Veil of Lies (3 page)

And so. Philippa Walcote
was
an adulteress. No doubt about it. That was a quick sixpence. Too bad it couldn’t have been drawn out for a few days for a greater fee.

Crispin returned the ladder and pushed his way into the inn. He sat by the fire with a view of the stairs and ordered wine with one silver coin newly received from Walcote. He did not relish his task in telling the merchant about the misadventures of his wife, but it must be done.

When the liquor arrived he drank a bowlful quickly. He poured himself another and quaffed that, too. The wine warmed his belly and he felt slightly better. After a quarter of an hour he saw the woman descend the stairs and stride across the crowded room.

Crispin scrambled to his feet and left the bowl to follow her. Outside, he looked up at the window and saw the candlelight extinguish, leaving the window dark through the shutters. With her tryst quickly over she hurried home.

It was much too late to go to Walcote’s now, especially with such unpleasant news. Home sounded good to him and he left the damp streets for his own bed, dreaming of ladders and open windows.

Come morning, he glanced at his ash-filled hearth and frowned, thinking of his empty larder and growling belly. Sixpence a day did not go as far as it once did.

Sixpence. He tried to make light of the whole affair as just another job, but failed. It wasn’t just the hiding in shadows and peering through windows like a simpering spy that vexed him. The vision of Philippa Walcote’s naked loveliness troubled him far more. He kept seeing her in his mind.

A thump in the shop below drew his thoughts away from her. It was the tinker’s family starting their day. Perhaps he’d better do the same. He got up and went to the basin to wash his face and shave. He tied the laces of his chemise, pulled on his socks, drew up and tied his stirruped leggings, and buttoned the cotehardie all the way up his neck.

Crispin reached the Walcote gatehouse within a quarter of an hour. He entered the courtyard and made the long walk across the flagged stones to the wide stairs of an arched portico made of carved granite. He pulled the bell rope and after a few moments encountered the same servant from yesterday.

“Good morrow, Adam,” said Crispin, smiling at the servant’s agitation at the use of his name. “I have come to see your master. You remember me, do you not?”

The servant returned a wan smile. “Come this way.”

The house lay in quiet that early in the morning. No sound lifted from the cold plaster and timbers but their footsteps on the wooden floor and the jangle of Adam’s keys.

They arrived at the solar, but when Adam reached for the door ring and pulled, the door remained stubbornly shut. He stared at the door dumbly for a moment before knocking. “Master Walcote,” he said, chin raised. “Master Crispin Guest is here to see you.”

They both waited for a reply, but none came. Adam glanced at Crispin before he leaned into the door again. “Master,” he said louder. “You’ve a visitor; Crispin Guest.”

They waited again. Silence.

Crispin glared at Adam. “Are you certain he’s in there?”

Adam’s look of bewilderment gave Crispin pause. Adam did not seem the bewildered sort. By his longer gown and ring of keys, Crispin assumed he was the steward and would naturally be the man who knew all goings on in this house.

“He must be,” said Adam slowly. “It locks from the inside.” He exchanged looks with Crispin. Adam raised his hand and knocked again. The polite knocks turned to pounding and then he turned a desperate expression on Crispin. “Something must be amiss.”

Crispin pushed Adam aside and did his own knocking. “Master Walcote!” Foolish to think that his knocking would have more sway over the steward’s. An uneasy sensation steeled over his heart. “Get something to break down this door. And get help. Make haste!”

Adam ran down the passageway while Crispin yanked on the door ring. He braced his foot against the wall and with both hands pulled until he was blue in the face. Nothing. His eyes traveled over the door, searching for a means in. The heavy iron hinges were beyond his abilities without tools and the door was made of thick, sturdy oak.

He turned at the sound of footsteps slapping against the floor and moved aside for two men, both with axes. “Master Walcote!” cried one of the men. They turned to Adam for permission and he gave them a desperate nod.

Standing squarely before the door, they hacked at the oak, one hitting the door while the other swung back—a rhythmic thudding of blade on wood precisely timed. The wood splintered little by little, breaking off in long staves and flying chips. Adam danced on the balls of his feet behind them, blinking from each hard blow of the ax. At last they broke through the wood above the door ring. They stopped their swinging and one of the men reached through the tight opening to unbolt the door.

When it swung opened, Adam barked a surprised shout and froze. The two men with the axes searched past their steward and murmured prayers as they crossed themselves. Adam stumbled forward into the room.

A prickle started up Crispin’s spine, and when he peered in, his instincts were confirmed. Nicholas Walcote lay on his back on the floor, mouth agape, eyes dilated, with an irregular patch of red beneath him.

2

Sheriff Simon Wynchecombe stood in the center of the room and surveyed its cloth-draped walls, the cold hearth, splintered door, and finally Crispin. The sheriff narrowed his eyes. “What, by the mass, are
you
doing here?”

Crispin leaned against a far wall. He shrugged. “I happened to be in the parish.”

Wynchecombe sneered. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

Crispin opened his mouth to answer but then thought better of it.

Besides Wynchecombe, there was another sheriff of London, John More, but Crispin seldom saw him performing his appointed task for the king. He supposed the man used his authority elsewhere. Perhaps he favored penning writs. On the other hand, Simon Wynchecombe was often on the streets when trouble arose. Crispin suspected it had less to do with sheriffing and more to do with a step closer toward the mayor’s office.

Sheriff Wynchecombe, tall and dark-haired, cut a menacing figure. A meticulously coifed black mustache curved downward over his upper lip. A black beard neatly trimmed into two curls sprouted from his chin. He scanned Crispin with his usual irritated scorn before dismissing him.

The sheriff turned to Adam and leaned over him, pressing a finger into his chest in emphasis. Crispin chuckled to himself. He’d been in Adam’s shoes many a time, but Adam didn’t seem to be faring quite as well.

Crispin turned his attention to the quiet room and to the body of Nicholas Walcote. He’d been stabbed multiple times in the back. There was no sign of a struggle, no cast-over chairs or torn drapery. The blood had stopped running long ago. Such bodies he remembered from battlefields. These were the kind found in the morning after the corpse had lain all night. He could tell that Walcote was killed sometime the previous night by the look of the blood and the gray skin pallor.

Crispin had made a cursory inspection earlier, but Adam had prevented him from a more thorough search of the room, preferring to wait for the sheriff.

He glanced back at Wynchecombe, still pinning Adam to the wall. Smirking, Crispin wagered the servant didn’t prefer Wynchecombe’s company now.

He stepped over a spilled cup of wine to get nearer. The cup lay rim down. Wine splattered across the buffet. Or was it blood? He crouched down and squinted.

Wine.

He left the cup where it lay and crossed the room to examine the window. It was tightly barred. The dust on the sill told him that it had not been opened in some time. When he moved toward the door to examine the twisted lock, the sheriff’s man stood in his way.

Almost wide enough to fill the arch, the man’s shoulders blocked the outer gallery’s light. His flat nose looked as if someone once flattened it for him. Crispin remembered his name was William.

A commotion at the doorway turned their heads. Philippa Walcote burst into the room trailed by anxious servants, reaching for her. She put her hand to her throat and stared wild-eyed at her husband before she let out a resounding scream.

Wynchecombe motioned to Crispin, and Crispin grabbed the woman’s shoulders and dragged her from the room and out into the gallery.

“Now Mistress,” he soothed. But when she refused to stop screaming, he opened his hand and slapped her.

She drew up and clamped her lips together. A red mark formed on her pale skin.

“My apologies,” he said and released her.

She touched her cheek. Her wild eyes scrambled over Crispin’s unfamiliar face, trying to place him. When this proved futile, she took a deep breath, and with it color returned to her face. Her rounded eyes tapered to drowsy slits and she looked at Crispin anew. He returned her gaze with interest, catching the careful relaxing of her shoulders and of her thoroughly taking in the scene before her. It was with surprising calm that she turned to him.

“I don’t understand none of this. Tell me what happened,” she said. He expected her voice to be high and melodic, but heard instead something low and husky. And arousing. Her accent, too, rubbed unexpectedly coarse on his ear with dropped aitches and a certain edge to the form of her speech.

“We do not know. He was murdered. By the look of the—By the look of him, I would say it was sometime last night.”

“How do you know?”

“The blood. It does not run and—”

Her face, so stiff in its attempt at calm, crumpled behind her hand. He felt like kicking himself. “My apologies,” he said again.

She shook her head and breathed deeply. Crispin noticed she wore the same gown from the previous night, but now a tiny tear gapped the seam at her shoulder. An impatient lover, her paramour. The rip reminded him he need not be so courteous.

She looked over her shoulder at the hovering servants. “You must have work to do!” she snapped. They stopped chattering and raised their heads before moving down the gallery, looking back and whispering to one another. She closed her eyes and exhaled a tremulous sigh. Cracking her eyes opened again she turned toward Crispin. “What’s to be done?”

He admired her spirit. Or was it merely her impatience to get it over with? “Did your husband entertain any guests last night?”

“No. None that I know of.”

“You have not seen him since last night?”

“No.” Her chin trembled and she pressed her hands to her lips to stop it.

“When he did not come to bed, you did not question it?”

“He often works late with his books.”

“Or could it be that you yourself came to bed late?”

She studied him with interest. “Tell me who you are.”

He wasn’t often disarmed by a pretty face, but he found himself embarrassed by her perusal of his threadbare appearance. “My name is Crispin Guest.”

“Are you the sheriff?”

“Indeed, no. Your husband hired me.”

“Hired for what?”

He slid his jaw. “I’m called the Tracker…among other things.”

“Tracker?” Panic struck her voice. “What is lost?”

“Nothing, Mistress. I was hired for personal business.”

“Personal? Was your business discharged before…before…”

“Very nearly.”

“May I know what it is?”

He looked for a distraction in the empty gallery, but he saw only a rushlight dropping its burning embers to the floor. He decided to gauge her reaction. “I was following you, Mistress.”

She looked askance. A good performance, he thought.

“He hired you to follow me?”

“Yes.”

Her hands didn’t seem to know what to do; curl into fists, rub her skirt, claw his face. “So these ‘other things’ you do,” she said tightly, “they involve spying on innocent women?”

“Not
innocent
women.”

He would have been disappointed had she not slapped him, and she made certain he felt no disappointment. Crispin’s ears rang with it and his cheek burned.

“Madam,” he said sharply. “Do you deny your infidelity?”

“Aye!”

“Yet I saw you only last night with my own eyes.”

“Then your eyes deceive you.”

“How can you say—” He shook his head. “I am speechless.”

“What does it matter? My husband is dead.” Her chin trembled again, and she sucked in her pouting lower lip.

He frowned.
And so are my chances of collecting my thruppence
. “True. My business with you is now over.”

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I might need your help.”

Crispin’s brows rose. “For what purpose?”

“There is more here than you know,” she whispered and jumped when a distant step in the gallery echoed. Her rounded eyes searched the shadows. “Not here. Where can I come to speak with you?”

“My lodgings. On the Shambles above a tinker shop. Anyone can tell you which it is.”

“An hour’s time, then.”

She stepped away but he stopped her with a light touch to her sleeve. “It was Master Walcote who hired me. I do not think—”

Her mouth hardened. “Loyal, are you? Good. I can use a loyal man. One I can trust.”

“Very well. My fee is—”

“I don’t care what your fee is.” She glared at him one last time before she wheeled and hurried into the shadows of shuddering tapestries and flickering rushlights.

He watched her shapely form depart and recalled the sight of her breasts from the previous night. A wash of heat warmed his face.
Jesu, Crispin. Is quim all you can think about when her husband lies dead in the next room?

He walked slowly back into the solar and approached a thoughtful Wynchecombe.

“This is a puzzle,” said the sheriff. “The solar was locked from the inside.”

“Yes. And the casement is also untouched.”

“Then how the hell did the murderer get in or out?”

“Perhaps he was invited in.”

“But how did he get out?”

“
That
is the puzzle,” Crispin agreed. He walked to the cold hearth and stepped into the gray ashes. Bracing his hands against the inside of the flue, he looked up the chimney.

The sheriff snorted. “Do you think he took to the air?”

“A rope would do. But it looks too narrow for a man. Give me a boost.”

“
What
did you say?”

Crispin sighed. Distraction made him forget he was no longer Wynchecombe’s better. “I beg your pardon, my lord.” He made only a slight bow.

Wynchecombe smirked. “William. Help him.”

William smiled and sauntered toward Crispin who took a cautionary step back into the hearth. “What troubles you?” said William, opening and closing his large hands. “Don’t you want my help?” William crouched and made a stirrup with his interlaced hands. “Go on,” he urged with a chuckle. The big man’s fat fingers made a solid step. “Give us your foot. Or do you fear me?”

Crispin had been on the wrong side of William before, and he recalled very well how solid those hands could be. He took a deep breath and placed his foot on William’s palms and pushed himself up, balancing his legs across the chimney’s opening. He reached for a handhold but found little he could easily grip. The stones radiated warmth, and his nose filled with the stench of smoke. Creosote crumbled and broke off under his groping fingers. He found he could not stand up straight. At his shoulders the chimney narrowed with barely room for his head. He looked up and saw sky but no room for a man to shimmy up the passage.

When he jumped back down into the room, William laughed.

“What’s so damned funny?”

“You,” said William. “You look like a Moor.”

He looked down at his hands covered in black soot and imagined his face looked little better.

“You there!” said the sheriff to Adam. “Get him a basin and water.”

Adam moved to comply. Crispin swore at the state of his clothes.

“Never mind that,” said Wynchecombe. “What about this body? Stabbed five, six times.”

“Not just the back,” said Crispin. “He was stabbed on the chest as well. Look here.”

The sheriff bent over. A small jagged tear of the cloth at the collar, and a thin strand of blood were all that indicated a wound. “That?” Wynchecombe delicately pulled the cloth aside to examine the small puncture. “This did no damage.”

Adam returned and set the basin and jug on the sideboard. Crispin tried to push up his sleeves with his forearms and hoped the servant would help him, but Adam refused to look in his direction. With a muttered curse, Crispin managed, and cleaned his hands and face with the water, soap cake, and towel. He brushed at his clothes with the towel and finally tossed the cloth aside.

He crouched beside the body. “Walcote was stabbed in the back first.” He turned the corpse slightly, lifting him from the floor. “See. Most of the blood is here. Probably breathing his last when he hit the floor. Now look at his arms.” He lifted the closest one and showed the palms and sleeves.

“Nothing,” said the sheriff.

“Precisely. Nothing. If he struggled, his sleeves and palms would most assuredly be slashed and bloodied. He was in no fit state when the attacker came at him from the front.”