Death on the Rocks (13 page)

John bowed. ‘I believe we met once in the park. And then again, just possibly, in Devon.’

The other flapped a large white hand. ‘Oh, la Sir, but ’tis almost impossible to recognise you. You’re all pricked up like a villain, so you are. You quite frightened the life out of me.’

John bowed again. ‘I do apologise. I am on my way to a costume ball. May I join your table, Sir?’

Pendleton nodded his head in ascent and a smell of sweet pomade reached John’s nostrils. It was coming from the man’s wig and once again triggered something in John’s memory which he could not unfortunately place.

‘I was just saying to my friend here …’

John bowed to the other person present who was made up like a poor man’s macaroni.

‘… that Bristol is hardly fit to walk abroad in. So full of villainous foreigners and the poorer class of person. One could be set upon at any moment.’

John could not help it. His infamous sideways grin appeared.

‘It’s nothing to smile about, Sir. I vow and declare one takes one’s life in one’s hands when one walks by the docks.’

‘What are you doing out of London, if I may enquire?’

‘I came to the Hotwell for the sake of my health, but met one or two old friends in Bristol and have been here ever since.’

‘Do you go to Devon much these days?’ asked John, carefully watching the man’s face.

It was difficult to read because of the enamel make-up smothered thereon, but there could be no doubt that a fine sheen of sweat had appeared beneath the maquillage.

There was a small silence before Pendleton answered brightly, ‘La, no. All my old contacts have gone. I am now quite the Bristolian.’

‘But I could have sworn I saw you at the Earl of St Austell’s wedding.’ John was taking a leap in the dark and knew it, but the result was worse – far worse – than he could possibly have imagined. Pendleton suddenly clutched his chest and let out a groan of pain while a trickle of black kohl ran from one of his spicy eyes. As John watched in stupefied horror, the man fell forward onto the table in front of him. His companion, the elderly macaroni, leapt to his feet, pursed his carmined lips and uttered a little shriek. But he was not quite so quick as the Apothecary, who realising that something was terribly wrong rushed to Pendleton’s side.

‘Do you have pain in your arms?’ he said, close to the man’s ear.

‘Yes, oh yes,’ came an agonised whisper.

John wheeled round and shouted to Irish Tom. ‘Tom, can you sprint to the nearest apothecary’s and get some distilled water of lavender. And please be quick about it.’

He turned back to Benedict, loosening his grubby cravat and at the same time looking round frantically for the landlord. A very small man in a greasy apron eventually came over and said, ‘Oh dear.’

‘I’m afraid it is. Have you got a private room where we could carry him? I believe he’s having a heart attack.’

‘My, my,’ said the little landlord, unperturbed. ‘Follow me.’

John and the macaroni, who puffed and blew enormously, managed to drag poor Benedict Pendleton into a tiny snug, where John laid him out flat upon the floor, putting some rather worn cushions under his head. Pendleton opened his eyes, now totally ringed with black where he had wept with pain.

‘Am I dying?’ he gasped.

‘I don’t know,’ John answered truthfully. ‘But I have sent for some medicine which should be here very soon. That will help you.’

The Apothecary meanwhile ushered out the macaroni who was uttering constant small shrieks, and tried to tidy up the ravaged face of the sick man. Without his enamel, kohl and carmine, the beau looked even worse. His skin was ravaged with pits and there were bags beneath his tired old eyes. He was infinitely pathetic and John felt a moment of intense pity for the poor man, even if what he suspected was true.

Irish Tom came in, panting and out of breath, and thrust a bottle into John’s hand together with some pads of lint. The Apothecary saturated several and laid them on Benedict’s temples and under his nostrils, hoping that this might revive him. But it was to no avail. He grew weaker if anything.

‘Is he slipping away?’ asked Tom in a whisper.

‘He’s having a massive heart attack,’ John whispered back. ‘If I’d been called to him in London I would have taken a goodly dose of the tincture of hawthorn berries. In fact it may not be too late to administer it. Tom, show your kindness and go to that apothecary’s shop again.’

Without a word of protest the coachman hurried out once more and John realised that he was feeling truly sorry for the afflicted man. A silence followed Tom’s departure, broken only by the rasping breathing of the invalid. Then a hand reached out and clasped John Rawlings’s shirt.

‘Hear my confession, I beg of you.’

‘But I am not a priest.’

‘No matter. I must speak before I leave the world. I can’t go unshriven.’

John looked round desperately. There was nobody remotely resembling a man of the cloth in sight and no time to send for one either. He leant over to hear the dying man’s words. Most of it he had guessed correctly. Benedict had been a run-down, seedy, small-time crook, involved in petty theft and confidence tricks. His life’s ambition had been to steal the Crown Jewels, but it had been a pipe dream only and he had never ventured further than the Tower’s gates. His favourite ploy was to approach people in the parks of London and relieve them of their watches. But things had gone from bad to worse and he had eventually stooped to being a paid assassin.

‘I know,’ John said quietly. ‘I was there when you shot the Earl of St Austell.’

Benedict’s face became even more ravaged.

‘I was starving and had fallen in with bad company.’

‘Do you mean the ill-named Herman Cushen?’

Benedict’s voice was very feeble now. ‘Yes, he was behind it all.’

‘I know he did not pay for the shooting,’ John said quietly, but there was no answer. In fact so quiet was the wretched old beau that John actually put his ear to his chest to hear if there was a heartbeat. There was. Faint but nonetheless there.

‘Where is Herman now?’ John asked quietly.

Shockingly, Benedict’s eyes opened fully. ‘Here. In Bristol.’

‘Whereabouts?’

The dying beau laughed, a ghastly sound because the death rattle was already in it. He said two words with his final breath – ‘Queer bitch’ – and then his miserable life came to an end, quickly and without further ado. John closed the staring ginger eyes and said, ‘God, please forgive him his sins,’ rather swiftly, because he was not at all sure of anything, then turned as the large and somehow terribly comforting frame of Irish Tom reappeared.

Several brandies later, Tom said, ‘I know you’ve told me the story before, but could you tell me again, just to refresh my memory?’

John smiled at him, a little of his tiredness beginning to show. ‘It was while I was staying in Devon, just after my sons were born. I was invited to the wedding of Miranda Tremayne and the elderly Earl of St Austell. Well, two assassins broke into the wedding feast and shot him dead – and several other people as well. They were dressed as women but it was fairly obvious that they were men in petticoats. To cut the story short, one of them was a young chap, later identified as Herman Cushen, who then went on the run and hasn’t been seen since. The other was the man who has just died, Benedict Pendleton.’

‘But how did you guess, Sorrh – I mean, John? What gave it away that he was one of the killers?’

‘Little things. The smell of pomade, a suspicion that I had seen the fellow before somewhere, his mannerisms. Pure luck really.’

‘I think it is a wondrous trick you have.’

‘I’ve a good memory, that’s all.’

‘Well, I think it is time we explored the night life of Bristol, if it’s all the same with you, John.’

The Apothecary stood up and stretched. He had left The Seven Stars once the physician had arrived, rather shaken by the day’s events, and now wanted nothing more than a nice clean bed somewhere. But this was obviously something that was not going to happen. Irish Tom had the bit between his teeth and was ready to venture amongst the riff and the raff of Bristol, keen as a hound with a scent on the trail of the real Augustus Bagot.

They left the ale house in which they had been sitting and made their way towards the docks. They followed two macaronis who minced along in front of them, their three-foot wigs topped by tiny
chapeau bras
.

‘Glory be to God and all the archangels,’ said Tom, quite loudly. ‘Have you ever seen such caricatures?’

‘Keep your voice down,’ answered John,
sotto voce
.

One of the pair, overhearing, turned to stare, and John was dazzled by the amount of make-up the fellow wore; everything that the paintbrush could throw had been plastered on his face, including a large black beauty spot.

‘Are you addressing me?’ he shrilled.

‘No, no,’ John answered hastily. ‘My coach – I mean, my friend – was merely remarking on the coldness of the evening.’

The macaroni approached and as he drew nearer John could see that he was quite middle-aged. Raising his quizzing glass he stared at John long and hard.

‘Look Gerard, I’ve think we’ve got a rum prancer here.’

Gerard wheeled on his high red heels. ‘By Jove, I think you’re right, Alastair. What a fine-looking boy, though filthy dirty and as poor as horse shit.’

‘Just a minute …’ exclaimed Irish Tom, putting up his fists.

‘Tom, stop it,’ ordered John, deliberately adopting a foreign accent and smiling at the pair of fops.

‘I declare I think we’ll take him to the Strawberry Fields with us. ’Twould be amusing, don’t you know.’

‘Please?’ said John, spreading his hands and looking puzzled.

‘Damme, he said please.’

The two creatures fell around the cobbles laughing, and while they were doing so John caught Tom’s eye and whispered, ‘This could be interesting.’

The Irishman shot him a look of disbelief and shook his head but kept quiet.

‘Now look here, my Italian friend – you are Italian, aren’t you? – how would you like to come and have a drink with us? Come on,
caro mio
, say yes.’

John calculated. The Strawberry Fields sounded interesting, a place of ill repute no doubt, but to go in dressed as a scoundrel and as the cat’s-paw of two macaronis was far from ideal. He shook his head.

‘No, Signor. Not tonight. I have other plans.’

‘Oh, come now, pretty boy. We want your company, la so we do.’

John turned to Irish Tom, shouted, ‘Run like hell,’ and took off at speed, careering over the cobbles and wishing he were in better condition. The macaronis clattered after him but their high heels forbade any serious chase and soon the sound of their pursuing footsteps died away. John and Tom slowed to a stop and stood, panting for a moment or two before looking round them.

They were in a street probably worse than the one John had found himself in recently. This was a festering alley with houses leaning so close together that it seemed they were likely to collide at any given moment. Rats scuttled about in the darkness and played in the filth in the middle of the path. Flickering candles dimly lit the ghastly interiors, but in one particular house there was more light and the low hum of voices came from within.

‘It’s a bordello,’ Tom whispered.

‘I know,’ John answered. ‘Shall we go in? At least we can have a drink and ask directions.’

‘But they will presume …’

‘They can presume what they like, we’ve got to find our way out of this hellhole somehow or other.’

They approached the front door of the house and the stink of unwashed flesh, rum and sweat came in a vapour to meet them. John raised a handkerchief to his nostrils but made his way in with a determined step. A woman with a pair of very fine breasts was standing in the hallway. She pulled her top down a little as they approached, exposing one firm nipple, the colour of a raspberry.

‘Hello gentlemen,’ she said in a sing-song voice. ‘What be your pleasure tonight?’

John raised his eyes to her face. ‘I’m sorry, Miss, my friend and I have lost our way and wondered if you could direct us to the harbour.’

She pealed with laughter and answered, ‘You’ll find plenty of willing harbours round here, good Sir. Now what takes your fancy? Ginger, dark or purest blonde?’

Her double entendre did not go amiss and John chuckled and raised a mobile brow. ‘Naught for me, thanks all the same. I am tired out already.’

But even as he spoke a well-built woman was coming down the stairs wearing nothing but a small black corset and a pair of white stockings. Over the top of the corset protruded a pair of enormous breasts. She flashed her handsome eyes at the two men and said, ‘Now which of you is it to be? Or would you like me to take you on at the same time? I’m quite used to that, and good at it too. I charge more for the back door, mind.’

‘Do you provide a scabbard for the sword?’ John asked.

‘Course we do,’ answered the woman with the raspberry nipple. ‘I can’t risk my girls catching anything.’

John grinned. ‘Go on, Tom. It will do you good. From what I hear you lead a fairly celibate life.’

‘I do and all, John.’ And no sooner were the words out of his mouth than Tom was whisked upstairs like a jack rabbit. The Apothecary smiled at his departing back and said, ‘I really am tired, Madam. I would enjoy it enormously if I could just sit and buy you something to drink.’

There was a room to the right of the bar which had once been a parlour, John imagined. He and the madame – who introduced herself as Maud – sat there drinking rum, while she kept an ear out for visitors. She had been, John thought, studying her carefully, an absolutely stunning girl, but years of bodily abuse and alcohol had produced lines of wretchedness on her face and her mouth which, when not speaking, drooped down at the corners in a sure sign of discontent. But for all her miserable existence she had a certain braveness, a certain flair, that the Apothecary found himself warming to.

‘So how long have you been in this business?’ he asked.

‘Whoring, you mean? Oh, since I was eleven. I was just a child when my mother put me on the streets to earn my keep.’