‘Obviously there is no more you can do for Dunstan, but I need to make arrangements for him to be buried with his brother.’
‘Will you wait a moment while Philippa lights some candles?’ asked Stanmore, abandoning the widow with relief as he headed for the door. ‘I escorted her here, but I have a guild meeting to attend and cannot see her home again. It is on your way – more or less.’
He had opened the door and left before they had had the chance to reply, transparently grateful to be about his own business. He slammed the door behind him, sending a hollow crash around the building. Bartholomew wished that Stanmore had made as much noise entering the church; then he would not have been caught with a pair of forceps in the throat of a corpse.
‘Cambridge is reasonably safe during the day,’ he said, thinking Philippa was being overly sensitive by not wanting to walk alone. ‘You are unlikely to come to harm, and it is not far from here to Milne Street.’
‘Actually, Cambridge is a very odd little town,’ she countered. ‘And do not try to convince me otherwise, because I remember it from when I was here during the plague – bodies hidden in attics, Masters burned alive in their rooms, men murdered and their deaths made to appear natural. But my insistence on an escort is not because I am afraid, but because it is not seemly for a recent widow to wander the streets on her own.’
‘London manners,’ remarked Michael. ‘No one would condemn unescorted widows here.’
‘Perhaps so, but I do not want to abandon my principles just because I am travelling. What are you doing here anyway? Do you not have better things to do than thrusting pincers down dead men’s gullets?’ She turned and flounced into the Stanton Chapel without waiting for a response.
‘It is a good thing I did not allow you to slice Gosslinge open,’ muttered Michael, watching her leave. ‘Otherwise she and Oswald would have rushed screaming from the church and we both would have been burned as warlocks in the Market Square. Next time you want to do something so excessively unpleasant, we shall have to remember to lock the door.’
‘I am done with bodies, Brother,’ said Bartholomew, covering Gosslinge with the sheet. ‘First I conducted an examination so superficial that I missed important evidence, then I held one so thorough I shocked and dismayed a widow. I do not enjoy it anyway, and you will do better to find someone else.’
‘You made a mistake,’ acknowledged Michael. ‘But few of us are perfect, and you will do until someone better comes along. Did you retrieve whatever it was you located in that poor man’s throat? Or do we have to return at midnight with satanic regalia and do it all over again?’
‘It is in my bag. It fell on the ground when Philippa made me jump, and I did not want her to see it – that is why I put the tweezers on top of all my clean bandages, not from any habit of poor hygiene. I wanted to keep the thing a secret.’
‘Intriguing,’ mused Michael, regarding his friend with interest. ‘Your responses to Philippa are difficult to fathom, Matt. I cannot decide whether she still means something to you, or whether you are just relieved she is not Mistress Bartholomew. And although you balked at examining Turke because she asked you not to, you are suspicious of her contradictory statements about the Waits and her odd reaction to her husband’s death. So, what is she to you: innocent widow or sly trickster?’
‘Neither,’ said Bartholomew, sensing that Michael’s assessment was correct: his feelings towards Philippa were definitely ambivalent. His memories of her were pleasant and she represented a happy phase in his life, yet there were things about her now that he did not understand and that he did not want to probe.
‘So, you are not still half in love with the woman, then?’ asked Michael nosily.
‘No,’ said Bartholomew, certain that any spark of passion that he might have harboured was now well and truly extinguished. It was not romantic love that was at the heart of the complex gamut of emotions he felt for her.
‘Good. I confess I held hopes that she might be just what you needed when I first heard she was here, but she has changed and I have revised my opinion. You are better off with Matilde.’
‘I shall bear it in mind,’ said Bartholomew dryly.
‘Be sure you do. Philippa may come after you now she is free, and I do not think you should succumb. Remember that she is no longer the woman you loved. So, tell me why you hid the object you found in Gosslinge’s throat. Do you suspect her of foul play, like Oswald does?’
‘No,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘I do not know, Michael. I am confused by the fact that she denied knowing the Waits, and Giles has been acting very oddly since he arrived. I think something is going on, but I have no idea what it might be. It could be wholly innocent. I do not know why I felt the need to hide the thing I found in Gosslinge. I acted on instinct.’
‘What was it?’
‘I do not know that, either. It was too covered in–’
‘Tell me later,’ interrupted Michael hastily. ‘Or even better, do not tell me at all. Just present it nicely cleansed of all signs that it has been residing in a corpse for the last few days. Here is Philippa. Shall we go?’
Philippa refused Bartholomew’s arm as they left the church, and took Michael’s instead. They started to walk towards Milne Street, their progress slow because of the ice and filth that covered the roads. The deep snow meant the dung carts had been unable to collect, and the festering piles along the edges of the street added a sulphurous stench to the choking palls of smoke from wood and peat fires. Dogs foraged enthusiastically in the sticky brown heaps, gorging themselves on objects that even starving beggars had passed over.
‘Did you ignore my wishes and examine my husband’s body anyway?’ asked Philippa, looking briefly at Bartholomew before returning her attention to the demanding task of watching where she placed her prettily clad feet.
‘Yes,’ said Bartholomew bluntly. He imagined she would find out, since the shroud had probably not been replaced exactly as he had found it, and he disliked lying. ‘But I only looked at him. I did not touch him with instruments.’
‘Well, that is something, I suppose,’ she said coolly. ‘And did this examination tell you anything you did not already know?’
‘No,’ admitted Bartholomew. ‘It told me he had died of the cold, after falling in the river. There were some old scars on his legs, though. Do you know how he came by them?’
‘He never told me. They derived from something that happened long before we met. He disliked anyone seeing them – which was why I was careful how I removed his hose when we were stripping off his wet clothes. I did not want him to wake up and find them bared for all to see, because it would have distressed him. What did your gruesome treatment of Gosslinge tell you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Michael, before Bartholomew could reply. ‘But you should not take our investigation amiss. The Sheriff or the proctors examine anyone who dies unexpectedly or suddenly. We would be remiss if we did not ensure there was nothing odd about a death.’
‘But there was not – for either of them,’ said Philippa. ‘You just said so.’
‘We had to be certain,’ said Michael. ‘It would not do to bury a man, then have his grieving kin arrive months later clamouring there was evidence of murder.’
‘Murder?’ asked Philippa in alarm. ‘Who said anything about murder?’
‘No one,’ said Michael, startled by her outburst. ‘I was only explaining why these examinations are necessary. Matt did not want to do it, but I insisted.’
‘Well, it is done now, and it is a pity to argue,’ said Philippa, giving Bartholomew a reluctant smile. ‘Let us be friends again.’
‘Good,’ said Michael, patting her arm. ‘But here comes your brother. Perhaps he can escort you home, so we can go and see what can be done for poor Dunstan. That is where our duty lies this morning.’
Abigny smiled as he approached, but would have walked past if Michael had not stopped him. The clerk did not want to return the way he had come, and said his feet hurt too much for all but the most essential journeys. Curtly, Philippa informed him that escorting her was essential, since she was a recent widow and in need of such attentions. Abigny offered her his arm in a way that suggested he wanted her delivered home as soon as possible, so he could go about his own errands.