The Midsummer Rose

Fifteen

Having finally admitted as much, the apothecary grew quite expansive on the subject.

‘Robin called here. About the third week of May. Before his sister came to stay with him. Wanted to know if he could rent the house at Rownham Passage for a night. Beginning of June.’

‘Did he say why?’

Silas leaned closer. His breath smelled powerfully of garlic.

‘Two friends of his were coming from Worcester, on pilgrimage to Glastonbury. He couldn’t house them because Mistress Alefounder and her maid would be lodged in Broad Street by then.’

I gave a derisive snort. ‘And Bristol has no decent hostelries where they could have stayed? You didn’t believe his story?’

The apothecary laughed. ‘No, of course not. But that house has been like a millstone round my neck for years. I was hardly likely to turn down the chance of making a bit of money from it, now was I? And what he offered was generous, considering the state of the place. If you want to know what I really thought, it was that Robin was having a secret rendezvous with a woman. Someone he didn’t want either his wife or his sister to know about. He asked if there was a bed in the house. I said yes, but nothing fit for a lady.’

‘And what was his answer to that?’

‘He said there was no lady, just two men. I thought he was trying to pull the wool over my eyes, but I couldn’t say so.’

I digested this for a while.

‘So who do you think killed Master Avenel?’ Silas asked in time.

‘Footpads? Pickpockets? The streets aren’t safe anywhere nowadays. But of one thing I’m certain: it wasn’t Burl Hodge.’

‘Mmm.’ Silas puckered up his mouth. ‘They say Robin Avenel wasn’t robbed. Still had his rings and purse on him when he was found. Leastways, that’s what I was told. In which case, it doesn’t sound much like thieves to me.’

I shrugged. ‘Time will tell.’

The bright eyes regarded me shrewdly and Silas scratched his deformed shoulder with long, talon-like nails. ‘Do you connect this murder with what happened to you at Rownham Passage?’

‘Oh, you’ve heard the story now, have you? I didn’t think, when we talked the day before yesterday, that you knew anything about it. In fact, you enquired if my interest meant that I wanted to hire the house myself.’

‘Ah!’ He appeared to be unnecessarily disconcerted by this remark. ‘It would seem that that particular piece of gossip was slow in reaching me for some reason or another.’

‘Very slow,’ I agreed. ‘It happened three weeks and more ago.’

‘Well, there you are, then!’ he exclaimed, spreading wide his beautiful hands, as if proving something.

But what he had proved I wasn’t quite sure. It struck me as odd that the story had passed him by, when practically everyone else in the city had known of it from the moment I was brought home in the farmer’s cart. I tried to work out why this fact might be significant, but failed.

‘I must be going,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the information.’

‘I hope it’s been of some help.’ His eyes twinkled roguishly. ‘I shall have your order ready for you soon. A large size, I think you said?’

I suddenly felt embarrassed and made my escape. The suffocating heat of the midday streets had lessened, and between the overhanging roofs I could see a wrack of feathered cloud imprinted on the blue. I thought of Luke Prettywood and the apprentices still languishing in the pillory and was grateful on their behalf as well as my own. I paused, pondering my next move, then decided to see for myself the scene of the crime.

I made my way, therefore, to Jewry Lane. A man crossing the Frome Bridge in my direction hailed me.

‘Ah! Chapman! Daydreaming as usual?’ The tone was pitched somewhere between the jocular and the offensive.

I smiled. ‘Master Capgrave! What a pleasure! Have you deserted your post as gatekeeper?’

He told me he was on his way home to Fish Lane, so he joined me, his rolling gait, reminiscent of a sailor’s, being the only way in which his spindly legs could maintain the balance of his short, squat body. The small hazel eyes beneath their beetling brows regarded me knowingly.

‘I’m not on duty today. Come to see where Master Avenel was murdered, have you?’

‘I’m curious, yes. But there’s more to it than that. Sergeant Manifold has arrested Burl Hodge and I’m not convinced of his guilt.’

‘So you’ve decided to do a little sleuthing of your own, is that it? Ah well! Good luck to you. I’ve never thought Dick Manifold one half as clever as he thinks himself. But I can’t assist you, I’m afraid.’

‘You’ve given evidence in the case. The sergeant told me.’

‘Then he must also have told you that I saw nothing. The body wasn’t here when I went home yesterday evening.’

‘You couldn’t possibly have missed seeing it, I suppose?’

A stupid question which thoroughly deserved the scathing look he turned upon me and the note of utter contempt with which he answered.

‘No! I couldn’t have missed it. What sort of unobservant idiot do you take me for? There were precious few people about. They were all at the Midsummer Eve feast, stuffing their guts and getting drunk, while those poor buggers like me, who are always at the public’s beck and call, were keeping the city safe. Even my wife,’ he added viciously, ‘had gone off with her friends.’

It was on the tip of my tongue to point out that he could have joined the feast when he came off duty, but I had summed him up as one of those people who enjoy a grudge. So I merely asked, ‘Did you see anyone at all?’

He shrugged. ‘Only old Witherspoon, the apothecary. I don’t think he cares for all this junketing, either. It’s his deformity, I suppose. People laugh at him.’

‘What was he doing?’ I demanded.

‘Doing?’ The gatekeeper sneered. ‘What should he be doing? He was just walking along by Saint Giles’s Church and minding his own business. Going home, presumably.’

‘Then he could have been to the feast and left early.’

‘Could have been, aye. But I doubt it. I told you. He isn’t comfortable in the presence of a crowd, especially of young people when they’ve had more to drink than is good for them. They pick on him. Make fun of him.’ I wondered if the same applied to the gatekeeper, but kept my thoughts to myself. ‘Although now I come to think of it,’ Edgar continued, ‘maybe he had had a drink or two. He was behaving rather oddly.’

‘In what way?’

‘We-ell … It was nothing really. Just the manner in which he was walking. He was keeping close to the wall of Saint Giles’s and the other buildings, and taking very precise, evenly paced steps. I spoke to him and remarked on the increase of noise coming from the direction of the city streets, where the feast was being held. He didn’t answer, although he’d heard me. He seemed to be concentrating on his feet, and it did occur to me then that he might have had a cup or two of cuckoo-foot ale. But when he reached Saint John’s Arch, he turned round and called out, “Good evening to you, Master Capgrave! A growing crescendo of noise, as you say.” Well, that wasn’t quite what I’d said, as you can guess. A bloody great row was what I’d called it. “It sounds to me,” he adds, “as if there’s trouble brewing. I’m going home while the going’s good, and if you’ve any sense you’ll do the same.” So I did. And he was right, as it turned out. Apprentices’ riot. Haven’t had one of them in Bristol for a year or two now.’

‘What about your wife? Was she all right?’

‘She’s always all right,’ he answered morosely. ‘Can’t get rid of her … And talk of the devil! I must be late for supper.’

A very tall, almost emaciated woman was bearing purposefully down upon us from the direction of Fish Lane.

‘Mistress Capgrave,’ I said before she had time to open her mouth, ‘I’m afraid I’m to blame for detaining your husband.’

I smiled seductively, and for the first time that day my charm seemed to do the trick. The set, angry lines of the angular face softened slightly.

‘Oh well, in that case …’ she simpered.

‘Your husband tells me you were at the feast yesterday evening. I hope you weren’t harmed in the riot.’

‘I can look after myself,’ she retorted grimly. ‘But there wouldn’t have been a riot if some people hadn’t deliberately stirred things up, telling the apprentices that they were put upon and overworked, while others enjoyed themselves. Encouraging them to be discontented with their lot. Easy enough to do when the silly fools are full of cuckoo-foot ale.’

‘Who was stirring up the apprentices?’ I asked.

Mistress Capgrave sniffed. ‘Well, there were two of them that I could see. One was that stranger, the beggarman who’s been hanging around the city this past week or so. And the other was Apothecary Witherspoon.’

‘Witherspoon?’ Her husband was scornful. ‘He wasn’t at the feast.’

‘If you mean he wasn’t eating and drinking and joining in the games, you’re right. But he was there. My friend and I saw him. Heard him, too. We were seated at the end of a table where some butcher’s apprentices were cooking meat over an open fire and sweating like the pigs they were roasting. Witherspoon was telling them how they were nothing but slaves, how their masters took advantage of them.’

‘What could be his purpose in doing such a stupid thing?’ the gatekeeper grumbled. ‘He might have guessed what would come of it. Silly old fool! The heat’s making him lose his wits.’

‘And the beggarman?’ I asked Mistress Capgrave. ‘You said he was inciting the apprentices to riot as well.’

‘Inciting is too strong a word,’ she demurred. ‘Sympathizing with them just enough to make them feel mutinous is nearer the mark. He was hanging around, I suppose, hoping to cadge some scraps of food and just grumbling about the world in general.’

‘Do you think that Master Witherspoon and the beggar might have been in collusion?’

‘Why should they have been? The apothecary, in spite of his odd appearance, is a respectable citizen and unlikely to have any truck with a beggarman. And certainly not such a strange one.’

‘Then why do you think they were doing it?’

‘I can’t speak for the beggar,’ Mistress Capgrave said. ‘Apothecary Witherspoon was just being thoughtless and irresponsible, and I’m on my way to tell him so now.’

Edgar was disappointed. ‘I thought you’d come to tell me my supper’s ready.’

‘Food! Food! It’s all you think about,’ his wife grumbled, and she strode on her way.

Edgar looked uncomfortable, aware that his image as a person of authority might be permanently tarnished in my eyes.

‘I’ll be getting home, then,’ he said with what dignity he could muster. ‘I’ve been told that Robin Avenel’s body was found just over there, outside the church door. Killed with his own dagger, too. Well, good afternoon to you, chapman. Good luck.’

He rolled away along the quayside. I watched him for a moment or two, mulling over what I had been told by Mistress Capgrave and trying to work out what it might mean. As far as the apothecary was concerned, I saw no good reason why she should not be right. It had been less intentional malevolence than a stupid blunder; an attempt to sympathize with those he felt to be as much the victims of an unfair existence as himself. But Timothy Plummer was a different matter. There was nothing haphazard about any of his actions: what he did, he did with a purpose. So why would he want an apprentices’ riot? There was only one answer that I could think of. He wanted a diversion for some business of his own. The murder of Robin Avenel?

I approached the Jewry Lane entrance to Saint Giles’s Church and scrutinized the ground just outside the door and for several feet all around. But there was nothing to be seen. This was hardly surprising. The storm of the previous night would have washed away all traces of blood, and eradicated any signs of a struggle. Nevertheless, I made a thorough search just in case there was anything at all to be found, but I was out of luck. After a few moment’s contemplation of the cobbles, I pushed open the door and went inside, closing it carefully behind me.

It was, as always, very cool and quiet within, the noise and bustle of the quayside penetrating the thick stone only as the distant echoes of a dream. The gold and reds, the silver and blues, the bronze and greens of walls and woodwork glowed as warmly as the precious jewels that adorned the statues of Saint Giles and Our Lady. A few candles were burning on the altar, but today’s supplicants had been few in number, and the one that I took and lit was not intended as a votive offering, but to light my way downstairs.

Why I felt this sudden impulse to visit the crypt, I wasn’t sure. Looking back, I feel convinced that God was taking a hand in my affairs again, but at the time, most unusually, my suspicions were not aroused.

At the bottom of the steps, I paused, raising my candle aloft, its soft golden radiance illuminating the shelves of coffins. I slipped my pack from my back, reflecting guiltily that I had sold nothing. Adela would not be pleased. She would put two and two together and realize that I had never had any intention of selling my wares, but had, in fact, been meddling in affairs that should, by rights, not concern me.

I advanced slowly into the second chamber of the old synagogue cellars. There was the familiar smell of must and damp and the sweet, stale scent of rotting wood. Some of the pieces of furniture had been stored down there so long — their existence probably now forgotten by their owners — that they were disintegrating. Experimentally, I touched the back of an old nursing chair, which promptly keeled over as one of its front legs fell off. Much of it was infested with woodworm, and a child’s cradle nearby was draped in cobwebs.

I raised my candle higher and went forward into the third chamber. As always, the place gave me a sense of unease and foreboding which I found difficult to explain. The shadows curtseyed across the walls, making the very stones seem alive, the home of something dark and evil.

With an effort, I pulled myself together. I was a grown man of twenty-six, too old to be indulging in such fantasies. Yet I could feel the hairs lifting on the nape of my neck and I was suddenly convinced that someone else was in the chamber with me. I whirled around, painfully aware that I was unarmed, having foolishly left my cudgel at home.

There was, of course, no one there. Cautiously, I prowled back through the second cellar to the crypt, but both rooms were empty of any human life except my own. Then I walked back again, still unsure what it was that I was looking for.

The dark stain was in the middle of the floor in the third and final cellar, easy enough to overlook amidst the crowding shadows, but suddenly made obvious by the way in which the light was slanting from my candle. I dropped to my knees, placing the candlestick on the dusty floor, and rubbed it. The stain had dried, but I was certain it was blood, and a few dark, crusty flakes came away on my fingers. I noticed, also, that the film of dust covering the flagstones nearby was very disturbed, as if there had been some kind of a struggle. On each occasion I had been down here, there had always been footprints, but I knew that Marianne Avenel and Luke Prettywood used the cellar as a trysting place; and if them, why not other lovers?

The disturbance of the dust today, however, suggested a scuffle. Someone had recently been attacked here. And killed? Was this where Robin Avenel had really been murdered? But if so, who would have moved his body, and why? What would be the point of shifting it, especially if the killer had been Burl Hodge? He would have had nothing to gain … Unless, of course, he had been trying to make it look like a street killing. But in that case, why did he fail to remove Robin’s purse and rings? Because he had no time? Because he was interrupted by the sounds of the approaching Watch? Had he panicked and run?

This was ridiculous. I was beginning to argue in favour of Burl being the murderer. I must start again.

He had gone home with his wife and their sons to take refuge from the apprentices’ riot, and I believed Jenny Hodge when she said she would have known if her husband had left her side during the night. Moreover, while it was just possible that an angry man might have overtaken his quarry in the open street, it was highly unlikely that Burl would have pursued Robin Avenel into Saint Giles’s and down into the crypt … But not impossible, which would be Richard Manifold’s response if I told him what I thought I now knew concerning Robin Avenel’s death. Where he was murdered was of no importance compared with why. Motive was everything, and at present I could offer the sergeant no alternative to Burl’s.

There was Luke Prettywood, of course, who was in love — or what passed for love — with Marianne Avenel, but he had been in the bridewell for assaulting Jack Gload. For the same reason, Marianne could be thought to have a motive, but I doubted if her affection for Luke and her discontent with Robin were sufficiently powerful emotions to turn her into a killer. Furthermore, my discovery effectively ruled her out. There was no way she could have moved her husband’s body on her own, even had she wanted to. And I had no doubt that if I made enquiries, there would be enough witnesses among the members of her household to prove that she was asleep in Broad Street at the time of the murder.

All of which confirmed my original conviction that Robin’s death was connected with whatever treasonable activities he and his sister were engaged in. It was equally connected with Timothy Plummer’s presence in Bristol and the part he had played in throwing suspicion on an innocent man. And there was one other person I had not yet named to myself as the possible, or even probable, killer: Rowena Hollyns, the woman I had recently seen stab a man to death with as little compunction as she would step on a woodlouse. The Midsummer Rose, as Robin Avenel had called her …

Words also spoken by Timothy Plummer in the Full Moon, if Jack Hodge had overheard him correctly. And it suddenly occurred to me that they must have some special significance; they were not simply an expression of Robin Avenel’s lecherous admiration for his sister’s maid, as Jess had assumed.

The flickering flame warned me that the candle had almost burned out. I straightened my aching legs and stood for a second or two longer staring down at the dark stain on the cellar flagstones. I decided there was nothing to be gained at present by going to Richard Manifold with my discovery: it wouldn’t influence him into releasing Burl. I had to find the real murderer and trick him — or her — into admitting the fact. And first and foremost, I had to locate Timothy Plummer. I could only pray that he had not returned to London having achieved his object in Bristol by disposing of Robin Avenel.

The thought intruded again. Was Timothy the murderer? If so, I had no more hope of proving Burl innocent than I had of building a bridge between Ghyston Cliff and the heights of Ashton-Leigh. But didn’t the same thing apply if Timothy had commissioned the killing from some hired assassin? Wasn’t I fooling myself that, in the prevailing circumstances, I could save Burl’s neck? No! I, too, had a friend at court, the most important man in the kingdom, after the King. I would appeal to the Duke of Gloucester himself, even if it meant going all the way to Yorkshire to do it. All the same, I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I would be out of my depth in the barbarian north.

I raised my guttering candle for a final look around the cellar. Had I missed something? Some telltale clue that would point immediately to the guilty person? But there was nothing, except that I was again assailed by that eerie sensation of not being alone. This time, it was a feeling of being watched, but although I examined every corner, there was nothing and nobody there. Three of the walls stared blankly back at me, the fourth beckoned with its archway, inviting me to return the way I had come.

I moved back into the second chamber among the shadowy shapes of the abandoned furniture. I remembered suddenly that, on a previous occasion, I had failed to find the bed that Jack Nym told me he had brought down here for Robin Avenel. I began to search, determined this time to locate it, but my candle suddenly sputtered and went out, plunging me into darkness. Cursing my stupidity, I barged into a pile of planks that had been stacked beside the baby’s cradle, dislodged a couple, which fell with a clatter, tripped over a broken stool and measured my length on the ground. Winded and badly shaken, I lay there for a second or two recovering my breath, while the noise of the fallen timber echoed around me.

My eyes were beginning to grow accustomed to the gloom and for some reason I glanced back over my shoulder. Framed in the curve of the archway was the outline of a woman, standing perfectly still, watching me. At least, I presumed she was watching me, as she was nothing but a solid, black shape. She had been holding a candle, but its flame had been hastily snuffed out as I turned my head. I retained a vague impression of its radiance seen out of the corner of one eye.

The outline before me was neither small enough nor slender enough for Marianne Avenel, nor sufficiently tall for Elizabeth Alefounder. It therefore had to be Rowena.

I began struggling to my feet, but found that I had twisted an ankle in my fall. I swore and looked around for something to hold on to. The back of an old chair offered its support and I grabbed it thankfully before once more turning to confront the woman.

But she had gone. And, when I finally hobbled back into the third chamber, there was no sign of her anywhere.