Blood On the Stone

by Jake Lynch

  The nine o’clock bell for the student curfew, ringing out from just down the road at Christ Church, roused Cate from an intermittent doze, to the dismal realisation that her poor parents would by now be frantic with worry as they contemplated a night without knowing her whereabouts. She crossed herself and – clasping the crucifix through her kerchief – began to mouth the words of her litany, for comfort and support.

  ‘Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,’ she recited silently. ‘As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.’

  A few minutes later, Francis rose to go out again, leaving her no nearer clarity, either on the mysteries of her captivity or on any plan to escape it. As the door closed behind him, she looked furtively at Settle, who was apparently staring at the wall opposite. He lacked the unassailable physical strength of his minder, that much was clear from his narrow shoulders and pigeon chest. She clenched her fists in a rush of anger. That this… this pipsqueak dared to draw his blade on her, and address her in that impertinent manner! To think what her father, or Luke Sandys, would do to him if they were here. Why, Master Ingram, the ostler, could snap him in two like a twig. With the advantage of surprise, could she even overpower him herself? But these musings were cut short by a scratching of the key in the lock, heralding the other man’s abrupt return.

  ‘No good,’ he reported. ‘Door’s still guarded.’

  ‘What – by that constable? You might just have to knock him over the head.’

  ‘Two proctors there now an’ all. Looks like they’re settled in for the night.’

  Chapter 46

  Morning at Magpie Lane

  Luke finally snapped decisively into consciousness at first light after a disjointed sleep. Long periods of wakefulness had alternated with confused visions of boys, daggers, Africans, magpies bedecked in green ribbons, and Cate’s receding form – always just out of reach – as the Osney Abbey ruins loomed on the horizon. A nightmare: or ‘night-mayor’, to use Robshaw’s name for Robert Pawling. To think, the wretched man was still haunting his dreams, six months after leaving office.

  A faint noise from downstairs told him Ed was up and about, so he went to join his brother in the kitchen, together with Joan, who was, it seemed, in a better mood this morning.

  ‘Ah, but ’tis good to see you two boys both here again,’ she told them, beaming. ‘Remember when you used to come in from playing outside, and I’d give you tatie cakes off o’ the roasting plate, with butter?’

  ‘Aye, indeed, Joan. My mouth’s watering, just thinking about it,’ Ed replied. ‘What’ve you got for us this morning?’

  ‘Why, I set aside Master Luke’s portion of mutton, when he never came in last night, so I’ve sliced that up for you both, and warmed it up nice in its juice, just how you like it.’

  ‘Can’t wait.’

  ‘And I’ve kept you something else, an’ all.’

  Joan steadied her ageing wrist to lift a bowl from the pantry on to the table, and removed the upturned plate that was laid on top of it, to reveal coffee – not fresh, but welcome nonetheless. ‘Brought round from Jacob’s last night before they closed up. Stir some of that honey into it, and it’ll put the skin on your back like velvet, so it will.’

  ‘Thank you Joan. I needed this,’ Luke said, tucking in to the meat along with a hunk of soft bread.

  ‘You seem troubled, master,’ the old woman said, narrowing her eyes. ‘You’ve been working too hard again.’

  ‘Why, we have much to investigate, and too few leads.’

  ‘Ah well, you never know where a door will open. That’s what my old Ma used to say: you never know where a door will open.’ She nodded sagely, then left the men to munch their breakfast in peace.

  ‘So, you’ll have Gregory back with you for training today.’ Luke pushed aside his empty plate, breaking off to call to the cook-maid, who was busying herself in the pantry: ‘Do you need to wash these dishes, Joan?’

  ‘Ach, I’ll do it later. Can’t be arsed right now,’ she called back, and the brothers caught each other’s eye with a grin. ‘Anyway, Gregory: we had to let him go,’ Luke continued.

  ‘Yes, I was wondering about that. How come the evidence against him didn’t hold up, then: the bits of cloth from his coat?’

  ‘Well, last night, Pawling more or less admitted to me that he’d planted them on Harbord’s body.’

  ‘No! Because Gregory stampeded his cattle?’

  Luke nodded.

  ‘And he wanted to get him into trouble, not just in the regiment.’

  ‘So what did he have to say for himself, when you confronted him?’

  ‘Oh, the man’s unembarrassable. Just changed the subject. In fact you might get a visit from him this morning. He’ll have stayed in town last night above his shop, and he’s still after compensation for his livestock.’

  ‘Cheek of him!’

  ‘Yes, he’s completely brazen. This is what we had to contend with all the time, when he was mayor. Although he did actually suggest one or two other leads that might be useful. Robshaw and I ran into him, drinking at The Golden Cross.’

  ‘Not The Mitre?’

  ‘No – you remember Catherine Napper, the innkeeper’s daughter?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Ed studied his brother closely. He’d heard Luke mention her, and was too astute an observer not to notice the faraway look that came into his eye as he did so.

  ‘Well, they closed The Mitre last night because she went missing.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. You know her well, don’t you?’

  Luke took a deep breath.

  ‘I investigated the killing of her husband, about eighteen months back. He was stabbed in a brawl. So yes, I… I got to know Cate then.’

  ‘This is more than just a matter of duty, then?’ Ed persisted.

  Luke cleared his throat to cover his discomfiture. Was it that obvious?

  ‘Let’s just say I’m very keen to get her back.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure you know what you’re doing,’ his brother replied.

  ‘They had search parties out, but if she’s still not turned up this morning, we’ll have to raise a proper hue and cry.’ Men from all over the city would turn out, dividing up the streets between them and setting out to knock on every door, with the constables in charge of leading and coordinating the search.

  ‘Well, that’ll bring her back safe and sound, surely?’

  Luke nodded, but swallowed and looked away before once again catching his brother’s eye.

  ‘There’s something else. She’s Catholic.’

  Ed sat back in his seat and nodded.

  ‘Ah. I can see why you’d be worried in that case. Might be tied up with this Harbord business?’

  ‘I suppose we can only hope not, but it seems possible, yes.’

  ‘In that case, Luke, you’d better hurry up and catch the killer. Plenty of men are blaming it on “Papists”, as you’ll know.’

  ‘I’m not having people picked on, Ed. Not just because they happen to praise God in a different way. ’Tis wrong.’

  As he waved his brother off into the morning chill – the hands on the pendulum clock in the hall pointing up the hour at a quarter after seven – Luke resolved to calm himself with a session in his workshop. In fact, he had tiptoed in there last night after the women had gone to bed and he found that sleep did not come directly; whereupon he had lit a candle and glued the frame into place around Millington’s portrait. Now all that remained was to add the gold leaf and seal it with a layer of varnish. With daylight flooding in through the great east-facing window, he worked quickly, enjoying the sureness of touch and steadiness of hand that still returned readily at his command.

  As Luke brushed the adhesive, or ‘gilding size’, onto the wood and pressed the delicate gold layer into the nooks and crannies of the gadrooned surface, a set of connections began to stand out from the crowded landscape of the past week’s events: connections th
at sent a chill through his very marrow. Cate had been due at home towards dusk, which meant she would have been making her way down Fish Street at about the time Settle and his accomplice were fleeing The Unicorn and Jacob’s Well, after Unsworth’s murder. A coincidence? How often had he admonished Robshaw, in the course of an investigation, that there was no such thing; that the relations of cause and effect were merely waiting to be established? Ed had named out loud the suspicion that had been gnawing away at him all night: that Cate’s disappearance and Harbord’s murder were somehow linked. Could the two Green Ribbon men be the connection?

  When they’d met over coffee, he’d withheld details, he now realised, of the club and its anti-Catholic extremism, instead couching his warning in general terms. Had he even specified the inn where they met, and where Harbord’s body had been found? In sparing her the full distasteful truth – that a band of zealots were in Oxford, stirring sectarian fears and plotting, as he now knew, to depose the King in favour of a pretender willing to crack down even harder on dissent – had he inadvertently deprived Cate of information that could have kept her safe?

  Settle might well have enquired after the eye-catching young woman who brought the baskets of bread and cakes, and been told she was from The Mitre – and, while the Nappers made sure to observe the legal requirement to show themselves at an established church on a Sunday, their private adherence to the old faith was well known locally, if generally unremarked. The sacraments still administered and received below ground level were a different matter, of course. Could Settle have got wind of them somehow? And could he and the well-dressed blackamoor have intercepted Cate yesterday evening? If so, was she, in fact, with them at this very moment, as their captive?

  It scarcely bore thinking about – and yet, having been thought, it could not now be un-thought. In fact, given the so far unexplained nature of her disappearance, it might even be the strongest lead. Luke held Millington’s portrait up to the light and tilted it this way and that, to inspect the varnish. Having satisfied himself that it was smooth and even, he carefully set down the finished picture to dry. If he could snatch half an hour later, he would take it over to All Souls College that very day and hand it to the Sedleian Professor in person. First, though, he had a hue and cry to raise.

  Chapter 47

  Caraway Cake for Breakfast

  Several times during a chilly night of at best occasional dozing sleep, Cate had been dimly aware of the men getting up and emptying their bladders in a corner of the enclosed yard. She thanked God she had thought to bring her shawl, which she wrapped tightly round her, and kept warm by drawing up her knees into her chest. Now, though, she too had to relieve herself. To the warbling accompaniment of a pre-dawn blackbird, she gingerly stretched her legs and sat forward, craning her neck to check the extent of slumber among her captors. Settle was slumped forward, but with a slight jump she noticed the whites of Francis’s eyes fixed disconcertingly on her through the gloom. He half-rose as she straightened up, but – as she conveyed with a gesture her need for a private moment – the big fellow resumed his seat with a barely audible grunt.

  Looking down in the corner the men had been using, she could just about make out a length of concave ceramic guttering that had been countersunk into the ground, leading down a slight incline to a hole in the far wall. There was even a half-full pail of water nearby, to wash away the waste. They were well prepared, indeed, to encamp themselves here. Having successfully squatted and sluiced, Cate found a bar of soap resting on a ledge, and used it to wash her hands in the remaining water. As she wiped them on her skirt, she felt a pang of hunger, though she knew they had finished all the provisions Francis had brought in the previous night.

  Returning to her chair, her eyes alighted on her twin baskets. Of course – she still had a few caraway cakes that she never got to sell. Her gratification rapidly gave way to calculation: if she was hungry, it followed that the others would be, too. Could she use this situation to sow division between them? Francis had grabbed her and carried her off with despatch and efficiency, but from what she had gleaned of the relationship and arrangement between them, he was merely fulfilling his part of a bargain struck for payment. That did not excuse his behaviour, but since then he had at least dealt with her impartially, so far as was compatible with maintaining the secrecy and security of her captivity – and his demeanour appeared relatively relaxed. Settle, who for the moment remained in uneasy slumber, was evidently motivated by a deeply felt hatred, compounded by the stress and strain of being on guard to avoid detection. There would be no possibility of plying him to softness.

  Cate eased herself back into her chair and reached for the basket with the cakes in it, making just enough sound to attract the black man’s attention, but – she hoped – not enough to rouse his paymaster; not yet, anyway. She made a show of pausing halfway through the act of reaching in to pull out a cake, and looking up to catch Francis’s eye – which, as before, was turned on her. Deliberately, she extended the basket, and he leaned forward and took one of the cakes with an impassive expression, but a nod of gratitude. So far, so good: now for part two of her scheme. As she reclined, she simultaneously pulled the chair forward slightly, making a squeak on the wooden boards beneath. Sure enough, Settle gave a slight start, and looked around him as he blinked himself awake.

  ‘’Morning,’ Francis pronounced indistinctly through a mouthful of cake.

  ‘What the Devil…? What are you eating?’ the thin man hissed.

  ‘One of her cakes,’ the other replied.

  ‘What, you’ve taken food, from her?’ He rose and dashed the cake from Francis’s hand. ‘She’s your prisoner, man, not your personal confectioner!’

  The big man popped the last corner of cake left between his fingers into his mouth.

  ‘You ought to calm down, Settle. We’ve a time to wait here yet.’

  ‘Calm down? I’ll give you “calm down”!’ He drew his sword, turning to Cate. ‘As for you, Papist trull, you’ll sit there and keep quiet!’

  ‘Indeed, I was quiet, sir,’ Cate replied. ‘I offered my basket to Master Francis without a word.’ This seemed to inflame him even further, however.

  ‘Silence!’ Settle roared in her face – or rather, he would have roared, if he had not suddenly remembered that he, too, was supposed to be keeping quiet. As it was, the sound came out as a strangled half-yelp, half-whisper, the effort of which raised him on his toes and flushed his sallow complexion. Cate shrank from the uncontrolled animosity that raged in his eyes – but she was gratified, as she heard Settle’s breathing slowly return to normal, that she had succeeded in giving the tensions between them a further twist. She could only hope for them eventually to yield some advantage that could help to get her out of her current predicament.

  Chapter 48

  Hue and Cry

  Word had travelled fast that a young local woman had been abducted, apparently by two men from out of town: a situation that evidently gripped the city’s imagination, as there was a good turnout for the search. Any man who’d beheld Cate in person for more than a fleeting moment, Luke thought, would need a heart of stone not to feel at least some stirrings of gallantry on her behalf.

  Mayor Bowell mopped his brow and cleared his throat as he stood on the dais in front of the crowd, who’d been ushered into the Guildhall’s main meeting chamber for the occasion.

  ‘Now see here,’ he began ineffectually.

  Calvert piped up, ‘Pray silence for the Mayor!’ and the hubbub began to subside.

  ‘This here’s a hue and cry,’ Bowell announced, ‘to look for young Cate Napper from The Mitre, who’s been missing since last night. Her father’s here, and they’re all sorely vexed, like: praying for her safe return.’ Luke stood by his side, flanked by Jim Napper. The Mayor looked down at him, evidently in need of reminding what to say next.

  ‘The London men, sir,’ Luke whispered.

  ‘Oh aye, ’tis reckoned she might’ve been taken by tw
o London men. Dangerous characters, by all accounts. One’s a blackamoor, if you can believe that. The same pair murdered Ged Unsworth, keeper of that there new tavern down the way. Stabbed him, so ’tis said.’ He paused again as the men looked at him expectantly. ‘Well, Luke Sandys here’ll be in charge, as usual. You’ll report to him. Do your best, sirs, ’tis all we can ask.’ And, with that, he swept up Calvert and beat a hasty retreat.

  It was gratifying to see such a large number of volunteers, including some of the city’s well-known merchants and craftsmen. Whether they would be so keen tomorrow – Saturday, the main market day of the week – was debatable. For Cate’s absence to extend through a second night was, however, something Luke devoutly wished to avoid in any case. Surely they would find her that day – and, if he was right about Settle’s involvement, the trap he was planning to set for the pamphleteer should also lead him to Cate. He’d deployed two new constables to relieve Tim Blount on guard duty outside The Unicorn and Jacob’s Well, but some time that afternoon he would slip back in and replace the wallet where they’d found it. Then, come nightfall, they’d stand the guard down, and, from a safe distance, watch and wait.

  One notable absentee, as the Mayor was speaking, was Robshaw – but now, as Luke briefly filled in more details to go with Bowell’s sketchy introduction, the deputy made his customary noisy entrance and stood at the back, puffing out his cheeks as he caught his master’s eye.

  ‘So, we’ll divide into four teams,’ Luke concluded, ‘each one under a constable, who’ll report to me. A team for each point of the compass – east along the High Street and into Holywell; north, to include St Giles; south, down Fish Street and the streets on the south side of the High, and west – Ronald Cox’ll be in charge of that one, in St Ebbe’s parish.’ The so-named constable nodded. ‘Ron, you might start by talking to your brother. I saw the two men we’re looking for in his yard yesterday morning, looked as if they were buying a cartwheel off him.’ Cox nodded again.