The Taxidermist's Daughter Read Online Free

Despite his bad leg, the old man was walking fast. Right, into South Street, past the post office and the Regnum Club, all the way down to the railway station.
    Harry held back as Dr Woolston climbed into a Dunnaways cab. He heard the crack of the whip and watched as the carriage pulled away, then ran across the concourse.
    ‘Excuse me, can you tell me where that gentleman was going?’
    The cabman looked at him with amusement. ‘I’m not sure that’s any of your business, is it, sir?’
    Harry fished a coin from his pocket and forced himself to stand still, keen not to give the impression that the information was worth a penny more.
    ‘The Woolpack Inn,’ the cabman said. ‘So far as I could hear.’
    ‘And the Woolpack is where?’ Harry tried not to sound impatient.
    ‘Fishbourne.’ The man tipped his cap back on his head. ‘Might you also be wanting to go there, sir?’
    Harry hesitated. He didn’t want to run to the expense of a cab; besides, he didn’t want his father to see him. He had no idea what the old man was up to, but he wanted neither to compromise him nor to fail to help him if he was in some sort of difficulty. Despite his current frustrations, he was fond of the old man.
    ‘No,’ he said, and rushed instead to the ticket office.
    Harry all but threw his money at the clerk behind the counter, then took the stairs two at a time over the bridge to the opposite platform, just a moment too late to make the Portsmouth train.
    ‘Damn it,’ he said. ‘Damn.’
    He stalked up and down the platform, waiting for the next stopping service to Fishbourne, still wondering where his strait-laced father might be going in the middle of a working day. He realised too that, in his rush to follow, he’d omitted to inform Brook of his whereabouts. Then again, if he was fired, it would force his father’s hand.
    ‘Come on,’ he muttered, looking up the track, though the train was not due for another twenty-five minutes. ‘Hurry up, come on.’

 
     
    Chapter 3
     
     
    Blackthorn House
    Fishbourne Marshes
     
    Connie drank her coffee on the terrace, making the most of the sunshine before going back to the workshop.
    Her journal and a fresh jar of blue ink sat on the table in front of her. So far, she had written nothing.
    She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with fresh, sharp sea air. She was pleased with her work this morning and, for the first time in some days, felt at peace with the world and her place in it.
     
    Who killed Cock Robin?
    I, said the Sparrow
    With my bow and arrow.
    I killed Cock Robin.
     
    The maid’s voice floated through the house and out of the French windows on to the terrace. Connie smiled. Mary often sang to herself when she thought no one was listening. She was a sweet creature and Connie considered herself fortunate to have secured her. Her father’s profession was strange enough to excite distrust these days, and most of the village girls she’d interviewed when they first arrived were scared, or claimed to be, by the bell jars in the workshop, the bottles of preserving solutions, the trays of sharp glittering eyes and varnished claws. The first maid Connie engaged had given notice after only two weeks.
     
    And . . . all the birds of the air
    Fell a-sighing and a-sobbing
    When they heard of the death
    Of poor Cock Robin.
     
    Connie put down her pen and sat back, feeling the sigh of the wicker garden chair beneath her.
    For the first time in weeks, she had woken shortly after five o’clock to the sound of birdsong, then the sound of silence. Loud, astonishing silence. She could no longer hear the wind howling around the house or the rain smattering against her window pane.
    The past winter and early spring had been long and harsh. Black clouds and purple skies, the endless shifting of the mudflats and a pitiless wind shaking the house to its foundations night after night.
    In January, Mill Lane and Apuldram Lane both had flooded. Ghost lakes forming where once were