13 - The Midsummer Rose (24 page)

He had gone home with his wife and their sons to take refuge from the apprentices’ riot, and I believed Jenny Hodge when she said she would have known if her husband had left her side during the night. Moreover, while it was just possible that an angry man might have overtaken his quarry in the open street, it was highly unlikely that Burl would have pursued Robin Avenel into Saint Giles’s and down into the crypt … But not impossible, which would be Richard Manifold’s response if I told him what I thought I now knew concerning Robin Avenel’s death.
Where
he was murdered was of no importance compared with
why
. Motive was everything, and at present I could offer the sergeant no alternative to Burl’s.

There was Luke Prettywood, of course, who was in love – or what passed for love – with Marianne Avenel, but he had been in the bridewell for assaulting Jack Gload. For the same reason, Marianne could be thought to have a motive, but I doubted if her affection for Luke and her discontent with Robin were sufficiently powerful emotions to turn her into a killer. Furthermore, my discovery effectively ruled her out. There was no way she could have moved her husband’s body on her own, even had she wanted to. And I had no doubt that if I made enquiries, there would be enough witnesses among the members of her household to prove that she was asleep in Broad Street at the time of the murder.

All of which confirmed my original conviction that Robin’s death was connected with whatever treasonable activities he and his sister were engaged in. It was equally connected with Timothy Plummer’s presence in Bristol and the part he had played in throwing suspicion on an innocent man. And there was one other person I had not yet named to myself as the possible, or even probable, killer: Rowena Hollyns, the woman I had recently seen stab a man to death with as little compunction as she would step on a woodlouse. The Midsummer Rose, as Robin Avenel had called her …

Words also spoken by Timothy Plummer in the Full Moon, if Jack Hodge had overheard him correctly. And it suddenly occurred to me that they must have some special significance; they were not simply an expression of Robin Avenel’s lecherous admiration for his sister’s maid, as Jess had assumed.

The flickering flame warned me that the candle had almost burned out. I straightened my aching legs and stood for a second or two longer staring down at the dark stain on the cellar flagstones. I decided there was nothing to be gained at present by going to Richard Manifold with my discovery: it wouldn’t influence him into releasing Burl. I had to find the real murderer and trick him – or her – into admitting the fact. And first and foremost, I had to locate Timothy Plummer. I could only pray that he had not returned to London having achieved his object in Bristol by disposing of Robin Avenel.

The thought intruded again. Was Timothy the murderer? If so, I had no more hope of proving Burl innocent than I had of building a bridge between Ghyston Cliff and the heights of Ashton-Leigh. But didn’t the same thing apply if Timothy had commissioned the killing from some hired assassin? Wasn’t I fooling myself that, in the prevailing circumstances, I could save Burl’s neck? No! I, too, had a friend at court, the most important man in the kingdom, after the King. I would appeal to the Duke of Gloucester himself, even if it meant going all the way to Yorkshire to do it. All the same, I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I would be out of my depth in the barbarian north.

I raised my guttering candle for a final look around the cellar. Had I missed something? Some telltale clue that would point immediately to the guilty person? But there was nothing, except that I was again assailed by that eerie sensation of not being alone. This time, it was a feeling of being watched, but although I examined every corner, there was nothing and nobody there. Three of the walls stared blankly back at me, the fourth beckoned with its archway, inviting me to return the way I had come.

I moved back into the second chamber among the shadowy shapes of the abandoned furniture. I remembered suddenly that, on a previous occasion, I had failed to find the bed that Jack Nym told me he had brought down here for Robin Avenel. I began to search, determined this time to locate it, but my candle suddenly sputtered and went out, plunging me into darkness. Cursing my stupidity, I barged into a pile of planks that had been stacked beside the baby’s cradle, dislodged a couple, which fell with a clatter, tripped over a broken stool and measured my length on the ground. Winded and badly shaken, I lay there for a second or two recovering my breath, while the noise of the fallen timber echoed around me.

My eyes were beginning to grow accustomed to the gloom and for some reason I glanced back over my shoulder. Framed in the curve of the archway was the outline of a woman, standing perfectly still, watching me. At least, I presumed she was watching me, as she was nothing but a solid, black shape. She had been holding a candle, but its flame had been hastily snuffed out as I turned my head. I retained a vague impression of its radiance seen out of the corner of one eye.

The outline before me was neither small enough nor slender enough for Marianne Avenel, nor sufficiently tall for Elizabeth Alefounder. It therefore had to be Rowena.

I began struggling to my feet, but found that I had twisted an ankle in my fall. I swore and looked around for something to hold on to. The back of an old chair offered its support and I grabbed it thankfully before once more turning to confront the woman.

But she had gone. And, when I finally hobbled back into the third chamber, there was no sign of her anywhere.

I
stumbled around for a minute or two, refusing to accept the evidence of my senses. The pain in my ankle receded and my eyesight improved as I slowly paced the perimeter of the chamber, half expecting the woman to materialize in front of me. But, finally, I was forced to admit there was no one there.

I rested my forehead against the cold stone of the underground chamber and took a deep breath. I was suddenly conscious of hunger and thirst, it being some hours since dinner at Margaret Walker’s, and I needed sustenance. There was still much to be done, people to see, places to visit. But any further enquiries could wait until tomorrow. It had been a long, eventful and tiring day. With luck, Adela’s rabbit pie awaited me.

I groped my way upstairs to the nave, made my obeisance to Saint Giles and Our Lady, genuflected to the Host, then let myself out into Bell Lane. As I did so, the first splashes of rain, harbingers of a summer shower, hit the cobbles. Hurriedly, I headed for Small Street, almost colliding with someone coming in the opposite direction; someone dressed in the black of mourning and carrying a newly dyed gown over one arm – the smell of the blackberry juice was still very potent – and keeping its skirt from trailing in the dirt with her other hand.

‘M–Mistress Hollyns!’ I stammered, but she brushed past me with no more acknowledgement than a fleeting glance.

I stared after her as she quickened her pace. She was running by the time she turned into Broad Street, where she vanished from sight.

Vanished from sight … If I hadn’t seen Rowena Hollyns in Saint Giles’s crypt, then who – or what –
had
I seen? I shivered in spite of the warmth of the afternoon. Then I went home.

I had hoped to think things over in peace and quiet while I ate my rabbit pie, but I had reckoned without Adam’s recent discovery that if he hammered the base of a saucepan with a wooden spoon, it made the most delightful, ear-splitting noise. In addition to this agony, the arrival of Elizabeth and Nicholas in boisterous, slightly quarrelsome mood moved me to play the tyrranical father with rather more ferocity than I usually employed on these occasions, and the meal passed in sulky silence on the part of the two elder children and in an outpouring of frustrated rage by my son. Adela let me get on with it.

‘Did you sell much?’ she asked during a brief lull between Adam’s screams.

‘Er … not a lot.’

She knew me sufficiently well to accept that this meant nothing at all, and lapsed into disapproving silence. But after we had finished supper and she had despatched all three children to play in the buttery, she left the dirty dishes and coaxed me into the parlour, where she sat me in the window embrasure, drew up a stool and invited me to confide in her what was wrong.

‘For you looked as white as a sheet when you came in, though you seem somewhat better now. I’m afraid you haven’t really got over that near-drowning in the Avon.’

I allayed her fears, assuring her that I was fighting fit, and recounted the afternoon’s events, including the information I had gleaned from the Avenels’ kitchen maid, my conversations with Apothecary Witherspoon and the Capgraves, and my discovery of the bloodstain on the floor of the old synagogue cellars. The only episode I omitted was the appearance and disappearance of the spectral woman, which, since my meeting with Rowena Hollyns, I was now convinced had been some sort of hallucination. I didn’t want Adela fussing any more than she was doing already.

‘So,’ she commented, after a moment’s reflection, ‘you think Robin Avenel was murdered in one of those empty chambers next to Saint Giles’s crypt and his body removed later to Jewry Lane?’

‘I think it possible. Indeed, I’d say it’s probable.’

‘But why? Why would it be necessary to move the body, I mean?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. If I did, I might have a better idea of who the murderer is.’

Adela wrinkled her forehead. ‘But where does Timothy Plummer fit into this puzzle? What’s he doing in Bristol?’

I shrugged. ‘At first, I thought he was just keeping an eye on Robin Avenel, but now I’m convinced there’s more to his presence than that.’ And I told her what I had learned from Jack Hodge and also from the landlord of the Full Moon, together with the tentative conclusions I had drawn from this information.

Adela was as incredulous as I had been.

‘But why on earth would King James’s brother come to Bristol?’ she snorted. ‘If he’s trying to escape to France, surely he’d make for the eastern ports, either in his own country or in this. The west country simply doesn’t make sense.’

‘So I tell myself,’ I answered gloomily. ‘I
must
try to find Timothy Plummer. I’m certain he holds the key to this mystery. The trouble is, I’ve no idea where to start looking. It’ll mean scouring the city from end to end. And I’ll have to talk to that sea captain, the one Robin Avenel was arguing with. That’s if he and his vessel are still anchored in Redcliffe Backs.’ I began to fret. ‘He could have sailed on the morning tide. Maybe I should go at once.’

Adela said forcefully, ‘You’re not going anywhere else this evening, Roger. It’s raining like the Great Flood and if you get soaked to the skin you’ll make yourself ill for a second time. Besides,’ she added, sitting on my lap and twining her arms about my neck, ‘I’ve bought a cabbage.’

It was so long since she was the one to make any advances, that I was momentarily taken aback.

‘You hate cabbage,’ was all I could think of to say.

‘It’s better than onion juice or bees,’ she pointed out. ‘But, of course, if you’re not interested …’

I tightened my grip on her. ‘Oh, I’m interested, sweetheart. It’s just that I don’t really believe that any of these remedies work.’ A crescendo of screams and yells from the buttery made us both shudder. ‘There must be a more effective way.’

‘Do you know of any?’

It was on the tip of my tongue to admit the truth, but caution held me silent. It would be time enough to test Adela’s reactions to the sheath once it was ready. Meanwhile, we should just have to put our faith in raw cabbage and my own ability and skill as a lover …

I awoke the following morning refreshed and reinvigorated, ready to face a new day, as hopeful as I could be that I had managed to avoid the conception of another child. Which was just as well, as I could already hear Adam stirring in his attic room overhead, and knew it was only a matter of minutes before our chamber door opened and he landed heavily on my chest.

Adela’s insistence on eating the whole of the cabbage, in spite of my assurance that it really wasn’t necessary, seemed to have done her no harm. She lay sprawled beside me, her dark hair strewn across the pillow, a sweet, satisfied smile curling her lips. The sight gave me a warm, smug glow. Abstinence hadn’t made me lose my touch. I was just as good as ever I was.

Even Adam’s usual breakfast-time tantrums failed to spoil our mutual feeling of love and goodwill. And although my wife suggested that I took both my pack and Hercules with me on my wanderings, she did not, in so many words, forbid me to continue with my quest to clear Burl’s name, with the result that, long before the city muckrakers had finished cleaning the streets, I had crossed Bristol Bridge to Redcliffe Back and was trying to decide which of the many ships anchored there might be the one approached by Robin Avenel the night before last.

I had noticed that both the Wine Street and Redcliffe pillories were free of malefactors, and wondered how Luke Prettywood and the apprentices were feeling after their ordeal. They would no doubt be the recipients of further punishment from their respective masters. Later on, I must seek Luke out and commiserate with him.

It was not easy to make my enquiries above the general racket of the quayside. But eventually a Portuguese sailor, who had witnessed the events of Midsummer Eve, and who spoke good English, informed me that the ship and crew I was looking for had sailed on yesterday afternoon’s ebb tide.

‘Do you know where the ship was from?’ I asked him.

‘Oh, yes. From Ireland. Gone back there now, I think.’

‘Ireland? You’re sure of that? Not Brittany or France?’

‘No, no! Ireland. I see captain drinking with his friends in Marsh Street alehouse.’

A slaving ship, then. But why would Robin Avenel be in touch with an Irish slaver?

I thanked my Portuguese friend and walked back to Redcliffe Street, wondering what to do next. I was annoyed with myself that I had let such an obvious source of information slip through my fingers, but the tidings of Robin Avenel’s murder, followed by Burl’s arrest and my own summons to give evidence, had led to muddled thinking and the wrong priorities.