Sea Change (30 page)

'I'll name my price, when I meet your paymaster.'

Kelly chuckled. 'You're the cool one and no mistake.'

'Perhaps we should warm him up a touch,' said Layton. 'See if he punches as well as he pleads.'

'No, no,' said Kelly. 'Let it go.'

'If you're sure.' Layton looked positively disappointed at being overruled on the point. 'Shall we send him up?'

'Yes,' Kelly replied. 'It's time.'

'Time for what?' asked Spandrel.

'Climb the steps to the galleried room across the yard,' said Kelly. 'Third door you come to. He's waiting for you.'

'The Dean?'

'He's waiting.'

Spandrel could see an ostler busying himself in the stable at the rear of the yard, but there was no-one else about. It was cool and quiet, away from the bustle of the taproom. He glanced up at the windows of the galleried rooms above him, but there was no sign of movement.

He took the steps two at a time and marched smartly along to the third door. Through the window, he could see a fire burning, but the chair beside it was empty. He knocked at the door.

There was no answer. He knocked again. Still there was nothing. He turned the handle and pushed at the door. It yielded.

As he entered, a figure moved in the corner of the room, detaching itself from the shadow of the chimney-breast.

'So there you are, Spandrel.' The voice was not Atterbury's. Nor was the bearing. Nor yet the face. 'About time.'

Spandrel could neither move nor speak. He stared at the figure advancing upon him in a paralysis of disbelief.

'What's wrong with you, man?' said Mcllwraith. 'You look as if you've seen a ghost.'

'Why don't you sit down, Spandrel?' said Mcllwraith, gesturing to one of the two chairs flanking the fireplace. 'Before you fall down.'

'Captain…' Spandrel sat unsteadily down and gaped at the gaunt but otherwise unaltered figure of James Mcllwraith. 'You're not dead?'

'Not unless you are too and Lucifer's decided to entertain himself by making us think we're alive.'

'I don't understand. Cloisterman said he left you for dead.'

'Left for dead and being dead aren't quite the same thing.'

'But you said… yourself… that you were dying.'

'I thought I was.'

'I wouldn't have left you if…' Spandrel shrugged helplessly. 'If I'd thought you'd live.'

'I'll do you the honour of believing that.' Mcllwraith smiled. 'Have some brandy.' He poured a glass from the bottle standing on the mantelpiece and handed it to Spandrel, who gulped some gratefully down. 'Let me tell you it tastes even better when you've thought you might never taste it again.'

'How did you survive?'

'I don't know. I just did. It surprised that Bernese doctor even more than me. Must be the pure Swiss air. Or my long years of clean living. It was touch and go. Very nearly go. In the end, though, I came back. Maybe my immortal soul didn't care to leave so much business unfinished. That ball Wagemaker put in me hasn't gone, by the by.' He slapped the left side of his chest and winced. 'Still in there somewhere, they tell me. And still capable of killing me, if it lodges in something vital. So, if I drop dead in mid-sentence, you'll know the cause. But if I were you …' He moved to the back of Spandrel's chair and closed a crushing grip on his shoulder. 'I wouldn't count on it.'

'Count on it?' Spandrel looked up into Mcllwraith's hooded eyes. 'I can't tell you how glad I am to see you alive, Captain. You surely don't think…'

'That you'd rather I'd stayed dead?' Mcllwraith chuckled. 'Well, if you don't now, you soon will.'

'What do you mean?'

Mcllwraith walked slowly across to the other chair and sat down. 'I've thrown in my lot with the Jacobites, Spandrel. With Atterbury and those two fellows downstairs: Kelly and Layer.'

'Layer? Kelly introduced him as Layton.'

'A clumsy alias. His name's Christopher Layer. He's a lawyer. And a plotter. Not that there's a lot of difference.'

'But the Jacobites? You? Why?'

'Ah well, that's the question, isn't it? You see, it took me months to recover. By the time I was fit to leave Berne, there was no point going on to Rome. I knew the chase had ended long ago by then, one way or the other. So, I started back for England, by slow boat down the Rhine. I wasn't up to riding. And I was in no hurry. If I had been, I might have reached Cologne sooner. Which would have been a pity, because then I'd have missed Cloisterman.'

'You met Cloisterman?'

'I did. He was on his way south.'

'To Constantinople?'

'Aye. Constantinople. An embassy, no less. His reward …for services rendered.'

'What did he tell you?'

'Everything, Spandrel. Everything you and he did in Rome.'

'I see.'

'Do you now?'

'I can repay… the money you gave me.'

'It wasn't my money. It was the committee's. And they've disbanded. So, don't worry your head about the money. We'll let that pass. Breach of faith, now. That's a different matter.'

'I…'

'Why don't you tell me you never meant to sell the book? Why don't you say Buckthorn and Silverwood intervened just before you were planning to spring some sort of a trap on Mrs de Vries?'

'Because…' It had been bad enough to break his word to a dead man. Spandrel had often consoled himself with the thought that he would never have to account to Mcllwraith for what he had done at Estelle's bidding. She had been worth it, after all. But she was lost to him now. And he did have to account to Mcllwraith. 'Because it wouldn't be true.'

'No. It wouldn't be true. Nor would whatever you were intending to say to Atterbury, would it? Cloisterman delivered the book to Walpole, not Sunderland. He told me so. He was pleased to tell me. And he wasn't lying, was he?'

'No. Walpole has the Green Book.'

'And he has you, in his pocket.'

'Yes.'

'He set you on Atterbury.'

'Yes.'

'In the hope that the Green Book could be used to tempt the Bishop into betraying himself.'

'Yes.'

'And you had little choice but to do his bidding because otherwise he'd have handed you over to the Dutch authorities.'

'Yes.'

'Who don't know that de Vries was murdered not by you but by his secretary, with the connivance of his wife.'

Spandrel sighed. 'I should never have come back to England.'

'No more you should.' Then Mcllwraith also sighed. 'And neither should I. They'd all given up by then, you see. Brodrick, Ross and the other members of the committee. They'd thrown in their cards. They'd abandoned the struggle. Walpole was cock of the dunghill. The Green Book was a dead letter. As for me, well, General Ross made it obvious I was an embarrassment to them now the game was up. They had to look to the future and make… accommodations… with their new master. I was politely encouraged to vanish. And so I did. As far as they were concerned. But when you've come as close to death as I have, when the Grim Reaper's brushed the hem of his cloak across your face and you can still catch the cold, grave-damp smell of it in your nostrils, you don't see things as other men do. You're not interested in accommodations. You can't be sent away. You won't be stopped.'

'Jacobitism is treason, Captain.'

'High treason, Spandrel. As high as Tyburn gallows.'

'You're really one of them?'

'Sworn and enlisted.'

'But why? You're no Jacobite. You were trying to stop the Green Book reaching Rome.'

'The case is altered. I won't let them win.'

'Won't let who win?'

'Walpole and his cronies. I'll have them yet.' There was a look in Mcllwraith's eyes Spandrel had never seen before. His brush with death truly had altered him. Determination had become obsession. 'By hook or by crook, I'll have them.'

'It'll mean blood in the streets.'

'Then let it flow. I swore to make the truth known. No matter that those I swore to have sheathed their swords and slunk away. I still mean to make it known.'

'You won't succeed. Walpole knows everything. He has Sunderland's papers.'

'But he's biding his time. Because he thinks he has plenty of it. He doesn't know about me. If he did, he'd never have sent you to Atterbury. That's his mistake. And he'll pay for it, I promise you.'

'You can't win.'

'Oh, but I can. Not by listening to fools like Layer or waiting for instructions from Rome. They have some crazy plan to assassinate the King — the Elector, as they call him — on his way to Hanover. And they still mean to go through with it, despite Sunderland's death. But there's no need. There's another way to snare our fat Norfolk Robin. A surer way, by far. The Green Book, Spandrel. You saw it?'

'Yes.'

'My fellow plotters have persuaded themselves that Walpole destroyed it. But I never fell for that notion. He didn't get where he is by destroying the secrets that come his way.'

'You're not thinking of…'

'Stealing it back from him?' Mcllwraith caught Spandrel's eye. 'No. It's a tempting thought, but a fatal one. Orford House is well guarded. And where would we look? He's not likely to keep it wherever you saw it. He'd like us to try, no doubt. A few of us shot down as common housebreakers would suit his purpose very well. It'd look bad for you, of course. Who but you could have told us he had it there? So, you'll be glad to know I have no intention of blundering into that trap.'

'What do you mean to do?'

'Nothing that you need worry your head about.' Mcllwraith rose from his chair with more of an effort than he would once have needed to exert and leaned against the mantelpiece. 'You have more than enough to think about already. Such as what you're going to report to Walpole.'

'What can I report? I've failed.'

'No need to tell him that, I won't tell. Say Atterbury's agreed to meet you, down in Bromley, at his palace, next week.'

'Why next week?'

'Because by then Walpole will have more important things to worry about. I'll see to that.' Mcllwraith grinned. 'I'm doing you a favour, Spandrel, though God knows why I should. I'm letting you off the hook.'

Off the hook? Spandrel did not feel as if he was. Quite the reverse. If he lied to Walpole and Walpole found out, he was finished. But if he told him the truth… he was also finished.

'Aren't I more trustworthy than Walpole, man? Aren't I just about the only one you can trust in all this?'

'It's hopeless, Captain. Don't you understand? He's too powerful. You can't defeat him.'

'Wait and see.' Mcllwraith's smile grew wistful. 'Every man has his breaking point.'

'Not Walpole.'

'Oh, he has his weaknesses, never doubt it. One of them's the same as yours, as a matter of fact. Exactly the same as yours.'

'What do you mean?'

'Estelle de Vries.' Mcllwraith refilled Spandrel's brandy glass. 'He keeps her as a mistress.'

'That's not true. It—' Spandrel stopped and stared into the fire. Estelle, with Walpole? It was not possible. It was not to be believed. 'It can't be.'

'But it can. It is. How is not for me to say. What did you think she meant to do when you left Rome?'

'We left… separately.'

'She had no more use for you once the Green Book was gone, then. Well, you can't have been surprised.'

'She went after Cloisterman.'

'Ever the huntress. You can't fault her for spirit. But Cloisterman went by sea from Leghorn. That put him out of her reach. And the Green Book likewise. Perhaps this… connection… with Walpole is her way of profiting from it nonetheless.'

'I don't believe it.'

'As you please. I hardly did myself. But I've seen her with my own eyes, man, riding with him in a coach. It's common knowledge. Walpole doesn't hide his vices any more than his virtues. He's installed her in a house in Jermyn Street. Phoenix House, near the corner of Duke Street, should you wish to see for yourself. An easy toddle from the house he keeps in Arlington Street. A wife in Chelsea and a mistress in St James's. That no doubt appeals to his sense of… husbandry. Oh, she calls herself Davenant now, by the by. Mrs Davenant, of course. I haven't told my… accomplices… who she really is.'

'I still don't believe it;'

'Yes you do. You just don't want to. Walpole didn't mention it to you, of course. He was hardly likely to. He needs your compliance, not your envy.'

'God rot him.' Surprised by his own vehemence, Spandrel pressed a fist to his forehead and closed his eyes. If only he could truly have said that it made no sense. But it did. It was, in some perverse way, just what he might have expected. He had thought he had succeeded, not in forgetting Estelle — for how could he forget such a woman? — but in setting aside his attraction to her. The months in Rennes, the women he had had there, the level-headed aspiration to Maria Chesney's hand… amounted to scarcely anything compared with the meagre portion of his life he had spent with her. And scarcely anything was virtually nothing.

'Do you hate him now, Spandrel?' Mcllwraith's voice came as a whisper, close to his ear. 'Because, if you do, I have good tidings for you.'

Spandrel opened his eyes and looked up at Mcllwraith. What was the captain planning? What could he do against someone like Walpole? What could he really do?

'I have the breaking of him.' Mcllwraith's smile was broad and contented. He looked like a man at peace with himself — and at war with another. 'It's him or me.'