Bloodie Bones Read online

  “I see you’re a man who likes to look beyond the obvious,” growled Garvey. It was not a compliment.

  Lord Oldfield shook his head. “No. I’m certain that our home-grown poachers are behind the Bloodie Bones outrages, and they murdered Josh. If you can rid me of them, you’ll rid me of a host of troublemakers at the same time, which means that my plans – ”

  Garvey cleared his throat and Lord Oldfield checked himself.

  “Well,” Dan said, letting the gentlemen have their secret, “even if they weren’t from around here, they must have had help from someone in the village. Do you have any suspicions who your home-grown poachers are?”

  “All of them!” Lord Oldfield cried. “Every countryman is a poacher if he gets the chance. Rabbits, pheasants’ eggs, fish – they help themselves to whatever they can. It could have been any of them.”

  “Dr Russell tells me you had a letter signed ‘Bloodie Bones’ some weeks ago. Do you still have it?”

  “It’s in my office. Doctor, would you mind?”

  Lord Oldfield told Russell where he would find the letter, and the doctor obligingly hurried off.

  “I shall also need directions to the spot where Castle’s body was found,” Dan said.

  “I can give you those, though you won’t find anything. I had my men search the ground thoroughly.”

  “And I’m sure they missed nothing, but it is always useful to see the site of a murder.”

  Dr Russell returned with the letter. It was written on the back of a dog-eared receipt from the Angel Hotel, a coaching inn on Westgate Street in Bath. The receipt had not been used, so there was nothing to give a lead to whom it had belonged. Anyone from Barcombe could have picked it up: carriers, farmers, tradesmen, shoppers, pleasure-seekers.

  ‘Remember the pore in distres,’ it said, ‘or els there will be blood and fier you may depend upon these lines to be trwe for we will sartainly do it. Bloodie Bones.’

  The note had nothing in common with the one Dan had taken from the scarecrow in the ice house, apart from bad spelling and poor handwriting. They differed in length and style, and there were no similarities between the paper used. There was not one person behind the notes; anyone and everyone acting out a grudge called himself Bloodie Bones.

  “How will you find the killer?” Lord Oldfield asked.

  “Not by going amongst them as a Bow Street officer.” Dan picked up his bag. “Is there somewhere I can change?”

  “Dr Russell can show you into the library.”

  “Then I need to make my way out of the village without being seen, so I can enter Barcombe tomorrow on the tramp.”

  “I can take you in my gig if you like,” the doctor said. “People are used to seeing me going about at odd times of the day and night on house calls.”

  “An offer I gladly accept.”

  *

  The doctor waited outside the library while Dan exchanged his own clothes for dirty and threadbare corduroy breeches, coarse grubby stockings, a grimy shirt, tattered jacket, greasy hat and clumsy, thick-soled shoes. With the finishing touch of a night in the open and a hike back to Barcombe in the morning, even Eleanor would not have known him. She certainly would not have liked the rough fellow he had become.

  He had worn worse: clothes so patched and thin it seemed only dirt held them together. Dressed like this, those days did not seem very far away. Going undercover was a going back, a reminder that it was always possible for a man to fall again. It was that constant, nagging anxiety that gave him his edge, kept him alert to danger. Battle ready, like in a fight. Every villain he brought low was a victory that took him further away from his past, drew him closer to money, promotion, security. A step further away from the gutter.

  He hid the two Bloodie Bones notes in a concealed pocket in his portmanteau and packed his clothes, tipstaff and pistol on top of them. He wrapped a few pennies in a rag, threw his purse in with the rest, and pocketed his razor case. His razor and hone were good quality. A decent blade was something he had not been able to bring himself to do without, but he had fixed it in a cheap wooden handle and kept it in a battered box more suitable to a man of his supposed station.

  “What arrangements will you make for reporting your progress to me?” Lord Oldfield asked when Dan and the doctor returned to the drawing room.

  “There will be no reports. I will only contact you in an emergency or when the case has reached its crisis.”

  “We need to find somewhere safe where you can leave a message.”

  “No, I’ll put nothing in writing.”

  “Then how will you get in touch with me?”

  “I’ll think of something when the time comes.”

  “Could I help?” the doctor asked. “Since I am often visiting Lady Oldfield, you could easily contrive to leave a message with me.”

  Dan considered the suggestion. “Very well. But do not expect to hear from me for some time, My Lord. Though it may seem to you that nothing is happening, be assured that will not be the case.”

  There was a muffled “Humph!” from Garvey.

  His Lordship reluctantly accepted the arrangement and agreed to store Dan’s things in his muniments room, to which only he had a key. Leaving Garvey to his maps and deeds, the other three hurried away. In order to minimise the danger of fire, the room where the estate documents were stored was at the end of the block opposite the kitchen, in a stone turret reached by a short spiral staircase. Lord Oldfield let Dan into the windowless chamber. He deposited his bag in a corner between two tall wooden cabinets. Lord Oldfield locked the door, whispered “Good luck”, and left them.

  All was quiet, but lights still burned in the kitchen. They got out without being seen, and Dan, keeping to the shadows, followed the doctor across the courtyard. He waited in the darkness under the wall while Russell went to fetch his gig. The stable boy’s cheery “Goodnight” drifted down to him with the clatter and jingle of harness. A moment later the doctor emerged from beneath the clock arch. He drove slowly along the drive without stopping. Dan jumped up beside him and hunched down. They drove away from the Hall in silence.

  Beyond the Hall gates, Russell pointed to the left. “That’s Drover’s Way. The keeper’s cottage is down there.”

  The yellow light from the carriage shone briefly on a bracken-filled ditch and fence before the darkness of the forest swallowed it up. Dan would not have known there was a track there if it had not been pointed out to him.

  At the end of the lane they turned onto the Bath Road. The village lay behind them and, after passing one or two outlying cottages, the roadway was empty. They clopped along between dark hedges, looming trees and black fields.

  Dan now had an opportunity to turn his attention to Dr Russell. The doctor was a pleasant-looking man of thirty or so who seemed at ease in his grand surroundings. When he spoke to Lord Oldfield he was polite but not fawning. Clearly he had confidence in himself and his skills, and had no need to toady to win favour. No doubt he also had a sympathetic manner with his aristocratic female patient, an attitude necessary for any practitioner who wished to make his way in the world.

  “Have you been the Oldfields’ family physician for long?” Dan asked.

  “Since the night Lord Oldfield died, and I was only called on then because it was too far to send to Bath for Dr Kean. By the time the family did bring themselves to summon a mere country doctor, it was too late to do anything for the sufferer. His widow, however, was in a pitiable state, and I was able to be of such use to her that she has come to rely on me. It was a stroke of good fortune for me,” he added candidly, “that will help to establish me in my career.”

  “How did the old Lord die?”

  “He had a bad attack of gout. They tried all the usual treatments – warmed flannels and bandages of sheep’s wool and oilskin around the foot, as well as administering pints of gruel and gl
asses of lemon juice and water. But none of it did any good to a constitution debilitated by long duration of the distemper. It was a nasty death.” Russell was silent for a moment as he negotiated a corner. “Many in the village say that it was Bloodie Bones who killed him – gout is a disease of the joints, you know. Not one of the poachers, you understand, but the very ghoul himself. Some believe that Castle too was killed by a spectre.”

  “I think it very unlikely.” Dan had no time for the hobgoblin business. He had seen too many real monsters.

  Russell laughed. “I’m sure you do. But there’s no logic in superstition. It doesn’t occur to them that if Bloodie Bones was on their side, he wouldn’t have killed the old man, and in the middle of Fence Month too.”

  “Fence Month?”

  “June and July time, while Barcombe Wood is out of bounds for the deer-breeding season. The festival is an ancient ritual. Its purpose is to remind the lord of the manor of the people’s time-honoured rights to hunt and cut wood there. A youth in dun leggings and tunic with antlers on his head represents the deer – it was Walter Halling this year. Bob Singleton on a hobby horse was the hunter. The role is usually his, for tradition dictates it should go to the village blacksmith. A matron dressed in green is meant to personify the vernal life force. That was Mrs Wicklow, who has blessed the world with an oaf called Abe. The mummers prance up to the wood with ribbons and bells, and the villagers trail after, blowing horns, waving rattles, banging drums. Afterwards there’s a fair on the village green – pies and beer, jugglers and jesters, men on stilts, puppets – you’ve seen the sort of thing.”

  “Of course. We do have them in London.” Dan had seen tooth drawers, giants and dwarves too. Once he saw a man remove a harelip from a two-year-old boy, but he did not know if the child survived the operation. Fairs had been a source of income to him all his life, though nowadays he went to catch the pickpockets, not to swell their numbers.

  “Lord Oldfield died on the night of the stag dance. His son closed the fair the next day and, instead of reopening the wood as usual, brought in a gang of Irish labourers to fence it round. There’s always been poaching in the wood. The old Lord turned a blind eye to it mostly, provided his deer were left alone. His son wants to build up the herd, and it’s to preserve their peace that he keeps the people out. There’s been a running battle between him and the village ever since, and now poor Josh Castle has fallen victim to their malice.”

  He brought the carriage to a halt beneath a canopy of soughing leaves. “Of course, there’s an end to the festival too, and no bad thing, for it usually ended in idleness and drunkenness…Is this far enough for you?”

  Dan thanked him and climbed down. The doctor circled the vehicle around, gave a wave of his hand, and disappeared along the road back to Barcombe. Dan turned off the highway, climbed over a gate into a field, and settled down for the night under a hedge.

  *

  The farmworker with the black and white dog had disappeared into the trees by the time Dan finished his exercises. He ran his fingers through his hair, shook out a few leaves, picked the burrs off his jacket, put on his hat, and vaulted over the gate into the lane.

  The church clock was striking eleven when he reached the outskirts of Barcombe, passing the top of the lane that led to Oldfield Hall. A little further on, he came to the village green on his right. On a rise above it stood two or three old houses, but most of the villagers lived in the cottages strung along the main thoroughfare. One of these housed the general store. Through the open door, Dan glimpsed a group of women gossiping with the shopkeeper, who was leaning across the counter on his folded arms while his apprentice ran back and forth, fetching goods to fill the women’s baskets.

  Dan followed the aroma of fresh bread to the baker’s, where he was pleased to see the effectiveness of his get-up. After one look at him, the woman called her husband from the kitchen. He stood by with his arms folded over his floury apron while Dan bought a halfpenny loaf and asked if he could have a drink of water.

  “Village pump is over the road,” the woman said, examining the coin before pocketing it and adding darkly, “Next to the lock-up.”

  The tiny roundhouse did not look as if it had held any miscreants for some time. The bottom of the heavy wooden door had been gnawed by vermin, and its hinges and locks were rusty. If Dan had not been in Barcombe to find a murderous gang of poachers, he would have judged it a law-abiding place. As it was, it only confirmed his opinion that it was high time the old, inefficient parish system, where the ratepayers took it in turns to serve as constable, was done away with. These days most ratepayers hired substitutes to do the job for them, or paid the parish to employ someone at the lowest possible wages, which guaranteed that only incompetents and misfits would undertake police work.

  The pump was in a stone shelter over a grating with the spring running beneath it. Dan drank from his cupped hands and looked about while he ate his bread. A back lane looped behind the high street, starting beside the bakery and emerging by the village inn. The houses on it were thatched and smaller than those on the main road. Beyond these, three or four grand residences of grey stone with slate roofs stood in their own grounds. Behind them the country rose to grass-topped slopes dotted with sheep and horses. The Stony River glinted in the valley below.

  Through the open casement of the ivy-clad inn came a hubbub of shouting, booing and cheering. Chairs and tables scraped along the stone floor, feet pounded in the porch, and a crowd of farmworkers and labourers, their dogs barking at their heels, tumbled into the street.

  A man in shirtsleeves, breeches and scuffed black pumps pranced at their head, punching the air with scarred fists and grimacing with theatrical menace. He was accompanied by another man carrying a bucket, sponge and a bladder of brandy. Dan recognised them immediately. Not that he knew them by name, but he knew what they were: an itinerant fighter and his manager, the sort who would pitch up in some small town or village, issue a challenge, promise a large purse for the winner, then sit back and count their takings. Dan supposed he should call them ‘pugilists’ for want of a better word, though they usually relied on brute strength and the gullibility of their opponents rather than skill.

  Jabbering excitedly, the company thronged over to the pump. Dan stood aside to let the manager fill his bucket. When they moved off, he followed them back to the green. Here there was a great deal of fuss and flourish. The boxer stripped off his shirt and strutted about the circle the spectators had made around him – they did not trouble to erect a ring – snarling and flexing his biceps, shoulder and pectoral muscles. Dan would have been impressed if it had not been for the flabby stomach and saggy face.

  The manager unfurled a poster and read out the terms of the challenge.

  “Here,” he cried, “stands Bold Ben Jones, whose reputation goes before him. I’ve trained this boy, gentlemen, since he was knee-high to a blade of grass, and I can tell you that in all my years I’ve never seen a better champion. Why, Lord Barrymore himself said as much! He’s stood up to the Coachman, the Young Ruffian and George the Brewer.”

  It was not impossible, though improbable, that Bold Ben – probably one of a number of names he had owned to over the years – had stood up with the Coachman, the Ruffian and the Brewer. Dan doubted entirely, however, that Lord Barrymore ever had anything to do with him. The Earl had been dead three years. He had been known as ‘Hellgate’ by his friend, the Prince of Wales, or so Dan had heard from Officer John Townsend, who had the plum job of guarding the royal family. The name Hellgate summed up the man: a reckless prankster and gambler, fond of the stage, a bet, a horse race and a fight – the lower and nastier the better.

  The manager pulled a jingling purse out of his pocket, though whether it contained coins was anyone’s guess. “Here’s two guineas for whoever can beat him!” Then he opened his book and began to take bets.

  Standing next to Dan was a stocky, clea
n-shaven man in his early fifties, his hands in his breeches pockets and his long coat thrown open. He wore muddy gaiters and sturdy boots, and his rough-haired lurcher lay quietly at his feet. There was an air of authority about him, though his clothes were those of a working man. He watched his drunken friends gamble away their money with a tolerant eye.

  “Where’s this Jones from?” Dan asked him.

  “All I know is that he’s just come from Stonyton, where he beat all comers, every one a miner.”

  “A tough lot then.”

  The man laughed. “Very. But our man’s no weakling. That’s Bob Singleton.”

  Bob Singleton: the blacksmith who, Dr Russell said, had pranced about on a hobby horse in the Fence Month festival. He was muscular, with not an ounce of fat on him and fists that looked as if they could smash an anvil. The villagers were confident he would win and their bets were all on him.

  Jones took up a fairly creditable stance, and they set to without the advantage of Broughton’s, or any other, rules. Jones went on the attack at once, hopping out of harm’s way whenever he made a hit. After a third blow landed on Singleton’s temple, the blacksmith realised he would get nowhere staying on the defence and chased after Jones, swinging a series of hammer blows at him. They were ill-aimed and Jones easily defended himself, but they did demonstrate the strength of his opponent, especially when one or two accidentally hit home. The first round ended and Singleton retired to have the blood washed out of his eyes.

  “A good fight,” Dan’s neighbour bawled in his ear above the cheering. “Nothing to tell ’em apart.”

  Dan silently agreed it was true that the two were evenly matched in size and strength, but it was not a good fight. Singleton was the fitter, and whenever his blows hit home they did the business, but with his right eye closed it was not often enough. Compared to Jones, he was clumsy too. The leveller was not long in coming.