I glanced down at the patiently waiting Hercules. He was by now too tired even to protest at all these delays. I stooped and picked him up, holding him under my left arm and grasping my cudgel firmly in my right. Both suddenly seemed to weigh a ton and my back was aching. All the same, I wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. ‘Sorry, lad,’ I whispered. ‘I just want to go back to St Mary le Port Street. I promise you we won’t be long. I’m as anxious to get home as you are.’
He gave a half-hearted growl, but couldn’t be bothered to register his displeasure more forcefully.
The streets were far less crowded than they had been, those people who were still abroad being, for the most part, cosily ensconced in their favourite ale-houses, the remainder tucked up safely by their firesides. Of course that meant that those people I did encounter were the more likely to be on some nefarious business of their own, but it was still too early for the real rogues to be up and doing, and I retraced my steps to St Mary le Port Street scornful of any lurking danger.
Once again, I stopped opposite the goldsmith’s shop, where I stood looking at it closely for several minutes, then crossed the road and entered the alleyway between it and the bakery next door. It was pitch black here and I had to pause while my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Eventually, however, I was able to make out a door which must lead into the back of the ground-floor living-quarters — kitchen, scullery, counting-house — and beyond that a small yard with a bedraggled-looking tree and a few sad bushes just visible over the top of a wall. There was a gate which gave access to it — an important factor as far as I was concerned for, a moment later, I heard a key rattle in the lock of the door.
The lock, fortunately, seemed to be somewhat rusty, judging by the fact that its wards refused to turn easily. This gave me time to push wide the gate into the yard and conceal myself and Hercules behind one of the bushes before the door finally opened. Someone stepped into the alleyway, cursing softly and the dog gave a little whimper which I hushed, waiting to find out in which direction the unseen interloper would go. He trod quietly, and it was only because his foot disturbed a loose stone that I realized he was heading towards St Mary le Port Street. I emerged from the yard just in time to see him disappear around the corner of the bakery, turning left and making for the junction with High Street.
In a few swift strides I, too, had reached the corner and was staring after the man as he proceeded on his way, every now and then glancing back over one shoulder to ensure that he was being neither followed nor observed. I had drawn back into the shadows cast by the goldsmith’s shop, which appeared to afford sufficient protection.
I stared after the retreating figure and suddenly drew a sharp breath. Hercules gave an indignant yelp as he was crushed against my ribs, but I took no notice. Without any justification whatsoever, I was convinced that I had seen the man before, last night in the courtyard of the Despenser manor, talking to Sir Lionel. Walter Gurney? Maybe. Or then again, maybe not. But whoever the man was, and whatever his name, I felt sure that it was the same person. Why I was so certain I had no idea, but there was something about the shape of his back, his height, the way he moved that was instantly familiar.
Cautiously, I followed him.
I reckoned that at the end of the street he was bound to turn right, into the heart of the town. He must have left the horse tethered somewhere, or else at the livery stable in Bell Lane. Indeed, so certain was I of this, that I had begun to cross the road in anticipation of his move when, to my astonishment, he swung sharply left again, towards Bristol Bridge and the Backs.
‘Now where is he going?’ I muttered in Hercules’s ear, before it occurred to me that the man could just as easily have left his mount at one of the ale-houses in Redcliffe as elsewhere.
But at the bottom of High Street, he made no attempt to cross the bridge, instead walking slowly the length of the quay, looking up at the ships berthed alongside. Suddenly, by one particular ship, he stopped and again looked round, as though something, some noise or movement, had made him suspicious. Hurriedly, I drew back into the shadow of one of the cranes, praying that Hercules would not choose that particular moment to register a further protest at the long delay in getting home. I felt him quiver, but he remained silent, some of my tension obviously communicating itself to him.
After several moments, the stranger seemed satisfied. He turned his head away and gave vent to a piercing whistle. Almost immediately, as though he had been waiting for the signal, a sailor appeared, leaning over the side of the ship and peering down at the wharf. My quarry stepped deliberately into the light of a lamp hanging from the bow, raising a hand, and the sailor nodded. Within a minute or two, he had lowered the gangplank which the stranger mounted before vanishing below deck. The gangplank was then withdrawn.
It had all happened so quickly and so unexpectedly that I was left standing in the shadow of the crane, completely bewildered. Was the man fleeing the country? Or was he simply a foreigner returning to his home? If the latter, then he was not Walter Gurney. If the former, why this precipitate flight? Surely not because of my message that I wished to speak to him. That made no sense. Even if he had guessed I was the emissary of Jane Spicer, all he had to do was make it plain that he had no interest either in her or in returning to Gloucester and that would have been that. I couldn’t have forced him.
And there was another, more important question. If this man were indeed the one I had seen last night in the courtyard of the Despenser manor, what had he been doing in Gilbert Foliot’s old house? He had had a key, which suggested that the goldsmith knew him, or at least knew of him as a friend of his friend, and had been willing to give him access to the shop. .
I was suddenly conscious of how quiet and still everything was. Faintly, in the distance, I could hear singing from one of the dockside taverns, but the wharf itself seemed deserted, eerily silent, striped with shadows of the warehouses and cranes. It was long past curfew now and I was uncomfortably aware of my proximity to ‘Little Ireland’.
I decided that it was high time I went home.
‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ Adela said as I walked into the kitchen. ‘You said you might be away two nights, and as curfew sounded over an hour ago, I naturally thought. .’ Her voice tailed away and she smiled a little guiltily. ‘Not that I’m not pleased to see you.’ She came over and kissed me warmly before going on, ‘It’s just. . well. . Richard’s here.’ She hurriedly placed a finger on my lips. ‘Before you say anything hasty and which you might regret later, I didn’t invite him. He arrived just as the children and I were sitting down to supper.’ Of course he did! That man had a nose for Adela’s cooking that would have put a greyhound to shame. ‘So naturally I felt I must ask him to join us. He has no one, Roger. He gets very lonely.’
I snorted derisively. ‘Then perhaps he should find a good woman to look after him. I resent sharing my wife.’ I seized her roughly around the waist and returned her kiss with interest.
She laughed and traced the curve of my cheek with her forefinger. ‘You’ve no reason in the world to be jealous,’ she said.
I knew I hadn’t. That didn’t stop me, however, from indulging in a little childish petulance.
‘Where is he?’ I asked.
‘In the parlour, playing at fivestones with the children.’
My parlour! My children!
Adela smiled at the expression on my face and kissed me again. ‘Someone’s playing with your toys, is that it? Without your permission.’ I flushed, feeling stupid, and she went on, ‘Sit down at the table and I’ll heat up the pottage for you. Did you manage to speak to this Walter Gurney?’