Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

‘I am well, I thank you,’ Baldwin said, keen to be gone. ‘I only wanted to see what the chapel was like.’

‘It was once a flourishing little church,’ the priest said, almost to himself. He looked about him as though seeing it for the first time. ‘People used to visit often. All the travellers on the way to Cornwall or back, they came and worshipped. Not now, though. Since the famine, people stay at home.’

‘The famine was years ago,’ Baldwin protested.

‘People still don’t come. Not in the same numbers,’ the priest said, and there was a shiftiness in his manner as he lowered his head and avoided Baldwin’s gaze. ‘Please excuse me, I have… duties to see to.’

He carefully stepped around Baldwin, who watched as he walked unsteadily towards the altar, then dropped to his knees, hunched, hands clasped. Rather than a penitent making his appeals to God, uncharitably Baldwin thought he looked like a clenched fist making a threat, all knuckles and anger.

It was when he quietly left the chapel, pulling the door closed behind him, that he heard the gleeful shout. ‘Baldwin! About time, too!’

Peter atte Moor stood watching the roadway, leaning against a tree. At his side, Adam picked his nose and studied the crust before flicking it away.

‘This inquest on Aline,’ Peter said. ‘You think it’ll be a problem?’

‘No reason why it should be,’ Adam said. ‘It’s high time we caught this bastard. What do you reckon to Drogo as a suspect?’

‘Him? Nobody would dare tell the Coroner if they thought Drogo was guilty. Not when they knew they’d get us lot, all the Foresters on their backs.’

‘He’s not been the same since his wife and girl died, has he?’ Adam said. Drogo had apparently thrown away any hope of ever finding another woman, and lived behind his own armour of cold dispassion, putting his all into his job. Perhaps it was because there was no one to blame, no one to attack over his daughter’s death. So many starved during the famine, but no one could fight it or try to kill it.

‘My Denise was an angel,’ Peter said quietly, and Adam glanced at him. Peter, too, had changed greatly since his daughter’s death.

Six, seven years ago now, everyone in Sticklepath had been starving, the women trying to eke out their meagre stores, some few helping their neighbours, but mostly the whole vill subsisting and jealously protecting their own. During the hardship, Denise was found – and for that crime Athelhard had been horribly punished. But the murders never stopped, and now they, too, were killers themselves. Adam shuddered at the memories of a burning cottage, a bloody corpse and the weeping idiot girl. The regret would never leave him. Nor would the speculation. Every time he observed his friends in the vill, he wondered which one was the killer, the real sanguisuga ?

Peter lived only to find the killer of his girl. That was why he spent so much time up on the moors, he always said. He was looking for the murderer in case he ever returned. Aline and Mary had been killed up there, but Peter had apparently seen nothing.

Adam stared back towards Sticklepath. The girls’ murderer could be someone local, who lived in the vill itself, or perhaps it was that miserable sod Serlo, the warrener up on the flank of the hill towards Belstone. The girls all appeared to like him, often visited him. Yes, Serlo was one possibility – but what about that weird bastard, Samson? There were enough rumours about him .

Peter was glowering at him, his shoulders hunched, his face dark with anger, and suddenly Adam realised that the killer could well be Peter himself. ‘Something wrong?’ he asked.

‘There’s no point being up here,’ Peter said. ‘Might as well get back.’

‘All right,’ Adam said, and he stood to one side, thoughtfully watching the other man before they set off back to the vill. Denise had been the first of the girls to die, and since then Peter had been very jealous of any man who had a living daughter.

Suddenly Adam wasn’t happy to expose his back to Peter. Not until the killer had been identified and hanged.

Simon wore a broad grin as he bore down on Baldwin, and the knight was glad to see that his old friend the Bailiff showed no sign of the strain of the last few weeks. Organising the tournament had been both an honour, because in former days it had been Simon’s father to whom Lord Hugh had always turned, and an ordeal, since when Simon arrived at Oakhampton Castle, he had almost immediately become embroiled in arguments with the builders, and then there was a murder, which rather spoiled the whole affair.

Now, though, his eyes twinkled and he gripped Baldwin’s arm enthusiastically. ‘How are you? When did you get here? We arrived yesterday, but Christ’s balls – the place is deserted. No one is about at all.’

Baldwin managed to pull away long enough to give his greetings to the Coroner, Sir Roger de Gidleigh, who stood at Simon’s shoulder. ‘I hope I am not too late for the inquest?’

The Coroner gave a crooked smile. ‘Oh no, Sir Baldwin. You haven’t missed anything yet.’

Gunilda heard the door open and she shivered against the wall as her husband stormed in.

‘Where’s my food, bitch?’

Samson atte Mill was a heavy, barrel-chested man in his mid-thirties; hefting sacks of grain all day had given him muscles like a cart horse. He had broad hands with stubby, dirt-stained fingers, thighs as thick as a young man’s waist, and a neck so short it was almost non-existent. When Gunilda had married him, he was fabulously desirable, and she was slim and girl-like. He had loved her then.

Not now she was thirty-five. Gradually she had become aware that his love for her was fading, as her slim body filled and she became a woman. He had given her one daughter, Felicia, but now she wondered whether that was just so that he had another young girl to feel, to stroke, to slobber over in his bed, while his wife lay beside him weeping silently.

‘I have it ready, Husband,’ she blurted, and ran to the hearth. There was the loaf she had cooked that morning and the pot of hot soup thickened with peas and grains. She quickly brought them to him at his seat at the table, his small eyes watching her without expression. He kept his eyes on her all the time, as though measuring his complete control of her. Certainly not to protect himself against her; he knew she wouldn’t dream of striking him. Too many years of obedience made that unthinkable.

When he glanced down, his lip curled, and then he swept both the bowl and the loaf to the floor. Instantly the dogs were on the bread, snarling at each other as they tore at it.

‘It’s ruined, woman. You useless bitch, you can’t even cook a loaf of bread, can you?’

She was already crying; she knew what would happen.

‘Is this the best you can do? A whore from the Plymouth stews could do better than this. How dare you serve me up with that pile of ox dung! All you have to do is feed me, woman, and you can’t even do that, can you?’

As he spoke, he grasped the thick length of rope which he kept on the rafter overhead. He swung it through the air, and it whistled viciously, a serpent woken.

‘Please, Samson, don’t.’

He ignored her. He always did. The anger was a part of him, not a mood he brought on, but a permanent piece of his soul. In his eyes as he grabbed her wrist, there was a faraway look, almost of lust. His face was flushed, his lips parted slightly, his eyes wider than usual, his breath coming in grunts, and as he lifted the rope, she felt him shudder as though in extreme sexual excitement.

Later, she crawled to her palliasse on the floor. She was still lying there when her daughter returned from her work in their field.