Susanna GREGORY - The Mark of a Murderer

Clippesby leapt at them with a wild screech, knocking them both off balance. Bartholomew’s attacker grunted in pain as the full weight of two men landed on top of him. The physician twisted as hard as he could, aiming to break the grip around his throat, but the fellow held on with grim determination.

He saw a foot swing out and Clippesby reeled, stunned by a kick to the side of his head. Then the attacker turned his full attention to Bartholomew. Yet another flash, and Bartholomew felt something tearing at him. Again, he detected the stench. He wriggled and squirmed with all his might, determined to prevent the blade from landing on his neck. But he was running out of strength, and the vicelike grip was depriving him of air. He became dizzy, and weaker. Stars exploded before his eyes and he flailed around in increasing desperation as he sought to drag breath into his protesting lungs.

Just when he thought he would lose the battle, there was a thump and a grunt, followed by rapidly receding footsteps. Clippesby stood there with a stone in his hand, while Agatha still lumbered towards them. Bartholomew started to follow his attacker through the trees, but there was no power in his legs, and he knew there was no point in blundering through the undergrowth in the dark. The trees blotted out any light from the moon, and the copse was a tangled mat of vegetation that would make pursuit all but impossible. He dropped to his knees, the craven exhilaration of the chase replaced by a tide of exhaustion that left him shaking and sluggish.

‘Who was that?’ gasped Agatha, reaching them at last. ‘What happened?’

Clippesby crouched next to Bartholomew and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘Do not worry, he has gone now. I hit him hard in the chest with a rock, and he realised he would have no luck here tonight.’

‘Who?’ demanded Agatha, her face flushed and sweat coursing down her red-veined cheeks. ‘He tried to kill Matthew with something shiny. I saw it sparkling in the moonlight. I will have his guts out for this!’ She wielded the sword in a way that indicated she meant what she said.

‘It was him,’ said Clippesby simply. ‘The wolf.’

‘That was no wolf,’ said Agatha. A nightjar called, low and hoarse, and in the distance Bartholomew could hear Brother Paul trying to soothe Stourbridge’s inmates, who were alarmed by the commotion Clippesby’s flight had caused. ‘It was a man. I saw him silhouetted against the moonlit sky. It was a man, with something brassy in his hand.’

‘Metal teeth,’ said Bartholomew. His skin crawled when he recalled them slashing at him, and he was unable to repress a shudder. ‘That is how he kills his victims. I did not think human fangs could cause such damage, but these were made of steel, and were honed to a vicious sharpness.’

He put his hand against his neck, half expecting to find it gashed, but the liripipe and its voluminous folds had protected him. He pulled off the garment, and saw it was shredded to ribbons.

‘I cannot mend this,’ said Agatha, taking it from him. ‘It is beyond my skills with a needle. Still, it did not suit you anyway; it made you look like a jester.’

‘Are you sure he has gone?’ Bartholomew asked, looking around uneasily and wishing he had not dropped his knife in Clippesby’s room.

Agatha nodded. ‘You were lucky to escape alive – he meant business. I could see it in the way he moved.’

‘Who was he?’ asked Bartholomew, climbing unsteadily to his feet.

‘It was the wolf,’ said Clippesby again. ‘I have already told you.’

‘I was too far away to see his face,’ said Agatha, pursing her lips at Clippesby to warn him to curtail his animal fantasies. ‘But he was as tall as you, Matthew, and he looked strong.’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust, and turned her attention back to the liripipe. ‘That is disgusting! He smeared dog turds on you. He must have done it to spite me.’

Bartholomew was bewildered. ‘To spite you?’

‘Because I will have to wash the thing,’ explained Agatha impatiently. ‘I am a laundress, am I not? He probably knows this sort of stain is not easy to remove.’

‘Look on the bright side,’ said Bartholomew, thinking that causing inconvenience in the College laundry was probably the last thing on the killer’s mind. ‘At least it is not stained with my blood.’

‘Why did he do such a thing?’ asked Clippesby, watching Agatha fling the garment away. ‘What would be the point? To add insult to injury?’

‘To make a wound fester,’ explained Bartholomew. ‘A cut with excrement driven into it may kill a victim later, if he survives the immediate injury. He is using it as a form of poison.’

‘That must have been what happened to Rougham,’ said Clippesby. ‘His wound went bad, but I saw for myself that the actual injury was not a fatal one.’

Bartholomew took a few steps towards the woods, not sure what to do next, but unsettled by the knowledge that the murderer was not far away. ‘We cannot let this man go, because he will kill again for certain. We must find him!’

Agatha grabbed his arm. ‘We could search all night and not succeed. Looking now is worse than hopeless, and he will be long gone, anyway. Tell Sheriff Tulyet to come tomorrow with some of his hunting hounds, and let him track this monster.’

‘Do you think Michael will believe me now?’ asked Clippesby. ‘He must see I am innocent, given that you have just had a nasty encounter with the wretch while I was pinned helplessly underneath you.’

‘Clippesby saved your life,’ stated Agatha, lest the physician had not realised. ‘I was too far away to help, and that lunatic – and I do not mean Clippesby – would have throttled you long before I arrived. This brave friar drove him off, armed only with a rock.’

‘I understand now how the wolf kills,’ said Clippesby, blushing at the compliment. ‘It is not easy to slash a throat with something as unwieldy as teeth – metal ones or your own – so he partially strangles his victims, to subdue them first. That was what he was doing to Rougham when I intervened. Then he rips their necks with his tainted fangs when they are too weak to fight. Nothing is left to chance; he is a thorough executioner.’

‘Not thorough enough,’ Agatha pointed out. ‘He did not kill Rougham, and now he has failed with Matthew – twice, if you include the time with the spade in the church.’

‘That was not me, either,’ said Clippesby firmly. ‘However, I have been thinking about it – analysing the details you gave me, along with information supplied by Agatha and a crow who happened to be watching – and I have reached a logical conclusion, based on facts.’

‘Go on,’ said Bartholomew, not sure whether he could trust the ‘facts’ supplied by the crow.

‘The wolf has a very specific way of killing. He claimed three victims – that we know about – before the assault on you. Therefore, we can assume that he is content with his method, and there is no reason for him to change it. By contrast, the man who attacked you on Wednesday morning gave up very easily when he thought he would not succeed, and I think the wolf is more determined than that. It was not easy to drive him off when he hurt Rougham, and it was not easy tonight. Ergo , the wolf and the man who attacked you with a spade are not one and the same.’

‘Two killers on the loose?’ asked Bartholomew uneasily.

‘The spade-man did not kill you,’ Clippesby pointed out. ‘And, from what you say, he was clumsy and ill-prepared. He did not have a weapon with him, and was obliged to use a tool he found in the churchyard. He is not a killer, because, as far as we know, he has not yet taken a life.’