Plague (20 page)

Coke stared for a moment. “You were in the wars?”

“I was. A corporal in the London Trained Bands. I served throughout.”

“As did I,” Coke said. “My captaincy was in Sir Bevil Grenville’s Regiment of Foote.”

“An honourable band of men, I heard. Cornish, are you?”

“From Bristol, I. Near it, anyway. But my father had connections.” He paused. “Did we fight against each other? I wonder. I was mainly in the West.”

“And I in London and a little in the Midlands. And once I fought as far north as Marston Moor, by York. Were you there?”

“I was not. Though I was at Naseby.”

“As was I.”

Naseby, thought Coke. The ruin of the king’s cause.

Naseby, thought Pitman. That awful triumph.

For a few moments, while men ran in the streets and cat skins swayed in the warehouse, both men were not there. They were upon that field both had tried to forget. Both had only ever partly succeeded.

Does that explain it, then? Pitman asked himself. Things witnessed on a battlefield? The horror? Slaughtering others before they slaughter you? The first man you kill, terrible; the second, a little easier; by the third, a habit formed? But at every death the terror never leaving you? Knowing that unless you stick a pike in their guts, they will stick one in yours?

He looked again at Coke. His face was calm—and that made Pitman suddenly angry. “War might explain your actions a little, Captain. But it does not excuse. Not what you did. Not that.” He saw the interior of the coach again. The lady. The blood. How it was used. It further fuelled his anger. “And you claim to leave God alone? When you blasphemed him by writing his words in the victim’s gore upon the coach’s walls?”

“What you are talking about?”

“What you wrote from Revelation. ‘For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.’ ”

“That was written there?”

“The numbers were. Chapter and verse.”

“I did not write them.”

“Of course not. It was your demon who did.” Pitman’s anger went as swiftly as it had come. “But they will hang you,” he continued, “once for a madman, once for a murderer—and justice will be done.” Coke opened his mouth to deny again—then closed it. He studied Pitman’s face, the righteous anger there. You
need
to
understand me, he thought. Is that what you said? And now you think you have done so? But I
do
understand you. For you are not merely a thief-taker. You are an angel of justice. And there my hope lies.

Instead of denying further, Coke said, “I will acknowledge that I may be hanged as a thief. The laws of the land demand it—even though those same laws did not prevent the stealing of my family lands. Never mind that. But you speak of the justice that sees the highwayman hanged. What then of the murderer?”

“You hang as both. You are equally dead and equally punished.”

“Am I?” Coke tipped his head. “Any man who saw the slaughter in that carriage would want to have the true culprit apprehended. If the wrong man is hanged for the crime, the slaughterer who did those … those things lives to do them again. More guts will be spilled—and the lady we both, I suspect, admired goes unavenged. If you have even the slightest doubt that I am the murderer of Finchley—and surely the fact that you have not coshed or shackled the mad dog shows you must have that tiny doubt—you must give me the chance to prove that I am not he.”

“The judge will give you your chance.”

“Come, you have been to court, sir. You know the judge will do only what the mob demands—that the Monstrous Cock dance the Tyburn jig before them. I will be lucky if it is only that, that a charge of treason is not somehow laid and proven, so the people can watch me hanged, drawn and quartered. Or that my crimes are not labelled witchcraft so they can see me burn.” He shook his head. “Nay, sir—you claimed before that you would not accept tainted money. How much more tainted will your thirty guineas be when innocent blood washes it? When the true murderer lives, perhaps to murder again? Could you live with that?”

Pitman saw then in his mind’s eye his home, his hungry children, his wife’s belly swelled by the two yet coming. But then he imagined his wife’s face, heard her voice: “You have to do the right thing, Pitman. God will not keep blessing us if you do not.”

He drew a deep breath. “How can you prove you are not the murderer?”

Coke paused before he spoke. “By taking you to his latest victim.”

“You mean your demon has killed again?”

“I mean, sir, that the murderer has. It is clear to me only now, in this conversation with you, that the two crimes are linked. The carriage and this cellar where the new victim lies.
If
he still lies there. He did last night and I can only hope he has not yet been disturbed.”

“Where is this cellar?”

“In the parish of St. Giles in the Fields. Not far.”

“I know where St. Giles is.” Pitman chewed at his lip. Curse the fellow, he thought. Coke had made him doubt—which he had to admit he did already. For despite the evidence of that night, nothing he’d known of Captain Cock led him to believe the man capable of committing such crimes. Nothing he’d discovered in their conversation today had changed that opinion. “Even if you prove you are not a murderer, I could still hand you over for a highwayman and collect my reward.”

“You could. Perhaps you will. Let justice be done.”

Pitman raised his eyes to the heavens. Why, O Lord, why? “We will wait a little longer, for the chase to die away. And then you will take me to this cellar. Only then will I decide your fate.” He reached into his cloak and pulled out manacles. “But you and I will be joined by these, Captain. I do not ask for your pledge. What man would not escape the noose if he could, despite the giving of his
oath? But I’m damned if I am doing any more running this day. I’m too old for it, by heaven.”

“As am I.” Coke sniffed. “Though I hope we may leave soon. These cat skins may have been tanned, but how they reek!”

“They do. It is strange, is it not, what they say? That there are many ways to skin a cat. I can think of only one.” He spun one of the furs. “But there are many ways to prove a man a murderer, Captain Coke. As you shall see.”

They left an hour before sunset, the manacles that joined them, left wrist to right, concealed beneath Pitman’s cloak, slung over their arms.

As they walked, Coke tried to tell a little of why and how he’d discovered the body they were about to visit, stating that he was on a mission for a lady, whom he did not name. But Pitman merely grunted, so Coke went silent. The thief-taker still thought he was the murderer.

From the murky warren of Alsatia, and after a brief time on the wider, better lit streets around Lincoln’s Inn, they entered the equally twisting lanes of St. Giles. Before the Maidenhead, a low tavern whose crudely drawn sign depicted a frowsy lady most unlikely to have retained hers, a gang of link boys were dipping wands into a tub of molten wax. At Coke’s insistence, Pitman bought two links, lit them, then went with the captain down an especially dark alley.

They stopped before a crumbled archway. “Are you sure this is the place?”

“Carrier Court.” Coke raised his link. “Here is my mark.”

His flame lit the scratched cross. “At least it is not painted red,” said Pitman. “No plague here.”

“None that is owned. Come.”

Though evening light yet lingered, it did not do much to enhance the courtyard, still as grey and dingy as it had been the day before. No children danced around the well today; indeed, save for a piebald dog that rooted in the rubbish of one corner and ran off snarling when they entered, nothing stirred. Yet Coke still had the feeling they were observed, thought he heard a girl’s giggle from the shadows.

“Well, sir?” said Pitman, shaking the manacles. “Where do you lead me?”

“Over here,” Coke replied, setting off as he said it, though his feet dragged a little, as if they too were shackled. A small part of him hoped that the body was gone. A day had passed; surely someone would have nosed out the fellow. Coke’s proof would be gone. But he would be spared the sight again.

As soon as they stepped into the dank stairwell, he knew differently. The scent had been ripening before. Now it was ripe. Instinctively he raised a hand to his face—bringing Pitman’s up with it.

“I do not think you can run from me now,” the big man said, handing over his link so he could unchain himself from Coke, then chaining Coke’s wrists. “As long as you go first,” he added, taking his wand back, gesturing down.

It threatened to unman them both, the stench beyond the last door. Indeed, if either had fled back up the stairs, both would have done so. But neither did, and taking a steadying breath, foul though it was, Coke and Pitman entered the cellar.

“Where is he?”

Coke’s reply was to wave his link toward the corner. Pitman approached and crouched. “I cannot see,” he called. “Bring your light over here, man.”

“I can do better than that.” Coke remembered now the snuffing of the reed torch when he’d fled before. He lifted his flame to the charred reeds and blew. They glowed, flared, and a dancing light filled the cellar.

“Did you place that there so you could better work, Captain?”

“I found it. When I found that,” he replied.

“Him,” corrected Pitman. “Take this,” he said, holding out his wand. “Stand close so I can view him properly and still see you.”

“You will not wish it when you do,” replied Coke softly, but moved nearer nonetheless.

Strangely, the stench diminished at its source. Or rather, Pitman realized, sight overwhelmed scent. Nevertheless, he was careful in his study. Noted the missing ears and single eyelid, the burns, the slashes, the wounds that had opened up the cavity, the guts drawn out. And yet, in the carnage he saw the same order that he had seen in the coach. Some of the havoc was indiscriminate, but some was precise. Done by someone who knew how to open up a body.

“Do you know how to dress a deer, Captain?”

“I do not. We hunted them, of course. But our servants prepared them.” He ran his tongue over his lips. “I never even liked to watch.”

Pitman rose. “Show me your hands.”

“Why?”

“Show me.”

Coke put the links into the sconce beside the reed torch, then held out his manacled hands palms down. Pitman turned them over, his own hands moving delicately despite their size, so lightly that Coke’s skin tickled. “They are soft, Captain. Almost feminine.”

“I wear gloves near all the time. I do not like to—”

“Labour with them. That is clear. Your labour requires you to
hold a gun, does it not? You do have sword calluses on the palm of your right hand, on your index finger. Are you good with blades?”

“I am sufficient.”

“A modest reply.” Pitman sucked in a breath. “Tell me, did you ever study for a surgeon?”

“I did not—though I extracted a musket ball from a friend’s back once. Near killed both of us.”

“Hmm.” Pitman released the man’s hands. “You know, Captain Coke, whilst that same hanging judge might not believe me, I would testify that you did not slaughter this man. Nor, I believe now, those unfortunates in Finchley.”

Coke felt the relief in a cooling of his brow. “And why do you believe that now?”

“Because whoever wrought this will have the hands of one who uses tools regularly, have knowledge of how bodies are put together—and how they are taken apart. His hands are stained permanently, as yours are not. A surgeon or a butcher—though from what I witnessed in the army there was little to tell the two professions apart.”

Coke shook the restraints on his wrists. “Then if you believe me innocent, could you?”

“Not yet, sir. If I no longer think you a murderer, I have yet to decide what to do about the thief.” He knelt. “Bring those lights back, if you please.”

Coke did. Pitman was turning the body this way and that. The captain watched as he opened the man’s jaws, using both hands and some force to counter death’s hardening. There was a crack. Coke looked away, mastered his stomach’s heaves, and then heard Pitman’s cry of “Found you!”

When Coke looked back, he saw an oval lump in the thief-taker’s hand; not, he was relieved to see, of flesh. Lights reflected in it,
more so when Pitman rubbed it on his cloak before holding it up again.

“You found that in his mouth?”

“I did. And if I was yet a gambling man, I would give you short odds that it is a sapphire.”

“Do you have knowledge of gemstones, sir?”

“No. But I know my Bible. I pulled a stone from the mouth of that member of Parliament in the coach.”

“Did you, by God? A sapphire also?”

“No. That one was a jasper. And the book of Revelation speaks of an order to such stones.”

“Revelation again.” Coke frowned. “Why is that of concern here?”

“Because of those numerals I mentioned, daubed upon the coach’s wall. And in that book it is written that gems will adorn the cornerstones of the new Jerusalem, which is Christ’s returned kingdom upon the earth.” He intoned, “Chapter twenty-one, verse nineteen: ‘And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second—’ ”

“Sapphire?”

“Which makes me suspicious of you anew, Captain. For I believe it was this very sapphire I glimpsed, aye, and sketched too, around the lady’s neck in Finchley. Part of the necklace you already admitted to stealing. What makes it here unless you brought it?”

“I …” Coke was trying to remember something that Isaac ben Judah had said to him the last time they met. “The Jew thought that a jewel was missing from the necklace. He said he thought it might be a sapphire!”

“Convenient for you.”

“If you don’t believe me, we can go and ask him.”

“I am not sure I want to see that Jew again. Last time I did he shot a gun near my head.”

While the thief-taker continued his examination, another memory came to the highwayman. A face. A voice. “The lady,” he said. “She was not dead when I found her.” Pitman glanced up sharply. “Beyond any aid, sure.” Coke hesitated. “But she said something just before she died.”