Mystery in the Minster (42 page)

‘Cotyngham!’ exclaimed Ellis in astonishment. ‘What in God’s name is he doing here? He is supposed to be in the Franciscan Priory.’

There was silence after Ellis’s blurted announcement. In the distance, bells rang, but it was not a time when offices should be said, so Bartholomew could only suppose they were sounding an alarm. Perhaps the tide had started to surge, and people were being warned to head for higher ground. Would St Mary ad Valvas be safe, or would its crumbling walls be swept away by the encroaching waters?

‘It cannot be Cotyngham,’ said Michael. ‘He escaped from the friary two nights ago, but Matt says this fellow has been dead for weeks.’

‘It
is
Cotyngham,’ said Ellis shakily. ‘I recognise his hair and the ring on his finger.’

‘Then who was staying with the Franciscans?’ asked Michael.

‘An imposter,’ said Bartholomew heavily. ‘It makes perfect sense now. But never mind this. We need to look for Cynric.’

‘Look where?’ demanded Michael. ‘This is a vast city, and we have no idea where to begin. Our best chance of helping him is to assess what we know of Cotyngham – Cynric was excavating him when he was captured, so understanding what brought him here in the first place may point us in the right direction.’

Bartholomew was unconvinced, but took a deep breath to calm himself, and began to speak. ‘When Cotyngham was first taken ill, Fournays ordered him kept in isolation – we were allowed in, but only because Stayndrop was beginning to accept that seclusion was not working.’

‘And because you are a physician,’ added Michael, while Ellis looked from one to the other in confusion. ‘But we had never met Cotyngham, so were not in a position to know whether it was him or not. Stayndrop also admitted to knowing him only slightly, while Fournays told you that he did not know him at all.’

‘I thought there was something odd about the case from the start,’ Bartholomew went on. ‘When we first saw him, “Cotyngham” was blank-eyed and drooling, but his heart was racing. Now I know why: the imposter was terrified that he was about to be unmasked.’

‘We were the first visitors Stayndrop had allowed in. His fear was understandable.’

‘The second time I saw him, he was breathless.’ Every fibre in Bartholomew’s body screamed at him to begin tearing the city apart, and it was not easy to talk calmly. ‘Probably because he had had to rush to don his disguise. I imagine these two incidents prompted his flight …’

Michael nodded. ‘It is one thing to lounge in isolation, comfortably housed and fed, but he was unwilling to risk himself once Stayndrop started admitting visitors. And it explains why Oustwyk saw a “Cotyngham” who was fleet-footed enough to give him the slip.’

‘So what does this tell us?’ asked Bartholomew, struggling to keep his voice steady. ‘That Cotyngham died when Ellis and Cave visited him a month ago, and they buried him here? And then installed an imposter in the friary?’

‘No!’ cried Ellis, his face white. ‘Cotyngham was perfectly well when we left him.’

‘But Cave left part of his shoelace in Cotyngham’s chimney,’ snapped Bartholomew. ‘He must have been searching for the codicil …’ He faltered, thinking about what Jorden had claimed.

‘And Cotyngham would not have granted such a liberty if he was alive,’ said Michael quickly, unwilling to share that particular snippet of information with the sub-chanter just yet. ‘
Ergo
, Cave must have known that Cotyngham was dead.’

‘The lace may have been left
after
we had learned Cotyngham was ill,’ Ellis flashed back. ‘Cotyngham was not in a position to refuse permission then, either. You cannot use it to prove that Cave knew the man was dead. Or to prove that he killed him, lest you think to try.’

But Bartholomew disagreed. ‘You began proceedings to claim Huntington the moment Cotyngham was installed in the infirmary, at a point when there was no reason to assume he would not recover. The only logical explanation is that you knew he would never be in a position to resume
his duties. Moreover, there is the testimony of Huntington’s villagers.’

‘What testimony?’ demanded Ellis uneasily.

‘They cleaned his cottage, because they said it smelled, yet Cotyngham kept it neat. I suspect the odour was from his corpse, moved shortly before they were informed that “Cotyngham” was in the infirmary.’ Anxiety for Cynric made Bartholomew brusque. ‘What did you do? Hire someone to impersonate him while you devised a plan that would exonerate you of murder?’

‘No!’ cried Ellis. ‘We have never—’

‘Wait,’ said Michael, cutting across him, and addressing Bartholomew. ‘Keeping Cotyngham secluded was a treatment recommended by Fournays.’

‘No,’ groaned Bartholomew, unwilling to go over old ground. ‘Fournays did not kill Cot—’

‘Hear me out! By his own admission, Fournays has scant experience with ailments of the mind. He was at a loss as to what to do. Then who should come along, to tell him about an uncle who had suffered a similar complaint, and who had been cured by being kept in isolation?’

‘Marmaduke!’ exclaimed Bartholomew.

‘Precisely. And Fournays acted on this advice, being a suggestible, malleable sort of fellow.’

Ellis shook his head in incomprehension. ‘Are you saying that Marmaduke killed Cotyngham and buried him here? And Cave is innocent?’

The relief in his voice was so apparent that Bartholomew regarded him closely. ‘That surprises you! You thought Cave was guilty.’

‘No,’ stated Ellis, although his eyes said otherwise.

Bartholomew pointed to the body in the mound. ‘This is murder, Sub-Chanter Ellis.
Murder!
You cannot conceal what you know about it.’

Ellis licked his lips, and when he spoke, it was in a mumble. ‘Cave said he had lost his purse in Huntington, and returned the next day to look for it. I confess I
may
have wondered since then whether he had done something to Cotyngham …’

‘And you told no one?’ demanded Michael.

Ellis spread his hands. ‘I had no proof, and he is one of my vicars. But once we learned that Cotyngham was in the infirmary, he was very vocal in urging me to claim Huntington at once …’

Bartholomew rounded angrily on Michael. ‘You said discussing Cotyngham would help us find Cynric, but all we have done is waste time.’

The monk nodded towards the body. ‘Examine him, and tell us exactly how he died.’

‘Why?’ exploded Bartholomew. ‘We already know that Cave killed—’

‘Cave is almost certainly irrelevant,’ Michael flared back. ‘Cynric was digging here when
Marmaduke
took him prisoner. Hence
Marmaduke
objected to what he was about to find, which tells us that
Marmaduke
knew what was buried. If you want to help Cynric, look at the body.’

Bartholomew had reached the door before accepting that Michael might have a point, and that Cotyngham might hold clues to help Cynric. He hurried back to the plaque mound, scraped the rest of the soil from the corpse, and crouched next to it. This time, Ellis was silent. The physician’s hands shook as he reached out to touch Cotyngham, a combination of cold and strain.

‘It is difficult to tell after so much time,’ he said at last. ‘But his skull is broken. Had he been alive when it happened, the wound would certainly have killed him.’

‘Good,’ said Michael encouragingly. ‘What else?’

‘Nothing else!’ cried Bartholomew in despair. ‘He has been dead too long.’

‘Easy,’ said Michael. ‘Remember that you are helping Cynric by doing this. Now take a deep breath, and look again.’

Bartholomew did as he was told, struggling to quell his rising panic. He stared at Cotyngham, but his thoughts were full of what Marmaduke might be doing to his old friend while they squandered precious moments. Suddenly something occurred to him, although it was nothing to give him any comfort.

‘Marmaduke!’ he whispered. He gazed at Michael with a stricken expression. ‘We know he can use a bow, because he had one during the riot outside Holy Trinity. And if he is familiar enough with this church to take Cynric prisoner here, then there is nothing to say that
he
is not the archer who shot Sir William.’

‘It is possible,’ conceded Michael. ‘Moreover, he told us himself that his eyesight is poor, and we have considered from the start that the culprit might not have been aiming at William, but at you – a scholar from the College that intends to have Huntington from the vicars.’

‘No!’ cried Ellis angrily. ‘If Marmaduke did try to kill Bartholomew, it was not on our orders. Besides, when we first met you, we thought Bartholomew was a servant, because he was hatless. We did not know he was a scholar until later.’

‘Hats!’ exclaimed Bartholomew, as understanding dawned. ‘The first time we met Dalfeld, he was livid because his hat and cloak had been stolen …’

‘You think the intended target was
Dalfeld
now?’ asked Michael in confusion.

‘Bartholomew and Dalfeld are the same height, and both have black curly hair,’ mused Ellis. ‘Moreover, although
Dalfeld is usually elegant, his gipon was stained and ripped that day, because a robber had pushed him over. I can see how they might have been mistaken from a distance, especially by a man with bad eyesight, and when visibility was poor because of the rain.’

‘I had no hat and was carrying my cloak because Cave had lobbed dirt at me,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It made a mess, so Sir William told me to take it off. My tunic was travel stained – it might have appeared muddy from afar.’

Michael was thoughtful. ‘I suppose it is possible that Marmaduke was expecting Dalfeld to come from the direction of the abbey, so when he saw you with William—’

‘He made a mistake,’ finished Bartholomew. ‘Or rather, two mistakes: he identified the wrong victim, and he overestimated his skill. It was windy that day, and neither the bow he stole from the city butts nor the hen-feather arrow were of decent quality. All this affected his aim.’

‘And we found the remains of bread and cheese,’ mused Michael. ‘Exactly the kind of meal that might be eaten by an ex-priest without much money – and left by a man who had waited some time for his victim to appear. I was never happy with Langelee’s contention that the would-be assassin might have enjoyed a
hurried
meal.’

‘But why would Marmaduke want to kill Dalfeld?’ asked Ellis, then he rubbed his chin and answered the question himself. ‘Recently, Dalfeld has been saying that there was more to Marmaduke’s defrocking than the peddling of false relics. And he has a point: the Church does not usually oust members for that sort of crime.’

‘So why did it happen?’ asked Michael, while Bartholomew made an agitated sound that said he thought the discussion irrelevant to Cynric.

Ellis shrugged. ‘Probably because he irritated Zouche’s other executors over his obsession with the chantry – he
kept pestering them about it. They were powerful men, and I suspect some of them encouraged Thoresby to defrock him, so they would have an excuse to ignore his nagging. But this cannot be a reason for Marmaduke wanting
Dalfeld
dead. Dalfeld is not an executor.’

‘Listen!’ Bartholomew cocked his head suddenly. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’ asked Michael. ‘There is nothing—’

‘A crash.’ Bartholomew looked around wildly. ‘It came from below us. Is there a crypt?’

‘There was,’ replied Ellis. ‘But it became unstable during the Great Pestilence, which is why none of the plague-dead were taken down there. I imagine it will have collapsed by now. But even if it has not, I would not recommend going—’

‘Where is the door?’ demanded Bartholomew, wishing he had thought of it sooner.

When Ellis hesitated, Bartholomew lunged towards him, and there was something in his eyes that warned the sub-chanter to provide a reply, because he pointed quickly to the remains of a metal gate, rusted and twisted. Beyond it were several steps that looked as though they were blocked by rubble, but when Bartholomew inspected them more carefully he saw they actually curved around a corner. And beyond them was a stone door on an elaborate system of tracks.

‘St Mary ad
Valvas
!’ breathed Michael. ‘I knew the dedication must bear some reference to a sliding door, and there it is.’

Bartholomew was about to suggest they arm themselves, when there was a sudden groan and the door rolled open. Then everything happened very fast.

He felt an arrow slice past his face and the shock of it made him jerk backwards, so he lost his footing. At the same
time, something thudded into Ellis, who promptly collapsed on top of him. This was followed by an explosion of shouting and hammering footsteps, which stopped almost as soon as it had started.

The sub-chanter’s blood was gushing all over Bartholomew, whose first instinct was to fight away from the warm, sticky flow. But some innate sense of self-preservation warned him to feign death when hands came to turn him over.

‘I got him,’ said Marmaduke. Bartholomew heard Michael’s strangled cry of grief before the ex-priest add ressed someone else. ‘And you got Ellis. Both are dead.’

‘What are you—’ began Michael unsteadily, but his question ended in a yelp.

‘No talking,’ snapped Marmaduke. ‘You should not have come here, so now you must pay the price for your curiosity. But do not worry. You will not have long to contemplate your fate.’