‘Mistress Coxley, what is it?’ she asked in the quiet, reassuring tones that made people turn to her in times of trouble. ‘My dear soul, you’re trembling. What’s happened? Come in and sit down for a moment.’
‘No, no! I won’t stop. I must get home to Wilfred and tell him the news, if he hasn’t heard it already. I’d have gone straight there, but I know Master Chapman has an interest in such matters. It’s just been a terrible shock, that’s all. The baker’s been murdered.’
‘What?’ I cried, stepping forward in such a hurry that, if Adela had not had the foresight to move in front of me, Mistress Coxley might have had an even nastier shock than the one she had sustained already. ‘Master Overbecks? When? Why? How did it happen?’
‘No, no! Not Master Overbecks! Did I say Master Overbecks?’ The old lady was peevish, incensed by my lack of understanding. ‘I’d be a deal more upset than this if it had been John Overbecks who was dead. No! I’m talking about that rogue, Jasper Fairbrother. And if I weren’t a Christian, I’d say good riddance to bad rubbish. But as I am, I’ll say it’s no more than he deserved.’ On which pious note, she folded her bloodless lips together over her blackened teeth and nodded vigorously.
‘Jasper Fairbrother?’ I exclaimed, now thoroughly confused. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure! Dang it! D’you think my wits have gone wool-gathering, young man?’ She appealed to Adela. ‘Does he think I’m senile that I can’t tell Jasper Fairbrother from John Overbecks? Besides, I was there, just passing by, when that Walter Godsmark came rushing out of the shop, screaming that his master had been murdered. Stabbed to death, he said, with one of his own knives.’
I was just about to repeat Adela’s invitation to her to come into the cottage, when I recollected that I was in no fit sartorial state to question a sensitive old lady at close quarters. In any case, she was anxious to get home to her husband, and then to spread the news further among the rest of her neighbours and cronies.
We withdrew indoors and I began pulling on my clothes, while Adela set some water to heat so that I could shave. I was all for rushing out as I was, my beard being so fair that my morning stubble was barely noticeable — or so I argued. But Adela would have none of it and stood over me while I plied my razor and rubbed my teeth with willow bark, then saw me dressed in a clean shirt, straightened my tunic and patted my cheek approvingly, exactly as she would later do for Nicholas.
The whole town was abuzz with news of the murder. The gatekeeper on the Frome Gate was deep in goggle-eyed conversation with a drover, whose sheep were all over the place, blocking the archway and access to the Frome Bridge beyond. Cursing, I fought my way through the errant flock, receiving a scant nod of recognition from the gatekeeper. He did, however, call after me, ‘Roger! Have you heard the news?’ But I was halfway across the bridge by that time. I proceeded under Saint John’s Arch and up Broad Street. There were knots of people everywhere, outside front doors, on corners, standing in the middle of the road and hampering the street cleaners, who were trying to shovel yesterday’s decaying rubbish into carts, before driving it to the wharves to be loaded on to barges and eventually dumped in the rivers Frome and Avon. Any lingering doubts I might have harboured that Goody Coxley could have been mistaken in the identity of the victim were dispelled by the almost holiday atmosphere that pervaded the streets and by the barely suppressed smiles on people’s faces. Jasper Fairbrother had made himself so hated by the vast majority of his fellow citizens that no one mourned him, not even, I suspected, Walter Godsmark, who, although badly shaken by his discovery of the body earlier that morning, was indifferent to the actual manner of his late master’s death.
Richard Manifold, Peter Littleman and Jack Gload were already on the scene by the time I arrived, and were none too pleased to see me.
‘There’s nothing for you to do here, Roger,’ the first-named said forcefully as soon as he spotted me among the crowd gathered around Jasper’s shop doorway. ‘It’s a straightforward stabbing by someone or other. The only problem’s going to lie in finding anyone who didn’t loathe Master Fairbrother enough to want to kill him. Practically the entire town could be under suspicion.’
At these words, people began muttering and edging away. Within moments, I was the only onlooker left anywhere near the bakery, and I grinned appreciatively at the sergeant.
‘Very neat, Richard,’ I said. ‘Very neat indeed. So, what exactly has happened? By the way,’ I added, lying through my teeth, ‘Adela hopes you’ll take supper with us again this evening.’
I saw him pause and weigh up the situation. On one hand, the last thing he wanted was me hanging about, poking my long nose into his enquiry. On the other, in spite of the good face he put upon his lack of wife and family, I guessed that he was lonely, and that any invitation to exchange his solitude for company — particularly company as congenial to him as Adela’s — was always welcome. He hesitated — but not for long.
‘Oh, step inside,’ he conceded irritably. ‘I know I shan’t get rid of you otherwise.’ He turned to his two henchmen. ‘Take young Godsmark along to the Council Hall. I’ll come and take his deposition as soon as I’ve finished here.’ He added, on an admonitory note, ‘And don’t either of you two dolts start questioning him before I come. Is that understood?’
Peter Littleman and Jack Gload nodded without resentment. They were both too simple to be offended. But they were good strong-arm men, and intimidated even the burly Walter Godsmark. He went with them without a protest.
‘Where’s the body?’ I asked, and was told to follow Richard Manifold upstairs to the living quarters above the shop.
He led the way through the bakery, with its ovens and trestles, to a narrow passage at the rear, where a flight of creaky stairs was dimly discernible on our right. Once we had mounted these, we found ourselves in a room that plainly combined the functions of kitchen and living-room. An oven was built into one wall, with, below it, a smaller one for burning wood. A pile of logs and sticks stood alongside. There were some shelves, on which stood various pots and pans, plates and beakers, and a small side table on which reposed a chopping block and a variety of knives. There was also a cupboard in which, presumably, food was stored. But my eyes were immediately drawn to the table in the middle of the room. The remains of a meal were scattered in all directions, and lying across it, face down, was the body of Jasper Fairbrother, a black-handled knife sticking out of his back on the left-hand side. The eyes were open and staring, and the hard, mean features still retained a look of surprise, as though Death had caught him unawares.
My companion must have inspected the corpse already, but he went across and ran expert hands over it once again.
‘The body’s still in the grip of rigor mortis,’ he said. ‘In my experience, that lasts the best part of a day. But — ’ he pressed the jaw — ‘the face is beginning to soften very slightly, and, again in my experience, that happens after about twelve hours or so.’
I did my calculations. ‘It’s now nearly dinner time. Almost ten o’clock. Which could mean that Jasper was killed about the same time yesterday evening. Is that what you’re saying?’ He grunted. I went on, ‘After dark, then. Although these midsummer nights are not really dark. It’s sometimes still light enough at that hour to see a cat in shadow. You might be lucky and find a witness who saw the murderer approaching Jasper Fairbrother’s door.’
Richard Manifold snorted. ‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. It’s bad enough finding witnesses at the best of times. No one wants to get involved with the law. But for a man like this, who was detested by almost everyone, it will be damn near impossible.’
His tone was bitter. I murmured that, in such a case, the sheriff would surely understand, which produced another snort. I went closer and inspected the body for myself. There was very little blood. The knife had been plunged neatly between the ribs, inward and upward into the heart by someone standing behind and slightly to the left of his victim. Whoever had done the deed had probably not even been stained by a single drop of blood.