by C. J. Sansom
‘No, sir. Dead.’ Barak looked around the company, took a deep breath. ‘In the old Charterhouse. The manner of his death shows he is the sixth victim.’
Lord Hertford seemed to slump. He put a hand to his brow.
‘Who knows?’
‘Nobody who matters, my lord. Yet.’
‘Shardlake, Harsnet, go there now.’
‘I wish to go too,’ Sir Thomas said.
‘Very well,’ Lord Hertford agreed. He looked between us. ‘He has made us all dance, has he not? And now again. Will we ever have him dancing as he should, at the end of a rope?’
Chapter Thirty-six
THE RAIN CONTINUED during our long ride to the Charterhouse. I was constantly blinking water out of my eyes as Sir Thomas, Barak, the guard Janley and I rode together; the others listening as I shouted questions to Janley about what had happened there. We rode as fast as we could along roads that were turning to quagmires, mud spattering our horses and our boots.
‘The Charterhouse watchman came running over to the Green Man this morning,’ Janley told us. ‘The place is empty but for him and the Bassano family, the King’s Italian musicians; they’ve turned some of the old monks’ cells into accommodation for them.’
‘No one else lives there?’ Sir Thomas asked.
‘No, sir. The place is used to store the King’s hunting equipment and tents and costumes for the masques. The watchman’s known as a hopeless drunkard. Apparently he used to spend most evenings in the Green Man getting sow-drunk; Lockley and Mistress Bunce often had to put him outside at closing time. One of his duties is to open and close the lock gates in the old conduit-house, keep the water flowing on through the cellars of the houses in the square. He would forget and the locals had to go over and remind him.’
‘Do the locals know about this?’ Harsnet asked.
‘No, sir. The watchman came running over an hour ago, babbling about floods and a dead man in the conduit. He knew I was some sort of official guard. He said it was Lockley. I sent him back and rode to the coroner’s office, which I’d been told to do if anything happened.’
‘You’ve managed to keep the truth of what happened to Mrs Bunce a secret?’ I glanced at Janley, noticing the man looked tired and strained.
‘Ay. I’ve told everyone who called it looks like Lockley came back, murdered her and fled. I’ve hinted it was about money. A lot of neighbours and old customers have called round.’
‘Good. Well done.’
‘I’ll be glad to be gone, back with my family. I keep thinking of that poor woman lying there. Especially at night.’
‘She was only a tavern keeper,’ Sir Thomas grunted. ‘Be thankful it wasn’t someone more important, it would be harder to cover up what happened.’
WE ARRIVED AT Charterhouse Square and followed the path between the trees covering the ancient plague pit. We rode past the deserted old chapel. The door was closed; the beggars would be out seeking alms in the town. We drew up at the small gatehouse set in the long brick wall of the dissolved monastery. There was a rail for horses there and we tied our animals up. Sir Thomas frowned at the mud on his fine netherhose.
Janley knocked loudly at the door. Shuffling footsteps sounded and a thin middle-aged man with a red face and a bulbous, pock-marked nose opened it and peered at us with frightened eyes.
‘I’ve brought some people to see the body, Padge,’ Janley said gently.
The watchman looked at us uncertainly. ‘They’ll have to climb down to the sewer. I don’t know how you’ll get him out. He’s fixed to the lock gates somehow, blocking them. He’s naked. It’s horrible. Why has someone done this? Why?’ His voice rose.
‘Leave it to us, matey,’ Barak said soothingly.
We followed the watchman through the gates, past the ruins of the old monastic church with the windows out and the roof off, and found ourselves in a large, square, grassed courtyard. In the centre stood an octagonal, copper-roofed building, with taps on the sides. That had to be the old monastic conduit, fed by the streams from Islington, where the monks had drawn their water and which then went on to drain the sewers under the houses in the square. Round the sides of the yard stood the old monks’ cells, little square two-roomed houses, each with a small patch of garden behind, water dripping from the eaves. This would have been a peaceful place once. The monks of the Charterhouse had lived secluded lives in their cells round the central square, an architectural pattern unique among monastic buildings. The cells had stout wooden doors secured with padlocks. To our left was a larger building, the doors open. I saw figures within.
‘I’ve put the Bassano family in there,’ the watchman said. ‘They came into the gatehouse earlier, gabbling away about being flooded out.’ He pointed to the conduit and I saw that water was seeping and bubbling up between the flagstones surrounding it. A section of the grassy square between the conduit and the cells on one side was waterlogged. Still the rain pelted down on us. The watchman wiped his face with a trembling hand. ‘I went to look at the conduit-house where the lock gates are, and saw a body jammed in front of them. I leaned over the rail and saw his face, saw it was poor Francis.’
‘Stopping the waters of the Euphrates,’ I said quietly. ‘Master Padge, did you hear anything last night?’
‘No. A man has to sleep,’ he added in a truculent mumble.
‘Not if he’s a watchman,’ Sir Thomas said sharply. ‘Where are the Italians?’
Padge led the way to the building with the open door. It had evidently been the monastic chapter house, for there were benches round the wall as there were at Westminster Abbey. But this was a far smaller, more austere room. Most of the space was taken up with chests and wardrobes; to store the costumes for the masques, no doubt. Two huge suits of armour stood beside them, and half a dozen enormous jousting lances were stacked against the wall. A little group of people had found space on the benches and sat huddled together, looking scared. They were swarthy, dark-haired; four men and three women with children in their laps. All were clutching musical instruments, lutes and tabors and even a harp. I saw the men’s doublets and the women’s dresses were soaked through.
‘Does anyone speak English?’ I asked.
One of the men stood up. ‘I do,’ he said in heavily accented tones.
‘You are the Bassano family, the King’s musicians?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He bowed. ‘I am their servant, Signor Granzi.’
‘What has happened to you?’ Sir Thomas asked. ‘You look like a lot of drowned rats.’
‘We woke this morning to find the floors of our quarters in water above our feet,’ the Italian said. ‘The ground goes downward from that conduit. Water was coming into our rooms. We had to rescue our instruments. We came here, then called the watchman. What is it, sir? We heard the watchman cry out.’
‘Nothing to worry you.’
‘Did any of you hear anything strange last night?’ I asked. Master Granzi consulted the other in their strange, musical tongue, then shook his head. ‘No, sir. We were all asleep.’
Sir Thomas grunted. ‘Come on, Padge. Take us to where you found the body.’ He pushed the watchman out into the rain; a born bully.
As we crossed the courtyard Harsnet fell into step beside me. ‘Those musicians perform before the King. If they learn there has been a killing here it will be a fine bit of gossip to tell around the court. They must not find out what has happened.’
‘I agree.’ Was that what the killer had intended?
‘We’ll say it was an accident.’
‘Padge is a drunk. He’ll talk in his cups.’
‘I’ll take him with us when we leave,’ Harsnet said. ‘Keep him somewhere safe and put one of Sir Thomas’ men in here for now. I’ll square it with the Court of Augmentations.’
Padge led us back to the gatehouse. He had appropriated one room, a truckle bed on the floor. The room stank of beer. There was a fire burning in the grate, and he lit three lamps from it. He passed them to Barak, Janley
and then me.
‘We’ll need these, sir,’ he said and led the way back to the outer courtyard. We followed him, heads bowed against the rain, into a low, square building standing on its own. In the centre of the stone floor was a large square opening, protected by a low railing. An iron ladder bolted to the side led down into a brickwork shaft streaked with green lichen. A large wheel stood off to one side.
‘I left the lock gates slightly open last night,’ Padge said. ‘After all the rain there is a lot of water coming through and it needs to drain. When I came this morning I thought to open them fully with the wheel but they were stuck fast. I looked down the shaft and - you will see.’ The hand that held his lamp began to shake.
We all went to the rail and looked down, holding our lamps out over the shaft. It went down twenty feet. At the bottom, on one side, a pair of heavy wooden gates about eight feet high was set into the brick wall. They were slightly open, enough to let a trickle of water through. My eyes widened as I made out the body of a naked man at the bottom of the gate. His posture was strange, he was spreadeagled against the wooden gates, limbs outstretched. His face looked upwards, merely a white shape in the gloom, but I could make out that it was Lockley.
‘The body’s fixed to those gates somehow,’ Padge said.
‘Did you go down to look?’ Sir Thomas asked. Padge shook his head vigorously.
‘We’d better see. Barak, Harsnet, come with me. You too, Shardlake - if you can climb down ladders,’ he added with a nasty smile, a flash of white teeth in the gloom.
‘Of course I can,’ I replied sharply, though I did not relish the prospect.
Sir Thomas swung easily over the railing and began his descent. Barak and Harsnet followed. I made up the rear, grasping the slippery rungs hard.
At the bottom we found ourselves standing on wet brickwork that sloped down to a central channel where the water ran off down an archway into darkness. We looked at the lock gates, rendered speechless by what we saw there. The naked body of Francis Lockley had been laid out at the bottom of the gates and then nailed to them, like some terrible mockery of the Crucifixion, his hands nailed to one gate and his feet to the other. Big, broad-headed nails, driven in to the hilt. The gates could not be opened without ripping them out, and that would require more force than the weight of the water and turning of the wheel above could provide. I saw there was a mass of dried blood on the back of his head, but little sign of blood flowing from the terrible wounds. Lockley had at least died quickly. I guessed if he had been drugged with dwale and left to wake in the darkness there was the risk that he might live long enough to talk to a rescuer. The killer had put his safety before his sadistic cruelty. Nonetheless the savagery was unspeakable.
A loud creak from the gate made us start back.
‘There’s a lot of water backing up there,’ Barak said anxiously.
‘How in hell did the killer get him down here?’ Sir Thomas asked.
‘Dropped him down, I’d guess,’ Barak said. ‘Then climbed down the ladder.’
The gates creaked again. ‘I think we should get out,’ Barak said with sudden urgency. ‘With the rain there’s more water building up behind there all the time. Those nails are driven in fast, but at some point they’ll give way.’
‘You’re right,’ Sir Thomas agreed. ‘Let’s leave.’
We climbed the ladder again. Janley and Padge were sitting on stools on either side of the gloomy little room. We just stood there for a moment, shocked and overwhelmed by the latest murder. Then Harsnet said, ‘I have to get out of here.’ We followed him out into the courtyard. The rain seemed to be easing off.
‘It will be a hard job getting Lockley out,’ Harsnet said quietly. ‘And as you said, Barak, a risky one. We will have to block the gates in some way while we remove the body, bring it up on ropes.’
‘I will go and arrange that now,’ Sir Thomas said. Even he appeared subdued. ‘With some men of my household I can trust to keep their mouths shut. We cannot wait.’
‘No.’ Harsnet agreed. ‘Not just the musicians’ instruments but all the King’s possessions that are stored here will be flooded out. But I do not understand how he got Lockley into the precinct, how he knew where the conduit-house was.’
I looked around. ‘If he was hanging about the vicinity he could pick up that the watchman was a drunk,’ I said quietly. ‘Easy enough to get in here at night and explore the buildings to see if they would suit his purpose, which I guess he had already worked out.’
‘If he talked to the watchman, the drunken old sot may remember him,’ Sir Thomas said, his eyes lighting up with excitement.
‘I doubt he did.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Padge is still alive. He should be questioned, certainly, but remember the killer has already murdered one man who could have led us to his identity.’
Harsnet nodded. ‘Then we must question the tavern customers again. Ask them if a stranger has been asking about the Charterhouse. ’
I nodded to the chapel. ‘The beggars too, perhaps.’
‘Ay. Someone may have asked one of them for information in return for a groat. It’s possible.’
Sir Thomas looked at me. ‘Do you think there is any significance in the last two murders being round the Charterhouse?’ he asked. ‘Because do not forget, Lady Catherine Parr lives across that green. And the killer may know something of the layout. Dr Gurney was staying there when he was killed. That’s three out of six murders now with a connection to Charterhouse Square.’
‘I do not think so. I think he deliberately chose Lockley and his wife because he knew of their past somehow. Dr Gurney’s presence on the other side of the square is surely a coincidence.’
‘He must be strong to have got the body in here from outside,’ Barak said.
‘He brought my friend Roger Elliard’s body across Lincoln’s Inn Fields and into the Inn. Assuming he killed Lockley before he got here, I imagine he did the same. Lockley was a small man, like Roger, but fat. Yes, he must be very strong.’
‘Shall we look around?’ Barak asked. ‘See if we can find where he got in?’
‘Yes. We cannot get any wetter.’
We turned to go, but just then three figures walked under the gatehouse arch, like us muddy from riding. Barak’s hand went to his sword-hilt, but I recognized the leading figure as Dean Benson, swathed in a heavy coat. He indicated to the two retainers who accompanied him to stay where they were. They stood in the yard, rain dripping off their caps. Benson came up to us. His plump face was anxious.
Harsnet stepped forward. ‘What are you doing here, sir?’ he asked.
The dean wiped his face with his sleeve. ‘I have ridden halfway across London in the rain looking for you, sir. Your servant at Whitehall wouldn’t tell me where you were at first, I had the devil’s job to get it out of him. Can we please go inside, I am covered in mud—’
‘Pox on the mud!’ Sir Thomas Seymour said brutally. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’
Benson thrust his chest forward. ‘I am William Benson, Dean of Westminster Abbey. And who are you?’
‘Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of Lord Hertford.’
‘Seymour?’ The dean frowned, and I could see his mind making connections. So the Seymour family were involved in this—
‘What do you want, sir?’ Harsnet asked again.
‘We should go inside. What I have brought here should not get wet.’
Harsnet hesitated a moment, then led the way back into the conduit-house. Janley and Padge bowed as the gentleman of the church entered. The dean looked round him, puzzled. ‘What is going on in here?’
‘Never mind that for now,’ Harsnet said. ‘Please, tell us why you have come.’
Benson delved in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. ‘This was pushed under the front door of my house just before dawn. My steward brought it to me.’ He handed the paper to Harsnet. We gathered round the coroner. The paper was folded, Dean Benson’s name
and the words MOST URGENT written on it. Harsnet opened it. Inside was written, again in block capitals:LANCELOT GODDARD KINESWORTH VILLAGE BY TOTTERIDGE HERTFORDSHIRE
We stared at the simple, stark message, the address. ‘Hertfordshire,’ Harsnet said quietly. ‘I did not think to make enquiry so far.’
‘I’ve been to Totteridge village,’ Barak said. ‘It’s at the bottom of that little finger of Hertfordshire land that sticks down towards London. It’s a couple of hours’ ride away.’
‘You say this was pushed under your door,’ Sir Thomas said. ‘You didn’t by any chance write it yourself?’
‘Of course I didn’t,’ Benson snapped.
‘The killer knew we were about to find the sixth victim,’ I said quietly.
‘And now he is giving us his address?’ Harsnet said incredulously. ‘He is surrendering?’
I took the piece of paper. I felt reluctant to touch the writing, the killer’s writing. ‘No. That would be to abandon his mission. And Goddard may be the victim, not the killer. The killer may not be inviting us to this village to surrender. It could be to show us the seventh killing. The last. The great earthquake that will signal the end of the world.’
THERE WAS SILENCE for a moment. The dean looked between us, puzzled. ‘There has been a sixth death? Who? Here?’ He looked around, then his eyes fixed on the shaft.
‘Down there,’ I said quietly. ‘Your former lay brother, Francis Lockley.’
The dean looked at the hatch, then stepped away, his face white. ‘Dean,’ Harsnet said. ‘Go back to your house and stay there should we need you again. And tell nobody. You have seen now that the Seymour family is involved in this, how high this matter reaches.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Benson asked.
‘Take steps,’ Harsnet said noncommittally.
‘Get out, you’re wasting time,’ Thomas Seymour said. ‘Or do you want me to take you down to get a proper look at what’s down that hatch? It’s not pretty.’
The dean shrank away. He looked round us again, then turned and went out. He called to his retainers to follow him, and we listened to their footsteps on the wet flagstones dying away.
