The Butcher of Smithfield by Susanna Gregory Page A

and kitchen on the ground floor, and bedrooms
     and an office above. Chaloner had spent many peaceful hours in the large, steamy kitchen, listening to the surveyor wax lyrical
     on some incomprehensible aspect of mathematics or geometry. The Leybourn brothers did well at bookselling, although Will was
     beginning to leave more of the business to Rob, in order to devote time to his own writing.
    Chaloner knocked on the door. Had Leybourn lived alone, he would have picked the lock and let himself in, but now the house
     was shared with a lady, breaking and entering was no longer a polite thing to do. There was no reply, so he tapped again.
     He could see shadows moving under the window shutters, so someone was in, and he wondered whether Leybourn was so angry with
     him that he was declining to answer. He rapped a third time, and was about to give up when the door was hauled open.
    A woman stood there. He supposed she was pretty, although there was something dissipated about her plump body and the sluttish
     way she leaned against the wall. She wore a low-cut smock that revealed an ample frontage, and her cheeks were flushed in
     a manner that suggested she had been drinking. When she leaned towards him, squinting in the dim light, he was sure of it.
    ‘What do you want?’ she demanded.
    He smiled, eager to make a good impression on the person who now shared his friend’s life. ‘I have come to see Will. You must
     be Mary.’
    ‘I am
Mrs Leybourn
,’ she replied tartly. Her expression was cold and angry. ‘I suppose you are Heyden? William said he expected you home any
     day now.’
    ‘Is he in?’ Chaloner asked pleasantly. ‘I would like—’
    ‘No,’ she snapped in a way that made him question whether she was telling the truth. ‘Why? Have you come to borrow money?
     He told me you never have any of your own.’
    ‘I have just come to spend an hour in his company,’ he objected, wondering what else Leybourn had said about him. He struggled
     to maintain an affable mien,fighting the urge to tell her that the purpose of his visit was none of her damned business. ‘It has been a while since we—’
    ‘He is out,’ she interrupted coldly. ‘You will have to come back another day.’
    Chaloner could hear voices in the kitchen, and one definitely belonged to a man. If it was not Leybourn, then who was the
     surveyor’s ‘wife’ entertaining when he was out? ‘I see.’
    She moved quickly, blocking his view down the corridor. ‘I am busy at the moment, so I cannot invite you inside to wait. The
     vicar of St Giles is here, asking my opinion about the altar decorations for Christmas. I am sure you understand. Goodbye.’
    She closed the door before he could say whether he understood or not. He considered knocking again, and telling her that he
     had considerable experience with altar decorations and was more than happy to grant her and the vicar the benefit of his expertise.
     His second notion was to creep around the back of the house and look through the kitchen window. The vicar of St Giles was
     unlikely to be talking to himself while Mary had gone to answer the door, and he wanted to know whether it was Leybourn with
     whom he was conversing. But he was cold, wet and not in the mood for what might evolve into a nasty confrontation, so he started
     to trudge back to his lodgings. He had not taken many steps when he saw a familiar figure – tall, stoop-shouldered and wearing
     an old-fashioned hat.
    ‘I have been waiting for you at your house,’ said Leybourn in a rush. ‘I wanted to apologise for snapping at you earlier.
     I have not been sleeping well, and Thurloe has become like an old woman of late, chastising me forthis and that. But I should not have taken my irritation out on you.’
    Chaloner was relieved the spat was over. He took a deep breath. ‘I have been in Portugal since June. Spain, too, although
     I went to spy, so the fewer people who know it, the better. I did not intend to be