Peter Tremayne - Absolution by Murder

Chapter Sixteen

Eadulf led the way by the quicker route to the wine cellar through a small passageway and stair from the abbey kitchens. Had Fidelma known this short route it would have saved her much time in finding her way through the gloomy catacombs. Fidelma caught her breath as they traversed the kitchens, which were still full of strong odours, with the inevitable reek of stale boiled cabbage and herbs dominating. The stench followed them down a circular stone stair into the apotheca.

Fidelma went straight to the cask and sought the stool by which she had climbed to its rim. It took her a moment to mount carefully, watched anxiously by Eadulf, who held an oil lamp aloft to give a better light than the single candle she had previously used.

The cask held nothing more ominous than the dark liquid of the wine.

Fidelma leant over, peering into it. There was nothing in its crimson black murkiness that she could see. She turned and observed a long pole nearby, presumably for measuring the liquid in the casks for it had a series of measures carved into it. She took it and lowered it into the cask, feeling about with it in case the body had somehow sunk to the bottom.

There was no contact. There was nothing in the cask except what there was meant to be. She felt a little light-headed from the perfume of the wine.

Fidelma dismounted and walked around the cask. Then she paused, reaching out and feeling the oak wood. It was damp on one side. She sniffed at her fingertips. The scent of the wine was unmistakable.

‘Shine the light on the floor,’ she commanded.

Eadulf held the lamp obligingly.

The floor was wet and there were some scuff marks on its surface.

‘Our friend pulled the body out of the cask on this side and started to drag it … that way. Come on.’

She moved decisively, following the tell-tale line across the stone-flagged floor.

Eadulf followed her.

There were two parallel marks scuffed into the dust of the sandstone surface of the floor, with occasional damp patches. It seemed that someone had dragged the missing body by the arms so that the ankles left the marks across the floor.

The trail led into a passageway off the main hypogeum that was cut into the natural sandstone rock and which narrowed so that only two people could walk abreast. Fidelma went to move into it but, to her surprise, she found that Eadulf had laid a restraining hand on her arm.

‘What is it?’ she demanded.

‘I have been told that this leads to one of the more popular of the male defectora, sister,’ Eadulf replied. Even by the unnatural light of the lamp she could see that he was blushing.

‘A lavatory?’

Eadulf nodded.

Fidelma sniffed and turned back into the tunnel.

‘Alas, I cannot spare their modesty nor mine. This is the way our murderer dragged the body of Seaxwulf.’

With a sigh of resignation, Eadulf followed her as she moved quickly onward along the narrow defile through the rock.

The tunnel seemed endless.

After a while Fidelma halted, ears straining to catch a discordant sound that had impinged upon her senses.

‘What’s that?’

Eadulf was frowning as he listened.

‘Thunder?’

The faint noise echoing along the passageway did, indeed, sound like the far-off rumble of distant thunder.

‘Thunder is not so consistent and remorseless,’ commented Fidelma.

She began to move forward again.

The faint breeze that they had felt throughout the abbey cellars and along the tunnel began to grow colder and sharper.

They turned a corner of the man-made tunnel and a sudden blast of cold, damp air hit them, causing the light of the oil lamp to waver and flicker out.

There came the overpowering scent of the sea, not just salt spray but the scent of seaweed.

‘We must be near the sea,’ Fidelma called, having to raise her voice so that Eadulf could hear. ‘Can you relight the lamp?’

‘No,’ Eadulf’s voice came forlornly. ‘I have nothing to light it with.’

They were standing in a darkness which, initially, they had thought as black as pitch. But gradually their eyes grew used to the gloom and a faint grey light spread itself along the tunnel.

‘There must be an opening up ahead,’ yelled Eadulf.

‘Let us continue,’ Fidelma replied.

Eadulf could just see her dark sharp moving forward.

‘Have a care,’ he called. ‘Stick close by the wall lest you slip.’

She made no acknowledgement to his cautious warning but moved firmly on, almost having to feel her way forward.

The roar grew louder.

She realised then that it was the sea. The tunnel entrance was coming out close to the edge of the sea. She could hear its breathless rasping over the shingle, and the angry crash as the waves came in and smashed against the rocks.

She pressed forward. She realised why Seaxwulf’s body had been dragged along this passageway towards the sea. The murderer had thrown the body into the waves. The light was growing brighter and the sound was now deafening.

She turned a corner and found herself unable to see as salt sea spray cascaded over her. Involuntarily she closed her eyes and took a step forward. Her foot was not connecting with the rocky floor; she seemed to hang suspended in the air. Then a strong hand caught her arm and she found herself being pulled backwards. She was back on terra firma with Eadulf at her side.

The tunnel had twisted and ended abruptly in the mouth of a small cavern from which was a fall of one hundred or more feet to the rocks and sea below.

Fidelma found herself shivering slightly at the nearness of the catastrophe.

‘I told you to have a care, sister,’ reproached Eadulf, his hand still on her arm.

‘I’m all right now.’

Eadulf shrugged and let go her arm.

‘That was a dangerous turn. You were blinded by the sudden light and spray.’

‘I’m all right now,’ she repeated, annoyed with her own awkwardness. ‘And I can see why the brethren choose this place to perform their defecations. It is continually washed by the sea. An excellent place.’

She turned, without embarrassment, and examined the cave entrance. She guessed it was situated in the cliffs below the abbey that fronted on to the grey, brooding northern seas.

‘At least we know now where Seaxwulf’s body has gone,’ she said, gesturing at the white froth crashing around the rocks below. She had to raise her voice to be heard above the restless waves.

‘But not where the person who transported his body here went,’ Eadulf pointed out. ‘There were tracks leading into the tunnel but none coming out. There would have been tracks obliterating the first ones had the murderer returned the same way.’

Fidelma looked at Eadulf appreciatively.

‘I think that we were only minutes behind the murderer, who perhaps heard us coming along the tunnel and so was prevented from returning that way. Which means’ – she peered around in the gloom – ‘that there is another exit.’ She suddenly grunted in satisfaction and pointed.

To one side a small series of stone steps, carved in the rock, led upwards.

She moved forward, stumbling slightly, for the rock was wet and slippery from the salt sea spray.

She balanced herself and began the ascent, assuming that Eadulf would follow.

It took a while, but she found herself emerging among some brambles on the windy grass atop the cliffs.

The abbey buildings were further up the rise from the spot where she had emerged.

‘Sister Fidelma!’ She jumped at the sound of a voice nearby. ‘Where on earth have you sprung from?’

She turned and found herself gazing into the astonished dark eyes of Abbess Abbe. By the abbess’s side Brother Taran stood, mouth agape.