Chaloner nodded. ‘You and Fitz-Simons were friends. You visited him at Chyrurgeons’ Hall, where you studied plans of Dublin Castle together. And the two of you boarded a ship for Ireland in February.’
Dillon’s smile was condescending. ‘You have been busy! We were not friends, though – we just worked together. Perhaps he killed Webb, and left me to take the blame.’
But Fitz-Simons had not seemed sufficiently competent for murder – and he had obviously felt some affection towards his colleague, even if it was not reciprocated, because he had insisted twice that Dillon should be saved. ‘You say you had nothing to do with Webb’s stabbing?’
‘The murder weapon was found in my house, but it was not mine. I had never seen it before.’
‘Who hates you enough to want you hanged?’
‘Presumably, the man who really did kill Webb.’
Chaloner stifled his impatience. It was difficult enough to be civil to the man who had been responsible for what had happened to Manning, and Dillon’s half-answers were not helping. ‘And who might that be?’
‘I have no idea.’ Dillon leaned back in his chair. ‘I see you are eager to apprehend the villain on my behalf, but you need not trouble yourself. My master will do all that is necessary.’
‘Who is he?’ asked Chaloner. ‘Thurloe?’
Dillon’s expression was disdainful. ‘I have far more influential patrons than a deposed Secretary of State, but please do not press me on this particular question. I shall not reveal his identity, and you will be wasting your time if you ask.’
Chaloner supposed he referred to Williamson, and wondered whether his confidence was justified. Then he thought about Fitz-Simons’s ‘death’, and supposed the same powers might swing into action to secure Dillon’s release. He jumped violently as a door slammed nearby. There were voices in the corridor and he braced himself for the governor. Then they faded away, and all was quiet again. But time was passing, and Chaloner was tiring of Dillon. He made a sudden lunge, and had the papers out of the man’s pocket before Dillon realised what was happening. Dillon was furious, and tried to snatch them back, but Chaloner ducked away from him.
He found himself holding a bundle of notes, all in cipher, which he would be able to decode given time, but that certainly made no sense to him as they were. And there was an older, soiled letter, but Dillon ripped it from his hands before he could open it.
‘How dare you!’
‘You are a fool to keep Fanning’s messages,’ said Chaloner, making a wild guess at what the notes contained. He relinquished them with some disgust when Dillon did not contradict him. ‘That could see his escape plans exposed and his accomplices hanged with him.’
‘That is hardly my problem,’ snarled Dillon. He brandished the missives. ‘When I am out, I shall show these to our master, to prove who trusted him and who did not. I shall be rewarded for my faith, while Fanning can find himself another employer.’
‘Have you told anyone else what Fanning intends to do?’
‘Only you, so we shall know who to blame, if he is caught.’ Dillon was silent for a moment, then spoke in a whisper. ‘I do not care who murdered Webb, but I should like to know who sent Bristol that letter. How are your powers of investigation?’
‘They depend on honest answers. Do you have any suspicions to share?’
‘Not really – and I have thought of little else since I have been in here.’
‘Then perhaps the best way to expose him is by finding out who really did kill Webb. Can you tell me anything about his death?’
‘I am a member of the Guinea Company, although I was not at the feast that fateful night – I was out drinking with a friend. However, I knew Webb, and I can tell you that almost everyone at African House detested the fellow. He regularly argued with Surgeon Wiseman about slavery. He poached Temple’s customers from under his nose. He told Sir Alan Brodrick that his chamber music belonged in a tavern.’
‘Webb was not cultured, then? Brodrick’s playing is always excellent.’
‘Webb was a lout. Meanwhile, Bristol owed him money, and he accused Johan Behn of making a pass at his wife – which you will know is ludicrous, if you have ever met Silence. And surgeons Johnson and Lisle were supposed to perform a Private Anatomy for him, but were unable to comply because the theatre roof was leaking; Webb threatened to sue them for false promises.’
‘He certainly has one now,’ muttered Chaloner, ‘although I doubt it is quite what he had in mind.’
Dillon ignored him. ‘He called Lady Castlemaine a whore to her face. Clarendon despises Webb’s wife for her crass comments at Henry Lawes’s funeral. Even spies found Webb abhorrent, and they tend to be more tolerant than most, because they meet so many low people.’
‘Which spies?’
Dillon was enjoying himself. ‘Let me see. Adrian May quarrelled with him over an unpaid bet. Eaffrey Johnson was pawed by him. John Thurloe took against him for backing the use of slaves. In fact, you will be hard-pressed to find a Londoner with no motive to kill him.’
The list went on, naming people Chaloner did not know, and eventually, he stood to leave. He was wasting time on a man he disliked and distrusted. If Dillon believed rescue was going to come from another quarter, then so be it. He only hoped, for Dillon’s sake, that his faith was not misplaced.
‘I am sure we shall come across each other once I am free,’ said Dillon, stretching languorously. ‘Perhaps I shall buy you an ale, and we shall drink to Manning’s memory.’
‘Has the governor arrived yet?’ Chaloner asked, as he and the guide walked along an unlit hall with glistening green walls and a floor that was soft with decomposing straw and maggot-infested sewage.
The guide shook his head and spoke in a whisper. ‘Not yet. For a shilling, I will let you see Fanning, too, but you will have to make it quick. I got other duties today.’
Against his better judgement, which screamed at him to leave Newgate before he was caught, Chaloner handed over the coin and was conducted through a series of vault-like chambers set deep in the bowels of the earth, to emerge in a small, filthy yard. Two women were emptying slops into a drain, although their aim was careless and the ground was splattered with excrement. Another was skinning something that appeared to be a donkey. Flies buzzed, and Chaloner flapped them away from his face as his guide led him down a flight of steps to a cellar that stank so badly it made his eyes water.
‘Fanning,’ said the guide, gesturing to one of several corpses that lay in an untidy line on the sticky floor. ‘He died of gaol-fever last night.’
Chaloner was tempted to ask for his shilling back. Looking at a body was not how he had interpreted the invitation to ‘see’ Fanning, but that would take time, and he had lingered too long already. He stepped forward to inspect Fanning’s face, and recognised it: he had been one of the sullen, slovenly fellows who had accompanied Dillon to meetings and secret assignations in Ireland, and was identifiable not only by his very black hair, but by a purple birth-stain on his left hand.
‘Do not touch him,’ warned the guard. ‘Not unless you want to catch a sickness.’
But Chaloner knew perfectly well that strangling was not contagious, and it was no fever that had killed the man. He crouched down to examine the lines around the throat more closely, wondering who was sufficiently audacious to kill a man in prison. Was it one of Fanning’s friends, who had decided it was easier to dispatch him than supply guards with doctored wine? Was it the mysterious master, who objected to Fanning commissioning his own rescue? Or perhaps it was Dillon, because he did not want Fanning’s escape to anger their patron into washing his hands of both of them.