C. Sansom - Dark Fire

'What are we looking for?' he asked.

'I don't know. Anything. We'll search his living quarters after.'

'If he's gone of his own will, he won't have left anything incriminating behind.'

'If he has. Look in those drawers, I'll search the desk.'

It felt strange to be rifling through Marchamount's possessions. A locked drawer roused our hopes but when Barak prised it open we found nothing inside but a genealogical chart. It traced Marchamount's family back two hundred years. Occupations were scribbled under the names; fishmonger, bell-founder, and worst of all 'villein'. Under one name from a hundred years back Marchamount had scrawled 'This man was of Norman descent!'

Barak laughed. 'How he lusted after that title.'

'Ay. He was always a vain man. Come, let's try his living quarters.'

But there was nothing there either, only clothes, more legal papers and some money, which we left. We quizzed the clerks but all they could tell us was that they had come in to work the day before to find Marchamount gone, with no message and a hundred jobs waiting. Defeated, we left and crossed the courtyard to my chambers.

'I'd hoped there would be something,' Barak said.

I shook my head. 'The people involved in this wouldn't leave evidence of Greek Fire in their homes. Even the Gristwoods kept that apparatus out at Lothbury.'

'They kept the formula at home.'

'And look what happened to them. No, everything's hidden away somewhere.'

'But where, if not in a house?'

I stopped dead. 'What about a warehouse?'

'That's possible. But there are dozens along the river bank.'

'There was a warehouse conveyancing among the cases I lost. Near Salt Wharf. It struck me at the time that the transaction was conducted in the name of people who looked like nominees and I wondered who would want to keep ownership of a warehouse secret.'

'But it was Rich who took those cases away from you.'

I paused a moment, then hastened into chambers. Skelly was sharpening a quill into a nib; he squinted up at me.

'John,' I asked. 'Is Master Godfrey in?'

'No, sir.' He shook his head sadly. 'He has another hearing before the committee.'

'Will you do something for me? You know a number of cases have been taken away from me recently – half a dozen or so. Would you make a list for me now? The names, what they were about and the parties.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Wait.' I looked into his red eyes. 'I have wondered, John, if you see as well as you might.' And then I was filled with guilt, for he looked mortally afraid.

'Perhaps not, sir,' he murmured, shifting from foot to foot.

I made my voice cheerful. 'I have an apothecary friend who is experimenting with spectacles. He is looking for subjects. If you would go to him he may be able to help your sight, and as you would be aiding his work there would be no fee.'

I saw hope in his face. 'I'll be glad to see him, sir.'

'Good. I'll arrange it. Now, go and make the list.'

He scurried away.

'Do you think that warehouse could really be where they are storing the Dark Fire and the apparatus?' Barak asked.

'It seems a long shot, I know. But it's a possibility; we have to follow it up.' I looked into his sceptical face. 'Unless you have a better suggestion.'

Barak nodded. 'All right, then.'

'I've never heard of a warehouse bought through a nominee before. It stayed in my mind, it was so unusual. Could that be the explanation? It was the last of my cases to go – just after I took Cromwell's assignment.'

'Anything's worth a try.' Barak had crossed to the open window. 'What's going on out there?' he asked suddenly.

I joined him. A small crowd of people, servants and barristers and clerks, had gathered round one of the students, a stocky young fellow with fair hair. He stood gesticulating wildly in the middle of the crowd, his eyes wide with shock. 'It's murder,' I heard him say.

Exchanging a look, Barak and I hurried outside. We shouldered our way through the crowd and I grasped the young fellow by the arm. 'What's going on?' I asked. 'Who's murdered?'

'I don't know, sir. I was going rabbit hunting, up by Coney Garth, and in the orchard I found – a foot. A foot in a shoe, cut off. And blood everywhere.'

'Take us there,' I said. He hesitated a moment, then turned and led us towards the gate to the orchard on the north side of Gatehouse Court. Part of the crowd followed us, nosy as sparrows.

'Stay back,' I said. 'This is official.' People grumbled, but they remained outside as we passed through to the orchard. The apple and pear trees were in full leaf and a carpet of long-fallen blossom lay all around. The student led the way through the trees.

'What's your name, fellow?' I asked.

'Francis Gregory, sir. I wanted some rabbits for the pot. I came out early, but I ran back when I saw that – thing.' I studied his face. He seemed none too bright and very frightened.

'All right, Francis. There's nothing to fear, but a man is missing and we have been ordered to find him.'

Reluctantly young Gregory led us on into the trees. In the middle of the orchard, on the blossom-covered ground, we found a gruesome chaos. A wide patch of ground was covered with blood, black and sticky-looking. One tree had had a branch hacked off and a great gouge cut in its side. The mark of an axe, Wright's weapon of choice. And, lying at the bottom of the tree, was a shoe with an inch of white leg visible above.

I stepped on to the bloody ground to look at the severed foot, my stomach churning a little at the sight. It had been shorn off like a pig's trotter. Flies were buzzing around it.

'That's a gentleman's shoe,' Barak observed.

'Ay.' I saw something else among the blossom and, taking my dagger, brushed the delicate petals aside. Then I jerked upright in disgust. Three fingers from a man's hand lay there, sliced off like the foot, little black hairs standing out against the waxy skin. And on one of them a large emerald ring.

'What is it?' Barak called. He stepped across to my side. I had been steeling myself to pick up the finger, but Barak did it without flinching. 'That is Marchamount's ring,' I said, in a low voice so the student could not hear. He had not ventured onto the patch of bloody ground.

'Shit,' Barak breathed.

'He must have come to meet somebody by arrangement and they went for him with an axe.' I took a deep breath.

'Toky and Wright.'

'Ay. He must have struggled, tried to escape. They probably swung at his foot to bring him down. Then he tried to defend himself with his hands. Poor Marchamount.'

'Why did they take the body away and leave these remains?'

'If it was dark, they may not have noticed the fingers or the ring.'

'I thought this place was patrolled to keep the lawyers and their gold safe.'

'Only the inner court, not the gardens or the orchard. There are ways in here over the wall from Lincoln's Inn Fields.'

His back to the student, Barak pulled the ring from the severed finger and slipped it in his pocket, letting the finger fall to the ground again. We walked over to the boy.

'There's no saying who this is, lad.' I said. 'Best report to the authorities. Go on now.'

He was happy to run from the place. Barak and I followed more slowly. I was glad I had sent a note to Lady Honor last night, warning her not to go out without servants.

'So Marchamount was involved with Toky and Wright,' Barak said.

'So it appears. Perhaps he was worried I was going to have him before Cromwell and told his master. Who decided to stop his mouth.' I stopped on the path. 'God's death, he should have known the risk he ran, enough mouths have been stopped already. The two Gristwoods, the founder, Bathsheba and her brother. And now him.'