‘Wait here,’ the woman rather commanded, and left at once.
I caught McGray smiling.
‘Are you going to make love to this one too?’ I asked.
He chuckled. ‘She looks a lot like Betsy, my dad’s housekeeper. She still lives in the farmhouse where … it all happened.’ He nodded at his missing finger, no further explanation required. ‘I should visit her one o’ these days. She’s nae getting any younger.’
I checked to make sure we were alone, and then whispered in McGray’s ear. ‘I do not think we should mention the … treasure. We should ask the child first.’
‘Indeedy. I’ll do that, yer terrible with children.’
‘I will not deny that,’ I said and, feeling restless, went to the window. After a moment, I caught a glimpse of a very young girl running amidst grass as tall as her. She was gone within a blink, but it was enough to realise how carefree and happy she looked. ‘McGray,’ I muttered, ‘I do not think they have been—’
‘The missus will see youse in the study,’ the housekeeper barked then, and led us to the adjacent room, which also overlooked the bay.
We found Gertrude Cobbold bent over her desk and scribbling frantically, half buried in the centre of a pile of paperwork. She still wore mourning clothes, but that was the only hint at her losses. Her face was composed, her writing neat and straight. In fact, the only signs of strain were her tense lips and the many pen nibs, some bent and some broken, scattered all over the desk.
She looked up, but only to examine us, and then went back to her writing. ‘I hear you came with a police officer.’
‘Normal procedure,’ I lied. Her smirk told me she knew. ‘We need to ask you a few questions, ma’am.’
‘I am very busy, as you can see. I need to liaise with the executors, arrange the funerals, see what is to happen with Grenville’s house … look after the poor children …’
‘It will only take a moment,’ I said. ‘This is part of our ongoing investigation.’
She laughed scornfully. ‘Nothing I can say will help you save that damn gypsy. I’m sorry to disappoint you.’
‘Ma’am, we have travelled all this way to—’
She banged the pen on the desk, the nib piercing paper and polished mahogany. Her eyes were all fury. ‘And I just lost my father and my daughter. And then I went to court, only to see you two defending that filthy cow as if she were your mother.’
So Mrs Cobbold was raging instead of mourning. I understood. Sometimes hatred is more bearable than pain.
‘We are carrying out an impartial investigation, ma’am.’ But even I knew I sounded as silly as the Prime Minister promising higher interest rates on government bonds.
Mrs Cobbold merely laughed and then reached for a new nib for her pen.
I changed my approach. ‘You may refuse to talk to us, but your silence will not help your family’s case.’
She looked at me, laughed with utmost mockery, and then threw the pen aside and lounged on her chair. ‘Very well, sit down. I can spare a moment to tell you a thing or two ; do what I can to help the court pass sentence on that murderer.’
McGray was keeping his temper under control, but only just. He got straight to the point.
‘We ken ye were supposed to attend the séance.’
The woman’s jaw dropped ever so slightly, but her skin blanched instantly. Her pupils flickered between McGray and me, her frosty façade all but fallen.
‘Who told you that?’ she whispered.
‘Doesnae matter, missus. I can tell it’s true. Ye were meant to be there, but ye sent yer nephew Bertrand in yer place.’
Mrs Cobbold shifted as if suddenly realising she’d been sitting on nails. ‘I did not “send” him. I changed my mind about taking part. I don’t know who fetched Bertrand to take my place.’
‘So you did know about the session,’ I intervened, and her lips went tense.
‘I did.’
‘Ma’am, so far nobody has been able to tell us the purpose of that meeting.’
Mrs Cobbold let out a high-pitched ha! ‘Not even the damn gypsy?’
‘She only kens youse wanted to talk to Grannie Alice. Yer mum. Youse didnae tell her more.’
That took Mrs Cobbold by surprise. I was expecting her to throw a tantrum. Instead, she remained silent.
‘Why did youse want to talk to her?’ McGray asked.
‘Why does that matter?’ she spat. ‘That doesn’t change the fact that they all died and your treasured cow survived.’
‘Then you should have no problem telling us,’ I added. ‘You were summoned. You must have known.’
Her eyes flashed in a gesture that much reminded me of Walter Fox, as if quickly weighing her chances.
‘They,’ she said, rather too intensely, ‘they wanted to talk to her. I did not. Even if I believed in those damn tricksters and their ploys, I have no need. I told my mother everything she needed to know when she was alive. I’m the one who saw her die ; I was holding her hand. She and I parted in peace.’
McGray tilted his head. ‘But the others didnae?’
She laughed. ‘Why don’t you go to your gypsy and ask the dead yourself?’
‘That’s actually a very good idea. Frey, write that down.’ I could not possibly tell if that was a joke or not. He looked at Mrs Cobbold. ‘And ye, missus, stop being so cryptic. Did they tell ye what they needed from Alice?’
Mrs Cobbold gulped as if she’d swallowed a conker. ‘No.’
She was lying, it was obvious, and McGray lost his temper.
‘We’re trying to find out what killed yer daughter, for fuck’s sake!’
The woman let out a sharp breath. ‘I’ve told you all I know, you twisted little man! I only agreed to attend that silly session because my daughter Martha insisted. And she herself just wanted to humour her stupid cousin Leonora.’
‘And that’s all they told ye,’ McGray probed.
‘Yes!’
That last yelp was almost feral.
I moved the questioning on before McGray further antagonised her.
‘In the end you did not attend, ma’am. Why did you change your mind?’
She inhaled deeply to calm herself. ‘I was going to host the séance in my flat – again, only because Martha nagged so much about it. Then the old gypsy said it must be done in Grenville’s house, where my mother had spent the last years of her life. Something to do with her … essence, or that sort of stupid thing, so I refused.’
‘Can you tell us why?’
‘I didn’t get along with my son-in-law. I swore I’d never set foot in his dwellings. Besides, I did not want the children to get scared with all that nonsense. I told Martha to send them to me for the night. Just as well – the gypsy didn’t want any witnesses.’
‘Speaking of the colonel,’ I said, ‘we know that … we know how he treated his wife – your daughter.’
Again, the woman’s hard shell appeared to crack. Her chest swelled a little, she looked sideways with a quick movement of the neck, and then bit her lip as her eyes misted up.
She cleared her throat. ‘You’d have seen her body, I suppose.’
‘Indeed,’ I said, more gravely. ‘A post-mortem was unavoidable. I am sorry.’
I was going to ask her to tell us more, but the woman did so spontaneously, as if she’d been yearning to speak up for a very long time.
‘I instigated that marriage. There is nothing I regret more in my entire life. Grenville was my mother’s second cousin, or so I was told – it was a convoluted connection, apparently. He was very gallant back then and my Martha was besotted.
‘My mother overheard when he came to me and my husband, asking for Martha’s hand. She told us once and again we should not allow the union. She told us Martha would be miserable.’ She had to force a deep breath to keep tears at bay. ‘She … she told us she’d read it all “in the cards”, so of course we ignored her!’
McGray was going to intervene, surely to ask more a
bout ‘the cards’, but I raised a hand, begging him to let her continue. He acceded.
‘My mother also told us about their … barrenness. She said the marriage would be cursed. We laughed at her then, as you can imagine … We were not laughing seven years later, when there was still no hint of a child.
‘Poor Martha came to me many times, telling me that Grenville blamed her. That he called her a dry—’ She gulped then, and it was as though she’d awoken from a trance. ‘You don’t need to know more of that. It has nothing to do with … your investigations.’
‘Did yer mum help them?’ McGray asked.
Mrs Cobbold looked surprised. ‘Did someone tell you?’
McGray kept his word and lied. ‘I’ve heard plenty about yer mum’s skills. Nae hard to guess.’
‘She … she did help Martha. I don’t know how ; it had to do with herbal teas she bought on the black market and keeping odd talismans under the bed. I still don’t know if all that worked ; all I know is Eddie was born soon after. We were all overjoyed. Martha especially. When she was pregnant, Grenville left her alone. He even became kind.’ She smiled wryly. ‘As kind as that pig could be.’
I asked the next question with as much tact as possible.
‘Ma’am, could your daughter … perhaps … might she have wanted to do something against the colonel?’
I was expecting another burst of rage, but instead her sardonic smile widened. ‘Before the children came … yes, maybe … But not now,’ she rushed on, seeing our astonishment. ‘Martha had her little ones to think about.’ She cast me a piercing stare. ‘You are not suggesting my daughter did something that night, are you? Her father was there. I was meant to be there.’
‘No, of course not,’ I said, again lying. I’d seen more illogical behaviour before.
‘I hope that’s all,’ she said, back to her initial curtness. ‘I told you, I’m very busy.’
I looked at the window. ‘We would like to talk to the children.’
‘Absolutely not. That is out of the question. The children had nothing to do with this matter.’
‘We know that, but—’
‘And I don’t want them to hear the news from two odd strangers.’
‘Odd?’ I repeated.
‘Ye’ve nae told them yet?’ McGray cried.
‘I know what’s best for them,’ she snapped. ‘They’re my responsibility now. The poor creatures are nearly destitute.’
She leaned back then, most likely thinking she’d said too much.
‘Destitute?’ I echoed. ‘But the Morningside mansion …?’
‘Never fully paid. It will have to be sold to settle their parents’ debts.’
I remembered Mrs Grenville’s perfectly groomed skin and Reed mentioning that she’d been found wearing very expensive jewellery. I imagined them spending lavishly, borrowing money without restraint ; and now their children were out there in the grassland, playing, oblivious to their parents’ deaths and their own future tribulations.
‘Which reminds me,’ Mrs Cobbold added, ‘you have kept all the jewellery my daughter was wearing on that evening, and also my father’s watch and wedding band. I want everything back. I know how things tend to disappear when under police custody.’
‘I will personally see that those belongings are sent back to you,’ I said, as a sort of peace offering. ‘But we do need to talk to the children. We can assure you we will not tell them what has happened.’
Mrs Cobbold twisted her mouth at the suggestion. It took so much persuasion I could fill several pages with the tug of war, but the woman finally gave in, under the condition that she and her housekeeper were present at all times. They were in their rights, so we agreed and followed them outside.
The well-kept lawns that surrounded the house gradually gave way to the wild grassland, where only the heads of the boys stuck out as they sprinted joyously from here to there.
The housekeeper called them with a commanding yelp and the two boys came at once. Their trousers were covered in mud, their jackets peppered with hay and their faces red.
‘Where’s Alice?’ the housekeeper demanded.
‘She keeps hiding there,’ said the younger boy, pointing at the grass.
The woman stomped ahead like an angry heifer, but McGray moved faster.
‘Don’t worry, hen. I’ll take care o’ this.’ He went deep into the grass, which soon covered him up to his waist, and from a distance, it looked as though he was wading in a swamp. ‘Hey, look who’s here!’ He then plunged his hand in the grass and lifted a young creature by the bow of a now muddy dress.
The child kicked about and laughed with sheer delight.
‘Ahhh! You’re so ugly!’
‘Och nae, are ye mad? I’m really handsome. Come on, madam.’
The child, thrilled to be carried around like a sack of potatoes, continued to laugh long after Nine-Nails put her back on the ground, next to her brothers. All three looked at McGray with giggles, and me as if I were a sour headmaster.
Seeing them there, lined up before us, still grinning from their games, made me feel terribly sad. Their innocent, carefree days were just about to end, the injustice of life about to hit them with all its might. No wonder Mrs Cobbold was delaying the news as much as she could.
‘These gentlemen want to know a few things,’ she said, and then added, with a rather threatening note, ‘Answer truthfully.’
‘Nothing to be worried about,’ McGray told them. He patted the muddy trousers of Daniel, the middle boy, with the edge of his boot. ‘I’ll let youse go to yer office soon enough. Which one o’ youse was the last one to talk to Grannie Alice?’
The children looked at each other, rather baffled, and Mrs Cobbold seemed to fluff up like an infuriated turkey.
‘Why do you need to know—?’
McGray silenced her with a murderous glare, but just as quickly smiled at the children.
‘Well?’
‘I hadn’t been born when she went to heaven,’ said the young girl, and then added with authority, ‘She was my great-grandmother.’
‘You were already on your way, darling,’ said Mrs Cobbold, her attempt at a sweet tone quite stiff.
Then the eldest boy raised a bashful hand, the blush on his face increasing.
McGray went to him. ‘What’s yer name, laddie?’
‘Edward,’ he mumbled.
‘Are ye twelve?’
‘Twelve and a half, sir.’
‘Good. When was the last time ye talked to her?’
Young Edward counted with his fingers. ‘Six … Seven years ago, sir. I was five.’
‘D’ye remember it well?’
The boy nodded. ‘She told me she was going away but that I would see her again.’
Clearly a bitter memory, for the boy tensed his lips and clenched his fists, in a patent attempt to repress tears. The colonel surely had told him a thousand times that little men did not cry.
McGray rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘There, there. Ye will see her again, one day. What else did she say?’ Young Edward did not answer, and Nine-Nails bent down to whisper. ‘She told ye something ye were supposed to keep secret, right?’
After a seemingly endless moment, Edward nodded, and Mrs Cobbold’s eyes opened wide.
McGray spoke softly. ‘I think she’d understand if ye told me now. Please, what was it?’
Young Edward looked doubtfully at Mrs Cobbold. She hesitated as well, but in the end assented.
His voice sounded constricted, as if saying those words took all his energy.
‘Grannie Alice said I had a gift.’
McGray nearly gasped. ‘A gift?’
‘She said I had it – and that she had it, but nobody else. She said one day I’d find— I’d find out what she meant.’
Nine-Nails looked at him with eerie intensity. ‘And have ye?’
For a while the boy looked deep into McGray’s eyes. He had the dark pupils of his family, which looked like bottomless wel
ls. His lips parted, but then he said nothing. He shook his head in a rather scared gesture.
‘Did she tell ye anything about …’ McGray looked at Mrs Cobbold with the corner of his eyes, and whispered, ‘a treasure?’
The boy shook his head one more time, taking a step back and freeing himself from McGray’s hand, which still rested on his shoulder.
‘Ye sure?’ McGray insisted. I could see his hand, the one with the missing finger, trembling, perhaps keen to seize the child and shake some answers out of him.
Young Edward did not even move. He simply stared at his murky shoes, everyone around him in deep silence. His brother and sister suddenly looked just as tense. Could they perhaps know as well?
Edward looked at Mrs Cobbold. ‘May we go, now?’
She gave him a curt nod and the children ran back to the fields, as quick as gazelles frightened by a gunshot.
I did not know then, but I’d see those children again. Soon. And it would not be pleasant.
19
Kirkcaldy at least had a very decent inn right in front of the harbour, surely where the wealthy factory owners spent their nights on business trips. We were served a surprisingly delectable dinner, and after that, just before the last rays of daylight faded away, I decided to go for a walk around the wharfs. McGray joined me, offered me a cigar, and we marched in silence for a while, simply taking in the tranquillity of the place. All the merchants and fishermen had gone home, so all we could hear were the sounds of the sea, the occasional draught and the calls of seagulls as they glided over the swaying boats.
‘That boy was lying,’ I said at some point. ‘He clearly knows something.’
‘Aye, and now his fat grandma is aware o’ that. I’m worried she’ll besiege the laddie ’til she finds out.’
‘Perhaps it is the same secret she is trying to protect. Did you see her face? She is also hiding something.’
‘Och, aye, blatantly! And it has to be something only the six kent about. She trusts they’ll keep quiet now, dead and buried. Only Kat—’ McGray halted and his eyes brightened, just as he puffed at his cigar and held the smoke.
The Darker Arts Page 15
