A Missed Murder

by Michael Jecks

  We came to the wharf and Agnis turned to me with tears in her eyes. Her bottom lip was trembling, and I tried to give her a manly, stoic smile, but if I am honest, I think that the location, the presence of Humfrie and the awareness of the knife in his hand were all sufficient to make my heart thunder rather alarmingly in my breast.

  ‘Humfrie,’ I began.

  ‘You molested my little girl, didn’t you? And then threatened her.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say I …’

  But Humfrie wasn’t looking at me. He was staring coldly at Willyam.

  Willyam stared at him. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Jen has no secrets from her pa,’ Humfrie said.

  ‘She told you?’

  I broke in, ‘Hold on! You say Willyam played the two-backed fiddle with her?’

  They ignored me.

  ‘Who else could she have told?’

  Willyam stood with his eyes flitting from Humfrie to me and back. ‘But … but we have a deal!’

  ‘Remind me.’

  ‘You kill these two, and in return you retain your post. I’m taking over Falkes’s businesses, so it’ll be worth your while.’

  ‘Will it?’ Humfrie said.

  ‘I will be a better master than the fool Falkes. He was always a gross, overbearing bully, with little brain. With me running things, you’ll be much better off.’

  ‘You think so?’ Humfrie said, and suddenly a smile broke out over his face.

  ‘I think Humfrie knows who’s the better man to deal with.’

  Now, believe me or not, this was a surprise to me. You see, these words were not spoken by me, but by an ugly, brutish fellow who stepped from the shadows. He wore long robes and had a cowl over his face. At first, I thought it was the ghost of Jeffry, and I tried to sidle away so that Agnis was nearer, but then I realized that the fellow was nothing like Jeffry. He was heavier set and had a familiar stride.

  Willyam took a step away, but he was going nowhere. He had a choice of trying to break past Humfrie or leaping into the water.

  I could not help a gurgle from escaping my lips at this point. You see, the man who was speaking had pulled his cowl back. It was none other than Thomas Falkes.

  I gasped, ‘But I thought you were dead!’

  ‘It’s no thanks to you I’m not,’ Falkes snapped. ‘I was held in a cell at Woodstock until the Justices came to hear the case, and they decided that since there were no witnesses, there was no case to answer, and released me. But imagine how I felt on returning home when I learned some evil scrote had decided to try and hurt my business?’

  ‘But, Master Blount— …’ Agnis began.

  Falkes gave an unpleasant smile. ‘Sorry, Maid. I may have played you false there.’

  ‘It was you tried to have me shoot at Michol?’ I blurted.

  ‘I learned Michol was close to the Spanish. If a known assassin was discovered trying to kill a comrade of the new King, I thought he would be tortured, and it wouldn’t be long before he squealed and told them all they wanted to hear. Then you would be gone, Blount would be gone, and the Queen would have Lady Elizabeth’s head from her shoulders faster’n an adder’s strike. And all the time, I’d be getting back to my business.’

  He turned to Willyam and his smile broadened, but it was one of those smiles that never approached his eyes, if you know what I mean.

  ‘Willyam, Willyam, I hear that you have aspirations to greatness. You want to take over my businesses.’

  ‘No, no. That was because we all thought you were dead, nothing more!’

  Falkes was standing in front of Willyam now. ‘You know, you always were a snivelling runt with no ballocks. You don’t even have the courage to face me, do you? But you thought you could take over my businesses?’

  Willyam struck out wildly, but he was a trained pickpocket, not an assassin. He fought like a man who was unconvinced, as though he was flailing to inspire fear in his opponent. Falkes was formed from a different mould. He had no desire to fight for the sake of the look of it. He wanted Willyam dead. He was not prey to any doubts. He clubbed Willyam’s hand to one side, and thrust hard with his own.

  For a few moments, Willyam didn’t seem to realize that he had been stabbed. He struggled, trying to punch Falkes, trying to bring his own knife to bear, and seemed not to realize that his strength was ebbing. He pushed and slapped, but as Falkes grinned into his face, saying, ‘And you won’t touch my Jen again, you snivelling little prickle!’ he suddenly seemed to realize that something was wrong. His legs gave way, and then he simply wasn’t there any more. There was just a sad little splash from the water below.

  I stared at the place where he had been. Falkes stared down, sniggering nastily, and Agnis gave a series of heaving little sobs.

  ‘He was a nasty little turd,’ Falkes said. He turned to Humfrie. ‘You know what to do. Get rid of them both.’

  That was one thing about Falkes, you see, He knew how to give orders. A man who has been in charge of so many others for so many years comes to understand how to issue orders. He had been doing so for such a long time that he knew his commands would be obeyed without argument. But there was a problem with Falkes’s assumption. In the months since his arrest and subsequent disappearance from London, Humfrie had undergone a change of attitude. Now he knew that he had the benefit of my contracts, he could work for less time, but as profitably, while serving his country. That was how he saw it, I guessed, because he suddenly darted forward, took hold of Falkes’s throat and jerked his chin upwards. His blade flashed down, and suddenly Falkes became limp.

  It was all over in a moment. One second, Falkes was a bull of a man, issuing instructions like a general on his battlefield, and the next he was little more than a sack of useless flesh.

  Humfrie grunted, pulling his dagger free and then casting a glance at me. ‘Don’t just stand there staring, Master Jack! He’s heavy!’

  At my own house, I opened the door with a sense of trepidation. The smell of gun smoke still pervaded, but when I walked into my little hall, I was glad to see that the worst of the mayhem had been cleaned up. There was singing coming from the buttery, and when I investigated, Raphe and the physician were both uproariously drunk. I was tempted to kick the drunken pair out, but in the end I gathered up cups and flagons of ale, and took them back to my room.

  Humfrie stood with his back to the fire, looking about him appraisingly. As I walked in, he nodded to my belt. The gun had slipped, and the barrel was protruding again. ‘You should be careful of that thing. I don’t think you are used to such toys.’

  ‘Who gave it to you?’ I asked Agnis.

  She was still in a bit of a lather, the poor wench. We had taken a while to take all the best items from Falkes before consigning his body to the Thames, and I was glad to discover that he was carrying some coin. Humfrie and I shared this bounty, before we rolled him over the wharf and into the waters. Falkes floated down the way a little, his arms moving as though he was rowing himself, face down, and then slowly sank, disappearing before he had travelled twenty yards from the wharf.

  ‘Well,’ Humfrie said. ‘That’s that.’

  ‘Aye,’ I said.

  Agnis made no sound, apart from the chattering of her teeth.

  ‘Don’t worry, maid,’ Humfrie said. ‘You are safe.’

  ‘But … but they’re both dead!’

  ‘Yes. They weren’t good men, maid. And both wanted you dead, so you’re better off without them both,’ Humfrie said philosophically. ‘And now I think we should be away. Jen will meet us at your house,’ he added, glancing at me.

  She did, too. We had only been there a short while when she knocked on the door and entered, demanding a flagon of my best wine. All I had was the stuff I had bought in for the Spanish guests, and I fetched what was left. The depleted store told me what Raphe and the physician had been drinking.

  ‘I don’t know how I shall explain all this to Blount,’ I said.

  ‘Explain what?’
Humfrie asked.

  ‘Michol, Willyam, Luys, Falkes …’

  ‘He doesn’t need to know anything about them,’ Humfrie said firmly.

  ‘But they are all dead.’

  ‘Michol isn’t.’

  ‘Well, no, but the others are.’

  ‘All the better. They can’t argue.’

  ‘We killed them!’

  ‘No, I did. And I would prefer to know that my part in their removal was kept secret between us.’

  ‘What should I tell Blount, then?’ I demanded irritably.

  ‘What did he ask you to do?’

  ‘Kill Jeffry.’

  ‘And you did. You can tell him that. If he asks about other men, remind him he didn’t ask you to kill them.’

  It was, I reflected, perhaps the best thing to do. There were some aspects that I didn’t understand, still. ‘How did Willyam get the idea to take over Falkes’s operations?’

  Here Jen had the good manners to blush. ‘I didn’t mean any harm by it!’ she protested. ‘We were just talking about this and that, and he asked about Thomas, and I may have said that he wasn’t about any more. So he started thinking he could take it all over.’

  ‘And Mal?’ I said.

  Humfrie nodded. ‘Mal isn’t bright enough to think these things through. Willyam spoke to him and told him that Falkes wasn’t coming back, and Mal thought he’d take over the bits of business that he understood. Not that he did. But now his wife is trying to persuade him to leave London with her. The dowry will allow them to buy a little alehouse, where they can look after her brothers or sisters or whoever she wants. Mal is quite happy to leave the city.’

  What I still did not understand was the position of the Spanish physician, whom I knew as Luys. ‘I suppose the Spaniard was killed by Willyam,’ I said. ‘He left Agnis at the gambling hall, went back, and tried to knock me down as though he wanted to put the blame on me for the Spaniard’s death.’

  ‘And meanwhile he killed the Spaniard and took his purse,’ Agnis said. ‘He was using that money to gamble all night.’

  ‘But why did the Spanish bring a physician here in the first place?’ I explained what Ramon had said to me earlier in this room.

  Humfrie nodded. ‘Perhaps he told the truth when he said that Philip is concerned. Sometimes childbirth can be a terrible time for a mother.’

  And, of course, now we know that is the truth of it. The two midwives who were looking after the Queen during her confinement had raised concerns about the supposed pregnancy, and others had already spoken to her husband, but received short shrift for their words. The physicians knew best, they were told. The Duke of Aragon, my friend Ramon, decided to take matters into his own hands and brought his own physician, my friend Diego, or Luys, to inspect the Queen, but before he could, Luys was killed by Willyam.

  The physicians were baffled as the pregnancy continued. After the false alarm, there were no more joyous peals of bells for the Queen’s happy result. Silence reigned from her palace where she lay or sat waiting, and gradually the matter of her child and pregnancy was forgotten. There was nothing official, but the lack of announcements was deafening, and the population began to worry once more about the royal line, and whether she would ever be able to give birth to a child to ensure the accession.

  It wasn’t likely. Her husband left the country soon after, to go and join his armies trampling over France. Without a sire, the dam will not whelp.

  And all the while, in the darker corners of palaces, in undercrofts, in chilly woods, in filthy taverns, men began to plot and discuss and agitate, and Princess Elizabeth, I have no doubt, began to hope and pray.

  And me? I was happy.

  I said nothing to Blount, but one day a messenger arrived from him, with a small purse of gold. It was not as large as Luys’s purse, nor so heavily filled, but I didn’t care. It was enough that my efforts had been appreciated.

  Not, of course, that Blount ever mentioned Jeffry again. Blount was content to learn that Jeffry had disappeared. Once more he was convinced that he had made a good choice in hiring me to do his dirty work, just as I was delighted with my selection of Jen’s father.

  Jen did not return to me. She chose to take her own path to purgatory, and somehow managed to buy a large and imposing house near the river, where she held fantastic parties with a select group of influential friends, who were guaranteed to join her because of her bevy of very high-class courtesans. Jen never told me from where she found the money for this investment, but from some subtle hints that Humfrie gave me, she had access to a certain amount of Falkes’s profits from the last ten years. She knew where the money was hidden, and Falkes had no use for it any more.

  Agnis? I didn’t see Agnis again. The idea that she could have been persuaded by Falkes to give me a gun, knowing it was without a ball, so that I could be captured and tortured, caused even her many attractions to pale in my eye. She disappeared soon after the affair. Not in a nasty manner: she decided that she had seen enough of city life. I once heard Humfrie say that she had family in Norfolk, and I believe that she returned there. The air of the city, after witnessing two murders, and perhaps the guilt of knowing she almost caused my death too, was not to her taste. Outside the Mermaid, she had thought herself bold and brave, but when it came down to it, and she was herself threatened with death at the hands of Humfrie, whether ordered by Falkes or Willyam, she learned that her courage had precise limits.

  So life continued. Humfrie spent much of his time in the taverns near St Paul’s, waiting for the days when I would go to him and suggest a fresh target. I spent my own time happily whoring and drinking, and occasionally beating Raphe. Life was good.

  But I continued to carry my pistol when I walked abroad. Just in case.