‘No bones broken, Mistress Bearwood.’
But she wouldn’t let it go. ‘I could have found you stripping the house bare, and him and the boy none the wiser. (Takes after his father, Hal does, more’s the pity.) He can’t even read properly, so your warrant made no more sense to him than Sunday’s sermon.’ She looked me up and down with an unflattering lack of interest, and then shifted her ground slightly to get a better view of the damage that the fire had done to my face. ‘And you don’t exactly look like a courtier, neither.’
‘That’s because I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’m a clerk at Whitehall. But I’m glad you’re here, mistress, because I want to ask you some questions.’
For a moment it hung in the balance: her anger – with me, with her husband, with the whole world, perhaps – struggled with the suspicion that it would be foolish to offend me if I was really who I said I was.
‘When did you last see Mr Alderley?’ I asked.
‘It’s not our place to blab about him.’
‘It’s not your place to disobey the King, either. And I promise you, on my honour, nothing you can tell me will in any way harm Mr Alderley.’
She stared up at me with black button eyes. ‘Saturday evening,’ she said. ‘He’d been home most of the day but he went out around eight o’clock.’
‘Was that usual?’
She shrugged. ‘He stays out all night sometimes, if he has a mind to. Or he lies abed all day. Or he’s up with the lark. Nothing to do with me. I’ve got work to do, sir, and—’
I cut her off with a wave of my hand. ‘Have you known him long?’ I asked.
‘Nigh on eighteen months. He rents out the shop and ground floor to us. He don’t have a servant, so I keep his apartments clean and send out the boy for his dinner or whatever he wants.’ She paused, and I had the sense that she was making lightning calculations behind those round black eyes. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I knew him last year when he lived in Barnabas Place.’ Where he attacked Cat Lovett and raped her on her own bed. ‘Does he have any visitors?’
Mrs Bearwood shook her head. ‘Only the Bishop.’
‘The Bishop?’ Amazed, I stared at her. ‘The Bishop of London?’
‘No, sir.’ She looked pityingly at me. ‘It’s just a nickname. He’s one of Mr Alderley’s friends. If you’re such a friend of his too, you—’
‘I’m not a friend of Mr Alderley’s. I’m acquainted with him. When was this bishop last here?’
‘Friday,’ she said. ‘He brought Mr Alderley home.’ She sniffed. ‘Mr Alderley was in liquor again. He could hardly stand. He could talk all right, more or less, but his legs wouldn’t work. Bearwood and the Bishop had a terrible time getting him up the stairs.’
I threw in another question without much hope of an answer. ‘Do you know where this man lives?’
Mrs Bearwood was edging away from me, tired of my interrogation. ‘I don’t know. Watford, maybe?’
‘Watford? Outside London? Why do you think that?’
‘Because Mr Alderley opened the window and called down to the Bishop as he was leaving. He bellowed like a bull – I even heard him in the kitchen, and the window was shut – and he mentioned Watford. Maybe the Bishop was a preacher, though he didn’t look like one, not with a sword at his side.’
‘A preacher?’ I said, feeling as if I were drowning.
‘Well, perhaps. It’s just that Mr Alderley shouted something about “When you get to Watford, be sure to tell them about Jerusalem.”’
‘Jerusalem?’ I repeated.
‘Jerusalem. As I hope to be saved.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ON MY WAY to Whitehall, I was tempted to call at Henrietta Street and warn Cat Lovett of what had happened to her cousin. But prudence prevailed. I didn’t want to risk advertising the connection between us. Besides, I was in a hurry to make my report.
They were the excuses I made for myself. Really, though, I was mortally afraid that she might already know of Edward Alderley’s death, that she had known ever since the moment it happened. The words she had said two days ago in the New Exchange haunted my memory: ‘I wish I had killed him.’
I ran into Mr Williamson when I returned to Whitehall – almost literally, for he was coming out of the Court Gate into the street as I was going in. I had to jump aside to avoid colliding with him.
‘Marwood,’ he snapped. ‘When will you be back?’
‘I’m not sure, sir. When the King and Mr Chiffinch—’
‘How can I be expected to carry on the business of the Gazette without your assistance?’ Irritation had scraped away the polish that Oxford and London had given Williamson’s voice, revealing the uncompromising vowels of his northern upbringing. ‘I have my own responsibilities, as you know, without troubling myself with those damned women of yours.’
It took me a moment to realize that he meant the women who trudged the streets of London with bundles of the Gazette. I had pushed the problems with our distribution network so far into the back of my mind that I had almost forgotten they were there.
‘For reasons I don’t understand,’ he went on, warming himself at the fire of his own eloquence, ‘the day-to-day conduct of the newspaper seems impossible without you, as well as other routine tasks in my office. Why this should be, I cannot tell. It is insupportable that Mr Chiffinch should have you at his beck and call whenever he wishes, disrupting the work of my department. I shall take steps to remedy it. But, in the meantime, I require your presence in Scotland Yard as soon as possible.’
I bowed. ‘Yes, sir. Believe me, I wish it myself.’
He sniffed, gave me a curt nod and swept out into the street to hail a hackney.
I made my way to the Matted Gallery. There was a door from here that led to the King’s Backstairs, the province of Mr Chiffinch. I asked one of the guards to send word to him that I was here and hoped to speak to him.
While I waited, I studied the picture of the Italian widow again, and decided that she looked nothing like Lady Quincy. But I did not want to run the risk of Chiffinch finding me in front of the painting, so I walked up and down for a quarter of an hour until a servant approached me. He conducted me to the gloomy chamber off the Backstairs where Chiffinch and I had met once before, earlier in the year. The small window was barred and had a view of the river. The rain was beating against the glass and the room smelled of sewage. It was an uncomfortable place that in my limited experience of it existed solely for uncomfortable meetings.
Chiffinch was already there. It was not yet dark, but he had had the candles lit. He was sitting at the table with the window behind him and a pile of papers and the usual bottle of wine before him. He listened intently while I told him of what I had learned at Clarendon House and Fallow Street.
I described Alderley’s body, and the unresolved mystery of how he came to be in the locked pavilion in the garden, and the ambiguous circumstances of his death. I gave him an account of my conversation with Lord Clarendon, mentioning both my lord’s anger at this desecration of his late wife’s pavilion and his wish to avoid scandal. I added that his gentleman, Mr Milcote, had hinted that it might be to everyone’s benefit if the body could be moved elsewhere.
‘Ah,’ Chiffinch said. ‘Interesting.’ He waved his finger at me. ‘Proceed, Marwood.’
When I came to what had happened in Fallow Street, I told Chiffinch no lies but I rationed the truth. I mentioned the unexpected signs of recent affluence. I told him about the so-called Bishop, Alderley’s visitor on Friday evening, whom Alderley had advised to go to Watford to tell them about Jerusalem. But I omitted the painting of the woman whose eyes had been gouged out: the woman in old-fashioned clothes who looked like Cat Lovett.
Chiffinch said nothing while I talked, which was unlike him. When I finished, he still did not speak. He ran his finger around and around the rim of his wine glass. After a while, a high wavering whine filled the air, growing gradually louder.
I shifted in my chair. ‘Should I send to Watford tomorrow, sir, to enquire about newly arrived preachers? I could write directly to Mr Williamson’s correspondent there. And I myself could call on this Mr Turner at Barnard’s Inn about the mortgage. Also, I have arranged to go back to Clarendon House to question the servant who—’
Suddenly the whine stopped.
‘Hakesby,’ Chiffinch said.
I stared open-mouthed at him.
Chiffinch regarded me coldly. ‘Hakesby,’ he repeated, wrinkling his nose. ‘I know the name is familiar to you because you yourself mentioned the man to me not a year ago. The surveyor-architect who has an office near Covent Garden. Well respected by his peers, I understand. And, as you and I both know, a man who has previously been of interest to me.’
I recovered as quickly as I could. ‘Yes, sir, I remember him well.’ I was on dangerous ground for Chiffinch had helped to arrange my meeting in the Banqueting House with Lady Quincy. He might reasonably expect that it had jogged my memory about Hakesby as well as Cat. He had known that Cat had found a refuge with Hakesby at the end of last year.
‘Did you know that this man was the architect working on Lord Clarendon’s pavilion?’ Chiffinch said in a silken voice.
‘Yes, sir. Mr Milcote – Lord Clarendon’s gentleman – chanced to mention it this morning, but I thought it—’
‘Did it not occur to you that there might be a connection?’ Chiffinch’s tone was heavy with sarcasm. ‘We already knew the Lovett woman was working under an assumed name as Hakesby’s servant, and that the King was content it should be so as long as she didn’t make trouble. He is not a vengeful man. When Lady Quincy told him that Alderley was threatening Mistress Lovett again, he was even content that you should warn her of the fact. Some might think that he’s too tender-hearted, but it is not my place to question his decisions.’
I tried to put the matter in the best light I could: ‘I thought it unlikely Mr Hakesby would take a woman to a site where he was working.’
‘This woman is the daughter of a Regicide: and by all accounts, she’s a fanatic like her father – a madwoman who hates her cousin Alderley so much that she stabbed him in the eye. He was lucky to escape alive. And she tried to burn down the house about their ears as her uncle and aunt slept.’ For once in his life, Chiffinch sounded genuinely shocked. ‘That a woman should do so foul a thing to her family, to the cousins who sheltered her,’ he went on. ‘Why, it beggars belief and turns it out of doors. And her cousin Alderley is now found drowned, probably murdered, in the very place where Hakesby is working. Does it not strike you as significant?’
‘I grant it’s a curious coincidence, sir.’
‘A coincidence? Would you have me think you a fool or a traitor, Marwood? There’s only one possible conclusion.’ He opened the folder before him and took out a sheet of paper. ‘I received a letter this afternoon.’
He slid it across the desk to me. He watched me, sipping his wine, as I read it. There was neither date nor address.
Honoured Sir,
Mr Edward Alderley lies drowned in Lord Clarendon’s new Pavilion at Clarendon House. He was murdered by his Cousin, Catherine Lovett, the Regicidal Spawn and Monster of her Sex. You will find Her hiding in the House of Mr Hakesby in Henrietta Street, by Covent Garden. Mr Hakesby has often been at Clarendon House of late, and the She-Devil with Him. Hakesby holds the Keys to the Pavilion.
A Friend to His Majesty
The handwriting was clumsy but by no means illiterate, as if the writer had sought to disguise it, perhaps holding the pen in his left hand. I turned the letter over. There was nothing on it except Chiffinch’s name. The person who had written it had known to address the letter to him, not to a magistrate or some great man charged with public order. Outside Whitehall, few people knew of the importance of Chiffinch, the man who arranged the King’s private affairs. And fewer still could know that the King had charged him to look into the death of Edward Alderley.
‘It was handed in at the gate,’ Chiffinch said. ‘I have enquired, but no one knows who brought it.’
There was a ringing in my ears. ‘Is the woman Lovett in custody, sir?’
‘Unfortunately not,’ Chiffinch said. ‘Officers went to arrest her this afternoon, but she had gone. Her flight is as good as a confession of guilt.’
I nodded, as if in agreement. Dear God, I thought as the implications sunk in, this damnable letter taken together with her flight could bring her to the gallows.
‘They’ve brought in Hakesby,’ Chiffinch was saying. ‘But he’s not much use to us or to anyone else. Doddering old fool. We’ll find her, of course, and it won’t take long.’
From my point of view, the situation was growing worse by the moment. ‘Can we find out who wrote the letter?’ I asked.
‘How do I know?’ Chiffinch snapped. ‘But it doesn’t much matter. Once we lay hands on Catherine Lovett, we have the evidence to hang her. Perhaps Hakesby, too, as her accomplice. It’s possible that he arranged for her to disappear, or even had a hand in Alderley’s murder himself. After all, she must have needed help. She may be a she-devil but when all’s said and done she’s only a woman. She probably hired ruffians to do her dirty work for her.’
He didn’t know Catherine Lovett as I did. I bit back the retort that if all women were like her there would be some doubt as to which was the weaker sex.
Chiffinch refilled his glass and leaned closer across the table. ‘On the other hand, Marwood,’ he said in a lower voice, ‘there’s another side to this. The King desires that the matter should not cause a stir. Lord Clarendon’s future is much on his mind, and a scandal of this nature could upset a number of delicate negotiations he has in train. And there are people who would seek to make mischief if they could. It’s no secret that the Duke of Buckingham, for example, is no friend to Lord Clarendon, or to the Duke of York. He would use this scandal to further his own ambitions.’
He paused to drink. He set down his glass and stared at me. There was worse to come. His frankness was an ill omen.
‘So,’ he said, silkier than ever, ‘there are two things you must do to serve the King. One is to see to it that the Lovett woman is laid by the heels as soon as possible. And the other is to move Alderley’s body away from Clarendon House and its garden.’
I felt as if I were falling, with no more control over my destination than an unborn baby has. ‘But where to? How?’
‘Better if I leave that to you, and to Lord Clarendon’s gentleman. Milcote, I think you said. A capable man, I’m told, as I would expect – my lord doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I should encourage him to play the principal part, if I were you.’ He opened a drawer, took out a purse and tossed it to me. ‘Use that if you need money, though you must account for it afterwards.’
‘Sir, do I understand that you—’
‘Understand this, Marwood: move that body. It must not be an embarrassment to Lord Clarendon. Or to the King. Put it in some discreet spot where anyone could have gone. Mark you, the needs of justice will still be served, and the woman will still pay the price of the murder she has committed, either by her own hand or through hired instruments. It’s merely that we shall arrange the circumstances a little more conveniently for other people.’
‘But if Alderley’s body is moved elsewhere, what will connect it to Catherine Lovett?’ I said.
‘Come – you’re being obtuse. Someone must have killed him, eh? And, as I’ve already said, it’s well known that she hates him, and that she tried to kill him in his own house last year. And her flight is a tacit admission that she was responsible for his death. Besides, once the judge hears who her father was, there will be no difficulty in the court reaching the right verdict.’
Chiffinch gave me leave to go. But as I reached the door, he held up his hand.
‘One moment. You know the old proverb – “the more a turd is stirred, the more it stinks”? Take care not to stir this one too much. Or the stink will overwhelm us all.’
/>
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TOWARDS THE END of her second day at Mangot’s Farm, Cat sat by the window of her chamber, looking out over the sloping fields behind the house. The light was fading, and the tents and cabins below were mercifully less obvious than they were in the daylight.
It was a chilly evening. No more than two or three fires were burning, though scores of people were living there, for firewood was scarce after all these months. It was quieter than it had been earlier in the day when, under Israel Halmore’s direction, the men of the camp had been building further shelters and strengthening the existing ones, using the nails and canvas that he and Mangot had brought from London. There had been ground frosts already, and the refugees realized that winter would soon be upon them.
Cat’s casement was open, and she heard the sound of singing from one side of the camp; some of the men gathered here in the evening and drank a raw grain spirit that they distilled in one of the ruined outhouses in the farmyard. The smell of smoke drifted towards her, mingling with the smells from the stream the refugees used for a latrine. Once upon a time, Mangot’s Farm had prospered, but that time was long gone.
This refugee camp was not like those that the authorities had established on the outskirts of London in the immediate aftermath of the Great Fire, such as Moorfields and Smithfield. These, almost all closed now, had been relatively well-administered affairs with makeshift streets neatly laid out and lined with temporary shops, and with access to markets and to the jobs that had sprung up as the city began to grow anew from its own ashes. This camp, by contrast, was small, isolated and chaotic. The only authorities its inhabitants recognized were Israel Halmore, who dominated the others by force of personality, and Mr Mangot, who let them use his land because he could no longer work it himself, and because he believed that God had commanded him in a vision to expiate his sins and those of his dead son by providing a home for the homeless.
The King's Evil Page 8