A Murderous Affair, page 14
‘Correct.’
‘That’s all very well young man but what’s in it for me?’ I had anticipated something like this. It was all very well giving small change to watermen and beggars in return for help, but I imagined that Kibber would demand a good deal more than that. I sighed disappointedly, wondering what I could offer that wouldn’t be too derogatory, whilst also not being a price I could ill-afford. Kibber sensed my uncertainty on the matter.
‘In this town there is money, Master Lovat, but there are other rewards besides,’ he said, in a sad, monotonous tone. ‘Information, for example, can be of great value to a man like myself. Do you have any information we could exchange?’
‘I don’t know.’ I remembered that Davy had said his nickname was the Oracle of Paul’s Walk. ‘Such as?’
‘Oh, well, let’s see. Perhaps you have something for me but you are not even aware of it.’ He looked at me hopefully, or at least as much as his mournful face could muster up hope.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well. What’s this business about? Illegal voyages are a very serious matter.’
‘I’m worried that a friend of mine is mixed up in something.’ I lied, thinking of my brother.
‘And what might that be?’
‘A man has been murdered.’
‘How interesting. Wouldn’t happen to be a man that was fished out of the Thames would it? Hard by Cuckold’s Point?’
I said nothing, dumbfounded at his knowledge. A glow seemed to form in the deadly pallor of Kibber’s eyes.
‘I can see from your expression that it was that very man. Who was he Master Lovat? My sources said a gentleman, possibly foreign. Can you enlighten me further?’
I had an uncomfortable feeling that I was the one being interrogated.
‘How do you know these things?’
‘Wouldn’t be much of an oracle if I didn’t now, would I? The question is what do you know about him and why are you interested in connecting the death with illegal shipping?’
‘I’m sorry, Mister Kibber.’
‘Just Kibber.’
‘I’m sorry, Kibber. It is not meet that I can help you and it seems that you can’t or are unwilling to help me?’
‘Quite the contrary, Master Lovat. You have already told me quite a lot that I wasn’t aware of.’ I felt a horrible creeping sensation, as he said this, not having a clue what I had or hadn’t given away. ‘It’s only fair that I should reciprocate. You asked about illegal voyages. Where do you think they have sailed from?’
‘Deptford.’
‘Deptford?’ He weighed the word slowly for a moment. ‘Interesting suggestion but sadly I must disappoint you. The only ships that have sailed from Deptford in the last month have been on domestic voyages.’
‘You are sure of that?’
‘Quite sure. Unless you have information to contradict that statement?’
‘No,’ I said firmly and stood up to leave. Kibber followed me with his sunken eyes.
‘Anytime you want to share information you’ll always find me here. Good day Master Lovat and commend me to your Lord, whoever that might be.’
I stumbled backwards out of the pew and left the Cathedral by the nearest door, feeling more confused than ever and with a sick feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.
* * *
At my lodgings I found an attractive woman draped across my bed, but it wasn’t the one I had been expecting.
She was evidently a rich lady, elegantly dressed in a long embroidered gown, which accentuated her curves and still allowed for a low cut neckline, set off with finely trimmed lace. Adorning her arms, fingers and neck were expensive jewels and bracelets, and a large diamond pendant nestled in the cleft of her bosom. I happened to notice this before her face, because the latter was veiled with a black lace scarf, through which the shape of her high cheekbones was subtly suggested. Her disguise, however, could not hide the blueness of her eyes, nor the luxuriant, saffron coloured hair, which, tied in a plat thicker than a hangman’s noose, draped over her shoulder and round her neck. It was quite a sight to come home to.
The woman barely acknowledged my entrance, only tilting her chin upwards enquiringly. In her hands she held my copy of Montaigne in French, whose pages she was nonchalantly flicking through, eyes disinterestedly scanning the text. Next to her sat a maid, who had been talking to Lucius in a cooing tone just prior to my entrance and poking her fingers unwisely through his cage bars. Lucius, in return, was hopping up and down and making the occasional high-pitched squawk. The maid hastily pulled a scarf across her face but not quickly enough to prevent me from recognising her fleshy, youthful features. It was the same maid who had slammed the door in my face at my brother’s house two days earlier and, therefore I reasoned, the lady spread across my bed must be the attractive, bored woman who had been attending on Anne at the same time.
‘Are you Lovat?’ Her voice was softer than expected, and had a seductive quality. ‘I hope you don’t mind. We found the door unlocked.’ I wondered vaguely where Emmalina had got to and why she had left the door open to strangers, but not seriously enough to be distracted from the matter in hand.
‘Don’t you speak?’ I realised that I was still standing awkwardly in the middle of the small room and resolved to try and handle the situation a bit better.
‘John Lovat, citizen of London, at your service ma’am, and may I ask whose person I have the pleasure of addressing?’ The woman sat up slowly, allowing every inch of her body to speak to me, before eyeing me coldly through the black veil. She turned to her maid.
‘Leave us.’ The girl hesitated for a second, wrongly suspecting that I might be any sort of match for her mistress. ‘It’s alright, child. I think I shall be perfectly safe with Master Lovat. Wait for me in the street downstairs – I won’t be long.’ The maid walked clumsily to the door, whilst another meaningful silence ensued. Lucius chose this moment to let off a longer than average screech. The woman looked at him disdainfully.
‘Do we have to speak with that creature in the room?’
‘It’s alright. He doesn’t speak English.’
‘But he’s a parrot isn’t he? I’ve heard they can repeat things that they hear.’
‘What of it?’
‘I’d be more comfortable if he didn’t overhear our conversation.’ I gave her a look that suggested I thought she was making fun of me, but nevertheless deigned to move Lucius onto the landing. Whilst I did this, the lady on the bed continued to eye me up and down, though it was impossible to tell what she thought of the rough, fallen on hard times image, that I took such care in cultivating. Taking up Montaigne again, she directed a question at me.
‘You like reading, Lovat?’
‘Are we getting down to small talk now?’
‘What I mean is: are you of a scholarly disposition? I was hoping for a man of action. Anne said I could trust you?’ Despite her languid manner, it was possible to detect a hint of desperation in her voice. She was also much younger than her sophisticated appearance suggested. I found myself becoming more and more intrigued by her.
‘Trust me? With what?’
‘Can I trust you, Lovat?’ For a moment all pretence of control evaporated.
‘As far as anything in which Anne is concerned, you can trust me with my life.’‘Anne is not concerned in this matter.’ I waved a hand as if to say that it was all the same to me. ‘What I want is … I want you to find someone for me. Anne said that you were good at things like that. She also said you were discreet, trustworthy and could handle yourself. She seems to think very highly of you, although I am at a loss from your appearance to understand why.’
‘Appearances aren’t everything,’ I said, shrugging off her slight. The compliment that Anne had paid me was more than enough to compensate. ‘Whom do you want me to find?’
‘An … acquaintance of mine. He has gone missing and I need to know where he is.’ She stopped abruptly trying to find explanations but none, it seemed, were appropriate.
‘He? I take it that your interest in this gentleman is a confidence that you would like me to respect?’
‘It seems you are not as stupid as you look.’ Although her words were harsh, her manner was not. She actually seemed relieved at my tact, her shoulders visibly relaxing. It occurred to me that she must be taking a huge risk in coming here and that this was far from some idle game to her.
‘Well, that sounds straightforward enough. What’s his name and where should I start looking for him?’
‘It is anything but straightforward.’ She stood up and handed me a piece of paper that was tucked inside the hem of her sleeve. ‘I only have an address for you. I simply want you to establish whether or not he is there. You don’t need to know his name and I forbid you expressly to approach him or anyone in the house. No one must know that I have visited you, or that I am looking for this man.’
‘But how will I know that it is the right man? Forgive me but it all sounds a bit vague.’
‘Only two men could be in that house and they are very distinct. You will understand once you have seen them. Just report what you find there. Now I have to leave before I am missed elsewhere.’ She moved to the door but then paused. ‘I almost forgot – this is for you.’ She handed me a small purse weighted with coins, warmed from being cradled in her hands. She noticed my expression and misinterpreted it. ‘There will be more for you if you find the man successfully.’
‘I don’t even know your name.’
‘It is better that way. Just find the man and tell me where he is.’
‘How? I don’t even know where to find you.’ Despite the sweetener she had offered, I could hear the exasperation in my voice at her haughty manner.
‘I will send my maid in the next few days. I will expect you to have an answer for me by then. And Lovat … Anne is a dear friend and someone I respect highly but she is not a woman of the world like me. Don’t think for a minute I will be fooled by your looks and charm. I expect you to do this task properly. Do what I ask of you and you will be properly rewarded.’
I was about to say something I would probably have regretted, when the door opened and Emmalina appeared in her hooded coat, carrying a basket of groceries in one hand and Lucius’ cage in the other. She blushed as soon as she saw the lady but quickly regained her composure.
Recognising the lady’s rank, she immediately curtsied. ‘Forgive my intrusion Ma’am. I hope I am not interrupting something?’
‘I was just leaving.’ The lady and Emmalina appraised each other coldly. It was clear that both had immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion about the other as far as my involvement with either was concerned. The two of them could not have looked more different. Worldly beauty against innocent charm, expensive elegance versus thrifty panache.
After the briefest of stand-offs, the veiled lady turned her enigmatic gaze on me. ‘Lovat,’ she said, loading the word with meaning, and then was gone, leaving a tang of expensive perfume in the air. Emmalina took the vacated position on the bed and regarded me with an unfathomable expression on her face.
‘Listen Emmalina, it isn’t what it looks like. That lady is a client.’ I quickly qualified that statement. ‘She wants me to find someone.’
‘The person you should be finding is Buck!’
‘He hasn’t reappeared then?’ A large part of me had been hoping, suspecting even, that Buck, having cooled down, would already have returned home to make peace with his stepfather.
‘No.’ I suspected that Emmalina had been secretly hoping so too. ‘And now I suppose you are going to give that stuck-up Aristobelle preference?’
‘At least she’s paying me,’ I said rather unkindly, tossing the bag of coins onto the bed beside her. Emmalina emptied the coins onto the bed and started counting them.
‘Who does she want you to find?’
‘Her illicit lover, I suspect. She wouldn’t reveal much about him.’
‘First the murder to solve and now this. At least promise me that you’ll make some time to find Buck.’
‘I promise. First thing tomorrow I’ll go to the theatre. Someone there is bound to know where he is. Don’t worry.’ Easier said than done.
Emmalina stopped counting coins and picked up Montaigne instead. ‘Essays de Messire Michel Seigneur de Montaigne,’ she said, reading from the cover. ‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s the philosophical musings of a French aristocrat.’
‘Sounds riveting.’
‘There isn’t another book like it.’
‘Well that’s lucky then.’
She smiled at me and started to feed Lucius nuts through the cage bars. It seemed we had reached a truce.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s all eat something. Matthew should be here soon and we’ve still got work to do tonight.’
Chapter 13
‘Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.’
(Elizabeth I)
The work that still needed to be done involved a dead of night sortie to Lion’s Quay.
As distant church bells sounded three o’clock, I was perched precariously on the apex of the pitched roof of Don Alphonse’s warehouse. The temperature had dropped further with the fall of darkness, and a fog had rolled in from the Essex marshes, providing perfect cover for what I had in mind. The turgid stretch of water that constituted Lion’s Quay was bathed in mist, and silence, save the occasional sound of ice lapping against wooden piers and the creaks and thuds of the boats rocking in the dock.
Directly below me, clinging to the end of the wooden pier, I could see Matthew peering up from the Chancel House’s slim rowing boat. His instructions were to keep lookout and be prepared, if necessary, to make a rapid escape.
An icy gust of wind blew across the harbour. I should have felt cold, but the excitement pumping through my body was doing a fine job of keeping me warm.
After my fruitless encounter with Hercules Smyth, I had come up with two separate last-ditch plans. The first – to find and talk to Simon Turney before he could set sail from London – had been achieved. The second was somewhat more prosaic – to break into Don Alphonse’s warehouse.
Matthew had arrived at my lodgings earlier, frustrated at not having found the waterman. When told of my plan, he had simply nodded his head and asked when we would leave so that he could get a bit of shut-eye. As I watched him gratefully accepting some beet soup, which Emmalina had brewed – she had already made a vast improvement to my eating habits, not to mention the tidiness of my lodgings – and then kicking his legs up on the bed in a no-nonsense fashion, I reflected that I was beginning to enjoy having his solid dependability for support.
While he slept, Emmalina and I sat at the small desk together, and on her instigation, and in hushed tones, discussed all of the information we had gathered so far relating to Don Alphonse’s murder. Emmalina took up a quill and set out each point in neat but distinctive handwriting. After we had finished, I cast my eyes back over what she had written and added some notes of my own:
A Portuguese merchant, Don Alphonse de Sousa, dines with Sir Robert Rokesby and a number of other men (undisclosed) on Sunday night; the day of the Armada victory celebration to St Paul’s.
Don Alphonse leaves the Chancel House at approximately 10pm in the company of three other men, including Simon Turney and Marmaduke Drummond. Destination unknown. Who is the fourth man? Can’t ask Drummond for fear of upsetting my brother, and Turney wouldn’t say.
At dawn (7am?) the following morning (Monday), DA’s corpse is dragged from the river by the Rotherhithe Watch. His body is badly beaten and he has been strangled. Looks as if the strangling came before the beating but need to keep an open mind.
DA’s body is taken back to The Chancel House by JL during which time he discovers a wedding ring and pearl pendant sewn secretly into the dead man’s shirt (relevant?).
At a meeting between JL, Sir Robert and Sir Francis Walsingham, it is revealed that DA has a black companion – Cassangoe. Sir Robert is determined that the moor is responsible for DA’s death. Turney said expressly that Cassangoe was not a servant. So what is he then?
Walsingham’s involvement: Sir Francis suggested another possibility for DA’s murder – that he had vital information for the Privy Council regarding an English traitor. No evidence of this at all so far.
Rokesby does not want to discuss the meeting or who was involved. Was the meeting to discuss the voyage of the Lady Merrydance? If so, then Don Alphonse must have been aware of it but Karl Würtembatter believes he wasn’t involved.
Cassangoe cannot be found at DA’s warehouse and a neighbour at Lion’s Quay, Hercules Smyth, claims to have no knowledge of either his whereabouts or DA’s death. Smyth knows something – I’m sure of it. Lion’s Quay is rundown and neglected – ‘the Lepers’ end of Lion’s Quay’, something HS said
Lady Merrydance. On Tuesday afternoon, Simon Turney sets sail on a foreign voyage, funded by, amongst others, Sir Robert Rokesby. Karl Würtembatter confirms that the destination of the ship is the Baltic, but there is currently an embargo on foreign adventures (according to Davy Bennett) and Kibber confirms that only domestic bound ships have left Deptford in the last month. Maybe this explains my brother’s reluctance to discuss the voyage in front of Walsingham?
Turney denies any knowledge of DA’s death but his reaction suggests that he might suspect who is responsible for it. He even threw suspicion on Robert by eluding to Don Alphonse’s womanising – suggesting that Anne might have succumbed.
Motive. Karl Würtembatter, Hercules Smyth and Turney all refer to Don Alphonse’s enjoyment of cuckolding husbands. Brings us back to Cuckold’s Point.
It was all very well writing it down but we couldn’t seem to establish any firm conclusions. The evidence did suggest, however, that my brother and Turney were involved in an illegal merchant adventure but was that enough to connect them, or anyone else involved in the voyage, with the murder? Had Don Alphonse been aware of the voyage and tried to stop it? And if so, what was he doing at the Chancel House that evening? I still thought that it was far more likely that a jealous husband had found opportunity to exact revenge.
