Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

‘What’s that place?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve seen a few like it today.’

‘A blowing-house, Crowner,’ explained Justin Green, ‘where the shode from the workings gets its first smelting to make the crude ingots that get stamped back in Chagford.’

They came down to the water, where the path crossed a small clapper bridge made of great slabs of slaty stone resting on boulders in the stream bed.

De Wolfe pulled Odin to a halt and looked down into the rushing water, which splashed its way down through a rocky bed banked with coarse gravel on either side. ‘This water’s very murky. I would have expected it to be crystal clear up here, well away from any habitation,’ he observed.

‘It’s often brown because of the run-off from the peat up on the moor. But that cloudiness is from the tinners’ work further upstream. They constantly disturb the sand and gravel, washing away the tailings from the ore. Folks downstream, all the way to Kingsteignton, complain about the dirty water. They have to drink, cook and wash in the grit thrown in by the tinners.’ He sounded peevish, no doubt because he suffered himself.

Gwyn spat contemplatively into the flowing brook. ‘Maybe yesterday it was running red, not cloudy, if that fellow was leaking into it from the stump of his neck!’ He grinned slyly at Thomas, whose pasty face had gone a shade paler at the thought.

The coroner touched Odin’s flanks with his heels and they walked on, crossing to the other bank and following it along the river, the valley narrowing as they came up the cleft towards the moor. There was no agriculture up here and trees covered most of the ground, though as they rose to the bleaker, more exposed areas, they were twisted and stunted, except where the narrow valley bottoms gave some shelter.

‘We’re almost there, Crowner, just around the next bend,’ said the bailiff reassuringly.

Thomas groaned with relief: the going had become rougher the further they went from civilisation.

A few moments later, the glen straightened out for a couple of hundred yards and de Wolfe could see the length of the tin workings. The tinners had cut a deep gouge along the line of the stream so that the water now tumbled over a ledge at the upper end and ran down towards them between piles of rubble.

Part-way up on the left was a small hut, and on the opposite side of the stream, a long rickety contraption of planks led some of the water from the upper cascade through a system of low troughs. Half a dozen men were hacking away at the upper bank, while others were raking the newly loosened burden and throwing it into the troughs.

‘They’re still working, then, even with their headless overman in that shed?’ De Wolfe was as tough as they come, but even he felt that work might have been suspended until the body had been taken away.

‘If they don’t work, they and their families don’t eat,’ replied Green bluntly. ‘Walter Knapman is known as a fair master, but he won’t pay a daily wage for anyone to sit at home and whittle sticks.’

The track soon vanished under the rubble and they rode the last few yards along the stream bed, until they could dismount alongside the small hut. Nearby, four moorland ponies were waiting patiently, empty wicker panniers hanging across their backs.

Some of the workers turned to watch them, but others, after a cursory glance, went back to their hacking and shovelling. One man, who stood alongside the bottom end of the trough, came across to greet them. The bailiff introduced him to de Wolfe. ‘Robert Yeo, Crowner. He’s taken over this gang from today.’

The new overman was a big blond fellow, partly of Saxon origin. He had a bushy yellow moustache but no beard, and wore a tunic of brown serge, a wide leather belt holding the skirt well above his knees. A short leather cape covered his shoulders, the hood hanging down his back. His greased boots came up to his knees, but de Wolfe could hear the water squelching inside them as he approached.

Yeo made a token tug at his forelock, then stared almost defiantly at the coroner. ‘Walter Knapman told me I was to take over from Henry,’ he said, without preamble.

‘You were here the day before yesterday, the last time Henry of Tunnaford was seen?’

Yeo nodded. ‘Same as usual. Henry stayed behind to clear up — he always did that, though there was no real need. He was a particular type of fellow, felt responsible for everything.’ He paused, as if a sudden thought had struck him. ‘Like I am now, I suppose. Knapman suffers no fools or idlers in his employ.’

De Wolfe looked around at the scene of industry and heard the hacking of picks and the grating of shovels, as the alluvium was remorselessly eroded and thrown into the troughs. ‘Let’s see this corpse, then. In this shed, is it?’

They turned to the hut and Yeo pulled away a few planks that shielded the open doorway. ‘There he is, God rest him.’

The feet of the victim were near the doorway and as de Wolfe bent his head to enter, he saw that the upper part of the corpse was covered by a rough cape similar to the new overman’s. It lay across the dead man’s chest, but the upper part was ominously flat on the stony ground. De Wolfe motioned to Gwyn with a finger and his officer, well-used to this routine, pushed past him and lifted away the cape.

Behind the coroner, Thomas de Peyne let out a horrified squeak and began to cross himself as he retreated to the open air. Even de Wolfe, inured to death in every form from his years of campaigning, admitted that this was not a pretty sight. He moved further into the hut and, with the bailiff and overman watching from the doorway, crouched opposite Gwyn at what should have been the head of the corpse. For there was no head, only a ragged stump of neck, which still had a stubbled growth of grey whiskers around it. Dark blood had congealed over the ripped muscles that surrounded the shattered white core of the spine.

The Cornishman pursed his lips critically under his huge moustache. ‘A rough job, this. What did they do it with? A shovel?’

De Wolfe stretched out and pulled at the curled-in margins of the neck wound with his finger and thumb. ‘Sharper than a spade, Gwyn. See those many small peaks and troughs? Some edged weapon has sawed away here, hacking it irregularly as the skin rolled into creases.’ He wiped his fingers free of blood on the shoulder of the dead man’s hessian tunic. ‘But you’re right. Whatever the weapon, it was far from sharp. The edges of the skin are scraped and bruised, not cut through cleanly, as a decent knife or sword would have done.’

He rose to his feet, his head bent to avoid the rough branches that held up the crude roof. ‘Let’s see if he has other injuries.’

They untied the belt and pulled up the tunic to chest level. The victim wore long woollen hose with as many darns as original material but, as was usual, no underclothing. There was no mark on the torso, back or front, but when they examined the limbs, Gwyn pointed out recent grazes on both knees and the backs of the forearms. ‘That’s from falling to the ground, no doubt,’ he diagnosed, ‘after first being struck a blow on the neck.’

‘Or the head,’ corrected the coroner. ‘For all we know, the top of his skull may have been stove in.’ He backed out of the hut and motioned the overman to go inside. ‘You can tidy him up and get the poor fellow carried away.’

‘Is he to be taken home to his widow at Tunnaford?’ asked Yeo.

‘Where’s that?’

‘A mile away, just off the road back to Chagford. We came within sight of it on the way up here,’ answered the bailiff.

De Wolfe folded his arms and brooded, like some great black heron at the edge of the stream. ‘I’ll have to hold an inquest in the morning. That will have to be in the town — we need more of a jury than just these men here. The corpse will have to go to Chagford.’