The Devil and the Dark Water

Case #1: The Body Under the Black Snow

I’m often asked how I met Samuel Pipps, and what my first impressions were. As with most questions, it’s easier to ask than to answer.

It was 1629, and I had recently returned from war, after spending two years advancing and retreating under an increasingly tatty flag of independence. We had been trying to liberate the besieged town of Breda from the Spanish, but, for all our effort and death, nothing had been achieved. As summer rolled into winter, the war was packed up neat and put away. Nobles don’t like fighting in the cold and they had retreated to their castles to hunt and eat and dance until they could resume their slaughter in the sunshine.

Short of coin and sick of everything, I’d made my way to Amsterdam, falling into thief taking. It was fist work, mostly. People with grievances took them to Olfert, an old soldier with one leg, one arm and one eye, who kept a desk outside the half-finished Begijnhof church, claiming that a man with his ill luck needed to keep as close to God as possible. Plaintiffs would shout their complaints above the hammering, and Olfert would put on a kindly manner and promise prompt restitution. Often, this required me to drag a drunk fool off his stool and punch him until he settled his dues.

In return, Olfert paid enough coins to fill a calf’s mouth.

That morning Olfert had given me a handwritten note from somebody called Samuel Pipps, asking that I meet him at a dubious tavern in the narrows at midday. That part of the city was a rat’s nest of crooked lanes and thieving hands, impossible to navigate, let alone emerge from safely.

It was a peculiar request. Nobody in the narrows could read, let alone write. And they certainly couldn’t afford vellum. I thought it likely Pipps was just a bored noble, living dangerously for an afternoon so he’d have a story to tell his friends that evening. No doubt, he needed somebody to escort him safely home.

Truth be told, I nearly tossed his note to the wind. I was past tired of serving nobility. I’d seen too many good souls die wailing because a king wanted his flag planting on somebody else’s hill. I was so sick of the butcher’s yard, I’d already vowed not to go back to war. For most, that would have seemed like sense, but fighting was my only talent.

In some quarters, I was famed for it.

Casting battle aside was liking throwing away the only suit of clothing I owned, for I had no wife, no children. No friends, or close family. I had built nothing and could be proud of nothing. I truly didn’t know what else there was for me.

Much as working for a noble might taste sour in the mouth, I reasoned they’d likely put a few extra coins in my pouch, buying me week or more of comfort to set myself on a new path.

Black snow was falling – the white flakes stained by the soot rising out of chimneys – when I came upon the tavern in question.

A shingle hung over the door, squeaking in the wind.

I sighed, blowing out a breath. There was a dead man lying a few paces from the door, a shovel jammed into his back, and a light dusting of snow shrouding him. Steam rose from his body, and his blood oozed into the mud, but of his assailant there was no sign. The alley was empty, aside from a rickety cart further up the alley, tools spilled from the back.

I burst inside the tavern, sounding the alarm, only to be met with indifference and annoyance. Evidently, murder was common enough round here that it didn’t warrant shouting about.

‘Did he at least die in an interesting way?’

I had to squint to find the voice.The tavern was low-ceilinged and cheerless, smelling of mead and the sawdust covering the floor. Five guttering candles lit as many tables, the patrons rolling dice, or staring mournfully into their cups.

I realised the voice belonged to a short fellow in beautiful clothes who was scraping mould off the wall into a clay pot. He hadn’t bothered to turn around, but this could only be the author of the note in my pocket, for his fine dress spoke to education and abundance. Not to mention foolishness. I reckoned more than a few men in that tavern were biding their time, waiting for him to leave, so they could follow him into the dark.

‘You Pipps?’ I asked, suspiciously.

‘Yes, and you’re Arent Hayes.’ He hadn’t even looked at me, he was still intent upon his scraping. ‘Tell me about this murder.’

I’ll confess, I didn’t enjoy his abrupt manner, or the way he immediately assumed I was a servant to be ordered around.

‘Come outside and look for yourself.’

‘Oh, I’m much too busy for that,’ he said, absently. ‘Just tell me how he died. Slit throat? Knife in his chest? Was it bloody and boring?’

‘There’s a shovel in his back,’ I said, annoyed by his cavalier attitude to such a terrible crime.

For the first time, he halted his work. ‘Well that’s a little more interesting than mould.’

He stoppered his clay pot with a cork, then sauntered into the candlelight. If you’d asked me then what I thought of him I’d have said he was handsome, arrogant, foolish and absent minded. If you asked me now, I’d say much the same – though I’d perhaps venture that every vice clung tight to a virtue he’d cleverly concealed.

‘Come, Hayes, let’s take a look at your dead man,’ he said, striding past me.

That’s when I knew he was a different sort of noble. It was in the way he spoke. The way he carried himself. He was rich, aye. Noble, aye, but there was a sense of inevitability to him. The way he said ‘let’s take a look’ came across as ‘let’s go put this right.’

And we did.

Passing from the gloom inside to the snow outside, Pipps’s eyes sharpened. After circling the dead man, he wrenched the shovel out of his back. He put his eyes so close to the wood his nose was almost touching it.

After interrogating every damn splinter, he threw it aside. Turning the body over revealed that the dead man’s forehead had been caved in. Pipps lifted the victim’s limp hands, inspecting his fingernails and palms.

‘Is this why you asked me to come here?’ I enquired, as he worked.

‘If I knew something this diverting was outside the door do you think I’d have stayed inside collecting mould?’

‘Truth be told, I don’t know too many men who’d be happy doing either.’

Pipps guffawed, casting me an appreciative glance. ‘You’ve a point there, but I didn’t call you here because of this. This body is happenstance; fate’s making an introduction. You see, my business is murder. Though I’ll confess, the dead don’t usually deliver themselves to me like this.’

‘Then why did you summon me?’

‘One thing at a time, and the dead always come first. It’s the only privilege left to them.’

After examining the body, he murmured in satisfaction, then went back into the tavern. He returned a few moments later.

‘The owner informs me that somebody matching our victim’s description tried to pay for a drink with an old ring about a quarter of an hour ago,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t worth anything, so the owner turned him away. A large elderly fellow followed him out.’

‘This isn’t a city short of large elderly fellows,’ I said, looking around they alley in case he lingered yet. We were still alone, the foul weather having driven everybody off the streets.

‘The one we’re looking for is called Gerrit Jansen,’ replied Sammy, shortly.

‘The bartender knew him?’

‘No, but it’s self-evident from the scene before us.’

I gawped at the dead man, trying to conceive of anything less self-evident.

He stared at me, as if I were being purposely contrary by not agreeing with him. ‘Our victim is a body snatcher,’ he explained. ‘He stole the corpse of Gerrit Jansen’s wife shortly after she was buried and took a ring from her finger. He sold the body to the medical academy around the corner and tried to trade the ring for a drink in this tavern, only to bump into Gerrit Jansen, who, naturally, recognised the ring. It was unlucky, really. Jansen followed our body snatcher outside, snatched a shovel off the cart, hit him over the head, then stamped it into his back while his victim scrabbled to get away. He retrieved his wife’s ring and fled.’

For the first and last time I asked the question that would come to define my time with Pipps. ‘How could you possibly know all of that?’

‘I observed it,’ he said, simply. ‘His soles are tattered and dotted with splinters, suggesting he banged the sole of his foot repeatedly into something wooden. The palms of his hands are rubbed raw and there is dirt rubbed into the left shoulder of his shirt, under his jacket. He’d obviously removed his jacket to work, and that work had been digging, for only that explains the dirt on a solitary shoulder. But where?

‘The clay on his trousers and the wheels of his cart indicated it was somewhere north of the city, where the claypits and graveyards are. He could have been a grave digger, except his hands would be calloused from the work, and he’d have known to wear boots with thicker soles, a standard item of the profession.’

‘He could have been an apprentice, new to the occupation,’ I disagreed.

‘Apprentices start at thirteen. This man is near his middle years. Did you notice the rope threads around his waist? Graverobbers wear a rope around their waist to help them haul bodies out of the pits. From here, everything becomes easier. Only one person was buried in that graveyard yesterday, and the town crier read out her name at dusk and dawn as is custom: Hylke Jansen. He then read out the name of the bereaved, Gerrit Jansen.’

I’ll admit, in that minute, I thought the entire thing a ruse, meant to make me seem foolish. Nobody ever paid attention to the death notices. They were part of the background noise of the city, like the hollering of traders and the rattle of carts.

‘How could you remember their names?’ I demanded.

He looked at me then. A long penetrating gaze that made me squirm like I was half my size, and half my age. ‘Do you like me, Arent Hayes?’ he asked, his tone suggesting a great deal depended on the answer.

‘Not awfully,’ I replied.

That brought a good-natured laugh. ‘Good. Few do, but fewer admit it, and your answer suits my purposes. I have no need of a friend, or an apprentice. I solve unsolvable crimes, and I’m paid well for it.’ He pulled up his shirt, revealing a half-healed scar.

‘Somebody tried to gut you,’ I remarked. ‘And recently.’

‘Unfortunately, those who’ve murdered once aren’t overly concerned about murdering a second time to keep their secret. I need somebody to face down those I accuse on my behalf. That’s why I called you here today, I wanted to offer you the job.’

‘Why me? Must be hundreds of thief takers in this city.’

‘They don’t have songs written about them. They say you battled half the Spanish army singlehandedly.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘But you fight well?’

‘Aye.

‘And you’re honourable?’

‘On occasion.’

‘And you don’t talk much?’

‘Not too much.’

‘Then come work for me. Keep me safe, and I’ll show you things you wouldn’t believe. And I’ll pay you well while I’m doing it.’

I considered him a long while, the way you might consider a boat trip to foreign parts. He was eloquent and engaging, but I remained uncertain. A few songs didn’t seem reason enough to put your wellbeing in the hands of a stranger. I now know the true reason he sought me out. But that’s a story for another day.

Back then, as the snow gathered on my shoulders, I found myself caught between an uncertain future and an unwelcome past.

Struggling for an answer I nodded at the dead man, trying to stall for time. ‘The murderer could have been her brother?’

‘The ferocity of the assault suggests a husband’s rage. And he took the ring, don’t forget. An item often used as a marriage vow.’ He paused, showing nerves for the first time in our conversation. ‘Will you come work for me?’

‘Tell you what,’ I replied. ‘By your own telling, fate put this body in our way, so let’s see what other cards she has to play. Use those skills of yours to bring us to the murderer. If you’re right about him, I’ll put myself at your service today. If you’re wrong, I’m going on my way.’

A smile lit up his face. ‘A wager, excellent. I love a wager. Very well, let’s go and have a conversation with Gerrit Jansen. His bootprints are clear enough, and he can’t have gone far.’

Whistling, he set off to find a murderer.

A few seconds later, I followed behind. As I have done ever since.