2 A Season of Knives: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (16 page)

‘If you think of any other odd thing, will you let me know, Mr Fenwick?’ he asked.

Fenwick nodded, and came to show him out. ‘Frank’s vennel?’ Carey asked, to be sure.

‘Ay.’ The undertaker sighed. ‘Poor fellow. Nobody seems sorry to see him go.’

Carey found the alley without much trouble and walked up and down, not knowing at all what he was looking for. Certainly Fenwick was right, there was no blood to speak of in the mud. The mark of where the body had lain could be seen, and the scuff marks of Lowther and his men, sightseers and Fenwick’s men as well. The wheels of Fenwick’s handcart were clearly printed in the soft combination of rush sweepings and animal dung that floored the alley, though they had turned into little runnels with the rain.

Carey stared at them for a long time, trying to make his brain work and then cursed softly. He walked out of the alley and back along up English street.

***

Mrs John Leigh had three serving girls to help her in the house, and a boy and a man to serve in the draper’s shop on the ground floor. Of her children, two were boys and old enough to go to the City grammar school by the Cathedral; the other three were girls, two of whom trotted around in their little kirtles and caps getting into fights, skipping rope in their yard and occasionally getting in her way when they decided to be helpful. The youngest girl was fourteen months old, not long out of swaddling clothes and with no more sense than a puppy. She was in her baby-walker at the moment, a round sausage of cloth tied about her head to cushion it when she fell over or bumped herself and currently her favourite game was making her wheeled wooden babywalker go as fast as it could over the expensive rush-matting until it rammed into one of the walls. All the new oak panelling was dented along the bottom where the babywalker had bashed it. Each time she made an earsplitting crash she crowed ‘Waaarrrgh’, and the noise went through Mrs Leigh’s head like an awl. It was worse than the steady hammering from the men working on the roof now the rain had stopped. She had come into the small room over the shop at the front of the house to rest and do some sewing. However, rest was impossible. She was in too great a state of tension and there was too much noise in the children’s room next door where Jeanie the wetnurse was with the baby. Why didn’t the silly girl take the baby into the garden?

Somebody knocked at the street door. One of the lazy creatures finally went down the stairs and opened it. There was a mutter of voices and a man’s boots on the stair. The girl came fluttering into the sitting room where Mrs Leigh had her feet up, followed by the long-legged new Deputy Warden. He was so tall he had to keep his head tilted to be clear of the ceiling beams. Evidently he had just come in from the Border since he was in his damp leather jack and carrying his helmet. Mrs Leigh hadn’t seen him before, but had heard a great deal about him from those who had. None of them had lied and Mrs Leigh wistfully wished she were not in the last month of pregnancy and wearing her oldest English-cut gown. He bowed to her, saw her shifting her swollen feet to the floor to stand up and return the courtesy, and waved a long hand at her.

‘Please, Mrs Leigh, don’t tire yourself. May I ask you a few questions about the tragic murder that happened this morning?’

Mrs Leigh went pale and her hand flew to her mouth.

‘Murder? This morning?’ she trembled.

‘Of Mr Atkinson,’ Carey told her kindly. ‘Had you not heard? I’m sorry, I would have…’

‘N…no, no. I…well. Poor James.’

‘He was found in an alley with his throat slit this morning,’ Carey explained.

‘In an…alley,’ repeated Mrs Leigh, still white-faced and shaking. ‘I…I…what a terrible thing. He…he was my half-brother.’

‘I’m sorry indeed,’ Carey was serious. ‘I had forgotten that. If this distresses you too much, I can return at another time…’

‘No. I would…like to help. What did you wish to know?’

There was the squeak and rattle of wheels in the next room, followed by a crash and a delighted ‘Waauuugh!’

Carey turned his head at the noise. ‘What’s that?’

Mrs Leigh winced. Her headache was much worse. ‘My daughter. She likes crashing her babywalker into walls…’

Carey grinned. ‘According to my mother, I had a habit of diving out of mine, preferably into the fire.’

Mrs Leigh smiled back at him wanly. ‘It is…very wearing, but she screams if we prevent her.’

‘I won’t keep you, Mrs Leigh; I can see you need your rest. All I wanted to ask you was whether you had happened to see Mr Atkinson leave his house yesterday morning on business. Nobody else seems to have done so.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Can you tell me anything else about the Atkinsons?’

Mrs Leigh lifted her head and sniffed. ‘I have nothing to do with either of them.’

‘But you are neighbours and kin.’

‘He is…was my youngest half-brother. Unfortunately he made a bad marriage. We have not spoken for several years. I did not wish to have anything to do with him or…her.’

‘Why not?’

Mrs Leigh’s small pink mouth pouched in at the corners in disapproval.

‘Mrs Atkinson is a disgrace to the family.’

Carey’s eyebrows went up and he waited.

‘She is…er…she is fraudulently preventing me from inheriting her house which was clearly intended to be mine and she is also a wicked unchaste woman.’

‘Oh?’

Mrs Leigh looked prim. ‘It’s too disgraceful to repeat.’

‘That’s a pity. Any little information, no matter how… disgraceful, might help me clear my servant.’

Squeak, squeak, rattle, rattle, crash! ‘Waaauuugh!’

Mrs Leigh stayed silent looking out of the little diamond-paned window beside her. She had a baby’s nightshirt on her lap and was stitching at it desultorily.

‘My husband, you know,’ she said, ‘is John Leigh, brother to Henry Leigh who holds Rockcliffe Castle for my Lord Scrope.’

‘I know,’ said Carey. ‘I was playing cards with him the other night—at the same card party, I mean, not actually with him.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Leigh distantly, obviously not knowing or not wishing to think about John Leigh’s losses. ‘He is a prominent citizen and has a position to maintain. We are impossibly crowded in this house, what with the children and the servants, and the warehouse and showroom downstairs. My aunt always intended me to have the house next door, though she leased it to…my half-brother out of charity. Perhaps
he
would have let us have the house, but
she
has taken wicked advantage and the case is in Chancery at the moment.’

Carey tutted sympathetically. ‘Legal disputes are very wearing,’ he said. ‘I have one rumbling along myself with one of my brothers.’

‘And very expensive,’ agreed Mrs Leigh. ‘What the barrister charges is…criminal.’

Carey nodded with a straight face. Sometimes he wished he had become a lawyer, but he soon came to his senses again.

‘I hope he’s a good one?’ he said.

‘Very good, I understand,’ said Mrs Leigh unhappily. ‘Or he should be. Unfortunately, that woman has managed to get the services of a young man who has just become the judge’s son-in-law.’

‘Oh dear.’

Mrs Leigh nodded at him. ‘It seems very hard. We are not unreasonable. We even offered the Atkinsons another house, a better house, that we own on Scotch street, but she will not see reason. And she keeps a cow in her yard.’

‘Oh,’ said Carey, not knowing if he was supposed to be shocked about something so normal.

‘That’s where she meets her lover,’ said Mrs Leigh.

‘Ah…?’

‘In the cow byre. He creeps in from the garden backing on behind, she goes out in the morning and evening and that’s where they meet, the dirty sinful…Anyway, she disgraces the whole street.’

‘Do her other neighbours know about this.’

‘Of course they do. It’s common knowledge she’s got no use for her rightful husband and wants to marry Andy Nixon.’

Carey blinked a little at the venom in Mrs Leigh’s voice. ‘Are you saying that Mrs Atkinson might have killed her own husband?’

Mrs Leigh looked away. ‘I would not wish to lay such accusations against anyone,’ she said primly. ‘However, it’s a fact that she has a lover.’

‘Is it, by God?’ said Carey thoughtfully. ‘Well, well.’

Squeak, rattle, rattle, crash…
crash!
‘Waah! Waah!
Mama!
’

‘She’s fallen over,’ Carey explained helpfully. Mrs Leigh wearily moved her sore feet to the floor and started the rocking movements that would get her out of her chair. The Deputy Warden offered her his arm which she took gratefully.

‘I’ll see to her,’ she said. ‘The idiot girls are useless besoms. Did you want to know anything else, Sir Robert?’

He was looking satisfactorily thoughtful and absent-mindedly helped her to the door.

‘I may do later,’ he said. ‘May I come back some time, Mrs Leigh?’

She smiled at him. ‘Of course, Sir Robert,’ she said. ‘Whatever I can do to help.’

He smiled in return and clattered down the narrow stairs, leaning back and ducking his head to avoid the low ceiling beams. He went through the shop where Jock Burn was serving. Mrs Leigh longed to shout down and send the man for her husband so she could talk to him, but she couldn’t yet. She waddled off to see after her smallest daughter who was still screeching.

***

Carey was deep in thought as he walked up Castlegate towards Bessie’s alehouse, at last noticing properly how clammy and uncomfortable his jack was. The outer leather was beginning to dry, but the inner padding still squelched whenever he moved his arms. He was supposed to be out on patrol tonight as well and he refused to think about going to bed for a nap as he had planned. He simply didn’t have the time if he wanted to find out as much as he could before the trail went cold. Also, he was putting off going back to his chambers in the Castle. He didn’t know what he might find there, whether Scrope would believe Lowther against him or give him the benefit of the doubt. The whole thing was ridiculous, but still very dangerous. He didn’t seriously think Scrope would dare to execute him on such a trumped-up charge, for all Philadelphia’s worries. But he might well find himself in gaol with no ability to help Barnabus, while evil tales galloped down the roads to London and the Queen. The whole thing could ruin him, in which case he might as well be dead, because if he went back to London with no prospect of office and no hope of favour from the Queen, his creditors would certainly put him in the Fleet prison for his mountainous debts. And there he would rot.

He paused to look unseeingly at one of the shops, a cobbler’s, with a bright striped awning over the counter to keep the rain off the samples of leather and made shoes displayed there.

He heard his own voice out of the past, assuring Scrope that he could deal with Lowther when they had been talking the day after he arrived. Evidently he had seriously underestimated the man and his influence. That had been stupid of him.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ asked the man behind the counter hopefully.

‘Er…no. Thank you.’

He left the shop behind him and carried on to where Bessie’s alehouse squatted, unofficial but tolerated, by the wall of the Castle, feeling a thousand years old and heavier than a cannon. For a moment he thought about simply going into the inn courtyard, fetching a horse out of Bessie’s stables and heading north for the Debateable Land. Jock of the Peartree would receive him, might even take him in; they had come to an odd sort of understanding at the top of Netherby tower, despite the old reiver’s deplorable character. He had his sword and his harness, he could hire out as one of the many broken men of the area…

It was a fantasy. It wasn’t that he was too brave to do it, rather the reverse: he was afraid to turn his back on everything he knew, on his cousin the Queen, on his sister…And furthermore he was feeling too tired, he’d probably fall asleep on his horse and wander into a bog.

Bessie’s was packed, with no sign of Dodd or anyone else of Carey’s troop. As he stood in the doorway, peering into the smoky shadows, Carey knew that every eye in the place was on him and that conversations were stopping in each direction. He smiled faintly and shouldered his way through the throng to the bar.

‘A quart of double-double,’ he said to Bessie, who looked at him slitty-eyed. ‘On the slate.’

She snorted. ‘I want your bill paid, Sir Robert,’ she said. ‘It’s getting on for eleven shillings now.’

‘I’ve no money on me, though I’ve plenty up at the Castle,’ said Carey humbly, wondering why things could never let up and be simple. ‘Can you not extend my credit until this evening?’

She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘I give credit to the men I know will come back,’ she said as if she had been reading his mind. No doubt about it, Atkinson’s murder and Lowther’s accusations were all over Carlisle and probably well into Scotland by now.

‘Och, for the love of God,’ boomed a rasping voice beside him. ‘Give the man a drink, woman, he needs it. Put in on my tab if ye must.’

Bessie snorted again, flounced off to draw the beer. Carey turned to see Will the Tod Armstrong beaming up at him, his girth clearing three struggling would-be drinkers away from the bar. The beer slammed down beside him. Carey picked up the tankard and swallowed. It went down a treat; he’d forgotten how long it was since he’d put anything in his belly, and his headache and weariness started to recede.