A Cruel Necessity (A John Grey Historical Mystery)

by L. C. Tyler

  He rubs his temples with a careful circular motion and squints again at what he has been reading. He has read a great deal and still has a great deal more to read. Since 1652 his formal title has been Secretary of State. He is also Clerk of the Committee of Foreign Affairs and head of the Post Office. This last is of great assistance in the role for which he will be remembered by history – Cromwell’s spymaster. His name is John Thurloe.

  There is a knock at his door – polite but insistent. Thurloe says nothing. The door opens anyway. His secretary, Samuel Morland, shuffles in with a diffidence that is too mannered, too all-encompassing to be quite genuine. Morland smiles, because he always does. His is the mask of comedy to complement Thurloe’s mask of tragedy.

  ‘You wanted to see me, my lord?’ says Morland.

  Thurloe pauses. Did he? Something about the idleness and corruption of the officials at the port of Dover perhaps. Or the idiocy of their agent in Cologne. He has been engrossed in the letter he holds, and whatever he had wanted to discuss with Morland is no longer as important as it had seemed. He glances again at the letter. Well, while Morland is here, he may as well get his views on that.

  ‘An interesting piece of correspondence, Sam. We intercepted it a couple of days ago. The original was enciphered. I have had it written out in clear to save us both a few minutes. Judging by the charming simplicity of the code, this comes from the Sealed Knot. What a sad waste of half an hour it was for them to encode it and us to decode it . . . It is addressed to the Benedictine convent at Ghent, for onward transmission to Sir Edward Hyde at Charles Stuart’s court in Bruges – the usual route, in other words.’

  Morland gives the letter a resentful sideways glance. ‘I could have dealt with this for you, my lord. It really is not worthy of your time.’

  ‘It isn’t the first I’ve seen from this source,’ says Thurloe. ‘An agent with the code name 472. Have you come across any like this, Sam?’

  ‘I have seen similar letters,’ says Morland. He is trying to hide his displeasure, though Thurloe is unlikely to notice it even if he doesn’t. He clears his throat. ‘I was unaware that Your Excellency had also seen them. You should have told me. As you said, they are scarcely worth the effort of decoding . . .’

  ‘Did I really say that?’ asks Thurloe, running his finger down the page. ‘They are interesting, and honest too. The writer says that they have many willing volunteers to rise against the Lord Protector, but that they possess just six muskets, and those old and of little use. The muskets are hidden safely, however, where none shall ever find them. As you know, that means the stables of the local inn. Then this signature – 472. Would you like to hazard a guess as to where these letters are from?’

  Morland has exchanged the mask of Comedy for the mask of Polite Regret. ‘The West Country . . .’ he suggests.

  ‘Essex,’ says Thurloe. ‘The same village we had suspicions about the year before last. There were references to Saffron Walden and Royston and to a church dedicated to St Peter – it didn’t take too much effort to pinpoint the place.’

  ‘You have the advantage of me, coming as you do from that part of the country,’ says Morland. ‘But I congratulate you, my lord, on your deductions.’

  ‘You know that part of the country well enough, Sam.’

  Morland purses his lips. ‘The visit you sent me on was short,’ he says.

  ‘And unproductive,’ says Thurloe. ‘Still, I would have expected you to remember . . .’

  Morland turns from the contemplation of his own manifold inadequacies and back to the letter.

  ‘You wish me to return and investigate the matter?’

  ‘No, Sam. I have things in hand.’

  ‘Colonel Payne is the magistrate there, I think,’ says Morland. ‘I assume you have written to him.’

  ‘I won’t trouble him for the moment,’ says Thurloe. ‘I’m not at all convinced of Payne’s loyalty to the Lord Protector.’

  ‘Payne and the Lord Protector were once the best of friends – at least, that is what Payne told me.’

  ‘They were once. I’ve sent somebody else to investigate anyway.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Three days ago.’

  ‘Has he reported back?’

  ‘It’s still a little early. Don’t worry. I chose somebody who can take care of himself. His instructions were to be in and out as quickly as he could.’

  Morland pouts and says nothing.

  ‘Perhaps you could also take a look at the original encoded version,’ says Thurloe. His manner is almost placatory. Morland decides he may as well be placated.

  ‘I’m not sure it tells us much more,’ says Morland, quickly scanning the sheet of paper.

  ‘A lady’s hand?’ Thurloe suggests.

  ‘An effeminate hand,’ says Morland. ‘Perhaps disguised.’

  Thurloe considers this for a moment, as if unable to believe that the enemies of the State would stoop so low. ‘The lines are even and consistent,’ he says. ‘I doubt this is feigned. Reseal the original, Sam, and send it on to Ghent. Keep the translation.’

  ‘I’m not sure it is worth sending . . .’

  ‘You’d have them know we intercepted it? It’s part of a numbered sequence, Sam. Get a clerk to dispatch it to the Abbess today. Watch out for the reply when it comes. Have there been replies to those that you saw earlier?’

  Morland frowns as though remembering a minor matter with some difficulty.

  ‘None as yet. But they may be sent by a different route. I shall look out for them, as I say.’

  ‘Odd thing that,’ says Thurloe. ‘They have another route but choose to send this coded message by the regular post. Especially when it is common knowledge that we take a personal interest in all letters that pass through the postal service.’

  ‘Perhaps, my lord, they do not appreciate the zeal with which we carry out our duties.’

  Morland smiles at his own joke, but Thurloe merely nods as if at an undisputed fact and returns to his paperwork.

  Another Dawn

  I am here, at the crossroads of the village. I am here because I am no longer in bed. I am no longer in bed because, because . . .

  It is, I tell myself, because it was another warm night, and I could not sleep, though I threw to the floor first my red wool blanket and then my linen sheet. As the edge of the world finally began to turn from blue-black to rose pink, I stood at my small, square window, breathing in air that was at last cool and faintly damp. I dressed as quietly as I could and crept down the polished stairs in my stockinged feet. I pulled on my boots, unlatched the door and stepped out into a young morning full of promise.

  And yet I have slept before on hotter nights than this, and slept well. So perhaps I am here for some other reason.

  I retrace my steps to the dung heap. I look carefully at the ground. Others have been here during the last day and night, but they would not have effaced the blood that should have soaked into the ground had Mr Smith died where he was found. So where did you come from, Mr Smith? I circle the dung heap, then again a little further out, then again further still. I walk northwards along the grassy edge of the highway, watching out for any traces of blood. There are none. I cross the rutted road, the dust powdering my boots afresh as I do so with a fine, buff film, and retrace my steps, eyes glued to the ground. Thus it is that I fail to see Aminta, basket in hand, until I almost run into her.

  ‘Lawyers rise from their feather beds earlier than I thought,’ she says. ‘Or have you spent a second night guarding our village crossroads? That would have been very brave of you.’

  Something in her tone tells me that she does not really regard lying in a drunken stupor as brave.

  ‘You are right,’ I say. ‘We lawyers never sleep. But what brings you out so early? Are you gathering the morning dew for your complexion?’

  ‘That’s done on May Day,’ says Aminta, ‘as you well know. And my basket is better suited to mushrooms. So, what are you doing, cousin John? I wa
tched you tramp up the road and then back down again, staring at the ground all the while. If you were not yourself looking for dew to gather, then what can you have had in mind?’

  ‘I was looking for bloodstains,’ I say.

  ‘Better late than never,’ says Aminta. ‘I think, however, that bloodstains so close to the highway would already have been noticed by somebody.’

  We both look eastwards. Here begins the path across the meadows to the inn – the shortcut that Aminta proposed as being convenient for murderers, and Dickon as inconvenient for lame horses.

  ‘We’re going that way,’ she says, hitching up her skirt and petticoats. ‘Look lively! Half the village will come tramping across the meadow soon, with or without dead bodies.’

  The land here is ever moist, even without a dew, and the morning grass quickly wets my boots and the trailing hem of Aminta’s dress; but by the first stile we make an interesting discovery. On the ground, half hidden in the sward, is a small silver button. I pick it up and hand it dutifully to Aminta. She raises her eyebrows.

  ‘One of Smith’s buttons was missing,’ I say.

  ‘And his buttons were like this?’

  ‘Very like this.’

  She examines it dubiously. ‘Well, it might be worth sixpence, so our time has not been entirely lost.’

  Her tone is dismissive, but I can tell she is pleased. She has been proved right, after a fashion. I take the button back. There is a small piece of black thread attached to it. I know that Aminta will tell me that black thread is also much in use in Essex this year, but I think I . . . we . . . have found something significant.

  Halfway across the meadow is a fence and second stile. I examine the top bar and am rewarded by the sight of a brown stain on the wood.

  ‘What about that?’ I ask.

  Aminta’s view is that it could be almost anything that is brown. I rub a wet finger on the stain, then sniff it. Not too bad. I lick my finger cautiously. Blood? Or something else? Perhaps better not to know. But we do have a button. So, Mr Smith, were you brought this way and dragged over two stiles, leaving behind a silver button and perhaps a brown stain?

  I am aware that we should have been doing this yesterday, as Aminta suggested, not now, when any blood would have dried, and the grass has sprung back to its old shape. We press on to the stream, where we come up against a problem – I can, of course, take off my boots and wade, but it is rather deep for skirts and petticoats.

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ asks Aminta. ‘Or are you suggesting I have grown too heavy for you to carry me?’

  I remove my boots and stockings and, lifting Aminta in my arms, I wade into the stream. The water is colder than I expected and, with Aminta’s additional weight, I feel my feet sink into the soft and clinging mud of the riverbed. Waterweed wraps itself around each leg. I stumble once or twice, but we get across with Aminta’s skirt no more than a little moistened. I deposit her on the far bank.

  ‘So,’ says Aminta, ‘what can we learn from that?’

  My immediate thought is: ‘If you’re going to take a girl anywhere, go by the main road,’ but Aminta’s thought is different.

  ‘Smith was probably heavier than I am,’ she says, ‘and it was night-time. If you struggled with me – and I fear you did – then the killer would have struggled even more to get Smith over the stream.’

  I thought I’d done rather well actually. ‘So?’ I say.

  ‘If the killer came this way, either he was very strong, or he had a friend to help him with Smith’s body.’

  ‘Maybe he just dragged the body across.’

  ‘Were the clothes soaking wet and covered with weed?’

  ‘No.’

  But I think I knew that already: my cloaked rider with his arms under Smith’s shoulders, while Ben stumbles across the stream clutching the legs. Then up the other bank, with Smith still in the state you would expect if he’d gone by the main road.

  ‘True,’ I say. ‘Easier returning, of course, though the water is icy and the mud unpleasant.’

  ‘What a shame you will have to go back in it then,’ says Aminta, ‘for I see that your boots and stockings are still on the far side.’

  I sit on the stump of an old willow – what we call the ‘arse end’ in this part of the world – while Aminta dries my freezing feet with the hem of her skirt. This too she finds amusing, though I cannot say why.

  In the winter this meadow is usually flooded many inches deep, but now rose-pink ragged robin and blue bugle grow amidst the grass, with patches of dark green sedge and rush in the hollows. Across the flat fields we can see the backs of the cottages, their thatched roofs golden in the early-morning sun, and the steep, tiled mansard of the inn.

  This is certainly the quietest way from the inn to the dung heap. Though it is, as Dickon said, rarely used by those on horseback, two men with a manageable burden – two men who knew the lie of the land – well might tread lightly through the sedge and across the cold stream, and might go back just as peacefully. On their return, they would skirt the stables, as we are about to do, and find themselves in the yard at the back of the inn.

  What they would not necessarily have discovered, as we do, is Dickon.

  ‘Good morning, Dickon,’ says Aminta.

  ‘Good morning, Mistress Aminta,’ says Dickon.

  It all seems a little cool and formal. They’ve known each other as long as they’ve known me, though Dickon never got invited back to the Big House as I did, which may still rankle, assuming my mother is even half correct that Dickon once admired Aminta. The smaller the village, the longer people’s memories – and this is a very small village.

  Well, I’m pleased to see Dickon anyway. I slap him on the back as hard as I can, though he scarcely seems to notice. ‘So, what brings you here?’ I ask.

  ‘Nathan said that Ben needed some cucumbers,’ says Dickon, looking out across the meadow the way Aminta and I have just come. Viewed from here, the dewy ground sparkles, and the path of the stream is a snaking band of mist.

  ‘I thought Ben grew his own,’ I say.

  ‘Does he? Just like Nathan to get these things wrong. I might equally ask what brings you – the two of you – here.’

  ‘John had a fancy to gather morning dew,’ says Aminta.

  ‘This has nothing to do with Smith’s death, I hope,’ says Dickon, rightly ignoring any suggestions that I might be worried about my complexion.

  I tell him about possible blood on the stile and the undoubted silver button, though I can see Aminta would prefer that I mentioned neither. ‘I thought I might search the stables,’ I add, ‘before Ben’s up and about.’

  The three of us look up at the blank windows of the inn. No member of the Bowman family yet stirs. So, I am less likely to be discovered this time. At least, that is what I hope.

  ‘You actually want Ben to find you poking around again?’ says Dickon. ‘Where are you planning to drink in future then? Royston?’

  ‘You’ll be watching my back,’ I say, ‘so I’m not going to get caught.’

  ‘He won’t catch me, that’s for sure,’ says Dickon. ‘And I’m not watching anything.’

  ‘Come on, Dickon; we’re in this together.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Well, I’ll come with you,’ says Aminta. ‘Let me just hitch my skirt up if I’m going into those stables. Dickon – take this, please.’

  She passes her basket to Dickon and makes some trivial adjustment to her costume, then gets him to pass it back again. She looks at me significantly, though what she has proved apart from the fact that she can get Dickon as well as me running around in her service, I’m not entirely sure.

  Dickon is scowling at her. ‘Fine,’ he says to me. ‘I’ll watch your back, if that’s what you want.’

  I punch Dickon’s shoulder to demonstrate my eternal gratitude. My fist meets firm, unyielding muscle.

  I turn to Aminta, pleased that we now have Dickon’s help as well, but she is
tight-lipped and tapping her little foot. There is clearly something she was expecting me to do that I have not done, but, since she has not told me what it is, I have no idea how I am to do it. I doubt that she wishes me to punch her on the shoulder anyway.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ I say.

  The door creaks slightly as I open it no more than I have to. Three bodies slide into the twilight world of the early-morning stables, one gathering up her skirts as she does so. A little of the day creeps in after us in a long shaft, but the rest is tranquil gloom. Ben is playing host to one horse at present, but that is not what interests me.

  Dickon stays close to the door, peering out into the yard. The low sun lights his face. He is not happy. Aminta stays close to Dickon. She is not happy either. I, meanwhile, examine the floor carefully, pushing back the dung-caked straw with my foot. My dusty, wet boots are now also covered with straw and horseshit, which one or other of the servants will have to remove when I return home. I begin to suspect that I am wasting my time – that I have been drawn here on the silken thread of Aminta’s folly. But I am wrong. Underneath the straw in one corner is a large area of earth that is stained red brown. I don’t need to lick my finger and taste that. And I was clearly looking in the completely wrong place last night. It was obvious really – part of the inn but far enough from the parlour not to be overheard. The only questions are: was Smith lured down here, and if so, by whom? I straighten up, wondering what else the stable may tell me. I do not expect to learn it by way of a disembodied voice.

  ‘What are you doing there?’

  The sound is not ghostly, but I have a preference for voices with bodies attached to them. I spin round twice, though completely sober, and still see nobody.

  ‘You better get out of here, mister!’

  If I can find no good explanation for the voice, then I may take its advice, and right speedily. Dickon and Aminta have already left, which I find cowardly.