I rolled on to my side. ‘I still don’t think they would resort to killing off a whole family as a means of retribution,’ I said. ‘Oswald maybe. But not his brothers and sisters. And certainly not a stepbrother who didn’t even live with him. No! My guess would be a person with a much more personal grudge against the lot of them.’
‘I won’t have it!’ my wife exclaimed. ‘I won’t have you pointing the finger at Arbella or Dr Jeavons. If you must suspect someone unconnected with Oswald’s work why not pick on Adrian Jollifant? Now, there’s a man I do not like.’
‘Who in the Virgin’s name is Adrian Jollifant?’ I demanded, once more heaving myself into a sitting position.
Adela waved an airy hand. ‘Oh, he’s a silversmith who has a shop in Cheapside. At least, I believe Clemency said it’s really his father’s shop, but the old man has retired and leaves his son to run the business for him.’
‘And what has this silversmith to do with the Godsloves?’ I asked.
‘He wants to purchase the Arbour. Apparently, a long time ago, fifty years or so, it belonged to his family, and now he wants to buy it back again. He seems to think he has a right to it and that Oswald is under some sort of obligation to sell it to him. He’s called twice since I’ve been here, and was most offensive to Clemency and Sybilla on both occasions. Oswald was from home. The second time, he swore he’d have it by hook or by crook and stumped out of the house in a fury.’
This was interesting. ‘What’s he like? Old? Young? Fat? Thin? Cross-eyed?’
That made Adela laugh. ‘There’s nothing special about him. No distinguishing features. Forty or so I should guess. Solidly built, but not fat. A round face, fair hair starting to go grey. I can’t recall the colour of his eyes, but I think they were blue. Well dressed. Expensive clothes. If not downright wealthy, then I should say he has sufficient money and more for all his needs.’
‘And he used threatening language towards Clemency and Sybilla?’
‘Not threatening exactly. He was just rude in the same way Adam is when he can’t get his own way.’
‘Which reminds me,’ I said, looking around, ‘where is he?’
‘Adam?’ Adela smiled with the fond indulgence of a mother speaking of her favourite. (Not that wild horses would ever have got her to admit that she had a favourite.) ‘I persuaded Nicholas and Elizabeth to let him play with them in the garden.’
‘They’ll be sorry,’ I prophesied before returning to the subject of Adrian Jollifant. ‘I must certainly see this silversmith for myself. I must ask Clemency if she knows his address in the city. If what you say is true, he might well be the person we are looking for. He would be a suspect at the very least. But,’ I added, holding up a warning finger, ‘that doesn’t mean I’ve exonerated Mistress Rokeswood or Dr Jeavons. They both have equally good motives for wanting some, if not all, of the family members out of the way.’
‘No,’ Adela said ‘I won’t have it, Roger. It’s preposterous.’
I ignored this. She knew perfectly well that I followed my own path; that I took advice from no one when solving one of my mysteries. And I had to own to myself that I was becoming intrigued by what I had at first thought to be little more than a couple of hysterical women reading more than they should have done into a string of natural accidents.
‘Never mind,’ my wife remarked. ‘God will guide you.’
God! Of course! He was playing His tricks on me again. Why hadn’t I realized that? He had guided Adela to London, knowing I would follow. Moreover, I decided, chewing my thumbnail, I wouldn’t put it past Him to have put it into Juliette Gerrish’s head to try and saddle me with her by-blow and thus start this whole chain of events. I had a good mind to pack up immediately and go to find Jack Nym at the Boar’s Head in East Cheap. I toyed with the idea for a full minute before doing what I always did where God was concerned. I gave in, albeit ungraciously. Peace of mind returned.
I drew a deep breath. I was committed now, but I had no intention of rushing into anything. There were more important things in life and God would just have to be patient.
‘Are you sure the children are in the garden?’ I asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ Adela answered, surprised. ‘If you open that window, you can see them. Why do you want to know?’
I twisted around to look to my left. ‘And is that a bolt I can see on the main bedchamber door?’
‘Yes.’ She was frankly puzzled now.
I got off the bed and slid the bolt home.
‘What are you doing?’ Adela was either being deliberately slow on the uptake or we had been parted for far too long. I rather hoped it was the latter. I didn’t care to imagine any reluctance on her part.
I got back on the bed and reached for her hands. ‘I thought,’ I said primly, ‘that you might wish to give me a warmer welcome now that we are at last alone.’ Then I grinned. ‘I thought you might want to demonstrate how very pleased you are to see me.’
‘If I am,’ she answered severely, trying not to laugh.
I took no notice of this and pulled her into my arms.
SEVEN
Later that day, with a renewed spring in my step and a sparkle in my eye, I set out to visit Julian Makepeace at his apothecary’s shop in Bucklersbury.
The fields around St Mary’s Hospital stretched into the distance, softly green under the warm April sun. Here and there, they were starred with clumps of primroses, and beneath a stand of trees sweet violets raised their delicate, purple-veined heads. As I passed St Botolph’s church, I reminded myself that I must also speak with Father Berowne, the parish priest who had attended Clemency when she was so ill the year before last; and I wondered uneasily if he were the black-robed figure emerging somewhat furtively from the nearby tavern, where the amount of noise issuing forth suggested that it was as badly run as the majority of inns and alehouses up and down the country. It was small wonder that they were generally regarded by the authorities as centres of vice and crime and closely watched. (In Bristol, I knew that the town constable kept a list of regular frequenters of its numerous places of refreshment, and I suspected that my name had to be somewhere near the top.)
I paused to use the public latrine and to allow Hercules, who accompanied me, to cock his leg against the wall of one of the almshouses, before proceeding to the Bishop’s Gate. The cries coming from the Bedlam were as distressing as before, but I shut my ears to them and looked up at the men working above me, perched on the scaffolding over the gate. Experience having taught me that there are few things so unsatisfactory as a conversation carried on at a distance, I walked under the archway — waved through by a gatekeeper plainly disgrunted by the disturbance — to find that within the walls there were several workmen at ground level. One was busy mixing mortar while two others were loading stones into baskets which were then raised by pulleys to the men overhead.
I addressed the former, his grudging, almost sulky attitude towards his job informing me that, like the other hands, he was English (although there had to be an overseer from the Steelyard lurking somewhere about to ensure that there was no slacking). My fellow countrymen were notorious for being averse to too much hard labour.
‘There was a lady injured here a day or so ago,’ I said, not beating about the bush. ‘Did you happen to see the accident?’
‘Piss off!’ growled the mortar-mixer, a heavy-jowled individual with hair that stood on end as though he had just received a fright.
The tone made Hercules bark menacingly. I hushed him and fingered the coins in my purse.
‘Don’t be like that,’ I murmured. ‘I feel sure this is thirsty work.’
The man licked his cracked lips and cast a quick glance over his shoulder, confirming my suspicion that one of the Hanse merchants was somewhere in the offing. ‘What do you want to know?’
I transferred a couple of coins from my purse to my hand, but still kept a tight grip on them.