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Good riddance to the miserable sod.
If only I could convince myself he had disappeared entirely of his own volition.
The warmth at my back makes that difficult. Iscairn stands close behind me, solemn beneath his hat, every inch the physician paying his respects to a man he barely knew.
I’ve spent three days wondering whether that’s all he is doing, and it is driving me mad.
If Iscairn strangled him, then Billy ought to be lying somewhere. If he broke his neck, the same problem remains. Unless the blue can do more than I’ve seen and Iscairn has somehow reduced the bastard to ash.
“Though we have no body to commit to the earth,” Gideon finishes, “we commend William Lee Mercer unto the mercy of Almighty God. May the Lord receive his soul, forgive him his sins, and grant comfort to the wife and children who remain behind. In His keeping, no man is lost. Amen.”
The Amen moves quietly through the churchyard, and by the time the last of it fades, people are already beginning to stir, rubbing cold hands together and turning towards the gate while the women nearest Nell gather around her and the children.
“Well, if he's not coming back, somebody'd best see to his snare lines up by the ridge,” somebody says behind me. “And them winter boots were newly cobbled, an' all. Shame to leave good leather rotting in a ditch.”
My head whips round. “His wife is standing ten paces away, Mitchell Lark. Have some bloody decency.”
Even I know there is a time and place for picking over a dead man’s belongings, and it’s not while his children are still crying beside the cross.
Mitchell has the grace to look embarrassed, but whatever apology he might have offered is lost beneath the sudden clatter of the churchyard gate. Ned Pine comes tearing through, his boots skidding sideways into a leaning headstone. He catches himself with both hands and keeps going, searching the thinning crowd.
“Doctor!”
Every head turns.
Ned stumbles towards us, white-faced and breathless. “It's me father. He's collapsed in the root cellar. He's burning up, and he can't get his breath.”
Iscairn’s beak turns towards me at the same moment I look at him, and whatever remains of Billy Mercer’s funeral is forgotten.
We follow him back through the gate and into the lanes as quickly as my leg will allow, and by the time we reach the cottage, he’s already through the door ahead of us, frantically beckoning us towards a square hatch cut into the floorboards.
I hurry over and peer down. Cold, damp air rolls up from beneath the house, carrying the smell of earth and old roots, while a narrow ladder disappears into darkness barely a few rungs below my feet.
Iscairn steps up beside me and looks down into the opening. Then his head turns slightly towards one shoulder, then the other. Between the cloak, the satchel strapped across his chest and the frankly unreasonable breadth of him, there is no chance whatsoever of fitting through that hatch as he is.
A dissatisfied hum sounds behind the mask.
Without another word, he unbuckles the satchel and lifts the strap over his head, setting it carefully beside the opening before crouching over the ladder. One hand goes to the crown of his hat to keep it from catching, and he has to turn his head sideways to persuade the long bone beak through after him.
“Follow me, Ophelia Harrow,” he says from halfway into the floor. “Bring your basket and pass the satchel down.”
He turns almost completely sideways to force the rest of himself through, shoulders scraping close to either edge, and then vanishes beneath the floor.
“Now then, what happened?” I hear him ask from somewhere below.
Ned’s answer comes too quietly for me to make out, but as I crouch beside the hatch, shifting the basket higher onto my arm and preparing to swing one leg over the opening, I freeze. Iscairn’s satchel sits less than two feet from my knee.
His voice carries up through the hatch, low and muffled by the packed earth below as he questions Ned’s father about the fever. He’s occupied with the family in the cellar, and for the first time since he walked into Beswick, his satchel is sitting unguarded
There’s at least one tooth in there. I know that much. God only knows what else he keeps beneath that flap, or whether something in it might finally explain what he is. Or what happened to Billy Mercer.
I should climb down. Any minute now, he’ll be expecting me to pass it down to him and follow. But I really need to know what’s in there.
Oh, pox on it.
I set my basket aside and scramble the short distance to it. My fingers fumble over the cold brass buckles badly enough that I nearly give up twice, but eventually the last one slips free, and I pull back the stiff leather flap.
I reach inside, pushing past the smooth necks of glass vials and a bundle of something dry that crumbles beneath my fingertips, until my hand closes around a small leather pouch tied with string.
