Death in St James's Park (35 page)

Thurloe nodded slowly. ‘Oxenbridge is the “Corpse”, a reference to his appearance …’

‘And Rhea – Rea – was the consort of Kronos in Greek mythology,’ said Chaloner, for
once glad of his Classical education. ‘Bankes’s “Father” must be whoever is paying him to investigate.’

‘I have come across Bankes’s name on a dozen occasions, always asking for information. But he is clever, and I have never met anyone who has seen him. Who is he?’

‘O’Neill, trying to ascertain what is known about his operation?’ suggested Chaloner. ‘Morland, who is clever enough to gather intelligence without it leading back to him? Wood, who is not as lunatic as Dorislaus believes? Le Notre, who has been a sinister presence from the start?’

At that moment, there was a tap on the door, and Thurloe’s expected visitor was ushered in. Chaloner recognised the faded red cloak and blue hat immediately. The musician started in alarm when Chaloner shot to his feet, but Thurloe spoke quickly.

‘It is all right, Robin. We only want the answers to a few questions, and then you may go.’

‘How did you find him?’ asked Chaloner of Thurloe.

‘Isaac did,’ replied Thurloe pointedly. ‘With patience and a lot of footwork.’

Unwilling to pursue that discussion, Chaloner turned to the entertainer. ‘You were near the cart when it exploded. What were you doing there?’

‘A lot of people had gathered for the noonday post,’ replied Robin, although not until Thurloe had nodded to tell him to speak. ‘It seemed a good opportunity to earn a few pennies.’

‘No one paid you to stay? Or suggested it as a good place to perform?’

‘No, I happened on
it by chance. I usually work outside the Royal Exchange, but it was windy that day, and I wanted somewhere more sheltered.’

‘Was the cart in the yard when you arrived?’

‘It was driven in a few minutes later. I remember, because it blocked me off from potential customers, and I was annoyed. Two men were on it. One unhitched the horse and took it away, but he soon came back, and then they both started to fiddle with the firewood.’

‘Describe them.’

‘Small and scruffy. Like beggar boys.’

‘The Yeans.’ Chaloner glanced at Thurloe. ‘Someone must have paid them to do it – Wiseman found a lot of money with their bodies. But why did they run towards the cart when I warned everyone to move away, especially if they knew what was going to happen?’

Thurloe shrugged, and turned back to the musician. ‘Did you notice anyone else loitering?’

‘Yes – a lot of people, all listening to me. But there was one fellow … He was leaning against a wall some distance away, and I think he was monitoring the Post Office.’

‘What did he look like?’ asked Chaloner.

Robin considered carefully. ‘Drab clothes and a hat with a fake yellow flower. He ran away when you started shouting, as did we all. He did not go far, though, and I saw him after the explosion, watching the General Letter Office again.’

Chaloner nodded his thanks and Robin left. So there had been no attempt to encourage people to stay in a place where they would be harmed, and he had wasted his time by hunting the musician.

‘I know a man who wears a hat with an artificial yellow flower,’ said Thurloe. ‘He was one of my spies in the Post Office, and survived there
as a clerk until O’Neill ejected him eighteen months ago. His name is Ibson.’

‘Your jackal?’ blurted Chaloner.

Thurloe regarded him coolly. ‘That was Widow Smith’s name for him. It was unkind.’

‘She suggested I speak to him days ago, but it looked like an unpromising line of enquiry, so I ignored it. It seems I was wrong.’

‘We shall visit him immediately,’ determined Thurloe, reaching for his coat. ‘He will not talk to you, but he will certainly have time for me.’

Thurloe quickly ascertained that Ibson’s current address was a ramshackle tenement in an alley off Holborn. It was a dirty building, which reeked of burned cabbage and poverty. Each room housed a different family, while other folk had paid to inhabit the stairs, so Chaloner and Thurloe had to pick their way across recumbent bodies to reach Ibson’s lair on the second floor. His door was closed, although the one opposite was open, home to a small boy who had been given a bone whistle. He blew on it enthusiastically, ignoring his mother’s slurred appeals for him to stop. Chaloner wondered how the other residents could bear the incessantly shrill din.

Thurloe knocked on Ibson’s door, using a pattern of raps that Chaloner knew could not be random. It swung open, and Thurloe entered. Chaloner followed, but stopped abruptly when he felt the cold touch of a gun against his neck.

‘It is all right, Ibson,’ said Thurloe quietly, closing the door. ‘He is with me.’

‘I have been expecting you, Mr Thurloe,’ said Ibson. He had a large, pointed face and
a lot of long yellow teeth, so that Chaloner thought Widow Smith’s nickname was uncannily apposite – not that he had ever seen a jackal, of course, and his knowledge of them was confined to what he had read in books. He found himself wondering whether there were jackals in Russia.

‘We have just learned that you witnessed the explosion outside the Post Office,’ Thurloe was saying. ‘Will you tell us about it? There is no need for guns, by the way.’

‘I beg to differ.’ Ibson perched on a table and kept the weapon trained on Chaloner. ‘I have not survived these last few weeks by being careless. I trust you, but I do not know him.’

‘As you wish. Will you tell us what you know? Quickly, please. Time is of the essence.’

‘Two lads from the Fleet Rookery did it. I saw them light the fuse. God only knows why they ran back towards the cart, though. Stupid beggars – victims of their own villainy!’

‘Did you see anything else?’

‘No, my attention had been on the Post Office. Mr Bankes pays well for good information, and since losing my job as a postal clerk, I am obliged to make ends meet any way I can.’

‘Bankes?’ asked Thurloe sharply.

Ibson shrugged. ‘I have never met him. He sends money here if he likes my reports.’

‘And what have your reports told him?’

‘That the apprentices are close to exploding into violence. That John Fry has written dozens of letters that encourage Londoners to rebel. That someone will soon be assassinated.’

‘What have you learned about the Post Office?’

‘Very little, although I suspect O’Neill is at the heart of the evil. He hired
Harper to prevent his clerks from gossiping, and he is suspiciously mum himself. I will monitor the place no more, though, not even for you, Mr Thurloe. My contacts there are dead, and I have no wish to follow.’

‘The Alibond brothers?’ asked Chaloner.

Ibson regarded him sharply. ‘Who told you that? Jeremiah Copping? He is an oily devil, and cares for nothing except money. I should have put a knife in his gizzard years ago.’

‘You say O’Neill is at the heart of the evil,’ said Thurloe. ‘But what evil, exactly?’

‘First, there is the corruption that everyone knows about, although it is on a massive scale, and will shock the nation when – if – it is exposed. Second, there is something much darker and more wicked. Its perpetrators are using the corruption as a screen.’

‘Yes, but a screen for what?’ pressed Thurloe, a little impatiently.

‘Something that has attracted Oxenbridge like a maggot to rotting meat,’ replied Ibson. ‘And his helpmeets Rea and Gardner. All are rogues, who want terrible things to happen.’

‘Have you ever seen Oxenbridge in the Post Office?’ asked Chaloner, thinking that Ibson knew no more about the real plot than anyone else; he was just repeating suspicions and rumours.

Ibson nodded. ‘In the disused wing. I got near a window once, and heard him talking to his cronies. Unfortunately, I made a noise and they almost caught me. I was lucky to escape.’

‘Storey’s parlour overlooks that building,’ said Chaloner to Thurloe.

Ibson spat. ‘It is no good asking Storey whether he has noticed
anything untoward. His only concern is the ducks that are dying in St James’s Park.’

‘Precisely,’ said Chaloner, still to Thurloe. ‘Birds poisoned, so he will not care about strange lights and sounds from a part of the Post Office that is supposed to be abandoned.’

‘Of course!’ Ibson stared at him. ‘That makes perfect sense. Why did I not see it?’

‘And Mary?’ asked Thurloe. ‘Is that why she was killed, too?’

Chaloner shook his head. ‘The disused wing cannot be seen from her home. However, her death
is
Post-Office related. Gardner poisoned her, and he is a clerk.’

‘Gardner did?’ Ibson frowned. ‘I suppose he might have done. He is a ruthless bastard. He led Knight into turbulent waters, and left him to drown without a backward glance.’

‘That implies Knight was involved,’ said Thurloe.

Ibson shook his head. ‘He was being used. However, he was a clever man, and understood what was happening. He told me the night before he was arrested that he was on the verge of exposing the whole affair, although he had not learned the identities of most of the perpetrators. He had written everything down in a series of letters to important people.’

Chaloner groaned.

‘What else?’ asked Thurloe urgently. ‘Tell us all you know, no matter how trivial it seems.’

‘A Dutch spy is using the postal services to correspond with his masters in The Hague – I intercepted one of his reports. I also have papers that prove the corruption of several clerks, and will give them to Williamson when they are arrested.’

‘Why not before?’ asked Chaloner.

Ibson smiled
without humour. ‘Because I do not want these villains as enemies until they are safely under lock and key.’

‘Thank you,’ said Thurloe, standing. ‘You have been most helpful.’

‘There is one other thing, Mr Thurloe. The Major is also desperately trying to learn what is happening. Talk to him.’ Ibson glanced at the window. ‘He can often be found in the Crown or the Antwerp at this time of a morning, spying on fanatics for Clarendon.’

Chaloner and Thurloe went to the Catherine Wheel on Cheapside first, but were informed by the guards that Copping and his sister had gone shopping, and would not be back until late afternoon. Chaloner wanted to wait – and search the place while he did so – but Thurloe insisted there were more important things to do, such as questioning the Major.

‘But he refuses to talk.’ Chaloner followed the ex-Spymaster back towards Dowgate. ‘He has taken a vow to report only to Clarendon, one he will not break because he is frightened of Gery.’

‘Then we must reason with him,’ said Thurloe determinedly. ‘The Crown first.’

‘You cannot enter a tavern full of Cavaliers. They will string you up!’

‘Fetch him out, then,’ said Thurloe impatiently. ‘I will wait here.’

The Crown was busy, and there was an atmosphere of quiet menace that Chaloner had not sensed there before. Patrons wore ludicrously large feathered hats to demonstrate their allegiance to the King, and had donned the kind of ugly, bucket-topped
riding boots that had been favoured by Prince Rupert during the wars, despite the fact that most of them had arrived on foot.

‘Have you heard that rebels are plotting in Sussex and Hull?’ one was asking. ‘His Majesty should give me a few cavalrymen. I would go down there and sort them out.’

His foppish appearance and drink-reddened nose made Chaloner suspect he would be incapable of sitting on a horse, let alone fighting from one.

‘We should gather the names of all those who fought for the New Model Army and hang them,’ declared another. ‘They are a danger to our country’s stability as long as they live.’

‘I am a devoted Royalist,’ the taverner muttered, more to himself than to Chaloner as he served the spy with ale. ‘But I wish my customers would lower their voices. The Roundheads in the Antwerp might hear, and I do not want my windows smashed.’

The Major was not among the Crown’s malcontents, so Chaloner did not stay long. He collected Thurloe, and they entered the Antwerp together, both careful to shield their faces as they did so, lest the place was being watched. The moment they stepped across the threshold, they were surrounded by conversations in which loud-voiced men bemoaned the lost republic. Chaloner saw Stokes and Cliffe there, although the two veterans seemed more alarmed than inspired by the rebellious talk, and left when Landlord Young expressed the hope that it would be the King who would be assassinated by John Fry’s brave insurgents.

Thurloe nudged Chaloner, and nodded to where the Major was sitting alone, his face shadowed by a large hat. Chaloner might have missed him, but he was betrayed by his yeomen, who sat near the door reading the latest newsbook. Their uniforms
were mostly covered by cloaks, but flashes of red and yellow could be seen around the neck. They tensed when Thurloe sat next to their prisoner, but relaxed when they recognised Chaloner. The Major closed his eyes wearily.

‘Not again! I cannot break my oath to Clarendon. How many more times must I tell you? For God’s sake go away, so I can complete my business here and leave. I thought I hated the Tower, but it is preferable to what I am charged to do outside it. Why does Gery order me to monitor these places? Why not ask one of his horrible henchmen?’

‘That is a good question,’ said Thurloe softly.

The Major glanced at him once, and then again. His jaw dropped. ‘Thurloe? My God! I did not recognise you. Why are you here? Not to encourage sedition? I thought you had more sense.’

‘He is here to thwart trouble, not to cause it,’ said Chaloner sharply.

‘So am I.’ The Major’s skin was grey with fatigue, and his hands shook so badly that he had spilled coffee all over the table. ‘Although I have a bad feeling that no one will believe me if I am caught. Gery will deny sending me here to spy, and I shall hang. Perhaps that is what he wants, to spare Clarendon the inconvenience of letting me go.’

It was certainly possible, thought Chaloner, given Gery’s hatred for one-time Parliamentarians. There was a sudden roar of appreciation from near the hearth, where someone was advocating a second royal beheading. Eager to be gone, Chaloner tried again to make the Major see sense.