Blood on the Strand (35 page)

Holles looked pained. ‘I am fond of Maude from Hercules’s Pillars Alley, and Wiseman told me that Johan Behn took her to the
New Exchange and bought her a brooch. It cannot be true, because Behn is courting Eaffrey Johnson. So, Wiseman was making
up tales, just to upset me.’

‘Why would he do that?’ asked Chaloner, wondering whether Behn had some perverse fascination with portly, middle-aged ladies,
given that he seemed to appreciate Silence’s company, too.

‘He probably cannot help it – they are all liars in the medical profession. Johnson spouts untruths each time he opens his
mouth – on Monday, he told me he fought with Prince Rupert at the Battle of Naseby, when I know for a fact that he spent his
war apprenticed to a barber in Paternoster Row.’

‘What about Lisle? Does he lie, too?’

‘Not as far as I know. He is the only decent one among
the lot of them. Incidentally, I examined the horse that killed my man yesterday. When it escaped, all the grooms were being
lectured by Brodrick on the correct way to dress a mane, so none of
them
can be responsible for what I found.’

‘And what was that?’ asked Chaloner, when Holles paused for dramatic effect.

‘Someone had put a nail in its saddle, which cut it and made it buck.’

Chaloner was not particularly surprised. ‘So, that means Willys’s murder was premeditated. Someone deliberately arranged a
diversion, so no one would notice when he was stabbed.’

‘
A
murder was premeditated,’ corrected Holles. ‘
You
may have been the target, and the wrong man was killed. Or perhaps the killer intended to dispatch both of you, but ran out
of time.’

Chaloner would have done virtually anything to avoid setting foot inside Newgate Gaol again. Unfortunately, there was no one
to go in his stead. Scot was due to meet Williamson, to discuss his brother’s release, and although he offered to visit Dillon
as soon as he had finished, Chaloner felt the matter could not wait. Meanwhile, Thurloe had taken Leybourn off on some errand
of his own, and no one at Lincoln’s Inn knew where they had gone.

With a sigh of resignation, the spy turned his attention to the task in hand. He had no forged letter to the governor and
no heavy purse, so this time he was obliged to rely on his wits. He purchased an old black coat and a ‘sugar-loaf ’ hat from
a rag-picker – men who collected old clothes and sold them to the desperate – and borrowed a Bible from nearby Christchurch.

‘I am the Reverend May,’ he announced to the porter on duty at Newgate’s entrance, trying to quell the uneasy fluttering in
his stomach. ‘From St Martin-inthe-Fields.’ He was not about to make the same mistake as the impostor who had killed Sarsfeild,
by claiming the wrong parish. ‘I have come to speak privately to Mr Dillon.’

‘What about?’ demanded the guard.

‘His immortal soul,’ replied Chaloner loftily. He clasped his hands together, and raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘For, as
it is written in the Holy Bible—’

‘All right,’ interrupted the guard. ‘I see your point. Follow me, but make it quick, because it is not right to waste too
much of a man’s last day on religious claptrap, and he is trying to finish a book.’

‘He has accepted the inevitability of his death, then?’ asked Chaloner. ‘His soul will be—’

‘He thinks he is going to be saved,’ corrected the guard. ‘The reason he wants to finish the book is so he can return it to
its owner before he heads to Ireland on Sunday. The governor is worried about tomorrow, and extra soldiers have been drafted
in, ready to deal with any trouble from the crowd.’

‘Will the execution not take place, then?’

The guard shrugged. ‘Dillon says not, and I have told my mother not to bother going. She hates it when she waits for hours
and a hanging is cancelled. Dillon is a decent gent – generous with what he gives us – so do not squander too much of his
time. Let him finish his reading.’

Instead of being shown into the bleak interview room, Chaloner was conducted to Dillon’s cell, where the condemned man was
not studying, but playing with a
roll of silk. The chamber was larger than the rooms Chaloner rented in Fetter Lane, and the remains of the meal on the table
was fit for a king. Dillon looked up as he entered, hat shading his face.

‘I am a gentleman, so entitled to be hanged with a silken rope,’ he explained with a chuckle. ‘Hemp, which is used for the
common criminal, tends to stick, but silk slides easily, and I am assured it will strangle me all the sooner. The guards were
kind enough to let me twist the noose myself.’

‘What about the book?’ asked the warden conversationally. ‘Finished it yet?’

‘No, but I am not in the mood for words. This vicar will make sure it goes back to the man who lent it to me, and I shall
purchase my own copy before I sail for Ireland.’

‘If you are so sure of rescue, then why bother with the noose?’ asked Chaloner, when the guard had gone.

‘It gives me something to do, and I was never one for sitting idle. Fitz-Simons told me hanging is painless, because the rope
pinches the nerves in the neck and deprives the victim of all feeling.’

‘It does not look painless to me.’ Chaloner disliked the spectacle afforded by public executions, but he had been unable to
avoid them all. It was not a way he wanted to die himself.

‘You are trying to unnerve me, because of your friend Manning. You blame me for his death.’

‘You may learn about betrayal yourself tomorrow, when you find your salvation does not materialise, and that Fitz-Simons was
mistaken when he said hanging does not hurt.’

Dillon regarded him with dislike. ‘I have nothing to say to you.’

‘Sarsfeild is dead,’ said Chaloner harshly. ‘Fanning is dead.’

Dillon grimaced. ‘I know – and both were strangled. But they were different from me.’

Chaloner sighed. ‘I have spent the last week trying to learn what really happened to Webb, but I am no further forward, despite
my best efforts. And whatever you may think, I do not want to see an innocent man choke. Have you considered the possibility
that your master
cannot
help you – that he has tried to secure your pardon but has been unsuccessful?’

‘No,’ said Dillon. ‘I trust him with my life.’

‘If it is Lord Clarendon, you will be disappointed. He would have worked through the law to release you, not promised some
dramatic reprieve on a white charger. Thurloe may still be able to help, but he needs information – information only you can
provide. Surely you can see it is sensible to devise a second plan to save yourself, lest the first one fails?’

Dillon regarded him impassively. ‘What makes you think I am in Clarendon’s pay?’

‘You were seen in Worcester House with him, very late one night.’

‘I visit the homes of many powerful men, but that does not mean I work for them.’

Chaloner was losing patience. Newgate made his hands shake, his heart pound and his stomach churn, and if Dillon did not want
his help, then he did not see why he should subject himself to more of it. He tried one last time. ‘I need the answers to
two questions if Thurloe is to earn your acquittal.’

‘Thurloe,’ said Dillon meditatively. ‘I betrayed him when I changed sides during the Commonwealth, yet he refuses to abandon
me now. Why?’

‘Because he is a good man. His principles baulk at seeing someone hang for a crime he did not commit, and he cares for all
his people, even the treacherous ones.’

‘Yes,’ mused Dillon softly. ‘He always was the best of us. Very well. Ask your two questions.’

‘Who killed Webb? And was his murder anything to do with the Castle Plot?’

Dillon was silent for so long that Chaloner stood to leave.

‘I did not stab Webb,’ said Dillon softly, glancing at the door to make sure he would not be overheard, ‘but I was there when
it happened. I distracted him while Fanning delivered the fatal blow. I was following orders.’

Now Chaloner was not sure whether to believe him. ‘Willys said you and he were roaring drunk in the Dolphin tavern on the
night of the murder, and incapable of killing anyone. And Thurloe said you were a Quaker, vehemently opposed to violence.
As Manning can attest.’

‘It was Willys who was drunk. He was face-down on the table when the message came. It offered me a respectable sum for sullying
my hands with Webb’s blood – hence my comfort here in Newgate – but I would have dispatched the man for no payment at all.’

‘Why?’

‘You think me shallow, with no conscience, but you are wrong. I
am
a Quaker, although perhaps not a very good one, and I deplore slavery. It was a pleasure to play a role in murdering that
monster – a man who made himself rich on the proceeds of forced labour.’

‘You were seen at the Guinea Company dinner, although you said you were not there—’

‘Fanning and I left early, because I could not bear to be in the same room as Webb. When Webb tried to stop us, I told him
what I thought of his ship and its cargo, and we argued. Then I went to meet Willys at the Dolphin and the note arrived. I
left Willys slumbering, sent word to Fanning to meet me, dispensed with Webb, and returned to the Dolphin to put Willys to
bed.’

‘You are housed in luxury here, but Fanning was not. Why? Did your master pay him less?’

‘Our master did not pay him at all – I did. I could not kill Webb on my own, so I enlisted the help of a trusted friend. So,
now you have an answer to one of your two questions.’

Chaloner did not think so. ‘You and Fanning may have been the means by which Webb was killed, but you have not told me who
ordered his death.’

‘You will find out at my “hanging” tomorrow, when my master shows his hand. And in reply to your second query, the answer
is no: Webb’s murder was nothing to do with the Castle Plot.’

‘Was Sarsfeild involved?’

‘You said
two
questions, but I feel like talking, so you are in luck. Sarsfeild had nothing to do with killing Webb – I have no idea who
he was. He said he was a confectioner, so God knows how he came to be on Bristol’s list. Fanning and I killed Webb; Sarsfeild
is unjustly convicted.’

‘Was Sarsfeild part of the Castle Plot?’

‘I answered that query when you came the first time; if he was, then I never met him.’

‘You had already answered my questions about Webb, too, but now you have changed your mind.’

Dillon clapped his hands in delight. ‘You do not know whether to believe me! So, I shall have to
prove
to you that I was instrumental in ending Webb’s miserable life. Have you seen his body? If so, you will have noticed deep
grazes on his knees. They came when Fanning stabbed him and he stumbled forward. I could not know about such wounds, if I
had not been there, could I?’

There had been scratches, Chaloner recalled, and Dillon was right: it was a detail only the killers would know. He glanced
at the door, seeing shadows move under the crack at the bottom. Had the guard reported the presence of an unknown vicar, and
he and his colleagues were massing for an arrest? He turned back to the gloating face in front of him, hurrying to finish
and be gone before he ended up in some filthy hole, to be strangled like Fanning and Sarsfeild.

‘Did you kill Webb’s coachman, too, and hide his body in his own room?’

Dillon grinned in a way that made Chaloner wonder whether he was entirely sane. ‘Fanning did. We needed Webb on foot if we
were to kill him on The Strand. It was all a bit of a rush, but we managed. However, Fanning’s nerves have since proved weak,
and my master left him to stew a little too long – long enough that he asked May to stage a rescue with poisoned wine. I told
him my master had the matter in hand, but he did not share my faith.
And
he was ready to bleat about what we had done. I imagine that was why he was killed.’

‘And you think the same may happen to you, if you start revealing secrets,’ surmised Chaloner. For the first time, he saw
a crack in Dillon’s armour: he was afraid of the man he expected to save him. ‘Then why are you
talking to me, when you need your master’s help more urgently than ever?’

‘Because I admire Thurloe’s constancy. He deserves answers.’

‘Then give me just one more: who sent you to Ireland?’

Dillon’s smile faded. Again, he glanced at the door, to ensure no one was listening, and lowered his voice. ‘No one. I went
of my own volition, taking Fitz-Simons, Fanning and others with me. I do not approve of what is happening there – families
deprived of land they won or bought honestly. I believed in the rebellion, but had the sense to abandon it once I saw it had
been infiltrated by spies like you.’

Chaloner raised his eyebrows. ‘You confess to treachery? Here, of all places?’

Dillon shrugged. ‘Who heard me? You will say nothing, because your family has been victimised by greedy Royalists, too. Your
heart was never in thwarting the Castle Plot – I could see it in your eyes.’

Chaloner sincerely hoped no one else had. ‘You are lucky to be alive. The other rebels were rounded up, and most are either
hanged or in prison.’

Dillon laughed as he gestured around him. ‘And my situation is different how, exactly? Will you come to see the fun tomorrow
morning? You will not be disappointed.’

Chaloner did not leave Newgate as quickly as he would have liked, because inmates saw his clerical garb and asked for his
prayers. He obliged, because he had no choice if he wanted to maintain his disguise, but it was a distasteful deception, and
when he was finally out into the fresh air, he thought he might be sick. He ripped off the dark clothes and hurled them at
the first beggar he
saw, ignoring the man’s startled gratitude in his desperation to be away from the prison and its environs. His legs shook
horribly, so he hired a carriage to take him to Tower Street.

The Dolphin was a rambling inn, which tended to be frequented by officials of the Navy Office. Chaloner saw one called Samuel
Pepys, whom he had met briefly a few months before. A spark of recognition flashed in the clerk’s eyes, but Chaloner was obviously
not considered sufficiently important – or useful – to warrant an exchange of civilities, and was pointedly ignored.