The Sticklepath Strangler aktm-12

by Michael Jecks

  The Sticklepath Strangler

  ( A Knights Templar Mystery - 12 )

  Michael JECKS

  As the summer of 1322 brings sun to the Devonshire countryside, it seems that the small village of Sticklepath is destined to remain in darkness. An afternoon of innocent adventure becomes one of gruesome terror when two playmates uncover the body of a young girl up on the moors. As the news spreads through the village, one name is on everyone's lips. The body must be that of Aline, the ten-year-old daughter of Swetricus, who went missing six years ago.

  Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King's Peace, and his friend Bailiff Simon Puttock are summoned to the scene to investigate, but find their progress blocked at every turn. There seems to be an unspoken agreement amongst the villagers to ensure that the truth behind Aline's death is never discovered. But what reason could they possibly have for shielding a murderer?

  As the King's men slowly break down the wall of silence they discover that the village has plenty to hide. Aline is not the only young girl to have been found dead in recent years, and it seems that the villagers have been concealing not only a serial killer, but, judging by the state of the girls' bodies, a possible case of cannibalism. Or, if the rumours are to be believed, a vampire! That would certainly explain the haunted looks in the eyes of so many villagers, and the strange voices heard late at night from the Sticklepath cemetery…

  Michael Jecks

  THE STICKLEPATH STRANGLER

  2001

  This book is for Shirley and Dartmoor Dave Denford, the blacksmith who ‘don’t do ’orses’.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cast of Characters

  Sir Baldwin de Furnshill

  The Keeper of the King’s Peace in Crediton, Baldwin has been marked by the injustice of the destruction of the Knights Templar. As a result he seeks justice for common folk.

  Lady Jeanne

  Baldwin’s wife, who was once widowed and now fears losing her second husband.

  Edgar

  Baldwin saved Edgar’s life in Acre, and since then Edgar swore loyalty to him for life. He is Baldwin’s most trusted servant.

  Simon Puttock

  Long a friend of Baldwin’s, and an official of the Stannaries, the tin miners of Dartmoor. Simon and Baldwin have often worked together on investigations.

  Roger de Gidleigh

  Coroner Roger is one of only two Coroners who must investigate all sudden deaths and wrecks in Devonshire.

  Nicole Garde

  The French wife of Thomas Garde; mother of Joan.

  Thomas Garde

  Thomas is a freeman, who works his own little plots, but he is an incomer to the vill of Sticklepath and has never been fully accepted.

  Joan

  Daughter of Nicole and Thomas, Joan has found a corpse.

  Ivo Bel

  Brother of Thomas, and Manciple to the nuns of Canonsleigh. He lusts after Nicole, his sister-in-law.

  Serlo Warrener

  A gruff, hardy man, crippled years ago, who tends to the warren up on the moor.

  Athelhard

  Athelhard was killed by the vill when they thought him guilty of murder.

  ‘Mad’ Meg

  Sister to Athelhard, and simple from birth, Meg avoids the vill since the death of her brother.

  Ansel de Hocsenham

  A Purveyor to the King, Ansel last visited the vill during the 1315–16 famine.

  Emma

  Close friend of Joan who found the corpse with her.

  Swetricus

  A peasant of Sticklepath who lost Aline, his daughter, several years ago. Three daughters survive.

  Samson atte Mill

  The miller, known for brawling and drunkenness.

  Gunilda

  Samson’s wife, a downtrodden woman.

  Felicia

  Samson and Gunilda’s daughter.

  Alexander de Belston

  The cautious Reeve of Sticklepath who is determined to preserve the reputation of the vill and its people.

  William Taverner

  William is the master of the only inn.

  Ham

  Taverner’s son, who was killed in the recent floods.

  Mary

  Daughter to Taverner, who often serves visitors to the inn.

  Gervase Colbrook

  Parson to the little chantry chapel of Sticklepath.

  Drogo le Criur

  Leader of the Foresters, charged with the duty of guarding the Forest of Dartmoor and travellers over it.

  Peter atte Moor

  A Forester under Drogo, Peter lost his daughter Denise to the murderer some years ago.

  Adam Thorne

  Also a Forester, Adam has a bad limp, but is known for his strength and integrity.

  Vincent Yunghe

  The youngest of the Foresters, Vin is still learning his duties.

  Miles Houndestail

  A traveller who was first to see the corpse with the two girls.

  Author’s Note

  There is a natural series of stages in the creation of a new book. For me, a central scene comes first, something which drives the whole of the rest of the story. In The Leper’s Return, for instance, I wanted to look at leprosy in the Middle Ages, while in The Crediton Killings, I examined the role of mercenaries. Often, though, I find myself chewing over a curious beginning and wondering how I could develop it into a story. The Sticklepath Strangler belongs to this category, and I have to thank Deryn Lake, author of the excellent John Rawlings stories, for the initial idea.

  It was while we were walking over Dartmoor – not, I have to add, the sort of thing that Deryn’s friends would expect of her – some few years ago that she and I swapped ideas for new novels.

  My idea for her was for a deserted ship suddenly arriving at a Devon port, a concept she used in her novel Death in the Port of Exeter, while hers gave me the initial scene of this book, with Joan and Emma’s hideous discovery. I must add that her suggestion that I should write about a skull falling from a wall came only from an appreciation of a two-thousand-year-old wall – not from any wishful thinking about what she would like to do with the struggling author who had promised to show her an attractive walk to a not-too-far distant pub.

  And if Michael, who later gave us a lift back from the Northmore Arms in his Audi, should ever read this, I would like to thank him too.

  Sticklepath is a fairly typical and relatively unspoilt village, but it has had a confusing past.

  Take the Church: Sticklepath has been split among the parishes of Sampford Courtenay, South Tawton and Belstone. Then again the roads have all changed their routes; the main road used to suffer gridlock for the whole of the summer until the dual carriageway was built, which avoids Whiddon Down, South Zeal, Sticklepath, and Okehampton itself, so that now, instead of stationary vehicles belching fumes on the old A30, locals have no passing traffic whatever. Good for the children walking to and from school, but less so for the many pubs and cafes which were built on the old road. Most have been forced to close.

  Sticklepath itself has had a great history. There is the Finch Foundry, until the 1960s a working tool-manufacturer which exported its billhooks and spades all over the world. Nowadays the foundry is a National Trust museum dedicated to water power, and I would recommend anyone who has an interest in metalwork and smithing to visit it, especially since ‘Dartmoor Dave Denford’, to whom this book is dedicated, can often be found there giving demonstrations of blacksmithing. Just remember not
to ask if he makes horseshoes. He is keen to point out that ‘I don’t do ’orses’, since he is not a farrier. Yes, there is a difference.

  A short way further up the river from the foundry’s water-wheels is the old mill of Tom Pearce, made famous in the song ‘Widecombe Fair’. Now the main buildings have gone, to be replaced by houses. The mill too has been converted, but not so long ago, a thick serge-type of cloth was still being manufactured here from wool shorn from the sheep on Dartmoor; it was then worn all over the British Empire by soldiers and sailors alike. All this from a tiny little village hiding in a valley in the middle of Devonshire.

  The success of the place came from two factors: its abundant water power, and its location on the main road to Cornwall. The village supplied the needs of visitors and travellers, because during the age of horse travel, everyone going to Cornwall passed through Sticklepath and made use of its inns, cooks and grooms. While other villages lost their trade, like South Zeal, which was bypassed centuries ago so that the mail coach horses didn’t have to cope with the two hills at either side of the town, Sticklepath somehow survived.

  There was no bypass for the hilly part of the road which gave the ‘Stickle’ or ‘Steep’ path its name until fairly recently. In fact, there are many local families who can still remember grandparents talking about the time when the road went up the hill.

  In reality, it seems that the road has changed direction twice. If you walk along Sticklepath’s High Street heading westwards, you will come to a left-hand turn towards Higher Sticklepath and Belstone. Follow this, and only a matter of a couple of yards down from the road junction you will notice a narrow track on the right which has been partly metalled over. This is the start of the old Sticklepath, now replaced by the modern roadway itself which follows the countours of the hills towards Okehampton. Walk on up this old track a short way, and soon you’ll find that there is a flagpole on your left. Between this track and the ‘White Rock’ pole is a sunken pathway, now largely obliterated by bushes and straggling brambles, gorse and ferns, but clearly visible early in the year. This is the old Exeter to Cornwall road. And if you try to walk up it, you will see why it was necessary to build the new road, because, by God, it’s steep!

  At the other end of the village is a relatively modern bridge. This would not have been here in the Middle Ages. However, before the bridge was built, the River Taw would have been easily fordable at that particular point. Often when bridges were thrown up over rivers, the builders then charged money for people to use them in order to recoup the cost of construction. And equally often, the more wily travellers would bypass the bridge and find a new ford. I think that this is what happened at the Taw. While there were charges for the use of the bridge, people went a little upriver along Skaigh Lane to where there was a ford, and when the charges were dropped, they returned to the new bridge and used it.

  Like so many small settlements, there is little written down for Sticklepath during the Middle Ages. We know that there was a chantry chapel, which seems to have been established in the reign of Henry I, but there are no maps and few documents.

  Apparently in 1147 Robert Fitzroy (illegitimate son of Henry I) and his wife Matilda d’Avranches gave lands to Bricius, Empress Matilda’s Chaplain, so that he could build a small chapel. It was to be called the church of ‘St Mary of Stikilpeth’ in the manor of ‘Saunforde Curtenay’ or ‘Sandy Ford’ over the Taw. Later, in 1282, Robert de Esse was installed as priest to the church by Hugh Courtenay. The latter’s son, Hugh II, provided ‘a messuage and one carucate of land’ to the two chaplains of the church. The messuage is thought to be where the present Chantry Cottage now stands, while I am told that there is still a field off the back lane called Chantry’s Meadow.

  Sadly, though, there’s little proof of the precise location of the land, and nobody knows where the priest would have lived, nor how the vill would have been set out in those far-off days. All we can do is extrapolate what we know about other vills and use some logic to see what the place might have looked like, seven hundred years ago.

  For those who are interested, the Sticklepath Women’s Institute has produced an excellent history which is available in the West Country Studies Library in Exeter.

  There is one facet which will no doubt concern the casual reader, and that is my use of vampires. I know that I will be told off for bringing foreign bloodsuckers into my stories, so here is my defence.

  Vampires were brought to the public’s mind by the marvellous story of Dracula, written by Bram Stoker. It is known that vampire stories were once quite common on the continent, especially in Transylvania and Slovenia, but it is less well known that such stories existed in England too.

  The earliest examples I have found were written by Canon William of Newburgh (1136–98). He details four cases of sanguisugae or vampires in his account of English history: one in Buckinghamshire, and three others in the north of the country. Of course, the stories of vampirism covered a wide range of offences; it is only since the invention of Dracula that it came to mean drinking blood and nothing else. Before that, vampires were thought of as especially evil people, probably infested by demons, who would torment an area. Some accusations were undoubtedly malignant, made by neighbours who coveted a patch of land or a pig, perhaps; others derived from genuine fear and superstition.

  The worst period, as one can imagine, came after a famine. We know that there was talk of cannibalism in the British Isles during the terrible famine of 1315–17, and to an ill-educated and starving population of peasants, it is no surprise that in order to explain away such a hideous and inconceivable crime, some might have suggested that a supernatural agency was responsible.

  In this tale, I have taken only the details which Canon William wrote down. I have not invented these elements of the story, although I have of course elaborated on them. Some readers may be surprised by the exhumation scene. I can only say that the villagers’, Gervase’s and Baldwin’s views are borne out by research in several countries.

  For those who are keen to find out more about the subject, look at Jean-Claude Schmitt’s excellent Ghosts in the Middle Ages.

  There is one final point I must make. As always, this book states that all characters are fictitious and any resemblance to the living or the dead is entirely coincidental, and I should like to say here that I have been as careful as I possibly could be to avoid using the names, characteristics or features of any of my friends from Belstone, South Zeal or Sticklepath.

  This is particularly important because, as with any work of crime fiction, so many of the folks in this book are unpleasant, motivated by questionable urges, with deceit, dishonesty, racism, adultery, greed and corruption forming a large part of their makeup. All I can say is, I have encountered none of these traits in any of the people of the area – and I hope that all my friends will understand that a crime book which features only pleasant, laughing and above all honest men and women like themselves, would make for a less than riveting read.

  I cannot complete this note without expressing my immense gratitude to the people of the three villages who have made my family and me so welcome since we moved to Devon some years ago.

  Our thanks to you all.

  Michael Jecks

  North Dartmoor

  March 2001

  Preface

  Sticklepath, 1315

  They were out there.

  In the darkness about his cottage, as he sat inside, panting like a wounded dog, he knew they were silently gathering, like rats about carrion, and Athelhard shivered not only from the pain of his wounds, but from the knowledge that he was soon to be slaughtered and burned until nothing remained, nothing but the lie that he had killed the girl; that he had drunk her blood and eaten her flesh; that he was a sanguisuga – a vampire. It was that thought, more even than the pain, that made him snarl in defiance like a bear at bay in the pit.

  His leg felt as if it had been savaged. The hole through his flesh was more painful than he could h
ave imagined, a pulsing agony that produced a sort of deadening cramp in his groin. Not that it compared with the injury to his back. That was sharper, like a knife thrust. That was the one which would kill him, he knew. The arrowhead was lodged deeply, and he could feel his strength seeping away with his blood.

  Why? he wondered again. Why attack him? Why think he could have done that to the girl?

  The arrow in his leg heralded the attack.

  He’d had no premonition all that long day he’d been at his holding, far on the western outskirts of the vill, peaceably chopping and storing logs in preparation for the winter. At the beech tree that marked the eastern edge of his plot, he set down his axe while he ducked his head in his old bucket and rubbed his hair. It had been hard work, and tiny chips and flakes of wood were lodged in his scalp, making the flea bites itch.

  Puffing and blowing, he shook his head, relishing the coolness, feeling the water trickling down his back. As he did so, he thought he heard something, an odd whirring noise which came from his left and disappeared to the right, but his ears were filled with water and he didn’t recognise it. Probably a bird, he told himself.

  Then the missile slammed into his thigh.

  The jolt itself was vicious, yet even through his shock he was conscious of every moment of the impact: he could feel the barbs pierce his flesh, slicing through muscle, tearing onwards until they jerked to a halt against his thigh-bone. Even as he collapsed, he was aware of the arrow quivering in his thigh.