The Black Country

by Alex Grecian

  Without warning, Sutton Price roared as if every ounce of energy left in his body had found an escape route through his throat. He fell on Rose, bearing him back against the wall. Rose grunted as his back hit the plaster and the breath went out of him again. He batted Price about his head and shoulders, using his forearms and elbows, but Price seemed not to notice. He pounded his shoulders into Rose in a steady rhythm, over and over, as if rocking a baby. Rose couldn’t breathe. Day dropped Rose’s rifle and leapt on Price. He pulled the grief-stricken father off the innkeeper and pushed him toward the center of the room. The fight immediately left Price and he staggered back toward the wall for support. He stood dumb, looking off into the middle distance as if nothing had happened. Day checked Rose, who was breathing steadily, but was mercifully unconscious. It was for the best. Day had, quite frankly, heard enough from Bennett Rose for the moment.

  Day straightened his jacket and picked the rifle back up, holding it down at his side, relaxed but ready. He sniffed and looked out the window. The wind didn’t seem to be blowing as hard now, but visibility was still bad. Puffy white flakes drifted swiftly past the glass, some of them piling on the outside windowsill, joining the mound there.

  He had just decided to arrest everyone in the room and let a magistrate sort it out later when Hester Price began to speak. Day held his breath, scared that any distraction might halt the flow of her words. She looked down at Oliver’s little body as she talked, running the tip of her finger back and forth along his cheek and under his chin as if soothing him to sleep, as if telling him a story.

  “You have to understand,” Hester said. “He killed a man for me. It’s the most anyone’s ever done for me, and I could never . . .” She hesitated for a moment, but her finger continued to trace its pattern on her son’s face. “I was younger then. I was a pretty girl, and graceful, and he loved me. I lived in West Bromwich, where I grew up. Four sisters, and I was the youngest. They were all married, all except me, and my mother found suitors for me, hoping I might find a husband before I turned twenty. I didn’t want any of them, though. My sisters had their houses and some had children already, two of them did, and they knew their lives, everything that lay ahead of them. I can’t say what it was that made me think I was different, but I did think it. Youth, maybe. Maybe that’s all it was. But one day there was a stranger at the pub, a man no one had ever seen.”

  “It was Campbell,” Sutton Price said. He leaned back until he was touching the wall behind him and then he slid down it and sat on the floor next to Bennett Rose. Price draped his arms across his raised knees and buried his face in the crook of an elbow. Day couldn’t tell if he was still listening or not, but Hester Price kept talking.

  “I helped out at the pub. My sister’s husband, one of my sisters’ husbands, owned it, and so I spent an hour or two there in the evenings, washing mugs and picking up and trying to be of use, biding time until my mother found the proper gentleman for me.

  “After a time, she thought she had found the right man. He was respectable, perhaps twenty years older than I was, maybe more. A grocer. My parents invited him to our house for dinner and left us to walk in the garden. His name was Mr Stephens, and he was not interested in walking in the garden. He didn’t want to listen to me when I talked, and he didn’t care what I wanted in life. The things he wanted from me, I won’t speak of them. But he was insistent and I had no other suitors left, and when he proposed marriage, I agreed. You understand, I didn’t want him. There was hair growing out of his ears and his breath smelled of fish and onions, and he talked and he talked and nothing he talked about was of any interest to a foolish little girl.

  “But when the stranger began to come to the pub, it was as if a door had opened in my life. He was big and strong, but he was quiet. He had long hair, going grey, but he didn’t look old, at least not terribly old. Not like Mr Stephens. But he looked tired and he looked like he had seen a lot. And I had seen nothing. West Bromwich was my whole world. His name was Calvin Campbell, and he was the most exotic creature I had ever encountered. I stayed longer every night at the pub, did chores that didn’t need to be done, tried to do things that might make him notice me. And, finally, he did. He told me that he was only going to be in West Bromwich for a week. That he was on his way somewhere else, but he never said where. I felt like he wasn’t going somewhere at all, he was going away from something, or someone.

  “But he stayed. A week went by, and another week, and Calvin didn’t leave. I began avoiding Mr Stephens and spending time with Calvin instead. We took long walks and we talked for hours. He had been to America and had been to war. He told me very little about his time there, he was quiet about those years, but the mere fact that he had survived their civil war and their prison camp made me admire him all the more. And he listened to me. Nobody had ever listened to me. He asked me questions about my silly little life in my silly little Black Country village. I must have seemed like the most boring person he had ever met, but he never made me feel like it.

  “Like I say, I was pretty then.

  “It was all so deliciously exciting, but Calvin didn’t know about Mr Stephens, and Mr Stephens didn’t know about Calvin.

  “And then, suddenly, Mr Stephens did know. Someone must have told him, because one day, as I was waiting for Calvin by the banks of the stream outside of the village, Mr Stephens came out of a copse of trees. He had been waiting there, waiting for us. He didn’t say a word to me, just pushed me down and covered my mouth before I could cry out. I remember his hand tasted like salt and shit. His other hand was under my skirts, exploring me with his dirty fingers, and he was smiling at me with his yellow teeth, and I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t do anything.

  “But then, from where I lay in the grass, it appeared Mr Stephens had suddenly learned to fly. He took to the air, and in a moment I saw Calvin behind him, holding Mr Stephens by the nape of his neck like a rabbit. Mr Stephens made the most horrible squeaking noise, and then Calvin swung him around and smacked his head into the trunk of a tree.

  “He kept hitting the tree with Mr Stephens’s head, and I didn’t look away. Mr Stephens’s head mashed like some kind of fruit, bright pink juice running down Calvin’s arm.”

  Hester finally looked up. She ignored Day, but stared at her husband, her brow creased with concern. “Do you understand?” she said. “He did that for me.”

  “He went to prison for it,” Day said.

  Hester turned her gaze to Day and she nodded. She opened her mouth to say something else, but stopped. They all heard the door open downstairs.

  52

  Day left Hammersmith to watch over Bennett Rose and the Prices. He bounded down the stairs and found Dr Kingsley stamping his feet on the mat. Kingsley was covered with snow, from head to foot.

  “Thank God you’ve made it, Doctor.”

  “That man practically carried me the entire way or I wouldn’t have made it.”

  “Campbell, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  Kingsley looked around as if he might find Campbell hiding behind the coatrack. “I don’t know. He was right with me when I came through the door.”

  Day pulled the front door open and stuck his head out. The wind had died down a bit, but the snow was falling just as quickly, already filling in the three sets of footprints outside. Day could see where Campbell and Kingsley had approached the inn together, but the third set of prints went away from the door, around the side of the inn. Campbell had left the doctor and fled. Day briefly considered giving chase, but then thought better of it. Campbell had served his time for murder, and there was no evidence that he had committed a crime in Blackhampton. The worst he had done was to help hide Mrs Price, and Day wasn’t sure he wanted to arrest anyone for that. He was certain she hadn’t killed her son, which meant Campbell wasn’t an accessory to a murder. Day pulled his head back in and slammed the door s
hut.

  “I’m told you found the little boy,” Kingsley said.

  “He was at the bottom of the well.”

  Kingsley pursed his lips and removed his hat. “There’s never anything sadder than the death of a child.”

  “I’m afraid I still need to know how he died.”

  “Of course,” Kingsley said. “Bring me to him.”

  Day led the way up the stairs. Bennett Rose was on his feet, but Sutton Price hadn’t moved. Day wondered if the miner had fallen asleep. Hammersmith nodded a greeting to Kingsley.

  “How are you, Sergeant?” Kingsley said.

  “I’m just fine, sir.”

  “No weakness? Fatigue? Shortness of breath?”

  “All of those, but I’ll recover.”

  Kingsley shook his head. “Lie down and rest a bit, would you?”

  “I will the moment we’re on the train back to London.”

  Kingsley shook his head again and snorted. He looked past Hester Price at the body of Oliver on the bed. The boy was a pale lavender color, purple veins feathering up under the collar of his shirt and across his face. His skin was swollen and distended from his time in the water, his eyes puckered holes. His legs bulged against his trousers. His left arm was missing at the elbow, lost somewhere in the bottom of the well. His shirt was tattered across the front, torn and open, exposing pale white-and-blue mottled flesh that showed the evidence of deep puncture wounds. One shoe was missing and the other had been stretched by Oliver’s expanding foot so that the seams had burst. Dark liquid crusted his lips.

  Day watched Kingsley’s face, but there was no expression there. The doctor had surely seen atrocities that Day couldn’t imagine.

  “He bled,” Day said. “I mean the body bled, not long ago. We all saw it. You can still see it there.”

  Kingsley leaned down, his face inches away from the face of the dead baby.

  “How is that possible?” Day said. “A miracle?”

  Kingsley shook his head and made a quiet sound that only Day heard. “No,” Kingsley said. “Nothing about this is miraculous. Did anyone touch the body before it bled?”

  “His father.”

  “Pressed in on the boy’s chest, did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “He squeezed out the remains of this little fellow’s decomposing organs.”

  Hester Price gasped, and Kingsley straightened up. He turned and glared at the people gathered there in the room. “So much for superstition,” he said. “Now go. I need privacy.”

  “Of course,” Day said. He held his hand out to Hester Price, but she ignored him. Hammersmith stepped closer and took her arm, helped her up off the side of the bed, and walked her out of the room. They waited in the hall. Day followed Hammersmith’s lead by taking Sutton Price’s elbow. He helped Price to his feet and motioned for Bennett Rose to precede them out of the room. Day looked back and saw that Kingsley’s satchel was on the bed at Oliver Price’s feet. The doctor had already removed his jacket and was rolling up his sleeves, preparing for the grisly work ahead of him. He glanced up at Day and let out a long breath. His eyes were sad, pink-rimmed.

  Day took a last look at Oliver’s delicate little body before he shut the door. There was a part of him that wanted to scoop the boy back up in his arms and carry him away from that cold, unhappy village.

  53

  Give her some time,” Bennett Rose said. “She can have this room.”

  He turned the knob and swung open the door of the room across the hall. Day would have liked to put more distance between Hester Price and the room where Kingsley was performing his dreadful work on her son, but he appreciated that Bennett Rose was making an attempt to be useful again. He stuck his head in and looked around the room. It was nearly identical to his own room at the other end of the hall, but the view out the window was of the woods behind the inn, a dark shape rubbed into the horizon by a giant thumb, obscured by layer upon layer of thick snowflakes.

  Grey upon grey.

  He motioned to Hammersmith, and the sergeant led Hester into the room and helped her sit on the edge of the bed. The three men left the room, joined Sutton Price in the hall, and shut the door on Hester.

  “Someone should be stationed up here in the hall, in case the doctor needs something,” Day said.

  And, he didn’t say, to keep an eye on Hester Price. Hammersmith would understand. One never knew what a grieving parent might be capable of doing.

  “You can handle . . .” Hammersmith waved his hand, taking in Bennett Rose and Sutton Price.

  “We’ll be fine.”

  Hammersmith nodded and went to the door of the room where Kingsley was presumably working. He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms, patient and ready. Day wondered how much the sergeant had recovered. He guessed not at all. It was very like Hammersmith to ignore himself until he collapsed. But the case was nearly finished. By tomorrow they would be back in London, and Day would recommend that Hammersmith be relieved of duty for a week, maybe two. Make the man rest, whether he liked it or not.

  Sutton Price stood where he had been left in the hallway. Day prodded him in the back, herding him toward the staircase and down. One of the fires had died. The great room was dim and, all at once, musty, as if the place had been shut up for years. An open window might have cleared away the fustiness, but the storm outside demanded that everyone remain shut away from the world.

  Then the door opened and the stillness was shattered as Jessica Perkins bustled in with the three Price children. She was carrying the littlest, Virginia, and dropped her on the inn’s floor, collapsing against the front door as it closed. Virginia saw her father and ran to him.

  “Father!”

  He stooped and picked her up. The two older children were more shy. They hung back and edged their way closer to Sutton Price. He took three quick steps toward them, with Virginia clinging to him like a monkey, went down on his knees, and scooped Peter and Anna into his arms.

  Bennett Rose disappeared and came back with a stack of thin blankets. He handed two of them to Day and took one to Jessica Perkins, who used it to dry her hair. Day took his blankets and draped them over the shoulders of Peter and Anna. They appeared not to notice him or care.

  Day gave them a few moments and then cleared his throat. “Your stepmother is upstairs,” he said. “Would you like to see her?”

  Nobody spoke, but Anna shook her head. No.

  “Come, children,” Jessica said. There were dark bruises under her eyes, and her shoulders were slumped and rounded with weariness. She hung her blanket on the coatrack and held out her hands. “You should say hello to her.”

  Sutton Price drew back from the two older children and set Virginia down next to them. “Go,” he said.

  “We don’t want to,” Virginia said.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll still be here when you come back. I have to talk to the policeman, but I won’t leave you again.”

  The three children went reluctantly to Jessica, who took them to the stairs and up.

  Rose busied himself with the embers in the colder of the two fireplaces, while Day led Sutton Price to the largest and most comfortable of the armchairs positioned at the hearth of the other. There, the fire still blazed cheerily and the mustiness of the room gave way to a strong ashy, nutty odor. Price sank heavily into the chair and sighed.

  “You have questions,” he said.

  “A few,” Day said. “I hardly know where to begin.”

  “I’ll do my best to answer.”

  Day gathered his thoughts. He could hear Jessica Perkins upstairs, in murmured conversation with Hammersmith, but couldn’t make out their words.

  “You were down in the tunnels?” Day said.

  “Hester had disappeared. And little Oliver . . .” Price looked away, into the fire, waiting for the ability to speak again.
Day gave him time, let him work his emotions into something bearable. “She took him,” Price said at last. “At least I thought she had. But where could she go? You must understand, I came home, early in the morning. Hester and Oliver were gone. They had left me. That’s what I believed. I knew in my heart that she had finally left, and that she had taken our son.” He stopped again, but only for a few seconds, swallowed hard, and continued. “I always knew she would leave. She never loved me, always a part of her waiting for him to come and find her.”

  “Him?” Day said.

  “Campbell. I didn’t know his name until he arrived here in the village. He actually did come for her when he was released from prison. After all this time. But Oliver is mine. Was mine. Not Campbell’s. That was my son, and they couldn’t have him, damnit.”

  “Why the tunnels? They might have been anywhere.”

  “Where else? A mother and child in the woods? Risking wolves and badgers and the weather? Whatever else she might be—and she was not a good wife—she loved that boy. Didn’t care one whit for the other children. They weren’t hers, you know, and she made them know it. But she loved Oliver. She wouldn’t carry him into the woods. She hadn’t taken his belongings, so she couldn’t have been on her way somewhere else, couldn’t have taken the train anywhere. At least, not yet. She was not well-liked in Blackhampton. Where would she go? Put yourself in my place and think as I thought.”

  “Below ground.”

  “And so that’s where I went.”

  “But she wasn’t there.”

  “No.”

  “She was being hidden from you. I think she was at the church. Why would she hide from you?”

  “I don’t know.” But Sutton Price avoided Day’s eyes. He looked away at the dancing fire.