Murder on High Holborn (36 page)

Chaloner took them with genuine appreciation, although it seemed odd to accept hose in a chapel filled with corpses. Yet the High Holborn Plot had been a peculiar mix of the unnervingly deadly and the touchingly mundane from the start, and he was growing used to it.

‘Put them on,’ instructed Atkinson. ‘I take my trade seriously, and I have never sold anyone a pair that does not fit.’

‘Not now.’ Chaloner pointed to his filthy boots and breeches. ‘It would ruin them.’

‘As soon as you get home then,’ said Ursula. ‘Ready for Easter Day, when all this will be over, and we shall join together to praise God for delivering us from evil.’

‘I met your stepfather yesterday, Atkinson,’ said Chaloner, changing the subject because he was afraid Ursula would ask him about his own beliefs and he did not want to be exposed as impious.

‘Grisley?’ Atkinson’s face lit up. ‘A fascinating man! I could listen to him for hours. But why did you meet him? Surely, you were not in Temple Mills?’

‘Yes – to tell him about Snowflake,’ explained Chaloner.

‘That was kind. They were not close, but he would want to know, and so would the rest of the family. But we can talk about this as we ride. Come, we should not waste time.’

‘Go in the carriage with Ursula,’ ordered Chaloner. With any luck, the courtiers’ carriages would have churned the road into a worse state than ever, and neither would reach London in time for the rebellion. Atkinson looked set to argue, so he added a lie. ‘You cannot let her travel alone. There are rumours of robbers.’

As he had predicted, the stockinger was appalled by the notion that his beloved might be in danger if he was not there to protect her. ‘Very well,’ he said unhappily. ‘But before you go, take a few moments to interview a villager named Seth. I think he might be a Fifth Monarchist, and may have information to share.’

Chaloner watched them hurry to the place where coaches were waiting, then turned back towards the village, where he tracked Seth to the smallest and meanest of the three taverns. However, while Seth was indeed a Fifth Monarchist, he was also one who believed that his role in the Kingdom of Christ would be to supply the newly risen dead with gloves. He knew nothing of import, and Chaloner was about to leave when the door opened and Lawson walked in.

The Admiral, exhausted, mud-splattered and wet, was guarded by four sailors with cutlasses. Clearly, he was taking no chances on the long, isolated track between Temple Mills and the coast.

‘Is this whole damned village dry?’ he bellowed irritably. ‘Where is Prittlewell’s famous ale? And not in some piddling cup either. I am God’s agent on Earth, and I want a
jug
.’

The taverner hastened to oblige, and when the Admiral was settled by the fire with a veritable bucket in his hands, Chaloner sat on the bench next to him and sidled close. Lawson’s indignation at the liberty turned into a furious glare.

‘What do you want?’

‘Metal viols?’ asked Chaloner softly, hoping the Admiral would not know that
he
was the one who had invaded the mill. ‘I have never heard of such a thing.’

‘What?’

‘The two chests that were loaded on HMS
London
shortly before she sailed from Chatham. They were for you, and they contained metal viols.’

‘What of it?’ snarled Lawson. ‘A man’s sea-chests are his own affair, and it is not for you to ask what he puts in them. Who are you, anyway? You are everywhere I look these days – in the club, helping Surgeon Wiseman, hobnobbing with Rupert and Buckingham…’

‘Speaking of Rupert, I imagine he will be interested to know that you visit his gun-making factory at Temple Mills. And that you—’

Lawson whipped a gun from his belt, pointed it at Chaloner and squeezed the trigger. It happened so fast that Chaloner did not have time to duck and would certainly have been dead had the powder not been as sodden as its owner. Lawson reached for another dag, while his sailors fumbled for their cutlasses. Chaloner dived for the door, and it was fortunate that he was fast on his feet because the shot missed him by a fraction.

Lawson’s violent reaction to his questions told Chaloner that the Admiral certainly warranted further investigation. However, it could not be done in Prittlewell when the man was armed, guarded and dangerous. Moreover, Atkinson and Ursula were right to be concerned about what Jones might be doing in their absence. It was time to return to the city.

He was on his way to collect Lady when he saw the halfwit Peter. The boy had fallen foul of a party of young courtiers, who had taken his hat and were tossing it to one another like bullies in a schoolyard, laughing as he lumbered clumsily from side to side, wailing his distress. Chaloner snatched it from the air and glowered at the lad’s tormentors until they slunk away. He handed it over, and received a wan smile in return.

‘A cannon in a boat,’ Peter sniffed miserably. ‘Bang! Boom!’

‘Eighty of them,’ said Chaloner, looking across the water to where the engineers were sitting in their boats again, smoking. No wonder the spectators were bored.

‘One,’ said Peter, suddenly intent. ‘I can count to ten, and there was
one
. One cannon in a
little
boat. I know where they hid it. Do you want to see?’

He grabbed Chaloner’s hand, and although the spy could have pulled free, he was loath to do anything that might hurt the boy. Besides, Peter’s remarks had puzzled him, and he had learned from past experiences not to dismiss the testimony of simple people.

Peter moved with quiet purpose, surprisingly agile. Once away from the village, the only sounds were the gentle lap of waves, the cry of gulls and the soft hiss of wind across the sand. Eventually, Peter jigged left along a path that led to the salt marshes. He stopped triumphantly by a mound of dried grass, and began to pull it away, singing softly to himself. It did not take him long to expose the wreck of a boat. It had been adapted to form a makeshift shore-battery, and metal rings showed where a gun had been attached.

‘A cannon,’ said Peter, pointing. ‘A big silver cannon.’

Wheel tracks indicated where the piece had been brought in by cart and ferried away again, while discarded wadding, powder-stains and other marks suggested that it had been used within the last few weeks. Chaloner’s thoughts whirled.

Before the blast, Captain Dare claimed to have heard a crack on
London
’s starboard side, which would have been the one nearest the shore on which Chaloner now stood. Could a gun have been used against her – had the ‘crack’ been the sound of it discharging and hitting the ship, after which she had exploded? Peter’s ‘bang’ and ‘boom’ also indicated that there had been two distinct sounds. It did not seem possible that someone could sink one of His Majesty’s warships with a single shot – and there could not have been more, or Dare and Peter would have heard – yet it seemed that was what had happened.

‘Did you see it fire?’ Chaloner asked of Peter, who was sitting in the grass, humming to himself.

Peter nodded. ‘One gun. One bang. Bang! Boom!’

‘Did you see the men who used it?’

Peter nodded again. ‘A big one with yellow hair, a little one with dark hair, and one with a scarred face. They talked about Jesus, but Gentle Jesus would not like them.’

Chaloner was inclined to agree. He searched the boat thoroughly, but all he found was a scrap of paper with a shopping list on one side and notes for an anti-Court pamphlet on the other. The writing was spiky and all but illegible.

‘Would you like to see one of the men?’ asked Peter suddenly.

Chaloner nodded, then recoiled when Peter pulled away more grass to reveal a body. It had suffered from the ravages of gulls and crabs, but there was enough left to deduce two things: first, that there had been a scar on his face, and second, that he had been shot in the chest.

‘Scarface Roberts,’ murmured Chaloner. ‘Not blown up experimenting with a stolen batch of Rupert’s dangerous new gunpowder, but killed by a pistol.’

‘Yes,’ said Peter, nodding earnestly. ‘The yellow one shot him. Bang!’

‘Why?’ asked Chaloner, confused.

‘To keep it secret,’ replied Peter earnestly. ‘The scarred one promised never to speak, but the yellow one didn’t believe him. He shot him dead. He would shoot me, too, if he saw me.’

‘Yes, he would,’ agreed Chaloner. ‘And someone still might, so you should not tell anyone else what you have found.’

Peter nodded soberly. Chaloner looked back at the body, his stomach churning. Jones, Strange and Roberts had destroyed one of His Majesty’s finest warships, and sent three hundred souls to a watery grave. If they had managed that with such ease, what was being planned for Easter Day?

Although he knew he should do what Atkinson had suggested and return to the city with all possible speed, Chaloner felt he was close to a solution with HMS
London
. He recalled Dare saying that she had been delayed by paperwork in Chatham, during which the ‘metal viols’ had been taken aboard. The fact that Lawson had drawn a gun rather than reveal what was in the chests made Chaloner determined to find out more about them.

He stared at the distant smudge on the horizon that represented the Kent coast. The Royal Dockyard could not be more than twenty miles away as the crow flew – across the estuary and up the winding Medway. The wind was in the right direction, and a fast, well-handled vessel should be able to manage it by dusk. Then it would be an easy ride from the shipyard back to the city, because that particular road was used by navy officials, and was kept in better repair than the one to Prittlewell.

He walked back along the beach, where the spectators had given up on seeing anything interesting and were leaving in droves, allowing village life to return to normal. A few boys still clamoured to run errands, while women offered ridiculously low prices for their last few pies. Chaloner bought one on his way back from collecting Lady, and ate it as he approached the line of fishing boats. He was in luck: several were preparing to put to sea.

Not surprisingly, none were bound for Chatham, but Westcliff agreed to make a diversion for half the money in Temperance’s purse. It took the other half before he agreed to carry Lady as well, although he would not help with the loading, and said he would tip the beast overboard if it misbehaved and put the ketch in danger. Lady seemed to understand the threat, and confined his ill nature to an equine scowl.

It was not an easy journey. There was a heavy swell coming in from the North Sea, and the boat had a shallow draught, so rolled abominably. It began to rain, too, and the sails seemed to funnel gouts of water to wherever Chaloner happened to be sitting. He gave up trying to stay dry, and stood in the bows watching the coast grow steadily closer.

Eventually they were across the estuary, and into the calmer waters of the Medway. Westcliff peered ahead in the dull afternoon light, cutting a zigzagging course to miss sandbanks and shallows. Then they were in a deep channel, skirting low, flat islands that were home to huge colonies of raucous birds. It was almost dark by the time he steered the little craft towards a pier, where Chaloner and Lady were unloaded with almost indecent haste, lest the port authorities should see and demand a landing fee.

Chaloner tethered Lady to a bollard, confident that the gelding was far too mean to tempt thieves, and began to trawl the waterside taverns. Most were rough, and it was not easy to encourage people to talk when he had no money to buy ale. Eventually, he sold Lady’s saddle. Matters improved thereafter, although it was still nearing eleven by the time he was directed to a small, sooty-haired man with bad skin. His name was Norris.

‘HMS
London
,’ the fellow said, sipping the ale Chaloner set in front of him. ‘Yes, I remember her. She was due to sail on the morning tide, but Commissioner Pett delayed her with paperwork. It was all nonsense, of course. He could have let her go when the captain asked, but he refused.’

‘Why?’

Norris shrugged. ‘The ways of commissioners are beyond the likes of me, although there will have been money involved – Pett will do nothing unless he is well rewarded. He does not share his good fortune, though. He paid me a pittance to carry the Admiral’s chests aboard.’

‘I understand they were heavy.’

‘Like lead. Not that Pett gave me and my mates extra for our labours.’

‘What was in them?’

‘Musical instruments, apparently, but the captain laughed when I told him, so I imagine it was something else.’

‘Brandywine, perhaps? Or rum?’

‘They were too heavy for that.’ Norris spoke with such conviction that Chaloner was sure he knew what he was talking about. ‘I thought it odd that Lawson should want them put on here, though. Why not send them to the city, where he was to board himself?’

‘Do you think they had anything to do with the explosion?’

Norris shook his head. ‘It was not gunpowder that was in them – the balance would have been different. Maybe it was money – coins. But you should be asking Commissioner Pett all this, not me. Come. I will show you his house.’

While they walked, he confided that the Pett family had had control of the shipyard for generations, clawing power and influence through a range of sly and dishonest dealings. Their home was a lavish affair, a gem of glory in an area that was otherwise functional and dirty. Through one of its windows, Chaloner saw Pett sitting at dinner, despite the lateness of the hour, with a woman who was obviously his daughter. Pett was an ugly, moustachioed man with untrustworthy brown eyes, and his daughter looked much the same. She wore a pearl necklace of such length that half of it was submerged in her soup.

Knowing that no deceitful official liked answering questions, and that if he knocked on the door and asked for an audience he would be refused, Chaloner broke in, padding along a hallway that was full of fine furniture, much of it French and very new. There was a range of expensive clocks, none of them showing the same time, and their clangs, tings and gongs rang out in a constant medley of noise. They disguised any sound he might have made as he tiptoed towards the dining room and opened the door.