Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

‘It is possible,’ Drogo said. ‘And she thought to protect herself and her daughter by destroying him.’

Simon frowned. ‘I heard his yell, then her scream. So you reckon she killed him, then pretended to be horrified.’ But he didn’t believe it. There was something wrong.

Baldwin was struck by something different. ‘You are being very open with us now. Why?’

‘You know almost everything already. There is one last thing. When we slaughtered Athelhard in front of his house and butchered him, he had already taken his revenge. He had cursed us to Hell.’

‘My God!’ Simon breathed.

‘His curse had no force,’ Baldwin said irritably.

‘You may think so, Sir Knight. I have a feeling that my time is not long, though. I have to make amends as I can and make sure my confession is heard. If Alexander has any sense, he’ll do the same.’

Before they went to speak to the woman, Baldwin walked up to the edge of the grave and watched the Foresters expose the corpse of the Purveyor.

His clothes, albeit stained and rotted, were still recognisable, especially a leather jerkin which was undamaged. Simon, seeing the material, cursed himself for failing to realise what he had observed earlier, when he had stood staring at Aline’s grave. He had seen the cloth sticking up through the soil, but hadn’t realised what he was looking at, and now he felt foolish. If he had looked closer, he might have been able to speed the investigation, perhaps even save Emma’s life. And then the man’s face came to light, and Simon had to close his eyes and turn away. Empty sockets, grinning jaw, gaping nose, threads of hair, wisps of moustache and beard; but there was no flesh left upon Ansel’s face.

Baldwin glanced at Drogo, who merely nodded. ‘It’s him.’ Carefully the Foresters transferred the bones to a large rug at the side of the grave.

‘We shall take him back to the chapel. It’s most fitting that the Coroner should perform his inquest there,’ Drogo said.

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said. Drogo’s tone was gruff, and Baldwin thought he must be thinking of the additional fine to be imposed upon the vill. Concealing this death was a serious crime. ‘Let me have a quick look to satisfy myself. When you found his body, did you remove the thong from his neck? There is nothing in the grave.’

‘Of course I cut it away,’ Drogo said. ‘It looked obscene there. He was dead.’

‘I see.’ Another point in Drogo’s favour, Baldwin noted. The other corpses were apparently found with the thong still in place, like Aline, but Drogo’s first reaction was to give some respect to the corpse. He murmured, ‘It is hard to feel sympathy for a Purveyor, especially one who was seeking to extort a bribe from a vill on pain of starvation, and yet seeing a decayed corpse like this is sad.’

Drogo looked as though he would be happy to spit on the skull. Vin was trying to avoid puking, and he coughed slightly as the last of the bones were added to the pile.

‘Be glad, boy,’ Adam said unsympathetically. ‘If the body was fresher, you’d have the smell to cope with as well.’ He was still in the hole with Peter, but now he leapt upwards, locking his arms on the edge of the pit, and swung his good knee up to gain purchase. Reaching down to help Peter out, he added, ‘We saw enough bodies during the famine.’

‘Of course,’ Baldwin said absently.

He was frowning, and Simon noticed. ‘What is it?’

‘I was just thinking – you are quite sure that you heard him yell and then heard Gunilda scream?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yet when you arrived at the scene, Gunilda was outside.’

‘Baldwin, you have that look on your face. The one that says you’ve just realised something we’d missed. What is it?’

‘Simon, it wasn’t her!’

Simon and Drogo exchanged a glance.

Ignoring them, Baldwin pointed into the hole. ‘May I see his thigh bones?’ he said urgently.

Drogo shrugged and pulled both from the pile. ‘Here.’

‘Ah. This one has scratches on it,’ Baldwin said, studying it carefully. There were nicks which could have been made from a knife cutting through the meat of the leg.

Peter stood at the side of the body peering at it with loathing. ‘He deserved it. Bastard!’

As Drogo and Adam picked up the corners of the rug to carry it to the vill, Baldwin suddenly cried, ‘Wait!’

He reached down to the skull. As the two Foresters had picked up the rug, the skull had rolled over, exposing the back. Now Baldwin picked it up and wiped at it with his sleeve, studying the yellow stained bone with keen attention. ‘Simon, look at this. Oh, come on, man, it won’t bite! Now,’ he continued as the Bailiff unwillingly joined him. ‘See this star-shaped series of cracks here?’

Simon tried to forget that this had once been a man’s head and imagined it as merely a sphere of bone or ivory. Where Baldwin had polished, there was a chip, with fine lines radiating irregularly from it. ‘What of it?’

Baldwin’s eyes were gleaming. ‘I had thought that only a large man could subdue someone who everyone agrees was a strong, burly fellow like Ansel, but here we have, maybe, a sign that his head was stoved in!’

‘So?’ Simon asked. ‘You think that when Vin spoke of a bellow from Samson, that was because he and Ansel were getting into a fight?’

‘Vincent, on the night you were with Felicia, some six years ago, you said Samson shouted once, and then called for his daughter?’ Baldwin said, turning to the lad again.

‘Yes. He gave one loud roar, then a short while after, he shouted for Felicia.’

‘Was it a roar of anger – or did it sound like a shout or cry of pain?’

Vincent stared at the ground doubtfully. ‘It could have been pain.’

‘Could it have been Ansel crying out in pain as he was knocked down?’ Baldwin asked eagerly.

‘I… suppose so.’

Simon understood now. ‘You think that the first cry was Ansel because Samson had attacked him?’

‘And then Samson called to his daughter – perhaps because he didn’t want her to stumble over the body, or maybe because he wanted her to serve him his meal,’ Baldwin said, staring down towards the mill.

‘And then Samson carved up the body?’ Vincent said.

Baldwin shook his head. ‘If the miller had meant to do that, why tie a cord about his victim’s neck?’

‘To kill him.’

‘He struck, surely with anger, in the heat of the moment, but didn’t kill the fellow. No, someone else did that. Someone who was starving, who came along afterwards and found an unconscious man, and who hated that man enough to want to destroy him.’

‘I didn’t find him, sir!’ Vincent said quickly, anxiously.

‘No. If you had, you’d have used that,’ Baldwin said, pointing to his knife. ‘But a woman? Some women find the thought of stabbing too messy and unpleasant, while slipping a thong about a throat and stopping the breath – why, that is clean and tidy, isn’t it?’

‘A woman?’ Simon breathed.

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said flatly. ‘You were right yesterday when you suggested a woman could be responsible, Simon. One who was jealous of others, one who could easily win the confidence of her young victims. One who was hungry and found a source of meat, then learned that she liked the flavour.’

He tossed the skull into the air and caught it so that the empty eyes faced him. ‘Ansel,’ he told it, ‘I think you have just explained your death to us. You shall be avenged.’

Gunilda stood beside her fire, kneading dough. It was settling to her spirit, to be engaged on a task which she had performed nearly every day of her life. She knew she must prepare the bread before Samson came home. He would be cross if she hadn’t got his food ready. He would beat her.