Revelation

I led the way downstairs. Guy and Harsnet had both sat down at a table marked with the round rings from a hundred goblets of beer. Harsnet looked agitated, Guy drawn and sad. Janley stood by the window, staring out on the tavern yard. Harsnet looked up. 'Anything?' he asked.

'Yes,' I said. 'We need to go to the dean—'

I broke off as there was a sudden loud rumbling noise and the flagstones trembled beneath our feet. Harsnet's eyes widened. 'What in God's name is that?'

'This place is connected to the old Charterhouse sewer system,' I said. 'They must have opened the sluice gate over there. It happened when we came here before. We ought to investigate that cellar. There'll be a way down somewhere.'

'I'll help Goodman Janley look,' Barak said. He laid the boxes of teeth on the counter.

I glanced over at the body. 'What will you do with it?' I asked Harsnet.

'Store it in my cellars at Whitehall. With Yarington.' He gave me an anguished look. 'And keep quiet.' I nodded.

'Why did you say we must go to the dean?'

'I think I know what he has been holding back.'

'We've found the cellar.' Barak called from inside the house. 'There's a metal hatch in the hallway.'

'We ought to see what's down there,' I said. I went into the stone-flagged hallway, Harsnet following.

Barak had raised the hatchway and stood looking down. There was a ladder. Cold air came from below. Janley appeared with a lamp, a lighted candle inside. Barak took a deep breath. 'Right, let's have a look.'

'Be careful,' I said.

But there was nothing to see in the cellar. The candlelight showed only bare stone flags, barrels stacked against the walls. Barak and Janley found another hatch there, leading down to the sewers. Janley opened it and we caught a whiff of sewer smells.

'Should we go on down?' Janley asked, peering nervously into the darkness.

'No,' Barak said. 'Listen.' There was a sound of rushing water, faint then suddenly loud as someone up at the Charterhouse opened the sluice gates to flush more excess water through. The building shook again, and a rush of vile-smelling air was pushed upwards into the cellar and out through the hatchway to where we stood. 'That's a lot of water,' Barak called up.

'With all the rain the ponds at Islington are probably full to overflowing,' Harsnet said.

Barak and Janley climbed back up and we returned to the main room. Guy rose from his knees by the body, rushes and dust clinging to his robe. He had been praying.

'What is Benson holding back?' Harsnet asked.

'I'll tell you on the way. We—'

There was a knock at the door, faint and hesitant. We looked at each other. Harsnet called, 'Come in!' and the door opened. An elderly couple stepped nervously inside. Both were small and thin, grey-haired, poor folk. They looked at us and then at the thing on the floor. The woman let out a little scream and ran back outside. The man turned to follow but Harsnet called him back. Through the open door we saw his wife standing trembling on the steps.

'Who are you?' Harsnet asked him roughly.

'We lodge next door,' the man said in a thin voice. He rubbed his hands together nervously. 'We heard all the noise, we wondered what was happening.'

'Mistress Bunce has been murdered. Master Lockley has disappeared. I am Master Harsnet, the king's assistant coroner.'

'Oh.'

'Please bring your wife inside. We wish to question you.'

'She's upset,' he said, but Harsnet's look was unyielding. The old man went outside and brought his wife back. She clung to him, avoiding looking at the body.

'We think this happened last night,' I said. 'After the tavern closed. Did either of you hear anything?'

The old man stared at Guy, his dark face and long physician's robe, as though wondering how he had appeared there.

'Last night?' Harsnet repeated impatiently.

'There was a lot of noise at closing time.'

'When was that?'

'They shut at twelve. We were in bed, the noise woke us. It sounded like tables going over. But you get rough people in this tavern now, beggars from the chapel when they have any money. We knew Francis had gone. Ethel has been in a frantic state, asking everyone round the square if they had seen him. She liked to rule the roost, poor Ethel.' He looked around the room, then down at the covered body. 'Did some drunkard kill her?'

'Yes. You heard nothing later on in the night?'

'No'

The woman began to cry. 'Oh please, let us out of here—'

'In a minute. How well did you know Mistress Bunce and Goodman Lockley?'

'We've lived next to the tavern for ten years. We knew Master Bunce before he died, he kept a quiet house. He was a godly man.'

'What do you mean?' I asked.

The neighbour looked between us nervously. 'Only that he belonged to one of the radical congregations. If you talked to him for any length of time he would always bring the Bible and salvation into it.'

'Yet he kept a tavern?' Harsnet sounded incredulous.

The old man shrugged. 'I think he was converted after he bought it. It was his living. And as I say, he kept it very orderly. No swearing or fighting.'