Veil of Lies

2

Sheriff Simon Wynchecombe stood in the center of the room and surveyed its cloth-draped walls, the cold hearth, splintered door, and finally Crispin. The sheriff narrowed his eyes. “What, by the mass, are you doing here?”

Crispin leaned against a far wall. He shrugged. “I happened to be in the parish.”

Wynchecombe sneered. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

Crispin opened his mouth to answer but then thought better of it.

Besides Wynchecombe, there was another sheriff of London, John More, but Crispin seldom saw him performing his appointed task for the king. He supposed the man used his authority elsewhere. Perhaps he favored penning writs. On the other hand, Simon Wynchecombe was often on the streets when trouble arose. Crispin suspected it had less to do with sheriffing and more to do with a step closer toward the mayor’s office.

Sheriff Wynchecombe, tall and dark-haired, cut a menacing figure. A meticulously coifed black mustache curved downward over his upper lip. A black beard neatly trimmed into two curls sprouted from his chin. He scanned Crispin with his usual irritated scorn before dismissing him.

The sheriff turned to Adam and leaned over him, pressing a finger into his chest in emphasis. Crispin chuckled to himself. He’d been in Adam’s shoes many a time, but Adam didn’t seem to be faring quite as well.

Crispin turned his attention to the quiet room and to the body of Nicholas Walcote. He’d been stabbed multiple times in the back. There was no sign of a struggle, no cast-over chairs or torn drapery. The blood had stopped running long ago. Such bodies he remembered from battlefields. These were the kind found in the morning after the corpse had lain all night. He could tell that Walcote was killed sometime the previous night by the look of the blood and the gray skin pallor.

Crispin had made a cursory inspection earlier, but Adam had prevented him from a more thorough search of the room, preferring to wait for the sheriff.

He glanced back at Wynchecombe, still pinning Adam to the wall. Smirking, Crispin wagered the servant didn’t prefer Wynchecombe’s company now.

He stepped over a spilled cup of wine to get nearer. The cup lay rim down. Wine splattered across the buffet. Or was it blood? He crouched down and squinted.

Wine.

He left the cup where it lay and crossed the room to examine the window. It was tightly barred. The dust on the sill told him that it had not been opened in some time. When he moved toward the door to examine the twisted lock, the sheriff’s man stood in his way.

Almost wide enough to fill the arch, the man’s shoulders blocked the outer gallery’s light. His flat nose looked as if someone once flattened it for him. Crispin remembered his name was William.

A commotion at the doorway turned their heads. Philippa Walcote burst into the room trailed by anxious servants, reaching for her. She put her hand to her throat and stared wild-eyed at her husband before she let out a resounding scream.

Wynchecombe motioned to Crispin, and Crispin grabbed the woman’s shoulders and dragged her from the room and out into the gallery.

“Now Mistress,” he soothed. But when she refused to stop screaming, he opened his hand and slapped her.

She drew up and clamped her lips together. A red mark formed on her pale skin.

“My apologies,” he said and released her.

She touched her cheek. Her wild eyes scrambled over Crispin’s unfamiliar face, trying to place him. When this proved futile, she took a deep breath, and with it color returned to her face. Her rounded eyes tapered to drowsy slits and she looked at Crispin anew. He returned her gaze with interest, catching the careful relaxing of her shoulders and of her thoroughly taking in the scene before her. It was with surprising calm that she turned to him.

“I don’t understand none of this. Tell me what happened,” she said. He expected her voice to be high and melodic, but heard instead something low and husky. And arousing. Her accent, too, rubbed unexpectedly coarse on his ear with dropped aitches and a certain edge to the form of her speech.

“We do not know. He was murdered. By the look of the—By the look of him, I would say it was sometime last night.”

“How do you know?”

“The blood. It does not run and—”

Her face, so stiff in its attempt at calm, crumpled behind her hand. He felt like kicking himself. “My apologies,” he said again.

She shook her head and breathed deeply. Crispin noticed she wore the same gown from the previous night, but now a tiny tear gapped the seam at her shoulder. An impatient lover, her paramour. The rip reminded him he need not be so courteous.

She looked over her shoulder at the hovering servants. “You must have work to do!” she snapped. They stopped chattering and raised their heads before moving down the gallery, looking back and whispering to one another. She closed her eyes and exhaled a tremulous sigh. Cracking her eyes opened again she turned toward Crispin. “What’s to be done?”

He admired her spirit. Or was it merely her impatience to get it over with? “Did your husband entertain any guests last night?”

“No. None that I know of.”

“You have not seen him since last night?”

“No.” Her chin trembled and she pressed her hands to her lips to stop it.

“When he did not come to bed, you did not question it?”

“He often works late with his books.”

“Or could it be that you yourself came to bed late?”

She studied him with interest. “Tell me who you are.”

He wasn’t often disarmed by a pretty face, but he found himself embarrassed by her perusal of his threadbare appearance. “My name is Crispin Guest.”

“Are you the sheriff?”

“Indeed, no. Your husband hired me.”

“Hired for what?”

He slid his jaw. “I’m called the Tracker…among other things.”

“Tracker?” Panic struck her voice. “What is lost?”

“Nothing, Mistress. I was hired for personal business.”

“Personal? Was your business discharged before…before…”

“Very nearly.”

“May I know what it is?”

He looked for a distraction in the empty gallery, but he saw only a rushlight dropping its burning embers to the floor. He decided to gauge her reaction. “I was following you, Mistress.”

She looked askance. A good performance, he thought.

“He hired you to follow me?”

“Yes.”

Her hands didn’t seem to know what to do; curl into fists, rub her skirt, claw his face. “So these ‘other things’ you do,” she said tightly, “they involve spying on innocent women?”

“Not innocent women.”

He would have been disappointed had she not slapped him, and she made certain he felt no disappointment. Crispin’s ears rang with it and his cheek burned.

“Madam,” he said sharply. “Do you deny your infidelity?”

“Aye!”

“Yet I saw you only last night with my own eyes.”

“Then your eyes deceive you.”

“How can you say—” He shook his head. “I am speechless.”

“What does it matter? My husband is dead.” Her chin trembled again, and she sucked in her pouting lower lip.

He frowned. And so are my chances of collecting my thruppence. “True. My business with you is now over.”

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I might need your help.”

Crispin’s brows rose. “For what purpose?”

“There is more here than you know,” she whispered and jumped when a distant step in the gallery echoed. Her rounded eyes searched the shadows. “Not here. Where can I come to speak with you?”

“My lodgings. On the Shambles above a tinker shop. Anyone can tell you which it is.”

“An hour’s time, then.”

She stepped away but he stopped her with a light touch to her sleeve. “It was Master Walcote who hired me. I do not think—”

Her mouth hardened. “Loyal, are you? Good. I can use a loyal man. One I can trust.”

“Very well. My fee is—”

“I don’t care what your fee is.” She glared at him one last time before she wheeled and hurried into the shadows of shuddering tapestries and flickering rushlights.

He watched her shapely form depart and recalled the sight of her breasts from the previous night. A wash of heat warmed his face. Jesu, Crispin. Is quim all you can think about when her husband lies dead in the next room?

He walked slowly back into the solar and approached a thoughtful Wynchecombe.

“This is a puzzle,” said the sheriff. “The solar was locked from the inside.”

“Yes. And the casement is also untouched.”

“Then how the hell did the murderer get in or out?”

“Perhaps he was invited in.”

“But how did he get out?”

“That is the puzzle,” Crispin agreed. He walked to the cold hearth and stepped into the gray ashes. Bracing his hands against the inside of the flue, he looked up the chimney.

The sheriff snorted. “Do you think he took to the air?”

“A rope would do. But it looks too narrow for a man. Give me a boost.”

“What did you say?”

Crispin sighed. Distraction made him forget he was no longer Wynchecombe’s better. “I beg your pardon, my lord.” He made only a slight bow.

Wynchecombe smirked. “William. Help him.”

William smiled and sauntered toward Crispin who took a cautionary step back into the hearth. “What troubles you?” said William, opening and closing his large hands. “Don’t you want my help?” William crouched and made a stirrup with his interlaced hands. “Go on,” he urged with a chuckle. The big man’s fat fingers made a solid step. “Give us your foot. Or do you fear me?”

Crispin had been on the wrong side of William before, and he recalled very well how solid those hands could be. He took a deep breath and placed his foot on William’s palms and pushed himself up, balancing his legs across the chimney’s opening. He reached for a handhold but found little he could easily grip. The stones radiated warmth, and his nose filled with the stench of smoke. Creosote crumbled and broke off under his groping fingers. He found he could not stand up straight. At his shoulders the chimney narrowed with barely room for his head. He looked up and saw sky but no room for a man to shimmy up the passage.

When he jumped back down into the room, William laughed.

“What’s so damned funny?”

“You,” said William. “You look like a Moor.”

He looked down at his hands covered in black soot and imagined his face looked little better.

“You there!” said the sheriff to Adam. “Get him a basin and water.”

Adam moved to comply. Crispin swore at the state of his clothes.

“Never mind that,” said Wynchecombe. “What about this body? Stabbed five, six times.”

“Not just the back,” said Crispin. “He was stabbed on the chest as well. Look here.”

The sheriff bent over. A small jagged tear of the cloth at the collar, and a thin strand of blood were all that indicated a wound. “That?” Wynchecombe delicately pulled the cloth aside to examine the small puncture. “This did no damage.”

Adam returned and set the basin and jug on the sideboard. Crispin tried to push up his sleeves with his forearms and hoped the servant would help him, but Adam refused to look in his direction. With a muttered curse, Crispin managed, and cleaned his hands and face with the water, soap cake, and towel. He brushed at his clothes with the towel and finally tossed the cloth aside.

He crouched beside the body. “Walcote was stabbed in the back first.” He turned the corpse slightly, lifting him from the floor. “See. Most of the blood is here. Probably breathing his last when he hit the floor. Now look at his arms.” He lifted the closest one and showed the palms and sleeves.

“Nothing,” said the sheriff.

“Precisely. Nothing. If he struggled, his sleeves and palms would most assuredly be slashed and bloodied. He was in no fit state when the attacker came at him from the front.”

“Then why this piss-poor stab to his chest?”

Crispin shook his head. “I don’t know. The attacker saw no more use in continuing, perhaps. Or maybe he heard a sound.” His finger hovered over an almost perfectly round patch of red on the floor beside the body. “See this spot?”

“Only more blood.”

“This is a knee mark. The attacker kneeled here to deliver the last blow that never came.”

Wynchecombe grunted. From appreciation or confusion Crispin could not tell.

“Well, Crispin. With so much evidence, do you suspect anyone?”

Crispin chuckled. “My Lord Sheriff, I did not come here with the intention of investigating a murder.”

“Indeed,” said the sheriff with renewed interest. “Why did you come here? And no more of your smart-arse remarks.”

“That is private.”

“Not when the Lord Sheriff asks.”

“Especially when the Lord Sheriff asks.”

The sheriff’s gloved hand slammed Crispin’s chest and drew him up. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me clearly. I asked you why you were here.”

Crispin leveled his gaze with Wynchecombe’s. “I cannot tell you.”

The sheriff released him and stepped back but his elbow jabbed Crispin’s belly, bending him in two. Wynchecombe aimed a finger at him and between clenched teeth said, “The next time I ask you a question, I expect an answer.”

Crispin waited for his breath to return. It seemed to take a long time. Once it did, he straightened and rubbed his stomach. William chuckled from his place by the door.

“My principles do not permit me to say,” he rasped, “even though my client is now dead. It concerned a deeply personal matter.”

Wynchecombe adjusted his gloves and glanced sidelong at Crispin. “Principles? When did you acquire those?” He smiled at Crispin’s sneer. “Might any of your client’s secrets have to do with this murder?”

Crispin took a deep breath and stared at the cold body of his client. “It might have. And I promise to alert you if it should take such a turn.”

“You’re going to investigate?”

“Do you have any objections?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Crispin grinned but said nothing.

“Then I give my permission.” Wynchecombe swung his gaze one last time across the room, toward the locked window and the body getting colder on the floor, before he sauntered toward the doorway. But instead of departing, the sheriff whirled and slammed Crispin hard against the wall, fists curled around the breast of Crispin’s coat. With his shoulder blade jammed uncomfortably into the plaster, Crispin winced up into the sheriff’s hardened eyes.

“I’ll give you a day to fully inform me of your role in these matters, Guest. I think a full day is more consideration than you deserve.” His gaze made the circuit of Crispin’s face before he released him with a snort. Crispin sagged, pulling the hem of his cotehardie in a fruitless attempt to smooth the wrinkles. Without another glance, Wynchecombe passed through the doorway with William at his heels. The sheriff’s man cast a long, mocking sneer in Crispin’s direction before succumbing to the corridor’s shadows.

Feeling his cheeks warm from shame, Crispin grabbed his belt and squeezed, hooking his thumbs under the leather. It was better than punching the wall. His cheeks flamed all the more when he heard the shuffling step of Adam behind him. Damn Wynchecombe! Did he have to trample Crispin’s dignity in front of servants? How was he to ask questions of this man and expect truthful answers if he cannot garner respect?

He turned on his heel and glared at Adam, hoping by the force of his will to gain back control of the situation.

But Adam wasn’t paying him any attention. His face was as pale as the sheet he was laying over the body of his master.

Crispin relaxed his wounded pride and took a steadying breath. He studied the area again, letting his eye sweep from point to point. The only possibilities of entrance or egress were the fireplace, the window, and the locked door that now lay in splinters on the floor. The window was untouched and the chimney was too narrow. That left the door. He went to it and knelt at what remained of the latch on the doorway. He ran his hand over it, hoping to find a string or other device to pull the bolt from the other side, but found nothing. He glanced at Adam before he sauntered toward the window and tested the casement again. He tugged on it, but it did not budge.

Adam stood by, his face growing darker the more Crispin touched the objects in the room. Crispin reached above the window and examined the stone frame. “How long have you been a servant in your master’s household?” he cast over his shoulder.

Adam stared at the body and shook his head. “Five years.”

“Did you like him?”

Adam said nothing before he abruptly pivoted toward Crispin. He scowled. “What is your meaning?”

Crispin lowered his hand and stood stiffly before the window. “Nothing. What of Mistress Walcote? How long were they married?”

“Three years.”

“Did they have rows?”

“Everyone has rows.”

“Were they like ‘everyone’s’?”

Adam rubbed the back of his neck. He glanced again at the body. “I don’t know. They were loud.”

“Often?”

He shrugged. “Not too often.”

“What did they argue about?”

Adam narrowed his eyes. The servant’s long nose was turned up at the end like an afterthought. “You are not the sheriff. So why do you ask?”

“I’m a curious fellow. Crime intrigues me. I don’t like people getting away with murder. No matter who they are.”

“I don’t like your implication.”

“You are not required to like it.”

Adam postured, his fists clenched. He considered Crispin’s shabby garb again and the absence of a sword. “Well then?”

“I asked what they argued about.”

“I don’t know. But I also saw how the mistress and master are—were with each other. I never saw a more devoted wife. And she took his abuse, right enough.”

“A husband is master in his household.”

“Even a master can go too far.”

“Did he?”

Adam clenched his jaw and strode to the washbasin. He meticulously wrapped the soap cake in the towel and placed it in the bottom of the basin. “I’ll say nothing more until I talk to my mistress.” He got halfway over the threshold when he stopped. “If that will be all, I have duties to attend to.”

Before Crispin could reply, Adam headed out across the gallery.

“I’ll let myself out,” Crispin said to the empty room.

Crispin walked with head down into a wet wind that flapped his hood. The chilled air howled through the narrow passage between the two-story shops and apartments, and carried the smell of rain but could not seem to entirely wash away the acrid odor of London’s dim streets and trickling gutters.

He hunched further into his cloak with his shoulders nearly up to his ears.

Heading north, he passed St. Paul’s, its high, stone walls and spires jutting up into the weak sunshine. The bells suddenly rang out Sext and he cocked an eye back at the bell tower, little believing it was already midday. A growl in his belly reaffirmed this, and as he tread up Paternoster Row, he thought he might stop off at a pie seller on Newgate Market on his way back to the Shambles before its smells of butchering put him off his hunger entirely.

When he reached the corner where Newgate Market became the Shambles, he met a seller with a cart of roasted meat on sticks. Crispin paid his farthing and sniffed at the sour meat. Beggars can’t be choosers. He tore the chewy flesh with his teeth while he walked, trying not to think of what animal the meat might have been when alive. It wasn’t much and he finished it quickly as he approached the first butcher stalls, tossing the stick into a gutter already running with the days gore.

A house with a stone foundation and an open doorway revealed Dickon, one of the many butchers along this row. His apron was bloody and his face flushed. He was a big man, suited to the task of hauling carcasses about. “Ho, Crispin!” called the man congenially. Crispin raised his hand in answer but did not reply. The fact that he was acquaintances with butchers and tavernkeepers always put him in a sour mood, and even the friendliness of such associates could not assuage that.

He inhaled the cold, hoping that the thickness of the autumn air could stifle the smell. Not so. As he walked deeper into the Shambles, the stench of death and offal and the coppery scent of blood permeated the stones and timbers of the tightly clustered buildings leaning into the streets. Beef carcasses, stripped of their skin, hung in stalls. Farther down the row were the poulterer’s stalls. Flightless bodies of birds, their wings frozen outward to mock their captive state, hung beside the glassy-eyed corpses of rabbits and suckling pigs. Crispin ignored the cries of the merchants, the thud of cleavers cutting through bone, the clatter of chickens in stick cages. His only thoughts were of home, or what at least constituted the place he slept and ate.

The tinker shop stood wedged between a butcher and a poulterer. It was a small house. The timbers had aged to gray long ago and the daub between was colored a dull and flaking buff. The ground floor boasted one door and one window that folded down into a stall. Above that was the jutted first floor, easing meekly over the ground floor, cradling an iron kettle that hung on a rod, announcing to all and sundry that this was a tinker shop. Though the second level seemed bigger, the inside was cut in half by a wall, one side being Crispin’s entire lodgings, and the other the bedchamber of the tinker and his wife. Though it was not usual to have a tinker situated on the Shambles, it was good business sense on Master Kemp’s part. For there was profitable industry in repairing pots for melting tallow and for making hooks.

A narrow stairway led upward to Crispin’s first-floor room. The rickety stairs were the only thing separating the tinker shop from the butcher’s house beside it. And though it was always dark in the shadow of the neighboring structure, at least it was a private entrance. It was one of the reasons Crispin chose to live there. That, and the rent was cheap.

He plodded to the tinker shopfront and encountered his landlord’s plump wife, sweeping off the beaded rain from the unfolded counter. When Alice Kemp spied him withdrawing his key, she placed a pink fist into her ample hip and leaned on the broom. “Well now. If it isn’t our lodger. The one who forgets when the rent is due.”

Crispin sighed. One day Alice would be found murdered, and no one, including himself, would look too hard for the culprit. “I am aware of how late I am, Madam. Here, then.” He reached into the purse hanging from his belt and took out the last of his coins and placed them into Alice’s damp, open palm. She closed her fingers over them and popped them into her scrip.

“I should charge you more for that boy that calls himself your servant.”

Crispin did not look back while he trudged up the dim stairway. “I do not see why. He is rarely here.”

“All the same,” she shouted after him, voice like ice. “It’s not proper for Master Kemp and me to go uncompensated. Mark me. I shall talk with my husband about it!”

“No doubt,” he grumbled, and put the key to the lock, but before it kissed the metal she shouted again.

“I let that woman into your room. She claimed she was a client.” She hurled the last shrill words with disdain. “She had better be, Master Guest.”

Crispin grabbed his dagger’s hilt in frustration. Did she need to shout her insults across the entire lane? He positioned himself before the door as if to block the sound from the client within, but of course it was far too late. Everyone on the Shambles surely heard her mocking voice. How could they not?

He looked down and realized his hand was still on his dagger hilt. How dearly he wanted to use it on Mistress Kemp! He took a deep breath and dropped his hand away, staring at the closed door. How much had Mistress Walcote heard? His dignity seemed to be a rare commodity these days. And what did it matter in the long run? His personal honor could be measured by the number of coins in his purse. With a weak laugh, he realized that purse was presently empty. He shook his head at the irony. The entire situation was disquieting. The one who hired him was now dead, half a day’s wage still wanting. And now the wife he was hired to follow wanted his services. For what? It did not feel right working for the wife under these circumstances. But coin was coin.

He opened the door.