Sea Change (38 page)

As it happened, Aertsen took it upon himself to remove any doubt there might be about the import of the words used. 'It is death, Spandrel. You understand?'

'I understand.'

'The sentence must now be publicly pronounced. This way.'

They descended some stairs to another marbled chamber, this one boasting open windows at ground level on one side, through which passing Amsterdammers could observe the scene. Spandrel noticed half a dozen or so of them watching, their figures outlined against the bright sunlight filling the square, before he was turned to face the magistrates once more, seated now on the marble steps that ran along the opposite wall. Above them were statues of weeping maidens and above the maidens a frieze filled with gaping skulls and writhing serpents. The Old Bailey it was not. And for that Spandrel was grateful. He had seen men condemned to die at the Bailey amidst cat-calls and laughter. Here a dread dignity prevailed.

The chief magistrate said his piece again, less perfunctorily than in the Chamber of Justice. A clerk scribbled something in a book. And it was done. Big Janus sighed soulfully, then led Spandrel away, as gently as a shepherd leading a lamb.

Aertsen accompanied the pair as far as the door of Spandrel's cell. There he looked Spandrel in the eye for several seconds before saying, 'You have been sentenced to die by hanging from the public gallows at Volewijk. Do you have any questions?'

"When will it be?'

'The next hanging day is eleven days from now.'

'What is today?'

'Do you not know?'

Spandrel shrugged. 'I lose count.'

'It is the second of June.'

'The second?'

'Yes. Does it matter?'

'It's my birthday on the seventh.'

'Not here, Spandrel. Here, that would be the eighteenth. And you will not see the eighteenth. Lucky for you, I think.'

'How is that lucky?'

You do not have to grow any older.' There was a faint curl at one edge of Aertsen's mouth.

'Is that what they call Dutch reckoning?'

The curl vanished. Aertsen turned to Big Janus and snapped, 'Sluit hem op.' Then he stalked away.

Viscount Townshend climbed the stairs of the Treasury Whitehall with a lightness of tread only the carriage of good news can impart. The gloom that had hung over Walpole since the farcical mishandling of Kelly's arrest as about to lift, or at least to thin, thanks to the intelligence Townshend was bearing. And his brother-in-law's gratitude was always a wonderful tonic. As he approached the door of Walpole's outer office, opened and a familiar figure emerged — that of Walpole's brother and loyal man-of-all-work, Horatio. As a Treasury Secretary, whose financial duties were confined to buying elections and selling favours at the First Lord's direction, Horatio was commonly to be seen about the place. Townshend was nevertheless surprised to see him on this occasion. There had been a letter detailing his discussions with the Dutch Government concerning troop loans, but Townshend would have expected a personal report from Horatio upon his return. His tread grew fractionally heavier. 'I didn't know you were back, Horace.' 'What? Oh, Charles, it's you.' The younger Walpole looked distinctly flustered. 'Yes. I arrived last night.' 'When shall you call on me?'

'I can't. Confoundedly sorry, old fellow. There it is.' 'There what is?'

'Robin's sending me on my travels again.' 'Where to?'

'Can't say. Sorry. Sworn to secrecy. He'll tell you, I'm sure, but I can't. He leads me a dog's life, you know. And, like a dog, I must run.' With which Horatio did precisely that.

Townshend was wise enough not to ask Walpole what manner of mission he had sent his brother on. Walpole would tell him or not, as he pleased. Of late, he had told him less and less, which grieved Townshend as much as it irked him. They had once trusted each other completely. Now… But perhaps, he reflected, his news would bring some of that trust bubbling to the surface.

'We have him, Robin.'

'Who do we have?' came the frowning response.

'Plunket.'

'We were bound to, sooner or later.'

'But Plunket's the weak link in the chain. He'll give us all the rest in time.'

'You think so?'

'Yes. Don't you?'

'I'm not sure. Perhaps.'

'Are you quite well, Robin?'

'Yes. Just a little… distracted.' Walpole rubbed his forehead and gave a crumpled smile. 'It's nothing you need to worry about.' Which really meant, Townshend well knew, that it was nothing he was going to be allowed to worry about. 'As for Plunket…' Walpole's shoulders sank. He pushed out his lower lip. 'We'll see.'

'Wake up, Spandrel. It's Mcllwraith. I'm back. And I'm heezing you out of here before you have your neck stretched longer than an Edinburgh Sunday. Put your boots on, man. We're leaving.'

'Captain? That can't be you. You're—' Spandrel woke and Mcllwraith vanished into the dream that had summoned him. There was no-one there. Spandrel was alone in his cell, save for the spider that still kept him company, morning and afternoon.

He looked round at the patch of wall on which he had been keeping a tally of the passing days since his sentencing. The broken toothpick he had found wedged in a crevice, doubtless left by some previous prisoner, served well for the purpose. There were five scratches. He would make a sixth today. It was the halfway paint of his journey from court to gallows and nausea swept over him at the very thought. He held his breath until it had abated, then stretched up for the toothpick.

'It'll be good to see you again, Captain,' he murmured to himself as he swung round and scratched at the grimy surface of the wall. 'And it won't be long now.'

'Mrs Spandrel?'

'Yes.' Margaret Spandrel looked doubtfully at her visitor. 'What can I do for you, sir?'

'Don't you remember me?'

'I don't…' She peered closer. 'My Lord, it's Dick Surtees. After all these years. Come to finish your apprenticeship, have you?'

'Not exactly.' Surtees smiled awkwardly.

'Not remotely, dressed like a dog's dinner as you are.'

'I was, er, sorry to hear about… Mr Spandrel.'

'Were you now?'

'Billy told me… just recently.'

'You've seen William?' Some mixture of hope and anxiety lit her features. 'When?'

'Oh, a month or so ago.'

'Oh.' Mrs Spandrel's shoulders sagged. Her expression shrank back into disappointment. 'I thought… Well, he didn't mention it to me.'

'Is he here?'

'Who?'

'Billy, of course.'

'No.' Mrs Spandrel sighed heavily. 'Gone abroad to better himself, apparently.'

'Abroad? Where?'

'He didn't say. The truth is…' She wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. 'I haven't the faintest notion where he is or what he's doing.'

'Oh.' Surtees too looked disappointed. 'I see.'

'What do you want with him?'

'Nothing, really. It doesn't matter.'

'It must do, to make you come here.'

'No. It really doesn't matter. It can't—' He stood looking at her for a moment, rocking back and forth on his heels. Then he blurted out, 'I have to go,' and turned for the door.

Such money as Spandrel had had about him when taken into custody was still his, at any rate notionally. For a genuinely modest commission, Big Janus had agreed to put it to good use: supplying Spandrel with a daily flagon of jenever that drowned the sour taste of fear and reduced his expiring allotment of life to a painless haze. There were eight scratches on the wall now and the coiner in the next cell, destined to hang the same day as Spandrel but denied the soothing effects of jenever, could often be heard wailing in sheer terror at the prospect before them.

There was no good or noble way to approach death, Spandrel decided in one of his long stretches of inebriated lucidity. It was the same for everyone. The variously pattering and shuffling footsteps he could hear in the street outside were leading their owners to death as certainly as Spandrel's sojourn in his cell was leading him. The only difference was that he knew when his journey would end. And that end was close now, so close he could almost smell it. He reached for the flagon of jenever and raised it to his lips. And death shrank back into the shadows. But only a little way. Only a very little.

Alone in his study at Orford House, Robert Walpole threw another log onto the fire and watched it blaze up the chimney. It was not a cold evening, but he had need of flame and heat. He walked across to his desk, picked up the green-covered ledger lying there and leafed randomly through its pages. So many names. So much money. So many glorious secrets. It went against the grain to part with them. It offended his every political instinct. But this latest turn of events had shown him how dangerous the Green Book was, to him as much as anyone. Even if Horatio could manage the present crisis, there was no saying another would not flare up. The entire Spandrel affair had been partly Walpole's own fault, after all. The Green Book was simply too tempting. Ultimately, there was only one way to solve the problem it posed. With a regretful sigh, Walpole walked back to the fire and sat down in the low chair beside it. Then he began tearing the pages out of the book and feeding them, one by one, into the flames.

There were nine scratches on the wall now. The light was failing in the world beyond the window of Spandrel's cell. Tomorrow would be the last complete day he spent in it, the last complete day, indeed, that he spent anywhere, unless there really was a place beyond the end of life.

His reverie was interrupted by the unlocking of the door, which came as a surprise to him, so regular and predictable had the guards' ways become. He looked round to see Big Janus framed shaggily in the doorway.

'Opstaan, mijn vriend. Opstaan,'

'What's wrong?'

'Mijnheer Aertsen. He wants you.'

'What for?'

Big Janus shrugged. 'Ik weet het niet. You come. Now.'

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

The Quiddities of Fate

Aertsen was waiting for Spandrel in the examination chamber. But he was not waiting alone. Seated next to him at the long table beneath the chandelier was Dalrymple, whose purse-lipped expression suggested that a second journey from The Hague had pleased him no more than the first. On Aertsen's other side sat a narrow-shouldered, black-wigged fellow with a face the colour and texture of an old saddle. At the far end of the table, lounging back in his chair with one hand thrust inside his waistcoat, the better it appeared to attend to an itch somewhere near his armpit, was a fourth man, less smartly dressed than the others but somehow giving the impression of being in charge of them. Sheriff Lanckaert was nowhere to be seen.

Aertsen fired some instructions in Dutch at Big Janus, who led Spandrel to a chair in front of the table and sat him down, then left, without troubling to shackle his leg to the block. Spandrel thought that almost as strange as the absence of pen and paper from the table. There was something strange about this gathering altogether. That much was clear before a word was addressed to him.

'Mr Dalrymple you know,' said Aertsen, after eying Spandrel for a moment with his strange squinting indirectness. 'This gentleman is Mijnheer Gerrit de Vries.' He nodded to the grim-faced figure on his right. 'Son of the late Ysbrand de Vries.'

'And I'm Horatio Walpole,' said the fourth man. 'Brother of Robert.' There was indeed, Spandrel realized as he looked at him, a distinct resemblance. Horatio was fat, though not quite as fat as Robert, with a round and ruddy face, though neither quite so round nor quite so ruddy as his brother's. And there was a softness to his gaze Spandrel did not recognize. Horatio was the poor man's Walpole, but no doubt impressive enough to those who had not encountered the real thing.

'What can I… do for you, sirs?' Spandrel ventured.

'It's more a case of what we can do for you,' said Walpole.

'I'm a condemned man, sir. There's nothing anyone can do for me.'

'What if you were no longer condemned?'

'I… don't understand.'

'Tell him, Dalrymple. This isn't a Commons debate. We gain nothing by dragging it out.'

'Very well.' Dalrymple cleared his throat and glanced at Aertsen. 'By your leave, mijnheer?'

'My leave?' Aertsen tossed his head irritably. 'Mijn God. Tell him, yes. Why not?'

'Your… situation, Spandrel,' Dalrymple began, 'has altered.'

'Altered?'

'Yes.' Dalrymple seemed to wince. 'Shortly after sentence was passed on you… someone else confessed to the crime for which you were convicted. Since you have all along maintained your inn—'

'Someone else?' Spandrel stared at Dalrymple, half-stupefied. 'Someone else has confessed?'

'Yes.'

'Who?' But there was, of course, only one person it could be. 'Not… Estelle?'

'Mrs de Vries,' said Dalrymple flatly. 'That is correct.'

'She can't have done.'

'But she has.'

'She… admits it?'

'Fully and completely. Thus exonerating you… fully and completely.'