A Killer in Winter (17 page)

‘I am sure there are,’ said Bartholomew immediately.

‘Neither Morice nor his men have been investigating Norbert’s death properly, so they cannot have discovered anything I have
not,’ said Michael, interrupting what was
likely to be a futile debate. ‘I have worked hard on this case – I owe that to Dick Tulyet.’

‘But you have learned nothing, for all that,’ said Ailred, disappointed. ‘Robin’s arrest is just another of Morice’s ventures
for making himself richer, and Norbert’s killer still walks free.’

‘I know,’ said Michael grimly. ‘However, I assure you that Norbert may be dead, but he is not forgotten. I shall—’

‘There is Cynric,’ interrupted Bartholomew, watching his book-bearer make his way through the snow at a rapid pace. ‘Something
is wrong.’

‘I have some bad news,’ said Cynric without preamble when he arrived. ‘Walter Turke tried to skate on the frozen river, just
after he identified Gosslinge’s body. The ice was not strong enough, and he fell through.’

‘He should not sit too near the fire to begin with,’ said Bartholomew, knowing that rapid warming could cause the heart to
fail. He started to move towards Milne Street, thinking Philippa would want him to tend her husband. ‘And there should be
plenty of dry blankets to wrap around him. Warmed milk will help, but not wine.’

‘No,’ said Cynric, catching up with the physician and gripping his arm so that he was forced to stop. ‘They could not save
him. He is dead.’

Philippa was distraught. She sat in Oswald Stanmore’s comfortable solar and wept inconsolably. Stanmore hovered behind her,
a helpless expression on his face as he tried to hand her some wine. Edith hugged her and let her cry, and Abigny stood near
the wall looking sombre. Bartholomew studied him, attempting to gauge the emotions there. Grief? Sadness? Bartholomew did
not think so. Guilt or relief? They seemed more likely.

‘I do not believe he went skating,’ Philippa wailed. ‘He could not swim.’

‘You do not need to be able to swim to skate,’ Michael pointed out gently. ‘Most people do not anticipate that they
will fall through the ice, or they would not do it in the first place. Walter must have imagined it was sufficiently strong
to bear his weight.’

‘But he never skates,’ wept Philippa. She gazed at each one in turn with reddened eyes. ‘You met him. Did he seem to you like
the kind of man who would go skating?’

‘She has a point,’ muttered Michael to Bartholomew. ‘He seemed a cheerless, pompous sort of fellow, and I cannot imagine what
would induce him to don a set of bones and chance his luck on the river.’

‘A few of my apprentices were out there this morning,’ said Stanmore soberly. ‘But they are small and light, and it was obvious
the ice was not strong enough to support an adult. I do not understand what Turke was thinking of.’

‘But he would not do it!’ Philippa shouted. ‘Why will none of you listen to me? He was not a skating man! He was a fishmonger
– a respectable and honoured Prime Warden in the city of London. He would
never
have gone to play on a river!’

‘Where is he?’ asked Bartholomew, wondering whether the corpse might yield clues that would explain Turke’s aberrant behaviour.
‘Perhaps he was not skating, but walking along the river bank when he fell.’

‘I do not want you touching him,’ cried Philippa, standing to confront her former fiancé. ‘I have seen how you treat corpses,
and it is not respectful. I will not have you mauling Walter!’

Bartholomew stepped away from her, his hands raised in apology. ‘I am sorry; I did not mean to cause you distress. Of course
I will not touch him, if you do not want me to.’

‘Good,’ said Abigny, speaking for the first time. ‘Walter’s corpse has been through enough indignities. We shall take him
back to London and have him buried in St James’s Church on Garlicke Hythe. That is where all the important fishmongers are
interred. Perhaps you can suggest someone who will embalm him for us?’

Philippa gave a shriek of grief, and Edith glowered at
Abigny, warning him to watch what he said. Abigny grimaced, and his expression became unreadable again. Bartholomew frowned.
Why had Abigny seemed pleased Turke’s body was not to be examined? Was it because he knew an examination might reveal some
clue as to why the pompous fishmonger had decided to skate on dangerous ice – perhaps something concealed in his clothing
or in his scrip? Or was he afraid the evidence might suggest Turke had not skated at all – that someone had coaxed him on
to unsafe ice to bring about his death?

‘Turke died at the Mill Pool, near the Small Bridges,’ said Stanmore in the silence that followed Abigny’s remarks. ‘The current
is more slack there than in the rest of the river, so it is usually the first part to freeze.’

‘Was he wearing skates?’ asked Bartholomew.

Stanmore gazed at his brother-in-law as though he were insane. ‘Of course he was wearing skates, Matt! How do you think we
know he went skating? They were tied to his feet with thongs.’

‘I would like to see,’ said Michael. ‘I might recognise who made them, and then perhaps whoever sold them to Turke might tell
us more about—’

‘Hateful things!’ sobbed Philippa bitterly. ‘Take them from his poor body before I see it. Will you do that, Giles?’

‘Walter’s death does not come under your jurisdiction, Brother,’ said Abigny, ignoring her as he fixed the monk with a steady
gaze. ‘Walter was not a member of the University, and he did not die on University property. This matter belongs to the Sheriff,
and he is sure to want to make his own enquiries.’

‘Summon him, then,’ said Michael impatiently. ‘I am not questioning anyone’s authority; I am merely trying to help.’

‘I have already sent Morice a message,’ said Stanmore, disapproval thick in his voice. ‘But he says he cannot come until later,
so we shall have to wait before we remove Turke to St Botolph’s.’

‘St Michael’s, not St Botolph’s,’ said Philippa in a low
voice. ‘The Michaelhouse priests I met yesterday – Kenyngham, Clippesby and Suttone – will give me their prayers. They are
decent men, and I would rather have them than people I do not know.’

‘Kenyngham will arrange a vigil,’ said Bartholomew, thinking the officious, selfish fishmonger would need the prayers of a
saintly friar like Kenyngham, if he was ever to escape Purgatory. He was surprised Turke’s body was still at the Mill Pool,
but understood that Stanmore would not want to remove it before the Sheriff had given his permission. However, Michael pointed
out that bodies should not be left lying around until the secular courts deigned to find time to examine them, and suggested
they remove him to the church themselves.

‘Morice is a curious fellow,’ said Stanmore, marching down Milne Street towards the Small Bridges with Bartholomew and Michael
at his heels. Abigny and Edith had been left to comfort Philippa. ‘He has been after Turke like a lovesick duck ever since
he arrived in the town, but now the man is dead, Morice cannot even be bothered to inspect the body.’

‘Not so curious,’ said Bartholomew, who thought the Sheriff’s behaviour was painfully transparent. ‘Turke alive was able to
dispense monetary favours; Turke dead is not a source of income, and so not worth the effort. Morice is interested only in
events and people that might result in financial rewards for himself.’

‘There is always Philippa,’ said Stanmore. ‘A wealthy widow is easier prey than a miserly fishmonger who was used to sycophants
and corrupt officials.’

‘Philippa will not be wealthy until the courts grant her Turke’s fortune,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘You know what lawyers
are like. It could take months, by which time Philippa will be back in London and Morice will not be in a position to benefit.
And how do you know Turke left Philippa his wealth, anyway? She said he had sons from a previous marriage; they may inherit
everything, and she may be destitute.’

‘You could be right,’ admitted Stanmore. ‘But I am unsettled by her claim that Turke was not a man for skating. What is she
saying, do you think? That she believes someone killed him?’

‘I thought at first that grief was speaking,’ said Michael. ‘You know how people sometimes deny something terrible has happened
by snatching at straws. But now I am not sure. She is right: Turke did not seem the kind of man to grab a pair of skates and
go dancing on the river.’

‘And there is Gosslinge’s death,’ added Bartholomew.

Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘You said he died of the cold.’

‘I believe he did. But do you not think it odd that a servant and his master should die so soon after each other?’

‘It is a pity Philippa ordered you to stay away from Turke’s body,’ said Michael soberly. ‘I would like to know what you think
of it.’

‘Giles would not,’ said Bartholomew, recalling the reaction of his old room-mate when the physician had agreed to comply with
Philippa’s wishes. He had been pleased, almost relieved, and had immediately initiated a discussion about how to transport
the body away from Cambridge.

They reached the Mill Pool, where people had gathered to stare at the body. It was covered with a sheet, and a group of boys
wearing the livery of Stanmore’s household formed a knot on one side of it, while two of Morice’s soldiers stood on the other.
A row of heads peered from the bridge above, braving the cold winds to have a tale to tell over the fire that night. Christmas
was a time for stories, after all.

When the boys saw Stanmore, one of them darted up to him. Bartholomew recalled that his name was Harold, a lad of about fourteen
years with a freckled face and wide, guileless eyes. He looked angelic. Bartholomew knew he was not.

‘We thought we should wait here until you came back, sir,’ said the boy in a breathlessly childish voice. ‘The soldiers had
a poke at him, but no one else has been near.’

‘Thank you, Harold,’ said Stanmore. ‘But go home now and take the others with you. This is no weather to be out
loitering. Tell Cynric to hurry up with the stretcher, and we shall remove Turke to the church ourselves.’

‘But—’ began Harold, glancing around at his fellows.

‘Now,’ said Stanmore firmly.

‘I saw—’

‘Go!’ said Stanmore, giving the boy a gentle shove. ‘Your hands are blue, and you are not wearing your cloak. An apprentice
with frost-eaten fingers will be no good to me, so home you go. That goes for all of you.’

Reluctantly, the boy walked away, casting resentful glances over his shoulder as he went. Bartholomew did not blame him for
wanting to stay. It was not every day that a guest of his master’s died in odd circumstances, and Harold, like most lads of
his age, had a ghoulish curiosity.

‘Poor Turke,’ said Stanmore. ‘He died without atoning for his sin – although he never seemed particularly sorry to have taken
a knife to one of his colleagues, as far as I could tell.’

‘Dead as a nail,’ said one of the soldiers, approaching Stanmore with a confident swagger and indicating the body with a jerk
of a grubby thumb. ‘It is a pity, since the Sheriff had hopes that he might donate a little something for the town. But these
things happen. He should not have been skating anyway. The ice is thin, like parchment.’

Bartholomew looked to where he pointed and saw the jagged hole in the centre of the Mill Pool, made by Turke crashing through
it. The surrounding ice was cracked and scratched, as though Turke had fought hard to escape, while the snow on the river
bank was scuffed and churned where his would-be rescuers had milled around, unable to help him in time. A piece of rope lay
nearby, and parallel lines on the ice indicated where Turke had finally been pulled free. The soldier was right: the ice in
the middle of the pond was far too thin for safe skating.

‘What do you think, Matt?’ asked Michael, pulling the cloth away to reveal the blue features of the fishmonger underneath.

‘I think he is still alive,’ said Bartholomew in horror, noting the slight puff of the lips as the man breathed.

‘I was told he was dead!’ said Stanmore indignantly, struggling to lift one end of Turke’s stretcher, while Michael grabbed
the other. Sheepishly, trying to make amends for their mistake, Sheriff Morice’s henchmen stepped forward to seize a corner
each, leaving Bartholomew to take the middle. ‘He certainly looked dead – blue and chilled.’

‘That is because he was in cold water,’ said Bartholomew, noting that crystals of ice were forming in Turke’s sodden clothes.
He wondered whether he would be able to snatch the man back from the brink of death or whether it was already too late. ‘Hurry!’

He did not want to jostle Turke by ferrying him up the narrow stairs that led to Stanmore’s solar, so they took him to the
ground-floor room that Cynric and his wife shared, where the physician knew there would be a fire and space to work. Rachel
was startled by the sudden and unannounced appearance of a ‘corpse’ in her home, but fetched blankets and bowls of hot water
quickly and without needless questions. Everyone – Philippa, Abigny, Stanmore, Edith, Michael, the two soldiers, Cynric and
Rachel – crammed into the chamber to watch, advise or help.

Bartholomew knew it was important to warm his victim as soon as possible, so that vital organs could begin their normal functions
again. He also knew that heating a frozen person too quickly would place excessive strain on the heart, which would then stop
beating. It was a fine line between one and the other, and he was not entirely sure of the limits of either. It was not uncommon
for people to fall through rotten ice in the winter, and so it was an operation he had been called upon to perform on several
occasions in the past. Sometimes he was successful, and sometimes he was not.

Watched intently by a distraught Philippa, he removed wet clothes and replaced them with heated strips of linen. He concentrated
on the torso first; the limbs were less
urgent. When he came to remove the unconscious man’s knee-high hose, Philippa stopped him, and, with an odd sense of decorum,
she whisked them off under a sheet. It seemed a peculiar thing to do when the rest of him had been so brutally exposed to
view, but the physician supposed she imagined she was doing her bit to preserve her husband’s dignity.