Michael Kerr was ready to be examined next. He gave his evidence in a mutter that the jury had to strain to hear. He had happened to go through Frank’s vennel that morning. No, he had not been sent. Yes, he did know he was on oath. No, he had not been sent, well, he had wondered if there was anything to find there. He couldn’t remember why. Yes, he knew the dead man. Yes, he was Mr James Pennycook’s factor and son-in-law. Yes, he understood Mr Pennycook had left town. He had gone to join the Scottish King’s Court, he believed. No, he didn’t know anything about anything else.
According to the list Carey had provided, the next to be called was Fenwick the undertaker who had come to fetch the body away.
He explained that he had done this but that he had been worried by many things about the body.
‘Oh?’ said Aglionby with interest. ‘What were they?’
Fenwick’s grave face was troubled and he put up one finger. ‘Considering the man’s throat was cut, there should have been blood in the wynd. There was none that I could see. There was blood on his shirt, but not his outer clothes, except the linings. He lay very straight, as if he had been arranged, quite respectfully really, and on his back which is not the way someone falls when they have been attacked from behind.’
‘I see, thank you. Sir Robert?’
‘Did you notice any tracks in the wynd, Mr Fenwick?’
He hadn’t at the time, though now he came to think about it he thought there might have been marks of a handcart in the softer parts.
The next was Barnabus himself, brought forward under guard to stand by the cross. Of course, as one of the accused he was not allowed a lawyer, even if there had been one available. The day was warm and Carey had already started to sweat under his black velvet: Barnabus was unwell and unhappy in the sunlight after so long in semi-darkness, with his battered round brimmed hat crushed in his hands, his bruised ferret-face with its collection of pockmarks and scars making him look an ugly sight even to Carey, who was used to him. The thin film of moisture on his skin didn’t help either.
The Coroner looked at the unsavoury little man impassively.
‘Barnabus Cooke,’ he said after Barnabus had whinged out his oath with his hand on the cathedral Bible. ‘Remember you are on oath and at risk of sending your immortal soul to hell if you lie.’
‘Yes, yer honour.’
‘Did you kill Mr James Atkinson?’
‘No, yer honour. I didn’t.’
‘Why does such an important gentleman as Sir Richard Lowther think you did?’
‘I dunno, yer honour. Only I didn’t.’
‘Where were you on Monday night?’
Barnabus’s eyes darted from side to side, making him look even shiftier.
‘Well, see, yer honour, I was at Bessie’s first, because my master was out wiv a patrol. Then I... I went to a house I know. Perhaps one of the girls lifted my knife while I was there. I never went nowhere near Frank’s vennel.’ Barnabus paused and then smiled slyly. ‘’Course it’s funny in a way and serves me right,’ he volunteered, while Carey winced inwardly. ‘I’ve been teaching the girls to do tricks with dice and such, and I expect one of them used ’er lessons on me.’
Half of the people in the marketplace knew exactly where Barnabus had been on Monday night. The other half learnt it from them within a few seconds. They hissed and muttered at each other at the news that Madam Hetherington’s girls had been taking lessons in cheating at dice. Carey fought not to laugh. That would teach Madam Hetherington not to betray her customers.
‘Do you mean you were committing the sin of fornication on Monday night?’ interrupted Scrope pompously.
Barnabus didn’t look at him and nor did Carey. ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Barnabus, turning pointedly to the Coroner. ‘I wouldn’t say, if I wasn’t on my Bible oath, yer honour, but I was. I’m a poor sinner, yer honour, and if I’m sentenced to do penance for the fornication, well, I can’t gainsay as I deserve it, but I never murdered Mr Atkinson and that’s a fact. I don’t deserve to swing for a murder I never did, yer honour.’
Lowther leaned over from his place on the other side of the cross.
‘Ye’re a footpad, and that’s a fact,’ he snarled.
‘Sir Richard!’ snapped Aglionby.
‘Well yer honour, ’e’s right and ’e isn’t, if you follow. It’s true I was a footpad down in London, but since Sir Robert Carey took me on as ’is servant, I’ve left my evil ways behind, sir.’
More or less, thought Carey, smiling inwardly at the strained piety on Barnabus’s face.
‘Apart from passing on what small skills I have to Madam Hetherington’s girls,’ he added reflectively, making sure the audience got the point. ‘Anyway, no footpad would make the mistake of cutting someone’s froat, yer honour.’
Aglionby raised his heavy grey brows.
‘Oh? Why?’
‘’Specially me, because I’m too short. I’m about four inches shorter than Mr Atkinson, yer honour. If I’d wanted ’im dead, which I didn’t, I’d have stabbed ’im in the back. In the kidneys. S’much safer and less messy.’
Carey risked a glance over his shoulder to see how the people in the marketplace were taking this. A lot of them were nodding wisely. Even one or two of the jury were nodding. Barnabus, thought Carey, you don’t need me at all, do you?
‘Yes,’ said Aglionby, impressively straight-faced. ‘Thank you, Cooke.’
Barnabus stepped back among the other suspects and looked modestly at the cobbles.
Somewhere on the other side of the marketplace, Lady Scrope had arrived with the litter transporting Julia Coldale, who was helped down from it. Carey waited for the stir to die down a little, then nodded at Richard Bell to call the next witness.
That was Mrs Katherine Atkinson. She was shaking and as white as her apron. Compared with the other women watching, tricked out to the nines in their best clothes, she was a doleful hen sparrow, her blue working kirtle and her apron showing the signs of her imprisonment. She wasn’t manacled; Carey assumed Dodd had quietly forgotten Scrope’s order to chain her.
She swore her oath in a voice that was almost too soft to hear. Edward Aglionby stared at her solemnly and then said, ‘Well, Mrs Atkinson, tell us how you killed your husband?’
There was a muttering from the people. Mrs Atkinson gripped her hands tight together, looked straight up at him and said clearly, ‘I didna.’
This time there was a distinct gasp. Carey instinctively swivelled his head round to look at his sister’s face and found her very pleased with herself.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Scrope.
