“Well, it seems like I have the right man,” Owen murmured to himself as he collected the tankards and followed Pete out of the alehouse. He found him sitting on a dry-stone wall, his head lolling to the side with his eyes turned down to the ground.
“I am not the kind of man you think I am, Pete.” Owen kept his voice calm as he offered the tankard to Pete again, proffering it beneath his nose. “I wish to talk to you. About what you know of my employer.”
“Scoundrel. That enough for you? I know his ways. Figured it out, you see.”
“Figured what out?” Owen asked, yet Pete turned a little away from him, concentrating on the drink and not his words. Owen hurriedly sat on the wall beside Pete, sipping his ale and thinking hard on how to make the man talk. “A friend of mine once knew you. Tommie. Tommie Butcher. He’s the cook at the duke’s house now.”
“I remember him. Little lad he was back in the day,” Pete said, though he didn’t turn back around.
“Tommie thought you might be able to help me. I want to talk to someone who was at the fire at Avon Acres. I want to know what they saw.”
“No one else been asking.”
“I’m asking.” Owen’s firm words at last made Pete turn round. “You called the duke a scoundrel. Why was that?”
“I’ve been farming his fields for years. Farmed them when his old man was alive and all. Moved from farm to farm, then lo and behold, he comes calling one day at Avon Acres. Never seen him before; he’s never taken an interest. I expect the farms matter no more to him than the numbers they make up in his little books.” Peter scoffed and gulped his ale, leaving some of the golden liquid to dribble down his chin. “I had to show him round. Every question he asked was about the land, not the farm. He asked about the houses too. He talked to me like a builder, not a farmer.”
“What are you saying?” Owen asked. “That he wanted to build on the land?”
“No, no, you don’t get it.” Peter waved his tankard in the air, dismissing the idea firmly. “He wanted to know what the land was worth. I told him straight away. With the tenants on the land, it was not worth much to him. He had obligations to look after us, to keep the houses built. As long as we were living there, he could not build on the land, nor could he sell the land.”
Owen winced, realizing just what Peter meant.
“Now … he’s sold the land.”
“Just so.” Pete motioned to him with the tankard another time. “He drove us out with the fires, I know it, but I can’t prove it. By blaming us, saying it was one of our candles, he has no responsibility to replace the houses. It’s the law.”
“It’s a fast way to get rid of his tenants. Cost-free.”
“Smarter than you look, boy. Catching on quick.”
“So, he set the fires.” Owen paused, sipping his ale as the true revelation washed over him. “To drive out his tenants and sell the land at an inflated price.”
“Can’t prove it, though.” Pete shook his head sharply, turning away another time. “Who would a magistrate believe? The suspicions of a farm labourer or a duke?”
“A duke,” Owen said with a sigh, feeling as though he were back in the prison talking to the arsonist. It didn’t seem to matter what people knew; without the word of someone higher up in status, there was nothing anyone could do to prove the duke started those fires.
***
“You are sure?” Diana asked as she followed Owen across the library.
“I’m convinced of it,” he said, turning to address Diana and Jessie together. “Those papers you found here,” he said, gesturing down to the desk. “What were they again?”
“Deeds of sale. One for each sight. Brokerwood’s wasn’t signed yet, but he’d had the sale drawn up.”
“Exactly.” Owen sat down in the chair closest to the desk, feeling spent after his day searching for the farm labourer and finding out what he now knew. “It’s a simple deception. All the duke needed to do was drive the tenants out. By blaming them for the fires, he doesn’t have to rehouse them –”
“So he can sell the land on to private builders?” Jessie asked from across the room. She was standing motionless; her eyes turned towards the fireplace she had just made up, with the orange flames basking the room in a deep amber glow.
“It would seem so.”
“That …” A string of curses escaped Jessie’s lips, making Diana flinch at Owen’s side. He found himself reaching for her, even though Jessie was in the room with them. Diana perched on the desk beside him, placing her hand firmly in his. He clung to her, trying to comfort her through that simple touch alone.
“I cannot believe it,” Jessie murmured, cursing another time. “He has hurt people, for what? For money? And Parker. He’s dead. He’s dead because the duke simply wanted more money!”
As Jessie began to rant, stomping away from the fireplace, Owen leaned forward in his seat, trying to soothe her.
“Jessie, we will find a way to get justice for your friend. I promise you that.”
