2 A Season of Knives: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (19 page)

‘Yesterday morning, sir.’

‘Ah.’

‘Get on with it,’ said Lowther.

Carey looked at him again and smiled. ‘I think you should question him, Sir Richard, not me. That way you can’t accuse me of coaching him to lie.’

Simon Barnet looked very scared and moved closer to Carey, like a chick to a mother hen.

‘It’s all right,’ Carey said to him. ‘Tell the truth, so my lord Warden can hear you.’

‘Ay sir,’ said Simon, still rolling his eyes at Lowther. Lowther advanced on him and he shrank back.

‘Please don’t threaten him with your sword, Sir Richard,’ Carey put in. ‘It wouldn’t be fair. He’s only young.’

Lowther gave Carey the kind of stare usually seen during the arrangements for a duel, and harrumphed at Simon Barnet.

‘How much is Sir Robert paying you to say this?’ he demanded.

‘Er…p…paying me, sir? As his s…servant?’

‘Perhaps, Sir Richard, we should hear the tale before we go around accusing people of lying,’ suggested Carey icily.

‘Ah, yes, er…quite. Be fair, Sir Richard.’

‘What tale have ye brought, then?’

Simon Barnet stared wretchedly at Dodd, took his cap off, squeezed it, stared at the floor, stretched the cap out. ‘Sergeant Dodd said I wouldnae be beaten for it,’ he said in a small thin voice.

‘I said I would ask the Deputy to go easy on ye. I made no promises.’

Carey sighed. The boy wasn’t a fool either. ‘There’ll be no beating provided you tell the truth,’ he said.

‘A…ay sir.’ Simon Barnet sighed wretchedly and continued to stare at the floor while he mumbled out his sorry tale. He had been approached by a man the day before. No, he had never seen the man before. The man asked him if he was servant to the new Deputy Warden. Simon had said he was. The man had said, he wasn’t. Simon had said he was. The man had said, he bet anything Simon couldn’t get hold of one of the Deputy Warden’s gloves for him. Simon had taken the bet, which was large, and waited until Carey had gone out with Sergeant Nixon and Barnabus had gone down to Bessie’s. He had lifted Carey’s oldest glove, taken it to the man behind the stables and the man had laughed and said it could have come from anyone.

‘I said it were London work,’ Simon was aggrieved. ‘He said he didna believe me, and then he said he would ask yer honour himself, and pretend he’d found it, but because I had an honest face he paid my bet anyway. And he went off wi’ it.’

Carey sighed and shook his head. ‘You’re Barnabus Cooke’s nephew, and you fell for that?’

Simon compressed his lips and scraped his boot toe in a circle round his other foot.

It had dawned on Simon what the man had wanted the glove for when Lowther had come storming into Carey’s chambers in the Queen Mary Tower with two of his relatives and arrested Barnabus. This had given the boy the courage of outrage to lock the door to Carey’s office and throw the key in the fire quickly enough to be able to claim Carey had it with him. Lowther had boxed his ears and kicked him for that, and after Lady Scrope arrived he had gone away again. Simon Barnet had been terrified and had run away to hide in the only place he could think of, the loft above the new barracks where Dodd had found him.

There was a silence as Simon came to the end of his story. Carey was frowning in puzzlement, and Lowther’s expression remained grim.

‘You may have to swear to that story in court, on the Holy Bible,’ Scrope said. ‘Will you do it, Simon?’

‘Oh yes sir,’ said Simon. ‘Of course I will.’

‘Do you know what swearing on the Bible means?’ demanded Lowther. Simon turned to him. He had gained some courage from confession and managed to face Lowther squarely.

‘Yes sir,’ he said. ‘It means if I swear and lie I’ll go to hell.’

‘Would you recognise this man if you saw him again?’ Carey asked.

‘I think so, sir.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Well, big and wide.’

‘Was he a gentleman?’

‘No sir. He had a leather jack on and an arm in a sling and his face was bruised, sir.’

‘No name?’

‘No sir. He’s not one of the garrison. I’ve not seen him about the Keep.’

‘If you spot him again, Simon, try and make sure he doesn’t see you. If you can, find out his name and come and tell me or Sergeant Dodd, understand?’

Simon nodded. ‘Can I go now, sir? Only I havena eaten nothing today.’

He was at the age when one missed meal was a serious thing and two threatened instant starvation. Carey nodded.

‘You’re to stay in the Castle. Don’t leave it for any reason.’

‘Ay sir.’

‘What did you do with the money?’

Simon looked even more woebegone. ‘Och, sir. Ian Ogle had most of it off me at dice.’

Carey was careful not to laugh. ‘Some advice for you, Simon,’ he said. ‘When you get a windfall, pay your debts first, then gamble with what’s left.’

‘Ay sir,’ said Simon, who wasn’t listening. ‘May I go now, sir? They’ll be ringing the bell…’

Carey looked at Scrope who nodded. Dodd was still there, busily pretending to be a piece of furniture.

‘My lord,’ Carey said intently. ‘I’m beginning to have an idea of what’s been happening. Will you hear me out?’

Scrope was squinting unhappily between his two hands at something on the table before him, underneath Carey’s sword.

‘Go on, Sir Robert,’ he said.

Carey paced up to the table and back again. ‘We have the corpse of Mr Atkinson, whose throat was cut, and which was found in Frank’s vennel, off Botchergate. I’ve seen the corpse, I’ve talked to Mr Fenwick the undertaker and also to Mrs Atkinson and her neighbour Mrs Leigh.’

Lowther looked sour, but kept his mouth shut.

‘Now then, firstly Fenwick’s suspicious about it and he’s seen more dead bodies than most. There was no blood in the alley where the corpse was found and although Atkinson’s shirt was soaked, his clothes were unmarked on the outside and he had no boots on. That argues he must have had his throat cut when he was wearing only his shirt, and his killers then dressed him in his clothes. They couldn’t get his boots on because his feet had stiffened by then. Somebody brought something heavy into Frank’s vennel last night. There are clear tracks of a handcart in the alley, I’ve seen them.’

‘It could have been there for another reason,’ objected Lowther. ‘Or Fenwick could have brought it to take the body away.’

‘It could,’ agreed Carey. ‘But it’s suspicious, especially as Fenwick used a litter; he told me so. Next, there’s a knife and glove from Barnabus and myself. Respectfully, my lord, would you be so careless? Do you really think I would be? Would Barnabus? Anybody at all? The knife could have been lifted from Barnabus in Bessie’s yesterday evening while he was drunk or at Madam Hetherington’s which was where he went after Bessie closed for the night. As for my glove…You’ve heard Simon Barnet’s story.’

‘He could have made it up,’ said Lowther.

‘No,’ said Scrope positively. ‘The boy’s not…er…enterprising enough. If it were Young Hutchin Graham standing there with that tale, I wouldn’t believe a word of it, but I think Simon was speaking the truth.’

‘So?’ demanded Lowther. ‘What are ye getting at, Sir Robert?’

You can’t be that obtuse, Carey thought, but he answered evenly enough. ‘Atkinson was not killed in the alley but somewhere else.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know where, Sir Richard, since I didn’t do it. But somewhere else in Carlisle his throat was cut. I expect, unless whoever did it was clever enough to choose a butcher’s shambles for it, there will have been a great deal of blood about the place. No doubt, if you could find the blood, you could find the killers. Whoever killed him then put his clothes on, wrapped him in something, piled him on a handcart and trundled him into the alley where they dumped him. Then, to make it look as if it was Barnabus and I that did it, they left what they thought would be clinching evidence. Which means I would very much like to talk to this mysterious man who made the bet with Simon Barnet.’

Lowther growled something completely inaudible. He looked from Scrope to Carey and back to Scrope again.

‘Ye’ll not do it? He’s convinced you with that smooth courtier’s tongue of his, hasn’t he?’

Scrope frowned. ‘If you recall, I had my doubts from the beginning,’ he said. ‘I’m certainly not…er…going to take any rash steps simply because you want to believe that your political rival would kill your man.’

This time Carey heard what Lowther said about brothers-in-law needing to stick together. It annoyed him, but he held his peace. Scrope heard as well and was more angered.

‘I think you had better go, Sir Richard,’ he said, sounding more genuinely the Lord Warden than Carey had heard him before. ‘I may be related to Sir Robert, but if necessary I would arrest him, try him and execute him on a foul bill. I’ll have no favourites here as my father did.’

Lowther was even more surprised than Carey at the determination in Scrope’s voice. He looked down, put his fist on his hip again, took a breath to speak. Evidently he thought better of whatever he had been about to say because he let it out again and marched out of the room. Scrope picked up the paper he had been glancing at, folded it sideways and tore it into pieces. Carey’s heart turned over to see how very close he had been to ruin. He smiled and was about to make some comment to Scrope about Lowther being a bad loser and to ask if Barnabus could have bail, when his brother-in-law fixed him with a fishy look.

‘I may be satisfied you didn’t do this, Sir Robert,’ said Scrope. ‘But I’m not at all satisfied about Barnabus. I may as well…er…tell you that I’m setting the Coroner’s inquest for Thursday, since, thanks to the muster, we’ll be able to empanel a good jury that will have some hope of not being entirely under Lowther’s thumb. Oh, and there’s a problem of jurisdiction here; whether I should…er…sit, or whether it should be the Carlisle Coroner. After all, Atkinson was a townsman and was killed in the town. We will have to see. You did manage to write the muster letters before haring off after Wattie Graham?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Carey virtuously. ‘Barnabus should have taken them to Richard Bell yesterday evening.’

Scrope seemed surprised by this.

‘Oh…er…good. I’m glad to…see you’re not neglecting your paperwork. I want a report about this Graham raid, by the way.’

‘Yes, my lord. Ah…my lord, about Barnabus…’

‘No, certainly not, he can’t have bail. It’s a capital charge.’

‘No, I realise that. But could he not be locked up in the gaol under the Warden’s Lodgings rather than the Lickingstone cell?’

‘Ah.’ Scrope seemed more co-operative. ‘Don’t see why not. I’ll talk to Barker and have him moved.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’

‘It’s supposed to be your patrol tonight.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Are you going to take it?’

Carey hesitated. ‘I think so, my lord. Unless you want me to stay in Carlisle.’

‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t go too far away.’

‘No, my lord. I give you my word I’ll be at the inquest.’

‘See if you can find some of King James’s horses. I’m getting letters every day from his courtiers about them.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ Carey waited politely.

‘Er…yes, well, that’s all then, Sir Robert. Oh, and you’d better take this back.’ Scrope gestured at the weapon before him.

Carey picked his sword up again, bowed and left the room, feeling puzzled on top of his perennial annoyance with his brother-in-law. How was it that Scrope could be such a dithering idiot one moment and then the next moment act like the old Lord Scrope in his heyday? Dodd followed him quietly down the stairs, for which Carey was grateful. Halfway down it hit him that he had been wearing his jack and helmet all day and he was going to be up much of the night. The energy that had kept him going up to now suddenly deserted him and weariness fell on him like a cloak. He sat down heavily on a bench in the gloomy Keep hall, took his helmet off and rubbed his aching forehead, wishing he had time for a nap. His eyes were feeling sandy.

A heavily pregnant lymer bitch spotted him and came over to plump herself at his feet. Absent-mindedly he reached down to rub her stomach and she panted happily.

‘Do you know whether it’s true that Mrs Atkinson had a lover?’ he asked Dodd. The Sergeant sucked his teeth noncommittally.

‘Janet could likely answer the question better. They’re old friends.’

‘Oh,’ One more complication to add to the many surrounding him. ‘Do you think Lowther did it?’

Dodd looked taken aback. ‘I couldna say, sir,’ he answered cautiously.

‘It’s all right, Sergeant, I won’t hold you to it. I thought he might have, but when I let it slip out in front of the Warden, he was in such a rage it could have been genuine. I’m just interested to know what you think. Sit down and tell me.’

Sergeant Dodd sat down on the bench facing Carey and leaned his elbows on the trestle table behind him. He looked up at the roof with its dusty martial banners and grinned suddenly.

‘What’s so funny?’

The bitch was restless. She rolled herself back onto her legs and put her muzzle on Carey’s leg, dribbling a little.