The King’s Evil. Andrew Taylor

goods, probably salvaged from Barnabas Place: rolls of tapestries, curtains and carpets; chairs and tables stacked one upon the other; and an iron-bound chest secured with two padlocks and three internal locks. Four swords hung from a wood peg which had been hammered into a crack in the wall – why would any man need more than one? Everything in this room was covered with a layer of dust.

      The third door opened into a large square room at the back of the building, though it seemed smaller because it contained so much. The walls were panelled and hung with many pictures. Alderley had obviously used the chamber as his parlour or sitting room. On the table were the remains of a meal and two empty wine bottles.

      I searched the place as well as I could among such a confusion of objects. What made it more difficult was that I had no idea what I was looking for, other than something that might explain why Alderley’s body had been discovered in the well of Lord Clarendon’s half-built pavilion. I kept my eyes open for boxes and cabinets and the like, but I found nothing with a lock that matched Alderley’s small silver key.

      I paid particular attention to a large desk set in an alcove. The drawers were stuffed with papers – bills, notes of gambling debts and letters. Some of the letters were in a hand I took to be Alderley’s, for several memoranda of debts were in the same writing. These letters were drafts and copies, most of which concerned attempts to raise money by one means or the other. But, on the pile in the right-hand drawer, there was a note in a clerkly hand that stood out from the rest by its neatness. It was dated last Monday, exactly a week ago.

       Sir

       The deeds of your property in Fallow Street are ready for collection from my chambers at any reasonable hour convenient to both parties.

       J. Turner

       No. 5, Barnard’s Inn

      Milcote had said the property was mortgaged. But this letter suggested the mortgage had been redeemed. I had no idea of the size of the loan that a house like this might command, but it might well be substantial; since the Fire, all the remaining property in London had increased in value. I made a note of Turner’s name and address and returned the letter to where I had found it.

      I knew by the light outside that the afternoon was sliding towards evening. Nothing I had found in these overcrowded apartments hinted at a previous connection between Clarendon House and Alderley. Nor had I found any mention of Milcote. The only oddity was the unexpected signs of recent affluence – the new clothes, for example, and the letter from J. Turner of Barnard’s Inn.

      As I was closing the drawer, a picture hanging on the wall above the desk snagged my attention like a rock in the current of a stream. I stopped and stared at it. I felt a momentary chill.

      The painting was a small portrait of the head and shoulders of a gentlewoman in a plain but heavy frame. The woman was Catherine Lovett.

      Except, of course, it wasn’t Cat at all. This woman belonged to another time, at least twenty or even thirty years ago. She wore a dark green gown with puffed sleeves and a necklace of pearls. Her hair tumbled in ringlets to her white neck.

      In the background of the painting was a house whose outlines were familiar to me. It was called Coldridge, and I had visited it last year. It had once belonged to the family of Cat’s mother, and she had lived there with an aunt for several years when she was a child. It should have been hers but her uncle and Edward Alderley had cheated her out of it.

      There was something wrong with the picture. I drew closer and stooped towards it. The eyes in the portrait were unnaturally large and blank. Then I saw why. Someone had gouged out the pupils of both eyes, probably with the point of a dagger.

      A series of thunderous knocks sounded below.

      I went back downstairs. ‘Who is it?’ I said.

      ‘Mistress Bearwood. Open up.’

      I unbolted the door. The carpenter’s wife barely came up to my elbow but what she lacked in inches she more than made up with force of character. She pushed past me into Alderley’s lobby. She glared at me, her hands on her hips. To all intents and purposes, she felt herself mistress of the situation.

      ‘And who are you?’ she demanded. ‘What are you doing, poking around where you’ve no reason to be? Is there any reason I shouldn’t call the constable?’

      I showed her my warrant, which she read attentively.

      ‘It doesn’t say in black and white that you can come into my house,’ she said grudgingly. ‘Not in so many words. But I suppose it’s all right. You’d think Bearwood was born yesterday. He’s as innocent as a newborn baby, and just as stupid. I’m sorry, master, but you could have been anyone.’

      ‘No bones broken, Mistress Bearwood.’

      But she wouldn’t let it go. ‘I could have found you stripping the house bare, and him and the boy none the wiser. (Takes after his father, Hal does, more’s the pity.) He can’t even read properly, so your warrant made no more sense to him than Sunday’s sermon.’ She looked me up and down with an unflattering lack of interest, and then shifted her ground slightly to get a better view of the damage that the fire had done to my face. ‘And you don’t exactly look like a courtier, neither.’

      ‘That’s because I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’m a clerk at Whitehall. But I’m glad you’re here, mistress, because I want to ask you some questions.’

      For a moment it hung in the balance: her anger – with me, with her husband, with the whole world, perhaps – struggled with the suspicion that it would be foolish to offend me if I was really who I said I was.

      ‘When did you last see Mr Alderley?’ I asked.

      ‘It’s not our place to blab about him.’

      ‘It’s not your place to disobey the King, either. And I promise you, on my honour, nothing you can tell me will in any way harm Mr Alderley.’

      She stared up at me with black button eyes. ‘Saturday evening,’ she said. ‘He’d been home most of the day but he went out around eight o’clock.’

      ‘Was that usual?’

      She shrugged. ‘He stays out all night sometimes, if he has a mind to. Or he lies abed all day. Or he’s up with the lark. Nothing to do with me. I’ve got work to do, sir, and—’

      I cut her off with a wave of my hand. ‘Have you known him long?’ I asked.

      ‘Nigh on eighteen months. He rents out the shop and ground floor to us. He don’t have a servant, so I keep his apartments clean and send out the boy for his dinner or whatever he wants.’ She paused, and I had the sense that she was making lightning calculations behind those round black eyes. ‘Do you know him?’

      ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I knew him last year when he lived in Barnabas Place.’ Where he attacked Cat Lovett and raped her on her own bed. ‘Does he have any visitors?’

      Mrs Bearwood shook her head. ‘Only the Bishop.’

      ‘The Bishop?’ Amazed, I stared at her. ‘The Bishop of London?’

      ‘No, sir.’ She looked pityingly at me. ‘It’s just a nickname. He’s one of Mr Alderley’s friends. If you’re such a friend of his too, you—’

      ‘I’m not a friend of Mr Alderley’s. I’m acquainted with him. When was this bishop last here?’

      ‘Friday,’ she said. ‘He brought Mr Alderley home.’ She sniffed. ‘Mr Alderley was in liquor again. He could hardly stand. He could talk all right, more or less, but his legs wouldn’t work. Bearwood and the Bishop had a terrible time getting him up the stairs.’

      I threw in another question without much hope of an answer. ‘Do you know where this man lives?’

      Mrs Bearwood was edging away from me, tired of my interrogation. ‘I don’t know. Watford, maybe?’

      ‘Watford?