An Unholy Alliance (14 page)

He chose two prominent tombstones and a tree, quickly calculated angles and distances, and committed them to memory. He smiled grimly to himself. He would be able to find the entrance to it next time he looked, no matter how well hidden it was.

He stood for a few moments savouring the peace, and then made his way back down the ladder. As he was closing the trap-door, a tricky operation that involved wrapping one leg around the ladder and using both hands to heave the heavy wooden flap back into place, someone started to toll the bell for the friar’s funeral. Bartholomew had heard that people were sent mad if they stayed too long in the chamber where bells were tolled, and that their ears would burst.

Another myth dispelled, he thought, as he climbed down the ladder. “The bell’s ringing was loud, but he did not feel it would send him mad or that his ears would burst. When he reached the bottom of the ladder, he put his hands over his ears to muffle the sound and watched the bell swing back and forth. His hands dropped to his side when he saw what had been concealed behind the bell, but what was exposed as the bell moved. He started towards it, but then stopped. While he did not believe the bell would damage his hearing within a short time, he did not relish the idea of being hit by the great mass of metal as it swept ponderously back and forth.

He went outside the chamber, closed the door, and sat on the stairs until the tolling had stopped. When the last vibrations had died away, and he could hear the first notes of the requiem mass drifting up the stairs, he opened the door again and edged his way towards the bell. “There were four different-sized bells in the tower.

It was the biggest one that had tolled for the friar and that concealed the body behind it. Even so, all that was visible was a white and bloated hand that dangled just below the bell frame.

“The bells were supported in a wooden frame about three feet from the floor, and the easiest way to reach the body was to crawl on hands and knees beneath it.

Bartholomew ignored the accumulated filth of decades and made his way to the other side of the chamber. Even as he neared the big bell, the sack that evidently held the body was all but invisible, and it was only the dead white hand that betrayed its presence. He used the bell to pull himself up onto the frame, and inspected the sack.

It had been jammed between the frame and the wall, quite deliberately positioned to hide it from prying eyes.

Bartholomew, who had only spotted it when the bell was tolling, doubted if many people would choose to be in the chamber when the bells were ringing, and so the sack and its gruesome contents might have remained hidden for months or even years. He noted the debris that coated his clothes from his crawl across the filthy floor, and suspected that the cleaning of the bell chamber was not a high priority at St Mary’s. He felt through the sack to the body inside. It was upside down: the legs were uppermost, while the head and torso were further down the bell frame.

He took a firm hold of the sack and pulled hard but it was securely wedged. He climbed further down the frame and tried to dislodge it sideways, but it was stuck fast. He leaned over to see if something was holding it in place and became aware of a rubbing sound behind him.

For a moment, he could not imagine what it could be, and then he saw the great bell begin to tip. “The requiem mass!

Bartholomew could not believe his stupidity! When the mass was sung the bell ringer would chime the bell three times each for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The ringer was beginning to haul on the bell rope, pulling hard to make the bell swing higher and higher until the clapper sounded against its side.

“The bell swung upwards as Bartholomew flattened himself against the frame. It missed him by the merest fraction of an inch. “The next time it swung up it would hit him. As soon as it began to drop, Bartholomew let himself fall to the floor, knowing that he would not have sufficient time to climb. He landed with a thump and flattened himself in the muck and feathers as the great mouth of the bell swished over him. He heard Brother Michael exclaim in the room below just before the bell spoke for the first time.

Bartholomew pressed his hands over his ears again, and tried to spit dusty old feathers from his mouth. The bell rang a second time and a third, and paused. Then came three more tolls and a pause, and then a final three and silence. Bartholomew did not wait for the last vibrations to fade before crawling away as fast as he could. He pounded on the door of the chest chamber.

‘Go away!’ shouted Michael, true to the Chancellor’s instructions.

‘Michael, it is me! Open the door!’

He fretted impatiently while Michael huffed noisily across the floor and fumbled with the bar. Bartholomew shot inside, leaving a trail of feathers and dried bird-droppings behind him. Michael looked at him, aghast.

‘Have you been to that alley again?’ he said, concern wrinkling his fat face.

‘“There is a body in a sack in the bell chamber,’ said Bartholomew breathlessly. “I tried to move it, but it is stuck fast.’

“I heard an almighty crash a minute ago. Was that you?’ Michael stopped as the meaning of Bartholomew’s words began to dawn on him. ‘Who is the body?’

Bartholomew shook his head. “I could not tell, but I saw the hand and it is that of an older man.’ He ran an unsteady hand through his hair, oblivious to the feathers and cobwebs it deposited there. He looked at Michael.

“I have a terrible feeling we have just discovered the whereabouts of the Vice-Chancellor.’

Out of respect for the dead friar, they waited until he had been lowered into his grave in the cemetery before Michael approached the Chancellor and imparted the news. “The Chancellor paled and gazed at Michael in shock.

‘Another body in the tower? Do you know who it is?’

he whispered.

‘Not yet,’ said Bartholomew. ‘We will need help to get it out’

De Wetherset closed his eyes and muttered something.

When he opened them again, his eyes were hard and businesslike. He called for Gilbert and told him what had been discovered.

‘What were you doing in the belfry to discover such a thing?’ Gilbert asked, flashing the Chancellor a glance that indicated Bartholomew and Michael were not above suspicion themselves.

‘Matt was looking to see if the friar had hidden his lock-picking tools there,’ Michael lied easily.

Gilbert sighed. “I should have thought of that myself,’

he said. ‘Although I would not have gone when the bells were ringing, and from what you say, I would probably not have seen this corpse.’

‘We will recover the body ourselves before we spread the news abroad,’ said de Wetherset. ‘Who knows what we might uncover? Gilbert, please arrange that we will not be disturbed while I fetch Father Cuthbert. Brother, Doctor, please wait for me in the tower.’

While Michael and Bartholomew waited, Bartholomew slit the sack and tied some pieces of discarded rope around the legs of the body inside. They tried a few preliminary hauls, but to no avail. De Wetherset arrived wearing an old gown, while Gilbert and Cuthbert hovered anxiously behind him. Bartholomew wondered whether the portly de Wetherset, the fat Cuthbert, and the slight Gilbert would make much difference to their efforts.

While Bartholomew lay on the floor and pushed, the others heaved on the legs from the bell frame. They began to despair of ever getting it out, and de Wetherset had started to talk ominously of the skills of some physicians with knives, when they felt the body budge.

‘Once more,’ cried de Wetherset. ‘Pull!’

“The body moved a little further, and Bartholomew joined Cuthbert to pull on one of the legs. With a puff of dust and a sharp crack from the bell frame, the body came loose, and Bartholomew and Michael hauled it across the bells and laid it on the floor by the door.

De Wetherset, his face red from exertion, knelt next to it and slit the sack open with a knife. He gasped as the smell of putrefaction rose from the bundle, and then leapt up as the great swollen face looked out at him.

‘God’s teeth!’ he whispered, staring at the face in horror. ‘What is that? Is it a demon?’

‘He has been hanging upside down for at least several days,’ said Bartholomew gently. ‘When that happens, the fluids of the body drain into the lowest part and cause the swelling you see here.’

‘You were wrong, Matt. It is not Master Buckley,’ said Michael, covering the lower half of his face with the sleeve of his gown.

Father Cuthbert coughed, his face pale. ‘It is Marius Froissart,’ he said. Bartholomew and Michael looked blankly at him and he explained. ‘Froissart claimed sanctuary in the church about a week ago after he murdered his wife. You know it is the law that such criminals can claim sanctuary in a church, and he cannot be touched by officers of the law for forty days.

“The clerks locked him in that night, but by the next day he had escaped, despite the soldiers outside.’

‘“The whore killer whom the Sheriff was seeking!’

exclaimed Michael. ‘But dead himself!’

‘But who killed him and put him here? And why?’

asked de Wetherset, looking down at the body.

‘Whoever hid his body here intended it to stay

concealed for a long time,’ said Bartholomew. He stretched out his hand to show the others what he had found. ‘“There was a reason it was so difficult to pull him free. He was nailed to the bell frame.’

De Wetherset stumbled down the stairs with his hand over his mouth. Gilbert followed him solicitously, while Bartholomew and Michael stayed with the dead man.

Father Cuthbert hovered, uncertain whether to go or stay. When Bartholomew began to cut the sack to

examine the body, Cuthbert looked away and gagged, and Bartholomew sent him with Michael to discover what de Wetherset wanted to do. He continued his examination alone. It looked as if Cuthbert’s story of Marius Froissart’s disappearance corresponded to the time that Bartholomew estimated him to have been dead.

Which meant that Marius Froissart could not have killed Isobel or Frances.

Froissart’s clothes were old, but neatly patched and mended. His beard and hair were unkempt, but, after a week in a sack, that was hardly surprising. Bartholomew tipped the head back and looked at the neck. Underneath the beard was a thin red line that circled his throat and was caked with blood. Bartholomew eased Froissart onto his back and inspected the dark marks at the nape of his neck. Garrotted. He felt the scalp under the matted hair, but there were no signs of a blow to the head. He prised the eyes and mouth open to look for signs of poison, and then looked at the rest of the body. “There were no other injuries except for the marks on his shoulders and hips where he had been nailed to the bell frame.

Why would anyone go to such lengths? he wondered.

He looked closely at the marks the nails had made.

“There was very little bruising and no bleeding at all.

Some of the wounds were torn, but that had happened when he had been pulled out, and there was nothing to suggest that he had been alive when they were first made.

Bartholomew walked around the chamber and looked at the great bell from as many angles as possible. When the bell was stationary, there was no earthly chance that the body would be seen. Even if someone had come to tend the bells, the body might remain hidden as long as the bells were still. And the smell? Bartholomew looked at the dead birds he had noted earlier. Anyone noticing a strong odour would assume that it came from the dead birds, as he had done.

In the confines of the narrow spiral staircase, the stench of putrefaction became too much even for him.

He walked down to the chest chamber and took some deep breaths through the window. He winced. “The sun was beating down like a furnace, and the ditches that criss-crossed Cambridge stank. Even from the tower he could see a haze of insects over the river.

He turned as he heard footsteps and de Wetherset and Michael entered. De Wethersetwas as white as a sheet, and Michael was unusually sombre. De Wetherset listened at the door for a moment before closing it firmly.

‘Gilbert and Cuthbert are downstairs to ensure that we are not disturbed,’ he said. ‘What can you tell me about this man’s death?’

‘Froissart was garrotted. If his hand had not slipped loose, I doubt he would have been found until someone decided to clean the bell chamber.’

De Wetherset pursed his lips. ‘Father Cuthbert has problems getting anyone to ring the things, let alone to clean them,’ he said. ‘It appears that our murderer knew this, and the body was intended to remain undiscovered for a very long time indeed.’

Bartholomew walked to the window and rubbed his

chin. ‘Froissart’s death must be connected to the dead friar,’ he said.

‘Logic dictates that is so,‘said Michael. ‘It is improbable that two sudden deaths in the same place within days of each other will be unrelated.’

‘But Froissart must have been killed the night he claimed sanctuary,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘That was last Tuesday. “The clerks say the friar was here for about three days before he died. He was found dead the day before yesterday, and so he probably arrived here last Friday at the earliest, and Froissart had been dead for three days by then.’ He picked up a quill from the table and examined it absently. ‘“The timing is such that Froissart and the friar could never have met.’

Michael sat on one of the benches and stretched his legs out in front of him. ‘But perhaps the friar was here before.

Perhaps he was in disguise and killed Froissart, and then came back to complete his business in the chest’

Bartholomew thought for a moment and then shook

his head. ‘No. It does not ring true.’ He saw the Chancellor wince at the mention of bells and continued quickly. ‘“The clerks were very observant about

the friar. Had there been another person loitering in the church before him, they would have mentioned it. But more importantly, if the friar had been in disguise and had murdered Froissart, I think he

would have been most unlikely to have returned

to the church as himself, and there was nothing on the friar’s body to suggest he was in disguise when he died.’