“I would tell you a brief story first, about one of the Bishops of Winchester. Fortunately for him he died in the time of Queen Mary and so did not have to account for the Protestant souls he cast into the flames to cure them of what he deemed to be heresy. He was a wealthy and influential man and owned many houses here when he occupied this very palace. One particular building was used to interrogate and torture heretics. You know it… the one that was burned down last night.
“It seems he gathered together some wealth, a chest of coins, that, if Mary lost her throne and the Protestant faction came in, would help him escape to Spain and ease his exile. In the end, Mary outlived him and it was members of his own family who later had to flee to Spain. Before his death, he seems to have written instructions to his family there as to where they could find that chest of coins. But war between Spain and England prevented any member of the family seeking it… until now, nearly twenty years later, when it so happened one of his family was appointed secretary to the Spanish ambassadors who are now in this country to agree the peace.’
Sir Gilbert looked stony-faced.
“Are you coming to a point, Master Constable?”
“Last night this scion of the Gardiner family, now known as Chevalier Jardiniero y Barbastro, came in search of the Gardiner house wherein the box was buried. He made the mistake of being too free in his enquiries.”
“Are you saying that someone decided to kill him for vengeance when they knew he was the relative of Bishop Gardiner?”
Master Drew shook his head.
“Not for such a lofty motive as vengeance was he killed, but merely of theft. He was followed and watched, and when he dug up the box of coins, they attacked, bound him so that he could hardly breathe and left him to the tender mercy of the fire that they had set. They hoped the conflagration would destroy the evidence of their evil. They had a coach waiting and set off with the strongbox. That much was seen.”
Sir Gilbert raised an eye, quickly searching the constable’s features.
“And were they thus identified?”
“When the young man came here asking directions, he was told the way by Master Burton,” Master Drew went on, avoiding the question.
“Master Burton? My manservant?”
“Where is Master Burton?”
Sir Gilbert frowned.
“He set out this morning in my coach with some papers bound for Winchester.”
“And with the chest of money?”
“If he is involved in such a business, have no fear. I will question the rogue and he shall be punished. You may leave it in my hands.”
Master Drew smiled and shook his head.
“Not in your hands, I am afraid, Sir Gilbert. Master Burton had an accomplice.”
“And do you name him?” Sir Gilbert’s jaw tightened.
“You were that accomplice.”
“You cannot prove it.”
“Perhaps not. But you revealed yourself earlier when I was asking you about the ownership of the house and spoke of the body found there. I had not mentioned anything about it or the possibility of its Spanish identification – yet you said to me that the burning of a house and murder of a foreigner was not to be wondered at in this city. How would you know that the body found was that of a foreigner unless you shared Master Burton’s secret?”
Sir Gilbert’s eyes narrowed.
“You are clever, Master Drew, and with the tongue of a serpent. But when all is said and done, I am an Englishman with good connections, and the young man was a foreigner and a Spaniard at that.”
“The war is over, Sir Gilbert, or will be when this treaty is signed.”
“My answer to any charge will be that I was retrieving what is rightfully the property of the Bishops of Winchester from theft by a foreigner. I shall say that he tried to make away with this treasure and Master Burton and I prevented him and reclaimed it for its true owner.”
Master Drew paused and nodded thoughtfully.
“It is, perhaps, a good defence. But there is one aspect that may not sit well with such a plea; that is, the Chevalier Stefano Jardiniero y Barbastro was a member of the delegation currently negotiating the treaty. True, he was but a secretary within the delegation, and there are arguments to be made on both sides as to whether the treasure to which he had been directed was his family’s property or whether subsequent Bishops of Winchester had a right to it. And, of course, we will have to ascertain whether Master Burton has gone directly with the chest to the Bishop of Winchester or whether he may have cause to rest with it awhile in your own manor at Winchester Town.
“And, even when these arguments are all set in place, it will come down to a simple matter of policy. How badly do the Lord Chancellor and His Majesty desire this treaty ending the twenty years of war with Spain? The Spanish ambassadors may seek to be compensated for the murder of one of their number before agreement can be reached.”
It was at the end of August of that year of 1604 that the treaty of peace and perpetual alliance between England and Spain was finally signed in Somerset House. Two weeks before the agreement, a certain Master Burton was taken from Newgate in a tumbrel to Tyburn Tree and hanged. A year later a prisoner in the Clink caught typhoid, in spite of the payments he had been able to give the jailer to secure good quarters for himself during his incarceration. He was dead within three days. It was common gossip in the prison that he had once been a man of some status and influence and had even dwelt in the grand palace of the Bishop of Winchester, adjacent to the prison.
BIG GUY by Paul Johnston
SO I’M ON the train back from Oxford, where I’ve been signing copies of my latest novel. The staff in Blackwell’s and Water-stones were about as interested as Hollywood producers are in actresses over fifty, so it didn’t take long. Then again, the seventh in my series featuring the maverick, eighteen-stone muscleman Storm Waters (yes, unaccountably, I like Pink Floyd) got only one review in the national press and that was less than complimentary: “Andy Stewart’s Waters series is about as lively as a dried-up lake these days. Give us a break, mate – preferably terminal.” And I bought the tosser a ludicrously overpriced drink at the Taunton Crime’n’Cider Fest last summer.
I peer through the rain and make out the stained concrete cooling towers at Didcot. Already the honeyed walls of my alma mater seem leagues away. Ha! Like I went to Oxford. It was the university of life for me – left school at sixteen with no GCSEs, worked in various burger bars for more years than I can remember, wrote unsolicited album reviews until one (of Bowie’s Reality – think hatchet) finally got picked up by an ever-so-cool (they thought) monthly, worked behind the bar at far too many music festivals, drank a lot, smoked even more etc., etc. But I also read, widely and carefully. I did my research, I calculated what sold. And then I wrote the first Storm novel. You know the clichéd advice, “Write what you know”? Screw that. I’m five foot five in my DMs and have never been over nine stone, even when I binged on burgers and beer. I used my imagination and uncaged the big guy – ex-Royal Marine, ex-SBS, now freelance fist-for-hire, Storm Waters. He takes the fight to the bad men and saves the world. Frequently. Kind of James Bond with bigger abs and biceps, plus a much bigger weapon or three. Naturally, the women go wet for him. More surprisingly, they’ve gone for me too. I’ve had publicity girls, editors, bookshop managers, journos, TV interviewers and even a supermodel (admittedly well past her prime) in my pants. Then there are the fans. Don’t, whatever you do, get me started on my fans…
I’m reading a film mag and listening to Radiohead on my iPod when I realize something’s going on further down the carriage. It’s one of those crappy trains where the first-class section is small and only for City wankers. Besides, I like to go steerage. It keeps me in touch with my readers though, disappointingly, I’ve seen no one reading a Storm novel all day. Anyway, from the way the white-haired ticket collector’s head is going back and forward, it’s obvious he’s having a go at a passenger. I unplug and listen in.