Revelation (23 page)

'Harsnet's furious with himself, said he should have left us two there to watch and roused some of the Westminster constables to flush him out. He hadn't believed anyone could have sat it out in those cold marshes all day.' He raised his eyebrows. 'He said it was as though the man was spirited away by a devil.'

'That's all we need.'

'He's right that it would take something to lie out there all day without making a noise. I couldn't do it.'

'We know how determined this creature is,' I said. 'But how did he know we would be there to look at where Dr Gurney was found; That is what worries me.'

'And me,' Barak said with feeling.

We sat silent for a minute, then Barak asked, 'How was Adam Kite;'

'Mad. I hope Guy can help him, but I don't know.'

'Well, I've some news at least. I sent word to Gib Rooke, and he sent a reply, at once, by one of his children. He'll meet us at his house tomorrow, tell us about that killing in Lambeth last winter.'

Out on those marshes again. But the news lifted me, it was something positive to do after a day of horrors. 'Thank you, Jack,' I said. 'You should get off home. Tamasin will be worried about you.'

'I'm seeing some old friends for a drink tonight,' he said brusquely.

When he had gone I went into my room. Poor Tamasin, I thought. And poor Dorothy, I must look in on her before I went home. I saw a sheaf of papers with the Court of Common Pleas seal on my desk, more work. Outside the rain had begun again, pattering on the windows.

Chapter Thirteen

N
ext morning
Barak and I set out once again for the marshes. We took the horses; it was bright and sunny, a truly springlike day, and they were skittish, Barak's black mare Sukey sniffing the air and tossing her fine head. As we rode through the city I saw crocuses and snowdrops springing up everywhere, even among the tumbled stones of the dissolved Blackfriars monastery. At Cheapside conduit I looked at the beggars gathered round. The Bedlam man was there, singing a nonsensical song to himself, snowdrops stuck in his wild hair. He had a sharp eye on the crowd though, hoping to catch someone's eye and shame them into casting him a coin.

We rode across London Bridge and through Southwark. Gib's child had left directions with Barak; we were to take a path on the far side of Southwark village, where a church stood on the edge of the marshes, and follow it through the marshes to the cottars' dwellings. We found the church easily enough, a square little Norman building perched on the edge of the reedbeds. Beside it a wide track led through the marshes, twisting and turning to follow the higher ground. We passed a group of men shoring up a muddy, sunken stretch of path with cinders and branches. They stepped aside and bowed. I wondered if the cottars had widened and maintained this stretch them
-
selves, to bring their produce to market. They were bringing a whole new area into development; no wonder the landlords were keen to filch the product of their labours.

'Our local butcher's been arrested,' Barak told me. 'Him too?' I looked at him sharply. 'You haven't been buying meat in Lent?'

'No. I would have, left to myself, but Tamasin is too careful.'

'She always had a sensible head on her shoulders.'

'If it's right that Catherine Parr has reformist sympathies,' Barak said, changing the subject, 'she's stepping into a dangerous position if she marries the King. Gardiner and Bonner will be after her, watching every word she says, hoping she'll let slip some reformist opinion they can run and tell the King about.'

'They will. But it will take courage to turn down a proposal from the King.'

Barak looked across the marshes. 'Were those two killings to do with her? Someone who wants to stop the marriage;'

'Thomas Seymour would have a motive,' I said.

'I can't see Sir Thomas lying flat in a bog for most of a cold day. He'd damage his fine clothes.' Barak spoke lightly, yet there was an uneasy note in his voice as he steered a way through the reeds, all around us now.

Cottages began to appear beside the path, surrounded by little market gardens; Gib's was the fifth along, a mud
-
and
-
daub cottage like the rest, smoke curling through a hole in the thatched roof. Gib was working in his patch, loosening the heavy soil with a spade. A woman and several small children were also at work digging and sowing. Barak called out Gib's name and he came across, his wife and children following. They gathered round as we dismounted, the children staring at me wide
-
eyed.

'My barrister,' Gib introduced me proudly. 'He seeks my help on a certain matter.'

His wife, a thin, tired
-
looking woman, curtsied then smiled at me warmly. 'We are so grateful, sir, for what you did. We won't ever forget.'

'Thank you.' Like all lawyers, I was delighted by gratitude. It happened so rarely.

Gib clapped his hands. 'Come on. Maisie, children, back to work! Master Shardlake and I have confidential matters to discuss.' Barak winked at me. The family returned to their labours, the children casting glances over their shoulders at us.

'I don't want them to hear about this bad business,' Gib said, suddenly serious. 'Tie your horses to this post, sir, and come inside.'

We followed him into the cottage, which smelt of damp and smoke. A few poor sticks of furniture stood about, and a fire burning in the hearth in the middle of the floor provided some warmth. The single window was unglazed, the crude shutters open. I looked out at the view of his market garden, the marshes stretching out beyond.

'Ay, it's a doleful spot,' Gib said.

'It must have been lonely this past winter, with all the snow.'

'It was. Bitterly cold too. At least now we can get busy with the sowing. Sit down on that settle.'

He brought some weak beer and sat on a stool opposite us. 'Now then,' he said, looking at us seriously. 'You've questions about poor Wilf Tupholme?'

'He was the man who was murdered?'

'Yes.' He paused, remembering. 'He was found in January. They are after Welsh Elizabeth, that he lived with. A Bankside whore.' He spat in the fire. Barak and I looked at each other. This sounded as though we were on the wrong track.

'Are they sure she did it?' I asked.

'Sure enough to issue a warrant against her. She and Wilf had been living together a few months, but they were always fighting. Both liked the drink too much. He turfed her out in December, then he was found dead a month later. The coroner's trying to trace her but the other whores say she's gone back to Wales. She'll go to earth there, they won't find her.'

'But there was no direct evidence?'

'Well, whoever did that to him must have hated him.' He looked at us curiously. 'Are you saying it was someone else?'

'We don't know. At Westminster you said his landlord probably killed him.'

Gib grinned. 'That was just to annoy Sir Geoffrey.' He looked at us with great curiosity, but saw that we were not going to tell him anything more.

'So what happened?' Barak asked. 'You said he was killed most horribly.'

'So he was. I'll tell you on the way to his house. His neighbour has the key, I thought you might like to look.' He inclined his head to the window and I saw that one of the children, a girl of ten or so, had edged close to the window as she walked up and down the vegetable patch, sowing. 'Little pigs have big ears,' he said quietly.

I glanced at Barak, who shrugged slightly. It did not sound as though this killing had anything to do with our investigation, but we might as well hear the full tale. 'Very well,' I said, 'let us go.'

G
ib led us
eastward along the path. The cottages became fewer as the ground became marshier, water squelching under our feet and large pools standing among the reeds. An early pair of swallows, the first I had seen that year, dived and glided above them.

'What happened to Tupholme, then?' Barak asked.

'Wilf was a strange man,' Gib said. 'He was always bad-tempered and surly, seemed to prefer living alone in his isolated cottage. We'd only see him at market. A couple of years ago he became a hot
-
gospeller, telling everyone that the end'time was nigh. Plagues and earthquakes and Jesus coming to judge us all. He'd talk about the joys of being saved, in a smug way as though secretly enjoying that the rest of us poor cottars weren't saved. He went across the river to some
hot-
gospelling church in the city. But you know how it is with these folk, often it doesn't last long. Last autumn he took up with Welsh Elizabeth and she moved in. They'd get drunk and argue, like I said. You could hear them way out over the marshes. Then Wilf booted Elizabeth out. He was surly after that, you'd find him stumbling drunk around the lanes.
Then he disappeared, his neigh
bour saw his cottage was locked up. After a while his neighbour thought, if he's gone, I'll take the land over before it goes back to marsh. So he broke open a shutter to take a look inside. Said the smell nearly felled him.'

Gib looked sombre. 'Wilf was inside on the floor, tied up, dead. He was gagged. They said his staring eyes were terrible to see. Someone had cut him badly all over, then tied him up. His thigh had this great sore on it, all black and crawling with maggots. There was a rag in his mouth to stop him shouting. Whether his diseased leg got him, or cold and hunger, nobody knows.'

We were silent. This death was even worse than Roger's. Tupholme would have died in slow agony.

'If his leg went bad that would probably kill him first,' Barak said.

'Welsh Elizabeth deserves to hang,' Gib said with sudden fierceness.

I looked at Barak and he shook his head slightly. Horrific as this killing was, its manner was nothing like those of Roger and Dr Gurney.

Gib led us up a side
-
path to where an isolated cottage stood, as poor as the others. No smoke came from the roof. The shutters were closed, and the door had a heavy padlock. The wood of one shutter had been splintered at one end where the neighbour had broken in. Gib stared at the house, then quickly crossed himself. 'I'll get the key,' he said. 'Gib's neighbour has it. I won't be long.'

He walked back to the main path, the reeds soon hiding him. I looked at the cultivated land around the cottage. It was already going to seed, new grass coming up among the little furrows.

'This is a dead end,' Barak said.

'It seems so. And yet. . .'

'What?'

'Gib described a great sore. I know that phrase, or one like it. People keep using phrases that I know somehow. Treasurer Rowland talked of a fountain of blood. The man who found Dr Gurney said something too — water turned to blood.'

'We've got enough to worry about without word mysteries,' Barak said irritably. 'Look, when he comes back, let's just say we don't need to go inside; it seems clear enough this Welsh whore did it for spite.'

'That's a huge amount of spite.'

Gib returned in a few minutes. 'Pete Lammas has given me the key, the coroner left him responsible for the house. He doesn't want to go in again, though.' He paused. 'Look, sir,' he said. 'I'd rather not go in either. I've heard enough of what it was like. Can I leave you to bring me back the key:'

'All right,' I agreed.

Gib handed the key to Barak, bowed to us and left. I was still lost in thought, those phrases jostling in my head.

'I'll be the one to open the door, then, shall I:' Barak asked with heavy sarcasm. He unlocked the padlock and pushed at the door. It was stiff, scraping along the ground as it opened. Barak and I both stepped backwards at the smell that hit us, a butcher's shop stink overlaid with the stench of sweat and dirt. And a great buzzing, as from a swarm of flies.

'Jesu!' Barak said.

We stepped carefully into the dark interior. I saw the shapes of chairs, a table and what looked like heaps of rubbish scattered around. Despite the season blowflies were everywhere, buzzing around the room, slow and disoriented in the cool weather. We batted them away from our faces. The earthen floor was spotted with dead ones. Barak went across to the shutters and opened them.

In the light that fell into the room we saw the place was filthy, stinking old rushes on the floor, a full chamber pot in one corner and rags everywhere. The disturbed blowflies began to settle again, on the rags and the pot; a few flew out of the window.

'Gib said his leg was a mass of maggots,' Barak said. 'They must have hatched. There's enough filth in here for them to feed on.' He lifted one of the rags with his foot, and a couple of flies buzzed upward. 'This is his upper hose, I think. There's a tear in it, look, it's stiff with dried blood. Jesus, to cut someone up and leave them to die of infected wounds. That's some revenge.'