The road curved to the west ahead of them, and Campbell took a furtive look back before following the bend and disappearing from sight. Day stood calmly in the dark doorway of an apothecary and made sure Campbell wasn’t doubling back. A spider emerged from a crack in the stones beside Day and he marveled that it was awake and moving about in the bitter cold. Surely it should be hibernating, or whatever it was that spiders did in the winter. The early spring had clearly played havoc with the natural way of things. Day moved away from the wall, reluctant to frighten such a brave soul. From nowhere, a dunnock, grey and brown, flew at the wall and gobbled up the spider, then flew off, past Day, and disappeared against the late winter sky.
Day stepped out of the shadows of the apothecary. He approached the road’s curve carefully, in no particular rush. As far as he could tell, there was nowhere for Campbell to go. The village was small and, if he remembered correctly, the road ended just out of town. Even if the bird-watcher broke for the distant trees, Day would be able to see him for quite a distance as he crossed the open fields.
But when he peered around the bend, Campbell was nowhere in sight. Day moved out into the middle of the road and looked in every direction. There was a smattering of smaller stone buildings, a butcher shop, a fish and chips, a farrier, and a handful of cottages and outbuildings. Ahead was the parish church, towering over the homes and businesses nearby. It sat directly on the path, a destination point, whether one intended that or not. Beyond the church, the road ended. There was no dirt path or trail through the tall grasses; it simply stopped. There was nowhere for Campbell to hide except in one of the buildings, and there was no way to tell which one he might be in.
Day stood there for a long time, turning in small circles, surveying the road in both directions. It was possible that Campbell was watching him from a window, but Day didn’t care. There was nothing to do but draw Campbell out and question him, or give up and go back to the inn. Day waited for a quarter of an hour, hoping that the giant would leave his hiding place, but nothing happened. The sun began to edge over the tops of the distant trees, and shadows changed, reached and clawed up the sides of the tiny cottages and over the thatched roof of the butcher shop. Birds began to sing.
Day gazed at the church. Mrs Brothwood’s note had hinted at mysteries being kept there, and he was tempted to approach, knock on the huge oaken doors and confront whomever he might find. But he wasn’t prepared for that. Better to wait until he was better rested and the village, outside of the early-rising miners, had begun to stir.
But he wasn’t ready to give up on the disappearing Campbell just yet.
Day backtracked and stopped outside the telegraph office. He pounded on the door until a grumpy old man answered, still rubbing sleep from his eyes with a gnarled fist. Day introduced himself and the man beckoned the inspector inside. The door closed behind him, and silence cloaked Blackhampton once more.
INTERLUDE 1
ANDERSONVILLE PRISON,
CONFEDERATE GEORGIA, 1865
Cal? Calvin Campbell. That you, boy?”
Cal didn’t look up. He stood still, staring at the louse wriggling between his fingers. He frowned. The voice had interrupted his count. He cursed and poked the louse into his mouth, crunching it between his teeth. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he jerked away, his body tensed for a fight.
“Cal, it’s me. It’s Joe Poole.”
The name stirred shadows in his memory. Joe Poole? Cal still didn’t look up, but he struggled to remember. There had been a kid in his regiment, a cheerful lad of no more than eighteen or nineteen, with curly red hair and an infectious grin and a habit of winking when he talked, letting you in on some private joke, even when the subject was dead serious. Cal shook his head and his long matted hair brushed against his face.
“Joe Poole died at Gettysburg,” he said.
“Well, that’s news to me, friend. I’m here, same as you, and I ain’t dead yet.”
Cal finally looked up. Far away, in every direction, were the high wooden walls of the prison. Thousands of men squatted between the walls in the thick mud. Cal could count the ribs of every one of those men. Their faces were sucked tight against their skulls, dead eyes under heavy ridges.
Cal was younger than most of the others, but larger, too, tall and broad-shouldered. Like the rest of them, his beard had grown out. He was one of nearly fourteen thousand British citizens who had enlisted to fight in the American Civil War. He had joined the Union army for the same reason most of his American friends had joined, and he had fought bravely alongside them until he was captured by Confederate soldiers and eventually taken to Andersonville Prison. Everyone here was a soldier, but there was no order.
The remains of Cal’s torn and dirty uniform hung loosely on his body, but he counted himself lucky to have clothes at all. Smaller, weaker men routinely had their shirts and trousers stolen and then had to make do with scraps. Joe Poole was still wearing his blue Union jacket. It was soiled and the cuffs were frayed, but it was valuable and Cal knew it would be taken from him. He glared at Joe.
“You made me lose my tally,” he said.
“You don’t look so good,” Joe said. But he winked when he said it, showing that he meant well, that there were no hard feelings.
“Go away.”
“Good Lord, Cal, how long you been in here?”
“Sixty thousand. Almost sixty thousand. I lost count just now.”
“Sixty thousand what, Cal?”
“Lice. I get them and I count them. Five hundred every day. I stop counting when I get five hundred.”
“You pick five hundred lice offa yerself every day?”
“Not today. Lost count today.”
“You pick five hundred lice offa yerself every day and you got fifty thousand.”
“Sixty. Sixty thousand.”
“How many days that make?”
“It hardly matters.”
“That’s too tough for me to figure. I don’t do math.”
“It’s a lot of days.”
“Everybody here have lice?”
“Haven’t talked to everyone here yet, so I don’t know.”
“Cal, ain’t you happy to see me?”
“Not especially.”
“I thought we was friendly.”
“We were. That’s why I’m not happy to see you here.”
Joe Poole stopped talking. Cal saw something white glistening in his arm hair and grabbed it between his long fingernails. He brought it up and looked at it more closely. It was a maggot, not a louse. It had rained the night before, and all the waste holes the prisoners had made, the holes they’d scraped dirt over, had burst open and boiled over with maggots. Cal didn’t count maggots. He only counted lice. He popped it into his mouth and returned to searching himself for lice.
“It don’t look so good here, Cal. This place? Seems real bad.”
Cal ignored him.
“You got one of those?”
Cal looked up again and saw that Joe was pointing at a shebang. There were hundreds of shebangs spread out between the prison walls, makeshift shelters scrabbled together from pieces of old tents, tattered clothing too far gone to wear, sticks, mud, dried feces, and blankets. For a second he saw the place anew through Joe’s eyes and he was horrified. He shook his head and sniffed and plucked another maggot from his arm.
“Cal, don’t eat that. Quit eatin’ them. It’s a bug.”
“Bugs are food, too.” Cal tried to laugh and choked. He coughed and heaved, his empty stomach cramping. After another moment, his body settled. It took too much energy to vomit.
When he had stopped gagging, he held the maggot up in a mock salute. He stuck out his tongue and placed the maggot on it and drew his tongue slowly back in. He could feel the maggot blindly writhing across his tongue. He closed his lips and crunched down on it, releasing the tiny bit of precious liquid at its center. There was a spark of salt and it was gone.