A Murder on London Bridge (8 page)

‘Oliver speaks the truth,’ said Rupert. ‘And you would not
have
a king, were it not for Catholics – it was not Anglicans who risked life and limb to spirit him to safety after Cromwell won the wars. And with no king, there would be no lord chancellor, either.’

‘Open the door,’ ordered the Earl, tiring of the debate. ‘I shall speak to His Majesty as and when I choose. No
Catholic
has the right to interfere with that.’

‘Well, these Catholics do,’ countered Rupert. ‘The King is playing blind-man’s buff with Lady Castlemaine, and I will send for you only when he is finished. Wait over there.’

Chaloner could see there was no point in arguing, and all four brothers were fingering their swords meaningfully. He flailed around for an excuse that would allow his master to leave without acknowledging that the Penderels had won the confrontation.

‘You cannot wait, sir – you have an urgent appointment with the Bishop of Winchester,’ he said, referring to one of the Earl’s closest friends. ‘We should go, and return later to see the King.’

The Earl was not a fool, and knew when it was wise to beat a retreat. ‘Very well,’ he said, turning on his heel and beginning to waddle away. ‘I am a busy man, and cannot afford to waste valuable time. Council business must wait.’

There were a number of smirks as he retraced his steps, although no one spoke, and he and Chaloner walked the entire length of the Privy Gallery in a ringing silence. Once outside, the Earl heaved a sigh of relief.

‘Thank you,’ he said unsteadily. ‘Those ruffians might have assaulted me if you had not invented that excuse for us to leave. Perhaps I should not have mentioned the illegality of their offices.’

‘Perhaps not,’ agreed Chaloner.

The Earl sighed again. ‘They provoked me with their insolence, but I should not have risen to the bait. I have seen many Penderels pass through Court – greedy parasites, whose true colours will soon be exposed, at which point they will be dismissed. Summon my carriage, if you please.’

‘Where are you going?’

The Earl grimaced. ‘I have no idea, but we had better go somewhere, or my enemies will say I lied about seeing the bishop. How about St James’s Park? It is pleasant there of a morning, and we can discuss your investigation into the murder of Blue Dick.’

St James’s Park was indeed pleasant of a morning, because it was too early to be crowded with courtiers tearing up and down its paths, showing off their equestrian skills to their mistresses. It was a large area enclosed by high walls that afforded it privacy, although certain members of the public were allowed inside. Chaloner saw the navy clerk Samuel Pepys there, strolling along with cronies from the Admiralty. Pepys bowed a greeting to Chaloner, but only because he was with the Earl. Usually, he snubbed him, deeming him as someone insufficiently lofty to warrant recognition.

‘There are Scarlet and Hussey,’ said the Earl, peering out of the carriage window to see if there was anyone to whom
he
could wave. He ducked hastily back inside. ‘I do not like them.’

Chaloner looked to where he pointed, and saw an ill-matched pair. One was tall and fat, and the other short and wiry. Both wore the kind of clothes that said they were men of substance, but weathered skin suggested they spent time outside. The smaller of the two was sobbing, and his companion was trying to comfort him.

‘Who are they?’ asked Chaloner.

‘Wardens of the Bridge.’ The Earl saw Chaloner’s blank look and grimaced. ‘It is about time you learned these things. How can you serve me, if you do not know the first thing about London?’

Chaloner was tempted to point out that he might learn them faster if Clarendon did not keep sending him on missions away from the capital – Ireland, Spain and Portugal, Oxford, and most recently, Wimbledon – but he managed to hold his tongue. ‘What do they do, exactly?’

‘They are responsible for the Bridge – they supervise the carpenters and masons who maintain it, collect rent from the folk who live in its houses, and hire guards to patrol it. Fat Robert Hussey is the Senior Warden, while his junior is little Anthony Scarlet. I shall send you to spy on them soon, because there is something odd going on with that Bridge, and you are the man to find out what.’

‘What sort of something?’ asked Chaloner. It sounded a much more interesting assignment than the death of an unpopular iconoclast.

‘Well, the Dowager has taken to frequenting it for a start, whereas she always used to travel by water. But speak of the Devil and he will appear, because there she is and her henchmen with her – Buckingham, Winter, Progers, the whole cabal.
And
the vicar of Wimbledon – Luckin is his name. He was recently arrested, you know.’

‘For allegedly witnessing Lord Bristol’s conversion back to Anglicanism, and giving him holy communion,’ said Chaloner, recalling what he had overheard at Somerset House the night before.

‘It was not
alleged
,’ countered the Earl testily. ‘It happened. I visited Luckin in the Tower myself, and he made no effort to deny it. Indeed, he had the audacity to gloat at me – to claim that Bristol’s public renouncing of his religion is the first stage in his regaining favour with the King.’

‘So Bristol
is
in England?’ asked Chaloner, wondering why the Earl had not mentioned it before.

The Earl grimaced. ‘I do not know, because Luckin refused to say where this curious event took place. Spymaster Williamson offered to find out, but the King does not want the Church clamouring at him for maltreating its vicars, so he ordered Luckin set free. And where did Luckin go afterwards? Straight to Somerset House!’

‘Why would he do that? If Bristol is no longer Catholic, then the Dowager will see him as a traitor to her faith, and Luckin as the facilitator of that treachery.’

‘On the contrary. If the ploy sees Bristol restored to the King’s good graces, she will consider Luckin a friend. And they certainly seem comfortable in each other’s presence, because he has been entrusted with her lapdog – and I do not refer to Progers. I mean that nasty yapping creature.’

Chaloner looked towards the Dowager’s entourage, and saw one man holding a bundle of black and white fur. The fellow had been in Somerset House the previous night, suggesting the Earl was right about him being in the Dowager’s favour. He was a lean, sharp-eyed specimen, with a large purple nose and the look of someone who found a great deal to displease him.

‘He is talking to Sir John Winter,’ the Earl went on disapprovingly. ‘Do you know him?’

Chaloner recognised the enormous moustache from the previous night, too – Winter had also been at the Dowager’s gathering in Somerset House.

‘He knows a lot about gunpowder, and wants to be the next Green Man,’ he said, recalling what Bulteel had told him about the man called Sir John Winter.

The Earl nodded. ‘His Majesty is resisting his petitions, though. And I thank God for it, or we would all be blown up in our beds. Winter is Catholic, you see.’

Chaloner itched to point out that
all
Catholics did not harbour murderous designs on members of the government, but knew there was no point: the Earl was not reasonable where religion was concerned. He nodded noncommittally, and tuned out the bigoted diatribe that followed.

The Earl was still holding forth when they reached St James’s Park’s newly dug canal, which was prettily dappled with swans and geese. The air was clean and fresh outside the city, and smelled of damp grass and frost. The day was a fine, crisp, winter one, with the sun shining in a clear blue sky.

‘I like this place,’ said Chaloner, to change the subject from Catholics. He took a deep, appreciative breath. ‘It is peaceful.’

‘It is,’ agreed the Earl. ‘And when it is built, Clarendon House will have fine views across it.’

‘Really?’ asked Chaloner unhappily.

The Earl scowled at him. ‘I know you think my new mansion too grand, but I am Lord Chancellor of England, so I
should
have somewhere palatial to live. And why not? I suffered with the King all the years he was in exile, so why should I not be rewarded for my discomfort?’

‘Because it is going to be funded by public money, so its opulence will cause resentment.’

‘You mean I might lose the respect of apprentices and traders?’ asked the Earl unpleasantly. ‘Why should I care about them?’

‘Because they are on your side, sir,’ explained Chaloner, struggling for patience. It was not the first time they had covered this particular topic. ‘They favour you over your enemies, because they see you as a moral man in a corrupt government. But Clarendon House will turn them against you.’

‘According to you, they are against me anyway, because of my stance on religious dissenters,’ said the Earl tartly. ‘The Clarendon Code – the new laws that suppress all those aggravating non-Anglicans – bears my name, and while I did not write these edicts, it is common knowledge that I support them to the hilt. So what do I have to lose by invoking the wrath of grubby Londoners?’

‘Your post as Lord Chancellor? The life you have built for yourself in London? The City holds the Court’s purse-strings, and if its people bay for your head, the King may well give it to them.’

‘You have a blunt tongue,’ said the Earl, regarding Chaloner with wide eyes. ‘But at least you are honest. You are wrong, of course, but that is to be expected, given that you seem more foreigner than Englishman, especially regarding religion. How is Hannah Cotton, by the way?’

‘She is well, thank you.’ Chaloner was not sure he liked the juxtaposition of remarks. ‘Why?’

‘I am just making polite conversation – there is no need to look suspicious. I understand you and she have been . . .
walking out
for some weeks now.’ The Earl leaned back in his seat and let the pale winter sun touch his face. ‘You should marry her. It is a good match, because she is the daughter of a gentleman, and you are the son of one. I shall give the union my blessing.’

The thought had crossed Chaloner’s mind to turn his relationship with Hannah into something more permanent, but spies did not make for good husbands: their occupation was hazardous, and Hannah had been widowed once already. He said nothing, thinking it was none of the Earl’s affair.

‘Of course, she is old for bearing children,’ the Earl went on. ‘But you may be lucky.’

Chaloner was not sure he wanted children, for the same reason that he was not sure he wanted a wife. Besides, he had had them once, and had lost them to the plague. It was not an experience he was keen to repeat.

‘Did you say you wanted to discuss the murder of Blue Dick Culmer?’ he asked, to bring an end to a discussion that was becoming uncomfortable for him.

The Earl looked hurt when he saw his fatherly advice was not appreciated. ‘Yes, I suppose we had better,’ he said, with a wounded sniff. ‘He was a zealot, like his colleagues Dowsing and Herring. They went about their work with a fervour that was sickening, and dozens of our finest churches will never be the same again.’

‘I do not know Herring,’ said Chaloner, although everyone had heard of Dowsing, the man famous for smashing his way through the religious buildings of East Anglia.

‘These days, he is the churchwarden of St Mary Woolchurch, here in London. But during Cromwell’s ascendancy, he did a lot of damage to chapels in Essex. Such fanatics
must
be silenced, and everyone made to worship God as the Anglican Church sees fit.’

‘I see,’ said Chaloner flatly.

‘Stephen Goff told me that Herring and Blue Dick were girding their loins for mischief and . . .’ The Earl trailed off, looking pained. He had let slip something that he had meant to keep to himself.

‘Stephen Goff?’ pounced Chaloner. ‘Who is he?’

‘No one you know.’ The Earl rubbed his hands together briskly, trying to gloss over his blunder. ‘Just a friend in the Dowager’s household. But to return to our dead iconoclast—’

‘Not
Father
Stephen?’ asked Chaloner, recalling the nervous, dark-haired priest who had been at Somerset House the previous night. If the Earl had recruited
him
to spy, then it was small wonder the poor fellow was uneasy!

The Earl looked annoyed. ‘You are too sharp for your own good. But yes: Stephen Goff is the Dowager’s chaplain, and supplies me with information from time to time. However, his position is a precarious one, and I promised him I would keep his identity a secret.’

‘Why would he help you?’ asked Chaloner suspiciously. ‘You make no secret of your dislike of Catholics, so why has
he
allied himself to your camp?’

‘Because he is a decent soul who is appalled by the Dowager’s plots to harm me,’ snapped the Earl. ‘And because we became friends when we were in exile together. We have known each other for years, and I trust him completely. He may be a papist, but he is a good man.’

Chaloner was unconvinced, but knew better than to argue. He changed tack. ‘How does Stephen Goff know that Blue Dick and Herring were “girding their loins for mischief”?’

The Earl shrugged. ‘He has his own set of informants, I imagine.’

Chaloner frowned as something else occurred to him. ‘There was a Goff who signed the old king’s death warrant . . .’

‘That was
Will
Goff,’ supplied the Earl. ‘He fled to New England when he realised he was going to be executed for his crimes, although we have dispatched agents to hunt him down.’

Unbidden, a sudden, vivid memory of Will Goff flashed into Chaloner’s mind, one that had lain dormant for years. Goff had visited the Chaloner estates in Buckinghamshire, when Chaloner had been a child – a lean, unsmiling man with dark, almost foreign features. He had made a nuisance of himself with demands for music. It had been high summer, and Chaloner recalled his resentment at being forced to remain indoors all day, to entertain the guest with his bass viol.

‘I met him once,’ he said, sufficiently startled by the clarity of the recollection to blurt it out.