The Tainted Relic (44 page)

‘Are you certain of his guilt? Sure enough to see him hang?’

Michael raised his hands, palms upward. ‘That is for a jury to decide. But the diagram and the hidden soporifics are damning, Matt. Even you must see that. And do not forget we are still missing Kip Roughe. It would not surprise me if his corpse were to appear sooner or later, too.’

‘Then you are going to be disappointed,’ said Bartholomew, pointing across the street. ‘Because there he is, and his brother John is with him.’

Michael shot across the road to apprehend the servants. The pair looked distinctly uneasy when they saw the monk bearing down on them and, for a moment, looked as though they might run. But they held their ground, and waited until he reached them.

‘You have been missing,’ said Michael without preamble. ‘We were afraid something untoward had happened to you.’

‘Something did,’ replied Kip harshly. ‘Tomas.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Did he try to harm you?’

‘Several times,’ replied John. ‘He shot a crossbow at us one night, as we were leaving a tavern. It was a good thing Kip had not swallowed as much ale as me, or I would not be talking to you now–he pushed me to safety. Then Tomas rode a horse at us, aiming to crush us under its hoofs. He is a dangerous man, Brother, and I am relieved you have him under lock and key.’

‘We heard the good news a few moments ago,’ elaborated Kip. ‘We have been hiding in a cousin’s house, terrified that he might try again.’

‘Why did you not tell me this sooner?’ demanded Michael.

‘Would you have believed two servants over a friar?’ asked Kip scornfully. ‘Of course not! He would have told you that
we
attacked
him
, and then it would have been
us
at the gibbet. Still, we hear you have proper evidence against him now.’

‘We do,’ acknowledged Michael.

Bartholomew was not so sure. ‘Bulmer said it was you who were trying to kill Tomas, not the other way around–
you
shot the arrow and rode the horse. He said you and he were suspicious of Tomas, and were stalking him together.’

‘When we learned Bulmer felt the same way as us, we offered to combine forces,’ admitted John. ‘But Bulmer proved too hot headed. He intended to murder Tomas, while all we wanted was to watch him and see what he did. We were arguing about it when the horse crashed into him.’

‘Bulmer’s jaw,’ said Bartholomew, remembering. ‘I said at the time that it did not look like an injury from a punch. He was hit by a horse?’

‘A horse ridden by Tomas.’ John nodded. ‘We said Bulmer should tell Morden what had happened, but he was afraid Tomas would smother him in his sickbed.’

‘All this is most interesting,’ said Michael. ‘And I shall ask you to repeat it in front of a jury when Tomas is brought to trial. But we are still missing the relic. Do you know where it is?’

‘Tomas must have it,’ said John. ‘Was it not among his belongings?’

‘Not that I saw.’

‘He has hidden it, then,’ declared Kip. His face dissolved into an expression of fury. ‘I detest that man and his sly ways. He came here to spy, you know. He intended to take tales to the Master-General about the Cambridge priory, and have it closed down over this Holy Blood nonsense. He
says
he is from Pécs, but old Father Andrew once lived in Pécs and
he
said Tomas was never there. I imagine that is why Tomas made an end of him.’

Bartholomew knew he was lying. ‘Andrew would have said no such thing–he had no reason to deny his former student’s existence, especially to servants. Besides, Tomas did not have the relic when he gave Urban last rites, but Urban definitely had it with him in the graveyard, because he told us so.’

‘Andrew’s relic is just a splinter,’ said Kip, eyeing him angrily. ‘Tomas could have hidden it anywhere on his person.’

‘No, he could not,’ argued Bartholomew. ‘He removed his habit to cover Urban, and he has no purse.’

‘He wears a shift, though,’ persisted John. ‘It could have been there, in some secret fold. He probably took off his habit just to “prove” he had not stolen the relic. As we said, he is cunning–he never does anything without some sinister motive.’

‘How do you know the relic is a splinter?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Have you seen it out of its vial?’

‘Oh, yes,’ replied Kit carelessly. ‘Big Thomas asked us to open the box–before Urban asked for it back again–and I took it out then. It is nothing to look at–just a bit of wood, stained black at one end.’

‘You touched it?’ asked Bartholomew uneasily.

‘Only for a moment.’ Kip had the grace to look sheepish. ‘Big Thomas was going to sell it to an abbey, and share the profits with us, but Urban took it away before we could damn our souls. I expect the curse led us to be tempted by the Devil.’

‘You touched it?’ asked Bartholomew again.

Kip regarded him sombrely. ‘For the shortest of moments. But do not be concerned: Barzak’s curse will not affect me. Even Little Tomas admits it only kills the wicked.’

‘I have some excellent French wine in my room,’ said Michael, watching the two servants swagger away. ‘We should share it, to celebrate our success.’

‘I do not want to celebrate,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I want to think. There are too many people telling me what I should and should not believe–and nearly all of it is contradictory. None of the tales fit together. Tomas said Kip and John attacked him with a crossbow–and so did Bulmer–but now the brothers say it was the other way around.’

‘Tomas is a killer, Matt,’ said Michael patiently. ‘He will say anything to shift the blame away from himself, and it has worked admirably until now.’

‘I want to visit St Bernard’s Hostel,’ said Bartholomew. The hostel was only a few steps along High Street. ‘I need to examine the place where Witney died again.’

Michael sighed. ‘It is too hot to go on fools’ errands. I accept there are loose ends and questions that have not been answered, but we have been in this position before. It is no good looking for logical explanations when you have a clever man like Tomas as your culprit.’

‘There
is
, Brother,’ insisted Bartholomew, knocking at the hostel door. ‘Tomas is a theologian and a scholar–he lives by logic. Of course we should look for logic in any crimes he is accused of committing.’

The door was opened by a servant who had the heavy-eyed gaze of someone who had enjoyed too much ale with his midday meal. Bartholomew pushed past him and made his way to the chamber in which Witney had died. The servant did not seem to care, and returned to the kitchen to resume his post-prandial nap. When Bartholomew and Michael reached the hall, Seton was there, sitting in a window seat and nodding drowsily over a religious tract which lay open on his knees.

‘I hear you arrested Witney’s murderer,’ he said. ‘It is a pity you did not catch him before he claimed another two lives. I did not like Andrew and Urban, but it is unfortunate they had to die before the case was resolved.’

‘It was,’ replied Michael coldly, disliking the implication that his inefficiency had resulted in additional victims.

Seton saw that his barb had hit its mark and smiled nastily. Then he gestured to a corner, where two packs had been carelessly stuffed with various items of clothing. ‘Since there was no one else to do it, I gathered up what belonged to them. Perhaps you could arrange for it to be collected?’

Bartholomew inspected the scruffy bags. ‘This is everything?’

‘They did not own much.’

‘What is this?’ asked Bartholomew, prising a glass container from a pouch that had been sewn inside the older of the two packs. ‘Medicine?’

‘Andrew told me it was poppy syrup, which eased the pain of an old wound and allowed him to sleep. I saw him swallow most of what he had left the morning he died.’

Bartholomew raised the phial to his nose and smelled the dregs: poppy syrup. ‘You have a problem, Brother. This phial is virtually identical to the one I found with Andrew’s body. However, it is considerably smaller than the ones you discovered under Tomas’s bed.’

‘So what?’ demanded Michael.

‘I only ever saw Andrew drink from that kind of container,’ said Seton. ‘They all have a strange pinkish colour; I remember them well.’

‘I suspect we were right about Andrew’s death in the first place,’ said Bartholomew, sitting on a bench with the bottle in his hand. ‘Andrew was in pain, and regularly swallowed poppy syrup as a palliative. Now we have Seton telling us he imbibed a hefty dose–all his remaining supply–before he died, which explains the contracted pupils. I think Andrew took his own life, just as we thought. He jumped into the river–hard and straight, as Urban described–and he drowned because he was unable to raise his head. But Tomas had nothing to do with it.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Michael, reluctantly. ‘But he still killed Witney and Urban.’

Bartholomew was thoughtful. ‘Do you still have that diagram?’

Michael rummaged in his scrip, and produced it with a flourish.

‘Where did you get that?’ demanded Seton, trying to snatch it away from him. His eyes narrowed. ‘Big Thomas!’

Several facts came together in Bartholomew’s mind. ‘Unless I am very much mistaken, this picture belonged to Witney.’

‘What if it did?’ demanded Seton angrily. ‘What business is it of yours?’

‘It is very much our business,’ said Bartholomew softly. ‘It proves Witney had more than a passing interest in that chimney. The picture was among Tomas’s possessions, but he was astonished when you found it, Brother. I think someone else put it there–just as someone else left the wrongly sized, wrongly coloured medicine phials for you to discover.’

Michael narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you saying someone placed evidence in a way that was deliberately intended to mislead me?’

Bartholomew nodded. ‘Tomas is an easy target, because he is a foreigner, and everyone is suspicious of outsiders. No one was surprised when he was revealed to be the killer–shocked, but not surprised. However, he is innocent.’

‘I do not see how you can claim all this from a drawing,’ said Michael. ‘It—’

‘I see exactly what happened now. Witney was planning to do something untoward on the roof. The harness and the pile of missiles were his, not Tomas’s–just as this diagram was his. And his interest in the chimney explains why he was found dead with his head sticking up it.’

‘You are wrong,’ said Seton, although his voice lacked conviction. ‘Witney was not interested in the chimney because he wanted to kill someone, but because a savage draught whistled down it. He told me so when I found him poking about up it once.’

‘Then you are not the only one who caught him doing something odd involving the roof,’ mused Bartholomew. ‘So did Urban, although he did not understand its significance. He found Witney with a ladder, and Witney fabricated some tale about a pigeon’s nest. But the reality was that he was about to ascend to the roof to set his lethal trap with stones. He pretended to be inept at climbing when Urban saw him–the boy ended up knocking down the nest himself. But do you remember what Kip Roughe said about the people who had recently borrowed Bene’t’s long ladder, Brother?’

‘That Witney had done so
once or twice
,’ said Michael. ‘If his purpose had been just to rid himself of a noisy pigeon, once would have sufficed.’ He turned to Seton with considerable anger. ‘Why did you not tell us about his interest in the chimney before? Surely, you must have seen it was pertinent to my enquiries?’

‘It was irrelevant,’ snapped Seton. ‘The poor man was
murdered
!’

‘I am not so sure about that,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You and Urban both noticed his fascination with the roof–and with the relic. Andrew said he had tried to take it by force, and I think he was telling the truth. Witney was a fanatic, passionate about the Holy Blood debate and, contrary to his Order’s teachings, believed blood relics should be destroyed. He took it upon himself to oblige, but first, he had to dispatch its owner.’

Seton rubbed his eyes tiredly. ‘I did see him covered in thatching once. He told me he had been looking for pigeon eggs as a surprise for my supper. But then he was murdered, and…’

‘He was
not
murdered,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He set his trap with loose masonry in the chimney, and then came to see if it would work. Perhaps it was a freak gust of wind, or perhaps it really was Barzac’s curse, but a stone fell just as he happened to look up it. The rock did not kill him, but the soot that tumbled down with it did. It was an accident and Tomas had nothing to do with it. Someone else hid the diagram among his possessions, to mislead Michael.’

‘Big Thomas,’ said Seton heavily. ‘Witney gave the diagram to Big Thomas before he died.’

‘Big Thomas was a thatcher,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He knows about roofs, and I heard Witney arguing with him about thatching in the High Street. I imagine the picture was central to that row?’

Seton looked as though he would continue to deny the allegations, but a glance at Michael’s stern, forbidding expression convinced him to prevaricate no longer. ‘Witney was rash enough to show it to Big Thomas–he told him he was going to pay for St Bernard’s roof to be replaced, but that he needed the opinion of a professional thatcher before he parted with money. However, Big Thomas claimed the scale was wrong or some such stupid thing. He would not listen when Witney said scale was unimportant, and was determined to have his say. We might still be there, forced to listen to his deranged ranting about angles and pitch, if Tomas of Pécs had not rescued us.’

‘Poor Tomas,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Witney’s death was an accident, Andrew killed himself and Tomas has an alibi for Urban’s demise. You should let him go, Brother: he had nothing to do with any of it.’

‘But there are still loose ends,’ complained Michael, as they walked towards the proctors’ prison to release the hapless Dominican.

‘You said that did not matter when we arrested Tomas,’ said Bartholomew. ‘So, logic dictates that it should not matter now he is innocent.’

Michael shot him a black look. ‘You can show that no one killed Andrew and Witney, but Urban is another matter. He told us on his deathbed that someone tripped him with the sole intention of forcing him on to the shoe-scraper.’