A Killer in Winter (25 page)

‘Philippa was fond of Turke’s money, not of Turke himself,’ asserted Stanmore dogmatically. ‘She chose an elderly fishmonger
over you and, unless she is blind or deranged, she did not make that choice based on looks or character. It was his wealth
she loved.’

‘Many people marry for money, but that does not mean they are all biding their time to dispense with their spouses,’ countered
Bartholomew.

‘Then prove me wrong,’ urged Stanmore, glancing around him once more. ‘Convince me that the deaths of Turke and Gosslinge
are what you say – bizarre and tragic accidents. Look at Giles’s role in the affair. Find out where he goes when he slips
away wearing that plumed hat and that dark cloak. But do it soon, Matt. The weather shows no sign of breaking, and Philippa
and Giles might be here for weeks.
I do not want Edith living under the same roof as ruthless killers until the spring brings a thaw and our unwanted guests
transport their victim for burial in London.’

Bartholomew was unsettled by Stanmore’s claims and felt a nagging concern for Edith, despite the fact that he thought Stanmore
was over-reacting. He tried to convince himself that he did not seriously believe Philippa or Giles would do anything to harm
her, but was aware that no amount of rationalising and reasoning would dispel the unease he felt. He knew he would have to
do some probing into the affair, even if it was only to set his and Stanmore’s minds at rest.

Since he had promised to take chilblain ointment to Abigny, he suggested they begin the investigation immediately by accompanying
Stanmore home. Michael was willing, so they set off for Stanmore’s business premises on Milne Street, stopping on the way
at the apothecary’s shop to purchase the ingredients necessary to make a soothing poultice for the clerk’s painful kibes.

Philippa, Abigny and Edith were in the solar when they arrived. The building was not as comfortable as Stanmore’s hall-house
in the nearby village of Trumpington, but it was considerably nicer than Michaelhouse. Woollen hangings covered the plaster
walls, and thick wool rugs lay on the floor. A fire blazed in the hearth, sending showers of sparks dancing up the chimney,
and the room smelled pleasantly of wood-smoke and the dried flowers that Edith had placed in bowls along the windowsills.
The shutters were closed against the chill, even though the windows were glazed, and the room was lit yellow and orange by
the fire and the lamps in sconces on the walls.

Abigny was sitting near the hearth with his boots off and his toes extended towards the flames, while Philippa perched next
to him, attempting to sew in the unsteady light. The garment was long and white, and Bartholomew saw it was a shroud for her
husband to wear on his final journey. She was dressed completely in black, following the current fashion
for widows who could afford it. Edith was at the opposite end of the room, sitting at a table as she wrapped small pieces
of dried fruit in envelopes of marchpane. Michael went to sit next to her, and it was not long before a fat, white hand was
inching surreptitiously towards the sweetmeats.

‘Those are for the apprentices,’ came an admonishing voice from the shadows near the door. Michael almost leapt out of his
skin, having forgotten that Cynric had been charged to stay with Edith while Stanmore was out.

‘God’s blood, Cynric!’ muttered the monk, holding a hand to his chest to show he had been given a serious fright. ‘Have a
care whom you startle, man!’ He helped himself to a handful of the treats, indicating that he needed them to help him recover
from the shock.

‘Did you bring that potion for my feet?’ asked Abigny eagerly of Bartholomew. ‘I long to be relieved of this constant pain.
I know you dislike calculating horoscopes, Matt, but I am your friend and my need is very great, so I am sure you will not
refuse me. Do you know enough about me already to determine the course of treatment, or are there questions you need answered?’

‘The latter,’ said Michael, not very subtly. ‘He needs to know whether you have spent much time walking in the snow of late.’

‘Of course I have,’ said Abigny, surprised by the question. ‘First there was the journey to Cambridge, and then there have
been old friends to see and arrangements to make.’

‘Arrangements?’ asked Michael innocently.

‘Now that Walter is dead I may lose my post,’ replied Abigny, apparently unconcerned
by Michael’s brazen curiosity. ‘So, I went to see a Fellow at King’s Hall, who has agreed to provide testimony that I am an
honest and responsible citizen. And I have been obliged to visit coffin-makers and embalmers.’ He regarded Bartholomew with
innocent blue eyes. ‘Are these the kind of things you need to know for my stars, Matt?’

His answers came a little too easily, and Bartholomew
could not help but conclude he had been thinking about what to say. Abigny continued to talk, regaling them with dull and
unimportant details of a meeting he had had with the Warden of King’s Hall, and giving details of various important dates
in his life, which Michael pretended to write down so the horoscope could be constructed later.

Meanwhile, Bartholomew inspected Abigny’s feet, wincing when he saw the huge chilblains that plagued the man’s toes and heels.
He was not surprised Abigny limped, and set about making a poultice of borage and hops to ease the swelling. He also prescribed
a soothing comfrey water that would reduce Abigny’s melancholic humours and restore the balance between hot and cold, and
recommended that his friend should avoid foods known to slow the blood. Philippa offered to purchase her brother warmer hose
to prevent his feet from becoming chilled in the first place.

She rose from her seat when Bartholomew had finished examining Abigny, and asked to be excused. She was pale, and there were
dark smudges under her eyes – as expected in a woman who had recently lost her husband. Before she left, she fixed Bartholomew
with a worried frown.

‘You will not disregard my request, will you, Matthew? Walter is dead, and nothing can bring him back. He was not popular
and did not always treat people with kindness or fairness. If you ask questions about him you will certainly learn that, even
here in Cambridge where he was not well known. But I do not want you to encourage people to speak badly of him. I want him
to rest in peace. It is no more than any man deserves.’

‘Men deserve to have their deaths investigated if there are inconsistencies and questions arising,’ said Michael gently. ‘Walter
will not lie easy in his grave if these remain unanswered.’

‘There
are
no questions,’ said Philippa stubbornly, her eyes filling with tears. ‘He drowned. You saw that yourselves.’

‘He died from the cold,’ corrected Bartholomew. ‘The water in his lungs did not—’

Philippa turned angrily on him, and the tears spilled down her cheeks. ‘It does not matter! He died, and whether it was from
the cold or by water is irrelevant. This is exactly what I am trying to avoid – pointless speculation that will do nothing
but disturb his soul.’

‘If there are questions, then they originated with you,’ Michael pointed out, unmoved by her distress. ‘You were the one who
insisted that Walter would not have gone skating.’

She stared at him, tears dripping unheeded. ‘I was distressed and shocked, and I said things I did not mean. Walter was
not
a man for undignified pursuits, like skating. But then he was not a man who undertook pilgrimages, either – yet that is why
we are here. Perhaps the religious nature of his journey made him behave differently, but it does not matter because we will
never know what happened. All I can do is console myself that he died in a state of grace, because he was travelling to Walsingham,
and pray that God will forgive him for the incident regarding Fiscurtune.’

‘The “incident” would not have led him to take his own life, would it?’ asked Michael, beginning a new line of enquiry. Philippa
was right, in that pilgrimages sometimes had odd effects on people and it was not unknown for folk to become so overwhelmed
by remorse for what they had done that they killed themselves.

Philippa shook her head. ‘Walter was not a suicide, Brother. The Church condemns suicides, and Walter would not have wanted
to be buried in unhallowed ground.’

Bartholomew did not point out that securing a suitable burial place was usually the last thing on a suicide’s mind, but agreed
that Turke had not seemed the kind of man to take his own life. He watched her leave the solar, then turned to stare at the
flames in the hearth, while Abigny hobbled after her in his bare feet. Was she hiding information about her husband’s death,
either something about the way he had died or some aspect of his affairs that led him to his grim demise in the Mill Pool?
Was Stanmore right: that Philippa or Abigny – or both – had decided to kill Turke while he was
away from his home and his friends? Had Turke been skating, or did someone just want everyone to believe he had?

He reached for his cloak, nodding to Michael that they should leave. Answers would not come from Philippa or her brother,
since neither was willing to talk. He and the monk needed to look elsewhere.

That night was bitterly cold, with a frigid wind whistling in from the north that drove hard, grainy flakes of snow before
it. The blankets on Bartholomew’s bed were woefully inadequate, and he spent the first half of the evening shivering, curled
into a tight ball in an attempt to minimise the amount of heat that was being leached from his body by the icy chill of the
room. In the end, genuinely fearing that if he slept in his chamber he might never wake, he grabbed his cloak and ran quickly
through the raging blizzard to the main building in the hope that there might be some sparks among the ashes of the fire that
he could coax into life.

A number of students were in the hall, wrapped in blankets, cloaks and even rugs as they vied with each other to be nearest
the hearth. The door to the conclave was closed and Bartholomew hesitated before opening it, suspecting that Deynman and his
cronies would be within, plotting his next move as Lord of Misrule. But an ear pressed against the wood told him no one was
talking, so he opened it and entered, tripping over the loose floorboard as he went.

He was surprised to find most of the Fellows there, even the ailing William, who was snoring loudly enough to cause several
of his colleagues to toss and turn restlessly. Rolled into blankets or their spare habits, they looked like soldiers in a
field camp as they lay close together to draw on each other’s warmth. Michael was nowhere to be seen, and Bartholomew guessed
the monk had found a more pleasant place to spend the night than on a hard, stone floor in Michaelhouse.

The physician noted wryly that even in the season of misrule some customs were hard to break: at night, the conclave remained
the Fellows’ refuge, while the students
used the hall. He was grateful, since the hall was large and draughty.

‘Where have you been, Matthew?’ asked Kenyngham softly. He was sitting at a table, struggling to write in the unsteady light
of a candle. ‘Out to tend poor Dunstan? I hear he is suffering sorely in this cold weather.’

‘His lungs are failing. What are you doing, Father? It is too late for work, and you should rest if you intend to say all
those masses for Walter Turke tomorrow.’

Kenyngham shuffled together the parchments he had been studying and stuffed them into a pouch. ‘You are right. Earthly matters
should not interfere with my ability to say prayers for a man’s soul.’

‘What earthly matters?’ asked Bartholomew, intrigued. The elderly friar should not have had any responsibilities that necessitated
writing in the early hours of the morning, especially since he had resigned as Master and was supposed to be enjoying his
retirement. ‘Your teaching?’

‘Something like that,’ whispered Kenyngham with a gentle smile. ‘But we are both tired, and it is too late for talking. Sleep
– if William’s snoring will let you.’

It was some time before exhaustion finally allowed Bartholomew to ignore William’s roaring. He wedged himself between Wynewyk
and Clippesby for warmth, and his last thoughts were for those of his patients whose homes comprised woven twig walls packed
with mud, where a fire that burned all night would be an unimaginable extravagance.

‘The river is frozen like a plate of iron!’ exclaimed Deynman, bursting into the conclave before dawn had broken the following
day, as the Fellows were just beginning to stir. ‘And it has snowed so hard that the High Street is more than waist deep in
drifts!’

‘Go away, Deynman,’ growled William, trying to manoeuvre himself into a position that was comfortable for his splinted leg.
‘It is too early to listen to your cheerful voice.’

William was wearing a handsome grey robe made from soft, thick wool. The sleeves were the correct length and so
was the skirt, so that his ankles and wrists no longer protruded in a ridiculous manner. He cursed it soundly, claiming it
was inferior to the one the students had ceremonially burned in the yard, but Bartholomew knew the friar well enough to see
he was delighted with his fine new acquisition. However, the physician could not help but notice the garment already bore
signs that William owned it – a wine stain on one sleeve and a chain of greasy splatters across the chest.

‘How are you feeling?’ Bartholomew asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he addressed the Franciscan. He shivered. Suttone
was stoking up the fire, but it was still cold in the conclave. He stood, trying to stretch the aching chill from muscles
that had not enjoyed a night on the floor.

‘I am in pain,’ declared William peevishly. ‘But a cup of wine will ease my discomfort. Wine has a remarkable effect on the
body, Matthew. You should recommend it as a tonic for good health. It tastes better than all those foul purges you physicians
like to dispense, too.’

‘I am sure it does,’ said Bartholomew, crouching next to him to examine the afflicted leg. ‘Shall I remove the splint today?
A few days of immobility may have done you good, but you should not prolong it unnecessarily.’