Michael Jecks - The Chapel of Bones

And yet soon afterwards, within a day or two, she grew aware of a reticence on his part, and that distance had gradually grown into a gulf. The man whom she loved and with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life had slipped away somewhere.

She felt as though her heart would break.

Joel was in his workroom when Mabilla came storming in.

‘Joel!’ she burst out, her face red and tear-stained. ‘Was it you? Did you kill him just to stop him suing you?’

‘Eh? Wha-?’ He was in the process of cramping blocks of wood together in the tricky form of a war-saddle, where the seat rested some inches above the horse. Her sudden eruption into his workshop was an instant disaster. The second block fell from his hands, and the glued edges, gleaming nicely, fell into the grit and sawdust that lay all about on the floor.

‘Now Mabilla, what is the matter?’ he asked with a long-suffering sigh. ‘Oi, you lads, get that wood up and clean it outside. Go on, you nosy gits! Leave me and the lady alone. Vince, get a damned move on!’

‘Henry — did you kill him? Who else could have done it! Oh God, what will become of us?’

Joel saw her red eyes and the trickle of moisture that trailed down both cheeks. ‘What on earth are you talking about, Mabilla? I don’t understand.’

‘Why was he left there, in the chapel?’

Joel bellowed for his apprentice to bring strong wine, and then spoke softly to her. ‘Look, Mabilla, I’ve heard about Henry. I was going to come and see you and give you my condolences as soon as I could. I know his death was a terrible shock — I can scarcely comprehend it myself — but I had nothing to do with it! He was my friend, for God’s sake! One row couldn’t turn us into enemies. Look, I was here all night — you can ask the apprentices if you don’t believe me. I didn’t leave the shop once.’

‘You swear? I thought, because he threatened litigation …’

‘It wasn’t me,’ Joel repeated.

‘Who else could have killed him?’ She turned her bloodshot eyes to him. ‘Joel, you were his oldest friend, please help me! I don’t know who to trust. Oh God, can I trust anyone !’

She was staring about her as though expecting an assassin to leap upon her at any moment. When Joel moved to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, she recoiled as though from a red-hot brand, and he lifted his hand away at the last moment, not actually touching her. She looked like a fawn startled by a circle of raches, petrified with terror.

‘Mabilla! I am terribly sorry to hear of his death. You know Henry was my best friend in the world.’

‘Even when he threatened to sue you? He told me all about it, that he came here and threatened to do so if the German sued him.’

‘He was an old friend. Old friends don’t kill each other over a matter of business.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I am terribly sorry, maid. You know that. I shall miss him dreadfully.’

‘You will miss him? I shall miss him — and so will Julia! She is in her bed still, paralysed with grief, and there is no one can help us. No! Get away from me! Don’t touch me!’ she shrieked, slapping at him with both hands when he approached her.

‘I only want to help, Mabilla. That’s all.’

‘Oh God!’ she said with a broken voice. ‘What shall become of us?’

‘What was he doing over there anyway, in the Cathedral grounds?’ Joel wondered aloud.

‘He was going to confess. He told you he wanted to confess, didn’t he?’ she said, and then suspicion flared afresh. ‘And you didn’t want that, did you? You’ve avoided censure from the Cathedral all these years, and then Henry threatened to bring it all out into the open — your murder of the Chaunter with him!’

Joel almost put a hand over her mouth. ‘Hush, woman! Look, I had nothing to fear. When he came here, he threatened me, yes, but he was drunk, maid. I didn’t think much of it. For the last time, Mabilla, he was my oldest friend. We’ve worked together for forty years.’

‘Ever since the Chaunter’s murder,’ she said, her eyes blazing. ‘Yes, you were there with him, weren’t you? Was that why you killed him? You thought he could implicate you — just as William did!’

‘Oh, shit.’ Joel felt a sickening tug at his heart. ‘Poor Henry. He didn’t tell William that, did he? He didn’t tell William he was likely to confess to his part in the murders? Because if he did … that bastard Will would kill his own mother for the price of a pie, let alone to protect himself. Did Henry tell him?’

She looked at him again then, eyes raw from weeping, lips moist and swollen. ‘Oh God, yes, he did!’

Stephen the Treasurer strode along the cloister with a face as black as his gown, and it was some while before Matthew could make his presence known.

‘The fabric rolls, Stephen. You have to check them.’

‘I can’t, not now. You’ll have to do them yourself. There’s too much going on just now, what with this murder.’

Matthew reluctantly took back the proffered rolls. His canon had never before shown such distress and inability to concentrate. Certainly it was shocking to find a body in the chapel, but murder wasn’t so rare, as he himself knew. That the Treasurer should be so alarmed was strange. He threw a look over his shoulder towards the Charnel Chapel. ‘No one can think straight today.’

‘No. It is appalling to think that the man was lured here to his death.’

‘Lured?’

‘Why else should he have been here in the Close? Someone must have tricked him to come here,’ Stephen said.

‘He could have been here because of some business with other people, or maybe he was taking a short cut, or wanted simply to see the rebuilding works,’ Mathew replied reasonably.

Stephen stopped and looked at him with keen eyes. ‘See the rebuilding? Everybody of any age in this city has seen the rebuilding works all their lives. We of the Chapter are the only people who truly care about the works, Matthew. And as for a short cut — he lived out on Smythen Street, I’m told. This wouldn’t have been a short cut in any direction.’

‘Then he was here for business,’ Matthew said. ‘After all, who could have wanted to lure him here, as you suggest? You are not suggesting that a member of the Chapter was so angry with a faulty saddle that he killed him, are you?’

‘No,’ Stephen said, ‘but why should he have been killed here if it was nothing to do with the Chapter?’

Matthew shrugged and was about to turn away when the Treasurer clutched his arm. ‘I have just had an awful thought! He was found at the Charnel Chapel, the very place where John Pycot’s men killed Lecchelade …’

‘I know,’ Matt said unemotionally.

‘My apologies — I forgot you were hurt in that attack too.’

‘It is nothing. I recovered well enough. Now, what of this saddler?’

Stephen’s face was paler than usual. A man who adored his ledgers and accounts, he was already pale, but now as he glanced at Matthew, he seemed almost translucent. He shook his head emphatically, a hand going momentarily to his brow. ‘Nothing, nothing. It’s my shock at this killing. Nothing more. No.’

Baldwin went up to his solar as soon as the messenger had set off again, and stood at his chest for a long time before he could work up the enthusiasm to open it.

He had wanted only to return here, but his infidelity had made his homecoming a hollow reward after his travels. All the time in Galicia and Portugal he had looked forward to once more being able to hold his wife in his arms, but then he had almost died, and his arms had embraced another. It shouldn’t have affected him, but it had. He felt as though his marriage had been shredded by that one act.