Revelation

  ‘No - I was just passing, I heard the hammering. Of course, I remember now. The chapterhouse is to be made into a repository for state documents.’

  He nodded seriously. ‘The paperwork of state just grows and grows, we have to put the ancient documents somewhere.’

  I looked at the walls. ‘So the old paintings are being covered up.’

  He shrugged. ‘The windows too, I hear. Well, ’tis all old monkish stuff. What are those little pictures anyway? They’re not very good.’

  ‘That is the Apocalypse of St John. The story of Revelation.’ At my words one of the clerks looked up, and a workman stopped hammering. The clerk who had spoken to me walked over to the wall, studied a painting of the Great Whore uneasily.

  ‘Is it?’ he asked. He thought a moment. ‘Well, the end-time should not be portrayed in crude pictures like these.’ Another gospel man, I thought.

  I left them, following the cloister walk to the door to the abbey church. The church was deserted except for black-robed attendants walking slowly to and fro, their footsteps echoing on the stone flags. The great hushed space, stripped now of all its images and ornaments, was lit dimly by a grey light from the high windows. The monks had prayed here for centuries, now all was stillness, silence. There was only one guard, by the door, and he was asleep. There was nothing of value left to steal; the King had it all.

  I walked up to Henry VII’s chapel where the King’s father lay. There the great vaulted shrine was still in place, the white stone bright in the light from the large windows, contrasting with the dimness of the abbey. I returned to the nave, and walked among the old royal tombs.

  I found myself in front of the sarcophagus of Edward the Confessor, naked stone now. I had seen it in the days before the Dissolution, magnificently framed by rich gold and silver statues and images reflecting the glow of a thousand candles. There had been crutches and walking sticks piled there too, for the tomb was believed to have the power to cure cripples. I remembered that one of the tomb’s first cures was supposed to be a hunchback. All nonsense, but nonsense of such power.

  I became aware of a group of people nearby, grouped before a bare stone altar adorned only with a cross. Four stout men in livery, holding their caps in their hands, while their other hands rested on their sword-hilts. In front of them a woman knelt on the stone floor, her head bowed. She was beautifully attired, in a red silk dress with black cuffs inlaid with gold leaf, and the hands which she held in front of her, palms pressed together in an attitude of prayer, had jewelled rings on each finger. Her black hood was inlaid with pearls. One of the guards, seeing me looking, shot me a warning glance that said I should not approach. Then the woman lowered her hands with a sigh, and I saw it was the Lady Catherine Parr. She rose to her feet, her dress rustling. The expression on her face was similar to the one she had worn at her husband’s funeral, closed in and worried, but as she stood up her face relaxed, the small mouth settling into a mild, gentle expression as she smiled at her guards. She nodded, and they began walking away.

  They were halfway to the door when there was a sudden disturbance. I saw a ragged little man was praying before one of the tombs, and no sooner had I registered his presence than he got up and darted out before Lady Catherine, throwing himself to his knees in front of her. I started forward out of some instinct to protect her but her guards had got there first. One of them pointed a sword at the man’s throat. Lady Catherine stood with a hand to her breast, shocked and frightened. The man raised his head and I saw it was the mad beggar whom Barak and I had encountered in the infirmary, talking about looking for his teeth.

  Then another figure stepped from the shadows with a drawn sword. It was Sir Thomas Seymour, dressed in a dark blue doublet with jewels to match. Lady Catherine turned pale.

  ‘Are you safe, my lady?’ Seymour asked.

  ‘Quite safe, Thomas,’ Lady Catherine said. She frowned. ‘Put down your sword, you foolish man.’ She looked down at the beggar.

  ‘Good lady,’ the wretched man burst out. ‘I cannot find my teeth, I cannot eat, please, my lady, make them give them up to me!’

  ‘You madwag,’ the guard said, still holding his sword to the beggar’s throat. ‘What do you think you’re doing, accosting Lady Catherine?’

  ‘My teeth - only my teeth—’

  ‘Let him go,’ Lady Catherine said. ‘He is out of his wits. I know nothing of your teeth, fellow. I see you have none. But if they are gone, they are gone. Mine will go too one day.’

  ‘No, good lady, you do not understand—’

  ‘We should have him taken in charge, my lady,’ the guard said.

  ‘No,’ she answered firmly. ‘He cannot help himself. Give me a shilling.’ The guard lifted his sword, delved in his purse and brought out a silver coin. Lady Catherine took it, then bent and handed it to the man, who still stared up at her with beseeching eyes. She smiled, a gentle smile that reminded me of Dorothy’s, though their faces were quite unlike.

  ‘There, fellow, go and buy some pottage.’

  The beggar looked from Lady Catherine to the hard faces of the guards, then rose to his feet, bowed and scampered away. Sir Thomas was still standing there, a faint look of amusement on his face. Her guards looked away as Lady Catherine took a step towards him. ‘Thomas,’ she said, her voice quivering. ‘You were told—’

  ‘A servant in your household said you would be coming to the abbey today,’ he said. ‘I wanted merely to see you, watch you from a distance.’ He looked serious. ‘But when I saw you might be threatened, I had to draw my sword.’ He put his hand on his heart. It seemed to me an actor’s gesture, but Lady Catherine’s face flickered with emotion for a second. Then she said quietly, ‘You know you must not try to see me. It is cruel of you, and dangerous.’ She cast a worried look around, her eyes resting on me, still standing at some distance. Sir Thomas laughed. ‘The crookback will say nothing, I know him. And I bribed the attendants to stay away from this part of the church for a little while.’

  Lady Catherine hesitated a moment, then gestured to her guards and walked away rapidly. Her men followed. Sir Thomas gave the tiniest of shrugs. Then he turned to me.

  ‘You won’t say anything, will you?’ His tone was quiet, but with a threatening undertone. ‘Not to my brother, or Cranmer?’

  ‘No. Why should I wish to be involved?’

  Seymour smiled, white teeth flashing in his auburn beard. ‘Well judged, crookback.’ He turned and walked away, his steps loud and confident.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  I REJOINED BARAK at the gate to Dean’s Yard. He stood with the horses, looking watchfully over the crowds going to and fro. I told him about my encounter with Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘He’s taking a risk meeting her in Westminster Abbey, if the King’s told him to leave her alone.’

  ‘I don’t think Seymour intended to talk to her. I think he just wanted her to see him in the shadows, know that he had not forgotten her.’

  ‘He doesn’t strike me as the lovelorn type.’

  ‘No. But I think she may be. Where he’s concerned, at least.’ I shook my head. ‘She struck me as an intelligent, good-hearted woman - what could she see in a man like Seymour?’

  ‘A bedmate? She’s had one older husband, and another in prospect if she marries the King.’

  I shook my head. ‘Her expression while she was praying seemed fearful, desperate—’

  ‘Sounds like the Lady Catherine really made an impression on you.’ Barak grinned wickedly.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. It was just - she seemed to have something good and honest in her, that you don’t often see in ladies of the court.’

  ‘Nor anyone else there, for that matter—’ Barak broke off. ‘Watch out, here comes Harsnet. I take it we are saying nothing about Seymour being in the church.’

  ‘No. That’s not our business. We know now these killings have nothing to do with Catherine Parr.’

  I watched
as Harsnet walked across Dean’s Yard with his confident stride, looking neither right nor left. The beggars and pedlars did not approach him; perhaps they knew who he was and that he could arrest them on the spot. I had heard they had their own body of knowledge. ‘Good afternoon,’ Harsnet said. He looked more cheerful than before.

  ‘A good meeting? I asked.

  He nodded. ‘We are going to be able to stop Bonner spreading his persecution down here. Westminster is well out of his jurisdiction.’ He fixed me with his keen eyes. ‘What news from Lockley?’

  I told him of my suspicion he was still keeping something back, and of the attack on Charles Cantrell.

  ‘I’ll have Lockley taken in for questioning after we’ve seen the dean,’ he said. ‘What about the wife? Should we take her too?’

  ‘No. I do not think she knows anything.’

  ‘And young Cantrell attacked?’ He looked across the yard to the run-down carpenter’s shop. He frowned. ‘But why in God’s name does Cantrell not want someone posted at his house?’

  ‘He says he does not care if he is attacked again. I am not sure he is quite in his right mind.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He is half blind, he was thrown out of Westminster Abbey and then saw his father die. He has suffered much.’

  ‘Yet his father and his friends seem to have offered him salvation. I know some of those groups have more wild enthusiasm than deep faith. Yet they are on the right path.’ Harsnet looked at me earnestly.

  ‘Whether they are or not, Master Cantrell joined this conventicle and then withdrew from it. That would be enough for our killer to believe he deserved death.’

  ‘I’ll arrange for a guard. I’ll have one posted there whether he likes it or not.’ He sighed. ‘But I’m running out of men. I’ll have to speak to Lord Hertford, see if he can supply anyone. What were those names that Cantrell gave you?’

  I gave Harsnet the names of the group Cantrell’s father had belonged to. He rubbed his chin. ‘I’ve heard of one or two of those. I will ask around my contacts.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And now, let us see what we can get out of Dean Benson.’

  THE DEAN WAS in his study again, in the fine house set amidst the warren of half-demolished and half-converted monastic buildings, labouring over papers. The sound of hammering and sawing was louder today, and his plump face was irritable. When we were shown in he gave us a look of hostile enquiry, bidding us sit down with a patrician wave of the hand.

  ‘I see by your expressions this matter is not resolved,’ he said. ‘I confess I found the insinuation of involvement from ex-monks from Westminster distasteful.’

  ‘It’s more than distasteful,’ Harsnet replied sharply, causing Benson to raise his eyebrows. ‘There has been another murder, and we can find no trace of Goddard or his family. No trace at all.’ His manner was steely, he looked the dean squarely in the eye. Benson frowned.

  ‘And do you know of any direct connection between Goddard and these killings?’ he asked smoothly. ‘Beyond the suspected use of dwale, and the pilgrim badge? That’s little enough to go on.’

  ‘Maybe. But we need to find him.’

  ‘I have told you all I know. I have no idea where Goddard is.’

  ‘Master Shardlake here has been talking to the lay brother who worked in the public infirmary. Francis Lockley.’

  The dean grunted. ‘Where is Lockley now? Somewhere there’s a bottle, I’ll warrant.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ Harsnet countered sharply. ‘The point is we believe he knows something about Goddard, and is hiding it.’

  ‘I do not think he knows Goddard’s whereabouts,’ I said. ‘But he knows something.’

  ‘Well, I do not.’

  ‘I am having Lockley brought in for questioning,’ Harsnet said.

  ‘What is that to do with me?’ Benson’s look did not change, but one plump hand slid across the desk to a quill. He picked it up and began fiddling with it. ‘Be very careful how you deal with me,’ he went on. ‘I have important contacts. I have the gratitude of the King himself for the way I brought Westminster Abbey to a peaceful surrender. I am dean now, I have the responsibility for this great church and its royal tombs.’

  ‘We are hunting a murderer,’ Harsnet said. ‘Someone who has brutally murdered four people and already tried to murder a fifth.’

  ‘And I tell you again, it has nothing to do with the abbey.’ Impatience entered his voice. ‘God’s bones, man, I knew Goddard. I used to talk to him, he was one of the few monks in this place with any intelligent conversation. But all he ever cared about was his comfort and his social status. The idea of him killing people to fulfil some prophecy in Revelation is - ludicrous.’

  ‘If a man is possessed by the devil,’ Harsnet said quietly, ‘it does not matter what he was like before. He will be consumed by the desire to do the devil’s bidding.’

  Benson stopped playing with his quill. ‘Possession.’ He laughed cynically. ‘Is that what you think? That idea will get you nowhere.’

  ‘I saw the wall paintings telling the story of the Apocalypse in the chapterhouse,’ I said. ‘They are being covered up now, behind shelves and documents.’

  ‘Yes, that was my idea to use the chapterhouse to store surplus records. We have plenty of space in the precinct now. What of it?’

  ‘The monks must have seen those paintings hundreds of times. So must you. I do not think one could look at them day in, day out, and not think about the story they portrayed.’

  He shrugged. ‘I used hardly to notice them, except to think what poor quality the paintings were.’

  ‘They could still affect a certain type of man.’ I met Benson’s gaze. He stared at me fixedly for a moment, then pointed his quill at me. ‘I know who you are now. I have been trying to think why your name is familiar. You are the lawyer the King mocked at York two years ago. What was it he called you? A bent spider? I heard that story when he returned. People said he compared you to some big Yorkshire fellow you were with. It went down well with the Yorkers.’

  I did not reply. ‘You are no man of God, sir,’ Harsnet said quietly.

  Benson turned to him, suddenly angry. ‘I am a realist. In the end people like me cause less trouble in the world. When I was a young monk, I saw the system was corrupt and rotten. So I made myself known to Lord Cromwell - there was a realist, if ever there was one - and he gained me the post of abbot. And I made sure this house made a quiet surrender, with no opposition and no scandal, because the King would not have wanted that in the royal resting place. He intends to be buried there one day. And he will be angry if you make a scandal now. So be warned. You may get more than an insult from him the next time.’ Benson stood up, indicating the interview was over. I saw from Harsnet’s expression that he would have liked nothing better than to take the dean in for questioning himself. But Benson was right, he was a powerful man, and in the absence of any evidence Harsnet had to proceed cautiously. I thought he had not handled the dean well, making his hostility so obvious.

  OUTSIDE THE HOUSE, Harsnet turned to me. I could see that he was battling with anger. ‘Did you believe him?’ he asked.

  ‘I think he, too, is hiding something. But either he believes it is immaterial to our investigation, or he thinks himself safe because of his powerful contacts.’

  ‘His contacts wouldn’t protect him if he were hiding information about a murderer four times over.’

  ‘No.’ I paused. ‘At least, they shouldn’t.’

  Harsnet set his lips tight. ‘Let’s see if Lockley says something that will help us put Benson under a bit of pressure. Now I must find a couple of constables and pick Lockley up. I will see you tonight at six, Serjeant Shardlake.’ He bowed and strode away.

  ‘I don’t envy Lockley,’ Barak said.

  ‘No.’ I looked back at the dean’s house. ‘A realist, Benson called himself. Well, he is. I should think, like most of the monks who helped Cromwell, his motives were money and power. I wonder if he ever thinks a
bout the monks who were thrown out, I wonder if his conscience ever pricks him.’

  ‘Didn’t look to me like he had one.’ Barak winced slightly as a huge block of stone crashed down from the refectory. He looked around the demolition work. Then he laughed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘That arsehole Benson going on about how he became dean of this place. Look at it. He’s master of a heap of rubble.’

  ‘He still runs Westminster Abbey church under the King’s favour,’ I said seriously.

  Barak looked over at the huge church. ‘So Henry wants to be buried there,’ he said quietly.

  ‘The sooner the better,’ I said, more quietly still.

  HARSNET LIVED at the top end of Westminster, in a row of fine old houses in King Street, just down from the Whitehall Palace gatehouse where pennants flew, outlined against the clear blue sky, the setting sun reflected in the tall gatehouse windows. I turned to Harsnet’s front door, which had a brightly polished knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. I wondered what dinner with his family would be like, but even more I wondered what Lockley had told him.

  I knocked at the door and a manservant ushered me into a large parlour. Gold plate shone on the tall wooden buffet, and a wall painting showing the journey of the Magi to Bethlehem covered one wall, with camels and caravan-trains picked out in soft, pleasing colours.

  Harsnet was there with his wife. The coroner looked neat and spruce in a black velvet doublet, his beard newly trimmed and showing flecks of grey in contrast to his dark hair. But he had a worried, preoccupied look. His wife was a small round-faced woman, in a brown dress of good quality, with fair hair and bright eyes full of curiosity. She had been sitting on a pile of cushions, embroidering. She got up and curtsied to me.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ Harsnet said, ‘allow me to present Serjeant Matthew Shardlake, who is working with me on an assignment of - some difficulty. There are some things we should talk about after our meal,’ he added. He gave me warning look, and I realized his wife knew nothing about the murders. So I would have to wait for news of Lockley.