The Hand of Justice (14 page)

‘Nasty,’ said Michael, looking away as Bartholomew tugged the nail clear. It was long and sharp, and there were several others
just like it on a shelf near the door, so it was clear the killer had used whatever weapon was easily to hand. The monk indicated
one of the bodies with the toe of his boot. ‘He is wearing the habit of a Carmelite. Do you recognise him?’

Bartholomew took a torch from the wall and held it closely to the man’s face, to be certain before he spoke. There was a good
deal of blood, and it was difficult to make out the features of either victim. ‘I thought so,’ he said sadly. There was only
one man he knew who had taken holy orders so recently that his habit was new and unstained. ‘It is Nicholas Bottisham of Gonville
Hall.’

‘No!’ exclaimed Michael, white-faced. ‘Bottisham? Are you sure? There must be some mistake!’

‘There is not, Brother,’ said Bartholomew quietly.

Michael swallowed hard. ‘I liked him, despite the fact that his arguments were largely responsible for our defeat in yesterday’s
Disputatio
. I hope Gonville does not assume we killed him because we lost. I do not want a riot and more blood spilled. Who is the other?’

‘Deschalers,’ said Bartholomew, after a few moments with water and a cloth. ‘The grocer.’

‘Thomas Deschalers is a member of the Millers’ Society,’ said Bernarde, shocked. ‘But neither he nor the others ever come
here. All our meetings are held in the Brazen George, because they dislike flour on their fine clothes – as you will find
out tomorrow when you look at your own garments. I cannot imagine why Deschalers should be here.’ He rubbed his hand across
his mouth, unsettled and distressed. ‘He has not been well recently. Perhaps sickness addled his mind.’

Bartholomew recalled how ill the grocer had looked the previous day. ‘Rougham was his physician,’ he said, thinking about
what Deschalers himself had told him. ‘I can ask whether the sickness was one that might lead a man to do odd things, but
I doubt it was. It sounded more like a canker – agonising and debilitating, but unlikely to cause a loss of wits.’

‘The Mortimer clan are rough men, especially now Edward is back,’ said Bernarde uneasily. ‘You know we have written to the
King, to complain about them diverting our water? Perhaps they have decided to use force to take what they want, instead of
relying on the King to make a decision. Perhaps they killed Deschalers.’

‘The Mortimers seem to have done rather well out of the King so far,’ remarked Bartholomew. ‘He sold Edward a pardon.’

‘Not the King,’ said Bernarde sharply. ‘His clerks.
They
are the corrupt ones, not His Majesty. We rent this mill from the King, and I do not want treasonous comments muttered in
it, thank you very much. I do not want him to take it away from me – or to find against us in favour of the Mortimers in this
dispute about water.’

‘Never mind that now,’ said Michael. He heaved himself up from his sacks and walked unsteadily to Bottisham’s
body, where he knelt and began to fumble for the holy oil he kept in his scrip. Bartholomew and Bernarde were silent as he
said his prayers, accompanied only by the whisper of water under the wheel and the distant hoot of an owl. When the monk had
finished with Bottisham, he went to do the same for Deschalers.

‘I am sorry, Brother,’ said Bernarde softly when the monk eventually completed his sorry task. ‘I did not know Bottisham well,
but he was a kind man. He visited Isnard the bargeman several times after his accident, and took him spare food from Gonville
Hall’s kitchen.’

Michael looked away, and when he spoke, there was a catch in his voice. ‘This has not been a good week. First, there was Master
Lenne and Isnard, and now there is Bottisham.’

‘And Deschalers,’ added Bartholomew. While he had not much liked the haughty grocer, he was still saddened that he had died
in such a manner, especially given that he had been so ill. But then he thought about Bottisham, and was sorrier still. The
lawyer had been courteous and compassionate, and Cambridge would be a poorer place without his gentle, kindly humanity.

Michael took a deep breath to pull himself together. He coughed as dust caught in his throat, and gratefully accepted a gulp
of the strong wine Bartholomew kept in his bag for medicinal purposes. He tried to speak, coughed again, and drained what
was left in the flask. He handed the empty container back to his startled companion, cleared his throat, and began to speak,
becoming businesslike in an attempt to disguise his distress.

‘The question we must answer is why a wealthy and fastidious town merchant should be found dead in a mill with a lawyer from
Gonville. If Deschalers’s was the only body here, I would say you could be right, Bernarde: the Mortimers did away with him.
But his death makes no
sense when combined with the murder of poor Bottisham. He is not a member of your Society, is he?’

Bernarde shook his head. ‘Gonville scholars patronise other mills.’

Michael wiped his forehead with his linen and went to sit on the sacks again. ‘Since both these men died in an identical manner,
we must assume their deaths are related. It cannot be coincidence. But what is their connection?’

‘They have known each other for a long time,’ said Bartholomew. He had spent some of his childhood in Cambridge, whereas Michael
hailed from Causton in Norfolk and had only lived in the town for a decade or so. ‘I vaguely recall a legal matter many years
ago, which threw them together.’

Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘Can you be more precise? What kind of legal matter? What was it about? And when?’

‘A long time ago,’ repeated Bartholomew helplessly. ‘I recall my sister talking about it, but I do not remember the details.
You must ask someone else.’

‘It was something about a contested field,’ said Bernarde, scratching his head as he, too, searched distant memories. ‘Deschalers
hired Bottisham to prove that he owned some piece of land, but they lost the case. Is that the incident you mean, Bartholomew?
It
was
years ago. I imagine they would have forgotten about it by now.’

‘You are probably right,’ admitted Bartholomew. ‘An ancient lawsuit will have no bearing on what happened today. You will
need to look elsewhere for your answers, Brother.’

‘So, what else can you tell me, then?’ asked Michael. ‘Other than that they were both murdered by some deranged killer, who
then hurled their corpses into the machinery?’ He sounded angry.

But Bartholomew could add little more. He was deeply repelled by the grisly nature of the crime, although he had
been careful to maintain an outwardly professional indifference; revealing his own shock would not have helped Michael. He
was also disturbed by the disrespectful way the bodies had been treated, and was aware of a burning desire to see the perpetrator
brought to justice. However, none of this meant he could tell the monk anything useful to catch the killer – or killers –
and all he could do was speculate.

‘Perhaps Deschalers and Bottisham were pushed into the machinery to hide the fact that they had been murdered?’ he suggested
tentatively. ‘Master Bernarde said it had been disengaged for the night, which suggests someone restarted it for a reason.’

‘But it did not work,’ countered Michael. ‘You saw almost immediately what had happened with the nails.’

‘But it might have done, had Bernarde not rushed here so quickly and stopped the wheel to prevent further damage to the bodies.’

‘Did you see anyone leaving?’ asked Michael of Bernarde. ‘Or hear anything else?’

‘I heard another change in pitch as I was running towards the mill,’ replied Bernarde, still scratching his pate as he struggled
to remember. ‘That must have been the second body hitting the cogs. When I reached the outside door, it was open, so I locked
it behind me as I came in …’

‘You locked yourself inside?’ interrupted Michael. ‘Why did you do that?’

Bernarde shrugged. ‘Habit, I suppose. This is a large building, and my apprentices and I always lock the door when we are
in it alone. There is a lot of valuable grain in here – and it is especially valuable now, at the end of winter, when supplies
are low and demand is high.’ He jangled the large bunch of keys that always hung at his belt.

‘So, once the door was locked, the killer could not have escaped from inside?’ asked Michael.

‘No,’ said Bernarde. ‘But that assumes he was in here when I arrived, and he was not. No one was – other than Deschalers and
Bottisham – and I saw no one leave.’

‘Is there another door?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Or a window?’

Bernarde shook his head. ‘All the windows are shuttered for the night. You can see for yourselves that they are all barred
from the inside. That front door is the only way in or out.’

‘But you said you heard the second body fall when you were running towards the mill,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘That means
the killer
was
still inside when you arrived, or you would have seen him come through the door. He must have been here – there are a lot
of places to hide.’

‘No one was here,’ said Bernarde firmly. ‘And there are not as many hiding places as you might think, because everywhere is
full of grain right now. Also, we would be able to see footprints in the dust if someone had dashed away to hide, and you
can see there are none – other than our own. The only place a third party could have been is here, in this chamber, and then
I would have seen him.’

‘So,’ concluded Michael. ‘The killer was here when you raced towards the mill, because you heard him performing his gruesome
work, but he was not here when you arrived? He did not leave through the door, or you would have seen him, and there is no
other way out?’

‘That is correct,’ said Bernarde firmly. He had the grace to look bemused. ‘It is odd, is it not?’

‘Very,’ agreed Michael, eyeing him in an unfriendly manner. ‘If not impossible.’

‘Then perhaps there was no killer,’ suggested Bartholomew. ‘Perhaps we were right with our first theory: that Bottisham and
Deschalers killed each other.’

Michael and Bernarde started to argue. The monk was
certain Bottisham was too gentle to turn killer, while Bernarde maintained that Deschalers would have hired someone else to
commit murder and would not have done it himself. Bartholomew listened to them and became increasingly troubled. No matter
how the situation was presented, there was no mistaking the fact that a scholar and a townsman had been murdered. He hoped
their deaths would not pre-empt a bloody battle between town and University. He turned his attention to the bodies again.
He did not like the notion of them remaining in the machinery overnight, so he began the unpleasant process of extricating
them.

Bernarde watched, presumably only to ensure no harm came to his ‘delicate’ equipment, because he did not offer to help. Nor
did Michael, who immediately embarked on a search of the premises so that he would not have to see what was being done. Fortunately,
neither victim was heavy – Bottisham because he was small and Deschalers because he had been ill – and Bartholomew found he
could manage alone. It was an awkward struggle, though, and involved the use of knives and a saw at one point, but eventually
he had them laid side by side on the dusty floor, covered with sacking.

‘This is puzzling,’ he said, when he had finished. ‘I wonder how it could have happened.’

‘What do you mean?’ snapped Michael, concealing his grief with irritability. ‘You have already told us about the nails.’

‘Yes, but
how
? I cannot see Deschalers meekly standing still while Bottisham fiddled around in his mouth, looking for the right spot, no
matter how ill he was feeling.’

‘Are you saying Bottisham killed Deschalers?’ asked Michael uneasily, glancing at Bernarde, who was nodding in satisfaction.
‘Not the other way around?’

‘It would have taken considerable force to do this – not
just to ram the nail into position, but to hold the victim still in the first place. I am not sure whether Deschalers had
that kind of strength left. But Bottisham was a gentle man, and I do not see him committing such a vile crime, either.’

Michael was pensive. ‘But Bernarde’s testimony has ruled out the possibility of a third party killing them both, so logic
dictates that one must have committed a double crime: murder, then suicide. We must determine who is the victim and who is
the killer.’

‘There is no way to know, Brother.’ Bartholomew gave a helpless shrug. ‘I have no idea how to find out what really went on
here.’

Bartholomew wanted to go home after the gruesome discoveries in the mill; he was shocked by what had happened and needed some
time alone with his thoughts. But Michael had other ideas. His distress was turning to an ice-cold anger, which was galvanising
him into action, and Bartholomew could see him become more determined to solve the crime with every step that led them away
from the crushed corpses. The monk declined to answer the questions rattled at him by the waiting members of the Millers’
Society, and stalked along the dark lanes towards the Trumpington Gate. He hammered on it until Orwelle allowed him through,
then strode to Gonville Hall. He wanted to inform its scholars that Bottisham had died in mysterious circumstances before
they heard it from other sources: he wanted to gauge their reactions.

He was to be disappointed. Word of the incident had already reached Gonville, and nearly all its Fellows had gone to take
the shocking news to the Carmelite Friary. Only one, John of Ufford, was home, and his response on learning about the untimely
loss of a much-loved colleague was to set off for St Mary the Great, where he said he would
pray to the Hand of Valence Marie for Bottisham’s soul. Michael watched him go with narrowed eyes.

‘That Hand is enjoying far more popularity than is right. I must have words with William.’

‘It was stupid to make him Keeper of the University Chest,’ said Bartholomew, fully agreeing with him. ‘He is honest – there
is no question of that – but he is not to be trusted with anything religious. He is a fanatic, and that sort of zeal can be
contagious, like a virulent fever that strikes all in its path.’