The Taxidermist''s Daughter

  ‘White and Brook are missing too. You invited them to the churchyard and a week later they’ve all vanished. I don’t believe in coincidences, Gifford.’

  Gifford was thinking furiously. He was sure it was Cassie who had lured them to the graveyard, but this man was accusing him instead.

  ‘You were there, Gifford. I’m giving you one chance to tell me what’s happened to them.’

  Gifford half turned, but a blow from the muzzle of the gun to the side of his head forced him on. His ears were ringing, but he managed to reply.

  ‘I don’t know. I swear, I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Gifford paused. The man had obviously been at the church too. Gifford must have seen him, but not associated him with his past.

  ‘Did you kill Vera?’ he said.

  ‘She wouldn’t tell me why she did it. All those birds. Someone set her up to it.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Gifford said, failing to keep the contempt from his voice. He felt his interlocked fingers tighten.

  ‘Keep walking.’

  He could feel a trail of blood running down his cheek. There was another sharp jab in his back.

  They stumbled on, further out towards the exposed sea wall.

  ‘What about your daughter? What does she know?’

  ‘She’s got nothing to do with this. Leave her alone.’

  ‘Another coincidence, then, that she’s spent most of the past few days with Woolston’s son?’

  Was it true that Connie knew Woolston’s son? She’d never mentioned him. But then perhaps she had. For so much of the time Gifford couldn’t remember what he’d been told or who people were. Hours, days sometimes, blacked out as if they’d never been. Drink had stripped away his memory, his grasp of everyday things.

  He breathed a deep sigh. Every choice he’d made had been wrong. He raised his head as a blast of wind hit him, and saw they were out of the shelter of the woods and approaching the sea wall. Far enough away from Themis Cottage. He could see it clearly now, around the curve of the wall, the lowest levels of the garden now under water.

  He guessed where he was being taken and he knew he wouldn’t survive. The only question was could he bring this man down with him? The waters had broken through the sluice gates, a thundering torrent sweeping everything away.

  If he could, Cassie would be safe. His daughter would be safe. Perhaps they could care for one another, once he was gone.

  ‘Does she know where the money comes from, Gifford? That you’ve been happy to be paid to keep your mouth shut? That you covered up a murder?’

  Ten years of rage surged up, giving Gifford the strength he needed to launch his attack. With a bellow, he turned and hurled himself into the rain and the wind. The first bullet went wide. Gifford kicked out, then tried to get his arms around the man’s legs and bring him down. They both fell to the ground, shoulders splashing into the black marsh mud. Gifford shot his arm out and snatched at the scarf covering the man’s face, stripping it away.

  ‘You! Crow—’

  The gun was fired again.

  Chapter 51

  Themis Cottage

  Apuldram

  Connie and Harry threw open the door.

  ‘There,’ she shouted. ‘There, on the sea wall.’

  They ran out together into the storm. The torrent poured over the step and flooded the hall. Unstoppable black sea, silt and mud, racing under the ill-fitting doors, over the bloody cracks of the tiles, sweeping away the books from the table in the parlour and tipping over the table. All the way through the hall to the room at the end where the dead men sat.

  ‘Hurry,’ she cried, pointing at the two figures just visible through the driving rain. Then she saw a third, slightly built man, moving quickly, breaking cover from the woods. Another gust of wind swept up through the estuary and he lost his footing, falling forward on to his hands and knees. His hat was ripped half from his head by the wind, briefly releasing a cloud of chestnut hair.

  Cassie. Not a man at all.

  ‘They’re going to be swept into the sea,’ she cried. ‘We’ve got to get to them.’

  The wooden wheel of the Old Salt Mill in the centre of Fishbourne Creek was shuddering and cracking, loud enough to be heard even over the bluster and rumble of the thunder. Suddenly, there was a terrible groaning. Connie watched in horror as the mill wheel was ripped from its moorings by the surge of the tide and sent racing into the current as if it was no more than a child’s spinning top.

  ‘There are steps up to the eastern sea wall a few yards to the north,’ she shouted. ‘If we can get to them, we have a chance.’

  She led him through the woods, knee-deep in the heaving water. The boles of the trees were now all submerged and the fields beyond the wood had disappeared under the swirling, surging sea. On the far side, Blackthorn House had become an island. Mile after mile of water. The rivers and streams that dotted the landscape had all burst their banks, each joining with the next until the creek and the marshes were one enormous lake.

  The roof of the Old Salt Mill was still just visible, though the waves were crashing up and over it, ripping away the tiles and the exterior wooden stairs. Finally, the structure surrendered and it, too, was carried away on the surge of the tide.

  Connie cupped her hands over her mouth. ‘Come down,’ she screamed. ‘The wall’s going to give way.’

  It was impossible that Cassie could have heard her over the cracking of the wind, but she stopped and turned. For an instant, she seemed to look straight at Connie.

  ‘Cassie,’ cried Connie. ‘It’s me. Please . . .’

  She reached out her hand. Cassie held her glance for a moment longer, but then she turned and continued running towards the two men on the sea wall. Her father sank to his knees.

  Connie ran too.

  Behind her, she heard Harry cry out. She spun back. He’d fallen badly into the mud. The more he struggled, the deeper he sank.

  ‘Don’t move,’ she said, kneeling at the edge of the marsh and putting her hands beneath Harry’s arms. ‘It will drag you down quicker. Stay still.’

  She cast around for something to use. She found a branch blown free and held it out. Harry grabbed hold of it and she pulled. It was hard to keep a grip, with her wet, cold hands. She hauled again, until he was close enough for her to grasp his coat. With his remaining strength, he propelled himself up and on to firm ground.

  ‘My ankle’s bust,’ he said. ‘Leave me. Help Gifford.’

  Connie hesitated, then went. Head down, splashing over the drowned land and up on to the stone steps. Hand over hand, she scrambled up on to the sea wall, fighting to keep her balance in the wind. She doubled over for a moment, to catch her breath, then drove herself on for the last few yards.

  Finally, she could see the storm-blasted group clearly. Five people now, she realised, not three. Cassie, tall and beautiful in her man’s suit, her hair flying loose. She took a step closer.

  ‘Davey?’ she said in disbelief.

  The boy had flung himself down beside Gifford, who was slumped on the ground, clutching his side. To her astonishment, Gregory Joseph was now somehow standing next to Cassie, shielding her from the man holding a gun.

  Connie sighed with relief as the last vestiges of doubt about her father fell away.

  Crow: Crowther, not Crowley.

  For a moment, Connie stood rooted to the spot. Then Cassie spoke.

  ‘I knew you would come,’ she said.

  And despite everything, Connie smiled at the sound of the beloved voice. For a single instant, she was taken back to the classroom, to happier and more innocent days. To the vanished days. And even though she knew what Cassie had done, how reliving what she’d suffered had led her to take such a revenge, Connie was glad, so glad to see her again.

  ‘Cassie,’ she said softly.

  The life Cassie had been forced to live showed in the lines on her tortured face. And above the collar of her man’s white shirt, Co
nnie saw a red scar where the yellow ribbon had almost choked the life from her.

  Connie glanced to Crowther, then to her father lying unconscious on the ground.

  ‘He’s hurt, Miss,’ said Davey. ‘We need to get him to a doctor.’

  ‘You won’t harm Gifford,’ she said to Cassie. ‘He cares for you.’

  ‘And I for him.’ Cassie glanced down at Gifford. ‘I didn’t mean to cause him pain.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘It wasn’t his fault, but they had to pay.’ She looked at Crowther, over Joseph’s shoulder. ‘So must he.’

  Connie moved towards her father. Crowther’s harsh voice stopped her.

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you, Miss Gifford. In any case, if your father survives this, the hangman will have him. He’s a murderer. A girl ten years ago, and now again. Vera Barker.’

  ‘Liar,’ Davey said.

  ‘He’s been blackmailing us all for years. Bleeding us dry for a crime he committed. Trying to implicate us. Woolston, White and Brook. All with connections to Gifford, all now missing. Isn’t that right, Joseph?’

  Connie realised, with a mixture of disgust and disbelief, that Crowther still didn’t recognise who Cassie was. The girl he thought he’d killed had made so little impression on him, he didn’t even know her when she was standing a few feet away, inexplicably resurrected.

  Cassie seemed to realise it too. ‘It took Jack a moment to recognise me,’ she said, staring Crowther in the eye. ‘White and Brook were quicker to catch on. Then again, they had more time.’

  Crowther frowned.

  ‘Put down the gun, sir,’ Joseph said. ‘Nobody else has to get hurt.’

  Leaving Joseph to occupy Crowther for a moment, Connie blocked out everything around her. Deafened herself to the sound of the sea behind them and the relentless breaking of the sky, and focused utterly on Cassie.

  There was a brief lull in the wind. Connie took a step closer.

  ‘In the cottage,’ she said quietly. ‘I understand why you did what you did, but not . . . How could you do that?’

  Try as she might, she could not keep the horror of what she’d seen from her eyes. The revulsion. For a moment, sorrow flared in Cassie’s gaze as she realised that Connie had been into the room and seen the dead men. But any guilt or remorse for the murders vanished almost straight away.

  ‘Justice,’ she said, in the same matter-of-fact way, as if they were talking of everyday things. Ordinary things. With a rush of pity, then horror, Connie realised that Cassie had lived away from the world for so long, planning to take revenge on the men who had ruined her life, that what was terrible and grotesque had become justified. Normal.

  ‘But that . . .’ she whispered.

  ‘The punishment must fit the crime. Blood will have blood. I wrote it down,’ Cassie said. ‘I imagined I was telling you a story. They spoiled the museum too, don’t you see? Polluted it. I took a book to help me with what to do. It seemed only right.’ For a moment, her eyes misted with tears. ‘I wish we could have been friends again. Like the old days, but it is too late. All much too late.’

  ‘We can be friends,’ Connie said desperately.

  Cassie gave a light laugh. ‘I think you know that’s quite impossible.’ She sighed. ‘Gifford was so proud of you. He wrote every month. He never signed the letters, we had to keep it secret, but he always let me know how you were progressing.’

  Connie glanced at Gifford, terrified to see how pale he now was. Davey had pressed his thin fingers against the wound in her father’s side, but blood was still seeping through.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Either of you? I could have helped.’

  Cassie didn’t answer. ‘Gifford didn’t know what I intended to do,’ she said calmly. ‘You shouldn’t think he did.’

  Connie nodded. ‘Is that why you wrote from Graylingwell pretending you had died?

  A look of happiness broke across Cassie’s features. ‘You see,’ she said. ‘I knew you’d understand. Joseph knew nothing of it either, though he helped me.’

  From the look on Joseph’s face, Connie could see Cassie wasn’t lying. She hoped the same was true of her father, though soon enough everyone would know what Cassie had done. How could such a crime be covered up?

  Crowther’s expression suddenly changed. Finally he had realised who Cassie was.

  ‘You died,’ he said. ‘I saw you dead.’

  ‘Put down the gun, Crowther,’ Joseph said again, taking another step towards him.

  Connie saw how, even now, Crowther was deciding what to do. It would be easy enough for him to throw suspicion on Gifford. Then she saw his eyes harden. Joseph suddenly sprang towards him as Cassie, too, ran for him with a knife in her hand.

  ‘Cassie!’ Connie screamed.

  Crowther fired. Joseph threw himself sideways, putting himself between Cassie and the gun. The blade went into the side of Crowther’s neck. He fired again.

  ‘No!’ Connie screamed again.

  Joseph stood motionless for a moment, as the starburst of blood spread across his chest. Then he lurched forward and threw his arms around Crowther.

  Cassie tried to pull him back, but Joseph used the force of his body to drive Crowther towards the edge of the sea wall. For a moment, the three of them were held there, in a violent and bloody embrace.

  Then they fell.

  ‘Cassie!’ Connie shouted, rushing to the edge. Davey leapt up and grabbed hold of her to stop her being swept over.

  Cassie, Joseph and Crowther sank down into the swirling black waters of the estuary. For a moment, Connie saw each of the figures, held up by the waves, tossed and hurled forward. Then they were torn apart and broken on the back of the torrent.

  Cassie was the last to go under. A twist of chestnut hair, spread out on the surface of the water, then she, too, was gone.

  Connie sank to her knees. She had lost her again.

  EPILOGUE

  One Year Later

  April 1913

  The Church of St Peter & St Mary

  Fishbourne Marshes

  Thursday 24th April 1913

  Three o’clock.

  In the graveyard of the church of St Peter & St Mary, women and men have gathered in the gentle sunshine. Watching, waiting.

  Today, the sea is as still as the surface of the mill pond and the marshes are alive with spring flowers. Blue-green water, tipped white by a gentle breeze, glinting in the sunshine. The oaten reedmace like the underside of velvet ribbons. The blackthorn and the hawthorn shimmer with early white blossom. Red goosefoot and wild samphire and golden early celandine in the hedgerows.

  It is a perfect spring afternoon.

  *

  Inside the church, soft green moss decorates every window, with bunches of wild primroses and bluebells, and purple southern marsh orchids. The wooden pews are newly polished. A smell of beeswax in the air. The tiles are washed. There is no evidence of the devastation left by last year’s storms, or of the violence and death that came to this peaceful, beautiful village.

  Connie’s hand drifts from her side and touches Harry’s fingers. He turns and smiles, then faces front again.

  The two little bridesmaids fidget and hop from foot to foot, holding their posies in front of them. White ribbons, pretty skirts of tulle and lace, their hair set in curls. Awake too early and allowed to get overexcited, now that their big moment has arrived, they are too tired to enjoy it.

  ‘Stand still, Maisie,’ Mary hisses.

  The Rector smiles at the woman and the man standing before him. The groom’s face bears the scars of a life bowed down by grief, but his expression is composed and his eyes are clear. The bride, serene in her veil and lace, is radiant. This is not the first wedding the Rector has conducted in this charming village church, but it is the one that gives him the most pleasure so far.

  He begins the service.

  ‘Beloved in the Lord, we are assembled here in the presence of God for the purpose of joining in marriage . . .’

  There is no on
e in Fishbourne who does not know that several people died in the worst flood to hit the village in hundreds of years. Few were left unaffected. They are aware that something happened out on the sea wall close to Apuldram Woods.

  But after a year, it is time to bring that story to a close.

  Connie looks round the church and sees the smiling faces of those people she loves, and who love her. Davey, a good three inches taller now, uncomfortable in his jacket and starched collar, is standing with Sergeant Pennicott ready to make the guard of honour as they leave.

  The wedding reception will be held at Blackthorn House, repaired and painted ready for its new life as a family home.

  She glances, again, at Harry, knowing that he is thinking of his father and wishing he was here. He clearly feels her gaze on him, because he turns and smiles at her. Connie sighs. She knows he understands that she is thinking about poor, wronged Cassie. Wishing she could have been present too.

  Of course, it is better they are not. What they did, their different crimes, speaks too loud. Even now, Connie cannot reconcile what she witnessed in Themis Cottage with the bright, vivid girl she remembers laughing and singing and dancing in the classroom. Only she and Harry know the true extent of what Cassie did. The cottage, so vulnerable at the water’s edge, was stripped to a shell by the flood. So although three bodies were found there, the feathers and the masks had been torn away and the bodies were so battered by the surge of the torrent that destroyed the downstairs of the house, it was hard to even identify them, let alone distinguish one injury from another.

  Many people died that day – in Selsey, Pagham and Bosham, as well as in Fishbourne. The most well-known of them was Charles Crowther, owner of a large estate in Surrey and a weekend cottage in Fishbourne. His body was washed up at Dell Quay, but not found for days. By then, the crows – or so it was rumoured – had stripped the flesh from his bones and pecked at his eyes. A huge gathering of birds, so it was said, a black cloud over the water.

  A murder of crows.

  Connie read Cassie’s additions to her journal, and as she had promised, the explanation was there. A story of justice, not revenge. Connie still cannot accept how Cassie chose to seek retribution, but she understands why.