Revelation (72 page)

'Perhaps it
is
simple. You have thought too much on this man.'

'I have had cause to. He killed my friend.' I bent and opened the third chest, and we looked inside. There, under some cloths, lay a large flat wooden case. I recalled seeing something similar at Guy's. I opened it, then stepped back with a gasp.

Inside the box, neatly laid out, were knives of different sizes, a little axe and even a small cleaver. Trays contained little hooks and pins, and pliers and tweezers of various sizes. The cleaver and some of the knives had blood on them, and a foul smell rose from the box. 'Goddard's surgical equipment,' I said.

'As I said, possession by the devil.' Harsnet turned aside, his mouth twisting with disgust.

W
e went upstairs
. There were two bedrooms. One, which had been stripped bare of all furniture except an old bed, I guessed had belonged to Cantrell's father. The other was his. There was an old truckle bed, and another chest, old and scarred, and a table with a large, heavy copy of the Bible in English set on it. The chest contained some of the poor clothes we had seen Cantrell wearing, and a rickety table and stool.

Harsnet had opened the Bible. 'Look at what he has done here,' he said quietly. I went over to him. He had opened the Testament at the Book of Revelation. The wide margins were filled with notes in red ink, in handwriting so tiny it was virtually illegible, though I made out words like
vengeance,
punishment,
fire
,
etched in thickly and underlined. Turning over the pages I saw that all the passages dealing with the consequences of the angels pouring out the seven vials of wrath were likewise underlined:
a
noisome
and
grievous
sore,
the
rivers
and fountains
of
water
...
became
blood,
they
gnawed
their
tongues
for
pain.

'What a blasphemy.' Harsnet's voice trembled as I had not heard it tremble even at the worst things we had seen. I picked up the Bible and flicked through it. Passages here and there, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, were also marked, but virtually none of the New Testament apart from Revelation and, I realized, only a part of Revelation: the seven vials of wrath and then immediately afterwards the chapter on the judgement of the Great Whore.

'Look at the underlinings here,' I said. 'More even than in the passages about the pouring of the vials. Does this give us the clue to what he means to do next?'

'That book is tainted,' Harsnet said. 'Polluted.'

'The Great Whore. Who does he think she is?'

'She is symbolic of the Pope and Babylon of Rome,' Harsnet said. 'We know that now.'

'St John of Patmos did not when he wrote this book.'

'That is what he foresaw,' Harsnet said firmly. 'It is quite clear to those who study well.'

'That is not what Cantrell saw. No, he will have someone closer than the Pope in mind.'

Harsnet was silent for a moment. Then he turned to me. 'Where is he now, Matthew?' he asked quietly. 'I confess I am afraid.'

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and one of the constables appeared.

'There is an old woman downstairs says she knows Cantrell,' he said.

I looked at Harsnet. 'The neighbour.'

We went downstairs to find the old crone who had spoken to me the first time I visited Cantrell standing on the doorstep, peering round the large constable who stood in her way. She smiled a toothless grin when she recognized me.

'Ah, master lawyer, sir. We spoke before. I saw something was going on. Has anything happened to Charlie?' Her eyes were alive with curiosity.

'He is not here. We are seeking him.'

'In connection with a crime,' Harsnet added grimly. 'What do you know about him?'

'I live a few doors down. I was friends with Charlie's father, till he got religion and was too pure to speak to the likes of me. What's Charlie supposed to have done?' she repeated, trying to peer round us into the house again. She shook her head. 'He's not up to doing anything serious, he's a poor weak creature.'

'What is your name?'

'Jane Beckett.'

'Come, Jane,' I said. 'I want to ask you a couple of questions.'

'So you want to talk to me this time.'

The old woman wrinkled her nose as I led her into the parlour. She followed me into the old workshop, and now sadness did cross her face. 'Look at this place now,' she said. 'So sad and empty. Adrian kept it so neat, and it was always full; he never lacked work.'

I opened the chest full of clothes. 'Do you know where these might have come from? There are a lot of them.' I picked out the coat of many colours.

The old woman nodded. 'Ah, yes, those are Adrian's. He built up quite a collection. He used to work for the stage companies. Got contracts to build the sets for open-air performances. Built one at Hampton Court once, for a disguising before the King. He used to lend out costumes as well.' She loo
ked at me. 'He was a good busi
nessman, you know. These things are worth money, they shouldn't be left lying here.'

'Did Adrian ever take his son to the performances?'

'Charlie? Yes, when he was small. He used to love them. It was the only time you saw him happy. If it was something local a lot of the neighbours would go. I think Charlie wanted to be an actor, but he didn't have the skill for it, or anything else, so he went for a monk instead.' She laughed contemptuously, then turned back to me and said seriously, 'But Adrian had such skill, he could make pulleys that could make wooden dragons he built move across the stage as though they were real.' She stroked the coat with a skinny hand, then replaced it in the box. When she looked up her eyes were sharp with curiosity again. 'What's he done then, useless Charlie?'

'Never mind that,' Harsnet said.

A thought struck me. 'How did Adrian Cantrell die?'

'Fell down the stairs one night, according to what Charlie said. Broke his neck.' She laughed bitterly.
'Still, according to that hot-
gospelling religion he believed in, he's gone straight to Heaven. What're those things in that chest? Those aren't Adrian's.'

I steered her away from the instruments and led her back outside;

she was clearly disappointed that I would not tell her more. In the doorway I asked her, 'That cart in the workshop; Was it Adrian Cantrell's?'

'Ay. He used to take things to customers in it.' A thought struck me. To get from Westminster up to Hertfordshire, Cantrell must have a horse.

'What became of his horse?' I asked. 'I thought Charlie must have sold him.' 'What did it look like?'

She shrugged. 'Brown, with a white triangle down its nose.' 'You never saw him going in or out of there with a horse and cart?'

'Him that can hardly see?' She snorted. 'No. I saw him going out to buy something once or twice, shrinking against the wall, feeling his way along it.'

'Ever see him go out at night?'

She laughed. 'I shouldn't have thought that was very likely. Anyway, I got to bed early and lock my doors. It is not safe around here. Look, sir, what's this all about—'

'It doesn't matter. Thank you.' I gently closed the door on her and turned to Harsnet. 'So he learned about acting,' I said quietly. 'Perhaps even as a boy he needed to act to appear like a normal man. I wonder if he killed his father. I wonder if that was when he learned what he truly wanted to be.'

'Such speculation does not get us anywhere,' Harsnet said.

'No. You are right.'

'What about that horse?' Harsnet asked.

'He must have one.'

'Can he see to ride?'

'I begin to think he has greatly exaggerated that eye trouble of his. He has to be able to ride to get to Goddard's house.' I turned to the stairs. 'I want to have another look at his Bible, those underlined passages. See if I can wring some meaning from his scribblings.'

'I'll come up with you.'

Harsnet was too blinkered to give me any serious help. 'No, thank you, Gregory. I work best alone.'

I
climbed
the stairs again. It was strange to sit at Cantrell's desk, beside his bed, the room silent apart from the noises from the street. I sat down, held my head in my hands and bent over the book. Like a lawyer trying to get inside an opponent's mind through the text of an affidavit, I searched for what Cantrell might see here, what final enemy was to be destroyed. My mind tumbled and turned the words of the short chapter.
'I
will
shew
unto
ye
the
judgement
of
the
great
whore
...
with
whom
the
kings
of
the
earth
have
committed
fornication
.
.
.' On to where the angel said she would explain her mystery to the saint:
'And the
beast
that
was,
and
is
not,
even
he
is
the
eighth,
and
is
of
the
seven,
and goeth
into
perdition.'

I thought, after the seven vials the next victim will be the eighth; like the seven, but different somehow in kind. The most important victim because, after her judgement, Armageddon comes at last. I thought furiously. Was a woman his victim; It would have to be a woman to symbolize the Whore. Fornication with the kings of the earth. For Cantrell surely it would have to be a Protestant woman who had backslid, like poor Mistress Bunce that took up with the ex-monk Lockley. I thought, fornication, a king, the eighth. A woman who had not yet abandoned true religion but who would surely be seen to do so if she were to marry a religious conservative.
'The
beast
that
was,
and
is
not,
even
he
is
the
eighth.'
King Henry VIII, who had been a reformer himself but was so no longer. Not the King, but a woman who would be his wife.

I stood up. I looked out of the window into the yard. The drunken guard had sat down on an upturned pail. I went back downstairs. I turned to face Harsnet. I made myself speak steadily.

'I think—' I said, 'I think he means to kill Catherine Parr.'

Chapter
Forty-
four

I
stood before
Archbishop Cranmer's paper
-
strewn desk. The prelate stared at me intensely, and I felt the force of the powerful mind behind those blue eyes. Around the desk, also looking at me, were both Seymour brothers. Harsnet and I had just finished telling them of our visit to Cantrell's house. We had gone immediately to Lambeth Palace, and the Seymours had been summoned to meet us there.

'Then it seems Cantrell is the killer,' Cranmer said quietly. 'Have you left men at his house?'

'The three constables,' Harsnet replied. 'They are hiding in the house and in the shed in the back yard. If he returns they will surprise him and take him.'

'But what if he does not?' Lord Hertford asked. As ever, he came straight to the point. 'What if he is even now pursuing his eighth victim?'

'We must send a squad of men to Catherine Parr's house at once,' Sir Thomas said. 'To ride to her succour, ensure she is protected. I already have men at the Charterhouse—'

'No.' Cranmer's voice was firm. 'What would the King think, if he learned there was a mob of your men in Catherine Parr's house? Dear God, if anything happens to her . . . The arrested courtiers are starting to be released; there was no evidence against them. And Bonner is frightened of arresting more people in London; he is starting to fear popular resistance. I have been with the King this afternoon, he has assured me of his trust. But what if something happens to Catherine Parr now, after I have concealed so much from him?'

'We cannot be sure Shardlake has the truth,' Hertford said.

'Cantrell could have built any one of a hundred fantasies around the story of the Great Whore.'