Tombland

Vowell hauled me roughly along to Surrey Place. As I stumbled uncomfortably across the rough ground, he said not another word, and when I ventured to speak told me to shut my mouth. His face had resumed its customary hard, slightly blank expression. What an actor he indeed was. My back hurt as he shoved me along. He delivered me to one of the soldiers standing guard at the courtyard gates, whispering an explanation to him, then turned away and walked towards the road down the hill, without even a backward glance. I endured more rough handling as two guards bundled me into the building and up the stairs. A door was opened and I was dragged inside.

I found myself in a room with a large window looking out over the camp, from which perhaps, in his brief glory days, the Earl of Surrey had shown his visitors the heath. It held some twenty prisoners, tied together with a long chain stretching from wall to wall, both ends padlocked firmly to heavy brackets nailed to the wall. All had the chain pulled round their wrists and secured with a padlock. They looked up at me with hollow eyes, these gentlemen who, two months ago, had ruled the county. Nicholas was at the very end of the line, John Boleyn next to him. I was forced between them, the rope binding my hands was cut and my wrists were pulled in front of me and padlocked to the chain like the others. Then the guards went out and closed the door. I looked at Nicholas and Boleyn. Nicholas’s face was set, but Boleyn was white-faced and haggard as the others.

‘What did Vowell do to you?’ Nicholas said.

I told them of how my earlier talk with Peter Bone had made me deduce that Vowell, with Gawen Reynolds, was responsible for Edith’s murder, and that Vowell had realized I knew. As I recounted our conversation in the hut, Nicholas and John Boleyn listened, wide-eyed and horrified, while the nearest men in the line of chained prisoners bent sideways to eavesdrop; even in the face of imminent death, human curiosity persists. At the end Boleyn lowered his head with a sigh. ‘Gawen Reynolds, I always knew he was a villain, but never guessed he could be capable of that. Poor Edith. If only she had turned to me, I would have given her money to resume her imposture.’ Two tears rolled down his thin, dirty cheeks. At last, he had shown some pity for his dead wife. He said quietly, ‘So Barnabas and Gerald had nothing to do with her death?’

‘Nothing. They were used by Vowell and your father-in-law to get the key, that is all.’

He closed his eyes. I waited, then said, ‘Vowell indicated your lack of an alibi was connected to Sir Richard Southwell,’ I said quietly. ‘You might as well tell us the truth about that now, John; likely we will all be dead tomorrow.’

Boleyn leaned back, resting his head against the wall, his face utterly miserable. ‘You know I have been in debt. I bought my London house with a loan, and have been unable to service it from the rents and produce from Brikewell and my other manors. Even back in May the signs were this would be a bad harvest, less money would come in than ever before. But with the way my Isabella was treated by the local gentry, to say nothing of the twins’ behaviour to her, I wanted to move to London, though I wanted to keep Brikewell, and I took a mortgage on my land from Southwell. It was stupid, stupid, I know he has coveted my estate, among others, to run his sheep.’ He sighed. ‘The rate of interest was high; I think he had been into my affairs and knew things would reach the point where I could no longer pay.’ Boleyn laughed. ‘Yet I was reluctant to have him call in the mortgage and take my estate. What an obstinate fool I was. As I fell behind, Southwell put greater pressure on me. He told me to meet him on the road just outside Brikewell at half past nine on the fourteenth of May. He warned me to tell no one. It was an odd request, but Southwell is not a man to be refused.

‘When we met, he told me he wanted the estate, now. I asked for more time, but he insisted, and added that if I did not do as he asked, something bad would happen to Isabella. That was why I said nothing, and persisted in my pretence that I was at home that evening.’ He sighed. ‘No doubt he had cooked this all up with Gawen Reynolds to ensure I had no proper alibi. The day I was imprisoned I got a message from him to say that if I ever spoke of our meeting, Isabella would be made to disappear. Given my arrest, nobody would question her vanishing suddenly from Brikewell. I am sorry, Master Shardlake, that I did not tell you the truth. But Isabella means more to me than life itself.’ He lifted his head and laughed bitterly again. ‘And she was the only one who believed my alibi. Dear Isabella.’ He looked at me with a sudden wildness. ‘What will happen to her now, alone out there in that city?’

‘I wish I knew. But few women are more resourceful.’