Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

Coroner Roger saw Drogo and Alexander exchange a glance. It was so fleeting that he could have mistaken it, but he was sure he was right. Ansel de Hocsenham, the man who had sired the girl whose body was found this morning; the man who Miles Houndestail thought had been murdered.

He turned his attention back to Sir Laurence. ‘No, I never met him.’

‘So if he died here, you didn’t investigate his death?’

‘Not so far as I remember, but while there are only two Coroners for the whole of Devon, it’s not surprising. We have fifteen murders a year to cope with, and that doesn’t count all the other sudden deaths I have to investigate or the wrecks I have to inspect.’

‘Wrecks?’

‘A Coroner’s duty is to the King. If a ship is wrecked, the King owns any salvaged goods, so I am expected to rush to the coast at short notice to rescue any casks of wine or fine silks and have them sold for the King’s benefit. It’s not surprising that I didn’t meet your predecessor. When did he die?’

‘No one knows if he is truly dead, but he must be. He disappeared just about the time he was supposed to have arrived here in Sticklepath, oddly enough, but no one seems to know where he went or what happened to him.’

‘Surely nobody would fail to report a dead body, would they?’ Coroner Roger said, and shot a glance over Sir Laurence’s shoulder again. Alexander met the Coroner’s stare with an expression of despair, before turning his back and going into his hall.

If Roger hadn’t seen him, he would never have believed that a man could suddenly appear so broken. Even Drogo looked sympathetic, and soon followed Alexander into the house, his men trailing after them.

The knight smiled lazily and pointed his war hammer at them. ‘You could almost think he had a guilty conscience, couldn’t you?’

‘Surely not a Reeve like him,’ Roger said drily.

Laurence de Bozon chuckled. ‘Could you join me while I speak to him?’

‘My leg, I…’

‘Not right now. Leave us a little while. Let us say, when the sun is dipping below that hill. That should give me time to prepare myself – and leave the Reeve in a state of fright, wondering of which crime I intend to accuse him!’

Jeanne took the woman through the tavern to her own room. There, while Petronilla and Edgar hastily rearranged their clothing, she persuaded Nicole to sit on a bench and sent Edgar (when he had retied his hose) to the buttery for a jug of wine. Petronilla she sent out to walk with the baby, for Richalda was awake now and demanding her mother’s attention.

‘Tell me your name.’

‘I am called Nicole Garde, madame .’

‘You come from France?’ Jeanne asked in that tongue.

Nicole started with delight on hearing her own language again. ‘Yes, but how do you speak it so well?’

‘I was raised in Bordeaux. Where were you from?’

‘A village called Montaillou, near to Pamiers in Arriège.’

‘And how did you come to be here, married to an Englishman?’ Jeanne asked. Edgar returned as she posed the question, and the two women waited while he poured them a cup each, and then quietly left them.

‘ Madame , I was the daughter of the local headsman. The executioner. He was a good man to his family, but you know how people hate the headsman.’

‘Yes,’ Jeanne said. It was not only in France that the people loathed the man who represented the ultimate power of the Crown.

‘When my husband Thomas saw me being mistreated, he rescued me and brought me here to live with him. I was nothing loath, for it is a healthful place.’

‘Really?’ Jeanne asked. It said little, she reflected, for Montaillou.

‘But the people here have never accepted me. Nor, I think, do they wish my husband to remain.’ Suddenly her eyes were brimming once more. ‘Oh, madame , the Reeve, he has arrested my Thomas, and he says he will have him taken to Exeter to the gaol, to wait there for the next Justices to try. That could be a year… more. He will die there, and I shall be a widow, all for no reason.’

‘What is he arrested for?’

‘This morning they said he killed the child.’ Nicole dried her eyes on her sleeve. ‘This afternoon they said he tried to kill his brother. It is not true. He hates Ivo, but he is not violent. He is too calm and gentle to harm another, but they say that he will be taken away as soon as they can arrange a guard.’

Jeanne patted her arm comfortingly. ‘Do not fear. My husband will look into it.’

‘What can he do?’

‘He is Keeper of the King’s Peace. The Reeve will not dare to argue with him ,’ Jeanne said confidently.

‘Keeper?’ Nicole pouted doubtfully. ‘You think so?’

‘Why do you believe they should want to arrest your husband?’

‘If they can have him arrested, the jury will convict him of murdering those children. You have seen how the people here are scared of strangers. They want to blame us for everything, and they will have Thomas killed, just so that the man who is really guilty isn’t shown up. Why else would they arrest my husband?’

Jeanne shivered. Convicting a man because he was new to an area was a complete travesty of justice. ‘Who is the real killer?’

‘I do not know,’ Nicole said miserably. ‘If I did, I would appeal him before the whole vill and save my husband.’

‘Are you wealthy? Perhaps someone covets your property.’

‘We have very little.’

‘Your only defence is to help show who did kill the girls.’

‘I know nothing of them except Aline – she I knew. The others died before we came here. Ivo said that Denise died long ago, when he was buying provisions during the famine.’

‘What was Aline like?’

Nicole thought a moment, her tears drying now that she was distracted. ‘She was a quiet little thing, but it was the end of the famine, you know? All the children were subdued. They were so hungry all the time. Except, I know that Aline was…’

Her voice trailed off and she shot Jeanne a look from lowered lashes.

‘Well?’ Jeanne asked.

‘ Madame , the girl, she was with child.’

‘Are you sure? But I thought she was only eleven years old?’

‘I know. And she did not even have a boyfriend, you know? Her father would not let her walk about the vill on her own.’

‘What of his wife?’

‘She was dead many years ago. I never met her.’

‘How well do you know Swetricus her father?’

‘He is a neighbour, but I had thought that others here were friends and neighbours. I will not call anyone here friend again.’

‘I have not seen any other children. Does he have more?’

‘Yes: Lucy is the eldest, then there was Aline, then Gilda and Katherine, but they rarely come to the vill to play with other girls. They are too shy, I think.’

‘Perhaps,’ Jeanne said, but even as she breathed the word, her mind was considering that the three young girls might wish to avoid others for another reason. So that their secret could not be spoken of.

She had never been touched by her own father, but Jeanne knew only too well that men were capable of molesting their daughters; especially their most beloved daughters.

‘Swetricus,’ she murmured. Could a man murder his own daughter to hide the fact that he had made her pregnant? And could he have killed the other girls as well?

Then she realised something else Nicole had said. ‘Ivo told you about Denise, you say? Ivo was here when she died?’

‘Oh, yes. He is often here, and knew Denise well, so he said.’

Baldwin could see that the woman Meg was terrified to be confronted by Simon and him, and he tried to calm her nerves, smiling gently and speaking slowly and carefully.