Susanna GREGORY - The Mark of a Murderer

‘Okehamptone was not buried,’ said Michael briskly. ‘Which is just as well, given what we now know about him. No one wants his tortured soul roaming the streets of Cambridge, screaming for vengeance and haunting those who let him down, so you should be grateful for what Matt did.’

‘We especially do not want him at large when the Archbishop is here,’ agreed Dodenho. ‘It would mean our suppression for certain. Perhaps I should offer my services to Polmorva, so he will take me with him to Winchester or Haverhill when he establishes his new school.’

‘Yes, go and see him today,’ encouraged Wormynghalle. She fixed Paxtone with accusing eyes. ‘It sounds as though you almost allowed a killer to go free. How could you have missed a terrible injury like this on a man’s body?’

‘I am a physician, whose duty is to the living,’ replied Paxtone angrily. ‘I know there are men who learn anatomy from cadavers, but I am not one of them – I do not even touch them, if I can help it. That is why I did not see Hamecotes’s neck when Dodenho summoned me earlier, either.’

‘No harm has been done,’ said Dodenho, seeing Wormynghalle look angry at their colleague’s negligence. ‘Paxtone made a mistake, but Bartholomew has corrected it. Lesser mortals are prone to errors, and few of us are perfect.’

‘True,’ agreed Michael, evidently putting himself in the latter category. ‘So, we shall say no more about it. What we will discuss, however, is what we can learn about Hamecotes’s death now. Matt?’

‘He and Okehamptone have similar wounds, so they must have been killed by the same person or people.’

‘Boltone is as good a suspect as any,’ said Michael. ‘He knew Hamecotes, and may have met Okehamptone when he visited Oxford to present his accounts. Okehamptone died in Merton Hall, and Hamecotes’s body was concealed in Merton Hall – where Boltone lives. Eudo probably helped him.’

‘But why?’ wondered Bartholomew. ‘Why would they kill these two men?’

‘We will ask them when they are caught,’ said Michael. ‘I wonder why they moved Hamecotes from the cistern to here.’

‘Because they did not want his body found?’ suggested Paxtone. ‘Tulyet made no secret of the fact that he intended to dredge the pit, so they were obliged to hide their victim a second time.’

‘This does not make sense,’ said Bartholomew. ‘If they fished the body from the well, why did they not grab their sack of treasure at the same time?’

‘Perhaps they intended to go back for it when they finished dealing with Hamecotes, but ran out of time,’ said Michael with a dismissive wave of a fat white hand to indicate the point was unimportant. ‘The question I want answered is why did they bring Hamecotes here, where he would be so easily discovered?’

‘They probably did not know he would be “easily discovered”,’ said Paxtone. ‘I had no idea Dodenho uses this abandoned shed to practise his lectures, and I am sure the killers did not, either. What do you think, Wormynghalle?’

‘I saw Dodenho here once or twice,’ recalled Wormynghalle thoughtfully. ‘But I assumed he was meeting a woman, so of course I said nothing. We men must turn a blind eye to each other’s dalliances from time to time.’ She did not look at Bartholomew.

‘I shall not come here again, though,’ vowed Dodenho. ‘I prefer my audiences alive. Perhaps I will leave Cambridge and go to Oxford instead. They do not have rotting cadavers in deserted huts.’

‘Everything about this case points to Oxford,’ mused Michael. ‘We now have five men dead – Gonerby, Okehamptone, Chesterfelde, Spryngheuse and Hamecotes – all with links to the place.’ He was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. ‘Let us review what we know of these deaths chronologically. Gonerby died first, in February, during the riots. But who was next? Okehamptone died about two weeks ago, which is roughly the time you say Hamecotes left King’s Hall.’

‘Hamecotes did not kill Okehamptone,’ said Wormynghalle, immediately defensive of her room-mate. ‘Why would he do such a thing? They probably did not even know each other.’

‘You cannot be sure of that,’ argued Michael. ‘You said yourself that Hamecotes had “friends” in Oxford. And Okehamptone may have killed Hamecotes, anyway, not the other way around. We have no idea who died first, because Matt refuses to be more precise about times of death.’

‘I do not think either is guilty,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Their throat wounds are virtually identical, and I doubt one killed the other, and then was slain in the same way by a third person. That is unlikely, to say the least.’

‘I am not sure I agree with your assessment of bites,’ said Paxtone, reluctantly inspecting the wound and clearly finding it distasteful. ‘I acknowledge this rough gash was not made with a knife – even a blunt one – but teeth…’ He shuddered at the notion.

Bartholomew pointed again to the marks still visible in the darkening skin. ‘You can see their impression. It looks as if someone grabbed the throat with his teeth and pulled at it. Like this.’

Paxtone turned away with a gasp of revulsion, while Wormynghalle and Michael studiously refused to look until they were sure he had finished. Dodenho witnessed the demonstration, but only because he was too shocked to close his eyes.

‘That was singularly nasty,’ Dodenho said eventually, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. His fingers shook violently. ‘What are you trying to do? Unnerve us into having nightmares, with visions of human wolves tearing at the necks of their innocent victims?’

‘Speaking of wolves, what do you think happened to Wolf?’ asked Michael. ‘We have ascertained that Hamecotes was not where you thought he should be, so what about your other absent colleague?’

‘We do not know,’ said Wormynghalle weakly. ‘Paxtone says he does not have the pox, and I do not think he is Rougham’s lover, because both men prefer ladies – as I do. Perhaps Norton is right, and he has absconded because he owes the College so much money. But I do not think he is the killer. Do you?’ She addressed her question to Dodenho, his room-mate.

Dodenho considered carefully. ‘No. He does not have the teeth, for a start. His are decayed, and biting something like a throat would probably make most of them snap off.’

‘This is preposterous!’ exclaimed Paxtone, suddenly angry. ‘You must be mistaken, Matthew. People simply do not die in this way! I have been a physician for twenty-seven years, and I have never heard even the merest whisper of someone bitten to death by another person. I can see there are marks that may have been caused by fangs, but they must belong to a dog or a wild beast.’

‘It is possible,’ conceded Bartholomew, relieved that someone had suggested an alternative. ‘Perhaps someone trained an animal to kill.’

Michael spoke in a low voice when the King’s Hall men began a debate about which creatures might be trained for killing: Paxtone said only dogs were so inclined, while Wormynghalle opted for a bear and Dodenho elected a ferret. ‘Or perhaps someone is so deranged that he thinks he is an animal. Do not forget Rougham, Matt – even I could tell a man had gnawed him. If I bit myself on the arm right now, I would see the same thing that I saw on his shoulder: a parabolic curve with oblong dents for choppers, and square ones for grinders.’

Bartholomew nodded, staring down at the body. ‘The problem with Hamecotes – and Okehamptone, too – is that they have been dead too long. The skin has rotted and changed its texture, so the marks are distorted. There may be a parabolic curve here, and these marks may be molars and incisors. But it is impossible to be sure.’