by S. J. Parris
Mistress Dunne gives a little cry, muffled by her handkerchief, and clutches at her maid’s arm to steady herself. I do not blame her; no effort has been made to lay out the body with any humanity. The eyes stare out of the blackening face at some nameless horror on the ceiling, a vision granted only to the dead; the jaw has not been tied, and hangs slack in a hideous grimace, teeth bared and tongue lolling. Some unspeakable fluid seeps in a glistening trickle from the nostrils and the corners of the eyes. The clerk has turned from green to grey and is swaying slightly, the cone of light from his lantern sliding back and forth up the wall.
‘For the love of God, man, could you not have laid him out better, knowing his widow was coming? Bound the jaw and closed his eyes, at least,’ I say, angry not just that Mistress Dunne should have to see her husband like this, but also at the lack of feeling or respect for a fellow creature. She looks up at me, surprised.
‘Coroner said the body was not to be interfered with,’ the clerk mutters, defensive, barely opening his lips.
‘Would it have hurt to lay him out properly for burial?’
The young man’s mouth curls into a sneer. ‘With the burial he’ll have—’
‘The manner of my husband’s burial has yet to be determined,’ Mistress Dunne says, mustering her dignity. ‘Kindly leave us. I would like to pay my last respects.’
‘I’m not to leave the body unattended,’ the clerk says, trying to breathe through his mouth.
‘Why, do you think these ladies will tuck him under their arm and make off with him?’ His attitude is beginning to irk me.
‘You may jest, sir, but it wouldn’t be the first time a body’s been stolen,’ he says, pompously.
‘Well, then – you won’t mind if I just take a closer look? Hold the light nearer, would you?’
The clerk hesitates, but moves the barest step forward and lifts the lantern. Steeling myself, I wrap the end of the shroud around my fingers and tilt the corpse’s slack chin. A pale fat maggot falls out of the mouth. Mistress Dunne cries out. The clerk makes a violent retching sound and dashes for the door, dropping the lantern. With great presence of mind, Agnes grabs it; fortunately the glass has only cracked, not smashed, and the flame is still intact. From outside we hear the sound of copious retching.
Mistress Dunne has turned away, but she maintains an admirable self-control. Coroner be damned, I think; grasping the linen shroud firmly, I tear off a long strip and tie it around the corpse’s head so that the mouth no longer hangs so hideously. My stomach heaves as if on a strong ocean swell as I touch the fine hair, but when the band is knotted the poor man looks a little more presentable. I consider closing those dreadful staring eyes, but the thought of whatever is seeping from the eyeballs causes me to draw back, too squeamish to do him this final courtesy. I look down at his face in the candlelight. Robert Dunne was a broad-faced man with a heavy brow and strong, square jaw. His hair was thinning, though he kept it long on top. Although the face is mottled and bloated, I have some sense now of what he looked like in life. He has become a man, like me, like any other, rather than merely an inconvenience.
‘If they have their way,’ Mistress Dunne says, her voice muffled by her handkerchief, ‘he will be buried in this sheet and nothing more, tumbled into an unmarked grave at a crossroads out of town with a stake through his heart.’
‘It seems cruel to punish a man further when he has already dealt himself the ultimate punishment,’ I murmur. I have difficulty regarding self-slaughter as a sin of the same magnitude as murder; often I question whether it can be a sin at all. If a man’s temperament inclines him to melancholy, can he really be blamed if that melancholy overwhelms him? There have been times in my life, especially since I have been living in exile, when I have known the black glitter of despair, and understood all too well the lure of oblivion, the promise of an end to the constant battle of being. Of course, the scriptures tell us it is no end at all, only the beginning, but I have my own views on that. Sometimes only my belief that I have not yet given the world all that I am capable of offering has stayed my hand; this is a kind of arrogance, perhaps, but it serves.
‘My husband did not kill himself, Doctor Bruno,’ she announces firmly, through her handkerchief. ‘Let us keep that in mind. Though I agree with you in principle. And harsher still to punish the kin he leaves behind.’ She nods towards the body. ‘Can you tell anything from looking at him?’
I glance at her. She is clearly an intelligent woman; the least I can do, it seems, is refuse to treat her like a child.
‘If a man has died of slow strangulation, such as hanging by the neck,’ I say, indicating Dunne’s face, ‘the pressure causes the veins in his face and eyes to break, so you see crimson marks on the skin. And the eyes would protrude more, the tongue too.’
She nods, thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I once saw a woman hanged for a witch where she could not afford someone to pull on her legs. And if he had died some other way – could you not tell?’ Her eyes stray uncertainly back to her husband.
‘It might have been possible to tell when he was first found. But by the time a body has lain two or three days the blood drains away to the lower extremities and the flesh starts to darken. Your husband has already passed through rigor mortis and out the other side – the face is beginning to lose its shape.’ I shake my head. ‘It is impossible to say for certain. A physician might cut him open for signs of poison, though even that might be difficult at this stage.’
She keeps her eyes fixed on the body and says nothing. Her expression is hidden behind the handkerchief still clasped over her mouth and nose.
‘They do say if a body is murdered, the image of the murderer can be seen fixed in the eyes,’ the servant Agnes says, unexpectedly, making us both start. ‘Though I’m sure I don’t know how that would work if it was self-slaughter.’
Mistress Dunne turns and looks at her with undisguised scorn.
‘Well, you are welcome to take a closer look, Agnes. It would make things a great deal easier for all of us if you could tell us whose image you see.’
Agnes shrinks back, perhaps wishing she had kept this wisdom to herself. A silence falls, broken only by the sleepy buzzing of flies. I try not to think about where they are coming from.
‘Would you like me to leave you to pay your respects?’ I say, when I can stand it no longer. Robert Dunne’s body has nothing to tell me, and I am in urgent need of air.
Mistress Dunne appears to wake from a reverie; she gives herself a little shake and turns to me.
‘No. Let us leave.’ She glances back for a last look at her husband. ‘Poor Robert,’ she says, and her tone is not without pity. ‘While I do not accept that he died by his own hand, Doctor Bruno, I do not doubt that he courted his death. One way or another, he himself was the instrument of it.’
We emerge into the churchyard and I am so grateful for the salt air that I gulp great lungfuls until I begin to feel lightheaded and have to steady myself against the wall. The clerk is hovering by the door, shame-faced, his shoes spattered with vomit. At the smell of it, I feel my own gorge rising again. Only when we have returned the lantern to the clerk and left him to lock up does Mistress Dunne remove the handkerchief from her face and breathe tentatively, as if she doesn’t trust the air. Her face is pale, and after a few faltering steps she stumbles; I catch her arm and guide her to a flat stone tomb, where she sits gratefully.
‘He courted his own death?’ I ask, once she has recovered a little colour in her cheeks. ‘I need to know what he was involved in, if I am to help you.’
She gives me a long look and reaches up to fiddle with her veil.
‘You know the story of Thomas Doughty, I suppose?’
‘I know the bald facts.’
She narrows her eyes.
‘You mean, you know Sir Francis Drake’s version. He made Robert one of the jury that convicted Thomas Doughty of treason. Robert was haunted by guilt for his part in it.’ She lowers her voice. ‘He said barely a m
an present, saving Drake’s closest supporters, truly believed Drake had the authority to execute a gentleman like Doughty. Many of them, even the jurymen, believed his death was tantamount to murder, but they were afraid to cross Drake out there, on the edge of the world. Doughty’s brother John nearly lost his wits over it, Robert said, and called down curses on the voyage and every man he held to blame for his brother’s death.’
‘But your husband returned to England safely, which would seem to argue against the power of John Doughty’s curses,’ I say.
She purses her lips. ‘You tell that to a sailor. Other ships were lost. After we married and moved to Dartington, John Doughty started writing to my husband. He was in prison by then. I don’t know what the letters said, but Robert was sorely troubled by them.’
‘Threats, you think?’
‘He would not tell me, but I believe so. Robert was a superstitious man. He had the house blessed by a priest, but he also sent Agnes to see a wise woman, and had the place hung all about with charms to ward off witchcraft.’
‘John Doughty claimed to practise witchcraft.’
She nods. ‘Oh, I know. This year my husband had news that two of his fellow jurymen from the voyage had met untimely deaths. Then he learned this had happened since John Doughty was released from prison. He grew obsessed with the idea that Doughty had killed them with magic. In April this year we were invited up to court and spent a few weeks in London. Two men turned up at our lodgings there, unannounced. Robert went out to supper with them, though I could tell it was against his will. One of them was John Doughty.’
‘And the other – let me guess – was a man with no ears?’
Her eyes widen. ‘You know him?’
‘Pox scars, and very blue eyes?’
She nods, still bemused.
‘I believe so. His name is Rowland Jenkes.’
‘He gave Robert a French name, apparently, though he didn’t sound French to me. My husband never told me what passed at that meeting, but the next day I found him packing his bags, saying he had to go to Plymouth on business. I barely saw him after that.’ She pauses, looks down at her gloved hands folded in her lap. The maid Agnes gives a little cough. ‘I mean to say’ – Mistress Dunne jerks her head up, suddenly discomfited – ‘he came home from time to time, to visit, you know. He was last home perhaps three months ago.’ She says this with a peculiar emphasis, as if she has been caught out in a lie. I try not to show that I have noticed.
‘But he was living in Plymouth almost permanently?’
‘He took lodgings here. He wrote to say he had found a way to clear his debts and he intended to join Sir Francis on another voyage to the New World, which he believed would restore his fortunes.’
‘Not a word of Doughty or the false Frenchman with no ears?’
‘He didn’t mention them again. But he sounded more optimistic than he had for some time. I believed the voyage would do him good. A man like Robert was always more at home out at sea.’
‘You did not fear for his life, making another such voyage? Or feel that you would miss him, perhaps?’
Her expression hardens. ‘I trusted God to bring my husband safely home, if it was His will, just as He did before. As for whether I would miss him …’ she pauses, considering her answer. ‘You are evidently a clever man, Doctor Bruno, and so I doubt it has escaped your notice that I am not overwhelmed by grief. I married Robert in too much haste and God has granted me ample time to repent it since. I had no objection to a prolonged absence, especially if it resulted in my husband’s debts being cleared.’
Looking at her stern profile, her severely parted hair pulled back under her veiled hood, I find it hard to imagine her making any kind of reckless or impulsive gesture.
‘You can have no idea what it is like – little by little, to watch his estate and my dowry trickle through his hands like water. To let the servants go, one by one, until the only maid I have left is Agnes, who stays out of loyalty and not because I can pay her what she deserves. To turn down invitations, pretending I am ill, because I cannot afford a gown to wear.’ Her voice has grown tight; this is the nearest I have seen her to tears. ‘Because my husband’ – she fairly spits the word – ‘has thrown everything away on the roll of a die. But this does not mean’ – she holds my gaze, steady and earnest, as if she were on the witness stand – ‘that I am glad he is dead. Especially like this.’ She breaks off, pressing the balled-up handkerchief to her lips again.
Like this? In a manner so inconvenient for her, does she mean?
I hesitate before I speak, unsure whether it is wise to tell her what I know. I decide that it is best to be open with her, in the hope that she will be so with me.
‘I believe that John Doughty is here in Plymouth.’
She turns slowly to stare at me, lowering the handkerchief.
‘If that is true, then there can be no doubt my husband was murdered.’
‘Sir Francis says it would have been impossible for him to board the ship unnoticed.’
She makes a dismissive little noise through her nose. ‘Sir Francis will say whatever is expedient. Doughty could have had an ally on board. I suggest you turn your enquiries in that direction.’ She reaches up to settle her veil over her face once more. ‘I think I am recovered enough to return. Shall we?’
I offer her my arm, but she ignores it. We walk back towards the market cross in silence, sunk in our own thoughts, Agnes a disapproving presence at our shoulder. As we make our way down the hill into the warren of streets that lead to the quayside, I turn to Mistress Dunne.
‘These lodgings your husband took in Plymouth, where were they?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t visit. Somewhere cheap, I would suppose. He was hardly in a position to be extravagant. Why – do you think there is something to be found there?’
‘I don’t know. He had very few possessions with him aboard the ship. Perhaps he left some clue in his lodgings.’
‘Sir Francis returned to me what was found in his cabin. Some curious effects …’ She pulls the kid leather at the ends of her fingers. ‘A richly ornamented prayer book, for one.’
‘I saw it. A beautiful piece of work.’
‘It was not Robert’s. Nor, I suspect, was the purse hidden inside it.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘If my husband had owned a book that valuable, he would have sold it long ago for ready cash, or used it as a wager.’ The wind threatens to lift her veil; she reaches up to tug it into place. ‘As for the five gold angels – Robert never had that kind of money in his hand for longer than a day.’
‘Could he have won it?’
She gives a cynical laugh. ‘More chance of Hell freezing over.’
‘A payment, perhaps?’
She appears to give this some thought. ‘I don’t know. But I fear my husband had been pressured into dealings with John Doughty and the fellow with no ears, something outside the law. The few times I saw him after he left for Plymouth, he seemed troubled.’
‘But not troubled enough to take his own life. Of that you are certain.’
She darts a sidelong glance at me. ‘No. Not as troubled as that.’
‘It is supposed that John Doughty means to assassinate Drake and claim a reward from the King of Spain. You don’t imagine …?’ I leave her to fill in the rest. She stops and lifts her veil to look at me.
‘Robert? You think he was mixed up in that?’ She shakes her head as if the force of this action will make it untrue. ‘No. That can’t be. He worshipped Sir Francis. He would have died rather than harm a hair of his head.’
‘Perhaps he did.’
As we approach the front door of the Star, a small shape detaches itself from the wall and comes bowling along the street towards us, shouting.
Sam skids to a halt at my side, his face shining with fresh triumph. ‘Sir! I have found that whore you wanted!’
‘Ah – thank you, Sam. You were very quick.’ I turn to Mistress Dunne, w
ho is looking at me with a raised eyebrow and a hint of amusement. I briefly consider offering a justification, but there is none that does not involve the revelation that her late husband was a regular visitor to a brothel; she may or may not know this already, but it would show a distinct lack of feeling to confront her with it minutes after she has paid her last respects to his corpse. So I merely shrug and offer her a helpless smile.
‘I can take you there now, if we hurry,’ Sam says, clamping his hand around my wrist, his face concentrated with the effort of pulling me. For a small boy, he exerts considerable force.
‘Don’t let us keep you,’ Mistress Dunne says, in a light tone. Behind me, a loud tutting from Agnes.
‘It’s not what—’ I begin, but she makes a dismissive gesture.
‘I have no wish to interfere in your business, Doctor Bruno. Thank you for your company this morning. I expect we will see you at supper.’ She cannot quite keep the smirk from her face as I bob her a little bow.
‘Your timing is impeccable, Sam,’ I mutter, allowing myself to be towed after him as the women open the door. He blinks up at me.
‘Was that your wife, sir?’
‘My wife? God, no!’ I say, with more force than necessary.
‘That’s good. She looks like one of them is all smiles then – bam! – she’d box your ears out of nowhere,’ he says, nodding firmly. He sounds as if he speaks from experience.
‘You might be right. But we should be kind, Sam – that lady has just lost her husband. She is grieving.’
‘She don’t look like it,’ he says, with a robust sniff. The child is no fool.
THIRTEEN
On the far side of Sutton Pool, at the extremity of the harbour, the streets reek of poverty and neglect. Houses that look beyond repair crowd together in dark, narrow lanes, leaning crookedly against one another like rotten teeth. The windows have sacking nailed up in place of glass; it flaps a melancholy rhythm in the wind. Sam skips nimbly over the rutted ground; more than once I have to tell him to slow down, as I must pick my way carefully to avoid the slops that run from overflowing gutters. All around I am aware of eyes watching me from doorways and the mouths of alleys, the shadow of derelict buildings. Wild hollow eyes in starving faces, following every step as if they could burn through my doublet and see the purse hidden there. In Italy, men like this would put a blade in you for half a loaf, never mind a purse that would feed their family or keep them in drink for a month. My hand stays firmly on the hilt of my knife. But to my surprise no one steps forward, no weapon flashes in the gloom; they barely stir as I pass, motionless except for the gleam of their watchful eyes. Perhaps they lack the will for the effort it would take to bring me down. Even the gulls here sound as if they have given up.