The Sticklepath Strangler (2001) (37 page)

‘You have Sir Baldwin to thank for your freedom, Thomas. Now piss off and leave us in peace. I’ll want you to appear before the next court, but until then, keep out of my
sight,’ Alexander rasped.

‘No! Wait,’ Baldwin commanded. ‘I want an end to this. Thomas, you fought with your brother today?’

‘I didn’t want to, but he made me, insulting me and my wife until I saw red. I couldn’t help it. You know me, Reeve. I’ve never got into fights before, have I? I’m
not the sort to resort to my fists after a drink. Drogo and his Foresters are often quarrelling with other men in the tavern, and Samson always used to brawl, but nobody has ever suggested that I
was violent, have they?’

‘Why should your brother want to provoke you into fighting?’ Roger asked.

‘He wants my wife. If he could have me hanged, he could take her,’ Thomas explained.

‘Your own brother would do that?’

‘He’s wanted Nicole since the day he met her.’

Baldwin said, ‘Thomas, I think your brother will leave you alone now. You have broken his head and he has confessed to us. Perhaps you have knocked some sense into him. Anyway, he has
gone.’

‘I never want to see him again.’

The couple made as if to leave, but Baldwin’s soft voice stopped them.

‘One last thing. Thomas, you have been accused of murder, and you have been gaoled because of a fight which was not your fault. Why? What have you done to deserve this?’

‘Ask
him
,’ Thomas said disdainfully, jerking his head at the Reeve. ‘He’s been hunting me down for no reason.’

‘Rubbish!’

‘You tried to have me arrested – twice now. And why? Just because I wasn’t born here in Sticklepath. The men of my own vill have had me thrown into gaol, they would have had me
accused of murder and hanged, just to protect their friends here. They hate me not because I am a danger, but merely to serve their own interests. Why, Reeve, eh? What have I ever done to
you?’ There were tears in his eyes now, tears of frustration and incomprehension.

It was Simon who answered, speaking with the weary air of a man who has witnessed injustice before. ‘That’s just the point, Thomas. You are an outsider. You didn’t merit
protection, not in his eyes, because you weren’t a friend he’d grown up with.’

‘Is this true?’ Baldwin demanded, facing Alexander. ‘You sought this man’s imprisonment to protect your vill?’

‘And what better motivation could there be? It would have proved that we don’t tolerate murderers here, it would have explained things neatly! And without staining the character of
the people and the vill itself. Thomas is a stranger here. A foreigner.’

‘Oh yes, and I came from the north, didn’t I?’

‘What does that mean?’ Baldwin asked.

Simon sighed. ‘Everyone knows that only bad luck comes from the north.’

‘Oh!’ Baldwin sneered. ‘More
superstition
.’

The Reeve said, ‘Who else could I arrest? There was no one in Sticklepath who could do such a terrible thing as killing the girls and eating them.’

Vin heard his words and could not help but glance at Drogo. The Forester had been in the area with every fresh body discovered, and he never seemed to suffer from hunger, not even at the height
of the famine. As the thought occurred Drogo’s cold eyes met his, and Vincent looked away. Drogo made a bad enemy.

There had been silence after Alexander’s words, but now Nicole ducked her head and spoke to Baldwin with her head lowered as though fearful, her eyes avoiding the knight’s.

‘Sir, there is one man I have heard who might have been guilty. The Reeve himself.’

‘How dare you!’ Alexander said, his voice growing in volume as the anger flared in his breast. He felt as though his chest must burst with rage. ‘You accuse me?’

‘Speak!’ Baldwin said.

‘It was Ivo who told me. He said that he had a hold over the Reeve because of something he had seen many years ago – that the Reeve had killed a man, and Ivo had seen him.’

‘That’s a lie! I didn’t kill the Purveyor!’

‘That’s not what Ivo said,’ Nicole said firmly. ‘You passed the blame to my poor Thomas to protect yourself.’

‘How did you hear of his guilt?’ the Coroner asked her.

‘Ivo told me that if I would leave my husband, he would see to it that the Reeve would not support Thomas but would declare our marriage annulled.’

‘The Reeve doesn’t have that power,’ Simon grunted.

‘That may not prevent an arrogant shit like Ivo from telling it to the woman he hankers after,’ Coroner Roger pointed out. ‘Many a man will promise the target of his affections
that black is white if it gives him an opportunity to lie with her.’

Sir Laurence said, ‘Wonderful! Reeve, you are a man of enterprise and determination! To throw all suspicion onto other men so swiftly, that is the act of a genius.’

‘I didn’t kill him. I have never killed any man,’ Reeve Alexander said woodenly. The fight was gone. He knew now that he was dead. There was no one to protect him. ‘And I
didn’t kill the girls.’

‘I don’t care about the girls, whoever they may be. No, I need only concern myself with the body of Ansel. Where did you bury him? Won’t talk? Never mind. We shall find
him.’

‘Oh, all right!’ Alexander sighed and allowed his head to fall into his hands a moment, collecting his thoughts, before speaking through his fingers. As he spoke, he lifted his head
a little way, so that he could meet Baldwin’s gaze. All the time he was aware of Drogo behind him, listening carefully.

Before he could rally his thoughts, he saw Baldwin eyeing him with a contemplative expression while he fiddled with the thong tying his purse.

‘This can wait until the morning, can’t it?’ Drogo said gruffly.

Baldwin looked into his eyes as he pulled out the splinter of arrow and threw it onto the table in front of Alexander. There was a sudden silence in the room, and Baldwin watched Drogo’s
eyes go blank with shock.

The Forester knew that his own fate was sealed.

Peter atte Moor was uncomfortable in his bed. Although he was exhausted after the last two nights of patrolling his bailiwick, watching and listening for any sign of trouble,
sleep evaded him.

Once he had been a cheerful, tolerant man, but all that had changed one afternoon. One moment’s passion, and his life had been infected, his soul branded, and now all he could do was seek
out evil and destroy it. He must fine felons and see them hanged. It was his vocation, it was his only road to salvation. It was his penance.

The others couldn’t understand. Peter had been born and bred here, like Drogo and Adam, but they had lived most of their time down in the vill, not up on the moors like him. He knew how
capricious the moors could be. They could tempt a man to go and investigate them, and then, once he was miles from safety, they would strike; a mist would come down, so swiftly that he had no time
to take his bearings, and so thick that he couldn’t see two paces in front of him – and then the wandering soul would be led to a mire from which there could be no escape.

Peter had been tempted once – they all were, every now and again – but his temptation had caused his destruction.

It was a girl. He saw her up at the extreme end of his bailiwick, where a stream had been dammed to create a large pool. Massive rocks behind were drizzled with water which cascaded gently down,
making the rocks glow in the sunshine as though they were made of glass. It was a beautiful place. Peter had always adored it, and seeing the girl there made him feel as though it had been
blighted. This was his own private hollow, and she had ruined it for him.

She clambered from the pool, stood on the edge, and jumped straight back in. Tall, with long, pale limbs, and thick brown hair that looked almost black now it was wet, she was utterly beautiful,
breathtakingly so. Peter had felt his heart thunder in his chest like a caged lion.

He had gone down to her, his eyes feasting on her as she climbed once more from the pool, shaking her head free of water, self-absorbed and unaware of his presence. There was a rushing in his
ears. This girl had appeared from nowhere, as though she was a gift from God, an angel dropped into his bailiwick. When he reached her, there was a strange feeling in his head, as though he was
more than half drunk, and there was a weirdness about everything. He could hear nothing. Certainly she must have protested, must have asked him to leave her, for he knew she struck at him and
opened her mouth as though to scream, but he couldn’t remember anything about it. He didn’t hear her. It was as though his hearing was cut off. All he was aware of was a high-pitched
whistling noise in his ears, which overwhelmed all other sounds.

It didn’t take long. Afterwards, he knew he was defiled and so was his hollow. She had been a virgin, that was obvious as he surveyed her immature, weeping form on the grass before him,
and, realising what he had done, he was sick. The noise in his ears had gone, his lust had flown, and he was left appalled and terrified. A small, frightened man who had lost his life’s
direction in a moment of passion.

Later, he heard that her body had been found by a lay brother from the convent. The girl had been a novice nun, and it was thought that she had slipped on a rock and knocked her head, falling
unconscious and drowning. For all he knew it was true: he hadn’t killed her, and he felt sorrow that she had died. He prayed it hadn’t been suicide. He wanted to confess his sin to the
Parson, but somehow didn’t feel he could. The rape of the novice was a crime which must wait to be confessed until he lay on his deathbed, begging Absolution before dying.

God’s punishment was dreadful. For his sins, his family were to pay with their lives. Within a year his wife died, leaving him to bring up their daughter Denise alone. And then she too
died, murdered in the cruellest way. Never again could he know contentment. Now his only comfort was walking about his bailiwick; guilt his constant companion. He couldn’t even enjoy a whore!
Not after Exeter.

Peter had ravished a Bride of Christ, and he must suffer the weight of God’s displeasure. All he could do to win favour from God was seek out other felons and make them pay for their sins.
But although he found pleasure in seeing them destroyed, it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

He turned restlessly. His body, his very soul, ached with exhaustion, but when he closed his eyes, his brain refused to shut off. And then he realised why – it was the noise from the
blasted hounds of Samson.

He almost prayed that he might be finally punished and released from this hell. Death would be a reward he could embrace with thanks.

Baldwin stood staring at Drogo for a moment, then he looked down at Alexander. ‘Remember that, Reeve?’

‘I couldn’t give a tinker’s fart for all this,’ Sir Laurence said. ‘All that matters is that this man is accused of the murder of Ansel de Hocsenham. Is that
correct?’

‘Yes,’ Nicole said. ‘He told me that he had control over the Reeve because he saw the Reeve burying the Purveyor’s body. The Reeve had killed him, and Ivo swore not to
tell anyone, but the Reeve obeyed his whims, he said.’

‘Well, Alexander?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Jesus Christ! All right,’ Alexander sighed. ‘Yes, Ivo Bel found me out on the Oakhampton road with a shovel. Next day the Purveyor was missing, and yes, I had hidden him. But
I didn’t kill him.’

‘Was he stabbed?’ Baldwin asked.

‘No. Strangled.’

‘Don’t interrupt, good Sir Baldwin,’ Sir Laurence said. ‘Let’s have the whole story, eh? From the beginning.’

Alexander ignored him and spoke to the Coroner. ‘It was the beginning of the famine. Ansel had been the Purveyor for years. He’d got Meg with pup two years before, but when the
famine was really hurting, he arrived just when the harvest had failed, looking like a drowned kitten, bedraggled and soaked. I recall it was a Wednesday when he rode into the vill, and the rain
was pouring down. It did every day that summer, or so it seemed, and the summer after. The weather didn’t settle down until this year.’

Baldwin grunted. ‘You reckon this year is settled?’ he said, as he remembered warm, balmy days in the Mediterranean.

Alexander wasn’t listening. ‘He demanded a vast amount of grain, although he knew full well that we couldn’t supply it, for he could see how poor our store was. I didn’t
realise what he was up to at first, I thought he simply didn’t understand. My Christ, I even took him to the ovens to show him how poor the grain was, how water-sodden it was, and he nodded
and said he understood.’

The bastard! He’d just stood there with that supercilious smile, agreeing that the harvest had been shite, and then he’d put his boot in, saying that the King still needed to feed
his army, and it was the duty of all
loyal
subjects to supply his wants. As if the King could give a fig for the people of Sticklepath! Edward was too interested in his boyfriends to care
about a vill collapsing and the people dying.

‘I explained, I reasoned, I pleaded and I begged. Christ! I all but crawled on my knees to him, but the Purveyor didn’t want to understand. I can see him right now. As I spoke, the
shutters came across his eyes.

‘I told him: “Ansel, if you do this we’ll starve.”

‘He said, “That is a great shame.”

‘ “Look at the people here, you’re sentencing them to death, man! Can’t you see that?”

‘ “All I want is the grain, Reeve. And you must supply it.”

‘He was stiff and matter-of-fact, glancing casually at the people labouring out in the quagmire that had once been a field. He didn’t give a damn.

‘ “Ansel,
please
!” I said. “This is me – Alex – you’re talking to. Look at me! The folk here are already suffering from scurvy and starvation;
you can see it in their faces, you can see the way the kids are becoming listless. We had two children die last month. Both of my sons are weak. Do you want to execute the whole vill?”

‘ “I’ve got nothing to do with it. If you’re hungry, you should improve your husbandry.”

‘ “Come on, Ansel! There’s nothing to eat. You take our food and we’ll die. And not just the folk here, either.”