Bernarde watched, presumably only to ensure no harm came to his ‘delicate’ equipment, because he did not offer to help. Nor did Michael, who immediately embarked on a search of the premises so that he would not have to see what was being done. Fortunately, neither victim was heavy – Bottisham because he was small and Deschalers because he had been ill – and Bartholomew found he could manage alone. It was an awkward struggle, though, and involved the use of knives and a saw at one point, but eventually he had them laid side by side on the dusty floor, covered with sacking.
‘This is puzzling,’ he said, when he had finished. ‘I wonder how it could have happened.’
‘What do you mean?’ snapped Michael, concealing his grief with irritability. ‘You have already told us about the nails.’
‘Yes, but how? I cannot see Deschalers meekly standing still while Bottisham fiddled around in his mouth, looking for the right spot, no matter how ill he was feeling.’
‘Are you saying Bottisham killed Deschalers?’ asked Michael uneasily, glancing at Bernarde, who was nodding in satisfaction. ‘Not the other way around?’
‘It would have taken considerable force to do this – not just to ram the nail into position, but to hold the victim still in the first place. I am not sure whether Deschalers had that kind of strength left. But Bottisham was a gentle man, and I do not see him committing such a vile crime, either.’
Michael was pensive. ‘But Bernarde’s testimony has ruled out the possibility of a third party killing them both, so logic dictates that one must have committed a double crime: murder, then suicide. We must determine who is the victim and who is the killer.’
‘There is no way to know, Brother.’ Bartholomew gave a helpless shrug. ‘I have no idea how to find out what really went on here.’
Bartholomew wanted to go home after the gruesome discoveries in the mill; he was shocked by what had happened and needed some time alone with his thoughts. But Michael had other ideas. His distress was turning to an ice-cold anger, which was galvanising him into action, and Bartholomew could see him become more determined to solve the crime with every step that led them away from the crushed corpses. The monk declined to answer the questions rattled at him by the waiting members of the Millers’ Society, and stalked along the dark lanes towards the Trumpington Gate. He hammered on it until Orwelle allowed him through, then strode to Gonville Hall. He wanted to inform its scholars that Bottisham had died in mysterious circumstances before they heard it from other sources: he wanted to gauge their reactions.
He was to be disappointed. Word of the incident had already reached Gonville, and nearly all its Fellows had gone to take the shocking news to the Carmelite Friary. Only one, John of Ufford, was home, and his response on learning about the untimely loss of a much-loved colleague was to set off for St Mary the Great, where he said he would pray to the Hand of Valence Marie for Bottisham’s soul. Michael watched him go with narrowed eyes.
‘That Hand is enjoying far more popularity than is right. I must have words with William.’
‘It was stupid to make him Keeper of the University Chest,’ said Bartholomew, fully agreeing with him. ‘He is honest – there is no question of that – but he is not to be trusted with anything religious. He is a fanatic, and that sort of zeal can be contagious, like a virulent fever that strikes all in its path.’
‘That is a good analogy,’ said Michael. ‘This devotion to the Hand is indeed like an ague that rages out of control and against all reason.’
They fared no better at Deschalers’s house on Milne Street. Deschalers had been widowed during the plague, and he lived alone, although there had been rumours of lovers in his past. However, with the exception of Bess the madwoman, whom Bartholomew had seen trailing after him the day before, it seemed Deschalers had forsaken women. Even Michael, who listened to more town gossip than he probably should have done, had heard no tales of current sweethearts.
‘There is no one here, either,’ said the monk irritably, thumping on Deschalers’s handsome front door for the third time.
‘Who were you expecting?’ asked Bartholomew. ‘He had no family. Well, there is his niece Julianna, but she does not live with him.’
‘Servants,’ replied Michael. ‘I want to question them about his state of mind this evening. Was he anxious or agitated, as a man planning a murder and suicide might be? Did he mention a secret meeting in the unlikely venue of the King’s Mill? Did he contact Bottisham, or did Bottisham call him? And I want to know more about their ancient dispute – the one you recall only vaguely.’
‘Someone is in,’ said Bartholomew, watching a shadow pass across one of the upstairs windows with a candle. ‘Knock again.’
Michael hammered a fourth time, hard enough to make the sound reverberate along the street, so that lights began to appear in the houses of Deschalers’s neighbours. Immediately to the left was Cheney the spicer’s home, and Bartholomew saw him open a window to see what the noise was about. He was shirtless, but still sported the red hat he had worn when he had been with the other members of the Millers’ Society earlier. Someone called for him to return to bed, and Bartholomew recognised the stridently insistent tones of Una the prostitute. The house on Deschalers’s right was owned by Constantine Mortimer – Edward’s father – but, although lights flickered briefly in one chamber, no one was curious enough about furious bangs to come and investigate.
Eventually, Michael’s pounding was answered by an elderly, stooped man who carried a candle. He wore the same livery as Deschalers’s apprentices, a red tunic emblazoned with the grocer’s distinctive motif of a pot with the letter D inside it. He cupped his ear when Michael asked to be allowed in, then informed the monk that he had no wish to become a student, thank you, because Michaelhouse had a reputation for serving small portions at mealtimes.
‘What?’ asked Michael, bemused. ‘I have not come here to recruit you, man! I am here to ask you about your master, Thomas Deschalers.’
‘I am fond of pigeon,’ said the servant. ‘But you have to watch the bones at my age.’
‘I see,’ said Michael, pushing past him to reach the shadowy interior of the merchant’s house. ‘Hand me the candle.’
‘I do not eat dog,’ said the servant indignantly. ‘The hair might get trapped in my throat.’
‘Lord!’ muttered Michael, snatching the lamp and climbing the stairs to the large room on the upper floor that Deschalers used as an office. ‘Please shoot me, Matt, when I reach the point where I make rambling statements about food all the time.’
‘I shall hire a crossbow for tomorrow, then,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘What are we doing here, Brother? We cannot search Deschalers’s house in the middle of the night – especially with no credible witnesses. People will say we came here to see what is worth stealing.’
Michael sighed, looking at the shelves with their neatly stacked piles of documents, and at the table, where more parchments had been filed by pressing them on to spiked pieces of wood. ‘I do not know what I hoped to find. A suicide letter, perhaps, or something telling us why he murdered Bottisham, then killed himself.’
‘Cat is something I have never enjoyed,’ burbled the servant. ‘It tastes too much like ferret.’
‘We do not know that is what happened,’ warned Bartholomew. ‘I know you would rather have Deschalers than Bottisham as the killer, but we cannot draw that conclusion with the evidence we have. But there is no note here, Brother, and we should leave. I do not know why you expected one, when you know Deschalers could not write.’