Chaloner was inclined to agree. The Earl’s cousin was dissolute and hedonistic, but he was not cruel. ‘I do not suppose you noticed what Lady Castlemaine was doing all day, did you?’
Hannah nodded, eyes flashing. ‘Encouraging the Queen in her excitement, telling her what a wonderful night it would be. But when it was time to go to the Banqueting House, she disappeared.’
‘Then there is your culprit.’
‘Damn her!’ cried Hannah. ‘No doubt she will be delighted when she hears how deep a wound she has inflicted. But I do not want to discuss it any more; I am too incensed. Tell me what you have been doing instead. Where did you spend your evening?’
‘In a brothel,’ replied Chaloner, loath to lie when there was a chance that someone like Brodrick or Chiffinch might report seeing him there.
But Hannah glowered at him. ‘If you cannot tell me the truth for reasons relating to your investigation, then that is fair enough, but do not insult me by inventing wild tales. I am not in the mood. Tell about your morning, then, if your evening is off limits. Where did you go, and whom did you meet?’
‘Why?’ asked Chaloner warily.
‘It is called making conversation, Thomas,’ snapped Hannah, eyeing him balefully. ‘What is wrong with you? Surely, your work cannot be so secret that you are unable to tell me that you exchanged greetings with Lady Muskerry, or that you prefer the coffee in John’s to that served in the Rainbow?’
Chaloner raised his hands in a shrug, although he wondered whether it had been chance or design that led her to mention the establishment where his suspects met. ‘I am sorry. It has been a long day.’
‘So has mine,’ she snarled, unappeased.
He tried to make amends, recalling his vow not to alienate her by being uncommunicative, but it was too late: nothing he said or did could placate her. Eventually, he left, although he was not impressed to find his landlord had been in his rooms to mend the roof, and had succeeded in exacerbating the problem. Irregular drips had been transformed into steady trickles, and Ellis had contrived to move the bed so it was directly under the worst of the holes. Chaloner woke in the night to find himself sodden as rain hammered down outside, and he was obliged not only to fetch bowls for the new leaks, but to hunt out dry spots for his bass viol and music chest, too. He went back to bed, and dozed fitfully until a curious combination of sounds woke him the following day.
He listened with his eyes closed for a moment, then shot to his feet, grabbing his sword as he did so, sure someone else was in the room. But it was only his cat. It regarded him through lazy amber eyes, then released the pigeon it had caught. The bird immediately flapped towards the window, which it hit with a thump before flopping to the floor, stunned.
‘Oh, no!’ cried Chaloner in dismay. ‘I thought we had an understanding: rats and mice are fair game, but birds are forbidden.’
The cat meowed at him, and he sat heavily on the bed, resting his head in his hands. He was talking to the animal, and it had answered him! Was the insidious loneliness that had been a part of his life ever since he had become a spy finally taking its toll? Would it be only a matter of time before he ended up like Haddon, substituting animals for people? He decided to visit Temperance that evening and apologise, because he did not have so many friends that he could afford to squander them in petty squabbles. And the quarrel had been entirely his fault — he should have told her why he needed to know about Bernini, not ambushed her with questions. She was right to be angry with him.
And he would see Hannah, too, and try to worm his way back into her good graces. Since arriving in London, he had met no one who had interested him for more than a casual encounter, but he was beginning to feel Hannah was different. She was intelligent, amusing and had shown a remarkable tolerance for his various flaws of character. He discovered with a pang that he did not want to lose her.
When the cat meowed at him again, he ignored it and went to let the pigeon — recovered and keen to be on its way — out of the window. When it had gone, he ran his hands over the smooth, silky wood of his viol. It had been some days since he had had time for music, and he felt the tension begin to drain out of him as he took his bow and began to play. It was not long before he became totally immersed, and only came to his senses when the bells chimed noon. At first, he thought he had misheard, and then was disgusted with himself for frittering away so many hours of daylight.
He donned clean clothes, and set off to Petty France, hoping Meg would be in, but there was no reply when he knocked at her door. He walked to the back of the house, and gained access to her room via a window. But his efforts were wasted, because his search told him nothing, other than that she kept an ear-string in a box next to her bed. He supposed it belonged to Turner, and the colonel had either given it to her, or she had snagged it without his knowing.
He went to Lincoln’s Inn, feeling a need for Thurloe’s companionship, but the ex-Spymaster was out, and his manservant did not know where he had gone. Chamber XIII was full of folded clothes, ready to be packed for the journey to Oxfordshire, which was a sharp reminder that Chaloner would soon be without his mentor. His sense of isolation intensified.
He emerged from Lincoln’s Inn to see Haddon trotting along Chancery Lane, conversing merrily with his dogs and drawing wary looks from the people he passed. Not in the mood to be informed that a pooch could replace Thurloe, Chaloner ducked into the Rolls Chapel, a pretty building designed by Inigo Jones as part church and part repository for legal records. He was disconcerted when Haddon joined him there a few moments later.
‘I have never been in here before,’ said the steward, looking around appreciatively. ‘It is beautiful.’
Haddon had always been friendly to Chaloner, and the spy was already regretting the attempt to avoid him. It had been rude. He knelt at the altar rail and pretended to pray, in the hope that Haddon would not guess he had darted into the chapel to effect an escape. When the steward walked towards him, he smiled and indicated Haddon was to kneel at his side. He was taken aback when the dogs followed their master’s example, resting their front paws on the rail, and their back ones on a hassock.
‘God’s creatures,’ said Haddon, beaming fondly at them. ‘Is that not so, my beauties? They know how to behave in a church … Oh, Lord! They have never done that before.’
‘I think we should leave,’ said Chaloner, eyeing the mess uncomfortably.
‘But you have only just arrived, and you should not let a mishap stand between you and God. I had not taken you for a religious man, Thomas — I am favourably impressed.’
‘I am glad someone is,’ muttered Chaloner, acutely aware that the verger was pottering nearby. If the man saw what the dogs had done, there would be a scene, so he stood and began to walk briskly towards the door, relieved when Haddon followed. ‘Did you have something to tell me?’
‘Yes, I have sad news to impart. Margaret Symons is dead. She foretold the exact hour of her passing, and she slipped away precisely when she said she would.’
‘I am sorry to hear it.’ Scobel had predicted the time of his death, too, and Chaloner wondered again whether it meant someone had helped them into their graves.
A tear sparkled in Haddon’s eye. ‘She was kind to me once, when I was ill. And she liked dogs.’
‘So did Vine,’ said Chaloner, remembering being told that the Treasury clerk had made donations to a charitable foundation that cared for strays. It was clearly a bad week for London’s mutts.