by D. K. Wilson
‘Facts, Master Treviot. Facts, facts, facts!’
I explained that Robert and I had an arrangement to meet at the Mercers’ Chapel, that I had come across a group of men close by the conduit and found them gathered round Robert’s body.
‘How was the body lying?’ Kernish asked.
‘He was on his back, feet towards the conduit. His cloak had fallen open and there was blood on his doublet.’
‘Was there a weapon of any kind on the ground?’
‘Not that I saw.’
‘And none of the bystanders was holding a sword, knife or poignard?’
‘I… don’t know… but I can’t imagine…’
‘We’ll have no imagining, if you don’t mind.’
‘Sorry. It’s just that if one of those men had struck my friend down, the others must have seen.’
‘Unless they were all complicit.’
‘You mean they might all have been waiting for him in ambush?’
‘At this stage I must rule nothing out. Were there others abroad at that hour? Did you see anyone running or walking from the scene?’
‘The Cheap is very quiet at night’s end and it was dark. Yet, I am sure I would have noticed anyone hurrying away. There was a fellow there – a tanner – who claims that Master Packington was accosted by a foreigner in a hooded cloak who made off down Bucklersbury, but I saw nothing.’
‘A foreigner, eh? A convenient tale. Strike down your victim and lay the blame on some stranger. Well, we shall see what your tanner has to say for himself. Daniel’ – he turned to his secretary – ‘bring the fellow in. Master Treviot, you may stay, if you wish.’
When obliged to appear before authority the voluble leatherworker seemed to have lost his tongue. He stood in the middle of the room nervously twisting his cap in his hands. He gave his name as Dick Fennel.
Though nervous and rendered even more so by Kernish’s brusque manner, the tanner stuck to his story. He explained that he had taken his place by the conduit, as he did most mornings, in the hope of acquiring casual work. He had seen Robert approach, at which point a hooded figure, who apparently managed to be both ‘a foreigner’ and ‘Satan’, had pointed at him, called out something, then discharged ‘a bolt from hell’, whereupon Master Packington had fallen back dead.
The coroner was distinctly unimpressed.
‘At this rate,’ he groaned, ‘we shall be here all day and no further forward.’ He glowered at the cringing tanner. ‘Put your mark to this statement. Then get out and send in the next witness. Pray God he is not as witless as you.’
Fennel scrawled on the paper where the secretary indicated and gratefully shuffled from the room.
What we learned from the next two witnesses took us no nearer to identifying the assassin or, indeed, to understanding the exact nature of the assassination. There seemed to be agreement that a cloaked and hooded figure had pointed at Robert, at the same time calling something out. One of the apprentices, a wide-awake looking young man with untidy fair hair, who gave his name as Benjamin Walling, provided the clearest and most succinct evidence, though it scarcely made sense. It was his firm opinion that the murderer had demanded – though with a thick and possibly foreign accent – ‘Who’s there?’ and that Robert had replied, ‘Thomas.’
I was still trying to make sense of that when the door burst open and Dr Drudgeon strode in. Harry Drudgeon, whom I had known all my life, was our family physician and I had had no hesitation in sending for him to examine Robert’s body. He entered now, rubbing his hands on a red-stained apron. Always a fastidious man, he had been careful to cover his grey satin doublet but there was a streak of blood across one cheek and on his neatly trimmed beard. I had no need to introduce him to the coroner; most of the City’s leading professionals were known to each other and I imagined that Harry was well accustomed to giving evidence at inquests.
‘Welcome, Doctor,’ Kernish said, waving the newcomer to a chair. ‘Doubly welcome if you can provide us with any more substantial evidence about this sad affair. So far we have only heard from witnesses who talk of a hooded man, shouting unintelligibly and somehow stabbing his victim at several paces without leaving any trace of his weapon behind.’
‘No mystery there, Master Kernish.’ He opened his hand and allowed a small metal pellet to roll on to the table. ‘There’s your weapon.’
Chapter 11
We all stared at the tiny object. I expressed our bewilderment. ‘That looks like… shot, arquebus shot.’
Harry nodded, ‘It is arquebus shot.’
‘But that is not possible.’ I pictured the weapons I had sometimes seen the militia practising with on Finsbury Field or stored in their racks in Leaden Hall. Four or five feet in length, they were quite unwieldy.
Kernish agreed. ‘The assassin could not have discharged a firearm without being noticed. Even if no one saw the flame applied to the smouldering match, the flash and the explosion as the powder ignited must have been clearly visible from yards away.’ The lawyer seemed personally affronted by facts that refused to fit together.
Drudgeon shrugged. ‘My job is to decide the cause of Master Packington’s death, not to explain the circumstances surrounding it. I was a surgeon with the King’s army in ’thirteen and I know a gunshot wound when I see one. I removed that ball from Master Packington’s heart and I will stake my career on the fact that he was shot with a firearm.’
We were all struck dumb. I wager the others were thinking the same as me: This sort of thing did not happen in London… or England. In Italy, possibly, or the wilder parts of Germany, but London?
‘Perhaps Fennel was right,’ I muttered. ‘All that talk about a hooded foreigner.’
Ben Walling spoke up. ‘We did all hear a noise.’
‘So we did,’ I recalled. ‘That must have been what Fennel called a bolt from hell.’
‘Describe this noise,’ Kernish demanded.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it was a sort of explosion. It echoed along the street.’
‘So it could have been a gunshot?’
‘I suppose so,’ I replied lamely.
‘That would mean there’s an assassin loose on the streets of London,’ the apprentice muttered.
Kernish re-established command of the meeting. ‘We must not jump to conclusions. We have ascertained that the victim was shot and the witnesses I have so far seen agree that a stranger pointed at him. Was it a gun that he pointed?’
Both the apprentice and I shook our heads firmly. ‘No,’ I said, ‘it takes two hands to fire an arquebus. Someone would have noticed. The murderer could never have discharged his weapon and got clean away without being challenged.’
‘He’d have been a fool to try,’ young Walling added. ‘My friend Bart and I would have been after him straightway. We’d have made him wish he’d never set foot in Cheapside.’
‘So what became of this stranger?’ Kernish asked.
Walling thought carefully. ‘When Master Packington fell we all moved forward to see what was amiss… whether he needed any help.’ He frowned. ‘The killer must have made his getaway while we were distracted.’
‘Fennel swears he saw the man run off down Bucklersbury,’ I said, ‘but what store we can set by his testimony…’
Drudgeon removed his apron and smoothed down the sleeves of his doublet. ‘Well, Master Kernish, that is a problem I must leave with you. I have patients to see and I’ve not yet broken my fast. With your leave, I’ll sign my statement and be on my way. My condolences, Thomas. I know how close you were to Robert.’
While the physician was bent over the table, I drew Walling to one side. ‘I’d be obliged if you and your friend could stay for a while. Go to the kitchen and tell my cook to draw you off some ale and find you some bread and cheese. There are a couple of things I’d like to go over with you in private.’
Kernish devoted another half-hour to questioning the witnesses. Then he made a cursory examination of Robert’s body. Drudgeon had closed up h
is incision in the chest and replaced the clothing so that the only visible evidence of the crime was the caked blood on the shirt and doublet. The corpse could tell us nothing that Drudgeon had not already deduced. Strange and appalling as his findings were, there was no escaping the fact that someone had slain my friend with a gun at close range and then made his escape in the darkness and mist.
The lawyer departed to view the scene of the murder and ordered us all to accompany him. I went down to the kitchen where I found the two apprentices doing justice to a hearty breakfast. I informed them of the coroner’s instructions and we left together to make the short return journey to the Great Conduit. As we walked I probed further what the young men had seen or, more specifically, heard.
‘Ben, you said the assassin called out, “Who’s there?”’
‘Yes, something like that.’
‘Definitely not words in a foreign language?’
‘No, he had an accent but his meaning was plain enough. Well, it must have been or Master Packington would not have replied.’
‘Now that is what puzzles me. Are you absolutely sure that he called out “Thomas”?’
It was Bart who replied. ‘Oh, yes. That was quite clear.’ Ben Walling’s friend, tall and pinch-featured, had about him an air of studious seriousness that made it difficult to doubt what he said.
‘Was it a statement or a question?’ I asked.
Ben looked at me with a bewildered frown. ‘I don’t take your meaning.’
‘Well,’ I explained, ‘did his inflection suggest that he was saying, “Yes, I’m Thomas” or “Thomas, is that you”?’
‘I don’t recall… What happened next… Well, we all saw…’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, does it matter?’
‘It matters a great deal to me.’
We had arrived at the conduit house where a crowd had gathered. News of the tragedy had spread rapidly, as it always does in the City, and a solemn mood had descended on the thoroughfare and its market stalls. Shopkeepers, customers and passers-by had gathered and now watched as Kernish cleared a space and arranged his witnesses within it in the places we had occupied at the time of the incident. With his pernickety thoroughness he took each of us again through our recollections of the murder. At last he released us with strict instructions to present ourselves in the Mercers’ Hall seven days hence for the formal inquest before a jury.
As we dispersed, Ben Walling clasped my hand. ‘I’m truly sorry about your friend. This was a monstrous business.’
‘Aye, and the murderer will be well away by now,’ Bart added. ‘I doubt Master Kernish will ever find the truth of it.’
‘He may not but I will track the hellhound down and avenge Robert’s death.’ For the first time I gave expression to the passionate determination that had been forming in my mind.
‘How?’ Ben asked.
‘For a start by asking some different questions – questions the coroner did not ask.’
The apprentices exchanged puzzled glances.
‘Think about it,’ I urged. ‘Was this a random killing or was it planned?’
‘It must have been planned,’ Bart said. ‘The assassin was lying in wait for his victim.’
‘I’m sure you are right. But who was his intended victim? Can you spare me a few more minutes?’
‘Oh, aye,’ Bart answered. ‘We’ve time enough. We’ve been suspended by our craft masters.’
For the first time that day I laughed. ‘Oh, I see, caught in a drunken brawl, were you?’
Bart scowled. ‘It was conspiracy. Business is bad and the freemen look for any excuse to wriggle out of their duties to their apprentices. I was accused of involvement in an affray and Ben’s master says he tried to seduce his daughter.’ He giggled. ‘If you could see the girl in question! Even Ben is not that desperate.’
‘Come with me, then, and I’ll tell you what puzzles me.’ I led the way back along Cheap. After a few yards we turned into the narrow entrance to Sopers Lane. Though the sun was now up, daylight still struggled with the gloom between the tall houses. We crossed the intersection with Needlers’ Lane and stopped after a few more paces. I pointed across the street to a building with a hanging sign bearing the symbol of a man’s leg.
‘That is – or was – Robert Packington’s house,’ I said. ‘Now, if you were an assassin come to shoot him, where would you choose to do it?’
It was Ben who came back promptly with an answer. ‘Probably on the corner along there. You have a good view of the house and can make your escape past St Pancrate’s or run on down here to Budge Row.’
I nodded. ‘I agree, so why did our man take his stand in Cheap, where there were other people around?’
Ben ran a hand through his fair hair. ‘Perhaps he did not know where Master Packington lived.’
‘Or perhaps he did not know Master Packington by sight,’ Bart said quietly. ‘He had to position himself close to the Mercers’ Chapel where he knew his victim was headed and get him to identify himself by calling his name.’
‘But that’s just it!’ I exclaimed. ‘If what you say is right, Robert did not identify himself. He called out, “Thomas.”’
The young men looked at each other, then at me. Bart said, ‘You don’t really think…’
‘I was also making my way to the Mercers’ Chapel,’ I said. ‘Are you absolutely sure you heard a’right?’
Ben nodded. ‘But there are lots of Thomases in London. Is there anyone who would want to murder you?’
I thought of the Seagrave clan. Could this be a revenge attack? ‘It seems a strange coincidence that I was due to meet Robert there and that the killer was lying in wait for someone named Thomas.’
There was a long silence broken, at last, by the thoughtful Bart. ‘Did anyone else know about this meeting?’
‘Not unless Robert told someone,’ I said. ‘It was only arranged last night.’
‘Then you must not reproach yourself,’ he replied. ‘You cannot know that the murderer mistook his target.’
‘Don’t be an ass, Bart!’ his friend snapped. ‘If the assassin made a mistake, Master Treviot has a serious enemy and may still be in danger. ’Tis that that worries him.’
‘Nay, I’ve no care for myself,’ I said. ‘I would gladly have taken that shot in my own body to save the life of a better man than I will ever be. Thank you, gentlemen, for your help and your time.’ I took a noble from my purse. ‘Here’s some recompense. I wish you better fortune with your churlish masters.’ I set off back along the street.
All that day I gave little thought to my work. Customers came and went. John Fink had accounts and orders for materials that needed my approval. But I did no more than go through the motions. There was a numbness in my soul and a buzzing confusion in my head. As soon as the shutters went up for the day, I called upon Margaret Packington. I found her in shock and grief with two close friends who were helping her cope. I muttered a few woefully inadequate words and after a brief stay took my leave.
Most of the next night I wrestled, sleeplessly, with accusing thoughts and answerless questions. If Robert’s death was, in some way, my fault, I would never be able to forgive myself. But was it my fault? I had enemies – that much was certain. Would any of them go as far as murder? Simon Leyland had made his hostility well known and had business difficulties but I could not imagine him resorting to such desperate measures. Seagrave’s family? I recalled Ned’s nervousness about a backlash to the courtier’s death. How far might they go in pursuit of revenge? And, anyway, my thinking always came up against the same obstacle: how could any harbourers of ill-will possibly have known I was going to be on that street before dawn. The arrangement had been made only a matter of hours before and I, certainly, had told no one. Which left Robert himself as the only possible source of the information. Yet, if he had been the intended victim, how could the assassin’s behaviour be explained? To waylay his victim in front of witnesses when he could have done so in the seclusion of Sopers Lane? To use a gun
that would draw attention to the crime rather than a silent knife? Such actions did not suggest the work of a rational mind. Could it be that this was, after all, a random killing, the action of a madman?
At some point in the early hours I quit my bed’s tumbled sheets and lit a candle. I became aware of noises outside and opened the shutters to peer out. I saw a group of men carrying lanterns and armed with staves. Two of them wore common soldiers’ helmets. All were bundled up with thick cloaks against the dank night air. One appeared to be issuing orders and I recognised him as our current ward constable. He divided his force into two groups and led one further along West Cheap; the other set off towards the Standard and Poultry. So, I thought, the watch has been put on alert. A pity they were not more attentive twenty-four hours since.
