The Sticklepath Strangler aktm-12

by Michael Jecks

  Baldwin saw Drogo shoot him a quick look, then nod and say, ‘That’s right. At the inn.’

  ‘Odd, isn’t it,’ Baldwin smiled, ‘how you Foresters share so many things? You all confirm each other’s stories, no matter what you think is going on.’

  ‘We’re often together, because of our work,’ Vin protested.

  Drogo was returning Baldwin’s stare with a narrow, suspicious gaze. ‘What are you driving at, Keeper?’

  ‘Only this: if you had been prepared to tell the truth and trust to the judgement of the Coroner and me, you would have saved us time, and perhaps saved Emma’s life. You are a fool, Drogo. You sought to protect Vincent here, and for why? Because you didn’t trust him.’

  Vincent felt his mouth fall open, and he gawped from Drogo to Baldwin and back again. ‘What’s he mean?’

  Drogo broke away from Baldwin’s gaze and stared upwards at the sky. It was bright, clear, and clean-looking, a good day to confess the crime he had committed so long ago. A good day to die, he thought. Glancing down at the vill, he could see a thin smoke rising from several houses as the fires were lit for cooking, could just hear the rumble of the mill. Gunilda and Felicia must have restarted the mechanism.

  ‘Well?’ Baldwin prompted.

  ‘What would you do? If he was your son, wouldn’t you have protected him to the limit of your strength?’

  ‘We had heard that Vincent was the son of your best friend,’ Baldwin said.

  ‘He was,’ Drogo groaned. ‘She was the best, truest friend a man could wish for. I loved her. I would have married her, but her father wouldn’t hear of it. He didn’t trust me, preferred a miner. But before the marriage, she gave herself to me, and she knew two weeks later that Vin was my son.’

  ‘She died young?’

  ‘Too young. It was my sin, my crime, which did it. God took her from me.’

  ‘And you married as well.’

  He sighed. ‘Yes. A good woman, who bore me a daughter. I tried to make her happy, and I think I succeeded, but then she died and, during the famine, so did my daughter. My poor little Isabelle. All I had left was Vin. I couldn’t lose him.’

  Vin gaped. ‘How can I believe that? My mother wouldn’t have whored for you!’

  ‘She was no whore, Vin, just a good woman who truly loved me. As I loved her. She raised you as her own, and as her husband’s own, for she grew to hold an affection for him. She did not pin the cuckold’s horns on him. And she loved you.’

  ‘I don’t believe you! You’re lying!’ Vin declared, stepping away and shaking his head.

  ‘Vincent,’ Baldwin said sternly. ‘You were out on the nights when the deaths occurred, weren’t you? Were you with Drogo each night?’

  ‘No. Only when Aline and Mary were killed. And Emma.’

  ‘You were with Drogo all night long?’

  ‘Not all night, no. I went to see my woman,’ he admitted.

  ‘And you thought your son could have killed those girls, didn’t you?’ Baldwin pressed Drogo.

  ‘I did.’

  Vin shook his head in disbelief. ‘Why would I have killed them?’

  ‘Drogo, could your son have struck down Ansel de Hocsenham?’ Baldwin demanded.

  Drogo gave a wintry smile. ‘Ansel? He was a tough bastard, he was, but Vin was a powerful enough fifteen year old; he could have killed him, but I never thought that was Vin’s doing.’

  ‘He was throttled with a thong like the girls?’

  ‘Yes. And a slab of meat was carved from his thigh, almost from groin to knee.’

  ‘What do you have to say, Vincent?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Where were you on the night the Purveyor disappeared?’

  ‘I was with my girlfriend,’ he said, feeling a certain pride in the words. ‘We were out at the river, and then I heard Samson bellowing, and then he called for her, and I ran. If he had found me with her, he would have torn me limb from limb!’

  ‘What did he call?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. It was just some shouting. And then he called for Felicia.’

  ‘So you bolted.’

  ‘Yes. To the ford, then up along the road, then I headed homewards.’

  ‘That was the night that Ansel disappeared, then. And it was the next night that you found the body, Drogo?’

  ‘Yes.’ Drogo didn’t meet his eye. ‘I found the body with Adam and Peter. We were all coming down from the moor, heading for the inn. It had been a long day. And there, under a bush, I saw a cloak and a boot. I sent Adam to fetch the Reeve, and he and I agreed that the crime should be concealed. We swore the others to secrecy, then brought the body up here because the wall had only recently been rebuilt. It was easier to dig there, and no one would notice that the soil had been moved.’

  ‘Then who killed him?’ Simon grated. ‘It seems that every time we find something new, there’s more damned confusion. Who in God’s name did it?’

  ‘If I had to guess, it was Samson,’ said Drogo. He shrugged. ‘The body was nearer to Samson’s house than any other.’

  ‘Why should Samson have harmed him?’ Baldwin enquired pensively.

  ‘Who knows? It’s a secret he’s taken with him, but Samson was always prone to swing with his fists at the slightest provocation. Maybe Ansel annoyed him?’

  ‘We have heard that Samson raped girls in the vill.’

  ‘He did, the devil. Aline was pregnant, and many thought it was Samson. But he had a hold over the girls, he made them fearful. They dared not tell anyone, not even their parents.’

  ‘Is there any proof of this?’ Simon asked.

  ‘None. The girls he molested are dead. Unless his daughter or wife could confirm the truth.’

  ‘Have you anything to add, Vincent?’ Baldwin asked.

  Before he could answer, Simon leaned forward eagerly. ‘Wait! You said that Samson called – could he have shouted because he thought someone was attacking his house?’

  ‘He could have, I suppose. So what?’

  ‘If a man knew his daughter was outside, and he heard a stranger’s footsteps, wouldn’t he go to make sure his daughter was all right?’

  Vincent said heavily, ‘His daughter, yes. Any man would go out to protect her. But Felicia was more than that. She was his lover, too.’

  ‘Did you hear Gunilda’s words last night?’ Baldwin asked Drogo after a moment.

  ‘Yes. And I know what you think, that she might have attempted to kill her husband before he was mistakenly buried alive.’

  ‘It would make sense. She must have hated him for his treatment of her daughter, and perhaps she too thought that he was the murderer. That he killed the Purveyor, then the children.’

  ‘It is possible,’ Drogo said. ‘And she thought to protect herself and her daughter by destroying him.’

  Simon frowned. ‘I heard his yell, then her scream. So you reckon she killed him, then pretended to be horrified.’ But he didn’t believe it. There was something wrong.

  Baldwin was struck by something different. ‘You are being very open with us now. Why?’

  ‘You know almost everything already. There is one last thing. When we slaughtered Athelhard in front of his house and butchered him, he had already taken his revenge. He had cursed us to Hell.’

  ‘My God!’ Simon breathed.

  ‘His curse had no force,’ Baldwin said irritably.

  ‘You may think so, Sir Knight. I have a feeling that my time is not long, though. I have to make amends as I can and make sure my confession is heard. If Alexander has any sense, he’ll do the same.’

  Before they went to speak to the woman, Baldwin walked up to the edge of the grave and watched the Foresters expose the corpse of the Purveyor.

  His clothes, albeit stained and rotted, were still recognisable, especially a leather jerkin which was undamaged. Simon, seeing the material, cursed himself for failing to realise what he had observed earlier, when he had stood staring at Aline’s grave. He had seen the cloth sticking up through the soil, but
hadn’t realised what he was looking at, and now he felt foolish. If he had looked closer, he might have been able to speed the investigation, perhaps even save Emma’s life. And then the man’s face came to light, and Simon had to close his eyes and turn away. Empty sockets, grinning jaw, gaping nose, threads of hair, wisps of moustache and beard; but there was no flesh left upon Ansel’s face.

  Baldwin glanced at Drogo, who merely nodded. ‘It’s him.’ Carefully the Foresters transferred the bones to a large rug at the side of the grave.

  ‘We shall take him back to the chapel. It’s most fitting that the Coroner should perform his inquest there,’ Drogo said.

  ‘Yes,’ Baldwin said. Drogo’s tone was gruff, and Baldwin thought he must be thinking of the additional fine to be imposed upon the vill. Concealing this death was a serious crime. ‘Let me have a quick look to satisfy myself. When you found his body, did you remove the thong from his neck? There is nothing in the grave.’

  ‘Of course I cut it away,’ Drogo said. ‘It looked obscene there. He was dead.’

  ‘I see.’ Another point in Drogo’s favour, Baldwin noted. The other corpses were apparently found with the thong still in place, like Aline, but Drogo’s first reaction was to give some respect to the corpse. He murmured, ‘It is hard to feel sympathy for a Purveyor, especially one who was seeking to extort a bribe from a vill on pain of starvation, and yet seeing a decayed corpse like this is sad.’

  Drogo looked as though he would be happy to spit on the skull. Vin was trying to avoid puking, and he coughed slightly as the last of the bones were added to the pile.

  ‘Be glad, boy,’ Adam said unsympathetically. ‘If the body was fresher, you’d have the smell to cope with as well.’ He was still in the hole with Peter, but now he leapt upwards, locking his arms on the edge of the pit, and swung his good knee up to gain purchase. Reaching down to help Peter out, he added, ‘We saw enough bodies during the famine.’

  ‘Of course,’ Baldwin said absently.

  He was frowning, and Simon noticed. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I was just thinking – you are quite sure that you heard him yell and then heard Gunilda scream?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yet when you arrived at the scene, Gunilda was outside.’

  ‘Baldwin, you have that look on your face. The one that says you’ve just realised something we’d missed. What is it?’

  ‘Simon, it wasn’t her!’

  Simon and Drogo exchanged a glance.

  Ignoring them, Baldwin pointed into the hole. ‘May I see his thigh bones?’ he said urgently.

  Drogo shrugged and pulled both from the pile. ‘Here.’

  ‘Ah. This one has scratches on it,’ Baldwin said, studying it carefully. There were nicks which could have been made from a knife cutting through the meat of the leg.

  Peter stood at the side of the body peering at it with loathing. ‘He deserved it. Bastard!’

  As Drogo and Adam picked up the corners of the rug to carry it to the vill, Baldwin suddenly cried, ‘Wait!’

  He reached down to the skull. As the two Foresters had picked up the rug, the skull had rolled over, exposing the back. Now Baldwin picked it up and wiped at it with his sleeve, studying the yellow stained bone with keen attention. ‘Simon, look at this. Oh, come on, man, it won’t bite! Now,’ he continued as the Bailiff unwillingly joined him. ‘See this star-shaped series of cracks here?’

  Simon tried to forget that this had once been a man’s head and imagined it as merely a sphere of bone or ivory. Where Baldwin had polished, there was a chip, with fine lines radiating irregularly from it. ‘What of it?’

  Baldwin’s eyes were gleaming. ‘I had thought that only a large man could subdue someone who everyone agrees was a strong, burly fellow like Ansel, but here we have, maybe, a sign that his head was stoved in!’

  ‘So?’ Simon asked. ‘You think that when Vin spoke of a bellow from Samson, that was because he and Ansel were getting into a fight?’

  ‘Vincent, on the night you were with Felicia, some six years ago, you said Samson shouted once, and then called for his daughter?’ Baldwin said, turning to the lad again.

  ‘Yes. He gave one loud roar, then a short while after, he shouted for Felicia.’

  ‘Was it a roar of anger – or did it sound like a shout or cry of pain?’

  Vincent stared at the ground doubtfully. ‘It could have been pain.’

  ‘Could it have been Ansel crying out in pain as he was knocked down?’ Baldwin asked eagerly.

  ‘I… suppose so.’

  Simon understood now. ‘You think that the first cry was Ansel because Samson had attacked him?’

  ‘And then Samson called to his daughter – perhaps because he didn’t want her to stumble over the body, or maybe because he wanted her to serve him his meal,’ Baldwin said, staring down towards the mill.

  ‘And then Samson carved up the body?’ Vincent said.

  Baldwin shook his head. ‘If the miller had meant to do that, why tie a cord about his victim’s neck?’

  ‘To kill him.’

  ‘He struck, surely with anger, in the heat of the moment, but didn’t kill the fellow. No, someone else did that. Someone who was starving, who came along afterwards and found an unconscious man, and who hated that man enough to want to destroy him.’

  ‘I didn’t find him, sir!’ Vincent said quickly, anxiously.

  ‘No. If you had, you’d have used that,’ Baldwin said, pointing to his knife. ‘But a woman? Some women find the thought of stabbing too messy and unpleasant, while slipping a thong about a throat and stopping the breath – why, that is clean and tidy, isn’t it?’

  ‘A woman?’ Simon breathed.

  ‘Yes,’ Baldwin said flatly. ‘You were right yesterday when you suggested a woman could be responsible, Simon. One who was jealous of others, one who could easily win the confidence of her young victims. One who was hungry and found a source of meat, then learned that she liked the flavour.’

  He tossed the skull into the air and caught it so that the empty eyes faced him. ‘Ansel,’ he told it, ‘I think you have just explained your death to us. You shall be avenged.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Gunilda stood beside her fire, kneading dough. It was settling to her spirit, to be engaged on a task which she had performed nearly every day of her life. She knew she must prepare the bread before Samson came home. He would be cross if she hadn’t got his food ready. He would beat her.

  With a start she realised that the pottage wasn’t in the pot over the fire. It made her squeak with alarm, especially when she looked out at the sunlight. He must be home soon, and his food wasn’t waiting. Gunilda knew what he was like when she was late, and she dreaded the feel of his lash over her back. ‘Soon, soon,’ she muttered as she pushed her whole body’s weight against the dough.

  Felicia was watching her anxiously, picking at her faded green tunic. Gunilda was driving her up the wall; she was mad, quite mad. Her brain hadn’t been able to cope with the horror of the night before. When the men appeared at the open doorway, she was glad for the interruption. ‘Lordings, how can I serve you?’

  Baldwin entered and smiled at her, studying her with interest. ‘We are just come from discovering the body of the murdered Purveyor.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Would you mind answering some more questions? Only a few, Felicia.’

  ‘Yes, but get the dog outside. Dogs upset my mother, and she’s in a bad enough way as it is.’

  ‘Of course.’ Baldwin took Aylmer out, and the dog sat and waited, but even as Baldwin closed the door, he caught a glimpse of a large cat, all striped brown and orange fur, with arched back and hissing mouth. Aylmer stood and Baldwin saw him slowly stalk the cat.

  ‘Tell me, Felicia. When Ansel de Hocsenham died, you would have been about fourteen, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose. It’s hard to keep track.’

  ‘Of course. And you were hungry then, too, weren’t you?’
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  ‘Everyone was.’

  ‘Except your father. He had enough to eat.’

  Felicia pulled a face. ‘My father always made sure he was all right.’

  ‘He loved you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Most of the time, if you could call it that.’

  ‘Did he?’

  Felicia sighed. ‘He never said anything to me.’

  ‘He merely raped you,’ Baldwin said understandingly.

  ‘Baldwin, shouldn’t we be including Gunilda in this?’ Simon said quietly, indicating the woman at the fireside. He was vaguely uneasy about questioning this young woman about the incest in her family.

  ‘I think we shall hear little sense from your mother. What do you think?’ Baldwin asked Felicia.

  ‘You’re just worried I’ll be upset,’ she said. ‘I don’t care. You know he took me almost nightly. What of it? Mother was unhappy, though. He didn’t want her any more.’

  ‘And not just you. He raped other girls, didn’t he?’ Baldwin said.

  Felicia’s face froze. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Of course you do. He was a strong man, full of blood and lust.’

  Gunilda had stopped her restless kneading, and now she stared at them with a frown on her face. Baldwin tried to give her a reassuring smile, but his lips wouldn’t work. Instead he turned his attention back to Felicia. ‘Tell me,’ he said: ‘which window was your father using to grease the machine when he fell under the wheel?’

  Felicia jerked her head towards the machinery. ‘The one behind there.’

  Baldwin walked to the wall behind the turning shafts. There was an unglazed window there, a good-sized hole in the wall which was designed to light the great cogs. He stood on a wooden step beneath the window and looked up. Just within reach was the timber axle, but if he tried to touch it, he would be slightly overbalanced. An easy target for someone who wanted to push him out.

  ‘Your father couldn’t swim, could he?’ he asked mildly as he returned.

  ‘No. He had other things to do than waste his time on frivolous pursuits like that.’

  ‘Of course. Now – your mother. You say she was jealous of you?’