by Deryn Lake
“Indeed you do. Now, the rest of you round to the back. Sarah and Old Saul have left the doors open.”
Despite this, John gave a friendly whistle as he entered the widow’s house, not wanting to frighten her out of her wits.
“Is that you, Mr. Jago?” she called softly.
“No, it’s John Rawlings and Nick Raven, Mrs. Mullins. It is our pleasant duty to look after you this evening.”
“Then I’ll draw the curtains. Just wait a moment then step into the parlour.”
She had brought every candle she had into the room so that even through the drapery it would be obvious to anyone watching that she had not yet gone to bed, and John saw that she had prepared the table with bread, cheese and ale for a frugal supper. Knowing how poor she was, his heart went out to her. She spoke quietly. “What is the plan?”
“Soon Old Saul will say goodnight to Dmitri, making some noise about it. Then he will come in here as is his usual custom. After a short interval he will be on his way again, heading across the beach in the direction of The Ship. Should he be set upon, William Haycraft is out there hiding, ready to defend him. Once he has gone you are to blow out the candles and take one with you up to the bedroom. If the cottages are being observed, that is the moment when they will strike, when they think that both you and Dmitri have gone to bed.”
“Will it be the man with the tattoo, do you think?”
“He and his cohorts, I should imagine.”
“Do you have any idea who he is?”
“None, other than that he comes from Exeter and drives a coach with an inscription on the side, which puts him in the upper echelons of society. But then as the Angels seem mostly to be the sons of rich men, there is little surprise about that.”
Sarah smiled. “And to think he fears Dmitri so much that he is prepared to kill both of us.”
“It is the age-old situation of believing someone knows too much. Have you never, Sarah, been shunned by a person you once thought of as a friend because on some occasion they confided in you and now they fear you?”
She shook her head. “I can’t say that I have.”
“Well, I have observed it several times and have wondered at the stupidity of such behaviour.”
“Folks are very peculiar,” she answered.
“And can be very dangerous,” put in Nick. “Best keep our voices down.”
Duly reminded, they took to speaking in whispers, eating their simple supper quietly, John sitting on the floor as Sarah only had two chairs, two plates and two mugs, which they were obliged to share between them. With the meal finished they waited in almost total silence until they heard Old Saul’s voice ring out.
“Well, goodnight to you, Dmitri. I’m delighted with your progress but you still need plenty of rest. Don’t wait up for me. Get to bed soon. I’m going to The Ship for a while.”
His feet crunched over the pebbles that the sea had deposited on the path outside and a moment or two later the knocker on the widow’s front door sounded noisily. “Sarah,” they heard Saul call.
“Coming,” she shouted back and drew the bolts to let him in.
“Ha, my dear,” said the visitor heartily, then dropped his voice to nothing. “I saw a light flash briefly on the cliff. I think I’m being observed.”
“Excellent,” Nick Raven whispered.
“How kind of you to look in,” Sarah said loudly.
There then followed the most extraordinary conversation. In booming tones, Sarah and Saul discussed her health and progress and his plan to go to the alehouse for the evening. At the same time, in quiet murmurs, the Runner was briefing the old man as to exactly how he should behave if he was attacked.
“You are to call for help at once. William Haycraft is close at hand and will be at your side in a second.”
“Don’t worry, Sir, I have the means to protect myself should he be delayed.”
“I’d prefer you not to fire a gun which would frighten off the others.”
Old Saul chuckled. “No, this way is silent.” And he produced from his pocket a small knife shaped exactly like an arrow, the head of which had been smeared with some dark substance.”
“What’s that?” asked the Apothecary, pointing.
“A method used by the Red Indians for disposing of an enemy without making any sound. It never fails.”
John and Nick looked at one another and shook their heads, silently admitting that Old Saul had the answer to everything.
The medicine man raised his voice. “Now, Sarah, my dear, I suggest you retire early, as I have advised Dmitri to do. You are still weak from the attack and need all the rest you can get. I shall look in on you on my way home, just to check that all is well.”
“I’ll leave the key under the big pebble.”
“Very well. Good night, Sarah.”
“Good night, Saul.”
She saw him to the front door, candle in hand, while John and Nick vanished into the dark scullery at the back. Glimpsing her through the crack of the door, the Apothecary thought that she looked like a goddess, tall and strong with her mass of red hair emblazoned round her head. And notions about powerful women brought Elizabeth into his mind, and he wondered where she was at this precise moment, then felt intuitively that she wasn’t far away.
Sarah returned and now not one of them spoke a word, sure that if the attack was going to happen they must certainly be under observation by this stage. Just as if she were on her own, the Widow Mullins took the supper things into the scullery, then started to snuff out the candles. John was moved to see that the snuffer had been made out of shells, presumably by her dead husband, long ago, and that she touched it with a kind of love.
Her chores done, Sarah took one candle and asked by sign language if this was the right moment for her to climb the stairs. Runner Raven nodded yes, and the two men settled down to wait in the darkness. Over their heads they could hear her moving about, then finally there was the sound of the widow climbing into bed. After that there was silence broken only by the crackle of the flames as the small fire began to go out.
The noises of the night became more acute, every whistle of the west wind clear as a bell. The sea began its wild song in which the shift of shale and the topple of rollers formed a desolate melody. Without knowing why it soothed him so, the Apothecary closed his eyes and felt himself drift into a sea dream. Then suddenly, inexplicably, he was wide awake, and close by he sensed, rather than saw, Nick Raven becoming alert. Somebody had either heard Sarah say where she had hidden her key or had previous knowledge of it, for the lock was turning and the door was silently opening. Just for a second the figure outside was etched against the starry sky and John saw a long white coat and a veiled white hat, then the man stepped within and there was only a faint glow of his clothing in the darkness.
Moving soundlessly, the intruder crossed towards the stairs and put his foot on the bottom step which creaked loudly. He was so close to John that the Apothecary could hear his breathing. Then he must have sensed that he was not alone for he whirled round.
“Who’s there?” whispered an urgent voice.
Neither John nor Nick moved a muscle, frozen in silence, and after a moment or two the man continued his climb. It was only when he got to the top and Sarah screamed as he threw open her door that they were released from their catalepsy. Charging up the stairs, they hurled themselves into the bedroom.
She had no curtains at these windows and they could see in the moonlight that he was kneeling on the bed, crouching over her, his hands at her throat.
Nick Raven released the cock on his pistol and put the barrel to the man’s head. “One more move and I’ll blast you to eternity, you little bastard.”
“Damn you,” shouted the other, and whirling round fast as lightning knocked the Runner’s weapon clean out of his hand.
“So it’s going to be my pleasure, is it?” asked John, and shot him straight through the left arm.
The roar of the blast started a barr
age of noise. From the cottage next door came the sound of further shots and the cry of a man in distress. Unable to restrain himself, the Apothecary tore down the stairs, out into the night and in through the open door of Old Saul’s place. Somebody had lit a candle and in its flickering light John could see that two of the Angels were fighting hand to hand with Joe Jago and Dick Ham. Without stopping to think, the Apothecary came up behind them and snatched their hats from their heads, revealing the faces of Gerald Fitz and one of the O’Connor twins.
“One move from either of you and you’re dead men,” snarled John nastily, meaning every word.
“Thank you, Mr. Rawlings,” said Joe, calmly picking up his pistol which had been knocked to the floor. “I’m afraid they caught us unawares and managed to disarm us. Most inconvenient. What about you?”
“I’ve winged one of them. He’s in Sarah’s bedroom with Nick Raven holding a gun to his head. “Now ... “ He turned to Gerald Fitz, “… was it you who killed poor Juliana?”
“No, it damned well wasn’t. I’d had a bit of fun with her, we all had. I’d even given her a bit of a slapping, which was no more than the silly whore deserved, but it was not I who picked up the whip.”
“What about you?” Joe looked fiercely at the O”Connor twin.
“I had a nug with her but left it at that. Hitting the woman didn’t appeal to me.”
“Was her brother present?” John asked curiously.
“No, we’d sent him and Brenchley on an errand. Hood imagined himself in love with her and would only have got in the way. They didn’t find out till afterwards.”
“Was that why Richard shot himself?”
“I have no idea,” Gerald Fitz answered languidly. “Perhaps he was the father of her child. I wouldn’t put anything past that girl.”
“You foul-mouthed bastard,” said a voice from the doorway. “By God, I’m going to get you for that.”
Wheeling round in astonishment, John found himself knocked sideways by yet another white coated figure. Scrambling up from the floor he watched as the figure flung itself at Fitz, then the blade of a knife gleamed in the candlelight.
“Stop it!” screamed a different voice again, and with a reek of fish that made everyone gasp, William Haycraft hurled in from the beach and threw himself on the attacker. But it was far too late. Gerald Fitz’s white coat was starting to turn red as blood pumped down the front of it.
“Damn you, Brenchley Hood,” hissed the once elegant fop, then collapsed as the pool of blood widened around him.
“Good riddance,” yelled Hood, punching the constable in the guts and pulling off his hat in one simultaneous movement. “She loved you and you betrayed her, like the cur that you are. But I loved her too and now she is avenged.” Then he would have turned the knife on himself if Dick Ham had not snatched it from him.
“Is Fitz dead?” Joe asked the Apothecary.
John knelt down beside the inert figure, feeling for his pulse. “Yes,” he said. “He’s gone. A life for a life, it would seem.”
O’Connor gave a bitter laugh. “But Fitz didn’t give her the death blow. You’ll have to search a little harder for the man who did that.”
“Enough gab, you Irish clown,” said Joe, grabbing the young man by the scruff of the neck and shaking him till his teeth rattled in his head. “Which one was it? Which one actually killed her?”
“Make a move and I’ll shoot the whole cull sucking lot of you,” said someone from behind them all, and John turned to see that the Angel he had shot in Sarah’s bedroom had somehow overpowered Nick Raven and had arrived at Old Saul’s cottage, once more armed with a pistol.
“Come on O’Connor, come on Hood,” he ordered. “We’ll dispose of these four prats then join the others at the Grange.”
“I’m not coming,” Brenchley shouted back. “I’ve had enough of you, you bastard. I’ve got my suspicions, indeed I have.”
The Angel gave a cynical laugh. “Have you now? And what might they be?”
“That you were the father of Juliana’s child and that it was you who applied the whip and killed her.”
“But she enjoyed it. It was one of our little pleasures together.”
Hood spat on the floor. “You filthy shite. By God, I wish I had killed you along with Gerald.”
“Well, that’s something that you will have to regret for what is left of your miserable life. For they’ll have you for killing him. They must have all seen you do it, these officers of the law.” He sneered. “You’ll swing for Fitz, you stupid turd.”
Brenchley thrust away the gasping William and leapt in the Angel’s direction but was forcibly restrained by Runner Ham. “Did you kill her?” he shouted, clearly in an agony.
“Yes, I did, you prick. I gave her the final blow and watched her die, just as the bitch deserved. She was going to marry my grandfather and foist my bastard onto him, disinheriting me totally. On the old man’s death the estate would have come rapidly to me, my father being but a frail creature and not reckoned to live more than a twelve- month. But with the arrival of a second son the terms of the entail would have seen it pass to him. So I got two for the price of one when she breathed her last.”
“And talking of breathing your last … “ said a strangely musical voice.
Yet again John turned to that invitingly open front door and his heart lurched to his stomach. Dressed as a man, her hair netted, her hat pulled down, her scar livid in the candlelight, was the Marchesa di Lorenzi, Lady Elizabeth herself.
Peter Digby-Duckworth spun round, but not fast enough. Putting her left hand to her shoulder, Elizabeth steadied her right on her arm and shot him clean through the head which — in terrible imitation of poor Richard van Guylder’s — disintegrated, spattering brains and blood everywhere.
She lingered for one second longer. “Until we meet again,” she said, looking straight at John, then she was out through the door and off in a thunder of hooves.
Joe gazed across all the horror to where John Rawlings stood. “And that, I take it,” he said, with just the merest hint of his old wry humour, “was the vigilante.”
“Yes,” answered John, smiling despite everything, “that indeed was her.”
21
John had found a towel of sorts in Old Saul’s scullery and as dawn broke walked in with it in his hand to the edge of the sea. The first rays of the sun were slashing the horizon with shards of light and the water was the soft pink of a shell, an harmonious ending to a night of bloodshed and death, the sticky evidence of which was still on the Apothecary’s hand and clothes. Stripping himself naked, he plunged into the cleansing waves. The water was so cold that it took the breath from his body, but still he relished it, watching as all the blood, both from the living and from the dead, was absorbed by the sea and somehow purified. Trying to sort out his thoughts, John swam.
The most difficult part had not been the sordid clearing up, the scraping of death’s detritus from the cottage walls, nor even the frantic dash to get Runner Raven to a physician with a bullet lodged in his shoulder. The worst ordeal had been shielding Elizabeth’s true identity from Constable Haycraft, that most honest of citizens who had eye-witnessed her shoot to kill a man and whose bounden duty it was to hunt her down, albeit her victim was a reckless murderer holding officers of the law at gunpoint. It had been Joe Jago, with his knowing light blue eyes, who had spoken to William sensibly.
“You knew there was a vigilante in Exeter, Constable. I told you about him. For reasons of his own he was sworn to avenge whatever wrong was done to him in the past by the Angels. Well now he has.”
“But he has committed murder in so doing.”
“He actually rescued officers of the law, including yourself, who were being threatened with death. If he had not shot Peter Digby-Duckworth, that young criminal would most certainly have shot us.”
“I do realise all that, but it is still my responsibility to try and find him.”
“Indeed it is.”
William had turned to John. “Sir, how much do you know about this person?”
The Apothecary had stared John Jago straight in the eye, then said, “I have spoken to the vigilante. It is as Mr Jago says. A wrong was done in the past, revenge was sworn. That revenge has been exacted.”
“But what do you know of him? Have you a name? An address?”
“No,” John had answered shortly, and when no contradictory noise came from Mr. Fielding’s clerk, had continued with his job of tending the wounded.
A sudden sandbank quite far out to sea gave him the chance to stand up for a moment and observe. The constable’s cart had been drawn up close to Old Saul’s door and two shapes, covered with sheets and carried on planks, were being loaded into it by Saul and William, prior to being driven to Exeter mortuary. Joe, who had spent a great deal of the night writing a report for the coroner, appeared outside and breathed in the morning air as if it were nectar. Dmitri, who had been locked in his room for his own safety, came to join him, stretching as if he were released from genuine captivity. Then he blew a kiss to Sarah who was waving to him from an upstairs window. The only people missing were the two Runners and the two Angels, both of whom were in a makeshift gaol in the charge of Dick Ham. Runner Raven was presumably still resting after the ordeal of bullet removal, an operation he had had to face in the middle of the night at the hands of a somewhat weary Dr. Shaw at his house in Topsham. In an extraordinary way the Apothecary was looking at a scene of enormous peace, almost of contentment, after a night of such violent discord.
Joe, spotting John standing in the sea, began to stroll down the beach, and the Apothecary, realising how cold he was getting, swam for the shore. They met in the shallows and John was glad of the towel, however inadequate, that the clerk handed him. But as he rubbed himself down and put on his stained and not altogether pleasant clothes, he knew that the freezing swim had done him good. His skin felt clean and refreshed and he was ready to face the world once more.
Joe sat down on an upturned boat. “Well, then, it’s over.”
