13 - The Midsummer Rose (23 page)

‘Mmm.’ Silas puckered up his mouth. ‘They say Robin Avenel wasn’t robbed. Still had his rings and purse on him when he was found. Leastways, that’s what I was told. In which case, it doesn’t sound much like thieves to me.’

I shrugged. ‘Time will tell.’

The bright eyes regarded me shrewdly and Silas scratched his deformed shoulder with long, talon-like nails. ‘Do you connect this murder with what happened to you at Rownham Passage?’

‘Oh, you’ve heard the story now, have you? I didn’t think, when we talked the day before yesterday, that you knew anything about it. In fact, you enquired if my interest meant that I wanted to hire the house myself.’

‘Ah!’ He appeared to be unnecessarily disconcerted by this remark. ‘It would seem that that particular piece of gossip was slow in reaching me for some reason or another.’

‘Very slow,’ I agreed. ‘It happened three weeks and more ago.’

‘Well, there you are, then!’ he exclaimed, spreading wide his beautiful hands, as if proving something.

But what he had proved I wasn’t quite sure. It struck me as odd that the story had passed him by, when practically everyone else in the city had known of it from the moment I was brought home in the farmer’s cart. I tried to work out why this fact might be significant, but failed.

‘I must be going,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the information.’

‘I hope it’s been of some help.’ His eyes twinkled roguishly. ‘I shall have your order ready for you soon. A large size, I think you said?’

I suddenly felt embarrassed and made my escape. The suffocating heat of the midday streets had lessened, and between the overhanging roofs I could see a wrack of feathered cloud imprinted on the blue. I thought of Luke Prettywood and the apprentices still languishing in the pillory and was grateful on their behalf as well as my own. I paused, pondering my next move, then decided to see for myself the scene of the crime.

I made my way, therefore, to Jewry Lane. A man crossing the Frome Bridge in my direction hailed me.

‘Ah! Chapman! Daydreaming as usual?’ The tone was pitched somewhere between the jocular and the offensive.

I smiled. ‘Master Capgrave! What a pleasure! Have you deserted your post as gatekeeper?’

He told me he was on his way home to Fish Lane, so he joined me, his rolling gait, reminiscent of a sailor’s, being the only way in which his spindly legs could maintain the balance of his short, squat body. The small hazel eyes beneath their beetling brows regarded me knowingly.

‘I’m not on duty today. Come to see where Master Avenel was murdered, have you?’

‘I’m curious, yes. But there’s more to it than that. Sergeant Manifold has arrested Burl Hodge and I’m not convinced of his guilt.’

‘So you’ve decided to do a little sleuthing of your own, is that it? Ah well! Good luck to you. I’ve never thought Dick Manifold one half as clever as he thinks himself. But I can’t assist you, I’m afraid.’

‘You’ve given evidence in the case. The sergeant told me.’

‘Then he must also have told you that I saw nothing. The body wasn’t here when I went home yesterday evening.’

‘You couldn’t possibly have missed seeing it, I suppose?’

A stupid question which thoroughly deserved the scathing look he turned upon me and the note of utter contempt with which he answered.

‘No! I couldn’t have missed it. What sort of unobservant idiot do you take me for? There were precious few people about. They were all at the Midsummer Eve feast, stuffing their guts and getting drunk, while those poor buggers like me, who are always at the public’s beck and call, were keeping the city safe. Even my wife,’ he added viciously, ‘had gone off with her friends.’

It was on the tip of my tongue to point out that he could have joined the feast when he came off duty, but I had summed him up as one of those people who enjoy a grudge. So I merely asked, ‘Did you see anyone at all?’

He shrugged. ‘Only old Witherspoon, the apothecary. I don’t think he cares for all this junketing, either. It’s his deformity, I suppose. People laugh at him.’

‘What was he doing?’ I demanded.

‘Doing?’ The gatekeeper sneered. ‘What should he be doing? He was just walking along by Saint Giles’s Church and minding his own business. Going home, presumably.’

‘Then he could have been to the feast and left early.’

‘Could have been, aye. But I doubt it. I told you. He isn’t comfortable in the presence of a crowd, especially of young people when they’ve had more to drink than is good for them. They pick on him. Make fun of him.’ I wondered if the same applied to the gatekeeper, but kept my thoughts to myself. ‘Although now I come to think of it,’ Edgar continued, ‘maybe he had had a drink or two. He was behaving rather oddly.’

‘In what way?’

‘We–ell … It was nothing really. Just the manner in which he was walking. He was keeping close to the wall of Saint Giles’s and the other buildings, and taking very precise, evenly paced steps. I spoke to him and remarked on the increase of noise coming from the direction of the city streets, where the feast was being held. He didn’t answer, although he’d heard me. He seemed to be concentrating on his feet, and it did occur to me then that he might have had a cup or two of cuckoo-foot ale. But when he reached Saint John’s Arch, he turned round and called out, “Good evening to you, Master Capgrave! A growing crescendo of noise, as you say.” Well, that wasn’t quite what I’d said, as you can guess. A bloody great row was what I’d called it. “It sounds to me,” he adds, “as if there’s trouble brewing. I’m going home while the going’s good, and if you’ve any sense you’ll do the same.” So I did. And he was right, as it turned out. Apprentices’ riot. Haven’t had one of them in Bristol for a year or two now.’

‘What about your wife? Was she all right?’

‘She’s always all right,’ he answered morosely. ‘Can’t get rid of her … And talk of the devil! I must be late for supper.’

A very tall, almost emaciated woman was bearing purposefully down upon us from the direction of Fish Lane.

‘Mistress Capgrave,’ I said before she had time to open her mouth, ‘I’m afraid I’m to blame for detaining your husband.’

I smiled seductively, and for the first time that day my charm seemed to do the trick. The set, angry lines of the angular face softened slightly.

‘Oh well, in that case …’ she simpered.

‘Your husband tells me you were at the feast yesterday evening. I hope you weren’t harmed in the riot.’

‘I can look after myself,’ she retorted grimly. ‘But there wouldn’t have been a riot if some people hadn’t deliberately stirred things up, telling the apprentices that they were put upon and overworked, while others enjoyed themselves. Encouraging them to be discontented with their lot. Easy enough to do when the silly fools are full of cuckoo-foot ale.’

‘
Who
was stirring up the apprentices?’ I asked.

Mistress Capgrave sniffed. ‘Well, there were two of them that I could see. One was that stranger, the beggarman who’s been hanging around the city this past week or so. And the other was Apothecary Witherspoon.’

‘Witherspoon?’ Her husband was scornful. ‘He wasn’t at the feast.’

‘If you mean he wasn’t eating and drinking and joining in the games, you’re right. But he was there. My friend and I saw him. Heard him, too. We were seated at the end of a table where some butcher’s apprentices were cooking meat over an open fire and sweating like the pigs they were roasting. Witherspoon was telling them how they were nothing but slaves, how their masters took advantage of them.’

‘What could be his purpose in doing such a stupid thing?’ the gatekeeper grumbled. ‘He might have guessed what would come of it. Silly old fool! The heat’s making him lose his wits.’

‘And the beggarman?’ I asked Mistress Capgrave. ‘You said he was inciting the apprentices to riot as well.’

‘Inciting is too strong a word,’ she demurred. ‘Sympathizing with them just enough to make them feel mutinous is nearer the mark. He was hanging around, I suppose, hoping to cadge some scraps of food and just grumbling about the world in general.’

‘Do you think that Master Witherspoon and the beggar might have been in collusion?’

‘Why should they have been? The apothecary, in spite of his odd appearance, is a respectable citizen and unlikely to have any truck with a beggarman. And certainly not such a strange one.’

‘Then why do you think they were doing it?’

‘I can’t speak for the beggar,’ Mistress Capgrave said. ‘Apothecary Witherspoon was just being thoughtless and irresponsible, and I’m on my way to tell him so now.’

Edgar was disappointed. ‘I thought you’d come to tell me my supper’s ready.’

‘Food! Food! It’s all you think about,’ his wife grumbled, and she strode on her way.

Edgar looked uncomfortable, aware that his image as a person of authority might be permanently tarnished in my eyes.

‘I’ll be getting home, then,’ he said with what dignity he could muster. ‘I’ve been told that Robin Avenel’s body was found just over there, outside the church door. Killed with his own dagger, too. Well, good afternoon to you, chapman. Good luck.’

He rolled away along the quayside. I watched him for a moment or two, mulling over what I had been told by Mistress Capgrave and trying to work out what it might mean. As far as the apothecary was concerned, I saw no good reason why she should not be right. It had been less intentional malevolence than a stupid blunder; an attempt to sympathize with those he felt to be as much the victims of an unfair existence as himself. But Timothy Plummer was a different matter. There was nothing haphazard about any of his actions: what he did, he did with a purpose. So why would he want an apprentices’ riot? There was only one answer that I could think of. He wanted a diversion for some business of his own. The murder of Robin Avenel?

I approached the Jewry Lane entrance to Saint Giles’s Church and scrutinized the ground just outside the door and for several feet all around. But there was nothing to be seen. This was hardly surprising. The storm of the previous night would have washed away all traces of blood, and eradicated any signs of a struggle. Nevertheless, I made a thorough search just in case there was anything at all to be found, but I was out of luck. After a few moment’s contemplation of the cobbles, I pushed open the door and went inside, closing it carefully behind me.

It was, as always, very cool and quiet within, the noise and bustle of the quayside penetrating the thick stone only as the distant echoes of a dream. The gold and reds, the silver and blues, the bronze and greens of walls and woodwork glowed as warmly as the precious jewels that adorned the statues of Saint Giles and Our Lady. A few candles were burning on the altar, but today’s supplicants had been few in number, and the one that I took and lit was not intended as a votive offering, but to light my way downstairs.

Why I felt this sudden impulse to visit the crypt, I wasn’t sure. Looking back, I feel convinced that God was taking a hand in my affairs again, but at the time, most unusually, my suspicions were not aroused.

At the bottom of the steps, I paused, raising my candle aloft, its soft golden radiance illuminating the shelves of coffins. I slipped my pack from my back, reflecting guiltily that I had sold nothing. Adela would not be pleased. She would put two and two together and realize that I had never had any intention of selling my wares, but had, in fact, been meddling in affairs that should, by rights, not concern me.

I advanced slowly into the second chamber of the old synagogue cellars. There was the familiar smell of must and damp and the sweet, stale scent of rotting wood. Some of the pieces of furniture had been stored down there so long – their existence probably now forgotten by their owners – that they were disintegrating. Experimentally, I touched the back of an old nursing chair, which promptly keeled over as one of its front legs fell off. Much of it was infested with woodworm, and a child’s cradle nearby was draped in cobwebs.

I raised my candle higher and went forward into the third chamber. As always, the place gave me a sense of unease and foreboding which I found difficult to explain. The shadows curtseyed across the walls, making the very stones seem alive, the home of something dark and evil.

With an effort, I pulled myself together. I was a grown man of twenty-six, too old to be indulging in such fantasies. Yet I could feel the hairs lifting on the nape of my neck and I was suddenly convinced that someone else was in the chamber with me. I whirled around, painfully aware that I was unarmed, having foolishly left my cudgel at home.

There was, of course, no one there. Cautiously, I prowled back through the second cellar to the crypt, but both rooms were empty of any human life except my own. Then I walked back again, still unsure what it was that I was looking for.

The dark stain was in the middle of the floor in the third and final cellar, easy enough to overlook amidst the crowding shadows, but suddenly made obvious by the way in which the light was slanting from my candle. I dropped to my knees, placing the candlestick on the dusty floor, and rubbed it. The stain had dried, but I was certain it was blood, and a few dark, crusty flakes came away on my fingers. I noticed, also, that the film of dust covering the flagstones nearby was very disturbed, as if there had been some kind of a struggle. On each occasion I had been down here, there had always been footprints, but I knew that Marianne Avenel and Luke Prettywood used the cellar as a trysting place; and if them, why not other lovers?

The disturbance of the dust today, however, suggested a scuffle. Someone had recently been attacked here. And killed? Was this where Robin Avenel had
really
been murdered? But if so, who would have moved his body, and why? What would be the point of shifting it, especially if the killer had been Burl Hodge? He would have had nothing to gain … Unless, of course, he had been trying to make it look like a street killing. But in that case, why did he fail to remove Robin’s purse and rings? Because he had no time? Because he was interrupted by the sounds of the approaching Watch? Had he panicked and run?

This was ridiculous. I was beginning to argue in favour of Burl being the murderer. I must start again.