CHAPTER 9

Wood Wharf

Wood Wharf was just west of the private river stairs of Leicester House. In former times, it had been a busy wharf used for unloading wood used in the construction of sumptuous houses along the Strand. Now that the area was built up, it had become obsolete and a larger wharf had been built further east where the river was deeper and larger ships could anchor safely. The wharf was still occasionally operational as an unloading dock for exotic woods brought back from the voyages of Sir Francis Drake and in high demand by the rich, but nowadays it was mainly used as a landing for wherries and all manner of river craft disembarking people with business on the Strand.

When Nick arrived, the wharf was deserted aside from a couple of disconsolate seagulls blown inland from the Wash. So miserable were they that they didn’t budge even when Hector gave them an obligatory woof. A few wherries were tied up, bobbing forlornly on the choppy swell, but there was no sign of their wherrymen. Probably wisely in The Angel trying to keep dry, Nick thought. Very few craft were on the Thames in this weather. Most of the shipping was further east, riding their anchors with the hatches snugly battened down. A derelict hut completed the picture of abandonment.

Even though he knew he would likely find no signs of blood or a struggle, let alone the three sets of footprints spotted by Eli—the murder had occurred two weeks ago and it had been raining steadily ever since—Nick always found that the scene of a crime spoke to him in some way, if only by allowing him to see the last thing the victim had seen before he or she died. Then Nick remembered that Winchelsea’s eyes had been put out, and he shuddered. He would not have seen anything.

Nick did not think Winchelsea’s torture was primarily to extract information. The act of putting out a man’s eyes told Nick that Winchelsea had recognized someone he knew. The blinding had been a sadistic reference to that, a hellish twist on the concept of the punishment fitting the crime. Much like a cruel nursemaid washing a child’s mouth out with lye for swearing. It took a special kind of monster to take joy in another’s pain, let alone endow it with irony.

Nick looked about him: the wharf was too far away from the great mansions of Leicester House on the east and Arundel House on the west for anyone to have seen anything through an upstairs window. Besides, at night it would have been as black as Hades. His only hope was that a wherryman or a night watchman patrolling the Strand to the north had seen or heard something untoward, although how he would be able to find a possible witness, Nick did not know.

Squatting down on the edge of the jetty, he ran his fingers over the edge. The sodden wood showed no signs of fresh splinters. The river sloshed over the edge and then was sucked back. Winchelsea must have been dead when he went into the water and had not clawed at the jetty. Nick checked for bloodstains, but the surface was so rotted and waterlogged and the time that had elapsed so long that he was not surprised to find none. He stood and looked around. Hector was pawing at the door of the shed. This was where Eli reckoned the murder had taken place.

Leaning drunkenly against a siding at the far end of the wharf, the structure was so rotted it looked as if it had been built in old King Harry’s time. The door sagged on broken hinges. Nick entered. Hector immediately began pawing at the ground, whining. As his eyes adjusted, Nick saw a large brown stain. Hunkering down, he scraped up some of the hard-packed dirt and rubbed it between his fingers. A smear of what looked like rust mingled with dirt stained his fingertips. Blood. Then he put his fingers to his nose and recoiled. The smell of decay was unmistakable. Eli was right. Winchelsea had been tortured here, and judging from the size of the stain, his throat had been cut while he lay blinded and helpless on the floor.

Nick noticed a huge hole in the planks of the back wall, as if someone had kicked it in. He went out of the shed and round to the back. Close to the wall, waist-high weeds in a patch of rampant vegetation had been flattened, and in the muddy ground Nick could make out two deep grooves, as if someone had been dragged backward while their hands clawed desperately at the dirt. There was no sign of blood in the weeds, but Nick hadn’t expected any. The mutilation and killing had been done in the hut.

Nick returned to the hut and began to search the floor, sifting through the debris left by vagrants looking for shelter—a broken pipe, a torn playing card—methodically scraping the floor of rat droppings and wood splinters with the blade of his knife. A stone bottle lay in the corner, its base shattered. Nick picked it up and saw dark stains and hairs along its jagged edge. Most likely, Winchelsea had been stunned by a blow to the head. That explained how he could have been tightly trussed with a belt around his chest.

Hector was digging in a spot near the corner, and when Nick went to investigate, he saw a gleam of metal embedded in the dirt. Levering it out with his knife, he saw it was a tarnished silver medal.

“Good boy,” he said to Hector.

Buffing it up on his jerkin, he examined it in the poor light of the shed but could only make out a crude design on the front. The back was completely plain. It could have belonged to Winchelsea and fallen to the ground unnoticed, but Nick had the feeling it belonged to his killer. If the killer had torn it from Winchelsea’s neck in order to rob him, he would have pocketed it immediately.

Suddenly Hector gave a warning growl, and Nick stuck his head outside. At the end of the lane leading from the Strand to Wood Wharf, he saw Henry Gavell and Richard Stace crowding a third figure, shoving him back and forth between them as if they were playing catch. Nick realized it was Edmund. Then Nick saw Stace hit him in the stomach and Edmund collapse to his knees. A mighty kick sent him sprawling onto his side.

Nick ran toward the men, Hector at his heels. Gavell and Stace were kicking Edmund in the ribs and legs. He was curled into a ball with his hands over his head.

“Mewling little suck-up,” Gavell was saying. “Licking Essex’s arse by bringing him that git Holt. Useless. Fucking. Prick.” These last three words punctuated by vicious kicks.

Nick grabbed Gavell from behind, lifted him off his feet, and threw him bodily into Stace. Gavell bounced off his friend’s chest and crumpled to the ground as if he had hit a stone wall. Stace blinked like an ox sighting a red flag, then lumbered toward Nick, a dagger suddenly materializing in his hand.

“Guard,” Nick commanded Hector, pointing at Gavell. Immediately the dog placed himself within inches of the prone man’s neck, lips peeled back, his teeth showing. Gavell, who had been in the process of getting to his feet, wisely froze.

Chancing a quick glance behind him, Nick saw he had his back to the river. Not good. Stace took another step, a mindless grin stretching his lips, his knife hand held wide, away from his body. Nick’s assessment of the man at their first meeting at Leicester House had been correct. Stace relied on strength rather than agility, and it seemed to take an age for him to close the gap between himself and Nick. Just as Stace was within striking distance, Nick sidestepped his knife hand and punched him in the throat. Stace’s eyes goggled, and dropping the knife in shock, he sank to his knees, gurgling. Nick finished him off with a kick in the groin. The man toppled sideways and lay there, gasping, like a beached trout.

Calmly, Nick picked up Stace’s knife and stuck it though his belt. He relieved Gavell of the dagger on his belt and did the same with it. Later he would show them to Eli and see if he thought either could have been the knife used to kill Winchelsea. He didn’t hold out much hope; most men carried knives with which to eat. They were as common as cloaks or boots.

Nick motioned to Hector to stand down as Edmund staggered over.

“Are you hurt?” Nick asked. It was becoming a familiar question.

Edmund shook his head, but he was holding his wounded shoulder as if the stitches had burst, and his face was deathly pale. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

“Nice move,” Gavell said, nodding at Stace, who was still gasping, his face a nasty shade of puce. If he was concerned for his friend, there was no sign of it. He got to his feet and casually dusted off his hose.

Nick shrugged.

“Me and Richie don’t like you.” Gavell spat, the gobbet landing next to the toe of Nick’s boot.

“I’m heartbroken.”

Gavell jerked his thumb at Edmund. “And we don’t like him, neither.”

“So far that only tells me you don’t have many friends,” Nick said. “Must be lonely with only that ape for company. It also tells me that you and your sidekick are cowards. Two against one is not very sporting.”

Despite the deadly insult impugning his courage—one that would have instantly provoked a duel if Nick were dealing with a gentleman—Gavell, he could see, was reevaluating the situation. If he had been alone, Nick had no doubt the men would have jumped him and beaten him to a pulp as they’d been about to do to Edmund. Perhaps even killed him. They already knew Edmund was rubbish in a fight, but Hector was another matter. His jaws were large enough to rip off an arm. It would be interesting to see if they were brave or stupid enough to take on not only Nick but also, potentially, his dog.

Gavell stuck his thumbs in his belt. “We were following him.” He jerked his head at Edmund. “But seeing as you’re here, we might as well give you a warning.” He grinned. “A verbal warning.”

Not stupid, then.

“Stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Nick said. “I’ll take it to heart.”

Gavell gave a sneer. “You toffs are all the same,” he said. “Think your birth gives you the right to do anything you want. Treat the likes of us like dirt.”

Nick moved forward a pace, but Gavell took a step back. At that moment, Nick knew it was over. He also knew he had made mortal enemies of these men and that they would try to find a way to injure or kill him. Not face-to-face in the open but on a dark night in some deserted alley when his guard was down.

*   *   *

“Do me a favor,” Nick said to Edmund after Gavell and Stace had left. “Stop following me around.”

“Sorry,” Edmund said. “I thought I could help.”

They walked in silence. Nick’s initial impression that the Edmund he had known at Oxford had grown into a man had been wishful thinking. This bumbling ingenue Edmund was the same as the adolescent Edmund. Doglike in devotion, impossible to hate, but always underfoot.

When they reached the front of Leicester House, Nick did not stop.

“Aren’t you coming in?” Edmund asked.

“I’m off to see a friend,” Nick said. “And before you ask: no, you can’t come.”

“Oh,” Edmund said, obviously crestfallen. Then he brightened. “But I’ll see you later?”

“Possibly,” Nick replied, suppressing a sigh.