Revelation

'I cannot see him as the killer. He does not have the fierce, cold intelligence the killer must have. Unless he is a good actor. Guy says the killer must be acting most of the time, to be able to pretend to be normal.' I shook my head. 'But how could Lockley know anything about the law, enough to prepare that letter for Roger?'

'I don't know. I can't see it being Goddard either, though. It doesn't feel right, somehow.'

'I agree. Dr Goddard sounds more and more like a man obsessed with status and money, not with religious feeling.'

Barak grinned sourly. 'Unlike our pure brother, coroner Harsnet.'

'He's not so bad. He has some good qualities.'

'He'd like to convert you. Make you a godly man too.' He snorted. 'How could anyone believe in a merciful God after what we've seen in that tavern?'

'I suppose some would say that God gives man free will and if he abuses it that is his doing, not God's.'

'Try telling that to Mrs Bunce.'

AS WE TURNED into Chancery Lane I remembered that I had agreed to see how Adam Kite was faring. And I must ask Guy to see Cantrell. I could understand the young man's fear. What if Guy told him he would end wholly blind?

We took the horses round to the stable, then went into the house. As soon as I opened the door, Joan came hurrying down the stairs. 'Dorothy Elliard's maid Margaret has been round with a message,' she said.

'Has something happened to her?' My heart was suddenly in my mouth.

'No. She's all right. But she has a Master Bealknap in her lodgings. He collapsed on her doorstep. Margaret says he's at death's door.'

'Bealknap?' I asked incredulously. 'But he barely knows Dorothy.'

'That was the message, sir. It came half an hour ago. Margaret asked you to go over there as soon as you returned.'

'I'll go now.'

I opened the door and hurried back down the path, walking rapidly round to Lincoln's Inn, where candles were being lit in the windows as darkness fell. Margaret let me in, her plump face anxious.

'What is going on?' I asked.

'I heard a knocking at the door early this afternoon, sir, and when I answered I found this man in a barrister's robe collapsed on the doorstep. The mistress got the cook to put him to bed. He said you knew him—'

'I'm in here,' Dorothy called from the parlour.

'I'd better go back to him, sir,' Margaret said. 'He's in a bad way.' She hurried away with a rustle of skirts. I went into the parlour, where Dorothy was standing by the fire, studying the discoloured section of the wooden frieze.

'I must get this section redone. It was so poorly repaired, it irritates me now I spend so much time sitting here.' Her face was pale, and I sensed she was making an effort to stay calm. 'Thank you for coming, Matthew.'

'What has happened? Why is Bealknap here?'

'Margaret found him collapsed on the doorstep. Asking for help. She called me. He was lying there white as a sheet, gasping for air.' There was a slight tremble in her voice. I realized the sight must have brought back the memory of Roger, lying by the fountain. Damn Bealknap, I thought.

'Margaret said you've put him to bed.'

She spread her hands. 'What else could I do? He said he was dying, asked for my help. Though I barely knew him, and liked him no better than you did.'

'He knew a woman would not turn him away.' I frowned. 'I will go and deal with him.'

'Matthew,' Dorothy said quietly. 'Do not be too harsh. I think he is very ill.'

'We'll see.'

THEY HAD PUT Bealknap in a bedroom; from the schoolboy-sized tennis racquet on a wooden chest I guessed it was Samuel's old room. Margaret was leaning over the bed, trying to get Bealknap to drink something from a cup. He lay in the bed in his shirt. I was shocked by how bad he looked, his face against the pillows as pale as death in the light of the candle on the bedside table. He was conscious, though; he stared at me with wild, terrified eyes.

Margaret turned to me. She looked distressed. She, too, had seen Roger's corpse. 'I'm trying to get him to drink some weak beer,' she said.

'Leave us,' I said gently.

She put down the cup and left the room. I looked down at Bealknap. It was a strange thing to see him so close up, and so helpless. His disordered yellow hair was thinning, a large bald patch at the crown. Some of the drink Margaret had given him had spilled around his mouth. He looked utterly helpless, and his frantic stare showed he knew it.

'Why have you come here?' I asked quietly. 'You know what this household has suffered.'

'I knew — Mistress Elliard — was still here.' His voice was faint, his breath rasping. 'I knew she was kind. I have — no one else — to help me.'

'Anyone would help a fellow barrister in a state of collapse.'

'Not me. Everyone hates me.' He sighed, closed his eyes for a moment. 'I am finished, Shardlake. I cannot eat, the food just passes through me. Dr Archer said the last purge would wear off, but it has not. And I bleed sometimes, I bleed down there.'

I sighed. 'I will arrange for Dr Malton to come and see you here.'