The South Lawn Plot (2 page)

Near Colchester, England, 1606

It was, at long last, only a few minutes before cock-crow.

The night had finally passed. Richard Cole drew the blankets closer about himself. He shivered in the dawn chill.

Cole had wondered if his humors, so troubled these past few months, had given him a fever. But not on this occasion for in what remained of the darkness, it was simply the cold. This, he thought, had to be a blessing of sorts.

Cole had nevertheless passed a very uneasy night. There had been noises, scratching and shuffling under his bed. He had considered investigating but thought better of it. He imagined it might be the spirit of Saint Anselm, a blessed soul to whom he had lately directed a good deal of prayer and beseeching. But the noises had been just a mouse going about his night's work. Cole was finally convinced of this less wondrous truth because he had heard the creature squeak.

Cole was well used to the chill, a constant presence that seeped through the walls and wrapped itself around his bed, a wide four-poster. It had never been a warm house. There was the matter of its elevation. It caught whatever cold air there was about. And the walls, though apparently thick and strong, seemed to part on chilled nights such as the one just now passing. Where once it had disturbed Cole little, the coldness of the room now seemed to clutch at his very heart.

But it hadn't been just the chill that had disturbed Cole's rest. Nor had it been the latest manifestation of what he fervently believed to be his failing health. Rather, it had been his mind turning over and over the expectation of a visit, not from some spectral saint, but a man he had not seen in many years.

Now, in the moments before daybreak, Cole felt a growing anticipation. This, at last, would be the day.

Outside the great house a dog barked. It was followed by a whelping sound. The fox had won, Cole thought. Perhaps it had been a badger.

Inspired momentarily by the activities of warm living things, Cole sat up. He yawned, glanced at the ash pile where the fire had been at his bedtime. He resolved to speak later in the day with the house servant charged with keeping the fire fueled through the night. The knave had clearly fallen asleep and neglected his duty.

Cole thought about slipping under his bed covers again. However cold it was within their embrace, it was a far grimmer prospect without. Nevertheless, he decided to rise and pushing his legs to one side and downwards his stocking feet made contact with the course woolen rug lately donated for his comfort by an old friend.

Cole regarded his legs and feet. It occurred to him that he had not changed his stockings for three days and three nights and that they had all but become part of him. He resolved to put on a new set once the day was advanced enough to permit exposure of his skin.

With a little more purpose, Cole stood and, with a blanket about his shoulders, walked towards the faint glimmer of light that signaled the morning of the fourteenth day of the month.

Cole stood with his face almost touching the window. He pulled his fingertip in a line through the frost covering the inside of the pane. He repeated this with another chilled finger. He brought his face to the glass and stared beyond it. His warm breath only succeeded in clouding the glass and his narrow lines of view once more. So he blew hard again and rubbed the window vigorously with his sleeve. Now he could more easily see the world outside.

The moon, a creamy ball of light, was slipping away to the west. The sky to the east was fast brightening. The sun would soon win its battle with the night. Half a full glass at most and it would be fully light, Cole thought.

“Another day, and where might you be, sir?” he said in a whisper.

Outside, a wispy blanket of mist covered the fields that spanned the half- mile of open ground between the moat surrounding the great house to the boundary wood. Essex still slumbered, though both county and broader England would shortly rise with all the confidence and bluster that was, even Cole would reluctantly admit, the legacy of Elizabeth though not, he was certain, the rightful inheritance of her successor, James.

Cole gazed down the narrow road leading from the front of the house to the point where it met the wider highway to Colchester. It was deserted though some would be out by this hour.

He was conscious now of a bird, a redbreast, which had started to sing in the bush beneath his room. He leaned forward and rubbed against more of the glass, this time with his blanket. Tiny flecks of ice fell to the floor.

In this way he had stood for mornings stretching back almost to the day that the great plot had been discovered and the fate of Fawkes and his fellow patriots sealed. But this morning would be different. The messenger he had sent out in search of the man had brought advance word.

Cole turned and looked back to the bed. The woman lay still and coiled. She made a soft whistling sound as the air escaped her partly opened mouth. Cole stared at her for a moment, but his eyes returned to the window, the open ground, the road and the trees that were just beginning to show signs of awakening from a long winter.

His one-handed grip on the blanket tightened as the pain moved again through his body. He no longer knew where it started. It mattered little anyway. It could find no way out.

The dawn light was beginning to reach the corners of the room. It was a spacious chamber, one that displayed trappings of a prosperous life.

Cole shuffled slowly back to the bed and sat down heavily. He regarded his feet, now numb, and sniffed. The clamor of birds outside was rising. He raised his right hand and pulled his left arm closer to his body.

It would no longer move of its own accord. He would rub some compound into it later. With an effort, he pulled himself back into the bed. The woman stirred. She muttered a few words he could not quite decipher.

She was carrying his child. A child he would never live to see.

Cole had concluded, with no sense of particular fear, resentment or anger that he would be dead by May. His life of forty-six years would be taken by the relentless turbulence in his humors that was, even in the dawn stillness, causing him to press his eyes shut and close his good hand into a fist so tight that his finger bones cracked.

He had seen the signs before, more than once, in the company of his uncle, a leading London physician. Cole took in a slow, deep breath. The pain eased a little.

He turned his head and stared across the room. About twenty paces away, by the wall close to the bedchamber door, there was a writing desk in front of which was a long-backed chair. He watched as the first rays of the sun reached the edge of the desk and began spreading light over its surface.

Cole rose again and shuffled across the island of woven wool to the desk long ago purchased by his father, a man who had taken as great an interest in business and profit as had his own brother in the medicinal arts.

The room had once been a library and scriptorium before being adapted to its present function and the desk was well used. There were scratches in abundance and in one or two places previous users had carved signs and letters.

Cole eased himself into the chair. A carved figure of the sun with a smiling face adorned the apex of the chair's back. Cole reached for a calamus and dipped it into a small wooden jug full of ink. There was paper in abundance and he began to scratch out words on a page. He was close now to finishing the document and for that he gave silent thanks to God. His eyes passed over the neatly arranged pile of pages written yesterday, the day before, and the days before that.

Together, they amounted to what he believed was a most judicious indictment of James, the man who called himself king. The tract would conclude with a reasoned justification for the king's abdication or, if necessary, death at the hands of noble and patriotic Englishmen loyal to the true, mother church.

The tract was intended for publication and dissemination only when James was removed from the throne. Cole felt he had more than justified in his writing what would be nothing less than a revolution. He had summoned all his power with words to join together the strands of argument that would surely convince England's nobility that the kingdom's rightful destiny was to be found by following the path laid down by the Church of Rome.

This he believed with his heart, his soul; his very life. Others believed it too and one among them, the man who would carry the plan to its fruition, was close, very close, perhaps even now riding over the last miles to the house that stood where once a Norman keep, and before it a Saxon fort, had held sway over the fields and fens of this corner of Essex.

Cole, lost in thought of what would soon reshape England's destiny, did not immediately notice the knock on the door. But the woman, now sitting up in the bed, coughed. He turned his head. The door opened slowly and the boy from the stables pushed his head into the room.

“A horseman, my lord, on the Colchester road.”

Cole dismissed the child with a nod. With a nimbleness that caused him some surprise he rose from the chair and made again for the window.

Indeed there was a man, though not on a horse. He was walking his mount
slowly towards the house. Cole recognized immediately the man's height, the purposeful, certain stride.

“Christ and his virgin mother be praised,” he said.

“Richard.” The woman said no more. But her complaint was clear. Cole ignored her nevertheless.

He clapped his hands together in delight and stared intently at the approaching figure, his feet lost in ground fog. The rising sun was casting light on the man. It seemed to Cole as if the light was bursting forth from his very body. It seemed as if this man was the Messiah himself.

Cole bowed his head. More quietly now he spoke lest he disturb the woman who seemed to have returned to her slumbers. He did not care a whit how he spoke in her presence. But lately he had to consider other matters, one of them being that she was carrying his child.

“Thy will be done,” he said. And he repeated the incantation until he heard the noise from the horse's hooves as it walked across the drawbridge.

T
HE TAXICAB MOVED EASILY
through the mostly deserted streets that crisscrossed the expanse of London between the
Morning Post
building and Blackfriars Bridge.

Bailey had kept his counsel for the first few minutes of the ride. He wanted to see if the cab driver was the chatty or silent type. He was the latter. He was also Sikh, young and, by dint of the few words he had uttered in response to Bailey's initial directions, more Putney than Punjab.

At roughly half way in the journey, Bailey probed with a comment on the weather. The driver responded. By the time they were on the last stretch before Blackfriars, the two men were holding a sparse conversation on the thorny issue of relations between India and Pakistan, the problem of Kashmir and the desire, still kept alive by some Sikhs, for a homeland.

Bailey's knowledge of India and Pakistan was accidental. It was a byproduct of his interest in cricket. Still, he gave the driver his silent grade. An A.

“I work for the
Morning Post
,” he said.

“I know; that's where I picked you up,” the driver replied.

“Here's my card,” said Bailey. “You're on the town and all over the town. Ever come across anything you think might be of interest do me a favor and give me a bell. There might be a few quid in it for you.”

“No need for money,” the driver replied. “If I come across anything of interest I'll call.”

Misplaced bleeding pride, Bailey thought.

The cab pulled up at the end of the bridge that reached the north bank of the Thames.

“This will do fine, said Bailey. I think I can just about see them. I can walk from here.”

Bailey paid the driver and added a generous tip. He made a mental note to pad his expenses accordingly.

“Have a good night, my friend,” he said as he stepped out of the taxi and on to the damp pavement.

The driver nodded and drove off. Within a couple of seconds the cab's tail lights had been sucked in by the fog.

Bailey pulled the collar of his inadequate coat up as high as it would go and began to walk across the bridge. Traffic, what there was of it, was moving both ways on the far side. The police had closed the southbound lanes.

Several vehicles were lined up along the closed stretch, a couple of them with flashing emergency lights that sent darts of light into the fog, a pea- souper that seemed to be drawing endless replenishment from the waters of the river.

Bailey reached into his coat pocket for his press pass. A young woman constable stood between him and the center of activity that, Bailey concluded, had passed its peak. An ambulance was pulling slowly away, presumably with the body.

“Evening all,” said Bailey. It was a little joke, a line from a long ago police drama on the BBC. The young officer didn't seem to get it.

“Nick Bailey from the
Morning Post
. DS Plaice is expecting me,” he said.

The constable looked doubtful. “Wait here,” she said. And by way of reinforcement, “Don't move.”

She walked to the rear of the yellow tape crime scene line that was now holding back a crowd of precisely one. Bailey lifted his watch. He had enough time to get over his story. It had better be up to snuff, he thought.

The constable was now talking to a tall man in a green raincoat with a rather incongruous looking baseball hat on his head. She turned and walked briskly back to the crime scene line.

“Go ahead sir,” she said.

Her formality was a good sign. He was being taken seriously.

He stepped over the tape and walked purposely towards the small knot of officers huddled in what was an abutment that broke up the otherwise linear aspect of the bridge. There were a number of them spaced out at intervals where the supports of the bridge reached up from the ooze at the bottom of the Thames.

“DS Plaice?” said Bailey from a distance of a few feet.

The tall man turned. Bailey extended his hand. The gesture was returned.

“Henderson said you might have something of interest for us,” Bailey said. “And given the fact that a detective superintendent has stepped out on a night like this I imagine that it is interesting indeed.”

Bailey half-smiled. He was pushing a bit but was determined not to walk away with stuff that he could have picked up on the phone.

“First of all,” Plaice replied, “the ground rules. No attributions, no names. Make it look as if you just happened on this business by way of a random check. And do me a favor, also make it look as if the story was written in the office, not based on what you see here. Not that there's very much at this point anyway.”

Plaice was about his business for sure, Bailey thought. Knew how to handle the press. No bullshit, straight to the point.

“No problem with that, Superintendent. Half the story has already been written in the office anyway. All the Calvi stuff and I'll bet a few lines on the history of the bridge.”

“Come over here,” Plaice said.

The two men walked over to the stone wall beyond which was a straight drop to the water.

“Right now we're simply treating this death as suspicious. It looks like a suicide at first glance, but given what happened here before, we're keeping an open mind.”

“Why so?” said Bailey.

Plaice turned to face Bailey, rammed his hands into his pockets and pulled his shoulders forward.

“I wasn't particularly au fait with the Calvi affair,” he said.

“It was a long time ago. I was just out of the army and new on the force, more concerned with getting little old ladies across pedestrian crossings in one piece than with international intrigue.”

Bailey nodded and Plaice smiled, clearly seeing himself for a moment again in his early days as a green young copper.

“But I had to do some pretty quick homework tonight. Thank the gods for computers. No doubt it makes your job a lot easier.”

Bailey was paying closer attention. Plaice was drawing some link between the Calvi business and the death just a few feet from where they were standing and only a short while before. This might be something, he thought.

“I hadn't put two and two together but one of my sergeants mentioned Calvi and Blackfriars, the manner of his death and the apparent way in which the man died here tonight.”

Hanging from the bridge. Maybe with stones in his pockets, Bailey thought. He wasn't going to interrupt the man now.

“By the way,” said Plaice. “How well do you know Henderson?”

Bailey was a little taken aback by the question. Plaice was clearly checking himself, considering how much he should give this emissary from his newspaper friend. Or maybe Henderson was just an acquaintance.

“Well,” said Bailey, not quite sure how to handle the question. “We've had our differences. But I think we see eye to eye most times. And he does seem to send me out on big stories. Like this one.”

Bailey's tone was that of the supplicant. Plaice was checking him out. He might throw him a line and only that. Or he might let him in on something that would only be imparted here, on the bridge, face to face and not over the line by some faceless press officer to an equally indistinct reporter.

Bailey took a chance. “He was priest,” he said. And then by way of a not so subtle addendum. “Henderson told me.”

“Yes,” said Plaice. “Yes, a priest. Are you Catholic?”

“Not much of anything,” the journalist replied. “My mum and dad used go to a little church, one of those gospel places, but it didn't much rub off on me I'm afraid. I guess I'm a bit of a heathen.”

Plaice seemed not to hear.

“It doesn't make much sense,” he said. “Priests don't commit suicide, or at least it's such a rare event as to be extraordinary. It was a mortal sin for Roman Catholics, you know, not anymore though. The church realizes now that someone who takes their own life really isn't capable of sinning. So this really doesn't add up at first glance.”

“You Catholic yourself, then?” said Bailey, sensing that he had Plaice going somewhere, though he could not quite figure out where.

Plaice pulled himself back.

“My faith isn't the issue here,” he said. “His fate is what it's all about,” he added glancing at the ambulance which was now turning off the far end of the bridge, lights on, siren off.

Bailey silently cursed. He wasn't going to get a look at the body now. It did not matter for the literal telling of the story so much as the sense of it that he would hold in his mind for a possible follow up; an interview with family members perhaps.

“How do you know Henderson?”

Bailey felt the rapport with Plaice, if there had been any to begin with, slipping a bit. Henderson, for want of someone, or something, better, seemed to be the common ground between them, something to warm up the descending chill.

Bailey knew from experience that the relationship between the police and the press was far from being a love affair. Each needed the other and would use the other to the utmost if the circumstances demanded. Other than that there was a wariness bordering on outright mistrust and occasional hostility.

And then there was the matter of the type of paper and the type of copper. Some of the higher ranks were tabloid inclined, while others were serious broadsheet sorts. Plaice didn't seem to fit either category.

“We were in the army together,” Plaice said.

“Well now, that's a surprise. Henderson never mentioned the fact that he served queen and country,” Bailey replied.

He hoped that Plaice had failed to detect the now bubbling curiosity in his response. The fact that Henderson had once worn army uniform was genuine news. Bailey wondered if anyone else in the newsroom knew, because Henderson had never mentioned it. And for sure never came across as a military type. He didn't seem quite organized enough.

“Which regiment?” said Bailey. But before there was any reply, a detective who had been standing nearby suddenly sprang to life.

“Excuse me a moment,” Plaice said. He turned and walked over to the subaltern. The two men huddled and spoke in low tones. Bailey tried to catch what they were saying but even the still, damp air failed to carry the substance or even sense of what the two men were talking about.

Bailey looked both ways, up and down the river. Somewhere a clock chimed and, almost in unison, his stomach growled. He had not eaten for hours. He thought of smoking a cigarette, but thought better of it. Some people took offense. Lestrade here might be one of them.

Plaice returned to where Bailey was contemplating his longed for curried chips.

“Well, this is what we've got that we can give you,” he said.

“We can't release his name right away until we are sure all his family has been informed. But you know that. He's a priest all right, Roman Catholic. A member of a rather small and obscure order called the Order of Saint Anselm.”

Bailey's eyes narrowed. “Never heard of them,” he said.

“Neither have I,” Plaice replied. “I had someone back at the office look them up. They are an English order, founded in the early seventeenth century. A bit of a hard bunch, Jesuits with an extra edge, my man described them.
But there's hardly any of them left, no more than a couple of dozen, maybe fewer than that.”

“Where do they hang out? Do they have a monastery or something like that?”

Plaice folded his arms and looked at his shoes. “Essex,” he said. “Near Colchester, some big old Tudor pile. Seems they managed to hang on to the place when their brethren were being kicked out of everywhere else. Apparently they didn't let on what they were and managed to keep below the radar even during the Cromwell years. That's about it, really.”

“Was this guy based in Essex?”

“No,” said Plaice quickly. “He was actually working at a parish just a few miles from here, south side of the river. Saint something or other.”

Bailey raised his watch close to his eyes and hit the light button. His sight, he thought, must be fading because he was doing this more and more of late. Too much damn time in front of computers.

“Well, that's not bad at all, Superintendent,” he said. “Henderson will be happy; mysterious order of near extinct priests and now one less of them. ‘Deadfriars' might be the headline on this one. You wouldn't mind if I sit in one of your cars to send the story over my mobile? I'm freezing.”

“Not at all, go ahead,” Plaice replied. “'Deadfriars.' Not bad. And absolutely appropriate in the literal sense, too. It's a play on the bridge's name, I assume.”

“Bingo,” said Bailey.

Plaice stared straight at Bailey in a way the reporter could not ignore.

“Well, it's less a play and more the literal truth,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Bailey said.

“This reverend, the one who did a Calvi tonight. I'm not saying he was murdered. We're still working on suicide.”

Plaice paused.

“Yes?” Bailey said invitingly.

“He's not the only one.”

“What?”

“Our dead Padre is not the only member of his order to meet his maker recently. There was another one, a couple of months back. Looked like a suicide for sure but two priestly suicides in a short space of time, same order. You're the reporter, work on that one.”

Plaice had a slight grin on his face now. He had the sense that if he asked Bailey to jump in the river for another installment the reporter might just make a move for the parapet.

Bailey snatched the cigarettes from his pocket and pulled one from the pocket. “Smoke?” he said, offering one to the man who had just handed him a chance at the Henderson hall of fame.