I said gently, ‘The discovery of your daughter’s body must have been a terrible shock for you, Master Linkinhorne. But surely you must have some desire to know what happened to her? Who murdered her?’ He made no response. I hesitated, then went on, ‘Did … forgive me, but did neither you nor your wife ever consider the possibility that some harm might have befallen Isabella?’
He was silent for a moment or two longer, then slowly shook his head.
‘I daresay you think we should have done,’ he said at last, ‘but I’m ashamed to say that it never so much as crossed our minds.’
‘Can you …? Do you know why not?’
Again there was a protracted pause as though he were struggling to come to terms with something that was almost too painful to contemplate.
‘Isabella,’ he murmured at length, ‘was always threatening to run away from home.’ He drew a long, ragged breath. ‘My wife, Master Chapman, was over forty when our daughter was born. I was five years older. We had given up all hope of having a child, so Isabella was … was like a miracle sent by God. And we knew that we should have no more children. Foolishly, we indulged her every whim, both when she was a little girl and as she grew older. Everything she wanted, she had.’
Except her freedom, I thought. Except her freedom! I could see that Sister Walburga had been in the right of it when she’d said that an old couple’s overwhelming love had stifled an eager, high-spirited girl. And when that girl had become a woman, she had rebelled.
Almost as an echo to my thoughts, Jonathan Linkinhorne went on, ‘Suddenly Amorette, my wife, and I didn’t know her any more. Looking back, of course I can see that even when she was small, riding her pony, Isabella would try her best to get clear of anyone who was accompanying her; my wife, myself or her nurse. And as soon as she had mastered the grey mare we bought her for her fifteenth birthday, there was no holding her back. Each day she was out riding, in all weathers, galloping across the downs in every direction. There was no longer anyone who could keep up with her. She grew defiant, wilful … You think we should have beaten her, no doubt. Locked her in her chamber. People told me to my face that I was too weak with her. That if she had been their daughter …’ He shrugged. ‘Oh, you can guess the sort of thing.’
I could, only too well. I had a daughter of my own and could foresee myself receiving just the same sort of advice when that strong-minded damsel reached maturity.
‘But,’ I prompted, when my companion threatened to lapse into silence once again, ‘Isabella always did come home? She never did run away?’
‘No,’ he agreed sadly. ‘She never did run away. I know that now.’ He made a sudden, visible effort and roused himself from his reverie. ‘Of course I do. But twenty years ago, my wife and I believed differently. We believed that Isabella had finally carried out her threat and run away with one of her suitors.’
A log fell with a crash on to the hearth behind me, sending up a comet’s tail of sparks. One of the old men at the next table hurried forward importantly, seized the tongs and put the crumbling log back on the fire, glancing around as he did so for applause. When none was forthcoming, he huffed his way back to his seat, offended. I felt sorry for him.
‘You say suitors in the plural,’ I said, turning back to face Jonathan Linkinhorne. ‘There was more than one?’
‘So we were told.’
‘Did you never see them?’
His jowl quivered defiantly. ‘No. Isabella always denied their existence when we questioned her concerning them.’
‘In that case, how can you be sure these men ever really existed?’
He gave a faint, fleeting smile and confirmed what Sister Walburga had already told me.
‘Neighbours, well-wishers, friends. People who knew people, who knew people, who knew people … Someone’s mother-in-law’s aunt had seen Isabella riding with a male companion near Westbury village, or on the Gloucester road, or as far away as the track that runs south to Bath. There were also reports of her visiting Bristol on her own, stabling the mare at the Full Moon, near Saint James’s Priory. Sometimes, of course, she accompanied her mother and me to the city, when we went to visit the market or for another reason. And I recall there were several occasions when we lost her. She always turned up again, later, but would never say exactly where she’d been in the meantime.’
‘Is there any chance she could have gone to visit your cousin at the Magdalen nunnery?’
Jonathan Linkinhorne shook his head glumly.
‘Jeanette — Sister Walburga that is — didn’t enter the nunnery as a postulant until just a few weeks before Isabella vanished.’
I thought over what he had told me for a moment or two while he once more lapsed into silence. Then I asked, ‘Why are you so certain that, in all these sightings of your daughter in the company of a man, it was not the same man every time? Why are you so sure that there were three?’
With a visible effort, Jonathan Linkinhorne dragged his eyes back to my face.
‘The descriptions didn’t tally,’ he said, at last raising his beaker and taking a few sips of ale. He licked his lips and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. ‘One account was of a tall, fair man, very handsome. Another described a stocky, sandy-headed fellow, while a third fitted neither of those descriptions.’
‘What was that?’
‘Oh, brown-haired, blue-eyed, nothing remarkable or noteworthy. A man like a hundred others. Although …’ My companion broke off, pressing a hand to his forehead, peering back into the dim recesses of the past and trying to conjure up a memory. ‘Someone said — I think it was of him, and yet I wouldn’t be sure — that he was a jolly fellow, always laughing. Or was that one of the others?’
I struggled against a growing sense of disbelief.
‘But you and your wife never saw any of these men? You never thought to follow your daughter when she went out riding? You mentioned a nurse. Could she not have ridden with Isabella?’
Jonathan Linkinhorne grew testy, snapping at me, suddenly impatient.
‘You can’t have been listening, Master Chapman. I told you, my wife was over forty when our child was born. I was forty-five. So by the time we are now talking about, Amorette and I were both over sixty. Indeed, my wife had celebrated her sixtieth birthday shortly before Isabella disappeared. And Emilia — Emilia Virgoe, Isabella’s nurse — as well as being in her forties, was no horsewoman. There was no possible way that either one of us could have kept up with my daughter when she was on horseback.’ He was beginning to sweat and jerked his stool away from the fire’s heat before continuing. ‘You must understand that Isabella had an instinctive bond with horses from the moment she first clapped eyes on one. She was a superb horsewoman. There was no possible way anyone could have kept up with her, followed her, if she didn’t wish it.’
I, too, was starting to sweat, the heat on my back making me feel slightly sick and light-headed. I got up and walked round the table to sit beside my reluctant host. My mouth was parched, and I looked longingly at Jonathan Linkinhorne’s still quarter-full beaker of ale. He pushed it towards me.
‘Take it,’ he muttered. ‘Small beer’s all you get here and I can’t bear the stuff. Wine’s the only fit drink for a civilized human being.’
‘If you can afford it,’ I retorted, swallowing the remains of the ale in a couple of gulps.
‘Oh, I could always afford it,’ he declared, suddenly boastful. ‘The holding I worked for Lord Cobham was a flourishing one. Four or five hands I had under me at one time, and two girls to do the milking and feed the hens and work in the house. I provided near enough the whole manor with vegetables, and sufficient over to sell in Bristol market at least once, sometimes twice a week.’