A Dark Anatomy Read Free Page A

dancing the minuet at a ball in Jamaica.
    For reasons I could not discover, the new squire took against me and my services from the start. The day after I acquainted him with his father’s will, and the full extent of his sudden wealth, I received a note in his hand summarily asking me, without explanation, to send all papers relating to Brockletower family affairs to the chambers of Messrs Rudgewick & Tench, of Friar Gate, who would henceforth act for and advise him. He had given no hint of this intention on the previous day, so I replied, reminding him of how long I had served his family and
asking him to think again, as I considered Rudgewick & Tench to fall short of the decent diligence required in a family attorney. I simply received a second even curter note repeating the contents of the first and indicating that I should no longer consider myself the Brockletowers’ family attorney.
    As I rode down towards the brook’s valley, where I would turn the horse eastward to ride up towards the house, I noted the closeness of the steep slopes on either side, out of whose red earth grew the tall and ancient trees. Forty years ago the valley floor, no more than a hundred yards broad, had been cleared and turned over to park and pasture – a pretty landscape to look at from the house. Coming down to the water, I forded it, cleared the fringe of trees on the farther bank, and trotted the cob out onto the open grass of this park. The Hall was now a furlong away, a squarely proportioned, three-storey, brick-built house with numerous tall windows and a noble slate roof. Some of the frontage was masked from my sight by a cedar of Lebanon rising in front of it, and some by a screen of scaffolds, ladders and hoists, around which lengths of canvas flapped in the breeze like sails. Builders were at work modernizing the appearance of Ramilles Brockletower’s home. In amongst the trees that rose up behind the house, a belt of brown and green between the slates of the house’s roof and the blue sky, coils and smudges of smoke rose into the still air: the fires of the building workers’ camp.
    But little of this work, or outside work of any kind, was being done at Garlick Hall at this moment. In the cobbled stable yard, grouped around the drinking trough, I counted eleven men and women, indoor and outdoor servants mixing with the builder’s men, who had met to exchange observations and speculations about the violent death of their employer’s wife. As I approached through the arch that divided the yard from the lane, they eyed me in expectation of news.

    I swung myself from the saddle.
    â€˜How do, Coroner?’ greeted one of the group. ‘Been up in woods?’
    I knew the man as an important person in the little kingdom of Garlick Hall: William Pearson, huntsman and head groom.
    â€˜I have that,’ I confirmed. ‘I come directly down from there.’
    Pearson nipped one of the younger men by the earlobe and propelled him in my direction, to take charge of the cob.
    â€˜Squire’s not at home, so I understand,’ I said, handing over the reins. No one contradicted me. ‘I therefore desire an immediate interview with Miss Brockletower.’
    One of the young females left the group and went in with the message for the squire’s sister, while the others muttered amongst themselves, and nudged one another. I strolled across to join them by the watering trough.
    â€˜Is it true then, what Timothy says, Coroner?’ asked Pearson. ‘That Mistress’s throat’s cut and her’s bled to death?’
    There seemed no reason to keep it from them, and facts are preferable to gossip. So I said, ‘Regrettably, that looks to be the case. We must send a cart as far as the bridge, and a litter so that she can be brought decently home. Will you see to it, Pearson?’
    â€˜Aye. I’ll go up myself an’all. It’s likely she’s murdered, is