The Butcher of Smithfield by Susanna Gregory

Perhaps he can tell you whether Newburne had a penchant for cucumbers. So, you have two tasks now: interviewing
     Finch about his friend Newburne, and Smegergill about his friend Maylord.’
    ‘I will start tomorrow.’
    ‘I do not think people will be rushing to help once they learn your aim is to investigate Newburne’s death – assuming there
     is anything to explore, of course. Even rotten lawyers die of natural causes sometimes. Meanwhile, Williamson will object
     to your interference, and the Earl is angry with you for leaving England for so long. Trust no one – not even Leybourn, I
     am sorry to say.’
    It was good advice, and Chaloner fully intended to follow it.
    It was dark when Chaloner left Lincoln’s Inn and began to walk to Monkwell Street near Cripplegate, where Leybourn lived.
     Although the streets were still busy, a different kind of citizen was beginning to emerge for business. Men tried to bump
     into him as he went, in anattempt to pick his pockets, and youths with dirty faces and oily hands offered to sell him goods at improbably low prices.
     Chaloner had no money to pay a linksman to light his path, and closed his mind to what he might be treading in as he made
     his way along the wide thoroughfare called Holborn. Shops were still open, and displays of gloves, spices, wigs, baskets,
     pots and mirrors could be seen within. Stray dogs had formed a pack near the bridge that spanned the filthy Fleet River, and
     were feeding on something that lay in the road; they snarled at anyone who went too close.
    It took him a long time to reach Leybourn’s home, because the streets were so badly flooded. He gave up trying to keep his
     feet dry, and sloshed through the debris-filled puddles, some of which reached his calves. Thick, sucking mud gripped the
     wheels of carriages and carts, so their owners had scant control over them, and in some places, they had been abandoned altogether.
     One lay on its side, and a gang of men were stripping it of anything that could be carried away. Another had caught fire when
     one of its lamps had been shaken loose by a violent skidding motion; vagrants clustered around, warming their hands in the
     blaze. Through the flames, Chaloner could see a figure trapped inside, and did not like to imagine what the parish constables
     would find when they came to clear the wreckage in the morning.
    He dived into a doorway when several horsemen cantered recklessly towards him, whooping and cheering as they went. They reeled
     drunkenly in their saddles, and one had a semi-naked woman perched behind him. A passing leatherworker grimaced in distaste
     at the spectacle.
    ‘That was the Duke of Buckingham and his cronies.Do we really want
them
playing ambassador to hostile foreign powers, or directing our country’s fiscal policies?’
    ‘Not for me to say.’ Because Spymaster Williamson was notorious for hiring spies to goad men into making seditious remarks
     – it was the sort of activity that gave intelligence officers a bad name – Chaloner never indulged in contentious discussions
     with people who accosted him on the street.
    The man spat. ‘Was it for this that we cheered ourselves hoarse at the Restoration three years ago? Perhaps Cromwell was right
     when he cut off the last monarch’s head. Have you heard the talk in the coffee houses? They say there has been a great rebellion
     in the north.’
    He moved away, leaving Chaloner wondering how the Court had managed to squander so much goodwill in such a short space of
     time. He was thoughtful as he resumed his journey, considering what he would do if the country was plunged into another civil
     war. His family still regarded the Parliamentarian cause to be a just one, but he had recently come to the realisation that
     one government was pretty much as bad as another. They all comprised men, after all, with men’s weaknesses and faults.
    Leybourn owned a pleasant three-storeyed building, with shop, reception rooms