The Cheapside Corpse (7 page)

‘After the shots, I saw two men running away,’ Backwell said. ‘One was waving a gun, which was rash – most killers would have hidden it. They disappeared up Milk Street.’

‘Roundheads,’ added Joan. Up close, her face was pinched and sour, and her tiny pointed teeth and small pink nose were definitely redolent of a ferret. ‘Troublemakers, like all their breed.’

‘You were one once,’ Backwell reminded her. ‘As was I.’

‘But
I
was not,’ put in Taylor haughtily. Chaloner had sensed the power of the man from a distance, but close up it was almost overwhelming, and he noticed people were careful not to stand too close. ‘I was
always
a Royalist.’

‘I was led astray by my first husband,’ averred Joan. ‘But he is dead, and now there is no more loyal servant of the Crown than I.’

‘She has changed her tune,’ murmured Shaw in Chaloner’s ear. ‘And I know why: she is afraid the King will use her former loyalties as an excuse to demand a donation for the war, as he has all the other financiers who once loved Cromwell.’

‘Which is probably why she married Mr Taylor’s son with such unseemly haste,’ put in Lettice. ‘Wheler left her fabulously wealthy, and she does not want to lose it to a money-hungry monarch. As Mr Taylor was a Royalist, the King leaves him and his riches alone.’

‘Who would want to harm Dr Coo?’ asked a man whose clothes identified him as a brewer, although not one who earned a very good living. ‘He was a gentle man.’

‘He was indeed, Farrow,’ sighed Backwell. ‘He will be missed among the poor – he treated them for free.’

‘I advised him against that,’ said Taylor. His eyes were hard, like brown buttons, and there was no kindness in the handsome face. He looked, Chaloner thought, exactly like the kind of man who would turn others’ misfortunes into profit for himself. ‘It was asking to be abused by lazy beggars who cannot be bothered to work.’

‘No beggar killed Coo,’ stated a laundress angrily. ‘A banker did, jealous of his popularity.’

‘Who cares about popularity?’ shrugged Taylor. ‘Especially from paupers. I would rather have the money they owe than their love.’

‘We know,’ said Farrow sullenly. ‘That greedy rogue Wheler stole my brewery, and now I am forced to borrow from you to—’

‘This is not the place to discuss such matters,’ interrupted Backwell sharply. ‘Not with Coo lying dead in front of us. Now, first things first. Is there any money in his pockets?’

‘Money?’ blurted Chaloner, startled by the question, especially after the curt reprimand that had been snapped at Farrow.

‘Coins,’ elaborated the banker, and his eyes took on an acquisitive gleam. ‘Pounds, shillings and pence. Cash. Currency. Legal tender. Lucre. Specie.’

Chaloner was not the only one who grimaced his distaste when Backwell knelt next to Coo and began to rifle through the physician’s clothes. Three shillings and sixpence were found, which Backwell held up reverently, like a clergyman with the Host.

‘I shall keep them safe until his next of kin comes to claim them,’ he said, placing them in the purse he wore around his neck; it was already bulging. ‘Now we can discuss his murder. Who were those two men?’

‘I could not tell – they were wearing masks.’ Taylor addressed Backwell arrogantly, as if no one else was there. ‘But I wager anything you like that they were minions of Baron. We all know that he is not beneath murder if it suits him.
He
sent these men to dispatch Coo.’

‘But Coo physicks his trainband,’ said Backwell doubtfully. ‘I doubt he—’

‘Trainband!’ spat Taylor contemptuously. ‘His men are not a company of militia organised to rally in the event of trouble, but a gang – a rabble of thieves, robbers, cut-throats and felons.’

A wave of resentment rippled through the onlookers, making Chaloner suspect that some might be trainband members themselves. He glanced at them. There were one or two merchants among the throng, but most were either obviously impecunious or were like Farrow – people who struggled to make an honest living, and who were compelled to borrow to make ends meet.

‘Regardless, Coo tended them when they were hurt or ill,’ Backwell was telling Taylor. ‘So Baron has no reason to harm him.’

‘Then I suppose the murder will remain a mystery,’ said Joan with callous indifference. ‘Now, let us all be about our own business. Shaw will not mind seeing to Coo. He is no longer a goldsmith, so he can have nothing better to do.’

She turned on her heel and flounced back to the tavern. Taylor followed, although not before he had taken the opportunity to run his eyes over the spectators, giving the impression that he was looking for debtors; Farrow was suddenly nowhere to be seen. Chaloner watched Taylor go, wondering whether to run after him to discuss the murdered Wheler – not to mention Hannah’s debt – but decided it was hardly the best time.

‘I cannot abide that Joan,’ muttered the laundress. ‘She was a greedy vixen when she was wed to Wheler, and marrying into the Taylor clan has made her worse than ever.’

There was a murmur of agreement, followed by a lot of vicious remarks about goldsmith–bankers in general. Chaloner turned back to the Shaws, but they had been cornered by Backwell, much to their obvious consternation.

‘My outing,’ Backwell was saying, blithely oblivious to the unfriendly mood of the onlookers. Personally, Chaloner thought he was reckless to stay there alone. ‘I have planned a meal of anchovies, followed by shopping. What time will you and Lettice arrive?’

‘Seven,’ replied Lettice, although her husband had opened his mouth to decline. Chaloner did not blame him: the excursion sounded dreadful.

‘Good,’ beamed Backwell. ‘It will be a celebration, as the King has just appointed me to oversee the finances for the Dutch war. I am delighted! There is nothing nicer than counting money and my new duties will involve a lot of it. I shall not only buy arms, ammunition and naval supplies, but see to the sailors’ pay. All those little packets of coins! What could be more fun?’

‘Music,’ said Lettice firmly. ‘Or listening to birdsong.’

‘And cockroach racing,’ added Shaw. Chaloner had no idea if he was serious.

But Backwell was warming to his theme and did not hear. ‘Coins deserve to be handled by someone who
loves
them, which is why I became a banker, of course. Nothing gives me more pleasure than money – the feel of it in my hands, its delicious scent, the way it glitters.’

He continued in this vein for several minutes, then turned and strode away without giving the Shaws a chance to respond, humming happily to himself.

‘Lord!’ muttered Chaloner, watching him go. ‘Is he in his right wits?’

‘He loves money more than life,’ said Shaw, then glared at his wife. ‘I was looking forward to singing tomorrow. Why did you let him bully you into accepting his invitation?’

Lettice sighed. ‘We cannot offend a powerful man – especially one who is friends with Joan. We do rent our shop from her, after all.’

When the bankers had gone, Shaw took control of the situation, albeit reluctantly. A messenger was sent to notify the authorities, Coo was carried inside his house, the laundress was paid to scour his blood from the step, and the remaining gawpers were dismissed with a few pithy words.

‘Could Taylor be right?’ asked Chaloner, feeling
he
had a right to linger, given that he had almost shared the physician’s fate. ‘Coo was shot on Baron’s orders?’

Shaw shook his head slowly. ‘Baron might be a ruthless criminal with a powerful trainband at his disposal, but he would never kill a popular fellow like Coo – the culprit will earn the undying enmity of all Cheapside, and he is too canny to incur that sort of dislike. Unless Coo refused to pay the Protection Tax, of course. Then Baron might strike.’

‘The Protection Tax is what we on Cheapside pay to ensure we are not burgled, burned down or vandalised,’ explained Lettice in response to Chaloner’s questioning look. ‘It is extortion, of course, given that Mr Baron’s men will be doing the burgling, burning and vandalising.’ She turned to her husband. ‘But Dr Coo was exempt, Robin – his reward for tending the trainband.’

Shaw shrugged. ‘Well, even if Baron was rash enough to kill Coo, no one will ever prove it. He kept Wheler’s nasty operation –
his
nasty operation now – running smoothly for years, and he knows how to hide his tracks. He will never be charged with a crime.’

He would, if the Earl had his way, thought Chaloner. ‘You say Wheler’s operation is now Baron’s, but how did Baron win control? Or does he work for Joan?’

‘When Wheler died, she inherited everything,’ explained Shaw. ‘But Baron seized the
illegal
side of the venture – the brothels, gambling dens and Protection Tax – before she could stop him. She was livid, but what could she do? She can hardly take him to court, given that the concerns she wanted to reclaim are criminal.’

‘It was probably his antics that encouraged her to marry Randal,’ added Lettice. ‘No one will steal from her now she is under Mr Taylor’s wing.’

‘So who killed Wheler?’ asked Chaloner, ever hopeful for an easy solution. ‘Baron?’

‘Perhaps,’ replied Lettice. ‘Unfortunately, there are lots of rumours but no evidence to support any of them. No one actually
saw
him stabbed.’

‘When the body was found the next morning,’ Shaw continued, ‘it had been stripped completely naked. That suggests to me that it was the work of opportunistic thieves.’

‘Not an unhappy client?’ pressed Chaloner. ‘Or a colleague? Or even a wife who wanted to inherit his business?’

‘All are possible,’ shrugged Shaw. ‘But as Lettice said, there is no proof.’

‘The affair has caused much discord on Cheapside, though,’ sighed Lettice. ‘Everyone is using it to accuse everyone else – paupers blaming bankers, bankers suspecting their clients … I suppose that is what happens when a man so universally hated is dispatched.’

‘Wheler led the way in setting very high interest rates,’ explained Shaw. ‘Along with ruthless methods of collecting – an example that is now being followed by Taylor. I deplore such tactics, personally. It would never have happened in my day. Then, bankers were gentlemen.’

Chaloner could only suppose that had been a very long time ago. ‘Do you think Wheler was killed by the same people who shot Coo?’ He glanced to where the laundress was still scrubbing stains from the step. ‘Or are there two murderers on Cheapside?’

Lettice chuckled. ‘I suspect there are rather more than two! Mr Baron does not recruit angels for his trainband.’

‘The two deaths are not connected,’ said Shaw irritably, while Chaloner wondered why such a morose fellow had wed a woman who could not stop laughing. ‘How could they be? A much-loved physician and an unpopular banker? One shot, the other stabbed? One killed in an alley, the other on his doorstep? One now, the other two months ago?’

He had a point. ‘Plague,’ said Chaloner, thinking that as Coo was now unavailable for questioning, he would have to quiz others instead. ‘Have you heard that an infected man named Georges DuPont became ill in Long Acre, but came to Cheapside to die?’

‘Of course,’ replied Shaw. ‘But there have been no other cases, thank God. It was a selfish thing to have done, and I cannot imagine what he was thinking.’

Chaloner asked more questions, but although Shaw and Lettice were willing to talk, they knew little of value. Then the parish constable arrived, and it immediately became apparent that the fellow was more interested in returning to the beer he had abandoned than gathering information – he would not be investigating the physician’s death.

‘I am not surprised,’ said Shaw, when he and Chaloner were standing out on the road together; Lettice was helping the laundress lay Coo out. ‘He probably thinks Baron is the culprit, and dares not rile him.’

‘Why are you no longer a banker?’ asked Chaloner, somewhat out of the blue.

Shaw’s expression was far from pleasant. ‘Tulips.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘They fetched extraordinarily high prices a few years ago, and I, like many others, traded in them. But it was a bubble – a speculative plan that collapsed. At its height, a single bulb was worth twelve acres of land. I might have weathered the storm had we bankers stuck together, but it was every man for himself. Yet losing all was a blessing in disguise.’

‘It was?’ asked Chaloner doubtfully.

Shaw smiled, the first genuine one Chaloner had seen him give. ‘Selling music to the Court is a far more rewarding existence than banking could ever be. It is not just the war and this terrible scramble to raise money for the King, but there was the Colburn Crisis.’

‘My wife mentioned him. He gambled, and lost thousands of borrowed pounds.’

Shaw winced. ‘
I
would have lent him money, had I been a goldsmith. He was a respectable vintner, who offered houses and land as collateral. Unfortunately, he had already lost these at cards, so bankers who expected a field or a cottage when he defaulted found themselves with nothing. Several have been ruined.’

‘Were Backwell and Taylor badly affected?’

‘Yes, but they are wealthy enough to weather the crisis. However, Percival Angier committed suicide, while John Johnson went mad. My heart goes out to their families.’

Chaloner spent the rest of the evening talking to Cheapside residents about Wheler, Baron, Coo and DuPont, but learned nothing he did not already know. Wheler had been greedy, vicious and unpopular, and most people seemed glad he was no longer alive. By contrast, no one had a bad word to say about Coo, who was loved for his kindness and generosity.

When the daylight had faded, and he was sure of not being seen, Chaloner walked to the New Coffee House on Gracious Street, which he knew to be a favourite haunt of Spymaster Williamson. It was not that he was keen to seek out such disagreeable company, but he needed to know more about DuPont if he was to discover what had possessed the dying Frenchman to wander across half the city. A conversation with Williamson might save him some time.

The New Coffee House was a small but elegant establishment that attracted clerics and the wealthier kind of merchant – the sort of men who, unlike Chaloner, did not mind being seen hobnobbing with a person whose remit was to spy on the general populace. Its decor was discreetly affluent, and although it still reeked of pipe smoke and burned beans, there was also an underlying aroma of furniture polish and the lavender that had been set in bowls on the window sills.