A Dark Anatomy by Robin Blake Page A

spoken. I enquired what was up. They said she was dead, and a lot else beside. People all over the marketplace were talking about it.’

    â€˜Why was the squire not with you?’
    â€˜He was with us as far as Skipton. But last night he rode away north to Settle, to speak with a gentleman about a horse he wants to buy. Told me to cut along ahead and he’d be home himself tomorrow.’
    â€˜Did you bring with you a letter or message from the squire to his wife?’
    â€˜No, sir, no letter. I was just to say that he’d be here tomorrow.’
    â€˜I see. Well, let’s go back a little. What was his reason for going to York in the first instance?’
    â€˜Squire was looking at a house he might take for the races’ week and Assizes, in August. And to view some horses, fast runners, maybe for racing. We visited some stud farms and other places where they had horses for sale.’
    â€˜And this horse he’s eyeing up in Settle is one of them?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜So at York, you hadn’t spent all the time in the city itself?’
    â€˜No. Only two or three days, looking at the house Squire might take, and paying calls. And one day we went out to Bishopsthorpe.’
    â€˜The archbishop’s palace?’
    â€˜Yes. To see Archbishop Blackburne was the idea.’
    Lancelot Blackburne was the most important person in York. His worldiness was the subject of much amused, or discontented, tittle-tattle. Many repeated the story that, before assuming holy orders, he had been a buccaneer in the West Indies. Some added that the Church of England had not very much changed him since, except to make him fatter.
    â€˜Did you go to Bishopsthorpe for any particular reason, or was it only a politeness to Mr Brockletower’s relative?’
    â€˜You’ll have to ask Squire that.’

    The questions I had to ask, not only of the squire, were beginning to infest my inquiry like wasps in the roof. Dolores had been to town on Saturday. Was that significant? She had not been to church on Sunday. Did that mean anything? She had been angry – what about? And was she in truth frightened of the squire?
    Then there was Squire Brockletower himself. Did he indeed go to Settle, or did he ride west ahead of his man and keep a fatal appointment with his wife early this morning in the Fulwood? After hearing Polly’s account of what had allegedly happened there a month ago, I hardly dared think it. But I had no choice.
    And finally the only certain witness to Mrs Brockletower’s death – the horse. Why was there blood on her neck? I picked up the horseshoe and weighed it in my hands. Horses are all around us. They do the hundreds of tasks we ask of them with little complaint. How much do we in return think of them? Do we consider their natures and their needs? This horseshoe was heavy enough for a paperweight and I found myself speculating what it must feel like to be an animal with one of these nailed to each of your four feet.

Chapter Five
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    A NEW CLATTER FROM the yard caught my ear and, putting the horseshoe in my pocket, I went to the window. A post rider from Preston was dismounting. His hard-ridden horse’s nostrils flared and contracted as it breathed deeply. He hitched the horse and drew a letter from his bag.
    I went out to see if, as I suspected, it might be addressed to me. It was. As I tore through the seal I saw it had been impressed by the signet ring of Luke Fidelis. I read:

    Titus, I am in receipt of your lines, by hand of Furzey.
I cannot come today as I must operate on a fistula in
ano, which I have so often postponed that my patient
Mr Norris is patient no more. So Mrs Brockletower must
await me until tomorrow, which she, unlike Mr Norris,
will not mind. Shall we meet at the Turk’s Head this
evening? I will be glad to hear all of the circumstances.
Meanwhile I urge you to store the corpse overnight
in Squire