Michael considered the matter, but then shook his head. ‘I am as bemused by this strange happenstance as you are, but it cannot be relevant. It is impossible that Elyan is involved in whatever happened to Wynewyk. First, he cannot have gained access to our College, and second, he is a stranger to our town, so not in a position to hire someone else to do it for him. Besides, I thought we had agreed that Wynewyk died of a seizure brought on by laughter.’
‘We did not agree – you decided that was what we were going to tell people. However, the truth is that I have absolutely no idea why Wynewyk died. But to return to Elyan, do not forget that his wife travelled here with their household priest – Edith told me Neubold represented Elyan in his business dealings with King’s Hall. In other words, he is not as much a stranger to Cambridge as you think.’
‘He is, if he sends Neubold to do his work,’ Michael pointed out. ‘But we shall bear the possibility in mind. Meanwhile, there is another connection, too – Gosse’s lawyer is also called Neubold. Of course, we do not know if it is the same man.’
Bartholomew frowned. ‘If they are one and the same, then it raises another question – namely, why did a respectable lady elect to keep company with the kind of man who has felons as clients?’
‘According to what Edith told me the day after Joan died, Joan simply took advantage of an opportunity to travel. She also said that Neubold failed to come when Joan was dying. That is odd.’
‘Perhaps Joan was not the only one with friends here,’ suggested Bartholomew, wondering whether Neubold had taken the opportunity to avail himself of a Frail Sister; prostitutes were not very readily available to priests in small villages, and Neubold would not be the first cleric to take advantage of what a large town could offer.
The notion of Frail Sisters reminded Bartholomew of Matilde, and he tried to imagine what she would have said, had she heard of what Wynewyk stood accused. She had been fond of Wynewyk, and Bartholomew was sure she would have defended him.
‘… message did not reach Neubold in time,’ Michael was saying as the physician wrenched his thoughts away from two people he had loved and lost. ‘Although I doubt Elyan was pleased when he learned Neubold had failed his wife. But we are moving away from the real point here, which is that Wynewyk wrote in our accounts that Elyan sold him coal.’
‘But we do not burn coal. Did he mean charcoal? He uses the Latin carbo, which can mean either. And there is yet another coincidence: the Dominican whom Shropham killed was named Carbo.’
‘I once had a black horse called Carbo, and so did two of my sisters,’ said Michael tartly. ‘If you start seeing links between the name of a mad priest and the items Wynewyk bought, we will never get to the bottom of this mess, because we will be distracted by irrelevancies. Besides, Carbo was not the man’s real name.’
‘No. It sounded as though it was one he had picked for himself,’ Bartholomew agreed.
‘Actually, he claimed God gave it to him. But to return to more important matters, the accounts tell us that Wynewyk made large payments to two more Suffolk men, as well as Elyan: d’Audley for wood, and Luneday for pigs.’
‘D’Audley?’ Bartholomew was growing confused. ‘He is Elyan’s friend, who came with him to collect Joan’s body and take it home.’
But Michael was not listening. ‘It makes no sense,’ he said, his voice a mixture of hurt and frustration. ‘Wynewyk must have known he would be caught eventually, so why did he do it?’
‘That is what we are going to find out,’ vowed Bartholomew. ‘He will have had his reasons.’
‘I do not know what to think. On the one hand, I feel betrayed. On the other, I cannot help but feel you are right, and there must be an explanation. It makes me sympathetic to King’s Hall, though: none of them believe Shropham is a killer, although the evidence says otherwise. Visit him, Matt. Now, this morning. Persuade him to tell you why he is putting his colleagues through this nightmare.’
Shropham had been moved to the proctors’ gaol, a small, cramped building near St Mary the Great, and although it was not the festering hole used to secure prisoners in the castle, it was a dismal place nonetheless. When Bartholomew was shown into Shropham’s cell, the King’s Hall man was sitting disconsolately on the edge of a wooden bed. He had been provided with blankets, although he had made no effort to wrap them around himself. Bartholomew did it for him, after he had inspected the wound and found it healing well.
‘It will be sore for a few days,’ he said. ‘And you will have to favour it for a while, until the muscles mend. Do you want anything to ease the pain?’
‘I want something that will kill me,’ whispered Shropham, looking at him for the first time since he had arrived. ‘Something that will allow me to slip away without causing any more trouble.’
There were a number of ways a prisoner could take his own life in prison – he could hang himself from the bars on his window, cut himself with the knife provided for slicing up his meat, or drown himself in the water left for drinking and washing – and the fact that Shropham had not tried any led Bartholomew to conclude he was not serious.
‘It would be a lot easier if you just told the truth,’ the physician said practically. ‘Carbo was not in his right mind, and while that does not give anyone the right to kill him, it might go some way towards explaining what happened. Your situation is not as hopeless as you seem to think.’
‘It is,’ said Shropham miserably. ‘Brother Michael will put me under oath, and if I make up a tale to exonerate myself, I shall have to do it with my hand on the Bible. My immortal soul…’
‘I said you should tell the truth, not lie,’ objected Bartholomew. ‘You must have a reason for what you did, so tell Michael, and let him help you.’
‘No,’ said Shropham in a low voice. ‘I would rather die than … Are you sure you cannot give me something to end it all? It would be for the best.’
Bartholomew left feeling slightly soiled. Patients had pleaded with him to end their lives before, but they were usually dying of painful diseases, so their demands were understandable. He had never been asked to provide an easy way out for someone reluctant to tell the truth, and he had not liked it.
He was lost in thought as he walked down the narrow lane that led to the High Street. Shropham did not seem like a cold-blooded killer, but Bartholomew struggled to remember him each time they met, which underlined the fact that he really did not know him at all. For all he knew, Shropham was a seasoned assassin, and this was just the first time he had been caught.
He glanced up when he saw a flicker of movement in the shadows ahead of him, then stopped when two figures materialised. They were Gosse and Idoma. Bartholomew sighed. He was not in the mood for a set-to with felons.
‘Well?’ Gosse asked, nonchalantly drawing his dagger and using it to clean his fingernails. ‘Did you pass my message to your colleagues? About handing over what is rightfully mine?’
‘It slipped my mind,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘Partly because I have no idea what you were talking about. What do we have that you think is yours?’
‘Do not lie,’ said Idoma, fixing him with her peculiar eyes. Involuntarily, he took a step backwards. Michael was right: there was something unpleasantly charismatic about her, something that had compelled him to move against his will. ‘You know perfectly well what my brother means.’
‘I assure you, I–’ he began.
‘Perhaps he is telling the truth,’ said Gosse to his sister. ‘One can never tell with scholars, slippery creatures that they are. But that is no excuse for failing to act as my messenger.’