Richard Manifold, who had heard the crack of William’s skull as it hit the flagstones as well as I had, started forward and, with the help of another of the Sheriff’s Officers, managed to prise Alfred Weaver’s fingers from his victim’s throat and haul him to his feet.
‘Let me alone! I–I’ll kill him!’ panted the Alderman, now shaking violently from head to foot and looking rather blue about the mouth.
‘I think you already have,’ Richard Manifold retorted grimly, going down on one knee beside the inert body lying on the floor and leaning forward to listen for a heartbeat. After a moment or two, he glanced up and slowly shook his head.
Alison gave a great sob and covered her face with her hands, but she made no attempt to touch her husband. Indeed, she seemed rather to withdraw a pace or two; and suddenly, without any words being spoken, she and her father were clasped in each other’s arms.
I looked from the horrified Dame Pernelle to Ned Stoner and Rob Short and, finally, from Richard Manifold to his fellow officers. ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ I said, quietly but distinctly, ‘William Burnett fell and hit his head while trying to escape. The Alderman was nowhere near him.’
‘That’s right,’ Ned agreed, while Rob and Dame Pernelle nodded vehemently. ‘We’ll all testify to that.’
Richard Manifold pursed his lips, but he recognized an easy way out of an unpleasant situation. He looked at his fellows, both of whom shrugged and indicated their willingness to take their lead from him. ‘Very well,’ he conceded at last. ‘If you’re all determined to corrupt the course of justice, there’s nothing I or Jack Gload or Peter Littleman here can do about it.’ But I had a strong impression that he was not as reluctant to accept our decision as he sounded. ‘At least,’ he went on, brightening a little, ‘we have one villain in custody. Can anyone explain why he killed this young man who was pretending to be Clement Weaver?’
‘He meant to kill me,’ I said. ‘He’d already tried to murder me last month, in London, by drowning me in the Fleet. He’s a member of Morwenna Peto’s gang. Morwenna had no notion why her son had disappeared or what he was up to, and was very angry with him when I put her wise. But she was, after all, Irwin’s mother, and she didn’t want him exposed and turned over to the law for punishment by me. When she realized that she had carelessly revealed the truth, and what my mission was, that, in fact, my enquiries were being made on behalf of Alderman Weaver’s daughter, then she did her utmost to prevent me returning to Bristol.’
‘This man followed you here?’ asked the Sheriff’s Officer named as Jack Gload.
‘Not exactly. When I escaped from him in London and, later, gave him the slip, he was presumably sent on ahead of me, to Bristol, to lie in wait. Unfortunately for him, but the time he found me, I had already told Mistress Burnett all that I had learned. He didn’t know that, however, so he made another attempt to kill me by stabbing me in the back. I should conjecture that he was afraid to go back to Morwenna Peto without having accomplished his mission, and was desperate to stop me bearing witness against Irwin.’
Richard Manifold sighed: it was a complicated story. He was coming to the end of a long and tiring day, and there were still reports to be made, bodies to be disposed of, depositions to be taken down. ‘And do you really believe,’ he asked me, ‘that Master Burnett murdered Imelda Bracegirdle in order to steal a horoscope you think she may have cast for his wife?’
I nodded. ‘I do. But as he probably burned it straight away, I doubt if we’ll ever really know.’
* * *
But I was wrong. A search of William Burnett’s papers revealed all Mistress Bracegirdle’s charts and predictions, including both Alison’s and her father’s horoscopes, the latter plainly showing that Alison would die four months before the Alderman.
My mother-in-law, hastily crossing herself, said with a shiver, ‘To know when you are going to die must be very frightening.’
‘Only if you truly believe that such events can be foretold,’ Adela reproved her. ‘But that’s expressly against the teaching of the Church. Only God can determine the hour of each person’s death.’
A few days had elapsed and she and Nicholas were paying their customary visit on their way home from the weaving sheds, where they had deposited Adela’s newly spun yarn and collected more raw wool for spinning. Elizabeth and Nicholas had settled down to play like the familiar friends they had become, laughing and quarrelling and rolling around the floor, instantly comfortable in one another’s company. I saw my mother-in-law glance at them and then at me, as if to make sure that I was aware how happy the two of them were together. She valiantly forbore to comment, however, merely wondering aloud what the Alderman and Mistress Burnett would do, now that each had been rudely deprived of a dream, betrayed by those in whom they had most trusted.
‘Oh,’ said Adela, ‘I meant to tell you as soon as I came in. The weaving sheds are buzzing with the news this morning that Mistress Burnett has closed her house in Small Street and is going to sell it. She’s moved back to Broad Street to live with her father, for as long as they both have on this earth. And the Alderman has rewritten his will, leaving everything to her, just as before.’
My mother-in-law sighed sentimentally. ‘I do so like a happy ending.’
Adela looked at me, quirking one eyebrow, and I knew what she was thinking. Was it really possible for two people to forgive and forget the hurts that lay between them; the betrayal, the bitter insults, the realization on Alison’s part that her father had always loved her less than her brother? And I realized that Adela and I often did know what the other one was thinking, because our minds were so much in tune. Like our children, we were comfortable together: we had no need to explain things. Nor would Adela ever demand to know where I was going, where I had been, or why I hadn’t come home when I said I would. There would be no silent reproaches as there were with my mother-in-law. She wouldn’t cling to me and refuse to let me out of her sight as Lillis had done, during our brief married life together. And I remembered Rowena Honeyman as I had last seen her, hanging on the arm of her country swain, and knew suddenly that she was another such, needing constant attention and reassurance, uneasy when her man was not at her side.
I heaved a secret sigh of relief as though I had had a lucky escape, even though, the next moment, honesty forced me to admit that I had never stood a chance with her. I could not help smiling in self-deprecation, only to become aware that both women were watching me, my mother-in-law with a certain amount of puzzlement, Adela with a mocking tilt to her lips.
I rose hastily to my feet and offered to escort our guest and her son home, if they were ready to leave. Margaret, who, womanlike, must have divined something of my intentions from my general demeanour, hustled us on our way without even offering Adela any refreshment, a most serious lapse in her code of hospitality. Elizabeth, protesting vociferously at being robbed of her playmate so soon, was told sharply to be quiet; and was so surprised at being spoken to in such a manner by her grandmother that she did as she was bidden.
Adela, too, was unusually tongue-tied as we walked back to Lewin’s Mead, and our journey was saved from embarrassment only by Nicholas’s artless prattle. Once inside the cottage, I decided that I must waste no more time in order to save us from further awkwardness.
‘Adela,’ I said, turning her about to face me, ‘will you marry me?’
‘As second best?’ she asked levelly, holding my eyes with hers.
I shook my head. ‘No. Over the last few months, I’ve come to realize that what I thought was love was nothing more than moonshine; a foolish dream. But my love for you has grown steadily, against the odds, against my own resistance to it, because Margaret made it so plain from the start that our marriage was what she wanted.’