Chapter 8
The body of Mistress Freeman lay in the same parish coffin that had been used for Unwin. Mother Goodman was fussing over the corpse, cursing under her breath when the cloth she had tied around the woman’s throat did not succeed in hiding the gaping gash from view. Bartholomew had inspected the wound while the midwife washed the rest of the body. It was an ugly cut that sliced through the muscles of the neck, exposing the yellow-white of the pipes underneath. Judging from the marks on her arms and hands, and the chaos that Michael had reported in her house, Mistress Freeman had put up something of a fight.
‘Do you think her neighbours might have seen or heard something?’ asked Bartholomew of Michael, as they stood together in the nave watching Mother Goodman work.
Michael shook his head. ‘Very conveniently for her killer, the butcher’s property stands alone on the outskirts of Grundisburgh – on the river, so that the blood and offal can be washed downstream and away from the village.’
‘That is unusually courteous,’ said Bartholomew. ‘Butchers do not often concern themselves about such matters. Of course, the river then flows on through Hasketon, so I suppose Freeman could rest contented that he was probably poisoning someone. So, the neighbours did not report anything untoward, then?’
‘No,’ said Michael. ‘Although I would not expect him to say so if he had heard anything. Her nearest neighbour is none other than our good friend, the pardoner.’
‘Norys?’ asked Bartholomew. He frowned. ‘I suppose you consider that evidence of his guilt?’
‘Of course,’ said Michael. ‘Particularly since he still has not returned from Ipswich. I knew we should not have let him remain at large. He has absconded, just as I guessed he would if we did not tell Tuddenham to arrest him immediately.’
‘But if he has been in Ipswich since we spoke to him, then he could not have killed Mistress Freeman,’ Bartholomew pointed out. ‘He would not have been here.’
‘She was last seen by her friends early Wednesday morning,’ said Michael immediately, clearly having worked it all out. ‘That was before we went to speak to Will Norys. She was supposed to change the church flowers after nones that same day, but failed to arrive. Wauncy – who remembers the time because he had just delivered the documents he had collected from Ipswich to Alcote at Wergen Hall – assumed she had forgotten, and asked someone else to do it instead.’
‘He should have known something was wrong right then,’ announced Mother Goodman, who had been listening. ‘Mistress Freeman loved to arrange the church flowers and never missed her turn. That she did not come should have warned Wauncy that something was amiss.’
‘Well, it did not,’ said Michael, none too pleased at being interrupted by the forceful midwife. ‘And no one thought to look for her until I found her yesterday – Friday – at about noon. I am no medical man, but even I could see she had been dead for at least a couple of days, and not just a few hours. I am getting better at this kind of thing, Matt; I will have no need of your services soon.’
‘Good,’ said Bartholomew with feeling. ‘My business is with the living, not the dead, and I would be delighted if you did not call on me to pore over corpses.’
‘Corpses demand every bit as much respect as the living,’ put in Mother Goodman haughtily from the coffin. ‘More so, since they are already gone the way we will soon go.’
‘She is a cheery soul,’ muttered Michael, regarding the midwife coolly. ‘But, as I was saying, Mistress Freeman was probably killed on Wednesday. She was last seen a short time before we spoke to Norys, and then no one saw her until I found her yesterday. Meanwhile, Norys has been missing since just after we questioned him. He must have paid a visit to Mistress Freeman as soon as we had gone, killed her, and then absconded.’
‘But Norys wanted us to talk to Mistress Freeman,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He believed she would prove his innocence. Why should he kill her?’
‘Because she refused to lie for him,’ said Michael promptly. ‘I imagine he went to see her the moment we left, and told her what she had to say to us. Then, when she refused to back him in his falsehood, he slashed her throat.’
The speed with which Michael’s answers came suggested to Bartholomew that he must have spent the better part of the previous night mulling over the evidence and thinking of ways to convince himself of the pardoner’s guilt. Michael claimed to have spent the time with William and Deynman, fretting over Bartholomew’s failure to return. They had been saddling up to search for him when he and Cynric had arrived back again.
‘So, you think Will Norys killed Unwin and Mistress Freeman?’ asked Mother Goodman, looking up from her work and addressing Michael. ‘Master Norys is a popular man in the village, and has never been involved in anything like this before.’
‘He is a pardoner,’ said Michael, as if that explained all. ‘Anyway, we have evidence: Norys was seen running from the church at about the time Unwin was murdered.’
‘Stoate saw someone wearing a long cloak,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He did not say it was Norys.’
‘And Norys, very conveniently, also claims to have seen someone running from the church,’ said Michael, not to be outdone. ‘Only his someone was wearing a short cloak. And the rascal said he was talking with Mistress Freeman at about the time that Stoate said he was doing the same.’
‘I saw them,’ said Mother Goodman unexpectedly. ‘Both of them.’
‘You mean figures with long and short cloaks running from the church?’ asked Michael, bewildered. ‘You might have mentioned this earlier.’
‘No, not them,’ said Mother Goodman impatiently. ‘Stoate and Norys. I saw Norys walking Mistress Freeman around the churchyard – he is fond of her – and then I saw her speaking to Stoate by the ford just after the feast started.’
‘She cannot have been in two places at the same time,’ said Michael, unconvinced.
‘She need not have been,’ said Bartholomew, thinking quickly. ‘Perhaps she walked around the churchyard with Norys, and then stopped to talk to Stoate after Norys had left her.’
‘Yes,’ said Michael, eyes narrowing. ‘So, Norys escorts Mistress Freeman around the churchyard, sees Unwin go inside alone, and decides to rob him.’
‘But the blood we found by the buttress, and the fact that Unwin was moved after he died, suggests he was killed outside the church,’ Bartholomew pointed out.
Michael pursed his lips impatiently. ‘Then he must have seduced Unwin out of the church, and carried him back inside again after he was dead.’
‘Without anyone seeing?’ asked Bartholomew incredulously.
‘Unwin was not heavy. His killer could have moved him by draping one of Unwin’s arms over his shoulder and carrying him – from a distance they would look like a pair of revellers the worse for drink. But, as I was saying, after Norys sees Unwin alone in the church and decides to murder him for his purse, he leaves Mistress Freeman by the ford, dons his long cloak to hide his clothes, and stabs Unwin. He then hauls the body back inside the church to keep it hidden long enough to make good his escape. Mistress Freeman and Stoate spot him running from the church in his long cloak, and Norys kills her when she will not lie and tell us he was with her all day.’
‘It is possible, I suppose,’ said Bartholomew reluctantly.
‘It is more than possible,’ said Michael keenly. ‘It makes perfect sense. And Norys has now fled the scene of his crime, and is in hiding somewhere.’
‘He would not leave his cats for long,’ said Mother Goodman. ‘He adores cats. If it were not for them, I think he would have offered to marry Mistress Freeman when her mourning was over.’