‘You’re sure you didn’t notice anyone — anyone at all? A woman, perhaps, or maybe two, in the neighbourhood of the ‘murder’ house when you fished me out of the water?’
He paused to consider. I regarded him hopefully.
‘Well, I can’t say I saw anyone, no. Oh, I know why you’re asking. That red-headed Sheriff’s man, who came snooping around a day or two later, told me what you’d been saying. It was all nonsense, he reckoned, caused by the pain in yer head. Mind, ’e described you as a pain in the arse!’ The ferryman roared with laughter at this witticism, took another swig of ale and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. ‘All the same, I’ve been thinking about it since,’ he went on, ‘and there were a couple o’ people waiting for the ferry this side of the river. That’s why I rowed over empty from Ashton-Leigh. It was still raining a bit and I didn’t want ’em getting wetter’n necessary. Course, I have me back to the Rownham shore while I’m rowing in this direction, so I wouldn’t have seen anything. But they might have done.’
‘Who were they?’ I demanded excitedly. ‘Do you know?’
Jason Tyrrwhit scratched his scanty grey locks. ‘There were a man and a boy. Didn’t know them. Come from the other side. But I knew the woman. Lives in one o’ them cottages along the foreshore. Goody Tallboys, I think they call her. Got a sister at Ashton-Leigh, so crosses regular.’
‘Do you know which cottage? Could you take me to see her?’
He grinned. ‘Fancy a bit o’ dalliance, do you?’ His sense of humour was easily tickled. ‘All right. But finish yer ale first. This stuff’s too good to waste.’
I agreed with him. In fact it was good enough for me to treat us both to another beaker apiece. While we drank, I asked him how long he had been the Avon ferryman.
He shrugged. ‘Ten year, p’raps. Maybe more. I was a sailor fer most of me life.’ His puny chest swelled with pride. ‘I was with Warwick’s fleet when we beat the Spaniards in ’58. Keeper of the Seas he was, and never a man before nor since deserved the title better. Twenty-eight men-o’-war them Spaniards had. All we had were three carvels, four pinnaces and five forecastle ships. Outnumbered by more’n two to one! But we drove our little fleet in amongst them and taught ’em a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry! Six hours that battle lasted, but we beat ’em hands down in the end. Over two hundred Spanish were killed, hundreds more wounded. We sunk two of their ships and captured six others. The rest limped back to the Flanders ports, their tails well and truly between their legs. Those were the days!’ He sighed regretfully. ‘Then, when I was too old to go adventuring any longer, I came home. The job of ferryman had just fallen vacant, so I took it. It’s a living. Can’t complain.’
‘You must know a lot about the sea,’ I said respectfully.
‘I know a lot about a lot of things. Fer instance, I know that from Bristol boundary stone to Rownham is a mile in length, two if you measure from the city’s High Cross. I know Ghyston Cliff is sixty fathoms high. I know from here to the Hungroad is near on two mile-’
‘What’s the Hungroad?’
He gave me a withering glance. ‘You ain’t no Bristol man, I can tell. If you were, you’d know that out there, in a direct line with Ghyston Cliff, are the Leads — great, jagged rocks on the bed of the Avon. If you try to navigate up this river into Bristol at low tide, the Leads’ll rip yer vessel open from bow to stern. So ships anchor in the Hungroad and wait for the incoming tide.’
‘Which side of the river is this anchorage?’ I asked.
My companion jerked his head towards the window. ‘Ashton-Leigh,’ he said.
I thought about this. ‘If a ship was anchored in the Hungroad, and the captain wanted to be put ashore over here, would he be rowed across by his own crew? Or would he use the ferry?’
Jason Tyrrwhit grinned. ‘You’re a landlubber all right. ‘Course he wouldn’t need to use the ferry. Chances are, he’d row himself. Partic’ly if he wasn’t sure what time he wanted to return aboard. Mind you, don’t know why anyone’d want to visit Rownham Passage; leastways, not if he was sailing upriver to Bristol. Who’re we talking about, anyway?’
‘Does the name Eamonn Malahide mean anything to you?’
The ferryman shook his grizzled head. ‘No. But sounds like an Irisher to me.’
‘He is. Or rather was. He’s dead. Knifed through the heart. He was the man I saw killed in the “murder” house last week.’
‘Oh, him! The Sheriff’s man said you was having delusions.’
‘No delusion,’ I answered tersely. ‘His body was fished out of Bristol docks this morning.’
‘Drowned?’
‘He’d been stabbed.’
‘Had he now?’ Jason Tyrrwhit whistled through broken teeth. ‘Seems like you could’ve been telling the truth, after all, chapman. Wait here a minute while I ask around. Somebody might have some information worth knowing.’
He got up from the bench and began moving amongst our fellow customers. Some he merely slapped on the back or exchanged a cheery word with. But beside others, he paused for a confidential chat. There was no way, from where I was sitting, that I could hear what passed between them: the noise in the alehouse was deafening. But I could tell from the expression on his face, as he resumed his seat on the bench, that he had learned something worth the telling.
‘Old chap in the corner,’ he said, ‘the one with the broken nose-’
‘Next to the young lad who’s just been sick?’
‘That’s the one. Lives in the manor of Ashton-Leigh. Just comes across for the ale. He says there was an Irish ship, the Clontarf, anchored in the Hungroad sometime last week.’
‘The Wednesday,’ I suggested.
‘Dunno. Probably. He can’t recollect for sure. But here’s the interesting bit. He remembers it dropping anchor, but it didn’t go on upriver on the next high tide. Stayed in its berth three days before slipping its moorings and tacking about.’
‘You mean it never went into Bristol. Just sailed for home?’
‘Seems like it. And old Josh there had an idea there was some trouble on board. Didn’t know what. Didn’t ask. But the landlord — ’ he indicated a tall, cadaverous-looking man in a leather apron ‘- said there were a couple of Irish seamen in here a week ago yesterday — that’d be the Friday — nosing around. Asking a lot o’ questions without really saying what they wanted. He reckoned they were looking fer someone, but wouldn’t admit it right out.’
That made sense if their captain had gone missing and the crew was on some secret mission that no one was supposed to know anything about. I stood up.
‘Thanks for all your help,’ I said. ‘Now, if you’d just point me in the direction of this Goody Tallboys’s cottage …’
My voice tailed off as I stared, transfixed. Once on my feet, I could easily see across the crowded taproom. In the corner, on the far side of old Josh, sat another, smaller man, wearing a tattered, wine-stained jerkin, who glanced up and caught my eye, then hurriedly looked away again, coyly trying to pretend that he didn’t know me, but I could see annoyance shadow his sharp little features as he recognized my unwelcome face.
His shoulders hunched and his whole body tensed as I moved towards him, just to give him a fright. But he needn’t have worried. I’d play his game if that was what he wanted. I followed the ferryman outside and listened to his simple directions for getting to Goody Tallboys’s cottage.
All the same, I would have given a great deal to know what Timothy Plummer, the Spymaster General, was doing in Rownham Passage.
Seven
Goody Tallboys’s dwelling was the end one of a row of four that teetered on the edge of the riverside track. A small, fenced-in patch of ground beside the cottage was home to five or six hens, all clucking noisily or pecking greedily in the dirt.
The woman who answered my knock seemed familiar to me, and I thought I recognized her as the passenger who had been waiting for the ferry on the day of the storm — the fat woman with the basket of eggs. When I asked if this were indeed the case, she acknowledged the fact with a cheery, gap-toothed grin.