A Murder by Any Name

by Suzanne M. Wolfe

  “It’s snowing,” he said.

  So it was: fat, feathery flakes drifted past the window with a falling hush, as if the world had lowered its voice.

  Sir Thomas turned to face him, and Nick was shocked by how haggard the man’s face had become in the few hours since Nick had last seen him. A room in the Tower could have that effect, comfortable as this one might be. Sir Thomas must have known, as Nick did, that the farther down in the Tower you went, the more cramped, lightless, and ominous the rooms became. In underground chambers lay the torturer’s dungeons, where the rack and the Scavenger’s Daughter, an A-shaped metal frame that compressed the body rather than stretched it—a hideous counterpart to the rack invented by Sir Leonard Skeffington—resided, awaiting the unlucky few. It took a cold-blooded, heartless bastard to dream up such a device on his day off, Nick had always thought.

  “I regret that it had to come to this,” Nick said. “I would have much preferred to have had this conversation at the palace.”

  What he didn’t say and what Sir Thomas immediately understood was that the Queen had been too hasty in having him arrested. Both men knew that it was wise not to criticize the Queen out loud.

  “I have to ask where you were last night,” Nick said. No point beating about the bush; they both knew why he was there.

  Sir Thomas shook his head. He walked to the bed and sat down.

  “All right,” Nick said. “Try this: Where were you the night Cecily was murdered?”

  “Can’t remember.”

  Nick pulled up the chair from the desk and sat facing him. “Silence won’t help you,” he said. “This is a murder inquiry. The Queen is taking a personal interest.” Again, this was code for the Queen being prepared to compel cooperation by any means necessary.

  Sir Thomas gave a small smile. Nick couldn’t tell if it was the word murder or Queen that had elicited it, or, perversely, the none-too-subtle threat of torture. Was Sir Thomas that rare type of man who loved violence for its own sake and not simply as a means to an end, as some soldiers did? Or was he just supremely confident in his own physical courage to withstand the rack?

  The thought of torture made Nick queasy; it was a last resort but one he would not balk at if it was the only way to get at the truth. Torture was technically illegal in England, but all it took was the merest whiff of treason and it was employed with impunity. And the definition of treason was on a conveniently sliding scale that could encompass almost any act that put the Queen’s person or her reputation at risk.

  Abruptly Nick stood and crossed to the window. The snow was falling more thickly now, blurring the hard outline of rooftops and spires, smothering muddy lanes and byways, erasing the boot prints in the gravel of the Privy Garden. It was as if all the clues to the identity of the killer of Cecily and Mary, however tenuous, were disappearing before his eyes. The landscape that remained was featureless and led nowhere.

  A raven, hunched on one of the stone parapets of the tower, its inky feathers stark against the swirling white, cawed harshly and then swooped down, a slashing black line against a blank page.

  Nick turned back to the room. Sir Thomas was still sitting motionless on the bed, elbows resting on his knees, hands dangling between his legs, staring at nothing. He might have been alone for all the attention he gave Nick, as if he had retreated deep inside himself. Was this a result of the shock at finding himself summarily arrested and brought to the Tower, or did it suggest a capacity for detachment that Nick had already observed in the planning and carrying out of Cecily’s murder. Perhaps Sir Thomas was one of those men who did not feel fear. Nick had met a few in his line of work, men who exhibited complete unconcern for their physical well-being. Reckless and dangerous, careless with their own lives, they were also careless with the lives of others. Was this the reason why Sir Thomas was considered brave? In Nick’s opinion, courage without fear was no virtue at all.

  Nick studied him. Sir Thomas was of average height; he was easily strong enough to have overpowered Cecily and lifted her body onto the altar. Cecily had been slender and small-boned; she would have weighed barely more than a well-nourished child.

  “Take off your shirt,” Nick said.

  Sir Thomas glanced at him and Nick saw a momentary flicker of fear, as if he thought the torture was going to start now. Then a shutter came down over his eyes, and he shrugged. Nick watched as he peeled off his shirt. He must have been cold, but he showed no signs of it. A livid scar curved down from his breastbone to below his ribcage, puckered at the edges like an imperfectly sewn hem. Sir Thomas pointed to it.

  “Sword slash,” he said. “My horse was killed beneath me, so I was fighting on foot.” He twisted around so Nick could see his back. Three round hollows to the right of his spine. “Musket balls,” he said. “Different battle.”

  Nick was impressed. Judging from his wounds, Sir Thomas was no tin soldier content to sit safely behind the lines and issue commands. It was obvious he led the charge himself; the wounds in his back clinched it. In order to have taken a round in the back, he must have been in the front lines with the enemy behind him. One of the deadliest and most effective battlefield maneuvers, the pincer movement first encircled and then squeezed, moving ever inward, bringing death from all sides. It was a miracle Sir Thomas had survived. Again, Nick felt, if not liking, a kind of respect for the man.

  He indicated Sir Thomas should put his shirt back on. Then he stepped forward and held out the scrap of paper taken from his belongings. “Explain this.”

  Nick saw a flare of recognition in Sir Thomas’s eyes before they went blank again. “Never seen it before,” he said. Nick knew he was lying. He got up and hammered on the door for the guard to open it. While the key was jangling in the lock, he turned back. “Did you know Mary?” he asked. Again that brief flicker of something in Sir Thomas’s eyes, quickly extinguished.

  “Can’t say that I did.”

  Again, Nick knew he was lying. He had seen Sir Thomas dancing with Mary and Cecily both at the Accession Day Ball.

  * * *

  Before leaving the Tower, Nick decided to look in on Sir Hugh, hoping that the youth would confess to the murder of Mary and save himself needless suffering before his inevitable trial. Despite his misgivings, Nick had to own that Hugh was the only one he knew of with a motive. Although the evidence against him was purely circumstantial, if Nick could not find unimpeachable evidence that Mary had been killed by someone else, Hugh would die on the scaffold. He was not expecting to learn anything new from the boy, but Nick felt an obscure responsibility for him; after all, it was he who had sent him to this terrible place.

  Nick found him in a cell at the bottom of Bell Tower, a room completely different from the one Sir Thomas was housed in, but at least above ground. Small and dark, it had a low ceiling that dripped with damp, the only light a narrow arrow slit high in the wall. As Nick’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw Sir Hugh crouched on the floor in a corner, knees drawn up, arms tightly gripping them for warmth. A faint keening came from him. The boy did not look up when Nick entered, seemed not even to be aware of his presence. Nick had seen this same withdrawal before in prisoners condemned to die, as if they had already left the world of men so that what remained was purely animal. Hugh reminded Nick of a young falcon he had caught when he was a boy; it had broken his heart when it preferred to starve to death rather than be kept in captivity.

  “Fetch a blanket and some food,” he ordered the guard, and then, squatting in front of Hugh, he said his name. No response.

  “Hugh,” Nick repeated.

  Still the boy did not lift his head, but Nick realized the keening was not just inarticulate sounds, but words, spoken over and over. He leaned in closer.

  “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Bankside

  Nick left the Tower after leaving instructions that Sir Thomas was to be held in strict, though comfortable, confinement and not to be molested in any way. He gave
the same orders about Hugh but doubted the boy would even notice. He shrank from ordering torture, something he must oversee so as to pose the right questions. Interrogating suspects under physical duress was a fine art: too much and the suspect would say anything to make it stop; too little and the suspect would make up convincing lies that would take time to check. Hugh, he suspected, would say whatever he thought Nick wanted him to say. Sir Thomas would hold out until the end.

  Nick suspected that anyone who could survive such terrible wounds as Sir Thomas was a man who could withstand a lot of punishment. Not convinced of the efficacy of physical pain, which could send the subject into shock or render him unconscious, and troubled by its inhumanity, Nick preferred to exert emotional and mental pressure. To do this, he had to know something of his subject, know whom he loved, what he held dear.

  He had once extracted vital information from a man who not only was preparing to betray his country but also was on the point of abandoning his family by fleeing to the Continent. Clearly a man of no conscience or ordinary human affections, he confessed when Nick threatened to kill his horse. Shortly before he had captured him, Nick had watched from a dark alley as the man rubbed down his horse and talked to it as one would to a lover. When asked what his last wish was on the day before his execution, the man had asked to say goodbye to his horse.

  Nick emerged from Bulwark Gate into a changed world, a world of drifting gossamer, of dazzling light. He stood motionless for a moment, blinking. So thickly was the snow falling, so still the air, he fancied he could hear the sound of each snowflake as it landed. He crossed Petty Wales into Thames Street, his footsteps muffled by the more than three inches that had accumulated since he had arrived. Hector placed his feet hesitantly and snapped at the snowflakes swirling past his nose as if at pesky flies, puzzled when his jaws clamped on nothing. Nick realized this was the first snowfall his dog had seen. He bent, scooped up a handful of snow, shaped it into a ball, and let fly. Hector lolloped after it, snuffling and circling around where it had fallen, then prancing about, tail wagging, tongue lolling, ready for Nick to throw another. He obliged a couple more times before calling Hector to heel. He must hurry if he was to reach The Black Sheep before nightfall. The snow, if anything, was falling faster and thicker.

  He continued west on Thames Street. The fish market at Billingsgate had closed early and lay deserted except for a few lads pretending to sweep up, but hampered in their task by the constant need to dodge snowballs thrown by other boys not so industriously minded, ones whose masters had either gone home or had adjourned to The Saucy Salmon on the corner of Fish Street and Thames. The windows were lit, and muffled by the closed door came the sound of raucous singing, the fishmongers clearly celebrating their early release. A black cat with a fish head in its mouth streaked across Nick’s path.

  London Bridge was quiet, the shops having taken in their wares and put up their shutters, only the faint creaking of cart wheels and the muffled clink-clink of a horse’s harness breaking the silence. A carter, a gray shape hunched over the reins, with a piece of sacking cowling his head and shoulders, raised a hand in greeting. Ghostly in the falling snow, he reminded Nick of the somber passing of the death carts during times of plague, when those who took away the dead covered their faces and did not speak for fear of contagion.

  As he made his solitary way across the silent bridge so changed from the boisterous clamor of his walk with Rivkah only a few days before, Nick pondered his interview with Sir Thomas. He was protecting someone—of that Nick was certain. A highborn mistress? But someone’s embarrassment, even public disgrace, was still not a weighty enough reason for him to risk torture. And if it were not some adulterous tryst he was covering up, why not admit it?

  Nick knew Cecily’s murderer to be capable of great detachment. Hugh, Nick was now certain, did not possess this quality, but Sir Thomas had certainly struck him as not only intelligent enough to have planned the murder but also self-controlled enough to have carried it out. Could it be that the Queen’s fit of pique had inadvertently delivered Cecily’s killer into Nick’s hands? Sir Thomas was clearly a hard man, battle-seasoned and no stranger to bloodshed and appalling violence, like Nick himself, but there was also a sense of deliberation about him, as if he weighed every word before he uttered it; and he had a curious trick of closing off his mind to those who would seek access to his thoughts, as completely as the shops on London Bridge had now closed their shutters. Now that he thought about it, the notion that Sir Thomas was protecting a lover struck Nick as ludicrous. After taking the measure of the man, Nick couldn’t picture Sir Thomas mooning over some woman not his wife; he struck Nick as more likely to seek solace for an unhappy and perhaps sexless marriage in a brothel, where he could walk away without emotional complications or engage in a casual dalliance. But give his heart? Never.

  Nick could clearly hear the roar of the water beneath him, a sound usually drowned out by the noise of shoppers and foot traffic, as the river rushed between the starlings of the bridge. It was an odd juxtaposition, the almost magical stillness of the bridge above, the ferocious turbulence below. It reminded him of the Windrush River back home, when it would ice over in winter; yet beneath that apparently solid surface, the river flowed on. As a boy, Nick had once been foolish enough to walk on it and had fallen in. Lucky for him, John had been with him and was able to pull him out before he froze to death or drowned.

  This case felt a lot like that to Nick: superficially solid but with hidden, treacherous depths. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was on the wrong track, that he had ventured out too far on the ice and that, sooner or later, cracks were going to appear. He prayed that there wouldn’t be another murder.

  Although it was only late afternoon, Nick glimpsed a woman dressed in a nightgown and sleeping cap lighting a candle in an upstairs window above a leather and saddlery shop. He wondered how those who lived on the bridge could sleep at night, knowing they were suspended over a raging torrent, a few planks of wood all that separated them from a watery grave, much like birds huddled in a nest above a swift-flowing river. Much like his predicament with only one week to catch the killer. His friend Will would be proud of him for coming up with such a poetic analogy, he thought ruefully.

  Having experienced his share of storms at sea, Nick marveled anew at how changed the world could become by a simple act of weather, how blind and helpless nature could make man, how puny his will and aspirations. He could barely see five yards in front of him, and the snow had seeped into his boots, turning his feet into blocks of ice. The wind blowing down the river and finding its way between the gaps in the houses buffeted him and drove the snow into his eyes. Looking down, he saw Hector trudging along with his head down, his shaggy coat rapidly turning white along his back.

  “Soon be home,” he told him.

  Bankside was a ghost town when they turned off the bridge, past the Great Stone Gate. There was just enough light to make out the spire of St. Mary Overie and the squat huddle of the Clink Prison on his left as Nick made his way west along the south bank of the river. Sensing home, Hector gave a grateful whine and quickened his pace.

  Did the killer move in such a world? Nick wondered. A world emptied of people; a world made silent, ominous, and cold by his smothering hatred of women? Perhaps the blankness of Sir Thomas’s gaze was not merely deliberate concealment, but a true reflection of the landscape of an empty and featureless soul. When asked where he had been the night of Cecily’s murder, he had said he couldn’t remember. Not for an instant did Nick think that was true. On the contrary, Sir Thomas struck him as a man who could account for every waking moment of his life.

  Approaching The Black Sheep, Nick saw threads of light around the edges of the shutters and heard a low hum of voices coming from within. Tomorrow he would have to return to the Tower and begin a more strenuous interrogation. For now, he was only looking forward to being indoors, among friends, where he could blot out, if only for one night, the vision of Cecily
and Mary’s bodies.

  As he crossed the road in front of The Black Sheep, Nick bumped into some children building a snowman in the middle of the road.

  “Wotcha, Nick!” one of them called out, a runt of a lad with a long-stemmed pipe clamped between his teeth and a slouchy hat pulled rakishly over one eye.

  It was Johnnie, the cheeky and felonious ten-year-old grandson of Black Jack Sims, Bankside’s most powerful crime boss. Despite being the heir apparent after his father, John Jr., had been shanked by a rival four years before, Johnnie was popular among the local kids. Impressed by his ever-present bodyguard, Ralph, and as grateful recipients of tobacco and grog filched from the docks, the other boys had elected him their leader.

  Johnnie was definitely a chip off the old block when it came to criminal enterprise; his gang swarmed the docklands like an infestation of rats, nicking anything not nailed down. He was the bane of every merchant and captain who docked at the Bankside wharves and who could do nothing about the thieving owing to Black Jack Sims’s protection. The grandfather doted on the boy and was pleased as punch that Johnnie showed such criminal aptitude at so young an age.

  Nick was surprised and heartened to see that Johnnie and his gang of diminutive toughs were engaged in something as childishly innocent as building a snowman, even if said snowman was holding a knife in his twiggy hand and was smoking a pipe.