Michael Jecks - The Butcher of St Peter's

‘Well, husband. That was an interesting meeting,’ Sabina declared as soon as the door closed behind the visitors.

‘Sab, please. Not now.’ Reg groaned. Jesus’s pain, but those two seemed to know a lot. The only saving was that they couldn’t force Sabina to accuse him. A wife’s word was not to be extorted like that. But they said that they had witnesses … someone had seen him at Daniel’s, and at the alley … There was no one there, though. Only Est and him at Daniel’s. No one else knew he had been there. And as for the alley, only Jordan himself knew he was there then.

‘Why keep silent? Who’s going to care what happened tonight when you’ll be in a cell before long?’

The words sank in. He turned to look at her. ‘What?’

‘You killed Daniel, didn’t you? You said you were here, but you weren’t . I remember that night. It was the night after Ham’s inquest. I thought you were out with the whores, but I don’t think you were. You were killing poor Sergeant Daniel, weren’t you?’

‘Christ Jesus, woman — no, I wasn’t. I swear I didn’t kill him.’

‘Oh, and you expect me to believe that? Give me some credit, man! Do I look so stupid I’ll believe any garbage you throw me? I am no fool. And I’m certainly not thick enough to remain here while you try to bring more shame on me or my son. We are leaving you now.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Home. Father will protect me better than you could!’

‘Sab, I am your husband …’

‘Only on paper. When did you last actually want me? You aren’t a man to me. You don’t desire me. You’re happier with the whores than with me, aren’t you? Or this other woman. Who is she?’

‘I can’t tell you. It’s nothing. Nothing at all. You’re making it all up. There’s no one else.’

‘Oh, really? So my son imagined hearing her panting? He imagined seeing her legs wrapped round you?’

‘He dreamed it,’ Reg said with a brief flaring of imagination.

‘ You expect me to believe that? ’ she screeched. ‘You’ve lied to me all these years, why should I trust you now? Get away from me! I’m leaving with Michael, and don’t try to stop me!’

Jordan listened to the noise in his head. It was a ringing, whistling sound that wouldn’t go away whatever he tried. Mazeline appeared in the doorway a short while after Agnes rushed in, and stood there staring inside with an expression of fear mingled with shock. But the stupid bitch must have known what he was up to. She didn’t expect him home every night — where else did she think he was?

Agnes screamed at him, and her voice cut through his brain like a bill. ‘Is it true? Did you take my sister as well? You told me you wanted me, only me! How could you do that to me? How could you take her as well?’

‘Shut up, shut up !’ he bellowed as the voice grew more insistent. Christ’s bones, but the bitch was loud.

‘What is all this about, Jordan?’ Mazeline asked quietly in the sudden silence.

‘Didn’t he tell you? He never loved you, he wanted me!’ Agnes declared brokenly.

‘Shut up!’ he said again with a grimace. The noise was growing. A persistent, nagging, irritating sound that stopped his thought processes. And then, in a flash, it was gone.

Mazeline was staring at him, crushed. Her eyes met his and held his stare, but he had little time for all this.

‘Agnes, get out!’

‘But you love me, you told me you do.’

He stood and stared along his hall at her. ‘You were fun for a while, but you’re not now. Get out.’

‘You bastard! You took me and ruined me as a diversion ! Was life so boring here that you needed me for a few months to …’

Her voice was stopped by his slap. It took three strides to reach her, and then his hand caught her cheek and her head was snapped round by the force of it. She stood as though petrified; unmoving, her head turned over her right shoulder, staring fixedly at the wall. ‘You hate me?’ she whispered.

‘I feel nothing for you,’ he said coldly. ‘I never did. You were enjoyable for a while, that’s all. Now get out of my house.’

Mazeline stepped from the doorway as Agnes turned away from him. Her head drooped as she made her way to the corridor that gave out to the door.

She was destroyed, Mazeline thought. Utterly destroyed. Where Mazeline had seen her life gradually eroded by her husband as he had whittled away at her self-assurance, this woman had seen her hopes and dreams destroyed in one fell swoop. He had taken her for a ‘diversion’ as she had said, and in return given nothing.

Mazeline’s destruction had been less sudden, more progressive over the years, but it was as inevitable as Agnes’s. She was to be ruined just as completely. As Agnes shuffled past her, Mazeline found herself studying this woman, once so attractive, who was now no more than a ravaged crust, like a discarded snail shell when the thrush has plucked all the meat from it.

She had never stopped to think before, but it was just how she must look. When she had married, she was pretty enough, perhaps no beauty, but still attractive enough to take the fancy of a man in the street. Yet now, as she turned her head and caught sight of herself in a mirror, all she could see was a woman old before her time. Her eyes were red, one still bruised, while her brow still had the line of scabbed blood where his goblet had struck her. If she was not so completely destroyed as Agnes at that moment, it was only because her slide into despair had been more gradual, with more halts on the way when he persuaded her that the punishment was due to her own failings, and that he really still loved her and wanted her to improve so that he need not chastise her any longer.

For the first time, she realized now that his words were lies. He loved her as much as he loved Agnes. They were not women, they were simply things , possessions he had acquired through his life, toyed with, and now tossed aside like trash. While he had a use for them, he would keep them, but now he was done with Agnes.

Which left Mazeline with what, exactly? she wondered. Agnes had gone, and Mazeline remained standing at the side of the doorway, silently surveying her husband.

‘What is it now, wench? You’re looking at me like a trapped rabbit. Ach, what the hell! Get me ale. From a good barrel this time!’

She walked out and fetched a jug, filling it from the barrel, but all the time her mind was fixed on the sight of that poor woman in her hall. Then, beginning with one sharp, painful sob that took her completely by surprise, she began to weep.

Baldwin and Simon stood in the street outside Carfoix and looked up at the fading light. The sun had already sunk behind the far hills, and the twilight was giving way to the night. Baldwin could see stars like diamonds lying in a sheet of black velvet.

‘Shall we find the Coroner and go to this man Jordan?’ Simon asked. ‘Where does Sir Peregrine live, do you know?’

‘He has a house in Correstrete, the same as Jordan. Let’s go and see whether he’s at home. If he is, we can walk round to le Bolle’s house with him.’

Simon agreed and soon they were outside the Coroner’s house.

It was a new building, with clean, square lines. They entered to find themselves in a broad hall with a fire smoking fitfully in a fireplace at the wall on their right. There was a newfangled chimney over it, and Simon was intrigued to see how the smoke would disappear up the flue, occasionally billowing back into the room.

Sir Peregrine saw the direction of his gaze as yet another blue-grey blanket roiled into the hall. ‘I know. I bought the house before I realized it had a chimney. If I’d known, I’d have been keener to pay less. I’ve never known one work properly. Give me an old-fashioned fire in the middle of the floor any time. You know where you are with them.’