embroidered family crest was hung behind the table, which was already set for breakfast. Day crossed to another door on the far side of the room and pushed it open with the tips of his fingers.
The kitchen was small and tidy. A medium-size range dominated most of the far wall, framed by a pair of wooden chairs with straw seats. A faded blue rug had been rolled out on the floor. The oven door was open, and Day could see a roasting pan inside, today’s breakfast slowly cooking. Turning his head, Day could see through a narrow doorway into the larder, which was hung with raw meats: rabbits, a suckling pig, and one quarter of a deer. There were no dishes in evidence, and Day assumed that, if the kitchen was here on the ground floor, the scullery must be in the basement. He moved quietly through the room and past the swinging animal carcasses to another open door. A cold breeze wafted through the larder, cooling the meat and leaving a thin coat of snow on the stone floor. He halted again, his back against the outside wall next to the door, and crouched down before looking out.
Outside, a low fence, designed to protect the larder from hungry animals, shielded the inn from the landscape. Day edged forward and gripped the top of the fence, then raised his head to look over it. Calvin Campbell was three feet away from him, looking in the opposite direction. He was squatting by the town well, hidden from the other side of the road by the big stone structure. Day ducked his head back down behind the fence. He was sure it was no coincidence that Campbell was out and about. It was the bird-watcher who had locked the other guests’ rooms before going out into the night.
A moment later, he heard footsteps and risked another peek over the fence. A loose formation of village men marched past, bleary-eyed and stooped, miners on their way to the new seam. There seemed to be fewer of them than Day had seen from the carriage the previous evening. Their clothing had been laundered and patched many times, but would never come close to being clean, and some of them wore soft caps pulled down low on their brows. One of them coughed and stumbled and fell to his knees beside the road. Two of the others hurried to him, lifted him under his armpits and, supporting their spasming friend between them, returned to the group. The men walked past the well and the inn’s short fence without noticing the inspector or the bird-watcher, both poorly hidden scant feet away from them. They followed the road around a high slag pile and an abandoned pit and then out of sight around the corner of a far building.
As soon as the miners were gone, Calvin Campbell jumped up from his spot behind the old well and hurried down the road in the direction the miners had come from. Day stood and followed from a discreet distance, trusting the light snowfall to keep him partially hidden.
The cobblestones of the town’s main road gleamed in the gaslight from streetlamps set every few yards, ice sparkling in the mud between the stones. The buildings along the main road through the center of town were tall and proud and architecturally similar, unlike everything that radiated out from them. Someone had once put thought and effort into planning and building this village, before haphazard growth had laid waste to their good intentions. Beyond the first few yards along the main street, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason remaining. Tudor-style dwellings nestled alongside split-rail cabins and ancient mud-daubed huts. It looked to him as though the place had come together in fits and starts, with no plan, and nothing had ever been torn down to make way for anything better. Next to the blacksmith was the telegraph office, closed and silent at this early hour. Day watched his shadow flow and change and grow as he crossed the road. He was alone and in a strange place and he missed his wife. He missed her terrible cooking. He missed the smell of her hair and the sound of her bare feet in the hall as she approached his bedroom door in the middle of the night. He wondered what she might make of the strange village, like some island far from London, populated by natives who refused to abandon their sinking homes. Or, perhaps, couldn’t leave if they wanted to.
But for all that it was doomed, he could still see the appeal of Blackhampton. It was small, but open, the houses and shops and community buildings spread out in a way that London was not. Day had come from Devon, where there was room to move about, and had lived the better part of the past year in London, where there was not. Blackhampton had a bit of the feel of Devon for him. He liked being able to walk without checking for horseshit at every step.
But the air here wasn’t filled with the river scent of Devon or the body odors of London. It was burnt and, even filtered through the heavy white snowflakes swirling around his face, it stung his nostrils. The great furnaces filled the sky with smoke, and there was nothing else to breathe. One would, he presumed, eventually become used to it, but after a single night in Blackhampton his throat was as raw as if he’d smoked a pipe the wrong way round. He felt he was choking on ashes. He cleared his throat quietly, aware that any noise would echo through the empty street and alert Calvin Campbell to his presence.
The road curved to the west ahead of them, and Campbell took a furtive look back before following the bend and disappearing from sight. Day stood calmly in the dark doorway of an apothecary and made sure Campbell wasn’t doubling back. A spider emerged from a crack in the stones beside Day and he marveled that it was awake and moving about in the bitter cold. Surely it should be hibernating, or whatever it was that spiders did in the winter. The early spring had clearly played havoc with the natural way of things. Day moved away from the wall, reluctant to frighten such a brave soul. From nowhere, a dunnock, grey and brown, flew at the wall and gobbled up the spider, then flew off, past Day, and disappeared against the late winter sky.
Day stepped out of the shadows of the apothecary. He approached the road’s curve carefully, in no particular rush. As far as he could tell, there was nowhere for Campbell to go. The village was small and, if he remembered correctly, the road ended just out of town. Even if the bird-watcher broke for the distant trees, Day would be able to see him for quite a distance as he crossed the open fields.
But when he peered around the bend, Campbell was nowhere in sight. Day moved out into the middle of the road and looked in every direction. There was a smattering of smaller stone buildings, a butcher shop, a fish and chips, a farrier, and a handful of cottages and outbuildings. Ahead was the parish church, towering over the homes and businesses nearby. It sat directly on the path, a destination point, whether one intended that or not. Beyond the church, the road ended. There was no dirt path or trail through the tall grasses; it simply stopped. There was nowhere for Campbell to hide except in one of the buildings, and there was no way to tell which one he might be in.
Day stood there for a long time, turning in small circles, surveying the road in both directions. It was possible that Campbell was watching him from a window, but Day didn’t care. There was nothing to do but draw Campbell out and question him, or give up and go back to the inn. Day waited for a quarter of an hour, hoping that the giant would leave his hiding place, but nothing happened. The sun began to edge over the tops of the distant trees, and shadows changed, reached and clawed up the sides of the tiny cottages and over the thatched roof of the butcher shop. Birds began to sing.
Day gazed at the church. Mrs Brothwood’s note had hinted at mysteries being kept there, and he was tempted to approach, knock on the huge oaken doors and confront whomever he might find. But he wasn’t prepared for that. Better to wait until he was better rested and the village, outside of the early-rising miners, had begun to stir.
But he wasn’t ready to give up on the disappearing Campbell just yet.
Day backtracked and stopped outside the telegraph office. He pounded on the door until a grumpy old man answered, still rubbing sleep from his eyes with a gnarled fist. Day introduced himself and the man beckoned the inspector inside. The door closed behind him, and silence cloaked Blackhampton once more.
INTERLUDE 1
ANDERSONVILLE PRISON,
CONFEDERATE GEORGIA, 1865
Cal? Calvin Campbell. That you, boy?”
Cal didn’t look up. He stood still, staring at the louse wriggling between his fingers. He frowned. The voice had interrupted his count. He cursed and poked the louse into his mouth, crunching it between his teeth. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he jerked away, his body tensed for a fight.
“Cal, it’s me. It’s Joe Poole.”
The name stirred shadows in his memory. Joe Poole? Cal still didn’t look up, but he struggled to remember.
