Bernard Knight - The Grim Reaper

As de Wolfe stared at him with dawning comprehension, he became aware that Adam’s tirade was running down in volume and virulence. The priest had noticed the activity near his lectern.

‘Are these the same quotations as at the scenes of death?’ he muttered, leaning closer to his clerk.

Thomas bobbed his head. ‘This one is from St Mark about the moneylenders in the temple — and the first was that about the millstone around the neck.’

Adam’s angry monologue had faded to silence now and de Wolfe saw that both Gwyn and the castle chaplain had turned to listen to what Thomas was saying. ‘Hold him, Gwyn, I have some questions for that man!’ snapped John urgently, but he was too late. With surprising agility for one so heavily built, Adam of Dol raced for a small door at the front of the nave, alongside the entrance from the street. Gwyn pounded after him, but the priest slipped through and slammed it after him. They heard a bar being dropped on the inside and though Gwyn crashed his great body against the oaken door, it shuddered but held fast. The four left in the nave clustered around the doorway in excited frustration.

‘Where does this lead?’ demanded de Wolfe.

‘It can only be to the bell-tower,’ suggested Rufus.

Shouting over his shoulder to Gwyn to break it open, de Wolfe ran out into the narrow street between the church and the city wall near the West Gate. Turning, he looked up at the squat, square tower that had been erected only a few years earlier with funds donated by a rich burgess in memory of his wife. Just under the flat top, there was a small arch on each of the four sides, which allowed the peals from the central bell to ring out over the city. He could see no one under the front arch so he hurried back into the nave.

Gwyn had failed to shift the door with his shoulder and rubbing his bruised muscles, was on his way to fetch Adam’s stout ladder to use as a battering-ram. There was silence from behind the door and John wondered whether Adam might decide to follow his fellow priest’s example by killing himself. However, the coroner decided that it seemed out of character with the man’s truculent nature, unless by leaping from the bell-tower, he could land on the coroner and personally send him to hell, having failed the previous night with his leather bag.

As he waited impatiently for Gwyn to break down the door, de Wolfe noticed that Brother Rufus and Thomas were staring at the other gory scenes painted by Adam high on the walls. They were pointing at particular parts of the murals, which were frighteningly realistic in their sharp detail. ‘Crowner, look at that face — and that one,’ brayed the monk. ‘Can you see who they are?’

John peered up, following Rufus’s finger. Though the main characters in the scenes were angels and devils, there were several smaller individuals, almost all agonised victims of sin. Suddenly, his eyes registered what the other two were indicating. In the lower corner of the first painting, one face was unmistakably that of Aaron, the Jewish moneylender, and in the next, a woman with flowing hair and prominent breasts was Joanna of London. Astounded, John moved along and found the merchant sodomite Fitz-William, then the unmistakable pointed beard and close-set eyes of Richard de Revelle.

‘No sign of the crowner here, in his gallery of rogues,’ chaffed Rufus. ‘I suppose as you were the last victim he hasn’t had time to include you.’

Gwyn had by now grabbed the ladder, letting the pots of pigment crash down to stain the nave floor. As he charged across the nave with the stout timbers held like a lance, John tried to assimilate all that the last few moments had revealed. It was patently obvious that Adam of Dol was the deranged killer and the attacker that they had been so desperately seeking — for whose sake Thomas had come so close to a humiliating death. If only he had taken more notice of these damned paintings earlier, then a great deal of trouble — and even a life or two — might have been saved.

A thunderous crashing began at the base of the tower, where Rufus of Bristol had joined Gwyn in swinging the heavy ladder against the stubborn door. While they were assaulting it, John laid a hand on Thomas’s shoulder and shouted a question at him: ‘Were all those quotations underlined in the book?’

‘Like the faces up on the walls, all of them except the one left at your attack, master. But that was but a few hours ago.’

They were interrupted by the rending of wood and turning, they saw that the door to the tower was hanging from its hinges. With a roar, Gwyn dropped the ladder and dived through the opening. By the time John had followed him inside, his officer was still roaring, but with further frustration. A tiny room, the floor rush-covered, was empty but for a broom and a bucket. In one corner there was a square hole in the ceiling and below this a rope ladder lay crumpled on the floor, thrown down from above. They could hear heavy feet pacing up and down on the boards overhead and a muffled litany of imprecations.

‘Come down, Adam! There’s no way you can escape,’ yelled Rufus, in his usual interfering way. Thomas scowled at him, annoyed that the chaplain had been first to notice the faces in the wall paintings, though Thomas still could claim recognition of the marked passages in Adam’s Bible.

The coroner joined in calling upon the priest to surrender, but was met by another barrage of defiance, mixed with the usual commentary on the Armageddon soon to come.

‘The Book of Revelation must be his favourite reading,’ muttered Thomas cynically, though he made the Sign of the Cross a few times, to be on the safe side.

‘Any fear of him jumping from the top?’ asked Rufus, echoing John’s earlier thoughts.

‘Any hope, you mean!’ countered Gwyn cynically.

‘It would certainly solve many problems — not least those of the Bishop,’ said Rufus wryly.

‘What d’you mean?’ asked de Wolfe suspiciously.

The castle priest shrugged. ‘Unlike our little friend here, Adam is a fully fledged parish priest, still in Holy Orders. The Bishop proscribed torture for Thomas, though technically he is a layman, so I doubt he’ll withhold Benefit of Clergy for this man.’

‘That’s not my business, thank God,’ grated de Wolfe. ‘My concern at the moment is to get the swine down from up there.’

Adam’s head appeared in the trap above, an almost manic leer on his face as he stared down at them. ‘My work on this earth is nearly finished — but the Lord will deliver me from mine enemies!’ he yelled triumphantly.

‘I’ll bloody deliver you, you evil bastard!’ shouted Gwyn angrily. He bent and picked up the end of the ladder that was lying across the ruined door, and propped it just below the hole into the upper chamber, where the bell-rope hung. As he began to climb the rungs, John called a warning, as Adam’s face vanished and was replaced by one of his feet. ‘Watch your face, man!’

The furious priest above was kicking downwards as Gwyn’s head reached the ceiling. A heel skimmed the red hair as Gwyn dodged and retreated a rung or two.

‘Right, your time has come, unless you can get God to whisk you out of there right now!’ he roared. Reaching behind him, he pulled his dagger from his belt and went back up the rungs. The foot stamped down again, but this time the coroner’s officer jabbed it through the leather sole. There was a yell of pain and Gwyn dropped the knife to grab Adam’s ankle with both hands and pull it with all his considerable strength.

For a second, the open-mouthed spectators standing below thought that both men were going to fall on top of them and scattered to the opposite wall. But though the priest came bodily through the trap-door, he managed to grab the edges as he fell. Now Gwyn had him around the knees and reached up to land Adam a punishing blow in the belly. The priest jackknifed down on top of the Cornishman. Careless of any further injury, Gwyn tipped his prisoner sideways off the ladder, letting him crash on to the thick layer of old rushes on the floor. Adam lay there bruised and winded — silent for once on the subject of sin and retribution.