Michael Jecks - The Malice of Unnatural Death

‘Not likely, sir. I’m the night watchman for this area. He’s not the sort of man I’d expect to see down here at night. It’sdrunks or men wanting the stews I tend to see. During the day, I try to sleep,’ he added with a sidelong glance at the coroner.

‘So do I, my man!’ Coroner de Welles said, and laughed long and hard.

‘In the time while you were raising the hue and cry, did you leave the body alone? Could someone have got to it and searchedit?’ Baldwin wondered.

‘You mean, have a look in his pouch? No, I don’t think so. When I found him, I pulled his arm free, and tugged hard enough to know that the whole body was there. Soon as I feltthat, I stopped pulling, and left him instead. If anyone had tried to get into his pouch, they’d have had to clear all themuck away from him. No one had, though. When I got back, he was still just as covered in stuff as when I left him.’

‘Was he absolutely cold when you found him?’

‘Yes. Stone cold. But it gets cold here at night.’

Baldwin nodded, his eyes going to the brazier. ‘Do you keep that going all night, then? Somewhere you know you can come toget a warm-up when you need it through the dark hours?’

‘Well, yes. There’s nothing to say that a watchman has to freeze,’ Will said truculently.

‘No, I was merely wondering how long you have to spend on your patrol, and how long back here indoors to warm up again. Itcould have a bearing on when the man was killed.’

‘I …’

‘Because it is mightily unlikely that he was murdered and dumped in that pile of rubbish during the day, isn’t it, Will?’the coroner added.

‘Why?’

‘Because, my fellow, the damn roadway is full of people during the day , isn’t it?’ the coroner explained testily. ‘How could someone walk round there and happily throttle a man in broad daylight?’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes, “Oh”, as you say. So how much time do you spend outside compared with inside?’

Baldwin was struck by the man’s evident nervousness as the questioning continued. He was not the kind of man to impress as a reliable witness.

‘I don’t spend much time indoors — I would lose my position if the city’s receiver thought I wasn’t doing my job.’

Baldwin wondered if that might be a cause of his nervousness: the simple fear of being thrown out from a job like this. Itmight not be lucrative — judging from how the man lived it could scarcely be less so! — but nor was it strenuous, and theman had an easy enough time of it. ‘We will not discuss your strengths or otherwise with the mayor or his men,’ he said briefly.

‘Well, perhaps I do take some breaks when the weather really is bad. Last night it was so cold, I had to keep warming myselfat the brazier. Few nights ago, some men had lit a fire in the street near the bishop’s palace gate, but there was nothingyesterday, and by the time I’d walked up there I was perished.’

‘What area do you cover from here?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Oh, I’m supposed to walk from here up South Gate Street, then up along the lane towards the Bear Gate, before turning backtowards here again, coming down to the Palace Gate, straight on south to the wall, then up the alleys between the Bear and Palace gates. Sometimes I go the other way about, for the variety.’

‘So, you would occasionally have to come back here after walking the circuit. I suppose when it was that cold, other peoplewould hardly be about much anyway, would they?’ Baldwin said. It was clear enough what the man was up to. He’d walk aroundthe perimeter of his patch, then stop back at his hovel to warm himself and forget about criss-crossing the smaller alleysand lanes.

‘No one in his right mind would be out on a night like last! It was terrible. All the puddles had frozen. God’s teeth!

This morning when I tried to break the ice in my bucket, I couldn’t: the water was frozen right to the bottom!’

‘So a sensible man would have spent much more time indoors, then,’ Baldwin said. ‘I suppose that you saw absolutely no onewhile you were supposed to be walking your rounds.’

It was there: a not-so-subtle shift in the man’s stance, and then his head dropped a little, and his eyes moved away.

‘In the night, you sometimes see shadows and imagine a man, I suppose.’

‘That doesn’t answer the keeper’s question,’ Coroner Richard pointed out forcefully.

‘Did you see someone?’ Baldwin pressed him.

The watchman shook his head hopelessly, and Baldwin suddenly realised that this was the aspect that had made the man so nervous: it was nothing to do with the fact of being indoors when he should have been walking his territory, it was something else- a man he had seen while out on his walks.

‘Who was it, man?’ Coroner Richard demanded. ‘It’ll all come out in the end, but the fact that you forgot to mention it beforewon’t look good unless you make up for your forgetfulness now, and quickly !’

‘When you’re out, you can imagine things, yes? I wasn’t sure if I saw anyone at all. It was a shadow, that’s all. Just a movingshadow in the moonlight. There was only a brief glimpse …’

‘Where was this “brief glimpse”?’ Baldwin asked patiently, but with a hint of steel in his voice.

The man sighed and closed his eyes for a long moment. ‘I was up past Palace Gate, walking down this way again, and it was towards the middle of the night. I know because of the cathedral bells. They were tolling for Matins when I sawit, so it must have been …’

‘Get on with it,’ the coroner growled.

‘Well, I was past the entrance to the little alley, the second after South Gate Street, when I saw something down in the alley. I looked down it, because I wasn’t sure I’d seen anything, holding my torch up high, and I was almost sure that there wasa flash of paleness.’

‘What does that mean?’ Coroner Richard snapped. ‘Be precise, man!’

‘I thought it meant that there was man down there, that I’d seen his face,’ the fearful watchman explained. ‘My torch couldlight quite some few yards well enough, especially with the moon’s light falling down in the alley too. I thought it was aman in dark clothing.’

‘But you didn’t go down the lane to check?’ the coroner said accusingly.

‘That was it: I did! I was really scared, sir, but I did go in. And I thought I saw a man, but then he disappeared, and when I got there, there was nothing. Only …’

‘ Spit it out , man, in God’s name!’ de Welles blurted.

‘There was a cat. A black cat. It yowled at me as I approached, and I almost stained my hosen at the sudden noise. Christalive! If you could have heard that sound down that alley!’

‘I have heard cats before,’ Baldwin said wearily. ‘In many alleys. Even, occasionally, in houses. You were startled, then?’

‘Startled? I was terrified, sir! I had seen a man, and now he’d gone and here was this cat! I tell you, I turned and fledthe place!’

‘Because of a cat?’ Baldwin asked scathingly.

‘There are some say …’

‘Yes, yes,’ Baldwin said impatiently, ‘sorcerers!’

Will didn’t meet his eye. ‘Necromancers can change themselves into cats,’ he agreed.

Exeter City

He had seen her. God in heaven, but she was beautiful! Her face was like the Madonna’s, and her gentle gait was enough to makea man sigh for jealousy that another could possess such perfection.

She hadn’t seen him , of course. He couldn’t let her. Not yet. Better that he wait around here and observe. With a caution that was entirely unnatural,and yet he was learning to use most cunningly and quickly, he set off after her, his long legs covering the ground easily.