A Plague of Sinners (12 page)

I leant forwards to see Pestilence twist the bolt again. The plate flattened Dowling’s thumbnail and the blood bulged from the tip of his thumb. He clenched his teeth together and squeezed his eyes closed.

‘What do you want me to say?’ I cried out loud. ‘That is the truth!’

Pestilence turned the plate another degree and I heard Dowling’s nail crack. He jerked his arm backwards and his body twitched in slow spasm.

‘I cannot tell you what I don’t know!’ I screamed.

War stuck out a hand and rubbed a thick finger down my cheek. ‘Think of something to tell me,’ he advised. ‘Else Pestilence will turn that screw another degree.’

‘I don’t know what else I can tell you,’ I pleaded. ‘You saw Wharton’s body and you told me how Death died.’

‘You have found out more than that.’

‘Yes,’ I declared. ‘We have found out more than that and I will tell you all of it. But we don’t know who killed Death!’

War stroked Dowling’s hair while the butcher stared at the ceiling through red eyes. ‘Talk.’

‘We went to St Albans.’ I struggled to think, tried to slow down my speech. ‘A man there told us that the Earl has a brother, who is locked up at Bedlam.’

War frowned.

‘No!’ I held up a hand. ‘It’s true! That is what he told us! We went to Bedlam and found a man there called Edmund Franklin who may be that brother. We spoke to Pateson, who
is the keeper there. He seemed to think not, but you asked me to tell you what we discovered.’

‘What else?’ War asked, grimly.

‘We found Burke. Two men called Forman and Withypoll took him to a house on Three Crane Lane, to stay with another man called John Tanner.’

War’s eyes widened. ‘Forman and Withypoll?’

‘Aye,’ I nodded eagerly. ‘Brutish fellows who would have killed me if Davy hadn’t rescued me.’

‘Why would they kill you?’ War asked, perplexed.

‘Because we followed them to Three Crane Lane,’ I said.

War pursed his lips and gazed first at Famine and then at Pestilence. ‘You may be as diligent as you portray.’

Pestilence grunted and eyed the thumbscrew longingly.

‘You are but a butcher and a clerk.’ War shrugged. ‘Why should Arlington confide in you?’

Arlington again. Why did he suspect Arlington of killing Wharton? It made no sense.

‘What of the ranting cleric?’ War asked, eyes fixed on mine. ‘What have you discovered of Perkins?’

‘Perkins?’ I racked my brain, searching for meaning. A faint recollection, but no mention of any such man in the last two days, at least. Yet I feared what he would say if I said I knew nothing. What would Pestilence do?

‘No, then.’ War read my expression and was satisfied, it seemed.

‘I can think of nothing else,’ I pleaded. ‘It has been but two days and one of those was spent on the journey to St Albans.’

‘I believe you,’ War said quietly. He gestured at Famine to unlock my chains. ‘Yet you must leave here convinced of the
need to keep us informed.’ He turned to Pestilence. ‘And to tell Arlington nothing of this meeting.’

He gestured once more and Pestilence turned the screw another notch. Dowling’s eyes rolled in his head and his body slumped back. Blood seeped into every groove of the screw and dripped slowly onto the floor.

‘Take care of your friend,’ War warned afore leaving the cell. ‘You will need him.’

On the way home I urged Dowling to hold his thumb up high so the blood would not fall into it. The tip was purple and changed colour as it throbbed. It appeared hot, so swollen and taut there was no way of telling if there was damage to the bone.

I decided to take him back to my house where Jane could tend to the wound. I bid him walk fast past St Peter’s, onto Cheapside and alongside The Mermaid, plans forming in my head as I went. I looked back down the street. I fancied I saw a man hanging about under the eaves of a house fifty yards or so away. One figure or two? I strained to see better, but the figure vanished.

I banged on my door with my fist, then banged again. My knuckles were wet. Paint on the door – I could just make it out – gleaming red. I dabbed at the markings with my finger. It was paint all right, red paint, in the form of words. I crouched down to look closer.

‘To the pesthouse,’ I read.

A long, cold blade plunged itself into my guts and my skin froze.

Plague.

I had spent most of my life trying to avoid Alderman Fuller. He was a thin man, nearly seventy years old. As a child I saw him as a mean-spirited misery, beady-eyed, with little tolerance for the sound of children’s laughter. I retained a loathsome fear of his black spirit. He was voted alderman every year of my life.

Fuller lived round the corner on Bow Lane. The door was open when I arrived and I wandered in. He sat at a large desk covered in paper, head held in one hand, staring at a ledger. Four men stood about talking while he slumped, exhausted. The bags beneath his stern grey eyes sagged deep and round.

He looked up bleary, jowls like a loose-skinned dog. The lines softened. ‘Harry Lytle.’

I hadn’t heard him speak for many years. I was surprised how tender were his words, how tired his voice.

‘Sir, my house is shut up with plague this very day.’

He watched me carefully. ‘We have been looking for you, Harry.’

‘I was home only this morning. Jane was not plagued.’

‘Your servant?’

‘Aye, Jane.’

‘Jane.’ Fuller scratched his head. ‘She is in there, but it’s her aunt that is afflicted.’

‘Her aunt?’ What aunt?

Fuller looked at me kindly. ‘Her aunt took ill while she stopped there. Your servant called for a searcher.’

Probably the only servant in London who would be so honest. ‘What did the searcher find?’ I asked, blood pounding in my neck.

‘The aunt is stricken,’ he said simply. ‘I am sorry, Harry.’

‘I must see Jane,’ I said, without thinking.

He shook his head slowly, talking like I was the one afflicted. ‘They will be cared for, Harry. A watcher has been appointed and will be sat there soon.’

‘Her aunt lived on the bridge,’ I recalled, mind talking aloud. I didn’t recall her ever visiting the house before, nor was I aware Jane visited her more than occasionally. She was stern and prim and drove Jane madder than usual.

‘Aye,’ the man sighed. ‘Several houses are locked up on the bridge this week.’

‘Who is the watcher?’

‘Sit down a moment, Harry, and I will tell you.’

Though I was not in the mood, I sat anyway, while he slowly turned the pages of the ledger, squinting at the book and licking his lips as if he nursed some inner pain. It was not the Fuller I remembered from childhood.

‘The watcher’s name is John Hearsey,’ he read from the
book. ‘Not of this parish. He volunteered. I remember him now.’ He scratched at his ear. ‘He particularly offered to stand at your house.’

‘My house?’ I felt my heart shrouded in a heavy dread. ‘Why my house?’

He laid a hand on mine. ‘He didn’t say why, just said he noticed it and would be prepared to guard it. I need as many people as I can get.’

‘Where does he live?’

He returned to the ledger. ‘Well I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘He said he came from Moorfields. It is the only address he gave.’

Moorfields. Where stood Bedlam. What did it signify?

‘Harry?’

‘Who is he?’ I demanded.

Fuller rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s the money, Harry. He lives on the north side of the wall and has no job. He is not the only one wandering the streets looking for red crosses.’

Which could be true, I supposed. Ours was a safe parish where few were afflicted. In truth I had no idea what to think, my brain was so dull. ‘Will she have a medic and a nurse?’

‘Yes, Harry, though there are few medics left in London. It may take a few days to arrange.’ He paused and saw the anxiety in my eyes. ‘I know a woman that wants a job as nurse.’

Misery hung from my heart like lead. ‘Can I not talk to her once?’

‘Only if you want to stay there with her,’ Fuller answered wearily.

‘Very well.’ I nodded. ‘But you will know what news?’

‘I will talk to the medic, aye,’ Fuller said. ‘You may talk to him besides, once we know who he is.’

I muttered some thanks and hurried back to Bread Street. The latch on my front window was still broken, and I could see the jug standing where I had left it by the window in my bedroom. All was as always, except for the thick, red cross painted onto my door, crude and bright. I placed my palm against the wood. Jane, my very own foul-mouthed tyrant that never let me be. Jane, who did all she could to persuade me to leave, who stayed here angry and frightened because I would not countenance our departure. If there was a God then he had a cruel sense of humour. That mine was one of the first houses afflicted in the whole parish, the house that Jane battled so hard to keep clean despite my efforts to thwart her.

I peered through the downstairs window into my little room, but saw no one. I considered knocking upon the door, insisting Jane admit me afore the watcher arrived. But what good would that do? I was no use locked up in there.

Two people, a man and a woman, paused on the other side of the street to watch what I did. A nosy couple who lived near the Cordwainers’ Hall. He was a cobbler like my father, though not a very good one. She spent all her days complaining as to the unfairness of life and wore a permanent crease between her eyes. They stopped still, as if suspecting my intentions. Well-meaning busybodies. Else wondering what I did without, whether I had escaped my own house. I turned and glowered. When they didn’t move I took a step towards them and shepherded them all the way up Bread Street until they scampered off down Basing Lane.

I returned to my door just as Alderman Fuller appeared, accompanied by a stout man with slow, miserable face, the new watcher, I assumed. He seemed familiar, but I struggled to recall his name or the context in which I met him afore.

Time to leave. For now. I turned and bumped into Dowling.

‘I took you home,’ I exclaimed. ‘I thought you were going to lie in bed until tomorrow.’

Dowling’s face was white, eyes red. He held his hand to his stomach with the thumb turned upwards. Someone had bandaged it. ‘I did,’ he said, hoarse. ‘Newcourt waited for me.’

Arlington’s man. ‘What did he say?’

The muscles about Dowling’s jaw twitched. ‘There is another body.’

‘Already?’ I answered flatly, feeling useless. I watched the pain twitch on his lips, saw the blood spots form upon the white bandage. ‘You are in pain.’

‘Aye, so I am,’ Dowling grumbled. ‘Yet sitting on a chair will make it no less painful.’

‘Where is this body?’ I asked.

‘Back where we came from not two hours ago,’ he replied. ‘We must take a boat.’

‘Back to Southwark?’

He nodded. ‘Winchester Palace.’

I heard the reluctance in his voice and felt the same dread bid me walk away. Yet what choice did we have? What was left of the moon already shone bright, keen to witness what next transpired.

The river ran thicker at night, black, oily surface running slow and mysterious. Candles lit a thousand windows upon the bridge, illuminating our journey from bank to bank as we drew steadily away from the bright lights of the City towards the blackness of Southwark. A long row of tall, narrow buildings, six or seven storeys high, perched precariously above the heavy stone arches. Small, steepled roofs pointed towards the heavens, each tiny window glowing yellow.

The boatman stared at me as he pulled the oars, face glowering in the light of the lantern, still furious we forced him to make the trip. Only before the King’s seal and under threat of imprisonment had he acceded.

The current pulled strong towards the bridge, gathering pace as the wide river gathered itself into fast, narrow streams that shot through the boulderous stone starlings. The boatman worked hard to keep us on an even keel.

As we approached the south bank, tiny lights emerged from beneath the thick blanket of darkness, small flickerings from houses set back away from the water. A cluster of brighter lights took shape ahead of us, directly in front. Sometimes the tip of the boat pointed right of them, sometimes left, but always came back. They danced and quivered, moving from side to side, like the flames of torches held by men.

‘Go slow, boatman!’ I ordered, leaning forwards into the night. If these were Wharton’s dogs, we must stay out of their reach.

As we drifted closer, so I saw four men stood at the top of St Mary Overy Stairs. Difficult to see who they were. Even in the light of the torches all I saw were shadows.

‘Hail!’ I called. ‘Who are ye?’

One man stepped out with his torch up. ‘Robert Judkins,’ he called through the heavy air. ‘Parish constable. Who are you?’

‘Lytle and Dowling, sent by Lord Arlington.’

‘You have come to see the body then?’ Judkins called. He was short and thin, clearly not one of those that tortured Dowling. He carried a stick in his left hand. The other three wore simple shirts and shapeless breeches, workmen’s clothes. No black cloaks nor sinister hats.

‘Land us,’ I instructed the boatman, ‘and wait a while. We will pay you upon our return to Cold Harbour.’

‘How long?’ he growled between clenched teeth.

‘Not so long,’ I replied, hopping off the boat as we bumped gently against the wooden posts.

‘Lytle and Dowling, you say?’ Judkins’ face shone out from light of the torch, inquisitive and alert. ‘You have credentials?’

He held the stick between his thighs while scrutinising Dowling’s papers, holding them at arm’s length like he had a problem with his eyes. ‘Over here then.’ He passed them back to Dowling, then led us the short distance to the corner betwixt bank and stairs where the other three men stood staring down into the water.

I followed their line of sight, but all I saw was a patch of black weed and mine own reflection in the torchlight. ‘What are we looking at?’

Judkins poked the patch of weed gently with his stick. It bobbled gently in the water. ‘It’s a man’s head. Something is pulling the body down so it doesn’t float.’

‘Who found it?’

‘Eve Hart,’ said Judkins. ‘The woman from the well house.’

Which meant War and his dogs would have likely been informed hours before. ‘When did she discover it?’

‘Not long ago,’ Judkins replied. ‘Two hours perhaps.’

Dowling took Judkins’ stick and knelt at the water edge. He laid it flat across the dead man’s brow and tilted it back. The face stared upwards, pale and ghostly, dull eyes staring sightlessly at the moon. A hand waved gently in the current; the rest of the body disappeared into a dark void. Hair drifted in the water, spreading from the scalp, tugged gently by the tide. His mouth sat open, a little black hole around which
swam small fishes. Thick neck, small, round chin and large ears flat against his head.

‘Do you know who he is?’ I asked Judkins.

‘No.’ Judkins pursed his lips. ‘Doesn’t mean he’s not from here. People come and go through this parish.’

‘Famine.’ Dowling prodded the dead man’s chest, easing the body backwards. ‘No cloak, but same clothes he wore before.’ He lifted the stick and watched the corpse swing back. ‘Killed soon after we left. The skin on his face is loose and wrinkled.’

Judkins squeezed himself between us, peering sideways at me and up at Dowling. ‘Who is Famine?’

‘A colleague of the Earl of St Albans,’ I answered. ‘Him and three others. We don’t know his real name but seems he lived here, somewhere close to the palace. We met him earlier today at the Clink.’

Judkins frowned. ‘The Clink’s been closed this last ten years.’

‘Not today it wasn’t.’ I glanced once more at Dowling’s hand. The stain upon the bandage grew to the size of a guinea. He would need to treat the wound again afore the night was finished. ‘The tavern keeper knows of them. He fetched one of them today. Perhaps he can tell us who they are and where they live.’

‘Lived,’ Dowling corrected me. ‘Two of them are dead, Wharton besides. Three dead in three days.’

‘All in Southwark?’ Judkins exclaimed, voice tight and indignant.

‘No,’ I assured him. ‘This is the first we have found at Southwark.’

‘Famine?’

‘Famine, War, Pestilence and Death,’ I said. ‘They call themselves after the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. So they might keep their real names a secret, I suppose.’

‘I see.’ Judkins stared at the body with a new understanding. ‘Then we should find someone who can tell us his real name.’ He issued instructions to the other three men about us and handed me his torch. ‘You hold this and give us light that we might pull him out.’

Judkins’ men rolled up their sleeves and stood hesitant, uncertain how to proceed. They could not all grab his head and pull by the neck, else they might leave the body behind.

Dowling knelt once more. ‘We must take him by the shoulders, pass a rope beneath his arms and pull on that.’

Everyone looked at everyone else until all looked at the boatman, still sat with his arms folded in his boat, like he had been most grievously offended. All boatmen carried a rope.

‘The sooner we are done here, the sooner we may leave,’ I persuaded him, and he tossed it up without grace.

Dowling bid two men hold him by the waist while he leant out with the rope and struggled to pass it beneath the man’s armpits. He leant so close to the water his chin brushed the surface. He worked as if his thumb gave him no pain at all, which I knew was not true. He clenched his teeth firmly together, lips drawn back and eyes closed. I would have done the task for him, but I was too short.

‘Ha!’ Dowling grunted at last and sat up straight, both ends of the rope pulled taut. ‘One more time.’ He bent down again and passed another loop of the rope beneath the corpse, this time faster. ‘Now you four will have to pull,’ he announced, standing. ‘For I cannot.’ The whole of the bandage about his thumb was now soaked scarlet.

Judkins stepped forward to take the rope ends. He twisted them together and laid the rope out upon the landing so that all four could take weight. They pulled, slow at first, then harder, straining to lift the body even an inch.

‘He is tied to something heavy,’ complained one.