The Last Protector

by Andrew Taylor

  As luck would have it, he had taken her right arm, which meant she could not reach the slit in her skirt where the pocket containing her knife was. Even if she could, what use would a small knife be? It would not protect her husband from Buckingham.

  Only the King could do that. It struck her that Marwood had been right all along: that she should have traded information about Buckingham and Cromwell in return for her own safety and her husband’s.

  Hakesby had no idea of what was happening. Durrell had refused to allow Cat to speak to him. ‘Best to come with me directly, mistress,’ he had said, ‘and get it out of the way. If the old gentleman misses you, the porter will tell him where you are. You’ll only fluster him if you tell him now.’

  There was truth of a sort in that, but in any case Durrell had given her no choice. He wouldn’t even let her fetch her cloak and hat.

  ‘Warm enough in the coach, you’ll find. And if it’s not, you can have one of our cloaks.’

  But on the next floor down, she heard the door of the Drawing Office open, and familiar footsteps shuffle out.

  ‘Sir,’ she cried, twisting her head and shouting up the stairs. ‘Durrell’s taking me to—’

  He released her arm and clamped a large hand over her mouth. ‘No, no, no,’ he said. ‘You’re a wayward bitch, aren’t you?’

  They descended the last flight to the first-floor landing. Cat tried to find the slit into her pocket, but Durrell had her squeezed against him. The hilt of his sword dug into her waist.

  She peered into the hall passage below. There was no sign of Pheebs.

  There were rapid movements above. It must be Brennan, Cat thought, and he was coming downstairs. At least he might be in time to see what was happening.

  Durrell paused on the first-floor landing. He was breathing hard, but whether that was from exertion or irritation wasn’t clear. He turned his head to face Brennan.

  But it wasn’t Brennan.

  Hakesby appeared around the half turn of the stairs from the floor above. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, his voice that of a younger man. He was carrying his inkwell in his hand and he shook it at Durrell, scattering a trail of ink down the stairs. ‘Where are you taking these ladies?’

  ‘I ain’t taking this one anywhere.’ Durrell nodded his head at Elizabeth who, strangely, smiled at him as if he had done her a service. ‘Just offering her my arm downstairs. But the Duke wants to talk to your lady, and that’s where we’re going.’

  ‘Then His Grace should have asked leave of me,’ Hakesby said, stumbling down the last of the stairs and advancing across the landing. ‘And if he’s a man of honour, he should have done it himself rather than send a servant. And I would have refused him. Am I not her husband? Release her, you rogue. At once, do you hear? Or by God I’ll make you.’

  Durrell obeyed. He stretched out his hand and snatched the inkwell from Hakesby. He threw it through the window at the end of the landing.

  Hakesby was now white and trembling, the unnatural burst of energy gone. ‘You – you—’

  Durrell seized him by the collar with one hand, and by his belt with the other. He heaved Hakesby down the last flight of stairs to the hall.

  Elizabeth screamed. Cat ran down the stairs to her husband.

  ‘Looks like the poor old gentleman slipped,’ Durrell said.

  The noises penetrated the walls of the airless closet under the stairs. Pheebs kept his possessions here, including the straw mattress he slept on. Now he was sitting on a stool and cleaning his teeth with the ivory toothpick he had stolen from the young man who used to lodge in the first floor back.

  The noises grew worse. The shouting. The screaming. The running footsteps. Something falling.

  It wasn’t right. This wasn’t part of the bargain. Durrell had paid him ten shillings. In return, Pheebs had let Durrell into the house and allowed him to go directly upstairs. He had come to fetch Mistress Hakesby, Durrell had said – nothing to worry about, but probably better for everyone if it was managed discreetly. Send your boy out on an errand, Durrell added. Bid him not to come back for a couple of hours.

  Pheebs had told him that Mistress Cromwell was up there in the Hakesbys’ parlour. Durrell had poked Pheebs in the ribs and said she didn’t matter, she was a friend, but thanks for the warning all the same. I can let myself out with the ladies, he said with a leer, I like it when there’s two of them. You can bar the door after we’ve gone.

  But the racket in the hall was beyond bearing, even for ten shillings. Someone was going to ask: Where was the porter when all that was going on? Perhaps he could say he’d had an urgent need to empty his bowels and had been in the necessary house at the back.

  Pheebs cautiously opened the closet door and looked out. Oh, God’s death. Old Hakesby was lying on his face in the hall. And his wife was kneeling over him. And Durrell was thumping down the stairs with a face like a pickled walnut, dark with anger. He was dragging the other wench behind him, the one with the nice tits, and she was red-cheeked as any drunken slut and screeching like a baby and she didn’t look so well-favoured now.

  More footsteps above. Someone shouting down the stairs.

  Then, behind him, the scrape of the garden door opening.

  Devil take them all. Pheebs retreated into the closet and pulled the door shut. He slid home the inner bolt as quietly as possible and covered his ears.

  Cat?

  Like a fool, I rushed towards the garden door. My shoes crunched over pieces of glass from the broken window above. The door wasn’t barred. I pushed it open. I hesitated on the step.

  Two candles were burning near the street door at the far end of the hall, and a couple of rushlights in the intervening passage. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could hear them.

  There was another scream, followed by the rumble of a man’s voice.

  Like an even greater fool, I raised my stick and advanced up the hall. There was Cat. I felt a rush of relief that she was alive. She was kneeling by Hakesby, who was lying on his side at the foot of the stairs. The gown he wore about the house had come loose and it floated around him on the floor. His slippers had fallen off. I opened my mouth to say something, but by then it was too late.

  Cat raised her head. She was staring at something or someone I couldn’t see. A moment later she was on her feet. She had her little knife in her hand.

  Durrell came into view. His arm lunged towards her. She ducked under it and stabbed him in the side, just above the waist. He bellowed with pain and rage. He gave her a backhanded blow that swept her aside.

  Falling back, she tripped over something on the floor. There was a chink of metal. She lost control of the movement and fell heavily. The back of her head collided with the side wall of the passage. She cried out and dropped the knife.

  Another woman appeared. She ran past Durrell towards the door. He snatched at the cloak she carried and hauled her back. She screamed like a mad thing and batted his arm with the flat of her free hand, like an infant in the grip of a tantrum. He slapped her into silence. She crouched down, covering her head with her hands, and wailed. Durrell turned his head to look at Cat, who was struggling to her feet. He lumbered towards her.

  I was in the shadows to his side. As he passed me, I ran forward and hit him over the head with my stick. His hat took some of the impact, but the blow was hard enough to stop him in his tracks. I gripped the stick with both hands and hit him again, this time full in the face. I heard the crack of his nose breaking.

  Durrell slumped sideways, against the wall, and fell to the floor. He raised his left arm to shield himself from another blow. His right hand stretched towards Cat.

  Someone rushed past me and flung himself on top of Durrell. Durrell grunted and writhed, trying to throw off his new attacker. He was a stranger to me – a tall man, twitching like a great spider on top of Durrell; he seemed all legs and arms; and with him he brought a foul smell.

  There was a small axe on the floor. I could see it quite clearly by the
light of the candles. It didn’t occur to me to wonder what it was doing there. By this time I was beyond surprise, beyond thought.

  The tall man snatched the axe and brought it down with precision and great force on Durrell’s right wrist.

  Durrell screamed.

  One moment the arm had a hand at the end of it, a hand that was only inches away from Cat. The next moment, the hand was quite separate from the arm. It was resting beside Cat’s foot. And the arm was spurting blood towards her. In this light the liquid was as black as ink.

  The tall man let the axe fall to the floor.

  The other woman had stopped screaming for the time being. She had contrived to scramble to her feet. She was at the door, struggling with the bars and bolts. She got the door open, and the noise of the street rolled into the hall. She glanced back, frowning.

  Elizabeth Cromwell, I thought. It must be.

  ‘Give me it, Catty,’ she said, her voice hard and imperious. ‘It’s mine.’

  She was pointing at something that lay beside Hakesby’s motionless head. A small leather case.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Cat said. ‘Get out.’

  The tall man made a high, chirruping noise, pure and birdlike. He flapped long fingers at Cat, as if pushing the case towards her, and the fingers said as clearly as any tongue could speak: ‘Yes, I give it to you, it’s yours, it’s a present.’

  Elizabeth lunged towards the case and scooped it up. She turned and fled. But in the doorway, the tall man seized her arm and snatched the case from her. She clawed at him with her hands. He shouldered her out of his way and ran into the street.

  Cat crouched by her husband. She said, ‘He’s dead.’ She found there were tears rolling down her cheeks.

  She glanced at Marwood, who was kneeling beside Durrell. He didn’t look at her. Durrell was lying on his belly like a stranded whale and moaning quietly and monotonously. Marwood was squeezing the end of his right arm with both hands, trying to stem the flow of blood. The severed hand was a few inches from its former owner. It did not lie flat on the floor. The fingers were at an angle to the palm. It looked as if the hand was still trying to crawl towards where Cat had been.

  ‘A belt,’ Marwood said loudly, without looking up. ‘Give me a belt, someone. Or rope.’

  Brennan thundered down the last flight of stairs. He stopped, staring at the scene in the hall.

  ‘Quickly,’ Marwood shouted.

  Cat tugged at the cord that hung from Hakesby’s gown. He rarely tied it unless he was particularly cold, preferring to wear the gown loose. She handed it to Brennan.

  ‘Give it to him,’ she said, and went back to looking at Hakesby’s face.

  ‘Shut the street door,’ Marwood said as he took it. ‘Bar it.’

  Hakesby’s face in profile. His mouth was open. So was the visible eye. Presumably, Cat thought, the other eye was open too. She placed her fingers on the eyelid and drew it down. When she released the pressure, the lid immediately retracted, but only a little, as if her husband wanted to peep at the world he had left behind. To peep at her.

  Someone was hammering on the street door.

  ‘I need something for a lever,’ Marwood said. ‘The axe will do.’

  Brennan picked it up and gave it to him. Marwood made him squeeze the end of Durrell’s arm while he wound the cord around the stump and used the handle of the axe to draw it tighter and tighter.

  Cat thought, Let the fat devil bleed to death.

  Some time later, Marwood touched her shoulder. ‘We must get Durrell out of the house.’

  ‘There’s a coach outside.’ She looked up. ‘He said there are two men in it. It’s probably them knocking on the door. They can take him down to hell and leave him there. If they leave him here much longer, I swear I’ll kill him.’

  They chase him like the hounds chase the deer in the Park. But Ferrus runs faster than any deer.

  In his right hand is the case. His gift to her. He will find the lady. She will smile at him when he gives it to her again, and perhaps there will be another shining penny, and another smile.

  ‘Oh what sport!’

  The boys are here, and apprentices too, and screeching hags, and barking dogs. They bar the streets that lead away from Covent Garden and force him to run round and round the piazza.

  Whoop, whoop, they cry, huzzah, huzzah. Stop thief.

  He runs like the wind up the steps of the church and behind the pillars of its porch. He follows the line of the long wall on one side of the piazza and dodges through the arcades and dives between coaches. If his arms flail fast enough, they will lift him from the ground and he will fly over the rooftops to the Cockpit where Windy, the kennel and his two pennies are waiting for him.

  ‘Pull him down, boys! Pull him down!’

  Lanterns and torches light the arcades. Braziers glow beneath. The smell of food is in the air. The ladies and gentlemen of the night warm their hands as they watch. In the middle of the piazza is an open rectangle enclosed by chains across low white posts. Ferrus jumps over the chain and runs among the knots of people. They scatter before him. They poke their sticks at him.

  ‘Good as a play,’ a man says, and he snorts and snuffles with laughter.

  A horseman joins in the fun. He rides straight at Ferrus, who swerves to avoid going under the hooves. One of the chains catches his shin. He stumbles over it and staggers across the roadway to the arcade on the other side.

  The kerbstone beneath an arch is his undoing. He trips. He falls. The case flies from his hand. It hits the side of the arch and it bursts open. A line of marbles falls out.

  Ferrus hits the flagstones under the arcade. He rolls over and springs to his feet. The marbles shimmer red and orange in the glow. They scatter as they fall. There are marbles everywhere, underfoot, in the gutter, under the wheels of a passing coach. Some fall into the brazier. Someone shouts and tries to hook the marbles out.

  He picks up the case. It’s the lady’s.

  ‘Thief!’ a man shouts. ‘Stop thief! Take him!’

  A boy stamps his heel on a marble and laughs. A man cuffs him.

  Ferrus runs. Arms flailing. Faster and faster he goes, faster and faster.

  I fly like a bird in the night.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Far End of the Park

  Thursday, 26 March 1668

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING I was at Henrietta Street shortly after nine o’clock. Pheebs opened the door for me, his face as doleful as a bereaved son’s. There was a strong smell of vinegar. His boy was on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor. He had been doing that yesterday evening when I left the house. He had probably been doing it all night. There had been a great deal of blood.

  ‘A most doleful day, sir.’

  ‘Is Mistress Hakesby within?’

  We were playing a game, Pheebs and I. Yesterday evening, I had discovered where he had hidden himself under the stairs. I knew he had let Durrell into the house. He knew I knew, and we both pretended I didn’t. When the excitement was over, he had emerged blinking from his hole, pretending surprise and claiming to have been asleep, to hear the news of Hakesby’s fatal fall. He had even helped Brennan and myself carry the body upstairs and lay it on the Hakesbys’ bed.

  As part of the game, I had given Pheebs a pound in gold, in theory for his service to the Hakesbys, both alive and dead, but really to keep his mouth shut about anything that suggested the old man’s death might not have been an ordinary domestic accident or that other strangers might have been in the house that evening. I also gave him a sight of my warrant and made him understand that if he gave me trouble I would see him committed for trial as an accessory to murder.

  ‘I’ll send the boy up to see if mistress can receive you, sir.’ Pheebs lowered his voice. ‘The midwife came early to lay out the poor gentleman.’

  A moment later, I went up to the Hakesbys’ parlour. The maid with the frightened face opened the door. I told her to wait outside on the landing.

 
Cat was at the table. She was staring at the wall. I bowed and she nodded her head. I sat down opposite her. There was a mattress on the floor with a pile of blankets beside it. She wouldn’t have wanted to spend the night with her dead husband in the bedchamber. I doubted she had slept much.

  ‘I hope they let me bury him properly,’ she said suddenly, as if we had been talking together for some time. ‘St Paul’s churchyard, I thought, here in Covent Garden. He would want that. Did you know he worked on the church as a young man? Under Inigo Jones.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘He had a great admiration for Mr Jones. Have your masters sent you to bring me in?’

  ‘What? No. I haven’t been to Whitehall yet. I don’t know what they will want.’

  ‘Either Buckingham will fetch me or they will. But I hope they will let me bury my husband first.’

  Rage or anger or blame would have been easier to deal with than this unnatural resignation. It surprised me that Hakesby’s death had dealt her such a blow. But Cat always had a genius for the unexpected.

  ‘I was not a good wife,’ she said. ‘I know that. I should have been kinder.’

  ‘There’s no point in thinking about that now,’ I said. ‘Think about the funeral instead, and the other arrangements. You’ve given out that the light was poor and he slipped and fell downstairs.’ I wanted to make sure that we all had the story straight. ‘As we agreed, and as Pheebs and Brennan will confirm. Everyone knows Mr Hakesby’s ague was growing much worse. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be buried directly.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said. Then: ‘Brennan’s dealing with all that.’

  ‘Good. Margaret’s coming here later today, and she’ll do whatever you want to help. Do you have money?’

  ‘Enough for the time being. After the funeral, it doesn’t much matter.’