The Sweet Smell of Decay Read online

  Son,

  Still here. In this lairy place. Your mother seems happy tho. Must be the pigs that they breed here coz she likes pigs. Nothing here to gladden a man’s heart in Cocksmouth. Nothing for me to do save help her brother in the shed. Can’t make shoes here. You caring for the shop? Some hope. I note you haven’t been to visit. Your mother notes it too. You have a cuz, name of Anne. Married to a man called John Giles. Don’t think you knew your cuz Anne. Not likely to now coz she dead. Someone killed her. I took the liberty of telling William Prynne esq. that you have to leave his employ. We’ll be back when your grandmother is died. About time, I say.

  Your father.

  It still made no sense. It was improbable that there were two men working for Prynne that had fathers in Cocksmouth, so the author was presumably my beloved parent (male). In which case it was one of God’s most wondrous miracles since he had never written to me before in his whole life nor indeed had hardly spoken to me since I had learnt the art of speech myself. I didn’t even know he could write.

  ‘So who are you, Anne Giles? And how is it that I never knew you before?’ I asked the body. It made no reply. I thought I knew all my cousins intimately. Thieves and cutpurses most of ’em – on my mother’s side anyway – thou and thee-ers on my father’s side – drier than old biscuits. None of them was called Anne.

  Chapter Two

  Mushromes of severall sorts

  Any kind of fungus is always evil and when eaten, although its effect may not be felt immediately, after some time it has a bad effect on the inner working of the bowels.

  The holy house was thin and tall. It leant crooked over the street like a very old man about to fall over, held up only by the efforts of its sturdier neighbours. Evil looking heads stared down from corbels on every corner of the grim facade onto the busy street life below.

  Dowling waited for me with a sour face. He muttered at me and I mumbled back. We stepped through the buzzing throng without meaningful conversation and stood upon the threshold. A note was pinned to the door that said: ‘we walk by faith, not by sight’.

  ‘Corinthians.’ Dowling winked at me like it was a great secret. Why was he winking at me? I knew it was Corinthians. One of those sayings that rectors and other holy folk pronounce with great solemnity, yet is empty of all practical meaning. Try walking down Cheapside with your eyes closed – faith or no faith you’ll end up betwixt the hooves of a horse with every bone of your body broken.

  A servant showed us into the hall. He was more hideous than the corbels. The floor was laid with yellow and green Flemish tiles, suggesting a mercantile interest, and the walls were covered with wooden flower motifs and thick carved rings. Expensive. The servant bowed and led us up a polished staircase to a lovely old wooden door. It had its own knocker in the shape of a lamb’s head. Running my fingers over its rough bronze surface, I suddenly noticed that the servant was waiting to use it. Embarrassed, I stepped to one side and he opened it. Beyond it was dark.

  ‘Enter please,’ the servant leered, showing no signs of crossing the threshold himself. I obeyed, if only to escape the sensation that he sought to devour my kidneys. The door closed behind us.

  Darkness was relieved only by feeble tendrils of weak winter light that wriggled through small holes in the drawn curtains, and the glow of a small fire burning in the grate. Walking slowly towards the window I was careful not to bump into anything. The curtains were made of thick red velvet, luscious and gorgeous to touch. Worn thin in places, the pattern of light betrayed their age. Squinting into the warm gloom at the paintings and tapestries that hung from the wall opposite I could see that they were old and black, years of dirt hiding all but the brightest shades. Stern faces peered down at me with disapproving yellow eyes. Contorted figures stared at the ceiling – mostly representations of Christ. The air was thick with heavy scent, musty and clinging. The other walls were covered with books, leather-bound and thick. Not many people could afford to buy books, but the rector had hundreds. Slowly my eyes got used to the absence of light. So it was that I finally noticed a figure behind a great desk at the far end of the room sat in the shadows by himself.

  ‘Good morning,’ the man greeted us softly in a rich plummy voice. After standing up slowly, he adopted an elegant pose. ‘I was engaged in serious contemplation.’

  Dark, curly hair sat above black, bushy eyebrows like a mop. Stubble covered his lip and ran down his olive cheeks. He looked quite young, surprisingly, not much older than me. He wore a stiff black coat despite the warmth of the room and a collar that forced him to hold up his chin. The desk was made of thick carved oak and was covered with reams of paper, scattered goose-quills and stacks of books, carefully placed I reckoned.

  Sighing as if he was in great pain, he put the back of one hand against his forehead. ‘How gratifying that you should take such an interest in the desecration of my church. The people of this parish talk of little else. I fear that they will not cease their prating until the whole wicked affair is resolved. Until that time, law or no law, they will not venture past its doors. They will stay at home or else go to other parishes to do their worshipping.’

  Stifling a yawn I neglected to tell him that I held no interest whatsoever in his predicament. ‘Aye, it was my cousin that was killed.’

  He looked at me sharply with one beady, calculating black eye, then, lowering the hand, he proceeded to walk over to a shelf where he pulled down one of his books, the spine of which he stared at blankly. ‘There are dozens in London, some in this parish I know, waiting for a church appointment. They would see me in the gutter and not give a damn. They would call it providence, the will of God.’

  If that was truly the case then I should feel much better disposed towards God, for I didn’t like this fellow much, walking his study like it was a theatre stage.

  ‘Aye, the will of God,’ Dowling repeated solemnly. I looked at him in surprise. His face was blank and wore no expression that I could read.

  ‘Providence.’ The rector turned, suddenly animated. ‘There exist three possible reasons why the foul deed took place at Bride’s. You should know this; it may help you in your investigation. The three reasons are providence, popery and maleficium. We will deal with each in turn. Providence we shall dismiss first.’

  This man reminded me of the odious intellectuals I escaped from at Cambridge. Never consider the obvious, for it means you can’t quote the Holy Book.

  ‘Why does it have to be any of the three? Why not chance?’

  The rector looked at me as if I was a fool. It was a feeling I was used to in my life so it had no influence on me. ‘There is no such thing as chance, sir. The woman was not bound to the pulpit of my church and struck down by satanic agents by chance. She was killed for a reason, and she was killed at Bride’s.’

  I resisted the urge to growl. ‘Whoever killed her had to kill her somewhere. Bride’s is as good a place as any.’

  Laughing like Betty Howlett, he made a noise that was loud and shrill. I exchanged glances with Dowling – it was not a sound you expected to come from the rector’s big lips. ‘Sir.’ He spread his palms and shook his head sorrowfully. ‘A church is not as good a place as any to commit a murder. Were a man to kill in so abominable a fashion with no clear intention as to where he would do the deed, then providence or maleficium should intervene, else he would do it somewhere more appropriate. He would commit the foul deed in a place quiet and desolate, where the deed was unlikely to be discovered. Would you not say so?’ To my annoyance he turned to Dowling.

  ‘Aye.’ Dowling nodded slowly, lower lip protruding in serious contemplation. I considered poking him in the ribs. Why was he encouraging this bumble-turd?

  ‘So. Then we must consider why the deed was done at Bride’s. As I said, there are three possible causes. First, providence. Providence is God’s will.’ He nodded at me as if I did not know the meaning of the word ‘providence’. ‘You will accept that I do not favour the theory of providence, for it implie
s that God has no regard for the good fortune of one of his own.’

  ‘You, you mean?’ If I was God, then this was precisely the kind of fellow I would like to strike down with a thunderbolt or two.

  ‘Yes, sir. I mean me. If it was God’s will, then it was God’s will that it happen at one of his own houses, in this case the house that I look after on his behalf. Were it providence, then it is difficult to consider why he should want to desecrate one of his own houses were it not to comment upon the keeper of that house.’

  ‘Or the people in it?’ I looked sideways to see what Dowling was thinking. His face was bright and innocent and he wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  ‘Yes sir, or the people in it. And it is indeed true that we have some of the worst vagabonds and ne’er-do-wells of London in this parish. There are those who come to my church every prayer time, always late, and proceed to chat and gossip with their neighbours, or even fall asleep. I have had to have serious words with some young men of this parish, who I know for certain come here to meet young ladies and proposition them. Those are the ones that come. The ones that don’t come go bowling or drinking. We have most of the City’s whores living in Fleet Alley and most of its criminals in Alsatia. This is clear, but it does not make the theory of providence any easier. For if the death of the woman is providence, then it suggests that the parish is beyond redemption and the efforts of its minister hopeless.’ The rector leant forwards with his hands upon the desk.

  Indeed I imagined that his efforts probably were hopeless. About as hopeless as a dog with no balls.

  ‘This is, however, a credible theory, and one which the people of this parish will be considering even now. England is God’s chosen land and yet the efforts of its children are lewd, wicked even, in honouring God for that privilege. My flock are amongst the lewdest, and look forward to the day when they may return to the wine and the dancing and the bawdy houses. They seek the easy route to salvation, and would have me provide it for them.’

  ‘So we may dismiss the theory that Anne Giles was killed at Bride’s because it was God’s will,’ Dowling summarised before I could argue with the man’s conceited logic. The summary was for my benefit, I realised, that I waste no further time upon an argument that we both knew to be ludicrous in any case.

  ‘Granted,’ the rector nodded, as if the logic was ours. ‘So now we will dismiss popery, the work of the Catholics.’ He placed his forefingers at the top of his nose. ‘This is not so clear, for I have heard of such things before. In this case, though, I cannot see any reason why Catholics should have chosen my church.’ The rector looked to Dowling again, eyebrows arched and palms spread wide. Clearly he did not want to debate it with me, which was just as well, for I had little tolerance for those that blamed the Catholics for everything that went wrong in their lives.

  ‘I don’t see why Catholics should select your church, good sir, unless you have particular argument with them. Even if you did, then I would not credit even the Catholics with the devilry that took Anne Giles.’

  Well spoken, butcher – I commended him silently.

  ‘The Catholic Church is led by the Antichrist, and I am not so certain that the nature of the deed excludes popery, but as you say – why choose Bride’s? Which leaves maleficium. Maleficium, as you know, is that power to do harm by use of supernatural powers.’ He was looking at me again.

  Enough of this nonsense. ‘How many keys are there to Bride’s?’ I demanded. The rector didn’t answer, just looked at me with his mouth slightly open.

  ‘Good sir, the man that killed Anne Giles entered your church with a key – betimes you left the door unlocked,’ Dowling explained gently.

  The rector shook his head vigorously. ‘Impossible.’

  ‘Unless you left the door open, how else may we explain the fact that there is no damage to the door?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, I hadn’t thought about it. As you say, it is very strange. This is an interesting piece of information that would further support a theory of maleficium. That someone managed to enter the church even though the door was locked points to witchery and sorcery.’

  Godamercy – the man was ingenious. ‘How many keys are there?’ I asked again, unable to suppress from my tone the impatience that gnawed at my guts. Looking down, the rector slowly pulled open a drawer of the heavy chiselled desk. He poked about it with a long elegant forefinger before slowly closing it. ‘There are two keys,’ he said at last, ‘and one is missing from my desk. I don’t know who took it.’ He didn’t even have the grace to look sheepish.

  ‘The man who took that key was likely the man that killed Anne Giles, else gave it to the man that killed Anne Giles,’ Dowling rightly identified the need to spell out the obvious.

  ‘Yes, sir. That is a credible theory, but do not rule out maleficium. It should be easy for a witch to take the key and spirit it away without even having to enter the house. Or perhaps persuade one of my servants to take it against their will and outside their waking memory.’ The rector looked into space, apparently deep in thought.

  ‘It seems to me, sir, that the theory of maleficium is most attractive to you only because it permits you to be done with the notion that it was providence,’ Dowling remarked. I regarded the butcher with a new admiration. Now we were getting closer to the point.

  ‘Not so,’ the rector blinked. ‘You forget that the murder was bloody and very wicked. The woman was not by any account a wicked person, yet the deed itself was wicked. The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, not the house of the Lord himself. And all of this reminds me of something that happened not so long ago.’

  ‘What was that, good sir?’

  ‘There is an old woman that until lately came to prayer without fail. She didn’t sing the psalms, nor even did she appear to pray. Always she would sit at the back and watch, never said anything, never spoke. In the two years I have been here I have not heard her proclaim any word. Then recently she applied for the pensions list. Well, she was widowed many years ago and nothing had changed of her circumstances. She continued to earn money from the selling of meats, I certainly saw her doing so on several occasions. It seemed to me that she merely desired to stop working, and sought a pension to support her idleness. On that basis I turned her down.’ He looked away with pink cheeks.

  ‘And what was her response, sir?’

  ‘She made no response. She stopped coming to church,’ he answered severely. ‘I’ve seen her since, selling meat on the street. Why, then, did she stop coming to church? Only on the basis that she was refused a pension? After so many years? That indicates to me that although she said nothing upon being refused her pension, still she was maddened. Perhaps she cursed me. Maybe she has been cursed herself and can no longer stand to be in God’s house.’

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t like your sermons,’ said I before I could stop myself.

  ‘Exactly!’ exclaimed the rector, thankfully missing the point. ‘It is well known that she has a teat on her upper body from which she may give sustenance to whatever wicked spirits there are that may dwell in these parts, which God knows are likely very many. Never was she able to recite the Lord’s Prayer nor the Creed, not word for word.’

  Witch-hunting was an old sport. An accusation would be followed by torture until a confession was obtained. Then the rector would be free to stage a public exorcism, a cleansing of his church and parish with him as blessed cleanser, and the poor wretch hung by the neck, burnt alive or drowned. I looked to Dowling for help. He sat expressionless and impassive.

  ‘Sir, I know you by your noble reputation,’ Dowling said cautiously. ‘I know you as a learned man and a wise man. I am much surprised to hear you talk of witchery. It is my understanding that the learned give little to notions of witchery and maleficium. These are the superstitions of the poor and uneducated, and the Presbyterian Scots.’

  ‘I think you are telling me your own views, sir,’ replied the rector firmly, ‘but they are not the views of the sec
ular courts, one of whose tasks it is to ensure the prosecution of black magic and maleficium. God himself spake through Moses; “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Until two years ago this church was ministered by an Independent, I know not what he preached to these people, for none will relate it to me, so I must presume that it was heresy. Where there is the stink of heresy one cannot rule out that witchery has grown from the seed so planted. Give up witches, give up the Bible.’

  ‘I am a humble man,’ I said untruthfully, ‘but in my turn I also divine that you disfavour providence because of its consequences. How can you be sure that the slayer did not take the key from your desk?’

  ‘I cannot. That is my sadness, sir. Now that you bring it to my attention the theory of providence becomes strong again. I simply cast my net wide so that I might catch the right fish.’ The fisher of men ran his talons through the tight black curls upon his head.

  ‘The Devil needs no witches to do his deeds. He is able to do his own deeds.’ Dowling looked cross.

  The rector nodded thoughtfully. ‘You may not dismiss maleficium so easily. The Devil uses witches because he uses witches. The issue of need is not at issue here. If you are investigating this murder, then you must consider witchery. Indeed, even if the key were stolen, it is just as likely to be maleficium as providence. You must agree!’