Dark Waters Read online

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Epilogue

  Background Note

  Copyright

  For Fanny

  Chapter One

  A HUMAN BODY IN the salmon traps was not such a rare event. The one they caught in the spring of 1741 was the fifth during my first eight years as coroner in the borough of Preston. On the other hand, from my point of view, there was something very particular and personal about the latest one. This corpse was my kith, if not quite my kin.

  But I had no idea of that when the call to the riverbank came early on that Monday morning, exactly seven days before we were due to begin a week of voting in that year’s general election. I immediately hurried out to perform the coroner’s first duty – that of answering the summons to a questionable death, and judging the need for an inquest. On my way to the stretch of the river Ribble in which the traps were laid I naturally had to pass along Fisher Gate, where my friend Luke Fidelis lived on the upper floor of the premises of Adam Lorris the bookbinder. Reaching Lorris’s door I mounted the steps and pealed the bell. If Fidelis was at home he could usefully come with me. When bodies floated in the river, the initial questions were always the same. How long had they been there? How far had they travelled? Dr Fidelis’s knowledge of physiology, and such things as the progressive effects on a corpse of its total immersion in water, was far ahead of mine.

  Mrs Lorris went up to tell Fidelis I had called and of course, as was his habit, my friend was lounging late in bed. I chatted for a few minutes at the foot of the stairs with Lorris and Mrs Lorris. He told me of his progress with my old childhood book of Aesop’s Fables that I had brought to him for rebinding.

  ‘I read the book through with Mrs Lorris before I started, and we were vastly entertained, were we not, my heart?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mr Cragg!’ Dot Lorris exclaimed, her face breaking into dimples of remembered enjoyment. ‘Such tricks those animals got up to.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Aesop was a clever fellow,’ I agreed. ‘He had a charming way of translating human nature into the behaviour of beasts.’

  I glanced up the stairs for a sign that Fidelis might be stirring himself. There was none.

  ‘There’s some of the fables, mind, that a husband would do better not to put before his wife,’ observed Lorris.

  ‘Oh? And which are those, husband?’ Dot challenged.

  ‘The Scarecrows and the Foxes, for one. Remember it, Mr Cragg?’

  I said I had a vague memory of it.

  ‘That vixen,’ said Lorris, shaking his head, ‘she stayed under cover and let the fox run from the farmer by himself. There’s little wifely love in that, or trust.’

  ‘Trust!’ laughed his wife. ‘What was there to trust? He calculated that if both of them ran, his wife would be caught and he would get away. The farmer could only chase after one of them, and that would be the vixen, as she were the slower.’

  ‘No, she calculated that if she stayed under cover, she’d save herself and damn the fox.’

  ‘The fox damned himself when he lost his nerve,’ was Dot Lorris’s pitiless rejoinder.

  Before the discussion grew too heated I turned it towards the election. Preston was excited at having a contested vote at last. In the previous parliament, and the two before that, our borough members had simply walked over, as no one could be found to stand against them. This time four men would be fighting over the two seats, making for a much livelier prospect.

  After a couple of minutes of touching on the pros and cons of Whig and Tory we heard Fidelis’s voice calling down.

  ‘Cragg, I’m in my nightshirt, but come up if you like.’

  Instead I called up to him.

  ‘Get dressed, Luke. It’s almost seven and I’m taking you for a walk by the river.’

  ‘A walk? Before seven? Surely it can wait.’

  ‘No. It is now or not at all.’

  At length the tall, fair-haired figure of Preston’s youngest and most adventurous doctor appeared on the stair. He was grumbling, as usual when asked to do a thing before eight in the morning.

  ‘I only wanted half an hour more of sleep, Titus,’ he growled. ‘I was drinking until past midnight.’

  In consideration of Luke’s aching head I did not set too sharp a pace as we went along Fisher Gate and then, by a turning to the left, into the lane that passed the playhouse and headed down from the bluff along which the town is ranged towards the riverbank.

  ‘Well, what is it?’ Luke asked. ‘I don’t suppose this outing is for the improvement of my health.’

  ‘No. It’s for a body in the river.’

  ‘Ah!’

  We walked on in silence to the bottom of the steep path, before striking across the meadow beside the riverbank. But I sensed an increased spring in Luke’s step. He was stimulated by the opportunity to assist me in my inquiries; more so, I think, than I was in leading them.

  * * *

  In many towns, the river is a high street. The buildings line up expectantly alongside it, waiting for trade to come across its wharves and quays, while locks upstream and down regulate the water for the traffic of lighters and barges. None of this is so at Preston, for the river is at a distance, and on a lower level. Abreast of the town to the south, it is at this point wide and, being close to the estuary, tidal. But it drains a great area of uplands to the east and, after heavy or prolonged rains combined with a tide, it can go so high that the water meadows flood up to 100 yards on either side. To keep its skirts dry, therefore, the town stays aloof on its ridge, a quarter-mile distant from the waterside, and it is possible to live one’s life there without any particular consciousness of the river, except as a barrier to be crossed when travelling south, and the regular provider of fish suppers.

  On this morning, breezy after yesterday’s downpour, the current was big and tumbling, but it had stayed within the banks. A group of men wearing knee-length boots of greased leather were working the traps from boats that bobbed and pitched in the boiling stream. They were gaffing the last of the fish that had come into the traps during the night, and bringing them ashore to add to the neat row of those already landed. As we came near enough to see the display of salmon, like spears of bright polished pewter in the riverbank grass, we saw a gaggle of women in bonnets and full-length cloaks, advancing along the bank towards us, laughing and singing. It would be their job to pack the fish in rush parcels and carry them up to the market.

  The women a
rrived at the same time as we did, and immediately their laughter died as they saw the thing lying stretched companionably alongside the row of fish, as if it were an enormous fish itself. It was wrapped in a net like a parcel but this did not fully hide the fearful truth: the head end was rounded, from which the shape swelled smoothly up to the belly in a small mound before tapering away again. At the end where – had it really been a monster salmon – the tail should be, two splayed feet protruded. They wore the wooden-soled clogs of the countryman, strengthened like a horse’s hoof with curves of steel nailed into them.

  The sight provoked immediate cries of dismay from the women.

  ‘Quiet yourselves,’ shouted one of the men, as he carried the last of the fish up from his boat and slapped it down with the others. ‘Coroner’s here. You should be respectful.’

  I asked who was in charge of the fishing party. It was the man who had just spoken, whose name was Peter Crane.

  ‘Was it you that first saw it in the water?’ I asked.

  ‘It was. Me and the lad spotted it first.’

  Crane nodded towards a youth who looked like a younger edition of himself.

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘An hour ago, or a bit more.’

  I took out my watch. It was half past seven.

  ‘Before half past six, then.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘And did you find him just like that?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Wrapped in the net.’

  ‘Oh, no. We wrapped him when we brought him ashore, like. Out of respect.’

  Or, I thought, to stop him getting up and running away. It was a common thought: you can never be too sure of those that drown.

  ‘Would you kindly uncover him for me now?’

  It took three men to undo the parcel, so heavy was the body, and so well wrapped.

  ‘Did you know him?’ I asked as they struggled.

  ‘Oh, aye, we knew him.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘Don’t think you won’t know him yourself, Mr Cragg. Take a look.’

  Finally, with two of them pulling his feet and a third at the other end hauling the net, they managed to disencumber the body. The dead man was wearing a coat, shirt, breeches and the aforementioned clogs. His grey hair was tied at the back. His eyes were closed.

  ‘Good God!’ said Fidelis. ‘Look who it is.’

  We all drew closer, and there was a murmur of recognition from the women. I knew the man better even than the others and, for a moment, was so disconcerted I could not speak. Not only did I well know his identity, I knew also that the contented impression conveyed by the corpse was false. For these were the mortal remains of poor Antony Egan, landlord of the Ferry Inn and the sadly troubled uncle of Elizabeth, my own sweet wife.

  ‘Did you close the eyes, or were they like this when you found him?’ Fidelis asked Crane.

  ‘No, Doctor, staring open they were. I closed them.’

  As a simulacrum of sleep it made the man look at peace, with the impression reinforced by the hands being arranged comfortably over the swollen stomach.

  I knelt down on one knee beside him, opened his sodden coat and went through the pockets. They were empty except for a tobacco pouch, a few coppers and his watch, its chain securely attached to a waistcoat buttonhole. Then I stood again and looked at Fidelis who was on the other side of the corpse.

  ‘He has his watch,’ I said.

  ‘He wasn’t robbed, then.’

  ‘When do you think he went into the water?’

  ‘I doubt it was long he was in there.’

  ‘Did he drown?’

  ‘Let’s see. Mr Crane, would you and your men kindly turn him over for me, and bring him round so his head’s over the river.’

  The dead man was placed, according to Luke’s instructions, on his stomach with head and shoulders over the stream and arms trailing in it – the posture of one who throws himself down to drink, or a boy attempting to tickle a trout. Luke then crouched beside him and placed both hands palms down, with fingers spread out, flat on his back.

  ‘Look at the mouth, Titus, while I palpate.’

  I placed myself on the other side of the body and sank down on one knee, leaning a little over the water to see the profile of Antony’s head. Luke sharply pressed his hands down three or four times in a kneading motion just below the ribcage and immediately water gushed up and out of the mouth, like water from a parish pump. Luke stood up.

  ‘You saw it?’ he asked. ‘Lungs full of water. He sucked it in trying to breathe. It means he was alive when he went into the river. He died by drowning.’

  I rose from my genuflection and considered for a moment. The cloud cover was disintegrating and patches of freshly minted blue sky had opened up over our heads. Then, in the east, the morning sun broke free and shafts of light set the swollen river surface glittering.

  ‘Well, Luke, I have a ten-minute walk upstream ahead of me. It’s a fine day. Will you come along, or have you other business?’

  He said he had no patients to see immediately and would be glad to go with me. I asked Crane to get some sort of conveyance, and use it to transport Egan’s body along the bankside path behind us.

  ‘There will be an inquest but I see no reason why he can’t lie at home, and be viewed there by the jury. There’ve been inquests at the Ferry Inn before. It’s better that I go ahead, to break the news to his daughters. They will need time to prepare.’

  Luke and I set off briskly to walk to the inn. It stood half a mile above the salmon traps, rather less than midway to the big stone bridge at Walton-le-Dale that bears the southern way for Wigan and Manchester. A road of sorts branched from that road to connect with the ferry stage, and for uncounted centuries traffic from the south had been transported across the stream in competition with the bridge. The Ferry Inn, lying on the southern bank, had served the needs of those waiting to cross, and a good business it had been, for the reason (which was really unreason) that, while a ferry crossing was cheaper than the bridge toll, many of those waiting to use it were happy to spend the saved money on drinking, eating, card playing and, sometimes, a bed for the night. So business had come to the inn as naturally as fish got into the salmon traps.

  But under Egan its prosperity had progressively dwindled, to such an extent that for the past few years the inn had been hesitating on the edge of ruin. It seemed to keep going only by the tenacity and good sense of his twin daughters Grace and Mary-Ann.

  ‘Poor Egan,’ said Luke as we trudged along the bankside. ‘I was drinking at the Ferry only last week, on my way back from a patient.’

  ‘I hadn’t seen him for a month or more,’ I said. ‘We see his daughters, of course, because they’re Elizabeth’s cousins. But we gave over inviting Antony two or three years ago. It had become impossible. What condition was he in – on the day you were there?’

  ‘Same as always – no better, no worse.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d enjoyed a waking hour of sobriety for five years.’

  ‘Is enjoy the right word, Titus? I enjoy a drink. But men like that can do nothing without a drink. Drunkenness is their sobriety. Their accustomed condition.’

  ‘If so, what is their drunkenness?’

  ‘Unconsciousness, I think. Oblivion.’

  ‘Well, now poor Antony has found an eternity of that.’

  ‘What made his life take the turn it did? Was he always a sot?’

  ‘No. Once he was the model of moderation.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘The son that he cherished above all other creatures deserted him, and went south, without ever writing or sending word. And then, when word came at last, it was that the boy had died. His father took to drink because he could not bear to remember it.’

  By now we had left the water meadows behind and reached the ferry’s landing stage, on the northern side of the river. From here we had to cross to the inn on the far bank, which meant wait
ing for the ferry. We could see the flat, raft-like conveyance labouring towards us, fighting the flood as two men turned the great winching wheel that hauled the craft along the fixed rope stretched from bank to bank. A short distance upstream, smoke was rising from the chimneys of the inn, which stood among a small cluster of houses and trees known as Middleforth Green. The day had started at the inn as it did every day. There was no sign yet that this might not be one like any other.

  The ferry made land with a crunch and lowered its ramp. Half a dozen passengers came off, and with them a cart laden with leeks, sparrowgrass, watercress and other market vegetables. The ferryman Robert Battersby, a fellow famous for his bad grace, tied off his ropes and came ashore with his son and crewman, Simeon, a muscular boy of seventeen. As they ambled towards the wooden hut in which they sheltered from rain and sold tickets between crossings, I stopped them and said we required immediate transport over to the Ferry Inn. He muttered something about his timetable but I cut him short, saying it was coroner’s business and that as soon as he had transported me and Dr Fidelis, he was to return and await the arrival of a body from downriver, for bringing across after us.

  When he heard this, a smile broke across young Simeon’s face, and he began jiggling up and down.

  ‘Another one gone in, is it?’ he said, his voice lifting with sudden delight. ‘Another sacrifice to the water? Oh, aye. She’s a cruel one is the river goddess.’

  ‘Shut it and don’t be daft,’ said the father savagely to the son, then turned back to me. ‘Pay no mind, Mr Cragg. His head’s full of nonsense. We’ll take you now. It’ll be tuppence.’

  I gave him the money, and a warning.

  ‘Let’s have a little reverence when the body comes after, Mr Battersby, if you please.’

  Chapter Two

  THE FERRY INN presented a battered appearance, the thatch unkempt and the wooden frame seeming to sag from exhaustion. Inside, the stone flags undulated from wear, and the plaster of the unpanelled walls was cracked and darkened by decades of tobacco smoke. Going in, we found all the early-morning things that they do at inns being done now. The coppers were being scrubbed and the brass polished; barrels and milk churns rolled, pint pots clunked together in tubs of soapy water and birch besoms set about yesterday’s floors, while sacks of new sawdust stood by, ready to give fresh covering. Windows were flung open and carpets were flogged. Backyard chickens squawked as they were pitched off the nest to give up their eggs.