13 - The Midsummer Rose (7 page)

‘What is he today?’ my stepson asked.

‘A log!’ Elizabeth shouted. ‘Wake up, Father! You’re a log and we’re floating on you down the river Frome!’

Her penetrating tones woke Adela, who groaned and rolled on to her back, throwing out an arm and hitting me in the face as she did so. My two young limbs of Satan laughed so much they fell off the bed, so I wriggled into a sitting position before they could climb back up again. Inevitably, we were joined by Hercules, who tore upstairs, uttering short, ecstatic barks, while Adam stood up in his crib and roared to be lifted out.

‘He’s had me dancing attendance four times in the night,’ Adela announced ominously, struggling up from our goose-feather mattress in order to comply with her younger son’s wishes.

I didn’t know. I hadn’t heard. I’d slept (and no doubt snored) throughout everything, and that could mean trouble. So, being so much stronger and better in every way than I had been the day before, I hastily made plans to remove myself as far as possible from Adela’s neighbourhood once breakfast was over. And if that meant riding to Rownham Passage rather than hanging around Broad Street for a glimpse of Elizabeth Alefounder or Mistress Hollyns, so be it, I decided.

It occurred to me, while eating a second bacon collop, washed down with a third beaker of ale, that a resolution made the previous evening to have nothing more to do with this case – if, indeed, a case it was – had been completely overlooked in my urgent need to get out of the house. Not that Adela often reproached me for my shortcomings, and she knew how much I had been in need of that afternoon and night’s healing sleep. But, as so often happened, she was overtired and overworked and, consequently, short-tempered.

While she washed the breakfast dishes, the children and dog went out to play in the small back yard. This was not large, and most of the space was taken up by our very own pump and lean-to privy – both undreamed-of luxuries in either of our lives until now. Add to these things an apple tree and a little flower bed where Adela had started growing herbs and simples, and the envy of many of our former friends was understandable. This was the town house of a gentleman – which I most definitely was not.

Once the contents of Cicely Ford’s will had become common knowledge, there had, inevitably, been speculation concerning the exact nature of my friendship with this young woman, several notches above me on the social scale. Margaret Walker had warned us that there would be gossip, and she had been right. All I could do was assure Adela that there had never been anything more between myself and that lovely, sad, young creature except gratitude on her part – for proving, too late, that the man she had loved was innocent of murder – and a carefully suppressed affection on mine. Adela had accepted this with her usual generosity of spirit, even though she was fully aware of my susceptibility where fair hair, blue eyes and soft, peach-bloom complexions were concerned. The fact that she herself was the exact opposite, with dark, almost black hair and liquid, deep-brown eyes seemed to convince her that my love for her was real and abiding. And that was indeed the truth. Nevertheless she also knew that I was a man, with a man’s appetites and a roving eye, and was easy prey to flattery and admiration.

I began to inspect the contents of my pack, which had not been replenished since my illness. But there must have been something in my attitude, in my indifferent glance as I turned the remaining items over, that made my wife say sharply, ‘If you’re fully recovered, I hope you intend getting on the road again as soon as possible. We need the money, Roger.’

I turned and made a grab for her, managing to get an arm about her waist and trying to steal a kiss.

‘You are in a bad mood! I know! I know! You’ve had a rotten night while I was snoring my head off. So let me put a smile back on your face. While the children are outside, let’s go upstairs for a while.’

She pushed me away, almost violently. ‘I can’t be doing with all that just now, Roger!’ She sounded exasperated. ‘Men never have any sense of time, how short a day is or how much a woman has to do. Cleaning, cooking, going to market, preserving, mending, teaching the children their lessons.’

I knew that her protest was justified, but I felt hurt and angry at her rejection.

‘If that’s how you feel, then I’ll be off.’ I shouldered my pack and grabbed my cudgel from the kitchen corner.

‘Sweetheart! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to be so abrupt,’ Adela began, but she was still flushed and angry.

‘I know,’ I said lightly. ‘You’re busy. I understand.’ And so I did, but I allowed my tone to imply the opposite. ‘Well, I’ll be off. Don’t expect me back much before curfew.’

‘Roger! Wait!’

I pretended I hadn’t heard, and let myself out of the kitchen into the flagstoned passageway beyond. I hadn’t even bothered to summon Hercules, but had left him, along with the children, to be an additional burden on Adela.

By the time I began to feel ashamed of myself, I had walked as far as the Tolzey, where I managed to purchase a number of small goods – laces, needles, ribbons and suchlike – at very reasonable prices, and which I would be able to sell in the surrounding villages and hamlets for a slightly increased sum. Then I walked down to the Backs and the ships moored along the quayside of the river Avon to see if I could pick up any merchandise of a more exotic nature. Some of the masters were not as scrupulous as they should have been, and had no compunction in stealing and selling various items from the owners’ cargoes.

With my pack now three-quarters full, I decided to set out for Rownham Passage without further delay. I needed to find out for myself what had happened eleven days earlier, when I had been left for drowned by that murderous pair of women. This need was made all the more urgent by the discovery, since I awoke this morning, that my own belief in my story was beginning to falter. Ironically, with renewed health and strength had come increasing doubts about what I actually remembered. Had the ‘murder’ house and all that had happened there really been part of a delirium caused by my immersion in the river? Yesterday, I would have sworn not. Today, I was less certain.

But first, conscience dictated that I go home to make my peace with Adela; apprise her of my plans. I could also relieve her of Hercules’s unwanted presence. In addition, I could leave my pack, admitting that I had no intention of doing any work that day, and trusting that my recent purchases would be sufficient to convince her of my good intentions for the day after next, Monday.

Consequently, I once more directed my feet up High Street, giving the time of day to those of my acquaintances who chose to acknowledge me, and ignoring those who did not. But at the top, close to the High Cross, I ran into someone I would have given much to ignore, but who, unfortunately, was only too happy to welcome me with outstretched hand and a supercilious grin.

Richard Manifold.

‘I’m glad to see you up and about again, Roger,’ was his greeting. ‘You gave Adela and Mistress Walker a rare fright, falling into the Avon like that. You were delirious for days, they told me.’

I released his hand after the merest shake.

‘I was not delirious,’ I said, vexed. ‘I simply explained what had happened. Adela and Margaret chose not to believe me, that’s all.’

‘That’s not quite true,’ he objected, his grin broadening to insulting proportions. ‘In fact, Adela was so worried that your story might be genuine, she sent me to Rownham Passage to make enquiries.’

‘So she informed me,’ I answered shortly, taking exception to his choice of words. The idea that my wife would send him anywhere, rather than make a polite request, argued a degree of intimacy between them that I knew, in my heart of hearts, did not exist, but which raised my hackles nonetheless. ‘Of course, you didn’t discover anything.’ It was my turn to sneer.

‘There was nothing to find out.’ He smiled in his maddeningly superior fashion. ‘Well, I won’t keep you.’ He nodded at my pack. ‘I see you’re anxious to be off about your work. I fancy that house must be something of a millstone around your neck, eh? Anyway, I have important business to attend to.’

I wondered unkindly how many pockets had been picked, how many purses snatched and how many little old ladies beaten up while he had been standing chatting to me. But I remembered Adela wanted us to be friends, so I said nothing, merely hitched my pack higher on my shoulder and prepared to depart. But just at that moment, Burl Hodge’s son, Jack, came running up High Street and, seeing Richard, stopped in full flight, catching him by the arm.

‘Sergeant! You’d better come. They’ve just fished a body out of the Avon.’

‘A
body!’ Jack repeated, clutching his side. ‘A man.’

Richard Manifold frowned. ‘A drunk, I suppose, who’s fallen in the river and drowned. Nothing to get excited about. There are at least two such every week. Get a couple of men to carry the corpse to Saint Nicholas’s Church, then spread the word. Whoever’s missing a husband, son or father will turn up to claim the body eventually.’

‘You don’t understand!’ Jack shook Richard’s arm. ‘This man wasn’t drowned. He’s been stabbed through the heart.’

Richard cursed. There was now no way he could avoid going down to the Backs to take a look.

‘Very well,’ he said grudgingly. ‘There’s no need for you to come, Roger. You’d best be off home.’

But I had no intention of doing any such thing. I gave him and Jack Hodge a moment or two’s start, then followed them.

A crowd had begun to gather near Bristol Bridge, everyone looking at something – or somebody – lying on the ground. Richard Manifold shouted as he approached – ‘Make way for the law!’ – and the people fell back to let him through. He dropped to one knee and rolled the corpse on to its back, when the depredations caused by over a week in the river became horribly apparent.

I knew the body must have been in the Avon for over a week, because I recognized it without difficulty. I recognized the unnervingly thick-soled boots, the seaman’s stout frieze breeches, the hands, or what remained of them, as big as shovels. And I recognized the tattoo on the back of the left one: a ship and what had once been the word Clontarf. I noticed, too, a rent in the left breast of his leather, salt-stained jerkin, surrounded by a darker mark that had to be blood.

I touched Richard Manifold on the shoulder. ‘He’s an Irish sea captain called Eamonn Malahide.’ The name had suddenly come back to me.

The sergeant’s face, when he glanced up and realized who was speaking, was the picture of frustration.

‘I thought I told you to go home, chapman! This is none of your business. It’s strictly a matter for the law!’

‘Even the law needs witnesses and information,’ I snapped.

‘That’s right, it does,’ a voice from the crowd agreed.

Richard got slowly to his feet, looking as though he might be about to burst a blood vessel. His face was a brighter red than his hair. His blue eyes sparkled furiously.

‘And what would you know about anything?’ he asked me angrily. ‘Unless, of course, you’re the murderer.’ He sounded hopeful.

I repeated, ‘This man’s name is Eamonn Malahide. He was at the house at Rownham Passage. Adela must have explained how I saw a man murdered by one of the two women who were present. It was the reason you rode out there.’ I indicated the waterlogged corpse. ‘That is the man I saw killed.’

Richard’s features relaxed. ‘You’re not back at that nonsense, are you? Go home and lie down, Roger. You haven’t been well.’

‘I’m telling you—’ I began hotly.

But I was ignored. The sergeant was already directing two of the men in the crowd to carry the body to Saint Nicholas’s Church and give it temporary lodging in the crypt.

‘I’m telling you the truth, you dolt!’ I shouted. But instead of reacting angrily, as I had expected, Richard merely smiled in a nauseatingly patient and long-suffering way. ‘Why won’t you believe me?’ I went on desperately. ‘Why not, when the evidence is right there, in front of your eyes?’

‘Lad,’ he said, in such a condescending tone that I could barely keep myself from hitting him, ‘I’ve been to Rownham Passage. I’ve made enquiries. Nothing happened. No one saw or heard anything at all suspicious. Now, enough’s enough. Off you go and leave me to get on with the Sheriff’s business.’

I wasn’t sure that he was as unconvinced by my identification of the corpse as he was pretending to be. The trouble was that he couldn’t resist taking me down a notch or two in public, any more than I could have withstood a similar temptation. Adela was right: the rivalry between us had reached absurd proportions, especially as we both knew the true state of her affections. But Richard resented me, while I was unable to rid myself of an irrational jealousy of him.

I shrugged. ‘Let me know when you need to pick my brains again,’ was my parting shot. ‘Because you will, when you find out I’m telling the truth.’

The crowd had begun to disperse even before the corpse was removed. Violent death was too much of an everyday occurrence to engage people’s attention for long. I turned to resume my broken journey back to Small Street, and blundered into a young woman standing just behind me, catching her as she staggered and nearly fell beneath my weight. My first thought was that although she looked strained and somewhat troubled, she was extremely pretty. My second, as I was hit by a painful jolt of recognition, was that I knew her – had, indeed, once fancied myself more than a little in love with her.

‘Rowena Honeyman!’ I gasped.

It struck me later that she was nothing like as surprised to see me as I was to see her. But then, as it transpired she was staying in Bristol, I suppose she had already guessed that we might meet at some time or another.

I must have been goggling, open-mouthed, like a stranded fish. She smiled faintly and released herself from a clasp that had become more of a support for me than for her.

‘Rowena Hollyns,’ she corrected me. ‘The
Widow
Hollyns, to be precise.’

‘H–Hollyns?’ I croaked stupidly. ‘Widow Hollyns? Are you sure?’