Lamentation

I stood with Agnes and watched the two walk down the gravel path. Then I heard a sound, from up the road at Lincoln’s Inn. The slow tolling of a bell. I felt a shiver down my spine. It was the dead-bell, sounded when an Inn member died: that must surely mean Bealknap. I would not now get the chance to question him again; even in death, he had cheated me.

‘It is good to see Josephine so happy,’ Agnes said.

I smiled at her. ‘It is.’

She hesitated, then added, ‘She has told me a little of her past. She owes you much.’

Martin appeared behind her from inside the house, moving quietly as usual. He looked down the path, where Josephine and Goodman Brown were just turning onto the roadway. A disapproving look. So the dislike between Martin and Josephine was mutual, I thought. I wondered what was behind it. Martin spoke sharply to his wife, ‘Never mind them. Have you told Master Shardlake of his visitor?’

Agnes put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, I am sorry-’

Her husband cut across her. ‘The young lawyer gentleman who called two nights ago is come again. He still will not give his name.’ Martin frowned at the breach of etiquette. ‘I told him you would be back shortly for lunch. He is waiting in your study.’

‘Thank you.’ I went quickly inside. In the study, the slight figure of William Cecil sat in a chair, his thin face thoughtful and worried. He rose and bowed as I entered.

‘I am sorry to disturb you on the Lord’s Day, sir,’ he said quickly, ‘but there has been a serious development.’

‘You visited Greening’s friends? Lord Parr said you would.’

‘I did. But all are fled from their lodgings. They have disappeared, all three. Nobody knows where.’ He sighed heavily. ‘But it is the apprentice, Elias, that we need to talk about.’

‘Have you found him?’

Cecil took a deep breath, fixed his protuberant eyes on me. ‘What is left of him. His mother found him last night, in the alley next to their house, beaten about the head and weltering in his own blood.’ A spasm crossed his face.

‘Jesu.’

‘There was something he managed to say to her, a woman’s name, just before he died.’

‘What was it?’ I dreaded to hear the Queen’s name. But instead Cecil said, ‘Anne Askew. He managed to say, “Killed for Anne Askew”.’

Chapter Fourteen

Elias’s mother lived in one of the narrow lanes between Paternoster Row and St Paul’s Cathedral, whose great shadow and giant steeple loomed over the poor tenements below. Cecil and I walked there from my house.

On the way, talking quietly, he told me what had happened. ‘Lord Parr asked me to speak to Greening’s three friends. He told me about Greening’s murder, that there was no suspect yet, but there were delicate political ramifications and he wanted you to talk to them. I understand he has told you more.’ He looked at me, and I saw a quick flash of curiosity in his large eyes.

‘A little more. This must have been a busy day for you,’ I concluded, sympathetically.

‘It has. My wife was unhappy at me working on the Sabbath, but I told her needs must.’

‘Did you know any of Greening’s friends yourself?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he answered, a little curtly. ‘But a friend in my congregation knows Curdy, the candlemaker. It appears Curdy may be a sacramentarian, his family are certainly old Lollards, like Greening. He may even be an Anabaptist, though that is probably rumour.’ He gave me a hard, unblinking look. ‘Though be clear, Master Shardlake, I have never spoken for sacramentarianism, and I have nothing but loathing for these Anabaptists, who would overthrow all, interpreting the Bible after their own wild fantasies. The fact they may have played with such ideas does not mean Greening and his friends held them, of course.’ For all his youth, Cecil spoke like an older, more experienced man.

‘That is true.’

‘All Greening’s friends lived around Paternoster Row and the cathedral. I went out very early this morning; I thought it the best time to catch them, before church service. The exiled Scots preacher, McKendrick, lived in a cheap room he rented from Curdy, who was a widower. Curdy apparently was a friendly, jovial man, a journeyman, who worked with other candlemakers. McKendrick, on the other hand, had a reputation for surliness. And he is a big man, and an ex-soldier, so people tended not to get into quarrels with him.’

‘These two friends of Greening’s are very different people.’

‘Which implies common religious affinities. In any event, when I arrived at Curdy’s house both were gone. According to Curdy’s housekeeper, they vanished overnight nearly a week ago, taking hardly anything with them.’

‘Fled somewhere, then.’

‘Unquestionably. The other friend of Greening’s, the Dutchman Vandersteyn, is in the cloth trade, an intermediary for the Flanders wool buyers. He had a neat little house of his own, but when I got there his steward told me the same story; his master gone suddenly, taking only a few possessions.’

‘Could they have been afraid of sharing Greening’s fate?’