The Sticklepath Strangler

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The inn was full when the body of Felicia was brought in. Men thronged the main room as Drogo, Peter and Simon carried the dead weight between them, setting her down on top of a table, and causing the five drinkers to move. Behind them, Baldwin entered with Joan’s hand in his, and he stood there for a while, surveying the room. The sight repelled him.

Here in the tavern the people of the vill had arrived in a party mood. They had been keen to destroy Samson, to burn him on a pyre, not because of his very real rapes, but because of superstition. His only crime had been to be buried alive; earlier, they had conspired with equal gusto to execute Athelhard and burn his corpse; now they jostled hungrily to view the body of the genuine culprit.

‘Silence!’ he roared, and the room fell quiet. He crossed the floor to the Coroner.

‘Coroner, this is the body of Felicia atte Mill, daughter of Samson. She confessed to me, Sir Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King’s Peace, and before Bailiff Puttock of Lydford, that she was the murderer of Ansel de Hocsenham, the King’s Purveyor; that she murdered Denise atte Moor, daughter of Peter; that she murdered Mary, orphan of this parish; that she murdered Aline, daughter of Swetricus; that she murdered Emma, daughter of the same Ansel de Hocsenham.’

‘Is this all true, Simon?’

‘Yes.’

Baldwin continued, ‘She attacked the Bailiff and me with a dagger and fled. We raised the Hue and Cry and gave chase, following her all the way up to the warren of Serlo. There she attacked and would have killed this girl, Joan Garde, daughter of Thomas, but Joan Garde was able to defend herself. Felicia fell and died.’

Coroner looked at Joan. ‘You confirm this?’

‘Yes, Coroner.’

‘Who else witnessed this death?’

Drogo stepped forward. ‘I did, Drogo Forester, and so did my man Peter atte Moor.’

‘I see. Then I declare her death to be justified in self-defence.’ These words Baldwin heard as he walked from the room. He had no need to hear more. The whole matter was offensive to him, the attitude of the people repugnant. He left the inn and stood in the yard behind. Edgar was at the door to Jeanne’s room, Aylmer lying apparently asleep at his side, and Baldwin nodded. ‘They are inside?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Edgar said, standing. He could see the pain on Baldwin’s face. ‘Should I fetch you wine, sir?’

‘No. I only want peace,’ Baldwin said. He crossed the little yard to the pasture, and there he walked out to a natural hillock, sitting and putting his arms about his knees. Aylmer joined him, sitting at his side, alert, staring out at the moors before them, but not leaning or resting against Baldwin, independent and almost aloof. But when Baldwin drew a deep breath, Aylmer’s head dropped and his nose touched Baldwin’s hand, just once, as if in sympathy.

‘May I join you?’

Baldwin did not need to turn around. ‘Why didn’t you tell anyone, Vin?’

‘I didn’t know until last night.’ Vin sat beside him and shrugged. ‘She was the only woman I’d ever lain with. In my way I loved her. I thought I could save her from her father, but I was petrified of him. Samson was an evil man. Evil and dangerous. I thought he had murdered the Purveyor, and that meant he had eaten the Purveyor as well. I couldn’t tell people that. He would have killed me.’

‘Was it mere prejudice led you to think he might be the killer?’

‘A bit. He was a brutal git, always happy to fight anyone. God, the night the vill killed Athelhard, Samson was roaring mad. He was prepared to pull the vampire limb from limb. As it was he wanted to cut the man’s heart out with Peter. That was one thing that has suddenly occurred to me.’

‘What was?’

‘I was young when Denise was killed, but I can remember the shouts and anger in the vill. Samson was beside himself with rage – yet when Mary died and Aline went missing, he was quiet, almost as though he knew who the real killer was and didn’t dare react in case people guessed that it was Felicia.’

‘But at the time…’

‘At the time I wondered whether it was proof of his guilt. He avoided talking about the deaths, and that’s not normal in a vill like this.’

‘But you grew to suppose that it wasn’t him, didn’t you?’

‘Samson was so often terribly drunk. He was violent, but I didn’t think he was capable of killing a young girl. So I started wondering about others, and the only man who made sense was Drogo. I knew he was often away from his post when the girls died, and he was always so jealous of men whose daughters were alive. His own daughter – my little half-sister, I suppose – died at about the same age as the ones who were killed.’

‘And that was all?’

‘No. Regularly Drogo would leave me at my post. I thought it could be because he was off looking for a girl to murder.’

‘Whereas in fact…?’

Vincent sighed. ‘In fact he was patrolling several of the tracks nearby making sure that there wasn’t a murder only a few hundred yards from us. Never going far, you understand.’ He looked up and met Baldwin’s eyes with a wry grin. ‘He didn’t trust me that much, either. He wondered if I might be the murderer myself.’

‘When did you realise it wasn’t him?’

‘Only last night. You see, I heard Felicia talking to her mother. She was saying that her father always went for girls who batted their eyes at him. Well, they didn’t. No young girl would have. It was just her hatred talking. She said that they all went for him as soon as they were ten or eleven, and that made me think. They were all killed when they were about that age.’

‘And that was enough to tell you?’

‘That, and a little torn apron. I saw it on the floor near Felicia’s bed last night, and I recognised it as Emma’s.’

‘What of Ansel?’

Vin hugged his knees. ‘I think Samson had a row with him, Ansel turned to go, and Samson knocked him down. Then he called to Felicia because he feared he’d killed the man.’

Baldwin finished for him. ‘You think she throttled him while he lay unconscious, then took a piece of his leg for her supper.’

‘Yes. Remember, we were all starving then – and she was half-wild with hunger. And the next night Drogo and the others came along and found his body and decided to hide it before the vill could be harmed. It was just a lucky chance that the wall had fallen only a short while before.’

‘But from then on, every time her father desired a new girl, he was signing her death warrant,’ Baldwin mused. ‘As soon as Felicia realised he had a fresh girl, she killed her, and as a supreme insult, ate her flesh.’

‘But why should she have killed Emma?’ Vin asked, puzzled. ‘Samson was dead by then.’

‘You were kind to Emma, weren’t you?’ Baldwin said.

‘I hardly remember her.’

‘One day I saw you outside the Reeve’s hall. You picked her up and tickled her. Felicia saw you.’

‘Holy Jesus! You mean that act of friendship cost that kid her life?’

‘Let us hope that we shall never comprehend what went on inside Felicia’s mind, Vincent,’ Baldwin said slowly. ‘That way madness lies.’

It was many weeks before Baldwin could bring himself to tell his wife the full story of the murders, not because of any squeamishness or fear for her own resilience, but because he did not know how to rationalise his own thoughts.

He had been brought up in a chivalrous household, and the guiding principle belief lay in the generosity and love of women. To have found a girl like Felicia, who could murder children and eat them, was appalling. If the world could create such a one, Baldwin was not sure it was the sort of world he wished his daughter to inhabit.

Luckily there were many more people who were humanitarian; Baldwin had enough good friends like Simon to hope that whatever happened his daughter would be protected, but all the time at the back of his mind he knew that famine, war and pestilence could destroy not only families, but even the morals of people. Felicia had been tempted to eat other humans because of her starvation. In good years the miller would take one tenth of all the grain he milled as his payment, but when there was famine and no one had enough, they would grind their corn at home. And that meant that the miller and his family would starve. That was why Felicia had thankfully throttled Ansel when she found him, and taken a haunch from him. She was ravenous.

The children were different. They had committed no crime, she was punishing her father when she executed them.

It was one lazy, burning hot summer’s afternoon when Baldwin told Jeanne the whole story. She had heard some parts of it when the matter was written up by the Coroner after the inquests into Felicia’s and Ansel’s deaths, but she had not appreciated the depth of Baldwin’s own revulsion.

‘What I don’t understand is how the miller managed to keep his sexual wrongdoings secret from all the other folk.’

‘He didn’t entirely,’ Baldwin said. ‘Some knew, and others told friends, but when a man like Swetricus, who loves and trusts his daughters, is told that nothing has happened, he naturally believes them.’

‘Why should his girl have concealed the rape?’

‘Why should any? From shame, or perhaps from terror. Who can tell what threats or promises Samson used?’

‘He must have been a truly wicked person!’

‘Yes. His daughter, too.’ Baldwin sighed. ‘I blame myself, you know, Jeanne. If I had searched the grave more carefully, if I had noticed what Simon did, I might have made the right connection, found Ansel’s body – perhaps saved Emma’s life.’

‘Do you regret the death of Felicia?’

‘Her? My Heaven, no! She was deep into madness and had to be killed. I only regret that her death was brought about by a young girl… but then again, maybe not. Joan wanted her own revenge for the crime committed against her friend, and the fact that she could execute the killer may have given her some peace of mind, rather than merely hearing Felicia was dead, or even witnessing the hanging. How can I tell?’

Jeanne sat at his side and put her arm about his shoulder. After a moment he put his own about her waist, and they sat staring at the view, listening to the laughter of his peasants in the fields.

‘There is something else, isn’t there?’ she asked after a short while.

‘You know me too well, Wife. Yes. I have received a message from Simon.’

‘Oh?’

‘In it he says he agrees with you that the moors are too dangerous to treat without care. He says that superstition is a useful precaution.’

Jeanne smiled. ‘I am glad you have a nagging friend as well as a wife.’

Richalda gave a great cry from the solar and Jeanne hurried indoors to see to her daughter. When she was gone, Baldwin took out the sheet of paper once more.

According to Coroner Roger, the curse appears to have been laid at last, he read. Drogo and Alexander have escaped the court. They were both riding on the moors last month, illegally, after a fox which had attacked some piglets, when a mist came down and they fell into a bog. Serlo was at his warren and heard their screams. He tried to get to them, but the mist was too thick. He shouted, and they responded, but he could not reach them and had to listen while they drowned. He was very upset – but perhaps this means that Athelhard’s curse has now been fulfilled. Certainly the people of the vill hope so.

‘Superstition!’ Baldwin muttered, gazing at the dark, grim line on the horizon that showed where Dartmoor began. The only evil in Sticklepath came from one family. A father who was perverted, with his lusts for young flesh, a wife who was simple, and a daughter who was insane.

He read on: Gunilda has adopted Meg, and both appear content in each other’s company. Not that many of the vill were happy to learn that Meg had moved into the mill. Some still look upon her with dread, but she and Gunilda seem to have found comfort and Serlo looks in on them regularly, chopping their wood and helping tend to their animals.

The letter ran on, but Baldwin put it away, musing on the violence and cruelty that lay at the heart of the murders: the brutality of Samson not only to Felicia’s victims, but to his daughter as well.

Hearing another cry from the house, he murmured, ‘Keep happy, Richalda. I shall never do anything to cause you such grief. That I swear.’

And then Sir Baldwin Furnshill stood and stretched. The accursed bruises along his flank were healed now, and as he inhaled a deep breath of the shimmering summer air, he decided to take his horse out.

The evil was gone. Life was for the living.