Кейт Седли - Death and the Chapman

She prevaricated. ‘It’s a long time ago. More’n a year. For some reason, no one would buy it.’

‘You asked too much fer it, that’s why,’ Philip interrupted. ‘It’s all right. You can trust ’im. ’E’s just try in’ to find a friend oo disappeared last winter from outside the Crossed ’Ands inn. No one knows if this young man is alive or dead, an’ it’s ’ard on ’is family.’

I had, inevitably, been forced, on our way here to satisfy Philip’s rampant curiosity regarding my interest in the camlet tunic, and so had told him my story, or such parts of it as were relevant to our mission. I prayed devoutly that I should not now have to repeat it yet again for Bertha Mendip, but fortunately, Philip’s explanation seemed to satisfy her. She thought deeply for a moment or two, then nodded.

‘In that case,’ she said at last, ‘per’aps I do remember. Come outside with me, both of you, an’ I’ll point out the spot to you. And Matt! You keep that fire going!’ she admonished her son. ‘D’you ’ear me?’

The boy nodded sullenly, and I noted that, for all his thinness, he had a strong, wiry frame, and that what I had assumed to be twigs, because he snapped them so easily, were really quite substantial branches. I smiled at him, but elicited no response other than a scowl. He was obviously deeply suspicious of strangers, even of those approved of by his mother. Abandoning my attempt at friendliness, I followed Bertha and Philip out of the hut and joined them where they were standing at the wharfside.

A little way up river, across the glittering expanse of water, I could just make out the silhouette of the Tower, and beyond that again, although I could barely discern them from this distance, the wharves and alleys around Thames Street. Bertha pointed a dirty, sticklike finger in their direction.

‘Up there, it were. Close to the shore. Body of a young man which ’ad got trapped in a fisherman’s net. It ’appens sometimes. In fact, ’e were the third what I’d caught near there.’

I digested this piece of information. ‘Were all the bodies fully clothed?’

Bertha nodded. ‘No ornaments of any kind on ’em mind you, but you wouldn’t expect that, not if they’d been robbed, which most of ’em ’ad been. Sometimes, o’ course, you find corpses what’ve still got their rings on and their gold chains round their necks, and you thanks God for ’em. Drunks oo’ve fallen in the river at night, or people oo’ve fallen overboard from boats, ’specially after some fool’s tried ’is ’and at shootin’ the arches.’ These, I guessed to be the arches of London Bridge, through which the current swirled so dangerously at ebb tide. Bertha continued: ‘But most of ’em, as I say, are poor bastards what’ve been set on and killed for the few paltry coins in their purses.’

I found Bertha’s sympathy for the victims she then stripped and threw back in the river macabre, but was careful not to show my revulsion. ‘This young man,’ I asked, ‘who was wearing the camlet tunic, how old would you say he was?’

‘I told you,’ she answered impatiently, ‘’e were a young man.’ She eyed me up and down. ‘Your age maybe. An ’e ’adn’t been in the water long when I found ’im. Fishes ’adn’t started nibblin’ at ’im.’

I felt my stomach heave and was afraid that I was going to be sick. But I managed to swallow my nausea and, after a moment or two, was able to ask in a steady voice: ‘Would this have been around All Hallows’-tide?’

Bertha considered, chewing a black fingernail between broken teeth. ‘Could’ve been,’ she admitted slowly. ‘Ye-es. It could’ve been. The nights were drawin’ in, as I remember. It was gettin’ dark early.’ She thought for a little longer. ‘It ’ad been bad weather. Rainin’ for several days before ’and. It was a nasty black night and still rainin’ when I found ’im.’

‘Was that anywhere near the entrance to Crooked Lane?’ I prompted, after she had fallen silent.

‘Little way down river from there, but not far. The current ’adn’t ’ad a chance carry ’im any distance because of the fishing net, like I told you.’

‘These other two bodies you found near there, was that before or after the one we’re talking about?’

Bertha stopped biting her nail and sucked her teeth. ‘The first was a long time ago,’ she replied eventually. ‘As for the other, I can’t rightly remember. One body looks much like another after it’s been in the river a while. They all get muddled up in my mind.’

I thanked her courteously for her help and indicated to Philip Lamprey that it was time to go. I should be thankful to quit Angel Wharf. It made the flesh crawl along my bones.

‘Do you think it’s the young man you’re lookin’ for?’ Bertha asked me.

‘Yes, almost certainly. When I see his family again, I shall tell them to give up hope.’ I was about to move away when a thought struck me. ‘You know London well,’ I said. ‘Why is that alley called Crooked Lane? There’s no bend in it.’

Bertha once more sucked her teeth, which seemed to be her habit when she was thinking. ‘Wasn’t always called that,’ she answered after a while. ‘When I was a child it ’ad a different name, as I recall… Doll!’ she shrieked, and another woman, older than herself, appeared in the door of a nearby hovel. ‘Didn’t Crooked Lane, in Thames Street, used to be called somethin’ else?’

‘Conduit Lane,’ the other woman answered shortly, and went inside again.

‘Tha’s it.’ Bertha nodded sagely. ‘Don’t ask me ’ow it came to change its name, ’cos I don’t know, and that’s a fact.’

I could see that mispronunciation over a number of years could have wrought the transformation, until common usage had turned ‘Conduit’ into ‘Crooked’, but there was no conduit in the street, either. I said as much, and once again Doll was summoned.

‘Why was it called Conduit Lane?’ Bertha demanded.

At first, it seemed that Doll was unable to remember, or perhaps had never known the reason. But eventually, after much questioning, not only by Bertha, Philip Lamprey and myself, but also by other occupants of Angel Wharf who had started to take an interest in the proceedings, she said she thought there was an underground drain which ran from the cellars of one of the inns and emptied into the river. It had been used, although exactly how Doll was unsure, to smuggle untaxed casks of wine on to the premises.

And that, I could see, was as much as Doll could tell us, but even so, my heart was thumping with excitement. If that underground drain still existed, as it probably did, between the river and the Crossed Hands inn, and even if it was no longer used for its original purpose, it still offered a simple way of disposing of dead bodies.

But why were there dead bodies in the first place? Why had Clement Weaver been murdered, as I was now sure he had been? And had the same fate overtaken Sir Richard Mallory and Jacob Pender? And what, if anything, did it all have to do with the mysterious young woman who seemed to be a virtual prisoner of Martin Trollope? To none of these questions did I as yet have a satisfactory answer.

I thanked Bertha again and followed Philip Lamprey back to the water-stairs near London Bridge, where we crossed once more by boat to the city. It was now late in the afternoon, getting near supper-time, and I was hungry. I needed sustenance and time to put my thoughts in order. So much had happened during the past two days that I was in danger of becoming confused enough to do nothing. I was as sure now as I would ever be that Clement Weaver was dead, so why pursue the matter? As I walked from the Bridge along Thames Street, having said my farewells to Philip Lamprey, who was anxious by this time to go about his own business, I asked myself that question. But I already knew the answer. God had given me yet more proof that it was His will that I should unravel this mystery. Try as I might, I was unable to convince myself that Philip Lamprey’s purchase of the camlet tunic after all these months, and our subsequent meeting, was simply coincidence. God’s Hand was here, and I could not ignore it. Moreover, some sixth sense told me that all the necessary pieces to solve the puzzle were in front of me, if only I had eyes to see them. I recalled the nagging sensation I had experienced, on more than one occasion, that I had missed something vital; something someone had either said or done, but which I had found it impossible to recapture.