‘Meredith’s past, Alice. Robbery, horse theft. What else might he not do?’
‘It is not evidence, Sir Thomas.’
‘Not yet, it isn’t,’ he says. ‘Under certain conditions, I might see fit to make the court rolls disappear.’
‘Forgive my ignorance, sir, but isn’t it illegal to destroy court rolls?’
‘You understand the expression, For the greater good?’
It is high summer 1626, and when Bristol merchant Jeremiah Goldwoode is found murdered at the Dorset inn where Alice and her adopted son Sam have lodged the night, suspicion soon falls on Wat Meredith who has a criminal past in Bristol.
Justice Thomas Harcourt offers Alice a dubious deal; to destroy the record of Wat’s trial in return for Alice’s Hillbury farm. Sceptical of Wat’s guilt, and unwilling to lose her property, Alice sets out to discover the truth of Wat’s past, aided by one-armed Robin Harker and his brother Jay.
But events overtake them, involving Alice in a desperate night ride to prevent Wat’s summary execution. And even if she succeeds, will it help or hinder the repair of old betrayals between himself and Goldwoode’s widow?
Alice commits a crime to save a life, and Sam provides the key to a dead man’s conspiracy, but is a killer going to get away with murder?
‘It is not evidence, Sir Thomas.’
‘Not yet, it isn’t,’ he says. ‘Under certain conditions, I might see fit to make the court rolls disappear.’
‘Forgive my ignorance, sir, but isn’t it illegal to destroy court rolls?’
‘You understand the expression, For the greater good?’
It is high summer 1626, and when Bristol merchant Jeremiah Goldwoode is found murdered at the Dorset inn where Alice and her adopted son Sam have lodged the night, suspicion soon falls on Wat Meredith who has a criminal past in Bristol.
Justice Thomas Harcourt offers Alice a dubious deal; to destroy the record of Wat’s trial in return for Alice’s Hillbury farm. Sceptical of Wat’s guilt, and unwilling to lose her property, Alice sets out to discover the truth of Wat’s past, aided by one-armed Robin Harker and his brother Jay.
But events overtake them, involving Alice in a desperate night ride to prevent Wat’s summary execution. And even if she succeeds, will it help or hinder the repair of old betrayals between himself and Goldwoode’s widow?
Alice commits a crime to save a life, and Sam provides the key to a dead man’s conspiracy, but is a killer going to get away with murder?
