‘Bad man!’ Adam shouted at me, banging his spoon on the kitchen table to indicate that his bowl was empty.
He was learning to speak fast, and I wasn’t sure I cared for this latest addition to his vocabulary, especially as it afforded such amusement to his half-brother and sister. But Adela was right. There was nothing I could usefully do besides ascertain the facts. I had been warned to keep my nose clean or face unpleasant consequences for myself and my family.
But fate was busy taking a hand. I was about to become embroiled whether I wanted to or not.
I was just wiping the grease from my chin after consuming a second bacon collop — all the sweeter because we usually fasted before going to Mass, but Adela had decided this morning that I was in need of nourishment — when there was another knock on the street door; a loud, purposeful banging that, to my ears at least, clearly betokened Authority.
‘Now, who can that be?’ Adela asked of no one in particular. She tidied away a few strands of loose hair beneath her linen cap, smoothed down her apron and went to answer the summons. The children, uninterested, continued eating voraciously, not even glancing up from their bowls when she returned.
‘It’s Richard,’ Adela announced, a tinge of uneasiness colouring her tone.
She stood aside to allow Sergeant Richard Manifold into the kitchen, an unwelcome guest who was followed by his two equally unwelcome henchmen, Jack Gload and Peter Littleman. Meanly, I was secretly delighted to note that the former’s weaselly little face was disfigured by a very swollen nose and a black right eye. Someone had set about him with a will. I silently cheered that someone.
‘What a nice surprise,’ I said. Hercules began attacking Peter Littleman’s ankles, but unfortunately made no impression on his thick leather boots. Still, I didn’t discourage the animal; he was only doing his duty as a guard dog, after all. ‘I don’t recall inviting you three to breakfast.’
‘Roger!’ Adela said warningly. She satisfied herself that the children had finished eating, then sent them off to play in the buttery. ‘Please, sit down,’ she invited our intrepid law officers politely. ‘Would you like some ale?’
I frowned, but happily Richard Manifold overruled the eager nods of Jack and Pete with a shake of his head. ‘We’re on official duty,’ he said.
‘What sort of official duty?’ Adela sounded anxious, no doubt recalling the time her former admirer had arrived at our cottage in Lewin’s Mead to arrest me for murder.
The sergeant smiled thinly, obviously reading her thoughts.
‘It’s all right, my dear.’ Who asked him to call my wife his dear? My hackles rose. ‘On this occasion Roger is a witness, not a suspect.’ A witness? To what? I was mystified. Richard continued. ‘You’ve no doubt heard the news?’
‘About Robin Avenel’s murder, you mean?’ I leaned forward, suddenly all attention. ‘A neighbour told us earlier this morning. Stabbed to death in Jewry Lane, I understand. Do you have any idea when it happened?’
Richard looked annoyed at this turning of the tables on what, after all, was his interrogation.
‘It has to be some time between nine o’clock and midnight,’ he answered grudgingly. ‘Members of the Watch passed along Jewry Lane on their way to help quell the prentices’ riot. The body wasn’t there then. And Edgar Capgrave says he saw nothing after he’d locked the Frome Gate at curfew, when he walked along Jewry Lane to his home in Fish Lane. But at midnight, when the Watch were back on normal patrol, they found Master Avenel’s body sprawled outside Saint Giles’s Church.’
‘So how can I help you?’ I asked. ‘To what am I supposed to have been a witness?’
‘Not supposed to have been,’ was the retort. ‘According to my information, you were.’ Richard Manifold’s chest swelled importantly. ‘We think we already know the murderer. Burl Hodge.’
‘Burl Hodge?’ I was scathing. ‘You must be joking! Burl wouldn’t murder anyone. Oh, he has a hot temper, I grant you that, but he’d never kill someone. Why in the name of Hades do you think it’s Burl?’
‘He deliberately picked a fight with Robin Avenel last night. Accused him of insulting his wife, or some such thing. You can’t deny it, Roger. He would have assaulted Master Avenel even more violently if you hadn’t arrived to prevent him. Then he turned on you. But during your little scuffle, his intended victim escaped. Burl must have sought him out later and finished what he’d started.’
‘How do you know all this?’ I demanded. ‘Who’s been spying on me?’
‘No one’s been spying on you.’ Richard snorted contemptuously at the very idea of such a waste of his and his men’s precious time. ‘You were seen. There was another witness who saw everything. An old beggar who’s been hanging around the town for a week or two now. Comes and goes, but I’ve noticed him about on several occasions.’
Timothy Plummer! Perhaps his disguise was better than I’d thought. Richard apparently hadn’t recognized him, in spite of having encountered Timothy the previous summer in the latter’s official capacity as the King’s Spymaster General.
Where had he been yesterday evening? Standing somewhere behind me in the alleyway leading to Redcliffe Back. I hadn’t been aware of him and I offered him a silent apology: he was obviously better at his job than I’d given him credit for. But what underhand game was he playing? It was plain to me that Timothy was the person subtly directing the sergeant’s attention towards Burl Hodge. He had observed Burl’s attack on Robin Avenel and his subsequent tussle with me, and was using both incidents for his own nefarious ends.
Which were? I was unable to say for certain, but I suspected it was a diversion of some sort to distract attention from the Avenels’ other, more treasonable activities. Would Timothy care if a man were hanged for a murder he didn’t commit? I reached the reluctant conclusion that he probably wouldn’t.
‘So, where does Burl say he was last night?’ I enquired.
Richard shrugged. ‘Where you’d expect. Says he was at home in bed with his wife. Says they both headed for their cottage as soon as the riot became serious, and stayed there.’
‘That sounds like good sense. Jenny confirms this?’
‘Naturally. But it’s just what she would say, isn’t it? In these circumstances, her testimony is useless.’
I curled my lip. ‘You know Jenny Hodge as well as I do, Sergeant. Probably better. Do you really think her a woman who would lie to save a murderer? Even her own husband?’
Richard Manifold shifted uncomfortably on his stool and made no answer. I guessed that the Sheriff and other civic eminences had pressed for an early arrest. An important and wealthy citizen had been done to death, and such a killing called for swift, if not immediate, retribution.
‘Where is Burl?’ Adela asked, speaking for the first time. I could hear the anger trembling in her voice.
Richard cleared his throat, a little too noisily. ‘He’s in the bridewell.’
‘And you’ve pursued no other lines of enquiry?’ I didn’t bother to hide my disgust.
Richard flushed angrily. ‘We don’t believe in wasting public time and money. There are no other suspects. With the beggarman’s testimony and yours, why should we search any further?’
I sprang to my feet. I wasn’t aware of how I looked, but Adela later described my expression as murderous. I advanced my face to within about two inches of Richard’s.
‘What you mean is that our precious Mayor and Corporation want this murder solved in double-quick time and with no awkward questions asked. The Sheriff, at least, must know that there are suspicions of treasonable activity in connection with Robin Avenel. That I, myself, have implicated him in what happened to me at Rownham Passage. That I am still willing to swear that Elizabeth Alefounder and her maid were present, that they assaulted me, and that one of them killed the Irish sea captain, whose body was dragged out of the Avon twelve days ago. But Robin Avenel was a respected citizen of this fair city — ’ I sneered openly — ‘and his father, the soapmaker — ’ I managed to make it sound like an insult — ‘has a bottomless purse that is always at the disposal of the City Fathers. And we don’t want to sacrifice a good Bristol citizen and sully his name with accusations of treason, do we? Especially not when Providence has so thoughtfully provided us with our very own ram in the thicket. Well, I’m not going to let it rest there!’