did he? What was the family’s name?’
‘I will have to see if I can recall. Give you good night, Bruno. Sleep well.’
I could hear the smile in his voice as he turned over. I called him a son of a whore under my breath in Italian and flung myself back on the bed, all thoughts of sleep banished. Moonlight slanted through the narrow casement; I stared at the patterns it cast on the wall while I considered that Sophia Underhill, the woman who had troubled my dreams in all her various names since I first encountered her in Oxford three years ago, might be out there somewhere in the same city, perhaps only streets away. I turned on to my side, and heard a furtive rustling from Gifford’s pallet, a sound I knew all too well from years confined as a Dominican friar; the boy was furiously frotting himself, no doubt thinking of his new love’s noble character. Madonna porca. I was too old to be sharing a bedchamber with worked-up boys. I rolled on my back and recalled my last meeting with Sophia in Paris, when she still called herself Mary Gifford. She had fled to France to escape the law in England, but she had always meant to return; she had left behind a child, taken from her at birth because she was unmarried, but she had not given up her dream of finding him again. If she had hastened her return to London, it could only mean she had received news that gave her reason to hope. If I could see her, perhaps I could be of use to her in her quest. Then I remembered that, if I stayed in London, it would be as a Spanish Jesuit and my time would be taken up conspiring to regicide; it would be all but impossible for me to see anything of Sophia in that guise. Even so – if Gifford was telling the truth, her presence here was another reason to consider staying.
The boy made a noise like a strangled fox as he finished and was snoring within minutes. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if any of the possible rewards of this business would be worth the price.
The next day I woke early, blinking into a chilly light, aches deep in my shoulders and thighs from two days in the saddle. Gifford lay sprawled on his pallet, twitching in dreams like a dog, but I could hear low voices from the adjoining room, so I splashed water over my face and quietly pulled on my clothes, thinking Walsingham must have come for my answer. Instead I approached the half-open door to hear Phelippes in hushed conversation with a tall man who had his back to me. I could see only that he was dark-haired and wore a rust-brown leather jerkin patched on the shoulders.
‘Master Secretary mentioned nothing about this last night,’ Phelippes was saying, his voice impatient.
‘I have just now come from Seething Lane,’ the stranger said, in an accent that sounded to my ears like that of the London boatmen. ‘The Italian is to come with me to Southwark.’
‘This makes no sense. Why would Master Secretary send him poking about the scene of the death in broad daylight, when the killers may be watching the place to see precisely who comes asking questions? And you, Master Poole – I would have thought you were the last person—’
‘Perhaps you don’t know his every thought, Thomas.’ The newcomer’s voice was tight. ‘Master Secretary wants the Italian’s view on the business. Don’t ask me why – I didn’t question it. But he did say for him to cover his head with a hat and his face with a kerchief. And tell him not to shave.’
‘Does he decide the length of my beard now?’ I said, pushing the door open. Phelippes glanced up without surprise; he was still sitting behind his desk making notes on his papers as I had left him, and it was impossible to tell from his face whether he had been there all night. The tall man turned and I saw that he was in his early thirties, good-looking in a dishevelled way, with a strong jaw and thick eyebrows that met in a V above his nose. It seemed from a soreness around his eyes that he had cried recently, or perhaps it was only the dust of the streets.
Phelippes waved a hand at him. ‘Doctor Bruno, this is Master Robin Poole, supposedly come from Seething Lane to conduct you to Southwark, though I am not persuaded this is a good use of your time.’
Robin Poole met my look and rolled his eyes in what I took as a complicit comment on Phelippes and his blunt ways. So this was the brother of the dead girl, the one who wanted to run her alleged killers through without waiting for evidence. Though his face appeared open, I could not help but concede that Phelippes might be right; it seemed unlikely that Walsingham would send this man to investigate the murder of his own sister. Master Secretary distrusted anyone who could not keep a tight rein on their emotions, especially when engaged on his business, and a man in the throes of grief was not the best judge of his own actions. I inclined my head and waited. He thrust his hand out and I shook it in the English fashion.
‘Giordano Bruno.’
‘I know. You are to come with me, but cover your face. I have a horse outside.’
I glanced at Phelippes. ‘On what business?’
Impatience flashed across Poole’s eyes, but he kept his countenance. ‘I will brief you on the way. Master Secretary wants your view of things.’
‘What things?’ If Walsingham had given these orders, he must have a purpose. Perhaps he had considered it wise to let Poole feel he was playing some active part in the investigation, but wanted me there to ensure he didn’t blunder.
‘You ask a lot of questions. This murder.’ Muscles tensed along his jaw, but his voice remained steady. ‘He says you have a trained eye.’
I thought I caught a note of scepticism, but perhaps that was my imagination. I gave a brisk nod.
‘Is there anything to eat?’
Phelippes sniffed. ‘This is not an inn, Doctor Bruno. Ask Master Poole if you wish to break your fast on the way, he claims to have your needs in hand. I hope you are not being dragged on a fool’s errand. We have little time to lose as it is – the girl’s death has disrupted everything.’
Poole held the door for me, raising his eyebrows again to make clear his feelings about Phelippes. When I joined him on the stairs with a hat pulled down over my ears and a kerchief tied around the lower half of my face, he gave me a cursory glance of approval and signalled for me to follow him. I noticed that he walked with a slight limp in his right leg. He didn’t speak until we were outside, where a boy with scabs on his lip held an old but solid-looking grey mare by a rope halter.
‘You’ll have to ride behind me.’ Poole pulled himself into the saddle with an easy, practised movement that almost disguised the way he nudged his right leg over subtly with his hand. I climbed up behind him, wincing at my aching muscles. He slipped the boy a coin and we turned out of Leadenhall down Gracechurch Street towards London Bridge.
‘There is something wrong with that man,’ he said, after a while, as if challenging me to disagree.
‘Phelippes? He is unusual, I grant. But I have studied the art of memory for nearly twenty years and only ever met one other with natural faculties like his.’
Poole grunted. ‘I still say he is touched. The man behaves as if he has never known a human feeling. Mark how he spoke of my sister, as if her death is no more than an inconvenience. And he believes Master Secretary can’t scratch his arse without he, Thomas, weighs up the cost and stamps five papers to approve it.’
I laughed, though I was not sure if it was intended as a joke, but I felt him relax. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ I said, as we passed down New Fish Street with the great gatehouse arch of the bridge in sight. The streets were already busy with traders’ carts, and goodwives on their way to market, baskets jutting from their hips. Gulls wheeled overhead, loosing lonely cries. The air was cold, carrying the dirt
