Broken Harmony

by Roz Southey

  It had taken both minor canons to separate the two but, to cut a long story short, Hesletine had said enough to convince Le Sac he had not known a duel was to take place, let alone that he was supposed to judge it. So Blenkinsop had talked the Swiss into calmness, put him up in the Star and Rummer, and with his own eyes seen him mount his horse and head northward on Thursday morning.

  Soon we were riding north again ourselves. “It would have been around midday when Le Sac reached Gateshead,” Demsey protested as we came close to Chester le Street. “I know the fell is a wild spot but a daylight attack?”

  “If he was attacked,” I agreed, “someone was audacious.”

  By the time we came to the bridge across the Tyne night was falling; the bridge was quiet and the town in a sleepy state. Demsey had composed a long indignant letter refuting all the accusations against him and laying out his counter-claims against Nichols, which he intended to publish in the Courant. He therefore went off to the Printing Office while I took the reins of both horses and walked them to the Fleece. I had hardly left the inn again when a voice spoke behind me.

  “I have been waiting for you, sir.” Lady Anne laughed as I started. She was impeccably dressed as always, the ribbons of her cap dancing as she moved to face me. “I have been hearing of your exploits on Gateshead Fell.”

  Exploits? It was an odd word to use, I thought, for the discovery of a body. I was curt. Her constant meddling annoyed me. Moreover, two people were dead and she was smiling and amused by it all. “The news has spread, then?”

  “Claudius Heron came back from Gateshead with it. He is a friend of David Hawks.” Another smile. “How did you discover poor Henri?”

  “Demsey and I were sheltering from the storm.” Poor Henri? I could not help but remember that she had been scheming against poor Henri behind his back quite as much as Ord and Jenison, and probably for much the same reason. Le Sac’s greatest fault had been his failure to understand what constituted one demand too many.

  “Whatever his failings,” I said sharply, “he should not have died.”

  She opened her eyes wide in astonishment. “You call murder a failing?” Her look challenged me, those green eyes steady in the thin plain face. “Mr Patterson, do not tell me you doubt that Henri killed the boy?”

  “I can think of no convincing reason why he should have done so.”

  “But surely it is clear – he murdered the poor boy, then drowned himself in remorse.”

  Remorse was not an attribute I had ever associated with Le Sac. “Suicide, Lady Anne? When I last saw Mr Hawks he was of the opinion it was an accident.”

  Lady Anne shook her head. “The verdict of the inquest was suicide.”

  Claudius Heron had spoken to Hawks, she said. Had he persuaded Hawks to change his mind? But why?

  “And Mr Heron also believes that Le Sac murdered George?”

  “From what he says, yes.” She regarded me for a moment. “One should not gossip, Mr Patterson, but –”

  I hated her for that but. She was teasing me with it, inviting me to encourage her to talk. And devil take it, I had to. I had to know what had happened to George. If there was the remotest chance that I had been in some way, no matter how small, to blame for his death, I owed him the courtesy of discovering the truth. “But, my lady?”

  “A suggestion, no more,” she said coyly, “that poor Henri knew one or two things about Heron that Heron might not wish known.”

  Her lack of courtesy, the way she casually referred to Claudius Heron without his title, annoyed me. And the suggestion that Mr Heron had guilty secrets was beyond belief. Lady Anne was playing games with me again.

  No matter. The spirits on the river were whispering, calling. Tomorrow, I thought, I would speak to Le Sac’s spirit and find out the truth.

  31

  VIOLIN CADENZA

  Demsey was waiting in the street when I stepped out into the cold misty drizzle of early morning; he was so wrapped up in his coat I hardly recognised him. And he was inclined to grumble. “We’ll probably find half the town waiting to talk to Le Sac’s spirit.”

  “No one else will be waiting,” I said. “Everybody thinks they know already what happened.”

  We hired horses again from the Golden Fleece and rode out across the Tyne Bridge. Two or three countrywomen trudged in the opposite direction, bearing on each arm baskets heavy with straw-bedded eggs or tiny black cheeses. I was tired; I had slept poorly, unable to ignore Lady Anne’s hints, remembering Claudius Heron’s constant coldness towards Le Sac, his refusal to play at the benefit, his warnings at the inquest, his insistence on blaming Le Sac for George’s death. Had he persuaded David Hawks to regard Le Sac’s death as suicide?

  I had waited on Heron at his house the previous night; but he was closeted at dinner with ship-owners and merchants, an official function that had no doubt continued well into the night. After that, I had gone to old Hoult and insisted he ask the other spirits to find George’s spirit. They had not been able to. I could only conclude the spirit had not yet disembodied, although so late a disembodiment was unheard of.

  Where in heaven’s name was George’s spirit?

  There were no answers anywhere. Unless Le Sac gave them.

  Wind swept across the fell, shivering the reeds and cotton grass at the pond’s edge; the water was misty in the early morning light. A thin drizzle dampened our shoulders; Demsey said, “God preserve us from drowning.” I wondered what I was doing there, seeking to talk to a dead man, to persuade him to give up the name of his murderer. I never even liked the fellow. But I could not let the matter drop, for George’s sake, for my own safety, for the safety of others. If Le Sac was not the murderer, the real culprit was free to kill again.

  I raised my voice. “Le Sac! Do you hear me?”

  No reply, except for the screech of a gull wheeling overhead. A rabbit burst from the cover of bushes and scampered across the fell into a burrow.

  “Le Sac! I do not believe that you killed the boy. Nor that you killed yourself.”

  The fellow’s spirit was as secretive as the man ever was. I have never known a spirit who did not want to tell the whole world how he died.

  A rustling in a stand of trees a short distance off. Another pair of rabbits scuttled into the open, stood briefly twitching.

  “I want to find out who killed George. If you tell me, I can bring you justice too.”

  A sheen upon the rippling water. A harsh voice swore in French. Demsey huddled into his coat.

  “I had nothing to do with the plot against you,” I said into the thick twilight. “I had no idea what Ord and Jenison were planning.” I shrugged. “I know I did you no favours then; let me make amends now.”

  “Very friendly,” Le Sac’s voice, more guttural than in life, said hoarsely. “I do not trust friends. There are no such things.”

  “Nichols?” Demsey suggested.

  The spirit cackled with laughter. “That prancing idiot?”

  “Who killed you, Le Sac?”

  “Why should I trust you, Patterson?”

  “Because no one else believes you innocent of killing the boy.”

  A moment’s silence. “I had not seen him a se’nnight,” he said. “I rode straight from those –” he seemed hardly able to speak the word – “those gentlemen, to Durham. They are gentlemen there too,” he added bitterly.

  “And on the way back?”

  A shot cracked in the still air.

  Demsey cannoned into me, knocking me flying. I hit the muddy ground with a force that jarred my bones. Demsey grabbed at my arm, trying to drag me away. “Come on, damn it! Quickly!” Mud and reeds slithered under my hands; another shot splintered a stone inches from my face. Two shots. Surely that must be all – the attacker could not have more than a brace of pistols.

  I was up on my feet at last but stumbled as pain stabbed at my right ankle. Demsey ran ahead, urging me on with a shout. Beyond him, our horses had taken fright and bolted. Hugh raced after the
m, and for a moment seemed to be on the verge of catching at the reins. Then another shot rang out. Demsey jerked forward, seemed to hang in mid-air …

  I spun away behind a tree.

  To my left, the horses galloped off like a quickening heartbeat. Demsey lay sprawled on the rough grass.

  I was not rational. My mind was filled with a great rage. My heart thumped, my blood seemed to heat like a fire. If I could have seized hold of the attacker in that moment, he would not have survived. I forced myself to breathe more slowly, to concentrate on the hurried ripple on the pond, the rustle of foliage in the stand of trees to my right. Surely the attacker could not fire again; how many pistols could he have? I must do something before he had time to reload…

  Le Sac called sharply, “No more killing!” His voice echoed eerily in the chill damp air, directed at the hidden attacker. “I will make a bargain with you. Go away and I will tell no one what happened to me. Until the day my spirit fades into the wind, I will be silent. No one here will endanger you. Let them go.”

  No hint of movement, no reply. I cursed. Le Sac’s bargain might buy me my life at this moment, but if he honoured his word the murderer would go free for ever. And they say that a man who kills once will kill again.

  I slipped from the tree to the shelter of a thick cluster of bushes. Crawling behind them, I crept away from the pond, closer to Demsey’s sprawled body. His head was turned towards me, his eyes closed, his black hair drifting across his cheek. I found myself whispering to him – ridiculous, I don’t even remember what I said – with in the back of my mind the thought that if he could hear me, he could not yet be dead.

  My course of action was obvious. I must escape. I could not count on the murderer accepting Le Sac’s bargain or keeping to it if he did accept. But how to escape across such open land? Only the occasional clump of bushes or trees offered cover. In any case, I could not abandon Hugh, living or dead.

  Behind me, Le Sac’s voice talked on into the mist, cajoling, bullying, dripping with sarcastic sincerity. I would not have accepted any bargain he offered. I began to work my way back, away from Hugh, back towards the vegetation from which the murderer had fired. If I could creep through the shrubs at the edge of the pond…

  I crawled on hands and knees through reeds and gorse bushes, hardly daring to breathe. The attacker had had plenty of time to reload at least one of the pistols. Why had he not fired again? My hands fell on a thick fallen branch, half-hidden in the grass. An inch or two of it broke off, rotten in my grasp, but the rest seemed sound. Struggling along with it in my hand was even more difficult but, out of breath and bruised, I achieved the shelter of a thicket of willow.

  And, in that moment, I heard the clatter of a horse’s hooves.

  Was that our horses? Or a passing rider? The sound alone was enough to frighten off our attacker. Bushes rustled violently; a dark figure, great-coated, broke from the shelter of a clump of trees, racing wildly across the fell, heading towards the slope down into Gateshead. There were woods there, gardens, streets in which anyone might lose themselves. Roaring with fury, I was up at once, racing after him, waving my broken branch maniacally.

  The rough ground was my undoing. I put my foot in a rabbit hole, pitched forward. My foot twisted. I tried to right myself, stumbled again and went down with a force that knocked the breath out of me. By the time I had staggered to my feet, the greatcoated figure was out of sight.

  I hobbled back towards the pond, to the dark huddle of Demsey beyond it. Along the track, I could see a rider on a grey horse climbing the hill from the south and leading two other horses – our horses. Even from this distance I could see the rider was a woman, sitting astride.

  Esther Jerdoun.

  As I stood over Demsey, she urged her horse up to me. I was dazed, confused, in a rage, recklessly suspicious of the entire world. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  Her hat was blown askew; her hair was tousled and wind-swept. “Mr Patterson,” she said evenly, “this is not the time for argument or explanation.” She jumped down from her horse and knelt over Demsey. “We must stop this bleeding.”

  Tugging a scarf from her neck, she reached across Demsey’s back to press the material against his shoulder. The pale yellow cloth suddenly bloomed in a great burst of red. I was thinking slowly, stupidly. “I thought –”

  “He was dead? Dead men do not bleed.” She glanced up at me. “Who did this? Who would want to shoot Mr Demsey?”

  As I stared at her, I was filled with a sudden certainty. Everything was so clear – why had I ever been confused? I knew who the villain was. I knew who had wanted to injure Hugh. I knew who had murdered George and Le Sac.

  32

  SONG FOR TWO VOICES (DUETTO)

  The great church of St Nicholas had an eerie stillness. I stood just inside the west door, my hand lifting the curtain that hung there to prevent draughts, and looked towards the east end of the church. My view of the chancel and altar was blocked by the bulky screen on top of which the organ sat. Beyond the screen and the tall dulled pipes of the organ facade, the east window was a mere shadow.

  Churches are gloomy places and on such a dreary day as this more than usually so. I listened for the shift of a footstep, the rustle of clothing. Nothing seemed to stir among the high-backed pews. Yet there was movement, sensed rather than seen, up in the organ loft. A flutter of sound, like the pages of a book being ruffled. Perhaps it was only the older brother indulging in a rare organ practice. But Light-Heels’s landlord had been certain he was here.

  I kept close to the church wall as I went softly up the aisle. Pew after pew of closed doors, private domains where those with delicate sensibilities need not mix with vulgar inferiors. Where the screen joined the wall, an open door showed a staircase rising through a stone shaft. I stepped carefully up the worn stairs; at the top a second door stood open on to the organ-loft. I could hear the sound of feet shifting on the floor, the thud of books. I eased myself through the narrow gap between door and jamb, taking care not to move the door in case it creaked. For a moment I looked over a low parapet to a dizzying drop to the nave below; I drew back, briefly nauseous.

  Nichols stood in front of the organ stool. The manuals were locked into their cabinet but the mirrors designed to allow the organist to see priest and congregation below were exposed, and I drew back, fearful of Nichols glimpsing my reflection. Laid out along the wooden stool were piles of music-books. Bound printed volumes stacked in one pile, manuscript commonplace books in another. Loose sheets of manuscript in a third pile, odd handwritten notes at the near end of the stool. Nichols himself held a small book that looked very like a book of psalm tunes; he clasped it in both hands and looked from one pile to another as if trying to decide where to put it. His lips moved soundlessly.

  “Well met,” I said, moving forward.

  He started, dropped the book, stared at me.

  “Thinking of taking your brother’s place?” I bent to pick up the book, held it out to Nichols. He did not move.

  “You do not seem out of breath.”

  His colour, which had receded, flushed again.

  “From your ride back,” I elaborated. “You did well to get back before I did. Although of course I was somewhat delayed by concern for my friend.”

  He seemed to pull his wits together. He managed a laugh. “You’re talking nonsense, Patterson.”

  “I had to see Demsey to the care of a surgeon before I came to find the man who shot him.”

  Esther Jerdoun had seemed to wish to detain me but I would not stay, desperate to catch Nichols before he escaped. Yet here he still was, hardly seeming to hear what I said. He said mechanically, “Indeed,” and turned back to his sorting of the books.

  The first doubts prodded at my certainty. When Esther Jerdoun had asked who might wish to injure Hugh, I had seen at once that I had been looking at the matter from the wrong perspective. I was not the attacker’s intended target; Hugh was. And the only culprit then could b
e Nichols. Le Sac’s contemptuous references to friendship, Nichols’s antipathy to Demsey, a desire for revenge for the ruffians Hugh had set upon him – all these pointed to Nichols’s guilt. True, I could not understand how George’s murder fitted but otherwise I had no doubt. All this trouble had been caused by a quarrel between a man too quick to anger and another too quick to malice.

  And yet, faced with the man in this dulled lethargic state, my reasoning began to seem flimsy. Did a man kill on so slight a provocation?

  I was walking through a fog, trying to find my way in an unknown country; all I could do was take one step at a time. I put my hand on Nichols’s arm. “Listen to me. I know what happened.”

  He frowned.

  “In Aberdeen.”

  He reddened and pulled away from me, put the end of the organ stool between us. His voice raised a tone or two in pitch. “Aberdeen? Nothing happened in Aberdeen.”

  “Tell that to the poor girl you tried to seduce. Such a sordid, commonplace trick.”

  A flash of his old spirit returned. “So Demsey went to find scandal, did he?” he said contemptuously. “And you’re seizing the chance to ruin an honest man who is only trying to make a living.”

  “Honest!” I echoed incredulously. “After that trick you employed with the Lindsay girl to discredit Demsey? I saw her at the Concert – a baggage if ever there was one.”

  “Demsey started it!” Nichols backed further away. “He set those ruffians on me!”

  That was true enough; I was on rough ground there. I stepped back and perched upon the end of the organ stool, as if trying for some peace between us. Nichols might retreat all he liked; I was between him and the stair down. He regarded me with that dazed look still, like a man trying to make sense of a world that has gone mad.