Hugh Corbett 06 - Murder Wears a Cowl

by Paul Doherty

‘We know nothing, except that someone with a soul as black as night is slaying these unfortunates,’ she murmured. ‘At first I used to attend their funerals at St Lawrence Jewry, the first three or four, but then I stopped. You can understand, Sir Hugh? Surely there must be more to the end of life than being wrapped in a dirty sheet and tossed like a bundle of refuse into a hole in the ground?’

  Corbett remembered what he had seen at the church earlier in the day and nodded.

  ‘Then let us talk of something else.’ Corbett paused as the great bells of the abbey began to ring out for afternoon Mass though he idly wondered if the monks bothered to carry out their spiritual duties.

  ‘What else is there to talk about?’ Lady Catherine snapped.

  ‘Lady Somerville’s death. One of your sisters who was killed on Monday, May eleventh as she crossed Smithfield.’

  ‘I can help you there,’ Lady Mary spoke up. She leaned forward, her hands in her lap. ‘We had a meeting here the very day she died and we finished late in the afternoon. Lady Somerville and I then left Westminster. We chose to walk because of the fine weather. We went along Holborn and visited patients at St Bartholomew’s. Lady Somerville left the hospital but never reached her home; her murdered corpse was found in the early hours of the next morning.’

  ‘Did anyone have a grudge against her?’

  ‘No, she was quiet, austere and self-contained. She had a great deal of sadness in her life.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Her husband died years ago whilst fighting in Scotland. They had one son Gilbert, I think he is a disappointment to her.’ Lady Mary looked distressed. ‘Sir Gilbert Somerville is more interested in the pleasures of life; he constantly reminded his mother that his father achieved nothing in his life, as the King’s general, except an arrow in the neck.’

  Corbett sat and stared at the wall behind her. So many players in this, he thought. The killer could be anyone.

  ‘Before Lady Somerville died,’ he asked, ‘did she say anything strange or untoward?’

  ‘No,’ Fitzwarren tartly replied.

  ‘Oh, come.’ Corbett’s voice became harsh. ‘I have heard she kept repeating a phrase “Cacullus non facit monachum”: the cowl does not make the monk?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Lady Mary’s fingers flew to her lips. ‘She did keep saying that. Indeed, she repeated it to me the day she died.’

  ‘In what circumstances?’

  ‘We were here, watching the brothers file out of the abbey church. I said something about them looking alike, how difficult it was to tell one from another in their hoods and cowls. She just repeated that phrase. I asked her what she meant, but she smiled and walked away.’

  ‘Is that all? Was there anything else?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, there was.’ Fitzwarren tapped the side of her face with her hands. ‘In the week before she died she asked me if I thought our work was worthwhile. I asked her why, and she replied what was the use in such a wicked world? Then the Friday before she died, you must remember it, Lady Mary, she came here rather late, looking very worried and agitated. She said she had been to see Father Benedict.’

  ‘She didn’t give the reason why?’ Cade asked.

  Corbett turned as Lady Mary clapped her hands together excitedly.

  ‘Oh, I remember something!’ she declared, her eyes sparkling with excitement. Corbett reflected how truly beautiful she became when she threw off her air of subdued piety. ‘Just before we reached St Bartholomew’s she murmured something about leaving the Order. I objected but she maintained the abbey contained evil.’ Lady Mary shrugged. ‘I know it sounds strange but that’s what she said.’

  ‘Was Lady Somerville deeply involved in your work?’

  ‘No,’ Fitzwarren replied. ‘And that makes what she said to Lady Mary even stranger. You see, Somerville suffered from rheumatism in her legs, she found walking the streets painful, even though the physicians claimed it was good for her. Her real work was in the abbey laundry, or rather the vestry on the other side of the Chapter House. She was responsible for keeping the altar cloths, napkins and robes clean.’

  ‘And Father Benedict’s death?’

  ‘Sir Hugh,’ Lady Fitzwarren replied. ‘He died in a fire. We were bitterly sorry. He was not only our chaplain but an old, very gentle priest. Why do you ask?’

  ‘How was he before he died? Did he say anything untoward?’

  ‘Strange that you mention it, Sir Hugh,’ Lady Mary interrupted. ‘Oh,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘he didn’t say anything but he was very quiet, distant.’ She shrugged. ‘But I don’t know why. God rest him!’

  ‘You noticed this after Lady Somerville visited him?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know what was said. Lady Catherine had her own problems and Father Benedict was our chaplain.’

  Corbett rose. ‘My Ladies, is there anything else?’

  Both shook their heads in unison.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Corbett ventured, ‘I could see your work.’

  ‘We are going out tonight,’ Lady Catherine replied.

  Corbett suddenly remembered Maeve’s face and shook his head. ‘No, no, that’s impossible!’

  ‘Where do you actually work?’ Ranulf asked.

  ‘In our own ward,’ Lady Mary answered. ‘Farringdon.’

  Corbett felt a twinge of jealousy at how the young woman smiled at Ranulf.

  ‘We think it’s best if we work,’ she explained, ‘in an area where we are known and safe, where we can always count on the local beadles for support. Perhaps tomorrow evening?’

  Corbett smiled and bowed. ‘Perhaps.’

  The two women rose and led them back to the Chapter House. Corbett glanced suspiciously at his two companions; Cade had a reputation of being a taciturn man but since he had entered the Chapter House, he had been very withdrawn, a shadow of himself whilst Ranulf had ceased to snigger and mutter quips.

  Halfway down the deserted Chapter House, Corbett stopped.

  ‘May I look at the vestry room? You said it was here?’

  Lady Fitzwarren led him across, opening a door in the far wall. Corbett looked inside; the vestry was nothing more than a long, oblong room with cowls, hoods and other monks’ attire hanging on pegs driven into the wall. On the shelves were neatly piled altar cloths, napkins for the lavabo, amices, stoles and chasubles. Corbett could see nothing suspicious, certainly nothing to explain Lady Somerville’s deep unease. He left and, outside the Chapter House, bade the ladies adieu, kissing both their hands. Corbett blushed as he turned away for he was sure Lady Mary had pressed his hand more firmly than perhaps she should have done.

  They went back round the abbey and collected their horses. Ranulf was still silent but now Cade became talkative, he seemed fascinated by the Lady Imelda and made even the withdrawn Ranulf smile at his graphic description of how the old noblewoman would not think twice about walking into the Guildhall to harangue the Mayor and aldermen on whatever caught her fancy. They mounted their horses and left by the northern gate. On the road outside Corbett stopped and looked back at the darkened mass of Westminster Abbey. He clenched the reins tightly. What evil lurked in that great abbey which had so frightened Father Benedict and the Lady Somerville? What had they known which had caused their savage deaths? Corbett stared up at a gargoyle and the stone creature seemed to lunge towards him.

  ‘When this business is finished,’ Corbett said, ‘the King needs to intervene here. There’s something rotten in our great abbey.’

  He turned and spurred his horse into a canter. The cowled, hooded figure hiding in one of the abbey’s rooms above the Chapter House watched the three men ride off along Holborn. The watching figure clenched a set of rosary beads, smiled, then hissed with all the venom of a snake.

  At The Bishop of Ely’s inn Corbett and his party stopped and dismounted. Cade left, dourly excusing himself for other duties. Corbett watched the under-sheriff turn right, into Shoe Lane.

  ‘What is wrong with Cade?’ he murmured. ‘Why is he s
o silent? What does he have to hide?’

  Ranulf merely shrugged, so the clerk decided to move on. They joined the crowds pushing through Newgate as the road narrowed and became blocked with carts trundling into the city loaded with produce, fruit, rye, oats, slabs of red meat, squawking geese and chickens penned in wooden cages. The noise grew deafening as the huge dray horses plodded by, the wheels of the carts rumbling like claps of thunder and raising great clouds of dust. The air rang with strange oaths, sudden quarrels, the lash of whips and the jingle of harnesses. Corbett turned left just within the city gate, leading Ranulf down an alleyway strewn with broken cobbles which filled and blocked the sewer running down its middle. They had to walk slowly for sometimes the ground was broken by wide gaps and deep holes. Some were filled with bundles of broom and wood chip, others were cesspits full of night soil thrown out from the houses on either side.

  ‘Master, where are we going?’

  ‘St Bartholomew’s. I want to look into the soul of a murderer.’

  Chapter 6

  They crossed a street and went down another alleyway dark as night with the houses tightly packed together. The gables of the upper stories jutted out so far that they met each other and blocked out the sunlight. At last they reached Smithfield, the great open expanse still thronged with people attending the horse fair, particularly the rich, eager to bid in an auction for Barbary mares. Young gallants in thick doublets with fiercely padded shoulders and tight waists, their sleeves were puffed out in concoctions of velvet, satin and damask, their legs covered in tight, multi-coloured hose which emphasized the shape of the calf and the grandeur of their codpieces. On the arms of these fops rested ladies equally splendid in rich tapestry dresses, square-cut at the breast and gathered high with cords of silk; their head-dresses were ornate, billowing out above eyebrows and foreheads severely plucked of hair. Corbett smiled when he compared these with the Sisters of St Martha, with their sober attire and unpainted faces.

  They struggled through the crowd, past the great charred execution stake where criminals were burnt to death, and entered the arched doorway of St Bartholomew’s hospital. They crossed an open yard, past stables, smithies and other outhouses to the hospital’s long, high vaulted hall which ran parallel to the priory church. An old soldier, now turned servant, basking in the warm afternoon sun, offered to guide them in. They went along corridors, past chambers, clean and well swept, the windows thrown open, the rushes on the floor fresh and sprinkled with herbs. In each chamber there were three or four beds and Corbett glimpsed sick men and women, heads pressed against crisp linen bolsters. In the main, these were the poor unfortunates of the city whom the brothers took in to tend, cure or at least provide their deaths with some dignity. The old soldier stopped and knocked at a door. A voice cried ‘Enter!’ and Corbett and Ranulf were ushered into a sparsely furnished chamber. The air was fragrant with the smell from pots and bowls of crushed herbs and other concoctions. The apothecary, Father Thomas, sat with his back to them, crouched over a table under the window.

  ‘Who is it?’ he asked; his voice testy at being disturbed from the root he was dissecting with a small, sharp knife.

  ‘We’ll go if you don’t want us, Father!’

  The monk turned, a tall, ugly man yet his face was friendly.

  ‘Hugh! Ranulf!’ Father Thomas’s long horsey features broke into a smile. He rose and clasped the hand of the clerk he had known since their days at Oxford. Corbett gripped the monk’s hand tightly.

  ‘Sir Hugh, now, priest.’

  Father Thomas bowed mockingly, greeted Ranulf and asked after Maeve. He then turned back to taunt Ranulf, who smiled but did not indulge in the usual banter he so characteristically directed at close friends and acquaintances. Father Thomas pulled stools out.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Corbett replied. He hadn’t eaten since the small bowl of meat earlier in the day and he had vomited most of that in the cemetery of St Lawrence Jewry. Father Thomas went to the door, opened it and shouted down the corridor. A few minutes later a lay brother entered with small freshly baked loaves wrapped in linen and two blackjacks of brimming frothy ale.

  ‘I brewed it myself,’ Father Thomas announced proudly.

  Corbett tasted the cool, tangy ale and smiled appreciatively whilst Ranulf murmured his approval.

  ‘Well,’ Thomas sat opposite him. ‘How can I help, Hugh? More murder? Some rare poison?’

  ‘No, Thomas, I want you to let me look into the soul of a killer. You have heard of the prostitutes being killed and Lady Somerville’s murder?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I have.’

  ‘I understand Lady Somerville called here on the night she died?’

  ‘Yes, she did that.’

  Corbett leaned forward. ‘So, Father, what kind of man haunts whores, slits their throats then mutilates their sexual parts?’

  Father Thomas made a face. ‘Hugh, I know digitalis affects the heart, but how . . . ?’ He shook his head. ‘I know red arsenic in minor doses will ease stomach complaints but, if large doses are administered, it rips the stomach out. How and why, I cannot tell you. So, when it comes to the mind, the brain, the spirit, I am ignorant.’ He drew in his breath, turned and picked up a yellowing skull from his desk. He held it out in the palm of his hand. ‘Look, Hugh, this skull once housed a brain. In the palm of my hand I hold a receptacle which once had the power to laugh, cry, tell stories, sing, perhaps plumb divine mysteries or plan the building of a great cathedral.’ Father Thomas put the yellowing skull on the ground beside him. ‘When I studied at Salerno I met Arab physicians who claimed the human mind, the contents of the skull I have just shown you, the working of the brain, are as much a mystery as the nature of God.’

  He rearranged his gown as he warmed to his theme. ‘To put it bluntly, Hugh, these physicians had a number of theories. First, all physical disease comes from the mind. They even argue that people who are cured by miracles actually heal themselves. They also point out that, as the body is affected by what it eats and drinks, the mind is influenced by what it experiences. Some men are born with cleft palates or malformed limbs. Perhaps some men are born with twisted minds with a desire to kill?’

  ‘Do you believe that, Father?’

  ‘No, not really!’

  ‘So, what explains our killer?’

  Father Thomas stared at his hands. ‘Let us go back a step. These Arabs maintained the brain, the mind, is moulded by its own experiences. If a person as a child, for example, is brutalised, he will become a brutal man. Now some priests would reject that. They will claim that all evil is the work of Satan.’

  ‘And you, Father?’

  ‘I believe it is a combination of the two. If a man drinks wine inordinately,’ Father Thomas grinned at Ranulf, ‘his belly becomes bloated, his face red, his mind hazy. Now, to continue the analogy, if a mind is fed on hatred and resentment, what would happen then?’

  ‘I am sorry, Father, I don’t know!’

  ‘Well, the killer of these girls could be someone who has satiated every sexual desire and now wishes to expand his power. He acts as if he has the power of life and death.’

  ‘So the cutting of their throats is part of the sexual act?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Then why the mutilation?’

  ‘Ah.’ Father Thomas raised his eyebrows. ‘That might contradict my theory. Perhaps the killer is someone who has lost his sexual potency or, indeed, can only achieve it by such a dreadful act.’ Father Thomas ran his fingers through his thinning hair. ‘I do not know all the details but I suspect the latter theory is the more correct. Your killer, Hugh, hates women, prostitutes in particular. He blames them for something, holds them responsible and feels empowered to carry out sentence against them.’

  ‘So the killer is mad?’

  ‘Yes, probably, driven insane by the canker of hate growing within him.’

  ‘Would such a person act insane all the time?’

&
nbsp; ‘Oh, no, quite the opposite. Indeed, such killers possess tremendous cunning and use every trick and foible to draw a curtain over their evil deeds.’

  ‘So, it could be anyone?’

  Father Thomas leaned closer. ‘Hugh, it could be you, it could be me, Ranulf, the King, the Archbishop of Canterbury.’ Father Thomas saw the puzzlement in Corbett’s eyes. ‘Oh, yes, it could be a priest, even someone living an apparently saintly life. Have you ever heard of the Slayer of Montpellier?’

  ‘No, no, I haven’t.’

  ‘About ten years ago in France in the city of Montpellier, a similar killer was at large. He slew over thirty women before being captured and you know his identity? A cleric. A brilliant lecturer in law at the university. I do not wish to frighten you, Hugh, but the killer could be the last person you suspect.’

  ‘Father Thomas,’ Ranulf leaned forward, his inertia now forgotten as he listened to the chilling words of the priest. ‘Father Thomas,’ he repeated, ‘I can understand, perhaps, such a man killing whores; but why Lady Somerville?’

  Father Thomas shook his head. ‘Ranulf, I cannot answer that. Perhaps she was the only woman available at the time.’

  ‘But she wasn’t mutilated?’

  ‘Perhaps the killer felt angry at the way she helped the victims of his malice or . . .’

  ‘Or what, Father?’

  ‘Perhaps she knew the true identity of the killer and had to be silenced.’

  Corbett put his tankard down. ‘It’s strange you say that, Father, because Lady Somerville kept repeating the phrase, “The cowl does not make the monk”.’

  ‘Ah, yes, quite a popular one now and rather fitting to your task, Hugh. No one is what he or she may appear.’ Father Thomas rose and tightened the cord round his middle. ‘I cannot help you with Lady Somerville’s death, but wait.’ He went to the door, summoned a lay brother and whispered instructions to him. ‘I have sent for somone who might be able to assist you. Now, come, Hugh, what do you think of the ale?’

  They were halfway through a discussion on brewing when a knock on the door disturbed them and a young monk, sandy haired and fresh faced, entered the room.