The Scottish Play Murder (20 page)

“Of course.” He stepped back from the door and opened it. Having decided what he wanted from her, he presented himself as a gentleman. A parody at best. He gestured clumsily for her to enter, then shut the door behind her. “Here,” he said, “toss that great huge thing out.” He gestured to an open window. The sun coming through it made the large torch unnecessary. “It’ll catch the overhead, the ship’ll go up in flames in a trice, and won’t that be just jolly good.” Suzanne glanced around for a sconce, but in this room there were only candlesticks filled with unlit candles. So she went to the window and dropped the torch into the river at the rear of the ship. It plopped in with an abbreviated hiss far below.

The sailor—he was dressed as an ordinary seaman and not an officer—busied himself pouring rum from a jug to a fine crystal glass that sat on a table nearby. He wore a filthy, striped shirt belted with thick leather, calf-length breeches of coarse linen, and a kerchief knotted at his neck. There were no shoes on his feet at the moment, but a pair of plain leather ones lay on the floor next to the wide, luxurious captain’s bed. The feather mattress inside the box was piled with silken coverlet and linen sheets, which were wadded up and stained with food and drink. The sight rather turned her stomach, and reminded her of the filthy, slatternly women in the whorehouse where she’d once earned her keep. It was not a fond memory. She turned her back on it and addressed the sailor.

“You’re a member of this ship’s crew?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Nobody, really. I only ask by way of striking up conversation. If we’re going to talk, we should begin somewhere. But to reply to your real question, which I expect is who am I, my name is Suzanne Thornton. I’m from Southwark, and I am hoping to find out details about what happened to the captain of this ship.”

“Santiago?”

“Then you do belong to this ship.” And she was pleased to have confirmed that this was the ship Santiago had captained.

“Santiago were a right bastard, he were. Why do you give a rusty fuck what happened to him? I don’t, and he were my employer and meal ticket. I gots no place to go since him and Larchford both were kilt.”

Suzanne looked around the filthy room. A tin plate with bits of sausage and crumbs of biscuit sat on the table next to the jug. “You appear to have settled in quite comfortably.”

He shrugged and plopped himself down on a chair next to the table. He took a large gulp of the rum as if to demonstrate the truth of her statement. “Well, when Larchford got his head stove in, and that after our captain was gutted, we of the crew realized we needed to find employment elsewhere. So we each took off to petition other ships. But with the king not paying his navy, there’s hundreds of sailors set adrift here in London and not enough merchant ships paying real wages to take us on. So I comes back here, knowing there’s provisions and a place to sleep until someone realizes Larchford left behind this ship and they comes to get it.”

“You knew his wife didn’t know he owned a ship?”

The sailor snorted a laugh. “Womens know naught, ever. Most especially they don’t know if they husband is running a pirate ship. I vow, I’m dead surprised you found it. How did you know this were his bloody lordship’s property?”

Suzanne wasn’t about to give him that information, so she answered a question he hadn’t asked. “I want to find out who murdered Santiago and the earl.”

“And that musician fellow.”

Suzanne blinked, surprised. “You know about Angus, then?”

The sailor nodded. “He were a right idiot, that one. He and Santiago both was just a-begging to be done in.”

“How was Angus involved?”

“He were a fence, is all. He knowed where to sell things and nobody would be asking no close questions. Even better, he were a fence in London, where it takes skill to disguise a ship’s booty.”

“For a man with such valuable skills, he certainly wasn’t making his fortune at it.” Suzanne had never known Angus to have an abundance of cash. He was ever as short of money as Big Willie or any of his other musician friends, and if he was spending ill-gotten gain he had very little to show for it.

“Right. None of us has been rolling in riches for all the swag this scow has taken. I can’t say as any of us was p’tic’larly grief-stricken when we heard the earl were dead. That Scot nearly always took his portion in whisky. Sometimes rum, since Santiago weren’t always awash with whisky.”

“What about you? Where were you the night Larchford was killed?”

A shadow crossed the man’s eyes. After a moment, in which Suzanne could nearly hear the sarcasm gear clank into place in his head, he said, “I were right behind him, I were. I wielded the knife, don’t you know. I got ’er right here.” From his belt he drew a dagger and showed it to Suzanne. “Oh. But the earl met his end by a club, is what I heard. I hear the Irish have a thing called a shillelagh. Made from a tree branch, and the head is a bit of the trunk. A deadly thing, swung right.”

Suzanne frowned, trying to think of what Irishman might be involved. “You think someone from Ireland killed Larchford with a shillelagh?”

“No. I’m just sayin’.” Then the sailor burst out in raucous laughter. “Had ye there for a minute, didn’t I? You thought I killed Larchford, eh? Well, I can tell ye not to worry about me on that account, for I were in the gaol that day, and for three days before. ’Twere in the St. Martin’s Roundhouse, and you can check with them to see if I’m lyin’.”

Suzanne stifled a sigh, and glanced toward the door. Maybe it was getting time to leave. The more this fellow drank, the less helpful he was and the more likely he would be to want her to give up something for the information. He took another deep draught of the rum, belched, and returned his attention to her. She turned back toward him as well. “So, what’s your interest in all this killin’?” he said.

“Angus was a friend.”

“And you’re a-looking for the one as sent him to hell?”

Suzanne nodded, and let him believe that was her interest. “He was one of the musicians I often hire for my theatre. I run a troupe that plays in the Globe. Angus was part of a small group who plays for us regularly.”

“He play pipes for ye?”

“Drum, more often. The tabor better lends itself to the sorts of plays we perform than does the bagpipe. Sometimes he’ll play the small pipes for us, but usually it’s percussion, along with the others who play fiddle, flute, and lute.

The sailor nodded as if he knew all about the lot of them. “Aye. Big Willie, Angus, Warren, and Tucker. They all’s got in on the sellin’ of
Maiden
’s booty. They’s all friends of Santiago for a long time. The cap’n got friends from here to Africa, to Jamaica and back again. That’s how he come to know Larchford. A friend of a friend of a friend, ’f you know what I mean.”

“How did Larchford come to do business with Santiago? I wouldn’t have guessed they moved in similar circles.”

The sailor leaned back and grew expansive as he realized he had a story to tell. “Oh, aye, I knows all about that. It were an importer from France as put them together. I were a-working on a ship owned by him. His name were . . . wait a minute, let me think. Jacques, something. In any case, I were swabbing decks on that French ship and ferrying across the channel ever so often with it. It were a good living, not too dangerous, and I didn’t have to wait to be paid most times. And then one day I seen this gold-crusted fop come aboard. I vow, I never seen a man so decked out with finery! And so proud, you might have thought he were the king himself! Every man on board was a-starin’ and goggling at him.”

“Larchford had a certain style.”

The sailor laughed. “He did. So, in any case, Santiago was a one as did a great deal of business with that Jacques fellow. We’d seen him over in France quite a bit, and I was taken aback some to see him here in London.”

“This is where Larchford met Santiago? Here in London?”

“Right here on this pier. He came on board the French boat, and so did Santiago. There were a great lot of greeting and
hail fellow-
ing, and then they took a stroll to the bow and had something of a parlay away from prying ears. They talked for a terrible long time, then they went belowdecks for a bit. I got on with my work, and forgot all about Santiago and the other until me and some other blokes was called to assemble at the mast. Ten of us, I think there was, ones who wasn’t the captain’s favorites, if you know what I mean. We was told that if we liked we could leave our place and go to work on another ship under authority of that Santiago fellow.”

“So you went?”

“Not a great lot of choice for that. If a captain wants a man gone, he’s just as likely to throw him overboard at some point as anything. He were doing me a favor to allow me to leave before he found an excuse to force me off. So I went. We all went.”

“To
Maiden
.” Suzanne turned her face to indicate the ship all around her.

He nodded. “This here’s a scow, but I vow she’s unsinkable. Santiago hired a crew that could man guns like Robin Hood with a bow. As ugly as this whore is, she is a terror on the high seas. She’s got a common look and her unremarkable profile makes her nearly a ghost in an ocean of famous ships. Though she’s got English papers, and Santiago could produce them on demand, she’s also got other papers he’s finagled or forged. French, English, and Dutch navy uniforms, and flags from every country you might think of which has ships at sea. They’s no identifiers on her. Go look. No name painted anywhere, no figurehead, no colors which ain’t also on a hundred other captured Dutch ships.”

“So Larchford bought this ship and outfitted it to engage in piracy?”

The sailor nodded. “Right under the king’s nose. And Larchford being who he is . . . I mean, was . . . I mean, since he was so well connected and all, he would have information about who was running what routes and what they might be carrying, and sometimes he knew where the king’s ships were a-going in search of the enemy.”

“Scientia potentia est.”

“Huh?”

“Knowledge is power.”

The sailor nodded. “Oh, aye!
See-ent
. . . that thing you said.”

“So there were messengers hurrying every which way, it would seem?”

He nodded. “A regular cobweb. Sometimes it were hard for them to find the ship, but whether we docked in London, Portsmouth, Edinburgh, or Glasgow, or any of a dozen other spots along the coast, there were ever a message for the cap’n, with orders of where to go and what we would find there. And no matter what plunder we carried, he had a place to sell it right close.”

“And if you were boarded by the king’s navy while carrying your plunder or flying the wrong flag?”

The sailor let out another great roar of heartfelt laughter. “Oh, we had us some scrapes, we did! But the cap’n, he ever had a story to tell. Always able to explain away the flags, no matter who we happened upon. Never caught with plunder, for we could dash to the nearest port or smuggler’s cove, sell the booty for gold or letters of credit, or sometimes a more legitimate cargo bearing a low tariff if all else failed. We’d pick up or send messages, and disappear once more under the flag of whatever sovereign suited us at the moment.”

“I’m surprised you were never caught.”

“I’m surprised we was never sunk. She’s a wallowing whore, this one. But her guns’ll match any ship on the seven seas and her gun crew is the most deft I’ve ever seen, and that’s what saved us.”

“
Was
the most deft.”

“Oh, aye, was. They’ve all gone like rats to other ships, and are no longer the scourge they was, except to the Dutch now.”

Suzanne thought it a good thing, and were it not for the loss of Angus she might have wondered whether the three deaths might have been a fair price for having this pirate ship out of commission.

All during their conversation the sailor took swallows of the rum, and refilled the glass two or three times. By now his cheeks and nose were ruddy with it, and his speech was barely intelligible. He had that look all men got when they saw a likely woman and imagined themselves attractive enough or the woman desperate enough for a tumble without first working out the finances.

Suzanne felt it was time to put some distance between herself and this drunken swabbie, and she took a step toward the door. “Well, thank you, good man, for this information.”

He stood. “What does ye need it for?”

“As I said, I would know what happened to Angus.” Suzanne took another step, and he followed with a single step.

“You know, you’re a fair handsome woman.” His voice had gone husky. Suzanne suppressed an impatient sigh. Men had so little control over their physical reactions; it seemed rather pathetic.

“Thank you, you’re quite kind. I must be on my way now. I’m expected at the theatre.” She tried to remember whether she’d left the door open up the ladder. If not, it would be a dark dash in unfamiliar territory without that torch. The sailor would know the way much better than she.

“Wait!” He leapt at her just as she likewise leapt for the door. She grabbed the door and with one quick thrust swung it fast at him. The edge of it caught him hard in the face and his nose exploded in a splatter of blood. He howled with the pain and staggered away, both hands over his face and staggering blind against the table bearing the jug. Suzanne wasted no time waiting to see if she’d hurt him, and dashed from the room. The passage was narrow and allowed no choices of direction. The ladder was lit by the door that stood ajar. She gathered her skirts around her waist and scurried up it.

As she burst onto the deck she could hear the sailor behind her. The sound of his heavy, congested breathing behind her urged her to greater haste as she dashed to the gangway and thundered down it at full speed. At the bottom she hooked a heel on a plank and stumbled, but caught herself without falling. Then she slipped on some ice and rode it a few inches before steadying herself. She dropped her skirts as she hurried away from the ship, and smoothed them as she slipped into the traffic along the pier without looking back.

She knew that sailor must be watching her from the ship, but she wouldn’t look back. She’d gotten what she wanted, and would never have to deal with that pirate again, God willing.