Catchpoll spoke half to himself. ‘Not that you could call definite advances, just possibilities. Trouble is, the more you scrabble around in this case the more suspects you can find. Let’s face it, my lord, half of Worcester needs proof of innocence, and cannot provide one neither. I get the feeling I’ll be suspecting myself next, and I know it wasn’t me.’
Bradecote pulled a wry smile. ‘That’s a relief, at least.’ His tone was light, hoping to rouse Catchpoll from his dismal mood, but he was concerned. He needed Catchpoll’s mind as clear and dispassionate as he had been on their first case in Pershore. The undersheriff felt he was warming to the role of law officer, but recognised his own inexperience.
The older man did not acknowledge the mild jest, and merely grunted. In truth, he was not sure how much of his morning’s questioning had proved useful and how much muddied the waters. After a troubled night’s rest, he had gone in hunt of Agnes Whitwood. He had been reluctant to approach her, for she was a loose-tongued woman whom he did not really like, and he had no desire to have it passed around Worcester that the castle cook was under investigation. He compromised by eliciting information by stealth, ostensibly berating her for having brought down her priest’s anger upon his wife when she was beset by her old loss. As he had hoped, Mistress Whitwood had bridled and excused herself, commencing with ‘But I was only telling her …’ and thence recounting the tale afresh. From there it was easy enough to delve deeper by the simple expedient of saying that such tales were ridiculous. This, Catchpoll decided, both brought out any corroborative details Agnes Whitwood possessed, and made it clear that Drogo was definitely not under suspicion by the law.
The story recounted to him was, shorn of the repeated avowals of not being one to spread untruths, and pleas to the Almighty to strike her tongue from her head if a word was malicious, the same as his wife had given him the previous evening.
‘But you were only a slip of a girl back then. You might have not heard aright.’ He actually thought she must have been nigh on twenty, but he knew she had wed late, not being a well-favoured woman and of shrewish temperament, and reckoned she would prefer not to be reminded of the fact. He almost smiled when she simpered, though it was not a pretty sight.
‘Why, Serjeant Catchpoll, how right you are … about my age, I mean. However, the story was oft repeated, and my dear mother always gave it credence. She knew the first wife quite well, and never understood how such a godly, respectable woman could have married one as intemperate as Drogo. Prone to throwing things about the kitchen, he was, when his rages took him, and that was often enough, because everything had to be just so with him. You’d think cooking was an art.’ She snorted her dismissal of the idea.
‘She was a widow, wasn’t she? One whose husband took his own life?’
Mistress Whitwood nodded. ‘I don’t recall the scandal, but I know there was one.’ Her voice held regret that such information had escaped her.
‘Do you recall her name? Or his?’
‘Her name was Emma, but I could not say her husband’s. She was simply “Emma” in the kitchen, her position being just that of an underling, and she never spoke of him – not in my hearing, at the least. Must have gone hard with her, having been a craftsman’s wife and used to directing her own home.’
Catchpoll filed the information. Drogo had mentioned his ‘poor Emma’ when talking of the local silversmiths, but if it were that long ago, Reginald Ash would have been merely learning the trade.
‘And as for the second wife,’ continued Agnes, ‘well, she did not come from within the castle and we never really saw her or anything, so I never knew who she was other than she was a redhead with freckles, which would, of course, account for Drogo getting rid of her.’ She presented this final scrap of knowledge as if it were a vital fact.
Catchpoll’s eyes boggled. It was rare for anything to surprise him but this threw him completely.
Agnes Whitwood smiled at her superior understanding, and explained as if to a dim child. ‘Redheads. You know, Serjeant. Redheads have tempers on them. Why, if I had a penny for every time that Amice Pottes, that flame-haired shrew across the way … But, Drogo, he must have found all the arguments too much to handle, him being tempersome also, and done away with her.’
Catchpoll relaxed, and smiled his death’s head smile. No, he had not failed to pick up on something important. Mistress Whitwood took it to be appreciation of her sagacity, and coloured.
‘So tell me, why did he get rid of the godly Emma, then?’ he asked.
‘It must have been because the child she carried was not his.’
‘But if she was a respectable woman …’
‘Even respectable women are not strong enough if a man is set upon having them, poor souls.’ She tried to look affronted by the insult to her sex. ‘By all accounts, one of the lord of Shapwyck’s sons was mightily taken with her and loitered under the feet of the kitchen staff till the cook, not Drogo, who was just the undercook, had words with the steward. After that he was more circumspect, but if his ardour got the better of him one evening … Nobody would give credit to the word of a kitchen maid against one such as him.’ She shrugged. ‘It would be a sound reason for her accepting Drogo.’
Catchpoll’s smile had become fixed into a rictus. This did have a sense to it. He did not like it, not one tiny bit, but it had a certain logic. And yet his friendship with Drogo, which went back well over a decade, did not give him the impression of a man who would slowly poison a woman. If he had hit her with a skillet, or the poker from the fire, while in a drink-fuelled rage, well that he could have understood, but not slow poisoning. This fitted, and at the same time was all wrong.
‘The deaths were not investigated. I was new to it all back then; just a man-at-arms the serjeant thought more useful than some. I had barely begun to learn, but I would have remembered queries about two deaths involving a man from within the castle.’
Agnes Whitwood sniffed. ‘Drogo’s a good cook, they say. Mayhap the castellan and the lord sheriff were too taken by his cooking of venison and goose to want to stir up a pot of trouble.’ She laughed at her own witticism, but then shrugged as Catchpoll made no sign of appreciating the jest. He left her with thanks that were polite but not effusive, and a recommendation not to let her tongue earn her greater penance. She sniffed.
From Mistress Whitwood, Catchpoll had headed for Corviserstrete, where he asked directions for the dispossessed glover. Mistress Woodman clearly knew nothing, but it was possible that the glover had greater knowledge of how affairs stood in his own street. Hunting him down led Catchpoll first out of the Foregate to the north of the town on the Wich road, where he hoped to find him with his brother-in-law, the tanner. Unfortunately, it turned out that the industrious glover was calling in favours from other members of his craft, and Catchpoll spent the best part of two hours scouring the town before he caught up with him.
In need of slaking his own thirst, Catchpoll suggested an adjournment to a neighbouring alehouse. Wilfrid the Glover needed no great persuading, for his own morning had produced a disappointing degree of success. Over a beaker of ale he was only too happy to call down curses on the head of whoever had set the fire, and on Robert Mercet for taking every advantage from his misfortune. Catchpoll understood his ill feeling, and concurred with his reading of Mercet’s character, but he was interested in other information. It had occurred to Catchpoll that the glover, rather than Woodman or the old woman, might have been the target of the fire-setter, and he was keen to discover anyone with a grudge against the man. Wilfrid considered the matter with furrowed brow.
‘None as I’d reckon have taken against me enough to set a fire. I’ll admit there are a couple of fellows who have swung a fist at me when both of us were the worse for ale, but such disputes disappear with the sore head next day. There’s never been anything of a feud or a grudge against me.’
Catchpoll eyed the glover sceptically. The response had come with a fraction of hesitation and a
deepening of colour. Wilfrid Glover was a bad liar. He made a calculated guess.
‘You are a good husband?’
‘I’ve got four children.’ The tone was mildly affronted.
Catchpoll raised his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t ask if your loins were fruitful. Being a good husband and siring four brats do not have to go together. Many a father fathers elsewhere. So you haven’t let your eyes, or more importantly, any other part of your body, stray?’
‘No.’ There was an unspoken ‘but’ left hanging in the air, so Catchpoll voiced it.
‘But …? Never once?’
‘Well, perhaps once. But that was some years back, and her husband never knew. Besides, the woman is dead these two months, God have mercy on her.’
Catchpoll raised his eyes heavenwards at the stupidity of his fellow man. ‘And just supposing he knows now. A deathbed confession, or a “friend” who didn’t want to cause trouble when she was alive but can’t bear the widower going on about how wonderful his wife was?’
Wilfrid looked suddenly uncomfortable.
‘Name the lady, then.’ Catchpoll sighed. ‘I’m not a priest interested in men’s souls, just a man whose job is to keep folk from murdering each other, stealing, oh, and setting Worcester aflame.’
‘Maud, the wife of Edgar Brewer,’ mumbled Wilfrid.
Catchpoll ran the name through the filing system of his memory.
‘Sultry looking piece, all raven locks and drooping lashes. If her husband is after every man who got the come-on from her, I’d best have a man-at-arms with a pail of water set at every corner in the town.’ Catchpoll sniffed discontentedly, but then broke into a smile at the glover’s shocked expression.
‘Thought it was just you, eh? There now. There’s no fool like a man who thinks another man’s wife who strays, strays only for him. Well, I hopes you’ve learnt your lesson and look to your own bed in future.’
He stood up to leave, but then bethought himself of another question.
‘Old Edgyth,’ the serjeant began, and the glover crossed himself and shuddered at the memory of the charred corpse, ‘was a healing woman, and one who was popular with young women who found themselves in tricky situations, by all accounts. Did you see anyone looking … well, suspicious, visiting her in the last few weeks?’
‘No. Just the usual folk as visited … except of course … there now, I had almost forgotten him, and me and the wife had a fine old time wondering what he was about and who he was at the time.’
Catchpoll could not quite keep the eagerness from his voice. ‘Yes?’
‘Mmm. Most of those who sought Old Edgyth were townsfolk, just the ordinary sort. Your rich men and lordly sort go to Roger the Healer and his sort, and pay more for worse advice, if you ask me.’ Wilfrid paused, half expecting Catchpoll to do just that. Getting no response, he continued. ‘This man was different. He wore a cloak, with the hood up too, though it was a fair day. It was an ordinary man’s cloak, nothing fine, but his shoes were good-quality leather and he wore gauntlets, heaven knows why. They cost him a pretty penny, though they weren’t my work. He was just, well, all wrong; a man trying hard not to draw attention to himself. So of course, he did.’
‘Were there raised voices when he went inside?’ Catchpoll asked.
‘Oh no, nothing like that. It was who he was, not what he did that drew our attention. I thought it might be a man with an ailment best kept private, keeping himself disguised. My wife thought he might be a spy come to the old widow for poisons, but she’s a fanciful sort and disliked the old crone. Whoever he was, he came twice, and not thereafter.’
Catchpoll’s interest was caught. ‘Describe him to me.’
‘I can’t. As I said, he wore a cloak with a hood.’
‘So tell me the colour of the cloak; how tall he was; how he walked.’
‘Your sort of height, and he walked upright enough and without a limp. Cloak was just sack brown, but the gloves were a good chestnut with a fine finish. If they came from Worcester, then I’d guess the leather came from Gilbert, the tanner out on the Sutheberi road, not my brother-in-law, who makes mostly leather for saddlery.’
Catchpoll thanked the glover, and left him hunched over his ale pot, wondering about both Edgar Brewer and the fine leather gauntlets.
It was the information from the glover that Catchpoll divulged first as he and Bradecote sat in the chamber allotted to the undersheriff. Bradecote listened attentively, but agreed that the information provided more threads than leads.
‘We can speak to Edgar Brewer, but even if he were guilty he has but to deny it and we are stuck. There is no evidence.’ Bradecote sighed.
‘Might be best to get back to the silversmith first, my lord. If Ash, or more likely young Edwin, had dealings with Maud Brewer, it would be a mightily good motive, and a widower would have no problem being out late at night.’
‘And if that is the case, do we have to be swift? From what you say, there could be plenty of other victims in waiting.’
Catchpoll groaned. ‘If he denies it, we had best set a watch on him, at least until we have a stronger suspect.’
‘That leads us to the disguised man with the fine gauntlets. Is that a fair lead?’
‘To what? I have no doubt the glover spoke true, but if the man was seeking some potion he would have no cause to burn the woman, and we have to find a connection with Reginald Ash. What’s more, it would have to be a connection with a reason to set fire to the silversmith’s.’
Bradecote’s expression was now nearly as morose as that of Serjeant Catchpoll. ‘We are running in small circles. I just cannot see how we are to find the answer to this one, Catchpoll. I am afraid you have to be unhinged of mind to want to set fire to things, and if that is so there need be no sense to any of it. Our fire-raiser could be working on a whim. How can we catch a man whose acts are random?’
‘By luck, if that be so. But even things that look random may not be, my lord. I mean, however unconnected they look to us, the fire-setter will have his reasons, be they nary so weird.’
Bradecote smiled wearily. ‘So we think like madmen. Thank you, Catchpoll. With the suspects, or non-suspects, we have, that will be easier than I would have thought a few days ago.’
Catchpoll regarded his superior steadily. ‘There’s another “non-suspect” as you call them, to add to the list. Drogo the Cook, as runs the castle kitchens. There are connections with the healing woman and the silversmiths, however much I dislike it.’
He set out the information from Mistress Whitwood plainly, though Bradecote could see how uncomfortable he was about it. At the conclusion they sat in silence for a few minutes, each ruminating upon possibilities. Catchpoll’s expression had never been more lugubrious, but Bradecote frowned as he tried to unravel the problem. At last he brightened.
‘Serjeant Catchpoll. All this about the castle cook may be true for all we know, but we could never prove it. Only God can bring him to account if he did kill his wives. But even though there is a loose connection with the two fires, there is no motive for any attacks, and even if you could concoct one, it existed some twenty years ago, man. Why, in Jesu’s name, would anyone wait that long for revenge or whatever other motive it was? It makes no sense, and even more so if Drogo is the hot-headed sort.’
Catchpoll felt a wave of relief wash over him, but it left him feeling no happier.
‘Aye, my lord. You have the right of it, and yet … I believe Drogo is no fire-raiser, nor murderer either, but there is something there. It’s like in the gloaming, when you see something out the corner of your eye. If you look straight at it, there’s nothing there. If you looks at this there is no sense to it, but at the edge of my mind I know I should see something, and it grates with me that I can’t say what.’
Bradecote half understood, but could provide no answer. Instead he opted for banishing Catchpoll’s unease with more tangible threads to follow.
‘We can’t hunt the invisible, so we had best be about the mu
ndane and obvious. As you said, we have a link between Brewer and Wilfrid Glover, if he was the target of the second fire. So we establish if there was a link between Brewer and Ash or his journeyman. We then find out if there is a link between our gauntleted man and the silversmith, though it seems grasping at a straw. If there is anything at all, then we have to find out who he is. That will mean speaking to the tanner and then whoever the tanner sold the leather to, if that is possible. And then …’
‘What, my lord?’
The undersheriff smiled grimly. ‘We pray that it rains in Worcester … rains heavily.’
Chapter Eight
Reginald Ash was a little surprised, and also irritated, at the reappearance of the undersheriff, and now accompanied by the sheriff’s serjeant. He wanted to put the upheaval of the fire behind him, and to re-establish himself as ‘Reginald Ash, the fine silversmith’ rather than ‘Reginald Ash, the man whose business nearly burnt down’. He was a fair way to achieving that aim, but having the officers of the law hanging around like crows round an ailing sheep set him back. The smile with which he greeted the pair was brief and clearly forced, and he returned his attention to his client, an ostentatiously dressed man who was discussing the design of a large cloak clasp. Bradecote’s lips twitched, for Master Ash was struggling to prevent the man ordering something of such size, complexity and weight as to tear any cloth to which it was attached. He could detect the conflict between the businessman’s desire to supply an expensive item, and his craftsman’s soul writhing at the prospect of being associated with a ghastly and tasteless piece of work, which would have the purchaser returning to complain that it damaged his clothes. By the time he had concluded the deal for the clasp he was clearly agitated. He wiped a faintly charcoal-smudged cloth over his face, thereby leaving dark shadows that altered the planes of his face. He gazed dolefully at Bradecote.
‘Wasn’t one visit enough for the day, my lord? I take it you aren’t here to purchase. Unless your wife …’ He halted at the look that appeared upon the undersheriff’s visage.
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