Barak met his gaze. ‘Only that you were better armed, and that they should have a care for the women among them.’
Witherington looked at me again. ‘I shall be reporting this matter to the Justice of the Peace, I’ll have Harris and Melville prosecuted for destroying my birds.’ His anger rose again. ‘You can be witnesses, you saw them killing those doves, you saw their insolence, and saw Melville raise two fingers at me!’ For a moment he almost choked with anger.
‘You are free to contact me,’ I said. Toby opened his mouth to protest, but Barak gave him a wink. Allowing Witherington to contact me did not mean I would reply, nor give a reply to his liking.
Witherington, however, nodded with satisfaction. He was, I realized, a man of no great intelligence. He turned to his men. ‘Shuckborough! Go and fetch old Adrian Kempsley to the manor house. He’ll be dozing in his shed.’ He paused, then added, ‘And bring Lobley too. This man should see him. You two, bring the dogs back to the manor; the rest of you, about your business.’ With that, the little martinet marched back to the road. We followed, passing his men, who looked at us dubiously.
WE ARRIVED AT Witherington’s house, and he led us into an echoing, stone-flagged hall. Servants peeped nervously at us from open doorways, and one approached his master. ‘Is all well, sir?’ he asked meekly.
‘Not unless you count the killing of dozens of my birds as being well,’ Witherington answered fiercely. ‘Bring some beer to my study. You two lawyers, come with me.’ Leaving Toby and Barak in the hall, Nicholas and I followed him into a study which smelled strongly of dog, and where account books and documents were piled untidily. He pushed them aside. ‘This house is getting messy since my wife died.’
‘I am sorry,’ I said.
Witherington nodded acknowledgement. He put his sword on the desk, then sat behind it, waving Nicholas and me to stools. He looked at us, then gave a bark of laughter. ‘That’s some hand your man outside has got.’
‘He lost the real one in an honourable fight,’ Nicholas said.
‘Against the Scotch barbarians?’
‘No,’ I answered. ‘Some London ones.’
‘Oh yes,’ Witherington said, ‘there’s plenty of barbarians in England, as you’ve just seen. Christ’s bowels, the times we live in. It’s these damned Commonwealth men, and the Protector. By Jesu, I wish we had the old king back. I hear things are getting worse in the south-west, and there’s trouble elsewhere. And that was not the first such scene in these parts. People here are too stupid to see what is in their own interest. They say I want to enclose more land here for sheep, which I do, but I told them that when I get part of Boleyn’s land through the court, they can have it for pasture.’
I said, ‘I heard there was an – incident – in the spring. Between some of your men and Boleyn’s.’
Witherington looked at me narrowly. ‘Yes. In March. I sought to assert my legitimate claim to the land up to the old stream bed by occupying it, but my men were driven off violently by Boleyn’s people.’
In fact, his forcible entry onto disputed land was quite illegal, but I did not make the point. ‘I understand you are now taking the matter to law.’
Witherington shrugged. ‘It may not be necessary. If Boleyn hangs, his lands will go to the King, and I may be able to negotiate with the escheator.’
‘His local agent being John Flowerdew.’
‘I believe so,’ he answered cautiously.
‘I understand that Sir Richard Southwell owns land bordering both yours and Boleyn’s.’
Witherington shrugged. ‘No doubt some deal beneficial to all parties can be negotiated.’ I wondered whether he was in touch with Southwell or Flowerdew already. Yet Boleyn had told me Southwell was not interested in Brikewell.
‘I do not see what such matters have to do with the evidence for Mistress Boleyn’s killing,’ Witherington said, folding his plump hands on his stomach.
‘I am just trying to see the whole picture. Tell me, did you know Mistress Boleyn?’
‘Hardly at all. She disappeared only two years after Boleyn and I bought our lands from the old monastery. She came to dinner here once, and sat at table barely exchanging a word with anyone. When I tried to engage her in conversation, all I got was surly looks. And she ate barely more than a bird. We did not invite them again. Personally, I think she was not right in the head. Those damned sons of hers take after her, I think. Certainly they’re not like their milksop father.’ He curled his lip in contempt. ‘When Edith disappeared and Boleyn took that whore to live with him, a lot of people thought he’d done away with his first wife. I never did, though; he wouldn’t have the balls.’
‘Where do you think Edith Boleyn might have been these last nine years?’
Witherington shrugged again. ‘I’ve no idea. Someone must have been giving her shelter, I suppose. Somewhere far from these parts.’
‘Strange that she was found dead on the boundary between your land and Boleyn’s,’ I said.
‘What do you mean, sir?’ Witherington’s voice rose.
‘Nothing. Only that it was a strange way, a strange place, for someone to dispose of a body.’
‘Perhaps Boleyn met her on the bridge by arrangement, then lost his temper and killed her there and then. He does have a temper, by all accounts.’
There was a knock at the door, and the servant he had addressed as Shuckborough entered, followed by a thin, white-haired old man, obviously afraid, kneading a greasy cap in his hands. I guessed Shuckborough was Witherington’s steward, in everyday charge of the estate as Chawry was on Boleyn’s. He was a large, well-built man in his forties, with a square, hard face. He gave the cringing old man a look of contempt, then addressed his master. ‘Kempsley, sir. He was asleep in his shed, like you said. Then he had the cheek to moan all the way here about how there are too many sheep for him to manage; he needs a boy to help him.’
‘If it’s too much for him, he can go out on the road,’ Witherington replied. ‘Is that what you want, old Adrian?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then keep your clack-box shut. These two gentlemen are here about Boleyn’s killing his wife. They want you to tell them what you saw that day.’
‘I made a – what was it called, a deper—’
I smiled at the old man. ‘Deposition. I have read it. You must have had a terrifying experience.’
‘It was, it was. Like something come up from hell. At first I thought it was a sheep trapped in the mud, it was only dawn and the light was dimsy, but then I got close and saw it was that poor woman –’ He shuddered at the memory.
‘And you saw footprints in the mud?’
‘Ay, sir, big ones, leading down from the grass on Master Boleyn’s side. Made by big boots, you could see that.’
‘You are sure the body must have been put there during the night?’
‘Ay. I walked round the sheep just afore it got dark the evening before. About nine o’clock. There was nothing in the stream then.’
‘Whoever did the deed must have known the lie of the land, do you think?’
Kempsley nodded firmly. ‘Yes. Moving in the dark, carrying the poor lady.’
‘And he must have been very strong.’
‘Ay. I doubt one man could have done it alone.’
Witherington interrupted. ‘We can do without your speculations.’
‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘they are most helpful. Tell me, do you think the prints could have been made by two pairs of boots?’
Kempsley frowned. ‘The mud was so pashed up, sir, boot-prints everywhere. All were made by the same type of boots. That’s all I can say, sir.’