The Tinner's Corpse

by Bernard Knight

  ‘It is Chagford that brings me here. I need to speak urgently to Matthew – and if you are his nephew, you must also be present.’

  Silently, Peter Jordan stood back to allow de Wolfe inside. Already, the coroner felt a tension he recognised from many previous such encounters: the visit of a senior law officer could never mean anything but trouble or sorrow.

  The gloomy ground floor was stacked with hundreds of what looked like irregular grey bricks. As the young man led the way to a flight of wide steps to the upper floor, he waved a hand at the piles of dull metal. ‘These are the crude bars, awaiting the second smelting.’ The unnecessary information seemed like a nervous diversion to cover his anxiety at the coroner’s appearance.

  Upstairs was a marked contrast to the commercial lower floor. Doors led from a landing into a large living hall on the left and what seemed to be a pair of bedrooms or solars on the right. Presumably the kitchens, laundry and privy were in the yard behind.

  Jordan rapped perfunctorily on a draught screen behind the hall door and led de Wolfe into a well-furnished room with a fire burning in a hearth at the further end. ‘Matthew, the crowner has called upon us. He wishes to speak to you.’

  He stood aside and John walked forward to meet the tin-merchant, who rose from a settle near the fire. Opposite was the stout lady with the drooping lip he had seen with Matilda at St Olave’s a few days earlier. They both looked apprehensive at his appearance, though after more than six months in the job he was getting used to this reaction to his presence. Immediately Matthew guessed the reason for his visit. ‘You have news of Walter.’ It was a statement rather than a question. The appearance of a coroner, rather than a bailiff or a sheriff’s man, could have only one interpretation. ‘Where did you find him?’ he added flatly.

  De Wolfe explained the circumstances in his sonorous voice, and Matthew’s wife began to sniff and cross herself, reminding John of Thomas and his troubles. Matthew said nothing, but sat John down and busied himself with a wine flask and some cups. Jordan remained standing behind them, almost forgotten until the merchant handed him a pewter cup of red wine.

  ‘Walter was Peter’s stepfather, you know,’ he said, in a strangled voice. ‘He was married before to the widow of one of his tinners. Peter’s father was killed in stream-works when the lad was only eight. Walter married Bridgid, but she passed away from the phthisis three years ago.’

  De Wolfe gave one of his throaty noises, which might have meant anything from deepest sympathy to sheer disbelief. He wanted to get back to the nature of the death. ‘You realise that your brother was murdered?’ he said bluntly. ‘He was struck on the back, probably hurled from his horse. Either he fell to his death or might have been hit on the head deliberately. Whatever it was, it was no accident.’

  Mistress Knapman’s snivels became louder, but no one took any notice.

  ‘I rode back from Chagford this morning,’ quavered Matthew. ‘I stayed until dark last night helping to search the roads between there and Dunsford – and again this morning on my way back. All Walter’s house servants and many of his tinners were beating the verges and woods, but there was nothing. No wonder! The poor fellow was floating down the Teign by then.’ He wrung his hands and paced back and forth before his glowing hearth. ‘Who can have done this awful thing? Was it just trail-bastons or chance outlaws? Yet he was big man, able to defend himself, unless he was outnumbered.’

  Peter Jordan spoke for the first time since de Wolfe had broken the news. ‘What of the killing of Henry of Tunnaford? Is this not likely to be connected? There have been many incidents lately, damage to the workings and now two deaths.’

  John turned to face the younger man, who had been standing behind him. ‘Did you see your stepfather often, lad?’

  Jordan shook his head. ‘Not lately, sir. Three years ago, after my mother died, I came to Exeter to work with Matthew here. It was a convenient arrangement between all of us. I was to learn the trade of selling what my stepfather produced.’

  John peered at him from under his black brows. ‘Did you get on well with him?’

  ‘I did indeed. He was good to me after my real father died. He cared for my mother when she was widowed and much regretted her death, I am sure.’

  To the coroner’s suspicious ear, he had left something unsaid. ‘What about his second wife? Did you approve of the marriage?’

  Peter Jordan shrugged indifferently. ‘It was none of my business. Walter was not my natural father, so what he did was his affair. I admit I am not fond of her, for I think she is a selfish woman who married him only for his wealth – but as I rarely see her, it is of no consequence.’

  He seemed to have a maturity beyond his years, and what he said seemed reasonable enough. De Wolfe turned back to Matthew and his wife, whose sniffing had subsided, although she still stared at him from watery eyes. ‘Your brother’s body should arrive in the city in the morning.’ He thought it kinder not to add that it was being brought on a sumpter train, slung over a pony like a dead sheep. ‘I will have it rested in St Mary’s Chapel in Rougement, but I presume you and your family will require its burial in Chagford, Walter’s home.’

  Matthew nodded. His normally ruddy face was pale. He rapidly refilled the wine cups and drained his at a gulp. ‘I will have to talk to Joan, his wife, but no doubt he will be buried at St Michael’s, which he largely built with his own money.’

  De Wolfe finished his wine and stood up, hovering over Matthew and Peter like a black crane. ‘There will have to be an inquest, but I will hold that in Chagford when the body gets there, a day or two hence. You will no doubt arrange for some conveyance for it as soon as possible.’

  He made for the door, followed by the two men. As he descended the steps, he turned for a last question. ‘Has either of you any notion why someone should have wanted Walter Knapman dead?’

  There was a momentary silence, then Matthew spoke. ‘In the tin trade there is intense rivalry. This business of the headless overman and now Walter’s death must surely be connected. There is at least one other tin-master who envied Walter his success. And Walter made some enemies in his campaign to have a Lord Warden elected by the tinners themselves.’

  Peter, his face stony, was more forthright. ‘Let us not beat about the bush, Matthew. Everyone knows Stephen Acland had his eyes not only on my stepfather’s trade but also on his new wife. He’s welcome to her, as far as I’m concerned, but maybe he is not too displeased that Walter is dead.’

  John de Wolfe went home with a mild sensation of self-righteousness, twisted logic persuading him that his conscience was clear.

  First, he had told Matilda that morning that he would be away for yet another night, ostensibly visiting his family in Stoke, yet here he was, back early, yearning for her company. It would be too much to ask that he might surprise her in the arms of another man – even the fat priest of St Olave’s – but now she could hardly scold him for not being away from home.

  Second, he almost convinced himself that he had resisted the charms of Hilda, rather than having had his adulterous assignation cancelled by circumstances. It was a pity that he could not let Nesta know about it, though he could hardly gain credit for having to miss a passionate session with her rival.

  In Martin’s Lane, he found that his wife was not entertaining a lover – indeed, she greeted him with a sour face and the immediate announcement that she was going out to visit her cousin in Goldsmith Street. As Lucille smirked in the background, holding Matilda’s mantle, de Wolfe managed to grab his wife’s attention with the story of Knapman’s murder and his visit to Matthew’s house.

  ‘I must go in the morning and comfort his poor wife,’ Matilda announced firmly. For a moment, de Wolfe thought she meant she would travel to Chagford to see Joan, but it was her fellow churchwoman, the wife of Matthew, whom she would visit.

  ‘It will give me an opportunity to see their house,’ Matilda went on. ‘I hear that Matthew Knapman lavishes his wealth on his furnishing
s and his wife.’ She bestowed a poisonous look on her parsimonious husband, before she swept out with the French maid in her wake.

  It was now almost dark and de Wolfe sat by his fire for a while, with a quart of ale and the adoring Brutus for company, until Mary bustled in with a meal for him. She brought thick slices of lean bacon, called ‘collops’, with four hen’s eggs fried in butter and a small loaf, half of which he ate after the meat, smeared with honey still brittle with the wax of the comb.

  Secure in the knowledge that Matilda was away for an hour or two, Mary sat on the bench opposite while he ate, keeping out of range of his searching fingers under the table. However, she was still quite willing to gossip and was always intrigued by John’s latest cases. After he had recounted the dramatic events around Chagford, she added a few snippets of her own concerning some of the participants. Like Nesta – and, indeed, Matilda – she picked up much intelligence about Exeter’s citizens from other house-servants and stallholders in the markets.

  ‘That Matthew, the tin-merchant, he keeps the vintners rich, they say. His nose tells you what his staple food must be! A good job he can afford it.’

  ‘Matilda was goading me about how much he spends on his house and his wife – not that I noticed it when I was in there.’

  He tucked into his collops as she answered. ‘Plenty of money there – though some tap their noses when you mention it and say that he’s almost the equal of the sheriff when it comes to embezzlement.’

  De Wolfe’s dagger paused midway to his mouth, a boiled onion skewered to its tip. ‘He has a reputation for that, has he? I thought he was in partnership with his brother, the dead Walter.’

  Mary shrugged her robust shoulders. ‘It’s just gossip – but usually, where there’s smoke there’s fire. That nephew of his who assists him seems honest enough – a good-looking boy, too,’ she added appreciatively.

  ‘Peter Jordan – I met him tonight. No doubt you’ve also got some tittle-tattle about him?’

  Mary wrinkled her nose at him. ‘Not at all, though I wonder where he got that swarthy complexion if his father was a local tanner. Maybe his mother met a Crusader one dark night.’

  De Wolfe made a sarcastic catcall, then recalled that the brunette Mary was herself the offspring of a Saxon serving-woman and an unknown soldier who had remained only for the conception.

  She took no offence and went on with her chatter. ‘But I don’t know how a good-looking young man like him came to marry Martha Courteman. She’s like the mistress, only much younger, begging your pardon, Sir John. A stuck-up, miserable snob. Her father is that lawyer, Robert Courteman.’

  De Wolfe was not interested in the further ramifications of the Knapman family, though he knew the lawyer, who had been the unenthusiastic advocate in the Appeal that week.

  Sensing his lack of interest, Mary changed the subject. ‘I’m worried about Thomas, poor little man,’ she said forcefully. ‘He comes round to my hut now and then for some decent food. He’s half starved on the pittance you pay him.’

  ‘Is it his diet that concerns you, then?’ he asked facetiously.

  ‘It’s his mind that worries me. He’s getting more and more miserable, turning in on himself these past weeks. What’s wrong with him?’

  John explained the problem and related how he had interceded with the Archdeacon on his clerk’s behalf. Mary smiled as she rose and planted a quick kiss on his rough cheek. ‘You’re a good-hearted man, Sir Crowner. Finish your victuals and get yourself down to the Bush while you’ve got the chance. I hear that you’re in bad odour down there, so make your peace before it’s too late.’

  After she had left with the empty platters, he reflected that the gossip grapevine must reach into every house and tavern in the city. He touched his cheek where Mary had kissed him and mused on how the master-servant relationship was altered by a few tumbles in the kitchen-shed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  In which Crowner John meets a new widow

  With Matilda out, the temptation to take Mary’s advice and go down to the Bush became too strong for John. He whistled to Brutus and stepped out into the street with him, thinking that if he happened to meet Matilda, he would tell her he was exercising the hound. A moment later, he cursed himself for a damned fool. Why should a grown man of forty, hardened in a dozen wars, care a clipped penny about an excuse to visit his favourite inn after a hard day’s work? To hell with his wife! She knew well enough that he blessed several women with his favours – she never let him forget it. Matilda knew at least two by name and sight, but he hoped she knew nothing about a certain lady on the coast at Salcombe, though he had not seen her for some time.

  The wind had dropped and the rain had held off, but it was cold under a clearing sky as he strode through the darkened Close, cursing as he stumbled over the debris and piles of earth left under the looming mass of the great cathedral. Although the huge house of God was a marvel of the mason’s art, the surroundings were a disgrace. The Close was a cross between a cemetery and a communal refuse dump, where vagrants begged, hooligans romped and urchins played ball-games all day. Along with most of the citizens of Exeter, de Wolfe failed to understand why the cathedral proctors did not impose better control over the area.

  At the other side, there were a couple of guttering flares near Bear Gate, which led out of the episcopal precinct into Southgate Street. Though house fires were damped down at dusk, some torches were allowed in safe places, such as these set in iron rings against a stone wall.

  There was some faint light in the main street running down to the South Gate, for the curfew was only haphazardly observed within the city, as long as all the gates were barred at nightfall. In the serge-market section of the street, a few cloth stalls were still trading by the light of dim horn lanterns. Higher up at the Shambles, butchers’ boys were still throwing buckets of water on the ground, sluicing the blood from the cobbled area where animals had been slaughtered during the day.

  De Wolfe crossed the road and passed the top end of Priest Street, where presumably Matthew, his wife and Peter Jordan were grieving over Knapman’s violent death. Then he strode down the hill to Idle Lane and the Bush, the starlight enough to guide him on this most familiar of routes. Calling Brutus to heel from his erratic sniffing adventures, the coroner reached the door of the tavern and stopped for a moment in the gloom.

  What reception would he have tonight, he wondered. How should he behave, if Nesta again gave him the cold shoulder? Should he be soft and loving to her, try to win her back the gentle way? That would be a marathon struggle against his natural inclination.

  Annoyed by his indecision, he thrust open the door and ducked into the warm fug of the alehouse, redolent with the smells of woodsmoke, sweat, cooking and spilt ale. The flaming logs on the hearth gave most of the light, weakly supplemented by tallow dips on each table and a few wax candles in sconces around the walls. These were a new feature and, sourly, John wondered if the usurper had persuaded Nesta to foot the expense.

  Edwin was nearby, picking up empty ale jars. He raised one in salute and shuffled across to de Wolfe. ‘I’ve kept your table, Cap’n. Threw a couple of youngsters off it in case you came.’ He looked warily towards the back of the big room that occupied all the ground floor of the inn. ‘She’s out in the cook-shed, Crowner. We got fancy new food now – herbs with every bloody thing!’ His disgruntled tone at any kind of change in his settled little world told de Wolfe that he had one ally, ineffectual as the old potman might be.

  He sat in his usual seat, staring at the flames, with a pot of ale brought by the one-eyed retainer and Brutus squatting close by his leg. Even the dog seemed to know that all was not well with his master, and he laid his wet chops sympathetically across John’s knee. When de Wolfe heard the loud, cheerful voice of Alan of Lyme chatting to other customers behind him, but he did not give him the satisfaction of turning his head.

  After five minutes, there was still no sign of Nesta. Until recently, she had always dr
opped her tasks to sit with him, if only for a moment, before going back to harass the cook or maids. De Wolfe’s mood swung between annoyance, resignation and black rage as he sat alone by the fire. After the better part of a quarter of an hour, he decided to cut his losses and leave, never to darken the Bush’s door again. But as he drained the last of his quart and banged the pottery jar down on the table, he was aware of someone standing at the end of the table. ‘Good evening, John. Are you well?’ Nesta looked down at him, her heart-shaped face wearing an expression he had not seen before, a mixture of sadness and defiance.

  ‘The better for seeing you, lady.’ For all his rehearsal of what he was going to say, the words burst out unbidden. Her face did not change, but in the dim light he was not sure whether he glimpsed moisture in her eyes. ‘Sit with me, Nesta,’ he pleaded, in a low voice, but she shook her head, her russet curls this time constrained within a linen coif.

  ‘I am busy, John. Business is brisk, especially since …’ Her voice trailed away, as she glanced towards the back of the room where the boisterous Alan was changing an empty barrel. She turned back to de Wolfe. ‘But tell me what you have been doing. Out of town again, I expect?’ Her tone hardened slightly as she referred to his frequent absences, but he seized on her words to keep her there.

  ‘I discovered a murdered man today – killed in Dunsford, yet found in Teignmouth.’ It was something to hold her attention, but she picked up on the last word with a snap in her voice.

  ‘You rode to Teignmouth today? By the coast road, no doubt!’

  Mystified, he nodded.

  ‘The road that passes through Dawlish! And did you call upon your fair-haired sweetheart?’ Now the voice had the edge of a dagger.

  Trapped, he scowled furiously at her. ‘If you think I saw Hilda, you’re mistaken. Not that it’s any of your business,’ he added unwisely.

  The redheaded Welshwoman pressed her small fists on the table as she leaned towards him. ‘I know you, Black John. You may not have seen her, but did you go looking for her?’