reward.'
'You'd never have done that, Mr Redmayne.'
'I know that. Sir Julius, perhaps, may have doubts about me.'
'Even though you've done your best to protect him?'
'Even then.' Christopher put the paper aside. 'You've done well, Jonathan. We finally have a motive. Sir Julius may be wrongly accused but that will not make his enemies stay their hand. A pamphlet that somebody else wrote may bring about his downfall.'
'That's unfair, sir.'
'Granted, but it's the situation with which we have to deal. Before he can strike again, we simply must catch the killer between us.'
'We may have some assistance.' 'From where?'
'The Saracen's Head. Mrs McCoy drew a picture of the man who rented a room there. She says it's a good likeness. Her son cannot wait to go in search of the man. For some reason,' he explained, 'Patrick wants to be a constable like me. He's determined to find Mr Field for us.'
They set out even earlier than usual. Bridget McCoy was not optimistic.
'He'll not be there,' she said, gloomily.
'He may be, Mother. You never know.'
'He was not at the market when you went there yesterday.'
'He might have been,' said Patrick, lumbering along beside her. 'I could easily have missed him in the crowd. That's why it needs two of us to catch Mr Field.'
'That's not his name, Patrick.'
'How do you know?'
'Because I've been thinking about it,' she said. 'If a man was about to commit a terrible murder, would he give his real name to me? No, it would be foolish of him. A name can be used to hunt someone down.'
Patrick was bewildered. 'If his name is not Mr Field,' he said with a frown, 'then what is it?'
'We may never know.'
'We will if we catch him today. I'll make him tell us the truth.'
'No, Patrick.'
'He lied to you, Mother. That was wrong.'
'Yes,' she agreed, 'and he deserves to be punished but it's not for us to touch him. That's Mr Bale's job. I made that mistake the first time. When I saw him in the market, I ran after Mr Field - or whatever his name was - and he must have seen me coming. I scared him off.'
'I can run faster than you.'
'He may have a weapon.'
Patrick held up his fists. 'I have two.'
'They're no use against a dagger or a pistol,' she said. 'Save them for rowdy customers at the tavern. This is a job for a constable.'
'That's what I'll be one day, Mother.'
'One day - perhaps.'
They walked on in silence. Bridget felt it would be too unkind to dampen his enthusiasm by reminding him of some of the other aspects of a parish constable's occupation. All that Patrick thought about was the pursuit and arrest of criminals. On the previous day, he had returned in a state of exhilaration because he had watched a prisoner being locked in the pillory by two constables. It was a task that he relished doing himself. It simply required brute force. When it came to giving evidence in court, or to interrogating a suspect, it was a very different matter. Patrick would flounder badly. He would be a figure of fun once again.
'I could have brought a cudgel,' said Patrick, bravely. 'I took one off that man I had to throw out last Saturday. He tried to hit me with it. With a cudgel in my hand, I could take on anybody.'
'You'd only get hurt.'
'Not if I get in the first blow.'
Bridget was firm. 'No, Patrick. All that we can do is to find him. We have to leave it to Mr Bale and Mr Warburton to arrest him.'
'We can't let him get away.'
'No, we'll follow him. We'll find out where he lives and then report it to the constables.' Her despondency returned. 'If we ever catch sight of him, that is, and I don't believe we will. He's gone forever. That lousy, scurvy, villainous son of a pox-ridden whore may not even be in London.'
They walked on. While his mother was unhopeful, Patrick was full of confidence. He felt certain that they would see the man this time. He straightened his shoulders and marched along with pride. It was almost as if he were on patrol as a parish constable. The market was already busy by the time they reached Leadenhall Street and all four courtyards were swarming with people. In such a heaving multitude, it would not be easy to pick out one person.
Beginning with the courtyard where the man had been seen before, they walked slowly through the crowd. Bridget wished that she were taller so that she could see over the heads of the people all around her. Unable to retain a mental picture of the suspect for long, Patrick kept taking out one of the pictures that his mother had drawn in order to refresh his memory. When he looked up again, his eyes searched for a broken nose and a mole. As they moved from one courtyard to another, he saw both frequently but they were never on the same person. Having taken the crumpled drawing from his pocket for the tenth time, Patrick resolved to rely on his mother. Bridget had seen and talked to the man. She would know him.
'He's not here,' she decided.
'The market is still young. More people are coming in all the time.'
'We can't stay here all morning.'
'I can,' he volunteered.
'No, Patrick. We've too much work to do.'
'What's more important than catching Mr Field?'
'Nothing,' she said. 'Nothing at all.'
'Then we stay.'
Bridget nodded. Bolstered by her son's resolve, she continued the search, going back to the first courtyard and starting all over again. It was painstaking work. The more faces that flashed in front of her, the more confused she became and the ear-shattering noise all around her was a further distraction. She seemed to be at the very heart of the turmoil. Pushed and jostled from all sides, Bridget started to lose faith in the whole enterprise yet again.
Then a man's face passed within a yard of her. It took her a moment to register the shape of his head, the large ears, the colour of his complexion, the hang of his lip, the ugliness of the broken nose and that mole on the cheek that she had noticed at their first encounter. When she put all the elements together, she was certain of his identity.
'That's him, Patrick!' she said.
'Where?'
'That man carrying the side of beef on his shoulder.'
'Are you sure?'
'As sure as I'll ever be - that's the rogue.'
'Then let me get him,' said Patrick, bunching his fists.
She held him back. 'No!'
'We can't miss a chance like this, Mother.'
'Follow him. See where he goes.'
'He could easily shake us off in this crowd.'
'Stay here!' she ordered.
But she had reckoned without the strength of his ambition. Patrick McCoy was a young man with little in life beyond the desire to better himself. And the only way he could conceive of doing that was to be a parish constable. Here was a chance to display his abilities. In a situation like this, Jonathan Bale would not hold back. Ten yards away was a man who had committed murder from the vantage point of the Saracens's Head. He had to be
