The Tinner's Corpse (39 page)

‘Well, it’s gone now,’ said Gwyn stoically. ‘The point is, did Matthew know it had sailed when he claimed the Germans could have confirmed he was with them that day? We’ll probably never know.’ Now Gwyn had gone out, leaving de Wolfe to fret about who had really employed Oswin as an assassin, and to fume at being outwitted by Robert Courteman and the sheriff.

He felt sure that money had changed hands to secure Peter Jordan’s rapid release from Stigand’s prison cell. Not only had the older lawyer wished to save his son-in-law’s neck, but the part of the legacy from the Knapman tin empire due to Peter would greatly improve the security of Courteman’s daughter. It would be well worth passing a heavy purse to de Revelle for the lad’s release: a hanged felon’s family could never benefit under the will of his victim. The more he thought about it, the more the coroner came to believe that de Revelle was up to his corrupt tricks again – but the realisation that he could prove nothing made de Wolfe’s sullen anger all the more intense.

He sat glowering in the dank chamber with Thomas, who hardly dared to breathe and tried to make his quill scratch less loudly as he wrote. After a time, they heard Gwyn’s heavy feet tramping up the stairs towards them, and de Wolfe prepared to vent his bad temper on the Cornishman for his prolonged absence.

When Gwyn pushed through the sacking curtain over the doorway, his beefy face wore a wide smile. ‘What are you grinning at?’ snapped de Wolfe peevishly.

Undaunted by the cool reception, Gwyn continued to beam and the clerk slid down further on his stool in anticipation of a grand row between the pair. ‘I’ve just come from the Black Cock,’ announced the officer.

‘So? I can find some work for you, if all you’ve to do is drink ale.’

‘From the gossip I heard there, I think you should stop supping at the Plough or the Golden Hind and go back to drinking at the Bush.’

The coroner looked up suspiciously at his henchman from under his beetling brows.

‘If I was you, Crowner, I’d take a stroll down to Idle Lane – you may find things have changed a bit there.’

Before the Compline bell had tolled, de Wolfe was in the Bush Inn, hunched at his favourite table with Nesta sitting opposite. An empty ale pot stood in front him, but old Edwin stayed well out of earshot, thanks to a glare from the landlady that would have soured milk.

‘Did the bastard take much?’ John asked fiercely.

‘About five marks’ worth of silver pennies – and Molly, the second cook-maid,’ said Nesta grimly.

De Wolfe resisted his need to discover if Alan of Lyme had also stolen the landlady’s honour. Cautiously, he looked across at Nesta, unsure of her mood. He had hurried down to the inn after Gwyn had relayed the tavern gossip, eager for Nesta to fall across his breast and sob out her repentance. But he realised now, knowing her as he did, that he should have had different expectations. Instead, he found her dry-eyed and sad-faced, with a grim determination about her that made her remaining staff wary of what they said in her presence.

‘Am I welcome to return here for my ale and victuals?’ he asked gently.

Nesta stared back at him, her crossed arms gripping her shoulders, as if protecting her bosom from the evils of the world, which came mainly in the shape of men.

‘You are a Norman knight, sir. You can do what you wish in this city,’ she replied – rather incongruously, as they were speaking Welsh, the language of the Normans’, major adversaries in these islands.

De Wolfe’s temper, never far below the surface, twitched at this. ‘Lady, what answer is that? You are my best friend, to say the least.’

Nesta sighed, and her shoulders sagged. ‘John, there’s no future for us, is there? This dalliance with Alan, swine that he was, came from frustration – or desperation.’

He stared blankly at her, uncomprehending in his masculine simplicity. ‘But we’ve been content, Nesta, you and I together this past year and more.’

She smiled bleakly at him. ‘Content? You may have been content, John, having a warm welcome and a warm body to visit whenever you felt so inclined, a haven for a few hours from a nagging wife. Then you could return to your grand house and your life as a Norman knight and a great law officer.’

His long, brooding face regarded her with astonishment. Astute as a coroner, courageous in a fight, he was still a simpleton when it came to matters of the heart. ‘But surely we can put what happened behind us, woman – forget that scheming bastard ever existed and take up where we were before.’ Some kindly spirit prevented him from adding, ‘I forgive you,’ which had been on the tip of his tongue.

Nesta reached out across the table and patted the back of his hand, more like a mother with a son than a mistress with a recent lover. ‘I can put Alan behind me well enough, John – but what am I to do with you? I have twenty-eight years to look back on, and how many to look forward to? And with whom?’

‘If I was free, I would marry you tomorrow,’ blurted John, with a gallantry safely guarded by an indissoluble marriage.

‘I’m sure you truly think you would, good man,’ she replied sadly.

De Wolfe shook his head desperately, like a tethered bull tormented by dogs.

‘What’s the problem, then? What am I to do for you?’ he asked.

‘Do? There’s nothing to do, John. You are ever welcome here, for the best food and ale in Exeter.’ Her eyes flicked to the wide steps that led to the upper floor as if to say, ‘But not up there.’

They talked a little longer, in lower tones as the inn began to fill with customers, many of whom grew flapping ears when they saw Nesta and de Wolfe together again. But their conversation seemed to grow more stilted, as if a barrier was slowly descending between them, like a portcullis over a gate.

When one of the maids called her away to attend to some urgent problem in the kitchen hut, John rose slowly and, with dragging feet, walked to the door. As he left he, too, looked at the ladder up to Nesta’s room and his French bed, wondering what had gone on up there during the past few weeks.

Sadly, he decided it was one of the things he was never destined to know, along with the true identity of Walter Knapman’s killer.

¹
now Preston Street.

¹
now Gandy Lane.

¹
This Commission materialised in 1198, when William de Wrotham became Sheriff and Lord Warden