‘I’m sorry, Richard,’ I said. ‘But if you hadn’t tried so hard to put me off the scent, I might never have associated you with Mistress Linkinhorne. Anyway, it’s too late for apologies now. There’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘Oh yes, there is,’ he retorted, leaning towards me, his expression suddenly vicious. ‘Just exercise those much vaunted, God-given powers of yours and find out who really murdered Isabella.’
I walked home for my dinner, tired and dispirited. I was never going to solve this mystery, I could feel it in my bones. And, indeed, although acknowledging that I had experienced a similar sensation more than once in the past, I had never done so with such conviction as at the present. As I had already told myself that morning, there was no way that I could say for certain whether my three ‘kings’ were lying or telling the truth.
The jostling crowds, impeding my progress, seemed suddenly inimical, my path constantly barred by sellers of hot pies, jellied eels, spiced wine, all plying their wares with what appeared to be unusual aggression. A gaggle of women and young children were chasing a hurdle on which an unfortunate baker was strapped as he was dragged to the stocks, pelting him with his underweight loaves and hurling abuse at his shamefaced head. And although he undoubtedly deserved his punishment, the sight nevertheless depressed me even further.
I received my customary welcome from my family. Adela gave me a quick, distracted peck on one cheek while she ladled broth into five bowls, prevented Adam from tipping his chair over backwards and cracking his head on the kitchen floor, and called yet again for Nicholas and Elizabeth to come to table. My son gave me a fleeting smile and continued banging his plate with his spoon, while my stepson and daughter, when they did finally deign to appear, ignored my presence completely. Only Hercules was pleased to see me, but as he seemed to have mistaken my left leg for a bitch on heat, I had to detach myself from his embrace with greater roughness than his affection warranted.
As we finally settled down to the business of eating, Adela said, ‘A message came for you from Mayor Foster while you were out this morning, Roger. He sent that maid of his to say that he would be pleased if you would call on him — at his house, not the Councillors’ Hall — when you’ve eaten your dinner.’
I groaned.
My wife eyed me astutely. ‘Nothing to tell him, sweetheart? Did Richard admit to having known Mistress Linkinhorne?’
‘Yes. He even admitted to being the man she was seen talking to on the last morning of her life — or, at least, on what I presume to have been her last morning — but vehemently denied any involvement in her killing.’
Adela opened her eyes wide and gave a short laugh. ‘My dear, what else did you expect? What else could you expect?’
‘Nothing,’ I agreed glumly. I swallowed another spoonful of broth and went on, ‘I’m going to tell Mayor Foster, when I see him after dinner, that there is no more I can do to find Isabella Linkinhorne’s murderer. One of her three former swains is probably lying, but there is no way I can prove which one after all this time.’
My wife sighed, but went straight to the heart of the matter. ‘In that case, we must try to repay Mayor Foster the money he gave you. It would be only right.’
‘I know.’ I continued spooning broth into my mouth, but it suddenly tasted like river water. ‘It’s all my fault,’ I apologized. ‘I should never have agreed to take it in the first place, then I would have carried on working as I usually do, whilst trying to find an answer to the mystery.’
Adela nodded. ‘Much of it’s gone, I’m afraid. But we have a few savings put by. We’ll use that to reimburse him. We’ll manage somehow.’
Her brave words, uttered without any reproach to me, suddenly engulfed me in a wave of guilt. I got up from my stool, went round the table, pulled her to her feet and enveloped her in a heartfelt embrace.
‘You’re a wife in a thousand,’ I muttered thickly, and kissed her again, to the great delight of Adam, who thumped on the tabletop with his little fists and shouted, ‘Kiss, kiss!’ at the top of his voice. Nicholas and Elizabeth dissolved into fits of laughter as they mimicked him.
‘Kiss, kiss! Kiss, kiss!’
When she was finally able to speak, Adela, straightening her cap and smoothing down her skirts, demanded to know what she had done to deserve this unexpected bussing.
‘I … I just wanted you to know that … that …’ My voice petered out lamely.
‘That you love me?’ my wife suggested dryly.
It was my turn to nod, feeling suddenly foolish. Adela smiled understandingly and advised me to finish my broth before it got cold. But I also thought that there was a certain suspicion in her glance, then decided it was only my guilty conscience firing my imagination.
I resumed my seat, saying hopefully, ‘Mayor Foster may well refuse to accept the money.’
‘You must make him take it,’ Adela insisted. ‘Either that, or you must continue with your efforts to discover Isabella Linkinhorne’s murderer.’
I laid down the spoon I had just picked up, shaking my head miserably.
‘It goes against the grain to admit defeat,’ I muttered, ‘but I can’t see any possibility of sorting truth from lies in this instance. It’s all too long ago.’
‘The affair, last year, at Bellknapp Manor, was in the past, yet you found the answer to that.’
‘It was only six years in the past, and there was the more recent murder to help me. This is two decades gone.’
‘Have you prayed to the Virgin and Saints to help you?’
‘I’ve prayed to every Saint in Heaven,’ I retorted snappishly, ‘but so far, I’ve received no help to speak of.’
This wasn’t, of course, quite true. My inspiration about the three sets of identical initials had surely been God-given, as had been my discovery, seemingly by chance, of the link between Robert Moresby and Ralph Mynott. But now, these hints and nudges appeared to have dried up and I was on my own. Floundering.
Adela said gently, ‘Before you present yourself at Mayor Foster’s house, you could visit Saint Giles’s or Saint Werburgh’s or even All Saints’ Church and ask again for assistance.’
I took her advice and went to beg Saint Giles for guidance. My customary (and secret) heretical practice was to ignore the Saints and go straight to God, demanding His help as the price of doing His work of righting wrongs or bringing the guilty to justice. But today, with my own burden of guilt weighing me down, plus the nagging suspicion that God was perhaps not best pleased with me, I felt that intercession on my behalf was a necessity.
The church was quiet and almost empty at that hour of the morning. Kneeling on the rush-strewn floor, in the shelter of a pillar, I recalled the story that no less a personage than the great Charlemagne himself had, on one occasion, sent for Giles to hear his confession, but had told the saint that one of the sins on his conscience was too shameful for him to admit to. Giles, however, had later learned in a vision what the king’s sin was — although alas, for the curiosity of the rest of us, he never revealed it — and, from henceforth, took Charlemagne under his especial protection. Well, I thought, if Giles could condone a sin of such proportions, perhaps my solitary infidelity may not appear so terrible in his eyes and he might be able to persuade God to overlook it, just this once. (But there was the rub. Would it be for just that once? I had to convince both the Saint and myself that it was.)
So it was in a sober and chastened frame of mind that I continued walking up Small Street until I reached Mayor Foster’s house, and was admitted to the hall by the little maid who had brought the message. To my utter astonishment, I discovered that another visitor was there before me. Richard Manifold.