11 - The Lammas Feast (33 page)

‘What was your original plan?’ I asked, moved by a curiosity I found it difficult to curb. ‘Before the King’s officers and I took a hand in the game?’

‘I intended to wait for him to contact me on his return to the city, then despatch him as I’d done Jasper. If his body was ever found, in the Frome or elsewhere, I reckoned no one would bother to ask any questions. My son was a Tudor spy, God rot him. Those in authority would be glad to be rid of him. My only worry was that he might be caught before I could ensure that he never troubled me and mine again.’ The baker folded his arms across his chest and regarded me malevolently. ‘But then you poked your nose in, Chapman. Matters might have proved extremely awkward except that Mistress Ford offered to take my son into her cottage to nurse him. Marion saw her chance and insisted on helping. One of the potions she’d fetched from the nunnery was heavily laced with poppy juice. It kept Jean – my son – unconscious until she could seize her chance.’

I wiped a hand across my forehead. It came away soaking wet.

‘When did she kill him? Jack Gload and Peter Littleman swore that one or the other of them had been by the bedside all night.’

John Overbecks laughed, genuinely amused.

‘You don’t trust everything those two thickheaded nitwits tell you, do you? When Marion returned from the nunnery after Prime, Cicely Ford was asleep in the chair and
both
the sheriff’s men had disappeared outside to relieve themselves. She slipped the pillow from beneath Jean’s head, held it over his face until she could no longer detect any sign of life and managed to replace it before either Jack Gload or his companion reappeared. Later on, of course, neither man was prepared to risk his livelihood by admitting that they had both been absent together.’

I wondered if either of those two incompetent rogues had suspected Sister Jerome’s complicity in the crime. Probably not; a nun’s habit is a wonderful cloak for evil.

I suddenly straightened up on my stool. ‘So why,’ I spat at John Overbecks, ‘did Cicely Ford have to die? According to you, she saw and heard nothing of your son’s murder.’

For the first time, the baker flinched and lost some of his composure.

‘That . . . That was the worst decision Marion and I had to make. It was one we both deeply regretted. But there again,’ he added viciously, ‘it was your fault.’ I gasped, but he ignored it. ‘She woke up just as Jack Gload came in and resumed his seat at the foot of the bed. She
might
have seen or heard something that could incriminate Marion – and
you
kept encouraging her to try to remember. She was your friend. She was often in your company. She was with you when Marion and I saw you on Saint Michael’s Hill that evening . . .’

I interrupted violently, ‘The last evening of her life! The evening you visited your sister-in-law because, so you claimed, your wife had disappeared and you didn’t know where she’d gone. But that wasn’t the truth, was it?’ Enlightenment was crashing over me in waves. ‘Jane always lets you know where she’s going, according to Jenny Hodge. I’d met Mistress Ford on her way home from Back Street, where she’d been to see Master Hulin. She told me she’d met you going into the lawyer’s chambers as she came out. And that was when our garrulous and indiscreet lawman confided in an old friend the news he was bursting to tell to all the world. Cicely Ford had made a new will, leaving the old Herepath house to a common pedlar. And what vistas of imagined impropriety that bequest must have opened up!’

John Overbecks curled his lip. ‘Not to me, Chapman. You may look like a lad about town, but the sad truth is you’re under the thumb of that wife of yours. You’re slowly being turned into a henpecked husband and father. But you’re a handsome lad, and I reckon Mistress Ford had a soft spot for you. When I heard Master Hulin’s news, I realized at once that if Marion and I were to dispose of her – and there was no doubt that she did pose something of a threat to us – here was a golden opportunity for the blame to be pinned on you. Neither of us could have foreseen that you would have so impregnable an alibi.’

I said nothing, steadying myself with both hands pressed down flat on top of the stool. I was shaking with fury, but, at that moment, I was too weak to do what I wanted to do – get my hands around John Overbecks’s fat neck and press his windpipe until all the life was choked out of him. Pictures chased one another through my head: Cicely resting at our cottage while this inhuman wretch pursued his evil plans, hurrying up to the Magdalen Nunnery to give his co-conspirator the glad tidings that their innocent victim could safely be murdered that night, a murder for which another innocent victim could be blamed. I recollected their startled faces when Cicely and I came up with them outside the nunnery. And I recalled my parting encouragement to Cicely to try to recall what she could about the morning of the stranger’s death. Perhaps if I hadn’t done so . . . But no! It was stupid to blame myself. The murderous pair’s plan had already been laid and was about to be hatched.

Marion had smothered Cicely Ford in her sleep, just as she had killed Jean Overbecks, and more easily because she could pick and choose her time, in no danger from interruption. Later, she had ‘found’ the body, informed Richard Manifold of her discovery and invented the story of a man, who looked just like me, having been seen by her on Saint Michael’s Hill in the early hours of the morning. She had then advised Richard to speak to her brother-in-law regarding my involvement in Cicely Ford’s affairs – and everything was in train for my arrest.

Yet again, I thanked God fervently for Philip Lamprey and his propensity for drink and insulting behaviour . . .

John Overbecks’s voice roused me from my reverie. ‘You’ve worked it all out, I see.’

‘Not quite,’ I answered. ‘Walter Godsmark. Did you murder him, or am I doing you an injustice?’

The baker smiled. ‘Oh, never let it be said that you do me an injustice, Chapman. Of course I murdered him. Well, I helped him into the Frome, and who knew better than I that he couldn’t swim? I was the fool who’d saved him from a watery grave in the Avon.’

‘He was blackmailing you?’

‘He tried to. The cream of the jest is that he wasn’t even sure what he was blackmailing me about. But, unhappily for him, Walter wasn’t quite as gormless as he looked. He’d managed to put two and two together and work out that Jasper had been threatening me with something. Walter had been sent by Jasper to ask me to visit him on the Monday evening, and the following morning Jasper was dead, with a knife in his back. So I was probably the murderer. Walter cornered me in the Green Lattis and told me what he thought he knew. I arranged to meet him that night, outside the city walls, down by the castle weir. The trusting idiot was expecting a bag of gold, the first of many if he’d had his way, but instead . . .’ The baker spread his hands and grinned. ‘I shall never forget the expression of total surprise on his silly face as I pushed him into the river, nor the way he called to me to help him out.’ The grin became a full-throated chuckle as my companion gloated over the remembered scene.

‘The property you rented to Master Fairbrother,’ I said. ‘When you offered it to me, was that to get me in your power?’

The baker smiled again, a smile I was coming to detest.

‘A dramatic turn of phrase! But, yes. I was afraid, rightly so as it turned out, that you might begin to take too great an interest in the crime. Your reputation was all against you being able to leave well alone. Having you and your family as my tenants would have given me a hold over you. The threat of being thrown out, penniless, on the street would, I reckoned, curb your zeal to expose me if you did happen to discover my involvement in Jasper’s death. But that wretched wife of yours persuaded you against the scheme. I told you, Chapman,’ he jeered, ‘you’re under that woman’s thumb.’

He had been wary and tense ever since my appearance in the bakery, but now, for a brief second, he had dropped his guard.

I heaved myself off the stool and threw myself at him with all my strength, aiming to bring him down before he divined my intention. But I had reckoned without my weakness and his agility, both of body and of mind. Within seconds, he was behind me, his left arm clamped across my throat, jerking my head back against his shoulder with a wrench that made me gag. His right hand held a wicked-looking knife; a knife I hadn’t even noticed, but which must have been lying on the trestle behind him; a knife, presumably, with which he had been trimming his pastry sculptures to make sure that there were no rough edges; a knife whose point now pricked my throat.

‘Adela knows I’m here,’ I croaked. ‘She . . . knows I suspect you. She’s gone to . . . fetch Sergeant Manifold. You won’t get away with this . . . murder.’

His left arm tightened until I could no longer breathe. ‘A good try, Chapman. But I don’t believe you, I’m afraid.’

‘A mistake, Master Overbecks,’ said a voice that, until then, I had never thought I should be pleased to hear. Richard Manifold clapped a hand on the baker’s shoulder. I may have said some harsh things about my wife’s former suitor in my time, but at that moment I could willingly have kissed his large and probably dirty feet.

Neither of us had heard the bakery door open, but now, behind Richard, as well as Jack Gload and Peter Littleman, I could also see an extremely frightened Adela.

John Overbecks released me and, shoving me unceremoniously to one side, aimed a blow with the knife at Richard’s heart. Richard side-stepped and nearly fell, saving himself from this indignity by putting out a hand towards the trestle table. He grasped the top of a pastry castle, which not unnaturally crumbled under his weight, and he collapsed backwards into the Garden of Eden. John Overbecks let out a howl of rage and despair, the master craftsman for a moment gaining ascendancy over the cornered criminal, as he saw his creations dissolve into a cloud of pastry flakes. As he made an abortive dive to save Saint George and the dragon, Jack Gload and Peter Littleman, galvanized at last into action, pinioned him on either side. The baker struggled, but was no match for their solid strength.

Richard Manifold brushed his clothes free of as many of the clinging crumbs as he was able, and faced his prisoner with what authority he could muster.

‘John Overbecks, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Dame Cicely Ford and the attempted murder of Roger Chapman – an attack witnessed by myself and my two officers, Jack Gload and Pete––’

He broke off, and we all followed the direction of his horrified gaze.

Jane Overbecks stood framed in the doorway, her eyes shining like stars and clutching a baby to her breast.

Adela screamed.

It was Adam.

‘Look, John!’ Jane held out our son towards her husband. ‘I went to Mistress Walker’s. She wasn’t there, but the children were. The two older ones said I could have the baby to keep. They’ve given him to me. They said they didn’t want him. Isn’t that wonderful? Now I have a baby of my very own.’

Jack Gload and Peter Littleman must have slackened their grip, their concentration weakened by the unexpected turn of events. As a consequence, before any of us realized what was happening, John Overbecks had wrenched himself free of them and was standing behind his wife, his steadying hands on her shoulders.

‘It’s a miracle, sweetheart,’ he said, and his eyes mocked us. ‘Now, Jane my love, do exactly as I tell you or else the baby will be taken away from you by one of these wicked people here. Do you understand?’ She nodded, clutching Adam so tightly that he began to grizzle bad-temperedly. John Overbecks continued, ‘Move back very slowly, step by step, to the door. No, don’t turn round. I’ll guide you. No one will stop us, not if they’ve any sense.’

He raised his right hand slightly and it was then that I realized he had not been disarmed. When Jack Gload and Peter Littleman had pinioned him, they had, in their usual slack fashion, allowed him to retain his hold on the knife. Guiding Jane with his left hand, John Overbecks lowered the knife point with his right to within an inch of the baby’s head.

‘For God’s sake, somebody do something,’ begged Adela, her voice cracked with terror.

The baker laughed. ‘The minute anyone tries to do anything, Mistress Chapman, the blade of this knife slices into your little son’s head. I’ve been a father, you see, as your husband will tell you, and I know all about that soft spot in young babies’ skulls.’

I thought Adela was going to faint, but I should have known she was made of sterner stuff. All the same, I could see her shaking from where I stood.

Richard Manifold cleared his throat and tried what bluster could do.

‘Let the child and your wife go, Overbecks. It’s no good. You can’t esape the law for ever. You’re gallows meat.’

I could have told him that threats were useless. This was a desperate felon who couldn’t see beyond the next few minutes of his forfeited life. For John Overbecks any chance, however slim, was worth the taking. By now, he and Jane were close to the open door, their awkward, backward-shuffling gait and the proximity of their feet almost causing them to trip up once or twice. But on each occasion, they were saved by John Overbecks’s steadiness and unwavering sense of purpose.

‘We’re nearly there, sweetheart,’ he said after a fleeting glance over his shoulder. ‘When we get outside, take my hand and run like the wind. But whatever you do, don’t drop the child.’

Jane shook her head. It was obvious she was puzzled by what was happening, but she trusted her husband completely. He had warned her that one of us might try to take Adam away from her, and that was enough to make us all her enemies.

Jack Gload was standing by the table nearest the ovens, and I saw his hand inch its way, very cautiously, towards the pele that lay on top of it. Its flat, oar-shaped end would make an admirable weapon, but even if he reached it without the baker noticing, he was too far away for it to be of any use . . .

Out of the corner of one eye, I caught a sudden movement in the open doorway. The sound of a shrill, indignant yapping assailed our ears as Jane Overbecks’s little black and white dog hurtled in, in search of his mistress. He had no doubt been on a private foraging expedition of his own, but had now returned home to be petted and adored and assured he had been missed. Instead, the person who should have been giving him her undivided attention, was lavishing it, instead, on one of those pink and squalling human puppies that he so despised and detested.