A Murder on London Bridge (48 page)

Winter’s face was white. ‘You must be wrong! Luckin would never harm her, or her property. The folk at Somerset House befriended him, and invited him to their soirees. They
like
him.’

‘That does not mean he likes them back,’ Chaloner pointed out. ‘And he is dangerous, capricious and unpredictable. Who knows what he might do in the name of whatever cause he has embraced?’

He flagged down a carriage, and took a leaf from Wiseman’s book by hauling out the astonished passenger and offering the hackneyman a princely reward for driving as fast as he could to White Hall. He pulled Winter in beside him.

‘When we arrive, you must find Spymaster Williamson and tell him all that has happened.’

Winter regarded him uneasily. ‘I will. But what if he already knows, and has decided to turn a blind eye? He is not a fellow to back the losing side, and who knows how all this will end?’

It was a terrifying thought.

Despite the driver’s best efforts, progress along Thames Street was painfully slow. It was too slow for Chaloner, so he abandoned Winter and dived out, knowing he would be quicker on foot. He ran like he had never run before. His lame leg burned, and his breath came in short, agonised gasps.

He tore along Fleet Street, where he found traffic moving more freely. There were no hackney carriages to hire, so he leapt on the back of a private coach, displacing a startled footman to do so. The man bellowed his fury, but the driver did not hear, and continued to rattle westwards.

Chaloner used the time to consider what he was going to do. First and foremost was to tell Buckingham to call off his protest. That would deprive Luckin of his diversion, and would put Hannah out of danger. Second, someone had to go to St Paul’s, to prevent the conspirators from damaging London’s most famous church. And lastly, Somerset House needed to be searched for Luckin’s ‘bombs’ and the rest of Winter’s fireworks.

He jumped off the carriage outside White Hall’s main gate, and tore into the courtyard. The first person he saw was Leigh, wearing a splendid dress uniform in anticipation for his duties at the Bishops’ Dinner. Father Stephen was with him. Chaloner skidded to a halt, but the priest began gabbling at him before he could find the breath to speak himself.

‘I have just been to see Clarendon.’ The priest’s eyes were wide and frightened. ‘Apparently, your suspicions were right. My regicide brother
is
back, and he has joined the criminals who want to see our streets soaked in blood. He must be stopped. They all must! Lord Bristol is with them, and they have weapons and rebels and . . . Oh, it is all too dreadful!’

‘I have alerted the palace guard to be on the lookout for trouble,’ added Leigh. ‘But the Earl says the best way for
him
to combat these lunatics is by continuing his day as though nothing has happened. So I am on my way to Worcester House, to greet the bishops.’

‘Forget the bishops,’ ordered Chaloner. ‘Go to Buckingham and tell him fanatics plan to shoot his demonstrators. Force him to cancel the protest. Then send word to St Paul’s that there is a plot afoot to blow it to kingdom come.’

‘Their target is the cathedral?’ gulped Stephen, appalled. ‘I thought it was the theatre!’

‘Winter is warning Williamson,’ Chaloner went on. ‘And I am going to Somerset House.’

‘Why there?’ asked Father Stephen, horrified. ‘I assure you, the Dowager knows nothing of—’

‘Probably not,’ agreed Chaloner tersely. ‘She prays for plagues to kill Anglicans and condones Lord Bristol’s illegal return, but she would never countenance rebellion – not when it might put her son’s throne in danger. I am going there to look for fireworks.’

‘Fireworks?’ asked Leigh. ‘Not these adapted ones that Phillippes designed? But I thought they did not exist – that they were just a theory.’

‘They exist,’ said Chaloner grimly. ‘And they will do untold harm unless we can find them.’

He started to move away, but Leigh stopped him. ‘I do not understand! Are you saying that the conspirators are turning on the Dowager? That they plan to harm
her
with these fireworks?’

Chaloner struggled for patience. ‘Not her specifically – anyone at her ball. I suspect it will happen during Buckingham’s rally, so his peaceful demonstrators will be blamed for the atrocity.’

‘Security at Somerset House is intense,’ said Stephen, grabbing Chaloner’s arm when he tried to leave a second time. ‘You will never get inside, and there are orders to shoot intruders.’ He swallowed hard, and resolve suffused his white, terrified face. ‘So
I
will go. I will pour water over these nasty things if need be, and when Winter arrives with Williamson,
he
can make them safe.’

It was a sensible plan, and Chaloner sagged with relief at the priest’s new-found courage. He only hoped it would last long enough to avert a massacre.

‘So what will you do, Chaloner?’ asked Leigh. ‘While we dash around preventing trouble?’

Chaloner intended to gain access to the Dowager’s ball by whatever means necessary and drag Hannah out. But disappearing on personal errands would not be seen as a suitable course of action under the circumstances, so he waved a vague hand, too tense and fraught to invent a lie.

‘I almost forgot,’ said Leigh, shoving a piece of paper at him. ‘This was delivered a few moments ago, and the courier said it was urgent. But we cannot wait while you read it. Come, Father. There is not a moment to lose.’

Chaloner watched them hurry away, then studied the missive. Rain had seeped into it, causing the ink to run, so it was all but illegible. He struggled to decipher it:

Thurloe had news!

Chaloner raced out of White Hall, and looked up and down King Street wildly, hunting for a carriage. There were none to be seen, so he started to run. As he went, he reflected on the message. Thurloe had promised to send word when he had learned something, and the note certainly looked like his handwriting, but why had he chosen Fetter Lane? And why had he not used cipher, as he usually did when communicating? Chaloner stopped abruptly. It was a trap.

Common sense told him to ignore the letter and rescue Hannah. But the lure was also an unlooked for opportunity – a chance to outwit the plotters and question them about their plans. He decided it was worth the risk to himself for the benefits that might ensue, and began running again.

When he arrived in Fetter Lane, he forced himself to take refuge in the doorway opposite, and spend several minutes watching his house. There was nothing to see, so he could only suppose they were waiting inside. He crept up the stairs to his garret with a stealth born of long experience, and found the door ajar. He relaxed slightly when his cat walked through it and began to wind around his legs, purring. It would not behave that way if there were intruders within. Carefully, he pushed open the door and looked inside.

The room was strangely dark, because someone had put a curtain over the window. It was also full of acrid smoke, and there was a low hissing sound that he could not immediately identify. In the dimness, he saw a patch of white on the table. It was another note. He grabbed it, and took it to the window to read, ripping down the curtain as he did so.

He gazed at it in confusion, then looked around the room. He recognised the pungent scent of burning gunpowder at almost the exact same time that he saw the tell-tale scorch-marks leading across the floor. They ended in two large cylinders, partially hidden under the table, on each of which was written the words ‘Purple Fountain’.

He turned, grabbed his cat and ran. The instrument-maker – Spong – who lived on the floor below, heard the crashing footfalls, and poked his head around his door to see what was happening. Chaloner seized his wrist and hauled him down the stairs, too. He was just wondering how long a fuse had been placed, when there was a resounding boom that hurled him from his feet and made him lose his grip on the cat. Fragments of plaster pattered down around him, and then there was silence. But it did not last long. The house started to creak, louder and deeper than it had ever done before.

‘Hurry!’ he yelled, pulling the dazed Spong upright.

Spong did not need to be told a second time. He fled. Chaloner glanced around for the cat, but it was nowhere to be seen. With a pang of regret, he followed Spong. Meanwhile, their landlord had long been aware of his house’s losing battle with gravity, and was already tugging the box containing his valuables to safety. Pieces of rubble dropped all around them, and there was a groan so intense that Chaloner was sure the place was going to fall before they reached the street.

But then they were outside, lurching through a hail of tiles that were sliding from the tilting roof. Chaloner was just congratulating himself on his escape when he saw Luckin. The vicar was breathing heavily, as though he had been running, and he was holding a gun. He was exchanging urgent words with a man Chaloner recognised from Great Queen Street. The fellow held a tinderbox, indicating he was the one who had set the explosion.

Then Luckin spotted Chaloner, and his face went taut with rage. He took aim. There was nowhere to hide in the street, and sword and dagger were no defence against a bullet. So Chaloner did the only thing he could: he turned and raced back inside the house. Something cracked, and the doorframe exploded into pieces. Had Luckin shot at him, or was it just the building’s death throes?

‘Stop!’ Spong bellowed after him. ‘A cat is not worth your life!’

Chaloner tore along the corridor, aiming for the back garden. The rear door was blocked, and he lost vital seconds kicking rubble away, so he could drag it open. A chunk of ceiling struck his shoulder, knocking him to his knees, and the air was full of dust.

He struggled upright and thrust through the gap between door and frame, but his coat caught on the shattered wood. There was a tremendous crash as a supporting beam came down, bringing more of the ceiling with it. Using every ounce of his strength, Chaloner ripped free and staggered outside. And then the building was falling in earnest. Dust enveloped him, and he could not see where he was going. He put his hands over his head, and blundered on blindly.

Suddenly, he was clear. He reached the end of the garden and looked backwards just as the house that had been his home collapsed in on itself with a groaning sigh.

It was several minutes before Chaloner’s eyes stopped smarting enough to allow him to locate the back gate. He hauled it open and stumbled into the lane. It was deserted, and he was grateful Luckin was an amateur – a professional would have posted a guard at the rear of the house.

He happened to glance up at a wall as he made his way through the maze of alleys that led to Fleet Street. His cat was sitting on top of it, regarding him with bored amber eyes. Then a child’s voice called, and it jumped into a garden. Chaloner watched as it was swept into the arms of a little girl, and given a protective cuddle. He sagged, feeling betrayed. It was bad enough that he had lost his home – and worse yet, his second-best viol – but did his cat have to abandon him for better accommodation quite so soon?

He headed for St Dunstan-in-the-West, and found a quiet spot in the churchyard, where he shook the dust from his hair and wiped his face with a handful of wet grass. As he brushed the filth from his jacket, he heard the crackle of paper. He withdrew the two notes.

He supposed Luckin had laid the powder the previous night, and Rupert Penderel had not been exaggerating when he had warned him of the vicar’s murderous intentions. But how had Luckin delivered the forged missive to the Earl’s offices? Did he have access to them? And if so, what else had he left there? The moment he did not look as if he had been in an explosion, Chaloner set off for White Hall, cursing the unsteadiness in his legs that slowed him down.

After what felt like an age, he reached the main gate, raced across the courtyard and pounded up the staircase to the Earl’s domain. It was empty, and the fires that always burned in the hearths had been allowed to go out. The curtains were drawn, too, and the rooms were chillier and darker than Chaloner had ever seen them. He searched them quickly, supposing that any firework intended to do serious damage could not be too small.

But there was nothing to find, and he was about to leave and go to Somerset House when he heard footfalls on the stairs. They were moving in a way that was distinctly furtive, so he darted back into the office and slipped behind the curtains. The door opened and three men entered.

Chaloner’s stomach lurched when he saw Father Stephen between Luckin and Herring. How had the priest managed to fall into their clutches? Was he a total incompetent?

‘ . . . as Chaloner is dead,’ Luckin was saying, peering around. ‘I saw him run back inside the building myself, and no one could have survived the collapse that followed.’

‘Why would he run back inside?’ asked Herring dubiously.

‘Because he saw me.’ Luckin replied. ‘I have no love for blood, but he deserved to die for killing my nephews.’

Father Stephen regarded him askance. ‘You have no love for blood? But you are about to perpetrate one of the greatest massacres the city has ever known.’

‘That is different,’ said Luckin haughtily. ‘The government will not listen to reasoned demands, so it will have to listen to violence instead.’

‘I cannot see what I am doing in here,’ said Herring. The taut excitement in his voice told Chaloner that Thurloe had been wrong to think the iconoclast had changed. He was still a radical, and his enjoyment of the chaos Luckin was bringing about was palpable. ‘We need light.’

He strode to the window and opened the curtain. Exposed, Chaloner drew his dagger. ‘Perhaps I can help you,’ he said pleasantly. ‘What are you looking for?’