Traitor

by David Hingley

  ‘Not as much as he does. Oi!’ The whore leant through the window and screamed. ‘Get it, you arseworm!’

  Startled, Mercia looked round to see a hand pulling away from her dress, attached to a boy of no more than eight. She jumped from his reach, but the whore shouted once again, and with a rude shake of his fist the boy darted down an alley like a spider back into its hole.

  ‘Got to be careful round here, see,’ said the girl. ‘You talk about money and they know it. Come running.’ She looked up and down the street. ‘You best come inside, then.’

  She lowered the window and vanished. Still shocked by the boy’s attempt, Mercia glanced nervously left and right as she waited with her back to the door. At the street corner, she could have sworn a face was peering in her direction, but by the time she could focus, nothing was there.

  The door opened behind her. Finally, she thought, but as she turned to thank the girl for coming, she blinked, confronted by the madam of the whorehouse instead.

  ‘What’re you doing here?’ she demanded, and then she stared more closely into Mercia’s hood. ‘You again? No, I’m not having this.’ She stepped back inside, making to shut the door.

  ‘Please, all I want is to ask a question. ’Tis of the utmost importance.’

  The madam paused with her head through the door. ‘We had the harmans here the other night, after all that trouble you caused. Then we hear Mellie’s Frenchman’s been found dead in a bucket. I don’t need to answer more questions.’

  ‘He attended the palace,’ said Mercia, undeterred. ‘The Frenchman. You can talk to me or you can answer to the King.’

  The door reopened. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Someone who will not close you down. Unlike the King’s guards.’

  The madam snorted. ‘Some of those darling King’s men of yours come here for their entertainment, my rum mort.’ She ran her tongue around her lips. ‘My girl said there was money in it?’

  ‘There may be. You mentioned Mellie just now. ’Tis her I want to speak with.’

  ‘Mellie ain’t here. You can talk to me.’

  ‘It is about her Frenchman.’

  The madam stepped outside, pulling the door shut. ‘Will this be the end of it? I can’t cope with all these damn questions. Folk die round here all the time and no one cares. But when he’s foreign, that’s different, ain’t it? Them who’ve lived here all their lives can go hang.’

  ‘Please, tell me where Mellie is.’

  ‘I know all Mellie’s arrangements.’ She held out her hand. ‘The coin?’

  Mercia reached into her pocket, but the only coin she had left was a guinea. Far too valuable for a common bribe, nonetheless there was little time to lose.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ swore the madam. ‘A whole fucking guinea?’ Greedily, she snatched the golden coin. ‘See, I love these. I love how they’ve put a damn elephant on them. Don’t know why they have, but I love them.’

  ‘They are made with African gold, and that is where elephants come from. Now, will you talk? And without asking questions back?’

  ‘Ask away, my dear.’ She bit the guinea and smiled. ‘You should have said.’

  ‘The Frenchman – Bellecour.’

  ‘Belle-who?’

  ‘Julien, then.’

  The madam nodded.

  ‘Did he only ask for Mellie?’

  ‘Every time.’

  ‘But he only sat with her? Never anything more?’

  ‘How do you know that?’ She shrugged, turning over her coin. ‘That’s right. Damn queer it was, him coming here and just … sitting.’

  ‘He left papers behind?’

  ‘Hell’s teeth, love, if you know all the answers, why you asking? Yes, every time. He was using this place as somewhere to … leave things. Paid Mellie well, so I let him do it and took my share.’

  ‘Then this is my question. Who came to collect the papers he left?’

  ‘Ah.’ She clicked her tongue. ‘That’s different. Don’t know as I can tell you that.’

  ‘Did you tell the constables when they asked?’

  ‘If I told the constables everything the men who come here do, I’d be dead in a bucket myself. Men come here because they know they can trust me.’

  ‘But you can tell me. Woman to woman?’

  ‘God’s truth.’ The madam sighed. ‘Very well, if it brings me peace. But I won’t answer more questions, not from you or from anyone.’ She leant in, although nobody else was near. ‘He was around that night you were here. The man who collects the papers. I think the Frenchman was waiting to leave, but something was stopping him – probably that cove of yours.’

  ‘My manservant?’

  ‘Lucky you.’ The whore laughed. ‘Then the man you’re after turned up, in that same hood he always wore. You could tell the time by him. Always five minutes after Julien left, he came to Mellie’s room, paid her money for the papers, and scarpered. Course this time, he had to wait a bit longer, until you all fucked off too.’

  ‘Was he Dutch?’

  She screwed up her face. ‘Why would he be Dutch? No, he was as English as I am. Talked a bit finer, course, said his name was Peter, though I doubt that’s the truth.’ She looked around the street. ‘But paying a girl for nothing more than guarding papers for a few minutes, ’tis the sort of thing that gets you interested, ain’t it? I set my man Gunner to follow him one time, all the way to that warehouse at the docks.’ She chuckled. ‘Whorehouse to warehouse. I should remember that.’

  ‘Warehouse?’ Mercia jerked up her head. ‘Whose warehouse?’

  ‘Gunner didn’t go in, so I don’t rightly know. But the sign on the front said it belonged to a man named Howe.’

  ‘Hell’s teeth!’

  ‘But that ain’t it, love. Oh, go on. I like that you’ve come here on your own. For that guinea, I’ll show you something else.’

  She disappeared inside, leaving Mercia to her startled thoughts. Why had the man who collected Bellecour’s reports gone straight to Howe’s warehouse? Had he always done so, or just the once he was followed? Who was he? Why was he English? Why not Dutch?

  And with Cornelia, or someone like her, asking questions at the stables … could it even have been Howe himself? Then again, if Cornelia was Virgo, why would she pass Bellecour information her own husband went on to pick up?

  She rubbed her aching forehead. What the hell was going on?

  ‘Are you well?’ The madam had returned. ‘You don’t look it.’

  ‘Quite well, thank you.’

  ‘If you say so.’ She held out her hand. ‘Here. Now Julien’s dead I’d sooner not have it.’

  ‘A piece of paper?’

  ‘Part of his last lot.’

  Mercia’s eyes widened. She reached out, but the madam held back.

  ‘Whenever Julien left,’ she said, ‘I looked at his papers before that other cove came for them. Normally it was rubbish, impossible to read, but sometimes there was something different. With all the commotion last time, I kept a sheet back.’ She shrugged. ‘You never know when you might need something to bargain with.’

  ‘Or when you might be able to take advantage. May I?’ Mercia nimbly took the paper and examined it. ‘Why, ’tis a map.’

  ‘And they say us women aren’t clever.’ She tutted. ‘Course it’s a map. Of England, too, the east coast. Don’t know what most of them markings mean, though, along the shoreline. But I know what that one there is right enough.’

  ‘Which mark?’

  ‘That one, off Essex, or Suffolk, somewhere like that. Those places are all the same to me.’

  ‘What, this cross here?’

  ‘Yes, like they use when they want to show death. Like what they’re scribbling on doors, with the plague.’

  ‘That is the cross of our Lord, but … they have plague up there?’

  ‘I doubt it. ’Tis only just taking hold in London. But I reckon it means death, for certain.’

  She nodded. ‘And what is this beside
it? Very small, but it looks like the letters … R, and C. And then a word in code. I wonder what that means?’

  ‘I thought I could make something off it,’ said the madam. ‘But not any more, not now he’s dead. And with that other fellow coming round too—’

  ‘Which other fellow?’

  ‘Some other man, end of last week. Thought he could talk down to me, but I sent him on his way. And now you can get on your way too. I’m tired.’

  Before Mercia could prevent it, the madam was through the door.

  Abruptly, it slammed shut. The interview was over.

  There was nowhere to go now but Howe’s warehouse. Nicholas had made a brief search during their last short visit, when they had discovered Bellecour had used Howe’s company to ship to Amsterdam, but he had not had time for a thorough check. After what she had heard in Southwark, Mercia was determined to put that right.

  Within fifteen minutes a wherry was depositing her on the north bank of the Thames; within fifteen minutes more, she was outside the warehouse, listening to a newsboy shouting to the dockhands, trying to hawk his pamphlets:

  Fleet to leave this week! Battle expected soon!

  Not that there were many labourers about, she noticed, still fewer than the last time she had come. Outside the warehouse, two men in dirty shirts sat swigging ale, a pile of uncomfortable crates providing a stiff backrest. They whistled as she passed, staring and calling obscenities, but aside from a quick glance she ignored them, and they went back to slaking their thirst.

  There were two doors into the warehouse: a large opening, locked, for goods; and a smaller one, unlocked, for people. She pushed open that entrance, quietly, but she need not have worried; there was no one inside, at least not that she could see. A quick scour of the warehouse confirmed it, neither in the two small rooms by the entrance in which Howe or his supervisors must work, nor in the large open space that made up the bulk of the wooden structure, not so full of goods awaiting shipment as she would have supposed.

  She circled the stockroom, its sparse contents lit by the sunlight falling through the windows above. Lying flat in the corner, three open crates made her shudder, for they were barely larger than coffins and looked just like, their lids propped up alongside. She studied the block writing that marked their intended destination: Rotterdam, in Holland. Interesting, she thought.

  Her circuit of the stockroom complete, she returned to the small rooms by the entrance. The first was unlocked – still not fixed, it seemed, since when Nicholas had … paid his visit. Inside was the walnut desk he had described at the time, a couple of chairs, hooks for coats, and a bureau. She tried the desk drawers, but they held nothing save heaps of papers covered with figures and costs, the ledger Nicholas had found now gone. The bureau was open but unremarkable, nothing of interest within.

  Unlike the first room, the door to the second was locked; a notice-plate on the wood read Mr Thms Howe (Priv.). She returned to the office and searched for a key but without success, rummaging in the drawers, hunting in the bureau, finding nothing. Then she noticed how the piece of wood into which the coat hooks were nailed seemed to stick out from the wall, much more than was required. She felt along its edge, and smiled as she found a smaller rectangle cut into the top, even more when she pushed the hidden segment out to uncover a thin key.

  As she hoped, the key fitted the lock to the second room, and she opened the door to pass in. The room was dark, no light of any kind, but her eyes soon adjusted – and well enough they did, for she was surprised to see what she found.

  It was a printing press, a series of black letters laid out across its inky surface. Surrounding the machine were various woodcuts: scenes of London and of people, of animals and of birds. Discarded on the floor, ripped-off bits of paper littered the room; she rifled through the scraps, but it was mostly stray letters and words, a collection of meaningless references.

  Alongside the press was a small cabinet of sorts, but it too was locked. She was about to give up and return to the stockroom when she saw how the floor in front was scratched. Recalling the room above the runaways’ safe house, she leant down for a closer look, examining the feet. They were splintered and rough, as though … yes, as though they had often been dragged. And so she did the same herself, tugging on the cabinet until with a painful screech she forced it forwards, revealing an opening beneath.

  She felt inside the recess to discover a pile of thin papers. She took out the top one and read it.

  ‘My God,’ she said to herself. ‘’Tis a Quaker tract.’ She laughed. ‘Howe is a Quaker.’

  Although the tract was short, only two columns long, it was inflammatory to say the least. It could only be described as a call to arms, its writer demanding of his fellow Quakers that they resist the King’s attempts to subjugate their freedom of conscience, describing such radical notions as the equality of women and men before God, and demanding an improvement in the condition of servants and slaves. Readers were exhorted to bide their time until the end of their persecution, which the pamphlet considered to be near. Keep brave heart, it said, for the time of our acceptance is nigh.

  But it was strange, she thought, for from what she had seen of him, Howe did not behave like the Quakers she had heard of – and admittedly knew little about. He did not wear plain clothes, for one thing – his wife certainly did not – while he seemed perfectly at ease acquiring wealth, at odds with Quaker doctrine. Perhaps he sympathised with their cause, rather than worshipping as one of their own, but there would be time enough later to consider his beliefs. For now, she replaced the tract and pushed back the cabinet, locked the office door and returned the key, not wanting to leave any sign of her surreptitious visit.

  Enthused by her discovery, she was about to take another look round the stockroom when she heard a muffled footstep from the wharf outside. The noise seemed quite near, right by the entrance, and she listened at the door to try to make anything out. But all she could hear now was silence.

  And then the door pushed open towards her.

  Pulse racing, she pulled back her head, but the man on the threshold had seen her. The angry look on his face told her only one thing: she needed to run, and fast. But her way out was blocked; she slammed the door into his face and retreated to the stockroom, searching for somewhere to hide. Her eyes caught the coffin-like boxes, but they were at the far side, too distant to reach in time. As she heard the man run in, she pressed instead against the interior wall that separated stockroom from office, trusting to the shadows to mask her presence.

  Exactly as she had hoped, the man ran right past her, looking to his left and his right. Quickly she turned, stealing towards the exit, making it to the door before he knew she had gone. But as she opened the door to flee, she was grabbed from outside.

  ‘Back,’ ordered another man, even larger than the first, painfully gripping her arms. ‘They said you’d be tricky.’

  There was no chance of wriggling free. Her captor’s powerful hold almost lifted her from the ground as he pushed her into the warehouse and halfway across the stockroom, where with minimal effort he swivelled her round and deposited her on a stool his fellow had already set down. She tried to stand, but he took a step forward, and that was enough to convince her she would do better to resume her place.

  She looked up, and was startled to recognise the men as the two who had been drinking by the crates outside. A deep fear took her as she wondered what they might want, but they made no further move towards her, no attempt to engage her in talk of any kind, other than to tell her to wait. And so she waited, trying to keep calm, until a half hour later the door to the warehouse opened once more and her fear grew deeper still.

  It was a large group of men, filing in one after the other, until soon there must have been ten surrounding her, but just like the first two they did little but stare. And then the men all stiffened, standing to the side as two more figures entered, slowly crossing the floor.

  Two figures side by side.
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  One woman. One man.

  But not the man and woman she would have thought.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Uncle,’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing with her?’

  Sir Francis hobbled forward. ‘I believe you have met.’

  The woman laughed, tossing her hat at one of the men. ‘That we have. Quite recently, indeed.’

  Mercia tried to hold her voice steady. ‘I see your reputation is merited once again, Mrs Wilkins. You truly do have one eye on everything in the city.’

  ‘I try.’ One-Eye Wilkins, the smuggler-queen, came forward. ‘With the help of your uncle, at least.’

  The realisation struck her like a cannon shot. ‘My God. He is your source at Court.’

  ‘On this matter. A matter of revenge, no less.’

  ‘And the servant who delivered your letter – my aunt’s own maid?’

  ‘I had you trapped,’ said Sir Francis, his cane trembling in the dust of the floor. ‘Caught as if you were Virgo. And then the King released you, claiming you had escaped. Does he think me a fool?’

  ‘I do not know,’ she dared. ‘But as you are working with her …’

  ‘I have been forced to deal with this – person. I have had her men searching for you since dawn, ever since the news of your flight came overnight. I have sent them everywhere I thought you might go, anywhere connected with the women you think you seek. I knew your arrogance would lead me straight to you.’

  ‘I have sent them, I think,’ said One-Eye.

  He ignored her. ‘And if the King makes clear that he needs more proof against you, I must take action to provide it.’ His eyes widened, and he nodded to himself. ‘Yes, I must. It is only right.’

  ‘You talk strangely, Uncle. You do not seem well.’

  His head snapped round. ‘I am in perfect humour. Or shall be, once this is done.’

  ‘He found me out,’ said One-Eye. ‘Came looking for me as soon as he was back from America. Quite ingenious, all told.’

  Despite her words, she was peering at Sir Francis with little respect. He, certainly, did not return her stare with kindness.