The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 2 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

  “It wouldn’t matter if he was Satan himself. The same rules apply. We don’t use torture in criminal inquiries. English Common Law has no place for it.”

  “But, I thought in these circumstances . . .”

  “You didn’t think at all, my lord! That much is plainly obvious.”

  A few moments later, they’d passed through the open cell where Urmston and his servant had been made to wait previously, descended another subterranean stairway and entered an icy cold chamber, cut from wet, black stone and reeking of sweat and offal. Rusted fetters hung on the greasy walls; trampled, filthy straw formed a decaying carpet. In one corner lay the hideous apparatus . . . a steel frame, eight feet long and three feet across. Stretched full-length on it, his wrists and ankles securely manacled to the pulleys at either end, was a naked man who looked more dead than alive. His limbs were like pipe-stems, his ribs showing clearly through grey, emaciated flesh. If this was the infamous Spaniard, he was no longer the sleek, cat-like creature of legend. His head had been shorn to bristles, and his face, also shaved, was grizzled and brutalized. At present, it was also scarlet in hue and screwed up with agony.

  Urmston came warily forward. “This is him?”

  Morgeth, who had been administering the torture, glanced up quickly. He hammered a wedge in beside the pulley, to maintain the tension, then stood back. The prisoner could only gasp and cringe. It was plain to see that the chains holding him were already at straining-point. The joints in his arms and legs were fully extended, threatening at any moment to dislocate. As the newcomers looked down at him, fresh sweat broke on the prisoner’s brow. A thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

  “You are the Spanish priest, Raphael Vesquez?” Urmston asked.

  The prisoner didn’t even look up, let alone answer.

  “He says that he is being treated unfairly, and that he will speak only to the Queen,” Ratcliffe explained.

  “The Queen will not see you,” Urmston said. “She never comes here. You must talk to me, instead. I am her representative.” Still the prisoner held his tongue. “You must speak to me, otherwise this ordeal will continue!”

  “You see for yourself how stubborn he is,” Ratcliffe put in. “I tell you, my lord, this may look like harsh treatment, but I have seen some Catholic fanatics hold out against it for days.”

  “My dear Ratcliffe,” said Urmston, “he is not here because he is a Catholic, but because he is suspected of murder.”

  For the first time now, the prisoner glanced up. Fleetingly, there was hope in his glazed, red-rimmed eyes. Ratcliffe also glanced at the spy-catcher, an irritable curl to his lip.

  “Murder is the worst crime of all, my lord,” he said, “and I take my duty as a punisher of crime very seriously. However, if you wish us to cease applying this device, then we will do so, but you know perfectly well that in a case as serious as this, we would be neglecting our . . .”

  “Don’t tell me my duty,” Urmston replied. “I’m well aware that specific occasions warrant specific methods, but I’d have preferred to leave this until the last resort.”

  “Shall I order him released?”

  Urmston considered. Whether he liked it or not, torture did have its judicial role, and it seemed doubtful than in so vile a murder-case as this, any lawyer would quibble about its use.

  “Not yet,” he finally said. “Tell me . . . what were the circumstances of the arrest?”

  “He came in voluntarily,” Ratcliffe said. “He was wearing a monk’s habit at the time. A ragged old thing of sackcloth. He also wore ashes on his head. Repenting, no doubt, for his filthy crimes . . .”

  “Yes!” the Spaniard hissed, his grimace of pain suddenly a growl of rage. “For my crimes! When I lived and worked here . . . when I did the things you now do!”

  He might have been Spanish in origin, but he clearly had a good command of English.

  “You dog!” the Constable snarled. “You dare liken us to you!”

  He signalled to Morgeth, and the jailer knocked out the wedge, re-inserted his crank-handle, and began to turn it. There were agonizing creaks of bone and sinew; Vesquez howled.

  “That’s enough,” Urmston said. “For the moment.”

  Morgeth glanced round, surprised, his grip slackening.

  Urmston turned back to the prisoner. “Talk to me, man . . . don’t be a fool!”

  “This is against God’s law,” the Spaniard stammered. “I came here of my own will . . .”

  “What do you know of God’s law?” Ratcliffe sneered.

  “I broke it too, many times. It’s why I repent . . .”

  Ratcliffe glanced at Urmston. “As his penance, he claims to have been living as a mendicant, with no fixed abode.”

  Morgeth gave a brutish chuckle. “Doesn’t sound like the Spanish priests I know.”

  “Why did you surrender to us?” Urmston asked the prisoner.

  “I . . . I hear you are looking for me . . . Raphael Vesquez, the killer of women. I come here to declare my innocence. I have lived in this city twenty-three years, since Queen Mary died . . . never once have I sinned with women. I seek only forgiveness . . .”

  “Forgiveness for what? For your crimes under Mary?”

  Weakly, the prisoner nodded.

  Ratcliffe gave a scornful chuckle. “Would you believe he was wearing a horsehair shirt under his habit?”

  Urmston looked round at the Constable. “And that didn’t tell you anything?”

  Ratcliffe’s mirth slowly drained away. “You don’t meant to say you believe him?”

  Urmston thought again . . . about the terrible suffering of the Protestant martyrs, about how Raphael Vesquez had reputedly revelled in their weeping and wailing, in their shrieks for mercy. He glanced back down at the prisoner . . . granted, this pathetic, wizened thing was no longer the smooth and murderous tiger of Tower memory, but did that mean he was any the less a ruthless criminal?

  “I don’t know what to believe,” the spy-catcher admitted.

  “Well I do!” Ratcliffe said. He turned to Morgeth and barked: “Rack him! Make him talk!”

  The jailer threw all his weight against the crank-handle. The prisoner screamed . . .

  Several times that night, the interrogators retired to consider, but at no stage were they able to agree with each other. Urmston wasn’t as convinced of the prisoner’s innocence as much as he was discomforted by the methods they were using. Ratcliffe continued to call on his own extensive experience, assuring his colleague that even the most heinous felons broke in the end. Each time they went back into the torture chamber, Urmston asked Vesquez, almost begged him, to confess . . . for his own sake if nothing else. He even reminded the Spaniard that the penalty for murder in England was a relatively quick death on the gallows, but the prisoner would only shake his head defiantly and proclaim that he had had nothing to do with the Southwark murders.

  It was some time in the very early morning, when the prisoner, exhausted by pain, began to faint . . . not just once, but repeatedly. Each time Morgeth applied a little pressure, he would pass out . . . for progressively longer periods. One glance at his physical state was enough to prove that he wasn’t shamming. His limbs were black and blue with bruises, and twisted grotesquely out of shape; at least one of his shoulders had disjointed. In the few moments he spent conscious, he raved deliriously rather than cried out. His nose began to pump out blood and mucus.

  The interrogators, weary themselves, finally opted to rest. Ratcliffe ordered that Vesquez be removed from the apparatus and taken back to his cell. Morgeth obeyed, dragging the wretched man by his feet. The prisoner, mercifully unconscious again, slithered out of sight like a sack of shattered crockery. Urmston glanced up at Ratcliffe, now stripped to his shirt-sleeves, his face red as beef and beaded with the sweat of his exertions, and wondered how he could ever have considered that the Constable of the Tower was “jovial-looking”. Of course, he ought to have known. No one of a jovial disposition ever
became custodian of this cruel place.

  Ratcliffe retrieved his jerkin, then, sensing that he was being watched, glanced around.

  “I’m surprised, my lord,” he said. “For a spy-catcher, you seem markedly squeamish about use of the rack.”

  Urmston shrugged. “Partly, I am. But mainly I’m doubtful. Any information extracted through torture is likely to be unreliable.”

  The Constable sighed, as if this was sadly true. “The moral way is often the hardest one to understand.”

  “The moral way?” Urmston replied.

  Ratcliffe replaced his cap, and straightened it. “The rules are very simple. If a good man is put to the pains, then God will give him the strength to see it through. If he’s a bad man, then he’ll crack, and the torture will have served its purpose.”

  Urmston had to struggle to keep the scorn out of his voice. “And what, I wonder, is the time limit on this distinction? How long, for example, does he have to withstand it to prove himself good? A week, a month . . . six months? Or isn’t it simply the case that, if we’ve a mind to it, we will continue with the torture for however long, until he proves himself bad?”

  The Constable smiled to himself. “I didn’t invent this system, my lord, I simply impose it. As is my duty.” And with that, he turned and left.

  Urmston stood there alone, feeling tired and sullied. Dawn was still far away . . . a curtain of frozen blackness hung beyond the tall, arrow-slit window. The spy-catcher didn’t doubt that his ride back to Drury Lane would be a cold and lonely one.

  “My lord . . . my lord.”

  Urmston woke slowly from a deep and dreamless slumber, his eyes still gluey with sleep. It took several moments for him to realise that his curtains had been drawn back on a day of pale but intense winter light, and that John Kingsley stood beside the bed, an uncharacteristic urgency about him.

  “What . . . what time is it?” the master of the house muttered.

  “One o’clock, my lord.”

  Urmston sat bolt upright. “In the afternoon!”

  “You came home very late, my lord. I thought it better to let you sleep.”

  Urmston kneaded his brow. It ached as the ugly memories of the previous evening came filtering back. “My thanks, John. I . . . needed it.”

  “My lord,” Kingsley replied, “. . . there’s been another murder.”

  Urmston glanced sharply up. “Where?”

  “On the riverside, my lord . . . Southwark.”

  It was the coldest day of the month so far, and despite the gnawing frost, by the time the investigators arrived a large number of people had gathered, thronging along the footpaths and adjoining alleys. They were coster-folk for the most part, porters and fish-sellers, pack-workers, warehousemen. There were so many of them that they crowded right up to the timber wharf, where only the billhooks of the Watch held them back. Even then, a road cleared amid their silent ranks when Urmston arrived. They eyed him expectantly as he passed through.

  On the wharf itself, the spy-catcher found the First Officer of the Watch awaiting him. It was the same fellow they had dealt with before. He looked sickly and sallow.

  “Over here, my lords,” he said, pointing down towards the water’s edge. “An old beggar-woman reported it. We haven’t touched anything yet . . . as you instructed.”

  Urmston nodded. “Good fellow.”

  “I’m afraid it’s a ghastly sight.”

  The two newcomers glanced down. The mud-larks hadn’t yet gathered – perhaps it was too cold even for those hardy young scoundrels, though out on the water, a couple of purl-men watched silently from their skiff. The wavelets lapped sluggishly against their hull. Two or three yards from the waterline, perhaps four or five yards from the landing stage itself, what at first looked like a bundle of filthy rags was sunk several inches into the cream-smooth river mud. It looked like rags, but on second glance, its pale spread-eagled limbs were visible, as well as its mass of gory hair which thankfully had streaked itself down over a gashed, mutilated face.

  A beating was not the cause of death here, however. Even from this distance, it was plain to see that the poor woman had been cut open from groin to throat; a glut of bloody organs now bulged upwards through the long and hideous slit. One or two gulls were already perched beside it, pecking and pulling at the red-pink innards.

  Urmston pursed his lips. “God have mercy on whoever did this . . . for I won’t.” He turned to the serjeant. “Was anyone at all seen near-by?”

  “No one, my lord. And there’s not a dint in the slime, as you can see . . . no one’s even been near her.”

  Urmston said nothing more for a moment. Beside him, Kingsley’s cheeks had paled to a waxen hue. The servant stared at the ravaged carcass with numb shock. He had seen dead bodies numerous times before – in the charnel pit, on the gibbet – many with fingers and noses cropped, or visibly scarred by whip and branding-iron, but the dirt and ferocity of this attack was beyond anything in his experience. Even the battle-wounds he’d witnessed at Solway Moss were as nicks and scratches compared to this. It was as if the woman had been killed by some maddened animal.

  The first-officer of the Watch grew agitated. He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “Shall I have her removed, my lord?” he eventually asked.

  “Not yet,” Urmston replied.

  “As you can see, it’s not a very pleasant . . .”

  “Not yet, serjeant!” the spy-catcher said again. “This poor harlot is past caring about the state of her flesh . . . I’m sure that from whichever Purgatory she’s watching, she’d much prefer we took all steps necessary to catch her killer . . . as unpleasant as it may be.” He glanced sidelong at Kingsley. “It’s invaluable that we were informed straight away, John. What we have here is an undisturbed murder scene. There’ll be much we can learn from it.”

  Kingsley looked at his master, surprised. “But isn’t it more likely the girl was killed yesterday, and dumped somewhere upstream?”

  Urmston almost smiled. “And how would you deduce that?”

  The servant pointed down at the unbroken sheet of slime surrounding the woman. “That’s a tidal mud-flat, she’s lying on. Obviously the ebb-tide left her there.”

  “Did it?”

  “In any case, she must’ve been killed yesterday, else our Spanish friend is innocent.”

  Urmston considered this, then looked back at the body. “She wasn’t killed yesterday, John. She was killed this morning. In the early hours, I would say.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Look for yourself, she’s drenched in blood. Wouldn’t prolonged immersion in the river have washed her clean?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Then look at the dates,” Urmston said. “Yesterday was 12 December. Not, as I’m aware, a holy day.”

  Kingsley thought about this. “Neither is . . . good grief!” His eyes widened. “Today is 13 December . . . St Lucy’s day!”

  His master nodded. “And isn’t there a statue of St Lucy in the basilica at All Hallows?”

  The first-officer of the Watch had been listening to this exchange in silence, and now couldn’t resist interrupting. “But, with respect, my lord, if the woman was killed this morning, she must have been dumped here at low tide . . . when the water was out. Yet there isn’t a mark in the mud around her. Surely, there’d at least be footprints, drag marks?”

  Urmston shook his head. “Not if she was thrown from this wharf.”

  “Thrown?” The serjeant gazed at him with disbelief. “But she must be twelve feet away?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” said Urmston.

  “Well . . . the timing of this definitely discounts our Spaniard,” put in Kingsley.

  “So does the fact that the victim was thrown twelve feet,” his master added. “Our Spaniard is slightly built and in poor health.”

  The serjeant was still unable to accept it. “But whoever did this must have prodigious strength! He must be a giant . . . a
monster!

  “Whoever did this is the Flibbertigibbet,” Urmston replied.

  At this, consternation began to ripple back through the suddenly restless crowd of onlookers. People started to push and shove, to argue, to hurry away seeking refuge or to spread the terrible word. All around the wharf, the cry went up that the Flibbertigibbet had proved itself demonic; it was no ordinary killer after all . . . it was a ghoul, an ogre. The men of the Watch struggled to keep order; punches were thrown, there was shouting and screaming, arrests were made. Only Urmston remained calm in the midst of the mayhem. Even Kingsley was shaken up, suddenly feeling nauseous; a tremulous moment passed, then he doubled over and vomited profusely.

  His master viewed the panic-stricken scene with steely indifference. “Exactly the same thing happened at Chastenoy, I should imagine,” he said. “Where they thought it was the loup-garrou.”

  “But, my lord,” Kingsley protested feebly. “This is too much. Surely, we are looking for a fiend. This must be some sort of judgment on us.”

  “On us?” Urmston asked. “You mean on mankind in general?”

  “Of course.”

  “And why would God only punish impoverished whores like these? Why not dukes and bishops . . . and queens?”

  The servant could only shake his head. “But . . . but this butchery . . .”

  “This butchery is the work of Man, John. I told you before, I’ve seen its like at Tyburn . . . at Smithfield. There’s nothing here we aren’t entirely capable of ourselves.”

  Still feeling queasy, Kingsley put a hand to his brow. “Then . . . who? In God’s name, who?”

  “I should imagine I’ll be in a position to tell you that . . . this afternoon.”

  The servant glanced up in astonishment. “What?”

  “There are several messages I need sending,” Urmston said thoughtfully. “I’d like you, personally, to take one to Lord Ratcliffe. Have him call out the Yeomen of the Guard and bring them to the Church of All Hallows in Bermondsey, at two o’clock this afternoon. Tell him we are about to unmask the real killer and will need urgent assistance. Tell him, also, that he must have Raphael Vesquez released and removed to the Tower infirmary.”