Michael JECKS - The Sticklepath Strangler

‘Is this all true, Simon?’

‘Yes.’

Baldwin continued, ‘She attacked the Bailiff and me with a dagger and fled. We raised the Hue and Cry and gave chase, following her all the way up to the warren of Serlo. There she attacked and would have killed this girl, Joan Garde, daughter of Thomas, but Joan Garde was able to defend herself. Felicia fell and died.’

Coroner looked at Joan. ‘You confirm this?’

‘Yes, Coroner.’

‘Who else witnessed this death?’

Drogo stepped forward. ‘I did, Drogo Forester, and so did my man Peter atte Moor.’

‘I see. Then I declare her death to be justified in self-defence.’ These words Baldwin heard as he walked from the room. He had no need to hear more. The whole matter was offensive to him, the attitude of the people repugnant. He left the inn and stood in the yard behind. Edgar was at the door to Jeanne’s room, Aylmer lying apparently asleep at his side, and Baldwin nodded. ‘They are inside?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Edgar said, standing. He could see the pain on Baldwin’s face. ‘Should I fetch you wine, sir?’

‘No. I only want peace,’ Baldwin said. He crossed the little yard to the pasture, and there he walked out to a natural hillock, sitting and putting his arms about his knees. Aylmer joined him, sitting at his side, alert, staring out at the moors before them, but not leaning or resting against Baldwin, independent and almost aloof. But when Baldwin drew a deep breath, Aylmer’s head dropped and his nose touched Baldwin’s hand, just once, as if in sympathy.

‘May I join you?’

Baldwin did not need to turn around. ‘Why didn’t you tell anyone, Vin?’

‘I didn’t know until last night.’ Vin sat beside him and shrugged. ‘She was the only woman I’d ever lain with. In my way I loved her. I thought I could save her from her father, but I was petrified of him. Samson was an evil man. Evil and dangerous. I thought he had murdered the Purveyor, and that meant he had eaten the Purveyor as well. I couldn’t tell people that. He would have killed me.’

‘Was it mere prejudice led you to think he might be the killer?’

‘A bit. He was a brutal git, always happy to fight anyone. God, the night the vill killed Athelhard, Samson was roaring mad. He was prepared to pull the vampire limb from limb. As it was he wanted to cut the man’s heart out with Peter. That was one thing that has suddenly occurred to me.’

‘What was?’

‘I was young when Denise was killed, but I can remember the shouts and anger in the vill. Samson was beside himself with rage – yet when Mary died and Aline went missing, he was quiet, almost as though he knew who the real killer was and didn’t dare react in case people guessed that it was Felicia.’

‘But at the time…’

‘At the time I wondered whether it was proof of his guilt. He avoided talking about the deaths, and that’s not normal in a vill like this.’

‘But you grew to suppose that it wasn’t him, didn’t you?’

‘Samson was so often terribly drunk. He was violent, but I didn’t think he was capable of killing a young girl. So I started wondering about others, and the only man who made sense was Drogo. I knew he was often away from his post when the girls died, and he was always so jealous of men whose daughters were alive. His own daughter – my little half-sister, I suppose – died at about the same age as the ones who were killed.’

‘And that was all?’

‘No. Regularly Drogo would leave me at my post. I thought it could be because he was off looking for a girl to murder.’

‘Whereas in fact…?’

Vincent sighed. ‘In fact he was patrolling several of the tracks nearby making sure that there wasn’t a murder only a few hundred yards from us. Never going far, you understand.’ He looked up and met Baldwin’s eyes with a wry grin. ‘He didn’t trust me that much, either. He wondered if I might be the murderer myself.’

‘When did you realise it wasn’t him?’

‘Only last night. You see, I heard Felicia talking to her mother. She was saying that her father always went for girls who batted their eyes at him. Well, they didn’t. No young girl would have. It was just her hatred talking. She said that they all went for him as soon as they were ten or eleven, and that made me think. They were all killed when they were about that age.’

‘And that was enough to tell you?’

‘That, and a little torn apron. I saw it on the floor near Felicia’s bed last night, and I recognised it as Emma’s.’

‘What of Ansel?’

Vin hugged his knees. ‘I think Samson had a row with him, Ansel turned to go, and Samson knocked him down. Then he called to Felicia because he feared he’d killed the man.’

Baldwin finished for him. ‘You think she throttled him while he lay unconscious, then took a piece of his leg for her supper.’

‘Yes. Remember, we were all starving then – and she was half-wild with hunger. And the next night Drogo and the others came along and found his body and decided to hide it before the vill could be harmed. It was just a lucky chance that the wall had fallen only a short while before.’

‘But from then on, every time her father desired a new girl, he was signing her death warrant,’ Baldwin mused. ‘As soon as Felicia realised he had a fresh girl, she killed her, and as a supreme insult, ate her flesh.’

‘But why should she have killed Emma?’ Vin asked, puzzled. ‘Samson was dead by then.’

‘You were kind to Emma, weren’t you?’ Baldwin said.

‘I hardly remember her.’

‘One day I saw you outside the Reeve’s hall. You picked her up and tickled her. Felicia saw you.’

‘Holy Jesus! You mean that act of friendship cost that kid her life?’

‘Let us hope that we shall never comprehend what went on inside Felicia’s mind, Vincent,’ Baldwin said slowly. ‘That way madness lies.’

It was many weeks before Baldwin could bring himself to tell his wife the full story of the murders, not because of any squeamishness or fear for her own resilience, but because he did not know how to rationalise his own thoughts.

He had been brought up in a chivalrous household, and the guiding principle belief lay in the generosity and love of women. To have found a girl like Felicia, who could murder children and eat them, was appalling. If the world could create such a one, Baldwin was not sure it was the sort of world he wished his daughter to inhabit.

Luckily there were many more people who were humanitarian; Baldwin had enough good friends like Simon to hope that whatever happened his daughter would be protected, but all the time at the back of his mind he knew that famine, war and pestilence could destroy not only families, but even the morals of people. Felicia had been tempted to eat other humans because of her starvation. In good years the miller would take one tenth of all the grain he milled as his payment, but when there was famine and no one had enough, they would grind their corn at home. And that meant that the miller and his family would starve. That was why Felicia had thankfully throttled Ansel when she found him, and taken a haunch from him. She was ravenous.

The children were different. They had committed no crime, she was punishing her father when she executed them.

It was one lazy, burning hot summer’s afternoon when Baldwin told Jeanne the whole story. She had heard some parts of it when the matter was written up by the Coroner after the inquests into Felicia’s and Ansel’s deaths, but she had not appreciated the depth of Baldwin’s own revulsion.

‘What I don’t understand is how the miller managed to keep his sexual wrongdoings secret from all the other folk.’

‘He didn’t entirely,’ Baldwin said. ‘Some knew, and others told friends, but when a man like Swetricus, who loves and trusts his daughters, is told that nothing has happened, he naturally believes them.’