Michael JECKS - The Crediton Killings

Here they found the children. Stapledon lay sprawled beside the oaken log, and Baldwin ran to his side. He looked up at Simon, relief plain on his face. The Bishop was alive.

Simon went to Edith. She stood, shocked, staring at her playmate, and was pleased to be able to plunge her face in her father’s tunic to hide from the piteous child.

Rollo stood, eyes wide, mouth gaping, as scream after scream issued from his frail little body. He was incapable of speech, unconscious of the others all round. His whole being was one long, solitary screech of loss and despair. First the man had killed his mother, and now the kind lady who had looked after him had been taken away as well. Roger stood nearby, wringing his hands, unsure how to calm the child.

Passing his daughter to Hugh, Simon went to the little boy, holding him tightly in his arms, trying to control the crying with the strength of his own body, as if he could pass on a little of his own self-restraint by doing so. Gradually the sobs faded until, shaking and groaning with his misery, eyes streaming with tears, the little boy allowed himself to be taken by the rector.

But Simon did not feel his anguish dissipate. His wife had been here, and now she was gone. Stapledon, who was moaning to himself as he tried to sit upright, had been knocked down with as little compunction as Simon would expect in a man swatting a fly, and not treated with the respect accorded to a man of God.

“Roger, what in God’s name has happened?”

“Bailiff, I…”

“Where’s Margaret? She was here, wasn’t she? Where’s she gone?”

“Bailiff, it was the butcher, Adam. He struck the Bishop, then took your wife…”

“Where, man! Where did he go?”

A hand shot out, pointing the way. “There, toward the church. I saw him take her that way. To the church.”

“Daddy!”

He heard the terror in his daughter’s voice. “Come here, Edith. It’s all right.”

She rushed into his arms and he held her close for a moment, but then he lowered her to the ground. “You stay here, my love, you understand? I’ll go and get Mummy. We’ll come back here.”

Simon set off at a run. He was unaware of the others, of the way that Hugh thrust Edith into the arms of the dumbfounded Peter Clifford before chasing after him, or how Baldwin made haste to follow; he was only aware that Margaret was in mortal danger, in the clutches of a murderer who appeared able to kill without compunction and for no reason. Simon was determined to save her.

Up the garden he pelted, then into Peter’s hall and along the screens, his boots slapping hard on the flags. If Adam was heading for the church, this was the quickest way there. Out into the yard he ran, scaring a horse and making it rear so that the ostler cursed as he tried to bring it back under control. He skidded over the cobbles of the outer yard, and across the grass of the old graveyard, toward the scaffolding which encompassed the new building like a haphazard fence.

Vaguely he was aware of figures running behind him, but his concentration was fixed on the red stone edifice in front. He pounded over the turves and rubbish of the works, until a pair of figures up at the top caught his attention, and he stopped dead.

One he recognized immediately. With her golden hair, strawberry-tinted in the late sun, streaming behind her, her cap dangling from a string, Margaret was carefully ascending one of the topmost ladders. Behind her, as nimble on the slender planks, as sure-footed as a cat, a long dagger in one hand, was the butcher.

This would make them regret their corruption. They would know from now on that if there was one man they could not cheat, that man was him. He would make them realize that they could not avoid their duties. They would have to arrest the captain of mercenaries. He was obviously guilty. Adam had made sure that the evidence pointed to him, and they could not possibly have missed the proofs.

At the top of the highest ladder he halted, breathing deeply. It was strange that he felt so little fear. Usually he would be nervous standing on top of a small stool, but today he was up here, on top of a tall scaffold, with a view over the whole of the county, as far as he could tell. To the west were the hills rolling toward Barnstaple and the sea, while eastward the road disappeared on the way to Exeter.

He sighed with contentment. This was wonderful: marvellous! He felt superhuman, capable of anything. The dagger was as light as purest down in his hand, his feet were assured on the narrow boards which the builders used as flooring, and his mind was perfectly clear. He was rational and more aware of himself than ever before.

A workman sauntered round the scaffolding from the other side and stopped, open-mouthed, at seeing the two. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, but then he saw the knife. Snapping his mouth shut, he turned and fled.

Smiling at his captive, Adam tied her hands tightly, then motioned vaguely with the knife toward the men below. “Do you know who they are?” he enquired. “They know who I am, but I have only met a couple of them before now. Curious, how lives can become intertwined. Theirs and mine, and all because of a man who was prepared to steal my wife. There was no reason for him to do that; he just took her because he could. Why did she want him? She didn’t fight, you know, she just accepted him into her bed – my bed! – when she thought I was out. But I surprised them.” He gave a chuckle. “Oh, yes. I surprised them.”

Margaret stared at him. “Did you… kill them?” she managed.

“Kill them? No, that would have been foolish. I would have had my revenge, but where would the justice have been? No, I wanted him to suffer for what he had done. I could have stabbed him there, while he lay in my bed, but he wouldn’t have had the expectation of his agony; it would have been a quick and easy death, and I didn’t want that for him, not for the man who ruined me and my Mary. Poor Mary.” He broke off and frowned at his long knife, and when he continued it was with a contemplative quietness. “She was my life, my whole life. All I ever wanted. I would have done anything to make her happy, yet she betrayed me; I gave her presents and toys, but she went to another man. She never hinted that I had failed her, there was not an angry word between us, but she preferred this mercenary.”

Below, Margaret could see the small knot of men swelling as others joined, all pointing up at her and chattering. She could just make out her husband, and imagined his stark horror, almost convinced she could see the expression on his face. He would be terrified in case he lost her too. Peterkin was bad enough, but to lose her as well, she thought, would be likely to unbalance his mind. She wanted to kiss him, to smile once more into his serious gray eyes and hug him, and wondered whether she would be able to ever again.

“Down there, they all think I simply went mad. They think I killed the women for no reason. What do they know of love, of loss?” he sneered, gesticulating, then shouted, waving his blade derisively. “What are you all staring at? Come up here, if you wish to talk, you cowards. I’m not corrupt. I’m not false or devious. I’m not a lying official lining my own pocket at the expense of justice!”

Margaret remained silent, staring down at her husband with a strange sense of serenity. Her hands were bound, and she could not try to run from this odd little man with his terrifying prattle, inconsequential yet deadly. There was no point in trying to escape, since if she were to keep from his clutches, she would surely fall in the attempt. The planks up here on the highest level were thin boards of split timber, roughly cracked away from boughs in lengths by wedges hammered in with the grain of the wood, and they had all warped and twisted in the sunlight as they dried. Some had been lashed to the scaffolding, but much of it was loose, the workers relying on their own skill and sure-footedness for their safety.