13 - The Midsummer Rose by Kate Sedley

he wanted to return aboard. Mind you, don’t know why anyone’d want to visit Rownham Passage; leastways, not if he was sailing upriver to Bristol. Who’re we talking about, anyway?’
    ‘Does the name Eamonn Malahide mean anything to you?’
    The ferryman shook his grizzled head. ‘No. But sounds like an Irisher to me.’
    ‘He is. Or rather was. He’s dead. Knifed through the heart. He was the man I saw killed in the “murder” house last week.’
    ‘Oh, him! The Sheriff’s man said you was having delusions.’
    ‘No delusion,’ I answered tersely. ‘His body was fished out of Bristol docks this morning.’
    ‘Drowned?’
    ‘He’d been stabbed.’
    ‘Had he now?’ Jason Tyrrwhit whistled through broken teeth. ‘Seems like you could’ve been telling the truth, after all, chapman. Wait here a minute while I ask around. Somebody might have some information worth knowing.’
    He got up from the bench and began moving amongst our fellow customers. Some he merely slapped on the back or exchanged a cheery word with. But beside others, he paused for a confidential chat. There was no way, from where I was sitting, that I could hear what passed between them: the noise in the alehouse was deafening. But I could tell from the expression on his face, as he resumed his seat on the bench, that he had learned something worth the telling.
    ‘Old chap in the corner,’ he said, ‘the one with the broken nose—’
    ‘Next to the young lad who’s just been sick?’
    ‘That’s the one. Lives in the manor of Ashton-Leigh. Just comes across for the ale. He says there was an Irish ship, the Clontarf, anchored in the Hungroad sometime last week.’
    ‘The Wednesday,’ I suggested.
    ‘Dunno. Probably. He can’t recollect for sure. But here’s the interesting bit. He remembers it dropping anchor, but it didn’t go on upriver on the next high tide. Stayed in its berth three days before slipping its moorings and tacking about.’
    ‘You mean it never went into Bristol. Just sailed for home?’
    ‘Seems like it. And old Josh there had an idea there was some trouble on board. Didn’t know what. Didn’t ask. But the landlord –’ he indicated a tall, cadaverous-looking man in a leather apron ‘– said there were a couple of Irish seamen in here a week ago yesterday – that’d be the Friday – nosing around. Asking a lot o’ questions without really saying what they wanted. He reckoned they were looking fer someone, but wouldn’t admit it right out.’
    That made sense if their captain had gone missing and the crew was on some secret mission that no one was supposed to know anything about. I stood up.
    ‘Thanks for all your help,’ I said. ‘Now, if you’d just point me in the direction of this Goody Tallboys’s cottage …’
    My voice tailed off as I stared, transfixed. Once on my feet, I could easily see across the crowded taproom. In the corner, on the far side of old Josh, sat another, smaller man, wearing a tattered, wine-stained jerkin, who glanced up and caught my eye, then hurriedly looked away again, coyly trying to pretend that he didn’t know me, but I could see annoyance shadow his sharp little features as he recognized my unwelcome face.
    His shoulders hunched and his whole body tensed as I moved towards him, just to give him a fright. But he needn’t have worried. I’d play his game if that was what he wanted. I followed the ferryman outside and listened to his simple directions for getting to Goody Tallboys’s cottage.
    All the same, I would have given a great deal to know what Timothy Plummer, the Spymaster General, was doing in Rownham Passage.

Seven
    G oody Tallboys’s dwelling was the end one of a row of four that teetered on the edge of the riverside track. A small, fenced-in patch of ground beside the cottage was home to five or six hens, all clucking noisily or pecking greedily in the dirt.
    The woman who answered my knock seemed familiar to me, and I thought I recognized her