The Body in the Ice

by A. J. MacKenzie

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Mrs Chaytor smiling. ‘Still, you seem to be immune.’

  ‘My only vice is books,’ said Laure, and they laughed together. The conversation drifted on to other things; they talked of Mrs Chaytor’s time in Rome, and she related the story of the cardinal’s jewels and they dissected the nature of human greed.

  ‘Family, in the end, meant nothing to them,’ said Laure a little sadly. ‘They were willing to kill their own kin to get what they wanted.’

  ‘And also, to avenge a betrayal,’ said Mrs Chaytor. ‘They killed the brother not just to get the jewels back, but to punish him for the theft.’

  ‘Perhaps Miss Wollstonecraft was right,’ observed Laure. ‘Perhaps people shouldn’t get married and have families at all. It seems only to increase the quantity of human misery.’

  ‘That was not my experience,’ said Mrs Chaytor. I wonder what her own experience of family life has been, she thought.

  ‘Even though the ending brought you sorrow?’

  ‘My dear, I had ten years of unclouded happiness. I will face a lifetime of sorrow, if need be, and still count myself blessed. That is why I go on,’ she finished quietly.

  ‘I think you are very brave to carry on as you do.’

  ‘It is easy to be brave when there are no alternatives. Do I take it you yourself have abandoned the idea of marriage?’

  ‘No . . . At least, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You do not sound certain.’

  ‘My parents, especially Mother, have always encouraged me to marry. They have over the years proposed several arrangements. I have always said no, not because I am opposed to marriage in principle, like Mrs Wollstonecraft, but because the candidates who presented themselves had nothing to offer me. The men my father would have had me marry would have been useful to him. The men my mother wanted me to marry were very fashionable, but . . .’ Laure paused, staring into the fire. ‘Marriage should be an act that increases the store of love and happiness in the world, not one that detracts from it. Don’t you think?’

  ‘On that point, my dear,’ said Mrs Chaytor, ‘you and I are in complete agreement.’

  THE GEORGE INN, RYE, SUSSEX.

  5th February, 1797.

  By express.

  My dear Hardcastle,

  Thank you for your letter of yesterday’s date. This matter is an annoyance, but Rossiter cannot remain at large for very long. He was transported in manacles, and unless he manages to shed these, then he will be unable to travel far or help himself. Even if our men do not find him, cold and hunger will soon force him to turn himself in.

  Most importantly, so long as he is cut off from his confederates, there is little he can do. Ask Austen to set men to watching all the roads and tracks running southwest into Sussex. If Rossiter should hear where Foucarmont has gone, he may try to join the Frenchman. That would be an excellent chance to lay them both by the heels.

  Yr very obedient servant,

  CLAVERTYE

  The rector read through the express again, silently cursing Lord Clavertye. The letter contained no comment, not a single word of acknowledgement of Hardcastle’s expressed doubts or his intention to reopen the Rossiter case.

  That omission was, he knew from experience, entirely deliberate. Clavertye had his own firm view of this case, and was convinced he was right and Hardcastle was wrong. But his lordship also knew Hardcastle well enough to recognise that the rector would not change his mind unless incontrovertible evidence were placed before him. By remaining silent, Clavertye was allowing the rector to go ahead and attempt to prove his own case, while simultaneously distancing himself from the investigation in case anything went awry.

  If he is right and I am wrong, the rector thought, he will get the credit and I the blame. If I am right and he is wrong, he will magnanimously acknowledge his debt to me and then claim the credit anyway. Damn all politicians!

  He wondered how long it would take Jessington to respond to his letter. There is work to be done, he had said; but he could not really start that work until he had tested the notion that had come to him while walking on the beach. He remembered again Parker’s voice, sharp and demanding: who is in France? Who are you discussing, if I may ask? and Edward Rossiter looking at him curiously. And Parker again, sweating with anxiety: You’re certain you are close to catching them? And again: You cannot simply barge in here without notice and start rummaging around!

  Of course, there were other explanations. Parker might have been trying to protect the Rossiters, as he had done before. Or he might have been genuinely afraid for his own safety, and that of the family. The rector did not believe it. Parker was frightened; but there was more than simple fear behind those sharp, dark eyes.

  Let us hope, thought the rector, that Jessington’s dislike of Parker prompts him to be thorough in his search. He went about his parochial duties in an absent-minded fashion, waiting for the little lawyer’s reply.

  Two days later, as the evening light was beginning to draw down across the Marsh, the letter came.

  ANTHONY JESSINGTON, ESQ

  LINCOLN’S INN

  LONDON

  7th February, 1797.

  The Reverend Hardcastle, Sir,

  I am in receipt of your letter of the 5th inst. I have looked through our records and found they contain very little information about the antecedents of the late Mrs Amélie Rossiter. Her family, the Mirabeaus, were Huguenots who fled France in the last century. Mrs Rossiter herself was born in London in 1709.

  I did find one letter from the Mirabeau family’s solicitor, indicating that the family had connections in France up to the time of Mrs Rossiter’s marriage. Her sister-in-law, Mr William Rossiter’s sister Charlotte, had made a most advantageous marriage to a French nobleman, the Baron de Foucarmont from Normandy. The Foucarmonts had come into some property formerly belonging to the Mirabeaus and were offering to sell it back to the original owners, and the Mirabeau solicitor hoped that some of this French land could form part of Charlotte’s marriage portion. The offer was, I understand, refused.

  I hope this information is of some use to you, and apologise for having nothing of greater substance to offer,

  Your faithful servant,

  ANTHONY JESSINGTON

  The thing was so simple that he almost laughed aloud. The connection between the Rossiters and Foucarmont was a perfectly ordinary one; two families united by marriage a generation ago. Of course they would have kept in contact; they had shared commercial interests as well as family ties. Parker, as lawyer for the branch of the Rossiter family in Boston, would have known of this and might well have had his own correspondence with the Foucarmont family.

  He sat up sharply as another memory came to him. At Foucarmont’s trial the previous year – at which the rector had been a witness – it had emerged that the spy had served in the royal army before the French Revolution. He had been an officer in a regiment commanded by the Duc de Biron, and like Biron he had gone over to the Republican cause when the Revolution began. Biron was now dead, guillotined by his own revolutionary comrades; there had been a long article about him in the Morning Post, recalling how the duke had also led a regiment to fight against the British in America.

  It was enough to begin. A grim little smile crossed his lips, and the rector dipped his pen in the inkwell and began to write.

  THE RECTORY, ST MARY IN THE MARSH, KENT.

  8th February, 1797.

  My dear Mr Parker,

  I trust you are well, and that you continue to find your stay with us in St Mary in the Marsh agreeable and amiable. I hope you will forgive the intrusion of this letter, but a matter of some importance has arisen, which concerns New Hall. I would be most grateful if you would consent to call on me at noon tomorrow, so that we may discuss the matter.

  I look forward to the pleasure of your company,

  Yr very obedient servant,

  HARDCASTLE

  The clock chimed noon. A polite interval of about
a minute passed, and then Joseph Parker knocked at the rectory door. Biddy showed him into the study, the cameo rings on his fingers winking in the firelight. The diamonds on his watch fob flashed little rainbows each time he moved. Beneath the bald head, his face was sharp and his mouth set in a thin line.

  ‘It is indeed a pleasure to see you again, Mr Parker,’ the rector said. ‘Will you take refreshment? I believe it is still rather cold out. Biddy, kindly ask Mrs Kemp to bring us two toddies.’

  ‘I’ll see to it myself, reverend,’ said the little maid, bobbing a curtsey and skipping away.

  Hardcastle turned back to Parker. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.

  ‘You mean, for obeying your summons? I hope you have a good reason for dragging me over here.’

  ‘Oh, I do, believe me. But let us wait until the refreshments come. Meanwhile, how do your affairs progress here in St Mary?’

  ‘What affairs?’

  The rector bowed. ‘My apologies. I assumed you came to St Mary with some purpose in mind.’

  ‘My nephew invited me. And, of course, my wife has some sentimental attachment to New Hall, which she remembers from her childhood. She wanted to see it again, that’s all.’

  ‘Of course. And do you plan to remain here for long?’

  Parker gazed at him steadily. ‘We have no fixed plans.’

  Biddy returned with the toddies, served them quietly and without fuss, and slipped out again. ‘Now, Major Parker,’ said the rector, ‘shall we get down to business?’

  The other man’s eyes grew suddenly sharp. ‘What did you call me?’

  ‘Forgive me, but I assumed that was your title. You were second-in-command of a regiment in the Continental Army, were you not? And I believe the holder of that post normally has the rank of major. My apologies if I am mistaken.’

  ‘I have not used that rank for years,’ said Parker slowly. ‘How do you know my history?’

  ‘You were also engaged in work of a confidential nature on behalf of the American government,’ said the rector, ignoring the question. ‘You worked sub rosa, of course, but I think we can safely say that you were involved in countering British attempts at espionage and identifying those who might be deemed traitors to the American cause. It must have been unpleasant work, at times. Though it also had its rewards, I am sure.’

  ‘I will ask you again, Hardcastle. How do you know this?’

  ‘Mr Parker, my time is valuable, and so, I am certain, is yours. If we are to go off on long digressions about how I know things, we shall be here forever. Shall we just take it for granted that I know them?’

  Parker blinked. ‘Very well. What is your point?’

  ‘I have several points, which I shall come to in order. The first point is that you are, to put it bluntly, a man of your hands. You are a soldier, who has fought and killed for his country, and I am sure that you would not hesitate to use violence again, or to order others to do so, to achieve your ends.’

  Parker said nothing. His face, his eyes, his entire manner was wary.

  ‘For example, when you met Samuel Rossiter in London and he refused to stay away from your family or abandon his claim to New Hall, you threatened him. The phrase you used was “I will darken your daylights”. Samuel had spent most of his life living among the Indians, and his grasp of English idiom is rather limited. You and I know that phrase implies the threat of violence, even death.’

  ‘I threatened him, yes. I wanted to drive him away and thought I could frighten him off. Look here, Hardcastle, I was entirely in my rights to do so. Samuel Rossiter and his sister are bastards, no more. They had no claim on our family, none at all. Why my late brother-in-law chose to consort with some coloured whore I don’t pretend to comprehend. But I’ll not have his degenerate by-blows sniffing around the family. They contaminate the very air we breathe.’

  ‘You feel contempt for Samuel and Emma, of course,’ said the rector, nodding as if in approval. ‘I understand that entirely. And you feel that as the family’s legal advisor, it is down to you to protect the family and keep it free from . . . contamination, as you put it.’

  ‘Exactly. You’ve no doubt read your Voltaire, reverend. You know as well as I that these . . . people don’t belong among us. Hell, are they even people? It would be better if they disappeared off the face of the Earth, and I don’t mind helping one or two of them disappear. I’ve done it before.’

  Too late, Parker realised he had implicated himself. He could not have been a very good lawyer, the rector thought. Perhaps that was why he decided to go America. ‘And in order to protect the family,’ he said, ‘you were willing to use any means that came to hand including, as I think we have now established, the threat of violence.

  ‘Now, let us remind ourselves of a few facts. Just before Christmas, Samuel’s sister Emma Rossiter travelled to New Hall. She obtained entrance to the house, by what means we do not yet know. She was dressed as a man, again for reasons we do not know. Someone struck her a terrible blow to the head, and shortly thereafter she drowned in the horse pond behind the stables. These details will already be familiar to you, of course.’

  ‘Why are you raking this up again? You have your killer; or rather, you had him. I gather, that in a typical piece of British bungling, you have managed to let him escape.’

  ‘Samuel Rossiter did not kill his sister,’ said the rector. ‘I intend to prove his innocence.’

  ‘Good luck,’ sneered Parker.

  ‘I have had some luck already, but I have also used my wits to examine the evidence. Once we remove Samuel Rossiter from the list of suspects, Mr Parker, another name quickly climbs to the top of the list. Your own.’

  For a fat man, Parker could move fast. He shot to his feet, his fist clenched. The rector rose too, watchfully, but the urge for violence passed as quickly as it arrived. Parker swallowed, slowly relaxing his hands. ‘This is horseshit,’ he said.

  ‘You despise and dislike Samuel Rossiter. You knew his whereabouts in London; you knew he had visited Jessington, whom you also tried to bully. You had a watch set on his rooming house. When Emma, disguised as a man, left London to travel to New Hall, you followed her in the mistaken assumption that she was her brother. On Christmas Day, when she was alone in the house, you saw your chance to rid yourself of this nuisance for once and all. Still thinking she was Samuel, you killed her.’

  ‘What a pack of lies! I was in London—’

  ‘On the day when all mankind should set aside its differences and celebrate the feast of peace, Emma Rossiter died a horrible, lonely death,’ the rector continued, ignoring the interruption. His deep voice had turned hard. ‘She died because of your hatred of her mother’s race, your belief that the colour of her skin makes her degenerate and less than human; and she died because of your greed, your unwillingness to share your family’s fortune with someone who, by-blow or no, is your own kin. You sicken me, Parker; you and all men like you.’

  ‘If you think you can make that charge stick, you are even more of a damned fool than I thought you were,’ sneered Parker. ‘God, what claptrap. For your information, Hardcastle, I never left London until we came down here last month. And on Christmas Day, me and my wife were guests at dinner at the house of the American ambassador, Mr King. He and thirty others will confirm this.’

  ‘But of course,’ said the rector, nodding. ‘You would not be so careless as to be without an alibi for the time of the killing. But you are an officer. As I said earlier, you would not hesitate to use violence, or order others to do so. And that brings us to the servant, Steele. Tell me about Steele, Mr Parker. The man with the broken nose.’

  ‘I know nothing of him. He’s one of the agency staff my sister-in-law hired in London.’

  ‘No, he is not. For one thing, he is far too old; agencies employ younger people, ones who have not yet found a place in regular service. Nor would an agency employ a man with such a rough face. Agencies find it bad policy to provide servants whose faces might frigh
ten their wealthy and more sensitive clients. No, Steele has been in the service of your family for a long time. What is he: your valet?’

  Parker said nothing, which was eloquent in itself. The rector nodded. ‘I thought as much. A long-serving valet becomes close to his master, knows his secrets. I’ll wager Steele does far more than just brush your coat and polish your boots. You might have sent him after Emma with orders to kill her, but of course, you will have an alibi for him too. What is incontrovertible is that shortly after Samuel Rossiter was arrested, Steele went around the inns and public houses in the area to recruit men to break him out of gaol. He surely did this at your request.’

  ‘I don’t have to listen to this—’

  ‘I have a witness, and can certainly find more. And when I told Samuel Rossiter that someone wanted to break him out, he was terrified. He was quite certain that the men were coming, not to rescue him, but to kill him.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with any of this.’

  The rector raised his eyebrows. ‘So Steele was acting on his own, and not at your orders? Interesting. But valets don’t tend to go around assassinating people off their own bat, do they? They tend to be taking orders from someone. And if it was not you that gave the orders, Mr Parker, then another suspect’s name comes to the top of the list.’

  He waited. Parker was only human. ‘Who?’ he said, eventually.

  ‘Let us go back a bit,’ the rector said. ‘One thing that puzzled me about this case from the beginning was, why New Hall? Why did the murder take place there, of all the houses on the Marsh? Eventually, I realised that the house itself must hold the key to the mystery. The house has a secret. You know what it is, and you would kill – have killed – to protect it. You, and others, think Samuel Rossiter knows that secret too. As a result, there have been two attempts on his life: one resulted in the death of his sister, the other was thwarted when I learned of it and placed a guard around the gaol.