Bartholomew 10 - The Hand of Justice

by Susanna GREGORY

  ‘The Mortimer clan are rough men, especially now Edward is back,’ said Bernarde uneasily. ‘You know we have written to the King, to complain about them diverting our water? Perhaps they have decided to use force to take what they want, instead of relying on the King to make a decision. Perhaps they killed Deschalers.’

  ‘The Mortimers seem to have done rather well out of the King so far,’ remarked Bartholomew. ‘He sold Edward a pardon.’

  ‘Not the King,’ said Bernarde sharply. ‘His clerks. They are the corrupt ones, not His Majesty. We rent this mill from the King, and I do not want treasonous comments muttered in it, thank you very much. I do not want him to take it away from me – or to find against us in favour of the Mortimers in this dispute about water.’

  ‘Never mind that now,’ said Michael. He heaved himself up from his sacks and walked unsteadily to Bottisham’s body, where he knelt and began to fumble for the holy oil he kept in his scrip. Bartholomew and Bernarde were silent as he said his prayers, accompanied only by the whisper of water under the wheel and the distant hoot of an owl. When the monk had finished with Bottisham, he went to do the same for Deschalers.

  ‘I am sorry, Brother,’ said Bernarde softly when the monk eventually completed his sorry task. ‘I did not know Bottisham well, but he was a kind man. He visited Isnard the bargeman several times after his accident, and took him spare food from Gonville Hall’s kitchen.’

  Michael looked away, and when he spoke, there was a catch in his voice. ‘This has not been a good week. First, there was Master Lenne and Isnard, and now there is Bottisham.’

  ‘And Deschalers,’ added Bartholomew. While he had not much liked the haughty grocer, he was still saddened that he had died in such a manner, especially given that he had been so ill. But then he thought about Bottisham, and was sorrier still. The lawyer had been courteous and compassionate, and Cambridge would be a poorer place without his gentle, kindly humanity.

  Michael took a deep breath to pull himself together. He coughed as dust caught in his throat, and gratefully accepted a gulp of the strong wine Bartholomew kept in his bag for medicinal purposes. He tried to speak, coughed again, and drained what was left in the flask. He handed the empty container back to his startled companion, cleared his throat, and began to speak, becoming businesslike in an attempt to disguise his distress.

  ‘The question we must answer is why a wealthy and fastidious town merchant should be found dead in a mill with a lawyer from Gonville. If Deschalers’s was the only body here, I would say you could be right, Bernarde: the Mortimers did away with him. But his death makes no sense when combined with the murder of poor Bottisham. He is not a member of your Society, is he?’

  Bernarde shook his head. ‘Gonville scholars patronise other mills.’

  Michael wiped his forehead with his linen and went to sit on the sacks again. ‘Since both these men died in an identical manner, we must assume their deaths are related. It cannot be coincidence. But what is their connection?’

  ‘They have known each other for a long time,’ said Bartholomew. He had spent some of his childhood in Cambridge, whereas Michael hailed from Causton in Norfolk and had only lived in the town for a decade or so. ‘I vaguely recall a legal matter many years ago, which threw them together.’

  Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘Can you be more precise? What kind of legal matter? What was it about? And when?’

  ‘A long time ago,’ repeated Bartholomew helplessly. ‘I recall my sister talking about it, but I do not remember the details. You must ask someone else.’

  ‘It was something about a contested field,’ said Bernarde, scratching his head as he, too, searched distant memories. ‘Deschalers hired Bottisham to prove that he owned some piece of land, but they lost the case. Is that the incident you mean, Bartholomew? It was years ago. I imagine they would have forgotten about it by now.’

  ‘You are probably right,’ admitted Bartholomew. ‘An ancient lawsuit will have no bearing on what happened today. You will need to look elsewhere for your answers, Brother.’

  ‘So, what else can you tell me, then?’ asked Michael. ‘Other than that they were both murdered by some deranged killer, who then hurled their corpses into the machinery?’ He sounded angry.

  But Bartholomew could add little more. He was deeply repelled by the grisly nature of the crime, although he had been careful to maintain an outwardly professional indifference; revealing his own shock would not have helped Michael. He was also disturbed by the disrespectful way the bodies had been treated, and was aware of a burning desire to see the perpetrator brought to justice. However, none of this meant he could tell the monk anything useful to catch the killer – or killers – and all he could do was speculate.

  ‘Perhaps Deschalers and Bottisham were pushed into the machinery to hide the fact that they had been murdered?’ he suggested tentatively. ‘Master Bernarde said it had been disengaged for the night, which suggests someone restarted it for a reason.’

  ‘But it did not work,’ countered Michael. ‘You saw almost immediately what had happened with the nails.’

  ‘But it might have done, had Bernarde not rushed here so quickly and stopped the wheel to prevent further damage to the bodies.’

  ‘Did you see anyone leaving?’ asked Michael of Bernarde. ‘Or hear anything else?’

  ‘I heard another change in pitch as I was running towards the mill,’ replied Bernarde, still scratching his pate as he struggled to remember. ‘That must have been the second body hitting the cogs. When I reached the outside door, it was open, so I locked it behind me as I came in …’

  ‘You locked yourself inside?’ interrupted Michael. ‘Why did you do that?’

  Bernarde shrugged. ‘Habit, I suppose. This is a large building, and my apprentices and I always lock the door when we are in it alone. There is a lot of valuable grain in here – and it is especially valuable now, at the end of winter, when supplies are low and demand is high.’ He jangled the large bunch of keys that always hung at his belt.

  ‘So, once the door was locked, the killer could not have escaped from inside?’ asked Michael.

  ‘No,’ said Bernarde. ‘But that assumes he was in here when I arrived, and he was not. No one was – other than Deschalers and Bottisham – and I saw no one leave.’

  ‘Is there another door?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Or a window?’

  Bernarde shook his head. ‘All the windows are shuttered for the night. You can see for yourselves that they are all barred from the inside. That front door is the only way in or out.’

  ‘But you said you heard the second body fall when you were running towards the mill,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘That means the killer was still inside when you arrived, or you would have seen him come through the door. He must have been here – there are a lot of places to hide.’

  ‘No one was here,’ said Bernarde firmly. ‘And there are not as many hiding places as you might think, because everywhere is full of grain right now. Also, we would be able to see footprints in the dust if someone had dashed away to hide, and you can see there are none – other than our own. The only place a third party could have been is here, in this chamber, and then I would have seen him.’

  ‘So,’ concluded Michael. ‘The killer was here when you raced towards the mill, because you heard him performing his gruesome work, but he was not here when you arrived? He did not leave through the door, or you would have seen him, and there is no other way out?’

  ‘That is correct,’ said Bernarde firmly. He had the grace to look bemused. ‘It is odd, is it not?’

  ‘Very,’ agreed Michael, eyeing him in an unfriendly manner. ‘If not impossible.’

  ‘Then perhaps there was no killer,’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps we were right with our first theory: that Bottisham and Deschalers killed each other.’

  Michael and Bernarde started to argue. The monk was certain Bottisham was too gentle to turn killer, while Bernarde maintained that Deschalers would have hired som
eone else to commit murder and would not have done it himself. Bartholomew listened to them and became increasingly troubled. No matter how the situation was presented, there was no mistaking the fact that a scholar and a townsman had been murdered. He hoped their deaths would not pre-empt a bloody battle between town and University. He turned his attention to the bodies again. He did not like the notion of them remaining in the machinery overnight, so he began the unpleasant process of extricating them.

  Bernarde watched, presumably only to ensure no harm came to his ‘delicate’ equipment, because he did not offer to help. Nor did Michael, who immediately embarked on a search of the premises so that he would not have to see what was being done. Fortunately, neither victim was heavy – Bottisham because he was small and Deschalers because he had been ill – and Bartholomew found he could manage alone. It was an awkward struggle, though, and involved the use of knives and a saw at one point, but eventually he had them laid side by side on the dusty floor, covered with sacking.

  ‘This is puzzling,’ he said, when he had finished. ‘I wonder how it could have happened.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ snapped Michael, concealing his grief with irritability. ‘You have already told us about the nails.’

  ‘Yes, but how? I cannot see Deschalers meekly standing still while Bottisham fiddled around in his mouth, looking for the right spot, no matter how ill he was feeling.’

  ‘Are you saying Bottisham killed Deschalers?’ asked Michael uneasily, glancing at Bernarde, who was nodding in satisfaction. ‘Not the other way around?’

  ‘It would have taken considerable force to do this – not just to ram the nail into position, but to hold the victim still in the first place. I am not sure whether Deschalers had that kind of strength left. But Bottisham was a gentle man, and I do not see him committing such a vile crime, either.’

  Michael was pensive. ‘But Bernarde’s testimony has ruled out the possibility of a third party killing them both, so logic dictates that one must have committed a double crime: murder, then suicide. We must determine who is the victim and who is the killer.’

  ‘There is no way to know, Brother.’ Bartholomew gave a helpless shrug. ‘I have no idea how to find out what really went on here.’

  Bartholomew wanted to go home after the gruesome discoveries in the mill; he was shocked by what had happened and needed some time alone with his thoughts. But Michael had other ideas. His distress was turning to an ice-cold anger, which was galvanising him into action, and Bartholomew could see him become more determined to solve the crime with every step that led them away from the crushed corpses. The monk declined to answer the questions rattled at him by the waiting members of the Millers’ Society, and stalked along the dark lanes towards the Trumpington Gate. He hammered on it until Orwelle allowed him through, then strode to Gonville Hall. He wanted to inform its scholars that Bottisham had died in mysterious circumstances before they heard it from other sources: he wanted to gauge their reactions.

  He was to be disappointed. Word of the incident had already reached Gonville, and nearly all its Fellows had gone to take the shocking news to the Carmelite Friary. Only one, John of Ufford, was home, and his response on learning about the untimely loss of a much-loved colleague was to set off for St Mary the Great, where he said he would pray to the Hand of Valence Marie for Bottisham’s soul. Michael watched him go with narrowed eyes.

  ‘That Hand is enjoying far more popularity than is right. I must have words with William.’

  ‘It was stupid to make him Keeper of the University Chest,’ said Bartholomew, fully agreeing with him. ‘He is honest – there is no question of that – but he is not to be trusted with anything religious. He is a fanatic, and that sort of zeal can be contagious, like a virulent fever that strikes all in its path.’

  ‘That is a good analogy,’ said Michael. ‘This devotion to the Hand is indeed like an ague that rages out of control and against all reason.’

  They fared no better at Deschalers’s house on Milne Street. Deschalers had been widowed during the plague, and he lived alone, although there had been rumours of lovers in his past. However, with the exception of Bess the madwoman, whom Bartholomew had seen trailing after him the day before, it seemed Deschalers had forsaken women. Even Michael, who listened to more town gossip than he probably should have done, had heard no tales of current sweethearts.

  ‘There is no one here, either,’ said the monk irritably, thumping on Deschalers’s handsome front door for the third time.

  ‘Who were you expecting?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘He had no family. Well, there is his niece Julianna, but she does not live with him.’

  ‘Servants,’ replied Michael. ‘I want to question them about his state of mind this evening. Was he anxious or agitated, as a man planning a murder and suicide might be? Did he mention a secret meeting in the unlikely venue of the King’s Mill? Did he contact Bottisham, or did Bottisham call him? And I want to know more about their ancient dispute – the one you recall only vaguely.’

  ‘Someone is in,’ said Bartholomew, watching a shadow pass across one of the upstairs windows with a candle. ‘Knock again.’

  Michael hammered a fourth time, hard enough to make the sound reverberate along the street, so that lights began to appear in the houses of Deschalers’s neighbours. Immediately to the left was Cheney the spicer’s home, and Bartholomew saw him open a window to see what the noise was about. He was shirtless, but still sported the red hat he had worn when he had been with the other members of the Millers’ Society earlier. Someone called for him to return to bed, and Bartholomew recognised the stridently insistent tones of Una the prostitute. The house on Deschalers’s right was owned by Constantine Mortimer – Edward’s father – but, although lights flickered briefly in one chamber, no one was curious enough about furious bangs to come and investigate.

  Eventually, Michael’s pounding was answered by an elderly, stooped man who carried a candle. He wore the same livery as Deschalers’s apprentices, a red tunic emblazoned with the grocer’s distinctive motif of a pot with the letter D inside it. He cupped his ear when Michael asked to be allowed in, then informed the monk that he had no wish to become a student, thank you, because Michaelhouse had a reputation for serving small portions at mealtimes.

  ‘What?’ asked Michael, bemused. ‘I have not come here to recruit you, man! I am here to ask you about your master, Thomas Deschalers.’

  ‘I am fond of pigeon,’ said the servant. ‘But you have to watch the bones at my age.’

  ‘I see,’ said Michael, pushing past him to reach the shadowy interior of the merchant’s house. ‘Hand me the candle.’

  ‘I do not eat dog,’ said the servant indignantly. ‘The hair might get trapped in my throat.’

  ‘Lord!’ muttered Michael, snatching the lamp and climbing the stairs to the large room on the upper floor that Deschalers used as an office. ‘Please shoot me, Matt, when I reach the point where I make rambling statements about food all the time.’

  ‘I shall hire a crossbow for tomorrow, then,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘What are we doing here, Brother? We cannot search Deschalers’s house in the middle of the night – especially with no credible witnesses. People will say we came here to see what is worth stealing.’

  Michael sighed, looking at the shelves with their neatly stacked piles of documents, and at the table, where more parchments had been filed by pressing them on to spiked pieces of wood. ‘I do not know what I hoped to find. A suicide letter, perhaps, or something telling us why he murdered Bottisham, then killed himself.’

  ‘Cat is something I have never enjoyed,’ burbled the servant. ‘It tastes too much like ferret.’

  ‘We do not know that is what happened,’ warned Bartholomew. ‘I know you would rather have Deschalers than Bottisham as the killer, but we cannot draw that conclusion with the evidence we have. But there is no note here, Brother, and we should leave. I do not know why you expected one, when you know Deschalers could not write.’ />
  ‘He hired a clerk,’ said Michael. ‘All the merchants do.’

  ‘You do not dictate a suicide letter to a clerk,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘He would have to report it to someone, or run the risk of being charged as an accessory to a crime.’

  ‘Of course, the finest flavour of all comes from grass-snake,’ continued the old man, following them down the stairs again. ‘But Master Deschalers did not like me bringing them into the house. One escaped once, you see, and frightened his lover. Then he was hard-pressed to explain to her husband why she had fainted in his bedchamber.’

  ‘I can well imagine,’ said Michael wryly. ‘I would find it a challenge myself.’

  ‘It was Katherine Mortimer,’ said the servant, his wrinkled face creasing into a fond, toothless smile. ‘She was the best of them all, and he loved her the most. She was fond of stewed horse, in—’

  ‘Katherine Mortimer?’ interrupted Bartholomew, startled. ‘Constantine the baker’s wife, who died two years ago?’

  The old man nodded. ‘She was the mother of that murderous Edward, who struts around the town so proud of his evil deeds. The King should never have pardoned him. It is not right.’

  ‘It is not,’ agreed Bartholomew. ‘But when did Deschalers have this affair with Katherine?’

  ‘More than a year before her death,’ replied the servant. ‘He was heartbroken when she decided their liaison was too risky and told him it was over. I could see her point: her husband lives next door and, while it was convenient to have her close by, there was always the risk that they would be caught.’

  ‘I caught them,’ said Bartholomew, frowning as a memory surfaced all of a sudden. ‘I saw him entering her house in the middle of the night sometimes, when I was called out to tend patients. It was always when Constantine was away. I assumed Deschalers was being neighbourly – making sure she was all right on her own.’