The Taxidermist's Daughter Read Free Page B

then moved on towards the Market Cross. The street was busy, women with shopping baskets and perambulators, men loading bottles on to a delivery cart outside the wine merchant, everyone enjoying the promise of a summer’s day free from umbrellas and mackintoshes or the need to scuttle from one shop to the next.
    A crowd of people was standing outside Howards. The usual selection of skinned rabbits and poultry was hanging in the butcher’s window, raw and bloody, but when Harry drew level, he saw that the glass had been smashed.
    ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘Break-in,’ one man said. ‘Took some knives, a few other tools.’
    ‘Cash from the till,’ another put in. ‘Smashed the place up a bit.’
    Harry glanced at the jeweller’s shop next door. ‘Funny place to go for.’
    ‘They reckon it’s down to a chap who got sacked,’ a third man offered. ‘Got out of prison last week. Sore about losing his position.’
    Harry turned right at the Market Cross into West Street, heading for his father’s consulting rooms. No time like the present. Wherever or whenever the conversation took place, it was going to be difficult. He might as well have it out with him. At least he’d know for certain where he stood.
    Harry intended to enrol in the Royal Academy Schools; he’d made his application. He could live without his father’s approval, but not without his financial support. He’d be stuck working for Brook for years before he made enough money to fund his studies out of his own pocket.
    He straightened his jacket and checked his tie was properly knotted, then mounted the stone step. He noticed how the brass plaque was brightly polished: DR JOHN WOOLSTON MD . Today, even that made his spirits sink. His father didn’t see patients any more – he was strictly a paperwork man – but it was all so visibly respectable, so predictable.
    He took a deep breath, pushed open the door and walked in.
    ‘Morning, Pearce. The old man in?’
    Harry stopped dead. The reception room was empty. His father’s clerk was as much a part of the fabric of the building as the tables and chairs. In all his life, he couldn’t remember a time when he’d arrived without seeing the avian profile of Pearce peering with disapproval over his half-moon spectacles.
    ‘Pearce?’
    From upstairs, he heard the sounds of someone walking about.
    ‘I’m telling you, get out. Damn you!’
    His hand on the highly polished banister, Harry froze. He’d never heard the old man swear, or even raise his voice.
    ‘I wanted to give you a chance,’ a man said. A soft voice, educated. ‘I’m sorry you chose not to take it.’
    ‘Get out !’
    Harry heard the sound of a chair being upended.
    ‘ Get out! ’ his father shouted. ‘I tell you, I don’t have to listen to such filth. It’s a disgraceful slur.’
    The whole situation was so extraordinary that Harry couldn’t decide what to do. If his father needed help, he would of course intervene. But at the same time, the old man hated to be embarrassed in any way and would almost certainly resent his interference.
    The decision was made for him. The door to his father’s consulting room was flung open with such violence that it hit the wall, then rattled on its hinges. Harry bounded back down the stairs two at a time and hurled himself into the recess behind Pearce’s desk, only just in time. The visitor came quickly down and disappeared into West Street. Harry caught no more than a glimpse of his clothes – working men’s trousers and broad-brimmed farm hat, and small, clean black boots.
    He was about to set off after him when he heard the floorboards again shift overhead. Seconds later, his father came down the stairs as fast as his stiff knee would let him. He took his hat and coat from the stand beside the door, put on his gloves and left.
    This time, Harry didn’t stop to think. He ran after his father, tailing him through the cathedral cloisters, down St Richard’s Walk and into Canon Lane.