The Silent Boy Read online

  Charles picks up Louis and pushes him over the fallen branch, rolling him over and laying him flat behind it. In this abandoned state, Louis loses his last vestige of humanity and becomes what he truly is: a thing of paint and plaster of Paris.

  Charles stoops over Louis and spits on him. The spittle slides down the exposed bones of Louis’s shoulder. What does it matter? Louis is not a person. He is a wordless thing who has never spoken or even made a sound.

  Charles snatches up a fallen branch. He grasps it in both hands and pounds it on the thing that was Louis.

  The anger’s bitterness has the effect of lessening Charles’s hunger but increasing the stomach ache. He gathers up an armful of damp, dead leaves and throws them on top of the figure.

  He stumbles down the slope of the hillock. He does not go back the way he came but blunders towards the stream.

  At this point, the water runs clear and cold over a bottom of silt strewn with fragments of rock. It is too wide to leap but it is only a few inches deep.

  Jesus, Father Viré had said long ago in that lost life, Jesus walked on the water not because He wanted to, but to show others that He could. To prove beyond doubt that He was different from the foolish ones who doubted Him. To demonstrate His divinity to those of little faith.

  Perhaps, Charles thinks, I too am different. Perhaps that is the reason for all this. Perhaps I am divine.

  On the face of it, the idea is no more unlikely than the idea that an écorché figure speaks and lives.

  Charles steps from the muddy ground on to the surface of the water. The surface will not hold his weight. His foot descends to the bed of the stream so quickly that he almost falls forward into the water. He steadies himself.

  To make quite sure, he puts his other foot on the water. It sinks to the bottom. He stands in the stream, feeling the current brush his knees. The water is surprisingly cold, almost icy.

  So. He is not divine. He cannot work a miracle. That is a fact.

  He allows the current to direct him downstream. He walks slowly, enjoying the fierce distraction of the cold on his skin and the silky touch of the water. One step follows another. He is shivering but it does not matter.

  The stream winds according to its own incomprehensible whims. He loses all sense of direction. Sometimes the banks are clear on either side. Sometimes branches meet overhead and the water draws him through a green tunnel.

  Nothing else exists except the quiet agony of the cold and the gentle but remorseless thrust of the water. His mind is as numb as his feet. He does not bother to look from side to side. What is the point? He stares at the water. No birds sing. The wood is silent.

  A fish darts away from him. It is four or five inches long, as swift and unpredictable as quicksilver. Charles realizes with a sense of wonder that it is probably terrified of him, an alien giant invading the fish’s world. As he marches slowly on, he stares at the place where he last saw it, willing it to reappear.

  Perhaps the fish lives in a hole in the bank, which is very close. Perhaps it will come out again and Charles, if he is very quick, can snatch it from the water and take it back to the castle. Perhaps by then he will be hungry enough to eat it raw for breakfast.

  Charles lets his eyes drift along the side of the stream, searching for the fish’s home. He does not find the fish. But he does find the reason why no birds sing.

  Standing on the bank is a swarthy-complexioned man in a long, blue travelling coat.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ‘Where is Charles?’ the Count bellowed.

  Like his physique and his position in the old pre-Revolutionary world of France, Monsieur de Quillon’s emotions were on the grand scale, designed for a larger stage than Charnwood afforded. He had come downstairs far earlier than usual in order, he said, to take his leave of Charles before the boy was torn from his bosom.

  ‘Where is my son? Bring him to me.’

  Mrs Cox backed away. ‘My lord, I’m sure I—’

  ‘One moment.’ Fournier’s voice was sharper and louder than usual. He put down his cup and wiped his lips with a napkin. ‘Have you looked for him, Mrs Cox?’

  ‘He’s not in the house, sir, we’re sure of that. And he’s not in the garden, either.’

  ‘When did he go?’ Savill said. His mind was still clouded with wisps of fog, the dangerous legacy of Dr Gohlis’s sleeping draught.

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I thought Martha had roused him, you see, and she thought Joseph was—’

  ‘Did he take anything?’

  ‘Only the clothes he stood in. Not that he’s got much else.’ She hesitated, biting her lip. ‘He maybe took a bit of yesterday’s pie. Unless the cat had it.’

  The Count turned to Savill. ‘Is this some devilish plot of yours?’

  ‘No, my lord. What possible purpose would it serve?’

  ‘At least Charles won’t starve if he has some food,’ Fournier said. ‘He’ll be back in a moment or two, you may depend on it. Perhaps he’s saying goodbye to his favourite haunts.’

  ‘In that case they would have seen him in the garden,’ Savill said. ‘Unless he’s broken bounds.’

  Fournier frowned. ‘Does he do that? Break bounds?’

  ‘He’s a boy like any other boy, for all he’s mute,’ Savill said. ‘It would not surprise me in the least.’

  ‘We must send out a search party.’ Fournier pushed back his chair. ‘How very tiresome. He is probably immersed in some game or other.’

  ‘It is hardly the weather for playing outside,’ Savill said.

  ‘Boys are hardy creatures. Not that I was myself, but then, I was always an exception.’

  The Count stared at Savill. ‘Charles would never run away from his father,’ he said with slow, cold anger. ‘It’s because you are trying to take him away from me. I blame you for this.’

  The crisis gave the Count a vigour that Savill had never seen in him before. Breathing heavily, he wandered at random about the house and garden, leaning on a cane with a golden head and sometimes poking it into shrubs and bushes. He left Fournier to arrange a more methodical search of the house and grounds, as he left Fournier to do so much.

  Almost everyone was pressed into service. They began with the house. Mrs Cox led Fournier and Savill up the back stairs, which Savill had never seen before. Charnwood as a whole was a cheerless place, damp and in poor repair, but the servants’ quarters were much worse than the rooms the gentlemen used, with crumbling plaster and discoloured whitewash on the walls. The air smelled musty.

  Charles’s meanly furnished chamber had clearly been a servant’s room in other times. A tree too near to the window stole most of the light. The covers had been thrown off the bed.

  While they were searching the house, Dr Gohlis came downstairs; he had slept badly, he said, and had been obliged to dose himself in the early hours of the morning. He seemed as surprised by the news as any of them.

  In the stable, Fournier was the first to notice the remains of the manger. ‘When did that happen?’

  ‘It was on the wall yesterday afternoon,’ Gohlis said. ‘I’d take my oath on it, sir.’ He turned over some of the debris. ‘Riddled with woodworm.’

  Savill glanced up. Between two of the joists was the oblong outline of a trapdoor. He touched Fournier’s sleeve and pointed.

  ‘You have your key, Doctor?’ Fournier asked. ‘We shall look in your laboratory now.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ Gohlis searched in the pocket of his breeches. ‘But I changed the lock myself. I have the only keys, and I keep them safe.’

  Fournier and Savill followed him up the stairs. Gohlis unlocked the door.

  ‘You see?’ he said. ‘All is as it should be.’

  Fournier ignored him. He limped to the table that ran down the centre of the room and lifted one edge of the cloth that covered it. Savill stooped beside him. The upper side of the trapdoor did not quite sit in its frame.

  ‘Marks in the dust,’ Fournier said. ‘You see? Just there.�
�

  ‘You think he came in here?’ Gohlis said. ‘But why?’

  ‘The boy’s gone,’ Savill said.

  ‘Of course he has,’ the doctor’s voice rose in pitch. ‘That’s why we—’

  ‘No. Your boy. The écorché figure.’

  ‘Two lost boys,’ Fournier said. ‘Not one.’

  Mrs West’s groom had brought the phaeton when they returned to the house. They questioned him but he had not seen a boy as he came up from the village.

  ‘Not that I would have done, your honours,’ he said. ‘Not necessarily. Especially if he didn’t want to be seen.’

  ‘We need dogs,’ Savill said.

  ‘We don’t have any,’ Fournier said.

  The groom coughed. ‘Beg pardon, sir. Maybe Parson would lend you Bessie. If the lad’s left a scent, she can follow it, if any dog can.’

  The Count clicked his fingers. ‘Fetch her.’

  The Vicar arrived with Bessie within the half-hour. In the excitement of the moment he seemed entirely to have forgotten his disapproval of the gentlemen of Charnwood. The dog had been trained for rough shooting, he said as he clambered down from the phaeton, and the animal had no equal in the entire county for following a scent. She was notably sagacious as well.

  ‘If there’s the ghost of a scent,’ he said, ‘Bessie will follow it for you. She is a canine marvel, sirs – I would not take twenty guineas for her.’

  Joseph brought a sheet from Charles’s bed. The dog picked up the scent at the kitchen door. Nose to the ground, she towed Mr Horton away, with the rest of the party trailing after them.

  Bessie led them to the Garden of Neptune. The Count, panting with exertion, sank down on the parapet around the pool and propped his chin on his stick.

  ‘I’ll rest for a moment. Go on without me.’

  ‘He’s making for the wood,’ Mr Horton said, bouncing up and down from heel to toe in his excitement. ‘We’ll soon flush him out. I hope so, indeed – I have a christening later this morning.’

  Fournier, Gohlis and Savill hurried after the clergyman, who had a surprising turn of speed for such a portly gentleman. The dog took them through the gate at the far end of the garden. She left the path almost immediately, plunging into trees to the right. The wood was long overdue for coppicing. Branches blocked their way; brambles caught at their clothing and tried to trip them; and the dying bracken brushed their legs, soaking their breeches and stockings.

  ‘Are you sure she still has the scent?’ Fournier said.

  ‘Don’t you worry, sir,’ Mr Horton assured him. ‘Bessie would follow a scent to hell and back if necessary.’

  ‘I hope she won’t take us that far.’

  ‘I speak metaphorically,’ the Vicar said, flushing a darker shade of red.

  ‘Who owns the wood?’ Savill asked.

  ‘Mrs West, sir. Mr West used it for shooting for a year or two. But it’s gone to wrack and ruin since he died.’

  They marched on. Here, in this green, damp place, it was difficult to measure time. Savill guessed they had been walking for about fifteen or twenty minutes when the ground began to rise and they heard the sound of a stream growing steadily louder. Bessie led Mr Horton to the top of a small mound encrusted with a tangle of trees and bushes. A beech tree towered over everything.

  Bessie was sniffing the ground inside a thicket of yew beside the beech, her tail wagging violently from side to side.

  ‘There!’ said the Vicar. ‘Another print – and it’s fresh.’

  ‘But where’s he gone now?’ Fournier demanded.

  The dog cast about, searching for the scent.

  The old yew and the bushes around it made a natural shelter, a green cave, protected by the great branches of the beech. Savill stooped and entered. The rear of the shelter was formed by the beech’s massive trunk. One of its branches had fallen. It now lay rotting in the gloom. Beside it was a small footprint. He bent to look more closely at it. The movement brought him closer to the branch, closer to what lay behind it. He swore under his breath.

  ‘What is it, sir?’ Fournier was just behind him.

  A boy was lying there, wedged behind the fallen branch, his body partly covered with leaves and twigs, the face strangely discoloured and eaten away.

  Savill broke out into a cold sweat.

  But the boy was too small to be Charles. The face belonged to someone else, long dead, long gone.

  ‘Charles?’ Fournier said, with an edge of excitement to his voice.

  ‘No,’ Savill said. ‘The other one.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  When Savill called at the Vicarage just before midday, the servant told him that Mr Horton was still in church with the christening party. The man asked if Savill wished him to enquire whether Miss Horton was at home.

  In the literal sense of the question, there wasn’t much doubt on that score, for someone was fingering scales on the piano in the sitting room, and the sound had been perfectly audible as Savill was walking up the drive.

  Even as the servant was speaking, the scales came to a stop. Miss Horton herself appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Good day, sir – I thought I recognized your voice. Are you come to see my father?’

  He bowed. ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘We expect him at any moment. Come and wait in the sitting room with me. There’s a fire in here.’

  Savill followed her into the room. She closed the piano. He began to apologize for the intrusion but she interrupted him.

  ‘Is there any news of Charles, sir?’ she said, taking a seat.

  ‘No. I mean to ask your father to pursue enquiries throughout the neighbourhood. In his capacity as a justice, that is.’

  ‘A larger search party, perhaps? Sending to neighbouring villages?’

  ‘Indeed. The odds are that he has simply strayed too far, and cannot find his way home.’

  ‘Or even ask for directions,’ she said.

  He nodded.

  ‘There is another possibility, I collect,’ she went on, colouring slightly. ‘Absurd, perhaps, but one hears these things. That Charles was kidnapped – by gypsies or tinkers, I mean. Or …’

  ‘Or what, ma’am?’

  ‘Or by someone else,’ she said in a rush.

  ‘By whom?’

  She bit her lip, which made her look younger, like a girl caught out in a misdemeanour, not a woman of thirty. Rather a fetching girl at that, Savill thought. They both knew that the only other person who had an interest in Charles was the Count de Quillon. But this was not something that needed to be said.

  ‘Anyone,’ she said. ‘Who knows? Did you hear there was a stranger about the other day? Well, a stranger to me, at least.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the path from the Garden of Neptune – by the stile that leads to the woods. I was in the garden with Charles, you see.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Tuesday afternoon, I think. It was the day before we met at Mrs West’s. A man in a blue travelling coat. I couldn’t see his face clearly – but it was no one from Norbury. He was talking to the gardener’s boy – the one who complained to Papa when the Count thrashed him. He has red hair, and he’s old Mrs White’s grandson. His name’s George.’

  ‘Did you talk to the man?’

  Miss Horton shook her head. ‘He slipped away. But I asked George, and he said he was a traveller who had lost his way and desired to know the nearest road to Bath. There’s a lane over the hills – he must have come from there.’

  There were footsteps on the drive.

  ‘You saw him,’ Savill said quickly. ‘And so he saw Charles?’

  ‘Of course – he must have done. I don’t know if I believe George, by the way. He’s always been a liar. But I couldn’t ask him more because Charles ran off.’

  The Vicar’s voice sounded in the hall. The door handle rattled.

  ‘Charles is scared of George, you know,’ said Miss Horton. ‘I don’t know quite why, but he is.’
r />   Savill’s commission lay on the table in the Justice Room. Mr Horton flicked it with his forefinger.

  ‘I thought you were the father of that wretched boy. This puts quite a different complexion on it. What are you? A police spy?’

  ‘No, sir. But – as you see – I am authorized to act as the magistrate’s agent or deputy by Mr Ford under the terms of the Police Act. You are familiar with it, no doubt. It has particular reference to preserving the safety of the realm from sedition. The Government believes that the émigrés at Charnwood form a possible threat under the terms of the Act.’

  ‘I am the authority here, sir,’ Horton said.

  ‘Of course you are, sir,’ Savill said. ‘Which is why you should direct the investigation in all things.’

  ‘While you tell me what to do?’

  ‘All I ask is that you permit me to act as an observer, and that you delay informing the world of what has happened until we know what we are dealing with.’

  Horton drew out a chair and sat down. He was still carrying his prayer book. He stared at it, frowning, as if wondering how he came to be holding it, and then laid it gently on the table beside the magistrate’s warrant.

  ‘Tell me, sir,’ he said wearily, ‘what is going on? Since you and the French party have come to Charnwood, the village has turned itself upside down. And what has this poor dumb boy to do with it?’

  Mr Horton knew the value of theatre. He ordered his groom to ride to Charnwood, with orders to bring George White to the Vicarage immediately.

  Wrenched from his natural habitat and transplanted to the awful surroundings of the Justice Room, the boy was already terrified. Mrs West might own most of Norbury but, since her husband’s death, Mr Horton united in his plump person the principal powers of both Church and State. The sanctions at his command ranged from earthly imprisonment to eternal damnation.

  He hammered the flat of his hand on the table. ‘Empty your pockets, boy.’