Or could it have been Drogo alone? The forester appeared to be as concerned as the reeve to conceal whatever had been going on in the vill. He had been surly and uncommunicative from the very beginning. And Vin too was an odd fellow.
Baldwin recalled thinking that there was a pattern, and then he realised that it was the girls’ ages. There was something about their ages which appealed to their killer. He was considering this when Simon spoke.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’
‘You are awake too? I had thought I was quiet enough to leave you sleeping,’ Baldwin said, shuffling along the bench.
Simon donned his shirt and sat with him, scratching at his groin. ‘Damned fleas get everywhere.’
Baldwin moved a little further away.
‘So what do you think?’ the bailiff yawned.
‘We must speak to Swetricus and see what he has to say,’ Baldwin said with decision.
He was determined to leave early and get to Swetricus before the peasant left to go out to the fields. The coroner asked them to go ahead without him. Roger’s ankle had swollen considerably overnight, and now he was unable even to pull his boot on. Baldwin and Simon drank a little water, and walked out, Aylmer trotting from one scent to another.
The clear sky promised good weather, with a thin veil of clouds which looked very far away and insignificant, and Baldwin felt almost ridiculous as he walked up to Swetricus’s door. To be talking in the broad daylight about ghosts and vampires felt ludicrous – and even to discuss a murderer seemed out of place. Nothing so appalling should exist in the glare of this perfect weather.
Another thing he noticed was that as they passed houses, there was chattering and even a couple of people laughing. The fear which had apparently lain over the whole vill had departed.
Swetricus opened the door and stood blinking at the two men.
‘We want to talk to you about these murders,’ Baldwin said, and Swetricus ungraciously stood aside for them to enter, Aylmer following.
About a low table were three children, all girls. As Baldwin walked in, all three rose and fled to their father, hiding behind him and peering around him at the two strangers. Baldwin smiled and tried to put them at their ease. He gave Simon a glance, and saw the quizzical expression on his face.
‘It is obvious that you are a good father,’ Simon said to Swetricus.
‘Try to be.’
‘I have a daughter myself,’ Simon said, looking at the eldest of Swetricus’s girls. ‘She is about your age, I would think. Her name is Edith. What are you called?’
‘She’s Lucy,’ Swetricus said, looking down. There was unmistakable pride on his face as he tousled her hair. ‘Pretty as her mother.’
‘She died?’
‘Not long after this: Katherine. Bleeding.’
‘I see. Sad,’ Simon said, automatically copying him and falling into a monosyllabic frame of speaking.
Baldwin was less empathetic. He propped his backside on the table and peered about him. The house was a typical peasant’s hovel. No rushes to cover the floor, so the bones and detritus stood out against the packed earth. There was a bed, which was a pile of fresh ferns with a rug thrown atop, three stools, and one tiny chest that looked as though Swetricus himself must have made it with ill-designed tools. Aylmer went to investigate the garbage about the table.
‘We are here to ask about the deaths.’
‘Denise, Mary, my Aline, and now Emma.’
‘And the curse.’
‘We all feared.’
‘Because of the dead purveyor?’
‘And Samson. He was a devil.’
‘Your daughter Aline – did he rape her?’
Swetricus looked away. ‘I never guessed. No one told me. She disappeared; thought fallen in mire. Now I think different.’
Baldwin looked at the girls. ‘Would they know?’
The three were undernourished and filthy, but from the way that Swetricus put his hands on them, it was obvious to Baldwin that the man loved his girls and that his love was reciprocated. His protective stance didn’t alter as he said, ‘No, they don’t know.’
‘What of you? Do you think that Samson killed all those girls?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And the purveyor? Would Samson have killed Ansel de Hocsenham?’
‘Maybe. Samson hated taxes.’
‘Did the miller suffer from hunger during the famine?’ Simon asked.
‘The miller, he had food. Not hungry like others, like his wife and daughter.’
‘They did not eat so well as him?’ Baldwin asked.
‘He said he needed to eat to work, to feed them. Took most for himself.’
Baldwin nodded, considering the man. ‘Swetricus, I am confused about much which has happened here in the vill. One thing that niggles at me is, why should your girl Aline have been buried? Denise and Mary were left where they had been killed. So was Emma. Why was Aline different?’
‘Don’t know. It hurt. Hurt lots. Not knowing… It was cruel to hide her like that.’
‘Do you have any idea who could have done such a thing?’
Swetricus looked at him, and a cold, bitter anger glittered in his eyes. ‘If I knowed, I’d kill him.’
‘One last question, Swetricus. Where was Emma supposed to be sleeping on the night she died?’
‘At the mill, I think. They let her stay in the barns.’
They left shortly afterwards. The reeve had sent men to recover the purveyor’s body, and the group could be seen wielding their spades up on the hill. Baldwin stood a while watching, trying to ignore Aylmer, who was crunching at a bone of some sort just behind them.
It was Simon who broke into his reverie. ‘Isn’t that the foresters up there? Shall we see if Vin is there?’
* * *
Vin didn’t notice them at first. It was only when Adam stopped and muttered a curse under his breath that Vin glanced around and saw them. ‘Shit! Are they here for you, boy?’
‘Shut up, old fool,’ Vin said boldly. If Adam called him ‘boy’ one more time… Somehow he knew that they were coming to question him again. Leaving his spade, he rubbed at his back and stretched. To Baldwin he looked as though he was tense, preparing himself for an interrogation.
The other foresters were watching and no doubt listening with interest, but Drogo seemed furious as he greeted the two men with: ‘What do you want now, eh? Not happy yet? You’ve seen off Samson, you’ve seen the ruin of Reeve Alexander and probably me, and now you’re determined to attack my foresters, is that it?’
‘It’s nothing for you to worry about. We just have some questions to ask this fellow,’ Simon said.
‘I have nothing to hide,’ Vin said.
‘Glad I am to hear it,’ Baldwin smiled. ‘Where can we talk in peace?’
‘I have nothing to hide. We can stay here,’ Vin repeated.
‘Perhaps,’ said Baldwin. ‘But I would speak with you in private.’
Drogo walked to Vin’s side, then led them away to a fallen tree farther down the hill, where all could sit. He took his seat next to Vin on a heavy bough, while Baldwin and Simon rested upon the trunk. Aylmer wandered away to sniff at a stone wall nearby. Soon he had disappeared in among the furze.
Baldwin eyed Drogo ruminatively. ‘You appear very keen to look after this fellow.’
Vin curled his lip. The man had no idea how harsh Drogo made his life.
‘Someone has to, now his father is dead,’ Drogo replied stiffly.
Baldwin said, ‘You were a friend of his father’s?’
‘He was a good man.’
‘You did not answer my question, Forester,’ Baldwin observed, studying him closely. ‘And I think I begin to comprehend some words of Serlo’s at last. I have been astonishingly foolish! Vincent: I am worried about your efforts in all this. You lived up on the moors when the purveyor was killed, and you were still there when Denise died?’
‘Yes. Until my father died, in the second year
of the famine.’
‘And then you were in your bailiwick when Mary and Aline died.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where were you when Emma died?’
‘At the tavern with Drogo and Adam.’
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 rotte
d, 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.’
The Sticklepath Strangler Page 33
