Blood on the Strand (36 page)

The Dolphin’s landlord remembered Willys and Dillon on the night of Webb’s murder, because Willys had been a belligerent drunk
who had broken a window. He also recalled Dillon receiving a note and disappearing for several hours – the incident had stuck
in his mind because he had been afraid Willys would wake up and cause chaos when his companion was not there to calm him.
Chaloner listened to the innkeeper and his regulars for a long time, learning a great deal not only about the night in question,
but their views on the certainty of Dillon’s rescue, Lady Castlemaine’s latest pregnancy, and the Bishop of London’s distress
over a lost parrot. More pieces of the mystery slotted together, and he finally began to see the answers to at least some
of his questions.

‘There is one other thing,’ said the landlord, catching his arm as he was about to leave. ‘Dillon’s message was delivered
by a slovenly, grubby fellow – the kind who always happens to be to hand when someone wants something shady done. Then a second
man came, also wanting to speak urgently to Dillon, but Dillon had already left.’

‘What did the second man look like?’

‘Better dressed than the first, but it was busy that night,
and my memory is … oh, yes, sir. Another shilling
might
help me remember. He was big, I know that, and he had thick fair hair. And he was a foreigner, judging by the way he spoke.’

Chaloner left as the sun was setting in a great orange ball, and travelled by water from Botolph’s Wharf to Whitefriars Stairs.
At that time of day, when the streets were clogged with the carts of traders, all flooding home from their stalls, shops and
markets, it was always quicker to go by boat. The sun danced across the filthy water, turning it to a sheet of shimmering
gold, and it was almost peaceful, with commerce stopped and the city’s clamour quietened by approaching night. Gulls glided
above his head, and the sky was full of red and purple clouds. He smiled when he disembarked and saw a familiar face in the
crowd that was out enjoying the warmth of the evening. It was Temperance’s Maude, a basket of brown onions over her arm.

‘Bristol is coming tonight,’ she explained, accepting Chaloner’s offer to carry it for her.

‘That is a fine brooch you are wearing,’ he said, thinking it sat oddly with her functional workaday clothes. It would look
more at home with the brothel-master’s costume she would probably don later.

She fingered it, but without pleasure. ‘Johan Behn gave it to me, but he was only after my body.’

Chaloner raised his eyebrows. ‘Eaffrey and Silence are not enough for him?’

‘Eaffrey! A slip of a girl with no meat on her bones. Johan likes his women with a decent pair of hips, although I think Silence
has the edge over me there. She can keep him, though.’

‘I thought you liked him.’

‘I did – when I thought he considered me something special. Then I learned he is carrying on with Silence
and
several others. Like all men, he is just out for what he can get, and his whispered endearments were a sham. Still, at least
our affair was one where he gave me gifts, not the other way around. Silence parted with her husband’s ship as a token of
her
affection.’ She spat in disgust, narrowly missing the onions.

‘I am surprised he has time for all this courting. He is a busy merchant.’

‘Men can always spare an hour for their pleasure. But I have been thinking about Johan since I was made aware of his loose
morals. He says he grieves for Webb, but I know for a fact that he does not. The morning after the murder, I heard him tell
an associate that it was good riddance.’

‘Which associate? Temple?’

‘No, a low, villainous fellow with black hair and a strange purple birth-stain on his left arm. I would recognise him if I
saw him again.’

‘Fanning,’ said Chaloner immediately. ‘He had black hair and a mark on his hand.’

‘You mean one of the men who was convicted of murdering Webb? How odd! Well, anyway, after this Fanning had left, Johan pulled
his pipe from his pocket, and a bundle of letters dropped to the floor. I picked them up for him – I thought they might be
love letters, as they were penned in pretty blue ink, and I wanted to catch him out if they were – but they were in a strange
language.’

‘German,’ said Chaloner. ‘His native tongue.’

‘Does German use numbers for letters, then?’ asked Maude curiously. ‘I had no idea.’

‘Numbers?’ asked Chaloner sharply. He rummaged in an inner pocket for a cipher code Lord Clarendon had once given him. ‘Do
you mean like this?’

She grinned. ‘
Exactly
like that. German, is it? Well, I never!’

When Chaloner reached home, he half expected Scot to be waiting, but the stairs were deserted. A smattering of crumbs told
him someone had lingered there, though, and had fortified himself while he did so. Chaloner bent to inspect the mess. He had
eaten enough cookshop wares to know three things. First, these crumbs came from a lamb pie. Secondly, lamb pies always contained
a generous helping of peas. And thirdly, both Scot and Leybourn hated peas, so would never have bought one.

So, who had lurked on the stairs in the darkness, waiting for him to return? Chaloner sensed it was no one who wished him
well, and spent the rest of the night wide awake, waiting for an attack that never came.

In the faint light of pre-dawn, Chaloner went to Lincoln’s Inn, where he found Thurloe standing forlornly among his felled
trees – almost half gone already. Leybourn was with him, a comforting hand on his shoulder. The mighty oaks had been carted
off to the shipyards, while the fruit trees lay on their sides, waiting to be chopped into logs for the winter. The garden
had an oddly lopsided feel to it, and the absence of vegetation along one wall showed it to be in urgent need of repair. Prynne
had evidently been unaware that not only had the ancient roots and branches concealed unsightly masonry, but they been critical
in shoring up some of the more unstable sections, too.

‘Thank you for the note you sent last night, Thomas,’
said Thurloe. He looked miserable. ‘But I am afraid all your efforts to help Dillon have been in vain. I was up until the
small hours, trying to think of a way to save him, but I failed. He will have to rely on his new master for salvation after
all.’

Chaloner had not imagined for a moment that Thurloe would succeed in rescuing his former spy, but he admired him for trying.
Prudently, Chaloner’s note had neglected to include the fact that Dillon had actually confessed to the crime – it was not
the sort of thing that should be entrusted to paper. He had planned to tell Thurloe that morning, but the ex-Spymaster seemed
so disconsolate about the destruction of his beloved sanctuary that Chaloner could not bring himself to do it.

‘That will be expensive to mend,’ he remarked instead, nodding towards the wall. ‘And it cannot be left as it is, because
it looks as though it is in imminent danger of collapse. Prynne may find he has no money left to destroy the rest of the orchard,
once funds have been diverted to make good this mess.’

Thurloe gazed at him, then turned to study the walls. Slowly, a smile lit his unhappy face. A plan was beginning to take shape.
‘Do you own any skill with gunpowder, Thomas?’

Chaloner knew exactly what he had in mind. ‘A little. Do you know where I might find some?’

‘It is not the sort of thing an ex-Spymaster keeps in his chambers, for obvious reasons. However, Prynne used some to clear
the well a few days ago. I suspect he has a bit left. It will be in his room.’

Leybourn looked from one to the other uneasily. ‘You are going to blow up Lincoln’s Inn?’

‘Only enough to ensure Prynne will have to pay for
some urgent repairs,’ said Thurloe. His face was uncharacteristically vengeful. ‘Then he may not have enough money left to
hire men with axes.’

Chaloner and Leybourn followed him to the building – already called the Garden Court in anticipation of the splendid views
it would enjoy once the trees had gone – where Prynne lived. Leybourn was appalled by their plan, and tried to make them reconsider.
They would be caught, he hissed, and made to pay for the damage themselves – or worse. Thurloe informed him curtly that he
had no intention of being caught.

Prynne was at dawn prayers, and the Garden Court was deserted as Thurloe led the way to his colleague’s quarters and cautiously
picked the lock. Then Chaloner searched for gunpowder, while Thurloe kept guard and Leybourn prowled. The surveyor stopped
at a desk covered with documents, all filled with Prynne’s tiny, crabbed writing. He snorted with disgust as he picked one
up and read it.

‘I wish we could put a fuse to
this
inflammatory rubbish, too. I did not know men still existed who wrote about matters of which they are entirely ignorant,
not in these enlightened times.’

‘Why would you think that?’ asked Chaloner, opening a chest. ‘You publish government pamphlets, for God’s sake. Ah, here is
the powder. We had better not take too much. There is no point in adding insult to injury by leaving evidence to show we used
his own explosives to thwart him.’

While Chaloner scooped the odorous black substance into his hat – it was the only receptacle available to him – Leybourn busied
himself among the flasks, decanters and bottles on Prynne’s shelves. Chaloner recalled Yates
mentioning that there were an inordinate number of them, and Prynne was their prime suspect for trying to poison Thurloe.
He heard the clink of glass as stoppers were removed, and sharp intakes of breath as Leybourn sniffed the contents. He concentrated
on what he was doing, ladling faster when he thought he heard footsteps in the courtyard below.

Eventually, he had enough to accomplish what he needed to do, but Prynne’s supply was too obviously depleted. Swearing under
his breath, he replaced what he had taken with soot from the chimney. But then he saw that the dust was a different colour
from the explosive, so he was obliged to mix it in. Stirring gunpowder was not something that could be rushed, and he was
acutely aware that the whole operation was taking far too long. After what felt an age, he finished, and looked up to see
Leybourn in the process of drinking something dark red.

‘What are you doing?’ he exclaimed, aghast. ‘You know he keeps poisons here.’

‘None of
these
are poisonous,’ said Leybourn, grinning in a way that indicated he had taken his experiment rather too far. ‘They are all
wine. Most labels say otherwise, but I know a decent claret when I taste it. Prynne is a secret drinker, with a palate for
vintages that would impress a king.’

He upended a decanter and drained it before Chaloner could stop him. Horrified, the spy grabbed his arm and pulled him outside.
Leybourn staggered, and it was not easy to drag him in the direction they needed to go. He began to warble, a tuneless, reedy
tenor that reminded Chaloner why he always fabricated an excuse for not accompanying him on the viol.

‘What is wrong with him?’ asked Thurloe, as they hurried away from the Garden Court.

‘He has discovered that your colleague’s collection of liquids is nothing more dangerous than wine. Prynne is innocent of
attempting to poison you, it seems.’

‘Yates told me—’ began Thurloe. He stopped, and his eyes narrowed. ‘I had a letter yesterday from my old manservant, begging
me to take him back. He is under the impression that I dismissed him, while
I
was told he had left because he was ill. Someone is causing mischief.’

‘It must be Yates,’ said Chaloner. ‘There he is – you can ask him.’

Leybourn reeled drunkenly, and Chaloner was hard-pressed to hold him upright and keep the contents of his hat from spilling
at the same time. He cursed the splint that made him clumsy, and decided the dressing
would
come off that day, no matter what else happened. And if Lisle could not do it, then he would borrow Thurloe’s gun and hold
it to Wiseman’s head until the surgeon had removed every last shred of the damned thing.

‘Mr Thurloe,’ said Yates with an uneasy smile as the ex-Spymaster bore down on him. Thurloe’s blue eyes were hard and cold,
an expression that had set more than one Royalist spy trembling in his boots during the Commonwealth. ‘Can I fetch you anything
from the kitchen?’

‘Who hired you?’ demanded Thurloe. He grabbed Yates by the collar when the porter tried to make a run for it, displaying surprising
speed and strength for a man who so seldom engaged in any kind of physical activity.

Yates licked dry lips, one frightened eye on Thurloe and the other one on Chaloner. ‘I do not know what you are talking about.’

‘Oh, I think you do,’ said Thurloe in a low, sibilant voice that was distinctly sinister. Yates paled. ‘You have been spying
on me ever since you arrived, and I know it was you who sent my servant away under false pretences. Now, are you going to
be cooperative, or shall we do this another way?’

Yates struggled, but the ex-Spymaster’s grip was powerful, and it was not long before he abandoned himself to his fate. ‘I
have done nothing wrong. I only did what I was told.’

‘By Temple,’ said Chaloner to Thurloe. ‘He knows you are taking more tonics than usual at the moment – I heard him tell Bristol
about it. And Temple knows because Yates briefed him.’

‘There is nothing wrong in reporting that,’ bleated Yates. ‘It is hardly a state secret.’

‘No,’ agreed Thurloe in the same soft whisper. It was making Chaloner uncomfortable, so he did not like to imagine how Yates
felt. ‘But that is not all you did. You doctored my tonics – it must have been you, because you are the only person who has
had access to them since my own servant left. I might have died, had not the cat stolen some first. It is still poorly, and
I am fond of that animal.’

‘And you almost killed Tom,’ slurred Leybourn. He began to sing again, crooning the words to a popular tavern ballad with
no heed to the tune that usually went with them.

Yates shook his head vehemently. ‘That was not me! I had nothing to do with it, I swear on my mother’s grave! Temple accused
me of it too, and said he wanted information, not murder. But it must have been one of your other enemies – God knows, you
have enough of them.’