‘Nasty,’ he said unsteadily, although Bartholomew was not sure whether he meant the manner of Walcote’s death or the fact that he was now obliged to pay close attention to such matters.
Outside the church, Nicholas was waiting for them, clutching a bundle that he proffered to Michael. ‘These are Will’s clothes,’ he said shyly. ‘He was wearing a habit, a cloak and boots, all of which I removed when his body was brought here. I suppose we should distribute them to the poor, but it is hard to part with this last reminder of him. Will you do it?’
‘Keep them,’ said Michael, who like Bartholomew had noticed that Nicholas’s own robe was pitifully threadbare and that he wore sandals, despite the fact that there had been a frost the previous night. Bartholomew thought it was not surprising he had chilblains. ‘Will would have wanted them to be given to his friends.’
Nicholas swallowed hard. ‘We all liked Will, and were proud that an Austin was a proctor. We hoped he might even become Senior Proctor one day.’ He flushed suddenly, realising that for that to happen, Michael would have to be removed. ‘I am sorry, Brother. I did not mean…’
He trailed off miserably, and Michael patted his shoulder. ‘It is all right. I had hopes for Will’s future, too. He was a good man.’
‘Yes, he was,’ said Nicholas, tears filling his eyes. He gave them a surreptitious scrub with the back of his hand. ‘Laying out his body was the least I could do.’
‘You did that very carefully, but there is still a patch of something yellow on one hand,’ said Bartholomew. ‘What is it, do you know?’
Nicholas sniffed, hugging Walcote’s belongings to him. ‘I have no idea, but it would not wash off. The same substance was on his habit, too. Look.’
He freed a sleeve from the carefully packed bundle, revealing a patch of something that was sticky to the touch, slightly greasy and pale yellow.
‘How much of it was there?’ asked Bartholomew, touching it with his forefinger.
‘Just the patch on his hand and the little bit on his sleeve,’ said Nicholas. ‘It seems to repel water. I borrowed some soap from Prior Ralph, but it still would not come off.’
‘I need to see Ralph,’ said Michael. ‘I have a few questions to ask.’
Nicholas went to fetch him, leaving Bartholomew, Michael and Timothy standing in the cloister alone.
‘What is that stain exactly?’ asked Timothy, bending to touch the residue on the garment Nicholas had put carefully on a stone bench.
‘I have no idea,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘The only other time I have seen it was on Faricius.’
‘So is that why you imagine it to be significant?’ asked Timothy, straightening to look at him. He gave an apologetic grin. ‘Forgive my questions. I am just trying to learn as much from you as I can, so that I can fulfil my new duties. But if you do not know what this yellow slime is, then how can you be sure that Walcote and Faricius did not acquire it quite independently of each other?’
‘I cannot be sure,’ said Bartholomew. ‘But it is a peculiar substance, and I think it odd that it should appear on two corpses that were killed within a couple of days of each other.’
‘But Faricius was stabbed during a riot in broad daylight, and Walcote was hanged in the shadows of dusk,’ pointed out Timothy. ‘I can see nothing that connects them.’
‘You are probably right,’ said Bartholomew. ‘It is doubtless irrelevant.’
But something in the back of his mind suggested that it was not, and that it was an important clue in discovering who had killed a studious Carmelite friar and the University’s Junior Proctor.
Bartholomew shivered as he waited for Nicholas to fetch Prior Ralph de Norton. It seemed colder at Barnwell than it had been in Cambridge, and the wind sliced more keenly through his clothes. The cloisters, lovely though they were, comprised a lattice of carved stone that did little to impede the brisk breeze that rushed in from the north east. Bartholomew had heard that the wind that shrieked across the Fens with such violence every winter came from icy kingdoms above Norway and Sweden, where the land was perpetually frozen and the rays of the sun never reached.
‘I wondered when you would visit us, Brother,’ said a fat man with large lips and very protuberant eyes, who followed Nicholas through the cloister towards them. ‘I am so sorry about Will Walcote – sorry for the loss to my priory as well as the loss to you.’
Michael inclined his head. ‘I will find whoever did this, Prior Ralph. Believe me, I will.’
‘I do believe you,’ said Ralph softly. ‘I have heard that you and Doctor Bartholomew make a formidable team when it comes to solving murders.’
Bartholomew was not sure he liked being known as a solver of murders: he would have preferred his name to be associated with his work as a physician, which, after all, claimed most of his time. Still, he thought optimistically, perhaps the appointment of Timothy would mean he was obliged to help the monk less frequently in the future. Timothy seemed more proficient and eager than most of Michael’s junior proctors. When Ralph’s bulbous eyes shifted questioningly to Timothy, Michael introduced him as Walcote’s successor.
‘Good God!’ breathed Ralph, horrified. ‘You do not waste any time! Will is barely cold, and yet you have already appointed a Benedictine in his place. I was going to suggest you took another Austin canon – Nicholas, for example.’
Nicholas was mortified, and hung his head in embarrassment. But Timothy was unabashed, and rose to deal with the issue with cool dignity.
‘I appreciate that my appointment must seem sudden, but that happened only because the Chancellor is determined to catch the monster who killed Will. If you, or anyone else, is dissatisfied with my performance once the culprit is caught, I will willingly resign and someone else can take my place.’
Ralph relented in the face of Timothy’s disarming graciousness. ‘I am sure that will not be necessary. I am sorry, Brother; I was merely taken aback by the speed with which Will was replaced.’
‘Do you know anyone who had a grudge against Will?’ Michael asked, finally getting down to business. ‘I hate to ask such a thing, but we must leave no stone unturned, if we are to bring his killer to justice.’
Ralph appeared surprised by the question. ‘I thought you would be better placed to answer that. I imagine many people objected to the long arm of the law as personified by Will.’
‘I meant here, in the priory,’ said Michael. ‘Of course we will be reviewing his recent cases, but we need to know whether anyone had taken against him at his home.’
‘Of course not,’ said Ralph, a little offended. ‘He was not here much, despite the fact that he enjoyed our company. He always said that walking home to us after a day of chasing miscreants and malefactors around the town made him feel as though he were properly escaping from his duties for a few hours.’
‘That is how I feel about Michaelhouse,’ said Michael, blithely ignoring the fact that his beadles regularly visited him there, and that he was constantly at their beck and call. ‘So, there is no one at Barnwell who you think might have been jealous of his success or resentful of his connections with the University?’