Holy Spy

Chapter 11

The rotting corpse of the woman on the slab was still uncovered. Shakespeare tried to avert his gaze. Joshua caught his eye and laughed without malice, then placed a sheet over the dead woman.

‘Does the look of death and the stench never unsettle you, Joshua?’

‘I was born to it. My mother took me with her whenever she went into a house to examine a body, and I helped her. I feel no more uncomfortable with the dead than with the living.’

‘Few have your stomach, I think. Now tell me, what did you wish to show me?’

‘I have another corpse here, one that I think you should see.’

‘Not this woman?’

‘No.’

‘Then who is it?’

Peace hesitated as though unsure how far to trust his visitor.

Shakespeare soothed his worries. ‘Joshua, you well know that you can entrust me with anything – just as I once placed dangerous information into your safe keeping.’

‘Yes, of course. It was mere caution on my part. Wariness has become a habit with me over the years.’ He took a deep breath, then nodded quickly. ‘Very well, I bought the corpse from the Smithfield hangman.’

Shakespeare was yet more intrigued. ‘The body of Will Cane?’

‘Yes. I paid five shillings for it. I am sure you are as aware as I am that revealing this to anyone else could lead to a great amount of trouble, both for myself and for the executioner.’

‘Why? Why did you buy it?’

‘I wished to examine it.’

‘You will have to explain further. Surely, the cause of his death was self-evident – to wit, hanging by the neck until his breathing and heart stopped. I saw it myself. What could you have hoped to learn?’

Peace pushed open the door to the adjoining room, where he kept the tools of his trade and corpses awaiting examination. ‘Come through.’

Will Cane’s body was on a narrow wooden table. He had been sliced open from the throat, all down the chest and through his abdomen to his privy parts. His ribs had been pulled apart and fixed back with iron appliances, thus exposing his internal organs.

Shakespeare held back, disinclined to look too closely. ‘What have you been doing to him? He reminds me of a beast after the butcher has been at work.’

‘I dissect the cadavers of hanged felons to further my knowledge of anatomy. It seems to me that they may as well serve some useful purpose in death, for few have done much for the world in their short and wretched lives. The great anatomists of Bologna and Padua believe that once the inner workings of the body are understood, we will know how to cure its defects. And I agree with them.’

Shakespeare had no argument with Peace’s thinking, but he was concerned by the risk the searcher was taking. ‘Clearly, I will say nothing, Joshua. But you must be careful in this work. Have you thought of trying to join the Company of Barber-Surgeons? I do believe they have licence to dissect four criminals a year. Otherwise you are in peril, not least from the surgeons. There are already those who believe you to be a necromancer and there are many jealous of your position here. Be circumspect, I beg you. Like me, you have enemies to contend with in this town.’

‘Fear not, I take precautions.’

‘Then, Joshua, why are you showing me this body? What relevance can it have?’

‘Look more closely, John.’

He moved forward and gazed into the cavity of the dead man. He was repulsed by what he saw, for it did not look at all natural. Nothing was as he had expected. Attached to the organs, there were shapes and growths that no body should contain. He turned back to Joshua with a questioning frown. ‘Explain. What am I looking at?’

‘A body riddled with impostumes and cankers. His bowels, his liver, his lungs. The tumours are everywhere and are malignant. He must have been exceedingly weak. And look at his face. The blood from his mouth has come straight from the lungs.’ Peace ran a hand across the thin rim of hair that circled his own pate. ‘Do you understand now?’

Shakespeare nodded. He had seen the point Peace was making even as he spoke the words. ‘You are saying that he was dying anyway?’

‘There is no doubt about it. His appointment with the hangman merely hastened his death by a day or two – and saved him a great deal of pain.’

‘And he would have known that he was dying?’

‘He could not have thought otherwise. There was nothing any physician or apothecary could have done to save him. He would have been certain that his end was close and must have raised a great effort of will to carry out his mission to kill Mr Giltspur. To tell the truth, I am astonished he had the strength to make his way to Fishmongers’ Hall, let alone wield a knife. The trial itself, standing before the judge in Justice Hall, must have been torture. At the end, hanging would have been a blessing to him.’

Shakespeare looked more closely at the body. Wretched and emaciated, it was more bone and skin than flesh.

Peace stepped towards a shelf attached to the wall and picked up a weapon. Shakespeare took it from him and turned it over in his hands. It was an evil-looking thing that had done for Nicholas Giltspur. A narrow, slaughterman-sharp nine-inch blade protruded from a hilt-guard in the shape of a man’s balls and a hilt in the manner of an erect prick.

‘Can I take this?’

‘You are welcome to it, John.’

Shakespeare began to think aloud. ‘His mortal sickness would explain why he was unable to escape his pursuers. He only managed a few paces before they pulled him down. And the state of his lungs would explain his coughing fit at the scaffold. But how will this help Kat? Indeed, can we now deduce that she is innocent, or not?’

‘That is for you to work out. I merely deal in facts. All I can tell you is that this man died of strangulation by the noose, but that he would have died soon enough anyway. These are facts that would be of no interest to a court of law, even if I was in a position to present them. If you have had any dealings with Recorder Fleetwood, you will know that nothing will override a dying man’s testimony. To him such things are sacred. Why would a man who knows he must meet his maker in a few minutes go to his death with the mortal sin of a lie on his lips? As to Cane’s motives, that is for you to consider.’

Shakespeare did not need Peace’s help on the question of motive, for there was an obvious one: knowing he was dying anyway, Will Cane had agreed to commit murder fully intending to be apprehended and executed. Which meant he could not have been committing the crime for money, as he had claimed, but to destroy both Nicholas Giltspur and his wife. But why? Shakespeare rubbed his brow and felt the bruise where he had been kicked. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking clearly. Perhaps there was another possibility that did involve money. What if Cane had been hired to commit the crime on the understanding that the money was to be paid to someone else after his death? Someone close to him like a wife, or child who would otherwise be left destitute once he was gone.

The question then was this: who else apart from Kat would have stood to gain from the death of Nicholas Giltspur? Only one person could answer that.

He rode to Shoreditch at a strong canter, weaving his horse in and out of the wagons and livestock with reckless haste. When he arrived at the house by the Curtain, he pushed open the door without knocking. Oswald Redd was at his workbench and turned in shock, evidently not pleased to see him.

‘Mr Redd, forgive my sudden intrusion. I have urgent business with Kat.’

‘How dare you walk in like this? You have interrupted my work. I must mend this gown by the next performance. Please leave immediately, Mr Shakespeare.’

‘It is not you I wish to see, Mr Redd, but Kat.’ His voice was low but pressing.

‘She is not here. Now go!’

‘Mr Redd, I have no intention of leaving until I have seen her. Is she in the loft?’

‘No, she is not here. No one is here. Now please be gone, sir.’

‘Then where is she?’

Redd looked as though he would explode. He was shorter than Shakespeare and armed only with tailoring tools, but his furious eyes suggested he would happily take on an army in his present mood.

‘Mr Redd, I do not wish to hurt you, but I will have my way.’

‘God damn you, Shakespeare, we have a safer place. She came here only to meet you. Do you think she would entrust the knowledge of her whereabouts to a Walsingham man?’

Had she really said that? Had she really not trusted him? Why, after all this time, did Kat still have the power to make him feel betrayed? He fought to contain his feelings, instead concentrating on Oswald Redd’s raw emotions. Rivalry would do neither of them any good – and would certainly not help Kat. He forced a little smile, intended to mollify his host. ‘Mr Redd, I am here to help.’

‘I do not need your help.’

‘If you do not cooperate with me, then you will be harming what little chance Kat has of escaping the noose.’

‘Why do you want her?’

‘As I said, I have urgent business with her – information that may be to her benefit. Questions to ask . . .’

‘Then tell me – and I will pass it to her. Or if you prefer, write a letter for me to deliver.’

‘No. I want to see her.’

Redd shrugged, immovable.

‘Mr Redd, you have to trust me.’

‘No, Mr Shakespeare, I do not.’

Shakespeare was finding it increasingly difficult to stifle his fury. This was going nowhere. Perhaps Redd was lying; perhaps she was still here, hidden. He drew his sword and held it loosely at his side, not threatening but as a warning should Redd decide to attack with scissors or some other utensil. ‘I am going up through the house. I believe she is here.’

Redd turned away, realising perhaps that his poor choice of implements could not compete against an unsheathed sword.

Shakespeare climbed the ladder to the first floor and searched. He looked about the rooms, calling her name softly. Unless there was some prepared hiding place, she could not be concealed here; and, anyway, why would she not come out on hearing his voice?

He ascended the ladder to the loft, which was almost dark, lit only by the light from the hatchway. He had no candle, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom he saw that there was nowhere she could be hidden. Nor had she been living here. The space smelt dank and musty. Cobweb curtains had been knitted across the rafters and purlin. As he looked about in the dim light it became obvious that the room had never been inhabited and was used merely as storage for stage properties and costumes. Angrily, he descended the ladders to the ground floor where Redd was cutting a strip of woollen cloth with his iron scissors.

‘God’s blood, Mr Redd, I need information if I am to help. I have reason to believe now that Kat may be telling the truth, that Will Cane’s accusation was false. And if this is so, as I hope and pray, then it means someone else was behind the murder. What I need from Kat is this: who else might have had a motive? Who stood to gain from Nicholas Giltspur’s death and Kat’s execution?’

Redd put down the scissors and crossed his arms across his chest. ‘If that is all you wish to know, then the answer is simple. Giltspur’s nephew, Arthur, will inherit all his wealth if Kat is disqualified. Arthur Giltspur, that is the man you want.’

‘Do you know him? Where will I find him?’

‘With some slut, most like. Try the stews of Southwark. Or else go to Giltspur’s mansion in Aldermanbury, for Arthur was part of the household.’

‘Does Kat believe he is behind the murder?’

‘All she knows is that it was not her. Nicholas Giltspur was a man of immense wealth. Any such man will amass enemies as fast he he gains pearls.’

‘And you, Mr Redd . . . you must have had cause to wish him harm, for did Kat not leave your bed for his? Perhaps you wanted vengeance on Nicholas Giltspur. Perhaps, too, you wished to bring Kat to her doom for betraying you so callously.’

Redd looked at Shakespeare as though he were mad. ‘Hurt Katherine? How little you understand the human heart. Can you not tell that I love her? I would do anything for her . . . including killing you. Now go, sir, go.’