The Sticklepath Strangler (2001) (38 page)

‘ “What do you mean?”

‘I said, “It won’t only be the people of the vill who will suffer, it’s going to affect the folks in the assarts and all about here.”

‘ “You threaten me?”

‘ “I’m not threatening anyone! I’m telling you the facts, man. If you starve the vill, Meg and Emma will starve with the rest of us.”

‘And that was when Ansel’s face altered. His eyes lost their concentration and he looked quite blank for a moment. And then he roared with laughter.

‘ “So you
are
trying to threaten me? Oh Alex, I am sorry, but if you think you can save a mouth or two, go ahead and starve them. She was only ever a comfortable bed for me.
Why do you think I never stayed at her assart when I came past here? No, you can starve her or kill her any way you wish, and you can drown her whelp at the same time. It will save me the
embarrassment of having to explain them to my wife.”

‘ “You are already married? You can’t be! You told Meg you’d married her!”

‘ “Oh yes, I did, didn’t I?” he said. “Never mind. She’ll soon forget. She was never very bright, was she?”

‘He left me then, still chuckling. It was clear enough what he was after. He wanted the full quantity at a set rate per bushel, which was the same cost as the previous year before the
prices all rose. That meant he would pay us between one sixth or one seventh of the actual value of the grain. The vill would never be able to replace it.

‘But he knew he could get more elsewhere. It was as plain as the nose on his face that what he really wanted was money. Purveyors always do. They prefer to line their pockets than do the
King’s work.

‘In the end we settled on three shillings and tenpence. It was all I could promise to collect in a short time, and he gave me a few days to collect it. He said he would wait at the inn and
rest until I found it. Afterwards I heard that he had spent much of his time with poor Meg. She can never have known how he spoke of her, prepared to see her starve, and her child, for his own
profit, the bigamous son of a poxed ferret!

‘It took me almost a week to cajole, wheedle and threaten the money out of everyone. There were many who had nothing, but some of the locals had a few pennies stashed away, and generally I
knew who they were, but it was hard. Very hard. No one had that much. This one man was taking another’s yearly income – more! – in a bribe. Extortion, that’s what it was.
Give me all your money, or I’ll take all your food and leave you to starve. What a choice! But what choice do we have? We are serfs, villeins, peasants – call us what you will. Our
lives are not our own. I once heard a smartly dressed Prior riding through the vill, and when he looked at us all, he overheard a man talking about the cattle we owned, this was before the murrain,
of course, when we lost the herd, and this
churl
, this man of God! Do you know what he said?’

Alexander was all but spitting now at the memory of that fool on his great horse, fat and smug in his velvets and furs and silks, peering about him disdainfully.

‘He said: “These fellows are slaves. All they own is their bellies.”

‘ “Their bellies”! Well, all we owned then was our hunger, and fear of dying. I had seen my wife die, and my two boys, during the famine. They were all I ever loved, and I
wasn’t alone.’

‘This is most interesting, but perhaps you could come to the point?’ Sir Laurence yawned.

Alexander looked at him, his face carefully composed. Sir Laurence was no better than that Prior: a knight like him had no sympathy for the sufferings of the poor. If the whole of Sticklepath
were to perish, Sir Laurence might utter a few words of polite commiseration to Lord Hugh de Courtenay for the loss of his serfs, but that would be all. Peasants mattered less to him than his
hunting dogs.

The Reeve swallowed his frustration. ‘The point is, I got him his money, and he took it and returned to the tavern for the night. Except he didn’t stay there. I went there myself
later that evening, only to be told that he had left. I saw Meg the day after, and she was asking where he had gone. She’d been expecting him to turn up at her place the evening before. Poor
maid, she was tearful and distressed. He’d cleared off – that was obvious. I didn’t worry myself about it. At least I ’d saved the vill from his greed. But that night his
body was found lying in the valley leading up to Belstone.’

Alexander didn’t look over his shoulder. At this moment he knew he held Drogo’s ballocks in his hand. He could almost hear the Forester’s tension, like a bowstring ready to
snap, but he was damned if he would accept all the responsibility. He wouldn’t be the fall guy for Drogo.

‘I knew it was Ansel. He’d been throttled with a thong, a simple strip of hide, and dumped.’

‘And?’ Baldwin asked keenly.

‘Sir Baldwin, please don’t interrupt his fascinating speech,’ Sir Laurence pleaded.

Alexander sighed. ‘Yes. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d been eaten, too. Not by animals. I mean, dogs and the like had chewed at him and his eyes had been pecked out, but
those wounds couldn’t hide the fact that a man had butchered him.

‘It was too much to bear. I knew that the result would be more than a straight fine: this could cost the vill very dearly, perhaps even cause us all to starve to death. I’m not
joking, Keeper. You remember how bad that famine was?

‘So . . . I had to choose, and as Reeve, I chose life for the vill. I deliberately hid the body. I found a shovel and buried him, and I came home and . . . God! Won’t those damned
hounds ever shut up?’

Baldwin eyed the silent man at the wall. ‘Did anyone help you?’

‘Drogo did. It was he and his Foresters who found the body,’ Alexander said firmly.

‘You fucking—’ Drogo’s forward leap was halted by Baldwin’s bright blue sword, which was suddenly at the exposed gap between his jack and his hose. He could feel
the razor-sharp point at his groin.

‘Did this Purveyor have a purse on him?’ Simon asked. ‘Could the butchery have been to hide a robbery? I’ve known Foresters who’ve turned to robbery
themselves.’

‘Whoever killed him certainly took the purse.’

‘This is most intriguing. I have all I need,’ Sir Laurence said, rising.

‘Wait, Sir Laurence.’ Coroner Roger smiled politely. ‘I am the Coroner, and this witness is helping me to conduct an inquest.’

‘Without a jury?’

‘That will be organised tomorrow, or perhaps the day after,’ the Coroner said happily, knowing that the knight would not want to wait more than a single day.

‘I see,’ Sir Laurence said. He gave a faint smile and nodded to the Coroner, acknowledging that he had lost, and resettled himself in his seat with a good grace, waving a hand and
murmuring, ‘Please continue.’

Coroner Roger nodded. ‘So you say Drogo was First Finder?’

‘Yes. Him and his men. They fetched me.’

Drogo felt the colour rising to his cheeks. He hated this: he had expected the Reeve to mention him, but then it had appeared that Alexander wasn’t going to. Now he knew his fear was
plain. His face always reddened at the drop of a hat; it didn’t matter a damn whether he was entirely innocent or not, it was the mixture of embarrassment and irritation that mingled to bring
on his flush. Vin’s eyes were on him, too, but he daren’t look at the lad.

Baldwin asked, ‘Where exactly was the body?’

‘Under some furze near the river.’

To Baldwin, Drogo looked like a man who was losing his temper quickly. ‘What do you say, Drogo?’

‘It’s true that I found him. I sent my man to fetch the Reeve and stood with the body until he returned, and when he did, I carried the corpse with the Reeve and buried it with
him.’

‘Who was sent?’

‘Adam.’

‘You confirm this, Adam?’

‘Yes. On my oath.’

Drogo said, ‘The Reeve was worried, of course. We both were. I sent Adam and Peter away and fetched a shovel myself. Then I started digging.’

‘Where?’

Alexander smiled without amusement. ‘You remember I told you that the wall kept falling where Aline was found? It is all too common. Probably because of the tree roots there. Anyway, the
wall had just been rebuilt. All we had to do was dig down a short way in the soft soil and put the body in.’

‘What? Aline was buried in the same grave? That was why you saw different material where Aline had lain, Simon!’ Baldwin realised.

‘Yes. Dig a little deeper; you’ll find him.’

Baldwin looked at him very closely. ‘And then this girl was buried on top of him by someone who knew that Ansel was already there. It was the perfect hiding place for Aline, wasn’t
it? Somewhere the Reeve himself would have been careful to make sure was
never
searched. Is that right? You prevented people from searching that place for Aline’s body?’

‘Nobody suggested it,’ Alexander said heavily.

‘But the person who concealed her there must have known about Ansel,’ cried Simon. ‘It’s too improbable that someone could have buried the girl on top of an existing
grave without knowing it. The burial right there must have been conducted by someone who had been involved in hiding Ansel. And that means you, Reeve, or you, Forester.’

Reeve Alexander stared at Drogo for a moment. ‘I swear I did not kill Aline.’

Drogo’s face was suffused an angry-looking crimson. ‘Are you saying I did? Do you accuse me in front of all these people, Reeve?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t kill her myself, that’s all I know.’

‘Well, neither did I! And there were no other people there so far as I recall.’

‘Hold, Forester!’ Simon called loudly. For a moment he had thought that the Reeve was going to launch himself at Drogo. Clearly Adam thought the same. He had set a hand on his knife
hilt as though readying himself to pull it free. Vincent had drawn away. Simon could see that he hadn’t learned the first rule of fighting: never retreat, always go in aggressively; when
fists might begin to fly, don’t step back, but go in close.

Drogo stood clenching and unclenching his fists. ‘I didn’t harm that girl.’

‘We already know that Ivo saw the Reeve there. Perhaps someone else did too,’ Simon said. ‘And seeing that, later realised that they had a perfect grave. First, who could have
hated Ansel enough to kill him?’

‘How would you feel about a bent official like him?’ Drogo sneered. ‘He was the dregs, the bastard. I’ve vomited more powerful stuff than him, the pus-filled bag of
wind.’

Baldwin and Simon exchanged a look, and seeing it, Drogo suddenly realised his peril. ‘Of course I didn’t like him, but that’s not the same as murdering him! I knew he was
going. Why should I kill him?’

Simon cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps because you wanted the money? You were alone with the Reeve to bury the man, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you had men with you when you found him?’

‘Peter and Adam, yes.’

Simon’s eyes narrowed. ‘What of the other man in your team? Vincent – where were you?’

Vincent blinked in genuine surprise. ‘Me? I was off at my own bailiwick, I suppose. It’s a long time ago.’

‘So you weren’t there with Drogo. The other members of the team were, but not you.’

‘So what?’ Adam rasped. He had stepped forward, and now he glowered from one to another. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘This: that Vincent didn’t know where the body was buried; because he wasn’t there. Peter and you were sent away, but you could have been interested enough to return and watch
what the Reeve and Drogo were doing, couldn’t you? And then later, perhaps, you killed a girl and buried her in the same place.’

Adam’s mouth moved, but then he shook his head slowly. ‘It could as easily have been the Forester here or the Reeve who killed the girl and buried her there. Anyway, I didn’t
go and watch them. I went to the inn with Peter, and a short while later Vin turned up as well.’

‘Did you ask where he’d been?’ Baldwin pressed.

‘I had other things on my mind,’ Adam sneered. ‘Christ! Me and Peter had just found a body.’

‘Did you tell Vin? Did he leave you? Could he have gone to watch?’ Simon asked with some excitement.

‘No, Bailiff. Peter left not long after, though.’

‘Perhaps Peter went up there to watch,’ Simon said. ‘He could have sneaked up there and seen the two men digging, and later he might have realised it would be a perfect hiding
place for Aline.’

‘But what of his own daughter? She was the first girl to be found,’ Reeve Alexander said.

‘It is not unknown for a child to be murdered by her father,’ Baldwin said.

‘Why should he kill Ansel?’

‘For the same reason anyone else in the vill could have,’ Simon pointed out. ‘None of you would have been keen to have had a man like him demanding bribes. And Peter was
hungry, just like the rest of you. Hatred and hunger are powerful motives.’

‘Christ Jesus! Will those hounds never be silent?’ Coroner Roger muttered under his breath.

Baldwin knew how he felt. The atmosphere was thick, as though there was a thunderstorm on the way, and the hall was charged with emotion and fear. Drogo looked anxious, but then so did all of
the vill’s men. Sticklepath was like a place under siege, rather like Acre just before the collapse. Yet there were no armies at the gates, only the ghosts of victims.

He decided to change tack. Picking up the fragment of arrow, he stood turning it in his hands. There was little which could be learned from so old a weapon. It had been used some six years ago,
if the story told by Meg and Serlo was to be believed. Looking up, he saw Drogo’s eyes were on it. ‘Who uses peacock’s feathers in his arrows?’

‘I do,’ Drogo admitted.

‘Do you recognise this?’

‘It could be one of mine. I can’t be certain.’

‘This was one of the arrows used to murder Athelhard, Meg’s brother.’

Drogo bit at his lip.

‘You and your Foresters helped to kill him, didn’t you?’

There was silence. Drogo stared down at the arrow with a face that whitened visibly. ‘This is the devil’s own work,’ he muttered, but there was a thick, husky note in his
voice.

‘What does that mean?’ Simon demanded.