What the Devil Knows Read online

“I’ve been here ten years,” the Reverend Marcus York told Sebastian as the two men walked the gravel paths of the churchyard, the hem of the reverend’s black cassock swishing against the long grass that choked the tightly packed tombs and endless lichen-covered headstones around them. The sky above was gray, the cold wind filling the air with yellow and brown leaves spinning down from a nearby row of linden trees. “Ten years. And people like Mrs. Cockerwell still—” He broke off and pressed his lips together lightly. “I shan’t say more. The poor woman’s only just lost her husband.”

  “So tell me about him,” said Sebastian. “But please don’t censor your words simply because he’s dead. I won’t be able to understand how he came to die if I’m only given a false impression of the man he was.”

  The Reverend York swung to face him, his pale blue eyes widening, his homely features tense and twitching. He was an extraordinarily tall, thin man somewhere in his thirties, with a long neck, limp nondescript brown hair, and a bony face. “You’re serious?”

  “Very. How else am I to understand what’s happening around here?”

  The reverend drew a deep breath, then nodded and continued walking, his gaze fixed straight ahead, his brows drawn as if he found the license to speak ill of the dead profoundly troubling. “Very well, if you insist. The truth is, Nathan Cockerwell was a corrupt, conscienceless thief who bled this poor parish of every groat he could—and then some.”

  Sebastian blinked. “And Pym?”

  “Was much the same.”

  “Both men began as bricklayers?”

  “Not really. Their fathers were bricklayers who somehow managed to acquire enough capital to finance the building of a block of cheap, poorly constructed houses. From there they spread their influence and control until they eventually came to own a great deal of real estate in the area. I can’t say for certain, since I wasn’t here at the time, but from what I’ve heard, I think one could safely surmise that both men shared their sons’ bare-knuckle ruthlessness and utter lack of scruples. We had someone similar in the Wolds when I was growing up.”

  “You’re originally from Lincolnshire?”

  “I am, yes. My father has the living at Maplethorpe. Pym was always telling me to go back there and take what he called my ‘quaint antiquated notions’ with me.”

  “And which of your antiquated notions did he find most objectionable?”

  “It’s difficult to say. Perhaps my conviction that churchwardens shouldn’t treat the Poor Fund as their own private purse? Or that taxes should be assessed fairly rather than lightened as a reward for one’s cronies and made ruinously onerous for one’s enemies?”

  “Pym and Cockerwell did that?”

  “That and more. The East End is a cesspool of corruption, the magnitude of which I suspect most would find difficult to believe.”

  “So exactly which of his sins drove you to quarrel with Cockerwell last week?”

  The reverend looked away, a faint flush creeping up to color his thin, sunken cheeks. “Heard about that, did you?”

  “Yes.”

  York sighed. “I fear there is a long-standing corrupt alliance between the Middlesex justices of the peace and some of the city’s richest, most powerful brewers. The county magistrates issue the publicans’ licenses every September at the Brewster Sessions. And if a publican won’t pay a bribe and commit to exclusively carrying the right beers, the justices refuse to grant or renew his license. Last September’s Sessions was particularly venal, and I objected. Vociferously.”

  “And that led to a heated argument?”

  “I fear most of my disagreements with Cockerwell were heated. He was a choleric gentleman, and I . . . I can become passionate when the powerful use their positions to destroy good, simple men.”

  “Cockerwell and Pym did that?”

  “Constantly. I’ve lost count of the number of tradesmen forced to sell out and move because their taxes were unfairly leveled at ruinous rates, or the publicans who’ve been thrown into debt when their license renewals were unfairly rejected.”

  “Anyone recently?”

  “Oh, yes. Cockerwell and I crossed words over a family that lost their house after the justices took away their license and refused to renew it. Ryker was the man’s name. Ian Ryker.”

  “Are they still around?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “Did you by any chance know the seaman who was killed ten days ago? Hugo Reeves?”

  The reverend shook his head. “I know he was born and raised in the parish, but I never actually saw him until the day I buried him.”

  “Did you ever hear of any connection between Reeves and the two magistrates?”

  “No. I don’t see how there could be one, surely?”

  “Who do you think killed them?”

  “I don’t know. Believe me, I wish I could be of more help to you. I’ve a wife and seven children, and I find these renewed killings beyond terrifying. Everyone is buying cutlasses and blunderbusses, but somehow it doesn’t seem quite right for a man of God to do the same.”

  “Do you think there’s a connection between the new murders and what happened three years ago?”

  “Well, there must be, surely?” The vicar nodded to a tall monument of gray stone that stood near the apse of the church and was only beginning to weather with the passage of the years. “I buried them, you know—the Marrs, I mean. The husband in one coffin, the wife and her babe in another. Who would do that? Who would slaughter a poor, defenseless child and his mother?”

  “Did you know them?”

  “The Marrs? Oh, yes. They came to services regularly every Sunday. I baptized—” He broke off and had to swallow before he could continue. “I baptized little Timothy. And then three months later, I buried him.”

  “The other victims—the ones from the King’s Arms—were buried at St. Paul’s?”

  York nodded. “Yes. It was their parish.”

  “Did you know John Williams, the man accused of killing them?”

  “No. Only what I read in the papers.” A bleak, haunted look came over his expressive face. “After the Marrs were killed, their bodies were laid on their beds and the house opened up so that everyone in the neighborhood could see them.” He swallowed. “The blood wasn’t even washed from their wounds.”

  “You saw them?”

  He nodded. “It was a hideous sight. Afterwards I wondered why I went—why any of us went. I suppose many were attracted by the spectacle—the same compulsion that draws people to hangings and cockfights and bull-baitings. But that’s not why I went.”

  “So why did you go?”

  “I think it was because a part of me didn’t want to believe the horror of what people were saying had happened.” He looked vaguely discomfited. “I suppose, like so many clergymen, I have a tendency toward naïveté. I like to believe the best of Our Lord’s creatures. I mean, I knew such dreadful things happen in time of war. But here? In London? On a calm December night?” He shook his head. “Until I saw that poor, savagely murdered family with my own eyes, I somehow couldn’t accept it as real.” He paused. “And now it’s happening again.”

  “You don’t have any idea at all who could be doing this?”

  “No. Pym and Cockerwell were evil men, but the violence of the attacks upon them . . . It’s beyond shocking.”

  “This publican you were telling me about—Ian Ryker. Was he originally from Wapping?”

  “I believe so. The son was a rifleman newly returned from the wars. He actually threatened Cockerwell and Pym at the Sessions.”

  “He did?”

  “Oh, yes, quite explicitly. Then he turned and strode from the Sessions House before the magistrates collected their wits enough to order him taken up. He’s said to have left the area, but I don’t know where he’s gone. You don’t—” His eyes widened. “Good heavens, you
can’t think he’s the one doing this?”

  “Probably not,” said Sebastian, his gaze drawn again to the three-year-old stone monument near the church’s east end, its base half-buried beneath a pile of windblown dead leaves.

  Chapter 18

  Grace Calhoun’s Red Lion Inn lay in a decrepit back alley not far from the vast, death-haunted market of Smithfield. Every week great herds of bawling cattle, sheep, and goats were driven to Smithfield through the streets of London to be slaughtered. Two hundred years before, in the days of the Tudors, Bloody Queen Mary had used the conveniently open space to burn Protestants to save their souls, and her sister, Elizabeth, had in turn used it to burn an even greater number of Catholics, because that’s what royals did with people they hated.

  Dusk was gathering by the time Sebastian walked into the ancient inn’s smoky taproom. The trestle tables and old-fashioned booths were crowded with the usual assortment of thieves, pickpockets, highwaymen, and whores, for the Red Lion had a well-earned reputation as one of the worst flash houses in London. It was here that Jules Calhoun had come of age, and here that his mother still spent much of her time.

  “She’s back there,” growled the beefy man behind the bar, jerking his head toward a small cabinet tucked beneath the rickety stairs leading to the second story. “If’n that’s why yer here.”

  “It is. Thank you.”

  The barman grunted and turned away.

  Sebastian found Grace Calhoun looking over an assortment of pewter tankards and other items scattered across a small table in front of her. She was a tall woman, still slender and attractive, with thick dark hair only lightly touched by gray and cold, shrewd eyes that narrowed at his approach.

  “Told Jules I’d send word when I heard from Seamus Faddy,” she said when Sebastian came to stand in the doorway. “And I ain’t.”

  “This isn’t about Faddy.”

  “No?”

  Sebastian shook his head. “I’m hearing talk about the magistrates who sit on the Middlesex licensing committee—that they regularly demand bribes and force publicans to commit to only selling beer from their favored breweries. You know anything about that?”

  Grace twitched one shoulder and set aside the tankard she’d been inspecting. “There’s a reason most of my houses have all been in the City. This business is hard enough without havin’ t’ deal with a bunch of corrupt old Middlesex wankers in wigs.”

  “So it’s true?”

  She huffed a scornful laugh. “Find that hard to believe, do ye, yer lordship?”

  “Which breweries are we talking about?”

  “The Black Eagle is probably the worst of them, and Meux and Company. Used t’ be most public houses brewed their own beer. But these days the big breweries’ve made it too hard for us t’ get the ingredients.” She picked up a silver pocket watch with an ornately carved case. “Of course, bribin’ corrupt magistrates is only one of the ways breweries control publicans. They’ve others.”

  “Such as?”

  She turned the watch in her hand, studying it. “Well, there’s loan-ties. Brewers are rich, while the sort o’ folks who keep taverns aren’t. So the breweries lend money to publicans lookin’ to buy a house or havin’ a run o’ bad luck.”

  “And in exchange the publicans commit to buying only from that brewery?”

  “Clever, huh?”

  “What happens if a publican reneges on the deal?”

  “I knew a tavern owner in St. Giles tried that. Meux sent twenty draymen with horsewhips to change his mind.”

  “I assume it worked?”

  A lock of hair fell onto her forehead, and her gaze met his as she brought up a hand to push it back with her curled wrist. “What do you think?”

  He watched her move on to an enameled snuffbox. He seriously doubted this assortment of disparate objects had been legally assembled, but all he said was, “You ever hear of a Wapping publican named Ian Ryker?”

  “Why you wantin’ to know?”

  “I understand he tangled with Nathan Cockerwell at the last Brewster Sessions.”

  She shook her head. “The Ian Ryker I knew is dead.”

  “Since when?”

  “Last summer. He had a son, though, also named Ian. He was with the army in Spain, but he’s back now.”

  “Any idea where I might find him?”

  “Last I heard, he’d taken up with the woman who now owns the Black Devil in Bishopsgate.” She paused, and for a moment he found it hard to breathe as she looked up, her face carefully wiped clean of anything he might have read there as she met his gaze. He thought she might say something more.

  But she didn’t.

  * * *

  The Black Devil was a half-timbered, picturesque Tudor relic with diamond-paned windows and a high gabled roof that lay to the east of Smithfield in an old part of the city that had somehow escaped the ravages of the Great Fire of 1666. Once it had belonged to an ex-rifleman named Jamie Knox, a man who looked enough like Sebastian that the two could have been brothers.

  Or half brothers.

  The true nature of the connection between Sebastian and the mysterious tavern owner remained unknown. Sebastian was the Earl of Hendon’s heir, but he was not, in truth, Hendon’s son. His true sire remained unknown, as did Knox’s. Knox’s mother had been a Shropshire barmaid who’d claimed her baby’s father could be one of three men: a Romany stable hand, an unidentified English lord, or a similarly unidentified Welsh cavalry officer. The two men’s eerie resemblance had alternately intrigued, baffled, and troubled both for over a year. And then one dark, rain-blown night, a bullet meant for Sebastian had slammed into Knox’s chest, and Sebastian had been left to wonder if he’d just lost a half brother he didn’t even know he had.

  The Black Devil backed onto the elm-shaded medieval churchyard of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate. It was there beside the ancient wall that divided the crowded burial ground from the tavern’s courtyard that Sebastian went to stand with his hat in one hand.

  Over the last eighteen months, the earth had settled and the grass grown over Jamie Knox’s grave. It was hard to think of him lying down there. Hard to think of the vital, enigmatic man he’d once been reduced to bones and dust. Sebastian drew a deep breath and felt an ache pull across his chest, felt the damp wind cold against his face. He should have been the one to die that night. The killer had come for him, but seen Knox and mistaken the ex-rifleman for Sebastian. He was still struggling to come to terms with the quirk of fate that had allowed him to live by killing Knox instead. The man who’d fired that bullet was dead, yet the sense of regret, of an obligation unfulfilled, remained. But then, how can you ever recompense the man who died in your place?

  * * *

  Sebastian found the Black Devil filled with hard-drinking, boisterous tradesmen, apprentices, and shopkeepers, for this was a working section of the city. The taproom’s floor was of uneven flagstones, the ceiling low with heavy oak beams, the wainscoted walls blackened by centuries of smoke from the wide stone hearth.

  At his entrance, the dark-haired young woman behind the bar froze in the act of filling a tankard, the light from the rushes flaring golden across her pretty face as she watched him walk toward her.

  “Ye ain’t wanted here,” she said.

  Her name was Pippa, and it occurred to Sebastian as he studied her almond-shaped brown eyes and small chin that she’d always simply been “Pippa,” that he’d never heard her last name. All he knew about her was that she’d given birth to Knox’s son, and with his dying breath Knox had regretted not marrying her, for he’d understood only too well what it was like to grow up the bastard son of a barmaid.

  Sebastian paused with one hand resting on the ancient bar’s scarred surface. “I’m looking for a man named Ian Ryker.”

  “Why? You ain’t nothin’ but trouble. Jamie never listened t’ me when I told him
that, and look what happened t’ him. He’d still be alive, if’n it wasn’t for you.”

  “Is Ryker here?”

  She met his gaze and deliberately held it, the full breasts above the low-cut bodice of her shabby red gown lifting as she sucked in a quick breath. “No.”

  “He can either have a conversation with me or he can deal with Bow Street. I would advise him to choose the former rather than the latter.”

  Sebastian heard a step, and a man came to stand in the doorway behind her. He looked to be somewhere in his thirties, with flaxen hair and pale blue eyes and a hard, sun-darkened face.

  “Why?” said the man, leaning one shoulder against the door casing in a pose that was calculated to look casual but was not. “Who’er you?”

  “It’s Devlin,” Pippa said quietly in a way that told Sebastian they’d discussed him before.

  The man stayed where he was. He was tall, nearly as tall as Sebastian, his face harshly planed, his mouth thin and tight-lipped. Sebastian had been around enough soldiers in his day to recognize one when he saw him. “Why you want t’ talk t’ me?”

  “I think you know.”

  Ryker hesitated, then nodded and pushed away from the doorframe. “Bring us a couple o’ bitters, would ye, Pippa?”

  * * *

  They sat in the small office that had once belonged to Jamie Knox. It was a sparsely furnished space with a simple table, a couple of straight-backed chairs, and a window that overlooked the inn’s yard and the churchyard beyond it. Pippa doesn’t like the view, Sebastian remembered Knox telling him once. Sebastian thought she must hate it now that Knox himself lay buried there. And he found he had to work at not resenting this fair-haired stranger for being here, in Knox’s place, while Knox himself was simply . . . dead.

  “What regiment were you with?” Sebastian asked as the two men sat at the table, the tankards of ale between them.

  “The Ninety-fifth,” said Ryker. It was a rifle regiment, Knox’s old regiment. “And you?”