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Authors: Susanna Gregory

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #General, #Mystery & Detective

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BOOK: The Cheapside Corpse
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‘I want you to visit the linen-drapers first. They promised me fifty pounds tonight, but they only brought forty. Perhaps one might have an accident, as a warning to the others.’

Unusually, Baron hesitated. ‘My brother-in-law is a linen-draper, and business
has
been bad of late. They lost a lot of money when their ship was attacked by Dutch privateers and—’

‘Not you as well,’ groaned Wheler. ‘They made an agreement and they broke it. Now do as I say, or I shall dismiss you and appoint someone else.’

Baron inclined his head, but not before Wheler had seen the flash of rage in his eyes. Many would call him a fool for challenging a brute like Baron, but Wheler knew it would be more reckless to let him gain the upper hand. Like all dangerous animals, it was necessary to let them know who was in charge. The two men nodded a cool goodnight, and Baron left.

Wheler pored over his ledgers for another hour, then stood to walk to the meeting he was due to attend – a gathering of the Goldsmiths’ Company, where fine food and drink would be served in sumptuous surroundings. He was looking forward to it, as he would be able to gloat over those colleagues who still floundered in the wake of the Colburn Crisis.

He heard the soft tap of footsteps behind him as he strode down White Goat Wynd and turned in annoyance, assuming it was a debtor come to beg for a reprieve, so when the knife plunged into his chest, his first reaction was indignation. Who dared raise a hand against him? An embittered client? Baron? A fellow banker, jealous of his success? The long list was still running through his mind when he died.

Chapter 1
London, late April 1665

It was easy for travellers to know when they were nearing London because of the stench – three hundred thousand souls living in unhealthily close proximity could be detected from a considerable distance. The city could be seen from afar, too, first as a yellow-brown smear on the horizon from countless belching sea-coal fires, furnaces and ovens, and then as a bristle of towers, spires and turrets, with the lofty bulk of St Paul’s Cathedral looming majestically over them.

Despite the city’s drawbacks, filth and reek being but two, Thomas Chaloner was pleased to see it again. Since taking employment as intelligencer to the Earl of Clarendon three years before, he had spent more time away than at home, and his latest jaunt of six weeks had told him more than ever that he wanted to settle down. He had married the previous June, but had spent scant few nights with his wife since, and as their relationship was turbulent to say the least, he needed time to work on it if he did not want it to end in disaster.

He returned his hired horse to the stable in Westminster, and began to walk the short distance to his house on Tothill Street. It was warm for the time of year, which was a relief after a long and unusually bitter winter, and everywhere were signs that spring had arrived. There was a blaze of flowers in the grassy sward around the old abbey, while blossom covered the trees in St James’s Park. Birds’ plumage brightened as the breeding season got underway, and London seemed a happier, more hopeful place than when he had left it in March.

Striding along made him hot, so he unfastened his coat, a thick, practical garment of an indeterminate shade of beige. Like Chaloner, there was nothing about it to attract attention. He was of average height, weight and build, his hair was brown, his eyes were grey, and his face was pleasant but unremarkable. He had worked hard to make himself unmemorable, to blend into the background of any situation or gathering of people, and that was one reason why he had survived so long in the turbulent, shifting world of espionage.

As he walked, he reflected on the assignments he had just completed. There had been two of them. The first, for his friend John Thurloe, had been to visit members of the Cromwell family – no small favour, given that the Lord Protector’s kin had become
personae non gratae
after the fall of the Commonwealth. He had helped Cromwell’s son to catch a thief in the Fens, then had travelled to Northamptonshire to ensure that Cromwell’s widow was being properly looked after. He had completed both errands, including travel, within a week.

The second task had been for the Earl, and had taken rather longer: there had been rumours of an uprising in Hull, and Chaloner had been charged to put it down.

It had been a ridiculous order. The local sheriff was more than capable of tackling a handful of deluded fanatics who were more danger to themselves than the stability of the nation. Moreover, the sheriff resented someone from London looking over his shoulder, and had avenged himself by sending Chaloner on foray after foray into the sodden countryside, forcing him to endure weeks of muddy tracks, sleeping under hedges and poor food. Chaloner suspected the ‘rebellion’ had been crushed at least a fortnight before the official announcement was made, and the delay had been purely to make him suffer a little longer.

Thus he was delighted and grateful to be home. Tothill Street had a heartening familiarity about it, and he quickened his pace. His house was the big one in the middle, far larger than he and Hannah needed, but she was lady-in-waiting to the Queen and appearances were important to her. The extravagance worried Chaloner, though, who felt they should put aside at least some of their earnings for a rainy day. She disagreed, and some very fierce arguments had ensued.

A hackney carriage was parked outside, which meant she had guests. Chaloner’s heart sank. He disliked the hedonistic, vacuous courtiers Hannah chose as friends, and he had hoped she would be alone. He bypassed the front door and headed for the back one, aiming to slip up the stairs and change his travel-stained clothes before she saw him – more than one quarrel had erupted because he had joined a soirée in a less than pristine condition. With luck, by the time he was presentable, the visitors might have gone.

He strolled into the kitchen and was met by the warm, welcoming scent of new bread. All the servants were there. The housekeeper sat at the table with her account book, the cook-maid fussed over the loaf she had just removed from the oven, the scullion swept the floor, and the footman and the page perched on a window sill, polishing boots.

It was a comfortable scene, yet Chaloner immediately sensed an atmosphere. The staff were a surly horde, and he had often wondered how Hannah had managed to select so many malcontents. The housekeeper was inflexible and domineering; the cook-maid, scullion and footman were lazy and dishonest; and the page, old enough to be Chaloner’s grandfather and thus elderly for such a post, was incurably disrespectful. But even by their standards, the kitchen was not a happy place that particular day: all were uneasy, and the girls had been crying.

‘Oh,’ said the housekeeper disagreeably, when she saw Chaloner. ‘You are back.’

It was no way to greet the master of the house, but she was secure in the knowledge that her long association with Hannah’s family meant she would never be dismissed, no matter how discourteously she behaved. She was a lean, cadaverous woman whose loose black clothes and beady black eyes always reminded Chaloner of a crow. He did not check her for impertinence that day, however, because she was so wan that he wondered if she was ill.

‘Who is with Hannah?’ he asked, startled and suspicious when the others came to offer a variety of curtsies, bows and tentative smiles. They usually followed the housekeeper’s example of sullen contempt, and he was unused to deference from them.

‘They did not leave their names,’ replied the footman. ‘But they have been here before. The mistress owes them money, see.’

Chaloner felt the stirrings of unease. Hannah had accrued some serious debts the previous winter, and it had not been easy to settle them all. Appalled by how close they had come to fiscal disaster, she had promised to be more careful while he was away. Chaloner had believed her assurances, and was alarmed to learn that he might have been overly trusting.

‘Money for what?’ he asked.

‘Everyone at Court is in arrears with payments for things these days,’ said the housekeeper evasively. ‘So she is not alone.’

‘No, indeed,’ put in the scullion. ‘Will Chiffinch and Bab May owe tens of thousands.’

Supposing clean clothes would have to wait, Chaloner aimed for the drawing room. Hannah was proud of this chamber. It boasted a French clock, a Dutch chaise longue, and the walls had been covered with paper, an extravagance that had been decried by Cromwell’s Puritans, but that was a very popular fashion among the reinstated Royalists.

He arrived to find Hannah sitting on a chair looking frightened, while two louts loomed over her. The knife he always carried in his sleeve slipped into his hand, and he started towards them, but he had not anticipated a third man lurking behind the door. He jerked away in time to avoid the blow directed at his head, but it left him off balance, which gave the other two time to launch an attack. He deflected one punch with a hastily raised arm, but another caught him on the chin and down he went. Hannah’s cry of relief at his appearance turned to a shriek of alarm.

Blinking to clear his vision, he saw a cudgel begin to descend. He twisted to one side, ramming his blade into the fellow’s calf and kicking the feet from under another, just as Hannah sprang into action and dealt the last man a wild clout that made him stagger. The cosh-wielder released a howl of pain and hobbled towards the door, while his cronies, loath to tackle anyone who fought back, were quick to follow. Chaloner scrambled upright, but he was still giddy, and by the time he had recovered enough to give chase, the three men were long gone.

‘Oh, Tom!’ wailed Hannah. ‘Thank God you are home. You have been gone so long and—’

‘Who were they?’ demanded Chaloner.

‘No one to worry about,’ she replied unconvincingly, and flung herself into his arms so vigorously that she almost sent both of them flying. She snuffled into his shoulder, while he held her rather stiffly, supposing he should say something to comfort her, but not sure what. Eventually, she pushed away from him and went to stand in the window.

‘I had my portrait done by Peter Lely while you were away,’ she said in a muffled, distracted voice that made him suppose she was hurt by his failure to dispense the necessary solace. She pointed to the wall above the fireplace. ‘Do you like it?’

Chaloner stared at the picture. It captured perfectly her laughing eyes, snub nose and inconvenient hair. The quality of the work was no surprise, though, because Lely was Principal Painter in Ordinary to the King, and thus the most sought-after artist in the country. His popularity meant he could charge whatever he liked for a commission, and it was common knowledge that his prices were far beyond the reach of all but the richest of patrons.

‘Oh, God!’ gulped Chaloner. ‘So that is why we are in debt again!’

It was not the homecoming he had hoped for. Chaloner sat in his extravagant parlour, sullenly sipping expensive wine, while Hannah perched at his side and chatted about all that had happened since he had left – she was rarely cool with him for long. There had been another comet that presaged a major disaster – even astronomers from the Royal Society thought so, and they were no fools. Then there had been an ugly purple mist with leprous spots, followed not long after by a coffin-shaped cloud.

‘Some folk say these things foretell an outbreak of the plague,’ Hannah explained. ‘Because there have been a dozen cases in the slums near St Giles-in-the-Fields since February. But I think they are wrong. It has not spread to other areas, so the danger is probably over.’

Chaloner had lost his first wife and child to plague in Holland, and although it had been more than a decade ago, the memory was still painful.

‘Those men,’ he began, keen to think of something else, even if it was a matter that was likely to annoy him, ‘what did they—’

‘Your Earl has been the focus of a lot of scurrilous talk,’ Hannah interrupted, equally keen to postpone the spat that both knew was likely to follow once the subject of debt was broached. ‘As you know, people were starting to call his new mansion Dunkirk House, because he sold that port back to the French at a ridiculously low price, but now
everyone
is doing it. They are angrier than ever with him, as Dutch pirates are using it as a base from which to harry British shipping.’

‘It was not his idea to sell it,’ Chaloner pointed out.

‘Perhaps not, but he oversaw the arrangements, and people think he let the French bribe him, because we
should
have got more for it. The
douceur
he took to let them have it cheap probably did pay for his fine new house.’

Chaloner was more interested in their own affairs. ‘What did those louts want with—’

She cut across him a second time. ‘Our housekeeper has been ill. Surgeon Wiseman has been treating her, but she has needed several visits to Epsom for the waters, which are costly…’

Chaloner regarded her in alarm. ‘How much do we owe?’

‘A few thousand pounds,’ mumbled Hannah, rather indistinctly.


What?
’ It was far worse than he had anticipated. ‘How much Epsom water did she drink? Or is it the Lely portrait that has ruined us?’

‘We are not
ruined
, Thomas,’ said Hannah irritably. ‘We are temporarily embarrassed. And it is not the housekeeper or Lely who put us there – she paid for most of her treatment herself, while Lely agreed to defer payment until next year.’

Chaloner regarded her accusingly. ‘You promised not to spend more than we earned. In fact, you swore an oath.’

‘And I have kept it,’ declared Hannah indignantly. ‘I have not spent a shilling more than we agreed – other than the Lely, which I knew you would not mind. He was free for a few weeks, and it was too good an opportunity to miss. The painting is an investment, you see.’

‘So why are we in debt? Again.’

‘Because I inadvertently defaulted on the loan I had to take out when I bought my post with the Queen. I had no idea the conditions had changed until the demands came for the arrears.’

BOOK: The Cheapside Corpse
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