The Body in the Thames (43 page)

‘You are making a serious mistake, allying yourself with Falcon,’ said Williamson quietly. ‘He has over-extended himself with
his villainy, and will soon fall. And you will fall with him.’

Chaloner closed his eyes in despair. If Williamson was not Falcon, then who had Hannah and Thurloe? And how much time did
he have before Falcon decided they represented a risk he did not need to take, and they suffered the same fate as his other
victims?

In the office, Kicke released an unpleasant laugh. ‘Falcon is your superior in every way. He hoodwinked you into thinking
the Sinon Plot was just an effort to steal the crown jewels, when the reality was something far more significant. And you
still have no idea who he is.’

‘But you do?’ asked Williamson. ‘Tell me. Surely, you must see that I have a right to know the name of the man who has … bested
me.’

His pained expression showed how much it galled him to admit his failure. Chaloner held his breath, willing Kicke to answer.

‘I am not inclined to gossip,’ came the disappointing reply. ‘He would not like it.’

‘Then tell me about his achievements,’ urged Williamson. ‘Surely, he cannot object to that?’

‘Who knows what he might object to?’ muttered Kicke, and Chaloner saw he was frightened of the man he had chosen to serve.
‘I am not so stupid as to risk his ire.’

‘Then let me tell you what I have learned,’ said Williamson. ‘He is the White Hall blackmailer, which means he must be a courtier
himself, or he could not have learned such devastating secrets. He preyed on Buckingham, Lady Muskerry, Daniel Cotton, Charles
Bates, Penelope Compton, and a host of others. He even tackled Downing.’

So Downing and Bates were not Falcon, either, thought Chaloner, in growing dismay – they would not have blackmailed themselves.
So who was left? He had discounted the Dutchmen and Lane, on the grounds that foreigners would not know London well enough
to recruit gang members, and Lane would not have the resources. Or was he underestimating them? Ruyven had already proved
himself to be more than he seemed, while Lane spoke so rarely that Chaloner had no idea what he was capable of.

‘He has amassed himself a fortune,’ agreed Kicke. ‘All his victims paid, rather than have their nasty secrets made public.
I helped, and so did Nisbett. You should not have let your henchman murder Nisbett, by the way. I would not have killed Swaddell
if you had not killed Nisbett.’

Pain flashed across Williamson’s face; he was fond of Swaddell. ‘Five brave but rash men tried to stop Falcon,’ he went on,
his voice unsteady. ‘Compton, Molins, White, Edwards and Hanse.’

‘Falcon sent them poisoned gloves,’ said Kicke, gloating now. ‘But they took too long to work, so he told me to expedite matters.
I followed Hanse one night, and pushed him in the river.’

‘I heard all his clothes were missing,’ said Williamson, shooting a desperate glance towards the door to communicate that
he was running out of things to say.

‘Falcon did that. He was looking for something, although he did not find it. The gloves killed White, Molins and Compton,
and they will soon make an end of Edwards. And no one will guess.’

‘But Molins was attacked as he left the Devil tavern—’

‘I am no good with swords. Not like Nisbett. But the injury Molins sustained when he fell weakened him, and
then
the poison did its work.’

Chaloner glanced at Kicke’s boot-hose and saw the elaborate lace. The landlord of the Devil had been right to suspect that
the culprit was a courtier.

But every minute spent listening to Williamson coax scraps of information from Kicke was another minute in which Falcon could
decide to kill Hannah and Thurloe. Williamson was not in a position to demand Falcon’s identity more forcefully, so Chaloner
saw he would have to do it himself.

He looked around desperately, trying to devise a way that would eliminate the four guards but leave Kicke alive. He jumped
when he saw Swaddell’s black eyes open and staring at him.

Slowly, the assassin climbed to his feet. ‘I did not think
we
would ever work together,’ he whispered with the ghost of a smile. ‘But here we are. Do you have a plan?’

‘I do now there are two of us.’

It took no more than seconds for Chaloner to outline his idea to Swaddell. The assassin lay on the floor again, and began
to groan. When a guard emerged to make an end of him, Chaloner felled him with a blow to the head. The sound promoted a second
man to investigate, so Chaloner hit him, too.

‘Now it is just two more and Kicke,’ Swaddell murmured, scrambling to his feet. ‘You take the one on the left, and I shall
deal with the one on the right.’

Chaloner hurled open the door, his knife flying through the air at the same time. It embedded itself in the guard’s arm, and
the man dropped to his knees, screaming,
although he stopped when he saw Swaddell’s blade flash across his companion’s neck. Kicke’s jaw dropped in horror when he
recognised Chaloner.

‘You—’ he began.

But he got no further. Williamson had reached into his desk the moment Chaloner and Swaddell had burst in, and now he held
a gun. Kicke froze.

‘No!’ shouted Chaloner, as Swaddell advanced on the wounded guard. ‘He may answer—’

‘He knows nothing Kicke will not tell us.’ Swaddell cut the man’s throat.

Chaloner turned towards Kicke. ‘What is Falcon’s real name?’

‘That
is
his real name,’ bleated Kicke, backing towards the window. It was the one Bulteel had stood at, to look down into New Palace
Yard, and it was open. ‘Mr Falcon. I cannot say more.’

‘Do not play games,’ snapped Williamson. ‘Tell us his identity, or I will let Swaddell have you.’

Kicke’s face was agony of indecision: neither option appealed. Williamson nodded to Swaddell, who began to advance. Kicke
turned and leapt at the window. Chaloner dived towards him, straining to lay hold of him before he could go out, but his fingers
closed on air.

Kicke would probably have survived had he judged the jump properly, but his foot caught on the sill, and he went out head
first. Chaloner leaned through the window and looked down at him. Kicke’s back was broken, and although he was trying to speak,
no sound emerged. Chaloner knew Kicke would be dead before he could run all the way down the stairs to put his questions,
so he climbed on to the sill and prepared to drop next to him.

‘No!’ Williamson yanked him back. ‘Are you insane?’

Chaloner struggled free of him, but when he reached the sill again, a crowd had clustered around the fallen man. Among them
was de Buat. The Dutch physician sensed movement above him, and squinted upwards, shaking his head to tell them Kicke was
dead. Chaloner sagged in defeat.

‘Clarendon is always telling me you are dedicated,’ Williamson was saying as the spy staggered away from the window, ‘but
hurling yourself out of windows to interview suspects defies reason. It is hardly—’

‘Falcon has Hannah and Thurloe,’ whispered Chaloner wretchedly, feeling hope disintegrate within him. ‘Kicke was my best chance
of saving them.’

‘Lord!’ Williamson stared at him. ‘Does this mean we are going to have to work together? You to save your wife and friend,
and me to lay hold of a dangerous villain who wants to plunge us into a bloody war for reasons I cannot fathom?’

Chaloner barely heard him as he tried to devise another way forward. Unfortunately, he was too agitated for rational thought,
and all he could think was that Williamson and Swaddell had deprived him of his best opportunity – Swaddell with his over-eager
blade, and Williamson by preventing him from reaching Kicke. He itched to slam their heads together as hard as he could, and
scream at them for their stupidity.

‘I see now that Kun spoke the truth when he came to see me the other night,’ Williamson was saying to Swaddell. ‘He warned
me that Falcon’s eyes were fixed on more than the crown jewels, but I thought he was just distressed because the peace talks
are floundering. I should have listened.’

‘I thought you were Falcon,’ said Chaloner dully. He sank on to a bench and put his head in his hands, taking a deep breath
in an effort to control his rising panic.

‘Me?’ demanded Williamson, shocked and offended. ‘You think I am the kind of man who plays one nation against another?’

‘Why not? You think I am.’

‘That is different.
I
have not spent years in the States-General, insinuating myself into their society. However, Thurloe wrote me a letter yesterday,
pointing out that he would not have maintained an association with you, had you been a traitor. And now you have risked your
life to save mine. So I am willing to acknowledge your innocence. Of this, at least.’

‘I told you he was not a defector,’ said Swaddell, before Chaloner could remark that he had
not
saved Williamson’s life – his sole intention had been to interrogate Kicke. ‘He is not sufficiently interested in power or
wealth to sell himself to another country.’

‘You must have some suspicions about who Falcon might be,’ said Chaloner desperately, not really caring whether they thought
him innocent or not. ‘Or who he is not.’

Williamson winced. ‘It pains me to admit it, but Kicke was right: Falcon
has
been too clever for me. I know he is someone in a position to do a lot of damage, so he will not be some inconsequential
minion. But he might be anyone – courtier, cleric, envoy, even Dutchman.’

‘He plans to disrupt the conference at the Savoy,’ said Chaloner tiredly. ‘I am not sure how – perhaps with a bomb or an assassination,
or even with documents. I tried to warn van Goch—’

‘Why him?’ demanded Williamson. ‘Why not Clarendon or the Privy Council? Or me?’

‘Why do you think I came here?’ lied Chaloner.

Williamson snatched up his gun from the desk. ‘This villain will
not
succeed. I swear it. He—’

He stopped speaking when there was a clatter of footsteps in the hallway outside. It was de Buat. The physician regarded Chaloner
uneasily.

‘It is all right,’ said Williamson, beckoning him in. ‘Chaloner will not betray you. We have just established that he is not
a Dutch spy.’

Chaloner’s mind reeled as the implications of that remark sunk in. ‘De Buat is
your
man?’

‘Yes, and has been for years,’ replied Williamson. ‘Ever since he was rash enough to fight for Cromwell during the civil wars.
More recently, he has been my eyes and ears in the Savoy.’

‘But it is a pity he cannot tell us the identity of Falcon,’ muttered Swaddell.

‘Who was the man you tossed out of the window?’ asked de Buat, as he stepped into Williamson’s office. His jaw dropped in
horror when he saw Swaddell’s handiwork – the assassin had added the two guards Chaloner had stunned to his tally, and was
casually cleaning his knife on a piece of linen.

‘We did not throw him. He fell.’ Williamson saw the Dutchman’s sceptical look and grimaced. ‘I know we have made that claim
before, but it is true this time. Why?’

‘He could not speak,’ said de Buat. ‘But he could move his mouth, although no sound came out.’

‘And you read lips,’ said Chaloner, hope stirring. ‘What did he say?’

De Buat shook his head. ‘It made no sense. He said that Falcon is the mincing man.’

Chaloner gazed at him. Surely, he could not mean Griffith? He groaned as several facts came together in his mind. The effete
colonel had made many friends at Court since arriving in February, and might well have learned how to blackmail them. And
he had hired Lane, a man who was sinister by anyone’s standards. Moreover, he had expressed his intention to leave London
that day, perhaps because his sly work was almost done.

Meanwhile, Swaddell shot Williamson a triumphant look. ‘I
told
you there was something odd about Colonel Griffith.’

‘He claimed he came from Great Hampden,’ said Chaloner, speaking more to himself than the others. ‘But I was born near there,
and would have heard of his family.
Ergo
, he either lied about his name, or about the place of his birth.’

‘That was careless of him,’ said Swaddell. ‘He should have asked Bulteel where you—’

‘He might have done, but Bulteel did not know,’ interrupted Chaloner, his mind running ahead, focusing on how he was going
to corner Griffith. ‘I never mentioned it to him.’

‘Then why did
you
not challenge Griffith?’ demanded Swaddell. ‘If you knew he was lying?’

‘Why would I? Lots of people lie about their origins in these uncertain times.’

‘So his real name probably
is
Falcon,’ said Swaddell. ‘And he was never a Royalist colonel during the wars. Clarendon was deceived by him, though, because
they spent hours reminiscing.’

‘He did remark that Griffith had changed,’ said
Chaloner, desperately racking his brain for places Griffith might take Hannah and Thurloe. ‘But with wigs and face paints
… ’

‘No,’ said Williamson quietly. ‘Griffith cannot be Falcon, because—’

‘He deceived us all,’ interrupted de Buat. ‘Dutch
and
English. But his guilt is obvious now I think about it. He haunts White Hall, for a start, and where better a place to learn
secrets for blackmail and spying?’

‘Moreover, he arrived when Chaloner was away,’ added Swaddell. ‘He would not have been able to insinuate himself here had
there been a vigilant spy to hand. And by the time Chaloner returned, Griffith was too well established.’

‘No,’ said Williamson, more loudly. ‘You are wrong. The man is Bulteel’s cousin, for God’s sake, and you all know
he
is above reproach.’

‘Griffith deceived Clarendon,’ said de Buat. ‘Why not Bulteel, too?’

Poor Bulteel, thought Chaloner with a pang. He would be devastated.

‘Griffith is
not
Falcon,’ snapped Williamson, temper fraying. ‘And if you must know why I am so sure, it is because he works for me. Like
you, de Buat, he reports on the Dutch.’

‘Christ!’ muttered Chaloner. ‘Am I the only man in London who is not currently hired to spy on someone else’s government?’