The Thief Taker (22 page)

Chapter Forty-Seven

Charlie awoke to the smell of smoke and knew instantly something was wrong.

Rolling over silently in the dark, he nudged Maria awake, putting his finger to his lips as her eyes blinked open.

Men’s voices echoed out over the night air.

‘Vigilantes,’ hissed Charlie. ‘They sound close. We have to
go now.’

Maria nodded and moved to saddle the horse. But Charlie shook his head.

‘She is too exhausted to move quickly,’ he whispered. ‘The horse will slow our escape. We have to leave her here.’

‘But it is miles to travel on foot!’ she protested.

She was the most ridiculous girl he’d ever met, Charlie thought to himself, still stung by her rejection. Despite her airs and claims to high-breeding she came from a tumble-down rented house in a bad part of the City. And here she was insisting on a horse to carry her.

The shouts and waving torches broke over the crest of the hill.

Charlie grabbed Maria by the arm before she had a chance to reply and dragged her towards a nearby copse of trees.

‘Over there,’ he said, ‘we must get out of sight.’

Dawn was breaking and a crest of searing orange light had appeared on the horizon.

Charlie and Maria fled, stumbling in the dark and into a little copse of trees. Outside they heard the men and saw the waving fiery torches.

The vigilantes had settled around the horse and seemed to be arguing amongst themselves.

‘With any luck they will think she has slipped away from her rider,’ Charlie whispered.

Amongst the trees was all half-light, despite the glimmer of the breaking sun in the fields beyond.

Charlie stepped carefully through the shadows, tugging Maria behind him.

His eyes swept the canopy above looking for clues as to how deep the wood ran.

Then, in the dawning light, he noticed something.

A pathway of branches had been broken, as though something large and lumbering had passed this way. And the damaged trees stretched up to the height of two men.

The height of two men,
thought Charlie,
or the height of a large wagon
.

He dropped to the floor and tried the earth with his fingers. It was hard, compacted. But he could just make out where wide wheel ruts had trundled through the leafy floor.

For a moment the shouts in the distance faded into nothing as Charlie thought what it might mean.

‘A large wagon has been this way recently,’ he whispered to Maria. ‘It must have come up the same road as us and then veered off on this pathway.’

Without waiting for an answer he began tracking forward through the trees, following the path of broken branches the wagon had made.

There was a stumbling sound behind him, and Maria gave a stifled yelp of pain.

‘Shh!’ he whispered. ‘They’ll hear us.’ He stopped for a moment to check they hadn’t been heard. ‘What is it?’ he asked finally, after he was certain they were still well hidden.

‘On the ground,’ said Maria. ‘There’s something sticking out. I walked into it in the dark.’

She paused for a moment. ‘It’s a cross. We must be on some local burial ground,’ she said.

In the dawn sun Charlie picked out, not just one wooden cross, but tens of them.

The wagon trail had led them into a hidden graveyard.

The crosses had been made from simple branches from the nearby trees and stood at waist height all around.

‘Honest people do not hide their bodies away in woods,’ he said. ‘This burial ground is meant to be secret.’

Then he saw a dark shape in the trees. ‘Someone has built something,’ he said, ‘like a hut . . . or a church.’

The building was the height of a half-timbered house and had been crudely fashioned from interwoven branches covered in badly-woven thatch. Heavy logs formed the side walls, with only the smallest holes for sunlight.

Charlie could not tell how far back it ran into the trees, but from the height of it the makeshift building was an appreciable size for the country.

‘I think it must be a secret church,’ said Maria. ‘I have heard about them,’ she added, as Charlie frowned in confusion. ‘They are built by Catholics. For they are not allowed to pray in England. If their priests are caught ministering they are hanged.’

‘Then these graves must be Catholic Civil War soldiers who fought for the King,’ said Charlie.

Their eyes swept the collection of waist-high wooden crosses.

‘I will look inside the church,’ said Charlie. ‘Thomas Malvern is a Catholic. Perhaps he stops here on his way to Wapping and has left some clue.’

Maria clutched at his arm.

‘Don’t be a fool. If those who built this church were to be caught they would be hung and worse. You cannot just step in for a look around. They will think you bring the law and fight you to the death.’

‘It looks deserted,’ ventured Charlie. ‘And I am practised at slipping into buildings unseen. Wait here. I will only be a moment.’

Charlie crept carefully towards the open barn doorway of the church and then slipped inside, keeping his back against the wall of logs.

The smell of the forest floor was amplified inside, and the damp scent of leaves was joined by something else. Incense, he realised, catching sight of a large burner suspended from the ceiling. It was unlit, but the smell lingered.

A candle flickered on the far side, and Charlie’s heart missed a beat. Someone had been here recently. His eyes scanned the empty interior.

Large logs formed the little collection of pews, but all sat empty. The building was not large, but the tiny windows meant most of it was in shadow.

His gaze settled on some kind of writing on the far wall, flickering in the candlelight. He made towards it, his head turning a quick left and right for any sign of movement.

A flat board had been made of yet more timber, and onto it was carved a list of names with numbers after them. Dates.

Whoever built this church must be very sure it would never be found, he realised, to risk writing up the names of those who attended its illegal services.

Perhaps they were all dead and buried. But the dates looked to come up to only a few years ago. Were they the dates of their deaths, perhaps? He couldn’t be sure.

Peering up at the names he began the painstaking business of reading them, his lips moving with the effort. He reached the bottom having found no familiar names. Nothing which could be a clue to track Malvern.

The thick wax below the board began to gutter and spit. The wick needed trimming, and he wondered whether someone had left the flame to die.

Listening carefully, he assured himself there was no one in the church. He looked at the dying candle, debating. If it went out he would see nothing.

Remembering the scissors left to him by the wise woman he retrieved them from his hanging pocket and approached the candle.

As he closed the scissors around the wick the blades twisted in his hand without warning. Folding between them the flame died entirely. Suddenly the wall of names vanished to black.

Not as useful as the wise woman hoped
, he thought.

Charlie felt his heart beat faster in the darkness. Then his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light.

The texture of the wooden noticeboard was thrown into better relief, revealing a mess of scarred hatchings partway up. Someone had scratched out one of the benefactors from the middle of the list. And bringing his hand to test the shape of the surface
Charlie’s
fingers could just make out the letters which had once been w
ritten ther
e.

It was a T, and then an H.

He let his hand glide over the other letters and suddenly he knew what the words were before his touch discerned it.

Thomas Malvern.

He pulled back his fingers in alarm and as he did so there was a sudden sound behind him. Charlie whipped around to see a shape move silently through the shadows.

Then there was a flicker and a candle on the far side of the church lit, illuminating a man holding a crossbow.

He was dressed in a priest’s robes and pointed the arrow squarely at Charlie. The face was that of a boxer, his wildly broken nose spread almost flat.

‘Have you come from London?’ asked the priest, anxiety thickening his voice.

Charlie noticed the hand holding the crossbow was missing several fingers.

‘That I do,’ said Charlie, surprised at the deduction.

‘Parliament has sent you then?’

Charlie shook his head dumbly in response. And then he realised what the priest was asking.

‘I am not come as an official to find you out,’ he said.

The priest raised the crossbow a little.

‘I cannot risk that you would tell others of our existence,’ he said. His face looked sorry and his finger began to tighten on the trigger.

‘Wait!’ Charlie held up his hands. In desperation he decided to take a chance.

‘I am looking for the man whose name was on this wall,’ he said. ‘Thomas Malvern.’

The priest lowered the crossbow a fraction. Charlie saw a flicker of fear in his eyes.

‘You come to make his arrest then?’ asked the priest, dropping his voice to a whisper and looking about the dark church as if
fearing
they were being watched.

Charlie swallowed, keeping his attention on the crossbow. The wrong answer could send the bolt through his heart.

‘He murdered a friend of mine,’ he said finally. ‘A young girl.’

The priest screwed up his face, and to Charlie’s amazement his eyes had welled with tears.

‘So many young girls,’ he whispered. ‘And nothing is done.’

‘You . . . know him then?’ asked Charlie.

The priest nodded. ‘I take his confession every time he passes through.’ He shook his head. ‘You must understand. I am bound by a higher master than even the King. I cannot break the codes of the confessional. It is a holy vow.’

‘But you must hear his crimes and do nothing about them,’ said Charlie, suddenly understanding.

The priest stared back at Charlie. ‘If you are to seek out his arrest you must be careful,’ he said. ‘He is a powerful man, and he does not travel by his real name. After the war he left these parts. But he established a trade of some kind between Wapping and
London
.’ The priest paused for an uneasy moment.

‘What kind of trade?’ asked Charlie.

He hesitated. ‘Some tell it that Malvern transports bodies.’

‘Dead bodies?’

‘It is not known for sure,’ said the priest. ‘Only that his trade had earned him a title in London.’

‘And what title is that?’

‘They call him the corpse collector. And there were rumours that he had not given up on the Royalist cause. That he had become obsessed with a Catholic uprising.’

The priest was choosing his words carefully, and Charlie wondered what more had been admitted to him in the confessional.

‘He has some plans with the docks,’ added the priest meaningfully. Charlie nodded, understanding the inference. As they’d suspected Malvern meant to import or export something dear to h
is cause.

‘I think he may be involved in . . . some kind of dark magic,’ said Charlie, hoping to prompt the priest’s religious obligations. ‘I fear he plans another murder.’

But to his surprise the priest gave a firm shake of his head. ‘Thomas Malvern would never do or say anything contrary to his Catholic faith. If you look for one involved in some unholy business then you have the wrong man.’

Charlie looked at him in confusion.

‘During the war Thomas Malvern swum out to Royalist boats through cannon fire to retrieve the crucifixes of the dead men on board,’ added the priest.

Charlie’s mind was a blur. The murders, the journeys at full moon. Surely there had to be some dark magic at the heart of it? Likely Malvern’s mind had become warped since the Civil War and the priest credited him with more religion than was now the case.

‘From what I know Malvern does have some idea to make an uprising,’ said Charlie. ‘We found evidence he is making weapons.’

The priest considered this. ‘I should like to help you more, indeed I should,’ he said. ‘But I am bound by my vows. There is one thing only,’ he added, ‘perhaps you might look to the confessional yourself.’

He gestured to a temporary structure of wattle and hemp-cloth in the corner of the church.

‘Not to confess,’ added the priest, seeing Charlie hesitate. ‘Perhaps, from interest, to see inside the booth. It is over there,’ he added. ‘I will make sure it has no Catholic artefacts inside to disturb you.’ And with that he turned and walked towards the back of the church.

Charlie looked at the retreating priest, trying to decide what he was suggesting. The priest ducked in and out of the booth before vanishing.

Charlie went after. He approached the confession booth and looked at it carefully, wondering if it would constitute a breach of faith to look inside. Deciding that it wouldn’t he lifted the curtain.

Nothing inside suggested anything to him and he was about to let the curtain drop when he caught sight of a fold of paper on the floor of the confessional.

Had the priest dropped it there for him to find?

Ducking down quickly he picked it up.

It was a map of London, he realised, unfolding it. Annotated with a seemingly meaningless scatter of crosses.

His mind danced over the locations, searching for a pattern, but he found none. The crosses seemed to denote all kinds of places. A tavern here, a market there.

As he examined the map, his eyes caught sight of another piece of paper on the floor. Charlie stooped down to scoop it up.

It was tiny, no bigger than a finger’s width. A few words were written on it in ink and it was curled as though it had been tightly rolled up. Slowly he read. And then drew the paper closer to better understand what he was seeing – and what the crosses meant.

The writing was in the same sloping hand which had been used to fill out Malvern’s Health Certificate.

It was a message, he realised, designed for a carrier pigeon.