Susanna GREGORY - The Mark of a Murderer

‘Shut up,’ she snapped.

‘Joan,’ said Bartholomew softly. ‘You are not Alyce Weasenham. You are Joan Wormynghalle.’

‘You know her?’ asked Michael, astounded, moving his leg across the wall as slowly as he could.

‘It does not matter,’ she said, scowling at Bartholomew.

‘She is King’s Hall’s best scholar,’ said Bartholomew, hoping to draw her into conversation and give them more time, although he was not sure what he could do with it. ‘She will make a name for herself at the greatest universities in the world.’

‘She is a scholar?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘But she is a woman!’

‘Exactly!’ snapped Joan, rounding on the monk and leaving her brother to cover Bartholomew. ‘You think that because I am a woman I am incapable of rational thought? Well, I am not, and some of my mathematical theories have been very well received by my peers.’

‘Then why do this?’ asked Bartholomew reasonably. ‘You are as good as a man – better than most – and your prospects are endless. Why jeopardise them?’

‘I am jeopardising nothing. You are the only one who knows my secret, and you will not live to tell it. I shall return to Oxford today, and secure myself a Fellowship at a new College – Balliol this time, I think – and later I shall move to Salerno. As I told you before, as long as I am transient, and do not allow anyone to know me too well, I can continue this life indefinitely.’

‘It is all she has ever wanted,’ said her brother. ‘And I like to see her happy. She tried a term at Oxford last year, to see if she could carry it off, and was so successful that she decided to come here. As you saw for yourself, she is very convincing.’

‘I am confused,’ said Michael. ‘Is this John Wormynghalle of King’s Hall, wearing a kirtle to disguise himself as a woman? Or does Joan Wormynghalle dress like a man?’ He frowned. ‘And perhaps more importantly, have we just deduced that he… she is our killer?’

‘I should have guessed you two were related,’ said Bartholomew, angry with himself for not seeing something so transparently obvious. ‘I should not have fallen for your tale of choosing the name of a wealthy Oxford merchant who you thought would never visit Cambridge. You simply changed your Christian name – John for Joan.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Joan coldly. She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘But how did you recognise me? I thought my disguises were good.’

‘Your eyelashes,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘And I am a physician, well able to tell the difference.’

Joan sneered at him. ‘Hardly! It took a grab before you were able to work it out.’

‘It could only happen in King’s Hall,’ muttered Michael, poised over the water but not making the final jump. ‘They accept anyone with money, and now it transpires that they even take females.’

‘Norton admired your skill as an archer,’ recalled Bartholomew, thinking of another reason why he should have guessed her identity – there were not many bow-wielding females in Cambridge.

‘I am an excellent shot.’ She turned to Bartholomew, and seemed to soften slightly. ‘I am sorry, Matt. You were kind to me, not revealing my secret to men who would have seen me burned as a witch. But I have no choice but to dispatch you – if I want to continue my career, that is.’

‘I do not understand,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Polmorva says you killed Gonerby, which means you also killed Hamecotes and Okehamptone, since they died in an identical manner. I see why you killed Hamecotes: he was your room-mate and, although you said he was not observant, he would have had to be singularly dense not to have noticed he was sharing his chamber with a woman.’

‘He was not as nice about it as you were,’ said Joan. ‘He threatened to tell the Warden.’

‘Why did you take his body to King’s Hall after it had been in the cistern?’ asked Michael.

‘Because Hamecotes was killed with metal teeth,’ replied Bartholomew, when it looked as if Joan would bring an end to the discussion by forcing the monk into the water. It was conjecture, but he hoped that even if he were wrong, she would correct him and delay their deaths until he could think of an argument that might reprieve them. ‘She did not want us to associate Hamecotes’s murder with Gonerby’s, because that would reveal an Oxford connection – and a possible link to her and her brother.’

‘I did not anticipate Dodenho stumbling on him quite so soon,’ she admitted. ‘I thought I had plenty of time to bury him, and planned to let folk assume he had been killed by robbers on the Oxford road. I wash my clothes regularly at the end of the garden, and I have never seen Dodenho using that shed before, despite what I said to you later. It was a shock when he came screeching about his discovery.’

‘You forged letters from Hamecotes, claiming he had gone to Oxford,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He had been there for books before, so no one was surprised when he did it again. But I should have seen something sinister in that explanation long ago – especially after Duraunt told me that Merton never parts with its books.’

‘There was no need for you to hide Hamecotes from Tulyet,’ said Michael, trying to help Bartholomew occupy her with questions and observations. ‘We had already established a link between Gonerby and a Cambridge murder: Okehamptone’s. But you did not know that when you dragged a rotting corpse from here to King’s Hall; if you had, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble. So, why did you pick our poor town? Do you intend to set it alight with riots, and ensure our University’s suppression?’

‘Of course not,’ cried Joan, appalled. ‘It is not in my interests to see a school flounder, and I do not care whether the Archbishop builds his new College here or in Oxford. I know you think there is a plot to deprive both universities of his beneficence, but you are mistaken. The disturbances on St Scholastica’s Day had nothing to do with Islip and his money.’

Michael nodded. ‘I imagine you started those because you wanted to kill Gonerby, and a riot provided the perfect diversion.’

‘His business was located near the Swindlestock Tavern, and a little civil disorder was a good way to disguise his murder,’ acknowledged Joan. Her brother made an impatient sound; he was becoming restless and wanted to be away.

‘How did you do it?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Pay Spryngheuse and Chesterfelde to start a fight?’ A thought occurred to him. ‘No, it was the Benedictine! Spryngheuse did not imagine him after all. He was you – another of your disguises. It makes sense now. You needed a screen to conceal Gonerby’s murder, and you knew Spryngheuse and Chesterfelde could be goaded into violence.’

‘I did not anticipate it would flare up quite so hotly,’ said Joan. ‘The town was like a tinderbox, and the affray was quickly out of control. I did not intend sixty scholars to die, but it is done and there is no going back. Chesterfelde was no problem, because he was a sanguine sort of man who pushed the whole matter from his mind, but Spryngheuse became obsessed by his Black Monk.’

‘So, you decided to hound him to suicide,’ said Bartholomew in distaste. ‘Your brother helped you appear at times when the others would not see you, and you literally haunted him to death.’ He turned to Wormynghalle. ‘And the day he died, it was you who suggested Spryngheuse went for a walk in these gardens, knowing Joan would be waiting for him.’

‘He took little convincing to hang himself,’ said Joan, as if it did not matter. ‘I am good with logic and I told him he had no choice.’

Wormynghalle looked uneasy, and Bartholomew recalled his curious behaviour during the requiem mass, when Eu had declared the spluttering candle to be a portent of doom. Wormynghalle, like many men, was superstitious. Bartholomew wondered whether he could use the tanner’s fears to his advantage.