Page 16 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

The unlocked water rushed down the hill, scouring under hedges and tangles of bramble, pounding through ditches, teasing out debris that had been hidden and held all winter and carrying it away.

Moss was agitated to receive another visit from PC Holyoak.

It wasn’t that he had anything against the young man – who was very polite – or against the police in general: as an upright citizen he supported His Majesty’s Constabulary in their necessary work.

But he felt it reflected badly on the house for a constable to be seen there more than once in a decade.

The reason for the official visit, it emerged, was more upsetting even than he had feared. It was not that one of the servants was in trouble for petty theft or drunkenness in the village. ‘We have discovered a body,’ said Holyoak.

Moss’s trembling fingers reached behind him to locate his chair and he sat down rather hard. ‘A dead body?’

Holyoak was patient. He was accustomed to dealing with the public, their slowness and their ridiculous questions.

‘Indeed, sir, quite dead and much decomposed.’ Moss flinched at the word, but Holyoak carried on with no variation in tone.

‘It was discovered lying under water in Ashmore Carr, but we have reason to believe that it had not been there long. From the position in which it was lying and the recent movement of floodwater, we think it was washed down from higher up the hill.’

‘But – but why are you telling me this?’ Moss said, bewildered.

‘Because it seems likely that the body is that of your absent footman, Mr Edgar Speen, who went missing last November and has not been seen since. We require you, or someone else from the house who knew him, to come and inspect the body with a view to identifying it.’

Moss’s lips moved in an appalled why? that he could not articulate.

Holyoak explained. ‘Deceased has nothing about him to identify him, but he’s dressed like an upper servant, and the fact is, Mr Moss, that no-one else is unaccounted for – no-one else, that is, of the right age, sex, height and build. So we should be glad of your assistance in this matter.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t – I couldn’t—’ Moss stammered.

Even thinking about a dead body made him feel quite ill.

He had barely got over the finding of the cook, Mrs Oxlea, who had hanged herself in her room.

Such things were so irregular, not what was expected of a nobleman’s household, where all should be order and harmony.

What was happening to them? Was there a curse on the house?

Was it his fault? As butler, he was ultimately responsible for the smooth running of the household.

His self-belief wavered for a terrifying moment.

He felt old and shaky and not up to coping with these violent matters.

It was not reasonable to expect him to go and look at a corpse. He wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t.

‘How – did he die?’ he managed to ask.

‘He took a crack on the head,’ Holyoak said, ‘that might or might not have been done deliberate. We’ll come to that later.

For the moment, let’s concentrate on identifying the body.

I’m afraid it’s not a pretty sight,’ he added.

‘The freezing weather preserved it to an extent, but it looks as though the stoats and weasels had a go at it before the snow came down.’

Moss fell back in his chair, white and gasping.

One of his hands waved like a random branch in the breeze, but Holyoak deciphered a general direction, tried a cupboard, and came back with a bottle and a glass.

He administered a stiff brandy, and while Moss was dealing with that, holding the glass in both shaking hands, Holyoak went to the door and beckoned a boy who was loitering not far off with ears akimbo.

‘Here, you, what’s your name? Eddie, isn’t it? I know you, Eddie Bracken – you live down Mop End. Your dad’s a hedger.’

‘’S right, sir,’ Eddie said nervously.

‘Who’s second in command here, under Mr Moss?’ Holyoak demanded. The boy didn’t understand the question, so he changed it. ‘Who’s the under-butler? Or first footman?’

‘I dunno about no under-butler, sir,’ he stammered. ‘First footman is William.’

‘No, not him,’ Holyoak said, frowning. ‘Better fetch the housekeeper.’

‘Yessir!’

But before Eddie could obey, James came in from the yard, where he had been having a smoke, stopped short at the sight of the law, then collected himself and came rapidly forward. ‘What’s up, Constable?’ He smiled ingratiatingly – not a pretty sight. ‘Anything I can help with?’

‘Mr Moss has had a funny turn,’ Holyoak said; and to Eddie, ‘Go and fetch Mrs Webster, quick, and tell her to bring smelling-salts.’ Eddie scuttled off, and Holyoak explained to James what had happened. ‘I presume you knew this fellow Speen?’

‘Valet to Mr Richard. Yes, I knew him. We worked side by side often enough.’

‘Then I’ll ask you to come with me and see if you can identify the body. I don’t reckon Mr Moss is up to it.’

James agreed to come, studying for an air of solid citizenship.

If you had anything to hide from the police, he reckoned, the best thing was to disarm their suspicions by being as helpful as possible – and there was the little matter of a pair of Georgian silver sugar casters to which he didn’t want attention to be drawn.

There really wasn’t much face to speak of – not enough to recognise anyone by.

James had a strong stomach, but it took all his composure to do the job properly.

The body seemed shorter than Speen had been in life, but Holyoak told him corpses always looked shorter.

His calm indifference steadied James, and he tried to emulate it.

The build was right, he said, and from what he could see of the clothes and boots, they were the sort of things Speen wore.

The hair, what was left of it, was of the right colour and curl.

‘Did he have any distinguishing marks?’ Holyoak asked. ‘Any scars or moles or deformities that you can remember?’

James thought about it. ‘He had a mole on his cheek,’ he said. Holyoak’s silence was enough to remind him. He thought again. ‘Oh, the forefinger on his left hand was crooked – the tip of it bent to the side.’

‘The fingers have been nibbled as well,’ said Holyoak. He uncovered the left hand and they both looked. Hard to say. ‘Anything else?’

James thought back. ‘I saw him in the bathroom once. He had a lot of freckles on his shoulders.’

Again, hard to tell, the skin being discoloured.

‘Can you identify this body as that of Edgar Speen?’ Holyoak asked formally.

‘I think it’s him,’ James said. ‘I get the feeling it is him.’ And who else could it be? he added, inside his mind. The clothes were too good for it to be a vagrant or tramp, and no-one else was missing. ‘How did he meet his end?’

Holyoak turned the head a little, to reveal a massive wound on the back of the skull.

‘The critters will have made it bigger, nibbling around it. The blood would have attracted them. But either he fell backwards and hit his head on something, hard enough to kill him, which seems unlikely, or someone hit him a mighty blow with a heavy object, like a rock.’

‘Murder, then?’ James said, with interest.

‘Hit from behind,’ Holyoak commented. ‘A cowardly blow. Not done in a fair fight.’

James arranged his face into a serious, reluctant expression.

‘I expect you know that one of our chaps, William – William Sweeting, he’s a footman – went out after Speen that night.

Dashed out after him in a temper.’ Holyoak’s face was expressionless, his eyes steady.

‘I don’t want to peach on a chap, but it is murder after all – and a cowardly one at that, like you say.

He came back with scratches on his face, William did, and a black eye, as if he’d been fighting. ’

‘Yes, I know,’ Holyoak said. ‘Did he say anything to you afterwards about it? About how he got the scratches? Did he ever admit meeting Mr Speen?’

James looked at the floor, the picture of reluctance.

‘No, he never talked about it. But – I have to tell you – he was angry with Speen, because he’d just found out Speen’d been diddling his girlfriend.

Mad as fire he was. He rushed out of the house, though it wasn’t his evening off, shouting, “I’ll see to him!

” or “I’ll sort him out!” Something like that. I couldn’t swear to the exact words.’

Holyoak nodded impassively. ‘I did speak to Mr Sweeting at the time. But I think I had better have another talk with him.’

‘He’s been very quiet since Speen disappeared,’ James said earnestly. ‘As if he’s got something on his mind. Not his usual self at all.’

Moss went with William to the police station. William was sweating heavily and in a debilitating panic, and it was doubtful he would have made it down the hill without Moss’s steadying support. ‘I didn’t do anything, Mr Moss, I swear it,’ he kept saying. ‘I never saw Mr Speen that night.’

All Moss could say was, ‘If you’re innocent, you’ve got nothing to fear. The scales of justice weigh true.’

‘I’d never murder anyone,’ William cried. ‘My ma’d kill me if I did.’

‘You just tell the truth, my lad, and all will be well. The truth shall set you free.’

That didn’t seem to comfort William as much as it should have done, but it did shut him up. They completed the journey in silence. By the time Moss handed him over to the police sergeant, he was quivering with terror.

‘Now, Mr Sweeting,’ said Holyoak, leafing through his notebook to find the previous interview. William’s eyes followed the movement of every page as it flipped, like the prisoner in Poe’s story watching the pendulum.

‘You’ve told me the truth about that night, have you?’ Holyoak said, not looking up.

William nodded eagerly, then said, ‘Yes.’