Page 15 of The Peculiar Incident at Thistlewick House

Barnabas, true to his word, immediately set about signing his house over to Edward, visiting a solicitor and requesting that the deeds of conveyance were drawn up – a process that would take weeks.

He was pleased to have had the chance to say goodbye to his wife, but disappointed that he’d never know why the little girl had turned on her.

Now that Emma was in the ground, however, he could hardly bring himself to rise in the morning.

It was interesting that someone once so driven by wealth that he would not share it, had willingly parted with most of it now that he’d lost the one thing that genuinely mattered to him.

Would Edward have given everything up for Emma?

Possibly. Would he ever allow himself to fall for someone like that again and let his own desire for riches fall by the wayside? Never.

Edward had no intention of living in Thistlewick House.

He planned to sell it and use the combined monies from Barnabas and the Cattisham Orphanage Fund to start again, somewhere new.

With the sums involved, and by his reckoning, he could live a comfortable life, tucked away in a big house just outside a fashionable city, like Bath or Bristol, where no one knew who he was.

If he was to spend his life alone, he would at least do so surrounded by opulent furnishings, and dining on pineapples and white truffles.

He wrote again to Delphine to apprise her of his plans, and also to his bank, instructing them to clear Barnabas’s cheque for five hundred pounds.

Wright offered to have both letters posted but Edward swept up his coat and his cane, despite the late hour, and set off down the lane.

It would be good to get some fresh air and clear his muddled head.

As he was returning from the postbox, he saw two figures ahead of him on the edge of the common.

It was the Garrod brothers. He recognised them from the evening he’d spent in the Sailmaker’s Arms. Silas towered over Noah but the two were walking amiably along, with Noah muttering nonsense that Edward could hardly make out.

They hadn’t seen him in the shadows but the full October moon illuminated them clearly.

Noah was clutching a beer bottle by the neck, and occasionally taking a swig, as they made their way across the common.

Edward realised the man was struggling, and at first thought he was drunk, even though they’d professed not to be big drinkers, but the youngest Garrod stopped in the middle of the dirt path, forcing his older brother to stop also.

‘What the devil’s wrong?’ Silas sounded frustrated, doubtless keen to return to a warm house and get out of the biting wind.

Noah was staring ahead at nothing, and dropped the bottle to the ground where it smashed upon impact with the stony path. After a moment, his right arm went up to clutch the shoulder of his left, as he lurched forward.

‘I don’t half feel queer, Bruh,’ Edward heard him say as he stumbled forward, his breath condensing in the cold night air before his face. ‘Kinda dizzy.’

‘I knew I shouldn’t have got you that beer. It’s been a long week and yer fair done in. C’mon, let’s get home.’

But Noah’s whole body froze for a moment, before his knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground clutching at his chest. A panicked Silas fell to his knees beside him.

‘Noah! Is yer heart playin’ up? What do I do? Noah!’

Edward, realising the seriousness of the situation rushed forward to assist, dropping to his haunches and feeling for the man’s pulse.

But it was a futile gesture. Noah’s eyes were open but the man saw nothing.

He was dead, likely from cardiac failure, and if that were the case, there was nothing further to be done.

Hadn’t Jacob Palmer hinted that the man had been on borrowed time for many years?

‘I’m sorry,’ Edward said, looking up at the bulky man. ‘I think he’s gone.’

‘No. That ain’t right. He can’t go before me.’ Silas’s voice was shaky and the moonlight clearly illuminated the distress across his face. He placed his wide hand on Noah’s forehead as he gently stroked a loose strand of hair from his brother’s face.

‘Don’t leave me alone, Bruh,’ he said, his voice cracking with the emotion, as he echoed Noah’s favourite term of endearment.

It was an intensely personal moment and reflected the love that this huge ox of a man had carried for such a vulnerable person, probably for most of his life.

‘Appleby’ll bring him back. He’ll know what to do.

’ He pulled away from the body and started to wring his large hands together.

‘I’ll go,’ Edward volunteered, knowing the outcome was out of even the most experienced doctor’s hands. ‘You stay with your brother and direct me to the surgery.’

Silas did exactly that and Edward whipped up his cane from where he’d laid it on the ground. He hastened across the common, coattails flapping as he waded through the overgrown, wet grass.

He’d barely gone twenty yards, when he heard a shout.

‘Oi, mister, mister, he’s back!’

Edward spun around and saw the silhouette of the younger brother now sitting upright – arms outstretched as he reached for Silas.

How could that be? There’d been no pulse. Edward was certain. If he’d been a betting man, he would have wagered everything he was shortly to own on the man being dead. He started to run back towards the pair.

‘Oh, Noah. Thought I’d lost yer. Don’t you be scaring me like that.’

Noah said nothing. Instead, his eyes expanded with horror. He stretched out his hands before his face, as though he’d never seen his own fingers before.

‘I should still go for the doctor,’ Edward said, now within a few feet of them. ‘I think your brother has suffered some sort of apoplexy of the heart, although he has blessedly been saved, but you must seek medical advice. I’m certain he’ll recommend bed rest and perhaps administer some opium.’

‘I’ve absolutely no wish to see a doctor,’ Noah said, surprising them both with his eloquence, now getting to his feet.

‘I feel perfectly well.’ But his face remained a crumpled frown and he was clearly still struggling to understand what had just happened to him.

He spun about, as if to get his bearings and sort his head out. ‘Thistlewick Tye?’ he asked.

‘Come on, Noah. We can stop by Appleby’s on the way home. You scared me stiff. And Mister Blackmore, here, thought you was dead.’

‘I can fetch the doctor out, if your brother is reluctant, Silas,’ Edward offered.

‘Silas?’ Noah turned his head slowly to his brother and studied him with interest. Perhaps the cardiac incident had afforded him temporary memory loss or, at the least, caused the poor man a degree of confusion.

‘I really think you should let the doctor see you, Mr Garrod,’ Edward said. ‘You don’t seem quite yourself.’

Noah bent to the ground and picked up the smashed bottle that had fallen from his hand a few minutes earlier and, holding it by the neck, he brandished it like a weapon.

The relief of moments before quickly unfolded into a violent nightmare, as he rushed at the much bigger man with all the determination of a stampeding bull.

What started as a low growl grew into a primal yell – a cry of anger and unconcealed hatred.

His first swipe caught Silas across the cheek and, even in the poor light, the emerging dark line of blood was clearly visible.

The big man’s shock was clear from the expanded whites of his eyes.

He’d not expected his brother to attack and hadn’t even tried to defend himself but, as Noah launched himself at Silas again, he was better prepared for the second assault.

‘Svoloch! Svoloch!’ shouted Noah.

‘What yer goin’ on about?’ Silas reached for his brother’s wrist and held him firmly. It was not an even match as, although much older, he was infinitely stronger. ‘Why yer speaking like that? You don’t know no foreign language.’

‘Calm yourself, man,’ Edward said to Noah, who was positively seething, even more so now that he was restrained, his legs kicking out in an attempt to do some damage where the jagged bottle no longer could.

Edward took a step back from the tussling men.

He was anxious that Noah would bring on a second cardiac episode and this time might not survive, but his distaste for violence meant he was not prepared to get injured in the process.

‘Stay out of this, stranger. It’s not your concern,’ Noah shouted over his shoulder.

He was right; this was a silly family quarrel between two men he barely knew.

These were not his people; this was not his village; it was not his fight.

Despite what they’d said at the pub the other day about his two-drink rule, perhaps they were both inebriated, although Noah seemed remarkably focused after his near-death experience.

But these were grown men and he didn’t want them to turn on him.

He tugged at the brim of his top hat and nodded his acquiescence before spinning on his heels and making for the beach. There he might find some solitude, whilst these silly men acted out their ridiculous feud.

The sound of the crashing waves and gushing wind rushed up through the rift, overseen by a lamplight moon.

Some time near the sea would help him clear his head.

He was carrying a degree of guilt for lying to Barnabas and now he was worrying about the Garrod brothers – both of which were needless distractions, when he generally tried to remain emotionally detached from others.

He shouldn’t have come to Thistlewick Tye, despite the money, because he could feel himself being dragged into the lives of these people, adding unnecessary clutter to his already jumbled thoughts.

As he stepped onto the flint-littered sand, he saw a blurry figure in the distance, illuminated by the full moon.

Almost certain it was Maude, he could see her scurrying about on the beach in the shadows to his left.

The tide was high, leaving only a thin strip of land running underneath the cliffs to Cromer in one direction and Sheringham in the other.

She appeared to be collecting flotsam and jetsam from the tideline, but sensed she was not alone and looked across at where he was standing.

Maude, Edward realised, was part of his muddled thoughts.

His mind had repeatedly wandered back to her in his reflective moments, but he wasn’t sure why that should be the case.

She was simply a violent drunk, scraping a living by scavenging, who had no social skills and had never even had a civil conversation with him.

But his subconscious had clearly picked up on something that his rational mind had yet to properly work out.

‘I mean you no harm,’ he called across to her. ‘I merely wish to walk along the water’s edge. Let me pass in peace.’

She stood to the side, her head bowed and the deep hood of her cloak covering most of her face, as usual.

As he approached, he heard further shouts from the cliffs above.

It was the Garrod brothers continuing their petty dispute.

They must have made their way towards the edge and he was alarmed at how loud the voices were.

He didn’t like how near Maude was to the foot of the cliffs either.

Any slip of land could prove dangerous, especially with the two men tussling so close to the verge.

He looked up as a blood-curdling yell of ‘Bastard!’ echoed around them and saw, to his horror, a dark shadow fall from above.

In the fraction of a second that followed, he realised Maude was directly beneath the plummeting mass, and unaware of the rumpus above.

Edward acted without thinking, grabbing her slender shoulders and pushing her out of the way and onto a clear patch of sand, as a sickening thud landed behind them both.

With his heart galloping faster than a herd of charging horses, he turned back to see the broken body of Silas Garrod behind them. His skull was crushed and one leg was bent back at an unnatural angle.

Much like his brother’s only minutes before, his vacant eyes stared out at absolutely nothing.