The Sticklepath Strangler (2001) (20 page)

‘How did he reach it?’ Roger asked, glancing at the wheel. It was massive, at least five feet in diameter, far too big for a man to reach over.

‘From that window,’ she said, pointing. There was a small hole in the wall with no shutter to close it, almost concealed behind the wheel itself. ‘He leaned out, and he was
slapping the grease onto the axle when he slipped.’ There were more tears, but then she sniffed hard. ‘He tried to reach up with his hand to save himself, but it was filled with grease,
and he couldn’t hold himself. He . . . he fell, and I saw the wheel come around and . . .’

‘That’s enough, mistress. I am sorry about your loss,’ the Coroner said. ‘Has anyone anything else to add?’

Simon cast an eye over the waiting people, but there was no movement. Nobody stepped forward to speak. Baldwin was silent, although Simon saw his attention was fixed on the woman with faint
puzzlement.

‘Was no one else near when he fell?’ the Coroner asked again. ‘No? In that case I shall declare that I am certain that there was no crime here. Misadventure. How much is the
wheel worth?’

The men before him shuffled their feet and looked at each other, and then Alexander, with a face like a man who had bitten into a crabapple thinking it was a pear, suggested, ‘Perhaps
tuppence? It’s a very old wheel.’

Simon kept his face blank, and when he glanced about him, he saw that Baldwin was studiously avoiding his eye, and Simon knew he too was close to laughter. The amount was derisory: utterly
unrealistic.

‘Would you say so?’ the Coroner asked jovially. ‘But surely not! Look at it, the wood in places is still quite green, isn’t it? Fresh timbers, I ’d think. Do you
really mean to tell me that this magnificent wheel is ancient?’

‘Perhaps it is not terribly old,’ the Reeve amended. ‘But then it can only be worth a little more. It is not a very large wheel.’

‘Eight pennies, and think yourself lucky I don’t demand a shilling,’ Coroner Roger said, losing interest in the process of haggling. ‘Does the jury agree?’

There was grumbling and several black looks, but the noise died when the Reeve gloomily nodded his head.

‘Good. I am glad that at least this has been cleared up,’ Coroner Roger said. He shot a look at the drunken priest. ‘I would suggest that he be buried as soon as possible, in
this heat.’

It was as the crowd parted, slouching off back to the fields and gardens, that Simon saw her again. Nicole Garde had left the grieving miller’s wife, and now held Joan by
the hand. Baldwin and the Coroner had already set off back to the vill’s inn, but Simon wandered over to speak to them.

‘Hello again,’ he said.

Joan peered up at him expressionlessly.

‘Sir?’ Nicole said.

‘I am called Simon Puttock, my lady. I met your daughter near the river earlier.’

Nicole gave her daughter a long, steady stare. ‘I thought I told you never to talk to strangers on the roadway, did I not? Ah, you never use the brains you were born with!’

‘Is something wrong, Nicky?’

Simon found himself being confronted by a tall man with sparse dark hair and a narrow, suspicious face. He was reminded of Ivo Bel. Both men had long faces, the same nose, and deepset, rather
intense eyes, but there the similarity ended. This man looked like he had a more open, genial temperament. Unless, apparently, he found another man talking to his wife. He snarled, ‘Who are
you?’

‘Please, Thomas, do not be concerned. Our daughter was talking to him, up on those moors.’

‘I wasn’t on the moors,’ Joan protested.

‘Enough!’ she said, giving her daughter a shake. ‘You spoke – it is enough. You should not, and that you know.’

‘I didn’t see her on the moor,’ Simon explained, pointing. ‘It was on the road here, and she didn’t talk to me –
I
spoke to her.’

‘Oh, yes? And why’d you want to do that, then?’ the man asked suspiciously.

‘You are Bel, aren’t you?’ Simon stated.

He had intended to throw the man off-balance, and was pleased that his ploy worked. The fellow’s eyes narrowed, and there was a fresh wariness about him.

‘That was my name once; no more.’

‘What name do you use now?’

‘I am called Thomas Garde, and this is my wife Nicole – and now you know who we are, who are you, and why are you so interested in us?’

‘I am Bailiff of Lydford Castle, and I’m here to help the Coroner. When I saw your daughter, I asked her about finding the body. That is all – apart from your
brother.’

‘What about him?’

Simon surveyed him with interest. It was obvious that he had touched a raw nerve, because Thomas’s face blanched and he cast a quick look at his wife. ‘Nothing, except that he is
here.’

‘Is this true?’ Thomas demanded of his wife. ‘Is he here?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded, her face downcast. ‘I did not want to tell you this. I did not think it was necessary to worry you.’

‘I haven’t seen him. Where’s he staying?’

Simon said mildly, ‘I don’t see why you should be so bothered about him being here.’

‘That’s none of your business,’ Thomas snapped.

‘I’m helping the Coroner. I can make sure it’s
his
business, if you want.’

Thomas scowled, and he would have spoken, but his wife touched his arm. She looked up at him appealingly, and he gave an exasperated snort. ‘Oh, very well, Nicky!’

‘My husband married me when we were in France,’ Nicole said.

‘I had noticed your accent,’ Simon said with a half bow to her. She returned his smile, but weakly, as though there was little enough to smile about.

Thomas took up their story. ‘At the time I was in the service of a nobleman in Gascony, but he died and his son had no place for me in his household. Still, we parted on good terms, and he
gave me a purse to remember his father. With it I bought a little parcel of land here and our pigs. All my father’s property fell to my brother. I had nothing.’

‘I see. And that caused friction between you and your brother?’

‘No. Ivo took everything, but he still wasn’t satisfied. He’s a grasping, selfish man who has always taken what he desired. When I returned from France with my wife, he tried
to persuade her to leave me and become his whore. He couldn’t believe I could give her a life to compare with living with him as his prostitute.’

‘It was brave of you to leave your home and come all the way here, my Lady,’ Simon said.

‘It was not so very hard.’

‘I will find my brother,’ Thomas said. ‘he must be at the inn. Nicky, go back to the house. If he turns up, tell him to leave. I don’t want him pestering you
again.’

‘Yes, Husband.’

Thomas looked as though he was going to say more to Simon, but after studying him balefully for a while, he spun on his heel and marched through the mud towards the inn.

Nicole sighed. ‘He is a good man, but his brother offended him greatly, I think.’

‘I can quite understand your husband’s feelings,’ Simon said. ‘What’s that?’

There was a howling from some sheds at the edge of the cemetery. Nicole barely glanced towards them. ‘Samson’s hounds. They are mourning their master’s death.’

‘Let’s get away from this miserable place,’ Simon muttered.

‘You see,’ the Frenchwoman continued as they left the mill, ‘it was not so very easy for Thomas to marry me.’ She let go of her daughter’s hand. ‘Emma is over
there, why don’t you go to her?’

‘I played with her all afternoon,’ Joan protested.

‘And morning, too. You think I don’t guess? Now, go!’

Once her daughter was out of earshot, Nicole continued quietly, ‘You see, where I lived, my father was the executioner. The people of the town loathed him. And me.’

‘I see!’ Simon breathed. No one wanted to continue the line of a murderous bastard like an official executioner, nor would anybody want to sleep with a woman born to such a man.
Well, Simon wouldn’t, anyway. It was repugnant.

She caught his tone; she must be used to hearing revulsion in people’s voices. ‘Thomas was the only man who treated me like a woman. He did not care, you see, what other men said.
All he cared about was that he loved me, and that I loved
him
. That was all. I could never betray his trust in me. His love. That was why I was so shocked when Ivo asked me to leave Thomas
for him.’

‘I don’t know that it is so surprising,’ Simon said gallantly.

‘It was so confusing. Ivo was staying with us, and he made me his offer while Tom was working.’ She gave a snort and wouldn’t meet Simon’s eye as she said, ‘He
wanted to buy me, like a milch cow or a dog. It was a simple transaction. And he had no thought for his brother, whom he would be betraying – whom he asked
me
to betray! No, he just
expected me to fall at his feet and agree because he had money.’

‘You refused.’

‘Of course. I was married to a good man who loved me, and this other offered to
buy
me. It was contemptible.’

‘Your daughter told me that the Warrener said they argued about vampires,’ Simon said tentatively.

‘Vampires?’ she repeated, shooting him an amused glance. ‘I expect Serlo thought it was kinder to scare Joan than tell her that her uncle wanted to steal her mother.’

Simon sighed. ‘Yes, of course.’

Her humour faded. ‘The worst of it is, now I think Ivo hates Tom so much, he would do anything to destroy him and win me.’

Thomas marched into the tavern and looked round, glowering. When the taverner appeared in the doorway, he rapped his knuckles on the table-top to attract the man, then called
for a jug of ale. Once it arrived, he held Taverner’s wrist.

‘Will, you wouldn’t hide something from me, would you?’

‘Like what?’

‘Someone tells me you’ve been putting up a man I know – Ivo Bel.’

‘Of course. He’s been here a few days. So?’

Thomas wanted to reach up and grab Will’s tunic, yank him down and beat his face into the wood of his table. ‘I wanted to be told if he arrived here.’

‘Tom, whatever there is between you two, it’s nothing to do with me. I run an inn and I’ll offer rooms to any traveller.’

‘That’s an end to it, is it?’ Thomas said, feeling the anger coursing through his body. ‘Do you want me to make it your problem?’

The innkeeper sighed. ‘If you do, you’ll only make life difficult for yourself, Tom Garde. You’ll have the Reeve on your back.’

‘The Reeve, my arse! It’s got nothing to do with him.’

‘Alexander came by today, before going to Samson’s inquest, and asked me to let Ivo stay on. So if you’re not happy about it, you speak to him.’

‘You could have told him to go to the inn at South Zeal, you bastard. You could have told me he was here, you could have warned me and my wife, couldn’t you?’

‘Tom, let go of my hand.’ His voice was cold, and Thomas immediately released him. None of this was the innkeeper’s fault.

Thomas sipped his ale. ‘This inquest – what good is it doing? How can anyone hope to find what happened to Aline after so many years?’

‘God knows. You were here when she disappeared, weren’t you?’

‘Yes. We came here just after the famine, about the same time Peter’s daughter was killed. Terrible business, that. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.’

‘No,’ the taverner agreed.

‘And now Ivo is here again, curse him,’ Thomas sighed.

‘Yeah, well. You leave him be. He’ll soon push off. What’s the point of punching him and getting a fine? If you’re that keen to lose money, give it to me. At least
I’ll spend it wisely, which is more than I can say for some around here.’

Thomas managed a wry grin, and by the time he was halfway through his drink, his mood had improved to the extent that he could chuckle at some of the taverner’s sallies.

‘All right, Will, I’ll leave him for now, but you tell him that if I find him anywhere near my wife, I’ll kick his teeth so far down his throat, he’ll have to stick his
food up his arse to chew on it.’

Nicole’s words haunted Simon for the rest of the day, and it was with relief that he saw the last of the drinkers leave the inn so that he, Baldwin and Coroner Roger
could settle down to sleep.

‘You’re quiet, Simon,’ Baldwin yawned.

‘Yes, well, there’s been a lot to absorb today,’ Simon said.

‘Too many corpses,’ Coroner Roger grunted in agreement.

‘You spoke to Houndestail?’ Simon asked. He had forgotten in the emotion of Samson’s inquest.

‘Yes. For a fee he agreed to go back to Exeter, the tight-fisted, thieving son of a moorland horse-dealer! Still, it will be good to see whether there was any record of the
Purveyor’s death.’

‘Tomorrow I suppose the funerals will go ahead?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Yes, the miller’s and the girl’s bones.’ Sir Roger sighed heavily. ‘Mind, with that priest, it’s a gamble. I hope he does not get them confused. He was so
drunk today it’s a miracle he could remember his Offices.’

‘What did you think of the story about vampires?’ Simon asked reluctantly.

‘It was nonsense!’ Baldwin stated bluntly. ‘Purest nonsense. A story to scare a child.’

‘But your friend, the man who wrote that book . . .’

‘William of Newburgh died over a hundred years ago.’

‘So how did the folk here know of such things? Why should men mention them?’

‘Simon, are you really asking me to guess at the workings of the minds of the local peasants? Dear Heaven, just go to sleep.’

Coroner Roger chuckled quietly. ‘If you will tell these stories, Keeper, what do you expect? Simon is concerned that someone might come and cut out his liver tonight.’

As he spoke, a mournful howl shivered on the wind, then a second.

‘What the devil?’ Roger demanded. ‘Wolves?’

Simon explained, ‘I think it’s the miller’s hounds. They started earlier on.’

‘Wonderful! At least he’ll soon be in the ground and out of the way!’ Roger said unsympathetically, rolled over, and was soon snoring.

‘Baldwin?’ Simon asked a few moments later, but Baldwin was either asleep or pretending to be. He had turned the cold shoulder to Simon, and the Bailiff was left staring up at the
ceiling, starting at every creak and groan of the building. No matter how he tried to stop thinking of vampires, in his mind’s eye he could see the cemetery fringed with its pollarded trees,
and figures moving among them.