Hugh Corbett 12 - The Treason of the Ghosts (22 page)

‘It was interesting,’ Corbett replied. ‘Parson Grimstone, you have a fine church here. Do you have a Book of the Dead?’ he added sharply.

‘Why, yes.’ The parson became flustered. ‘It’s in the sacristy.’

He led them back down the church and into the small, oak-panelled room with its cupboards and chests. It smelt fragrantly of incense and beeswax candles, and was dominated by a huge black crucifix nailed to the wall above the panelling. Parson Grimstone, hands shaking, unlocked the parish coffer and sifted amongst the documents and ledgers. Beads of sweat coursed down Grimstone’s face: he quietly rubbed his stomach, whilst his search was clumsy.

You’re nervous, Corbett thought, but you are also a toper. Corbett had seen the same phenomena amongst clerks in the chancery who spent their nights in the alehouses and taverns: an unexplained flush to the face, a tendency to sweat, whilst their hands shook as if they were afflicted by palsy. He noticed how the curate stayed near the door. Burghesh was solicitous, going to help the parson like a mother would a child. Grimstone at last found the silver-edged ledger and pulled it out. The pages inside were thick and crackled as he opened it.

‘It’s the work of a binder in Ipswich,’ he remarked. ‘It’s about a hundred years old but well sewn together with twine. Why the interest, Sir Hugh?’

‘Elizabeth the wheelwright’s daughter’s name is in this?’

‘Oh yes, oh yes,’ Parson Grimstone said, flustered. ‘Of course, she is. We celebrate her Requiem Mass at noon today, followed by interment.’ He pointed to the black and gold vestments laid out over a chest. ‘Robert will sing the Mass. He has a fine voice. He knew the girl better than I did.’

‘In what way?’ Corbett asked sharply.

The curate walked forward, scratching at his mop of hair. He’s not as nervous as he looks, Corbett thought. Bellen’s eyes were troubled but steady.

‘She came to me in the confessional pew.’

‘But you never met her outside your priestly duties?’

‘No, Sir Hugh, why should I? I am a priest, sworn to celibacy. I heard her petty sins and shrived her. You know Canon Law, clerk.’

‘I know Church Law, priest! I have no intention of asking you what you heard under the seal of confession. It is a sacred seal, is it not?’

The curate smiled with his eyes.

‘I mean no offence.’ Corbett took his gloves off and pushed them into his war belt. ‘But the poor girl lies dead.’

‘Aye, Sir Hugh, she does but her soul’s with God. Elizabeth Wheelwright was guilty of no serious sin, at least none that she confessed to me.’

‘And Sir Roger Chapeleys?’ Corbett queried, glancing at Grimstone.

‘We’ve had this conversation before, Sir Hugh. I’ve told you what I know. Sir Roger’s last confession was heard by a visiting friar but he did say that Sir Roger had not confessed to any murders.’

‘You think he was innocent?’

‘No man is innocent.’

‘You think he was a murderer?’ Corbett demanded.

‘I don’t know.’ Parson Grimstone sat in a high-backed chair between two chests. ‘I know nothing about Sir Roger. I would not describe him as a man of God. Oh, he attended Mass on Sundays and when he had to. He gave a triptych to the church which was later burnt.’

‘Why was it burnt?’ Ranulf asked.

‘You’ve asked me that before. Perhaps a member of my parish resented anything from a Chapeleys hanging in this church.’

‘Were Molkyn the miller and Thorkle churchgoers?’

‘Thorkle more than Molkyn,’ Grimstone replied. ‘The miller feared neither God nor man. He did not like priests.’

Corbett came over and took the Book of the Dead from the parson’s fingers. ‘You are a priest, you hear confessions?’

‘Yes, both in the shriving pew and elsewhere.’

‘Father,’ Corbett crouched down to hold his gaze, ‘there’s a killer loose in Melford. He has killed Widow Walmer and other women. I believe he was responsible for the grisly execution of an innocent man. Don’t you know anything that can help me?’

‘Ask me,’ the parson stammered. ‘Ask me anything you wish.’

Corbett tapped the Book of the Dead. He got to his feet and glanced at the curate.

‘Melford is a busy place. It trades in wool, is well served by roads and trackways. People come and go. Has anyone ever knocked at your door and asked about a missing girl? Tinkers’ families, traders, Moon People?’ He smiled at Burghesh. ‘Even professional soldiers who move their families from castle to castle?’

‘We have had a number,’ the curate replied, ‘over the years. But, there again, I am not too sure whether the girls returned or whether they had run away. Sometime last spring I met a group of chapmen with their gaggle of women and children. They were asking about some wench who’d gone missing. I listened, but how could I help?’

‘Curate Robert is correct,’ Burghesh added. ‘For the love of God, Sir Hugh, go to Ipswich. You will find the alleyways and streets packed with young women who have fled their family or master. Widow Walmer is a good case in point.’

‘Did you know her?’

‘No, Sir Hugh, but I would have liked to.’

Corbett flicked through the book, with its close-marked entries. He accepted what Burghesh said. If it was true of Ipswich, it was certainly true of London. The brothels of Southwark were always on the lookout for runaways. The purveyors of soft flesh were constantly searching for what was new; it was so serious a matter even the King’s council had debated it.

He glanced at Ranulf, standing near the door, and hoped that he hid his unease. It was comfortable to sit in his bedchamber and spin theories like some master in the Schools at Oxford but what he needed was evidence, proof.

‘Let me ask you another question.’ Corbett walked over to the small latticed window so as to study the entries more carefully. ‘The parish of St Edmund’s serves most of Melford, yes? In your graveyard you have a plot called the Potter’s Field?’

‘That’s right,’ Parson Grimstone declared. ‘It’s that area of God’s acre which is reserved for the corpses of strangers, the victims of sudden violence and contagion. Often we don’t even know their names. We have such deaths in Melford: a tinker falls ill of the sweat or a beggar is crushed under a cart.’

‘And the corpses of unknown women?’ Corbett demanded.

Grimstone chewed on his lower lip and stared beseechingly at the curate.

‘Robert, I can’t remember, can you?’

‘There was one,’ Burghesh declared, taking the book from Corbett’s hand. ‘About two years ago. A young woman’s corpse was fished out of the Swaile.’

‘Ah yes, I remember.’ Parson Grimstone clicked his fingers. ‘That poor creature. She had been in the water for so long, she was sheeted immediately for burial.’

‘There!’ Burghesh had found the entry.

Corbett followed his stubby fingers across the page and translated the Latin entry.

‘Buried, the corpse of an unknown woman: the feast of St John the Baptist, 1301.’

‘And this book?’ Corbett handed it back to the parson. ‘It contains no other entries which might provoke suspicion? Where was this unknown corpse found?’

‘Down near Beauchamp Place,’ Burghesh replied. ‘We think poachers had been out on the river and probably dislodged it. It was found floating amongst the weeds.’

‘Poaching?’ Corbett smiled. ‘I met Sorrel yesterday, Furrell the poacher’s wife.’

‘Oh, that poor, benighted thing.’

‘Did Furrell ever come and see you?’ Corbett asked.

The parson shook his head.

‘Yes, he did!’ Robert the curate declared. ‘And it was just after Sir Roger had been executed.’

‘And what happened?’ Parson Grimstone asked.

‘Don’t you remember, Father,’ the curate insisted, ‘you met him in the parlour.’

Grimstone blinked. Corbett stared at him closely. The parson’s face was vein-streaked around the nose. Corbett noticed three dark blotches: one on his neck, the other on his forehead, the third on his right cheek. Corbett recalled what his physician friend had told him in London - how such blotches were the mark of an inveterate drinker.

‘Yes he did.’ Parson Grimstone asserted himself. ‘He came in and told fantastical stories of how Sir Roger was innocent. I didn’t believe him. In fact, I only half listened but he did say something interesting - about a Mummer’s Man. But Furrell was always full of tales.’

‘Why does Sorrel still search for his corpse?’ Burghesh asked. He came over and stood beside the chair and patted the parson on the shoulder.

‘What do you mean?’ Corbett asked.

‘Well, I’m not a countryman,’ the old soldier replied, ‘but you have seen the land round here, Sir Hugh. Every piece is grassed over, whilst Furrell and Sorrel knew the woods like the backs of their hands.’

Corbett followed his drift. ‘Of course,’ he murmured. ‘A newly marked grave might be ignored by a stranger but someone like Sorrel would find it soon enough. Whilst, if you dig a plot on meadow land, a shepherd or labourer would notice it, not to mention wild animals, who can sniff decaying flesh and dig it out.’

‘So his corpse must be well hidden,’ Ranulf declared.

‘Aye, that’s what convinces me about Sir Roger’s innocence,’ Corbett continued. ‘Furrell spoke in his defence and Furrell disappeared.’

‘He could have run away.’

‘Nonsense!’ Corbett glared at Curate Robert. ‘God knows Sorrel loves him and, undoubtedly, he loved her. She believes that he has been murdered and I accept that. Let’s go back to Molkyn the miller.’ Corbett sat down on one of the chests. ‘Do you remember those puzzles we used to play as children? Jumbled words which carry a message? Or pieces which, rearranged, form a picture of a knight on a horse or a maid in a castle? My mother, God rest her, always taught me to look for one particular word or piece, that was the key.’

He rubbed his boot against the shiny wooden floor and gazed under his eyebrows at Ranulf, who had his head down, trying to stifle a laugh. Whenever old Master Long Face indulged in whimsy, it was a sign that matters were becoming dangerous. The Clerk of the Green Wax wondered what curious dealings were forming in his master’s teeming, busy mind.

‘And Molkyn the miller is such a piece?’ Curate Robert asked.

‘Very good, sir! Very good indeed!’ Corbett breathed. ‘Molkyn the miller - an oaf, a wife-beater, a bullyboy.’

‘That’s no way to speak of the dead!’ Parson Grimstone snorted.

‘Very true, sir. But that’s not what I say, that’s his family’s opinion. I visited the mill last night. A less grieving group of people couldn’t be found, especially his young daughter, pretty Margaret. How old is she - eighteen, nineteen summers? Did she ever come and ask to be shriven?’

‘Robert spends more time than I do in the shriving pew.’

‘And I am bound by the seal of confession.’

‘So you are, so you are.’ Corbett crossed one leg over the other and played with the rowel of his spur. ‘And her father, Molkyn the miller? A man who feared neither God nor man.’

‘We’ve told you about him.’

‘And I am asking you again, on your loyalty to the King. Did Molkyn the miller ever come here and speak to you about matters not covered by the seal of confession? Curate Robert, God knows you are an honest priest and your face is like an open book.’

‘Aye, he came one afternoon, about five years ago, around the same time Sir Roger Chapeleys was arrested. He knocked at the door of the priest’s house and said he wished to see the Bible.’

‘The Bible!’ Ranulf exclaimed.

‘Yes, he asked about certain verses from Leviticus. I was surprised but he was so insistent. Now Molkyn could read but not Latin. It was about ten verses in all. I can’t remember the actual chapter but it was the Mosaic prescription about a man not sleeping with his brother’s wife, animals, you know.’ Curate Robert waved his hand. ‘I went through, translating the verses for him. Molkyn listened very carefully then spun on his heel and walked out.’

‘And why do you think he was so interested in Leviticus?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Didn’t you ever wonder why a miller was so curious about obscure verses from the Old Testament?’

‘Sir Hugh,’ the curate replied, ‘if you knew how many odd requests are made of us . . . But, at the time, yes.’

‘Well, here’s a strange thing . . .’ Corbett got to his feet and walked to the door leading out to the garden. ‘We have a miller,’ he continued, ‘who couldn’t give a fig about church. However, about the same time he became foreman of a jury which would send a man to the gallows, he became very curious about obscure verses from Leviticus. Now, wouldn’t you say, sirs,’ Corbett spoke over his shoulder, ‘that the miller knew what God’s teaching was? Good Lord, the humblest peasant in the kingdom, unlettered and unschooled, knows you don’t sleep with your brother’s wife or his sheep or goat. So why should Molkyn make his way up here and ask such a question?’ He turned and stared.

Grimstone was still shaking. Curate Robert’s face was ashen. Burghesh stood mouth gaping.

‘We could,’ Corbett whirled his fingers, ‘turn this round and round like a spinning top. I wager if I went down to the Golden Fleece, no one would recall Molkyn talking about scripture.’

‘What are you implying?’ Parson Grimstone demanded querulously. ‘Sir Hugh, you go up and down like a hare caught in the garden.’

‘This is my theory,’ Corbett replied, ‘and I have yet to reflect on it. I think Molkyn the miller was threatened. Someone brought verses from the Book of Leviticus to his attention. Molkyn was frightened. A surly man, he wouldn’t have given a pennyworth of flour for what people thought, but this was different. So he comes up to this church. Molkyn’s no dullard. He doesn’t give the actual chapter and verse but a whole collection of verses which he asks Curate Robert to translate.’

‘And in that passage?’ Ranulf asked.

‘In that passage,’ Corbett replied, ‘was a warning: that’s what disturbed Molkyn. It’s like me leaving a quotation from Scripture on the table beside Curate Robert’s bed: Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter thirteen, Verse five. You’d be intrigued, wouldn’t you?’