The Sticklepath Strangler

Chapter Sixteen

Alexander took a deep breath and gazed about him. The morning’s mist was burning off as the labourers toiled in the fields.

They were as easily guided as oxen, he sometimes thought. He had risen through the ranks of peasantry himself, and was still owned by Lord Hugh de Courtenay, but there the similarity with his neighbours ended. Alexander had his own house, which possessed six rooms as well as the hall. That meant wealth in any man’s terms, and then when you learned that he owned two horses and a full team of oxen as well, not forgetting his flocks… well! You realised you had to tread carefully in his presence. People respected him. They had to.

Except a Coroner and Keeper wouldn’t. They were so much higher up the social scale that they need pay no attention to the likes of Alexander. Damn them both! It was at times like this that he missed the moderating influence of his wife. He still missed her dreadfully, and his boys. It was God’s will, he knew, but it was a cruel fate that took them all when others lost nothing.

Not that all the dead were mourned. Samson wouldn’t be. A rough, untutored thing, the miller. The tavern would be a safer place without him. Still, it was terrible to die like that, to be smashed underwater by the blades of his own wheel and drowned.

Alexander wondered whether the rumours of his assaults on young girls were true. Most people believed that he was guilty of incest with his own daughter, maybe even of raping young Aline, but at least no one had spoken to Swetricus of their suspicions. That was one feature of a vill which was vital, Alexander considered. Everyone knew everyone else’s secrets, but they never discussed them. A man could be cuckolded by a neighbour, and no one would tell him, even though the whole vill knew of it. To tell him could do no good, just as it would have done no good to tell Swetricus that Samson could have violated his daughter. There was no evidence, only conjecture.

Still, even if Samson were the killer, he had paid for it in the manner of his own death, Alexander thought. The idea of water filling his lungs, of choking and retching, then the slamming shock of the paddles pounding into his head made the Reeve wince.

He set off along the back lane again, his eyes flitting hither and thither as he monitored the efforts of the men, women and children in the fields. Some would drop their tools and doze in the sun, or mount their women, or go to the pots of cider cooling in the river, if they didn’t know he was there, keeping an eye on them.

He avoided the top of the lane. That was where she lived, Mad Meg, ‘widow’ of the Purveyor, and he had no desire to be accosted by her again. It was bad enough knowing the mad bitch was up there, without inviting her abuse.

These last days had been terrible. First that blasted girl’s body turning up, then the admission that there had been others, and the questions about the Purveyor… at least that avenue appeared to have been forgotten. Neither the Coroner nor the Keeper had asked about Ansel since Samson’s burial.

Alexander leaned on a gate, with an entirely unaccustomed wave of depression washing over him. Had he made a mistake? Perhaps he had. Maybe he should have sided with the Parson and sent for help when they suspected Athelhard might have been a vampire or cannibal. But at the time it seemed so obvious. Who else could have been the murderer? And then, when two more girls disappeared, Mary and Aline, they knew they had made a grievous mistake. Athelhard had been innocent.

‘Who is it?’ he demanded again. He clenched a fist in quick, futile anger, and slammed it down on the gate. But as always the answer evaded him, and he must return to his hall to catch up with his own work.

The path took him around the back of some little cottages, then through the yard of Thomas Garde, and so out to the road. Thomas regularly complained when people took this short-cut, but he was a foreigner; not someone whose opinions mattered.

Chickens strutted, self-important and stupid, their twitching heads turning this way and that as they attempted to spy out worms and grubs among the thick straw piled all over. Flies swarmed about the manure heap, and the pig was snuffling happily in a wooden trough near the door to the house. It was a scene of pastoral comfort, soothing to a man like Alexander, who enjoyed being reminded of his own roots in a house and yard much like this one. He stood still and gazed about him, a smile on his lips.

There were more flies at the stable, he noted. A thick swarm hung about one particular pile of straw – and then he saw the red pool leaking from beneath it which made his smile disappear and his face become fixed with horror. He ran to the stooks and pulled at them, tugging them away from the small, curled and bloody shape they concealed.

Emma’s body.

‘Who found her here?’ the Coroner rasped as he took in the scene. He had arrived a few minutes after Simon and Baldwin, all three running as the Hue and Cry went up.

‘It was me, sir.’

The Reeve was leaning on his staff like an old man now, his eyes sunken and bruised, his face drawn and anxious. For once, Coroner Roger thought, this was not a man who was scared of the fine he would soon have levied against him; this was a man who could see the ruination of his entire vill because of a crazed murderer.

‘I was walking through here on my way home. I only came this way by chance.’

The Parson was at his side, swaying heavily, his face blotched and sweaty, swallowing and clearing his throat like a man who was about to be sick. Simon took one look at him and, removing Gervase’s paper and reed from him, went and sat down near the Coroner. Parson Gervase shivered convulsively, and then, to Simon’s relief, he staggered away from the hideous sight.

Simon himself felt shaken; exhaustion and nausea washed over him at this fresh corpse. With the death of Samson, they had all hoped that the murders were at an end, and now this poor child had also been slaughtered.

Vin and Serlo had hinted that Samson was probably the guilty man. So had Adam and even William the Taverner. Samson’s death had seemed a suitable marker to show that the deaths were over, that the girls from the vill could live in peace and security. In his mind’s eye he could see Emma chattering and laughing with Joan near the river, and was overwhelmed with a renewed grief.

The Coroner had no time to let his feelings get in the way. He was professional and businesslike as he cast an eye over the silent crowd. ‘Where is her father?’

‘Gone many years ago. He was the Purveyor: Ansel de Hocsenham. Her mother is mad. “Mad Meg” we call her. Emma often slept in the hay barns during the summer when the weather was mild, and stayed inside with friends during the winter.’

The Coroner grunted. He lifted his head and indicated two men standing nearby. ‘You two! Come here and roll her over for the jury to see.’

Peter and Vin approached. They each grabbed a leg and an arm and lifted her from the stable floor. Vincent looked as though he was ready to throw up, but Peter had a certain eagerness about him. Almost a ghoulish excitement.

The jury was agog as the naked figure was hauled over and over before them. When her entire body had been displayed, Roger began measuring the wounds, calling out to Simon, who tried to concentrate on the paper and ignore the girl’s body.

‘A leather thong about her neck. The same form of ligature as that used on Aline. No stabs, but plenty of bruises, which means that the child was beaten before she died.’

Simon swallowed and concentrated on making his notes legible. Little Emma’s death was rendered all the more horrific by his knowing her, if only vaguely.

‘Whoever did it hacked at her thigh like a haunch of meat. Does any man here know who could have done this?’ Coroner Roger called, and there was a short silence. ‘Well?’

‘It was him. Thomas must’ve done it. Why else would she be here?’

Simon peered in the direction of the voice but could not see who spoke. He let his gaze wander over the surrounding villagers. Ivo was standing near the back of the crowd, a sneer on his face as though he was delighted at this turn of events.

Nearer was the tall, dark-haired man who lived here, Ivo Bel’s brother, Thomas Garde. Garde’s frame was rocked by this accusation, and he licked his lips and swallowed like a man whose throat was blocked by a dry crust. It seemed as though he was incapable of speech, that shock had left him dumb.

About him men were staring at him with dawning horror. More than one had gripped his knife’s hilt, and was watching Garde darkly.

‘Speak, Garde!’ the Coroner commanded.

‘Sir, I had nothing to do with this child’s death.’

Simon looked up to see Baldwin watching Nicole. She stood with her fist at her mouth while the questioning carried on, the Coroner’s voice slow, grave and relentless, Garde’s growing more highly pitched and with a slight tremor of passion as he rejected the accusation.

‘Garde, the girl was found in your own yard,’ Coroner Roger thundered at last. ‘Who else could have put her there?’

Simon and Baldwin exchanged a glance and Baldwin nodded to himself as Garde weakly shook his head. It was, Baldwin thought, one indication that Thomas might be telling the truth.

Baldwin felt a sudden rush pass through his body like a charge of strong wine. It felt as though his mind was being used again for the first time in weeks. Until now he had been directed witlessly by the melancholy atmosphere of the vill because the deaths were all so ancient and the likelihood of identifying the murderer so remote; however, now he had a recent murder to consider, he began to see the first indications of a pattern.

Of one thing he was convinced: no man would leave such proof of guilt in his own yard. Unless his wife and children were party to the murder, he would keep the body far away, and he would conceal it better than merely stuffing it under some sheaves. No, Baldwin was almost certain that someone else had planted it there. Presumably the true killer.

People suspected Garde because they wanted to. It was there in their eyes: the hatred of villagers for a stranger. For all that Garde had lived here for several years, he was still a foreigner. He hadn’t been born here.

Baldwin noticed Roger cast him a quick look, and correctly interpreted it as an invitation. He muttered a command to Aylmer to stay where he was and walked to the Coroner’s side, contemplating the accused man, at last seeking out Swetricus in the crowd. ‘Your daughter went missing when?’

‘Four years ago.’

‘When did you arrive here, Garde?’ Baldwin asked.

‘I… think it was five years ago.’

His stammering did not affect his upright posture. He was a proud man, this Garde. Just like his brother, Baldwin thought to himself.

Simon was also thinking of Garde’s brother, seeking out his face among the crowd. Bel had told him only that morning that Thomas Garde had arrived before the famine – and the only reason he could have had for lying was in order to put the blame for the murders of Denise and Mary onto Thomas. Simon felt his anger begin to simmer even as he grew convinced of Garde’s innocence.

Baldwin continued, ‘Do you recall the disappearance of Aline, Swetricus’s daughter?’

‘I do.’

Stiff now, wondering whether he was condemning himself, Baldwin noted, but not lying. It would be foolish were he to do so, of course, since the rest of the vill would know the truth.

‘Before that where were you?’

‘During the famine I was in France. That was where I met my wife. We married and had our daughter there.’

‘It is important, of course,’ Baldwin told them all. ‘If he were here only after the famine, for example, he could not be guilty of the murder of Denise, could he? She died during the famine seven years ago.’ He allowed his eyes to range over the men in the jury, to see whether his shot had struck home, and he saw that it had – but it had no effect. The men knew that if they didn’t convict this stranger, the guilty man must be sought from their own ranks.

‘Swetricus, what do you believe?’

Baldwin watched as the large man bowed his head. Swetricus cleared his throat. ‘I think Samson might have killed some, but Aline and Emma… I think Thomas could have killed them.’

‘There you are, Keeper. Thomas must be attached or gaoled,’ said Alexander.

Baldwin stared long and hard at the Reeve. ‘I think you know, or have a good idea, who was guilty, but you are trying to protect him. Or,’ his eyes narrowed in a quick suspicion, ‘or is it simpler? Was it you, Reeve? Did you commit these crimes?’

‘No, I did not!’

‘You seem insulted by the suggestion, but that could be a counterfeit emotion. Some men are good at play-acting. No matter, I will find out.’

‘I have nothing to hide,’ Alexander stated firmly.

‘That is a lie in its own right,’ Baldwin said. ‘No man is that innocent.’

‘How dare you speak to me–’

‘We dare easily. You have lied about the death of Denise, and Mary too,’ Coroner Roger said. ‘Oh yes, Reeve, we have heard about Mary. Which makes us wonder whether you have told the truth at any point.’

Alexander rallied. ‘Whether you like it or not, the body was here. I demand that Thomas Garde be amerced – arrested on suspicion of felony.’

‘Nonsense!’ Baldwin snapped.

‘Quite,’ said Coroner Roger. ‘As First Finder, you must yourself be amerced, Reeve.’

As the Reeve reddened and swelled ready to explode, the Coroner raised his hand. ‘I will adjourn this inquest. Reeve, I want the truth from you, or by Christ’s own blood, I’ll have you gaoled in Exeter until you learn to tell it!’

‘Before you do, I declare that Samson was responsible for the earlier murders,’ Alexander stated loudly. ‘I believe that now he is dead, this man Thomas decided to punish the girl Emma for some insult or slight, and that is why her body is here.’

‘What evidence do you have?’ Baldwin demanded coldly.

‘The evidence of my eyes, Keeper! The man is here, the body is in his stable. I demand that he be attached ready to attend the next court, and if he won’t pay his surety, he must be sent to Exeter’s gaol to await the Justices.’

Thomas threw a glance at his wife as he was led away by the Reeve under the guard of William Taverner and Henry Batyn.

It was a curious feeling, this deadness in his soul. For some time while he was standing before all these people, his friends and neighbours, he had felt threatened only by the Coroner and the tall, grave knight. Swetricus had helped accuse him, but Swet wasn’t an evil man; he just naturally missed his daughter and sought anyone who could be her killer. Aline was his own, even if Swet had never much liked her. He was always telling the other men in the vill that she was a waste of good food, whenever he was in his cups. Too ugly to be married, even though everyone else thought she was nice-looking, and without the brains the Good Lord had given her, he grumbled that she would no doubt remain in Swet’s house until he himself died, a permanent drain on his purse.

That all changed, of course, when she disappeared. Then she became the perfect daughter, the most loyal, the warmest in his bed, the little one who always brought him a warmed ale on a cold winter’s day, or who kept his ale cool in the summer, dangling his firkin in the river. None of his other girls was so thoughtful or kindly, Swet would say, his eyes red and filled with tears. It was only natural that a father should feel that way about his daughter, though. Faults and misbehaviour were forgotten when a child died.

For his part, Thomas was wishing he had remained in France with Nicole. He had seen enough of the Justices’ tourns before, to know how they proceeded. All the hundreds would meet to present their veredicta, their responses to the questions asked in the rolls: one referred to murders to be reported. And the case would be called before the Justices.

It was a speedy process. The accusation would be registered, and the man who appealed the guilt of the accused would be questioned, together with any witnesses he brought to support his case, and then the accused could give his reply, again with his supporters, and the matter would be put to the jury. The Justices didn’t mind how the decision went, they were too busy looking at how much they could fine the vill, take from the guilty man, or fine the man appealing the murderer because of presenting his case wrongly. There were always good sums for the King from dispensing justice.

Thomas knew his own case would take little time. No one would speak for him. He would be listened to, then the jury would speak, and immediately he would be taken outside and hanged. Just as Nicole’s father had been. He was an outsider too.

They couldn’t really have stayed in France. That was clear as soon as the old man was hanged. No one liked an executioner, but Nicole’s father was detested still more because he was a drunk. Perhaps he hated ending young lives unnecessarily; for whatever reason he would drink wildly before attempting an execution. He was a bleary-looking man, with dribbling mouth and sagging eyes under a tousled thatch of grey hair, with large hands that looked too thick and unwieldy to tie a knot. And often they wouldn’t. When Thomas first met him, he was begging the priest to help him, and when the priest refused, old man Garde had looked about him at the angry crowd with a fearful eye, like a horse shying from a flapping cloth in a hedge.

Thomas himself offered his help, not because he wanted to assist an executioner, but because he hated seeing the victims waiting, and he feared that the executioner would botch the job, leaving them to throttle too slowly, or mistying the knots so that the victims fell to the ground, and must wait while another noose was fashioned in order that they might go through the whole process again.

The thought of the poor devils’ torment spurred Thomas on. He ducked under the polearms of the two nearest men-at-arms while they laughed – two of the waiting convicts had soiled themselves in their terror – and walked over to the pathetic executioner. Taking the slack rope, he swiftly fashioned a knot, English-style, with a large loop to allow the rope to travel quickly. At home he knew that the local executioner smothered it in a thick layer of rendered pig’s fat to make it slip all the more easily, for any countryman disliked the thought of protracting death. Whether it was a hog, ox, rabbit or man, the slaughterman tried to make death as swift as possible.

Old man Garde bobbed his head and flapped his hands while his mouth slobbered his gratitude, and then Thomas found himself helping move the four convicted men into a line. While they shivered, staring about them with the terror that only a man about to die can know, Thomas thrust the executioner from him and gently slipped the nooses over the men’s heads. As they sobbed and prayed, one loudly declaring his innocence, another calling on the devil to hear his plea that the crowd should themselves be burned in Hell’s fire for eternity, Thomas rested his hand on their shoulders and tried to calm them.

Not for long. The old man gave the signal, and the teams began to haul on the ropes, yanking the four high into the air; twisting and jerking, their legs kicking madly, bound hands tearing at the ropes that choked their lives away as their women and friends came and pulled on their legs, trying to end their suffering more speedily.

Later he heard of the executioner’s own trial. Thomas felt no sympathy for him. Garde had tried to rape a woman and she had later died, living only long enough to point him out. Garde was hanged.

Thomas went to watch it. It wasn’t often you got to see a hangman’s end, and at least the old man went gamely, cursing his gaoler and executioner. Then Thomas saw men punching a woman and making for her daughter, shouting lewd obscenities and taunting her. One pulled down his hose and displayed his tarse, beckoning the terrified girl to him.

It was enough. Thomas saw red. He took his iron-shod staff and thrust it at the man’s ballocks, then sprang to Nicole’s side. With his staff he was able to beat back the crowd, and although a few hurled rocks in a lacklustre manner, Thomas bellowed to some men-at-arms for protection, and finally they grunted assent and stood between them and the mob.

Within a week Thomas and Nicole were wedded, and she soon fell pregnant with Joan. That was 1311, and for a while they were happy, but Thomas didn’t want his daughter brought up in a vill where all pointed at them, saying, ‘Her grandfather was the executioner.’ No child of Thomas’s should have to live with that. In 1317 he returned to England with his little family to make a home.

He had found things peaceful until Ivo had turned up, causing trouble, and then Swet’s girl had gone missing. Many had looked at him askance, but nobody had actually accused him. Now of course he understood why. Everybody knew that there had already been two earlier deaths, long before he had arrived here – during the famine years, while he had been in France.

As he and his guard reached his house, he considered that again. No one had accused him before, even though he was a stranger; only today, when Emma’s body had been found. Swetricus couldn’t really believe him to be guilty, or he would have killed him long before the inquest. He was the sort of man who’d pick up a baulk of timber and beat to death any man who harmed one of his darling daughters, even if Aline hadn’t been his darling before she died.

There was no money in the house. He knew that as well as the Reeve, but he did have chattels worth a few pence. After some consideration, he selected the large iron pot. He had little choice.

‘I want cash,’ Alexander said harshly.

‘Take that and be damned!’

‘If you threaten me, it won’t make your position any better, foreigner!’ Alexander taunted.

‘Foreigner? I’ve lived here almost five years, man! I was born in Devon.’

‘Ah, maybe you were, but you and your brother come from the north, don’t you, not from here. Are you sure you have no cash?’

‘No, I haven’t. Now take that and go.’

Taverner had remained silent. Now he glanced at Batyn, and Thomas saw them exchange a look. Batyn he had always thought a fair and reasonable man, just as he had thought Swet all right in his own way. Now he wasn’t sure of anything or anyone.

Batyn’s voice was gentle. ‘Come on, Reeve. Take the pot and be done.’

‘I’ll have the cash, or this fool can go to the gaol.’

‘In that case, I’ll buy it from you, Tom,’ Batyn said. He reached into his purse and brought out a shilling or so in coins.

‘No!’ the Reeve protested. ‘He should pay me now from his own money, or he will have to go to gaol in Exeter and wait for the Justices.’

‘Why are you so determined to get me away from here?’ Thomas demanded. ‘What have I ever done to you that you should persecute me like this?’

‘Take the money from Batyn if you must, and then give me the sixpence the Coroner commanded. And leave Swetricus alone. He learned what you were capable of when he saw Emma’s body.’

‘You can’t think I could kill a little girl!’

‘I don’t know what you could do. You seem mad to me.’ Alexander curled his lip as he looked about the room. Seeing a bowl next to the fire, he stalked to it and stirred it with the wooden spoon. ‘What is this?’

‘It is only pork, sir,’ Nicole said quietly. She had followed the men into her home and now she stood at the doorway, her hands clasped at her apron, her eyes following the Reeve as he stalked about her room. ‘From our pig.’

‘How can I tell that?’ Alexander asked, staring at the meat on the spoon with undisguised disgust. He had heard that human flesh looked and smelled much like pork.

‘Taste it, sir. It is salted pork.’

He dropped the spoon back into the dish, shuddering as though it might in fact be part of Emma, held out his hand for the money, and counted it carefully before sniffing loudly as though disappointed, and marching out. Taverner walked after him, but Henry Batyn stood uneasily a moment.

‘Tom, don’t blame the Reeve too much. He has to get rid of the Coroner and the other two before he can get the vill back to normal.’

‘He knows I am innocent.’

‘He has to get the matter sorted, that’s all.’

Thomas dropped onto his stool and shivered. ‘Henry, I helped you when your house was flooded, didn’t I? I had you here, in my house, and let you and your wife sleep here until you could build another shelter. And you expect me to tolerate a Reeve who seeks to have me hanged?’

Batyn met his eye resolutely. ‘There are ways to protect yourself. The Justices won’t be here for ages, and you know that the church at Oakhampton is a sanctuary. You could make your way there for a market, and then abjure.’

‘Why should I? I am innocent!’

‘You think that matters?’ Batyn expostulated, throwing his hands wide. ‘Look, if you remain here, you’ll be the obvious target. You have to go.’

‘If I go, it’ll be as good as an admission. I’ll be remembered for all time as a vampire.’

‘And if you stay, you’ll be hanged and still be remembered as a vampire. Which is better? One way at least you live.’

‘And what about Nicole and Joan? They will be reviled as the widow and child of a confessed man-eater. You would have that?’

Batyn looked away, unable to meet either Thomas’s or Nicole’s eyes. ‘I could look after them, if you want.’

‘In Sticklepath, where other children would victimise my daughter, where men would insult and rape my wife? No, Henry. I thank you, but no!’

‘Thomas, you must do something. The alternative is death.’

‘Take your pot.’

‘I don’t want it. Pay me back when you can,’ Batyn said. He met Thomas’s gaze. ‘You must do something.’