The Taxidermist's Daughter Read Online Free PDF

Even as I imagine the misery that will follow these revelations, I have the consolation that you will read these words and know the truth. You will understand.
    What, then, can be said without dispute?
    That the spring of nineteen hundred and twelve has been the wettest on record. That the horse chestnuts are late in leaf. That the waters rose higher and higher, and are rising still.
    And the birds. The white birds and the grey and the black. Feathers of ink-blue and purple and iridescent green. The jabbering, cawing and threatening of jackdaw, magpie, rook and crow. For all those years I was away, I heard them in my dreams, calling from the trees.
    I am watching you.
    So here I set down my testimony. Black words on cream paper. It is not a story of revenge, though it will be seen as that. Dismissed as that.
    But no, not revenge.
    This is a story of justice.

 
     
    Chapter 4
     
     
    The Old Salt Mill
    Fishbourne Creek
     
    Dr John Woolston stood in the tiny attic room in the Old Salt Mill in the centre of Fishbourne Creek and looked across the water to Blackthorn House.
    ‘Any sign of Gifford?’
    Joseph shook his head. ‘No.’
    Woolston gestured impatiently for the field glasses.
    ‘You can’t possibly see,’ he said irritably, wiping them with his pocket handkerchief. ‘The lens is filthy.’
    He put the cream envelope Joseph had handed him on to the chair, removed his spectacles and raised the binoculars to his eyes. He adjusted the focus until he had Blackthorn House in his sights. It sat on a substantial plot of land, surrounded by open fields. Woolston shifted his gaze. The only access, so far as he could see, was a narrow footpath accessed on the north-east side of the property.
    He returned his scrutiny to the house itself. There was an attic – he observed the steep pitch of the roof – and a peculiar rectangular structure with a dome in the south-facing garden. An ice house, he assumed, though that was unusual for a property so close to the water.
    ‘Just sitting on the terrace.’
    ‘What?’ he said, startled to find Joseph standing so close.
    ‘The Gifford girl. Came out after lunch. Barely moved.’
    Woolston lowered the field glasses and handed them back to Joseph.
    ‘You’re absolutely certain there’s been so sign of Gifford?’
    Joseph shrugged. ‘As I said, I’ve not seen him.’
    ‘There’s no possibility he might have left without your noticing?’
    ‘Not since it got light. Can’t answer for before that.’
    Woolston stared at the litter of spent matches and cigarette ends on the floor. He had no way of knowing if Joseph was telling the truth and had been at his post all the time. He hadn’t engaged the man, though after the events in Fishbourne churchyard a week ago, he had agreed they had no choice.
    ‘What about visitors?’
    ‘Maid arrived at seven,’ Joseph replied. ‘Brought a table and chair out to the terrace about one, give or take. No one else gone in or out.’
    ‘Deliveries?’
    ‘Nutbeem’s doesn’t come out this far.’
    ‘Door-to-doors?’
    ‘I’m telling you, nothing.’
    Woolston looked back through the window, across the creek and the mill pond, to where Blackthorn House stood, peaceful in the sunshine.
    ‘You are . . . prepared?’ he said, then immediately regretted asking.
    ‘Ready and—’
    ‘Not that there is likely to be any need,’ Woolston cut across him.
    ‘Waiting,’ Joseph finished, patting his pocket.
    Woolston disliked the man’s attitude, but Brook assured him that Joseph knew the village like the back of his hand and was the best man for the job. Did what he was told, no questions asked. Woolston hoped Brook’s confidence was not misplaced. He thought it a mistake to put their trust in such an individual, but it had not been his choice to make.
    He put his hand in his pocket and handed over a plain cotton bag.
    ‘Thanking you,’ Joseph said, then tipped the bag upside down.
    ‘It’s all there,’ Woolston snapped. ‘The