The Taxidermist's Daughter

  Years ago, possibly. Not since they had first moved in.

  *

  It had been another wet spring. April 1905.

  All the packing crates and trunks and the heavy coats of the removals men dripping with rain as they trudged backwards and forwards along the footpath between Blackthorn House and the Sayers Removals cart waiting at the end of Mill Lane. It took so long, the horses became restless.

  Gifford had taken the house furnished, so there had been no large pieces to move. A few cases of books – not considered valuable enough to include in the forced liquidation sale – and two or three trunks of clothes, with her father’s tools hidden inside to save them from the bailiff. Then the wooden cases, sealed to keep the moths and parasites from getting in, containing the remaining exhibits. All the best tableaux of posed birds had been sold to pay their debts, and, she later realised, her medical bills. Only a few individual cases – the more commonplace birds no one wanted to furnish their homes with any more – had survived the auction and come with them to Fishbourne.

  Not the swan, though. Someone had purchased that.

  Sayers’ men had carried the wooden crates down into the ice house; Gifford had made it ready by covering the dirt floor in straw, to absorb the moisture in the air, and set paraffin heaters burning to settle the temperature. When the men were gone, sent on their way with a glass of beer each and a packet of cigarettes to share between the three of them, he had looked at the crates stacked disconsolately against the wall – what was left of his once-successful business – then turned his back and walked away, saying they could be dealt with at a later date.

  He had never mentioned it again. He had never asked for her help. The look of defeat in his eyes, the ruin of his ambition and reputation, had haunted Connie ever since.

  *

  Davey’s awed voice brought her back to the present.

  ‘It’s like Aladdin’s cave in here.’

  Connie looked around, seeing what the boy was seeing, and found it hard to believe her eyes. It was no longer a sad storeroom for crates too painful to open. All the contents had been removed, polished and put on display. Had Gifford done this? All alone? Lining each of the walls of the long rectangular brick room were the birds: partridges, wood pigeons and a pair of collared doves, a hen blackbird and her mate, the display cases set on top of the packing crates. Domed bell jars and square boxes with her father’s distinctive label clearly stuck on the side: PRESERVED BY MR CROWLEY GIFFORD – STUFFER OF BIRDS.

  Tears came to her eyes. At some point, without her knowing, her father had unpacked his treasures and tried to recreate his museum with the few pieces remaining to him. Even the sign that had once sat above the door was here: GIFFORD’S WORLD-FAMOUS HOUSE OF AVIAN CURIOSITIES. No one had wanted that.

  She reached out and touched the case closest to her, an oyster-catcher, another black-and-white bird, with its long red bill standing against a painted shoreline. The label was peeling away from the wood, crumbling to dust.

  ‘Didn’t think it’d be like this, miss,’ Davey said in a hushed voice. ‘It’s amazing. Look at that.’ He pointed at a tiny preserved blue tit. ‘And what about that up there!’

  Connie looked up to a nest suspended from the ceiling. ‘It must have been wonderful, miss.’

  ‘It was,’ she said, wiping a tear from her eye. ‘There was ten times as much then. People came from all over Sussex.’

  Almost straight away, her thoughts started to darken. Why had her father recreated the museum in secret? To remember the glory days of his past? Or was it some kind of macabre shrine? Evidence of a guilty conscience, of something he had done?

  ‘And look at this, miss,’ Davey said. ‘I reckon they knew, that lot out there. Reckon that’s why they came. So many of them.’

  In the dim light, Connie could see that the far end of the store was occupied by a single large case. Even from this distance, she knew it was a display she had never seen before.

  She unhooked the lantern and walked slowly towards it. This was not a piece Gifford had brought from the museum, but something he had created here. Something else he had done without her knowledge.

  She put the lamp on the case and stood beside Davey to look at the preserved birds. A large label was pinned to the top of the case: THE CORVIDAE CLUB. Her father’s handwriting.

  She could see marks in the dust where the display had recently been opened. She looked closer, and saw something protruding from beneath the base.

  ‘Can you get that out for me, Davey?’

  He pushed his small fingers between the rim and the base, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. As he handed it to Connie, something fell into her hand.

  ‘Villainous-looking creatures,’ Davey said.

  Connie looked at the scrap of yellow ribbon, then at the four beautiful, glossy birds: first, a grey-hooded jackdaw; next, a magpie in its evening-dress plumage and iridescent tail feathers; third, a sooty rook with sharp eyes and thick, wooded beak. Corvus frugilegus.

  ‘A storytelling of rooks.’

  She was suddenly struck by a memory of how she’d learnt all those whimsical collective nouns, reciting them by rote until they were fixed in her head: a colony of jackdaws, a tiding of magpies, a parliament or a clamour or a storytelling of rooks. It was Cassie who had taught her.

  ‘Cassie,’ she said. ‘Cassandra.’

  ‘Who’s she?’ Davey asked.

  ‘My friend,’ Connie heard herself say.

  Finally, after ten years missing, Cassie stepped out from the shadows of Connie’s fragile memory and back into the light. Now, Connie could see her clearly. The tall, spirited young woman with the chestnut hair and the bright eyes, the woman with the lilting voice, teaching Connie poetry and plays and rhymes. Employed as a governess, a companion, an older sister for a motherless child. Cassie, who called her father Gifford, a habit Connie had copied. Eight years older than Connie, a girl herself when she first arrived.

  A girl with a yellow ribbon in her hair.

  She and Connie had written all the Latin labels for the museum for Gifford, some in Greek too for the story displays, giving each bird a character: Athena, the goddess of reason and wisdom, for a tawny owl, commissioned as a gift for a wedding anniversary; Themis, the goddess of divine justice, for a kestrel presented to a man called to the Bar.

  Connie put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from shouting out. To stop herself from being overwhelmed by the deluge of memories flooding into her mind. She and Cassie growing up together. Cassie, who had cared for her and loved her and taught her the value of friendship. Connie had to force herself to stay on her feet as Davey kept talking and talking beside her.

  ‘Mind you,’ he said, tapping the glass in front of the fourth bird, ‘I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of him.’

  ‘Corvus corone,’ she said automatically as she unfolded the scrap of paper she was still clutching and read what was written: JACKDAW, MAGPIE, ROOK, CROW.

  Four names. Four birds.

  ‘Anything interesting?’ Davey asked, peering at the sheet.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Connie replied honestly.

  For a moment, the boy held his tongue.

  ‘A storytelling of rooks, I like that one,’ he said. ‘So what about crows? I know crows don’t go about in groups so much, but if there was to be a whole lot of them together, then what?’

  Connie looked back to the display case: four birds, representing four men? The members of the Corvidae Club?

  ‘A murder,’ she said. ‘It’s a murder of crows.’

  Chapter 37

  The Bull’s Head

  Fishbourne

  It was two o’clock in the morning. The last of the customers had long gone and Gregory Joseph had the place to himself.

  Knowing that Vera was laid out in the barn didn’t bother him. He’d help take the coffin to the church tomorrow and then it would be over. He didn’t have any idea who’d killed her – he’d seen the marks aroun
d her neck – but he reckoned it had to have been someone in the graveyard. He’d seen her carry the cages into the church. She’d been alive and kicking at eleven o’clock when she’d put on the coat, but after that, he’d lost sight of her.

  He was sorry it had happened. Birdie had always been funny in the head, though the spell in Graylingwell had sorted her out for a while, but there’d never been any harm in her.

  He looked down at his grazed knuckles. Could White have had something to do with it? He’d been there in the rain that night. Given what Joseph now knew about him, it was in his character. Gifford had been there too, and that made more sense. Vera hadn’t been in the water for a week, that much was obvious, so if she’d been done for that night, where had the body been kept? And if it wasn’t something to do with Gifford, why had she turned up so close to Blackthorn House? He couldn’t make head nor tail of it.

  He blew a final smoke ring in the air and stubbed out his cigarette. Then he sat back in the chair, folded his arms across his chest and tried to sleep.

  Seconds later, his eyes snapped open.

  Someone was moving about in the private bar downstairs. Straight away, he was on his feet. He wasn’t paid as a watchman, but Pine let him sleep here in return for keeping an eye on things until he found another job.

  Now he heard the unmistakable sound of a glass being taken down from the shelf above the pumps. A burglar was hardly likely to hang about for a drink. He crept across the floorboards and down in his bare feet, carrying his boots, pausing only to put them on at the foot of the stairs.

  In the light coming in from the moon, Joseph saw that the front door showed no sign of having been tampered with. All the windows were closed; nothing seemed to be broken or damaged. The only sound he could hear was a smattering of rain against the glass, like pebbles being thrown.

  He reached out his right hand and, without revealing himself, pushed open the door. Nothing. He straightened up, then peered into the room.

  A single figure was standing at the bar, cupping a glass in his hands.

  Joseph gave a sigh of relief, then stepped into the saloon.

  ‘Everything all right, sir?’

  Crowther didn’t look round. ‘Where’ve you been all day, Joseph?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, surprised by Crowther’s hostile tone. ‘I didn’t know you needed me.’

  ‘Important work?’

  ‘Paid work. Apuldram way,’ Joseph said, not seeing any need to hold that back. ‘Helping a lady out moving into a new cottage.’

  ‘A lady? What was her name?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, meeting Crowther’s gaze. ‘It didn’t come up, and I didn’t ask.’

  He watched Crowther drain his drink, go round behind the bar and refill his glass.

  ‘Why you, Joseph? How did she get to hear about you?’

  Joseph paused. ‘I don’t rightly know, Mr Crowther. Private recommendation, I suppose.’ He narrowed his eyes, not sure what was going on. Not sure why Crowther, who was usually cordial, appeared to be so angry. ‘Is there a problem with my work, Mr Crowther?’ he said. ‘Everything you asked me to do, I did.’

  Crowther swilled the liquid in his glass. ‘Do you know where Dr Woolston is? Have you found out anything?’

  ‘No one knows. Not his man, that clerk of his, no one.’

  Crowther continued in the same weary voice, as if Joseph hadn’t spoken.

  ‘And you don’t know why our friend Pennicott’s sniffing around?’

  ‘Pennicott?’ Joseph said, genuinely surprised.

  ‘Yes, Pennicott. He was at Blackthorn House this afternoon. Which, if you had been watching, rather than robbing some mysterious lady in Apuldram, you would have seen.’ He paused. ‘Enquiring into the whereabouts of Dr Woolston, it appears. Pearce reported him missing.’

  Joseph’s heart was in his mouth, though he kept his voice steady.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got to say, man?’ In the half-light of the bar, Joseph felt the full force of Crowther’s anger. ‘I advise you to tell me the truth. Do you know where Dr Woolston has gone to ground, Joseph?’

  Joseph managed to hold his gaze.

  ‘No, sir. Haven’t seen him since he left the Old Salt Mill on Wednesday afternoon.’

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And what about Gifford? Picked up anything about where he is?’

  Joseph frowned. ‘Didn’t his daughter say he was convalescing with friends?’

  Crowther laughed. ‘And you believe that? The fact is, despite your very generous remuneration, you have failed to find out anything.’

  Joseph felt his temper spike, but he managed to hold his tongue.

  Crowther carefully placed his glass down on the counter. ‘I want to know where Woolston is. I want to know where Gifford is. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Crowther turned and walked out of the room. Joseph heard the front door to the inn open, then close again. He let out a long sigh of relief. For the first time, a sense of foreboding swept through him and made him question whether he was doing the right thing. What was the right thing?

  Gregory Joseph thought for a moment longer, then pushed his conscience aside. The right thing was what gave him an advantage. It was the philosophy he’d lived by for long enough, and mostly it had served him well. Look after number one, let the others look after themselves.

  But as he went back upstairs, he knew something had changed.

  Chapter 38

  Blackthorn House

  Fishbourne Marshes

  Three o’clock in the morning.

  Connie was sitting in the same armchair, listening to the rain battering against the window. Heavy and relentless and steady. The wind howled and gusted, chased down the chimney, bringing cold, damp air into the drawing room. A half-moon, silver, cast its ghostly light over the rough waters surging into the creek in the rising of the tide.

  She looked around the room. Davey was asleep, curled up on the settee with his thin arms across his face. Mary was dozing on an upright chair set beside the day bed, where Gifford lay peacefully and quietly. For the time being at least, he was free of his troubled, tormented past.

  Connie removed the pins from her hair and let it fall loose. She wanted to rest, but her agitated thoughts would not leave her in peace. She was cold, too, though she suspected it came from within rather than because of the temperature in the room. Mary had lit a fire, but it had long since burnt out.

  She listened, and heard a growl of thunder in the distance. The rain grew heavier and a violent gust of wind hit the corner of the house, making the building seem to creak and sigh around her. In the distance, out at sea, a flash of lightning.

  Connie was waiting for the night to reveal itself. She was listening for the truth of whatever was hiding in the darkness.

  *

  Half dozing, she’d suffered the nightmare she’d had once or twice in the past. Except now she knew it wasn’t a nightmare. Not imagination. It was true, a memory of something awful and real that she had witnessed.

  White skin, blue lips, hair the colour of autumn fanned across the wooden floor.

  Blood, skin, bone.

  A room of glass, candlelight flickering, reflected and refracted. The scent of perfume and male desire and cigar smoke.

  Black masks; one black and white: jackdaw, magpie, rook, crow. A place of glittering glass and sequins, feathers and beads and the scent of sherry spilling on the old wooden floor.

  Something else too, a crescendo of noise and smells and wildness.

  The heat and the slip of blood on the polished wood. A possession. Flesh on flesh. Forced and brutal, violent.

  Connie could remember her twelve-year-old self, understanding yet not understanding. Looking down through the banisters at a dark crescent, a semicircle of coats and men’s backs. Dress shoes and patent leather. Cassie shouting, her hands hitting against th
e air, trying to stop them doing what they were doing.

  The violent, sudden silence of a life extinguished. Choked. A yellow ribbon in a man’s hands.

  Fear becoming anger. Connie knowing it was wrong, that she had to help. Had to save her friend from the black brows and the beaks and the yellow ribbon pulled tight around Cassie’s neck.

  Skin, bone, blood.

  Shouting and running. In the darkness, falling and falling and falling through the air. Free, for an instant, flying and flying. Weightless.

  Her head hitting the stone floor at the foot of the stairs. Nothing. Everything gone in an instant.

  Innocence, love, home, safety. All gone.

  *

  Connie found herself on her feet. Without warning, she was doubled over by grief. Crippled by the memory of Cassie, her friend and teacher. The knowledge that she had once been cared for and cherished and looked after. An understanding, now, of what she had lost. What had been taken.

  After light, darkness. After love, silence. Only the lonely beating of her child’s heart left alone. She hugged her arms tight around her. These feelings of loss were habitual. Often they crept up on her in the small hours, taunting her with a vision of what life might have been. She had always thought that it was, perhaps, because she had never known her mother.

  Now she knew it was Cassie she grieved for.

  How cruel it was, after all these years, to finally remember. To remember, only to understand how much she had lost.

  Cassie was dead. Murdered in front of Connie’s eyes. Had been dead for ten years.

  ‘Are you there?’

  She jumped at the sound of Gifford’s voice, loud in the sleeping room. Outside, the storm was gathering force. Cracking and pushing at the house, surrounding them and rattling the windows. Connie went immediately to his side.