Dark Waters (5 page)

With Furzey, one never enjoyed the last word. I sighed and asked again that he produce the Egan will.

*   *   *

The White Bull Inn stood at the heart of the town and I had only to turn left out of my front door, take the few steps to the end of Cheapside, and cross Market Place to get there. The inn stood on the north side, an old-fashioned wood-frame building, yet possessed of a sense of its own magnificence, and roundly contemptuous of puny rival establishments in and around town. From across Market Place the Moot Hall clock was striking six as I pushed hungrily through its swinging doors and smelled the roast meats turning on their spits, and the puddings steaming in the kitchen. The price would not be the cheapest but I would get a good supper.

From the middle of the big stone-flagged hall in front of me rose a wide oak staircase, to the left of which were the double swing doors that led to the grand dining hall, with its four tall windows ranged above Market Street. On the right, looking out on the market itself, lay two rooms, the taproom and coffee room.

The dining hall was reminiscent of our old hall at the Temple, during my student days. Diners sat at three rows of long tables running the length of the room, except for the High Table, which was arranged laterally across its end. Here the quality would be seated, not on forms as were the rest of us, but on high-backed chairs with stuffed seats. The wall behind the central chair displayed a great corporation coat of arms wreathed in lavish gilt foliage – the room was used for the largest of our civic banquets – and the rest of the available space on the walls was taken up with portraits of nobles and dignitaries connected with the town: the Earl of This, Lord That and His Worship the Other.

Even before going in I was aware of an unusual hubbub. Once inside I could see that the tables at the far end of the hall, including the High Table, were occupied by a rout of thirty or forty, gorging on a meal of roast beef, pickles and, to wash them down, superior ales from Burton-on-Trent. I recognized most of them as freemen of the town, with a sprinkling of out-of-towners unknown to me. Sitting at High Table in the president's chair was Sir Harry Hoghton, who had served as one of our Members of Parliament for longer than most people could remember. He lived at Hoghton Tower, 8 miles away. Beside him was a gentleman of about fifty who, compared with Sir Harry's florid bearing, was scrawny and a little lugubrious, and who looked nervously about him, picking at his food and saying little. This was Francis Reynolds, a Manchester man. For the last year he had lived largely in Preston, cultivating the electors – or trying to – in order to get himself in as Hoghton's fellow MP. Beside
him
to my surprise sat the curly-haired stranger who I had last seen being packed out of the Ferry Inn parlour by Mary-Ann Egan. He cut a confident, lively figure in this company, laughing and joking with those around him, proposing toasts and singing snatches of songs. I noticed him paying particular attention to Reynolds, hanging on any words the fellow spoke and drawing him into the general conversation whenever possible, while at the same time conferring closely with the man on his other side. This was Ralph Randall, Sir Harry's steward.

In addition to this party there were several other customers at the long tables, sitting in disparate groups of three or four. I was shown to a place at the other extreme of the hall from the election party, near the end of one of the long tables. I was opposite Nicholas Oldswick, a watchmaker and burgess, as well as a notorious litigant who in years past had been assisted by my father in various actions at the mayoral Court Leet, where local trading disputes and civil complaints were wrangled over. Oldswick had recently been made a widower and, being childless, took to supping at the White Bull, and other inns, for the company as much as the convenience. But tonight he didn't seem to be enjoying his meal very much, and was squinting with particular displeasure at the goings-on down the room.

‘What's all this, Nick?' I asked as I slid into my place. ‘Election treat?'

‘Aye. Parliament is dissolved and the pig feeding has begun.'

‘Well, we've known an election was coming, and we'll have a contest this time.'

‘For all the good it'll do us. Pig feeding!'

I didn't entirely share his revulsion.

‘Nick, it
may
do us good. We shall all enjoy it. How long since this town's had a contest in a general election – nineteen years, I think? This will stir the place up wonderfully.'

It had been evident for some time that Sir Robert Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury, would have to call a general election this year. Now for the first time since 1722 we were to have a fight in Preston, with Hoghton and Reynolds standing as Whig candidates against our other incumbent MP Mr Nicholas Fazackerley for the Tories, standing with a young newcomer, Mr James Shuttleworth. So there was a chance that, at the end of it all, the two members elected by Preston would for once be of the same party, and no longer cancel each other out as they had in the old parliament. I looked up the room at Reynolds, whom I had met only in passing.

‘So Reynolds will get his chance at last,' I said. ‘He's been assiduous enough in the last few months, working the town. What do you make of him?'

‘Just another lackey of Sir Treasure Shovel. Speaks the King's German in his sleep, without doubt. He'll not get my vote.'

‘I never thought he would, Nick. You've always been strong for the Tories.'

‘I have, though there's some that call it the Country Party now. I won't be bought. There's plenty he might buy because that's all their politics is – people putting themselves up for sale.'

‘Don't both sides do the same?'

Oldswick shrugged.

‘A treat on one side's a bribe on the other, I grant you. But still,
I
know the difference, me.'

‘Reynolds may be better than Hoghton, though.'

‘He's forced to be. There's nobody
worse
than Hoghton. The man's hardly a Christian.'

Oldswick was getting heated now. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

‘I once went over to divine service at his church in Hoghton Tower, you know – well, you'd hardly have called it
divine
at all. The barest church you ever saw. No candles on the altar, and you were not to call it an altar, but a table, always a table. And they speak of the Elect, you know, who will be saved at the Last Judgement while the rest of us troop off to hell. It's all been decided in advance, so they claim, before the world was made. Predestination.'

He took a sip from his wine glass and looked at me over its rim, his eyes sparkling as he became more voluble. He put down the glass with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

‘And guess who they reckon are the Elect of this part of the world, Titus.'

‘Sir Harry and his friends?'

‘You have it. And not content with being elected to paradise, he sees himself as God's elected for this parliamentary seat. Of course, he forgets God's got no vote in the borough. So let them bid away for votes by giving feasts. I say they can be out-feasted.'

‘Do you know the man on Reynolds's right? The red-headed stranger?'

‘His name's Destercore, a political agent. They sent him from London to stick some backbone into Reynolds at the hustings.'

‘Is there a Tory agent also?'

‘Aye, we've got Thompson, that helped out with the Wakefield by-election in thirty-three.'

I had got a few mouthfuls of my steak pudding down when the speeches began. There was a string of fine phrases about the Spanish war, which had started a year or so earlier, after years of peace. Mention was also made of the plight of the new Queen of Hungary, who lived so far away that it mattered little what precisely was said, and there was much extolling of the yeomen of England, a class of person that has now entered the realm of the imaginary. No time was given I noticed to extolling the name of Walpole himself. Were Sir Treasure Shovel's fortunes on the wane?

After I had finished my dinner I went into the coffee room and wrote a note:

Mr Destercore:

As His Majesty's coroner for this borough I am inquiring into the sudden death last night of the proprietor of the Ferry Inn, where I believe you were staying at the time of the said death. If you have any information to provide to this inquiry please present yourself at the inquest to give testimony, which will be held tomorrow at noon at the aforementioned inn.

Titus Cragg

A few minutes later a reply came back scrawled on the back of the same piece of paper:

Sir,

I regret I cannot help you, knowing nothing of the event to which you refer.

Yr Srvt Denis Destercore

Chapter Four

I
ARRIVED AT THE
Ferry Inn at ten in the morning, with two hours to spare before the opening of the inquest. I intended to use the time to speak with the inn's nightman, and to form a clear idea of events on the evening Antony Egan had gone into the river.

John the nightman, who was great-uncle to the potboy Toby, was more than seventy years of age, a tall, skeletal figure with a pillow of white beard concealing most of his chest. His large, shuffling feet pointed outwards at the angle of a clock's hands upon a quarter past eight.

I apologized for getting him out of his daytime bed, then asked him where we could talk. He led the way to a small room off the passage back from the hall. It was not much bigger than a cupboard, contained a high stool and a workbench, and was lit by a small window that looked out onto the inn's backyard. Attached to the bench was a vice and cobbler's last, and on a shelf above, or hanging from it, were a collection of cloths, blacking, brushes, dubbins, waxes and shoe-mending tools. John settled himself on the stool while I leaned against the bench at his side.

First I placed in front of him the black hat that Fidelis and I had found in the riverside bush.

‘Is this, or was it, your master's hat?'

The old man picked up the hat and peered inside. Then he held it at the extremity of his arm and cocked his head.

‘Aye, I'd say it looks like.'

He spoke from his throat, in a voice that sounded like shifting wet gravel.

‘You're sure it was his?'

‘That's not what I said. I'm sure it looks like his.'

I took back the hat.

‘So tell me what happened here on Sunday night.'

He looked at me as if he did not understand my drift.

‘Same as always,' he said.

‘Which means?'

‘Which means what?'

I could not decide if he was being obstructive or obtuse. I said, ‘John, why don't you simply tell me what you do here every night, before and after midnight?'

Looking up at the ceiling he took a deep, wheezy breath.

‘All right,' he said, in a more conciliatory tone. ‘Evenings I work on boots, if there is any. I polish them and mend them if mending's needed. Here in my boot room, I do that. If there's nothing of work for me I read my Bible. Then I come out for my duty at midnight.'

‘Your duty?'

‘I'm nightman. I sit by the counter in the hall till daybreak. Happen there'll be a late arrival to see to. Or an early.'

‘And every night after the guests had gone up to bed, and the customers had cleared off, the master would go out for his walk, would he?'

‘He would. Regular, he was.'

‘And would this be before or after midnight?'

‘Just a mite before, I reckon.'

‘And he didn't do any different last Sunday night.'

‘Likely he did not.'

‘You're not sure?

He gave me another exasperated look.

‘I told you. I come on duty at midnight. I was in this room until then, so how could I see him go out?'

‘And you didn't see him come back in?'

He stroked his beard and gave me a long look, appraising or just thinking slowly – it was impossible to know with John.

At last he said, ‘How could I have seen him come back in? He never did come back in.'

I tried hard to contain my impatience.

‘All right. What happened during the night?'

He shook his head and sighed, looking at the floor.

‘He drowned, so they tell me.'

‘Yes, but I mean what happened here, at the inn? Did any guests arrive later? Were there any notable events?'

‘Just the one man came after I started on watch, a servant following his master who'd arrived before him. On the journey up with his master their horses went lame so this man was left at Kirkham to sell the beasts while his master walked on. His name is Hamilton Peters. When he got here he asked for a bed but I turned him out of doors. Told him he was lucky I'd let him sleep on straw in an outhouse. But he was that tired he didn't argue with me.'

‘Where did he sleep then?'

‘On straw in the barn.'

‘It's not very hospitable, is it? Why not let him in and give him a bed?'

John spoke guardedly.

‘Maybe I didn't like him.'

He shrugged and opened his hands. I understood him to mean that he could tell me more, but it was not forthcoming.

‘I was here next morning,' I said. ‘I saw the gentleman his master having his breakfast but I never saw Peters.'

‘He took first ferry. I saw him at dawn. He went up to his master for a few minutes, and then he cleared off. Said he was going ahead into town to find further accommodation.'

‘Can you remember what time in the night he came in?'

‘I don't need to.'

John eased off his stool and plodded out into the passage and back to the hall. I followed. The counter stood before the business room and beside it a comfortably upholstered hall porter's chair, from which one had a view of the front door on one side and the staircase on the other. I stood waiting at the counter as John went behind and inside, coming back with a ledger. He banged this down, opened it, licked his fingers and began leafing through the pages.