The Sticklepath Strangler (2001) (43 page)

At least his murder was less cruel than leaving him buried alive. Not that the reflection was itself particularly comforting. The man had been rescued, only to be struck down. No matter how
brutal he had been in life, he didn’t deserve that end.

The people had wished to burn him alive, believing him to be guilty of the murder of the vill’s children, and yet Samson was already buried when Emma died. The killer must be someone
else.

Baldwin leaned on his elbows, resting his chin on his hands. There had been six murders, if he was right. First Ansel de Hocsenham in 1315, the first year of the famine. That happened before
Thomas and Nicky arrived, so they were innocent. From what the Reeve had said, Denise died in 1316, so she too died before Thomas got here, and Athelhard was killed that same year; the other girl,
Mary, was strangled a little while after his death, as though the true killer was cocking a snook at the vill. Aline died in 1318, and Emma now in 1322. There was no logic to these deaths in terms
of the gaps between each one, no apparent sequence that Baldwin could detect.

Surely all the deaths were committed by the same person. Peter was presumably innocent. One of the victims was his own child, and although parents did kill their offspring, Baldwin had never
heard of any being tempted to cannibalism. Likewise, he was inclined to believe that Swetricus was not the murderer because of his daughter Aline’s death. And the Reeve would always have had
enough food. He wouldn’t have needed to kill.

Baldwin was content with his earlier reasoning. He could imagine someone killing the Purveyor and then taking the opportunity to fill his empty belly. But why should that person then turn to
killing children? Presumably because they were easier to kill, less able to defend themselves.

Baldwin frowned. He seemed to recall someone telling him that Ansel de Hocsenham had been a large, brawny fellow. That would mean that only a similarly large fellow would have been able to
overwhelm him, surely, or a group. Perhaps the Foresters had had a part in his death, for all their protestations of innocence.

Or could it have been Drogo alone? The Forester appeared to be as concerned as the Reeve to conceal whatever had been going on in the vill. He had been surly and uncommunicative from the very
beginning. And Vin too was an odd fellow.

Baldwin recalled thinking that there was a pattern, and then he realised that it was the girls’ ages. There was something about their ages which appealed to their killer. He was
considering this when Simon spoke.

‘Couldn’t sleep?’

‘You are awake too? I had thought I was quiet enough to leave you sleeping,’ Baldwin said, shuffling along the bench.

Simon donned his shirt and sat with him, scratching at his groin. ‘Damned fleas get everywhere.’

Baldwin moved a little further away.

‘So what do you think?’ the Bailiff yawned.

‘We must speak to Swetricus and see what he has to say,’ Baldwin said with decision.

He was determined to leave early and get to Swetricus before the peasant left to go out to the fields. The Coroner asked them to go ahead without him. Roger’s ankle had swollen
considerably overnight, and now he was unable even to pull his boot on. Baldwin and Simon drank a little water, and walked out, Aylmer trotting from one scent to another.

The clear sky promised good weather, with a thin veil of clouds which looked very far away and insignificant, and Baldwin felt almost ridiculous as he walked up to Swetricus’s door. To be
talking in the broad daylight about ghosts and vampires felt ludicrous – and even to discuss a murderer seemed out of place. Nothing so appalling should exist in the glare of this perfect
weather.

Another thing he noticed was that as they passed houses, there was chattering and even a couple of people laughing. The fear which had apparently lain over the whole vill had departed.

Swetricus opened the door and stood blinking at the two men.

‘We want to talk to you about these murders,’ Baldwin said, and Swetricus ungraciously stood aside for them to enter, Aylmer following.

About a low table were three children, all girls. As Baldwin walked in, all three rose and fled to their father, hiding behind him and peering around him at the two strangers. Baldwin smiled and
tried to put them at their ease. He gave Simon a glance, and saw the quizzical expression on his face.

‘It is obvious that you are a good father,’ Simon said to Swetricus.

‘Try to be.’

‘I have a daughter myself,’ Simon said, looking at the eldest of Swetricus’s girls. ‘She is about your age, I would think. Her name is Edith. What are you
called?’

‘She’s Lucy,’ Swetricus said, looking down. There was unmistakable pride on his face as he tousled her hair. ‘Pretty as her mother.’

‘She died?’

‘Not long after this: Katherine. Bleeding.’

‘I see. Sad,’ Simon said, automatically copying him and falling into a monosyllabic frame of speaking.

Baldwin was less empathetic. He propped his backside on the table and peered about him. The house was a typical peasant’s hovel. No rushes to cover the floor, so the bones and detritus
stood out against the packed earth. There was a bed, which was a pile of fresh ferns with a rug thrown atop, three stools, and one tiny chest that looked as though Swetricus himself must have made
it with ill-designed tools. Aylmer went to investigate the garbage about the table.

‘We are here to ask about the deaths.’

‘Denise, Mary, my Aline, and now Emma.’

‘And the curse.’

‘We all feared.’

‘Because of the dead Purveyor?’

‘And Samson. He was a devil.’

‘Your daughter Aline – did he rape her?’

Swetricus looked away. ‘I never guessed. No one told me. She disappeared; thought fallen in mire. Now I think different.’

Baldwin looked at the girls. ‘Would they know?’

The three were undernourished and filthy, but from the way that Swetricus put his hands on them, it was obvious to Baldwin that the man loved his girls and that his love was reciprocated. His
protective stance didn’t alter as he said, ‘No, they don’t know.’

‘What of you? Do you think that Samson killed all those girls?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And the Purveyor? Would Samson have killed Ansel de Hocsenham?’

‘Maybe. Samson hated taxes.’

‘Did the miller suffer from hunger during the famine?’ Simon asked.

‘The miller, he had food. Not hungry like others, like his wife and daughter.’

‘They did not eat so well as him?’ Baldwin asked.

‘He said he needed to eat to work, to feed them. Took most for himself.’

Baldwin nodded, considering the man. ‘Swetricus, I am confused about much which has happened here in the vill. One thing that niggles at me is, why should your girl Aline have been buried?
Denise and Mary were left where they had been killed. So was Emma. Why was Aline different?’

‘Don’t know. It hurt. Hurt lots. Not knowing . . . It was cruel to hide her like that.’

‘Do you have any idea who could have done such a thing?’

Swetricus looked at him, and a cold, bitter anger glittered in his eyes. ‘If I knowed, I ’d kill him.’

‘One last question, Swetricus. Where was Emma supposed to be sleeping on the night she died?’

‘At the mill, I think. They let her stay in the barns.’

They left shortly afterwards. The Reeve had sent men to recover the Purveyor’s body, and the group could be seen wielding their spades up on the hill. Baldwin stood a while watching,
trying to ignore Aylmer, who was crunching at a bone of some sort just behind them.

It was Simon who broke into his reverie. ‘Isn’t that the Foresters up there? Shall we see if Vin is there?’

Vin didn’t notice them at first. It was only when Adam stopped and muttered a curse under his breath that Vin glanced around and saw them. ‘Shit! Are they here for
you, boy?’

‘Shut up, old fool,’ Vin said boldly. If Adam called him ‘boy’ one more time . . . Somehow he knew that they were coming to question him again. Leaving his spade, he
rubbed at his back and stretched. To Baldwin he looked as though he was tense, preparing himself for an interrogation.

The other Foresters were watching and no doubt listening with interest, but Drogo seemed furious as he greeted the two men with: ‘What do you want now, eh? Not happy yet? You’ve seen
off Samson, you’ve seen the ruin of Reeve Alexander and probably me, and now you’re determined to attack my Foresters, is that it?’

‘It’s nothing for you to worry about. We just have some questions to ask this fellow,’ Simon said.

‘I have nothing to hide,’ Vin said.

‘Glad I am to hear it,’ Baldwin smiled. ‘Where can we talk in peace?’

‘I have nothing to hide. We can stay here,’ Vin repeated.

‘Perhaps,’ said Baldwin. ‘But I would speak with you in private.’

Drogo walked to Vin’s side, then led them away to a fallen tree farther down the hill, where all could sit. He took his seat next to Vin on a heavy bough, while Baldwin and Simon rested
upon the trunk. Aylmer wandered away to sniff at a stone wall nearby. Soon he had disappeared in among the furze.

Baldwin eyed Drogo ruminatively. ‘You appear very keen to look after this fellow.’

Vin curled his lip. The man had no idea how harsh Drogo made his life.

‘Someone has to, now his father is dead,’ Drogo replied stiffly.

Baldwin said, ‘You were a friend of his father’s?’

‘He was a good man.’

‘You did not answer my question, Forester,’ Baldwin observed, studying him closely. ‘And I think I begin to comprehend some words of Serlo’s at last. I have been
astonishingly foolish! Vincent: I am worried about your efforts in all this. You lived up on the moors when the Purveyor was killed, and you were still there when Denise died?’

‘Yes. Until my father died, in the second year of the famine.’

‘And then you were in your bailiwick when Mary and Aline died.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where were you when Emma died?’

‘At the tavern with Drogo and Adam.’

Baldwin saw Drogo shoot him a quick look, then nod and say, ‘That’s right. At the inn.’

‘Odd, isn’t it,’ Baldwin smiled, ‘how you Foresters share so many things? You all confirm each other’s stories, no matter what you think is going on.’

‘We’re often together, because of our work,’ Vin protested.

Drogo was returning Baldwin’s stare with a narrow, suspicious gaze. ‘What are you driving at, Keeper?’

‘Only this: if you had been prepared to tell the truth and trust to the judgement of the Coroner and me, you would have saved us time, and perhaps saved Emma’s life. You are a fool,
Drogo. You sought to protect Vincent here, and for why? Because you didn’t trust him.’

Vincent felt his mouth fall open, and he gawped from Drogo to Baldwin and back again. ‘What’s he mean?’

Drogo broke away from Baldwin’s gaze and stared upwards at the sky. It was bright, clear, and clean-looking, a good day to confess the crime he had committed so long ago. A good day to
die, he thought. Glancing down at the vill, he could see a thin smoke rising from several houses as the fires were lit for cooking, could just hear the rumble of the mill. Gunilda and Felicia must
have restarted the mechanism.

‘Well?’ Baldwin prompted.

‘What would you do? If he was your son, wouldn’t you have protected him to the limit of your strength?’

‘We had heard that Vincent was the son of your best friend,’ Baldwin said.

‘He was,’ Drogo groaned. ‘She was the best, truest friend a man could wish for. I loved her. I would have married her, but her father wouldn’t hear of it. He didn’t
trust me, preferred a miner. But before the marriage, she gave herself to me, and she knew two weeks later that Vin was my son.’

‘She died young?’

‘Too young. It was my sin, my crime, which did it. God took her from me.’

‘And you married as well.’

He sighed. ‘Yes. A good woman, who bore me a daughter. I tried to make her happy, and I think I succeeded, but then she died and, during the famine, so did my daughter. My poor little
Isabelle. All I had left was Vin. I couldn’t lose him.’

Vin gaped. ‘How can I believe that? My mother wouldn’t have whored for you!’

‘She was no whore, Vin, just a good woman who truly loved me. As I loved her. She raised you as her own, and as her husband’s own, for she grew to hold an affection for him. She did
not pin the cuckold’s horns on him. And she loved you.’

‘I don’t believe you! You’re lying!’ Vin declared, stepping away and shaking his head.

‘Vincent,’ Baldwin said sternly. ‘You were out on the nights when the deaths occurred, weren’t you? Were you with Drogo each night?’

‘No. Only when Aline and Mary were killed. And Emma.’

‘You were with Drogo all night long?’

‘Not all night, no. I went to see my woman,’ he admitted.

‘And you thought your son could have killed those girls, didn’t you?’ Baldwin pressed Drogo.

‘I did.’

Vin shook his head in disbelief. ‘Why would I have killed them?’

‘Drogo, could your son have struck down Ansel de Hocsenham?’ Baldwin demanded.

Drogo gave a wintry smile. ‘Ansel? He was a tough bastard, he was, but Vin was a powerful enough fifteen year old; he could have killed him, but I never thought that was Vin’s
doing.’

‘He was throttled with a thong like the girls?’

‘Yes. And a slab of meat was carved from his thigh, almost from groin to knee.’

‘What do you have to say, Vincent?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Where were you on the night the Purveyor disappeared?’

‘I was with my girlfriend,’ he said, feeling a certain pride in the words. ‘We were out at the river, and then I heard Samson bellowing, and then he called for her, and I ran.
If he had found me with her, he would have torn me limb from limb!’

‘What did he call?’ Simon asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know. It was just some shouting. And then he called for Felicia.’

‘So you bolted.’

‘Yes. To the ford, then up along the road, then I headed homewards.

‘That was the night that Ansel disappeared, then. And it was the next night that you found the body, Drogo?’