P. Chisholm - A Murder of Crows

Everyone nodded, one swallowed again. “I have had the body cried three times in the cities of Westminster and London. Has anyone any…”

The grey-haired woman stepped forward and curtseyed to Hunsdon. “My lord, I am here to claim the body which I have identified as Mr. John Jackson who went missing in London some three weeks ago.”

Hunsdon’s bushy eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Indeed, mistress. And you are?”

Carey was staring at the woman with his lips parted in a half-smile and his eyes narrowed. “Hm,” he said, in a tone of great interest.

“His cousin, sir, Mrs. Sophia Merry, gentlewoman.”

“Ah.”

Mrs. Briscoe had a puzzled expression on her face, mixed with some relief. Hunsdon looked shrewdly at her. “And you, mistress? Have you anything to say?”

“Oh, ah.” Mrs. Briscoe seemed confused at being addressed so courteously. “Um…I thought it was my bruvver, but I wasn’t sure.”

“You are willing to yield the body to Mrs. Merry?”

“Oh yes, my lord, if she’s sure. I’m not, see. His face…Might not have been him.” She looked down and frowned.

Mr. Briscoe put his arm across her shoulders and whispered in her ear. “My lord, may I sit down?” she asked in a whisper.

“Of course, mistress,” said Hunsdon, no more eager to have her go into labour there and then than any man would be. One of the court attendants brought up a stool for her to sit on.

The rest of the inquest went quickly. No mention was made of the man’s missing feet, all the attention was on the dagger-wound in the back and the missing joint of his finger. The Board of Greencloth found that Mr. John Jackson had been unlawfully killed or murdered by person or persons unknown and released the corpse into the keeping of his cousin Mrs. Sophia Merry.

They all bowed, the Board filed out of the room, and moments later they were in the little alley behind Scotland Yard where were the kilns that fired the staggering quantities of earthenware the palace kitchens used.

“Why did Poley say, which corpse?” Dodd asked, the thought having just struck him. “Do a lot of deid men wind up in the Thames?”

“Of course, it’s very convenient if you don’t care about the dead person coming back to haunt you-no questions and no shroud money. Dead children too, dead babies. He could have been joking.”

“Or he could have known of more than one that he’d heard tell of or had to dae with.”

“He could. I think I should ask the watermen.” He stopped and frowned. “Except I can’t because I haven’t got Barnabus, damn it. They wouldn’t talk to me and if they did they’d lie.”

“Whit about the hangman?”

Carey smiled. “Hughes? Hm. I don’t know if the watermen would talk to him, but I wonder if…”

He immediately changed direction and headed northwards. Dodd sighed and followed, whilst Enys looked bewildered.

“Verrah impulsive gentleman, is Sir Robert,” said Dodd to the lawyer. “If ye’d like to tag along, I doot he’ll notice now he’s got a notion in his heid.”

Enys nodded, rammed his robe and the papers back into his brocade bag, slung it over his shoulder, and hurried after them.

Mr. Hughes lived near his normal workplace at Tyburn, in a pretty cottage surrounded by the shanties of the poor. He had his doublet off and his sleeves up and was working in his garden, carefully bedding out winter cabbage.

Carey stood by the garden wall watching with interest. After a while Hughes looked up and took his statute cap off.

“Well sir,” he said.

“Mr. Hughes, what would you say if I told you that the man you executed on Monday was the wrong one?”

“I’d say, they’re all innocent if you listen to…”

“No, I meant, genuinely was the wrong man.”

Hughes put his cap back on again slowly, narrowing his eyes.

“I’d be very surprised, sir.” Something about his eyes said he wouldn’t.

“You never get substitutions?

“Never, sir, though I suppose it could happen.”

“What about the priest? Fr. Jackson?”

“What of him?” Now the eyes were wary although the mouth was innocent.

“It wasn’t a priest, in fact it was a friend of my mother’s called Richard Tregian.”

Hughes came to the gate of the garden and opened it. “Come inside, sir,” he said, with a bow. “Try some of my fruit wines.”

The main room of the cottage was clean and swept though bare. They sat at the small wooden table that had a bench beside it and one stool and Hughes bustled into the storeroom to bring out a pottery flagon with a powerful smell of raspberries. He poured them a measure into horn cups, then sat down on his stool and braced his hands on his knees.

“Mr. Topcliffe brought him on the day. I had not seen him before to weigh him and calculate the drop, but Mr. Topcliffe said it was no matter, he was to be dead before he was drawn and gave me a purse for it as well.”

“Did he speak?”

“No sir, he was in…er…no condition to speak, he had been given the manacles and then he had been waked for a while and could hardly hold his head up nor see straight.”

“Waked?” asked Carey.

Hughes studied the floor. “He had been stopped from sleeping for many days, sir. It sends a man mad and kills him quicker than starving. Topcliffe prefers…other methods, but waking is a speciality of Mr. Vice Chamberlain.”

Carey had a look of disgust on his face. “And what was the purpose of this waking?”

“Dunno sir, usually it’s to make him talk so they’ll let him sleep, but sometimes all they get is nonsense and vapours of the brain from the poisonous humours, sir.”

There was a penetrating silence.

“And it don’t show, sir,” Hughes added, still staring at the floor, “So the mob don’t get too sympathetic.” More silence. Dodd realised that Carey was using it as a weapon. “See, if it’s a Papist priest, I wouldn’t mind sir, not since they sent the Armada-I heard tell they tried again this summer too, sir, only God saved us again. But this…I was worried, see, sir, cos he didn’t look like a priest.”

Carey blinked. “How could you tell?”

Hughes looked up with enthusiasm for the first time. “Oh it’s remarkable what you can tell from a man’s body and his clothes, if you know what to look for. See, your papish priest is always doing some sort of penance, see, and it shows. Like most of them have knobbly knees, see, from kneeling at their prayers.”

Carey shook his head. “Could mean he’s a courtier, I’ve got knobbly knees myself from kneeling in the Queen’s presence and I’m no priest.”

“True, sir. But it all goes together, you see. Or if he’s been wearing a hair shirt, even if it’s been taken from him, he’s usually got a rash in the shape of a shirt on his body and often a lot of lice cos they don’t take them off at all, sir. Or if he’s been using the discipline-that’s a little scourge with wires on it-you’ve got the marks of that-sort of criss-crossing scratches as if he’s been rolling in a bramble bush, more on the shoulders ‘cos they’re easier to reach…”

Carey’s head had gone up, as had Dodd’s. They exchanged satisfied glances. Enys was staring at Hughes in some kind of mute horror.

“So you could see none of that on Richard Tregian?” asked Carey.

“No sir, nor he didn’t say nothing except gibberish, but still Mr. Topcliffe would have him gagged-in case he made some kind of Papist sermon which Topcliffe couldn’t allow, so he said.”

“What kind of gibberish, Mr. Hughes?” asked Enys.

“Ahh…Funny words like Trenever and Lanner and Kergilliak, couldn’t make head nor tale of them. Bedlam he was, far as I could tell. Slept like a baby while he was being dragged on a hurdle to Tyburn which is something you don’t often see and gave the mob a bit of a turn, too.”