Heartstone (12 page)

I looked at him. ‘He killed himself.'

Mylling looked at me with his sharp dark eyes. ‘I wouldn't have thought he'd have done that. He seemed so relieved to have made the application.' He shook his grey head, then led the way back into the corridors. I heard the chink of gold again.

STEPPING OUTSIDE, I blinked in unexpectedly clear light. The flagstones of the passageway were covered with hailstones, shining under a sky that was bright blue again. The air was fresher, suddenly cool. I walked away carefully, crunchy slipperiness under my feet. In Palace Yard people who had taken shelter from the storm in doorways were emerging again.

I decided to walk to Barak's house, which lay on my way home, and see if he was back. By the time I reached the great Charing Cross the hailstones had melted away, the ground only a little damp underfoot. As I passed the fine new houses of the rich lining the Strand, my thoughts were on Ellen. How could she have been placed in the Bedlam without a certificate of lunacy? Someone had been paid well to take her in and was still being paid. I realized she was at liberty to walk out of the place tomorrow; but there was the paradox, for that was the last thing she could do.

I turned into Butcher Lane, a short street of two-storey houses. Barak and Tamasin rented the ground floor of a neat little house, painted in pleasing colours of yellow and green. I knocked at the door, and it was answered by Goodwife Marris; a stout woman in her forties, Jane Marris normally had an air of cheerful competence. Today, however, she looked worried.

‘Is Mistress Tamasin all right?' I asked anxiously.

‘
She
's all right,' Jane replied with a touch of asperity. ‘It's the master that isn't.'

She showed me into the tidy little parlour with its view on a small garden bright with flowers. Tamasin sat on a heap of cushions, hands cradling her belly. Her face was streaked with tears, her expression angry. Barak sat on a hard chair against the wall, shamefaced. I looked from one to the other. ‘What's amiss?'

Tamasin cast a glare at her husband. ‘We've had that officer back. Jack's only got himself conscripted into the army, the fool.'

‘What? But they're looking for single men.'

‘It's because he flipped his fingers at the man. And he answered him back today. Jack thinks he can do as he likes. Thinks he's still Thomas Cromwell's favoured servant, not just a law clerk.'

Barak winced. ‘Tammy—'

‘Don't Tammy me. Sir, can you help us? He's been told to go to Cheapside Cross in three days' time to be sworn in.'

‘Sworn straight in? Not even sent to a View of Arms?'

Barak looked at me. ‘He said he could see I was fit - lusty in body and able to keep the weather, he said. And he wouldn't listen to argument, just started shouting. Said I'd been chosen and that was that.' He sighed. ‘Tammy's right, it's because I was insolent.'

‘Recruiters are supposed to pick the best men, not indulge their disfavours.' I sighed. ‘What was his name?'

‘Goodryke.'

‘All right, I will go to Alderman Carver tomorrow.' I looked at Barak seriously. ‘The officer will probably want paying off, you realize that.'

‘We've some money set aside,' he said quietly.

‘Yes,' Tamasin shot back. ‘For the baby.' Her eyes filled with tears.

Barak shrugged. ‘Might as well spend it now. Its value's going down every day. Oh, God's death, Tammy, don't start throwing snot around again.'

I expected Tamasin to shout back at him, but she only sighed and spoke quietly. ‘Jack, I wish you'd accept your status in life, live quietly. Why must you always fight with people? Why can't you be at peace?'

‘I'm sorry,' he answered humbly. ‘I should have thought. We'll be all right, Master Shardlake will help us.'

She closed her eyes. ‘I'm tired,' she said. ‘Leave me for a while.'

‘Jack,' I said quickly, ‘let's go out and discuss this case. I've some interesting news. I know where we can get a pie-'Barak hesitated, but I could see Tamasin was best left alone for a while.

Outside the door, he shook his head. ‘That was some storm,' he said.

‘Ay. The hailstones were thick on the ground at Westminster.'

He nodded back at the house. ‘I meant in there.'

I laughed. ‘She's right. You are incorrigible.'

WE WENT TO a tavern near Newgate jail frequented by law students and jobbing solicitors. It was busy already. A group of students sat drinking with half a dozen apprentices round a large table. The barriers of class, I had noticed, were becoming blurred among young men of military age. They were well on in their cups, singing the song that had become popular after our defeat of the Scots at Solway Moss three years before.

And now apparently the Scots are waiting to fall on us, I thought, reinforced by thousands of French troops. Hardly surprising since the King had been chivalrously waging war on their infant Queen Mary for three years. Looking at the group, I saw an older man among them, and recognized the scarred face and eyepatch of my steward. Coldiron, his face flushed, was singing along lustily. I remembered it was his night off.

‘Go to the hatch and get me a beer and a pie,' I told Barak. ‘I'm going to sit there.' I nodded to a table screened from the body of the tavern by a partition.

Barak returned with two mugs of beer and two mutton pies. He sat down heavily, and looked at me apologetically. ‘I'm sorry,' he said.

‘Tamasin is in a great chafe.'

‘She's right, I know. I shouldn't have given that arsehole a flea in his ear. Soldiers are touchy. Did you hear-a band of German mercenaries made a riot up at Islington this morning? Wanted more pay to go to Scotland.'

‘The English troops are going quietly enough.'

‘Can you get me out of it?' he asked seriously.

‘I hope so. You know I'll do what I can.' I shook my head. ‘I saw a hundred men from the Trained Bands setting out from Westminster Stairs earlier. And at Lincoln's Inn I heard there are twelve thousand men in the navy. Sixty thousand militia on the Channel coast, thirty thousand in Essex. Twenty thousand on the Scottish border. Dear God.'

Beyond the partition, one of the carousing youngsters shouted, ‘We'll find every last damned French spy in London! Slimy gamecock swine, they're no match for plain Englishmen!'

‘He'd feel different if he had a wife and child.' Barak took a bite of his pie and a long swig of beer.

‘If you were their age again and single, would you not be singing along with them?'

‘No. I've never run with the crowd, particularly if it's heading over a cliff.' Barak wiped his mouth, took another swig.

I looked at his near-empty tankard. ‘Slow down.'

‘I don't drink much now. You know that. It was that which parted me from Tamasin. Not that it's always easy. It's all right for you to lecture that never drinks enough to drown a mouse.'

I smiled sadly. It was true I drank little. Even now I remembered my father, after my mother died, spending his evenings in the tavern. I would be in bed and would hear him being helped upstairs by the servants, stumbling on the steps, mumbling nonsense. I had sworn never to end like that. I shook my head. ‘What did you find out today?'

‘I think there's something odd about Michael Calfhill's death,' he said in a low voice. ‘I talked to Michael's neighbours, saw the local constable. He's an old gabblemouth, so I took him for a drink. He said Michael had a spot of trouble with some local apprentices. Corner boys, standing around looking tough, with eyes peeled for French spies.'

‘What sort of trouble?'

‘The constable heard them shouting after Michael as he passed. Apparently the lads didn't like the way Michael looked at them.'

‘What way?'

‘As though he'd have liked to get into their codpieces.'

My eyes widened. ‘There mustn't be a word of that at the hearing. What did the neighbours say?'

‘There's a young couple in the room below Michael's. They didn't see him much, just heard him on the stairs, sometimes pacing in his room. The night he died they were woken by a crash. The husband went upstairs but couldn't get an answer, so he called the constable. He barged the door open and found Michael swinging from the roof-beam. Michael had cut a strip from the bedsheet and made a noose, then stood on a chair and kicked it away. That was what made the bang.' Barak leaned forward, animated now. ‘I asked the young couple if they heard any footsteps going up or down the stairs. They didn't, but the room's only one storey up. And the constable said the window was open.'

‘It's summer, that's no surprise.'

‘I'm just saying someone could have got in while Michael was asleep, strangled him, then strung him up.' Barak smiled, his old conspiratorial smile. ‘We can get into the room tomorrow if you like, take a look. It hasn't been let. The constable left the key with the young couple. I told them I might be back with someone.'

‘I'll think about it. What about that vicar?'

‘He's still at the same church, St Evelyn's in Fall Lane. Master Broughton. He wasn't there, the verger said to come back tomorrow at eleven.'

I smiled. ‘Well done. We might have a witness after all. And we need one.' I told him about my visit to the Court of Wards. ‘You got off lightly if you only had to pay out some some beer money. It cost me three shillings in good silver to get Mylling's help. We'll go and see the vicar tomorrow. And, yes, I'll have a look at Michael's lodging. Though his mother said the note was definitely in his hand.' I frowned. ‘I wonder if whatever he found in Hampshire might have sent him out of his wits.'

The voices of the gang beyond the partition had grown louder, and now I heard Coldiron's voice, a grating shout. ‘Men nowadays are too womanly! Sleeping out's all right! Get some branches and put blankets over them and you're as snug as a pig!'

‘I'd rather huggle with my pretty pussy!'

Coldiron shouted above the laughter. ‘Plenty of pussy in the army! Camp followers! Dirty girls, but they know what they're doing! Come lads, who's going to get me another drink?'

‘You made a bad choice there,' Barak said.

‘I know. I'm going to get rid of him as soon as I can find someone else.'

Barak drained his mug. ‘D'you want another beer? Don't worry, this'll be my last.'

‘All right. But don't catch Coldiron's eye.'

While Barak fetched the drinks I sat thinking. When he returned I said, ‘I found out something about Ellen at the Court of Wards. She has never been registered as a lunatic.'

‘Then how did she get to the Bedlam?'

‘That's what I intend to find out. Someone has been paying. Warden Metwys is in it, he has to be. And all the Bedlam wardens back nineteen years. The wardenship is an office of profit, sold to courtiers.'

Barak said, ‘You'll end up more involved with her than ever.'

I shook my head. ‘I won't. I can't.'

‘Look, at the moment Ellen's got somewhere to live, a job of sorts. If you delve into family secrets, whoever's been paying the Bedlam might stop. Then the warden might kick her out. Where does she go then - your house?'

I sighed, for he spoke sense. ‘I'll move quietly, carefully. But if I go to Portsmouth I can't miss the chance to find out what happened at Rolfswood.'

‘Do you think you will?'

‘If the case is allowed to go ahead next Monday, probably. Listen, tomorrow I will go and see Alderman Carver about this mess you've got yourself into. He owes me a favour. Then we can visit this vicar, see what he knows about the Curteys family. Bess will have to attend the hearing on Monday, by the way. I'm seeing her on Saturday. I don't want her to know about Michael giving those corner boys looks. If he did.'

‘Maybe they decided to kill him.'

‘For giving them looks? Don't be silly.'

‘What if we don't come up with anything against Hobbey from the vicar?'

‘Then it's more difficult. I'll have to rely on the severity of Michael's allegations and throw in the fact the wardship was put through very hurriedly. If need be I will say the Hobbey family need to answer interrogatories. If the court agrees, I'll probably have to go down to Hampshire and take them myself. I'll see Dyrick after we've found out whether there is any useful witness evidence.'

‘You'll need someone with you if you go. This could be a dirty business. Ellen's matter too.'