Death in St James's Park (26 page)

‘What is his connection with White Hall?’

‘Well, he is friends with Monsieur le Notre. More than that I have not discovered.’

Le Notre again, thought Chaloner. ‘What is—’

He turned quickly when he sensed someone behind him. It was Gery and Freer, both holding handguns. With a squeak of relief, Morland slithered towards them.

‘He was quizzing me about the Post Office,’ he bleated. ‘He asked dozens of questions, but I told him nothing. At least, nothing that is true. However, he represents a serious nuisance, so lock him in a dungeon until this matter is over. It is for the best.’

‘Or I could shoot him,’ said Gery, the barrel of his gun unwavering.

‘In King Street?’ asked Chaloner archly. ‘At its busiest time of day? Even the Earl will not be able to protect
you from the noose if you commit murder in so public a place.’

Gery gestured with his free hand. ‘You chose to bully Morland somewhere that is concealed from the road. When witnesses arrive, Freer’s dag will be in your hand, and he and Morland will back my claim that you drew first. I shall be feted for saving London from a lunatic.’

Chaloner shrugged. ‘Then we must make sure there is some truth in it.’

Slowly and deliberately, he drew his sword. Gery frowned uncertainly, but although his finger tightened on the trigger, he did not pull it. For all his hot words, an innate sense of honour demanded that Chaloner should make at least some hostile move before being gunned down. Morland fled, unwilling to see how the confrontation resolved.

‘What are you doing, Chaloner?’ cried Freer in alarm. ‘Disarm yourself, man! Morland is right: we can lock you in a dungeon for a few days. There is no need for suicide.’

Chaloner held the sword high, knowing that Gery would not fire until he lunged. He stood that way for a moment, then jabbed upwards, at the canvas above his head. There was an immediate cascade of sleety water. Gery jerked the trigger, but nothing happened, and by the time the marshal had dashed the droplets from his eyes, Chaloner was nowhere to be seen.

It was easy to disappear among the teeming masses in King Street, and Chaloner knew that Gery would not catch him. He was disgusted with the encounter, though – he had learned nothing from Morland, and now Gery would hate him more than ever. He entered the familiar, fuggy warmth of the Rainbow, trailing water.

‘What
news?’ called Farr. His jaw dropped. ‘Why are you wet? It is not raining.’

‘A vindictive apprentice,’ mumbled Chaloner.

There was an immediate sigh of sympathy. Farr poured him some hot coffee, Speed the bookseller wrung out his coat, and Stedman gave him a handkerchief to wipe his face.

‘Apprentices have been causing far too much trouble of late,’ said Farr. ‘The tailors fought the soap-makers last night. What has got into them all?’

‘The tailors had a letter from Bristol yesterday,’ explained Speed, ‘in which they were urged to rise up against the wildness of the Court, the Lady’s gambling debts, the King’s favouring of papists—’

‘The King cuckolds one of England’s most prominent Catholics,’ interrupted Farr, laughing. ‘If that is favouring them, then
I
should not like to catch his eye.’

‘Speaking of Catholics, Palmer’s treatise goes on sale next week,’ said Speed happily. ‘You have not ordered a copy yet, although I am sure you will all want one.’

‘Have you heard the rumours about Mary Wood?’ asked Farr, changing the subject in a non sequitur that was typical of discussions at the Rainbow and neatly avoiding being obliged to part with some money at the same time. ‘The Queen’s dresser. It is said that she did not die of the small-pox, but was murdered.’

‘Yes,’ nodded Speed. ‘Everyone knows it, but no one from Court is investigating.’

‘Probably because they are too busy worrying about the Post Office,’ said Stedman. ‘I heard some of my apprentices talking about it last night.’

‘What did they say?’ asked Chaloner.

‘That something is brewing,’ came the unhelpful reply.

‘Something
has been brewing ever since Bishop was ousted in favour of O’Neill,’ said Speed. ‘Have you heard that John Fry was seen last night, by the way?’

‘What, again?’ asked Farr. ‘That makes five times in the last three weeks.’

‘He has come to lead the revolt,’ said Speed darkly. ‘He tried to organise one eight years ago, but he was either murdered or died of flux – or perhaps he did not die at all – so he decided to wait for a more opportune time. And that time is now, apparently.’

‘I should not like to meet him, dead or alive,’ averred Farr. ‘He is a fanatic, and I dislike these rumours that he is going to assassinate someone important – the King, Lady Castlemaine, Clarendon, Buckingham, Controller O’Neill, le Notre or the Major.’

Stedman grimaced. ‘Why would anyone want to kill the Major? He is in the Tower with no hope of release, and it is said that he is quite broken. It serves him right for executing the old King. We all know that he was the one who struck off the royal head.’

‘His imprisonment is illegal, though,’ said Speed. ‘He has not been charged with anything, and he is continually denied a trial. He will die there, alone, forgotten and crushed in spirit. And talking of crushed spirits, I have Olearius’s
Voyages
for you, Chaloner. It makes for grim reading, I can tell you! You should have ordered some of Mr Grey’s pills, because you will need them when you peruse these pages.’

Chaloner’s heart sank when, leafing through it, the first sentence he saw confidently informed him that Russians were ‘brutish, doing all things according to their unbridled passions and appetites.’ Farr invited him to read aloud, and when he declined, Stedman obliged, choosing
a section about the peasants’ love of squalor and the tyranny of their leaders. Chaloner slipped away, suspecting he might have been wiser not to try to prepare himself for the ordeal ahead.

The church bells were ringing for the eight o’clock services when Chaloner reached Newgate. The prison was a formidable structure, and he kept his head down as he approached, knowing that if he looked up at the bleak, soot-stained walls with their tiny barred windows, he would lose courage and walk away. It took considerable willpower to step inside and ask to see Keeper Sligo. His gorge rose at the familiar stench of rotting straw, unwashed bodies, slops and burned gruel.

‘You,’ said Sligo, when Chaloner was shown into his office. He was a cadaverous man, with a drinking habit. ‘When we met last year, you pretended to be someone you were not, and it saw me in serious trouble. I should take the opportunity to lock you in my darkest cell.’

‘Do not try it,’ advised Chaloner coldly, although the threat sent horror spearing through him. ‘I am on Williamson’s business today.’

‘How do I know you are telling the truth?’ asked Sligo suspiciously. ‘You lied before.’

And he was lying now. ‘Write and ask him. I do not mind waiting.’

Sligo reached for his pen, but then reconsidered, as Chaloner knew he would. ‘No, I want you gone as soon as possible, not looming over me while we wait for a reply.’ He sighed mournfully. ‘Today has brought me nothing but trouble. First there was that letter, and now there is you.’

‘What
letter?’ asked Chaloner politely.

‘The one from John Fry, informing me that if I release all the political prisoners in my care, the whole country will call me a hero. Here. Read it for yourself.’

Chaloner did, impressed by the elegant turn of phrase and handsome writing. It had been scribed on expensive paper, and there was a distinctive purple seal that lent it a sense of gravity. It was signed
Your unalterable freinde and servant, Jno. Fry.
He handed it back.

‘If you do as he suggests, you are likely to end up incarcerated yourself.’

Sligo sighed again. ‘I know, and it is a pity, because I should like to be a hero. So would every gaol-keeper in London – Fry sent the same message to all of us, even the Tower.’

‘Do you think anyone might be tempted?’ asked Chaloner, suspecting the unrest would gain considerable momentum if all London’s rebels and malcontents were freed en masse.

‘Some might. It is not easy being a keeper, you know. First, there is the challenge of feeding a lot of people on a very small budget; and second, there is the delicate business of deciding who goes in which cell. One must be careful, or there are mishaps.’

Chaloner did not understand and was not sure he wanted to, but Sligo was warming to his theme, and was already explaining.

‘It would not do to put Levellers and Fifth Monarchists in the same room, because they fight. The same goes for Anabaptists and Catholics, while Quakers have to be kept separate from everyone, because they are universally unpopular but are too nice to hit anyone back.’

‘Knight,’ said
Chaloner, eager to ask his questions and leave. ‘He was brought here last Thursday, but he died.’

‘Yes. He claimed he was innocent, but most do when they first arrive.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘I put him in a cell on his own, but it was a mistake because he hanged himself. I should have put him in with a lunatic, because they can be entertaining and would have kept his spirits up. Would you like to see his corpse? No one has claimed it, but we are obliged to keep it a week before passing it to Chyrurgeons’ Hall. Wiseman wants it. It is a nice specimen – well fed.’

‘He cannot have Knight,’ said Chaloner sharply. ‘I will arrange his burial.’

Sligo’s pallid face broke into a grin when Chaloner placed several coins on the table. He scooped them up, then led the way through a series of doors, humming under his breath. With each one, Chaloner felt there was less breathable air. He struggled not to cough, afraid he might not be able to stop once he started. Eventually, they reached the dismal little chamber near the kitchens that was used for housing the dead. Chaloner did not know which was worse, the cloying aroma of decay or the stench of the prisoners’ dinner.

He knelt and searched Knight’s body. There were no valuables of any description, and the clerk was missing his hat, cloak, stockings and shoes. However, the thieving gaolers had left the letter that was tucked inside his shirt. Chaloner was about to read it when he happened to glance at Knight’s throat. There were two parallel abrasions. The thicker, higher one had been caused by the rope that was still knotted around his neck; the other was thinner and deeper.

‘He
was garrotted!’ he cried angrily, shoving the letter in his pocket to study later. ‘And then strung up as though he had hanged himself. How could you fail to notice such an obvious ploy?’

Shocked, Sligo started to argue, but even he could see the spy was right, and turned abruptly to send for the warden who had discovered the body. It was not many moments before the man arrived, a sullen, unshaven fellow with lice so abundant that they were like snow in his hair. He was startled but defensive when Sligo pointed at the wounds and demanded an explanation.

‘We were busy that day with a lot of drunks,’ he bleated. ‘We never had time to think—’

‘What kind of drunks?’ interrupted Chaloner. ‘Apprentices?’

‘Old soldiers, probably. We released them the next morning, when someone paid their fine.’

‘Did Knight have any visitors?’ demanded Chaloner.

‘A vicar. Although none of us had seen him before …’

‘What did he look like?’ Chaloner was struggling to control his rising temper, aware that the warden’s careless ineptitude had cost Knight his life.

The man gulped. ‘I don’t rightly remember. Your size, I think. Brown hair and the kind of broad-brimmed black hat that clerics like. But he was decent – gave us money to drink the King’s health. It wouldn’t have been him what murdered—’

‘Who, then?’ snapped Chaloner. ‘Another turnkey? You?’

‘No!’ The warden was growing frightened. ‘So I suppose it must have been him. But he seemed so genteel. Polite, like.’

‘You should have been suspicious when Knight “committed suicide” with a rope,’ said Chaloner to Sligo,
disgusted. ‘Obviously, he did not bring one with him, and its inexplicable appearance should have raised the alarm.’

Neither Sligo nor the gaoler could answer the charge, and Chaloner left with guilt weighing on him more heavily than ever. He took a hackney to the Westminster charnel house, which allowed him to read the note he had found in Knight’s shirt. It informed one Rachel Upton of Scalding Alley that he was innocent of the charges that had been brought against him, and finished with a request for her to post the letters under the bed. Chaloner supposed he would have to locate her – and the bed – as soon as he had finished with Wiseman.

The charnel house did nothing to raise his spirits. It was a dismal building, located between a storage facility for coal and a granary. Caring for the dead was a lucrative business, because its owner, John Kersey, was immaculately attired in a fine woollen suit that Chaloner suspected had been made by a Court tailor. His mortuary was a busy place, and not just with corpses: it attracted interested visitors, and the money he earned from showing off cadavers, along with the small display of artefacts he had gathered over the years, earned him a very respectable living.

‘You are late,’ he said, as Chaloner entered. ‘Wiseman is waiting.’

Wiseman was indeed waiting, and was cross about it. He scowled as Chaloner walked in, but it quickly turned to a frown of concern. ‘Are you ill? You are very pale.’

‘It has been a difficult day, not made any easier by you laying claim to the body of that Post Office clerk,’ replied Chaloner shortly. ‘Knight.’

‘Why should I not have him?’ asked the surgeon indignantly. ‘No family has come forward, and his is a nice corpse,
much better than the scrawny felons I usually get from Newgate.’

Chaloner glared. ‘How can he be a felon? He was not tried in a court of law, so his guilt was never proven. Besides, he said he was innocent.’

‘Show me a villain who does not,’ challenged Wiseman. Then he relented. ‘But I would not have bagged his remains had I known you wanted them. However, I shall be vexed if you sell them to another surgeon. I did see them first.’

‘No one will have them,’ said Chaloner tiredly. ‘I will arrange for them to be buried in St Mary Bothaw. It was their … it was
his
parish, I believe.’