The Sticklepath Strangler (2001)

by Jecks, Michael

  Looking about him, he could have laughed aloud to think of his pitiable trepidation by the cemetery. The noise must have been nothing more than the wind in the trees, or the creaking of an old branch dangling from a bough.

  He could scoff at his foolishness. Indeed it was almost tempting to tell Baldwin – but perhaps not. It was the sort of tale which his old friend would find amusing. Although Baldwin could be the soul of discretion and sympathy, he could also be unsubtle – and hearing further evidence of Simon’s superstitious nature would not make Baldwin shine in his best light.

  Men and women were leaving the chapel, he noticed. The vill’s folk were a dull, ungracious lot, in his opinion. Still, the place should cheer up before long, now Samson was dead.

  It was a point he had not considered yesterday, but it was important. Almost everyone they had spoken to expressed the opinion that the killer was almost certainly Samson. For one thing, no one else was so violent. Also, the miller was thought to be a rapist not only of other men’s daughters, but of his own. Samson had been a brutal man, but now he could terrorise the neighbourhood no more.

  With this pleasing reflection, Simon set off towards the river, and meandered along the bank. In this way, he came across Ivo Bel, who was sitting propped up against an oak tree. Simon was about to turn and make good his escape, when Bel looked up and noticed him.

  ‘Bailiff Puttock,’ he said. ‘You slept well?’

  Simon answered truthfully enough that once he had managed to find sleep, he had slept soundly.

  ‘Ah, I suffer from the same problem. So often in a new place, I find I cannot relax. The fear of thieves, the discomfort of a strange berth, the draughts, the noise of other men’s snoring . . . Travel is a hard life. It is better to be stable, to remain in one’s home.’

  ‘You are married?’

  ‘Yes, but my wife is a foul wench. I should never have wedded her. A man in my position shouldn’t give himself to the first woman he meets, but still, we can all make foolish mistakes when we are young, can we not?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Simon muttered. There was genuine dislike in Ivo’s voice as he spoke of his wife. The Coroner was just as rude about his Lady, but he was not being serious. Simon had the impression that he would be desolate if anything ever happened to his wife. That was not the case with Ivo.

  ‘My brother is fortunate with his wife,’ Ivo continued. ‘She is a lovely thing, little Nicole.’

  ‘Yes,’ Simon agreed politely.

  ‘He met her in France, you know. Over there he had been a soldier, but then he returned here when he had married.’

  ‘They married over there?’

  ‘She was saved by him,’ Ivo said. He cast a sidelong look at Simon. He was disappointed with the lethargic pace of Alexander’s action against his brother and this, he thought, was an excellent opportunity to lay the groundwork for Thomas’s destruction.

  ‘Nicole was the daughter of the local executioner, who was proved guilty of rape and murder. The drunken fool beat a woman and took her by force. If he’d killed her, he would have gone free, but she lived long enough to accuse him. The townspeople held a court and hanged him. They left his body where he had committed his crime to show felons they weren’t tolerated, but then some hotheads turned on his family. They beat his widow and sought Nicole, but she was saved by my brother. He took her to the church and sealed their marriage in front of the priest, and then held her under his personal protection. He had to beat off a couple of local boys, and thereafter the villagers left them alone.’

  ‘Why should they attack her anyway? She was hardly to blame for her father’s position.’

  ‘You know how foolish some people can be, especially the superstitious, Bailiff. They thought she was a witch, that she routinely communed with spirits and demons. After all, to a dimwitted villager, anyone associated with an executioner must be morbid.’

  ‘Your brother was lucky. He could have been attacked by a whole village.’

  This, Ivo thought, was the opening. ‘You haven’t seen Tom when the red mist comes down, Bailiff. When he is in a mood to fight, nothing can stop him but his own or his opponent’s death. The villagers would have seen that soon enough.’

  ‘He doesn’t give that appearance.’

  ‘You have not seen him enraged, my friend. When he is thwarted, he is like a mad bull.’

  Simon wasn’t interested. ‘Your brother brought his wife and child here and the villagers accepted her because she was married to a man from the area?’

  ‘My brother is not of this area. We are both foreigners, Bailiff. We come from the north, up near Exmoor. No, I moved because my position was offered to me and it suited me; Thomas, my brother, came here because he heard of Sticklepath from me. Before the famine, that would have been.’

  ‘And he felt this vill would suit him?’

  ‘Yes. There is good soil here, and he would be away from trouble. Of course there was always Samson, who had a similar temper to Thomas, but I thought that my brother could avoid him.’ Ivo leaned back against the tree. ‘You can see why they wanted to stay. This place can grow on you, and he had good land, good trade, and a good woman to warm his bed for him. He lacks for nothing so long as he keeps his temper under control.’

  Simon chatted a little longer, to appear polite, but soon he made his excuses, and went back towards the inn.

  Ivo watched him go, his smile disappearing. He was only hanging around here because Nicky was here, and he wanted her, but it was impossible even to speak to her while Thomas was in the way, the bastard!

  Ivo had always hated him. The fit, healthy one, the one who could enjoy himself, who could do as he wanted, who bedded any woman he fancied. Thomas had an easy time of it, while Ivo, the eldest, must learn his letters and marry the woman his father chose. It was necessary, his father had said. It tied their failing, bankrupt manor to a larger one a mile away. That place had no sons, only one daughter, and her dowry was the manor itself.

  But she was a cow, ugly and slow-witted. Thomas had a loving, loyal wife, while Ivo was stuck with her. Oh fine, Ivo also had his estates, two of them, but both had been devastated by famine and murrains. He depended upon his income as Manciple to keep both solvent. His entire life had been spent maintaining the family’s interests, while Thomas flitted from England to France, playing soldier boys and bringing a fancy French wife back with him. It was unfair!

  Ivo wanted Nicole, and his conversation with Simon had given him an idea. It would take a certain effort to make Thomas angry enough for it to succeed, but Ivo had managed when they were children and with some luck he could do it again. And that might just seal his younger brother’s fate.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alexander took a deep breath and gazed about him. The morning’s mist was burning off as the labourers toiled in the fields.

  They were as easily guided as oxen, he sometimes thought. He had risen through the ranks of peasantry himself, and was still owned by Lord Hugh de Courtenay, but there the similarity with his neighbours ended. Alexander had his own house, which possessed six rooms as well as the hall. That meant wealth in any man’s terms, and then when you learned that he owned two horses and a full team of oxen as well, not forgetting his flocks . . . well! You realised you had to tread carefully in his presence. People respected him. They had to.

  Except a Coroner and Keeper wouldn’t. They were so much higher up the social scale that they need pay no attention to the likes of Alexander. Damn them both! It was at times like this that he missed the moderating influence of his wife. He still missed her dreadfully, and his boys. It was God’s will, he knew, but it was a cruel fate that took them all when others lost nothing.

  Not that all the dead were mourned. Samson wouldn’t be. A rough, untutored thing, the miller. The tavern would be a safer place without him. Still, it was terrible to die like that, to be smashed underwater by the blades of his own wheel and drowned.

  Alexander wondered whether the rumours of his ass
aults on young girls were true. Most people believed that he was guilty of incest with his own daughter, maybe even of raping young Aline, but at least no one had spoken to Swetricus of their suspicions. That was one feature of a vill which was vital, Alexander considered. Everyone knew everyone else’s secrets, but they never discussed them. A man could be cuckolded by a neighbour, and no one would tell him, even though the whole vill knew of it. To tell him could do no good, just as it would have done no good to tell Swetricus that Samson could have violated his daughter. There was no evidence, only conjecture.

  Still, even if Samson were the killer, he had paid for it in the manner of his own death, Alexander thought. The idea of water filling his lungs, of choking and retching, then the slamming shock of the paddles pounding into his head made the Reeve wince.

  He set off along the back lane again, his eyes flitting hither and thither as he monitored the efforts of the men, women and children in the fields. Some would drop their tools and doze in the sun, or mount their women, or go to the pots of cider cooling in the river, if they didn’t know he was there, keeping an eye on them.

  He avoided the top of the lane. That was where she lived, Mad Meg, ‘widow’ of the Purveyor, and he had no desire to be accosted by her again. It was bad enough knowing the mad bitch was up there, without inviting her abuse.

  These last days had been terrible. First that blasted girl’s body turning up, then the admission that there had been others, and the questions about the Purveyor . . . at least that avenue appeared to have been forgotten. Neither the Coroner nor the Keeper had asked about Ansel since Samson’s burial.

  Alexander leaned on a gate, with an entirely unaccustomed wave of depression washing over him. Had he made a mistake? Perhaps he had. Maybe he should have sided with the Parson and sent for help when they suspected Athelhard might have been a vampire or cannibal. But at the time it seemed so obvious. Who else could have been the murderer? And then, when two more girls disappeared, Mary and Aline, they knew they had made a grievous mistake. Athelhard had been innocent.

  ‘Who is it?’ he demanded again. He clenched a fist in quick, futile anger, and slammed it down on the gate. But as always the answer evaded him, and he must return to his hall to catch up with his own work.

  The path took him around the back of some little cottages, then through the yard of Thomas Garde, and so out to the road. Thomas regularly complained when people took this short-cut, but he was a foreigner; not someone whose opinions mattered.

  Chickens strutted, self-important and stupid, their twitching heads turning this way and that as they attempted to spy out worms and grubs among the thick straw piled all over. Flies swarmed about the manure heap, and the pig was snuffling happily in a wooden trough near the door to the house. It was a scene of pastoral comfort, soothing to a man like Alexander, who enjoyed being reminded of his own roots in a house and yard much like this one. He stood still and gazed about him, a smile on his lips.

  There were more flies at the stable, he noted. A thick swarm hung about one particular pile of straw – and then he saw the red pool leaking from beneath it which made his smile disappear and his face become fixed with horror. He ran to the stooks and pulled at them, tugging them away from the small, curled and bloody shape they concealed.

  Emma’s body.

  ‘Who found her here?’ the Coroner rasped as he took in the scene. He had arrived a few minutes after Simon and Baldwin, all three running as the Hue and Cry went up.

  ‘It was me, sir.’

  The Reeve was leaning on his staff like an old man now, his eyes sunken and bruised, his face drawn and anxious. For once, Coroner Roger thought, this was not a man who was scared of the fine he would soon have levied against him; this was a man who could see the ruination of his entire vill because of a crazed murderer.

  ‘I was walking through here on my way home. I only came this way by chance.’

  The Parson was at his side, swaying heavily, his face blotched and sweaty, swallowing and clearing his throat like a man who was about to be sick. Simon took one look at him and, removing Gervase’s paper and reed from him, went and sat down near the Coroner. Parson Gervase shivered convulsively, and then, to Simon’s relief, he staggered away from the hideous sight.

  Simon himself felt shaken; exhaustion and nausea washed over him at this fresh corpse. With the death of Samson, they had all hoped that the murders were at an end, and now this poor child had also been slaughtered.

  Vin and Serlo had hinted that Samson was probably the guilty man. So had Adam and even William the Taverner. Samson’s death had seemed a suitable marker to show that the deaths were over, that the girls from the vill could live in peace and security. In his mind’s eye he could see Emma chattering and laughing with Joan near the river, and was overwhelmed with a renewed grief.

  The Coroner had no time to let his feelings get in the way. He was professional and businesslike as he cast an eye over the silent crowd. ‘Where is her father?’

  ‘Gone many years ago. He was the Purveyor: Ansel de Hocsenham. Her mother is mad. “Mad Meg” we call her. Emma often slept in the hay barns during the summer when the weather was mild, and stayed inside with friends during the winter.’

  The Coroner grunted. He lifted his head and indicated two men standing nearby. ‘You two! Come here and roll her over for the jury to see.’

  Peter and Vin approached. They each grabbed a leg and an arm and lifted her from the stable floor. Vincent looked as though he was ready to throw up, but Peter had a certain eagerness about him. Almost a ghoulish excitement.

  The jury was agog as the naked figure was hauled over and over before them. When her entire body had been displayed, Roger began measuring the wounds, calling out to Simon, who tried to concentrate on the paper and ignore the girl’s body.

  ‘A leather thong about her neck. The same form of ligature as that used on Aline. No stabs, but plenty of bruises, which means that the child was beaten before she died.’

  Simon swallowed and concentrated on making his notes legible. Little Emma’s death was rendered all the more horrific by his knowing her, if only vaguely.

  ‘Whoever did it hacked at her thigh like a haunch of meat. Does any man here know who could have done this?’ Coroner Roger called, and there was a short silence. ‘Well?’

  ‘It was him. Thomas must’ve done it. Why else would she be here?’

  Simon peered in the direction of the voice but could not see who spoke. He let his gaze wander over the surrounding villagers. Ivo was standing near the back of the crowd, a sneer on his face as though he was delighted at this turn of events.

  Nearer was the tall, dark-haired man who lived here, Ivo Bel’s brother, Thomas Garde. Garde’s frame was rocked by this accusation, and he licked his lips and swallowed like a man whose throat was blocked by a dry crust. It seemed as though he was incapable of speech, that shock had left him dumb.

  About him men were staring at him with dawning horror. More than one had gripped his knife’s hilt, and was watching Garde darkly.

  ‘Speak, Garde!’ the Coroner commanded.

  ‘Sir, I had nothing to do with this child’s death.’

  Simon looked up to see Baldwin watching Nicole. She stood with her fist at her mouth while the questioning carried on, the Coroner’s voice slow, grave and relentless, Garde’s growing more highly pitched and with a slight tremor of passion as he rejected the accusation.

  ‘Garde, the girl was found in your own yard,’ Coroner Roger thundered at last. ‘Who else could have put her there?’

  Simon and Baldwin exchanged a glance and Baldwin nodded to himself as Garde weakly shook his head. It was, Baldwin thought, one indication that Thomas might be telling the truth.

  Baldwin felt a sudden rush pass through his body like a charge of strong wine. It felt as though his mind was being used again for the first time in weeks. Until now he had been directed witlessly by the melancholy atmosphere of the vill because the deaths were all so ancient and th
e likelihood of identifying the murderer so remote; however, now he had a recent murder to consider, he began to see the first indications of a pattern.

  Of one thing he was convinced: no man would leave such proof of guilt in his own yard. Unless his wife and children were party to the murder, he would keep the body far away, and he would conceal it better than merely stuffing it under some sheaves. No, Baldwin was almost certain that someone else had planted it there. Presumably the true killer.

  People suspected Garde because they wanted to. It was there in their eyes: the hatred of villagers for a stranger. For all that Garde had lived here for several years, he was still a foreigner. He hadn’t been born here.

  Baldwin noticed Roger cast him a quick look, and correctly interpreted it as an invitation. He muttered a command to Aylmer to stay where he was and walked to the Coroner’s side, contemplating the accused man, at last seeking out Swetricus in the crowd. ‘Your daughter went missing when?’

  ‘Four years ago.’

  ‘When did you arrive here, Garde?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘I . . . think it was five years ago.’

  His stammering did not affect his upright posture. He was a proud man, this Garde. Just like his brother, Baldwin thought to himself.

  Simon was also thinking of Garde’s brother, seeking out his face among the crowd. Bel had told him only that morning that Thomas Garde had arrived before the famine – and the only reason he could have had for lying was in order to put the blame for the murders of Denise and Mary onto Thomas. Simon felt his anger begin to simmer even as he grew convinced of Garde’s innocence.

  Baldwin continued, ‘Do you recall the disappearance of Aline, Swetricus’s daughter?’

  ‘I do.’

  Stiff now, wondering whether he was condemning himself, Baldwin noted, but not lying. It would be foolish were he to do so, of course, since the rest of the vill would know the truth.