I shrugged. ‘She told me what she had told Richard Manifold, about the man she had seen climbing Saint Michael’s Hill last night; that he had my height and build and that he vanished somewhere in the vicinity of Cicely’s cottage. Do you know of anyone, Master Overbecks, who might look so much like me from a distance?’
The baker regarded me with pursed lips, then shook his head.
‘You’re a distinctive size and shape, Roger. You don’t see many men as tall and as well-built as you. Except,’ he added with sudden inspiration, ‘those two strangers who were here; the two who turned out to be King’s men from London. They were even bigger than you.’
I recollected the brutish pair with a jolt of surprise. So much had happened during the past week that my encounters with them now seemed the stuff of dreams; something recalled from the dim and distant past, instead of events that had taken place only a few days previously. But they had been escorted back to London, in disgrace, by Timothy Plummer — or so, at least, everyone had been led to believe. But supposing one of them had been left behind for some reason, lying low somewhere outside the city, who would be any the wiser? Yet, even if that were so, what possible connection could such a man have with Cicely Ford? What possible connection with her murder?
‘Ha!’ John Overbecks exclaimed in satisfaction. ‘That’s given you something to think about, I can see!’
‘I must admit it has,’ I confessed. ‘No one knows for certain that both men returned to London.’
‘Just what I was thinking.’ The baker slapped me on the back, more friendly than he had been for a while, pleased that he had been able to offer a solution to a problem that might have left a tiny, lingering doubt of my innocence in anyone’s mind.
The house door into the bakery was pushed open and Jane Overbecks came in. I was shocked by the deterioration in her appearance; by the unkempt state of her hair that straggled, unbraided, across her shoulders; by the fact that she was naked above the waist except for the tattered shawl, which she had fastened so loosely that the pin had come undone and was now in danger of scratching her; by the wild expression in her eyes, which darted all around the bakery, as though she was frantically searching for something.
‘The baby!’ she muttered. ‘The baby! Where’s it gone?’
John Overbecks went to her and put his arms around her. He was a man who, for all his pleasant, friendly ways, could sometimes look and sound harsh and impatient. But with his wife, he was always tenderness itself.
‘Hush! Hush, sweetheart.’ He rocked her gently to and fro. ‘The baby’s all right. It’s upstairs somewhere. We’ll find it, don’t you fret.’
Jane shook her head violently and struggled to free herself from his restraining arms.
‘Not that baby!’ She turned to look at him with a sudden shrewdness that was almost shocking in its normality. ‘That’s only a doll. I want the real baby.’ She turned to stare at me. ‘Your baby! It’s your baby I want,’ she said. ‘You used to let me take him for walks, but I haven’t seen him lately. Adam!’ She nodded and gave a wild laugh as she remembered his name.
My blood ran cold and I stared at John Overbecks in alarm.
‘Adam’s gone away for a little while, sweetheart.’ The baker sought for an explanation, then found inspiration in what I had told him the day before about the two older children. ‘He’s gone to stay with his grandmother. When he comes home again, I’m sure Master Chapman will allow you to see him.’
I swallowed, then gave a weak smile. ‘If. . If my wife agrees,’ I promised, knowing full well that, once I had told her of this incident, Adela would never give her consent.
John Overbecks seemed to read my thoughts, because he directed an odd look at me; a look compounded of both understanding and contempt. But then, he was not a father.
‘Come upstairs now, my love,’ he urged. ‘I’ll find your other baby for you.’
The knowingness had left her face, leaving it smooth and blank. She had reverted, in a matter of moments, to the semi-imbecile she had previously appeared to be. These mercurial changes of mood were more disconcerting than almost anything else, and made me extremely thankful that we had not accepted John Overbecks’s offer of the house across the street. The thought of Jane in such close proximity to Adam was terrifying.
‘I’ll bid you good day, then, Roger,’ the baker said, leading his wife, unresisting, towards the staircase. ‘I’ll see you probably on Saturday, if not before, at the Lammas Procession and Feast.’
‘I look forward to seeing all your wonderful creations,’ I answered dutifully, which was true. But I intended to give the Overbecks themselves as wide a berth as possible.
For the second time that day, Hercules flung himself upon me as though he had thought never to set eyes on me again. I could not help feeling flattered, as he intended me to do, but took good care not to show it.
I tugged on the rope. ‘This way,’ I said, heading along Saint Mary le Port Street towards the tangle of alleyways that lay around the castle. Hercules resisted indignantly, having decided that it was time to go home; but finding resistance useless, still dragged on his rope as hard as he could, making progress very nearly impossible. After a hundred yards or so, I bent down, picked him up and tucked him under one arm. He squirmed furiously, but I only laughed.
‘I’m a lot bigger than you are,’ I whispered in his ear, which he twitched angrily, as though a horsefly had stung him. ‘And a great deal stronger. Don’t you forget it!’
At Goody Godsmark’s cottage, I tied him up again before knocking on the door. A quavering voice, fainter and reedier than I remembered it, bade me enter. I stooped under the lintel and went in.
The goody was seated on the stool by the empty hearth, her thin, stick-like arms wrapped tightly around her body as if for comfort. She was wearing the same gown of black homespun that she had worn before — and which, I suspected, she had worn for Walter’s funeral — but not the linen cap and apron. Instead, draped over her head, with its wispy, greying elfin locks, was a piece of black veiling, its dye now rusty with age. I guessed that it had been her mother’s and had also probably belonged to her grandmother, and had been used at every funeral for generations past by the female mourners of her family. She did not glance round as I pushed open the door and entered, but she knew instinctively who I was, even before I spoke.
‘What do you want, Chapman?’ she asked wearily.
‘To talk to you,’ I answered. ‘About Walter.’
‘Haven’t you done enough harm?’ she snapped, still without moving. ‘Getting him to think! I told you no good would come of it.’
‘You encouraged him to talk to me,’ I countered. ‘You wanted that ivory needle case.’
She did turn to face me then, and I could see that her eyes were full of tears.
‘That’s right! Go on! Taunt me!’ She got up and went over to a wooden chest in a corner of the room. She lifted the lid an inch or two, felt inside and then spun round, something clutched in her hand. ‘Here!’ She threw the needle case at me with more force than I would have imagined her capable of. It hit me a stinging blow on one cheekbone before clattering to the floor. ‘Take it back! I’ll never use it now.’
‘Mistress Godsmark,’ I asked, ‘does this mean that you believe your son’s death was not an accident?’
She gave a dry sob and sat down again, but her manner had softened a little.
‘Everyone tells me it was,’ she answered, ‘and I know he couldn’t swim. But he was up to something, Chapman.’
‘What makes you think that?’
She snorted. ‘Because I knew my son. Just because I loved him, didn’t mean I was blind to his faults. His father was the same; always up to no good. People didn’t care for my Walter, and I’m not denying they had plenty of cause to dislike him. Working for Jasper Fairbrother had made him worse; doing that bully’s dirty work for him, and copying his nasty ways. That man has a lot to answer for. When he was murdered, I was glad! Glad to think my Walter would be free of him at last. Free to work for a good master.’