By Murder's Bright Light (3 page)

‘Ah, yes, Master Latchkey.’

‘We’ll have some wine,’ Cranston trumpeted. ‘Thick, red claret.’

He looked around the small room, admiring the gleaming wainscoting, the rich wall-hangings and a small painted triptych above the fireplace. Bronze hearth tools stood in the inglenook and thick woollen rugs covered the stone floor.

‘I am sure Master Selpot has some good burgundy,’ he continued, threateningly.

Latchkey hurried across to a cupboard standing in the window embrasure and brought back two brimming cups.

‘Well, tell us what happened.’ Cranston drained the wine in one gulp and held his hand out for a refill. ‘Come on, man, bring the jug over! You don’t happen to have a spare chicken leg?’

The fellow shook his head dolefully, then refilled Sir John’s cup before telling his sorry tale – his master was absent from the city and, on the previous night, some felon had entered the house and stolen cloths, precious cups and trinkets from the upper storeys.

‘And where were you and the servants?’ Cranston asked.

‘Oh, on the lower floor, Sir John.’ The man gnawed at his lip. ‘You see, the servants’ quarters are here, no one sleeps in the garret. Master Selpot is insistent on that. I have a small chamber at the back of the house, the scullions, cooks and spit boys sleep in the kitchen or hall.’

‘And you heard nothing?’

‘No, Sir John. Come, let me show you.’

Latchkey promptly led them on a tour of the sumptuous house, demonstrating how the windows were secured by shutters that were padlocked from the inside.

‘And you are sure no window was left open?’

‘Certain, Sir John.’

‘And the doors below were locked?’

‘Yes, Sir John. We also have dogs but they heard nothing.’

‘And there’s no secret entrance?’

‘None whatsoever, Sir John.’

‘And the roof?’

Latchkey shrugged and led them up into the cold garret, which served as a storeroom. Cranston gazed up but he could see no chink in the roof.

‘How much has gone?’ he asked as they went back downstairs.

‘Five silver cups, two of them jewelled. Six knives, two of them gold, three silver, one copper. A statuette of the Virgin Mary carved in marble. Two soup spoons, also of gold. Five silver plates, one jewel-rimmed.’

Shawditch groaned at the long list.

Downstairs Cranston donned his beaver hat and cloak.

‘Could the servants have done it?’ he asked.

Latchkey’s lugubrious face became even more sombre.

‘Sir John, it was I who discovered the thefts. I immediately searched everyone. Nothing was found.’

Cranston raised his eyes heavenwards, thanked the steward and, followed by an equally mystified under-sheriff, walked back into the freezing street.

‘How many did you say,’ Cranston asked. ‘Six since Michaelmas?’

Shawditch glumly nodded.

‘And where’s Trumpington?’

Shawditch pointed along the street. ‘Where he always is at this hour, in the Merry Pig.’

Stepping gingerly round the piles of refuse, they made their way down the street: they turned up an alleyway where a gaudy yellow sign, depicting a red pig playing the bagpipes, creaked and groaned on its iron chains. Inside the taproom they found Trumpington, the ward beadle, stuffing his face with a fish pie, not stopping to clear his mouth before draining a blackjack of frothy ale. He hardly stirred when Cranston and Shawditch announced themselves; he just gave a loud belch and began busily to clean his teeth with his thumbnail. Cranston tried to hide his dislike of the man. He secretly considered Trumpington a pig, with his squat body, red, obese face, quivering jowls, hairy nostrils and quick darting eyes under a low forehead, always fringed with dirty yellow hair.

‘There’s been a robbery!’ Trumpington announced.

‘Yes, the sixth in this ward!’ Cranston snapped.

Trumpington cleaned his mouth with his tongue and Sir John, for the first time in weeks, refused an offer of a drink or a morsel to eat.

‘It’s not my fault!’ Trumpington brayed. ‘I walk the streets every night. Well, when it’s my tour of duty. I see nothing amiss and the robberies are as much a mystery to me as they are to you, my fine fellows.’

Cranston smiled sweetly and, placing his hands over Trumpington’s, pressed firmly until he saw the man wince.

‘You never see anything amiss?’

‘Nothing,’ the fellow wheezed, his face turning slightly purple at the pressure on his hand.

‘Well.’ Cranston pushed back his stool and lifted his hand. ‘Keep your eyes open.’ He tugged at Shawditch’s sleeve and they both left the taproom.

‘A veritable mystery,’ Shawditch commented. He glanced warily at Cranston. ‘You know there will be the devil to pay over this.’

Cranston waited until a group of apprentices, noisily kicking an inflated pig’s bladder down the street, rushed by whooping and yelling. Then he thought aloud. ‘Six houses. All in this ward. All belonging to powerful merchants but, with their owners away, occupied only by servants. No sign of forced entry, either by door or through a window. Robbery from within?’ He shook his head. ‘It is impossible to accept collusion between footpads and the servants of six different households.’ He blew out his cheeks, stamping his feet against the cold. ‘First there will be murmurs of protest from the city council. Then these will grow to roars of disapproval and someone’s head will roll. Eh, Shawditch?’

‘Aye, Sir John, and it could be mine. Or yours,’ he added flatly. ‘When there’s a breakdown in law and order, God knows why, they always think that punishing some city official will make matters better.’

Cranston clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You have met Brother Athelstan?’

‘Your clerk? The parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark?’ Shawditch nodded. ‘Of course. He is most memorable, Sir John, being as different from you as chalk from cheese.’

Shawditch smiled as he recalled the slim, olive-skinned Dominican monk, with his jet-black hair and the smiling eyes that belied a sharp intelligence and ready wit. At first Shawditch had considered Athelstan to be secretive, but he had realised that the Dominican was only shy and rather in awe of the mountainous Sir John with his voracious appetite and constant yearning for refreshment.

‘What are you smiling at?’ Cranston asked crossly.

‘Oh nothing, Sir John, I just . . .’ Shawditch’s words trailed away.

‘Anyway,’ Cranston boomed, turning to walk down the street, ‘Athelstan is always saying if there’s a problem there must be a solution, it’s just a matter of observation, speculation and deduction.’

Cranston hopped aside, with an agility even Thomas the toad would have admired, as an upper window opened and a night jar of slops was thrown into the street. Shawditch was not so lucky and his cloak was slightly spattered. He stopped to shake his fist up at the window, then moved as quickly as Cranston as it opened again and another nightjar appeared.

‘There should be a law against that,’ he grumbled. ‘But you were saying, Sir John?’

‘Well.’ The coroner tugged his beaver hat firmly over his large head. ‘Question, how does the footpad get into the houses? Secondly, how does he know they are empty?’

‘As to the second question, I don’t know. And the first? Well, it’s a mystery.’

‘Have you checked the roofs?’ Sir John asked.

‘Yes, Trumpington summoned a tiler, the fellow inspected the roofs and found nothing amiss.’

They reached the corner of Bread Street. Cranston was about to go when Shawditch plucked at his sleeve.

‘I said I had two problems for you, Sir John. The second is more serious.’

Cranston sighed. ‘Well, not here.’

He led the under-sheriff up Cheapside and into the welcoming warmth of the Holy Lamb of God. He roared at the landlord’s wife for his capon pie and bowls of claret for himself and his friend. Once he had taken his first bite, he nodded at the under-sheriff.

‘Right, tell me.’

‘You know the king’s ships have been at sea against the French?’

‘Aye, who doesn’t?’ Cranston munched at his pie.

John of Gaunt, pestered into action by parliament, had at last assembled a flotilla of fifteen armed ships to carry out reprisals against French privateers in the Channel as well as surprise attacks on towns and villages along the Normandy coast.

‘Well,’ Shawditch continued, ‘some of the flotilla are berthed in the Thames opposite Queen’s hithe, among them the cog
God’s Bright Light.
’ Shawditch sipped at his wine. ‘The ship was commanded by William Roffel. It returned to port two days ago, after capturing and sinking a number of French vessels. Roffel, however, on the return voyage, caught a sudden sickness and died. His corpse was taken ashore. The crew were paid their wages and given seven days’ shore leave. Now, last night, the only watch left on the ship was the first mate and two other sailors. One in the bows and one at the stern.’ Shawditch gnawed at his lip. ‘A lantern was left on the mast and the ship was in earshot of others riding at anchor.’

‘What happened?’ Cranston interrupted him impatiently.

‘Just before dawn a sailor came back with his doxy. They climbed on board and found the ship deserted – no first mate, no watch.’

‘So?’

‘Well, no one had seen anyone leave or approach the ship, although it’s true there was a thick river mist that night. But that’s only half the mystery, Sir John. You see, an hour before the sailor returned, in accordance with the admiral’s instructions, the watch on board the neighbouring ship, the
Holy Trinity,
asked if all was well? A voice from the
God’s Bright Light
replied, using the established password.’

‘Which was?’

‘The glory of St George.’

Cranston sat back. ‘So, what you are saying is that nothing apparently untoward happened on board this ship? The watch even responded with the correct password to the neighbouring vessel?’

‘Aye, and then passed it on to another ship, the
Saint Margaret,
’ Shawditch answered.

‘And yet,’ Cranston continued, ‘a short while later the ship is found deserted. No trace whatsoever of the first mate or the rest of his watch, two able-bodied sailors?’

‘Exactly, Sir John.’

‘Could they have deserted?’

Shawditch pulled a face.

‘And there was no sign of violence?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Anything stolen?’

Shawditch shook his head.

‘Well! Well! Well!’ Cranston breathed. ‘I wonder what Athelstan will make of this?’

‘God knows!’ Shawditch replied. ‘But the mayor and council demand an answer.’

Brother Athelstan sat at the table in his kitchen in the small priest’s house of St Erconwald’s in Southwark and stared moodily into the fire. He’d celebrated morning Mass. He’d cleaned the church with the help of Cecily the courtesan and talked with Tab the tinker about mending some pots. After that he had said goodbye to the widow Benedicta, who was going to spend a few days helping a relative across the river who was expecting a baby.

Athelstan got up and went to stir the porridge cooking in a black cauldron above the flames. He looked over his shoulder at Bonaventura, the big one-eyed tomcat, who was sitting patiently on the table, daintily washing himself after a night’s hunting in the alleyways around the church.

‘It will soon be ready, Bonaventure. Some hot oatmeal with a little milk, spice and sugar. Benedicta herself prepared it before she left. It will taste delicious. For the next week we will break our fast like kings.’

The cat yawned and stared arrogantly at this strange Dominican who constantly talked to him. Athelstan wiped the horn spoon, put it back on its hook, stretched and yawned.

‘I should have gone to bed myself,’ he murmured. Instead he had climbed the tower of his church to study the stars, watching in awe the fiery fall of a meteor. He walked back to the table, sat down again and sipped his watered ale.

‘Why?’ he asked Bonaventure. Tell me this, most cunning of cats. Why do meteors fall from heaven but not stars? Or,’ he continued, seeing he had the cat’s attention, ‘are meteors falling stars? And, if they are, what causes one star to fall and not another?’

The cat just blinked with its one good eye.

‘And the problem becomes even more complicated,’ Athelstan explained. ‘Let me put it this way. Why do some stars move? The constellation called the Great Bear does but the ship’s star, the North Star, never?’

Bonaventure’s reaction was to miaow loudly and slump down on the table as if desperate at the long wait for his morning dish of oatmeal. Athelstan smiled and gently stroked the cat’s tattered ear.

‘Or should we ask questions?’ he whispered. ‘Or just gaze in admiration at God’s great wonder?’

He sighed and returned to the piece of parchment he had been studying the evening before. On it was a crude drawing of the church. The parish council, in their wisdom, had decided that on their saint’s day they would produce a mystery play in the nave of the church. Athelstan was now drawing up a list of the things they’d need. Thomas Drawsword, a new member of the parish, had agreed to refurbish a large wagon which would act as the stage, but they would need more. Athelstan studied his list:

The play was called
The Last Judgement
and already Athelstan was beginning to regret his enthusiasm for the venture.

‘We are going to be short of wings,’ he muttered, ‘and we can’t have one-winged angels.’ He groaned. All this was nothing to the arguments over who would play the different characters. Watkin the dung-collector insisted on being God, but this was bitterly disputed by Pike the ditcher. The civil war had spread to their children, who were quarrelling over who would act the roles of the four good spirits, the four evil spirits and the six devils. Watkin’s large wife, who had the brassy voice of a trumpet, had declared that she would be Our Lady. Tab the tinker was threatening to withdraw from the pageant if he was denied a principal role.