The Chelsea Strangler

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘Of course,’ replied Wiseman loftily. ‘But I am expensive, so I doubt you can afford it.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I can,’ declared Strangeways, and tossed a purse on the table, where it landed with a substantial thud. ‘Name your price.’

  Wiseman did, and Chaloner felt his jaw drop. Strangeways nodded careless agreement and handed over the money as though it was nothing. Wiseman pocketed the coins and knelt on the floor, indicating that Strangeways was to sit on the bench in front of him. Giles watched intently, to ensure his sire was not cheated, but he need not have worried. Wiseman was nothing if not flamboyant, and proceeded to conduct an examination that would have made even the most demanding of patients feel he was getting his money’s worth.

  While they were busy, Chaloner cornered Wadham, to see what the youngster had to say about his family’s quarrel with Reymes. Unfortunately, Wadham was more interested in talking about himself.

  ‘I hate fishmongery,’ he confided. ‘All I want is to be a poet.’

  ‘Can you not do both?’ Chaloner’s great-grandfather had written some very good verses, all composed while following a successful career in politics.

  ‘It is difficult to concentrate when I am surrounded by people who blather about cod and pilchards all the time. And they make unreasonable demands. Have you ever written an ode to a plaice? It is not easy, I can tell you.’

  ‘Tell me about Reymes,’ ordered Chaloner, before Wadham could ask him to try it. ‘And why your family dislikes him.’

  ‘He arranged for laws to be passed that restricted our fishing rights – out of sheer malice. You should ensure you do not earn his enmity or your life will be a misery. He is a horrible man.’

  ‘One capable of murder?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He probably killed those people just to strike at the Earl of Clarendon, whom he hates.’ The lad smirked. ‘We are going to open a coffee house near Buckingham House soon. Those places reek, and ours will cause him much inconvenience.’

  ‘And you accuse him of spite,’ muttered Chaloner, regarding the lad wonderingly.

  ‘That is not our only motive,’ said Wadham, turning defensive in the face of Chaloner’s disapproval. ‘We are also doing it because Dr Parker says that coffee will protect the whole village from madness and the plague. Hah, look! There is the man himself.’

  He pointed through the window, to where the physician was walking in an oddly erratic manner towards the river, stopping every so often to talk to himself. When he began to dance after a passing chicken, Chaloner was even more sure the man had lost his reason. Moments later, Franklin appeared and began speaking in a low voice, after which Parker allowed himself to be led away.

  ‘Did you know the three murder victims?’ asked Chaloner, turning back to Wadham.

  ‘Of course.’ Wadham glanced around furtively and lowered his voice. ‘I love being out on summer evenings, searching for my Muse, and I often saw Underhill sneaking around the prison. It occurred to me that he was a spy, but I suspect he was just nosy. He liked to read, you see.’

  ‘I am not sure I understand the connection.’

  ‘Well, people who read are naturally curious, are they not? I saw the spectre, too, although I certainly did not follow that to find out what it was doing! Landlord Smith probably told you that it is either a Dutchman or Sutcliffe, but he is wrong – it is definitely supernatural. When I saw the thing, I ran away.’

  ‘But you followed Underhill?’

  Wadham nodded. ‘Several times, although he did no more than gaze at the prison, as if he was waiting for something to happen. Nothing ever did. I saw Kole out and about, too. He was in the habit of peeping through other people’s windows at night.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To watch women while they undressed. I challenged him the first time I saw what he was doing, and he claimed that he had lost a key in the bushes. The second time, it was a dropped coin. I did not bother asking again.’

  Chaloner recalled what Hart and Bannister had said – that Kole had loitered in Gorges’ orchard. Had that been to ogle the inmates through their bedroom windows? Yet the dancing masters had also spotted Kole by Rector Wilkinson’s compost heaps, and those were unlikely to have been frequented by naked ladies.

  ‘Shall I tell you who I really hate?’ asked Wadham, and forged on without waiting for an answer. ‘George Cocke. He is a rogue of the first order, and I would not trust him with a button.’

  ‘Why do you call him a rogue?’

  ‘Because he is a sot, who likes whores, drinking and cards. Ask anyone. Yet his shabby attire shows that he is not a wealthy man, so how does he pay for these vices?’

  ‘By spending his three incomes on them,’ suggested Chaloner. There was also the possibility that Cocke earned money from blackmail, as he had tried to do with Kipps, although Chaloner did not mention that to the boy, and turned the discussion back to the victims. ‘You said you followed Underhill and Kole on occasion. What about Nancy?’

  ‘That would have been difficult,’ replied Wadham. ‘She was in the asylum, and although she was free to leave whenever she liked, she never did.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  Wadham smiled. ‘A pretty lass. I cannot imagine why she married the bell-founder, who is as ugly as sin. Cocke made a play for her, of course, but I do not know if she considered his advances welcome or an imposition. I was busy with a girl of my own at the time.’

  Chaloner was thoughtful. It would not be the first time that a jealous husband had dispatched an unfaithful wife, and had then been obliged to kill others to keep his actions quiet. Perhaps Eleanore had been wrong to warn him against tackling Janaway.

  ‘Come, Wadham,’ called Strangeways. He wore a satisfied grin and the biggest bandage Chaloner had ever seen: Wiseman had excelled himself. ‘The prison is expecting a delivery of fish from us this afternoon, and we do not want our Dutch friends to starve.’

  ‘Do we not?’ asked Wadham, puzzled. ‘I thought you said we did.’

  Chapter 7

  ‘I suppose we should begin with the College,’ said Kipps, as he and Chaloner left the Swan. ‘Two thousand foreign sailors so close to the city makes me very uneasy, and we should assess whether they pose a risk.’

  Chaloner had harboured a passionate dislike of gaols ever since he had been imprisoned for spying in France, and did not relish the thought of stepping inside another. He flailed around for an excuse to put it off, although he knew he was a coward for doing so, especially as Thurloe had thought it was where answers would be found.

  ‘We should learn more about the victims first,’ he hedged.

  ‘But they and the prison might be connected,’ argued Kipps. ‘After all, we know that Underhill was monitoring the place for Spymaster Williamson.’

  ‘True,’ acknowledged Chaloner. ‘But tomorrow will be soon enough.’

  ‘You know best,’ said Kipps, although his doubtful expression belied the words. ‘So what shall we do? Speak to Nancy’s husband? Wilkinson called her a whore, so perhaps Underhill and Kole were her clients, and Janaway killed them for it. Of course, Janaway was not in Clarendon House when Underhill died…’

  ‘How do you know? We did not see him, but the guards are shamefully lax, and it is not impossible to sneak past them.’

  ‘Right,’ said Kipps, surging purposefully to his feet. ‘Then let us be at him.’

  Chaloner stood more slowly, uncomfortably aware that he was about to flout Eleanore’s request for the bell-founder to be left alone. But Kipps was right – Janaway was an obvious route forward, and their first duty was to the investigation, not a woman they barely knew.

  They learned from Landlord Smith that Janaway’s workshop was on the eastern fringes of the village, past the disturbingly named Bloody Bridge. They walked slowly, the heat sapping their energy. Chaloner boiled in shirtsleeves and loose breeches, and failed to understand how Kipps could bear his stylishly close-fitting long-coat and the lace that cascaded down his front.

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bsp; They trudged up Church Lane, and turned right along the King’s Road, which took them past the rectory’s main gate again. Chaloner glanced along its weed-infested path, and caught a flash of movement in an upstairs window. Two men were peering out at him, although both ducked back when they realised they had been spotted. Neither of them were Doyley.

  Kipps saw them, too, and waved cheerfully, although there was no response from the house. ‘Londoners are using even the remotest ties of kinship to escape the plague,’ he remarked. ‘They must be refugees from the city, fleeing for their lives. And who can blame them?’

  ‘Yet Wilkinson is not a compassionate man,’ remarked Chaloner. ‘I do not see him offering a safe haven to the desperate. Perhaps it was his servants.’

  But Gertrude Thompson had been told that the rector received lots of visitors, so perhaps he possessed a kindness that he preferred to conceal, although surely it was peculiar to keep guests in the attic? Or had he imprisoned them there? Chaloner supposed he would have to find out.

  They walked on. The bell-foundry was the last building before the King’s Road became a grassy track, and comprised a large workshop, raised in stone to avoid mishaps from flying sparks, and several sheds in which bells and dome-shaped casts were stored. It reeked of grease and hot metal. The whole place was deserted, although a cooling furnace indicated that it had been active not long before, as did a lot of hurriedly downed tools.

  ‘So where is he?’ asked Kipps, looking around in annoyance. ‘Did he know we were coming? There is a half-eaten apple on that bench, as if someone was obliged to abandon it all of a sudden.’

  Had Eleanore warned Janaway that he might be questioned? Chaloner hoped not. He had instinctively felt he could trust her, and it perturbed him to think that he might have been wrong.

  There was a house adjoining the workshop, so he knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he shoved it open, and entered a home that had once been well maintained, but that now showed signs of neglect – Nancy had been a good housewife, but her widower had let things slide. There was nothing of interest inside, except a pile of charcoal sketches depicting a young woman. She had a pretty, gentle face, and he supposed that Janaway had drawn them, so as not to forget what his dead wife had looked like. Chaloner stared at them and thought perhaps he should do the same with Hannah.

  ‘We should go,’ said Kipps. ‘There is nothing here, and Reymes is expecting us at Buckingham House. Let us hope he is a good host, because I would kill for a cool ale.’

  Buckingham House was mostly Tudor, but had recently been graced with oriel windows, an ornate baroque porch and a clock tower capped with an onion dome. It was three storeys high, and had dozens of rooms. It was reached by a long, tree-lined drive, which opened up into a spacious courtyard containing statues and an elaborately carved fountain.

  ‘Most of the revels take place out here, apparently,’ remarked Kipps, looking around with interest. ‘Which is rash, given that it is in full view of Church Lane. The villagers love to come and watch at the gates, then gossip about what they have seen in the taverns. I asked Reymes why he did not keep his guests’ antics indoors, out of sight, and he said it would be too hot.’

  ‘It must cost a fortune to rent,’ said Chaloner, gazing up at the noble façade. ‘Yet he says he spent all his money supporting the King during the wars. So how does he pay for it?’

  ‘How indeed?’ agreed Kipps. ‘He makes no secret of his determination to claw back all he lost, yet he squanders a fortune on hosting courtiers he does not even like.’

  ‘How do you know he does not like them?’

  ‘Well, think about who he invited: Alan Brodrick, cousin of his most bitter enemy; Greeting, gossip and malcontent; Sir Edward Hungerford, rakehell and not the kind of fellow Reymes finds amusing. Shall I continue?’

  ‘Perhaps he did not lose as much during the wars as he would have everyone believe.’

  ‘He has been saying for years that the conflict all but broke him, and there is no reason to doubt it. However, he is Prefect of the Treasury…’

  ‘I think the rest of you would notice if he was using the King’s gold to fund his social life.’

  ‘Not necessarily – not when Cocke is the only remaining accompter. That sly fellow would certainly aid and abet theft in exchange for a cut. You are wise to question Reymes’ finances.’

  Suddenly, the front door burst open and two servants appeared with a table. They were followed by a handful of musicians, although Greeting was the only one Chaloner recognised. The performers arranged themselves into a rough consort and began to play, loudly and with an appalling lack of skill – Greeting had to be drunk, thought Chaloner, or he would have refused to be part of it.

  More servants arrived with jugs and cups, and then a party was underway. The courtiers poured from the house, their shrill voices competing with the music, and Chaloner was amazed by how quickly the atmosphere turned debauched. Almost immediately, villagers began to gather at the gates, clearly expecting to witness something scandalous.

  Chaloner saw that Kipps was right to remark on Reymes’ odd choice of company, as none were the kind of people he would have expected the commissioner to befriend. Edward Hungerford, Richard Newport and Henry Savile were libertines; Lady Savage was renowned for unrestrained drinking; and Betty Becke was infamously bawdy. All were wild, even by White Hall standards – wastrels and debauchees, who lived off the public purse, but gave nothing in return.

  Brodrick was there, face flushed from wine, while Cocke stood next to him, one plump arm around the shoulders of a giggling girl – Reymes’ hospitality evidently extended to providing professional prostitutes as well. Chaloner waited until Cocke had disappeared with his woman, then approached Brodrick, hoping a report from the Earl’s cousin would save him some time.

  ‘Well?’ he asked briskly. ‘What have you learned?’

  Brodrick regarded him blankly. ‘Learned about what?’

  ‘The Gorges thefts. The Earl charged you to start investigating.’

  Brodrick waved a dismissive hand. ‘I have not had time – Reymes keeps us far too busy. I popped in once or twice to make sure the songbirds were safe, but you can take over that duty now. I have never been comfortable in asylums. And do not say it is for fear they may not let me out again – it is because illness of any kind distresses me.’

  While glad that Brodrick had not done any harm by blundering about amateurishly, Chaloner was unimpressed that he had absolutely nothing to impart. Then Reymes spotted them, and put paid to further conversation by stamping over.

  ‘Have you timed your arrival to coincide with the distribution of fine wine,’ he asked sourly, ‘or is it coincidence that you came now?’

  ‘Coincidence,’ replied Chaloner coldly, disliking the inference that he was a scrounger, like the courtiers who frolicked around them.

  ‘Although I should not refuse a cup, should it be offered,’ put in Kipps amiably.

  Brodrick beamed tipsily. ‘I did not believe Greeting when he told me of the delights on offer here, but you do us proud, Reymes. Who needs Hampton Court? Chelsea is much better!’

  ‘It would be better still if Lady Castlemaine were here,’ sighed Kipps. ‘Thoughts of her thighs have given me comfort through the very darkest of times. My wife’s are quite respectable, of course, but what I would not give for a glimpse of the Lady’s.’

  Brodrick laughed gaily. ‘Then your wish may be granted, because she is here. She was not invited to Hampton Court either, as the King is vexed over her public conversion to Catholicism.’

  ‘I do not see why,’ muttered Reymes. ‘The Catholic Church will have gained nothing, while the Anglican Church will have lost nothing.’

  At that point, the lady in question emerged from the house. In deference to the heat, she was very scantily clad, which allowed her to flaunt the exquisite lines of her body: an impressive physique for anyone, but especially a mother of four. The gentle rounding of her stomach suggested she had
not been out of royal favour for long, and it seemed that the King could soon expect a fifth child in the royal nursery. Male courtiers raced to her side, and the atmosphere turned louder and more raucous than ever. The other women rolled their eyes, and set about reclaiming some of the attention.

  ‘Kole,’ said Chaloner to Reymes, eager to complete his enquiries and leave, ‘would it be possible to see his room and the place where he died?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Tom,’ said Kipps in a strangled voice, and Chaloner glanced around to see the Seal Bearer’s eyes fixed unblinkingly on the Lady’s legs. ‘Can you not relax even for a moment? Here is the Eighth Wonder of the World, and you want to talk about murder?’

  ‘I shall show you myself, Chaloner,’ said Reymes, ignoring him. ‘Then I can be sure that you will do no mischief. Follow me.’

  Chaloner was glad to be away from the merry debauchery, although Kipps dragged his feet. They entered the house, where Reymes led them through a ballroom with enormous windows and gilt-edged mirrors. Its splendour was marred by the wine stains on the floor and the marks on the walls, probably from lobbed food.

  ‘I gather there was an event here last night?’ asked Chaloner drily.

  ‘There are events most nights,’ replied Reymes. ‘Indeed, we are having one tomorrow. It goes against the grain to invite Clarendon’s lackeys, but I suppose you can come, if you want.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Kipps, although Chaloner was disinclined to accept, not just for the grudging nature of the invitation, but because he had no desire to spend time with Reymes or his guests.

  ‘To business,’ said the commissioner brusquely. ‘I found Kole at six o’clock yesterday morning, lying in that rose garden over there. He was last seen alive at midnight – by Greeting, Brodrick and others. Ergo, he died at some point in between. My guests were carousing most of the night, but I went to bed. I was tired after sitting through Wilkinson’s plague service.’