Paul Doherty - Murder Most Holy

‘Of course, Sir John. You know that’s why I returned to Southwark.’

Cranston pulled a face. ‘What will you do?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll just wait and see.’

‘It’s murder,’ Cranston announced.

‘No, Sir John, we only think it is.’

The coroner’s hand fell to his wallet and he shuffled his feet.

‘What is it?’ Athelstan asked sharply.

Cranston produced a small scroll of parchment.

‘The messenger returned yesterday evening from Boulogne.’ He tapped the parchment. ‘The fellow travelled fast for I paid him well.’ Cranston gave a great sigh, unable to gaze directly at Athelstan’s watchful face. ‘It’s bad news,’ he murmured. ‘The French do not have Benedicta’s husband.’

Athelstan turned away and stared at the wall. Sweet Lord, he thought, and what do I feel? What did I really want?

‘Oh, bugger!’ Cranston shouted.

Athelstan turned to see Bonaventure slide like a shadow through the door, purring with pleasure. He looked beseechingly up at Cranston. Sir John retreated.

‘Bugger off, you bloody cat!’

Athelstan, glad of the distraction, picked up the battered torn cat, stroking it carefully, even though Bonaventure still stared appealingly at the coroner. The cat’s fur was sleek and clean.

‘You’ve been well fed,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘I know your type — the professional beggar. Go on now!’ He put the cat outside the door and closed it firmly.

‘Well, what are you going to do?’ Cranston barked.

‘I’m going to check the church and say mass. Sir John, you can serve as altar boy. Even though you have broken your fast, I’ll absolve you.’

They went across to the church, Athelstan exclaiming in pleasure as he stepped into its cool darkness for it, too, had been swept and cleaned now the workmen had gone. Fresh rushes lay on the nave floor, the rood screen had been replaced, and what delighted Athelstan most of all was that the sanctuary had been finished. The new flagstones glowed white and Athelstan admired the precision and care of the masons. The altar too had been cleaned whilst someone, probably Huddle, had given the rood screen a thorough polish. Even in the poor morning light the rich dark wood gleamed.

‘Very good!’ Athelstan murmured.

‘It’s still here!’ Cranston shouted from the transept, and Athelstan heard the lid of the parish coffin being opened.

‘But the thieving bastards have made their mark! Four of the finger bones are missing and three of the toes! Some bugger is making a profit from selling relics!’

Athelstan chose to ignore the coffin. Whoever the skeleton had been, he knew she was a murder victim. Someone who had been killed in the last ten to fifteen years. Whilst Cranston tramped round the church Athelstan opened the sacristy door, dressing in gold chasuble and stole because the church’s liturgy was still celebrating Easter and the miracle of Pentecost. He filled the cruets with wine and water and couldn’t help smiling at the way his parishioners, probably marshalled by Watkin and Benedicta, had cleaned the dust from everything. He put a cloth across the altar, brought out the huge tattered missal and, with Cranston kneeling piously before him, made the sign of the cross and began mass. Of course Bonaventure turned up but behaved himself, sitting by a suspicious coroner like the holiest cat in Christendom.

A good ‘cat-holic’ Athelstan thought, but kept a straight face and continued with the mass, giving Sir John communion under both rites. The coroner emptied the chalice in one gulp.

Afterwards Athelstan divested in the sacristy, Cranston, lounging at the door, watching him.

‘None of your parishioners has turned up,’ he remarked.

‘That’s because they don’t know I’m here, Sir John.’

The words were hardly out of Athelstan’s mouth when Crim burst into the sanctuary.

‘Father, I saw the door open.’ His dirty face screwed up in disappointment. ‘I would have served mass for you!’

Cranston glared down at him, brows knitting, but Crim stared cheekily back and poked out his tongue.

‘Look, Crim, will you run me an errand?’ Athelstan intervened briskly. ‘Sir John, the letter? You know, the one from Boulogne?’

Cranston handed it over and Athelstan studied it quickly. The Dominicans in Boulogne sent him fraternal greetings. They ministered to the prisoners’ camp in the fields outside the city where they’d made careful investigation but found no trace of any prisoner fitting the description or name Athelstan was searching for. He folded the note, took a penny Out of his wallet and crouched before Crim.

‘Take this to the Lady Benedicta,’ he said. ‘On no account must you lose it.’ He seized the boy by a bony shoulder. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Off with you!’

Crim left as quickly as he had entered.

‘Should you have done that?’ Cranston asked. ‘Why not tell her yourself? Art thou afraid, monk?’

‘No, Sir John, but there are some things best left alone. I think Benedicta will want to mourn in private. But, come, we have other business.’

‘Where?’ Cranston barked.

Athelstan indicated with his hand that Cranston should sit on the altar steps beside him.

‘I have to thank you, My Lord Coroner.’

‘For what?’

‘For telling me the difference between a genuine beggar and a false one.’

Cranston eased his bulk down. ‘What on earth are you talking about, monk?’

‘Just listen, Sir John. I am going to tell you what will happen.’

Athelstan locked the doors of the church and, with Cranston swaggering behind him and Bonaventure following for some of the way, they threaded through the alleyways of Southwark to the house of the carpenter, Raymond D’Arques. His wife, her face crumpled with sleep, answered Athelstan’s impatient knocking and led them into the kitchen. She went to the foot of the stairs and called for her husband. D’Arques came down, swathed in a robe, his unshaven face lined with anxiety.

‘Sir John, Brother Athelstan, good morrow.’

‘Good morrow, Master D’Arques,’ Cranston replied.

‘The business at the church?’ the fellow asked wearily. ‘Please,’ he waved to stools round the table, ‘sit down.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Margot, some ale for our guests.’

They sat in silence till the tankards and a basket of bread were placed before them. Despite appearances, Athelstan sensed the couple’s deep agitation.

‘Enough is enough,’ he began quietly. ‘I have not come here to play games with you, Master D’Arques. You know that the skeleton found under the altar of the sanctuary of my church is not that of a martyr. Why? Because you put it there. About fifteen years ago, Father Theobald asked for the sanctuary to be paved. Now, he was a poor priest and the revenues of St Erconwald’s are a mere pittance. So instead of hiring from the Guild, he bought the services of a young carpenter who was also prepared to do some mason’s work. That carpenter was you.’

Athelstan paused and Raymond put his face in his hands whilst his white-faced wife pressed a clenched fist to her mouth.

‘I know this,’ Athelstan continued, ‘because I have seen the muniment book: payments to a carpenter, Raymond D’Arques, and for the stonework to a mason who used the initials A.Q.D., a device used to hide him from the prying eyes of the Guild.’ Athelstan sipped from his tankard. ‘During the work on the sanctuary, for reasons yet unknown, you killed a young woman, either by suffocation or strangulation, and buried her in a hole beneath the altar. You then gave up your mason’s work, determined the crime would never be laid at your door. You became solely a carpenter and took every step to ensure you never used your old mark, A.Q.D., the rearranged initials of your last name. Master D’Arques, am I correct?’