Murder on High Holborn (10 page)

The Rainbow was one of Chaloner’s favourite haunts, although he was not sure why, given that he liked neither its coffee nor most of its clientele. He supposed it was because there was something comfortingly familiar about its smuggy warmth and worn benches, and as his own life was disturbingly unpredictable, he appreciated the fact that nothing in the Rainbow ever changed.

It was the first time he had visited it since arriving home, but the scene that greeted him was exactly as he had left it weeks before. The same people sat cradling dishes of the usual foul brew, and the dog-eared government newsbooks lay ready for them to peruse. The customary reek of burning beans assailed his nostrils, and the resident cat was in her regular place by the fire. He knew he would shortly learn that the bigoted and ill-informed opinions of its patrons had not changed either, and that it would not be long before he was annoyed by them.

‘What news?’ called James Farr the owner, voicing the traditional coffee-house greeting. He beamed when he saw Chaloner. ‘Hah! We were beginning to think you were lost in the icy wastes of the north. Now we shall have some decent conversation!’

‘We had plenty while he was away,’ objected a young printer named Fabian Stedman, who spent his every waking moment in the Rainbow; Chaloner often wondered if he had a home. ‘Especially once war was declared on the butter-eaters.’

‘I did my best to turn public opinion against hostilities,’ sighed Rector Thompson, coming to his feet to grasp Chaloner’s hand in a warm gesture of friendship. ‘But to no avail.’

‘Well, I am glad our government took a stand,’ declared Stedman. ‘There is only enough room for one nation to rule the waves, and that is us.’

‘It will be costly in blood and money,’ warned Thompson.

‘I do not care about the blood, as long as it is not mine,’ said Farr. ‘But I am worried about the money. Who will pay?’

‘We will,’ declared Stedman stoutly, ever the staunch Royalist. ‘It is our patriotic duty to provide funds for this noble venture.’

‘Not me,’ said Farr. ‘My taxes are too high already. Still, at least my hard-earned shillings are not being used to fund the intelligence services – I heard yesterday that Williamson’s budget has been cut yet again.’

He sounded gleeful: coffee houses were places where patrons spoke their minds, and no spymaster worth his salt failed to monitor them. Needless to say their owners did not like Williamson or his insidious agents.

‘It has,’ nodded Thompson. ‘And he has his hands full with the Dutch war, so if anyone fancies staging a rebellion, now is the time to do it.’

‘Have you heard that one might be brewing?’ fished Chaloner.

‘Not recently,’ replied Farr, while the others shrugged to say they had not either. Chaloner could only suppose that either the Fifth Monarchy uprising was not as serious as the Earl had led him to believe, or its leaders had managed to keep their plans secret.

‘Tell us about Russia,’ said Thompson pleasantly. ‘Was it as terrible as depicted in that doom-laden book you bought before you left?’

Stedman interrupted to say that Olearius’s
Travels
was a very accurate account of the Tsardom, and Farr found it incumbent to disagree. By the time they had finished quarrelling, Thompson’s question had been forgotten, which Chaloner did not mind at all.

‘Three suns were seen over Hamburg last week,’ said Farr, launching off on an entirely new subject, as was often the wont in the Rainbow. ‘There is a new comet, too – different from the one we had in January.’

‘And there is plague in Venice,’ added Stedman darkly, ‘while the devil appeared at a Quaker meeting in York. All are signs of looming disaster.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Thompson. ‘Superstition is an insult to God. You should all know better.’

‘But He might be the one sending the signs,’ Stedman pointed out. ‘Moreover, next year will be sixteen-sixty-six – and we all know what three sixes means.’

‘We do?’ asked Farr, frowning.

‘It is the sign of evil,’ explained Stedman. ‘Of the beast. The Antichrist, if you will.’

‘Then you had better repent before it is too late,’ said Thompson tartly. ‘You can begin by
listening
to my Sunday sermons instead of chatting through them, as you usually do.’

‘Coal is terribly expensive these days,’ said Farr, after a sheepish silence. ‘Poor folk cannot afford it now, because the government has imposed such enormous taxes.’

‘To raise money for the war,’ explained Stedman. ‘We will not win it on air – funds are needed for ships, crews and provisions.’

‘I would not mind so much if the King spent what we give him wisely,’ grumbled Farr. ‘But he squanders it on frivolities. Look at the Lady Day firework display. It is costing a fortune, and who will foot the bill? We will!’

Then another argument was under way. Thompson threw up his hands in despair and left, so Chaloner followed him outside.

‘Is there a member of your congregation named Paul Ferine?’ he began. ‘A courtier who—’

‘Yes, a man who took superstition to new heights,’ interrupted Thompson disapprovingly. ‘He lost three teeth to decay last year, and carried them around in his pocket.’

Chaloner blinked. ‘What for?’

‘So he could rise up whole on the Day of Judgement – he did not want to face eternity bereft of incisors. I suppose we should be grateful it was only teeth, not a foot or an arm.’

‘He was not a Fifth Monarchist, was he?’

‘No. Fifth Monarchists are Christians, for all their eccentricity. Ferine stopped attending church when his wife died, and he was a self-confessed heathen. Afterwards, grief drove him out of his fine townhouse and into rented rooms on High Holborn.’

‘Did you know him well?’

‘He was Groom of the Robes, Thomas. Such men consider mere rectors beneath their notice. Thankfully! I would not have wanted a heretic in my circle of friends.’

Darkness had fallen while Chaloner had been in the Rainbow. Lanterns were lit in the wealthier houses, and linkmen – youths with pitch torches – were out in force, ready to light the way for anyone willing to pay them. The golden gleams glittered in the wet mud as feet, hoofs, wheels and paws squelched through it, churning it into an ever more foul soup that not even the chill of the day could prevent from reeking.

As Chaloner was full of cake, he decided to postpone the ordeal of Hannah’s pie until he was hungry. To pass the time, he turned up Chancery Lane, a handsome street dominated by Lincoln’s Inn, one of four foundations in London that licensed lawyers. He had been a pupil there briefly, where he had met John Thurloe, who had later become Cromwell’s Secretary of State and Spymaster General. Thurloe had retired from politics at the Restoration and now lived quietly, dividing his time between London and his estate in Oxfordshire.

Lincoln’s Inn was a haven of peace after the noisy streets and Chaloner walked through it slowly, enjoying the timeless tranquillity of its buildings and its elegantly manicured gardens. He reached Dial Court and climbed the stairs to Chamber XIII, aware of the warm, comfortable scent of wax polish, wood-smoke and old books.

Thurloe did not look like someone who had been one of the most powerful men in the country. He was slightly built with shoulder-length hair and large blue eyes. His modest, unassuming manner led some people to believe he was weak, but he possessed a core of steel, as many enemies of the republic had learned to their cost. He had inspired deep loyalty among those he employed, and many continued to send him snippets of information, so he was almost as well informed now as when he had been Spymaster. He did not smile often, but he beamed when he saw Chaloner, an open, delighted grin full of pleasure and affection.

‘Tom! I had no idea you were home. When did you return? Come, sit by the fire and tell me all about it. Cromwell’s ambassadors always claimed that Russia is dreadfully squalid. Is it?’

‘I did not see enough of it to judge.’ Chaloner allowed himself to be ushered into a chair and provided with a cup of something warm. He sipped it cautiously. Thurloe imagined himself to be in fragile health and swallowed all manner of potions that promised to restore the vigour he had enjoyed at twenty. He was not above foisting them on his guests, so Chaloner was always wary of anything he could not immediately identify.

‘It was a dangerous mission,’ Thurloe went on, ‘carrying dispatches begging for the Tsar’s help in the event of us losing the Dutch war. Clarendon was right to send them, of course: France and Spain might well attack us while we are weak, in which case we shall need a powerful ally.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Chaloner.

‘But the Privy Council will denounce him as a traitor if they ever find out. We cannot win the war, but they consider it treason for one of their number to say so. What did the Tsar say? Was he amenable to Clarendon’s proposal?’

‘I never delivered it. All Russia’s ports are closed by ice in winter, and the so-called expert who told the Earl that this year is an exception was wrong. A storm blew us against a great sheet of it, which sliced through the hull like a knife through butter. We sank within minutes, and the dispatches were lost, along with the jewels the Earl had included as a bribe.’

‘Lost?’ asked Thurloe, puzzled. ‘How? Surely you carried them on your person?’

‘Clarendon insisted that they would be safer in the forward hold. Unfortunately, that was the first place to flood, at which point I learned that I am not very good at picking locks underwater in the pitch dark.’

‘You were reckless to have tried. What happened next?’

‘We abandoned ship and swam to the ice edge. Fortunately, it was not far to the coast, and we were able to reach a village.’

‘And its people lent you a boat to return home?’

‘They offered, but I thought I should at least try to deliver Clarendon’s message. I continued the journey on horseback, and Captain Lester came with me. But when we reached the Russian border we were told that we would not have been allowed in even
with
the dispatches, as we had not been issued with the necessary passes. We were accused of spying and put in prison.’

‘That cannot have been easy for you,’ said Thurloe sympathetically. He was the only person who fully understood Chaloner’s aversion to such places. ‘But you escaped?’

‘Yes. And then we came home.’

That had not been easy either, given that a pack of angry Russian guards had been hot on their heels, and Chaloner did not think he had ever spent so many hours in the saddle in so short a space of time. He liked travelling, but that had been an ordeal he was keen to forget.

‘Shall we talk of other matters?’ asked Thurloe kindly. ‘You can start by telling me what scheme compels you to be “dismissed” from Clarendon’s service.’

Chaloner hoped no one else would see through the Earl’s ploy so readily. ‘He thinks it will allow me to infiltrate a band of malcontents – with the help of a turncoat named William Leving.’

‘Leving,’ mused Thurloe. ‘He fought for Parliament during the wars, but was dismissed from the army for siding with trouble-makers. He is a very silly man.’

‘What else do you know about him?’

‘He was part of the Northern Plot a few months ago, and was imprisoned in York. I doubt his escape was genuine, so I can only assume that he offered to spy on his erstwhile colleagues in exchange for his life.’

Chaloner groaned: if the Fifth Monarchists thought likewise, then he and Leving were living on borrowed time. ‘Have you heard rumours of another rebellion in the offing?’

‘No. London is unusually peaceful at the moment.’

‘Then what about any inexplicable movements of horses and guns? You cannot have an uprising without those, and someone must have seen or heard something.’

‘No, nothing, Tom. All has been very quiet. Who is behind this mischief?’

‘Fifth Monarchists. Roger Jones, to be precise.’

Thurloe frowned. ‘Jones has joined the Fifth Monarchists? I suppose I should not be surprised – he is a vociferous dissident, and their wild ideas will certainly appeal to him.’

‘His cronies include a stockinger named Atkinson, a watchmaker named Quelch, a Baptist pastor named Strange, a fat, grave man named Manning and a lady who bakes – Ursula Adman.’

‘She is sister to the infamous Mrs Trapnel, hailed as a visionary, but in reality just another lunatic. Mrs Trapnel is currently in Bristol gaol, and I am sorry if Ursula feels obliged to carry the family torch while her sibling is indisposed, as she seems a decent, God-fearing woman.’

‘And the others?’

‘Atkinson is a naive dreamer; Strange is a rash, heady person who thinks our King is the Antichrist; Manning is nobody much; and Quelch is an incurable thief with a string of convictions as long as your arm.’

‘Really?’ Chaloner was amused. ‘Then he will be in for a shock if the Kingdom of Christ does come to pass. Even if his dishonesty is overlooked, his hypocrisy will not be.’

Thurloe eyed him beadily. ‘I hope you are not being irreligious, Thomas. But to return to your malcontents, Jones and Strange are uncompromising militants who should be under lock and key, while Quelch is a malcontent who likes to spread trouble. They have chosen a good time to make a nuisance of themselves – Williamson is distracted by the war.’

‘There was some suggestion that the Dutch might finance their Cause…’

‘The Dutch will not waste money on Fifth Monarchists. I once described them as worms who think they can thresh mountains, and I have learned nothing to make me change my mind.’

‘Clarendon has also ordered me to investigate Paul Ferine’s murder. I do not suppose you have heard anything about that, have you?’

‘I am afraid not, but I shall listen for rumours. Would you like a sip of Sydenham’s Laudanum or a Goddard’s Drop? You are very pale. Clearly you are not yet recovered from Russia.’

‘Actually, it is the prospect of eating Hannah’s pickled ling pie,’ said Chaloner gloomily.

Feeling like the worst kind of coward, Chaloner delayed going home yet again when he walked through Charing Cross and saw St Martin’s Lane stretching away into darkness on his right. He walked up it, aiming for a shabby shop with a battered sign outside saying it belonged to the Trulocke Brothers, gunsmiths. It was guarded by a fierce dog, which leapt to its feet snarling as he approached. Then it wagged its tail, remembering past bribes of bones. Chaloner had no bones that day, but one of Ursula’s biscuits worked just as well.