I followed Burton down the middle of the sunlit centre aisle towards the dark hole that marked the descent towards the crypt. Burton walked at my left shoulder, his eyes watching me like a cat watches a mouse. At the doorway he waved a hand that indicated I was to go first. I had no choice and once I took the first step then I was trapped, for Burton walked behind me blocking the staircase. I walked down those stone steps slowly, feeling a sudden chill at my neck as the air became quickly colder.
This was where the Court of the Arches met. A small place to hold court, I reflected, once we were down. The vault was narrow and the stone arches thick and heavy. The floor was laid with ancient tombstones, shiny and worn. It was dark, lit only by a half-dozen thin candles. Three men sat at the other end of the vault, silent and still. I looked over my shoulder. Burton returned my gaze expressionlessly. He stood in front of the door that led upstairs, blocking my retreat.
The central figure stood up and walked slowly towards me. The other two followed a pace behind at his flanks. As he came closer his black shadow was slowly illuminated and his sharp, bright eyes glistened like paternoster beads. He stopped four yards in front of me and leant forwards, his gloved hands grasping the end of a thick, black lacquered cane. ‘Sit down!’
One of his companions strode forward with a chair and placed it firmly where I was to sit. Shrewsbury stayed standing, towering over me like a black demon. His companions both drew their swords and stood one either side of me. Godamercy!
He crashed his cane against the floor of the crypt. Two swords climbed slowly up towards my throat. ‘Did I not tell thee that I was not connected with this affair?’
I looked up into his terrible face, remorseless eyes and burning crimson nose. His breath stank of rancid meat. ‘Aye, sir, but I have news.’
‘What news?’
‘I think I know who killed Anne Giles.’
Shrewsbury lowered his head so that I could see the yellow of his rodent eyes. ‘Why deliver that news to me?’ he demanded.
I spoke in a low whisper. ‘Sir, you said that the murder falls under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chief Justice Keeling and that if you were to be seen interfering in his jurisdiction, then it would be a great embarrassment to you.’
‘Indeed!’
‘Yet you said also, sir, that he would not be interested in who killed her. Yet he is a friend of William Ormonde, so it is said, and has made great efforts to apprehend a man called Richard Joyce.’
Shrewsbury’s expression did not change. He looked at me as if I had told him it was about to rain.
‘Dowling and I found agents of the Lord Chief Justice in the stone hold planting evidence that was taken from Anne Giles’s body while she lay at Bride’s. He would see Joyce condemned even though it is clear he is innocent. I thought that you may after all decide to speak with Lord Keeling since he has shown such keen interest in the murder, and since he is so set upon putting to death the wrong man.’
Shrewsbury suddenly looked weary, like I was the most witless fool on earth. Clearly the notion that an innocent man might suffer an unjust and terrible death did not irk his black, shrivelled soul the way it irked mine. He leant forward over his cane with his eyes fixed on mine so intently that it felt at that moment like we were the only two people in the world. ‘Lytle.’ He spoke slowly, rolling every word in his mouth before spitting it out. ‘I am not connected with this affair. Do you not understand?’
I knew I should say nothing, just nod, yet I did not want to lose his audience without telling him what he had to know. ‘We think that a merchant by the name of Matthew Hewitt is the man that killed Anne Giles.’
He snuffled like he was about to choke and his jaw dropped an inch. He stared at me with even more dislike than he had before. Then he seemed to compose himself, straightening his back and dabbing at his mouth with a kerchief before lifting his cane and stroking its tip against my chest. ‘Don’t waste your time on Richard Joyce. There are hundreds like him in this town and they all end up dead, either on the end of a rope because they have tried in vain to change their lot, or in the river because they haven’t. You are not one of God’s angels, Lytle.’
‘Neither did I venture that I was,’ I answered, my mouth dry.
‘Find out who killed Anne Giles, Lytle, and do so hastily. Do you understand?’ He crashed his cane to the floor in time with the syllables of the last three words, which he shouted. ‘You speak as a weak-minded cowardly fellow, Lytle. Your father would pretend to uphold the honour of your family. You speak like you would have any other man but you perform your filial duties.’ He took a sword of one his guards and held it out like a man who is skilled in the art. He pressed the tip against my throat and twisted it so that I had no option but to lift my chin. I felt the blade press into my windpipe and felt my own warm blood trickle down onto my tunic. Ruined. His eyes were flint. ‘You say nothing of my involvement to any man. You are investigating the death of your cousin. You do not use my name. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, My Lord.’
He lowered the sword at last and stood watching me a minute. Then he was gone, and his dark angels with him.
‘Come, Lytle,’ Burton beckoned me, a sly smile about his lips.
Darkness fell as I walked back slowly towards home through the emptying streets. I felt a deadening misery wrapped about my throat, hanging heavy across my chest. Why had Shrewsbury offered to help in the first place if he were so determined that his name not be linked to the investigation? It occurred to me that I had been less careful than I might in talking to others of his involvement. Since Hill’s warning I was pretty sure that I had mentioned Shrewsbury’s name also to William Ormonde and to Jane. William Ormonde had told Mary Ormonde, I knew, since she had mentioned it while I was at Epsom. So it could not be long before someone then mentioned it to Lord Keeling – and then what did fate hold in store for poor old Harry Lytle? It was my father’s fault! He that hid himself away in Cocksmouth and wrote me letters. I had delayed my visit to that place too long. I would go tomorrow.
It was too early to go to bed so I walked down to the riverside, down to the Three Cranes in Vintry. It was a loathsome little dog-hole, but it suited my mood. Taking a mug of poor ale, I settled myself down in a corner. Any that looked at me with curious intent, as if they considered striking up conversation, I glared at. A sorry predicament, indeed.
Woe was me. I downed my third mug dry.
‘Lytle.’ The sound of Hill’s voice in my ear. I looked up in surprise. He crooked a finger and beckoned me out back. I clambered to my feet, cracked my hip against the edge of the thick table and limped after him.
‘Sit down.’ Hill pulled me into a small room, which was empty save for two mugs of fresh ale and a plate of beef on a small table. ‘What have you been doing?’ He sat opposite me and leant forward, hands clasped, eyes fixed on mine. This felt like a business negotiation, the way he spoke so clearly and waited for me to speak with matter-of-fact sobriety.
I licked my lips. ‘Drinking.’
His puffy eyes were red-rimmed and beady. ‘You are making a pest of yourself at Court, Harry. You have been loose-lipped, despite my warnings, and you have antagonised Shrewsbury. He will not see you again, Harry, will not countenance your presence.’
I nodded and picked up the new pot. ‘I am of the same mind. I saw him today.’
‘I know you did.’ How so? ‘The Lord Chief Justice is also aware of you now, though he was not before.’ He shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Not good for you, Harry.’
‘No,’ I agreed, ‘and you know the worst of it?’
Hill raised his brows enquiringly.
‘I am not even related to Anne Giles,’ I exclaimed. ‘I don’t know what put the notion into my father’s soft head, but all of this is his doing. Anne Giles is no relation of mine, yet here we all are.’ I belched. It was most unjust.
‘How do you know you are not related?’
‘Everyone tells me so.’ I waved a hand. ‘Ormo
nde told me it. John Giles told me it. I didn’t need much persuasion, since the only one that says otherwise is my father.’
‘Lytle.’ Hill bowed his head and laid a hand on the table, chest deflated. He had the air of a man that was about to tell me something very important. But then he said nothing.
‘I will go to Cocksmouth tomorrow to find out what this is all about,’ I told him. ‘Richard Joyce sits in prison, blameless, yet Keeling goes to great lengths to condemn him. Mary Bedford and another old woman lie dead because the rector accuses them of witchery. Yet none of them are guilty.’
‘Who is?’ Hill asked softly.
‘Matthew Hewitt.’
Hill’s face turned a curious shade of pink, like a salmon. ‘What makes you think it?’ he asked, lips pursed like it was an effort to stay calm.
‘John Giles is Anne Giles’s husband and it is said that he was blackmailing Matthew Hewitt. We have met him and he is clearly terrified of Hewitt.’
‘Blackmailing him?’
‘Aye, so they say, though we don’t know why.’ I took a bone of beef and tore a chunk of meat off it with my teeth.
Frowning, Hill looked disappointed. ‘Why should a merchant who takes issue with a man decide to kill the man’s wife, in so public a fashion?’
The meat tasted old and rotten. Spitting onto the floor I let the bone drop back onto the plate then finished my ale. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know much, Harry.’
I watched him drink. He didn’t usually drink so daintily. Usually he drank his ale like a horse slobbers at a pail of water.
‘How do you know I saw Shrewsbury today?’
‘No matter.’
‘I saw you with Shrewsbury,’ I remembered. ‘You were sitting with him in his coach at Newgate.’
‘You are mistaken,’ he replied, with a distant calmness that implied he cared not a bushel of peas what I believed. Grimacing he rubbed a finger on the tabletop as if he was thinking hard about what to say. I gave him all the time he required.
He looked up with an open face for the first time that evening. ‘Harry, it is no longer important what reason your father had for writing you the letter and soliciting Shrewsbury’s help. It’s done.’
I started to protest but he held up both hands and glared until I stopped.
‘Joyce will hang, Lytle. The day after tomorrow.’ He sat back and watched me. I said nothing, for I was too surprised. ‘The Lord Chief Justice tried Joyce this afternoon in private.’
‘That is impossible!’
‘Why is it impossible?’ Hill snapped, impatiently.
We both knew that it wasn’t impossible, so I sat there like an odd fish, staring at him with my mouth gaping. I croaked out the beginnings of some protest before considering how pointless it would be to protest to Hill.
‘Forget Joyce. You won’t save him.’
I couldn’t forget Joyce. ‘Tell me what would you do if you were I.’
‘You asked me that before, Harry.’ Hill looked up into my eyes and spoke passionately, ‘You must go to Epsom. The answer lies there.’
‘I did go to Epsom, for the funeral. I found nothing.’
‘Then you didn’t look hard enough.’ He leant forwards again and tapped a forefinger on the table. ‘Go to Epsom, Harry.’
I stared back at him, as miserable as ever.
‘Go to Epsom.’ Hill raised himself and stood over me, his giant girth casting a shadow over the whole table. ‘Tomorrow.’ He left.
Chapter Nine
Toad-grasse
Because it occurs where toads are found.
Charcoal grey clouds paraded over the smoke and the fog, heavy and threatening. Basinghall Street was quiet. Smoke rose weakly from the chimney of Hewitt’s house before being swept away by the strong wind that battered the rooftops. It was said that Hewitt lived here on his own, just him and one servant.
The same wind blew through the coach, a chilly place for me to gather my nerves. Dowling and two of his friends sat silently back on their seats, pressed into the shadows, watching me. Dowling had refused to speak to me for the last hour. He had wanted to involve the Mayor, but the Mayor declined. Since he had no other useful suggestion to make, he was angry, yet still he refused to countenance a direct approach. I reckon he was angrier with himself than he was with me.
I had hurried out of the Three Cranes as soon as Hill left and sent message to Dowling. Hill’s opinion counted for nought − I wasn’t going to allow Joyce to die for another’s sins. Dowling and I were both of one mind – Hewitt was guilty. So we would have to prove it. For my part I had resolved that having lost Mary Bedford I wasn’t going to lose Joyce too. Dowling agreed, yet had no remedy other than mine. So he was sulking. He refused to meet my eye as I climbed down out of the coach.
The front door was heavy, carved of an exotic dark wood with strange scenes upon it. Not from the Bible, but from some other religion. I rubbed a finger against the black wood before knocking. My knuckles seemed to make no sound, neither did my fist. In the chill wind I waited, conscious of the three butchers watching me from the coach. The chimney was smoking − there had to be someone at home. Sidling around to the left I attempted to peer in through a first-floor window. The room was black, only shadows of furniture were visible. Then a flicker of candlelight betrayed some presence within. I heard shuffling inside and stood back. A window opened, the one into which I had been staring. An old man’s head stretched out, the head scabby and grey. The left eye was hooded, but it scanned me just as beadily as its neighbour. A skinny neck, long and scrawny, supported a wizened head that twisted itself to face me with an awkward sneer. The man was very old and his nose was big and hooked, like the beak of a bird of prey.
‘I am here to see Matthew Hewitt.’ I lifted my chin, hearing myself talk too fast.
‘Who are you?’
‘Harry Lytle. I am appointed by the Mayor to investigate the death of Anne Giles. I must talk to Matthew Hewitt.’
Head and neck slowly untwisted themselves and then withdrew. The window was closed and the street was quiet again. It was fully ten minutes before anything more happened. Beginning to think that I had been ignored, I started to simmer in indignant rage, but then I heard the noise of a great bolt being shifted. The door swung slowly open. The head was there, underneath it a body, sinewy and nibbled. His clothes were faded, old and misshapen, but recognisable as those of a servant. The hallway behind was furnished sparsely, but the ornaments that there were, were exotic and rare. Gilt leather panels covered the walls, embossed with gold leaf. Above the panels running around the top of the walls were more strange scenes in plaster, tall, thin characters with their arms as long as their bodies standing in awkward pose wearing elaborate headdresses and skirts and with ornaments on their arms.
I waited for the shrivelled old servant to heave the door closed again and slide back the well-greased bolts, three of them, fashioned out of a heavy metal, twisted and dull. When the servant had finished he gave me a warped stare before leading me deep into the bowels of the house; dark unlit corridors, windows covered with thick screens. Here and there an ornament gleamed and sparkled, gold and silver, cups and candlesticks, shiny shapes reaching out of the gloom like stars. Faces stared down at me from old dusty paintings, men with stern gazes and old fleshy faces, disapproving and contemptuous, lonely and forgotten. I wondered at the value of these items, but was discouraged from exploring their feel or weight by the shuffling old man who wouldn’t permit me to linger more than a pace behind. We came to a small flight of wooden stairs to the rear of the house that led straight up to a door. Beneath it was a thin crack of light. The old man didn’t climb the stairs but stood at their foot to make sure that I went up all the way and knocked on the door. I rapped twice and entered.
A small fire and a single candle lit the windowless chamber. The candle stood in a simple silver candlestick on a small circular table in the middle of the room. Two chairs sat next to the fire. In one
of these chairs sat a man. His face was in shadow, lit only occasionally by the flicker of the flames. He neither stood up nor made any sound. I walked closer and scrutinised the blank face. His skin was drawn and pockmarked. Long lines ran from his temples down to his chin like knife cuts. Little hairs grew out of his face in small clumps. I took the empty chair, which was pushed well forward so that I would be well lit.
‘I am Matthew Hewitt.’ His voice was surprisingly soft. ‘You would ask me questions about the murder of Anne Giles.’
‘Yes.’ My voice sounded strange, muffled, no echo.
‘Then do so.’ Hewitt’s eyes were occasionally caught by the light of the fire. They were still and unmoving.
I leant forward and took the poker from by the fireplace. I poked it. There was no new wood. ‘Anne Giles was killed at St Bride’s, the night of—’
‘I know all about her death, Mr Lytle, just as I know that the murderer will soon be hung.’
‘Richard Joyce did not kill Anne Giles.’
‘I think Lord Keeling would be less than pleased to hear you say so,’ Hewitt answered thoughtfully, his tone cold.
I felt a pang of fear in my guts and recalled John Giles’s warning. ‘I am sure you are right. But the fact remains that Joyce did not kill Anne Giles.’
Hewitt said nothing.
‘You know John Giles, don’t you?’ I asked.
Hewitt was quiet for some time before replying. ‘That’s my business, Mr Lytle. I have no great desire to discuss my business with you, and no need to either. We both know that you have neither authority nor influence in this affair.’
‘John Giles worked for you and stole some money of yours, or something of the sort. Then his wife was murdered.’
Hewitt sat motionless. I sat motionless too, watching his shadowed face. The only sound in the room was the crackle of timber in the grate. The candle burnt down its wick. As the fire slowly died, it rose suddenly, swiftly and briefly, spitting out its last light into the gloom, enough time for me to see the expression on his face. It was rough and grey like the face of a mountain, hairs sprouted from his chest like weeds. The eyes frightened me to my naked nerves. They were round black pebbles, shiny and alight, fixed on mine, questioning and calculating.
The Sweet Smell of Decay Page 10
