Treachery (36 page)

‘What’s all the fuss here?’ he says, looking around the company with a hearty grin. No one answers. Then he catches sight of Mistress Dunne, limp as a cloth doll, with Agnes fussing by her side. With one stride he is across the hall.

‘What ails you, madam? Do you need a drink? A physician?’

Mistress Dunne swats him away, seeming to resent his attentions. ‘I am perfectly well, thank you, sir.’ She leans on Agnes and with some effort pushes herself to her feet. ‘I am just a little tired, that is all. It has been a difficult day and I am not quite recovered from the journey. Perhaps I am out of temper.’ She fires a furious look at Lady Drake. ‘I think I will retire to my chamber, if you will excuse me.’ Still supported by her maid’s arm, she moves gingerly towards the stairs.

Savile looks as if he means to follow them, but thinks better of it. Instead he watches the ladies climb the stairs and turns to me, disgruntled.

‘Women, eh? You show them a courtesy, they’ll none of it. Then if you don’t offer to assist them, they complain there are no true gentlemen left. Can’t win. Do you think she’s all right?’ He jerks his head towards the stairs where Mistress Dunne has disappeared around a corner. He looks genuinely concerned.

‘I should think she is tired, as she says.’ I glance around and catch Lady Arden’s eye. She relents and allows me a half-smile. I wonder if I might take the chance to explain to her about last night, but Lady Drake is upset by her outburst; she whispers something and Lady Arden nods, slipping her arm through her cousin’s and leading her towards the parlour, though she pauses to glance back at me over her shoulder. Savile harrumphs and stamps away out of the front door, banging it behind him.

‘Doctor Bruno, may I speak with you?’ Pettifer is at my elbow, knotting his fingers together, his smooth pink face creased in concern. ‘Mistress Dunne tells me you accompanied her this morning to view her husband’s body. I have been praying with her this afternoon.’

‘I’m sure that is a great comfort to her.’

He narrows his eyes, uncertain whether I am being sincere. ‘Well, it is part of my office, to comfort those who mourn.’ He looks uneasy. ‘Though in such circumstances as these, it is difficult. I cannot reassure the poor lady that her husband’s soul is with God when we do not know that for certain.’

‘We shall have to wait until the coroner decides tomorrow where his soul has gone.’

‘I see you are determined to be flippant, Doctor Bruno. I suppose it is to be expected of one who has abandoned religion.’ He sounds disappointed rather than accusatory. ‘I only wanted to ask if you noticed anything about the body that might be of use to the inquest?’

‘To determine his manner of death, you mean?’ I wish he would stop his endless fidgeting; if he were a priest in my country, I think, he would at least have a rosary to play with. ‘But you saw him shortly after he died, Father. You prayed over him, did you not?’ He acknowledges this with a nod. ‘If you and the others noted nothing then, it is unlikely that I would have a clearer picture after three days.’

‘True, true. I only wondered. Hoped, I suppose, that you might have some insight denied the rest of us. They say you are very knowledgeable in these matters – though it is a curious expertise for a theologian.’ He raises an eyebrow, to let me know he does not entirely trust me.

‘I try to broaden my knowledge as much as possible. You can never tell when it might come in useful. Speaking of theology, Padre, may I ask you a question?’

He clasps his hands together and adopts a pious expression, but his small eyes grow wary. ‘Of course.’

‘Did Robert Dunne ever talk to you about Hell? Or judgement? Did you sense that something was troubling his conscience in that regard?’

‘His conscience?’ The chaplain frowns. ‘He seemed anxious, as I said, and he spoke of himself as a sinner, but then should not we all? He said nothing specific, that I recall.’

But I sense a hesitation in his answers, as if he doesn’t like the way this is tending. I stroke a finger along the stubble on my jaw. ‘Nothing, for example, about whether a man is always damned for taking a life, even if it is to save his own?’

‘No!’ He looks horrified. ‘No, indeed. He never asked any such question of me. What on earth has put that in your mind?’ His tongue flicks nervously around his dry lips.

‘Something his widow mentioned. I am sure it is of no importance. After all, if he had spiritual concerns, he would have expressed them to you before anyone, would he not?’

‘I would certainly have hoped so.’ He smiles, though it looks strained at the edges. ‘Well, his soul is in God’s hands now, and his body in the coroner’s. Will we have the pleasure of your company at the dinner tonight for Dom Antonio?’

‘I have not yet been formally invited. But I am sure Sir Philip will be present.’

‘Indeed.’ He gives a little bow and turns to leave. ‘Dom Antonio. Formerly Prior of Crato, you know. He is another who has exchanged religion for politics – and much good it has brought him.’

‘It must be a great relief to the Lord Almighty to know that he can count on such true servants as yourself. Men undistracted by things of the world.’ I smile pleasantly. ‘Tell me, did you say you were at Cambridge, Padre?’

He stops, halfway to the door. ‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

‘Just curious. It is a university I should like to visit.’

He blinks rapidly. It is plain by now that my questions unsettle him, though courtesy obliges him to disguise it. An idea is beginning to form like a tight bud in the back of my mind. I return his bow and leave him staring after me, still cat’s cradling his fingers as if the agitation of his thoughts must find an outlet somewhere.

FIFTEEN

Sidney is not in the tap-room. Instead I find him in our chamber, writing a letter to his wife.

‘Where the Devil have you been?’ he cries, leaping up from the table. ‘Your little friend has been up here looking for you.’

‘Sam?’

‘Who’s Sam?’ He casts around for his pipe. ‘The fisherman’s boy? No, I mean the pudgy maid who likes to get into everyone’s business. She seemed particularly anxious to find you. I’m afraid I was rather short with her.’ He packs tobacco leaf into the bowl and presses it down. ‘Lady Drake has been quite chilly with me today. I’d wager anything that maid told her where we went last night. Women don’t take it kindly, you know – the idea that a gentleman might pass up their company for that of a whore. They don’t like the idea of whores in general. For the sake of propriety, we are all supposed to collude in the pretence that the business doesn’t exist.’

‘I don’t know what they are so exercised about. We are all selling ourselves one way or another.’

He sighs, and sparks a tinder-box into life. ‘Isn’t that the truth. Well then, tell me what progress you have made today.’

So, while he leans back in his chair, stretching out his long limbs and puffing small gusts of blue smoke into the air, I recount for him my first sight of Robert Dunne and what I learned from Sara and Eve.

‘She
sells
babies?’ Sidney looks aghast.

I shrug. ‘That is hardly a new trade. Children are a commodity like anything else, for as long as there are some with too many and others without. The point is, if Mistress Grace seriously believed Dunne meant to run off with the girl, that would give her reason to get rid of him. And she is obviously connected to John Doughty.’

Sidney takes his pipe out of his mouth and studies the end of it, considering. ‘What man would be such a fool as to believe a whore who tells him she is carrying his child? He can’t seriously have planned to elope with her. Not with his wife about to come into her inheritance.’

‘He probably said it to keep her sweet. But the girl evidently believed it – perhaps sincerely enough to persuade Mistress Grace it was a danger.’

‘So we stumble again on this problem of who actually strung him up.’

I cross to the window and lean both elbows on the sill, pushing my hands through my hair. ‘I think I should speak to the watchmen on the
Elizabeth
. I know they have sworn to Drake that no one boarded that night, but of course they would say that if they had been bribed.’ Below me in the inn yard, I see a stable boy loading saddle bags on to a horse. The sky is still banked with cloud, though lanced in places with spears of gold light. ‘Everything points back to John Doughty having an accomplice on board.’

Sidney rises and taps his pipe out in the fireplace. ‘Yes, but
who
?’

I throw my hands up. ‘Well, if I knew that …’ I catch sight of his face. ‘Go on then – what is your solution?’

‘You know the Spaniard has still not returned?’

‘You take his disappearance as a confession?’

‘Don’t you? It makes sense. He knows he was seen in Dunne’s cabin that night. He has knowledge of medicinal herbs – he could have given Dunne the nutmeg. Perhaps he feared the investigation was coming too near him, so he decided to cut and run.’

‘But why? What could be his motive?’

‘Is it not obvious?’

‘Not to me,’ I say, but I already know what he is going to say and I feel my jaw tighten.

‘The man is Spanish,’ he says, simply. ‘Our enemy by birth. It is unnatural that he should have pledged allegiance to Drake, given that the purpose of the voyage was to plunder Spanish ports. Come on, Bruno – consider the likelihood that he was sending intelligence to his countrymen. I’d wager Dunne found him out and meant to tell Drake.’

‘So every man who is not a native Englishman is suspect? Not to be trusted?’ I turn to face the room, leaning against the window ledge with my arms folded. The implication makes me angry, though I recall the girl Eve’s words about Dunne having discovered that someone on board had a secret that would cost them. Could he have found out that Jonas was leaking information?

‘I do not say that. But think about it – to betray Drake’s mission from the inside, even to assassinate him with one of those potions, would be his passport back home. What better way to earn the gratitude of his sovereign and his compatriots, not to mention a substantial reward?’

‘It is a neat theory,’ I say. I cannot keep the coldness from my voice. ‘But I offer you another – suppose he has vanished because he knew who killed Dunne?’

‘Murdered, you mean?’

I shrug. ‘If Dunne’s killer is still in Plymouth, why not?’

He considers this. ‘It’s possible. Though until he turns up alive or dead, it is useless to speculate. Let us concentrate on what we have in our hand.’

‘And what is that?’ I kick a heel against the panelling, frustrated with myself, with him, with Robert Dunne and whoever killed him. ‘A clutch of useless hypotheses, with no proof save the testimony of a frightened whore. And a lot of bruises and a lighter purse to show for it.’

He laughs. ‘Poor Bruno. The things you do for me. But we have one more thing up our sleeve that you forgot to mention.’

‘What is that?’ I extricate myself from his grip and rub my ribs.

‘The address of Dunne’s lodgings. We should go there before we are expected at this supper.’ He makes a face. ‘Drake has gone out to the ship this afternoon to meet Dom Antonio. He wanted me to go with him but I excused myself. Said I had to write my report to Walsingham. He grew anxious then and asked that I convey nothing of our present troubles.’

‘Are you trying to avoid Dom Antonio?’

‘Until I know what is happening with the voyage I must keep up this pretence that we are returning to London with him. He can’t continue his journey until my armed men arrive, and Drake feels he is one more liability here, if there is a killer at large. You know Philip of Spain has offered a reward for his death too.’

‘Dom Antonio’s? I am feeling left out.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure Pope Gregory would like you dead, if he could reach you. It is quite the badge of honour, it seems, to have a head of state seeking your assassination. The only person who wants my hide is my wife, most of the time.’

‘And the Queen, when she learns you have taken off for the New World without her permission.’

‘Ah, yes. And her. Do you know’ – he spins around to face me, eyes blazing – ‘Drake actually suggested I should take Dom Antonio and the women and return to Buckland Abbey for a few days? Keep them out of all this, as he put it. What in God’s name does he think I am?’

‘Oh, I don’t know – Dom Antonio’s official escort, perhaps?’

He glares. ‘I will not be dismissed by Drake again. Come on. We cannot be the only ones who know about Dunne’s lodgings here. If he left behind anything useful, let us make sure no one else finds it first.’

Rag Street is a steep, cobbled lane uphill from the harbourside. The sign of the Bear can be seen swinging from a three-storey house halfway along. There is no entrance except the low door to the tavern, so I push it open and Sidney follows me in, ducking his head to avoid the beam. This part of town looks as if it might once have known better fortunes than it enjoys now; though the houses are large, it is evidently a neighbourhood where a room and a meal could be got cheaply, and without anyone asking too many questions.

A few groups of drinkers, largely sailors by the look of them, sit around the benches by the fireplace with leather tankards between them; I feel their gaze slide over me and Sidney as we enter, but they soon return to their talk. We make straight for the harassed-looking woman who comes out from behind the serving hatch, wiping her hands on her apron and pushing her hair out of her eyes where it is coming loose from her cap. She stares at Sidney with naked amazement; it would seem she is not used to so much finery all in one place. He sweeps off his hat and makes a bow.

‘Mistress,’ he begins, with aplomb, then leans in and lowers his voice. ‘We are looking for the lodgings of one Robert Dunne. We believe he stayed here?’

Immediately her face hardens. ‘Friends of his, are you?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Well, I en’t seen him for a good few days. I started to think he might have run out without paying what I’m due. Over a month’s rent, he owes me.’ She balls her hands into fists on her hips and glares from Sidney to me, as if expecting one of us to answer for him.