"Then he's a better actor than Alleyn and Burbage put together," snapped Enys. "I saw him when he found the body. He was white and he puked. You can't fake going pale."
"Ha!" said Shakespeare, "I'll tell you what you do, you think of something that utterly frightens you and that makes you go pale and then..."
"Don't be ridiculous, he was drunk."
"Or playing drunk."
"It could just as easily have been me," said Enys, "I'm as likely a suspect as Catlin,"
"With respect, Mr Enys," said Shakespeare evilly, "You have many faults, but you are neither a whoremonger nor a Puritan." He let the other thing Enys was not hang in the air between them. To his surprise Enys started to laugh, shaking his... her head.
"What a recommendation. I'm touched by your faith, sir. So how do we get him arrested for it? Without doing the same to me?"
Shakespeare scowled. "It stands to reason, it must be him."
Enys shook his head. "We'll have to hope that if he does it again, which God forbid, we can catch him without an alibi and arrest him before he can do the same to me and then find enough evidence to accuse him."
Shakespeare shook his head. "Better if we catch him at it and kill him in a fair fight."
Enys looked shocked at his venom and Shakespeare coughed. "Or something," he amended. "I hope it is him, it should be, the poxy bastard puritan."
Maliverny Catlin lifted up the floorboards over the pit and looked about. He had a couple of good candles lit and a small watchlight in a lantern beside him although it was full daylight: the tiny high windows had been blocked off some time in the past or perhaps there had never been any. He had told the landlord he was from the Tunnage and Poundage men, checking for contraband and shown his warrant as proof, which the landlord had luckily been unable to read.
In front of him was a mysterious rectangular pit set into the stone-flagged floor beneath the boards. It was something quite like a grave, a little less than six foot long and about four foot deep, lined with very old coloured tiles that showed pretty designs of stars and flame-shapes. The floor of it tilted down to one end. When he checked that end he found a tightly fitting hatch that lifted up on grooves and moved easily. This then was the priest's escape that had mystified Topcliffe the month before, but you couldn't blame him for not taking the floorboards up. They sounded solid and you had to know where to look.
"This is how you bring in the contraband," Catlin said to the landlord who was standing patiently behind him.
"No sir," said the landlord, his voice a mixture of caution and contempt, "This bit don't belong to me really and while I'll not deny it's been used for storing unsealed stuff before, I've never used it for that. I was thinking of letting it to players until Mrs Merry rented it off of me."
"Oh? Who's she?"
"A respectable lady," said the landlord, "But she's stopped paying the rent now and I don't know where she's gone. Anyway, that little passage is too small for a barrel though you can get through it if you're not too big a man."
"So excellent for Papist priests?"
The landlord shrugged. Catlin looked at the square opening and felt sweat pop on his nose. There was only ever going to be one way of finding out exactly where the passageway came out, which he needed to do if he was to flip a finger at Topcliffe. A pity he hadn't thought to bring that boy with him, but he hadn't.
He sighed, bent and lifted the hatch and propped it with a piece of wood clearly there for the purpose. Then he went down on all fours and crawled into the conduit.
It smelled of damp but was not too dirty. In the light of his little lantern he could see scuff marks all along it and it continued straight ahead for a while, 100 yards at least.
At the other end was another hatch, this one hinged at the top so you could push it upwards and come out, just above a weed choked round pond in the middle of a courtyard, filled with a family of pigs and a curious goat. Directly behind him was an old wall which overlooked an alley and he didn't fancy challenging the pigs on their own ground. So Maliverny turned, climbed the wall carefully, sat on the top and then dropped down into the alley which was mercifully only tenanted by a beggar. He dusted himself off, smiled threateningly at the beggar and hurried back along the alleyway where he found himself looking at the alehouse again. Perfect.
Back in the commonroom of the alehouse, he gave the landlord back his lantern along with an angel to keep it company, smoothed down his hair and brushed mud off the knees of his cannions. It had been undignified but very well worth it. What a treasure. And what on earth had the place been originally? Surely not a church, despite the peculiar saint's statue and pretty tiles.
The landlord was looking at the gold coin and then at him with his eyebrows raised.
"For your future assistance, Mr Siddons," said Catline, "And your present silence."
The landlord nodded.
Next Catlin caught a boat to Southwark and hurried to the house where builders were still working to replace the fire-damaged roof and destroyed front door of Heneage's property, caused by the mysterious riot in September. He was actually hoping to find Heneage but instead came upon Topcliffe, sitting balefully in a chair with carved wooden arms in the kitchen, his walking stick planted on the floorboards and his fur-trimmed gown up around his ears. As always, although the man was in his late 60s at least, his hair and beard were dyed coal black as if he had been an aging whore. It made him look strangely withered with his face unnaturally at odds with the rest of him. As always, something in Catlin's guts crawled away and tried to escape at the sight of him.
"Hah! Mr Catlin!" boomed the man, "What have you got for me?"
Catlin paused and considered, his lips thinning at the man's disrespect. "I was looking for Mr Heneage," he said.
"He's very busy," said Topcliffe, "Heard anything about the new batch of Jesuits?"
"No sir," said Catlin cautiously.
"What are you doing here then?"
Catlin got control of his innards and forced himself to relax. Above all, with Topcliffe, it was essential to show no fear.
"Perhaps I should talk to Mr Vice Chamberlain Heneage about it."
The walking stick lifted and prodded at Catlin. Topcliffe was in fact extremely healthy for a man his age and had no need of a stick, except to beat people with of course.
"He's not the Vice Chamberlain any more," said Topcliffe with a nasty grin, "Her Majesty said he needed to have a rest and recover his wits after some recent tomfoolery. Her blessed majesty is utterly displeased with him, she told me so herself."
Catlin eyed the man. Topcliffe always spoke like that, as if he and the Queen were kissing cousins, as if she regularly took him into her confidence. Sometimes Topcliffe would claim extraordinary mad things, that she had allowed him to put his hand on her breast or her arse. And yet he seemed to have complete impunity in all he did and was in fact Her Majesty's unofficial torturer. It was hard to know whether there was any truth at all lurking in what he said, given his licence. He had never been given any kind of warrant. Nobody was quite sure who he considered his lord although he would assist any of the Queen's privy counsellors against traitors and Jesuits, doing what they preferred not to have a hand in. In fact he had had the torturing of Robert Southwell, although apparently he hadn't succeeded in getting anything out of the man. Some said all he said was true and he reported directly to the Queen in private.
On balance, Catlin hoped this was a lie as well, but didn't dare assume it was. He bowed shallowly to Topcliffe.
"I have heard from divers sources," he said delicately, "That Mass is to be said in London again."
Topcliffe's eyes were intent, the focus of a falcon on his prey. Or a snake, perhaps.
"Who's the priest? Gerard? Garnet?"
Catlin shook his head. "I think he's young and newly arrived by a different route than the usual ones." After Mrs Crosby explained it, he had been annoyed to find that Peter the Hedgehog's eye had been good and he had been right about the pri
est.
"Ah," said Topcliffe, "Where's the Mass?"
"The crypt behind the Bull alehouse," said Catlin. "Where there was a Mass in September and you just missed them because someone tried to move in too fast."
"I still don't know who it was," grunted Topcliffe, "I'll thrash him if I find out."
Catlin waited. Topcliffe reached into his purse and put down a couple of angels. Catlin looked at the paltry sum and smiled.
"I don't need money," he said, "I'd take it if I did, but I don't. What I want from you, Mr Topcliffe, is a promise."
"Oh?"
Catlin explained carefully what it was and Topcliffe roared with laughter. "Done!" he said, took the money back and waited. Catlin told him that the Mass was to be the next day at two of the clock, during the bearbaiting.
"The priest's name?"
"Felix Bellamy," Catlin said casually, not having heard the name before. But Topcliffe clearly had. His face froze. In the instant before it turned to stone, Catlin had glimpsed a look of feral greed, of absolute delight. It made him feel quite cold and he was not one who normally felt sorry for Papists, far from it.
"Excellent," purred Topcliffe, "Now that deserves much better than a simple promise. Let me know, Mr Catlin, if I can do anything at all for you by way of privy petition with the Queen or other good lordship?"
Once again Catlin's skin crawled at the thought. Surely the old man was lying about his influence. "Thank you, sir," he said quietly, "But luckily I am in no need of good lordship at the present. Do you know Felix Bellamy?"
Topcliffe sniggered. "Not yet. But I know his sister. I know her all right."
Catlin bowed and took his leave. He had no need to sit and listen to Topcliffe laughing and gloating over some other poor woman. Catlin had heard the stories.
Suddenly Catlin paused between steps on the threshold, then turned back. Could he be the one who mutilated whores? Was it possible?
"Have you lately come from Her Majesty, sir?" he asked, "Are you returning to court?"
Topcliffe never missed a chance to boast of how close he was with the Queen.
"From her very closet," he said, "I rode from Court only yesterday."
So he was out of London on the night when Kettle Annie died and there would be witnesses as to whether he really was at court. Besides, now he thought of it, Topcliffe might enjoy raping a woman after torturing her – or indeed before – but if he wanted to anatomise one of them, he had no need of back alleys. He had his own private torture chamber at his house and access to the Thames at all times.
Catlin nodded, trying to look impressed, tilted his head politely and left the house. It occurred to him to wonder if Topcliffe realised he was damned as well? Certainly he could take no harm from questioning and torturing evil Papists but what about his dealings with women? Fornication was fornication, no matter who it was with. And if Topcliffe wasn't damned, then nobody was.
Catlin shook his head as he walked back down Upper Ground to find a boat. He had no intention of being at the Bull alehouse for the raid – but he would wait quietly in the yard where the priest's escape came out, with perhaps a helper or two, and take the real prize himself.
The commonroom was filling up and Shakespeare's brain was getting nicely fuzzed when a girl he recognised from Bankside came in, her ruff perky and her facepaint nearly as thick as a courtier’s. She had a worried look underneath it and she went to the separate table where James Enys was waiting quietly, contemplating his usual pint of mild. Her. It was a her.
Shakespeare unfocussed his eyes and concentrated on eavesdropping as unobtrusively as possible.
“I dunno where Eliza’s gone,” said the girl, “We follered Kettle Annie all the way to Upper Ground and then we come back and she went off to see someone she knew, she said. She was supposed to be here. Have you seen ‘er?”
Eny shook her head. “Is she usually late, Isabel?”
The girl shrugged. “Not usually, she’s that frightened of the Devil. ‘e’s going for the old whores, she said.”
“Perhaps. Now are any of your... ah... your other colleagues coming to speak to me?”
Isabel settled herself on the stool which was all her farthingale would allow her and eyed the ale-jack hintingly. Enys signalled to the older potboy and got her a pint of what she wanted, double beer.
“I passed the word, but I don’t fink they will, they’re scared of lawyers anyway.”
Enys nodded. “I understand that, and also of strange men who want no venery of them but to talk.”
Isabel eyed him. “Werl, yes,” she said.
“Would it help if I asked my sister, Mrs Portia Morgan, to speak to them on her own? Would it be easier for them to speak to a woman?”
Isabel shrugged again. “Might be, dunno, I’ll ask. Would your sister do it, being respectable?”
Enys smiled. “I’m sure she will if I ask her nicely and promise her a new hat.”
Isabel giggled a little, looked around the common room again and then stood up restlessly and went and talked to the landlord. She came back still worried.
Shakespeare yawned, sipped some more aqua vitae and pulled a small edition of Ovid from his pocket which he leafed through restlessly. His eye rested on Venus and Adonis, a rather pointless tale, he’d always thought. The familiar Latin started parading through his brain as his ears worked as hard as the Thames waterwheels.
Another brazenly dressed woman approached their table. Her taffeta striped false front and her stomacher with a falcon embroidered on it, told of where she normally worked. The landlord was eyeing her cautiously, especially as she was better looking and less-painted than Isabel.
“Mrs Nunn said we could talk to you,” said the woman, “I’m Kat from the Falcon,”
Enys courteously half-rose from his... her bench, gestured for her to sit down and crooked his finger at the potboy to bring another pint of double. Then he brought out a notebook and a stick of graphite like the ones Shakespeare carried.
“We’re all sad about Kettle Annie and French Mary,” said the new girl, “and we’re all scared, no matter what Mr Gabriel says about protecting us. ‘e can’t, it stands to reason, can ‘e?”
“Can’t he?” asked Enys neutrally.
“Not against the Devil.”
Enys put his graphite down sharply enough to break it in the middle. “If it’s the Devil truly and not some evil person possessed by him, then there is nothing I can do and no point to your speaking to me,” he snapped. “You would be better going to church and praying for God’s protection.”
Kat and Isabel exchanged glances. “Yers, well, we tried that but the beadsmen wouldn’t let us in, would they?”
“Do you truly think it’s the Devil and not a wicked human?” Enys asked.
The two girls looked at each other again and shivered. Shakespeare realised that Kat was younger than she seemed.
“I fink it’d be better if it was the Devil,” said Isabel and her lip trembled, “Cos then we wouldn’t have to think about it being some man done it, what we might of wapped already, somebody we knew.”
Enys nodded while Isabel took a long drink of double beer.
“I agree with you,” Enys said unexpectedly, “That is the frightening part of it.”
“Or it might be witches,” pointed out Kat, “Mrs Nunn says it can’t be witches cos they help whores get rid of their babies and her own granny was one and so on, but then I fort maybe it was ghost babies...”
Kat clutched her arms. “Ooorgh, that’s horrible,” she muttered.
Once again Enys put down his bit of graphite stick, more carefully this time. “Listen to me, goodwives,for what it’s worth, I think whoever did it was human, not ghost nor Devil. Ghosts can’t touch the living, everyone knows that, and the Devil must make men do his work. A man working for the Devil, certainly, but not the Devil himself.”
The two girls considered, then nodded slowly. They weren’t convinced but they were being polite.
; “Now tell me, has anything like this ever happened before in any other place?” Enys asked, “No matter how far away nor how long ago?”
It has, Shakespeare thought to himself, a little muzzy, it may have happened to Peter the Hedgehog’s sister.
Both girls shook their heads. “Not like this, no,” Kat said definitely, “Not wiv being cut open and that. Course you do get killed sometimes in this trade, sometimes by a husband or a wife or even a son or sometimes by one of them reformers. There was a vicar a while back, used to do it wiv a Bible.”
“What?”
“After ‘e’d wapped his whore,” said Kat, “e’d hit her on the ‘ead from behind wiv a Bible while she was sorting out her petticoats and down she’d go.”
Shakespeare coughed to hide a terrible urge to laugh. He wondered who it had been and if the man was still alive.
“Didn’t want ‘er to tell nobody, o’ course,” said Isabel, “And ‘e always did have a big Bible handy, used to like to read to ‘em from the Song of Songs to get ‘is yard ready.”
Enys’s face was ruby red at this and Shakespeare knew his own ears had gone treacherously pink.
“How do you know?”
Isabel looked puzzled but Kat was pleased. “Oh one day a girl turned and saw ‘im at it, and realised what was going on, so she hit him. Then her upright man come in, what she’d had waiting just in case, and they toasted the vicar’s bollocks with a hot kettle until ‘e told ‘em all about it and then the upright man killed him for it. Caused no end of trouble cos he was missed tho they put ‘is body in the Thames. He was found in the end but by that time it had come out he was a whore-monger and so everyone thought it was suicide.”
Shakespeare blinked at the smooth pebbles of Latin before him, well-rounded by his eyes. He suddenly knew exactly who that young whore had been.
So did Enys. “A kettle? Was it Kettle Annie?”
Both whores rolled their eyes at him. “Course it was, a while back, before she got fat and she was still doing a good trade.”
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