CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CAT WAITED IN the kitchen yard at Infirmary Close. Margaret had tried to persuade her into the house, but she would not come inside. She preferred to loiter by the water butt, sheltering under a projecting roof from the rain drifting from the darkening sky.
By the time Marwood returned, it was almost dark. She heard him knocking on the street door and later his voice drifted down from an open window. He sounded angry, which did not surprise her. When he came into the yard, she was waiting for him with the newspapers under her arm. His face was white and strained. He looked anything but pleased to see her.
‘Thank you,’ Cat said.
The words took the force from his anger, as a sudden calm makes a sail hang loose and useless on the mast. Gratitude, she thought, was the last thing he had expected from her. In this past year she had learned that men were such children that it was often possible, with a little care, to manage them, or at least to steer them away from the worst consequences of their own folly.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said. ‘For God’s sake, are you mad?’
‘I’ve an errand. That’s my excuse for being here. I brought you these.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Spoiled copies. The press had been badly inked towards the end of the run. There were complaints. Mr Newcomb’s house is empty and the door is barred. So I came here.’ She held the newspapers out to him. ‘After your performance this morning, I know how important the conduct of the Gazette is to you.’
Automatically Marwood took them from her, ignoring the irony in her voice. The paper was damp from the rain. It was true that the women who delivered the Gazette were meant to bring back spoiled copies, but they usually left it until the following morning. He beckoned Margaret, who was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, and gave the newspapers to her.
‘For Sam,’ Marwood said. ‘He can take them to Mr Newcomb’s in the morning.’
When they were alone in the yard, he turned back to Cat. ‘What’s this really about?’
‘I told you. I want to thank you.’
‘Why?’
‘For securing Mr Hakesby’s release, of course.’
‘Who told you?’
‘Brennan.’
He frowned. ‘You’ve seen him?’
‘Why not?’ she said. ‘Oh, don’t worry – I’m not a fool. I know his routine. I approached him when he was walking back to his lodgings. No one saw me, I’m sure. Anyway, I wanted to find out if he was all right himself. It was my fault he was arrested.’
‘Are you sure he didn’t tell them what he knew?’
She shook her head. ‘First he was ill. They questioned him when the fever went down. But he said he was only a draughtsman, that he knew nothing worth knowing about the rest of his master’s business, or about me. And in the end they let him go.’
‘He could be lying. Have you considered that?’
If she hadn’t known better she would have suspected that Marwood was jealous. ‘You shouldn’t think so unkindly of him.’
‘I don’t think unkindly of him. I don’t think of him at all if I can help it.’
She suppressed a desire to laugh. ‘I want to see Mr Hakesby. Can you contrive it?’
‘See him? You really have lost your wits, haven’t you? Have you forgotten there’s a charge of murder hanging over you? Or that he’s only just been released from prison?’
‘And have you forgotten I’m betrothed to him?’ Her meekness vanished. She glared up at him and then forced her anger under control. ‘I know it’s dangerous, sir,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and we must take every possible precaution, but I still want to see him – to find out how he really is, what help he needs. He’s at Three Cocks Yard.’
With an effort, Marwood tried to match her reasonable tone. ‘It’s impossible at present. For a start, I’ve been ordered to set a watch on him in case you try to see him. You must wait. Perhaps in a few weeks, when everything’s settled down, and he’s back in the Drawing Office. And now you must leave here at once – you mustn’t come here again.’
‘Wait. You searched my cousin’s lodgings?’
He nodded.
‘Was there much there in the way of valuables? He must have saved something from my uncle’s ruin.’
He shrugged. ‘Yes – it’s hard to be sure – but what he had must be worth a few pounds – hundreds, even – if it’s still there.’
‘I need money. Besides, they cheated me. Whatever’s left should belong to me.’
‘No doubt. Unless Alderley left a will leaving it to someone else. But you can hardly go to law and claim it, can you? Not as things stand at present.’ Marwood hesitated. ‘But when I was there, I picked up a few things in case you needed money. A pocket clock, some silver forks, things like that. They’re in a satchel in my closet upstairs. You can have them at once if you want.’
His forethought, and the kindness that must have prompted it, took her by surprise. Her eyes filled with tears. She bit her lip.
‘Will you keep them for the moment?’ she said. ‘They will be safer here.’
‘And of course he owned the freehold of the building itself,’ Marwood rushed on as if anxious to be rid of the subject. ‘He’d cleared the mortgage on it. But the question is, how to prove your title to it.’
‘But—’
She broke off. Someone was running along the alley on the other side of the high wall at the side of the yard. No – two people, perhaps three. There were the sounds of a struggle, short and brutal, then the scrape of metal on stone, and a long, whimpering cry that tapered into silence.
Footsteps receded down the path. Her mouth was dry, and her skin was clammy. She and Marwood stared at each other. He went inside the house, calling for Sam and telling him to bring a lantern.
Cat followed the two men upstairs, their shadows leaping ahead of them. By the time they had armed themselves and unbarred the hall door, there was just enough light to see that the alley was empty.
‘What’s that?’ Sam said, stamping his crutch down on the flagstones.
Marwood stooped. When he stood up, he was holding a beaver hat with a broad brim. He stared at it by the light of the lantern, turning it around in his hands.
Sam reached out and stroked it. ‘A fine hat.’
Marwood said nothing.
‘Looks good as new. If no one else cares to have it, sir, I’d take it off your hands.’
Cat was peering at Marwood’s face. ‘What is it?’
‘Gorse was last seen in Leadenhall Street. He was wearing a new hat. A beaver.’
‘It sounded like someone was coming to the house,’ Cat said. ‘And someone stopped them, and dragged them away. Do you think it was Gorse—?’
‘We don’t know.’ Marwood stared into the darkness at the end of the alley. ‘We don’t know if Gorse was the victim or the attacker. We don’t know how many attackers there were. We don’t know if the victim is living or dead. We don’t know why he was on his way here.’
‘We don’t know anything, master,’ Sam said cheerfully. ‘That’s plain enough. Nothing new there, eh?’
‘Into the house,’ Marwood said. ‘There’s nothing we can do out here.’
They retreated inside. Marwood called for supper to be brought up to the parlour, where a coal fire smouldered in the grate. He and Cat shared a cold mutton pasty. Neither of them had much appetite. After a few mouthfuls, Marwood pushed aside his plate.
‘You must go back to your lodging in a hackney,’ he said. ‘Sam and I will escort you, just in case.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘It’s best to be on the safe side. This business grows worse by the day. I believe I may be in danger too. Two men tried to waylay me at Whitehall Stairs today. In broad daylight. They’re in the employ of the Duke of Buckingham.’
‘Why?’ Cat said. ‘What’s at the root of all this?’
‘I wish to God I knew.’
‘And Edward? How
did he fit into it?’
Marwood shrugged and left the question unanswered. When she had finished eating, he called for Sam to bring their cloaks.
‘I’m sorry about this morning at Newcomb’s,’ he said while they were waiting. He turned aside from Cat and poked the fire viciously. ‘I should have thought of how it would appear when I singled you out in the printing shop, in front of everyone. How they would gossip and sneer.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Cat said, thinking of the satchel upstairs and the kindness that had prompted Marwood to bring it from her cousin’s lodgings. ‘There are worse things.’
He threw down the poker. For a moment their eyes met. He smiled at her and began to speak. Then the door burst open and Sam staggered into the room with their cloaks over his arm.
The following morning, Cat woke early. Dorcas was still snoring on the other side of the loft. It was a Thursday, which for Dorcas would normally have been a Gazette day, and hence a day for early rising. But not this Thursday, because of Mr Newcomb’s new press.
Cat lay on her back and watched the dawn light make cracks in the tiles above her head. She listened to the animals in the stable below as they stirred and began to go about their business. The air was full of their rich, pungent smells.
She had an almost physical desire to be in the Drawing Office. She wanted to be standing before her slope in the growing light and poring over the plan that lay there. She missed her work as a starving person misses food.
Instead, she knew, she would have to spend the coming day skulking in corners and scrabbling to make a few pennies to pay her share of their expenses to Dorcas. Blessed are the poor in spirit, Cat’s father had told her when she had shied away from a beggar, and he had felt inclined to instruct her on the subject, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. That wasn’t much help at present. Had God been an architect, Cat thought with a touch of blasphemy, he would have ordered things more wisely.
Vitruvius and Palladio never left you wondering about their intentions and by and large they achieved what they set out to do. Besides, now that Cat was a woman, and no longer rich, she felt that the promise of a distant heaven was little consolation for poverty on earth. In the last year, since she had left the Alderleys, she had had ample opportunity to discover what the lives of the poor were like.
Later, Cat went out to the baker’s for their rolls. While she was there, a boy rushed in with the news that a man had been found murdered in the river, and was lying at Botolph’s Wharf by Billingsgate. No one knew who he was. On her return to the stable, Cat told Dorcas.
‘A body?’ The old woman began the laborious business of standing up. ‘We must go and see it. Murdered, you say? Help me up, will you – quick, before they take him away.’
Her eyes were brighter than usual. For many Londoners, a body – especially a murdered one – was a form of entertainment, the cause of ghoulish fascination.
‘Besides,’ Dorcas went on, ‘maybe there’ll be scraps for us on the foreshore.’
There was no gainsaying her. Cat helped Dorcas down the ladder. The two of them walked to the river under a sullen grey sky, eating their rolls as they went. Botolph’s Wharf was downstream from the bridge, where the Thames began to change its character as it flowed to the estuary. The water was dense with shipping, with smaller craft darting among the lighters and merchantmen moored midstream.
When the tide was low, Dorcas often went down to the foreshore to watch the children picking their way among the mud and the rubbish in search of anything that might retain a scrap of value. The Thames was capricious. Though it sucked away so many things, Dorcas said, you never knew what it might leave behind. The scavengers knew her; some of them would bring her their finds, and if she thought she could make a profit from a sodden rag or a worn shoe, she would buy them.
The stalls on the quayside had a strangely deserted look. Fewer people than usual were out on the foreshore. But on the quay fronting the river, a clamouring crowd had gathered, peering inwards and downwards.
Dorcas touched the arm of an apprentice. ‘Where did they find him?’
The boy turned a freckled face, alight with glee. ‘In the lee of that lighter over there – he got tangled in the anchor chain last night.’
‘How was he killed?’
‘I heard he was stabbed.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Don’t know. Maybe he’s a Papist, and that’s why they killed him. Look – there.’
The crowd had shifted for an instant, as a harbour official pushed his way among them. Cat glimpsed among a forest of legs and skirts the body of a man lying on his back on the quayside. He was naked. Someone had already stolen his clothes, before or after death. His limbs were splayed at unnatural angles, and there was a deep gash across his chest, washed clean by the water. She glimpsed bone. She swallowed, fighting back the urge to retch.
The dead man’s eyes were open, looking at the sky. His mouth gaped, pink and toothless. He had his own hair, and it splayed about his head like pale ginger seaweed. His skin was colourless apart from a generous sprinkling of freckles.
Freckles, Cat thought, freckles? Oh lord God almighty save us, surely it can’t be Gorse?
The crowd eddied again and the body on the flagstones vanished. The constable and his officers were making their way purposefully down to the quay.
Cat turned her back on them. She took Dorcas’s arm and urged her away.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
THEY CAME FOR me at last when I least expected trouble. After all, it was broad daylight and I had taken precautions. I had gone to dine at the Goat at Charing Cross, where I had met George Milcote for supper just over a week ago. Before I went into the house, I had made sure that no one in the street was taking an undue interest in my movements.
I sat at the common table, but among the shadows at the back so I could see who came in and out. Milcote often came here to escape the oppressive atmosphere of Clarendon House for a few hours. I hoped I might encounter him, to see if he could throw any light on Gorse’s abortive visit to Infirmary Close last night. If it had been Gorse.
I treated myself to a venison pasty washed down with ale. I avoided conversation with my neighbours by pretending to be absorbed in the contents of the Goat’s Gazette. I enjoyed the meal and felt I had taken a brief holiday from my troubles. Afterwards, I was comfortable and a little hazy with drink, but no more than that. For upwards of an hour in this crowded public place, the almost physical heaviness of fear had lifted from me. It had been part of my life for the last ten days and, until it had gone, I had not realized how much it oppressed me.
When I had finished the meal, I paid the bill and went out to the privy, which was in a noisome outhouse in the yard. I did my business there. That’s where they were waiting, the Bishop and the fat man, when I came out. The Bishop – I still thought of him as that, though I now knew his name was Veal – appeared in front of me, his body blocking my path. Simultaneously, I heard a step behind me, from beside the privy, and the sound of laboured breathing. A pistol prodded my side, digging deep into my waist. I grunted with pain and jerked away. The jamb of the doorway brought me up short.
I heard the cocking of the pistol.
‘It has a delicate mechanism, sir,’ Veal said in a quiet, flat voice. ‘Temperamental. I would advise no sudden movements. Roger might act before he thinks, as he so often does, I’m afraid. Nobody wants an accident.’
‘If you kill me, you’ll suffer for it,’ I said in a voice that sounded thick and not quite my own.
‘But who would know, sir? Besides, what’s all this about killing? I am merely giving you a friendly word of caution about the danger of accidents.’
The pressure on my waist increased.
‘This way, sir.’ Veal laid his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘There’s a coach waiting.’
They pushed me towards the passageway that led from the yard to the street. Too late, I began to struggle, and they closed in, squeezing me between t
hem. The fat man’s breath was hot on my cheek. It stank of beer and onions.
‘Be prudent, sir,’ Veal urged. ‘We are two to one. We mean you no harm, and on my honour we shall have you back within the hour.’
I tried to slip back inside the building, but Roger fumbled at my periwig, seized my right ear and twisted it until I squealed. They pushed and pulled me through the passage to the street, where the coach stood. I had time to note that it wasn’t a hackney. It was a small vehicle, for town use, plain and unremarkable. Once we were inside, it moved off with a jerk, its iron-shod wheels grating over the stones. The noise of the street surrounded us like earth around a coffin. The entire process must have taken no more than a minute.
Roger tied my wrists behind my back together with cord. He worked with brisk efficiency, his fingers surprisingly nimble for so large and clumsy a man.
‘Just a precaution, sir,’ murmured Veal. ‘Pray don’t alarm yourself.’
‘Shall I gag him, master?’ asked Roger.
‘What do you think, Mr Marwood? I would enjoy a little conversation if you would promise me not to be foolish.’
‘You’ll do as you please, whatever I say.’
I tried to work out where we were going. Into the Strand, perhaps, in the direction of the City? The coach made so many twists and turns, so many stops and starts, so much noise, that it was hard to be sure of anything.
‘I know our manners may seem rough,’ Veal said. ‘I’m Yorkshire-bred, sir, as you may have realized, and we don’t beat about the bush. But all my master wants is a word or two with you in private. And you must own, sir, you have made my task so difficult. This is the third time I have invited you to see him, and you force me to be less gentle than I would like.’
‘Spare me this drollery,’ I said. ‘I know who your master is, and I know what you’ve done in his name. If he wishes to see me so badly, why couldn’t he ask me to wait on him like an honest man?’
‘I hear your friend Mr Hakesby is a free man again,’ Veal went on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘You wouldn’t want any more accidents to befall him, would you? And that young woman, his maid – is that really what she is? What a curious piece of work she must be, the Regicide’s child. Like father, like daughter? They’ll find her soon enough, and I wouldn’t give tuppence for her chances of avoiding the hangman. Unless …’ He paused and glanced at me. ‘Unless, of course, she found a friend at Court who would put in a good word for her.’
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