Susanna Gregory - The Piccadilly Plot

‘Where are you going?’ shouted Thurloe, as Chaloner fought his way through the last Adventurers waiting to disembark and began to run towards Jane .

‘Lester needs help,’ yelled Chaloner over his shoulder. ‘He-’

‘No!’ Thurloe raced after him and grabbed the flying tails of his coat. ‘It will be too late.’

Chaloner struggled free, but Thurloe stuck out a foot that sent him sprawling. Even as he started to rise, there was a tremendous explosion. Heat washed over him, and had he not been protected by the mass of Katherine , he would certainly have been blown to pieces. When he was able to look up, it was to see Jane ’s masts toppling with a series of tearing groans. Every timber and sail was a bright cluster of flames.

He whipped around in alarm, fearing for Thurloe, but the ex-Spymaster had thrown himself to the ground, and was covering his head with his hands as fragments of burning wood began to rain down. When the treacherous fallout had finished, Chaloner scrambled upright on unsteady legs. Jane was a mass of blazing stays and spars that made the fog glow amber, while Katherine was battle-scarred and alight in a dozen places, but still afloat.

‘He did it,’ he whispered. ‘Lester saved Katherine and Queenhithe.’

Williamson arrived, looking around wildly. ‘Did you see Kitty leave? And Swaddell?’

‘I am here.’ Swaddell materialised out of the fog like a spectre. He shot his master a pained glance. ‘It seems we infiltrated the wrong group — it was not the Adventurers I should have been watching, but the Piccadilly Company.’

‘You did your best.’ Williamson’s face was a mask of agitation. ‘Kitty?’

‘I saw her escape,’ said Swaddell soothingly. ‘Do not worry. O’Brien will look after her.’

‘So is this the atrocity Fitzgerald and his master plotted?’ asked Thurloe, while Williamson winced at the blunt reminder that the object of his affections was married to his friend. ‘The murder of half the Court and the upper echelons of government?’

‘Yes, and they did not care that it might destroy Queenhithe, too,’ said Swaddell in disgust. ‘But where is Lester? I did not see him leave Katherine .’

Chaloner did not reply, and only stared at the burning remnants of Jane .

Williamson’s face fell, and he closed his eyes. ‘Damn!’ he whispered. ‘Damn!’

For a long moment, no one did anything except stare at Jane’s blazing masts and spars. Then Thurloe grabbed Chaloner’s arm and shook it.

‘We must avenge Lester’s sacrifice by laying hold of Fitzgerald and his master. They will not get away with this — we will not let them.’

‘Fitzgerald escaped by boat,’ said Chaloner numbly. ‘He could be anywhere by now.’

‘Would he go to the Crown?’ asked Swaddell.

‘Too obvious,’ said Thurloe. ‘He is not a fool. Yet I imagine he will be with his Piccadilly Company cronies. They will want to gloat over the triumph they think they have won.’

‘If it is of any help, I just saw Pratt leap on a horse and gallop off at a colossal speed,’ said Swaddell. ‘I wondered what he was doing here, because he is not an Adventurer. However, he is a member of the Piccadilly Company …’

‘Fitzgerald summoned him to St Paul’s earlier,’ said Thurloe, bemused. ‘To be murdered.’

‘It was a lie.’ Chaloner was still too stunned by Lester’s death to give details. ‘Lydcott never went to St Paul’s, and Pratt did not, either. In fact, I think he might be Fitzgerald’s master.’

‘Pratt?’ asked Williamson in patent disbelief. ‘What reason could he have for wanting courtiers dead? He will view them as potential clients.’

‘Besides,’ added Thurloe, more gently, ‘he is the one whose murder was-’

‘There is no plot to kill him.’ Chaloner jumped when a dull roar indicated that a stray spark had caught one of the wooden warehouses. ‘There never was — the Piccadilly Company just wanted the Queen accused of it. Pratt was never in any danger, which explains why he was never very concerned.’

‘Chaloner has a point,’ said Swaddell to Williamson. ‘ I would not have been happy if I had been threatened with death and the likes of Sergeant Wright had been hired to protect me. Yet Pratt was indifferent. Indeed, I heard him tell people he was flattered by it.’

‘I suppose he might be the master,’ conceded Williamson. ‘He is wealthy enough to finance the Piccadilly Company’s activities. But we can examine motives later, when he is arrested. The question we should be asking now is: where has he gone?’

There was a sudden yell from Brodrick: flames from the burning warehouse were threatening to spread to its neighbours.

‘Clarendon House,’ said Chaloner, as all became clear. ‘I wondered how he had come to raise the alarm earlier, when Hyde and I were doing battle with Oliver. I imagine he went there to ensure that all was ready, and found it full of brick-thieves instead.’

‘To ensure all was ready for what?’ asked Thurloe.

‘To receive the cargo Jane brought,’ explained Chaloner. ‘They will need to store it somewhere safe, and Clarendon House has a lockable vault.’

‘What cargo?’ demanded Williamson.

‘Something that was concealed in Jane ’s consignment of gravel,’ explained Chaloner. ‘Jewels or precious metals from Tangier, perhaps. It will not be bulky — she could not have coped with that — so I imagine it is no more than a chest or two. Fitzgerald took a risk, though. He has already lost one fortune on a ship that could not withstand a storm.’

‘He had no choice,’ said Swaddell. ‘ Jane is the only vessel he has left.’

‘But Clarendon House is too public, surely?’ objected Williamson. ‘It will be full of workmen.’

‘Not in the small hours of the morning, which is when Jane arrived.’ Something else became clear to Chaloner, too. ‘Hyde and Oliver denied paying Wright to linger in the Crown tonight, but someone did. It was not Pratt, because Wright would have told me, so one of the other Piccadilly Company members must have done it — Fitzgerald or another of his accomplices.’

More shouting drew their attention. A second warehouse was alight, and although people were rallying to douse the flames, their efforts were disorganised and ineffectual.

‘My instincts scream at me to go to Clarendon House,’ said Williamson, agitated. ‘Yet I cannot leave courtiers to fight this inferno. I doubt they will contain it, and half the city could be lost.’

‘Stay and do your duty,’ instructed Thurloe. ‘Tom and I will deal with Fitzgerald and Pratt.’

‘I will send help if my men return from Woolwich,’ promised Williamson. ‘In the meantime, take my sword and dagger, Chaloner. You should not attempt this unarmed.’

* * *

Thurloe set off at a run, Chaloner at his heels. A number of private coaches had parked in Thames Street, and loath to miss any of the excitement, their wealthy Adventurer-owners and their drivers had not fled the scene, but had lingered. Some were helping with the fire, but most were there as ghoulish spectators, eager to witness first-hand what promised to be a serious conflagration. With cool aplomb, Thurloe commandeered one of the carriages, and they were soon galloping towards Piccadilly at a speed that was far from safe when fog meant that neither the driver nor the horses could see where they were going.

Thurloe closed his eyes when he heard what had happened to Lydcott, but opened them to listen without interruption as Chaloner told him everything he had seen, heard and deduced on Jane .