Death in St James's Park (4 page)

He frowned, perturbed. Gery had deliberately excluded him from the discussion now taking place, so what did the marshal not want him to hear? Freer was watching, which meant he could not press his ear against the wood, as he might have done had he been alone, so he was obliged to walk away. As he went, he was assailed by a strong sense of foreboding, and the distinct sense that all was not well in his master’s household.

Knight wept so disconsolately when the palace guards led him away that Chaloner half wished he had let him escape. When they had gone, Chaloner began to walk down the stairs again, but Gery ran after him and grabbed his arm. The spy freed himself with more vigour than was strictly necessary,
objecting to the liberty. Gery regarded him frostily.

‘What did Knight tell you when you were alone together? Did he mention the Post Office?’

‘Not really. Why?’

‘If I find out you have lied to me, Knight will not be the only one locked in Newgate. You will join him there, in the deepest, dankest dungeon the keeper can provide.’

Chaloner tried not to shudder at the notion, sure Gery would implement the threat if he knew the extent of his aversion to such places. He masked his disquiet with a question. ‘Why should it matter what Knight said if you believe his claims to be a fiction?’

Gery scowled. ‘Because the enquiry into corrupt practices at the Post Office is
mine
, and I do not want you interfering. You might spoil the traps I have laid. Stay away from it and its clerks. Is that clear? Now go back to the office. Clarendon wants to see you.’

He had turned and stalked away before Chaloner could offer any response. Stifling a sigh – he was tired, cold and wanted to go home – Chaloner returned to his master.

‘Gery has offered to track down Gardner,’ said the Earl, once the intelligencer was standing in front of him again. ‘Thus you may leave the matter to him. And there is no truth in Knight’s allegations, so you had better forget them.’

‘What allegations?’ asked Chaloner, aiming to learn what had been discussed after he had been sent out.

The Earl waved a weary hand. ‘About Clement Oxenbridge and the so-called Post Office plot that will bring about another civil war. It is a canard, so ignore whatever he told you.’

‘Are you sure that is wise, sir?’ asked Chaloner, immediately
suspicious. ‘It is a serious claim, and if Knight is right—’

‘Do not argue with me,’ snapped the Earl. ‘I am not in the mood for your insolence today.’

‘It is not insolence, sir,’ objected Chaloner. ‘It is concern. The government is still too new to be completely stable, and we will be at war with the Dutch soon. It would be sensible to explore any rumour of plots that—’

‘My marshal specifically asked me to tell you not to interfere. He dislikes you for your former loyalties. You see, not everyone is as liberal as me when it comes to that sort of thing.’

‘No, sir,’ said Chaloner flatly, thinking the Earl mentioned his past so frequently that it somewhat belied his claims to open-mindedness.

The Earl softened slightly. ‘I have not yet thanked you for looking after my son in Sweden. He has said little about his experiences, but I have heard from other sources that you rescued him from several unpleasant situations. You served me well.’

With a pang of alarm, Chaloner knew that the discussion was a prelude to him being sent on another overseas mission. He had spent more time away than in London since entering the Earl’s service, having been dispatched first to Ireland, then to Spain and Portugal, followed by Oxford, Wimbledon, Holland, Tangiers and finally Sweden. He was heartily sick of it, and had hoped that he had earned a few weeks’ respite, not the mere six days that he had had at home since his most recent jaunt.

‘It is good to be back, sir,’ he said quickly. ‘Hannah …’

He had been going to say that his wife was pleased to have him home, but he was not entirely sure that was true. They had been married less than six months, yet although they had spent
all but a few days of it apart, their relationship was already in trouble.

‘Well, I am afraid she will have to manage without you again,’ said the Earl briskly. ‘Because I have business that needs attending in Russia.’

‘
Russia?
’ cried Chaloner. That particular country had a reputation for being populated by brutal, superstitious peasants with a deep-rooted hatred of foreigners. No traveller who survived its perilous highways, warring brigands and deadly diseases had anything good to say about it. Was the assignment Gery’s idea, to rid himself of a man he hated? Permanently?

‘I imagine you speak the language,’ the Earl continued blithely. ‘I know for a fact that you understand French, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin and Dutch.’

‘But not Russian, sir,’ said Chaloner, aghast. ‘And I cannot go in January anyway. It has no ice-free ports, and will be impossible to reach until May at the earliest.’

‘I have it on good authority that there will be no ice this year. Something to do with tides, sea temperatures and the position of the moon. But it will not be for a few days yet, and I have an important task for you first. Three birds have died in St James’s Park.’

‘In suspicious circumstances?’ asked Chaloner, still wrestling with the appalling prospect of a trek to such a remote and inhospitable place. And he was mistrustful of the ‘good authority’, too, doubting the Earl knew anyone who was qualified to make such a judgement.

Clarendon eyed him balefully. ‘I hope you are not being facetious. But yes, the ducks did die before their time, and I want you to discover why. Most of the creatures in that park are gifts from foreign ambassadors – including Russia’s – and they will be vexed if they learn we have not taken proper care of them. It is a
mission of vital diplomatic importance.’

Chaloner nodded, but his sense of presentiment intensified. He had proved himself to be loyal in the past, so why was the Earl relegating him to a petty enquiry while Gery explored whatever was unfolding at the Post Office? Was it because the marshal had poisoned the Earl against him? Or was there another, more sinister reason?

‘It would be helpful if you made a start today,’ said the Earl, when there was no reply. ‘Or did apprehending that little clerk sap your energy?’

‘No,’ said Chaloner, rather more curtly than was wise. ‘Is there anyone particular I should talk to about these birds?’

‘Well, I do not think interviewing their companions will help.’ The Earl chortled, the first time Chaloner had heard him laugh since he had been back. ‘Unless you speak Duck.’

Chaloner left the Earl’s offices in an agitated frame of mind, and was so engrossed in his concerns that he did not see Hannah until she stepped in front of him. Silently, he berated himself for his inattention. In his line of business, that sort of carelessness saw men killed.

She was frowning, and he wondered what he had done to annoy her now. Nothing came to mind: Gery had kept him busy with petty enquiries since his return from Sweden, so he had barely seen her. They had quarrelled once, though, the night he had arrived home, when he learned that she had hired two more servants, taking the number to five. It meant they were living well beyond their means, and visions of debtors’ prison loomed like a spectre.

‘You look like a tradesman, Thomas,’ she declared irritably. ‘We have our reputations to consider, you know, and sometimes you embarrass me with your eccentric habits.’

Chaloner had dressed for apprehending felons, and his clothes were mostly grey and brown, two colours she decried as vulgar. He was still chilled to the bone, but imagined he would have been considerably colder had he worn a courtly suit of silk in place of his practical wool long-coat.

‘I am sorry,’ he said, lacking the will for an argument. ‘I did not expect to come here today.’

She nodded, and some of her annoyance receded. She was a small, vivacious, fair-haired woman with an engaging smile, although few would have called her pretty. She was lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and she loved her post, White Hall and her mistress in equal measure.

‘Have you heard the latest news?’ she asked, bursting with the need to gossip. ‘Roger Palmer is home, after serving two years in the Venetian navy.’

Chaloner wondered what he was expected to say. He was not interested in Court chatter – least of all about Lord Castlemaine – although he knew he should be, as only a foolish intelligencer did not learn about the people among whom he was obliged to move.

‘There will be trouble,’ predicted Hannah gleefully, when there was no response. ‘His vile wife will have to curtail her sluttish behaviour now.’

‘Why?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Their marriage is dead. He has no control over her or she over him.’

‘True,’ acknowledged
Hannah. ‘Indeed, she began her affair with the King within weeks of their wedding. None of her four children are Palmer’s – the King has claimed them all as his own. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, Palmer is a papist – divorce is out of the question.’

‘I see.’ Chaloner supposed it was a covert reference to their own situation. Hannah had converted to Catholicism when she had been appointed to serve the Queen, which meant she would not countenance an annulment either, no matter how disastrous their union.

‘We had a nasty shock today.’ Hannah flitted to another subject. ‘Mary Wood is dead of the small-pox. Do you remember her? She and her husband own a mansion near Dowgate. It is not somewhere I should like to live, as I imagine it is very noisy.’

Their own house on Tothill Street was not exactly a haven of peace, given that it was near a number of taverns, not all of them reputable. But London was like that – respectable homes often rubbed shoulders with insalubrious alehouses, and Dowgate was not much different from Tothill Street in that respect.

‘Did you know Mary well?’ he asked, not sure whether to offer sympathy or congratulations.

‘Yes, she was the Queen’s dresser. There are rumours that she was murdered, but I doubt they are true. She became unwell last month, and I hope she did not pass the disease to the rest of us before she collapsed and was carried home. Of course, I did not like her very much.’

‘No?’

‘When things went missing from the Queen’s jewel box, it was nearly always Mary who had last been seen with them. Of course, her faults are forgotten now she is dead – everyone is extolling her virtues. Do you know her husband? Sir Henry is sixty-six years old, and Mary was thirty-eight, but they still managed to produce a baby.’

Hannah’s voice was
bitter. She wanted children herself, but her first marriage had been barren and her second was proving to be the same. As Chaloner had fathered a child – dead of plague in Holland – she had accepted that the fault lay with her. Chaloner had been mildly ashamed of his relief, suspecting there would have been no end of trouble had she believed otherwise.

‘Do you mean the fellow who is Clerk of the Green Cloth?’ he asked.

Hannah nodded. ‘Which, as you will know, means he has very little to do, yet is still paid a handsome salary. His duties are mostly arranging royal journeys, but the King likes being in London, so Wood is rarely obliged to tax himself.’

Chaloner considered what he knew of the man. ‘A few days ago, he told my Earl that eating live wasps would cure his gout.’

‘I hope he followed the advice.’ Hannah loathed Clarendon, partly for the shabby way he treated her husband, but mostly because he was vocal in his disapproval of the Court rakes, many of whom were her friends. ‘But Wood does say and do some very peculiar things. For example, he tried to make Controller O’Neill drink a toast to his health out of a jug that contained a dead toad.’

‘Why?’ asked Chaloner, repelled. ‘Did the Post Office lose one of his letters?’

Hannah laughed. ‘Probably! That place has not been the same since Henry Bishop was dismissed and O’Neill appointed in his place. You were not in London at the time, but it caused a tremendous stir. Bishop and O’Neill hate each other now, and are always spoiling for a spat.’

‘Then perhaps that is why Wood offered O’Neill a dead toad – he sympathises with Bishop.’

‘Perhaps, although Wood is
extremely strange, and there is no knowing with him. But he will miss Mary. He always said that she made him feel young again.’

‘Who started the rumours that she was murdered?’ Chaloner supposed he should keep abreast of the matter lest he was asked to investigate. ‘And why?’

‘I have no idea, but it will be malicious nonsense. Mary died of the small-pox, and that is that. And if you do not believe me, ask Surgeon Wiseman. He tended her, and I doubt any sly murderer could deceive him.’

‘No,’ acknowledged Chaloner. Wiseman knew his trade.

Chaloner was deeply unsettled by the prospect of travelling to Russia, and he had not liked the way he had been ordered to stay away from whatever was brewing at the Post Office. He knew his concerns would keep him awake if he went home to bed, so he decided to follow the Earl’s orders and make a start on the ducks instead. He was partial to birds anyway, and disliked the notion of someone picking them off.

St James’s Park was enclosed by high walls, and was accessible through a number of gates, all of which were guarded to exclude undesirables. However, Chaloner entered unchallenged that morning, the sentries evidently having decided that no one was likely to venture into their domain on a day when the wind was bitter and snow was in the air. Unfortunately, the men who tended the plants and birds had apparently thought the same – the place was deserted, and there was no one to question about what had happened to the ducks.

The grass was white with frost, and
the Canal – the wide, straight body of water that formed the park’s centrepiece – had frozen over. A number of disgruntled fowl stood along its fringes or in irritable confusion on its iron surface, fluffed up against the chill. Chaloner walked around it in its entirety, bending to inspect the banks every so often, but he discovered nothing useful. He shivered. Perhaps the birds had just died of cold. Many were from warmer climes, after all, and would not appreciate such frigid weather.

He stood for a while watching them, impressed by their variety and colours. There were several kinds of swan and goose, countless ducks, two cranes, including one with a wooden leg, a flock of penguins and a glorious pinkish creature that he believed to be a flamingo, a species he had read about but had never seen.