The Body in the Ice

by A. J. MacKenzie

  ‘It is always a pleasure to entertain officers of the law and the clergy, gentlemen. But we do not usually open for business ’til the evening.’

  The rector was conscious of other interested faces peering over the woman’s shoulder. ‘We shall not detain you for long,’ he said. ‘We have come to ask for the key to your cottage.’

  ‘The cottage?’ The woman looked surprised. ‘Why ever for?’

  ‘So that we may search it,’ the rector said patiently.

  ‘Oh! Elise, fetch the key, if you please. Are the gentlemen not there?’

  ‘What gentlemen?’

  ‘Two gentlemen from London, who rented it three weeks ago. They were down for the wildfowling, their letter said.’

  ‘Have you seen much of them since they arrived?’ asked the rector.

  ‘Nothing at all. They booked by post, paying in advance, and I left the key in the lock for them. That’s how they wanted it. I have not set eyes on them. But of course, if they were here for the shooting, they would be keeping very different hours.’

  The key arrived. The rector took it and nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘We will return this directly. Please stay indoors, and away from the windows.’

  The cottage was silent, its windows shuttered on the inside. The volunteers waited in a circle around the house. Austen fitted the key to the door and turned it, but the door did not budge. ‘Barred on the inside,’ he said.

  The rector nodded again, and raised his deep voice. ‘Vous êtes encirclé, monsieur. On ne peut échapper.’

  The response was a pistol shot, fired in despair and anger, that splintered the door and flew between himself, Hardcastle and Austen. At a gesture from the captain, two of his men fired their muskets back through the door.

  ‘Sortir!’ commanded the rector.

  A moment passed and they heard the sound of a bar being drawn back. A man in a weather-worn hat and cloak stumbled out and fell to his knees, clasping his hands behind his head. ‘Got to hand it to the Frogs,’ said Austen’s corporal, levelling his bayonet at the man’s throat, ‘they surely know how to surrender.’

  The rector walked past the kneeling man and into the cottage. It had only three rooms, bare and plainly furnished; there was a pack full of stale bread, and a few items of rank, soiled clothing. There was no sign of the other man.

  ‘What have we here?’ said Austen, holding up the contents of another pack: a worn map, a compass and a waterproof packet. This contained several sheets of paper, covered in dense writing. The rector glanced at these.

  ‘Code of some sort,’ he said.

  ‘Definitely French spies then, it would seem? Do you reckon the ladies at the house knew?’

  ‘I doubt it. They are not in the business of asking questions. Very well, we are finished here,’ he said. ‘Captain, assemble your volunteers, if you please. Detail four men to take the prisoner to New Romney. The rest will come with us to St Mary in the Marsh.’

  *

  They approached the village over the fields from the southwest, Austen sending his men out left and right to surround the grounds of New Hall. Two men who had earlier been posted on surreptitious watch signalled that all was clear.

  ‘We shall need to be diplomatic here,’ said the rector as he and the captain walked up the drive. ‘The Rossiters are important people, and I am under direct orders from Lord Clavertye not to annoy them.’

  ‘The Rossiters?’ said Austen in surprise. ‘Are some of the family living here once more?’

  The rector glanced at him. ‘It is not certain. That is, several of them arrived last month, but I do not know how long they intend to stay.’

  *

  At the house, he and Austen were shown at once into the drawing room. Most of the family were gathered here: Parker standing by the fire, Jane his wife and James Rossiter on a settee before it, Mrs Rossiter seated at her embroidery frame, Laure in a corner with a book in her lap, Edward and William playing cards. All looked up and then rose as the rector and Captain Austen were announced.

  ‘Greetings, reverend and Captain Austen,’ said Edward casually. ‘Have you captured your Frenchman yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said the rector bowing, ‘but we hope to do so very soon. Ladies, gentlemen, I do hope you will pardon this intrusion, and I shall make it as brief as possible. I must ask your permission to search the cellars of this house.’

  Just for a heartbeat, there was silence. ‘The cellars!’ said Parker sharply. ‘What for?’

  ‘We have information that some of Foucarmont’s men may have been using them as a hiding place,’ said the rector.

  ‘French spies, in our cellars?’ Parker snorted. ‘Ridiculous!’

  ‘I agree the chances are slim. It is probable that your arrival here has caused Foucarmont to abandon any idea of using New Hall and to turn elsewhere. But we must be certain. Will you give me your permission?’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ said Parker. ‘You cannot simply barge in here without notice and start rummaging around! I’ll not have it! Lord Clavertye shall hear about this!’

  ‘It is on his lordship’s orders that we are here,’ said the rector, bowing once more. ‘Again, I am deeply sorry for intruding on you, but it is essential that we carry out this search. We will be brief, and not trouble anyone in the house.’

  ‘I’ll see you damned first,’ said Parker. Once again, his bald head was shiny with sweat.

  William Rossiter spoke up, his fair young face perplexed. ‘Surely the reverend is just doing his duty, Uncle Joe,’ he said. ‘Why not let them look? I cannot see it will do any harm. I am happy for them to search if they have a need to do so.’

  ‘Well said, cousin!’ said Edward. ‘Let us allow these gentlemen to do their duty. I’ll even take them down to the cellars myself.’

  ‘I agree,’ said James Rossiter, and he stood up slowly, leaning on his stick. ‘I understand your feelings, Joe, but the war is over. The British are our friends now.’ He bowed to the rector. ‘I concur with my nephew,’ he said. ‘Please conduct your search. And as he has volunteered, my son will go with you to assist you.’

  ‘I shall join you also,’ said William firmly.

  Parker looked as if he had swallowed something unpleasant. ‘This way, gentlemen, if you please,’ said William.

  The rector and Austen followed the two young men down the passage beside the staircase, through the rear door next to the kitchen, and thence out into the yard. Two grooms, who had clearly spotted the soldiers around the grounds, stood apprehensively by the stables. ‘Fetch a lantern,’ Edward called to them, and then led the way to the cellar door at the end of the stable block.

  William drew out his keys and unlocked the door. One of the grooms brought the lantern and lit it, and Edward led the way downstairs. The cellar rooms were very much as the rector remembered. The two empty hogsheads had been removed and there were bottles now in the wine rack: port, madeira, Spanish wine. There were a couple of barrels of beer as well, and in another room several hams hung from the ceiling along with a brace of recently shot wild duck.

  ‘Here you are,’ said Edward cheerfully.

  Austen looked around. ‘The cellars are remarkably dry, given the house is in the middle of the Marsh,’ he commented.

  ‘They are, aren’t they? Actually, if you care to notice, the house is on a little eminence of ground. Not much, just a few feet, but enough to lift the cellars out of the damp. I imagine the dry ground is one reason why the house was built where it is.’

  ‘Has anything been disturbed since you were last here?’ the rector asked.

  ‘Well, I don’t come down here often, of course. But all looks in order to me,’ said Edward. ‘Surely if anyone had been sneaking in here, they would have pinched some food and drink. It must be jolly cold, hiding out there on the Marsh.’

  ‘And in any case, as you saw, the doors are always kept locked,’ said William, holding up his keys.

  Edward nodded. ‘Well, gentlemen? Seen everything y
ou need to see?’

  ‘I think we have,’ said the rector, nodding at William. ‘Mr Rossiter, thank you very much for your time. Please convey my deep regret to the rest of your family for my intruding upon them, and for any alarm that has been caused.’

  *

  The afternoon was nearly done. At the end of the drive they halted, the windows of New Hall reflecting the watery late sunlight, the chimneys of St Mary smoking away to the right. Austen paused for a moment.

  ‘Tell me, reverend; does Amelia Chaytor still live in St Mary in the Marsh?’

  ‘She does,’ said the rector. ‘Do you know the lady?’

  ‘Indeed I do. I went on the Grand Tour a few years ago, not long before the Revolution, and I met the Chaytors in Paris. They were very kind and generous to me, and I have always remembered them with great fondness.’ He hesitated again. ‘I have not seen her since her husband died. Would she mind if I called on her, do you think?’

  Ordinarily Hardcastle would have spared Mrs Chaytor any contact with her past, but Austen’s reaction to the news that the Rossiters were also in St Mary had intrigued him, and he wanted to explore it further. For that, he needed Amelia’s help.

  ‘I was about to call on her myself. Please do accompany me, if your duties can spare you.’

  ‘That is kind of you.’ Austen dismissed his men, sending them tramping back to their billets in New Romney. He and Hardcastle then walked into the village, the captain looking around curiously. He said nothing, but the rector could read the expression in his eyes: whatever can have brought that elegant, fashionable woman to dwell in this Godforsaken part of the world?

  *

  At Sandy House, Lucy admitted them. They found Mrs Chaytor in the drawing room reading a book, dressed in a simple white gown. She rose, and smiled at the sight of Edward Austen.

  ‘My dear Mr Austen. What a delightful surprise.’

  ‘Mrs Chaytor, it is a very great pleasure to see you again. I hope you will forgive me for not calling upon you sooner.’

  ‘Not at all. The reverend had told me that you were here with the volunteers, and I am sure your duties have been keeping you very busy.’

  ‘They have . . . Mrs Chaytor, I was so sorry to hear about your husband. After all his kindness and generosity, and yours, towards myself in Paris . . . Well, it was quite a dreadful blow to hear that he had gone. He was such a good man.’

  ‘He was,’ she said, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. ‘Do sit. Lucy will bring us some sherry.’

  They sat, the volunteer officer looking a little awkward; he was clearly wondering if he had made a mistake in accepting the rector’s offer. While they waited for Lucy to return, Mrs Chaytor inquired politely after Austen’s wife, and he spoke with pride of her and their rapidly growing family. They had recently moved into a large house at Godmersham, which he thought would suit them all very well.

  The sherry arrived. ‘Is there any news?’ Mrs Chaytor asked Hardcastle, changing the subject with composure.

  ‘Joshua Stemp has had a coup,’ said the rector. ‘He found a list of hiding places the French have been using, and we have been raiding them all afternoon. We caught one man, and I heard gunfire in the distance, so have hopes that we have taken or finished off a few others. And this will interest you, ma’am. One of the hiding places on the list is the cellars at New Hall.’

  Mrs Chaytor raised her eyebrows. ‘We’ve just been to take a look at them,’ Austen explained. ‘Everything seemed in order, though. We think Foucarmont must have sheered off when he realised the house was occupied once again.’ He paused and said, ‘They’re a rum bunch, the Rossiters. Makes you wonder why they have returned to New Hall and the Marsh.’

  There was a gentle silence, and then Mrs Chaytor smiled and sipped her sherry. ‘That is a most enigmatic remark. You must enlighten us.’

  ‘My word, you don’t know about the Rossiters?’

  ‘Only a little. We have met them a few times, that’s all.’

  ‘They’re a rum bunch,’ Austen repeated. ‘They’ve a pretty interesting reputation, that’s for certain. I was most interested to see the house. And the cellars.’

  ‘I noticed that,’ said the rector. ‘Why so, if I may ask?’

  ‘Well, there’s a story that back in former times, the Rossiters were deeply involved in owling. Those cellars would seem to fit with the rumour. Very capacious and quite dry, and of course, close to the coast.

  ‘Owling!’ said Mrs Chaytor.

  Smuggling was deep in the blood of Romney Marsh, but over the years the direction of the traffic had changed. Today it was brandy and tobacco from France and gin from Holland coming into the country; a century before, most of the smuggling trade was in untaxed wool going out. ‘It’s only a rumour,’ said Austen, ‘and anyway, it was a long time ago. No, what I’ve heard about the Rossiters concerns the present lot: James Rossiter and that fellow Parker, the unpleasant one we met just now.’

  The rector felt the small hairs lifting on the back of his neck. ‘Where did you learn about them?’ asked Mrs Chaytor. Her blue-eyed gaze had intensified.

  ‘From my aunt. Well, she’s not really an aunt, sort of an adopted aunt. My family is a bit complicated,’ the young officer said. ‘She’s a Knatchbull from the branch of the family that went out to America way back when. In ’seventy-five they sided with the Royalists, and came back to England at the end of the war. But they were in Boston before and during the war, and knew all about the Rossiters.’

  The rector stirred. ‘Did your aunt know why Rossiter and Parker came to America?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really. There was a rumour the family had fallen on hard times, and another that they were on the wrong side of politics back in ’forty-five, but there was nothing of substance. What is certain is that James Rossiter and Parker were mixed up in rebel politics, right from the beginning. They were Sons of Liberty, alongside Warren and Revere and that lot, plotting revolution and looking for any excuse to start a war. And of course they got it, at Lexington.’

  Austen sipped his sherry. ‘Once the war broke out, Rossiter and Parker rose to high rank in the rebel army. Rossiter was colonel of a militia regiment, with Parker as his second-in-command. After Saratoga, though, they changed course. According to Aunt Knatchbull, they were mixed up in some very dirty business. They started off hunting down British spies, and they weren’t too particular about the methods they used. From there they went on to identifying and tracking down royalist sympathisers. The property of anyone deemed to be a royalist was confiscated by the new government, but much of the money seems to have stuck to the fingers of Messrs Parker and Rossiter. However it happened, they were absolutely swimming in lard by the end of the war.’

  ‘Not very pleasant people, then,’ said Mrs Chaytor with distaste.

  ‘Quite so, ma’am. Aunt Knatchbull says even some of the other rebels were pretty sickened by them. But they had powerful protectors in high places in the Continental Army, and amongst Lafayette and the French commanders when they arrived too, so nothing was ever done.’

  Austen finished his sherry. ‘Rossiter was known as the smooth one, the plotter and planner, who made things happen but didn’t get his hands dirty,’ he said. ‘Parker was the one who wielded the bludgeon, or pulled the trigger.’

  The rector decided he could entirely believe this. The clock chimed, and the captain looked around. ‘Is that the time? I’m afraid I must be thinking about getting back to my men.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mrs Chaytor kindly. ‘But thank you for telling us a most interesting story. The Rossiters seemed such pleasant people. Strange to think of all this lying behind their façade.’

  ‘Yes, they all appear quite civilised, don’t they? With the exception perhaps of Mr Parker. But I’ll tell you another thing Aunt Knatchbull said about them. There was a saying in Boston even before the war: if you shake hands with a Rossiter, count your fingers afterwards.’

  *

  Hardcastle retur
ned home early for the first time in several days, and so could not avoid dining with his sister. Calpurnia demanded details of the day’s events, which the rector gave in edited fashion. ‘And did you call on Mrs Chaytor?’ she asked.

  ‘Briefly. I encountered an old friend of hers, who desired to renew their acquaintance, and took him to her.’

  ‘Oh? And who was he, Marcus?’

  ‘Captain Austen of the East Kent Volunteers. He knew Mrs Chaytor and her husband some years back.’

  ‘Captain Austen?’ Calpurnia’s expression changed, from inquisitorial to surprised. ‘Captain Edward Austen? Oh, I am sorry I was not there! I should have liked to meet Mr Austen once more.’

  ‘You know him?’ asked the rector, surprised in his turn.

  ‘The family were practically our neighbours in Hampshire, do you not remember? He’s the one that was adopted by the rich Knight family from Kent. No, of course, you were off to Cambridge by then. But I saw the Austens often, both before and after I married Captain Vane. Such a nice family.’ She smiled fondly. ‘I remember there was a dear little girl, Edward’s youngest sister, who was simply fascinated by my writing. She used to ask me questions: you know, all the usual things, where does my inspiration come from, and do I have a favourite place to write, and are my characters based on real people, and so forth. I gave her a copy of Rodolpho, A Tale of Love and Liberty, and suggested she use that as a model. That, my child, is the style you must adopt if you intend to write in a truly modern way, I told her.’

  The rector had largely stopped listening; his mind was busy analysing what Austen had said, ferreting out the bits of information that seemed relevant. The Rossiters had been involved in smuggling in years gone by. Well, that hardly mattered . . . or did it? He heard again Edward Rossiter’s voice: I imagine the dry ground is one reason why the house was built where it is. Of course, New Hall was the perfect place from which to run a wool-smuggling ring.

  But that was old history. What mattered, here and now, was the cellars themselves. Foucarmont knew about the cellars already and had been planning to make use of them. Of course, Foucarmont would have seen the cellars himself during his visits to the house last year and the year before. But . . . had he been aware of them before those visits? Was it those cellars, that convenient dry hiding place that had attracted him to New Hall in the first place, and led to his fatal attachment to the Fanscombe family?