The Sticklepath Strangler

by Michael Jecks

  He had reached the end of the flat section, where the ground became boggy and marshy. After this he remembered the path curled upwards, following the track of a spring, climbing away from the river, and then heading as straight as a ruler for Belstone. Rather than take that route, he sat on a convenient boulder and selected a smooth, flat stone, sending it spinning on the water. The river here was very fast and narrow, and his stone bounced once, then clattered onto the rock wall on the opposite bank.

  So intent was he on his game that he didn’t notice the two at first. It was only when he glanced over his shoulder that he saw them.

  They were approaching from Belstone, two young girls of maybe ten years or so. One was chubby, with a freckled, cheerful face and reddish hair, while the other was taller and more slender, with a heart-shaped face and regular, pleasant features. For some reason her dress was damp and badly stained. Simon recognised the shorter one as the girl Vincent had tickled earlier on.

  They stopped when they saw him watching them, the chubbier one looking about with a quick anxiety, though the taller of the two appeared unconcerned. She studied Simon with a gravity he had not known in a young girl before. ‘You’re a stranger.’

  ‘Not in my home I’m not.’

  ‘Where is your home?’

  ‘Lydford, in the castle.’

  She looked surprised. ‘I thought that was where the people were sent to gaol. Are you a prisoner?’

  ‘No!’ he laughed. ‘I am the bailiff. Sometimes I have to put people into the gaol, but I never stay there myself. Who are you?’

  ‘I am Joan Garde, and this is my friend, Emma. We have been trying to see our friend Serlo.’

  ‘Is he a miner?’

  ‘No, he looks after the warrens.’

  ‘On the moors?’

  ‘Yes. He protects the warrens for Lord Hugh.’

  Simon nodded. The girl’s face was as solemn as her manner. Perhaps she considered that this was the fitting way in which to address a bailiff. All Simon knew was that it was novel to be treated with such respect. It was considerably more pleasing than the abuse he was used to receiving on the moors.

  ‘Where are you going now?’ he asked.

  ‘Home. He wasn’t at his hut. Maybe he was at the inquest.’ Emma peered at him with interest too, and Simon suddenly recalled Houndestail saying that two girls had found the body. ‘Were you the two that found the skull?’

  ‘Yes. It plopped out and rolled away,’ Joan said.

  ‘Ugh! It was horrible,’ Emma added, with a grimace of disgust. ‘It came right at me, and just sat there staring at me. Horrible.’

  ‘She was sick.’

  ‘I was not!’

  ‘She was, and she peed herself. I stayed up there with Master Houndestail.’

  ‘Have you seen him here often?’ Simon asked. He only had Miles’s word about his infrequent visits to the vill. The girls wanted to return, so he fell into step beside them.

  ‘I think I saw him once,’ Joan said doubtfully, ‘but I was very young then.’

  Emma interrupted. ‘I ran to get help, and soon everyone was up on the road.’

  ‘Were there many travellers here that day?’ Simon wondered.

  Joan answered. ‘Only Master Houndestail and Ivo Bel. I don’t like him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, he’s my uncle, but he’s never acted like one. My father has been very poor, but Master Bel wouldn’t help him.’

  ‘What of your parents?’ Simon said to Emma.

  She reddened. ‘My father is dead, and my mother was away.’

  Her tone was defensive, and Simon wondered whether her mother had a reputation – perhaps she was a whore. Rather than upset her further, he nodded to Joan. ‘It’s a shame when brothers fall out.’

  ‘They just had an argument, I think, and now they won’t talk.’

  ‘What did they argue about?’ Simon said, idly spinning another stone.

  ‘Serlo said it was about the vampire,’ Emma said.

  ‘Father says there never was a vampire,’ Joan sneered.

  Simon had been picking up another stone, but it fell through his fingers. ‘What do you mean, vampire?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Joan said scathingly. ‘Vampires aren’t real. I asked my mother.’

  ‘This Serlo – what did he tell you?’

  Emma looked at Joan, suddenly nervous in the face of Simon’s interest. ‘He just said that a girl had been killed, but not by a vampire.’

  Joan said, ‘Parson Gervase says that there never was one here.’

  ‘My mother was very upset when I asked about them,’ Emma said in a small voice. ‘My uncle wasn’t a vampire, she said.’

  They were nearing the main sticklepath, and Simon opened his mouth to ask more, when he heard a yell. It came from the right, down near the river, and he immediately pelted off in that direction. There was a shrill scream, then a woman’s voice shouting for help, then the loud roar of a man’s voice raised again in horror, and what sounded like pain.

  It was the mill. Splashing through muddy puddles, he sent jets of filthy water in every direction, and then he was on grass at the rear of the mill’s building, and he could see her. A woman standing near the leat, her hands clenched at her cheeks, but still she gave vent to her shock.

  Simon took it all in at a glance. In the water was a man’s body, and even as Simon ran to it, it was sucked under, the massive wooden paddles of the wheel clubbing it remorselessly with the sound of damp cloth being pounded clean in a tub, leaving only a feather of reddened water streaming away from the wheel, and then the foam at its base turned crimson.

  Chapter Eleven

  Reeve Alexander sat in his hall for a long time after Drogo had left. He heard the forester greet his men outside, their laughter, then the sound of their booted feet fading away in the distance. He was just about to shout for his maid and a fresh jug of wine, when he heard more steps in the screens.

  ‘Who the devil is it now?’ he wondered aloud, grimly staring at the gap which gave onto the passage. Then: ‘Ivo? What do you want?’ Bel walked in smiling and went straight to Alexander’s table, taking his seat at the end. ‘Hello, Reeve. I was surprised at the inquest today. Were you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The skeleton. Hadn’t it shrunk?’

  ‘If you want to talk in riddles, man, bugger off. I’m not in the mood for stupidity today.’

  ‘Very well. I shall speak to the coroner instead then, or the keeper. It’s nothing to me. I was just wondering how that girl could have been found in that grave today.’

  ‘You’re drunk!’

  The smile vanished from Bel’s face. ‘I’ll take no more shit from you, Reeve, and that’s your only warning. You’ve accused me of stupidity and drunkenness; now I’ll accuse you of murder.’

  Alexander sputtered angrily. ‘Murder! You primping sodomite! Get out of here! You have the nerve, the ballocks to come in here and accuse me, the reeve, of—’

  ‘Cool yourself, Reeve. I saw you – you and the good forester – both walking up the hill with a man’s body and a shovel. Yes, I watched you, both of you, digging a hole, throwing the man into the pit, covering him and returning to the vill. Do you remember that night?’

  Reeve Alexander kept his face neutral. ‘You were dreaming.’

  ‘That’s better. A measured response. Yes, I am happier with that. Now, I return to my first question: how did the man’s body become a girl’s? Interesting. Perhaps one of the men who buried the man also buried the girl – and that would mean that one of you was also the vampire, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps it was the man who watched the burial who was the murderer?’ Alexander said coldly.

  ‘Perhaps.’ Bel sat back easily and picked at a sliver of meat between his teeth. ‘But if all I wanted to do was see you hanged, I’d have gone to see the coroner, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘So what do you want with me?’ Alexander demanded. This shit could see
him dumped in gaol with what he knew.

  Bel leaned forward, his long face staring intently at the Reeve’s. ‘What I want is to see that the felon is caught,’ he said quietly. ‘And we know who the culprit is, don’t we? That nasty fellow, Thomas Garde.’

  ‘But he’s your brother!’ Alexander protested.

  Bel ignored him. ‘I want him accused, I want him imprisoned, and I want him dead.’

  ‘I can’t do that. I have no authority.’

  ‘You are the reeve.’ Bel stood, dropping a purse of coins on the table. ‘There you are. Plenty to cover the cost of someone who suddenly remembers seeing Thomas killing the girls.’

  Alexander groaned and cast a look at the wall in a gesture of theatrical disbelief. ‘Bel, even if I wanted to, Thomas wasn’t here when the first two died. He was still living in France.’

  ‘Where there’s a will…’ Ivo patted the purse. ‘I would hate the coroner to come to the conclusion that you had done it. Oh, and I’d be grateful if you could talk to William Taverner. I believe he has been thinking of telling me to leave his inn and I don’t want that. Right! Well, I’m glad the murders are resolved at last. It’ll be a weight off your mind, I know.’

  Chuckling to himself, he walked from the room, Alexander’s eyes following him to the screens. When the door shut behind him, the reeve picked up the purse and weighed it in his hands, shouting for wine.

  By the time Cecilia rushed in, her master was sitting shaking with silent mirth, and when he saw her pour his wine, he began to laugh out loud, tears falling from his eyes.

  Not only had he been given a felon, someone to be convicted, handed to him on a plate, he had even been given the money to pay for his conviction! It was only a shame that Thomas couldn’t actually have done the murders.

  But, as Alexander reflected, wiping the tears from his eyes, you couldn’t have everything.

  * * *

  Coroner Roger stood at the foot of the midstream and watched grimly as four peasants manhandled the body from the water. One day only had he been here – and now he had not only Aline’s death to sort out, but also those of Denise, Ansel the King’s Purveyor, and now another dead man to cater for as well.

  There was nothing suspicious about this last death. Simon had already learned that the victim was Samson atte Mill, the screaming woman his wife Gunilda, and the younger woman with her their daughter Felicia. Coroner Roger knew plenty of cases where a miller had fallen into his own gears or millpond. Death from the paddles of his own mill was a common end for a miller. It was good to know that Sir Baldwin was at his side, for the knight was an excellent questioner, and yet Sir Baldwin remained mute as he watched. It served to confirm the coroner’s opinion that the case was a simple matter.

  The parson was already at the side of the water, mumbling his words like a good priest, although it sounded as though he was slurring most of them. He was clearly drunk. It was a miracle he could stand without toppling. Roger looked meaningfully at Simon, who nodded resignedly, taking Gervase’s scrip and setting out ink and reeds and paper.

  As the body was dragged from the water, the witnesses peered with interest. There was a dry retching and a boy of some twelve years fell to his knees and spewed. It wasn’t a surprise. Not many lads his age would have seen a man so mutilated.

  The left side of the miller’s face was fine, but the right was a bloody mess. A long flap of skin had been peeled away from his scalp, like a skinned sheep’s head, and now dangled above his ear. Coroner Roger gave him a cursory once-over, but it was clear enough that the man was dead. There was no sign of movement at his breast, no breath, and his eyes were still and unfocused.

  ‘I am coroner to the King, and I declare that this inquest into the death of…’ he glanced enquiringly towards Simon, who called clearly: ‘Samson atte Mill.’

  ‘…Samson atte Mille, is opened. Are all the men of over twelve years here?’

  The reeve stepped forward reluctantly. ‘They are all here, but couldn’t this wait until you decide the matter of Aline, daughter of Swetricus? We have our work in the fields to get on with and—’

  ‘Bearing in mind I have yet to decide on the fine to impose on you for concealing the death of Denise, daughter of Peter atte Moor, I’m surprised at your suggestion that I should delay this inquest,’ Coroner Roger thundered, and was glad to see that the reeve bowed his head, abashed. Good, he thought. Just wait until I question you about Mary as well, you lying turd! ‘Now, who was the finder?’

  ‘Samson’s wife, Gunilda,’ Alexander said more quietly. He cast Roger a pleading look, as if to beg that the coroner would not be too harsh with the woman.

  Coroner Roger made no sign that he had seen Alexander’s expression, but he didn’t miss its significance. He had no wish to make the woman suffer. ‘Mistress Gunilda, would you come forward?’

  She could only walk supported by two other women, and as she was taken through her evidence, she turned regularly to them, weeping. The coroner was calm and almost gentle with her. At his side, scribbling odd notes on the parchment, Simon thought he was seeing a new side to Roger, a more kindly aspect. Simon knew him to be a good companion in a tavern, an astute questioner who was keen to ensure not only that justice was seen to be done, but also that any infractions of the law were spotted so that fines could be levied, but seeing him cautiously question the widow of a man while her husband’s corpse lay before her, Simon thought the coroner behaved with great sensitivity.

  Gunilda was not a prepossessing sight. Short and sturdy, her peasant stock was plain in the squareness of her face, the coarseness of her features, the large, masculine hands. Yet for all that, she showed little of a serf’s fortitude. Instead her frame was racked with sobs as the coroner prised from her the details of her man’s death. There was a bruise at the side of her face, an angry, painful-looking mark.

  One of the women upon whom she leaned was the one Bel had been watching at the inquest earlier. She appeared anxious for the feelings of Gunilda, giving the coroner a pleading look when she thought his questions too pointed or unsympathetic. It made Simon warm to her.

  Samson had been worried about a grumbling from the main axle of the wheel for some weeks, Gunilda said, but he hadn’t bothered to do anything about it because there wasn’t much work coming in yet, not until the grain was harvested. Now, with the harvest soon to begin, he had decided to get on with the maintenance.

  ‘He was working on the machine?’ Coroner Roger asked.

  With much wailing and many declarations that he ought not to have done so with the wheel still turning, but should have stopped the water at the sluice first, Gunilda agreed that he was. ‘I wouldn’t have thought he’d fall. I saw him lean over to reach the bearings with his hand full of grease. Then…’

  ‘How did he reach it?’ Roger asked, glancing at the wheel. It was massive, at least five feet in diameter, far too big for a man to reach over.

  ‘From that window,’ she said, pointing. There was a small hole in the wall with no shutter to close it, almost concealed behind the wheel itself. ‘He leaned out, and he was slapping the grease onto the axle when he slipped.’ There were more tears, but then she sniffed hard. ‘He tried to reach up with his hand to save himself, but it was filled with grease, and he couldn’t hold himself. He… he fell, and I saw the wheel come around and…’

  ‘That’s enough, mistress. I am sorry about your loss,’ the coroner said. ‘Has anyone anything else to add?’

  Simon cast an eye over the waiting people, but there was no movement. Nobody stepped forward to speak. Baldwin was silent, although Simon saw his attention was fixed on the woman with faint puzzlement.

  ‘Was no one else near when he fell?’ the coroner asked again. ‘No? In that case I shall declare that I am certain that there was no crime here. Misadventure. How much is the wheel worth?’

  The men before him shuffled their feet and looked at each other, and then Alexander, with a face like a man who had bitten into a crabappl
e thinking it was a pear, suggested, ‘Perhaps tuppence? It’s a very old wheel.’

  Simon kept his face blank, and when he glanced about him, he saw that Baldwin was studiously avoiding his eye, and Simon knew he too was close to laughter. The amount was derisory: utterly unrealistic.

  ‘Would you say so?’ the coroner asked jovially. ‘But surely not! Look at it, the wood in places is still quite green, isn’t it? Fresh timbers, I’d think. Do you really mean to tell me that this magnificent wheel is ancient?’

  ‘Perhaps it is not terribly old,’ the reeve amended. ‘But then it can only be worth a little more. It is not a very large wheel.’

  ‘Eight pennies, and think yourself lucky I don’t demand a shilling,’ Coroner Roger said, losing interest in the process of haggling. ‘Does the jury agree?’

  There was grumbling and several black looks, but the noise died when the reeve gloomily nodded his head.

  ‘Good. I am glad that at least this has been cleared up,’ Coroner Roger said. He shot a look at the drunken priest. ‘I would suggest that he be buried as soon as possible, in this heat.’

  * * *

  It was as the crowd parted, slouching off back to the fields and gardens, that Simon saw her again. Nicole Garde had left the grieving miller’s wife, and now held Joan by the hand. Baldwin and the coroner had already set off back to the vill’s inn, but Simon wandered over to speak to them.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said.

  Joan peered up at him expressionlessly.

  ‘Sir?’ Nicole said.

  ‘I am called Simon Puttock, my lady. I met your daughter near the river earlier.’

  Nicole gave her daughter a long, steady stare. ‘I thought I told you never to talk to strangers on the roadway, did I not? Ah, you never use the brains you were born with!’