Bernard Knight: The Grim Reaper

The leading man panted to a stop in front of him. It was Theobald, the town constable. ‘Crowner, there’s a body just dragged from the river. Can you come quickly?’

De Wolfe scowled. Drowned bodies were one of the most common type of case he had to deal with. There was usually no great urgency about viewing them, especially as now he had other things on his mind.

‘Can’t it wait a little? Or get a barrow and take it to the dead-house on the quayside.’

Theobald shook his head. ‘It happened not half an hour ago. He set fire to himself on the new bridge and then jumped in. It’s a priest, by the clothes he left behind.’

The word ‘priest’ instantly grabbed John’s attention, but the ever-inquisitive monk got in first. ‘Priest? Who was it?’

‘We’re not sure, his face was badly scorched, but it looks like the priest of All-Hallows.’

‘Ralph de Capra?’ snapped de Wolfe.

Theobald nodded. ‘About his height and build. His hair’s burnt off and most of his skin’s gone, but it’s most likely him, especially after that caper he had on the city wall yesterday.’

They all hurried down towards the river and Theobald led them across the mud of Exe Island below the new bridge, followed by a crowd of onlookers. The corpse had not drifted far: a hundred paces away from where the man had jumped into the river a dead tree had trapped his body in its branches. The two porters who had seen the conflagration on the bridge had rushed down and dragged it ashore, where it now lay on its back on the rough grass. Even in the open air, the smell of cooked flesh was distinct.

As they stood over it, Thomas and Brother Rufus competed with each other in crossing themselves repeatedly, but John and his officer dropped beside the body into their usual crouch.

‘Bit of a mess, but I reckon it’s de Capra right enough,’ said Gwyn. The face was bright red with blackened patches, and was completely skinned, as were much of the shoulders, chest and thighs. All the hair had gone and the scalp was scorched. The burning and swelling of the eyelids and lips made the features grotesque, but there was no doubt that it was the mad priest of All-Hallows-on-the-Wall.

‘He’d have been a damned sight worse if he hadn’t jumped in the river,’ offered one of the porters, with morbid satisfaction.

‘Stark naked, he was, standing on the end of the bloody bridge like a bush afire!’ contributed the other excitedly.

De Wolfe rocked back on his heels to ponder the situation. Was this a final act of contrition for killing and assaulting all those people? There was no proof of that — even priests are allowed to go mad without necessarily being serial killers.

‘Shall we haul him off to the mortuary, as you said, Crowner?’ asked Theobald.

John got to his feet and looked again at the scorched cadaver.

‘No, he’s a clerk in Holy Orders, so we must see what the cathedral wishes to do about this. The Archdeacon is responsible for the parish priests, so he must be told — and the Bishop, if he’s still in the city.’

A wide circle of people had formed around the scene and as they moved to allow de Wolfe and his party to pass through on their way back to the higher ground outside the city wall, Brother Rufus reminded him of Ralph de Capra’s recent movements. ‘He was being sheltered by the priest at St Mary Steps, both before and after he was taken to St Nicholas. I wonder if he knows about this?’

‘That’s further reason to speak to him, as soon as we can,’ grunted the coroner. ‘He seemed quite fond of that deranged fellow, so it may come as a nasty shock.’

Privately, de Wolfe wondered if the same nasty shock might trigger some useful reaction in Adam of Dol, but when they reached the little house behind the church, no one was in. The four investigators came back down the steep cobbles at the side of the church and went in through the front door.

Inside the empty nave, they saw Adam with his back to them, up a ladder set against the blank wall at one side of the chancel arch. He wore an old black robe stained with paint, the skirt pulled up between his legs and tucked into a broad leather belt. A tray of small pots was balanced precariously on one of the rungs and he was leaning out with a small brush, meticulously putting pigment on another of his terrifying images.

He was so intent upon his artistic endeavours that he failed to hear them come in. Gwyn nudged his master and pointed to the new scene, mostly in red and black, which contrasted starkly with the whitewashed walls. It was only partly completed, but showed an angel and a winged devil fighting over an agonised human, each trying to drag him up to heaven or down to hell. The details were very well drawn and the face of the angel was undoubtedly that of Adam himself. The devil was equally clearly that of Henry Marshal, Bishop of Devon and Cornwall!

‘That’ll not increase your popularity in the cathedral precinct,’ said John in a loud voice. The priest turned so suddenly that he was in danger of falling from the ladder, but when he saw who his visitors were, he snarled, ‘I don’t give a tinker’s curse what they think down there! They’re only interested in fancy vestments, good food and their fat tithes and prebends. Saving souls is the least of their concerns.’ He turned back to his painting, deliberately ignoring the coroner and his companions. He was adding a disembowelled corpse to the free hand of the bishop-devil, presumably one which Satan had already seized from the forces of heaven.

John waited patiently, while Brother Rufus stared with rapt attention at all the other wall-paintings, and the ever-inquisitive Thomas wandered over to the chancel steps to leaf through a thick book that lay on a wooden lectern.

After a little time Adam finished what he was painting and leaned back a little to admire his work. Then he put his brush on the tray and slowly came down the ladder. Rubbing his hands on his grubby tunic, he came across the nave towards de Wolfe, his red face as truculent as ever. ‘Anyway, what do you want, Crowner? I’ve seen enough of you lately. Can’t you leave us alone?’

The ‘us’ brought home to John that he had an unpleasant duty to perform. Quite bluntly, he told Adam of the gruesome death of his priestly neighbour less than an hour before. If he had been hoping for a reaction, he was not disappointed, for after a moment’s shocked inertia, the burly priest gave a bull-like roar and charged at the coroner, his hands open as if to seize his throat.

Gwyn, who had spent many years as bodyguard to his master, stepped calmly between them and grabbed the priest’s wrists in a bear-like grip, forcing the man down to his knees.

‘Now, none of that or I’ll have to hurt you,’ he said benignly.

However, Adam’s mouth could still function and he poured out a torrent of invective at de Wolfe, widening it to include the sheriff, constable, bishop, all the archdeacons and most of the Exeter canons. ‘If you had not persecuted that poor man, he would still be alive!’ he raged. ‘He lost his faith, as many of us do at some time or another, but he was hounded into insanity by you all.’

Rufus tried to intervene, pointing out that though racking doubts about the very existence of God were an occupational hazard of being a priest, few were driven to madness and self-destruction. Adam ignored him and continued to rage at the coroner and the faithless world in general, his fleshy face almost purple with anger.

John let the abuse wash over him and motioned to Gwyn to let the man get to his feet, though the Cornishman kept a wary eye on him in case he became violent again.

As the priest continued to shake his fist, wave his arms and rant about the indolence of the Church, Thomas sidled up to de Wolfe and tugged at his sleeve. ‘Crowner, come over here, quickly,’ he whispered, and pulled him the few paces to the chancel steps where the Vulgate now lay open on the lectern. The clerk pointed a finger at one page, where John saw faint but distinct underlining in powdery charcoal beneath some of the beautifully regular lettering of the Latin text. Thomas turned feverishly to another page, which he had marked with a small feather dropped by one of the birds that nested in the roof beams. ‘Here again passages have been marked — and in other places!’ he hissed.