by M. J. Trow
‘Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice.’ Marlowe and Colwell intoned the words of the one hundred and thirtieth psalm, known as De Profundis.
Old habits die hard and Parker and Bromerick took up the decani response. ‘Oh let thine ears consider well; the voice of my complaint.’
Steane felt a tremor pass through him. These voices, raised to God in this bleak place where no organ wheezed and groaned reminded him of how he had felt when he first entered the Church; before the whole thing had become something to organize and manipulate. He was brought back to the dark present by a shuffling noise over to his left and he remembered why they were here. Two parish paupers, earning a sorely-needed farthing, carried the linen-wrapped body of Ralph Whitingside on a hurdle, the bier stored in the church being beyond the pale for him, and placed it on the ground at the side of the grave. The last verse of the psalm died away into silence and then, loud enough so everyone could hear it, there was the sound of weeping from the trees. Only Marlowe knew for sure who it was and, taking their lead from him, no one moved towards the noise, but let the poor soul mourn alone.
Making the sign of the cross as so few men did these days, Steane bowed his head and spoke the words of committal over the dead man’s body. The paupers, with minimal ceremony, heaved the body into the grave, which, being shallow, took him with hardly a sound. Then, to Marlowe’s surprise, Steane spoke again.
‘O God, whose blessed Son was buried in a Sepulchre in the garden, bless, we pray, this grave and grant that he whose body is to be buried here may dwell with Christ in Paradise, and may come to thy Heavenly Kingdom, through thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.’
There was a muttered ‘amen’ from the small congregation. The paupers, standing off to one side, pushed back their ragged hoods and exchanged puzzled looks in the dark. They had stood here often enough, but had never heard that bit before. Nor had Marlowe.
‘I didn’t know that it was normal to consecrate a suicide’s grave,’ he said quietly to Steane as they walked away from the graveside, trying not to hear the gritty sound of the spades cutting into the pile of earth beside Ralph Whitingside’s last bed.
Steane picked his way in the dark over the tussocky grass and took a moment to reply and to compose his voice. He had been unusually moved by this service, by the voices singing the psalm, by the crying in the trees. He cleared his throat. ‘It seemed the least I could do,’ he said, and forged ahead, to where his horse cropped the grass at the edge of the lane.
Marlowe was thoughtful. So someone else didn’t believe Whitingside was a suicide. He was now more determined than ever to solve this mystery; as friend and First Finder (or near enough) it could almost be said to be his duty. He turned and waited for his friends, who were fiddling with their lanterns, passing the flame from one to the other, trying to banish the dark as Steane’s horse clattered into the distance.
‘Come on, my lads,’ he said, with what sounded for all the world like genuine enthusiasm. ‘Let’s go and see if we can find an inn with a light showing. I think we all need a drink, in Ralph’s memory, don’t you?’
And, arm in arm, the Parker scholars moved off into the dark, taking a little world of flickering light with them.
At the grave, the paupers had done their job, patting down the earth with the flat of their spades and had gone. A pale shape detached itself from the trees and crept close to the churchyard wall. Meg Hawley stood, wrapped in her dusty summer cloak, looking down at the bare earth for a moment then, with a low moan, sank to the ground and lay, as though alongside the man beneath the soil, with her arm outstretched above him as though, too late, to protect him from his enemies.
The Cam winds on for ever. It twists, dark and green, with its clawing weed through the mellow stone of the colleges, gliding past the wherries and fondling the trailing willows that added their tears to the water.
Beyond Magdelene Bridge, where the flat lands to the east gave way to Sturminster Common, it widens and shallows and thick sedge hangs over it, shielding the banks from the noonday sun. It was here that Nicholas Drew dozed that scorching Sunday. He’d never been much of a church goer, but to avoid the recusancy fees, he’d gone along to St Bene’t’s as usual, resenting anew that those stuck up bastards from Corpus Christi College used his church as if it were their own. Along with most of the Town, he despised the poll-shaven scholars with their books and their serious frowns. Most of all, he hated their hypocrisy. The same men who cut him dead in his church of a Sunday morning, shoulder barged him off his pavements on Sunday night and drank in his inn, talking loudly in Latin with some private joke at his expense.
But the cloudless blue consoled him. All his life he’d known this river, making his meagre living by ferrying the University from one side to the other or punting them up stream and down. He knew the river’s moods, the dark waters of winter where the rain pitted the surface, the stagnant hollows where the ice lay under the bitter wind. And this time of year was Drew’s favourite, when the water was warming up and the fish flew slick and silver in the flickering lights and shadows of the shallows.
His line trailed in the water and his rod was wedged in his usual niche on the bank. He lay back on the soft moss, chewing the end of a newly pulled grass stalk, sweet as honey. He tilted his ferryman’s cap over his eyes. No more work today. No more church. You’re nearer to God by a river than anywhere . . .
There was a tug on the line and before Drew could scramble up to haul in his wriggling, terrified catch, the line and rod jerked out of the bank and splashed into the river. Shit! Had old Nick hooked a Leviathan here in the sparkling waters of the Cam?
His line had tangled in something floating by the far bank. Whatever it was had been meandering midstream and now veered away from him. No surprises there. The current did that along this stretch, the river-bit everybody called Paradise. The surprise was the bundle itself. At first, as he scrambled to his feet and followed it, it looked like a pile of rags, waterlogged cloth tossed from a market stall in Petty Cury. But Drew’s line was still caught in it and his rod was floating faster now, out of his reach. He knew the currents here. They were fickle and unpredictable, the river bed uneven and shelved. Men had died here, reaching Paradise twice as their lives came to an end.
Bugger! Nicholas Drew was running now, stumbling over the clods of turf as he raced the bundle. There was no bridge until Anglesey Abbey and that was nearly two miles away. He’d have to risk the water if he wanted to get his rod back and he’d have to do it before the deeps he knew lay downstream. If he got into difficulties there, he’d never get out.
He tried it as best he could, hauling off his pattens and his jerkin, crashing into the river’s turbulence. The water that had felt so warm to his fisherman’s fingers earlier was now, suddenly, very cold and it hit him like a wall. Sheep grazing on the bank, startled by the sudden noise, skitted away, bleating in their fear. Then they stopped to look at him, stupid, passive, unhelpful.
Drew was a strong swimmer and he reached the bundle quickly. No time to disentangle the line before he was in the deeps, so he dragged the bundle to the far bank and caught an overhanging willow branch, bracing his feet on the sedge to stop himself being carried on by the river’s pull. Damn, this thing was heavy. He swung both hands upwards, gripping the bundle between his legs and jerked backwards, pulling the thing out of the water. It nearly slid back as he let go, but he just had time to grab it and roll it over. Then he screamed and fell back into the long grass.
It was late afternoon before Coroner Winterton reached the spot. He left his carriage on the north bank and plodded with his servant through the tufted grass to where the little knot of people stood on the banks of the Cam.
At his approach, they doffed their caps or curtsied according to their sex and stood looking as deferential as the sheep across the river.
‘Who found her?’ Winterton asked.
‘I did, sir. Nicholas Drew, ferryman.’
&nbs
p; The coroner took in the man. No need to invoke the Sumptuary Laws here. He was dressed as a ferryman should be. ‘What were you doing here?’
‘Fishing, sir.’
‘Well, Master Drew.’ Winterton knelt with as much dignity as his age and his Venetian breeches would let him. ‘Today you have become a fisher of men. Or should I say woman?’ He peered at the sad bundle on the bank. What was she? Forty? Fifty? It was difficult to say. The water had done its work and she had been in the water for some time. He checked the hands. The skin was wrinkled, loose, as it was on the scalp where the once-auburn hair was partially detached and wrapped in her dress.
‘Any of you women –’ Winterton glanced up at the little crowd – ‘used to laying out?’
They hesitated. ‘I am, sir,’ one of them said, and a thin, angular woman bobbed to him.
‘Mrs Drew, sir,’ the First Finder said. ‘My wife.’
‘Good.’ Winterton got up. ‘We can keep this in the family, then. Both of you will accompany me to the Dead House. Knowles –’ he clicked his fingers to a servant – ‘rig something up, will you? We haven’t time to send for a cart and I don’t want . . . that . . . inside my carriage.’
Mrs Drew had done her work by candlelight in the Charnel House by the Grey Friars. She had peeled the sodden dress and chemise off the corpse, floppy and slippery as it was. She had washed the body carefully and dried it, combing what hair was left and she had placed the dead woman’s arms across her breasts, for modesty’s sake. Then she spread a folded shroud across her hips. Men should not look on such things.
Edward Winterton waited until the layer-out left the room and he went to work. He was a husband, father and grandfather, too, and he had the same sensibilities as the next man. But he had a job to do. He looked at each hand. Despite the wrinkled skin, he noticed the mark left by a wedding ring, but the ring itself had gone. Was this the mark of a robbery? He peeled back the cloth and looked at the abdomen. Had she ever borne a child, this child of the river? He didn’t know. He prised open her eyelids. The eyes were sunk, the sockets almost empty and he couldn’t tell the colour the irises had once had. The breasts were small and well-formed, but the skin was blackened now with exposure to the air. He checked her feet. The soles were thick and pale. She had been in the water, he’d wager, for four days, perhaps five. She had been found at Paradise, but where had she gone in? And who was she when she walked upright, talking and laughing, dancing and loving? Perhaps only God knew now.
Time and again he was drawn to the dead woman’s throat. The lips were tight and pursed and around her neck, embedded deep into the purple skin, was a crucifix. Whatever else she had been, the woman was a Papist.
That was the year when the carpenter, Joseph Fludd, was Constable of the Watch. In fact, it was rather more than a year because nobody else wanted the job. His cottage, with its adjoining workshop, lay off the road which ran from the south into Cambridge, a little below the ancient church of St Michael and St Mary, Trumpington.
And it was here, wading through fragrant wood-shavings and decidedly un-fragrant chicken droppings, that Jeremiah Butler and his wife came that Monday morning, a little after nine of the clock. They knocked on the little door below the thatch.
‘Are you the one they call Trumpy Joe?’ Butler asked as the door opened.
‘I am Joseph Fludd, carpenter and Constable,’ the cottager said, standing as tall as the doorway would let him. Each man eyed the other, assessing status. Butler was clearly a yeoman, well dressed but unarmed and his wife wore a French hood of intricate design over her coif. Fludd was still in his leather apron, splinters in his fingers and polish under his nails.
‘Jeremiah Butler, of Royston. My wife, Jane.’
There were nods all round.
‘Did you want a table, sir?’ Fludd asked. ‘A press, perhaps? Or a settle?’ He had no idea his reputation had reached as far south as Royston.
Butler looked at him with disdain. ‘I was looking for the High Constable,’ he said, ‘but it looks as though I’ve been misdirected.’
‘Love you, sir,’ Fludd chuckled. ‘We haven’t had a High Constable in Cambridge since Edward was king. Old Master Hipkiss went of the plague when I was a lad. Nobody’s replaced him since.’
‘Who do you report to, then?’ Butler wanted to know.
‘The Justice, sir, for most things. The Coroner if the crime’s severe.’
‘Who is the Coroner here? Still Edward Winterton?’
‘The same, sir. As good a man who ever drew breath.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ The yeoman turned on his heel. ‘Come, Jane; we’re wasting our time.’
‘If it’s a crime, sir, I can help.’ Fludd stepped out from under the eaves of thatch. He was a well-built fellow, with an earnest look about him and an air of dependability.
‘Can you?’ Butler asked.
‘Come this way, sir.’ Fludd ushered the couple into his humble abode, kicking chickens off the furniture. He pointed to a wall at the back of the parlour, from which scraps of paper floated in the breeze from the open casement. Fludd touched them one by one. ‘Not mending the bridge at Magdalene,’ he read. ‘Not hanging a lantern in Petty Cury; cutting turf off Parker’s Piece in the night time; not having a licence to sell ale; the nuisance of muck . . .’
‘How are you on missing persons?’ Jane Butler suddenly asked. She had had enough of her husband’s dithering and for all this Constable could clearly read, she was not at all convinced he was the man for job.
‘Er . . . yes,’ Fludd said. ‘I’ve had a few of those in my time.’
‘How long have you been a Constable?’ Butler asked, frowning. Fludd couldn’t have been more than thirty.
‘On this occasion, sir, fifteen . . . no, sixteen months. Before that, twice, for a period totalling three years.’
‘And in that time,’ Butler pressed him, ‘how many missing persons?’
‘Um . . . one. Well, two if you count the Master of Trinity. But he wasn’t so much missing as didn’t want to be found.’
‘I believe my sister wants to be found, Constable,’ Jane Butler said.
Fludd looked at her. She was of indeterminate years, but her hair which showed from under her coif showed only a light sprinkling of grey. Fludd judged her to be in her late thirties. Her eyes were at once calm and worried.
‘Could you give me some details, Madame?’ he asked. ‘A description of your sister. When she went missing. Any distinguishing marks. Anything you can tell me will be of use.’
The woman looked nervously at her husband and then spoke. ‘Master Fludd, I wonder if I could sit? I am feeling quite unwell with the worry and . . .’
Fludd was immediately contrite. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Would you like something to drink? Some ale, perhaps. Some water. I have my own well and the water is very sweet.’ He tried to keep the touch of pride out of his voice.
‘No, no, I will be quite all right if only I could sit.’
Fludd ushered her to a window seat and plumped a cushion for her. The men sat on hard chairs, ranged in front of her, as if in homage. Sitting with the dusty sunlight behind her the years dropped away as she began her story. The Constable had ink and parchment beside him and dipped occasionally as he made quick strokes with the quill.
‘I feel, Master Fludd, that I must begin by telling you that I don’t know whether my sister has any marks, distinguishing or otherwise. Until I saw her a week ago yesterday, that would be Sunday sennight, I had not seen her since she left our parents’ house thirty years ago, when I was just seven years old.’
The Constable gave himself an invisible pat on the back – his guess at her age had been remarkably accurate.
‘She had married young,’ Jane Butler went on, ‘and I remember the fuss for the wedding; she was our parents’ eldest daughter and the sewing and the cooking and everyone rushing to and fro – it was great fun for a little girl.’
‘Who did she marry?’ the Constable asked. ‘Jus
t for the notes.’ And he waved his hand to the fluttering wall.
The woman looked at her husband, who waved his hand at her to carry on. ‘I don’t know.’ She caught the expression on the Constable’s face and grimaced back at him, ruefully. ‘I know that that may sound strange, but I only remember the wedding preparations. The wedding day was confusing for a little girl, so many new people, so much music, dancing.’ She smiled at Fludd and an excited seven year old looked out of her eyes. ‘I know I made myself sick eating all the marchpane animals the cooks had decorated the table with. I have never been able to eat it since. But as to who she married, I can’t remember him at all.’
‘But surely,’ the Constable asked, ‘other people in the family must have known who he was. Must have spoken of him since. Did something happen? Did he die young?’
‘I don’t know what happened to him,’ she said, simply. ‘I remember . . .’ she furrowed her brow, trying to work out how to tell this stranger about an event thirty years ago which had rocked her family to its foundations. ‘I remember her coming home, late one night. My mother was crying. I was excited, because I had missed my sister, and I thought she was home for a visit. But in the morning, she wasn’t there. People told me I had imagined it.’
‘And had you?’
‘No. Later, when I was older, my mother told me that my sister – her name is Eleanor, Eleanor Peacock – had married a man who had turned out to be a bad lot. He had abandoned her and she had come home with only the clothes on her back. To avoid a scandal, my parents sent her to our aunt in France. She had joined a convent there when King Henry . . .’ her voice tailed away. Especially in this day and age, it paid to be circumspect with strangers. There were plots everywhere, Jesuits roaming the roads and planning God knew what.
