‘This morning I climbed the scaffolding on the Leighs’ house and dug about in the thatch. My Sergeant had found a knife hidden there the previous afternoon.’
Dodd stepped forwards smartly and held out the knife so the jurymen could see it. Thomas Lowther took it and passed it along, and Archibald Bell rubbed his thumb on the crumbs of brown at the place where the blade met the hilt.
‘We found a bloody shirt,’ said Carey, gestured. Dodd took the shirt out of a small bag and handed it to Thomas Lowther. He passed it on with the combination of distaste and prurience that seemed right for a bloody shirt. Nobody argued about the identity of the stiff brown stains on it, although Captain Carleton sniffed at them sceptically.
‘As you can see,’ Carey continued, ‘it’s a gentleman’s shirt, fine linen and well-stitched. There were no other clothes. At first I thought he might have put it over his clothes to protect them from the blood, but I admit I was still puzzled. Then when I saw John Leigh through his own upper window attempting to kill Julia Coldale, I kicked the shutters and glass in and tried to get through. I couldn’t, my shoulders wouldn’t fit. I was reduced to throwing bits of window glass at him and I don’t mind telling you, gentlemen, I was very annoyed.’
The barrel-like Captain Carleton was leaned back and smiling understandingly at him.
‘The only problem he had—how to make sure the shutters were open to Jemmy Atkinson’s bedchamber—we have just heard how he solved it. At the cost of Julia Coldale’s life, she has told us the truth of what she did that morning. And so the mystery is solved. John Leigh waited until he heard Julia opening the shutters and going down the stairs again, and then climbed out of his own window onto the scaffolding and across. There was some risk he would be seen from the street, but it was early in the morning and not light yet. He climbed in through the window, cut Jemmy Atkinson’s throat, climbed out again, took off his shirt and hid it with the knife in the thatch, and then climbed back in by his own window. He could have done it in five minutes, washed and dressed and gone downstairs. Then all he had to do was sit back and wait for someone to find the body.
‘He must have been worried when Andy Nixon and Mrs Atkinson conspired to move the body and blame the killing on me. In fact, they were trying to pervert the course of justice, which is in itself a crime, although I hope his honour the Coroner will be lenient with them on that score. However, in the end, he must have been sure he would gain all he wished after the Lammastide assizes, when Mrs Atkinson surely would have been convicted of petty treason and executed. Perhaps Andy Nixon would have died with her, as her accomplice, perhaps not. Evidently, he didn’t care one way or the other.’
He wondered if he should mention the fact that the Atkinson children would thus be left fatherless, motherless and homeless, but he didn’t. The jury could work it out for themselves. Mary herself had been allowed to cling amongst her mother’s skirts, sucking her thumb and watching.
‘There you have your verdict, gentlemen of the jury: Jemmy Atkinson was murdered most foully; his throat was cut by John Leigh and the reason was only so that John Leigh and his wife could eventually inherit his property as the nearest relatives of the victim. That is what you must find.’
Aglionby summed up briskly and the jurymen went up the steps into the hall in order to deliberate. A few of them went over to look at the houses in question. A short sharp argument between Thomas Lowther and Archibald Bell floated out at the windows which ended in Thomas Lowther’s sullen agreement. They filed back down the steps again.
Without looking straight at his brother, Thomas Lowther delivered himself of the jury’s majority verdict in a loud chant, like an old Mass priest.
‘The jury finds that Jemmy Atkinson was murdered by John Leigh his brother-in-law.’
There was a scattered cheering and an approving buzz of talk from the stoutly watching public. Barnabus, Andy Nixon and Kate Atkinson were released immediately. Carey felt too wrung out to be triumphant, although he shook Barnabus’s hand and congratulated him on a fine shot. The next inquest would be for Julia Coldale and Jock Burn. No doubt Jock had been paid to kill her by Mrs Leigh herself, but they could never prove it now unless Mrs Leigh confessed.
The procession formed itself again to travel back to the Castle and some of the crowd booed at John Leigh. Mrs Croser the midwife stood in his doorway to see him. He lifted his head at the muffled sound of shrieking from within, and then shook it despairingly and plodded on.
Relief and fatigue made Carey’s perceptions unnaturally sharp, like glass. He had glimpsed Kate Atkinson weeping over the red marks the manacles had left on Andy Nixon’s wrists and Nixon stroking her neck awkwardly as they walked. He had also seen Mary Atkinson swept up in her mother’s arms and covered with kisses. Barnabus had disappeared in a hurry behind the hall and come out fastening his codpiece and looking green about the gills. John Leigh kept trying to take longer strides than his ankle chains allowed, almost pitching forwards on his nose. Philadelphia Lady Scrope was nowhere to be seen—perhaps she had slipped away to visit Julia Coldale. Carey wondered if he should go, and thought perhaps he shouldn’t. It was partly cowardice: he didn’t want to see a pretty girl in such suffering.
Lord, what a waste. To Jock Burn he gave no further thought, except a mild regret that the man could not be hanged.
A happy idea suddenly struck him. He had a quick word with Dodd and then strode over to where Andy Nixon was still scandalously entwined with Kate Atkinson by her own front door.
‘Andy Nixon,’ he said and Nixon let go and looked worried. ‘I’ve a proposition to put to you.’
Nixon looked even more worried. ‘Ay sir?’ he said warily.
‘I need another man for my troop of men in the garrison. Would you be interested in the place?’
‘Och,’ said Andy, thunderstruck. ‘But d’ye not mind the trouble we put ye to, sir?’
‘I’m blaming James Pennycook for that.’ Carey smiled. ‘I hardly think you came up with the idea, did you?’
‘Nay sir. Well...’
‘I doubt very much if Pennycook will be coming back south of the Border again. He’ll certainly not be purveying to the garrison any more.’ Why Scrope didn’t have his victuals supplied by a powerful local man like Aglionby was a mystery to Carey, which he intended to put right as soon as he could. ‘And so you’re in need of a new master.’
In his delight at Kate’s freedom and his relief at his own, Andy hadn’t thought of that and his square face clouded.
‘Ay, sir, you’re right.’
‘Well, then? I want good fighters, which you are, and you’ve shown yourself faithful, at least to your woman. The pay’s one shilling and thruppence a day and perks, including some of what we get in fees for rescuing cattle and such. And it’s steady work based in the Castle.’
‘But is there not a fee for the place?’ Andy asked with puzzlement.
‘You can owe it.’
Andy whispered quickly to Kate and then turned back to Carey.
‘I’ll do it, sir.’
‘Excellent. Talk to Sergeant Dodd in the morning.’
He left them wrapping themselves round each other again, and tried to suppress his burning envy of them as he hurried back to the Castle.
THURSDAY, 6TH JULY 1592, AFTERNOON
‘What happened to you?’ he asked Young Hutchin.
Young Hutchin grinned. ‘It was verra interesting.’
‘No doubt.’ Carey looked around for Barnabus, remembered he was in the Keep, waiting for Philadelphia to give him a draught of something cleansing and foul from her stillroom. He took his sword belt off and leant it against the wall, opened up the top buttons of his black velvet doublet in the approved melancholy style, so he could at last breathe properly. He gestured at the still-curtained bed.
‘Have you seen the pups?’ he asked Young Hutchin.
‘Ay. The kennelman came and moved Buttercup and all down to the pupping kennel where she should ha’ been to start with,’ said Hutchin. ‘But your counterpane’s in a terrible state.’
Carey wandered over, looked at it, and closed the curtains again. He went restlessly to the flagon standing on one of his clothes chests and found that without Barnabus about, nobody had refilled it. Curbing the impulse to throw it at the wall, he sat down on the chest and blinked at Young Hutchin.
