bed.'
'But isn't that dangerous?' Cromwell asked.
'Not really,' Agnes replied, 'not as bad a people say anyway.'
'I see,' Winterburne said. 'Thank you very much for your time, Mistress Fulwell. We will be back if we have any more questions for you.'
'If you don't mind me asking,' Agnes said, looking between their faces, 'is Master Appleby alright? Only I ain’t seen him today, neither.'
'No, Mistress Fulwell,’ Winterburne answered, 'I'm afraid he is not. Master Appleby is dead.'
'Dead?' Agnes covered her open mouth with her hands.
'That's right,' Winterburne replied. 'And, if he is as honest as you say he is, it's possible that he may well have found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
oOo
As the two men walked along Back End, Winterburne could tell that Cromwell had something on his mind.
'I'm bothered about this shirt, Sir.' Cromwell took out the bundle, and held it before them.
'And why's that?'
'Well, Sir,' Cromwell said, 'if Appleby had nothing to worry about why didn't he come forward as soon as he realised that the shirt was covered in blood? If he did see the man that did it, then he might have helped us get to the bottom of this very quickly.'
Winterburne replied, 'Perhaps he thought that if he did come forward then he would incriminate himself. There doesn't seem to be any other witnesses, so maybe he thought that we would jump to the obvious conclusions. It wouldn't be the first time an innocent was accused of something like this, and let's face it, murder is a capital offence in the Empire.'
Cromwell looked at Winterburne, and then back to the shirt in his hands. 'Or,' he said, 'maybe he did kill her, Sir'. Cromwell wagged his finger. 'Maybe he killed her on the way home from work. He might have seen her leaving the Palace on other occasions. Maybe he thought that he might try something on with her.'
'What, like rape?' Winterburne considered this. He had to agree that it was certainly a scenario that fitted the evidence. 'But if that's the case, Milo, why was he killed?'
Cromwell looked thoughtful, and then said, 'Perhaps he got into a fight, Sir. Maybe he was a bad egg, and got what he deserved. Maybe his death was just coincidence and not connected with the death of the girl at all. If he could do that to the girl, who knows what enemies he might have collected.'
'I don't believe in coincidence,' Winterburne said. 'There's always a reason why people act.' The Lieutenant's version of events felt like it was missing something to him. 'The landlady said that he was of good character, so your story doesn't sound right. Why don't you send Moore up to the East Gate to get a statement from the Toll Keeper.'
Cromwell nodded. 'I will.'
'I want to know all about this Appleby fellow. He doesn't strike me as someone who was a member of a secret Guild. It makes even less sense as to why he might have taken a contract to kill the girl.'
'If there's anything to know, we'll find it.'
They continued on in silence as they turned left into North Street. More houses faced them but they were now interspersed with a shop or two, and they found themselves heading towards the docks. On their right hand side stood the Shippe Inne, quiet now in the daylight and looking like a different place from the one they had been in only a few nights previously. The door was wide open and a man wearing a simple shirt and black trousers walked across the street and into the premises.
'That place is always open,' Winterburne said. 'I never understood why anyone would want to buy ale at this time of day.'
'I think it always opens early, Sir,' Cromwell replied. 'As long as there are people who want to buy, the owner is there for them. I suppose he has to try to make a living as best he can.'
The two men walked on, past the Shippe and on towards the harbour.
'I need to think for a while,' Winterburne said. 'I'm going to stay around here. Why don't you set Moore off on his errand and I'll meet you back at the Watch House later.'
Cromwell nodded and headed off in the direction of West Street, and the Headquarters.
Winterburne chewed on his lip, deep in thought, as he headed towards the viewing platform that overlooked the harbour. As he climbed the stairs he rolled possible scenarios through his mind, looking for something obvious that he might have missed, that would connect and explain the killings. Something was missing though, some common factor that lay behind all the events, tying them together.
Agatha was killed as she came home from her work at the Palace, he thought to himself. Appleby was killed as he walked from from the East Gate, past the Palace. Winterburne reached the top and stood on the platform looking out over the harbour and the ships and boats below. Always the Palace.
Below him sat a small fishing vessel which had just returned to dock. The lone fisherman worked hard unloading his catch onto the quayside. There would be cod, mackerel and whiting as these were always the most common in the waters off Highport. Other men stood by as they watched him and waited to take the fresh fish up to their carts and then over to the market to sell on. Gulls called as they flew overhead hoping to get some of the prize below, their swooping and crying turning an otherwise peaceful scene into one of great chaos.
As Winterburne watched, life in the city continued as it always did. Carts were leaving the market and following the edge of the harbour, and he could see the busy intersection which joined North Street and West Street. A squad of ten guards in full uniform were marching down West Street in close formation. He assumed that they were going to one of the main gates and as he watched them, they turned right and made their way up North Street towards the North Gate. This seemed to be something that was happening more and more these days for some reason. Winterburne always felt uneasy when he saw troops moving around the city, but he had learned to live with it as an occupational hazard.
Winterburne's mind returned to the killings that occupied so much of the Watch’s time over the last two weeks. He had been working with the assumption that there was one killer, and that the girl must have heard something at the Palace. It was also just possible that she might have been unlucky to meet her doom in an instance of chance. He had mostly discounted the second scenario, after all, there was the medallion, proudly announcing its presence. Surely, if this was not a planned killing then the events necessary to align such a coincidence, and place it at the scene, were truly staggering. Then, there was the man and his bloody shirt. If he had killed the girl, then why did he still keep the shirt? With so little blood on it he could easily have burned it, or disposed of it in another way.
No, he thought, the girl must have heard something, and the man came across the killer on his way home that evening. Surely he must have seen the killer and there was a good chance that he died to keep him silent. Winterburne considered this further, it was the only explanation of the course of events that he felt completely comfortable with. No inner alarm bells rang, and he had no pangs of doubt. This had to be it, surely? But, if she did hear something at the Palace then what was it? The Governors were there at the time, and maybe Allington did have more to hide that he was letting on.
Then, there was the Emperor himself, and his night-time jaunts, or whatever they were. Winterburne could not believe that the Emperor was aware of any of this, especially after the meeting he had with him the same night that the man died. If he could not even trust his own Emperor, then who could he trust? Even so, his movements were still unaccounted for.
Winterburne barely registered the sight of a Watchman running down West Street towards the tower but was snapped back to reality as the man raced up the wooden stairs to the deck. As he reached the top, Winterburne turned, seeing that the Watchman was carrying a sealed letter in his hand.
Roland held out the envelope. 'Sir,' he said, 'this arrived for you. The carrier said you were to open it immediately.'
Winterburne took it and turned it over to see the red wax seal of the Emperor. He broke the seal, unfolding the letter and reading the words to himself
. 'So,' he said, when he had finished, 'he wants me at the Palace, this afternoon.'
Winterburne folded the letter in two and looked up at Roland. 'Where is the Lieutenant?'
'At the Watch House, Sir,'
'Good. Please can you tell him to meet me on the way to the Palace? Ask him to bring the shirt from the Appleby case, will you?'
'Yes, Sir,' Roland replied, heading off.
Winterburne slid his hand into his pocket to confirm that the medallion was still there. The warm bronze of the object felt reassuring to his touch. It had been his constant companion since the killing of the girl, and he pulled it out, letting it hang by the chain in front of him.
'I bet you are causing someone some worry, my friend,' he said. He tossed it into the air, catching it and replacing it safely in his jacket. 'Oh yes,' he said, tapping his pocket, 'some worry indeed.'
oOo
As Winterburne passed the Watch House he saw Cromwell up ahead. 'Milo!' he called after him.
Cromwell stopped and turned, waiting to allow him to catch up.
'Did you bring the shirt?' Winterburne asked.
'I did, Sir.' Cromwell handed the garment over to Winterburne, before setting off again. 'Did you have any more thoughts,’ he said, 'about the killings, I mean?'
Winterburne tucked the shirt under his arm and continued walking, matching Cromwell's pace. 'Let’s just say,' he replied, 'that I have a theory that I'm fairly comfortable with at this point in time.' The men continued to walk up the gentle gradient that ran the entire length of West Street. 'But, at the moment,' he added, 'I do not have all the evidence I need to prove it.'
They walked on a little further and Winterburne looked up ahead in the direction of the East Gate. 'Did you send Moore to speak with the Toll Keeper?'
'Yes, I did, Sir, but he hasn't returned yet.'
'I'll be busy for a while, so why don't you join him and see how he is doing. You know what the Sergeant is like, he could probably do with a hand to push him in the right direction.'
'He does his best, Sir.' Cromwell smiled. 'His heart is in the right place.'
Winterburne smiled back. 'That it is, Lieutenant. That it is.'
They soon approached the intersection, with its branch that led to the left and ended in Imperial Square. As they reached it, Winterburne turned towards the Palace, leaving Cromwell to continue up the road towards the Toll House.
oOo
Cromwell caught up with Moore just as the Sergeant was crossing the street on his way to the Toll House.
'Where have you been?' Cromwell asked. 'I've just come from the Captain and he told me that you left an age ago.' A smear of jam sat at the corner of Moore's mouth and Cromwell realised what it was that had detained the man. 'You've not been eating again, have you?'
Moore's tongue flicked out to the side of his lip where the jam had stuck, and he dragged it into his mouth. 'I was...sort of...called on to take a little detour, Lieutenant.'
'I can see that,' Cromwell replied. 'Trust you to think of your belly first when there's important work to be done.'
Moore looked sheepish. 'Sorry, Lieutenant,' he said.
'I should think so too,' Cromwell said. 'You were lucky it was me that found you and not the Captain.' He paused as he glowered at the man. 'He'd have had you on a charge. Come on,' he added, sharply, 'we have a job to do.'
The Toll House was built from blocks of the same sandstone as the city walls, and it had been there, as far as anyone knew, for the same period of time. The passing of the ages seemed to change very few things in the Empire and the collection of the gate toll had existed as a method to keep up the repair of the roads and streets within much of the city for many hundreds of years.
Cromwell looked over at the booth where the toll collector was usually based,