by Mike Ashley
He wasn’t to be disappointed, for over the next few days, he received a good number of replies. One or two were entirely in the negative, though several bore news of a ghastly but sadly familiar nature. In recent years, in the general London area, a variety of females, it seemed – from aged crones to infant girls – had passed into the next life through the attentions of brutal men. In many cases, as the spy-catcher expected, they were unfortunate wives or faithless mistresses, bludgeoned to death in a fit of rage or drunken madness; quite a few were the victims of robbery, throttled in their beds as intruders searched for goods, or attacked and cut down on some lonely highway. Numerous reports came from the infamous “Thicket” in Burnham, which was far to the west of London, though in all the cases there, there was evidence either of rape or theft, which was nothing new according to the sheriff of that region.
It was not a wasted exercise, however. A number of incidents, particularly and most interestingly, several from the capital’s more easterly demesnes, did match the profile that Urmston had put to the authorities, and these he made meticulous notes on.
During the previous year, it transpired, two whores had been murdered in Southwark’s neighbouring district of Bermondsey . . . several months apart, but both mercilessly savaged with a knife, one of them almost beheaded. North of the river, in the districts of Cheapside and Holborn, there had been similar killings . . . the Holborn victim had been garotted with a piece of rope, but had then been attacked so fiercely with a heavy blade, that her body was virtually dismembered. Similar crimes had occurred in the rural districts to the south. The year before, a harlot had been butchered close to Lambeth Palace; the year before that, a farm-girl taken and killed with her own pitchfork, but only after her abductor had beaten her, then violated her with a stick. Most telling of all, however, were two murders which had occurred on the same day – 29 June this very year. Two tavern-wenches had died only minutes apart, both in the shadow of St Paul’s. One was found in a street to the rear of the church, her corpse bearing fifty frenzied stabwounds; the second was discovered in the cellar of a lodging-house. Apparently, she had willingly gone down there with her assailant – probably for an assignation – but had promptly been thrown to the ground, kicked unconscious, then slashed repeatedly across the throat.
Urmston assessed this data, then took the trouble of pasting a large map to the left-hand wall in his solar. It was an impressively detailed diagram, based on the renownedly accurate engraving of the city made by Braun and Hogenberg. He analyzed the map for a moment, then consulted his notes and with several pins, each one tied with a piece of scarlet thread, began to plot out specific locations. Once he had finished, he stood back . . . and was stunned.
A moment later, John Kingsley was summoned to the solar. Without any ado, his master presented the map to him and asked him what he saw there.
Kingsley mused for a moment. “A pattern of pins, my lord.”
“Each one,” Urmston explained, “represents the scene of a Flibbertigibbet murder.”
The servant was taken aback. “Fourteen?”
“The tally has grown, has it not. However, that figure only refers to slayings in the general geographic vicinity of Southwark . . . and within the last four years. I haven’t even begun to go further afield than that.”
“He’s been busy,” the servant whispered.
“We assume he’s been busy,” his master corrected him. “There’s no guarantee these crimes are all the work of the same man, but the evidence would suggest they are.”
“Either way, it’s almost too horrible to be true.”
Urmston gave a cynical smile. “No, John . . . things are often too good to be true. But nothing is ever too horrible. Tell me, does this pattern remind you of anything?”
Kingsley looked closer. The map was basically two separate masses of complex, ink-drawn lines, heavily interwoven and straggling haphazardly along either side of the River Thames, with only the most minuscule and scrawled calligraphy to put name to detail. As far as he could see, the pins were arranged in a simple blotch, concentrated roughly to the map’s eastern edge.
“If there’s any shape at all, my lord,” he said, “a spiral, maybe?” He didn’t sound certain.
Urmston shook his head. “Only by a stretch of the imagination. Look again.”
Kingsley did, but the answer eluded him. “Well . . .”
“Don’t you see concentric rings there? Radiating out from a central point.”
The servant narrowed his eyes. “Well, yes . . . I suppose. Good Lord, of course!” All at once he beheld it, saw it exactly for what it was. “It’s web-like! A spider’s web!”
“My thoughts too,” said Urmston. “It’s entirely accidental, of course . . . or is it?”
The servant’s triumph turned quickly back to bewilderment. “You don’t mean to say he’s drawing a gigantic web?”
“Not drawing, no. In my opinion, this actually is a web . . . of a sort. Of a very sinister sort.”
Kingsley shook his head.
“Tell me,” his master asked, “where in the web do you generally find the spider?”
Kingsley thought, then indicated the very centre.
“Exactly. This is our murderer’s region of conquest. And I don’t doubt for one minute that he is able to dominate it the way he does, because he either lives or is employed somewhere here,” Urmston pointed with his finger, “in the very middle.”
According to the map, one particular building occupied that spot. Kingsley leaned closer to inspect it. A moment passed, then he took a breath. “I know that place . . . it was formerly the Church of All Hallows.”
Urmston was interested. “And now?”
“Well . . . it’s a wreck, my lord. It was defaced during the early years of the reform.”
“I see.”
But Kingsley seemed uncomfortable with the knowledge. “The truth is . . . it’s a rather unsettling place. No one goes there, as far as I’m aware.”
His master gazed hard at the map. “We must go there, John. As soon as we can.”
The Church of All Hallows, on the Southwark–Bermondsey border, was a lonely, derelict shell. Though teeming tenements hemmed it in from all sides, it was shunned by the locals, who had heard stories that ever since the place was sacked by the loutish “church-breakers” of Thomas Cromwell, only ghosts walked within its now unhallowed walls.
Urmston and Kingsley entered through the south transept, leading their horses by the reins, the clip-clopping hooves echoing eerily. Once in the main body of the building, the two men paused, awe-stricken. The high, once-multi-coloured windows had all been smashed, and chill December light cross-shafted the cavernous nave, though much of that great chamber still lay in bottomless gloom. Warily, the men proceeded. From the outset, it was evident that the venerable old building had been gutted. All its tapestries had been torn down long ago, its altar and reliquaries pillaged. The only sign of movement in there was vermin: clusters of bats visible among the arched rafters; rats scurrying between the broken pews.
“I’d hate to think our learned Anglican scholars were wrong,” Urmston said quietly.
“That kind of talk could cost you your head, my lord,” Kingsley replied nervously.
“Rather my head than my soul, John.”
They continued to explore, stepping softly, keeping their voices low. At length, they came to the first statue. It stood on a granite plinth by the stairway to the choir, and though its face had been chiselled away and its body bore numerous ugly gashes, the marks of hammers and picks, its double-crown – made from two wreaths, one of roses and one of lillies – identified it as St Cecilia.
“The patron saint of music,” Urmston said after a moment. “A lady fair of spirit as well as feature. You must ask yourselves about the men who did this, John . . . and wonder if perhaps they enjoyed their work a little too much.”
The servant made no response. As a good Protestant, he had been brought up to oppose idolatry
, but in his heart of hearts, like so many others, he now regretted King Henry VIII’s savage attacks on Catholic shrines like this, which for so many difficult centuries had symbolized the victory of God over Mammon.
They strode on, and a few yards later came to a second statue. This one too had been vandalized, though by its bare feet and the dove perched on its right hand, it was obviously a representation of St Francis of Assisi. Similar effigies, it seemed, were ranged around the whole interior of the building. The door to the sacristy was guarded by St Bartholomew and St Dominic . . . both of these had had their heads entirely chipped off. To the north side of the altar, a figure of St James was visible, to the south St Matthew and St Lucy . . . in all cases, winter light glittered on their ragged, broken edges. Lucy’s head had survived the ordeal, though an immense gash – as if denoting a monstrous sword-stroke – was visible in her delicately carved throat. Such mutilations reminded Kingsley of the many brutal punishments dealt out to real flesh and blood since this great revolution of faith had begun. The servant had been born during the reign of old Henry, a time of nonstop bloodshed and persecution, endless men and women of great name and greater deed, sent to the block; endless men and women of lesser name, to the gallows or, in several truly barbarous circumstances, to the starving-post or boiling-pot. Under Bloody Mary, an era Kingsley remembered even better, the religious tables had been turned, but little else had changed . . . every day it seemed, hurdles bearing torn and twisted bodies had been hauled through the jeering crowds, their destination Tyburn or Smithfield depending on the severity of their “crime”. Kingsley couldn’t suppress a shudder. How the judge of judges was viewing all this was anybody’s guess.
“Great Heaven,” Urmston breathed, interrupting his servant’s reverie.
Kingsley looked up, just in time for his master to hand over the reins of his horse and walk to the statues ranged along the church’s north wall.
Several seconds passed, as Urmston took the leather notebook from his pouch and consulted it. “St Peter!” he observed aloud, before moving along to the next figure. “St Paul!”
“My lord?” Kingsley said, approaching from behind.
The spy-catcher wore a suddenly fascinated expression. His next words, however, were dark and doleful. “My friend . . . I fear we are hunting an altogether new kind of criminal. A madman certainly, but a madman who enjoys games.”
“Games?”
“Macabre games, John. Puzzles of bone and viscera.”
“I don’t understand.”
Urmston pondered for a moment, as if unwilling to believe that he’d stumbled on so awful a truth. Eventually, he held up the book. “You recall that earlier this year, north of the Thames, two women were killed on the same day?”
Kingsley nodded, still nonplussed.
“Their names were Rowan Marlin and Isabel Stewart,” Urmston said. “They both died on 29 June.” He then pointed with shaking finger to the two nearest statues. “The feast day of St Peter and St Paul.”
Kingsley looked at the statues, but only shrugged. “Coincidence, my lord.”
His master nodded. “So thought I for a second. But look again.” He read further entries from the book, and in each instance, was able to point to one of the defaced statues. “Abigail Swift killed on 27 July, the feast day of St James; Mary Judd killed on 8 August, the feast day of St Dominic; Lucy Gibbon on 24 August, the feast of St Bartholomew; Dorothea Johnson on 21 September, St Matthew’s day; Anne Grey on 4 October . . . St Francis of Assisi; the most recent, Jane Wentworth on 22 November . . . St Cecilia. Must I continue?”
The two men gazed dumbly at each other, both thinking the same terrible things: First, that the horror of these murders – these unnamable acts committed in the dead of night, in the decayed depths of the city – could only be only compounded by evidence which suggested the perpetrator was more than a ravening beast, which implied that, like them, he was a reasoning, thinking being; secondly, and even more chillingly, that their murderous night-stalker might even be someone of religious persuasion . . . a Catholic fanatic perhaps, a person so scarred by the events of reform that he now fought back in this most depraved manner.
“A monk?” Kingsley ventured. “Or a priest . . . driven out of his mind by our nation’s assault on his faith?”
Urmston was unsure. “The fact that, whoever he is, he knows or has at least been in this church, would suggest something like that.”
Kingsley glanced uneasily over his shoulder. Their eyes had largely attuned to the dimness, but certain corners were still cloaked in dusty shadow; impenetrable blackness filled apertures between pillars or lurked beyond the doors to tiny side-chapels. For a moment it was easy to imagine some humped, hooded figure lurking there, a blade of wicked steel glinting in the half-light. Kingsley imagined hands that were more like talons, fur-clad and barbed, clenching with insane rage, cowled features that were dark and brutish beyond belief, bloody drool oozing through jagged, yellow teeth . . . more a monster than a man, the dreaded Flibbertigibbet . . .
When his master planted a hand on his shoulder, Kingsley physically jumped.
“Oh . . . forgive me, my lord. I . . . I . . .”
“Easy, John,” said Urmston, his own face its normal iron mask, unruffled by fear or doubt. “Come along. We’ve had a bellyful of this place . . . at least for the moment.”
They rode back through the arched passage over London Bridge. Normally, the reserve of quality tradesman – silversmiths, furriers, ecclesiastical booksellers and the like – with Christmas in the offing, the tunnel was now thronging with hawkers and coster-folk of every class. Chestnuts cracked, bundled figures laughed and joked, as they huddled around glowing braziers or watched the cockfights. At the very centre of the bridge, a bear on a chain was dancing to reed-pipes, its owner jabbing it with a stick every time it threatened to go down on all fours.
Urmston and his servant saw none of it. They were too enthused by the progress they had made, but also too horrified.
“One thing we can’t discount,” Urmston said. “The dark pleasure with which the crimes are committed. Whoever our felon is, he commits his atrocities with great relish. What I mean to say is . . . this is not the handiwork of some run-of-the-mill maniac. These women are being killed by someone who not only knows what he is doing, but who obviously enjoys it.”
Kingsley agreed. “A staunch and vengeful Catholic, who takes pleasure in extreme cruelty. It almost has the Inquisition written on it.”
Urmston glanced round at his servant. “Yes . . . it does.”
Neither spoke for a moment . . . they didn’t need to. It was only thirteen years since the Spanish Inquisition sentenced the entire population of the Netherlands to death, and thousands were tortured and killed as a result; it was only nine years since the Huguenots of Paris were barbarously massacred . . . in their homes, in the streets . . .
“Of course . . . England is scarcely awash with inquisitors,” Urmston said.
“But it was while Mary was queen,” Kingsley replied.
Urmston shook his head. “Mary died twenty-three years ago. Besides, most of her torturers fled.”
“What if one has returned?”
Urmston considered this. He still had his doubts, but if it transpired that some member of the zealous Catholic queen’s merciless clique was in London, then he would most certainly want to question the fellow. It would be unthinkable not to.
“There’s one way to find out for certain,” he said. “Come, John . . . to the Tower.”
Condemned we had remained
But he for us hath gained
In paradise afar,
Where joys unending are.
Good Christian Men, Rejoice
They entered through Traitor’s Gate, the oarsman a misshapen shadow as he rowed them past one flickering torch after another. The stench, as always down there, was appalling . . . foul water and sewage. Unlike her fierce half-sister, it was not Queen Elizabeth’s custom to display f
ragments of traitors on pikes in this close, half-drowned passage, though one particularly serious exception had been made, and even now – ten years later – the evidence was still on view. Urmston gazed with fascination at it, as they passed. It was top-half of a human skull, the lower portion having long rotted away and dropped into the water. The grisly object hung losided, the hollow eyes still pleading the lost cause of its case.
“John Store,” said Urmston quietly.
Kingsley nodded. “Quite appropriate, don’t you think, my lord?”
“Alarmingly so,” said Urmston.
The trial of John Store, former Chancellor of Oxford, and under Queen Mary an over-eager burner of Protestants, was an unforgettable moment in recent history. Like many of his savage but also cowardly sort, the moment Mary died, Store had fled the country, hoping to find a new position abroad from which he could continue his persecutions. Rather to his surprise, however, a band of English sailors had followed him to Flanders, where they kidnapped him and brought him back. Conviction and death had followed swiftly, though perhaps too swiftly for the countless numbers of his victims whose agony at the stake he had sometimes prolonged, having them raised on spears so the flames could lick at them more slowly, or thrusting burning faggots into their faces as they tried to pray. Store would have made an ideal suspect in the Flibbertigibbet murder-mystery, but as the mouldering evidence attested, his reign of terror, at least, was over.
The Constable of the Tower of London, and senior custodian of all prisoners held there, was a portly gentleman of famous family name . . . Reginald Ratcliffe, and he received his guests in one of the oak-panelled state rooms of the central keep, which was now called the White Tower. He was extravagantly clad in scarlet hose, gold satin breeches and a full-skirted doublet of scarlet velvet, trimmed with rich white fur. He sported his chain of office proudly, but was an oddly jovial-looking fellow, with plump cheeks and a neat white beard and moustache. Even so, a pious frown appeared on his face when the business was explained.
