A Conspiracy of Violence (46 page)

‘Who has been filling your mind with this nonsense, Philip?’ demanded Clarendon impatiently. ‘Sheath your sword, and let us
talk. What do you want? A larger salary? A different title?’

Evett’s eyes glittered. ‘Even now you do not understand. I want to be Lord High Admiral.’

‘Do you?’ asked the Earl, amazed. ‘I thought you were jesting! I often claim that I would like to be Archbishop of Canterbury
– to sort out the Church – but I do not actually
mean
it.’

‘Well,
I
do,’ said Evett, while Chaloner assessed his chances of reaching the door before the captain speared him. They were slim.
‘But it does not matter what you think. I have met a man who appreciates my talents, and who will help me to greater things.
Ironically, I met him through the Brotherhood – the organisation
you
made me join when you tried to turn me from soldier to spy.’

‘The Brotherhood?’ asked Clarendon, bewildered. ‘It corrupted you?’

‘It opened my eyes,’ corrected Evett.

‘Enough!’ snapped the Earl, his confusion giving way to anger at last. ‘Put down that weapon immediately, before someone is
hurt.’

‘Someone will be hurt, all right,’ muttered Evett. ‘But it will not be me.’

‘It might,’ said Chaloner, taking several steps away as Evett advanced on him. The captain was wisely concentrating on the
opponent he considered the more dangerous. ‘There are two of us.’

‘An old man and an unarmed spy,’ sneered Evett. ‘Against a soldier.’

‘A soldier who has never seen a battle,’ countered Chaloner, trying to undermine his confidence. ‘And one who is frightened
of the pheasants in Hyde Park with their “nasty, slashing beaks”.’

‘
You
are the coward,’ snarled Evett. ‘I sensed, the day we met, that you would be a nuisance, so I tried to entice you down an
alley where my soldiers were waiting. But you were afraid of the dark and refused to follow.’

‘Paying others to do your dirty work?’ asked Chaloner, disgusted. Several facts came together in his mind. ‘I suppose you
tried that tactic on me, because it had worked on poor Clarke?’

He darted behind the benches, wincing as the sword gouged chunks from them as Evett made a series of determined slashes. He
grabbed a pole that was used for opening windows, and jabbed back. Evett’s attack faltered at the sight of a weapon.

‘
You
killed Clarke, Philip?’ asked Clarendon, shocked. ‘But I asked you to investigate his death!’

‘And he was no doubt relieved, despite his claims to the contrary,’ said Chaloner, ‘I should have known why a straightforward
enquiry was progressing so slowly. For example, he “forgot” to show the murder weapon to the measurers of cloth – probably
because he thought they might recognise it as his own. I assumed it was simple incompetence, but it was something far worse.’

‘I did not kill Clarke,’ said Evett, licking dry lips. ‘I liked him. I even introduced him to the Brotherhood, and backed
his election as a member.’

‘To gain his trust,’ countered Chaloner, gripping the pole like a stave. ‘You probably befriended Simon Lane and the others,
too, to lull them into a false sense of
security. You tried it with me – you claimed Simon was your cousin, but it was a lie; Thurloe told me Simon had no kin following
the death of his wife last year. And you kindly “warned” me about the deaths of my predecessors, urging me to take care. It
almost worked – I was beginning to like you.’

‘None of this is true,’ said Evett uneasily. ‘Why would I kill six men?’

‘You tried to ride me down outside Ingoldsby’s house, too,’ said Chaloner. ‘As a palace captain, you have access to good horses,
and I had asked you for directions, so you knew where I was going. And you certainly tried to thwart my investigation into
the treasure – you deliberately aroused the suspicions of Pepys, Robinson and Downing with stupid comments and odd behaviour,
and you made up that ridiculous story about mushrooms when you showed me around the Tower. You did it to hamper me – to have
me dismissed.’

Evett sneered. ‘You cannot prove any of this.’

Chaloner ducked away from the sword. Evett was right, but he continued with his analysis anyway. ‘Only the murderer would
know Lane and the others were “stabbed in the back in the depths of the night with no witnesses”, to quote your own words.
If there were no witnesses, then how did you know they died at night? But I do not think you killed Clarke – at least, not
alone – because you would not have chosen that public passageway. Your accomplice knew no better, though, because
she
was a stranger to the back corridors of White Hall.’

‘She?’ asked the Earl, appalled. ‘Please do not tell me it was Lady Castlemaine!’

‘I mean Evett’s new woman,’ said Chaloner. ‘The one
he professes to love. You have to be impressed, My Lord, because she comes in addition to his two wives.’

‘Two wives?’ echoed the Earl, while Evett lunged at Chaloner and swore furiously when he was rewarded with a crack across
the shoulders with the pole. ‘Philip!’

Chaloner found he could marshal sense into some of the mysteries, now he knew Evett’s role in them. ‘Clarke was killed because
he was unofficially investigating Barkstead’s affairs and you decided he was coming too close to the truth. You were right:
he had already prepared messages for Thurloe, mentioning connections between the death of Praisegod Swanson and the Seven
and he probably knew about the seven gold bars.’

‘So? What does Barkstead’s nasty business have to do with me?’

‘You want the treasure yourself – presumably for this new master of yours.’ Chaloner blocked a wild and undisciplined swipe.
‘You pretended to help me, but only so you would know how the investigation was proceeding. It was also you and your lady
who were with Lee when he was shot.’

‘The three of us were drinking wine together,’ admitted Evett cautiously. ‘We did not kill Lee, though. I was shocked when
that crossbow bolt came through the window.’

‘That was Bennet, dispatching a rival for Fanny Robinson’s affections,’ explained Chaloner to Clarendon. He turned back to
Evett. ‘But it was you who snatched the document from Lee’s corpse.’

Evett shrugged. ‘It does not matter what you think, since you will not live to tell anyone. But, yes, it was I who took the
paper. Lee had learned the names of the Seven from his kinsman, Ingoldsby, and wrote them in
a code only I would be able to read. I said he would hang for treason if he did not do it. He told me what happened to Praisegod,
too.’

‘What did happen to him?’ asked the Earl, shocked by the magnitude of the betrayal. He looked at the gold bar in his hand,
and finally understood. ‘Seven thousand pounds – seven bars of gold …’

‘Poor Praisegod,’ said Evett. ‘It was his hair you found in the cellar, Heyden – you got his scalp and I unearthed his bones.
Barkstead murdered and buried him. There is often truth to rumour, and you heard Sergeant Picard saying Barkstead’s victims
were down there. Praisegod was one of them. I wonder whether there will be similar rumours when I bury you two under White
Hall?’

Evett took his sword in both hands and made a concerted effort to drive Chaloner away from the shelter of the benches. He
lunged hard and in a direction Chaloner did not anticipate, making the agent lose his balance. When Chaloner tried to parry
the next blow, he did so clumsily, and the pole broke in two. The captain moved forward with a grin, taking advantage of the
fact that Chaloner had lost his longer reach. When Chaloner met the next slashing swipe, the remnants of the stick fragmented
in his hand. He stumbled awkwardly, and pain jolted through his weak leg. The Earl drew his little town sword and swished
it ineffectually, to draw his attention away from the fallen spy, but Chaloner could tell by the way he held it that he would
be cut down in moments, even by a poor fighter like Evett.

‘You disgust me,’ said the Earl, backing away when the captain turned on him. ‘Lord High Admiral, indeed! I would not appoint
you master of a barge.’

Evett turned on him, blazing fury, while Chaloner crawled towards the broken pole. ‘Leave him alone,’ he shouted, struggling
to his feet. He jabbed Evett with the pole. ‘Fight me instead.’

‘Here!’ shouted the Earl, flinging him the sword, and clearly relieved to pass the challenge to a more experienced brawler.

Chaloner lobbed the stick at the furious captain, and snatched up the weapon. When Evett saw they were more evenly matched,
he became cautious again. Chaloner blocked a tentative prod, then went on an offensive of his own, although the slender town
sword was no match for Evett’s heavy blade. Evett soon knew it, and his confidence returned.

‘When I have killed you, the King will die,’ he said gloatingly. ‘You heard what Downing said. My friends are making fireballs
even now, and England will have new masters – ones who will not squander public money on masques in which barons pretend to
be animals.’

‘You mean fanatics?’ asked Chaloner. ‘I thought you disapproved of extremism.’

‘Not all Puritans are fanatics. Some are reasonable men, who just want a return to decency.’

Chaloner was inclined to tell him that such people would almost certainly be opposed to bigamy, and that his new world order
might not be all he hoped for. ‘Who?’

‘Not Buckingham?’ asked the Earl. ‘You hate him – or was that just a ruse to mislead me?’

‘He will be the first to go,’ said Evett coldly.

‘Downing will stop you,’ warned the Lord Chancellor, although he did not sound convinced.

Evett laughed, then swung so hard that Chaloner’s blade snapped in two. ‘Downing will change sides again,
and the next time I see him, he will be a Puritan, claiming he has always been an honest man of simple tastes.’ His voice
was mincingly mocking, and a fair imitation of the slippery diplomat.

‘Your friends?’ asked Chaloner. The game was up: his leg and broken sword meant he could not win. ‘You mean Ingoldsby?’ Even
now, he could not bring himself to name Thurloe among traitors.

‘You will never know,’ said Evett jeeringly. ‘You will die wondering, and—’

‘The Brotherhood,’ said the Earl suddenly. ‘You said you met him in the Brotherhood. You
must
mean Ingoldsby. It cannot be Downing, because he brought me that letter. Wade and Hewson are dead …’

Chaloner was backed against the stacks of benches, and there was nowhere else to go. ‘Livesay,’ he said quietly. ‘He is playing
a double game.’

‘Shut up,’ snarled Evett, gripping his sword in both hands and preparing to strike.

Chaloner braced himself, resting his hand against the seats for support. Then his fingers brushed something soft: a dead rat.
He grabbed it and held as he might a live one, so Evett could see its nose and whiskers. ‘Does your terror of wild creatures
extend to these, Evett?’

Evett’s gaze slid towards the rodent, and he released a yelp of disgust when Chaloner hurled it at him. It caught on his tunic,
and while he scrabbled to brush it off, Chaloner pushed forward, seizing his wrist and forcing him to drop the sword. The
captain fell, dragging Chaloner with him, and then they were on the floor, rolling and grappling like tavern brawlers. Chaloner
was aware of the Lord Chancellor, dancing
this way and that with the broken hilt clasped in his chubby fingers.

‘No!’ he gasped, seeing what the Earl intended to do. ‘We need him alive.’

But Evett went limp anyway, and when Chaloner struggled away from the inert form he saw a spreading pool of gore. He heaved
the captain on to his back and tried to staunch the flow of blood, but it was no use. The wound was too deep, and it was not
many moments before the feeble heartbeat fluttered to nothing. Chaloner staggered to a bench and sat, rubbing his knee. He
looked hard at the Earl.

‘It was him or you,’ said Clarendon defensively. ‘And
you
might find the rest of the gold.’

‘But
he
knew the identity of the man who intends to kill the King,’ Chaloner pointed out, wondering exactly where the Earl’s priorities
lay. But there was no point in recriminations, and what was done was done.

Clarendon sat next to him. ‘I knew Philip lacked the skills required for the kind of work you do, but I decided to give him
a chance anyway, and asked him to infiltrate the Brotherhood. I thought he was strong, but he was weak and corruptible. I
suppose I bear the responsibility for his death.’

‘Well, you did put a sword through his back, My Lord,’ said Chaloner, tartly insolent. He rubbed his temples, feeling exhaustion
wash over him. ‘You may have trusted
him
, but I was beginning to trust
her
. I even risked my life on her account.’

‘Who?’ asked the Earl, raising a shaking hand to adjust his wig. ‘Evett’s lady?’

‘Sarah Dalton. Perhaps
that
is why her husband tried to kill her – not to eliminate loose ends, as she claimed,
but for infidelity. She told me on two separate occasions that she owned a liking for handsome young soldiers. I suppose
she meant Evett.’

The Earl pursed his lips. ‘It is possible. She does visit White Hall on occasion, and Evett did flirt with her when the King
exhibited his paintings last week. He has always been fond of women, and, with the benefit of hindsight, I suspect he had
wives in France and Holland, too.’

Chaloner stood, feeling his leg protest against his weight. He needed to confront Sarah and demand the names of her accomplices
before a plot swung into motion that might see the death of a second King Charles. What would Thurloe say when he learned
his sister had been having an affair with Clarendon’s aide and helped murder his agents? Or would he already know, because
Sarah’s actions were part of a greater, more sinister plan?

‘Thurloe is not a traitor,’ he said aloud, although he was aware his voice carried scant conviction.

‘I know,’ said Clarendon. ‘I would not have asked his advice all these months if I thought he were. But tell me about this
gold. The bar you sent me is definitely one of the ones paid to Praisegod Swanson in return for the identities of the Seven.
I assume that is the nature of Barkstead’s cache?’