Airs and Graces (29 page)

Hugh and I had left Balfour on the bridge an hour or more ago. More than enough time to hurt Ned. But there’d still been people around, making sure the fire was out. That would take some time. Even after that, someone would probably be stationed in front of the shop to keep watch in case the fire broke out again. But would anyone stay outside long in this dreadful weather?

I tottered on, down the Side. What would Balfour do? What
could
he do? Tipping Ned into the river would ensure he lay isolated and unheard for the rest of his eighty or hundred year sojourn as a spirit – assuming no one dredged him up again. But carrying the bucket with Ned’s brick in it had been almost impossible – Balfour wouldn’t be able to lift it over the bridge’s parapet.

It would be easiest to toss the brick into the rubble of the shop in the hope it would burn up. But no one would leave until the fire was pretty much extinguished so Balfour would have to stir up the embers into a blaze again, and that would put the residents of the bridge at risk. Would Balfour go to such lengths to protect himself ?

If I was right about him, he’d already killed four people here, and two in Kent. Why should he hesitate over a few more?

Near the bottom of the Side, I heard the uneven clip clop of a horse’s hooves and was so distracted I nearly went head over heels. I grabbed at a post to support myself and wrenched my left arm badly. The one that had been hit in Heron’s garden. Pain shot through me. Cursing, I tottered across the slippery cobbles into the Sandhill—

And came face to face with Joseph Kane.

He was covered in snow, in a thick layer over his greatcoat; his hat was pulled over his face and he had his head down. But I knew it was him by his voice; he was swearing at the horse he was leading, which was lame.

He must have heard me, glanced up. ‘Damn horse,’ he said viciously, ‘damn town, damn snow, damn night.’

Only this morning I’d suspected him of running for his life and now he was back – and just in time. Two of us ought to be able to tackle Balfour.

‘Been to Shields again?’

‘And that’s a hole of a place,’ he said sourly. ‘Two houses, twenty taverns and a couple of broken-down old ships.’

So he’d got through. ‘Didn’t find your man there?’

‘Go to the devil,’ he said and started walking towards the Fleece.

‘I know where he is.’

He turned back, staring. ‘If you’re playing some kind of gentleman’s trick—’

‘He set fire to the Gregsons’ shop to destroy the letter books. And he’s gone back to get rid of the only witness – the apprentice’s spirit.’

Kane dropped the horse’s reins and abandoned it. ‘What the devil are we waiting for!’ And he was off running for the bridge.

Even slipping and sliding, I caught and overtook him easily; too many late nights and too many tankards of beer had taken their toll on him. I was first on to the bridge. The lights in the shops and houses were out; a thin line of smoke curled into the drifting snow from the Gregsons’ shop. And one shadowy figure, barely touched by lantern light, was in front of the ruins, bending to pick something up.

I almost called out his name but there was no point in giving him warning. I started towards him, slipping in the snow, Kane puffing and panting behind me. I saw the figure try to straighten; something metallic scraped on cobbles. The spirit’s voice called out in alarm, ‘What are you doing? Put me down!’

The figure dragged what it was carrying on top of a heap of bricks. In an errant flicker of light, I saw the glint of the bucket, the pale oval of Balfour’s face. The bucket began to tip  . . .

‘Balfour!’ I roared.

He started, dropped the bucket. It hit the ground with a crash and a splash and he leapt back. For one brief moment, he stared—

He took off running. I leapt over the bucket and the brick that had fallen out of it, and went after him. Kane shouted. ‘Stop or I fire!’ More guns. And I knew how perilous it was to shoot in the dark.

Balfour leapt for the parapet of the bridge, hauled himself up on to it. I made a lunge for him. My fingers grazed the skirts of his greatcoat.

He jumped.

There was a moment’s silence. Then we heard the splash below.

Thirty-Six

It is no good expecting a villain to tell you the truth; the English villains are as inventive in this regard as the French.

[Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe

Froidevaux, 23 January 1737]

Kane let out a roar and ran for the Key. Halfway down the slope of the bridge, his feet slid out from under him and he crashed down on his back. His pistol flew out of his hand, hit the ground and fired with a crack that resounded through the night. A dog close by started barking furiously.

I reached to help him up. He shook me off. ‘Get after him!’ There was no point in arguing; I went after Balfour.

Not that I expected him to be alive. The river was still flowing freely in the middle and would be icy cold; he’d probably been swept away already. But if he was dead, I wanted to see his body, to be sure of it.

By the time I skidded off the bridge on to the Key, lights were glimmering on a ship moored at the wharf. A man stood on deck, with a lantern held high to give his fellows light to launch a rowing boat. The dog, a lithe ugly brute, was barking at his side.

I clambered aboard the ship; the deck was icy and I clung on to various bits of rigging to keep my feet. The man glanced round as I came up behind him. ‘Jumped or fell?’ he asked laconically.

‘Jumped.’

He spat into the water. ‘Not worth picking out then.’

The rowing boat, another lantern swaying at one end, was struggling to make the channel of water, oars battering against the fragments of ice that littered the river. Balfour had disappeared but I could see the widening ripples where he’d gone in. Then a head broke the surface, and a floating trail of greatcoat skirts. Someone in the boat yelled instructions.

‘They’ve got him,’ the sailor said, with a sneer. ‘They’ll take him to the landing steps. If he’s dead, we want the contents of his pockets, mind.’

‘Fair enough.’ They deserved something for their efforts. Although I intended to look closely at the items before handing them over.

I struggled off the boat again, on to the Key. My arm ached where I’d wrenched it in my near-fall on the Side; I was rubbing it when I met up with Kane limping through the snow. ‘They’re bringing him to the landing steps.’

Cursing, he turned round again and we made our way past the bridge to the steps on the other side, where Alice Gregson had stumbled ashore early last Sunday morning, after the murders. The rowing boat came through the dark water, gliding slowly into the steps. Kane was clenching his fists in delight, swearing he’d escort Balfour to the noose himself. I didn’t share his exultation. I believed Balfour was the killer, but he hadn’t committed the crimes the way Alice had claimed; she was all sweetness and light, all mischievous innocence – and totally untrustworthy.

While they were struggling to get Balfour out of the boat and up the steps, I found a spirit on a nearby house and asked it to send for Abraham McLintoch and the Watch. When I went back to the landing steps, one of the sailors had dumped Balfour face down on the Key and was thumping his back with a meaty fist. ‘Full o’ water.’ He thumped again; Balfour convulsed and spewed. I went back and asked the spirit to send for Gale as well.

The sailors were unsympathetic. They dragged Balfour unceremoniously up the steps to the shelter of the Fish Market beneath the Guildhall, more to get themselves out of the desultory snow than to find him shelter. They went through his pockets, found a few coins and a button; I recognized the button at once as Hugh’s. And one of the coins was the ancient artefact Balfour claimed had been stolen.

‘I’ll give you a sovereign for the button and the old coin,’ I told the sailors. ‘You can take the rest.’

They accepted the offer with grunts and nods, and went off with Balfour’s money, his handkerchief and his cravat besides. If he’d drowned, they’d probably have taken
all
his clothes.

By this time, the landlord of the Fleece had turned out, presumably alerted by the boy who kept watch there overnight; he brought brandy and offered it to Balfour at cut-price rates. Kane took it off him and drank most of it himself without paying. A couple of watchmen came up and said McLintoch was following.

Balfour was shivering uncontrollably. I took the brandy from Kane and made Balfour drink. He spluttered, and vomited most of it up again.

‘Don’t waste good brandy on the likes of him!’ Kane said, contemptuously. Snow drifted in under the columns of the Fish Market as he bent to slap Balfour’s face. ‘Know who I am? I’m the fellow who’s going to take you back to London to hang for those two you killed in Kent.’

‘He’s going nowhere until I know what happened,’ I said sharply. Balfour protested incoherently; I was far from sure he knew where he was.

McLintoch came up in the company of Gale, who was looking weary. Kane begrudgingly stood back to allow Gale room to examine Balfour. ‘I’m taking him back to London,’ he insisted.

‘He doesn’t fit the description you gave me,’ I pointed out. ‘Big, burly, middle-aged, you said.’

‘Devil take it, I never saw him – how the devil do I know what he looked like!’

Well, I should have known not to trust anything Kane said. Although perhaps if he’d not been so dogmatic about the man’s appearance, I might have considered Balfour earlier.

Gale stood up. ‘He needs dry clothes and his bed.’

‘He’s going to a prison cell,’ Kane said stridently. ‘And then back to London.’ He squatted in front of Balfour and shouted. ‘Tell me how you killed them!’

McLintoch said, ‘Mr Patterson, is he the one as killed the Gregsons?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Then
I
want him.’

Balfour was trying to sit up against the wall of the Fish Market. The landlord of the Fleece came back with an armful of blankets, and between us we got Balfour’s saturated greatcoat off. I was putting it aside when I felt a stickiness on my fingers, and looked down to see a tear in Balfour’s shirt sleeve. Underneath was a long thin scratch along the forearm, still bleeding. I thought of the smear of blood on Heron’s sofa and the drops in the snow. Here was proof positive that Fowler had not missed his target. No wonder Balfour had kept his hands in his pockets when I saw him earlier; the blood must have been running down his fingers.

We wrapped Balfour in the blankets. By this time, Kane and McLintoch were shouting at each other, each demanding custody of the prisoner. Gale pressed a folded paper into my hand. ‘If you ever get him indoors,’ he said, ‘Give him that powder. I’ve just come from a pious woman who’s dying, and I’m in no mood for suicides and murderers.’ And he stalked off across the Sandhill, passing, on his way, Claudius Heron.

Heron was at his most sombre. Snow dusted his shoulders; his sword disturbed the lie of his greatcoat skirts. He looked down on Balfour expressionlessly. ‘A spirit sent a message to Fowler to say the killer had been found.’ He gave me a measuring look. ‘I suppose this is all to do with the apprentice.’

Which was tantamount to admitting he knew of Fowler’s
inclinations
. I nodded. ‘How is Fowler?’

‘Sleeping.’

‘The shooting,’ I started, but Heron immediately interrupted me.

‘Has he said why he did it?’

I’d been intending to say something consoling, something to the effect that it had been dark and that Heron wasn’t to blame for Fowler being hurt. But of course Heron was right to interrupt. Banal platitudes, and untrue ones at that, were not to the point. We both knew that Heron’s obsession with those coins had for a short while overwhelmed his reason.

‘He hasn’t said anything yet.’

‘Then perhaps you had better start questioning him before he dies of cold,’ Heron said dryly.

The landlord was still plying Balfour with brandy and had his reward when Heron pressed coins into his hand. I squatted down beside Balfour.

‘I want to know what happened.’

There was colour in his cheeks again. ‘I didn’t kill them.’ His voice was hoarse; the effort of speaking made him retch. ‘I told you – my father – blood.’ He said, with bitter self-pity, ‘I’m haunted by violent death.’

I laid a blanket on the floor of the Market and sat down. It was obvious that if Balfour had to talk a great deal he’d tire easily. And thanks to Kane, he was aware of the danger he was in – he’d deny what he could, as long as he could. I decided to take a roundabout route and hope to gradually persuade him to talk. ‘
You
set fire to the shop last night,’ I said, ‘not Gregson. You found something in the letter book and decided to destroy it. I assume you didn’t think of the ledgers when you broke in last Monday after attacking me in the street?’

A moment’s silence. Balfour shook his head.

‘Of course,’ I said, ‘once you realized the apprentice had survived the fire, you had to get rid of him, or sooner or later he’d make us understand what had really happened.’

‘What’s one more killing?’ Kane said contemptuously. ‘Four here, two in Kent.’

‘Not in Kent,’ Balfour protested feebly. ‘I didn’t kill them!’

Kane laughed.

‘They came after me,’ Balfour said. ‘One of them drew a pistol. It exploded – killed him.’

‘And the other?’ I asked. Kane was muttering in disbelief.

‘Fell in a ditch. Drowned.’

‘Pushed, more likely,’ Kane said. ‘Look here—’

Heron took one step towards him, hand on sword hilt. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘
You
look here. Either you keep quiet or I will personally throw you in the river and leave you to take your chances. Do I make myself understood?’

Kane stiffened, face white. McLintoch, apparently suddenly realizing he was in the presence of a gentleman, whipped off his hat and stood bare-headed in the snow.

‘I presume you went up to London looking for bigger and more attractive game,’ I said to Balfour. ‘You met Alice there. You originally intended to rob her uncle’s house, I presume?’

He nodded. There was a dull, resigned look on his face.