinn to scurry off towards the road and for Miss Whitaker to prepare her excuses.

  I sat on a bench by the railway line – where passing trains split the leaf-strewn reverie – and tried to connect the events I had learned of. I no longer doubted that there was a connection. I had only to recall what Fishlock had said of his former boon companion when I had asked him for his assessment.

  ‘Somethin’ tied Alfie an’ that Sir Gervase. Not a doubt of it. Reckon the other Davenalls put ’im out on ’is ear when Sir Gervase were no longer around to protect ’im. If that’s ’ow it was, they made a big mistake. Alfie Quinn weren’t a man to cross. If they made ’im their enemy, they’d ’ave needed no other. If that’s what they did, like as not ’e’d ’ave made ’em regret it.’

  At last I felt certain I had found the chink in Norton’s armour. Quinn, the resentful ex-servant – Miss Whitaker delving into Fiveash’s records – and Norton’s otherwise inexplicable fund of knowledge: I had him. This time, I felt certain, I had found him out.

  V

  Arthur Baverstock had promised to take his son to Bathampton Downs that afternoon, if the weather held, to fly his kite. He had just tapped his barometer to assure himself that all seemed set fair and begun to clear his desk when Dobson, his clerk, came in with the unwelcome news that he had a visitor.

  ‘A Mr Trenchard, sir. Somewhat excited.’

  Baverstock sighed heavily.

  ‘I could say that you had already left.’

  ‘No, no. I’d better see him. Show him in.’ What could Trenchard possibly want in Bath? Baverstock wondered as Dobson retreated. More to the point, how long would it take? He looked towards the window and glimpsed the inviting shapes of high mobile clouds: Eric’s kite would go well in such conditions, if it went at all.

  ‘Glad to catch you, Mr Baverstock,’ came a voice. So here he was, rather shabbier and wilder-eyed than Baverstock recalled. He gritted his teeth, smiled and shook hands.

  ‘I didn’t know you were in Bath, Mr Trenchard.’

  ‘A flying visit. But I’ve turned up some new evidence you might be interested in.’

  Baverstock’s heart sank. Already
, he sensed Lady Davenall would not approve. He wished he had never taken on her affairs and thought ruefully for a moment of the accolade he had first believed her patronage to be.

  ‘What can you tell me about Alfred Quinn?’

  ‘That rather depends on why you ask.’

  As Trenchard explained, Baverstock’s heart sank still further. Miss Arrow’s bicycle – a forty-year-old newspaper-cutting – Mrs Oram’s macaw – a sighting in Sydney Gardens: Warburton would laugh at them.

  ‘Quinn, so I’m told, was valet to Sir Gervase Davenall,’ Trenchard concluded.

  ‘Yes,’ said Baverstock. ‘He was. And, later, butler.’

  ‘Was he dismissed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you tell me why?’

  There seemed no point in refusing: it would only have encouraged him. ‘Lady Davenall reordered her affairs after Sir Gervase’s removal to a nursing home. She and Quinn did not … see eye to eye. I’m sure I told you—’

  ‘Is that all there was to it?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, no. Some of Sir Gervase’s possessions – a gold watch, a silver snuff-box, some cuff-links – went missing. It was suggested Quinn had taken them. The watch cropped up in the hands of a jeweller in Bradford-on-Avon, who confirmed that he had bought the items from Quinn. Quinn claimed Sir Gervase had given them to him prior to his collapse as tokens of his esteem. But selling them told against him. All in all, I should say he was lucky to escape without charges being brought against him.’

  ‘But he was turned out without a penny – after more than twenty years’ service.’

  ‘Not a moment too soon, some would say.’

  ‘Because he was a shady character?’

  ‘My impression was that he would not have been tolerated in another household. Sir Gervase presumably took him on out of sentiment.’

  Trenchard leaned across the desk, a gleam of certainty in his eyes. ‘It’s my belief that Quinn’s plying Norton with all the knowledge he must have accumulated about the Davenalls over the years. It’s my belief he put Miss Whitaker up to spy on Dr Fiveash’s records. They stand to make a fortune between them, and Quinn would have his revenge on those who turned him out. Doesn’t it make sense?’