‘Drink this,’ he said, reaching into his bag and producing a phial. It was stronger than the brew he usually used for shocks, but Henry still had his other one. ‘And then we will go upstairs and see what has happened.’
‘What is it?’ asked Michael, regarding the phial suspiciously. ‘I do not like drinking medicine handed to me in the dark. You may make a mistake and hand me a purge.’
‘Just strong wine.’
‘Wine,’ said Michael, taking it from him eagerly. ‘That is more like it. I had forgotten you have taken to carrying a little something around with you these days.’
‘It is not for me, and not for casual drinking,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is for emergencies.’
‘This is an emergency,’ said Michael, putting his lips to the neck of the flask and all but emptying it in a single swallow. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. ‘That is better. Wine is indeed a good remedy for unsteady nerves.’
‘Are you feeling better, then?’ asked Bartholomew, holding the candle closer to Michael’s face. He was relieved to see that some of the colour was creeping back into the monk’s cheeks, and his eyes were losing their haunted expression.
‘I do not know which was worse: having a killer land on me, or seeing him prepared to make an end of you. I thought my lunge with the spade was too late.’
‘You hit him?’
‘As hard as I could. However, it was not as hard as I would have liked – this is a small room, and there was no opportunity to swing the thing properly. I imagine it brought tears to his eyes, though.’
‘Where did you hit him?’
‘I was afraid he might duck if I aimed for his head, and then I would be off balance and he might succeed in stabbing us both. I aimed for his shoulders, but actually caught him on the back. Why do you ask?’
‘Damn!’ muttered Bartholomew. ‘If you had injured his face, we might have been able to identify him tomorrow. But it will be difficult to see whether anyone has a bruised back.’
‘I should have thought of that,’ said Michael caustically. ‘I seem to be slipping tonight. First, I let a killer go because I was more interested in trying to save your life, and then I hit him in a place where you will not be able to see the wound.’
‘I did not mean to sound ungracious,’ said Bartholomew apologetically. ‘I am just frustrated that we had the damned man in our clutches, but he still managed to escape.’
‘It is too late to worry about that now. We did our best. It is not our fault we are not experts at wrestling in the dark with murderers, although we have done it often enough. Our performance tonight was not our finest hour. I am not a man for superstition, as you know, but I cannot help but think there was something diabolical about his strength.’
‘There was not. We stumbled around like old ladies, and he merely took advantage of our ineptitude. He was not as diabolical as our performance.’
Michael smiled wanly.
‘We should look upstairs,’ said Bartholomew unenthusiastically. ‘Something horrible is up there, and I think we should probably see what it is.’
‘You go,’ suggested Michael. ‘I have seen enough vile things for one night. And anyway, I still feel unsteady around the legs.’
‘Do you?’ asked Bartholomew, concerned. ‘Perhaps I should escort you back to your room, so that you can lie down and rest a while. I can always come back later.’
‘We should get it over with,’ said Michael, climbing stiffly to his feet. He drained the last of the wine, and handed the empty flask back to Bartholomew. ‘That is a decent brew, Matt. I shall have to remember where you keep it.’
Bartholomew walked to the ladder and raised the candle to illuminate the darkness. He could see nothing, except that the rungs of the ladder were stained with red. Some had aged to a dark brown, but the most recent coat was a bright crimson.
‘I do not recall seeing these marks when we examined Glovere,’ he said. ‘Do you?’
‘No,’ said Michael. ‘But I did not look. This is not a pleasant place, and I remember wanting to finish and be out as soon as possible.’
‘The ladder may have been discoloured before, but blood was not dripping through the ceiling. I would have noticed that.’ Bartholomew raised the candle again, and inspected the floor.
‘Are you going up, or shall we just stand here and stare at this mess all night?’ demanded Michael peevishly.
‘All right,’ said Bartholomew irritably. ‘I am going. Do not rush me.’ He placed the candle holder between his teeth and prepared to climb.
With the candle wavering in front of his eyes, he climbed slowly up the ladder, trying to ignore the unpleasant stickiness under his fingers. He wondered who the killer had dispatched in the chill gloom of the Bone House. Was it Mackerell or William? Or was it Mackerell or William with whom they had wrestled downstairs? It had been impossible to tell much in the dark. Or was the killer someone totally different – one of the gypsies, perhaps, or de Lisle, or a monk or one of the townsfolk?
He swallowed hard as he reached the top of the steps, to fortify himself for the unpleasant sight he was sure he would see. With his head and shoulders poking into the upper floor, he took the candle-holder from between his teeth and looked around.
‘What can you see?’ whispered Michael urgently. ‘Is it William or Mackerell’s exsanguinated corpse up there?’
‘Neither,’ Bartholomew whispered back. ‘No one is here.’
‘What?’ asked Michael, startled. ‘That blood belongs to someone.’
‘Obviously. But its owner is not here.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Michael, unconvinced. Bartholomew felt the ladder bend under his feet as the monk began to climb. ‘Let me see.’
Bartholomew clambered into the attic room, and waited for Michael to heave his bulk up the ladder. Then both men looked around them.
The attic was essentially bare, with a few shelves nailed to one wall, as if the original builders had anticipated that they would recover more skulls than the ones stored downstairs. Bartholomew suspected that the Bone House was not a popular place to visit, and that the workmen tended to dump their finds in the lower room, then leave as quickly as possible. None were keen to take the additional few steps to carry their finds to the upper floor, and so while the downstairs was crammed to the gills, the upper room was empty. And now, because the foundations for the parish church and the Lady Chapel were completed, and the finds were becoming infrequent, it was unlikely that the upper floor would receive any bony remains at all.
However, someone had found a use for it. A crate had been carried up the steps and placed upside down, so that it could be used as a seat, while two of the shelves had been pulled from the wall and balanced between the windowsill and a roof post, forming a kind of workbench. On it were pots and bottles, and a large vat of a red substance that Bartholomew knew was blood. He gazed down at the floor, revolted to see that it was deeply impregnated with the stuff, and that it felt sticky under his feet. It stank, too, the earthy sweetness of fresh blood overlying the bad odour of something rotten.
‘What is that awful smell?’ asked Michael, repelled. ‘And what was the fellow doing here?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Bartholomew. He began to pick up bottles at random, sniffing at their contents and tipping them this way and that so that he could examine them in the candlelight.