‘And until you get back on the road again, Roger, we have very little left of our own.’
So it was with mixed feelings that, after dinner, I walked out of the Frome Gate and along the Backs to the hospital, set against the cloud of apple blossom that was, at present, its orchard. The cooing of the pigeons from the pigeon loft sounded loudly on the soft morning air.
Before I could state my business to anyone in authority, however, I was waylaid by that ever vigilant pair, Miles Huckbody and Henry Dando.
‘Saw you coming,’ announced the latter triumphantly, his rheumy blue eyes screwed up against the sunlight shafting in through the open doorway behind me.
‘That’s right,’ confirmed his friend, his seamed and wrinkled face — the face of a much older man than Miles Huckbody really was — expressing equal smugness. ‘Keeps our eyes and ears open, we do. There’s not much we misses.’
‘If it’s old Jonathan Linkinhorne you’m lookin’ for,’ Henry Dando cut in, ‘he’s in the infirmary. Taken there this mornin’ after breakfast.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’ I asked anxiously, but neither of my informants seemed to know (or care particularly, if it came to that).
I sought out one of the chaplains, who reassured me that there was no cause for alarm.
‘Just the general malaise of old age. Fatigue and boredom. I daresay he’ll be glad to have a visitor.’
I doubted it, not one who confronted him with what I had to say. I hesitated momentarily, wondering if I should retreat and return another day, but then decided that if the thing were to be done at all, it would be better to do it quickly and get it over with. The chaplain reaffirmed that the patient’s indisposition was not serious and conducted me into the long, narrow, whitewashed dormitory that was the hospital infirmary.
It so happened that Master Linkinhorne was the sole occupant, much to my great relief. He was propped up against pillows on a palliasse at the far end of the room and glanced towards the door as I came in with my guide. As we approached and he recognized me, I saw his eyes widen in — what? Apprehension? Alarm? But the next moment, they were shuttered by his lids, and when he opened them again, they were devoid of all expression.
‘Someone to see you, Jonathan,’ the chaplain said.
I sat down tentatively on the edge of the mattress. Here and there, bits of straw stuck through the thin ticking, irritating my legs and making me thankful that I was not an inmate of the hospital, especially a sick one.
‘What do you want?’ Jonathan Linkinhorne grunted at last, after a silence during which I debated how to explain the reason for my presence; an accusation of murder is hardly the easiest of subjects to broach.
In the end, I decided that the direct approach was the best, probably the only, one to take, so I came straight out with it — and waited for him to refute my words with a storm of anger and indignation. He did indeed lift a hand as though to ward off what I was saying, and, to begin with, I saw both shock and denial in the faded blue eyes. The slack flesh around the jawline quivered for a moment before he suddenly heaved a great sigh and let his head fall forward in acquiescence.
‘I killed her,’ he said. ‘I had to. Isabella had attacked my wife with a knife. It was Amorette’s life or hers.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘It wasn’t the first time she had done so. Once before, Isabella tried to stab her mother while in a towering passion.’
‘What provoked her rage on that day?’ I asked, wondering if I were being told the truth or not. And yet, after all I had learned about Isabella, it had the ring of authenticity about it.
As though reading my thoughts, my companion raised his head and stared defiantly at me, the eyes, in which blindness was steadily and surely taking a hold, sparking with anger.
‘You may believe me or not, as you please, but what happened, happened exactly as I shall relate it to you. Everything is as clear in my memory as if it had occurred only yesterday.’ A great sob was wrenched out of him, but he had his emotions under control again almost at once. ‘It would be a wonder if it were not. There’s not a single day has passed in the last twenty years when I haven’t gone over those dreadful events in my mind and wondered if they could have been avoided. To kill one’s own child must be the most heinous crime before God and man.’
‘Tell me how it came about,’ I suggested gently. I found myself beginning to feel sorry for the old man.
Jonathan nodded. He was calmer now, breathing easily, an expression of relief smoothing out his features. The dreadful secret, suppressed for so long, was at last going to be shared with another.
‘Isabella had been out riding all day; a day of terrible wind and rain. In the morning, after breakfast, my wife had pleaded with her not to leave the house; to forgo her exercise just for once. Isabella was suffering from the flux and my wife considered it unwise for her to ride at all in the circumstances, but especially in such weather. I added my voice, begging our daughter not to be so foolish. Begging is perhaps not the right word. Ordering would be a better one.’
‘To which Isabella took exception,’ I hazarded. Although from what I knew of her, it was more a statement of fact than a guess.
Master Linkinhorne pulled down the corners of his mouth. ‘She had long outgrown our control.’ He shrugged. ‘You think me weak, I’ve no doubt. Most fathers would have taken a strap to her, put her under lock and key, but somehow I could never bring myself to do so. She was the child of our old age, Master Chapman; the child Amorette and I had given up hope of having when the Lord saw fit to send her to us. We lavished love upon her from her birth; no child could have been more cherished. And how did she repay us? With contumely, with vituperation, with … with … I must say it, with hatred.’ There was a pause, then he grimaced ruefully. ‘But I think, if memory serves me right, I told you all this when you came to see me three weeks ago. You must forgive me if I repeat myself. It is, unfortunately, a habit of old age.’
‘No matter. But you were telling me about the day of the murder,’ I prompted.
He visibly flinched at the last word, and said nothing further for a moment or two. Then he took another deep breath and continued.
‘Ah, yes. The murder. Although I must confess that I’ve never thought of it as such.’ A further pause, and then he shook his head vigorously as if renouncing something.
‘That’s not quite the truth, though, is it? If I hadn’t considered it to be murder, I wouldn’t have concealed what happened — even to the extent of sending out the servants next day to make enquiries as to Isabella’s whereabouts and who might have seen her.’
I frowned. ‘But not very urgent enquiries. Nor did you pursue them for any length of time. Once I began to suspect you, your apparent indifference to what might have become of your daughter, the ease with which you seemed to accept her disappearance, only added, in my estimation, to the weight of evidence against you. But you still haven’t told me precisely what happened that day she returned from riding.’
Once more, he lifted his frail shoulders and dropped them. ‘As I’ve said, it was a dreadful day. When Isabella came home not long before suppertime, she was soaked to the skin. She went straight up to her chamber and changed her gown from the old purple one she had put on that morning — one she kept for dirty and muddy days — to the green silk one my wife had made for her a few months earlier. Then she joined us in the solar where Amorette was doing her embroidery, seated at her frame, and I was idling away an hour before the evening meal. I asked her — Isabella that is — where she had been and what she had been doing in such weather. My attitude, my tone of voice were moderate enough, I can assure you, even though my wife and I had both been extremely worried for our daughter’s safety. They certainly didn’t warrant the unrestrained outburst of fury with which my question was greeted. (Although, in all honesty, I have to admit that the flux always made Isabella even more ill-tempered and intractable than she normally was.) For some reason — women’s reasons again, perhaps — our daughter’s insolence infuriated Amorette. She got to her feet in such a rage that she was almost speechless and did what I had never seen her do in her life before. She slapped Isabella full across the face with such force that Isabella was sent staggering back against the wall, cutting her bottom lip on one of her teeth.