‘He must have been a truly wicked person!’
‘Yes. His daughter, too.’ Baldwin sighed. ‘I blame myself, you know, Jeanne. If I had searched the grave more carefully, if I had noticed what Simon did, I might have made the right connection, found Ansel’s body – perhaps saved Emma’s life.’
‘Do you regret the death of Felicia?’
‘Her? My Heaven, no! She was deep into madness and had to be killed. I only regret that her death was brought about by a young girl… but then again, maybe not. Joan wanted her own revenge for the crime committed against her friend, and the fact that she could execute the killer may have given her some peace of mind, rather than merely hearing Felicia was dead, or even witnessing the hanging. How can I tell?’
Jeanne sat at his side and put her arm about his shoulder. After a moment he put his own about her waist, and they sat staring at the view, listening to the laughter of his peasants in the fields.
‘There is something else, isn’t there?’ she asked after a short while.
‘You know me too well, Wife. Yes. I have received a message from Simon.’
‘Oh?’
‘In it he says he agrees with you that the moors are too dangerous to treat without care. He says that superstition is a useful precaution.’
Jeanne smiled. ‘I am glad you have a nagging friend as well as a wife.’
Richalda gave a great cry from the solar and Jeanne hurried indoors to see to her daughter. When she was gone, Baldwin took out the sheet of paper once more.
According to Coroner Roger, the curse appears to have been laid at last, he read. Drogo and Alexander have escaped the court. They were both riding on the moors last month, illegally, after a fox which had attacked some piglets, when a mist came down and they fell into a bog. Serlo was at his warren and heard their screams. He tried to get to them, but the mist was too thick. He shouted, and they responded, but he could not reach them and had to listen while they drowned. He was very upset – but perhaps this means that Athelhard s curse has now been fulfilled. Certainly the people of the vill hope so.
‘Superstition!’ Baldwin muttered, gazing at the dark, grim line on the horizon that showed where Dartmoor began. The only evil in Sticklepath came from one family. A father who was perverted, with his lusts for young flesh, a wife who was simple, and a daughter who was insane.
He read on: Gunilda has adopted Meg, and both appear content in each other’s company. Not that many of the vill were happy to learn that Meg had moved into the mill. Some still look upon her with dread, but she and Gunilda seem to have found comfort and Serlo looks in on them regularly, chopping their wood and helping tend to their animals.
The letter ran on, but Baldwin put it away, musing on the violence and cruelty that lay at the heart of the murders: the brutality of Samson not only to Felicia’s victims, but to his daughter as well.
Hearing another cry from the house, he murmured, ‘Keep happy, Richalda. I shall never do anything to cause you such grief. That I swear.’
And then Sir Baldwin Furnshill stood and stretched. The accursed braises along his flank were healed now, and as he inhaled a deep breath of the shimmering summer air, he decided to take his horse out.
The evil was gone. Life was for the living.
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 waterwheels 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 contours 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 r
oad, 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
Next in the The Last Templar Mysteries:
The Devil’s Acolyte
The thirteenth instalment in the gripping Last Templar Mysteries series, perfect for fans of C J Sansom and Susanna Gregory.
Find out more
First published in the United Kingdom in 2001 by Headline Book Publishing
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
31 Helen Road
Oxford OX2 0DF
United Kingdom
Copyright © Michael Jecks, 2001
The moral right of Michael Jecks to be identified as the creator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781800321243
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Look for more great books at www.canelo.co
The Sticklepath Strangler Page 36
