Michael Jecks - The Malice of Unnatural Death

Apart from that, there was little else to impress. The boy was thin and would have been gangling, were it not for his bentback. It did not look like a hunch, but was more an affectation which appeared to be there to highlight his disgruntlementwith the world. He had a pasty complexion enlivened by a small mountain region of yellow-headed spots about his mouth andchin, grey, watery-coloured eyes, and a shock of thin sandy hair that only served to emphasise his glowering demeanour.

‘All I wish is to see where you saw this man, and to hear what exactly you saw,’ Baldwin said soothingly as Hal left them,muttering darkly about being ‘not too big to be clipped hard round the ear if you’re cheeky …’ and similar dire warnings.

‘I didn’t see the one he’s telling about. Didn’t see anyone that side of the road. Anyway, doubt whether the old man did either. Silly old fart’s too pissed to see anything clearly. He prob’ly saw a dog in the shadows or something.’

‘Let us go and look, eh? Surely your eyes are keener than your father’s, and you will be able to tell me much more.’

‘Wouldn’t be hard,’ Art admitted grudgingly.

Baldwin was always being surprised by youngsters. Some could look as helpful and quick-witted as any, and then prove themselvestongue-tied by the sight of a knight, or more commonly by the sight of a woman, while others would be cocksure and a painbut then, when a posse was needed, the first to lift their hands to volunteer to help. They were also the first to get intoa fight as well, though, sadly.

First impression aside, this fellow seemed bright enough. He wasn’t one of the nervous, overly self-aware boys who would retreatinto a blushing shell at the first sign of an argument, but neither was he the sort who would respond with violence to anyperceived threat. In short, he was moderately quick-witted. Baldwin had the feeling that anything the lad said would be trustworthy.

‘Your old man was drunk?’

‘Yeah. Usually is. He thinks I’m going to get into trouble if I go to an alehouse without him, so he always comes along. But he can’t handle his ale like he used to.’

‘No mother?’

Art squinted sideways at him. ‘She met a merchant, so they say, and left the city to be with him. Look at the old man. Nothard to see why.’

Baldwin nodded. It was depressing how often a woman could have her head turned by someone who was interested in a buxom breastor the length of a thigh. So often these fellows would ensnare a wench, then prod her and leave her, despairing, with a babe. At least Art’s mother appeared to have left with her man. Baldwin wondered whether he would have kept her, or had perhapsleft her at the next city he visited. It had happened before.

‘What did you see that night, Art?’

‘We’d been in the tavern some while, and the old man had been throwing the stuff down his neck like it was gone out of fashion,so when I could, I grabbed him to take him home. He didn’t want to come, though. He was right pissed off,’ Art said. He wasspeaking slowly, musingly, as he walked, his face introverted, as though he could see the scene in his mind as he spoke. ‘Ithink it was that man — you know, Norman Mucheton. Dad’s not used to seeing things like that. It was a shitty sight. It waslike his head was about to fall from his shoulders.’

‘You were all right about it, though?’ Baldwin said as a picture of the man’s body sprang into his mind.

‘Yeah. Seen a few corpses in my time. Well, you know. This is a city.’

‘Of course. What then?’

They had reached the little tavern now. A decaying holly bush was bound to a stake over the door to advertise its business,and Art glanced up as it squeaked. ‘We came out, and walked down back that way. Didn’t take long usually. Well, you’ve seen how near we are.’

Baldwin reckoned that they had walked a scant two hundred yards from the gate, but they had turned into a little alley toreach this place. The gate was hidden from view.

Art continued: ‘It was when we got into the road. Look, come up here …’ He led the way back along the alley, until onlya few yards from South Gate Street. ‘Hereabouts, it was. The old man saw something down there on the right. Shook, he did,and fair gave me a shock. Said it was a man, but when I looked there was nothing there.’

Baldwin walked to where the lad pointed. In the gloom, he could see little. There was a bundle or two of faggots lying atthe foot of a wall, and the overhang from the jettied room overhead concealed anything else until Baldwin was right underneath. Gradually his eyes grew acclimatised, and he peered about him carefully. ‘Your father said the thing was where? Here?’

‘Yeah. A bit up that way.’

Moving to his right, Baldwin saw that the building here did not quite meet its neighbour. A gap of eighteen inches separatedthem. ‘Where does this go?’

‘Right along to the next alley. Why?’

‘I think your father was not so drunk as you imagine,’ Baldwin said thoughtfully.

Art gazed about at the alley. ‘You joking? You think there was some sort of …’

‘Not a ghost, not a demon, nothing like that,’ Baldwin said. ‘But there was probably a man here, yes.’

‘That what Will saw too?’ Art asked.

‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin mused. ‘He was very nervous about it, certainly.’

‘It was him telling my dad about it made him see things that night.’

‘You mean your father spoke to Will yesterday and his story prompted Hal to think of what he saw as a demon?’

‘Yesterday? No, Will said all that to us on Tuesday, after finding the body outside his old house.’

Baldwin stopped and peered at him. ‘I think you and I need to discuss this further.’

Exeter City

‘Did I tell you the joke about the man who wanted his neighbour’s wife?’ Coroner Richard asked Simon rhetorically, and continuedbefore Simon could respond. ‘He waited until his neighbour had gone on a journey, and then knocked on her door. “Madam,” hesaid, “I have fallen in love with you. My life holds no promise for me unless I can have you. I will do anything — commandme and give yourself to me!”

‘Well, this woman was honourable, and she was shocked to be addressed in this manner by her neighbour, so she gave him theturnabout right away. “I love my husband, and I’ve given him my vows. I won’t dishonour myself and betray him. Begone!”

‘So off he went, the flea biting his ear, until he had a thought. There was a clever woman in a wood not far away, and maybeshe could help. Off he went, and spoke to her thus: “Old woman, there is a wife I adore, but she will have nothing to do withme. I’ll die if I can’t have her. Is there anything you can do?”

‘The old woman looked him up and down, named her price, and when she had it in her purse she told him to wait there in hercottage. She took some string, and set it about the neck of a piglet, and walked off. When she approached the woman’s house, she rubbed soil in her hair and down her face,and pinched herself to make herself tearful, and then carried on, the piglet behind her.

‘ “Old woman, what is the matter?” the woman asked when she appeared.

‘ “My daughter! Look at her! Turned into a piglet by that evil man!”

‘ “What evil man? What has happened?”

‘This dishonourable old woman said: “A man arrived yesterday and no sooner had he seen my daughter than he decided he musthave her. He told her he would pine without her …”

‘ “But that is what happened to me!”

‘ “My daughter was a good, honourable chit, though, so she refused him.”

‘ “As did I.”