2 A Season of Knives: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (25 page)

Madam Hetherington and Carey nodded.

‘In fact,’ said Madam Hetherington, stitching away at a shape that looked suspiciously like a buttock, ‘Barnabus spends much of his free time here. He was here on Sunday night as well, twice.’

‘Oh?’ said Carey neutrally.

‘Yes, he left at a reasonable time and not too drunk and then he returned a little while later with more money to spend, which he spent.’

‘Yes,’ said Carey. ‘I know how that happened. Another thing I would like to know is how someone also managed to get hold of one of Barnabus’s knives.’

Madam Hetherington was threading a needle and she said nothing.

‘Mr Pennycook owns the freehold of this house, doesn’t he?’ pressed Carey.

‘I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir,’ said Madam Hetherington coldly. ‘Will you or your henchman be wishing to take your pleasure with one of the girls now, sir?’

Carey rose to leave. ‘I must be on my way, Madam Hetherington,’ he said. ‘Oh and by the way, Barnabus has the clap.’

She frowned and bit off a piece of thread. ‘Not from my house,’ she said.

‘No?’ asked Carey. ‘Good day to you, Madam.’

She rose to see them to the door, curtseyed and gave no farewell kiss.

Dodd was quite glad to get out of the place with no more upsetting sight than one of the girls in her petticoat and bodice hurrying through with a bucket of water. He hoped no one had seen them. Janet was likely to be in town soon.

‘Right,’ said Carey to himself and set off again down Scotch street with that long bouncy stride of his.

Andy Nixon’s landlady was a Goodwife Crawe, widowed a few years back in a raid, who lived precariously by spinning and letting out her loft. Her two tousle-headed young boys were at the football in the alley when Carey and Dodd arrived.

It was difficult to talk to Goody Crawe because she would not stay still, but kept turning the great wheel of her new-fangled spinning machine and walking backwards to twist the thread, then forwards again to wind it on the spindle, back and forth, back and forth like a child’s toy. Spindles hung all about her small living room; Dodd tripped over one of the half-dozen baskets of carded wool lambstails on the floor and there was a pile of new sheep’s fleece lying by the ladder to the loft, ready to be picked and carded.

‘Tell me what Andy Nixon did on Monday, Goodwife Crawe,’ said Carey formally.

‘Well,’ she said unhappily, ‘I dinnae want to get him in any more trouble because he’s a good lodger and a nice lad and pays his rent every other Monday and it’s a pleasant thing to have a grown man about the house, for the boys, ye ken.’

‘Only tell me the truth, Goodwife; that will help him best of all.’

‘Hmf. Y’see, I heard he was accused of cutting Mr Atkinson’s throat and I dinna see him doing it. In a fight, perhaps; he’s a bonny fighter is Andy…’

‘I know,’ muttered Carey.

‘…and sometimes doesnae ken his ain strength, but from behind with a knife—nay, he’s not the type.’

‘How about his…friendship with Mrs Atkinson?’

‘Ay,’ said Goodwife Crawe heavily. ‘That was it, y’see. I couldnae blame them for it, but the Lord knows it’s a sin and a scandal.’

‘What happened on Sunday night, Goodwife?’

She sighed as she stepped backwards nimbly over the rushes, her fingers flying as she smoothed the wool into a taut thin thread.

‘Some men jumped him in the alley as he came home,’ she said. ‘Poor lad, he was in a terrible state. He couldnae get up the ladder and his hand was all puffed up. And some dirty thieving bastard had cut his purse as well, which Andy took very hard because it had his rent in it and he knows well how I fare and that I need the money. He knew who it was too, sir, for he said he heard the man’s voice and there was nobbut one voice like that in Carlisle.’

Carey nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘It was my servant, Barnabus.’ He felt in his belt pouch and brought out some money. ‘Here’s your rent, Goodwife Crawe,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about it. I’ve told him often enough about footpadding, but some habits die hard.’

Don’t give it to her yet, ye soft get, thought Dodd in despair, wait until she’s told ye what she knows. Do ye not know anything?

Goody Crawe took the half crown and put it in her bodice looking thunderstruck, as well she might.

‘Ay well,’ she said. ‘Once a reiver, allus a reiver, I say.’

‘When did you find Nixon then, Goody?’

‘Och, a while before dawn when I came down to milk the goat. He slept down here on the fleeces when he couldnae climb the steps in the night. I gave him milk to gi’ him strength and put some cold water on his face and give him a sling for his arm, though he said it annoyed him. Then off he went when the sun was up and that’s the last I saw of him that day, for he didnae come back until it was well dark and I was in bed, but I heard him at the door and going up the ladder.’

‘That was Monday night.’

‘Ay sir. A little before midnight, I hadnae heard the bell yet. And then yesterday, he was up as usual and looking a bit better though he hadnae much stomach to his meat for breakfast, and then he was off to see Mr Pennycook, the man he works for. And then he come home in the afternoon and he was in a terrible state o’ fear, and he didnae tell me what it was but I think he heard ye’d gone to arrest Mrs Atkinson, and he packed his bags and promised me the back rent as soon as he could get it, and then he was off out the door as fast as he could go. And that’s the last I saw of him, sir, as ye know, for I told ye yesterday.’

Carey smiled at her. ‘Thank you, Goodwife. That’s very clear.’

‘Ah’ve done him nae good, have I sir?’ She had actually stopped her toing and froing to look at Carey.

Ye’ve about hanged him, woman, Dodd thought but didn’t say. Instead he handed her a fresh basket of lambstails for spinning and she gave him a distracted smile of thanks.

‘We’ll see what happens,’ said Carey diplomatically. ‘Nothing is certain yet.’

Goodwife Crawe screwed her face up anxiously. ‘It’ll be a sad thing for the boys if he hangs, for they like him.’

‘If he did the murder, Goodwife, it’s only right he should hang for it,’ said Carey pompously.

She sniffed and started the wheel turning again. ‘Ay, well,’ she said. ‘He’s nobbut one man. He’s no’ rich nor a gentleman nor a gentleman’s servant and his father’s not strong enough to save him either, so nae doubt he’ll hang whether he did it or no’. Poor lad.’

Carey looked annoyed. Why was he so touchy, Dodd wondered. Goodwife Crawe had only stated the obvious.

‘I give you my word, Goodwife, if he isn’t guilty I’ll try and make sure he doesn’t hang.’

‘Hmf. But ye willna favour him over your ain servant, now will ye, sir?’

‘I might,’ Carey’s voice was cold. He went to the door and opened it. Goodwife Crawe curtseyed as she walked with her spinning. ‘Thank you for your help, Goodwife.’

Carey was looking thoughtful as they left the alley. He stopped in the middle of the way and Dodd nearly bumped into him.’

‘You still there, Dodd?’

‘Ay,’ said Dodd.

‘Why are you following me around?’

‘It’s no’ fitting for the Deputy Warden to be wandering around Carlisle town wi’out any man of his ain to back him,’ said Dodd, highly offended at this example of southern ignorance. ‘And dangerous, what’s more. D’ye think the Grahams willna kill ye if they have the chance?’

Carey had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘To be honest, I hadn’t thought I was in danger in Carlisle.’

‘Ay, well,’ said Dodd. ‘Would ye go out unattended in London?’

‘I might. If I didn’t see any need to make a fuss.’

‘Ye’re not the Deputy Warden in London. Ye’re but one o’ thousands of rich courtiers milling about the place, nae doubt.’

‘And you weren’t trotting after me like a calf with his mother yesterday either.’

‘Sir,’ said Dodd patiently. ‘The way ye flourish around upsetting folk, has it never crossed your mind that somebody might put a price on ye? Wattie Graham for sure; if he didnae after Netherby, he will now, and Sir Richard Lowther as well, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Carey, evidently rather taken with the idea. ‘Do you really think they have? How much do you suppose it’s for?’

The man was impossible. Dodd grunted and decided he would hold his tongue in future, no matter how charmingly Carey asked his opinion. And there was, according to Will the Tod, a strong rumour that somebody was offering ten pounds in cash for Carey’s head.

Their next visit, Dodd was relieved to see, was to Bessie’s alehouse because Dodd for one was parched from all the wool fluff filling the air of Goodwife Crawe’s house. Carey asked Nancy if he could speak to Bessie and she came out from her brewing shed with smoke smuts on her face, wiping her hands on her apron, and curtseyed to him. In silence, Carey counted out the ten shillings and seven pence he had run up as his tab while Bessie watched him with an odd expression of mingled satisfaction and alarm on her broad red face. He turned to leave, which Dodd thought was a pity and Bessie called out to him. ‘Will ye not take a quart before ye go, sir?

Carey turned and looked at her with his eyebrows raised.

‘I don’t usually go back to a place where I’m refused credit,’ he said to Dodd’s horror. Where else did the silly fool think he was going to get beer as good as Bessie’s?

Bessie clearly wasn’t thinking straight. She beamed at him as friendly as she knew how. ‘Och no,’ she said. ‘That was all a mistake and a lot of gossip I was fool enough to believe. Sit down sir, and take a drink…on the…on the…’ she nearly choked saying it, ‘on the house, sir. A quart of my best double-double.’

‘What will you have, Dodd?’ Carey asked him.

‘The same.’ Dodd’s mouth was watering.

‘Two quarts of double-double on the house, Nancy,’ cried Bessie with painful gaiety as she bustled back into the yard and Nancy served them in a booth.

‘Cheers,’ said Carey with a sly grin and lifted his tankard. Unwillingly Dodd found himself tempted to smile back so he drank quickly to hide it.

Carey was the first to break the companionable silence. ‘It’s all sounding very black for Andy Nixon,’ he said.

‘Ay sir,’ said Dodd regretfully. Lord, how his wife would give him trouble for being part of the process that led to Andy Nixon on the end of a rope. Not to mention Kate Atkinson at the stake. Carey was drawing pictures again with beer spillage on the wooden table between them. The alehouse was almost empty at that time of the morning, but would be full by noon, full and bursting with all the men come in from the haymaking with their money burning holes in their purses.

‘This is how I see it,’ Carey went on more to himself than to Dodd. ‘On Sunday night Long George, Sergeant Ill-Willit Daniel Nixon and two others of Lowther’s troop waylay the unfortunate Andy Nixon in the alley and beat him up. They tell him to stay away from Atkinson’s wife, because Atkinson paid for it.’

‘How d’ye ken that, sir?’

‘Long George told me.’

‘Ah.’ Long George was always a fool, Dodd thought; why did nobody know how to keep his mouth shut? And he had never liked Ill-Willit Daniel.

‘Andy Nixon is helped into his doorway by my appalling servant, Barnabus Cooke, who completes Andy’s happy evening by cutting his purse.’

‘Ay.’

‘Next morning, Andy Nixon is full of wrath and vengeance. He comes up with a plan for landing Barnabus in trouble and getting his own back on Atkinson. Probably he asks his master Pennycook for help, and Pennycook agrees to loan him a handcart and get hold of one of Barnabus’s knives. Nixon himself comes up to the Keep to get one of my gloves—perhaps at Pennycook’s suggestion, who has reason not to like me.’

‘Why’s that, sir?’

‘Oh, I’m interfering with the smooth corrupting of the victualling contracts for Carlisle. He was very upset.’

‘Oh.’

‘Andy Nixon with Kate Atkinson’s help then cuts Jemmy Atkinson’s throat in his bedroom; they bundle the body onto the handcart after dark and take it to Frank’s vennel, where they dump it along with Barnabus’s knife and my glove, and there you are.’

Dodd sipped some more of his beer and thought for a while.

‘Hm,’ he said.

‘Is that all? Hm? I think that’s what happened, don’t you?’

‘Ay, perhaps.’

‘Why don’t you agree?’

‘I didna say I dinnae agree.’

‘You don’t look as if you do.’

It occurred to Dodd that perhaps one of the things you learnt at Court was bald-headed persistence. Certainly Carey had that. He gave up trying to keep his counsel. After all, the Deputy kept saying he wanted to know Dodd’s opinion.

‘Ay well, sir, it’s in the character. He’s no’ a clever courtier like yourself, sir, Andy isnae. He’s a fine wrestler and a bonny fighter…’

‘So everybody keeps telling me.’

‘But he’s no’ a clever man. If he was angered enough to kill Jemmy Atkinson then he wisnae cool enough to think out all yon about gloves and knives.’

‘Perhaps Pennycook helped him.’

‘Ay. Perhaps. Will ye ask him yet?’