‘Down here,’ Maxwell grunted. He turned off the flint track and clambered down the bank towards the murky water of the stream. Dead leaves crunched underfoot and a solitary blackbird called from the branch of a tree. ‘Nothing’s been touched,’ he added.
Knox had seen plenty of corpses, more in the last few weeks than he could count, but he had never led a murder inquiry. Already he felt the weight of responsibility. They walked around the body a few times, staring down at the stab wound in the middle of the dead man’s stomach. Reading Knox’s mind, Maxwell said, ‘We looked for the knife but couldn’t find it.’
‘ His Lordship has specifically requested that you look into this matter.’
Sub-inspector Hastings had gone to Knox’s cottage to deliver the order in person. No other explanation had been forthcoming.
‘ This is not a good thing,’ his wife, Martha, had said, as soon as the sub-inspector left. Knox was inclined to agree.
The corpse seemed untouched. It was a small miracle that a fox or rats hadn’t feasted on the dead flesh. From the tree, the blackbird watched them in silence. Knox took a closer look at the body, watching his breath condense in the cold air. ‘Do you know who he is?’ he asked eventually.
Maxwell shook his head. ‘A couple of the boys said he wasn’t from around here.’ He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘I’d say he was a vagrant, a poacher looking to steal from his Lordship’s table.’
Just before Christmas, an unknown assassin had followed Maxwell’s predecessor home and shot him in the face. During the spring and summer, acting on behalf of Lord Cornwallis, the man had overseen the eviction of more than a hundred families from their land.
Knox crouched down next to the dead man, trying not to get his knees wet. The deceased’s lips were blue and swollen and his eyes were glassy. Knox put the man’s age at forty or thereabouts. He had thick, dark hair and Knox guessed he had been quite handsome. The man was fully clothed, apart from his frock-coat, which lay tangled in the bushes near by. Knox riffled through the pockets. The fancy label inside the frock-coat indicated it had been made by a tailor in London.
‘Who found him?’
Already bored, Maxwell was inspecting his pocket watch. ‘One of the labourers.’
‘I’ll need to speak to him.’ Knox hadn’t found any money or possessions in the dead man’s pockets — perhaps someone had stolen them.
Maxwell grimaced. Clearly he didn’t like taking orders from a man of Knox’s rank. ‘Lord Cornwallis wants a word first.’
‘With me dressed like this?’ Knox gestured at his dirty coat and muddy boots.
‘His Lordship was insistent.’
Knox cast his eyes down towards the body. ‘I’ll need someone to help me. I left my cart at the lodge.’
‘You go and see his Lordship, I’ll make sure someone brings the cart and body over to the house.’
‘Tell his Lordship I’ll be with him shortly.’ Knox rubbed his sore eyes and tried to compose his thoughts. ‘I should have a look around, see if anything has been left behind.’
Maxwell glanced at the darkening sky. ‘Don’t be too long. His Lordship doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He wants you to go straight to the drawing room.’
Knox found nothing of interest on or near the corpse. It stood to reason that the man had been murdered there, by the stream, but the blood had long since drained into the earth. The body hadn’t started to rot but then it had been cold, especially at night and Knox didn’t think the corpse had been there for more than a day. Once he had clambered up the bank, Knox lingered for a moment, watching the slow-moving water and wondering whether he had missed something important. Then he turned and started the short walk back to the main house.
Dundrum House was a four-floor Palladian mansion built from locally quarried stone, seven bay windows long. Knox found the place more intimidating than beautiful, its scale too grand for its surroundings, too removed from the world of the nearby village, as though to underline that its owner belonged to a higher class of men and could do as he liked.
Knox had visited his mother many times using the ‘poor door’ but he had never used the front entrance. His mother had worked in the kitchens for as long as he could remember and he knew the labyrinthine passages of the cellar far better than he knew the main house. He ascended the steps one by one and paused in the entrance hall. On the walls, Cornwallis’s ancestors seemed to glower at him. The Moores had forcibly acquired the estate in the aftermath of Cromwell’s rampage across Ireland two hundred years earlier. Since then the family had earned a reputation for muscular Protestantism and the current inheritor of the family title, Asenath Moore, the third Viscount Cornwallis, was cut from the same cloth.
When he entered the drawing room, Knox found Cornwallis warming himself by the open fire. A small, wizened man with a bald head shaped like an acorn, Cornwallis wore tan knee-breeches and a black cutaway coat. Greeting Knox with a curt nod, he sat down in an armchair next to the fire and regarded Knox without speaking, as if inspecting a museum exhibit in a vaguely dissatisfied manner.
‘Your mother has kept me informed of your progress. It has been, I’m told, quite satisfactory.’ He removed his handkerchief and wiped particles of food from the corners of his mouth.
Knox bowed his head. ‘Thank you, your Lordship.’
This show of deference seemed to please the older man. ‘Maxwell tells me he’s shown you the body down by Woodcock Grove.’
Knox knew better than to talk when a question hadn’t been asked.
‘I have no idea who this man was or what business he had on my estate. I think we can safely assume him to be a poacher and a vagrant.’
A vagrant, Knox thought, whose clothes had been made by a Savile Row tailor.
‘I don’t want word of this unfortunate occurrence spreading around the estate. For this reason, I took the decision not to solicit the assistance of the two sub-constables here in Dundrum. They’re good men, both of them, but they’re liable to blab.’
‘I understand, your Lordship, but there will have to be an inquest …’
‘That has been taken care of,’ the old man said.
‘Very good, your Lordship.’ Knox tried to swallow. Unlike his own calloused hands, Cornwallis’s were as smooth as marble. ‘But it can sometimes be hard to keep such matters from the local people. The man who found the body, for example, will want to brag about it…’
‘He’ll be warned, you can be assured of that,’ Cornwallis said, interrupting. ‘No, sir, if word of this abhorrence reaches the ears of the village it won’t have come from anyone on this estate.’
Knox took a short while to assimilate the threat. He was starting to see why Cornwallis had asked for him. ‘You want the matter handled quietly.’
The old man’s face brightened. ‘ Quietly. That’s exactly it. I couldn’t have put it better myself.’
Cornwallis most definitely hadn’t been quiet about the murder of his former agent. He had travelled to Clonmel to harangue the county inspector in person and had warned that troop reinforcements would have to be forthcoming.
Cornwallis stood up and wandered across to the window. ‘I want you to take the body away. I don’t want to see or hear of it again.’
It was said as though the matter was a trifling one. Knox could have pointed out that such an order was tantamount to interfering in a police investigation but it would have been futile to do so. Cornwallis’s influence was such that there was no gap between his ambition and official policy.
‘You will have heard some things — some unfair things — said about me in Cashel, I expect. That I am a monster; that I do not care about the well-being of the local people.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘Nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m here, am I not, even though my sons have chosen to spend the winter in London. I’m simply trying to attend to the matters of my estate as best I can.’ Cornwallis tapped the heels of his boots against the floor.