Paul Doherty - Murder Wears a Cowl

‘You, sir,’ Lady Imelda shouted down the table. ‘Are you, Master Corbett, some coxcomb, some cloth-eared knave? I am speaking to you!’

Corbett smiled thinly and bowed. ‘My Lady, my apologies, but my ride from Winchester was a harsh one.’

He studied the old, imperious face, the firm cheeks and hawkish look and resisted the urge to give this lady as good as he got. He forced himself to concentrate and, despite the eerie atmosphere of the room, began to quietly admire these courtly bred ladies; the only people in London who seemed to care about the droves of young women forced into prostitution.

The meeting moved from one item of business to another. The Lady Imelda described how they divided the city amongst them; each had a certain quarter to look after; how they had established refuges near St Mary of Bethlehem, in Mark Lane near the Tower; in Lothbury and at the junction of Night Rider and Thames Street. How they provided money and clothing, arranged marriages for some of the younger girls whilst others were clothed, given food, a few pennies and sent back to the villages and hamlets from whence they came.

Corbett sensed the sheer compassion beneath de Lacey’s curt description, a genuine concern for others less fortunate then her. He gathered the Order had been in existence for at least twenty years and already the ladies had established close ties with the hospitals at St Bartholomew’s and St Anthony’s where the physicians gave their services free whilst the Guild of Apothecaries sold them herbs and medicines at much reduced prices. Better this, Corbett thought, than the dizzy-headed butterflies at court, dripping with jewellery, clothed in satin, with no thoughts in their empty noddles other than how their faces looked and their bellies were filled.

The meeting eventually finished with a prayer and, whilst the other sisters made to leave, smiling shyly at the men and whispering amongst themselves, the Ladies Catherine and Mary led them across to a small deserted chamber just off the Chapter Room. Lady Imelda suddenly bellowed at Corbett, how she hoped the King kept his shoulders warm and drank the herbal potions she sent to him.

‘The King always suffered from rheums,’ the old lady trumpeted for half of Westminster to hear. ‘And as a boy he was always sniffing with colds. By the Mass, I wish I was back with him! A good strong horse between my legs and I’d teach those bloody Scots a lesson!’ Her voice faded as the door closed behind them.

Lady Catherine smiled wanly but her companion leaned against the wall, hand to her face, giggling uncontrollably.

‘You really must excuse the Lady Imelda,’ Lady Fitzwarren murmured as they sat down on stools around a low, rickety table. ‘She’s going as deaf as a post, her language can be ripe but she has a heart of gold.’ Lady Catherine blew her lips out. ‘Well, I am afraid we have no wine.’

Corbett shrugged and said it didn’t matter. He was now more interested in his servant who was staring fixedly at the Lady Mary. He followed Ranulf’s gaze. She is beautiful, Corbett thought, and seems gentle as a dove. He clenched his fists in his lap, he had to forget the past as well as warn Ranulf that Lady Mary Neville was not some trollop to be teased and flirted with.

‘Well,’ Lady Catherine leaned forward. ‘Your questions, Clerk?’ She coughed and glanced at her companion. ‘We knew you were coming,’ she continued. ‘The King informed us but the Lady Imelda always acts like that.’ Fitzwarren smoothed the blue tabard over her knees. ‘You want to ask us about the deaths of the girls?’

‘Yes, My Lady.’

‘We know nothing. Oh, we have tried to find out but even amongst the women we work with there’s not a hint, not a whisper, not a suspicion of who the killer could be.’ She licked her dry lips. ‘You see, we work amongst the unfortunates, those who, by appearances anyway, even God has forsaken. Of course, we believe He has not. Now, we are not interested in what they do or who they know, where they go, which men have used their bodies. We are not even interested in their souls. We care for them as people, as women caught in a trap of poverty and ignorance, then lured to false wealth by empty promises. We believe that if we rescue them from that then all will be well.’

Corbett studied the woman. He could not understand her. She was harsh, yet gentle; idealistic but at the same time pragmatic. He glanced sideways and wished Ranulf would stop staring at the Lady Mary and that she would stop looking at him with those dark, doe-like eyes which stirred such memories in his own soul.

‘So, you know nothing?’ he asked.

‘Not a jot, not a tittle.’

‘Lady Mary, is that true?’

Corbett turned, ignoring Fitzwarren’s hiss of annoyance. The young woman cleared her throat.

‘The Lady Catherine is correct.’

Her voice was soft but Corbett caught the burr, the musical trace of an accent. It almost sounded Scottish and Corbett remembered the Nevilles were a powerful family owning vast tracts of land in Westmorland and along the Northern March.

‘We know nothing, except that someone with a soul as black as night is slaying these unfortunates,’ she murmured. ‘At first I used to attend their funerals at St Lawrence Jewry, the first three or four, but then I stopped. You can understand, Sir Hugh? Surely there must be more to the end of life than being wrapped in a dirty sheet and tossed like a bundle of refuse into a hole in the ground?’

Corbett remembered what he had seen at the church earlier in the day and nodded.

‘Then let us talk of something else.’ Corbett paused as the great bells of the abbey began to ring out for afternoon Mass though he idly wondered if the monks bothered to carry out their spiritual duties.

‘What else is there to talk about?’ Lady Catherine snapped.

‘Lady Somerville’s death. One of your sisters who was killed on Monday, May eleventh as she crossed Smithfield.’

‘I can help you there,’ Lady Mary spoke up. She leaned forward, her hands in her lap. ‘We had a meeting here the very day she died and we finished late in the afternoon. Lady Somerville and I then left Westminster. We chose to walk because of the fine weather. We went along Holborn and visited patients at St Bartholomew’s. Lady Somerville left the hospital but never reached her home; her murdered corpse was found in the early hours of the next morning.’

‘Did anyone have a grudge against her?’

‘No, she was quiet, austere and self-contained. She had a great deal of sadness in her life.’

‘Such as?’

‘Her husband died years ago whilst fighting in Scotland. They had one son Gilbert, I think he is a disappointment to her.’ Lady Mary looked distressed. ‘Sir Gilbert Somerville is more interested in the pleasures of life; he constantly reminded his mother that his father achieved nothing in his life, as the King’s general, except an arrow in the neck.’

Corbett sat and stared at the wall behind her. So many players in this, he thought. The killer could be anyone.

‘Before Lady Somerville died,’ he asked, ‘did she say anything strange or untoward?’

‘No,’ Fitzwarren tartly replied.

‘Oh, come.’ Corbett’s voice became harsh. ‘I have heard she kept repeating a phrase “ Cacullus non facit monachum ”: the cowl does not make the monk?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Lady Mary’s fingers flew to her lips. ‘She did keep saying that. Indeed, she repeated it to me the day she died.’

‘In what circumstances?’

‘We were here, watching the brothers file out of the abbey church. I said something about them looking alike, how difficult it was to tell one from another in their hoods and cowls. She just repeated that phrase. I asked her what she meant, but she smiled and walked away.’