Unholy Innocence

by Stephen Wheeler

  I went over to cast my professional eye over his injuries. They seemed less than I would have expected given the ferocity of the battering he had received, mostly bruising about the head and on the shins from the woman’s kicks. Jocelin was trying to comfort the woman but she simply ignored him, her dry-eyed gaze focussed entirely on her child’s body. I suggested to the Moys that we all went inside the house, leaving her to grieve alone. Rachel Moy pursed her lips and glared at me as though I had been responsible for the woman’s performance.

  ‘I will speak to her,’ I assured Moy when we were back inside. ‘Tell her there is no evidence to suggest you are her son’s murderer.’

  ‘No evidence,’ he smirked.

  I frowned at him impatiently. ‘You must realise that until we know more you remain a suspect – the prime suspect.’

  ‘The only suspect,’ he corrected me. ‘I am a Jew. The boy was a Christian. I am not blind to the implications of what that means in the minds of other Christians especially in this town.’ He looked into his wife’s face. ‘We were here when they found the body of Saint Robert. That time there was no one suspect and all the Jews were blamed. Fifty-seven friends and family died. By God’s good grace - and good luck - we were among those who survived. But this time they have their suspect and I know what people will think. And it isn’t true.’

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Let us, then, take the correct procedure. Sir, you must indeed be a wealthy man because I noticed you have a copy of the Old Testament on your lectern in the hall.’

  ‘The true Bible, you mean,’ he said with a defiant smile.

  I could feel Jocelin bristle next to me. I nodded curtly letting the slight pass. ‘Whatever we choose to call it, it is sacred to both our faiths. Will you therefore, Isaac ben Moy, before us and before the God of all mankind, swear you did not kill this boy?’

  Ben Moy rose instantly, strode unhesitatingly over to the lectern and, shutting his eyes, he mumbled something that I took to be a Hebrew prayer of some kind. He then set his jaw, bared his right arm to the elbow, placed the palm of his hand flat upon the ornately-carved cover of the holy book and looked me steadily in the eye. His voice too, when it came, was steady and firm.

  ‘I swear before the God of Abraham and Moses and all the Patriarchs that I did not take the life of this boy.’ He nodded sternly at me then removed his hand from the leather-bound book. But I pushed it back down onto the leather binding and held it there firmly with my own hand.

  ‘And further swear that you did not know him.’

  For the briefest moment I thought I felt his hand beneath mine falter, but then he said as steadily as before, ‘I so swear.’

  I waited a tortuous few moments longer looking deep into his eyes and keeping his hand pressed hard down on the book that we both believed contained the very words uttered by God Almighty Himself. Behind him I could see Jocelin frowning with an intensity I had never seen before. At last I nodded. ‘Very well,’ and released his hand. He took it back and looked at it as though it were an alien object.

  ‘Well,’ I sighed once he had sat down again. ‘This unfortunate incident has revealed one thing in your favour. We now know how the body could have got onto your garden. Until that woman appeared I could see no way it could have got there except through the house. However, she managed it and so could the murderer. When she has recovered herself sufficiently I will go down and ask her to show me how she did it.’

  ‘She’s already gone,’ said Rachel coming in with some wine on a tray. ‘Left the same way she came in, over the garden wall.’

  ‘ ’Tis no matter,’ I said trying to cover my embarrassment. ‘I-I will interview her later. We know where she lives. In any case, I don’t want to distress her any more than I must. At least those damn Knieler women have also gone, Dei Gratia,’ I said looking through the window at the front of the house. ‘But I must arrange for the boy’s body to be removed as soon as possible. He has already been in the open for far too long. In this heat he must be in the ground soon.’

  ‘Before that it must be decided on the form of mass to be said over the body, s-surely,’ warned Jocelin coolly.

  ‘By “form of mass” I take it you mean his beatification,’ said Moy wryly.

  I shifted uncomfortably. ‘Sir, I cannot answer for how the Church will regard this child. I will do my best to provide the evidence as objectively as I can. But evidence alone does not always counter prejudice.’

  I was thinking of the other child murders and how, even though no individual culprit had ever been found, suspicion remained with the Jews with terrible consequences for them. I placed my hand on Isaac ben Moy’s shoulder and was surprised to find him trembling. In all this I had forgotten the emotional impact it must be having on the man.

  ‘We need to find the identity of the killer,’ I said to him gently. ‘Only then will your name be finally cleared.’

  ‘Thank you, brother. But I know there is little chance of that.’ He looked at Jocelin then said to me solemnly, ‘Brother Walter, would you come with me please?’

  My heart began to pound in my chest. Had he finally realised the hopelessness of his position and was ready to make his true confession? I could see Jocelin was expecting to come too but I held up my hand to stay him and followed Moy alone into the hallway.

  He led me to an adjacent room that I took to be his office, the walls lined with shelves and filled with documents and accounts records. Closing the door firmly after us he went over to one of the shelves in the middle of which was a beautifully-carved and ornate casket. He held it reverentially and opened it. I gasped at the contents for it looked like a King’s ransom in treasure – gold and silver ingots, bracelets, brooches, rings, jewellery of every kind together with a great quantity of silver coin. Lying on top was a single document sealed with wax.

  ‘This is my final testament,’ he said taking out the document and turning it over in his hands for me to see. Then he replaced the document on top of the treasure, closed and locked the casket and then held it out for me to take.

  I stepped back holding up both hands before me not wishing to even touch the thing. ‘Oh no, sir, that would not be right. You do not know me. I am a stranger to you. I am also charged with investigating the murder. Surely you can find someone else.’

  ‘There is no-one else,’ he countered urgently. ‘You heard my wife. She is right. All our friends left long ago. I cannot leave the house and there is no-one I can entrust it to. No, you must do it for me. Please. I have thought about this, believe me. If I should not survive the coming tribulation, open the document and act upon what is written there. If, however, I should survive,’ here he smiled, ‘well, you can give it back to me together with the casket.’

  ‘But surely your wife is better suited for such a task,’ I implored him.

  He shook his head. ‘Brother, I am a Jew. If I die all that is mine reverts to the King, not to my wife. Rachel will be destitute. My children, too. At least this way, even if you keep the bulk of the money for yourself, some of it will go to my family. I saw you downstairs and judge you to be an honourable man. I believe – I have no choice but to believe – that you will be honourable in this thing too.’

  I drew myself erect. ‘Sir, you insult the dignity of the King and me by your words,’ but I could see he was at his wits’ end. ‘Master Moy, whatever you may have heard to the contrary I do believe King John to be an honourable man who will not take unfair advantage of your situation - assuming matters come to that - which they very well may not.’ I beseeched him: ‘Look, I held your hand upon the Holy Book just now and I do not think you would have imperilled your soul by taking such an oath did you not believe it to be true. In which case you have nothing to fear from this investigation, certainly not my part in it. And so, you see, there is no need for any of this.’

  He put the locked casket down and thought for a moment. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘nine years ago in the city of York on Shabbat ha-Gadol – that’s the Sabbath
eve before Passover - a group of men, indebted to the Jews, and made up of priests, Christian noblemen and Crusaders waiting to follow King Richard to the Holy Land set Jewish houses on fire and stole all their valuables. It was a moment of high emotion and excitement over the impending crusade – murderous emotion.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Anyway, the York Jews fled with their rabbi to the castle for safety. For six days they held out but it was clear they could not escape the wrath of the mob. They were offered the choice of baptism or death. Most chose death the men stabbing their wives first then their children. Finally the rabbi stabbed the men before killing himself. The few who remained alive opened the gate and requested baptism in return for their lives. They were massacred anyway. Over a hundred and fifty Jews died that day and the bonds of debts which were kept for safekeeping in York Minster were burned on the floor of the church.’ He once again pushed the key and casket into my hands and stared me in the eye. ‘Take it.’

  I could see there was no arguing with the man in his present emotional state. I did not want this added responsibility but there seemed no alternative. Reluctantly I accepted the casket.

  ‘Very well,’ I said pocketing the key. ‘But I think it a mistake. I will keep the casket safe for you or your wife to retrieve whenever you feel the time is right. In the meantime I still have my duty to the Abbot to perform. So now, sir, I must ask to see around the rest of the house. Starting with the cellar.’

  *

  The land in this part of the town sloped down towards the abbey and the river below it, and so to keep the houses level the road was terraced on one side, beneath which were substantial cellars. An innocent-looking door in the hall led down to this cellar, at the shallow end of which was a false cupboard which hid a chute leading to the surface where an outside hatch opened to a side street.

  ‘What was this house originally?’ I asked, intrigued.

  ‘I think it was built on what was the old cattle market before it was moved,’ said Moy. ‘My father enlarged it.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘We Jews like to stay close to the abbey for somewhere to run for shelter in times of trouble.’

  With the outer hatch closed no light could enter the cellar. But as soon as it was opened daylight flooded in to reveal the subterranean entrails of what must once have been an artisan’s dwelling.

  ‘Fascinating,’ I said peering up the chute to the world above. I was enjoying myself. ‘I love discovering the history of these old houses, don’t you? I imagine this must have been a delivery hatch of some kind, but for what? Something big and heavy to be sure.’

  ‘Carcasses?’ suggested Moy.

  ‘Of course! It’s an abattoir!’ I exclaimed looking around at the layout – but then I caught myself remembering the garden and its dead occupant. ‘It’s an abattoir again today, I fear.’

  Jocelin, who had been scrambling around clumsily behind, let out a yelp as he clumped his head on something sticking out of the ceiling.

  ‘ “And behold, a ladder was set up on the earth and its top reached all the way to Heaven”,’ I grinned at him. ‘That’s what you get for being so tall.’

  He was rubbing his head painfully with his right hand but the blank expression on his face told me something else. I followed the line of his other hand and saw that it was holding on to a set of chains that were fastened to the wall. Chains are perfectly reasonable tools to be found in an abattoir where animal carcases have to be secured ready for butchering. But if this building ceased a generation ago to be a slaughterhouse, why were they still here? They could restrain a child of twelve with little difficulty. I seemed to remember something similar had occurred in the case of the boy William in Norwich. Moy saw where my gaze was fixed and lowered his eyes when I looked at him. I realised then that I had already more or less dismissed him as the murderer in my own mind, but that had been a mistake. I had been impressed with his apparent sincerity upstairs, but it could all have been an act. Was I so gullible? Was the fact that I liked the man colouring my judgment? I could only hope that it did not.

  Chapter 9

  AN AUTOPSY

  I am sitting alone in my cell staring at Moy’s casket which I’d managed to smuggle unseen from his house amid the confusion of getting the body out. I’d got Moy to wrap the casket in sacking in order to conceal its identity from Jocelin to whom I’d then given the task of organising the removal of the body so that he’d be too preoccupied to notice. I didn’t want anyone knowing about the casket just yet, least of all Abbot Samson who might well think my possession of it compromised my position as investigator. Besides, if I was right and Isaac Moy reconsidered his impetuosity in trusting me with its safe-keeping I wouldn’t have charge of it for long enough for it to matter. That’s where Jocelin is now, with Samson, reporting on the day’s events. He’d scuttled over there just as soon as he’d finished here. This unbridled sycophancy towards our faultless Father Abbot is the one thing about Jocelin that still irritates me, but at least his absence gives me time to reflect on what had happened and to decide what I need to do next in order to solve this riddle.

  The murdered boy’s body lies next door in my workshop on a trestle bench having been brought there on a trundle and wrapped in sheeting to protect it from prying eyes. Even so, a small gathering of neighbours had stood in unnerving silence and watched as the soldiers, under Jocelin’s fussy direction, man-handled the body onto the cart and pushed it down the hill, followed by those damn Knieler women processing behind us like a funeral cortège. At least if they were following us they were leaving the Moys alone. I had managed to persuade the captain to station another two of his men outside the house. There hadn’t been any more trouble but the report of what had happened had spread with the wind and there is nothing more calculated to inflame emotion than the sight of a bereaved mother grieving over the body of her dead child. Not that there had been any sign of the mother since her invasion of the Moys’ garden, which was a little odd considering her earlier devotion. I decided, however, to leave her for the moment. She must be given time to come to terms with her loss and to seek comfort from her priest and family. I knew where she lived and planned in any case to interview her once I’d completed my examination of the boy’s body. That was going to be a messy business and not something a mother should have to witness.

  In light of this and conscious of the need to preserve evidence I had directed my assistant, Gilbert, to watch over the corpse while two abbey servants washed it clean of the filth in which it had lain for nearly two days. I had been reading again the account of the death of Saint William of Norwich in 1144 which had been almost farcical in its incompetence. Between the killing on Maundy Thursday of that year and the eventual burial in the monks’ cemetery thirty-two days later the body had been buried, dug up and re-buried no less than three times. Any evidence that might have told of how he met his fate, let alone the identity of the killers, had been well and truly destroyed by then. I was determined nothing so negligent was going to happen in this case. I told Gilbert that once the body had been washed he was to fetch me and I would begin immediately the unpleasant task of dissection. Never having witnessed an autopsy before, Gilbert was keen to watch. I never will understand the fascination youth has with gore.

  In the meantime I still had the casket. In truth it fascinated me. It was a beautiful thing in itself quite unlike any I had seen before, exquisitely tooled and with that strange square Hebrew lettering of the Jews on the sides. I’m sure Joseph would have known instantly its place of manufacture and been able to read the inscription, too. What did it contain, I wondered? A lot of gold, for sure, but also that intriguing sealed document. If anything, Moy seemed to regard the document as being of more value than the gold which means it must be very valuable indeed. What could possibly be written on it that was that precious? I was sorely tempted to take another look. I’d toyed with the key in my fingers for a good ten minutes before finally summoning the courage to open it which I did with a quick flick of the wrist.

  It
was exactly as I had seen it in Moy’s house, a fortune in gold and silver which made a pleasing silvery tinkle as I ran my hand through it. And lying on top the single document which after a moment’s hesitation I snatched from its place and slammed the casket shut again.

  I turned the document over in my hands. A testament Isaac had called it. It was like no testament I had ever seen. The parchment was of good quality and the wax deeply embossed with the Moy seal. The paper was so thick that try as I might I could not read around or through it even when held up to the light. The little I could make out of the writing inside reminded me more of columns of account rather than a written will. Maybe, I thought, it was a list of all Isaac’s beneficiaries set alongside the amounts they were to receive upon his death. But there was no way I could know, short of breaking the seal, which I was reluctant to do. It was very frustrating.

  The sound of shuffling outside my door told me someone was coming. No time to return the testament to the casket I quickly secreted it inside the cover of Jocelin’s treatise on the miracles of Saint Robert. The casket, too, I had to hide but it was too big to fit on the shelf. I frantically hunted around for somewhere to conceal it and in desperation hid it beneath a pile of my soiled laundry just as Gilbert’s head appeared round the door.

  ‘Master, you said to call you when the body was washed.’

  ‘And?’ I said trying to conceal my breathlessness.

  The boy shrugged. ‘It is washed.’

  ‘Good,’ I said swinging my legs over the edge of my cot and guiding him out the room. ‘Now go and fetch Brother Jocelin and tell him we are ready.’