The Hidden Man

by Robin Blake

  ‘There’s a quantity of gold and silver items from the shop that I would prefer to put in the strong room. They are in a cupboard in his office for now, and have been protected by the body being in the same room. But after Mr Pimbo’s body’s gone to some other place, and with Midsummer so near, there’s those that might take a drink, lose the fear that they had of the corpse and come for it. Where can I put it for safety?’

  ‘There is Oldswick’s shop, he’s got a strong press with an iron door. Go and ask him if he’s got the space and will take the things that most concern you. They’ll be safe enough with him.’

  But Hazelbury had not finished.

  ‘There’s another thing, Sir. Me and the lads had no wages Friday, and what about this coming week? What’ll we do? We’d like to open up Monday and keep trading. We’ve met together – me, Michael and the lad – and we’re all ready and willing.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No, Hazelbury. The business was Mr Pimbo’s. You are his employees not his partners. You cannot continue business however much it is second nature to you. Trading must remain suspended until such time as there is a new owner.’

  ‘There’s this Mr Moon, Sir. If he were a confidential partner in the shop—’

  ‘That would be different, but don’t raise your hopes too high. I know Pimbo spoke of him as his partner, but he seems to have had little to do with Preston and I am confident the supposed partnership was about a different business altogether. I am actively looking for Moon, you may be sure of it, and soon as I find him we’ll know the truth.’

  Poor Hazelbury looked utterly crestfallen, and I imagined what his wife would have to say at the prospect of a second week’s wages lost.

  ‘Cheer up, man,’ I said. ‘You must have something put away. Don’t tell me you have nothing under the floorboards!’

  We were waiting for John Oatseed the coffin-maker with his cart, bringing a rough box from his stock to shift the corpse in. When he came at last we all three carried the box into the inner office, where Pimbo had died, and placed it beside his prone body. Oatseed removed the coffin lid.

  The corpse lay on the floor, covered by a blanket which I removed. It was still clothed as before but the flesh, where I could see it, was grey and seemed damp as if – impossibly – it had been sweating.

  ‘I’ll take the head end, Mr Oatseed, if you will take the feet,’ I said, leaning forward to grasp beneath the late Pimbo’s armpits.

  * * *

  Hazelbury left us but I walked all the way alongside the cart. With little traffic on a Sunday we covered the distance quickly – down Lune Lane, wheeling left into Friar Gate, and from there into Marsh Lane. As we passed Methuselah’s house I saw the pale face of his granddaughter glancing out, and the movement of her hand as she crossed herself at the sight of the coffin.

  A few hundred feet further along we turned into the House of Correction, a squarely built stone building formerly part of the living quarters of the Old Friary, amidst whose ruins it stood at the end of a rutted track. The building had served over the years as a Lazar House and hospital before being adapted to meet the present time’s growing need for incarceration.

  I had arranged with the Keeper, Arnold Limb, for the use of one of his cells, the coolest he could provide, in return for a fee I hoped would be allowed from civic funds. Limb had allotted me what he described as his ‘isolation cell’, as it was in a small building separate from the other prisoner accommodation. He showed it to me and I told him this would suit my purposes very well.

  ‘Well this’ll be one guest I shan’t have to feed or water,’ he said jovially.

  ‘Or find employment in the workshop,’ I added. ‘But do ensure he will be locked up tight when we have finished, if you please, Mr Limb.’

  ‘I will indeed, Mr Cragg. I don’t want him walking abroad, do I?’

  Oatseed had, at my request, summoned the corpse-washers Mary Maitland and Dolly Chapman to attend us there. Mary and Dolly received eight pence for every corpse that passed through their hands. They were familiar figures to every house in town on this most dreaded business, and had seen every family at its most distressed. It made them women worth listening to and, after a few minutes’ conversation with Limb outside, I went in to join them. They had already stripped off his clothes and packed them away in a linen sack.

  ‘He were a strange one, Mr Cragg,’ said Mary, contemplating Pimbo’s remains stretched out on the trestle table provided.

  ‘I’m afraid to say I did not know him well,’ I admitted.

  ‘Nowt to be afraid about. Not many did, eh Mary?’

  ‘Not many Dolly. He were one of those, was Mr Pimbo, that slapped every man on the back, and winked at every woman, but were a real friend to nobody.’

  ‘And a moneylender, mind. No amount of backslapping and winking’s going to make folk cherish a moneylender.’

  ‘That’s right. “Lend to an idiot, borrow from a rogue.”’

  ‘I liked his dog, though.’

  ‘Me too. Mischief on four legs.’

  Dolly went to fetch a tub of soapy water and they each took a soft brush which they dipped in the water tub and carefully washed him, giving special attention, with coos and cries of dismay, to his head wounds. After that he was sluiced down and dried with linen towels, and Dolly combed the fringe of hair around what was left of his bald head. With a tender last touch she ran the comb a couple of times through the tangle of his pubic hair.

  ‘There, Mr Pimbo,’ she said, standing back and crossing herself. ‘You’ll do.’

  Finally, just like two chambermaids working together to make a bed, the corpse-washers each took an end of a white sheet. They spread and stretched it in the air like a canopy, then let it float down to drape and cover the body completely.

  ‘I’ll see to the return of his clobber to his house, shall I, Mr Cragg?’ said Mary when they had done. I knew that this task, and the perquisite to follow, was part of her franchise. I had already gone through Pimbo’s pockets, so I agreed and they left with the clothing bag. As I locked the cell door, I realized that, in all the time they were working, neither woman had commented or asked a question about just how, or why, Phillip Pimbo had died.

  * * *

  Back at the office I worked as fast as I could through the rest of the dead man’s correspondence that I had taken from Cadley Place. This continued to fall into groups. One related to shop business: notes tracking fluctuations in the price of gold and silver, letters of account from the assay offices of York and Chester, and dealings with Liverpool ship-owners for the purchase of pearls and precious stones. Another concerned Pimbo’s pawnbroking activities, including many letters from pledgers requesting him to extend their agreed loan terms. I presumed these could be tallied with the books that would have been kept at the shop, but there were no copies here of Pimbo’s replies, and the amounts of the loans were without exception trivial. Nothing here seemed to shed any light on his death.

  I was collecting and tying up the piles of paper with legal ribbon when I remembered the tightly folded paper I had found in the secret drawer. It had to be of some importance, or Pimbo would not have concealed it in the writing desk. Remembering that I had slid it among the other papers, I thought it must have fallen out during my arrangement of the documents and got down on my knees to search the floor.

  I found it under one of the pedestals of my writing table. Reaching it out I unfolded and read it while still kneeling on the floor. Having gone through all those pages of business paper, I was completely unprepared for the nature of this one. It was neatly laid out in best handwriting.

  MEMORANDUM and RESOLUTIONS for 1741:

  – THAT I do love Miss Ruth Peel, my housekeeper, in the very deeps of my heart;

  – THAT likewise I do lust after her body and would join it with mine;

  – THAT on Christmas Day, 1740 I laid before her all my desires, and proposed that she come into my bed;

  – THAT on Boxing Day, 174
0 I received notice from Miss Peel that she rejected it as dishonourable, and would resign from my service;

  – THAT on the same day I persuaded her to stay, promising that I would not repeat the said proposal until the disposition of my life makes our MARRIAGE possible;

  – THAT to change the said disposition will be exceedingly costly;

  – THAT I shall make myself sufficiently rich and, within two years, shall make all right.

  (signed) Phillip Pimbo 1st January 1741

  I turned the page over, where I read the following:

  MEMORANDUM and RESOLUTIONS for 1742:

  – THAT my circumstances, and those in my household, are as they were this day twelve months since;

  – THAT the resolutions I made on that date are this day renewed;

  – THAT the said resolutions shall this year be fulfilled in all particulars, so help me God.

  (signed) Phillip Pimbo 1st January 1742

  Laying this astonishing paper down again, I saw that I had, after all, found a key – not to Pimbo’s strong room, but to his soul.

  Chapter Eight

  SUNDAY NIGHT HAD been the warmest and clearest of the year and, given the choice of a sober early bed in preparation for next week’s work, or sitting in the garden of a public house under the stars, many Prestonians preferred to sing and drink until dawn. In the morning, with splitting heads, most could not face the light of day and so stayed at home and called it the Feast of Saint Monday.

  Consequently there were fewer on the street than usual at nine o’clock in the morning when I walked the short distance to the Moot Hall. I had two pieces of separate business to do. One was connected to the Thorns’ spoon, still tucked into my waistcoat pocket. The other was more ticklish. Following our confrontation the previous day, I had received a letter from the Mayor, in which he expressed his amazement that I ‘presumed’ to act as executor to the will of Phillip Pimbo, while at the same time having the duty as Coroner to conduct an inquest into his death. There was, he wrote, a clear conflict of interest in this, and ‘it is the Corporation’s view, informed by the Recorder’s advice, that you should therefore cede the Coroner’s role in this case to the one who is by tradition emergently deputed to that role, viz. the lawfully elected Mayor’.

  This was certainly a bold stroke. It was quite true that the Preston Coroner had no permanent deputy and that during his sickness, or absence, his inquisitorial role could be taken over by the Mayor acting pro tempore. At the same time, the ploy was not going to work. There was simply no precedent for the Mayor to displace a sitting able-bodied Coroner, and I doubted very much if it would be legal for him to try to do so. My opinion was backed up by Furzey, who possessed formidable legal knowledge of the Coroner’s jurisdiction. The whole point of Preston’s Coroner, he said, was to balance a Mayor’s power, and to stand up for the interests of the Crown, as the very name ‘Coroner’ implies. Or, to put this as Furzey himself did, ‘you can tell Grimshaw he must stuff it, and the King will say aye’.

  So I was on my way to tell him to stuff it. I knew what was in Grimshaw’s mind. Given the amount of money that he urgently wanted to reclaim from Pimbo’s estate, the verdict of suicide in this case would be disastrous. The worldly goods of self-murderers, like those belonging to the murderers of another, were the property of the Crown, meaning if the Guild fund invested with Pimbo should indeed be lost there would be no hope of even part of it being paid back to the Corporation by his estate. On the other hand if murder, manslaughter or fatal accident were the verdict Grimshaw might hope for some restitution and, should he wangle himself into the Coroner’s chair, he would be in a position to steer the jury to such a conclusion.

  I caught the Mayor descending the main staircase, with Recorder Thorneley following one step behind. They could not avoid facing me so I waited at the stair foot. I was determined, despite Furzey’s recommendation, to adopt a conciliatory tone.

  ‘Ah, Mr Mayor!’ I said. ‘I have your letter. Its suggestion that you should take over as Coroner to Pimbo’s inquest is most considerate.’

  ‘It’s a bad business, is that,’ Grimshaw said lightly. ‘I expect you are glad to be relieved of it.’

  ‘That is as may be, but I fear your proposal can’t be allowed.’

  His face changed from geniality to the assumed puzzlement of a politician girding to debate.

  ‘Not allowed? How so, if I allow it? If the Mayor himself allows it?’

  ‘There’s no pretext, for I am perfectly well, and I am here present. Therefore the inquest must be done by me, whether you or I like it, or not.’

  Grimshaw’s tone became a shade harder as he raised his finger.

  ‘I warn you, Cragg. You will find that you have no choice but to give way.’

  He made to brush past me. I stepped sideways into his path, still speaking softly.

  ‘I do have no choice, as I cannot give way. I must do my duty on behalf of His Majesty the King.’

  Grimshaw’s face was set in a pouting glower as he pointed to the man beside him.

  ‘Mr Thorneley has assured me, Cragg, that there is conflict of interest in this case, and that you are disqualified. That satisfies me.’

  ‘But it is pure nonsense. There is no conflict. I am not a beneficiary of Mr Pimbo’s will and there is no verdict that my court might deliver that can either benefit me or prevent my executing the will.’

  I turned to Thorneley.

  ‘Surely you agree, Mr Recorder, knowing the law as you do.’

  Thorneley looked startled, like one who found himself standing at the point of his own weapon. He knew I could not be argued into submission with jargon and half-baked legal arguments, as others could.

  ‘I, er, don’t know, Cragg. We would have to see if there were precedents, and that sort of thing. We are looking into it.’

  This less than assured response earned the Recorder a savage look from his master. I said:

  ‘You will waste your time, I fear.’

  Now I stepped aside and as the two men walked past me, I heard Grimshaw mutter,

  ‘That is not what you told me, Thorneley!’

  I did not yet leave the Moot Hall. Instead I skirted the grand stair and penetrated the building as far as the office of Tom Atherton, the Clerk of the Records. We were old friends.

  ‘Hello Titus,’ he said warmly.

  I shook his hand and we exchanged family news for a few minutes, until Tom said,

  ‘So, what brings you today? Consulting burgage rolls?’

  ‘No, Tom. I want to go back to 1648 and the battle. Will there be records?’

  ‘There’s records of almost everything in here.’

  ‘I’ve been talking to old Methuselah, and he’s spun me a yarn that I want to verify. There was a former Mayor in it, Benjamin Peel of Peel Hall.’

  ‘He was a big man then, in the early part of the King’s war.’

  ‘And a King’s man, I think.’

  Atherton shrugged.

  ‘I couldn’t say. The Corporation had been for the King, more or less. Until it happened that Parliament was winning, of course.’

  ‘Well, this is what Methuselah told me: they were fearing that Parliament was not only after the Scotch invaders but eyeing the town’s treasure, and that Oliver Cromwell was on his way to get it. So Benjamin Peel and two others were deputed to remove the money and plate to safety. Then Cromwell gave a beating to the royal forces on Ribbleton Moor, and the Corporation fell into terror. They sent word to Cromwell offering to pay him off, in return for not putting the town to the sword, for which they needed the town’s money and plate. They got two-thirds of it back but when they sought out Benjamin Peel to know where his share of the treasure was that he’d taken to safety, they found he had gone to the battle and been killed. He had told no one where he’d put it.’

  Atherton laughed.

  ‘That’s good! They were stuck on the sharp end of their own cunning.’

  ‘And they had to raise the los
t money amongst themselves, Tom. That would have hurt.’

  ‘So what sort of record are you hoping to find?’

  ‘I am interested in precisely what Peel took away for safety.’

  Atherton stood up and beckoned me down into the archives, a set of dusty, low-ceilinged rooms tightly packed with shelves on which were piled rolls, parchments and ledgers. As he led me through this labyrinth he gestured around with pride.

  ‘This is not just a warehouse full of old paper. It’s our memory is this – the town’s, I mean. There’s hundreds of years of town life preserved here. Imperfectly, of course.’

  ‘No memory is perfect, Tom, but think what we would lose if we could recall nothing.’

  The Clerk of the Records rubbed his hands with pleasure as he proceeded between the stacks, checking shelf labels as he went.

  ‘We would not be human, Titus. We would not feel alive.’

  I thought of old Mrs Pimbo, locked in her own salon, taking her long slow leave of memory and sentient life.

  Atherton brought me to a shelf of leather-bound folios, with dates in the 1640s marked on their spines. He took one down, opened it briefly, then led the way back towards the door.

  ‘If any of these books contain what you want to know, this one’s your most likely.’

  The volume contained the memoranda of the Corporation between the years 1646 and 1651, either written into the book directly by a scribe, or on sheets pasted in place. Atherton turned the pages, many recording the unfolding events of the war, as reflected by a town anxious to end on the winning side.

  ‘Feast to celebrate the King’s victory … feast for the Parliament’s victory … celebration of the Parliament’s triumph again … of the King’s escape … of his capture … No, I’ve gone too far. Turn back…’

  After much turning and turning back, we came at last to a run of pages dealing with minuted meetings of the Burgesses in the summer of 1648 as they trembled in increasing anxiety. The King was in prison by this time but his man, the Scotch Duke of Hamilton, had descended on Preston while he set his Scotch army running around the county to plunder the farms. In the meantime word began to come through that Cromwell was bearing down from the east. No civic feasts appeared on the roster now, but hasty attempts to improvise defences, to barn up grain, to requisition horses and pack wives and children off into the country. Preston, so long known for its pride, was faltering on the edge of a nasty fall.