‘But then what happened?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Wymundham was killed in the church, and then what? How did his body end up in Horwoode’s garden?’
‘Holy Trinity is not far from the King’s Ditch,’ said Michael. ‘In fact, all that separates the two is a patch of scrub that would be easy to traverse with a small, light body like Wymundham’s. I imagine it was then loaded on to a boat and dumped off at a conveniently isolated place.’
‘Do you think the choice of Horwoode’s garden was random, then?’ asked Bartholomew.
Michael shrugged. ‘I have no idea. It is a desolate spot – despite the fact that Horwoode said he likes to stroll there – and so would suit our killer’s purpose very well. No murderer wants to travel far with the body of his victim in a boat.’
‘But why kill Patrick and not Adela?’ asked Bartholomew, still not understanding all the twists and turns. ‘It seems to me that they saw the same thing.’
‘Perhaps Patrick caught him actually suffocating Wymundham – heard gasps and saw someone holding a pillow,’ Michael said. ‘Adela saw nothing but a leg, and the scholars probably thought that she did not even see that. Besides, it would have been easy to murder Patrick. Friars are always killing each other, especially the Franciscans and Dominicans, and the unwitnessed death of yet another in the grounds of his own hostel would not raise – has not raised – too many eyebrows.’
‘But the murder of a merchant’s daughter would attract a lot more attention.’
‘Quite. And anyway, Adela kept silent about what she had seen, so they probably assumed – wrongly as it happened – that she had witnessed nothing incriminating.’
‘And it probably was Wymundham’s body she glimpsed,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I never saw his legs, but he was a slim man with fair hair. The leg Adela says she spotted was thin and covered in goldish hairs.’
Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘That is uncommonly observant of her.’
‘She seems to like looking at legs,’ said Bartholomew. ‘A conversation with her seldom passes without a comment on some man’s limbs.’
‘Our path is clear,’ said Michael, wiping his greasy fingers on the hem of Bartholomew’s cloak. ‘Tomorrow I will visit our friends in Bene’t and see whether I can frighten them into telling me more about Wymundham’s death. And perhaps I will also ask them if they have been creeping around Michaelhouse recently wearing hooded cloaks, just to please you. But there is something I want to do first.’
‘What?’ asked Bartholomew, picking up the shabbier of his two cloaks, and swinging it round his shoulders. Something dropped from it to the floor.
‘An apple pie!’ exclaimed Michael, pouncing on it.
‘I bought it for you yesterday,’ said Bartholomew, taking the broken pastry from him. ‘But you will not be wanting it now that you have eaten. It will be stale, anyway.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Michael, taking it back and secreting it in his scrip for later. ‘It was a very kind thought, and I would never offend you by declining such a gift. There will be too many people around tonight, after the collapse of that scaffolding, but tomorrow, after everyone has gone to bed, I would like you to come with me to Master Runham’s room.’
‘Why?’ asked Bartholomew nervously.
‘Because that is where he died, and that is where we will find any clues to help us discover who killed him. If the murderer left a single thread of evidence, you and I must find it.’
The window shutters were closed in Runham’s room, and nothing had been damaged when the scaffolding had fallen the previous evening. The sill lay under a thick layer of dust, and there was a fine smattering of powder all across the room where it had billowed through the gaps in the wood, but apart from that, the room was exactly as it had been when Runham’s body had been discovered.
Runham himself lay in a fine coffin in St Michael’s Church, where students had been bribed, threatened and cajoled into taking turns to keep a vigil. He was due to be buried in three days, and his will had stipulated that the occasion should be a suitably grand one. When Kenyngham had read Runham’s demands for his own requiem at dinner that evening, even he had been unable to silence the amused catcalls and derisive hoots of the students as the full glory of the ceremonies that were to take place were unveiled.
Michael had chuckled unpleasantly, remarking several times that Runham would go to the next world as he had lived in this one – full of sham grandeur and without a soul who genuinely liked him. Bartholomew was astonished that the dead Master had the money to pay for such an event, and could only suppose that handsome funerals and tombs were something for which his family had a penchant. He was relieved that he had not been given the responsibility for arranging matters, as he had with Wilson, but was dismayed to learn that Runham had selected himself a spot in the chancel of St Michael’s Church where his own monstrous mausoleum would outshine even that of his cousin.
Teaching had finished early because of the workmen’s noise, and Bartholomew had spent the rest of the day with various patients. He was even able to find a few moments to stop off at Stanmore’s business premises in Milne Street and eat one of his sister’s excellent cakes. Edith assured him that the hunt for a suitable wife was proceeding apace, and that he should keep the following Sunday free for socialising. She brushed aside his anxious objections, and merely informed him that it would be safer to leave Michaelhouse as soon as he could, given the number of murders that occurred in University circles.
On his way home he had met Matilde, who told him that the case against Robin of Grantchester had been dismissed, because it could not be proven that the surgeon had deliberately tried to kill the man whose leg he had amputated. Bartholomew was relieved, not liking the notion that every unsuccessful outcome should end in the courts. He walked back to Michaelhouse feeling more cheerful, particularly since he had noticed that Matilde wore a green ribbon in her hair.
He worked on his treatise until the daylight faded, then sat with the other Fellows in the conclave, enjoying the cosy warmth of the fire. Suttone had a copy of Homer’s Iliad, which he read aloud to entertain the others, although the story about the Trojan horse sparked some telling opinions. Michael thought the disaster was the Trojans’ own fault for not being properly suspicious of a gift from nowhere; Suttone considered the Greeks’ trick unconscionable, and wondered how they ever assuaged their guilt; Langelee was unable to move past the question of how the Trojans managed to exit from the horse to mount a surprise attack when it would have taken them some time to descend the ladders; Clippesby suggested the Trojans should have sent someone to talk to the horse before allowing it in their city; Kenyngham was distressed by the notion of a massacre; and Bartholomew was concerned that the tale would give the gentle Gilbertine nightmares.
Eventually, as the embers in the fire died and the room began to chill, the other Fellows drifted away to their beds.
Michael and Bartholomew lingered in the conclave, preparing for their nocturnal foray to the murdered Runham’s chamber. While they waited for the College to sleep, the monk described the visit he had made to Bene’t College earlier that day. Fellows and students alike had claimed to know nothing about the death of Wymundham, even the foppish Simeon, who had been sufficiently concerned about the matter to invade Michael’s sickroom the previous week. The Bene’t men used the Duke of Lancaster’s pronouncement that there had been nothing untoward in the two deaths to declare Michael’s investigation closed. Knowing that to reveal what Adela had seen might put her in danger, Michael had been unable to confront them about the incident that took place in Holy Trinity, and so left Bene’t none the wiser but very much angrier.