Michael JECKS - The Crediton Killings

“Wat,” Baldwin said, once the man had entered and Edgar had closed the door behind him, “we are holding your captain here. I place him under your control. Do not you, or any of the other men in the group, try to leave Crediton, or let Sir Hector go. He is your responsibility, and you will answer for it if he escapes. Is that clear?”

“Absolutely clear.”

“Now you,” Baldwin said, and turned to the man called Will, who glared back truculently. “How did you notice the body there today?”

“I told you. I sat down and it felt hard and nobbly, so I tried to see what I was sitting on.”

“And you uncovered her tunic?”

“Yes.”

Baldwin nodded as if to himself. “And that was right where you have been sleeping for how long?”

Swallowing, Will was a little gray-faced as he responded, “All the time we’ve been staying here.”

“So you think you have been sleeping on top of her every night?”

He nodded, aware of the nausea returning.

“I think you did not. If she had been there, you would have felt her,” Baldwin sighed. “It seems to me that someone must have hidden her there only recently. Last night, in fact.”

“Eh?” sputtered Wat with a start. “What do you mean? No one’s going to dump a body like that – it’s asking to be found out. No one would commit murder and then make sure their crime’s found out!”

“Did you leave your bed last night?” Baldwin asked.

The man shot a look at Wat, then gave a shrug. “Yes. I was there until the storm, but then I got up… just as the rain started.”

“When did you return?”

“I didn’t. I… hurt myself, and a couple of the men took me into the hall.”

Baldwin nodded, his eyes going to the wound, and Will reddened.

“This is mad!” Wat burst out.

“Some would say that any man who decides to kill must be mad,” Baldwin said evenly. He had the impression that the mercenary was trying to distract him from his study of the wounded man. “Even if it was for money.”

Wat made a gesture of rejection. “That’s got nothing to do with it. Why should Sir Hector dump the body there? He’d know it’d be found. And when it was, the trail would lead right to him.”

“Perhaps Sir Hector did not put her there.”

“Then who did?”

“That is what we must discover. She was not there at dark last night, I assume, for she was not noticed. If a man could feel her when he sat on her, she would surely have been felt by someone lying on top of her. Her dress is wet in places, too, which tends to show she was being carried around last night.”

Simon stood and paced the room, then stopped and faced Baldwin again. “There are only two explanations why someone should have put her there. One is because another hiding place was unsatisfactory; the other because, as you say, the body was intended to be discovered.”

“Yes. I can see no other reason.”

“But the first is inconceivable.”

“Why?” demanded Wat hotly.

Simon threw him a contemptuous look. “Why? Think, man! If you were to kill someone, would you leave the body in an accessible place?” The mercenary was silent, and Simon suddenly realized that he might well have been in such a situation in his past. “Er – anyway, if somebody murders, they try to hide the corpse far from prying eyes. The last thing they’d do is keep a body in town. They move it out into the country, if they have the chance, and dump it in some quiet spot. Oh, the run-of-the-mill killings, the arguments over ale or gambling, get finished and resolved quickly; two men fight and there’s one dead afterward, and the killer is soon found, but in a case like this, where there would seem to be some kind of plan being followed, to judge by the fact that three are dead, the thought uppermost in the killer’s mind is how to cover his tracks, and that means concealing the death. If a corpse cannot be found, no man can be prosecuted.”

At this, Will gave a puzzled frown. “You think Sir Hector killed her, then moved her to my bed in the hay? He can’t have, he was in his rooms all night.”

Baldwin stared at the confused mercenary, then at Wat, who was grimly studying the floor. “Is that true?”

“I had someone outside his door all night,” Wat admitted ungraciously, mentally cursing Will. He had no wish for Baldwin to hear about the attempted assassination. “It seemed a good idea after I heard about Judith being found. If he had tried to collect this woman and hide her, he’d have been seen.”

“Ah,” said Baldwin quietly, and Simon wandered to a seat and dropped into it, gazing up at Wat.

“That, Wat, was rather what I expected,” he said. “Unless we can prove that Sir Hector had an accomplice, I think we might be forced to assume he is innocent.”

Wat stared from one to the other, mouth open in astonishment. “You’re both mad!”

Simon rested his chin on his fists. “No,” he said tiredly. “But I think someone is.”

He was suddenly exhausted. The day had begun so hopefully, with their questioning of the woman in the alley, and then had taken a positive turn when they discovered the identity of Sir Hector’s lover… but now their hopes had been dashed. That was the bewildering thing about these killings; as soon as they felt they were getting close to seeing a pattern and could put their hands on the killer, something else happened to throw them off. The robbery had at first appeared to be a simple affair, and then they had found Sarra; Judith’s murder had apparently placed suspicion firmly on Sir Hector’s shoulders; finding Mary under the hay had initially appeared to confirm the guilt of the captain.

The door banged as Wat and his companion left. The older mercenary strode out angrily, probably, Simon thought, because he could see his independent command being stolen from him even as he tried to grasp it.

“Could it have been him?” he wondered.

“Who? Wat? Possibly. He wants his master ousted hard enough, that is for certain,” Baldwin said, stretching and groaning before slumping back in his seat. “His whole ambition is tied up with getting himself the leadership of his group.”

“It’s strange how everything seems to point to Sir Hector. Wat could have killed the woman, then tried to make it look as if his master was guilty, so that he could take on the captainship.”

“Yes. But there are so many others in the band – did one of them do it?”

“Wat was Sir Hector’s servant when Sarra was killed. He might have given her the dress and stabbed her, hiding her in the chest to make it look as if his master was responsible.”

“It is possible, but I find it hard to believe. Wat could have told her to wear the tunic, and made sure that Sir Hector saw her in it, relying on his master’s anger to cause her death, but I doubt that he himself killed her and hid her. Why should he take the risk? And the second woman, Judith. How could Wat have known about her? I suppose Sir Hector might have mentioned seeing her that day, but it seems unlikely. Sir Hector never struck me as being the sort to require a confidant, and in the mood he was in that day, I doubt whether he would have wanted to more than bark at his men for looking sloppy after being, as he saw it, stood up by Mary for some hours.”

“If what he said about her being supposed to meet him there is true… I must confess, I believed him when he said that.”

“Yes, so did I.”

“Was she avoiding him, do you think? Sir Hector might have made himself so much of a pest to Mary Butcher that she kept away from him. That in itself could have angered him so much that when he did get her alone, he did away with her.”

Baldwin eyed the body on the table before them. “It is possible,” he agreed. “But anyone can see that he is sorely affected by her death.”