Revelation ms-4

by C. J. Sansom

  'When we were students, we were given legal problems to solve, which involved looking up cases in the law books. We spent half our time delving through the dusty old books in the Lincoln's Inn library. I remember one of the students coming across a murder case from — oh, it must have been a hundred years ago — about a man who was executed for killing several young women. Where was it — in Norwich, I think.' I smiled wryly. 'There was nothing about the trial to create a legal precedent, but some lads passed it round because the trial report was full of gruesome detail. You know what students can be like.'

  Guy smiled. 'But not you?'

  'No. Coming to London from Lichfield, I thought there were more than enough gruesome things to see in the city, even then. I was more interested in finding new precedents to dazzle the benchers with. I will look for the case in the library.' I frowned. 'But I am not sure this man was such a killer as you describe. And even if he was, they must be rare indeed. How could anyone get away with it? How would the whole region where such a thing happened not turn all their energies to finding such a killer? From what you say, De Rais was a powerful man. Surely an ordinary person would be swiftly hunted down, even in a large city.'

  'You know how difficult the detection of crime is, Matthew. In England, more than most of Europe. Each city and parish enforcing the law through Justices of the Peace and coroners who are often corrupt, with the aid of a few constables who are usually stupid men.'

  'And who investigate killings with little or no reference to what may be happening in neighbouring districts. Yes. I have been talking about these things with Harsnet and Barak. And how most killers who are caught are impulsive and stupid—'

  'Whereas this one plans, obsessive as a lover, careful, meticulous, patient. He puts his whole self into his terrible work — the expression perhaps of a limitless rage.'

  And this man has chosen apostates from radical reformism.'

  He must have an utter devotion to his twisted passions, above anything else in the world. He can have no conscience. In his world only he matters. And it is perhaps not so large a step from there to persuading yourself that God himself has set you the task you so enjoy. Bringing forward the good and holy work outlined in the Book of Revelation.' Guy's face was drawn. 'Obsession,' he said quietly. 'It is a wicked, wicked thing.'

  'He is mad, then?'

  'He cannot be sane as we understand the word. But it may be that his cleverness means he is able to pass himself off as normal, perhaps even work. Although I would have thought there must be signs. Such a gross distortion of the soul must leave outward signs. . .' He shook his head again, then fixed me with intense brown eyes full of pain. 'That pilgrim badge,' he said.

  I took it out. "What of it?'

  'If we have learned anything about this man, it is how careful he is. He would not have simply dropped something as rare and controversial as a pilgrim badge from the Westminster Abbey shrine.'

  'As Barak said, it may not have been him. One of the con- stables—'

  'Would hardly be likely to carry a pilgrim badge.'

  'So if the killer dropped it, he may have done so deliberately to mislead us?'

  'Or to give you a clue. Perhaps that is part of his madness. But from the study of obsession, Matthew, a study I regretted making and which has haunted me ever since, there is one thing I am sure of. This man will not stop at seven. How could he, if killing has become the centre of his universe, the centre of a mind collapsed in upon itself?'

  'But there are only seven vials of wrath—'

  Guy nodded. 'But Revelation is a whole sequence of violent stories, one after another, layers of them. When this cycle is finished, he has many more to choose from.'

  'Jesu.' I sat there feeling utterly drained, staring at Guy. A terrible thought occurred to me. Dorothy, like Roger, like me, was a lapsed radical. I told myself not to be so foolish; none of those murdered had been connected to each other and there was surely no reason why he should change his pattern and go after Dorothy. And she was a woman, whose opinions counted for less. Then my eyes widened, for I saw that behind Guy the door to his inner chambers was open, just a crack. Something glinting in the crack had caught my eye and now I saw it was another eye, staring back at me. For a second I was filled with terror. Had I been followed after all: Wordlessly, I pointed at the open door.

  Guy turned, then before I could stop him he jumped up and threw it open. The boy Piers stood there, a large bowl in his hands.

  'Piers.' Guy's voice was sorrowful as he stood over the boy. 'What are you doing? Were you listening to our talk?'

  'I am sorry, master,' the boy replied humbly. 'I was bringing you the powdered henbane I had prepared.' He gestured at a bowl of powder he held. 'I knew you wanted it urgently. I heard you talking, was uncertain whether to knock.'

  I knew he was lying, and I could see that Guy was not fooled either. In a moment the pain that had been deepening on his face throughout our talk turned to anger. 'Is this how you repay me after I took you in, when you were homeless and friendless after your old master died?' His voice rose, a note of real pain in it, then suddenly he broke off and looked at Piers, who had stepped back a pace and was clutching the bowl in both hands. Guy sighed, then reached out and laid a hand on the lad's broad shoulder. 'You must learn to curb your curiosity,' he said gently. 'The keeping of confidences, even secrets, is part of our trade.'

  'I am sorry, master.' The boy cast down his eyes.

  Guy took the bowl of henbane. 'Thank you, that was well and quickly done.'

  Piers turned to go, but I called him back, standing up and looking at him with a stern gaze. 'Your master and I were discussing a matter of state. If you breathe one word of what you have heard outside these walls you will end in the Fleet prison or the Tower, and it will be me that makes sure you go there.'

  'I heard hardly anything,' Piers answered quietly, somehow sounding humble and reproachful at the same time. 'But I promise to say nothing, sir. On my oath.'

  'Be sure of that, boy.'

  'Go, Piers,' Guy said wearily. The apprentice bowed and closed the door behind him.

  'I have said you give that boy too much latitude, Guy.'

  'That is my business,' he answered sharply, then shook his head. 'I am sorry, the terrible things we have been talking of disturb me. I will make sure he keeps quiet.'

  'You must, Guy.'

  He fell silent. I frowned. When he had criticized Piers I had seen that the boy met his gaze, not with humility but with a sort of cold challenge. It seemed to me that in some way I could not fathom, Guy was frightened of him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I RODE BACK to Lincoln's Inn, the sun warm on my face, the breeze gentle for the first time that year. Normally I appreciated the spring, especially after a winter as hard as this last one, but the horrors I was labouring with seemed to make the brightness a mockery. I told myself I must not sink under this weight. My mind went back to Guy, how the terrible story of de Rais had struck him to the heart. My mind again turned to Piers and the strange sense that somehow Guy feared him. It was understandable that Guy should look for some sort of successor, even a memorial, in the boy. But I still felt he was using Guy, as a spoiled child will coldly manipulate an indulgent parent.

  I rode under the great gate and into Lincoln's Inn, leaving Genesis with the ostler. First I went to Dorothy's rooms. Margaret, answering the door, told me that Dorothy had gone out, to see to the arrangements for Roger's funeral. Old Elias had accompanied her. I asked Margaret to send Elias to find me on his return, either in the library or my chambers.

  I turned to the Inn library. I had much work to catch up on, there were more hearings at the Court of Requests tomorrow, but there was a piece of research I had to do first.

  On Sundays Gatehouse Court was quiet, no one about. Then I noticed a black-clad figure walking towards me. It was Bealknap, coming across from his chambers. As he approached I saw he looked worse than ever: pale and feverish, eyes bloodshot. Even his s
hort walk had set him breathing heavily.

  'How now, Bealknap.' I felt sorry for him, he had only that arrogant fool Dr Archer to care for him. At the end of the day he was still a suffering man.

  'You have destroyed my business,' he hissed at me, scattering my charitable thoughts.

  'What;'

  'You could have helped me over that paper I did not file. You know I have been ill. But you would not help a fellow-lawyer, and now I have lost my best client. Sir Geoffrey Coleswyn hoped for profit from that holding. He will pass the word around among the landowners he knows.'

  'For heavens' sake, man,' I said impatiently. 'It was your own fault. This is ridiculous.'

  'I have built a reputation on my success in getting rid of bad tenants and squatters. The people you act for. Riffraff, land-stealers, ne'er-do'wells. Sir Geoffrey will see I lose it—'

  'I have no time for this nonsense,' I said. His pale, furious face aroused only my contempt.

  'You will regret what you have done to me, Shardlake!' Bealknap was shaking, whether with rage or bodily weakness I could not tell. 'This time you have gone too far. You will regret it. I have made sure of that.'

  'Bealknap, you sound like a demon in a mystery play.' I stepped round him, dismissing his absurd threats from mind as I walked on to the library.

  'Just wait, master crookback!' he called after me. 'You will see!'

  THE LIBRARY had its usual hushed atmosphere, seated barristers leafing through law books with stern, concentrated expressions, while elsewhere students grubbed through cases with puzzled frowns. I went and looked over the high shelves. The law books were organized by year, and there were fewer of them for the last century. From the time printing came in, more and more books of law cases had been collated, but the books from the middle of the last century were still few, and handwritten. I found the volume I wanted, a yearbook from 1461. It was ancient and battered, the leather covers stained and in places torn. I took it to a desk in a secluded part of the library away from the windows, lit by candles.

  The report on the case was a long one, as though the reporter, like my fellow-students, had revelled in the gruesome details of ripped-open bodies. It had indeed been in Norwich, in the summer of 1461, that a young man called Paul Strodyr had been arraigned, tried and convicted of the murder of nine young women over the previous five years. Six had been prostitutes, three were described as 'respectable young women'. Reading between the lines, it appeared that it was the death of the respectable women that had galvanized the city. There seemed to have been a tremendous hue and cry that had ended with Strodyr's cousin reporting that he had seen him covered in blood on the night of the final murder. After a guilty verdict was brought in he had admitted committing the crimes, and had raged against the evil of prostitutes, said that God desired them to be destroyed.

  Several things struck me. The first was that Strodyr was not a man of status and power like de Rais, but a farm labourer. There was no evidence of obvious signs of madness — the reporter said that he was a cheerful, friendly young man who worked on the local farms. Apart from that the report was silent on details about Strodyr — he was sentenced to hang, but if he had said anything from the dock it was not recorded.

  I put the book down and sat thinking. So Guy was right, there had been cases of apparently pointless mass murder before. In this case the murderer had been caught. But Strodyr's ordinary back' ground and the fact that no one seemed to think him strange only stressed the difficulties we faced in finding our killer. And in a city the size of London, perhaps ten times the size of Norwich then, how much harder to find a single man. I thought again of the murderous child I had encountered a few years before; if he had lived would he have been another Strodyr, another de Rais? I could see no way to tell.

  I WENT BACK to chambers and worked for a while. I jumped when the door opened and Barak came in. He looked tired and smelled of sweat, but was smiling.

  'I have the addresses,' he said. 'And some news.'

  I threw down my quill. 'On a Sunday?'

  'I went down to Augmentations this morning. There were a lot of clerks there, trying to sort out the mess this reorganization has made. I managed to chivvy them into getting the Westminster records. I got the addresses and a register of payments with them.'

  'Well done.' Yet I thought it sad that he should choose to work on Sunday, when he might be at home with Tamasin.

  He sat down opposite me. 'The infirmarian himself has not been in to collect his pension since December. Just before the first murder, the cottar. His name is Goddard, Lancelot Goddard.'

  'Did you get his address?'

  'Yes. It is a poor street near the Steelyard. I've been down there—‘

  'You did not try to see him by yourself—'

  'Of course I didn't,' he said impatiently. 'I asked around the neighbours. They said there had been an ex-monk that rented a house there since Westminster Abbey went down three years ago. He kept apart from the locals, thought he was a cut above the shopkeepers and the like who live there. He left in January, saying he had inherited a house from his mother. I went to the place where he used to live; it's boarded up. Then I went to see the landlord; he's in the next street. He said the monk was a good tenant, quiet and always paid on time. He confirmed the story of the inheritance, said the monk came to tell him he was going, left the landlord with a month's rent in hand.'

  'What did this Goddard look like?'

  'A man nearing forty. Distinctive. High cheekbones and a big mole on the side of his nose. Tall and well set up, dark hair.'

  'What about his assistants?'

  'I got their addresses. One, Cantrell, lives in Westminster still, the other out near the old Charterhouse. At a tavern, called the Green Man.'

  'A tavern.' I raised my eyebrows.

  'So it seems. That's Lockley, the lay brother.'

  I nodded. As he was not a monk, he would not have got a pension. But a tavern was a far cry from a monastery.

  'What do you think has happened to Goddard? It is strange he vanished in January. Do you think—'

  'That he could be the killer? Hold on, Jack, there could be another reason he disappeared.' I looked at him seriously. 'He could be another victim.'

  Barak shook his head. 'Sounds like he deliberately vanished. Failed to leave an address.'

  'I must send a note to Harsnet. You did well,' I added. 'I will tell him.'

  He leaned back in his chair. 'I needed to do something,' he said. 'To find something — something—'

  'Something real? Amidst all this inexplicable horror?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, you have found it.' I looked at his face, tired and anxious still. I would not tell him of Guy's theory or my studies, not yet, not tonight. 'You should go home, you look as if you have had enough for one day.'

  'Ay.' He looked guilty. 'I told Tamasin I'd be back for lunch. I'd best go.'

  I shook my head after he had gone. If I were his age and Tamasin my wife, I would not be spending sunday afternoon harassing clerks in grubby archives. I turned my thoughts to Westminster Abbey. I remembered it had been one of the last monasteries to be dissolved. The King had not wanted the buildings destroyed as they housed the tombs of his father and other royal ancestors; he had squared the circle by turning the abbey into a cathedral. The former abbot had been installed as dean; he was known as one of Cromwell's agents inside the monasteries, working for its closure. His appointment afterwards had caused much cynical laughter.

  I penned a long note to Harsnet and took it to the porter's lodge, telling him to have it delivered urgently. I looked out at Chancery Lane, the few passers-by, remembering the strong sense of being followed I had had earlier. As I returned I saw old Elias walking rapidly towards me; Dorothy was back. I walked with him back across Gatehouse Court, past the fountain, to Dorothy's, determinedly trying to clear my head of thoughts of Strodyr, of the other murderers. But with Roger perhaps the victim of such a man, that was not easy.

  THE M
AID MARGARET let me in. Dorothy was sitting in her usual place before the fire, beneath the wooden frieze, still dressed in black. I was glad to see she was occupied, embroidering a dress with little flowers. She looked up with a smile, and I was glad to see a little colour in her cheeks.

  'How are you?' I asked gently.

  'Life must go on, must it not; The clock still measures out the hours, even with Roger gone.'

  'Yes, it does.'

  'Samuel is coming tomorrow. And I have arranged Roger's funeral for Tuesday.' She looked at me. 'A week today since he died.'

  'I know.'

  'I am trying to keep occupied. With embroidery, as you see. And I have supervised the preparation of a fine repast. To thank you, for all you have done.'

  'It is little enough, Dorothy. I am sorry commitments do not allow me to take on any of Roger's cases. But Bartlett has brought me a list of lawyers who can, and they are all honest fellows.'

  'Good. I shall need the money. The Treasurer came to see me today, full of sorrow for my loss, but hinting they will be appointing a new Inn member now and he will want these rooms.'

  'Have you enough to take a house? If not, I can—' She raised a hand. 'No. Thank you, Matthew, but Roger was a prudent man, there is enough saved for me to live carefully. But I do not know where I shall go. Samuel suggested in his letter that I return to Bristol.'

  'Will you go?' I found my heart sinking at the thought. She hesitated. 'I do not know, yet. Is there any news?'

  'We are making progress. I'm afraid that is all I can say.'

  'Do you know yet why Roger was killed?' Her voice was no more than a whisper.

  'No. But Dorothy . . .' I paused. 'We know of three men this man has killed now. All the victims of some terrible ritual. While he is at large, I think — I think you should not go out alone.'

  'You think I might be in danger,' she said quietly.

  'No. Only — it's as well to be safe.' Dorothy looked at me intently for a moment, then nodded. I felt suddenly fired anew with anger at what had been done to her and Roger.