2 A Season of Knives: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (37 page)

Carey stepped forwards, his hands held away from his sides, away from his swordhilt.

Jock turned a little, so the bolt was aimed at Carey’s chest now. He didn’t need to explain what would happen if anyone tried to rush him. At the back of his mind Carey wondered why his stomach muscles were contracted so hard when they couldn’t stop a bolt.

‘Come nae closer, Deputy,’ Jock warned.

Carey stopped. He has one shot, he thought, he can’t wind up a crossbow on horseback, but he can break the little girl’s neck with one blow. She was staring at Carey with enormous eyes. Somebody was shouting, screaming from the bunch of men-at-arms and suspects behind him, a woman’s voice. He wasn’t sure what she said; he thought it might be Kate Atkinson’s voice.

Then another voice reached him, sharp with London vowels and lost consonants.

‘I got a cuttle for the co; you get the kinchin.’

Some part of him which had picked up a smattering of thieves’ cant from Barnabus got ready to move, the tension tightening in his chest and back. Jock kicked his horse, one of the jurors’ no doubt, and moved sideways away from them, the horse prancing and shifting nervously, as its rider put pressure on ready to gallop to the Scotchgate.

Carey watched, praying Barnabus wouldn’t leave it too late, waiting, changing his mind about what to do.

The horse pecked and at once there was a cry of ‘Gip!’ from Barnabus and a soft sound in the air.

No time to see where the knife went.

Carey launched himself across the cobbles, heard the metallic twang of the crossbow, no time even to know if he’d been hit because he was at Jock’s stirrup, catching Mary’s kirtle with his left hand, the stirrup and boot with his right, jerking down with one hand, up with all his strength with the other, Jock going over the horse’s back one way, little Mary falling squealing towards him, catching her by his fingertips tangled in her kirtle and hair, putting her behind him, shouting, ‘Run to your mam!’

Still squealing, she ran. Jock had hit the ground on the other side of the horse, which swayed back and forwards, panicking, in Carey’s way and finally reared and galloped off away from the crowds, nearly kicking him in the face as it did so. Then he saw that Jock was up again, sprinting for the Scotchgate, long knife in one hand, eating knife in the other, a bright splash of blood on his arm, not serious—not like Barnabus to miss, but it had been a fiendishly difficult shot.

Carey was already after him. Jock’s short legs were a blur; he had a good nippy speed on him, but Carey had height and was using his greater length of stride now he had got moving. Dodd was on the chase as well, guttural shouts of ‘Tynedale!’ behind him, and the men at the gate running down towards them yelling ‘Carell’ in return.

Suppressing the urge to call ‘T’il est haut!’ as if he was on the hunting field, Carey dodged after Jock down a narrow alley between houses…

And almost charged straight onto Jock’s knife, lying in wait. He dodged at the last second, felt cloth part along his ribs, cannoned into a wattle and daub wall which gave alarmingly and then used its spring to launch himself back at Jock who was distracted by Dodd thundering in his wake.

He caught the little man by the shoulder and punched him hard enough in the face to send pain lancing all the way up his own arm. Jock staggered, shook his head and came back at him. Dodd swung with his sword, tearing a long gash down Jock’s arm. Jock was snarling, the alley crowded behind them with enthusiastic helpers, especially now Jock was wounded, and a sudden voice said inside Carey, ‘No, this one’s mine.’

Later he claimed he would have preferred to hang the man but had thought that a living prisoner was always a danger to others who could be made hostage by his family. He might be bought out. He might escape. He might be torn apart by the crowd.

In fact, Carey had a cold white rage in his heart for a man who could shoot a redhead like Julia Coldale and use a little girl as his shield. That coldness carried him past the stabbing knife in Jock’s hand, knocking it unconcernedly aside, catching him by the front of his jerkin and pulling hard as he stabbed up leftwards into the man’s chest under his breastbone with the poignard he wasn’t even aware of drawing.

The blood came from Jock’s mouth, not the slender wound caused by the poignard. Carey found himself supporting the man’s weight one-handed and let him crumble to the muddy ground, twisting and pulling his blade out with that distinctive sticky sound.

Then the blood came, but mostly on the ground, not him. Carey stood there, hands bloody, lace cuffs bloody, knife bloody, chest heaving, and Dodd came over and watched dispassionately while Jock’s heels drummed and his eyes turned to frogspawn.

‘Ay,’ said Dodd with satisfaction, wiping his sword on a clean bit of Jock’s jerkin. Carey bent and did the same, feeling remote from his own hands and very tired, the way a killing rage always left him. He had never before knifed a man in an alley, though.

The Carlislers who had come to help cheered and slapped his back approvingly as he pushed his way out into Scotch street again. He smiled back, wishing they wouldn’t get in his way, picked up his hat which had fallen from his head as he ran and as he did so felt the cold draught and sting on his ribs which told him where Jock’s knife had passed and ruined his brand new (unpaid for) black velvet suit.

That brought him back to earth a little.

Thursday 6th July 1592, afternoon

Aglionby had adjourned the inquest for two hours and when the jury reconvened it was in the Mayor’s own bedroom, to which Julia Coldale had been moved. The surgeon came, saw, shook his head and went himself to fetch a priest.

The jurors gathered around her along with the Coroner himself, Scrope and Carey, while Philadelphia sat by the bed and looked curiously like a small sphinx in her gravity. It turned out she was the one who had given Barnabus her knife in the confusion when Jock rode out with Mary Atkinson. Now she was holding Julia’s hand. Julia’s back was arched, her breath bubbled and her red curls were dark with sweat: the surgeon had said he could not get the bolt out without cutting and as it was so close to her heart, he didn’t think she had a chance of living if he did.

Even in such extremis, even with his eyes stinging for pity at the pretty girl turned to dust so soon, Carey couldn’t help noticing how Julia’s eyes looked around at them, pleased they were there.

‘Do you want to give your testimony?’ asked Philadelphia. ‘Are you sure?’

The girl nodded, winced and began to speak breathily.

‘Jock Burn gave me five shillings for opening of Mr Atkinson’s shutters…’ whispered Julia. ‘An’ I did it. I didn’t know why he wanted to; I thought he might want to thieve the plate chest because he’s a Scot…’ She spoke arrhythmically, in long bursts of words interspersed with slow gasps as she caught up breath for the next effort. ‘…When the mistress came down wi’ all the sheets bloody I was afraid as I understood it then…but then I thought perhaps I could get my dowry by it, so I asked Jock if I could talk to…Mr Leigh and when I went to see him this morning, he tried to kill me rather than pay me…and now he’s done it, the stingy bastard.’

The next set of gasps for breath pained his ears to listen to them. Carey wondered remotely if there were any sort of death that didn’t hurt and then put the thought from him deliberately as undoubtedly leading to madness and melancholy. It occurred to him for the first time that she was a brave lass, for all her foolishness in trying to blackmail John Leigh.

‘Ay well,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll get a dove on me grave…’

A dove was the sign of a girl who died still virgin, and it seemed some girls found the thought romantic. Philadelphia had tears in her eyes. Sniffles sounded from a couple of the jurors.

Aglionby faced the jury.

‘I doubt she’ll say any more, gentlemen,’ he rumbled.

They took the hint and left her.

The inquest was reconvened at the market cross again, after Fenwick had come with his litter to collect Jock Burn’s body. Julia Coldale had not died yet, but was sure to do so that night or the next day, depending on how strong she was.

The jury filed soberly into their benches. Aglionby declared that the inquest was reopened; Carey faced the jury feeling unutterably weary, and called Mr John Leigh.

He said nothing and would not take the oath. Carey reminded him that the penalty for failing to plead at his trial was pressing to death and then, at the Coroner’s nod, began to speak.

‘John Leigh wanted the house next door to his own to expand into. Unfortunately, not only had his brother-in-law Jemmy Atkinson inherited it wrongfully, as he thought, he also refused to sell it. The Chancery case, as Chancery cases will, was taking years and costing a fortune. John Leigh was having money problems in other ways and he came up with an idea which was probably inspired by seeing the thatchers working on the scaffolding round his roof.

‘Mr Leigh decided to kill Jemmy Atkinson in such a way that Kate Atkinson was sure to be accused and convicted and so he and his wife would get her property. After she burned at the stake. For in fact, this is an attempt at a double murder, with his honour the Coroner and you yourselves, gentlemen, used as the weapon in the second, judicial murder.’

Carey paused and cleared his throat. As he had said to Elizabeth, he could orate if he had to: thank the Lord there was hardly any law involved here.

‘At first I misunderstood. I had seen the window to the Atkinsons’ bedchamber and I thought it impossible for a man to squeeze through it unless he were very slim. John Leigh is not a small man, though Jock Burn is. Was. On the other hand, Leigh couldn’t trust a servant to do the killing for him without laying himself open to blackmail. Another thing you no doubt already know is that the Leighs’ house is next door to the Atkinsons’ and as alike as two peas. Certainly the upper windows are the same size. You can see them over there and inspect them later, if you wish.

‘This morning I climbed the scaffolding on the Leighs’ house and dug about in the thatch. My Sergeant had found a knife hidden there the previous afternoon.’

Dodd stepped forwards smartly and held out the knife so the jurymen could see it. Thomas Lowther took it and passed it along, and Archibald Bell rubbed his thumb on the crumbs of brown at the place where the blade met the hilt.

‘We found a bloody shirt,’ said Carey, gestured. Dodd took the shirt out of a small bag and handed it to Thomas Lowther. He passed it on with the combination of distaste and prurience that seemed right for a bloody shirt. Nobody argued about the identity of the stiff brown stains on it, although Captain Carleton sniffed at them sceptically.

‘As you can see,’ Carey continued, ‘it’s a gentleman’s shirt, fine linen and well-stitched. There were no other clothes. At first I thought he might have put it over his clothes to protect them from the blood, but I admit I was still puzzled. Then when I saw John Leigh through his own upper window attempting to kill Julia Coldale, I kicked the shutters and glass in and tried to get through. I couldn’t, my shoulders wouldn’t fit. I was reduced to throwing bits of window glass at him and I don’t mind telling you, gentlemen, I was very annoyed.’

The barrel-like Captain Carleton was leaned back and smiling understandingly at him.

‘Sergeant Dodd went round by the stairs and managed to distract John Leigh. By that time God had inspired me to the answer. I took off my doublet and Venetians and so lost an inch or two from each shoulder and a couple of inches around my girth. In my shirt I climbed through the window, just as John Leigh had done to kill Jemmy Atkinson, and so I was able to arrest him.’

‘The only problem he had—how to make sure the shutters were open to Jemmy Atkinson’s bedchamber—we have just heard how he solved it. At the cost of Julia Coldale’s life, she has told us the truth of what she did that morning. And so the mystery is solved. John Leigh waited until he heard Julia opening the shutters and going down the stairs again, and then climbed out of his own window onto the scaffolding and across. There was some risk he would be seen from the street, but it was early in the morning and not light yet. He climbed in through the window, cut Jemmy Atkinson’s throat, climbed out again, took off his shirt and hid it with the knife in the thatch, and then climbed back in by his own window. He could have done it in five minutes, washed and dressed and gone downstairs. Then all he had to do was sit back and wait for someone to find the body.

‘He must have been worried when Andy Nixon and Mrs Atkinson conspired to move the body and blame the killing on me. In fact, they were trying to pervert the course of justice, which is in itself a crime, although I hope his honour the Coroner will be lenient with them on that score. However, in the end, he must have been sure he would gain all he wished after the Lammastide assizes, when Mrs Atkinson surely would have been convicted of petty treason and executed. Perhaps Andy Nixon would have died with her, as her accomplice, perhaps not. Evidently, he didn’t care one way or the other.’

He wondered if he should mention the fact that the Atkinson children would thus be left fatherless, motherless and homeless, but he didn’t. The jury could work it out for themselves. Mary herself had been allowed to cling amongst her mother’s skirts, sucking her thumb and watching.

‘There you have your verdict, gentlemen of the jury: Jemmy Atkinson was murdered most foully; his throat was cut by John Leigh and the reason was only so that John Leigh and his wife could eventually inherit his property as the nearest relatives of the victim. That is what you must find.’