Buttress shrugged. ‘Who knows? Well, we shall have to bring the witnesses together. Some of the men from the foundry are still alive.’
‘I understand Ellen Fettiplace had spent the day with a young man who was interested in her, Philip West.’
Buttress flicked me an angry look. ‘The Wests are an important local family. Self-important anyway. Master West is now an officer on the King’s ships.’
‘Nonetheless, he, too, will need to be questioned.’ I realized that when all these people were brought together it would come out how thoroughly I had been investigating Ellen’s history. But the important thing was to get them together and questioned properly. And I would be there.
‘It will take time to put these wheels in motion,’ Buttress said. I realized he would do everything he could to delay. But why? To keep a forged conveyance secret?
He said, ‘I expect by the time the Sussex coroner has been able to get all these people together for an inquest, you will be back in London. He will write to you. Unless the French land and we are all so mired in war down here that nothing can be done about anything.’
‘I shall keep in touch with matters through Master Seckford.’ I gave the old man a meaningful glance, and he nodded.
‘Yes, Master Shardlake,’ Buttress said heavily, ‘I imagine you will.’
EVENING FOUND US lodging at Rolfswood inn; Buttress, unsurprisingly, had offered us no hospitality. When we left the house Wilf’s sons were waiting for us a little way up the street. This time their manner towards me was friendly. After all, I had just lied to save their father from a possible charge of poaching.
‘You should have left that body be, Father,’ one brother said chidingly. ‘Let someone else find it. Look at you, you’re half dead.’
‘I couldn’t leave Master Fettiplace there,’ Wilf said. ‘Master Shardlake will keep me safe.’
‘I promise I will see justice done,’ I said. I hoped I would be able to. Buttress might not be clever, but he was cunning and ruthless.
Seckford and Wilf came with us to the inn. The woman who had first introduced me to Wilf, a widow named Mistress Bell, turned out to own it. She agreed to give us a place for the night. When we parted I grasped Seckford’s flabby hand. ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘please protect Wilf so far as you can. A letter will bring me here.’ I had given him the address of Hoyland Priory, and of my chambers in London.
He looked at me with bleary eyes, then smiled sadly. ‘You fear I will be too far gone in my cups to be of use. No, sir, I will control myself. God has given me a task to perform, as once he did with Ellen. I will not fail this time.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, hoping he could keep his resolution.
Barak and I were shown up to a room where we both collapsed, exhausted, on the bed, until an hour later hunger sent us down to eat. The inn was full; I remembered Buttress saying tomorrow was market day. As we ate, someone brought the news that the body of old Master Fettiplace had been found in the mill pond and an excited hubbub of conversation began. Barak and I retired upstairs before we could be connected with the gossip.
‘Where does this leave us?’ he asked.
‘With the chance to bring everyone involved together to be questioned. Buttress will drag his heels, I must keep on at him.’
‘From London? And Ellen? If this all comes out, will she be safe?’
‘I took steps to ensure she was protected. I will take more on my return.’
‘And now you’ll have to keep coming back here.’
I sat up on the bed. ‘I must bring some order out of this chaos, Jack. I must.’ I heard the rising passion in my voice. Barak gave me a long, serious look, but said nothing.
‘Buttress is hiding something,’ I said at length.
‘Probably. But where does finding Fettiplace’s body actually leave things? An inquest might agree with Buttress, decide Fettiplace could have killed Gratwyck, then gone out on the pond and killed himself.’
‘What if some third party came to the foundry, raped Ellen, then killed both her father and Gratwyck? She said at least two men attacked her, she said they were too strong for her, she could not move.’
Barak was silent again for a minute, then said, ‘You place much weight on the shrieks of a madwoman.’
‘She spoke the truth that day.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ He folded his arms and looked at me, holding my eye in a way that reminded me oddly of some judges I had known.
‘You did not see her, you did not see the horror those memories brought.’
‘What if West’s insinuations are true, that Ellen herself killed her father and Gratwyck, then set the fire? Priddis could still have had her removed from the area to please the Wests, and done some deal with Buttress so he bought that house cheaply and they shared the profits. You know what these county officials are like, they’re at it all the time.’
‘I got the impression Buttress did not like the Wests. Rivals for local power, perhaps.’