Shakespeare shook his head. It was odd that it wasn’t a whore, but perhaps this Devil dressed as a man only preyed on women – and older women at that. Two matrons so far and now one crone. Ah but there was also possibly one kinchin mort if Peter’s sister really had been killed by the same devil.
They reported on what they had been doing the day before and Enys handed over the amended lists with alibis and statements noted. Fleetwood grinned when Shakespeare described how they had been treated at the first place they asked.
"Ah yes," was all he said, "I can see that would be delicate."
"There's one name on the list we were not able to question because we couldn't find him," said Enys unhappily. Fleetwood's eyebrows went up.
"Oh?" he said. Enys pointed to Catlin's name in silence. The silence continued. "Where did you look?" asked Fleetwood.
Shakespeare shrugged. "His usual alehouses, his own house."
"Did you ask him where he was yesterday?"
"Yes," Enys said. "He told me to mind my own business."
"Did you try the Falcon?"
Enys looked down when Shakespeare glanced at him. "Er... no," said Enys. "Should we?"
"Next time," said Fleetwood drily. "He has an account."
It was Peter who came running up to them when they came back into the Cock to buy aqua vitae to scrub away the memory. “I ‘erd there was anovver one...” he stuttered, “Was it...”
“Only a poor old beggarwoman,” said Enys.
Peter puffed out a big sigh of relief. “Fank God for it,” he said fervently.
“Why?” rapped out Enys, “Do you think that because she was only an old beggar woman, it doesn’t matter that she was murdered?”
As Shakespeare had been thinking precisely that, he could sympathise with Peter who looked bewildered. The boy’s mouth was open with puzzlement.
“But...” he said.
“A murder is a murder, whether it’s done to a young girl, a whore, a fine lady or a miserable crone,” said Enys, “Isn’t it?”
Peter’s face suddenly twisted, he began to snortle and then ran away into the kitchen, wiping his eyes with his arm. Enys frowned in puzzlement.
“That boy has a tale to tell,” Shakespeare told him, “I think his sister may have been the first to be killed and cut up a couple of weeks ago, at least that’s what I gathered from him. Trouble is, he won’t tell me any more.”
“How old was the girl?” Enys asked.
Shakespeare shrugged. “I’ve no idea, older than him, maybe ten or eleven years.”
Enys looked thoughtful, then he shifted uneasily on the bench. “I must go, I’m expected in court,” he said. “Can you find out more from the boy?”
Shakespeare shook his head. He had an appointment with a lot of aqua vitae. “He’s frightened of me and of the memory,” he said, “Won’t tell me any more.”
Catlin was sitting in his preferred Fleet Street alehouse, the Fox and Hounds which had better beer and a friendlier welcome than the Cock. He was working at his own various lists of names, customers of French Mary and Kettle Annie as supplied by the terrified and snortling Peter, currently potboy at the Cock. Maliverny had paid him a couple of pennies to stand there and recite the names, since he assumed the boy couldn’t write. Some of his other informants had come up with lists as well, well-peppered with Catholic names either from habit or because the Papists were indeed the whoremongers everyone said they were. It stood to reason: because of their fiendish travesty of confession to a priest and indulgences, they could have no fear of eternal damnation and could wipe their sins out any time they chose. Hence they were whoremongers.
It was disgusting and unfair, Catlin thought, before he suppressed the thought. At least all Catholics would end in hell anyway, no matter what they thought, that was some comfort.
The mocking little voice inside him that never left him in peace for long said, and you’ll meet them there, eh, Maliverny? Do you think they’ll be pleased to see you?
Catlin shuddered and dipped his pen. He started going through all his lists, making one further list that conjoined them where they touched, featuring the names that appeared on all of them. He had to fight the instinct to simply pick on one man who was the least popular and weakest in influence, ideally with the maximum amount of property. Unlike with Papist-hunting, he had to find the man who was actually committing the crimes if at all possible, so he could be stopped from doing them any more. If Catlin accused the wrong one and he was arrested, tried and hanged, presumably the crimes wouldn’t stop and then Catlin would be in trouble with Fleetwood. The bastard might even demand his money back, assuming he paid out at all.
Mind you, some of them would be ripe for a little squeezing, he thought, before his appointment with the Papists later in the day. There was one wealthy merchant and one prominent barrister on the final list who would probably be very happy to pay for Catlin’s silence. A little cheered, Catlin took his papers and set off to collect Young Daniel his usual henchman, ready to talk to the nearest one, Mr Craddock of all people.
James Enys paced out of Westminster Hall, feeling exhausted, exhilarated and as if her boots were a couple of inches off the cobbles. She had appeared in front of Mr Justice Whitehead again and had thoroughly enjoyed a hammer and tongs argument with her opponent, a well-known older barrister called Paul Chapel, which the learned Judge had adjudicated with great relish and much dry humour. The clients on both sides were locked in a decade long dispute over an orchard that had once been church property and was now full of squatters as a no-man’s-land while the litigation dragged on. They had watched in awe, happy to be getting full value for money.
They had begun at ten of the clock and it was now afternoon: there had been shouting, there had been waving of pleadings, there had been quoting of statutes – several of them fictitious, as the Judge had pointed out – and a wonderful fowl’s parliament of Norman French, Latin, English and some farmyard cursing from Chapel when a sweeping gesture by him had knocked a jug of ale over his papers. The judge had genially offered to lock him up for contempt of court until he could dry them out again.
At the end of it all the Judge had found for Enys’s clients, comprehensively, fully and, short of busy letters to the Privy Council, finally. Enys’s clients had been delighted, had put a very heavy purse into the discreet bung hanging at the back of Enys’s robe and shaken her hand. Enys had warned them about the looming likelihood of letters to the Privy Council or even a petition direct to the Queen, if the opponents had the money to bribe a few courtiers. Enys had to explain she had no control over this possibility as her one court contact was not available at the moment. The matriarch who had been running the litigation, hurried off to marshall her cousins at court in defence.
Paul Chapel came out and raised his sandy eyebrows at Enys. Enys bowed slightly to him, he bowed back and they smiled their satisfaction at each other.
“God, my throat’s hoarse,” commented Chapel unsubtly.
“Double or double-double?” Enys asked, knowing that as the winner it was up to her to buy the beer.
A few moments later they were in the small alehouse hard by Westminster Hall, with its Tudor Rose sign splashed over a carved pig.
“God, that’s better,” said Chapel coming up for air after demolishing his pint of double in one. Enys sipped, knowing that she had far less capacity for booze, even after a couple of years’ practice at Gray’s Inn while studying for the Bar. “That was fun, eh, Enys?”
Enys laughed. It had indeed been fun – much more fun than the sword-schooling which she did conscientiously because she had to. In court she could fight with words which were far easier weapons for her to wield than a long bar of steel whose edge still frightened her.
“It was a pleasure to dispute with you, brother,” she said to Chapel who snorted and poured himself another pint from the gallon-jack on the table.
“Bloody idiots, both lots of them,” he said, “Why didn’t they just divide the
plot in half and get on with it ten years ago, instead of spending double the orchard’s worth on the two of us and a solicitor as well?”
Enys raised her eyebrows. “I’ve very glad they didn’t,” she said mildly, “Thanks to today I might be able to afford a woman to attend my sister at last.”
Chapel grunted. “Obviously. And I’m worth considerably more than any orchard but still... It never ceases to amaze me how much clients will spend rather than simply agree together. Thank God.” Enys toasted the sentiment.
“Are you free next week?” Chapel asked eventually. “I have a very juicy little suit in the Court of Requests over a wardship and I’m unable to take it, alas.”
Enys’s heart thudded with delight. A much more senior barrister passing a case on was praise indeed – whatever would Chapel say if he knew it was to a woman? Best not to think about that. She asked about the technicalities and decided that she could do it with some hurried reading work on the law on wardships in Gray’s library and possibly Lincoln’s Inn, if she could bribe the man who guarded the books.
“I’ll have my clerk come over with the papers tomorrow,” said Chapel, “Or I might bring ‘em myself and call in on old Craddock, see how he is.”
“Is he recovered at all?” asked Enys tactfully, “I saw him in his... er... his fit the other day.”
“Woke up in the morning, so I heard,” said Chapel, his face avid with gossip, “asked why everybody was looking askance at him and called for his breakfast and beer the same as ever. Nor could he remember a damned thing about the day before, or so he said, nothing at all about disputing with the Devil.”
“Lord above,” said Enys, puzzled, “I... ah... my sister spoke to him that morning in Fleet Street before he took his fit, and he seemed well enough.”
“Mrs Craddock said he was feverish all night, then seemed well enough for breakfast and went out. He returned with the fever again and after that it was all a ranting and a raving at the Devil until the apothecary managed to knock him out with laudenum.”
“My sister said she saw him try to climb out the window to fistfight with the Devil,”
“Sounds like Craddock,” said Chapel, finishing his beer, “I remember when we were at Inner Temple together, he was always first into the fray when the apprentices shouted “clubs”. Took on one of the biggest roaring boys in Smithfield once and beat him soundly. It’s a pity...”
“What is? The fit of madness?”
“Yes, and that his wife is seemingly barren. All both of them want is a son but...” Chapel shook his head. “His old witch of a mother in law blames him for it, of course.”
Enys shrugged, though she knew it was the woman who generally got the blame.
“I have to make one proviso in taking your case to the Court of Requests,” she said to Chapel as they called for the Ordinary, “I’m presently retained in... an unusual matter by Mr Recorder Fleetwood...”
Taking pity on Chapel’s naked curiosity, she explained the situation and Chapel listened with his head professionally cocked, stroking his court goatee beard. At the end, he pursed his lips.
“Jesu, brother, rather you than me,” he said, “It sounds bloody impossible. Though keeping Mr Recorder sweet will do you no harm at all as far as a Junior Readership is concerned – all the Benchers think the sun shines out of his arse.”
Enys smiled faintly. “I hadn’t thought of that, more that I had no fancy to decorate a rope for...”
“ A crime so snivelling and pathetic as the killing of a couple of whores and a crone!” said Chapel with a shouted laugh, “If you must hang, at least let it be for a duel or high treason or piracy...
Enys laughed too, part-shocked part-encouraged. It was something she thoroughly enjoyed about the ridiculous masquerade she had somehow found herself in: talking with men as a man, the world was utterly different. At least she was getting used to the sense of humour. A woman would have been all shocked sympathy at her predicament; but here was Chapel who found it funny because it was too trivial for the danger. It was strangely comforting in its roughness. Not that there was ever anything trivial about a murder, even of two whores or a crone, no matter how much she liked Chapel. But still...
“I think Fleetwood’s main worry is how to stop the whores from rioting.”
Chapel was fuelling up with steak and kidney pudding, that autumn constant when every inn had suet and offal in their larders after killing their beeves to salt down for the winter. He grunted, waved his eating knife while he swallowed a lump.
“Much more likely to stop them going on strike.”
“That too,” laughed Enys.
“It’s not lawyer’s work, though, is it, brother? It’s more in the nature of a pursuivant's job.”
Enys made a rueful face. “I know. Maliverny Catlin is my partner by order of Mr Fleetwood.”
“Christ’s guts,” rumbled Chapel, “Watch him, Enys, he’s a complete bastard.”
“I know.”
“Clever as well so he might well solve the case and steal all the credit.”
Enys shrugged. “Good.”
“Or find a way to blame you.”
Enys stared into space. “I have wondered whether he... might be the murderer.”
Chapel's eyebrows went up. He leaned back a little. “Go on?” he said.
“Imprimis, when we found Kettle Annie’s body, she was still warm though it was a frosty night – and he was the one who actually found her.”
“Ah."
"But he puked afterwards. Though that could have been the booze, he reeked of it.”
“Hm. Was he bloody?”
“No. I looked at his hands. But he could have washed and changed his shirt.”
“Did he look at your hands?”
Enys had to think carefully. “Yes, perhaps he did.”
“Probably not then, if you think about it. If he knows who did it, why would he need to check if it was you?”
“Ah.”
“Though he could have been faking, knowing you might suspect him if he didn’t.”
Enys sighed.
“What about the other time? The one at the part-built playhouse?”
“I don’t know where he was or what he was doing that week. Obviously he could have done it, she was in a building site that was boarded up and hidden by from sight. He could have stripped naked, done his work, washed and clothed himself and nobody any the wiser.”
“Is he a whoremonger?”
Enys paused. “I have no reason whatever to say it,” she said carefully, “But I’m certain he is. Mr Recorder Fleetwood says he has an account at the Falcon. He’s a Puritan, a pursuivant, rich on Papist spoils, still a bachelor despite all the mothers of London could do to catch him, and the way he looks at whores...”
“We all look at whores,” said Chapel with a grin, spearing a piece of steak with his knife.
“Ay, you especially, Chapel. But it’s the way he does it...”
“Stripping off their pretty striped petticoats? Thinking of sucking their pretty pink boobies...”
Enys laughed at Chapel’s dreamy expression. “No, not like you. It’s as if he hates them and craves them at the same time... “
“Well, nobody likes to pay for...”
“No, really hates them... like... like a dog with rabies trying to drink...”
“Hm,” Chapel was now eating pot-herbs at high speed –he seemed to do everything at the gallop. “Yes, but Catlin isn’t a big man, is he? Wiry and ill-looking but not even so tall as you, I think?”
“No, an inch or two shorter.”
“Now I am not under any circumstances prepared to explain how or why I happen to know, you understand, but Kettle Annie is a... was a very well-built and powerful woman with a particularly fine pair of...”
“Boobies?”
“Shame on you, Enys,” grinned Chapel triumphantly, “No, I meant muscular arms. Yet from what you said, by the tale of her body, he got her into the alley and stripped her as
well, then cut her up with no other damage to himself. There was no primary stab or throttling, was there?”
Enys had to consult the livid picture in his memory. He shook his head. There hadn’t been either of those things, but something was niggling him about something else.
“So how did he manage it?” asked Chapel through some carrots, “Kettle Annie is the last woman on earth to lie down for that sort of thing. As it were.”
Enys frowned. “You’re right. She wouldn’t be an easy kill. And nor was French Mary.”
“So you first must ask, not what was done and then by whom. You must first ask, how was it done?” Chapel was waving his eating knife again. “You know, like Whiteacre and Greenacre in a moot. Not, who took illegal possession of the acre of commonland, but how exactly was it done – by force of arms? By illegal enclosure? By conspiracy? By false deeds? Or by unlawful purchase?”
“Ay,” said Enys slowly.
“How, then why, then who, if necessary, which it probably is in this case.”
“You’re right, brother, the how is very important... I don’t see Maliverny Catlin overpowering either of those women, though the most recent body...”
The thought came to Enys in a flash, like unravelling a particularly darkly-drafted pleading to find it was actually in error. In front of her eyes she saw vivid pictures as if made by the most expert court limner in the world. Kettle Annie. French Mary, by Shakespeare’s description. The scrawny old woman tumbled behind Bailey’s house of easement, her belly jagged open and the innards spilled... It was utterly different. As cruel and abhorrent, but different.
Enys felt her heart thud and the excellent dinner turned to stone in her belly.
“Jesu,” she whispered, “Christ Almighty.”
“What’s wrong Enys, you look as if you had seen a ghost?”
“In a way, yes. You’ve helped me remember something very important.”
Enys was on his feet, clapping his hat on his head, fumbling in his newly fattened purse for the extra sixpence to pay for the meal on top of the eight pence for the gallon of good ale. Chapel waved his money away and grinned.
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