She simpered at me. It was not pleasant. ‘Lucky for you, John boy, that the Mayor himself has sent these men here to catch the devil that killed poor Anne.’
John Giles hissed quietly, sidling up to the woman that seemed to be his mother. ‘I want to be on my own. I don’t want to be answering questions.’
‘Why was Anne at Bridewell?’ I demanded.
The mother pushed him towards us with both hands. ‘Go on, John boy. Answer them.’
His mouth turned down at the sides and his eyes dropped to the floor. ‘She went out. I wasn’t here.’
‘Who did she meet there?’
Giles shrugged with drooping shoulders, eyes red and unfocussed, lower lip protruding like a naughty schoolboy’s. Frowning, he flicked his eyes up momentarily to meet mine. They slipped away again just as quick. His nose ran, and he wiped his sleeve across it. ‘I didn’t know she was going out.’
‘You’re not telling us much are you, sir?’
‘What does that mean?’ Giles snapped, head jerking up. ‘Do you call me a liar?’
‘Be quiet!’ his mother scolded. ‘You tell them what they would know. Maybe the Mayor will give us some money to help, what do you think?’
‘When hens make holy water is what I think, Mother! Will you stop prating! I just want to be left alone!’ Giles was practically screaming now, his face was red and the veins on his forehead stood out. Strutting about the room with little steps, he put his palms to his eyes and a desperate shrill came out of his mouth. It was a horrible noise. Walking faster and faster, his eyes darted to the door over and over. He started talking to himself, muttering, asking himself questions and answering them, as if he were trying to give himself assurance. He was behaving like a mad fellow, yet his mother seemed oblivious to it. She edged closer to me, eyeing again the cut of my clothes.
‘He says he works with important folk. What is his line of employ?’ Dowling asked her quietly.
Giles stopped his pacing. He walked up to Dowling and looked into his face with rodent eyes. ‘It’s done now, isn’t it? You can’t raise her, can you?’
‘No sir, we can’t do that. All we can do is bring peace to thee, to thine and to all that thou hast.’
‘I don’t hast nothing. And nothing you do can bring peace to me.’ Giles walked out, into the back room. Neither of us tried to stop him.
‘I can tell ye something,’ his mother chirped up. ‘She had a golden necklace that she wore. Never took it off. It was cast in the shape of a cross, with a surface rough to the touch. A strange object; I never did see nothing like it anywhere else. When they laid her down it was missing, gone. John was very upset when he found out.’
‘Valuable, was it?’
‘I reckon.’ She nodded. ‘Her father gave it to her.’
‘William Ormonde?’
‘Aye, Ormonde — lives at Epsom. They have a family house there. I never seen it, never seen him neither. He didn’t want his daughter to marry John, which is why they lived here and not in a big house of their own. Don’t think Anne nor John saw him neither, not since they was married.’
‘What is the casket for?’ I asked.
‘It’s where we were going to lay Anne until a man came round, said that her father wanted to give her a good proper burial at his house in Epsom. Said that her father wanted to bring her back to the family plot. John didn’t seem to mind, didn’t say much, anyhows. Good for him, you ask me. John hasn’t the gold to give her much of a fare-thee-well, nor me neither.’
The woman’s lined face was unwashed and weather-beaten, rough and aged, an animal cunning in her eyes. Not a hint of self-pity, just a scavenger’s sharp eye.
‘John went to see her. Couldn’t bear the sight of her face.’ She grimaced. ‘She was a good girl. She would visit me in my house — I live just around the corner.’
‘Where is he gone?’ I poked my head into the back room. There was a bucket, a fire, two poor beds and three chairs. Giles was nowhere to be seen, a small window his only exit. The sly, greasy dog had fled us while his mother kept us talking. I turned back to the woman and glared at her.
She stood up and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘He likely had to go off to work, misters. Didn’t want to disturb you, I expect.’ Then she stood legs apart with her arms folded and her chin sticking out.
‘A considerate son,’ Dowling smiled.
Between them they had frustrated us. The woman’s mouth was reset in the same thin-lipped, sour line we had seen before. There seemed little to be gained by lingering except fleas.
As we made our way back across the courtyard, avoiding as much of the vileness as we could, I wondered aloud what it could be that drove Giles to such distraction.
‘Wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is very timorous,’ Dowling replied. ‘We may not know how Giles puts food on the table, but we can be sure neither gentleman nor soldier he be.’
As we headed out of the slum in which Anne Giles had lived, through the alley, we had to squeeze past two rough-looking fellows pushing forward in haste, one big and stout like a great bear, the other diminutive and thin, like another stoat or ferret. They must be neighbours, I thought at the time, but I was to meet them again shortly. They were not neighbours.
Later that day Dowling tracked Giles down to Anthony’s Pig. Said it was the Mayor’s men that did it, at his request. That still didn’t sit well with me — the notion that a butcher could order about the Mayor’s entourage like he was nobility, but it was a thought that would have to wait for the time being. I knew Anthony’s Pig well, for I had been drunk there with William Hill on many an occasion. It was dark and squalid, with a strange mix of clientele: the disreputable and the affluent. It was located close to the Exchange and its forbidding appearance explained its attraction to the more secretive merchants that plied their trade there.
Dowling had accosted me in the street as I wandered towards Cheapside, grabbing me by the jacket, a habit that I had prepared for by donning a brown linen coat, rougher and stronger than was my usual preference. Full of news about John Giles, which he whispered hoarsely into one of my ears whilst propelling me down the street. I smiled wanly at passers-by that regarded us curiously, while trying to pay attention to what he said at the same time. His wet breath in my ear was very unpleasant and did nothing for my concentration. Finally I could stand it no more and detached myself firmly. He declined my invitation to step into The Mermaid, so instead we cut across Paternoster Row into the quieter grounds of Old Paul’s. There he shared his news.
‘He works at the Exchange. He runs errands mostly, whatever pays. The pages in the City complain that their masters make demands beyond the call of duty. Some bold agents have taken the opportunity to charge for the service.’
He meant buggery. I pulled a face. I had heard of the practice and it sounded painful and messy.
‘He hasn’t been seen for some weeks. There is a story that he crossed someone, a fellow he would have been wise to leave well alone. That would explain his manner this morning. His hair grows through his head, and ruin is around the corner. He has taken gold from the goldsmith, and the goldsmith wants it back. I doubt he believed we were who we said we were.’
He was confusing me again. ‘What goldsmith?’
Dowling lowered his voice to speak in an exaggerated whisper. ‘There is a man called Hewitt, Matthew Hewitt of Basinghall Street. He sent men after Giles. Hewitt is sharp as a blade and merciless as the Devil himself. If Giles played Hewitt, then he was truly a fool, but that’s what I heard.’ He continued, still unable to stop himself from spraying saliva across my cheek. ‘Consider also that Matthew Hewitt lives on his own in a very big house and no one has ever seen him with a woman. That’s as much as I will say, but if you follow my logic then contemplate the possibility that Giles might have blackmailed Hewitt, then I begin to see that Hewitt might have decided to frighten Giles out of his wits.’