Blood On the Stone

by Jake Lynch

  Jim had now whittled a small notch on the side of the wooden oven door, into which Cate could insert a metal hook to loosen it when the contracting air within sealed the board tightly in its cavity. Removing a batch of caraway cakes to cool, she felt her mood lighten as she recalled the day Luke had come into the kitchen to help her open and rekindle the oven. He had met her gaze for slightly too long, causing her to look down in modesty; then, when he passed her the flame, their eyes had met again, bringing a smile unbidden to her face.

  Small past mysteries suddenly made sense. She remembered his consideration, during visits to Hanage House to brief them on the court case. She realised at the time that he must come into contact with far too many grieving relatives for all to be given the same care and attention they themselves were receiving. She assumed it was out of respect for the Weston family. But there were clues, when Cate looked back, that she herself was the chief object of his ministrations. In her grief, she had dismissed them, but, in retrospect, it was clear that his feelings were rapidly deepening. Why, at one point, he had leant in towards her, to speak confidentially about aspects of the investigation, and she noticed he was trembling. When they shook hands on his departure, Luke’s grip would linger, as if longingly, on hers.

  But what were his intentions? Indeed, what could they be, as a married man twice her age? Divorce – even for Protestants – was, she knew, difficult and expensive, and thus extremely rare. She would not altogether put it past Luke Sandys to get one. Even if he did manage a legal separation from his wife, however, neither her family nor her Church could accept him as a husband. Gazing absently at the kitchen window, Cate took up two freshly starched linen cloths and used them to line the baskets. She might contemplate defying Father Morris. Whether she was truly willing to shock, even scandalise her mother and father – that was an altogether different question. One she regularly asked herself, without ever coming up with a convincing answer.

  As she loaded up the last of the cakes for afternoon delivery, Cate decided to look on the bright side. Surely the political and public mood could not remain indefinitely at fever pitch, and it would be safe some day for Catholics to pursue their religion openly? This was the central thread of the rosier future she imagined for herself. Perhaps then she would be free to marry Luke Sandys; or even another suitor, of her own faith. No one could replace Marcus, who had been her first love – but surely his death would not altogether extinguish her chances of happiness?

  Cate fingered her crucifix through the simple linen of her kerchief, under which it was safely concealed. Next to it she had tied a single black ribbon through her string of rosary beads, which were threaded on to the same cord. They had married in secret, as a public ceremony in a Roman Catholic place of worship was considered too dangerous amid the overwrought political atmosphere brought about by the Popish Plot. Instead, the wedding mass had been quietly administered in the old chapel at Hanage House, with immediate family and their retainers the only guests. So, she must now mourn in secret. With a sigh, the young widow Weston passed the straps of the twin baskets over her shoulders, laced on her bonnet, slipped out of the side door and set off on her round.

  Chapter 38

  Back to The Unicorn and Jacob’s Well

  It was half an hour or so later when Luke and Robshaw once again pushed open the door of The Unicorn and Jacob’s Well. Their arrival caused the already low level of conversation to hush further. A smattering of locals were evidently trying out the new option for a quick jar, along with a much-reduced number of Green Ribbon men compared with their first visit – though Luke noticed they included Settle and his black friend, the slightly convex crown of his hat visible on the seat beside them. The pair followed the constables with a glare of unconcealed hostility from their position at the back of the room.

  ‘You’re not too busy, Unsworth, you can spare us a few minutes.’ It was not put as a question. ‘In the back.’ Luke jerked his head towards the rooms at the rear of the premises, and for the avoidance of debate Robshaw grabbed the landlord’s arm, although he put up scant protest. Through a door from the bar they entered a back parlour with a stone floor, which had another door to the yard outside, and corralled Unsworth into a corner.

  ‘I want you to tell me exactly what you overheard when the man Harbord said was “not a member” of the Green Ribbon club came to call on him on Monday.’

  ‘Aye, I heard you’d had to let that feller go,’ the innkeeper said, features settling into his trademark sly grin as he rubbed his sore arm.

  ‘There’s more where that came from, if you don’t cough,’ Robshaw growled.

  ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Robshaw,’ Luke said. ‘Master Unsworth values his new liquor licence, so he’s obviously just collecting his thoughts before telling us everything he knows.’

  Unsworth switched to another of his favourite facial expressions: one of injured innocence.

  ‘Why, I was coming to see you, Master Sandys, at the Guildhall, I swear!’ he protested. ‘Only you’ve been that busy, what with arresting the wrong man.’ Robshaw fingered the heavy wooden stave at his side.

  ‘Less of your lip,’ he said. Luke lifted a hand, keeping his eyes fixed on the landlord, who gulped and glanced at the door to the bar, which they had closed behind them.

  ‘There’s things I could tell you about them there Green Ribbons as’d make your hair curl,’ Unsworth said, lowering his voice. ‘I listens from behind the bar when they holds their meetings. Their plots and plans – why, some of them sounds like treason.’

  Luke glanced at Robshaw. Perhaps he would have to let his deputy loose on this annoying specimen after all.

  ‘Very well,’ he said with a deep breath, resolved to give the innkeeper one more chance. ‘You can tell us about the Green Ribbon Club and their meetings in due course. But let’s begin with Monday. You said a man came to see Harbord and they had a quarrel, at the door?’

  ‘Well, I heard raised voices, so I assumed.’

  ‘You assumed. What was it you heard said? Think, man, it could be important.’

  ‘Why, he said as how Harbord should meet someone, now he was back in Oxford, like.’

  ‘Meet whom?’

  Unsworth shook his head.

  ‘That I never heard, sir.’

  ‘Was that what made Harbord angry?’

  ‘Well… there was one particular word this feller used, what seemed to get him proper batey.’

  At that moment there came an almighty crash-and-thud from behind the closed door, followed by the unmistakable ‘zhush-ing’ of broken glass being strewn in shards across the floorboards and a shout of ‘Hoy!’ The constables jumped, their heads snapping round towards the source of the noise. Unsworth subsided, as if in stages, against the wall, his breath immediately beginning to come in shorter and more audible gasps.

  ‘Stay here!’ Luke barked at the innkeeper, who could scarcely have moved if he’d wanted to, frozen in panic as he evidently was. The pair unhooked their staves from their belts, and Robshaw flung open the door to the bar.

  Luke braced himself: he had intervened in tavern brawls many times, and knew that trouble could erupt without warning when drink was being taken, almost as a change in the wind. As they re-entered the bar, it took a moment to register that, in this case, the antagonists had already quit. The only remaining customers were two locals: an older man, bleeding from the forehead where a sliver of glass had evidently flown too quickly for his age-dulled reflexes to permit evasive action, and a younger one – his son? – who was now supporting him.

  Luke walked quickly over to the pair, feeling in his coat pocket for the spare dressing Dr Radcliffe had given him when treating his own head injury after the riot. That was a mere graze, after all: and this fellow’s wound was fresh.

  ‘Here – take this,’ he said.

  ‘Why, thank you, sir,’ the older man exclaimed, as the younger quickly unfolded the bandage and began to wind it around his head.


  ‘You were lucky – an inch lower and ’twould’ve been your eye,’ Luke said. ‘So – was it a fight? Where are the combatants? Gone, obviously?’

  ‘Why, all them fellers what was in here went straight out, sir,’ the younger man confirmed. Robshaw had already surmised as much, and was now on the doorstep, looking up and down Fish Street.

  ‘Only ’twasn’t no fight,’ the drinker was continuing as Luke moved to join his deputy. ‘Just a great big smash through the window.’

  They peered first south, towards Bacon’s Tower and the bridge at the entrance to the city, then north towards the junction with Cornmarket, Queen Street and the High. Among the still-copious foot traffic of late afternoon, however, there was no way to pick out anyone who might have attacked The Unicorn and Jacob’s Well, nor any sign of the Green Ribbon men who’d apparently quit the premises en masse at the first sign of trouble. They went back in.

  ‘So where is it, then – presumably it was a big rock or something, that was thrown in?’ Luke asked the father-and-son team.

  ‘Why nay sir, ’twas that there,’ the younger replied, gesturing towards a mess of overturned stools behind the broken window. Luke still could not see the missile – strange, as it must have been substantial, given the size of the hole it made.

  ‘I can’t see it.’

  ‘That, sir – that chair there,’ his informant replied.

  ‘What… you mean, one of the pub’s own bar-stools?’

  ‘Aye, sir, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Them two as was sitting yonder, the thin man and the big blackamoor,’ – he inclined his head towards the back of the bar, where Settle and his companion had been – ‘they got up soon as you took off into the back, and went out the door, in a fearful hurry, like. The black one, he picked up that stool on the way, then next thing we knew, ’twas flying back in here through that there window.’ Luke shook his head and frowned.

  ‘But why would them Green Ribbons attack their own tavern?’ Robshaw wondered.

  A great throb of dread rose in Luke’s gorge.

  ‘Why indeed, Robshaw? Come on!’ He led them quickly back towards the rear parlour and thrust open the door. The sight that greeted them confirmed his worst forebodings: Unsworth, his stricken form folded into the angle of wall and floor, a flow of deep crimson emanating in time with his laboured breaths from a gaping wound in his lower chest. The door to the outside yard swung on its hinges, and in two quick steps Robshaw reached its threshold and looked out.

  ‘No one,’ he said, as Luke snatched a grimy linen covering from the corner table and crumpled it over the innkeeper’s punctured midriff, applying pressure in an attempt – futile, he already knew – to stem the bleeding.

  ‘Unsworth! The word! There was a word the man used to Harbord, that made him angry. You were about to tell us – what was it?’ Luke was beside himself – how could they have been so stupid? Throwing the stool through the window had been a classic diversionary tactic to draw their attention from the matter in hand, and they had fallen for it. Unsworth moved his lips inaudibly, and Luke lowered his ear to the dying man’s face.

  ‘Be… be-betray,’ he gasped out. ‘You betrayed us.’

  ‘You betrayed us?’ You’re sure that’s what he said?’ The slight affirmatory nod of his head was the last act on earth by the landlord of The Unicorn and Jacob’s Well. Unsworth’s chin slumped on to his chest, his eyes glazed over, and he was gone.

  ‘Morraine seize us!’ Luke looked up at his deputy, aghast.

  ‘We’ve been played for a coney, and no mistake.’ Robshaw spat disgustedly on the floor. Luke’s mind was racing, the pieces of the mystery now starting to fit together. Could Monday’s caller have been from the Whig side of politics, and known about Harbord’s treachery with the French? Hence, perhaps, his accusation that the MP had ‘betrayed us’. Maybe Harbord’s fellow fanatics in the Green Ribbon Club caught wind of it too, and maybe some of them killed him for it. Luke would be amazed if Settle and his friend were not involved. With Gregory’s arrest, the investigation was, from their point of view, barking safely up the wrong tree. But news of the trooper’s release, and the constables’ arrival at the inn later the same day, had changed the picture. The pair must have decided Unsworth needed to be silenced before he could tell Luke something that would incriminate them. They had to act fast: they had left in a ‘fearful hurry’, the young man said.

  Realising the constables would react immediately to an apparent outbreak of unrest, they had managed to cause a commotion in the bar, and sure enough Luke and Robshaw had come running. Then they had simply dodged round the side of the building and entered the back parlour through the door from the yard, stabbing the innkeeper before he could say anything. Luke’s gall over being so easily fooled was mitigated by two things, at least: he had managed to get Unsworth to ‘cough’ – Robshaw’s word – before he breathed his last. And now at least they knew who they were looking for: in connection with not one murder, but two.

  ‘Go over to the Guildhall and fetch a few men,’ he told Robshaw. ‘And make sure you get the names of those two drinkers in the bar – we may need to speak to them again.’

  ‘Yessir. And you?’

  ‘I’m staying with the body,’ Luke replied. ‘After what happened with Pawling and Harbord, I’m taking no chances. I’m not having any more evidence tampered with.’

  Chapter 39

  Cate at the Mermaid

  Cate had called on all her usual customers on Cornmarket Street. Not The Golden Cross or The Star, for they were sizeable coaching inns like The Mitre, and had their own ample kitchens. No: it was in the smaller taverns where she prospered, and found, moreover, a friendly welcome. So, heading north up the east side, Mistress Tuplin at The Bell greeted her with a cheery ‘Afternoon to you, my pretty. What’ve you brought for us today?’ And the return journey down the west side of the old thoroughfare would be incomplete without her regular confidential discourse with Miss Lizzie Carter, who helped her parents to run The Blue Lion – and who somehow found time to keep abreast of the latest London fashions; even, on occasion, adding them to her own wardrobe.

  ‘I got something really lovely the other day,’ Lizzie was saying, as she delved into a trunk in the little room next to the scullery where the two of them just about had room to sit. She pulled out a swatch of silk in a rich salmon pink.

  ‘Ah, ’tis beautiful, Lizzie, truly,’ Cate said admiringly. ‘What will you make of it?’

  ‘Why, ’tis just the right length to make a scarf. ’Twill be just the thing on a cold morning.’

  ‘There’ll be some left over.’

  ‘Aye – have you seen those gloves, Mistress Bowell has a pair, with curled ribbon decorations at the wrist, like a ruff?’ Cate nodded encouragingly, feeling the material in her fingers.

  ‘I’ve a pair of suede gloves, of a shade that should tone perfectly.’

  ‘And the off-cuts from a scarf will give you enough for that too. How clever.’ At that point, however, the conclave was curtailed by Lizzie’s exasperated mother.

  ‘Back to work, miss! We’ve customers been waiting five minutes or more.’ Cate and her friend exchanged sympathetic looks. Even Mistress Carter was mollified, however, by the newly baked caraway cakes, and promptly purchased three to offer for sale that evening as well as one for ‘Master C’, who would, as she put it, ‘never forgive me if there weren’t some for him an’ all.’

  Now Cate must enter the portals of her least favourite establishment: The Mermaid on the corner of Queen Street, one of the city’s oldest, on whose floors and windowsills, she fancied, the dust of ages had accumulated with little if any interference by the human custodians whom the ancient premises had witnessed coming and going through the centuries. Still, there was business to be done, so – unconsciously giving her crucifix a little squeeze through her kerchief, and brushing the prayer book in her skirt pocket with the fingertips of her other hand – she nerved herself to go inside.


  To add to the off-putting qualities of ambient odour and dim lighting, the extra crowds in Oxford now included a group of London men (she assumed) who’d apparently taken up semi-permanent residence here, and who turned as one to devour her with their eyes as she crossed the floor. Growing up, Cate had come to regard her features as slightly too sharp, and the residual set of her countenance too earnest, to be considered conventionally pretty. The extent of male attention she received always came as a slight surprise, therefore, and sometimes a nuisance. So she composed her special ‘cross expression’, consisting of a frown, pursed lips and an angry glint in her eyes, and flashed it across the room. While the gesture usually succeeded in causing local men to look away, these strangers appeared oblivious, however, and merely stared insolently back at her.

  Then, the landlord, Master Moreton, presented an alarming aspect, his rubicund visage framed by a shock of matching reddish-brown hair and his beard seeming to separate out its constituent colours, so alternate clutches of whiskers were black, fair and ginger, like a tortoiseshell cat.

  ‘Now then, missy,’ he boomed, emerging suddenly from the shadows behind the bar. Cate quickly gathered herself after an involuntary start.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir. I’ve a few caraway cakes left, if you’ve a need of them. Freshly baked.’

  ‘Mighty fine they smell an’ all,’ the innkeeper replied, snuffing deeply. Cate wondered how he could discern their aroma among its plentiful competitors for olfactory attention, but she pressed on regardless to close the bargain.

  ‘A penny each then, sir. They’re a good six ounces, every one.’

  ‘Six ounces? Why, ’tis the weight of a ha’penny loaf, not a penny!’

  She sighed inwardly.

  ‘That is for bread, sir, this is cake. With sugar.’