The Body in the Thames: Chaloner's Sixth Exploit in Restoration London (Exploits of Thomas Chaloner)

by Gregory, Susanna

  Petty though it sounded, Chaloner suspected he might well be right.

  Despite the Earl’s contention that he would be wasting his time, Chaloner spent the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon interviewing Worcester House’s staff about the missing papers. Unfortunately, his master was right: no one had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. Chaloner pursued the matter diligently until four o’clock, when most of them went home.

  He had a talent for sketching and a good memory for faces, so he drafted a reasonable likeness of the hackneyman who had taken Hanse to the Savoy, and showed it to every driver who would talk to him. It was almost three hours before he found one who nodded recognition. He was a Scot named Murdoch, who had helped him with information before.

  ‘That is Saul Ibbot. He used to work over in Smithfield, and rarely came this way, but he was here on Friday. We shared a pipe together while we watered our horses.’

  The use of the past tense did not escape Chaloner. ‘Has something happened to him?’

  ‘You have not heard? He was killed when his coach overturned in Long Lane yesterday.’

  Such events were commonplace in a city where carriages were not very roadworthy, and although Chaloner had overheard people discussing the incident, he had not thought much about it.

  ‘An accident?’ he asked.

  Murdoch shrugged. ‘Probably, although his horse – he called it Cromwell – seemed a steady nag to me. Still, it happens.’

  But not normally to drivers whose passengers had mysteriously gone missing, thought Chaloner worriedly. He walked to Smithfield in the bright, arid blaze of the setting sun, and set about finding someone who would direct him to Ibbot’s house. It took a while, but eventually he was led to a dark, dirty alley near Aldgate Street. His knock was answered by a woman with a howling baby in her arms. She was jigging it up and down furiously, so its swollen red face was a blur of continuous movement. Chaloner felt sick just watching, and was not surprised it was making such a racket.

  ‘They told me Cromwell bolted,’ she shouted, snaking out a bony hand to snatch the coins he offered. ‘But Cromwell is a quiet beast, and he never bolted before.’

  ‘What do you think happened?’ Chaloner asked.

  ‘I think Saul took a job he shouldn’t have done.’ Mrs Ibbot’s voice was bitter, and she rocked the baby more vigorously than ever. ‘He told me he had given up that line of work, but the money was easy. And it was too much temptation for a weak man.’

  ‘What line of work?’ Chaloner grabbed the baby from her before she shook it senseless. It immediately quietened, and contented itself with the occasional relieved sob.

  She folded her arms. ‘Work for the Hectors, mostly – one of the gangs what operates round here. I told him to have nothing to do with them, but he wouldn’t listen. Now he’s dead, and if it was an accident, then my name is Lady Castlemaine.’

  ‘You think the Hectors killed him?’ Chaloner’s heart sank. If so, then it boded ill for Hanse.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time they hired a driver, then murdered him to make sure he kept his mouth shut. You got a nice way with babies, sir. This is the happiest she been all day.’

  ‘Did Saul ever mention a particular Hector? A contact, perhaps?’

  Mrs Ibbot nodded slowly. ‘There was one he talked about – a woman called Mrs Riley. But I can’t say no more, because I don’t want word getting back that I been talking about her. I got the young one to think of, and Saul told me that Mrs Riley can be nasty.’

  Chaloner nodded his thanks as he handed back the baby and took his leave, but the information was not very helpful. Every spy knew that ‘Mrs Riley’ was the codename used for the King during the Commonwealth – the Hectors had been having a joke at Ibbot’s expense. Or perhaps Ibbot had just been cautious with a wife who had, after all, been willing to gossip to a stranger who had paid her. Either way, Chaloner knew this particular line of enquiry was at an end: the Hectors were not the kind of men to answer questions, and trying to locate ‘Mrs Riley’ would be futile.

  So what had happened? Had someone hired the Hectors to snatch Hanse, perhaps in an effort to sabotage the peace talks? Somehow, Chaloner did not believe it was coincid ence that a driver with dubious connections – now mysteriously dead – should have been the one to drive Hanse home. Bowed down with anxiety for a man he liked, Chaloner turned homewards.

  Hannah was asleep when he reached their cottage on Tothill Street, which was not surprising given that it was well past midnight. It was unbearably hot in the bedroom, because she believed that night air caused fevers, and never slept with the windows open. As she had lost her first husband to a sudden and inexplicable illness, Chaloner had been unable to dissuade her of the notion.

  His concern for Hanse and the stifling heat meant he slept badly in the few hours before it became light, and he found himself reviewing again and again the last moments of the evening they had spent together. They had walked outside the Sun, and Hanse had raised his arm to flag down the hackney that had been trundling towards them. Ibbot had smiled in a friendly fashion, and there had been nothing about him – not even with hindsight – to suggest anything untoward. Chaloner had started to follow Hanse into the coach, but the Dutchman had pushed him back.

  ‘You are tired,’ he had said firmly. ‘Go home to your new wife.’

  ‘Not too tired to see an old friend home,’ Chaloner had argued, trying to enter a second time.

  The next shove had been rather more forceful. ‘What can happen between King Street and the Savoy? It is a journey of a few minutes! But to take your mind off it, accept this gift – two pairs of fine Dutch stockings. The ones you wear are a little tatty.’

  Hanse should have been safe, Chaloner thought bitterly, as he tossed and turned. So where was he? Dead? Or were the Hectors holding him somewhere until the peace talks foundered?

  He rose as soon as it was light enough to see, donned clean clothes and left while Hannah was still asleep, unwilling to risk another row about the long hours he was working. He wandered through the wakening city, aiming for nowhere in particular, and had just reached King Street when he met Bulteel, who lived in nearby Old Palace Yard.

  ‘I know I am up early, but my cousin snores,’ explained Bulteel. ‘And I cannot cook while he is there, either. He tells me that baking is an unsuitable pastime for gentlemen, and recommends dancing lessons instead. However, making cakes has a soothing effect on me: if I am tired, unhappy or worried, then producing a tray of biscuits makes me feel so much better.’

  ‘Playing the viol does the same for me.’ Chaloner spoke hesitantly, unused to sharing such intimate confidences. ‘Unfortunately, Hannah does not like me making a noise at inconvenient hours, so …’

  ‘So you cannot do it as often as you would like,’ finished Bulteel sympathetically. ‘There is a lot to be said for living alone. But you once told me that all intelligencers have accommodations away from their homes, lest they are working on a dangerous case, and do not want villains to know where they live. Why not take your viol there?’

  Chaloner experienced a twinge of guilt. All spies should have boltholes, so as not to endanger their families, and he knew he was remiss in not finding a refuge to replace the one he had lost in February. The fact that he had not had a spare moment since his return from the United Provinces was a poor excuse.

  ‘I have a second home in Chelsey,’ said Bulteel. He smiled, revealing his brown teeth. It was a sinister expression, and went some way to explaining why he was not popular in White Hall. ‘I use it rarely, so you may take your viol there, if you like.’

  Chelsey was an attractively rural village two miles to the west. It was too far away to be practical as a regular sanctuary, although Chaloner appreciated the offer, and thought a distant safe haven might come in useful in the future. He nodded his thanks.

  ‘You have bought a new house?’ he asked, wondering how the secretary could afford it. Clarendon did not pay his people well, and
Bulteel was known for declining to supplement his income with bribes.

  ‘An uncle left it to me in his will. I wanted Griffith to live in it while he teaches me manners, but he insisted on staying with me in Westminster instead. When the weather cools, perhaps you will come to see it. It is a lovely place, near the church. You could bring Hannah, too. I suppose.’

  To Chaloner’s great sorrow, his wife and friend did not like each other, and the fact that Hannah had ‘forgotten’ to invite Bulteel to the wedding had not helped. Bulteel still had not forgiven her, while she treated him with a disdain that ran contrary to her usually easy-going nature. Bulteel was trying to build bridges by inviting her to Chelsey, but Chaloner suspected it would not be a good idea to accept on her behalf. There would almost certainly be trouble if he did.

  ‘You have not mentioned the message I sent last night,’ Bulteel said, as Chaloner struggled to think of a polite way to decline. ‘About the missing Dutchman. Did anything come of the matter?’

  Chaloner stared at him. ‘What message?’

  ‘Hannah probably recognised my writing and threw it away,’ said Bulteel resentfully.

  ‘She was asleep when I arrived home, and I left without waking her,’ said Chaloner defensively, although Bulteel’s claim was not entirely without foundation – she had ‘mislaid’ missives before, and had been defiantly unrepentant when Chaloner had tackled her about it. ‘She did not have the chance to pass me anything.’

  Bulteel sniffed disbelievingly. ‘My note was about Hanse. Mr Kersey, down at the charnel house, has a body matching his description.’

  Westminster’s mortuary was a grim building, located between a granary and a coal yard. It comprised a long, low cellar for storing bodies, with two more pleasant rooms near the door. One of these chambers was the office in which the charnel-house keeper collected his takings. John Kersey charged an admission fee for spectators, and also ran a small museum containing some of the more unusual artefacts he had collected from his charges over the years. The other was a comfortable parlour in which he explained formalities to grieving friends and families.

  Despite the early hour, Kersey was at his place of work. He was a neat, dapper little man whose fine clothes and expensive wig said he made a decent living from his grim trade. Chaloner might have suspected him of dressing himself with garments retrieved from his wealthier corpses, but they fitted him far too well, and were obviously the work of bespoke tailors.

  Soberly confiding that the hot weather meant he was much busier than usual, Kersey conducted Chaloner to the main chamber, where the stench was enough to make a man light-headed. The place hummed with flies, and Chaloner’s stomach began to churn. Although not a religious man, he found himself praying that the body he was about to be shown would not be Hanse’s.

  ‘Here,’ said Kersey, stopping next to a table that was about halfway down the room and lifting the sheet that covered it. ‘Is this him?’

  Chaloner felt a great wave of sadness wash over him as he gazed at his brother-in-law, a man he had liked and respected, despite the fact that they had met rarely since his first wife’s death twelve years before. Familial ties were important in both Dutch and English society, and were rarely severed because someone died or remarried, so Chaloner was still kin as far as Hanse was concerned, and vice versa.

  Their paths had crossed by pure chance in White Hall the previous Wednesday, and Hanse had been so delighted that he had hauled Chaloner immediately to the Savoy to pay his respects to Jacoba – his own wife and Aletta’s sister. Their next meeting had been in the Westminster tavern two days later, after which Hanse had disappeared.

  ‘You look as though you could do with a drink,’ said Kersey gently, after some time had passed, and Chaloner had done nothing but stare.

  Wordlessly, Chaloner followed him through the mortuary to the parlour, flapping bluebottles from his face as he went. Once there, he sat on a chair and watched Kersey pour wine into a pair of handsome crystal goblets. He usually avoided drinking from Kersey’s cups, on the grounds that the charnel-house keeper was in the habit of letting them be used for unpleasant procedures in the mortuary, but such considerations were a long way from his mind that day, and he accepted without thinking. When he sipped the brew – dawn was a little early in the day for wine, but Kersey was right in that he needed something – he was surprised by its fine quality. Clearly, Kersey was a man who knew how to cater to his personal comforts.

  Gradually, the wine settled Chaloner’s roiling innards. Seeing Hanse dead had upset him more than he would have anticipated given the number of people he had lost in his life – to the civil wars, to sickness, and because he had chosen a dangerous occupation. He could only suppose that meeting Hanse in London, combined with his recent visit to the States-General, had resurrected memories and feelings about his first family that he had thought were well and truly buried.

  ‘Can I assume it is the Dutchman?’ asked Kersey, his voice intruding on Chaloner’s thoughts. ‘I need a name, you see. For my records.’

  ‘It is Willem Hanse,’ replied Chaloner, wishing with all his heart that it was not.

  Kersey went to a desk and began writing. ‘We have Surgeon Wiseman to thank for getting him identified. He is the one who matched the description of the missing diplomat to this corpse.’

  ‘Was he able to deduce how Hanse died?’

  ‘He said he drowned – could tell by the state of the lungs, apparently.’

  Silence reigned again, broken only by the buzz of flies and the scratch of Kersey’s pen. Chaloner berated himself yet again for not overriding his kinsman’s objections and accompanying him back to his lodgings anyway. Then he took a deep breath and pushed such thoughts from his mind: wallowing in guilt was helping no one, and he needed to concentrate on what had happened, not what might have been different. How had Hanse come to drown? Was it an accident? Chaloner could not see how, given that Ibbot should have taken Hanse nowhere near the river.

  Had he tossed himself in the Thames deliberately, then? Chaloner thought that was unlikely, too. Hanse had mentioned pains in his stomach, but surely they would not have driven him to take his own life? And he had not seemed worried or in low sprits. As always, he had done the lion’s share of the talking, chatting about good times spent in Amsterdam when Aletta had been alive, his hopes for successful peace talks, and a book he was writing on stockings. Chaloner had raised his eyebrows at this last subject, but Hanse had always been interested in decorative legwear.

  Absently, he watched Kersey sprinkle sand on his wet ink. So if accident and suicide could be discounted, then all that was left was murder. The conclusion came as no surprise, given Ibbot’s connection with the Hectors.

  ‘I heard about the man who was killed at your wedding,’ said Kersey conversationally as he wrote. His profession meant he tended to be interested in unusual deaths. ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘Yes, but not well. His name was Alden, and he was a one-time Royalist spy who had fallen on hard times. I suspect he was there to see whether he could inveigle a free meal.’

  ‘So he was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Someone wanted a warning delivered to one of your guests, and pinned it on him because he happened to be sitting at the back?’

  ‘It looks that way.’

  Kersey shook his head in disgust. ‘So who was the intended recipient of this vile communication? What did it say? “Do not interfere”?’

  Chaloner only nodded, unwilling to admit that he had failed to unravel that mystery, too. Most of the guests had been strangers to him, because Hannah had invited a large number of courtiers, not to mention members of the Privy Council. Being politicians and aristocrats, many indulged in shady dealings, but – not surprisingly – no one had been inclined to discuss them with him.

  ‘What about your colleagues?’ asked Kersey. ‘Fellow intelligencers? Could the message have been intended for one of them?’

  Chaloner shook his head. Hannah had not invited any of thos
e to her elegant celebrations. Besides, espionage was a dangerous way to earn a living, and most of them were dead.

  ‘Are you looking into the matter?’ persisted Kersey, trying a third time to solicit a verbal reply.

  Chaloner made a noncommittal gesture. Hanse’s death, along with the missing Privy Council papers, meant Alden would have to be shelved for a while. But only for a while, he determined, because no villain was going to commit murder during his wedding and get away with it.

  ‘Well, at least there is no suggestion of foul play with Hanse,’ said Kersey, setting the lid on his inkwell. ‘He must have fallen in the Thames. It was an accident.’

  ‘I disagree. He had no reason to be near the river. I think he was pushed.’

  ‘It is possible, I suppose,’ acknowledged Kersey, although he did not sound convinced. ‘But I hear he was fond of his wine, and he would not be the first drunkard to topple into water.’

  ‘He did drink a lot,’ conceded Chaloner. ‘But he was not drunk the night he disappeared.’

  Kersey regarded him curiously. ‘How do you know?’ ‘Was anything recovered with his body?’ asked Chaloner, unwilling to tell him.

  ‘You mean did I find the Privy Council papers he stole from Clarendon, so that when our two countries go to war, he will have given the States-General an advantage over us?’ enquired Kersey archly.

  Chaloner regarded him in horror, aghast that a charnel-house keeper should know about a matter that should have been contained within the Earl’s household.

  ‘It is common knowledge,’ said Kersey defensively, when he saw Chaloner’s shock. ‘Everyone knows Worcester House was burgled the day that Hanse and Ambassador van Goch visited it.’

  ‘Christ!’ muttered Chaloner, more appalled than ever. ‘Are you saying Hanse had the papers, then? Where are they?’

  ‘I did not find them. The body was stripped by the time it came to me.’

  Chaloner winced. ‘By the people who found him?’