Tombland

‘Of course. Daniel, would you leave us?’ Chawry bowed and turned to go. He paused at the door and gave Isabella a look which seemed to me to have longing in it, though Isabella appeared not to notice. When he had gone she said quietly, ‘Of course you know that at law I am no longer John’s wife. Yet I know that if he is found not guilty, he will return and take care of us just as he did in the years before Edith was found dead.’

‘That is good to know.’ I coughed. ‘I believe you first met your husband about ten years ago.’

‘Yes, when I was working at the inn. John used to come there to escape his life at home. He told me of his troubles with Edith – though I would not have had this terrible thing happen to her – and with his sons, who, though no more than eight, were already’ – her mouth twisted in distaste – ‘cruel and vicious.’

Nicholas said. ‘We have already had the pleasure of meeting Gerald and Barnabas.’

‘I started by feeling sorry for John. I could see he was a decent man struggling with a sad fate. And over the months – we came to love each other.’ She looked at me with a defiant air. ‘People do, despite differences in age and status, you know.’

‘Yes, I do know,’ I answered feelingly. I smiled, then asked, ‘Did you ever meet Edith?’

‘Never. But I heard enough stories from John, and later from the servants and neighbours. About her sour disposition, her lack of care for her children, her sometimes starving herself for no reason. John said he had begun to think she was mad. And then some gossiping muck-spout told her about us, and not long after she vanished. Later, when it was clear she was not coming back, John asked me to come and stay. Oh, he warned me the local gentry would be scandalized and the twins would be a trial. But I loved him, and agreed.’

I hesitated, then said, ‘Did he ever tell you that he had asked Edith to give him more children?’

She looked at me boldly for a moment. ‘Yes, but she refused. He had argued with her at first, but he told me that soon he came not to care, that long before he met me he had come to feel the same revulsion for his wife that Edith seemed to feel towards him.’

I exchanged a glance with Nicholas. This was not the story that Gawen Reynolds’s steward Michael Vowell had told us yesterday. I said, ‘Forgive me for asking this. Once you and John were living together, you had no children. Was that a deliberate decision?’

Isabella sighed. ‘I did not want a child out of wedlock. John wanted more children. He hated the idea of the twins as his only heirs, and he tried to persuade me for a while’ – she reddened, and looked down – ‘but in the end accepted my refusal. We – we took precautions, in the ways countryfolk know. I told John that if ever we could marry, I should be happy to give him a child. And so, when we married after Edith was declared dead, we tried.’ She sighed. ‘But we have not yet been blessed with a child.’ She shook her head wearily. ‘If I had known what was going to happen this year, I would have tried to give him one years ago.’ She took a deep breath, her face reddening again, and I realized how hard it must be to speak so frankly to a stranger. Again she struck me as brave, not bold.

I said quietly, ‘And when you came to live at Brikewell, how were matters with the twins?’

She looked me in the eye. ‘They hated me from the beginning, as I came to hate and then fear them. No matter what my husband did, they were uncontrollable.’

‘I heard no tutor would stay.’

‘They tied one poor young man up with ropes, and rolled him down the stairs. A wonder he didn’t break his neck. Another tutor they stripped naked in the schoolroom, then took him out and dumped him on the lawn. He was the last. They were fourteen then, already strong as horses and pestering the women servants. Always the two of them acting together. Since John was taken, I have been afraid of them, but thank the Lord they have decided to throw themselves on the protection of their grandfather, fearing they will be made wards of the King if my husband is –’ She broke off, finally losing control, and tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away fiercely with a handkerchief and said, ‘Go on, Master Shardlake. Forgive my womanish ways.’

‘Do you know their grandfather, Master Gawen Reynolds? I met him yesterday. A choleric old man.’

‘I have never seen him. He would have nothing to do with me, though the twins visited him often. Birds of a feather, I think.’

‘He seems to indulge them.’

She shrugged. ‘Let him. I will be happy never to see them again.’

I said, ‘There is one other, very important matter. According to your deposition, on the night of Edith’s murder your husband told you he was going to look at some documents in his study, and asked not to be disturbed. For two hours you did not actually see him.’

‘Yes. He has a quarrel, as you will know, with his neighbour, Witherington. Poor John, always people conspire to make his life difficult.’

‘Those missing two hours are very important.’