P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

‘Your honour…’ he said hintingly to Aglionby. Scrope looked at him, puzzled. Aglionby smiled and tilted his head.

‘Yes, Sir Robert, please continue.’

‘Just a minute,’ snorted Sir Richard. ‘What’s he want?’

‘He is acting as amicus curiae .’ Aglionby told him repressively. ‘He will ask supplementary questions to aid the Crown.’ Scrope leaned over and whispered urgently, to which the Coroner replied with another smile and half-shut eyes.

Lowther snorted. He wasn’t sure what an amicus curiae might be-nor clearly was Scrope-but he couldn’t possibly admit to ignorance. Carey moved around so he was half-facing Lowther and sideways on to the crowd, and pitched his voice as if he were making a speech in a tournament with most of Whitehall Yard to reach.

‘Sir Richard,’ he said respectfully. ‘Who came to fetch you on Tuesday morning?’

Lowther’s face darkened. ‘Some clerk or other.’

‘Was it one Michael Kerr, factor to Mr James Pennycook?’

‘It might have been. Ay, it was. So?’

‘Your honour, I trust Mr Kerr is available to give evidence?’ Carey said to the Coroner. Aglionby rifled through the papers in front of him and found the list of witnesses.

‘Yes, Sir Robert. We can call him next, if you wish.’

‘If your honour pleases.’

Aglionby turned aside to whisper to his clerk who transmitted the whisper to one of the trained band. Carey looked at Lowther.

‘Sir Richard, can you describe what Frank’s vennel looked like when you came to see the body?’

Lowther snorted again and said contemptuously that it had had a body lying in it and a powerful lot of people looking on and one o’ the dogs being dragged off.

‘Was there blood?’

‘I dinna ken. There might have been.’

‘But was there in fact any blood?’

‘I dinna recall.’

‘Did you notice anything else unusual in the alley?’

‘No.’

‘Er…Sir Richard, what made you think that Barnabus Cooke had killed Mr Atkinson?’ put in Scrope helpfully. Dammit, thought Carey, whose side are you on? Aglionby let him get away with it.

‘Oh, ay. I found Barnabus’s knife and one of Carey’s gloves on the body,’ said Lowther, looking slightly embarrassed.

Carey smiled kindly at him. ‘Where were these incriminating items?’ he asked.

Lowther coughed. ‘Laid on top o’ the body.’

Now isn’t that interesting, Carey thought. I did you an injustice, Tom Scrope.

‘I’m sorry, Sir Richard,’ he said, elaborately obtuse. ‘I don’t quite understand. Exactly how were they placed?’

‘Well, the corpse was on its back, and the knife lay on its chest and the glove by it.’

Carey paused to let this picture sink in. ‘Someone had carefully put them there, in other words,’ he said.

‘I dinna ken.’

‘Well, they could hardly have dropped so neatly by accident, could they?’

Lowther shrugged. Carey waited a moment to see if he would say anything else, then continued.

‘Now when you found my servant Barnabus Cooke, where was he?’

‘In yer chambers.’

‘At the Keep?’

‘Ay.’

‘What did he say when you accused him?’

‘I didnae understand because he spake braid London,’ said Lowther.

Probably just as well, thought Carey. ‘Did he say anything you understood?’

‘He lied.’

‘What did he actually say?’

‘He said he didnae do it. But he…’

‘What did you do then?’

‘I arrested him.’

‘Barnabus, stand forward,’ Carey said and Barnabus took a step out of the group of accused. ‘Is this the man you arrested?’

‘Ay.’

‘Tell me, how did his face come to be so battered?’

Lowther shrugged and wouldn’t answer. There was a certain amount of muttering among the public, none of whom were naive.

‘Who else was in my chambers?’

Lowther shrugged again. ‘A boy,’ he said.

‘In fact, Simon Barnet, Cooke’s nephew.’

‘If you say so, Sir Robert.’

‘Is it true that you tried to get into my office and Barnet prevented you, so you beat him as well?’

‘Nay. He was insolent.’

‘Did Lady Scrope then come and order you out of my chambers which you were preparing to search?’

‘Ay.’

‘Did you in fact, threaten her as well?’

‘Nay,’ said Lowther. ‘She threatened me.’

Scrope blinked gravely at Lowther. ‘You hadn’t mentioned this, Sir Richard,’ he said reproachfully, which was why Carey had brought it up. Lowther cleared his throat and Aglionby put out a repressive hand. Scrope subsided.

‘Now, Sir Richard,’ said Carey. ‘Apart from a knife and a glove laid carefully on the corpse, did you have any other reason at all for accusing Barnabus Cooke?’

‘The man’s throat was cut. Yon’s a footpad’s trick.’

‘Is there no other man in Carlisle who can use a knife?’ Carey asked, rhetorically.

‘It’s a footpad’s trick,’ repeated Lowther doggedly.

‘So you actually had no other evidence or reason for thinking that Barnabus Cooke had killed Atkinson?’

Go on, thought Carey, I dare you; I dare you to say you thought I’d told him to do it. For a moment he was sure Lowther would say it, but in fact he did not, he simply stood there with his arms folded and a sour expression on his face.

‘Thank you, Sir Richard.’

Carey made a gesture of dismissal and the Coroner nodded that Lowther could go.

Michael Kerr was ready to be examined next. He gave his evidence in a mutter that the jury had to strain to hear. He had happened to go through Frank’s vennel that morning. No, he had not been sent. Yes, he did know he was on oath. No, he had not been sent, well, he had wondered if there was anything to find there. He couldn’t remember why. Yes, he knew the dead man. Yes, he was Mr James Pennycook’s factor and son-in-law. Yes, he understood Mr Pennycook had left town. He had gone to join the Scottish King’s Court, he believed. No, he didn’t know anything about anything else.

According to the list Carey had provided, the next to be called was Fenwick the undertaker who had come to fetch the body away.

He explained that he had done this but that he had been worried by many things about the body.

‘Oh?’ said Aglionby with interest. ‘What were they?’

Fenwick’s grave face was troubled and he put up one finger. ‘Considering the man’s throat was cut, there should have been blood in the wynd. There was none that I could see. There was blood on his shirt, but not his outer clothes, except the linings. He lay very straight, as if he had been arranged, quite respectfully really, and on his back which is not the way someone falls when they have been attacked from behind.’

‘I see, thank you. Sir Robert?’

‘Did you notice any tracks in the wynd, Mr Fenwick?’

He hadn’t at the time, though now he came to think about it he thought there might have been marks of a hand cart in the softer parts.

The next was Barnabus himself, brought forward under guard to stand by the cross. Of course, as one of the accused he was not allowed a lawyer, even if there had been one available. The day was warm and Carey had already started to sweat under his black velvet: Barnabus was unwell and unhappy in the sunlight after so long in semi-darkness, with his battered round brimmed hat crushed in his hands, his bruised ferret-face with its collection of pockmarks and scars making him look an ugly sight even to Carey, who was used to him. The thin film of moisture on his skin didn’t help either.

The Coroner looked at the unsavoury little man impassively.

‘Barnabus Cooke,’ he said after Barnabus had whinged out his oath with his hand on the cathedral Bible. ‘Remember you are on oath and at risk of sending your immortal soul to hell if you lie.’