Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

‘Hello again,’ he said.

Joan peered up at him expressionlessly.

‘Sir?’ Nicole said.

‘I am called Simon Puttock, my lady. I met your daughter near the river earlier.’

Nicole gave her daughter a long, steady stare. ‘I thought I told you never to talk to strangers on the roadway, did I not? Ah, you never use the brains you were born with!’

‘Is something wrong, Nicky?’

Simon found himself being confronted by a tall man with sparse dark hair and a narrow, suspicious face. He was reminded of Ivo Bel. Both men had long faces, the same nose, and deepset, rather intense eyes, but there the similarity ended. This man looked like he had a more open, genial temperament. Unless, apparently, he found another man talking to his wife. He snarled, ‘Who are you?’

‘Please, Thomas, do not be concerned. Our daughter was talking to him, up on those moors.’

‘I wasn’t on the moors,’ Joan protested.

‘Enough!’ she said, giving her daughter a shake. ‘You spoke – it is enough. You should not, and that you know.’

‘I didn’t see her on the moor,’ Simon explained, pointing. ‘It was on the road here, and she didn’t talk to me – I spoke to her.’

‘Oh, yes? And why’d you want to do that, then?’ the man asked suspiciously.

‘You are Bel, aren’t you?’ Simon stated.

He had intended to throw the man off-balance, and was pleased that his ploy worked. The fellow’s eyes narrowed, and there was a fresh wariness about him.

‘That was my name once; no more.’

‘What name do you use now?’

‘I am called Thomas Garde, and this is my wife Nicole – and now you know who we are, who are you, and why are you so interested in us?’

‘I am Bailiff of Lydford Castle, and I’m here to help the Coroner. When I saw your daughter, I asked her about finding the body. That is all – apart from your brother.’

‘What about him?’

Simon surveyed him with interest. It was obvious that he had touched a raw nerve, because Thomas’s face blanched and he cast a quick look at his wife. ‘Nothing, except that he is here.’

‘Is this true?’ Thomas demanded of his wife. ‘Is he here?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded, her face downcast. ‘I did not want to tell you this. I did not think it was necessary to worry you.’

‘I haven’t seen him. Where’s he staying?’

Simon said mildly, ‘I don’t see why you should be so bothered about him being here.’

‘That’s none of your business,’ Thomas snapped.

‘I’m helping the Coroner. I can make sure it’s his business, if you want.’

Thomas scowled, and he would have spoken, but his wife touched his arm. She looked up at him appealingly, and he gave an exasperated snort. ‘Oh, very well, Nicky!’

‘My husband married me when we were in France,’ Nicole said.

‘I had noticed your accent,’ Simon said with a half bow to her. She returned his smile, but weakly, as though there was little enough to smile about.

Thomas took up their story. ‘At the time I was in the service of a nobleman in Gascony, but he died and his son had no place for me in his household. Still, we parted on good terms, and he gave me a purse to remember his father. With it I bought a little parcel of land here and our pigs. All my father’s property fell to my brother. I had nothing.’

‘I see. And that caused friction between you and your brother?’

‘No. Ivo took everything, but he still wasn’t satisfied. He’s a grasping, selfish man who has always taken what he desired. When I returned from France with my wife, he tried to persuade her to leave me and become his whore. He couldn’t believe I could give her a life to compare with living with him as his prostitute.’

‘It was brave of you to leave your home and come all the way here, my Lady,’ Simon said.

‘It was not so very hard.’

‘I will find my brother,’ Thomas said. ‘he must be at the inn. Nicky, go back to the house. If he turns up, tell him to leave. I don’t want him pestering you again.’

‘Yes, Husband.’

Thomas looked as though he was going to say more to Simon, but after studying him balefully for a while, he spun on his heel and marched through the mud towards the inn.

Nicole sighed. ‘He is a good man, but his brother offended him greatly, I think.’

‘I can quite understand your husband’s feelings,’ Simon said. ‘What’s that?’

There was a howling from some sheds at the edge of the cemetery. Nicole barely glanced towards them. ‘Samson’s hounds. They are mourning their master’s death.’

‘Let’s get away from this miserable place,’ Simon muttered.

‘You see,’ the Frenchwoman continued as they left the mill, ‘it was not so very easy for Thomas to marry me.’ She let go of her daughter’s hand. ‘Emma is over there, why don’t you go to her?’

‘I played with her all afternoon,’ Joan protested.

‘And morning, too. You think I don’t guess? Now, go!’

Once her daughter was out of earshot, Nicole continued quietly, ‘You see, where I lived, my father was the executioner. The people of the town loathed him. And me.’

‘I see!’ Simon breathed. No one wanted to continue the line of a murderous bastard like an official executioner, nor would anybody want to sleep with a woman born to such a man. Well, Simon wouldn’t, anyway. It was repugnant.

She caught his tone; she must be used to hearing revulsion in people’s voices. ‘Thomas was the only man who treated me like a woman. He did not care, you see, what other men said. All he cared about was that he loved me, and that I loved him . That was all. I could never betray his trust in me. His love. That was why I was so shocked when Ivo asked me to leave Thomas for him.’

‘I don’t know that it is so surprising,’ Simon said gallantly.

‘It was so confusing. Ivo was staying with us, and he made me his offer while Tom was working.’ She gave a snort and wouldn’t meet Simon’s eye as she said, ‘He wanted to buy me, like a milch cow or a dog. It was a simple transaction. And he had no thought for his brother, whom he would be betraying – whom he asked me to betray! No, he just expected me to fall at his feet and agree because he had money.’

‘You refused.’

‘Of course. I was married to a good man who loved me, and this other offered to buy me. It was contemptible.’

‘Your daughter told me that the Warrener said they argued about vampires,’ Simon said tentatively.

‘Vampires?’ she repeated, shooting him an amused glance. ‘I expect Serlo thought it was kinder to scare Joan than tell her that her uncle wanted to steal her mother.’

Simon sighed. ‘Yes, of course.’

Her humour faded. ‘The worst of it is, now I think Ivo hates Tom so much, he would do anything to destroy him and win me.’

Thomas marched into the tavern and looked round, glowering. When the taverner appeared in the doorway, he rapped his knuckles on the table-top to attract the man, then called for a jug of ale. Once it arrived, he held Taverner’s wrist.

‘Will, you wouldn’t hide something from me, would you?’

‘Like what?’

‘Someone tells me you’ve been putting up a man I know – Ivo Bel.’

‘Of course. He’s been here a few days. So?’

Thomas wanted to reach up and grab Will’s tunic, yank him down and beat his face into the wood of his table. ‘I wanted to be told if he arrived here.’

‘Tom, whatever there is between you two, it’s nothing to do with me. I run an inn and I’ll offer rooms to any traveller.’

‘That’s an end to it, is it?’ Thomas said, feeling the anger coursing through his body. ‘Do you want me to make it your problem?’