Free The Fabric of Murder (Mysteries of Georgian Norfolk Book 2) by William Savage

reckoned he’d discharged his duty to his son by giving him a good apprenticeship. They could never have worked together. Jerome might have been the owner of the business, but Daniel wouldn’t suffer anyone to give him orders. Maybe the old man knew what his son was like and wasn’t going to subject himself to that sort of treatment in his old age.’
    ‘Never left him more’n a pittance when he died,’ Miss Abigail added, ‘and he was quite a rich man. All his other wealth went to setting up his various charities. His son Daniel had to make his own way.’
    ‘But he did,’ Foxe said.
    ‘Daniel Bonneviot had a ferocious need to win at whatever he did,’ Miss Hannah said. ‘Same when he was a boy. And if he couldn’t win by fair means, he’d still win.’
    ‘Daniel had a son too,’ Foxe said.
    ‘Him!’ Miss Abigail’s scorn was obvious. ‘His mother spoiled him, though it cost her a fair few bruises. George must do his apprenticeship in London, same as his father. George must be journeyman elsewhere too. As Daniel decreed, so George must obey. Then only a few weeks ago, his father drove him out of the house without mercy. We heard he gave the boy a hundred pounds and told him he never wanted to see or hear of him again. That money was all he should ever have. I wonder where all his wealth will go now?’
    ‘Do we know he cut the boy off from his inheritance?’ Miss Hannah asked her sister. ‘All this happened quite soon before Mr. Bonneviot died. Would he have had time to change his will? After all, even when it was clear the lad wouldn’t agree to follow his father’s bidding in everything, he still seemed to stick by him … for a while.’
    ‘I don’t think the boy was ever going to have an inheritance. If you ask me, it was to be as it had been with his father. He must make his own way,’ her sister replied. ‘Daniel never accepted young George wasn’t interested in weaving. Nothing else counted for him. He didn’t change his mind for anyone. As I see it, the boy had been given some time to come to his senses and do as he was told. It seems he hadn’t. Time was up.’
    ‘And the other thing …?’
    ‘Well, yes. We all had our doubts about George in that way. Still that’s only imagination and gossip, dear. He may yet ask some young lady to marry him.’
    Miss Hannah snorted in a very unladylike manner at that. ‘Young lad, more likely …!’
    ‘Where did George go when his father threw him out?’ Foxe asked.
    ‘I’m afraid we’ve no idea, Ashmole. He may have gone to London or somewhere.’
    ‘Were there any other children?’
    ‘Only the step-sister. She may know something, but I doubt it.’
    They knew no more. Daniel Bonneviot’s wife had, it seemed, made little impression on them or anyone else in Norwich. George, the only son, had been away in London for years, completing his apprenticeship. Miss Abigail eventually added the gossip that he had nurtured hopes of becoming an actor at one time, but the local theatres had all rejected him.
    That had been the main difference between father and son, it seemed. The father set his mind on something and drove himself – and everyone else – until he achieved it, whether by fair means or otherwise. His son wished and hoped and dreamed of great things, but showed neither the talent nor the energy to do more.
    Had an enraged father thrown that failure in the son’s face? Might that have been enough to stir the younger man to take his revenge? He would never have confronted his father openly. Foxe felt sure of that. But an attack from behind in a dark street …? That might be another matter altogether. Even so, Foxe couldn’t see this young man they had suggested was limp and effeminate as the murderer. To cut someone’s throat, even in the dark, demanded resolution and suddenness. Besides, Bonneviot had been a powerful man and of a good height. He had been taken by surprise, to be sure, but few people have the strength to slit