The Body in the Ice Read online

  ‘We think he might be one of two men who arrived at the house three days ago,’ said Mrs Chaytor. ‘There is no sign of the other man,’ she added, ‘and their horses are missing from the stables.’ She pointed to the stable doors, hanging open and swinging uneasily in the wind.

  ‘Ah,’ said the doctor. ‘Intriguing.’ He looked down at the body. ‘Well, we’ll need to cut him out of the ice, and then get him onto a table so I can examine him. Somewhere out of this blasted wind, for preference. Is there a place where we can take him?’

  Hoad jerked his thumb at the house. ‘The doors are locked,’ said Mrs Chaytor. ‘All of them. I have tried them,’ she added.

  The men looked at her, then back at the body at their feet. ‘Tim Luckhurst at the Star will have empty storerooms,’ said Stemp. ‘We could use one of those,’ and he shot Mrs Chaytor a meaningful look.

  She sighed inwardly, knowing she was not wanted. ‘I will go and ask him,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you indeed, Mrs Chaytor,’ said the doctor. ‘Stemp, there should be axes in the wood store. Fetch a couple, and let’s cut this fellow out.’

  She heard the sound of axes splintering the ice around the body as she walked down the drive, and shivered again; this time, she told herself firmly, it really was the cold. As she turned towards the village the wind increased again, keening over the flat Marsh and tugging at her hood and overcoat. Its cold hardness made her eyes water, and her nose was streaming by the time she reached the Star.

  Luckhurst the landlord came out from the back, his eyebrows rising slightly at the sight of Mrs Chaytor; ordinarily she was not a frequenter of public houses. She explained her errand briefly in her light, slightly drawling voice, and his expression changed. He knew about the body, of course. Everyone in the village must know by now, or at least everyone who was awake; gossip was Kate’s one great talent in life, and she exercised it ceaselessly.

  ‘Of course, there are storerooms we use only at certain times,’ Luckhurst said guilelessly. ‘I’ll show them into one of those. Here, you are shivering, Mrs Chaytor! Sit you down by the fire and get warm. Bessie! Bring a cup of that coffee for the lady.’

  Then there was nothing to do but sit and wait. Bessie, the landlord’s daughter, a lively and intelligent girl of sixteen, brought coffee and Mrs Chaytor thanked her with a smile; she knew Bessie well, and sometimes employed her as an extra maidservant.

  ‘How convenient that your father has an empty storeroom,’ she said drily. That prompted a conspiratorial laugh. Some of Luckhurst’s storerooms, as they both knew, were only in use on certain nights around the new moon, when boats came gliding over the sea from France thirty miles away, landing illicit cargos of gin and brandy and wine, silk and scent, lace and tobacco. Those cargoes had many resting places before they continued their journey to the markets of London; the cellars and storerooms of the Star were one such place.

  She heard the men arriving outside with the body. After what seemed a very long time, Dr Mackay came into the common room, blowing on his fingers. ‘That is the coldest work I have done in many a day,’ he said, sitting down. ‘Is that coffee? Bring me a cup, girl, and put some rum in it, if you have any. No? Brandy will do, then. Don’t tell me you haven’t any brandy,’ he added with a heavy attempt at humour.

  ‘What did you find?’ Mrs Chaytor asked directly.

  ‘Well, there’s a thing,’ said the doctor. He paused for a moment, looking into the flickering flames of the fire, and blew on his fingers again. ‘Or rather, there’s two things,’ he amended. ‘First, when we got him out of the ice, we found he was an African man.’

  ‘A black man?’ Mrs Chaytor raised her eyebrows. ‘How unusual. At least, how unusual for St Mary in the Marsh. Where do you suppose he came from? A sailor, perhaps, off a ship from Rye, or Deal?’ But even as she spoke she knew she was wrong; no sailor would ever have worn boots like those.

  ‘He was not a sailor,’ said Mackay. He glanced at Bessie, hovering behind the bar and eavesdropping shamelessly. Then Stemp and Hoad entered, and she moved away reluctantly to serve them. ‘No, not a sailor,’ the doctor repeated. ‘You see, Mrs Chaytor, when I examined the body more closely – I don’t quite know how to put this – I discovered he was not a he at all. The body we pulled from the ice was that of a woman.’

  Very rarely was Amelia Chaytor lost for words. She was now. She stared at the doctor for a long time, her eyes an intense blue as she considered the news. ‘That explains the feet,’ she said finally.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘When I looked at the body, I thought the feet were quite small, for a man. Now I see why.’ She looked up at Mackay. ‘How did the poor thing die?’ she asked.

  Mackay regarded her as if he was not sure how much was appropriate to tell her. ‘The cause of death was drowning,’ he said finally. ‘But she had also been struck a very heavy blow on the head. That blow fractured her skull, and I suspect also damaged the brain. It is possible that this blow might have proved fatal.’

  ‘Then how on earth did she come to drown?’

  ‘I cannot answer that, I am afraid. She either found her way to the pond, or was taken there. There was open water; I saw signs that someone had broken the ice earlier in the day, perhaps to water the horses. That is where she met her end.’

  ‘You mean she fell in the water when she was stunned and could not move? Or someone took her to the water and held her under?’ Her voice was grave, but quite calm. Mackay looked at her, thinking again what an unusual woman she was. ‘It could be either of those things,’ he said at last, ‘though I found no injuries on the body itself. Other, that is, than the blow to the head.’

  He finished his coffee and rose to his feet. ‘Apart from that, I fear there is little I can tell you. You may inform Reverend Hardcastle when he returns that I shall write a report in my capacity as assistant coroner, and forward it to the coroner’s office in Maidstone. And of course, I shall send a copy to him.’

  ‘Thank you, doctor.’ Mrs Chaytor sat listening to the doctor’s footsteps as he walked out into the cold road, and then the sound of hooves and rattling wheels fading away. It needed little effort to imagine those final moments; the woman stumbling and falling, or being pushed into the icy water and drowning. Was she aware, as she fell, that she was dying? One hoped that the blow had stunned her so thoroughly that she was oblivious; the fear was that it had not.

  ‘What a terrible way for the poor soul to die,’ she said to herself.

  ‘It surely is, ma’am,’ said Bessie beside her, refilling her coffee cup.

  ‘What would a woman be doing dressed as a man?’ Mrs Chaytor wondered.

  ‘Well, ma’am; she must have wanted to escape notice. She might have had a secret errand, or,’ and Bessie, who had a fine ear for drama and romance, paused significantly, ‘she might have been meeting a lover. New Hall is quiet and out of the way. It’d be a perfect place for a lover’s tryst.’

  ‘Bessie,’ said Mrs Chaytor briskly, ‘you have a very vivid imagination.’ But, she thought, that did not necessarily mean the girl was wrong. The same thought had already occurred to her.

  *

  The Reverend Marcus Aurelius Hardcastle, rector of St Mary in the Marsh and justice of the peace, returned home late that afternoon, as a winter dusk began to fall over the frozen Marsh. He was cold, tired from travelling on icy roads, and in a foul mood. He shouted for his housekeeper as he entered the hall of the rectory, throwing down his hat and stick on a side table, and she came out of the kitchens and snapped back at him. He glared at her, and demanded a pot of hot coffee.

  ‘Coffee?’ asked the housekeeper, with pretend incredulity. ‘Not port?’

  ‘When I desire port, Mrs Kemp, I shall inform you. Once you have made the coffee, send John to find Joshua Stemp. Tell him I wish to see him as soon as possible.’

  In his study, the rector removed the guard from the fire and blew on the embers, then added a fresh log. Little flames rose up at once, crac
kling, and the rector bent over them to warm his numbed hands. The journey down from Ashford, exposed to the freezing wind on the seat of a creaking dogcart, had been every bit as hellish as he had expected it would be; but it had been impossible to ignore the urgency in Mrs Chaytor’s letter. He would go and see her, he thought, as soon as he had heard Stemp’s report.

  Straightening from the fire, he looked up to see his own reflection in a mirror, and scowled. He saw a thickset man of about forty with the beginnings of jowls, sandy hair that was growing thin on top, and features that were not much improved by his current glowering expression. Ignoring the mirror, he looked around the room, gazing at the bookshelves and worn carpet and noting that two of the chairs needed upholstering. Everything is shabby and falling to bits, he thought, rather like me. He glanced at the mahogany cabinet where, he knew, several bottles of extremely potable cognac rested among his account books, and looked away again.

  The parish constable appeared half an hour later, just as the rector was finishing the last of his coffee. He was a small man with a face badly pitted by smallpox and bright, inquiring eyes. Standing before the desk he gave a stiff little bow and said, ‘Sorry if I’m late, reverend.’

  ‘Sit down,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Do you want some coffee? I can send for Mrs Kemp.’

  ‘Don’t trouble her on my account, reverend.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the rector, leaning back in his chair. ‘Now, tell me exactly what has happened.’

  He listened in silence to the story of the discovery of the body, its removal to the Star and its examination by Dr Mackay. Only upon hearing that the body was that of a woman did his face change a little. Mrs Chaytor had not mentioned that; but of course, when she wrote to him, she had not known herself.

  ‘What about the other man who was at New Hall?’ he asked at the end.

  ‘No sign of him, reverend, and both horses are missing. I’ve spent most of the day knocking on doors up and down the roads to Dymchurch and New Romney, asking if anyone had seen a man with two horses go past yesterday evening.’

  ‘And had they?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Stemp with mild contempt. ‘It was Christmas Day. By evening most people were blind drunk, even the children. When I talked to them this afternoon, most were still so hungover they couldn’t remember their own names, let alone what might or might not have happened yesterday.’

  Hardcastle frowned. ‘We need a description if we are to establish a search for this man. Did anyone see them the day they arrived? I suppose it is too much to hope that someone saw their faces.’

  Stemp shook his head. ‘They arrived after dark, remember, and it was colder than charity. Not many folk were about, and those that were saw two cloaked-up figures on horseback, nothing more. They’d have been muffled up to the eyes anyway, in this weather.’

  ‘Where is the body now?’

  Stemp reached into his pocket and produced a key.

  ‘Very well,’ said the rector, rising to his feet. ‘Let us go and take a look at her.’

  *

  The Star was quiet, most of the village still recovering in one way or another from Christmas. Stemp, carrying a lantern, let them into the storeroom and they approached the body lying on the plain oak table. Joshua Stemp was a kind man, and he had covered the body decently; now, he held up the lantern and pulled the covering sheet away just enough to allow the rector to see the head and face. ‘Here’s the wound where she was hit, reverend,’ he said, gently lifting the dead woman’s head with his free hand.

  The rector nodded absently. He looked down to see curling black hair matted with dried blood and some splinters which might have been wood but, by their shape, were more likely to be bone. Any blunt object, wielded with sufficient force, could have cracked her skull. As to what else might have been done to the body; well, Dr Mackay’s report would tell him that in due course.

  He stood for a while longer, looking at the dead woman. Her face was swollen and the skin dark and blotchy. ‘In what position was the body when she was found?’

  ‘Face down,’ said Stemp, ‘with her arms stretched forward.’

  That explained the blotchiness; the rector had learned enough anatomy to know that when the heart stops beating, blood settles in the lower reaches of the body, however it is lying. He pulled the blanket back a little and saw similar swelling and dark blotches on her shoulders. Where the blood had not settled, her skin was a gentle brown, not particularly dark.

  He studied the face again. Beneath the swelling she had high, rather prominent cheekbones and full lips; the eyebrows over closed eyes were two fine arches. A young woman, he thought, perhaps five-and-twenty, no more. Where was she from? How had she come to meet her death here in the frozen wastes of Romney Marsh? How? How and why? There was nothing noble about her clothes, piled neatly on a bench at one side of the room. The rector examined these quickly. Worsted breeches and stockings, a man’s coat and waistcoat, both of which he thought were rather too large for her, a thick overcoat which unlike the rest of her garments looked to be quite new, though sadly stained with dried blood down the back; a woman’s small clothes, thin and worn from long use. The clothes told him nothing; as the doctor had discovered earlier, the pockets were empty save for a few coins, and there was not a single mark or clue to reveal the dead woman’s identity.

  *

  Outside in the yard, Stemp locked the door once more. The body would need to remain there until the ground thawed enough for a grave to be dug.

  ‘Out of curiosity,’ said the rector, ‘what were Miss Godfrey and Miss Roper’s servants doing up at New Hall?’

  ‘Raiding the woodshed or the coal store, I expect,’ said Stemp, cheerfully. ‘Nothing new there. People have been doing it ever since the autumn. The caretaker never notices.’

  The caretaker, a one-armed alcoholic former sailor named Beazley, probably never looked out of the windows. ‘And you have been turning a blind eye to this,’ said the rector.

  ‘House is empty, and has been for months. No one will miss a little wood or coal.’ Stemp motioned towards the common room. ‘I’m popping in for a glass, reverend. Care to join me?’

  ‘No, but thank you.’ The rector reached into his pocket for money, which he pressed into Stemp’s hand. ‘Have one on me. Buy one for Jack too, if he’s there, and thank him for his assistance this morning. You did well today, Joshua. I know this is not exactly the job you signed up for.’

  ‘Makes a change from the usual, sir,’ said Stemp, and he grinned and walked off towards the common room.

  *

  The usual, for a local constable, consisted of catching stray dogs and rounding up vagrants. The former were returned to their owners in exchange for a small fine; the latter, in accordance with long-standing national practice, were hustled over the boundary into the next parish where they would become someone else’s problem, although the rector – to the vehement disapproval of both Stemp and his housekeeper – made sure the vagrants had a hot meal before they took their involuntary departure from St Mary in the Marsh. Stemp insisted that such charity merely encouraged such people to come back. The rector thought he was probably right.

  Stemp’s duties as constable took up only a small amount of his time, leaving him free to carry on his other trades: by day an honest fisherman, on dark nights he transformed into Yorkshire Tom, leader of the smugglers in this part of Romney Marsh. The rector knew this; Stemp knew that he knew it, and that knowledge remained their shared, unspoken secret.

  Hardcastle had appointed Stemp as parish constable on the same day that he had reluctantly accepted the post of justice of the peace. The act was an inspired one. On the one hand he gained a loyal lieutenant; a man who had his ear to the ground and knew what was going on, not just in St Mary in the Marsh but up and down the coast. On the other, the local free-traders were reassured that he did not intend to inquire too closely into their activities. There were already two preventive services – the Customs and the Excise – dedicate
d to the suppression of smuggling, and the rector judged them perfectly capable of carrying on their efforts without his assistance. He reasoned that his tasks as both rector and magistrate would be made much easier if he did not stand in the smugglers’ way; and to those who reproached him for not joining in the fight against the smugglers, he gave the official’s standard excuse: not my department.

  Stemp would do his duty well, so long as it did not clash with his other interests, and with that Hardcastle was perfectly satisfied. He went to pay his call on Amelia Chaytor.

  *

  He knocked at the door of Sandy House, her home. Lucy, the young housekeeper, admitted him at once, shutting the door behind him against the chilly blast of the wind.

  ‘Mrs Chaytor’s not in, reverend,’ she said. ‘She was waiting for you to call. When you didn’t come she got impatient and went looking for you. She said she would wait for you at the rectory.’

  I can guess what is coming, thought the rector, walking home bent against the wind, the freezing air singing in his ears. Mrs Chaytor had been one of the first to see the body, and now she won’t rest until the killer of the young woman is found. She’ll poke her nose into an official investigation and make her views plain to everyone, whether they want to hear them or not. She’ll go ferreting around looking for information, and likely as not will get into trouble.

  He found he was smiling.

  Amelia Chaytor was waiting for him in his study, seated in one of the chairs before the fire with her hands clasped primly in her lap. She wore a dark gown of fine wool, rather severe in its cut as became a still-young widow. He had never asked her age but guessed she was about thirty. Her dark brown hair was curled loosely under a white bonnet, and she had blue eyes with long, fine lashes, eyes which could grow rather intense when she was deep in thought. She had about her the kind of poise which, as a younger man, the rector had much admired in women; both her carriage and her voice suggested that she once moved in fashionable circles, if not absolutely one of the ton then perhaps on its fringes.