Michael Jecks - The Butcher of St Peter's

‘What of it?’

‘I don’t believe you think that. I think, from what I saw of you in that place, that you care for those women. They are still women, after all. If one of them was cut up like that … why? What was the point? And her pander was simply executed. That means, to my mind, that someone had a definite object in mind.’

‘Explain yourself. It is too early in the morning for me to play with words.’

‘Then I shall be plain. I think that the man was killed as punishment. Betsy mentioned something about him and Anne leaving to set up a new life. If that was so, who would have wounded her and killed her man? Obviously someone who thought that the pair of them owed him something.’

‘It is a large guess, but carry on.’

‘Perhaps it is a great guess, but such an intuition is not unrealistic. Suppose a man had owned the woman at the brothel and she was leaving without his permission, would he not mark her as a warning to the other girls in his house? And would he also not injure the man who was to take her away as a means of discouraging others from trying the same game?’

Ralph shrugged. ‘What of it? As a theory it holds water, but so could many others.’

‘Yes, but could you learn from Betsy whether the two of them were beholden to any single man? And if they were, does that mean that the same man owns Betsy and others in the building … is the whole place one investor’s property? If so, who is he?’

Ralph sucked the air between his teeth. ‘You do realize that this could be very dangerous information? If you’re right, the man was prepared to torture and murder any who sought to defy him. What if he were to become aware that I was seeking to learn his identity?’

‘Your life could be in danger, if my theory was correct,’ Baldwin acknowledged.

‘So why in God’s good name should I help you? I would have to be mad to do anything of the sort, wouldn’t I?’ Ralph exclaimed.

Baldwin nodded with a grin, but gradually the lightness left his face and he met Ralph’s look with a correspondingly serious gaze. ‘I think you’d do it because you like the women in that terrible place. You care enough to go there and help them when they need it, and yes, you get to pick one of the women afterwards, but that’s for comfort, isn’t it? In truth, you would like to help them. And you could help them in a valuable, material way, if by catching this murderer you protected them from his depredations.’

Ralph laughed aloud. The youth returned as he leaned back in his seat, guffawing.

‘Ah, ah! Sir Baldwin, you should be a jester! Protected them? What do you think would be the first thing that would happen to those girls if you were right? They would lose their master, and that would mean that they’d also lose the roof over their heads. Their individual panders would appear and whip them away to work in worse conditions all over the city, and I’d never get to see them to help them again. Nor would anyone else. If you arrested the man who killed Anne, you’d take the one man who had a vested interest in looking after them all.’

‘That is mad!’ Baldwin waited until the sulky youth had left the room. ‘Look, the man killed her man and ruined her. What he did to her was savage. I’ve seen torture in my time, but that was foul. He intended to leave her as an advert of what could happen to a woman who crossed him. Now I have heard that Jordan le Bolle has had something to do with prostitution. All I want is to learn whether he owns that brothel or not.’

‘Him? Hmm. But the corollary is, if you’re right, that he would kill any man who attempted to beat or hurt one of his women. He feels he owns them, they are his investment. He wants them to behave in the way he expects, and he wants them to remain here. He’ll look after them like his own children, provided they do what he wants.’

‘And then throw them away like garbage,’ Baldwin summed up for him. ‘Ralph, a man who can do that to a girl must not be allowed to keep the brothel. He has done it to this one … what if he did the same to another? What if he did the same to Betsy? Yes, to her, Ralph.’

He stood. Ralph was sitting pensively now, a small frown wrinkling his brow.

‘Think on it, Ralph, and then go and speak to Betsy. Find out who it is who owns her and the other girls there. And then tell Sir Peregrine. I would not have another girl die.’

‘What of you? Should I not tell you?’

‘Ach!’ Baldwin pulled a face and felt his shoulder. ‘I think that I have done enough already. My shoulder, as you keep telling me, needs rest. I shall ride home today and leave all these affairs in the hands of those who actually have responsibility for them. It’s no longer my business.’

Jordan was home at a little before lunch, and as he walked inside he saw his wife sitting waiting for him. She stood as soon as he came in through the door, and went to help him with his cotte.

‘Get me an ale,’ he rasped. ‘My throat is parched. Christ’s cods, the way those arses talk you’d think there was a tax on silence.’

She obediently hurried out to the buttery. Usually their bottler should have been there to serve him, but Jordan had sent the man away to replenish their stocks, and he had taken the cart down to Topsham a little after Jordan and she had broken their fasts. He wouldn’t be back for a long time.

Jordan watched her go sombrely. The matter of Daniel’s death was all over the city, and several men had been glancing at him askance as though they were wondering. It didn’t matter, though. He’d been at the South Gate brothel with two merchants. They were both of them unmarried, so neither would worry too much about their presence there becoming known, and Jordan didn’t care who learned he’d been lying with a whore. That was his protection. He couldn’t have been present when Daniel was murdered. He hadn’t been.

Still, some men were asking who else would wish to see him dead, and he was unhappy with the sidelong looks and suspicious stares. The city’s receiver this morning had refused to sit near him and hadn’t shaken hands with him. Nor had the clerk. If those two took it into their heads that he might have paid someone else to kill Daniel, it could go hard for him. God, he was thirsty! ‘Where are you, bitch?’

Mazeline shivered at his voice. The barrel was almost empty, and she had to lift the end to pour a little more from the bottom. It meant that there was more sediment in the jug than usual, but she could do little about that. Taking it back into the room, she set the drink down with his favourite goblet in front of him on his table, and asked if he’d like some cold meat or a pie.

‘Meat, woman. Bring it out quickly, I’m hungry. Where’s Jane?’

‘Playing at the Bakeres’ house.’

She saw him nod approvingly. Jane didn’t like the Bakeres’ little boy — she said he was loud, rough, and bullying — but Mazeline knew that her husband approved of the Bakeres because Master Billy Bakere was a rising force within the Freedom of the city. In that exclusive club it was as well to keep an ear to the ground, and Jordan had heard that Billy might soon be the city’s official receiver, in charge of all the city’s money. That would make him a worthwhile friend, so Jane had been told to play with his son at every opportunity.

The meat was ready with some bread sliced on a trencher, and she brought them through to the table. He watched her as she approached the table and set the food down, and then, as she took a pace back, he swept up his goblet and hurled it at her.

‘This tastes of shit! Are you trying to poison me?’

The heavy pewter rim struck her above the eye, cutting the flesh on the point of the bone, and dashing the ale all over her. There had been a good two-thirds of a pint, and it exploded from the goblet, drenching her hair and upper body.