The Thief Taker (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Thomas unlocked the door to the cellar.

He lit a candle and the damp room swelled into light.

Teresa was sitting silently on a chair. As he took a step towards her she held up her hands, shielding her face from the candlelight.

Thomas stooped down, placing the candle on the floor.

‘Teresa,’ he said, ‘why do you sit here in the dark?’

She gave him a faint little smile. ‘Some of my memories pain me less in the dark.’

He bent down to be at the same level as his wife.

Despite everything that had happened to her, Teresa was still a beautiful woman. Though her long blonde hair was now finally turning to white.

Thomas took her hand. She let it rest limply in his, but did not turn to face him.

‘You must try to eat a little more food,’ he said, picking up the bread which he had brought her that morning.

He broke off a piece and offered it. But when she did not take it he rested the loaf back on the floor.

Even in the semi-gloom of the cellar the sadness in her lovely blue eyes broke his heart.

‘Ik bit wilhom,’ she said, reverting to Dutch.

He translated the words into English.
I am sad today.

Teresa had never told him what Cromwell’s soldiers had done to her. He had returned from war to find she was too terrified to go outside. The doctor told him she could no longer have children.

She still stitched his clothes and mended his boots, but had reverted to speaking mostly Dutch and would not come out from their cellar without heavy persuasion.

Thomas took her hand and stroked it. She was a statuesque woman, standing nearly as tall as Thomas himself, with broad shoulders. But sat in the dark of the cellar she seemed hardly larger than a child.

‘We will have to leave this house again soon,’ he said, stroking her hand faster. ‘But you will not be outside for very long.’

Teresa was shaking her head. Since the war she suffered strange breathless attacks around male strangers. She had told Thomas the fits felt like dying.

‘You will stay in the special room I got for you,’ he continued. ‘Do you remember it? You will be all alone and safe there. No one can get to you. And there are no windows to trouble you with the sunlight.’

Since the soldiers had got to her, Teresa had an abhorrence of daylight. He had never found out why. Though parts of their house had been set alight.

He squeezed her hands tight. ‘I will make sure justice is visited on those men that hurt you,’ he said. ‘I left you alone once but I will always care for you now.’

‘Danke Thomas.’

Thank you Thomas
.

Teresa gave another thin little smile.

Thomas turned his head away from the candlelight so she couldn’t see his face.

As a young soldier cavalier serving his King, Thomas had been naive. He had promised his wife no harm would come to her. But his promise had been broken.

Thomas ascended the staircase leading from his wife’s dank room and made his way to the back part of the house where the pigeon croft had been built.

The plague-doctor costume hung on the wall. A streak of gore still winked out accusingly on the bottom skirts.

An image of Antoinette’s face rose up, and he drove it down.

Thomas looked into the blank eyes of the mask for a moment.
Then h
e unfurled a large lunar chart and studied the movements of the planets carefully. Full moon was less than a week away. The power would be at a height. Perfect timing to complete the first stage of his plans.

A flutter of wings drew his attention away from the charts, and he turned to see the arrival of his carrier pigeon. He had learned from his days as a soldier to keep a little stock of the trained birds, and they had proved invaluable to send his messages.

Thomas frowned to see the pigeon had been injured. It had caught itself in something and was missing a leg. Mercifully the message had remained attached. He looked accusingly at the animal and roughly tugged the roll of paper free.

‘Confirm contamination. Wapping awaits your arrival.’

Taking out a quill he scratched out a new message.

‘London contamination almost complete.’

For a few moments he enjoyed a delicious feeling of divine providence. Then the familiar pain returned in his belly and the smile slid from his face.

He studied the paper again, trying to focus his attention on the message instead of the tight gripe in his stomach. The nagging hunger never abated. A platoon of starved soldiers trooped forever in his mind. And the day he returned home from Cromwell’s torturers to find his beautiful wife brutalised.

Thomas shook himself out of the revelry. Memories had been coming back to him thick and fast recently, spurred on by the hunger which seemed to be growing daily.

Distracted he turned to the injured pigeon which flapped on the floor of its cage. He reached in and took it out.

The bird flicked its head back and forth, considering him rapidly from every angle. Taking it in his strong grip he wrenched it bodily open, splitting the delicate bone and gouging through the soft breast with his fingers.

The animal gave a strange gurgling shriek, and all the other pigeons began to coo and flap urgently in their cage.

Thomas pulled at the bird, letting the blood run over his fingers and gazed at the beating heart of the animal.

Once, when he had been under siege and starving, Thomas had eaten the entrails of rats, mice and cats. And the food had quelled the burning void.

He paused, staring at the bloody insides, waiting for the moment when the emptiness was filled and the suffering lifted.

It never came.

Casting the twitching bird disconsolately to the floor Thomas stalked from the building. He was still hungry.

Chapter Thirty

Mother Mitchell was huffing a huge chest from her front door with the aid of an elaborately attired young woman.

Charlie sighed in relief.

In the huge span of her silken dress, Mother Mitchell was quite a sight for the daytime. Next to him Maria was staring with undisguised curiosity.

‘This is the last of the clothes Sophie,’ Mother Mitchell was calling back into the Regent Street townhouse. Then she caught sight of Charlie and gave a rare beam of pleasure.

‘Well now boy, this is a surprise to find you still living, for I would have thought you to be dead with the rest of London. Come and give me a kiss, for I am truly pleased to see you.’

Charlie obediently bobbed her a quick kiss and turned to see the cart which was groaning under the weight of the household possessions.

It was strange to see the nocturnal Mother Mitchell out of doors, and the fascinated locals clearly thought the same. Many had come out of their houses to gawk at the girls in their sumptuous dresses and high-wrought hair.

‘I need some information,’ said Charlie.

‘What is it you want to know?’ she asked, extracting a slim white pipe from the folds of her gown and seating herself at the side of the cart.

‘I want to know about a dead girl.’

‘So you attend to murders now?’

‘Not exactly.’ Charlie made a quick glance at Maria.

Mother Mitchell laughed her creaking phlegmatic laugh. ‘But of course it is always a girl with you, Charlie Tuesday,’ she said, tugging out a pinch of tobacco and pressing it into the silver-edged mouth of her pipe. ‘This is your new wife?’ she asked, pointing with the pipe at Maria.

‘Were she my wife it would be a hard life indeed.’

‘Yes it would,’ said Maria. ‘For if I had cause to marry so low it would be sad for myself and my family besides.’

Mother Mitchell looked at Maria and back at Charlie, amused. As though she saw something they did not.

‘So who was murdered?’ she asked Charlie.

‘A girl named Antoinette. She was a kept mistress near Cheapside. Did you have any dealings with her?’

Mother Mitchell rocked back and forth as if trying to urge a memory forward. Then her face broke with sudden enlightenment.

‘I never did employ Antoinette,’ she announced. ‘But you will thank me dearly Charlie. For I employ the girl who found her body.’

Maria hustled forward.

‘Is she here? Can we speak to her?’

Mother Mitchell appraised Maria with a practised eye.

‘I will call her out,’ she said, her eyes roving Maria’s attractive face and figure. ‘Sophie!’

She fumbled with her pipe as they waited for the girl to emerge.

‘The lad thinks to charge me four guineas for a wagon,’ said Mother Mitchell, conversationally, pointing to a sour-looking adolescent in the driver’s seat.

‘I said to him: ‘Boy. I have more say in this city than the King himself, and if you do not drive me and my girls at six shillings I shall see you at Newgate Prison when this sad plague is over and your thumbs broken besides.’

She raised her voice to include the driver in the conversation. ‘So he takes us now for six and he shall be lucky to get that if he does not take good care of my girls. For they do not like to be moved from their fine rooms,’ she added.

A blonde girl in silk skirts emerged from the house and approached them warily.

‘Sophie,’ said Mother Mitchell. ‘This man here is a thief taker. He wants to help find Antoinette’s killer. You must tell him all
you know
.’

Sophie had turned pale.

‘Tell the man,’ prompted Mother Mitchell. ‘No harm will come to you.’

‘She was murdered,’ started Sophie uncertainly.

‘How did you find her?’ asked Charlie.

‘I went to the room where she stayed. She was . . . hanging . . . when I found her.’

Charlie and Maria looked at each other.

‘What do you mean hanging?’ asked Maria.

Sophie looked at Mother Mitchell to confirm she might speak with the second stranger. Mother Mitchell nodded.

Sophie swallowed. ‘She was hung up,’ she repeated. ‘Her body was. But her head . . . .’

Sophie’s eyes started to roll and she swayed a little. Mother Mitchell leapt forward and shook her by the shoulders. ‘God’s fish don’t faint again girl!’ She rummaged in her purse for smelling salts.

But Sophie was already recovering.

‘Her head was in a cage,’ she managed, her voice stronger now. She swallowed again and tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Like what you would keep a bird in. It had been wrapped in white ribbon. And her body had been stuck full of feathers. All over. Black feathers.’

‘Raven’s feathers?’ Maria sounded uncertain. Ravens were thought to house the souls of dead people.

‘All over,’ continued Sophie. ‘They’d been pushed into her. Into her chest and arms.’ Her lip trembled. ‘There was a cup too. As though someone had drunk her blood.’

Even Mother Mitchell had turned a little pale.

But Charlie’s eyes had widened.

‘A raven,’ he muttered, remembering the information from the bird market. ‘Then he must be a high-up man. With permission to enter the Tower of London.’

Maria looked at him uncertainly.

‘Who was the last person she saw?’ asked Charlie.

‘Her keeper,’ said Sophie. ‘It was him that must have done for her. Antoinette was no fool. She would not have let anyone else up into her house when she was alone. London is dangerous for girls such as us.’

Charlie logged the fact. ‘Would her keeper have been capable of murder? Did he love her?’

Sophie licked her lips. ‘She often had bad bruises after he came.’

‘Then why did she not stop his visits?’ demanded Maria. ‘Why should she endure such treatment?’

Sophie gave a hard little laugh. ‘It is not so strange or bad as many men do. Many of us thought her lucky. For her man came to her rarely and paid her full board.’

‘Did you know his name?’ asked Charlie, ‘the man who paid her keeping?’

Sophie shook her head. ‘Not his real name. Antoinette told me he used an alias. Thomas Malvern.’

Maria gasped.

‘What is it?’ asked Charlie.

‘I . . .’ Maria swallowed. ‘I know that name,’ she whispered.

They waited for her to continue, and to Charlie’s surprise Maria’s face began to darken into a blush.

‘I think Eva mentioned him,’ she said. ‘Malvern, or something like it.’

‘How did she mention him?’ asked Charlie.

Maria’s mouth twisted, and the blush deepened. ‘She had a few men, who she thought might buy her into keeping. She would . . . boast about them.’

Her eyes turned to Charlie, imploring him. ‘She was not a bad girl,’
she whispered. ‘Only she drew men’s attention, without meaning to.’

‘Why did you not say this before?’

‘I . . . I did not think it mattered.’

‘You did not think it mattered? That your dead sister had a host of strange men, who wanted to buy her as a mistress.’

‘It was not like that!’ retorted Maria hotly. ‘It was
nothing
like that. You make it sound . . . You make her sound like a prostitute. A few innocent flirtations, that is all. Men loved Eva. You could see it in their eyes. None would have hurt her.’

‘And yet one did,’ said Charlie darkly.

Maria had turned pale and her hands were shaking.

Charlie wondered if Maria could really believe her sister’s innocence. It was typical of her high ways, he thought, that she would withhold valuable information which might reflect badly on her family’s morals.

‘Do you know anything else about this Malvern?’

She shook her head. ‘His name stood out, that is all. The others were ordinary common names, and I have long forgot them.’

‘A man named Malvern wanted to buy your sister into keeping?’ confirmed Charlie. ‘As his mistress?’

Maria flushed. ‘Such terms are often bandied in flirt, or jest,’ she snapped. ‘Eva always looked to end our poverty. And perhaps some men took it more seriously than others what could be for sale. I might have understood her wrong, when she mentioned Malvern,’ she added in an embarrassed mumble.

‘Can you tell us anything else about Antoinette’s keeper?’ asked Charlie, looking at Sophie.

Sophie nodded slowly. ‘She said he had talked of spreading some infection. To take revenge on the King. At first she thought it was play-acting, but towards the end she thought it might all
be rea
l.’

‘What kind of infection?’

‘I do not know. But there is plague all around.’

They looked at one another uneasily.

‘What of Antoinette,’ pressed Charlie. ‘Can you tell us anything of her?’

‘She was a good friend,’ said Sophie, the tears rising up again. ‘And she deserved better than she got in this City.’

‘Antoinette was working for William Adders,’ offered Mother Mitchell. ‘I do not trust that man Charlie. He is not all he seems.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Something wrong with the way he treats his girls from what I hear,’ she replied, taking a deep drag on her pipe. ‘And he is one of those that is bitter of the King’s return. Thinks things were better under Cromwell. I would not be surprised if all that money he makes from his gambling house goes to ill ends.’

Sophie had fallen silent and was staring at Maria.

‘What is it?’ asked Maria, discomforted by the girl’s gaze.

‘Antoinette looked like you,’ she said, raising a finger to point. ‘The likeness is very strong. They could have been sisters,’ she added, turning to Charlie.

Charlie felt a chill sweep through him. He risked a glance at Maria.

She had turned silent.

The revelation had clearly shaken her badly.

‘It is another witch-murder,’ said Charlie slowly. ‘I think perhaps we should see what more we can find about this witch who was released from Wapping.’

‘Why should you wish to do that?’ asked Maria.

‘That man might be our murderer,’ said Charlie.

But Maria was shaking her head and staring at him in surprise. ‘The witch who was released from Wapping is not a man,’ she said. ‘She is not even a witch.’

‘What do you know about it?’ asked Charlie in confusion.

‘I told you our family are from the country,’ explained Maria. ‘We do not like city physicians. The witch imprisoned at Wapping is a woman. A wise woman. She comes from our village,’ she added, ‘and she healed the sick before they threw her in prison for not attending church.’

Charlie felt his heart sink as another avenue of investigation closed.

‘He is no commoner, your man,’ ventured Mother Mitchell, her eyes flicking between Charlie and Maria. ‘Antoinette was not good enough for a lord, but she could command a fair enough sort. A man high up in a guild, perhaps, or a physician.’

Charlie looked at Maria. ‘The physician’s college. Perhaps someone there can tell us something. He wore one of their costumes after all. And then we should find a way to question this William Adders. Perhaps he knows something more about Antoinette’s keeper.’

‘My Health Certificate is not good enough to get into that part of town,’ said Maria.

‘And there are guards all around who want my head,’ said Charlie.
‘But if we had good enough certificates it would be worth the risk.’

He thought for a moment. Marc-Anthony would have long left town. So his usual avenue of forgeries was closed. Who else did he know? Methodically, he tracked through everyone who owed him a favour. No certificates to be got that way.

He frowned, letting his mind instead loop over the way the documents were got officially. Surely there must be some flaw in the system?

His mental map of London reordered itself until finally he hit on a route and a destination where they could avoid the health checkpoints.

‘I know where we can get certificates,’ he said finally.

‘If you think to go to Guildhall it is a bad plan,’ snapped Maria. ‘We do not have time to wait to buy certificates.’

‘We are not going to buy them,’ said Charlie. ‘We are going to steal them.’