‘You should not encourage her to do that,’ said Michael critically. ‘It is bad enough having Tuddenham thinking we are dragging our feet over this wretched deed, without you exchanging lecherous looks with his wife. Still, at least William is out of trouble.’
‘Why? What have you done with him?’
‘Here he comes now,’ said Michael. ‘You can ask him yourself.’
William strode briskly toward them, rubbing his hands together in a businesslike fashion. ‘Right. I have now questioned everybody who lives on The Street and the Otley road. I will make a start on the houses on the hill this afternoon.’
‘Good,’ said Michael, pleased by his diligence. ‘And what have you discovered?’
William’s self-satisfaction reached new heights. ‘I have found another six people who saw the cloaked figure running from the church after the feast.’
‘Excellent,’ said Michael, impressed. ‘But how did you manage to find them, when I asked these same people and was told they had seen nothing?’
‘It is amazing how lies dissolve into truth when people are threatened with eternal damnation,’ said William proudly. ‘I merely informed them that they would burn in hell for lying, just as they would for stealing and murdering.’
‘But why should they lie at all?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘Everyone keeps telling me how the entire village will do anything to help us catch Unwin’s murderer.’
‘Apparently, they feel sorry for Norys,’ said William in some disdain. ‘They all know he is the one accused of killing Unwin, and they are reluctant to provide us with information that may harm him. He is a popular man in the village, because he grants them pardons.’
‘He does not,’ said Michael immediately. ‘Wauncy does, not allow him to practise his vile trade in the village – he goes to Ipswich.’
‘He goes to Ipswich a good deal less now than he did before the plague,’ said William, delighted to answer Michael’s questions and show off his prowess at interrogation. ‘Wauncy is so busy saying masses for the dead that he has little time for his living parishioners. They feel it is better to buy a pardon from Norys than to wait all day for Wauncy to find a spare moment to grant them absolution.’
‘No wonder Wauncy was keen to have Unwin as his apprentice,’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘Unwin could have taken on all the dealings with the living, while Wauncy himself could continue to amass a fortune from the dead.’
‘And Wauncy is not even a real parish priest,’ said William with relish. ‘He was only an acolyte before the Death, and simply took on priestly duties when Tuddenham could find no one else.’
It was a tale repeated in villages all over the country – after the plague, priests had tended to select the more lucrative posts, leaving small parish churches struggling to find replacements. Bishops had been reduced to employing men from the laity, who had no proper training, but who were better than nothing at all.
‘I see,’ said Michael. ‘And did anyone recognise this person who rushed from the church?’
William looked crestfallen. ‘Unfortunately not. And three of them said he wore a short cloak, and three said a long one.’
‘Damn!’ said Michael softly. ‘That gets us nowhere at all. We still cannot prove that Norys is lying when he said he saw a short cloak.’
‘So, we have Stoate and three others saying the fellow wore a long cloak, and Norys and three others saying it was a short cloak,’ summarised Bartholomew. ‘Were there two of them, then?’
‘How could there be?’ asked Michael wearily. ‘Unwin was only killed once.’
‘Then perhaps one was an innocent party – either coming from the church before Unwin was placed there, or fleeing afterwards because he did not want to become involved with the unlawful slaying of a priest. Who can blame him? Both Norys and Eltisley have been accused, and the evidence to implicate either is thin.’
‘So,’ said Michael dispiritedly, ‘all we can say with certainty is that six people plus Norys, Stoate and Mistress Freeman saw a figure in a cloak running from the church at about the time Unwin was slain. We do not know whether one or both of them had anything to do with Unwin’s death. Did you learn anything else, William?’
‘That no one has seen Norys since Wednesday, and that no one saw him throw a bloody knife into the garden of the Half Moon, although I realise of course that does not mean he did not do it.’
‘Well done,’ said Michael, appreciative of William’s reasoning – especially since it fitted with his own. ‘You will make a splendid Junior Proctor one day. Is that all?’
‘Only that the village thatcher claims the bundle you discovered on Saturday was not on Norys’s roof on Friday morning,’ said William. ‘It is one of the roofs he thinks need replacing, apparently, and he always looks at it as he passes, hoping to see signs of leakage. He said the bundle must have been put on the roof after midday on Friday.’
‘That is odd,’ said Michael, puzzled.
‘That means either Norys did not put it there, or he is not in Ipswich,’ said Bartholomew.
‘He must have returned,’ said Michael, refusing to accept the alternative.
‘But why would he hurl such an incriminating package on his own roof?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘It would have been better to throw it on someone else’s, to implicate them. He is not stupid.’
‘Perhaps he is just trying to confound us,’ said William. ‘There is no understanding the criminal mind, Matthew. It is not made of the same physical material as yours and mine.’
‘Really?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘And how would it be different, exactly?’
‘I am going to the Half Moon to see if Eltisley has recovered sufficiently from his ordeal in Tuddenham’s cellar to make me something to eat,’ interrupted Michael before they could start a debate. ‘You two can do what you like.’
‘We will join you,’ said William. ‘I have not eaten anything today and questioning people always gives me an appetite.’ He stretched expansively and then looked at Bartholomew. ‘Have you fully recovered from your encounter with the white dog, Matthew? Cynric has not. He is convinced he is going to die, and is refusing to leave the tavern.’
‘I know,’ said Bartholomew. ‘I have tried to reason with him, but he will not listen to me. Deynman is supposed to be looking after him.’
‘Cynric will be seeking his death a lot sooner if you impose that ignoramus on him for long,’ said William, following them along the woodland path to the village. Bartholomew was perfectly aware of that, hoping that too much of Deynman’s company might jolt the Welshman from his gloom. While Michael and William discussed the relative merits of the cuisine at the Half Moon and the Dog, Bartholomew fretted about his book-bearer, racking his brain for a way to break the black mood that had turned Cynric into someone he barely recognised.
‘There is Eltisley,’ said Michael, as they reached the Half Moon. ‘I wonder where he is going.’
Eltisley, looking around him so furtively that it was comical, was tiptoeing across the yard of his tavern to one of the sheds that stood as a lean-to against the rear wall. Curious, Bartholomew followed him, wondering what he was up to. With Michael and William watching in amusement, he walked stealthily to the shack into which Eltisley had disappeared.
‘Sir Thomas released you, then,’ he said, in a deliberately loud voice to the landlord’s back. Eltisley spun round in alarm, pots flying from the table in front of him to smash on the floor. Bartholomew looked around the room with interest. It was a workshop, with herbs and plants hanging in bunches from the rafters, pots and bottles ranged along shelves, and a bench that ran the full length of one wall. It smelled of burning, and of mint vying for dominance over rosemary, but it was not unpleasant.