She preceded him into her room, where de Gifford stood up and greeted them with his usual smooth courtesy. ‘Good day to you both.’
The Abbess returned his greeting. Moving around her table and seating herself in her chair, she said without preamble, ‘I understand that you wish to speak to me?’
De Gifford, emulating her directness, said, ‘A man named Arthur Fitzurse has been to see me. He claims to be a friend of the Bell brothers and, apparently unaware that I am already doing so, he has asked — demanded — that I instigate a full-scale search for Walter Bell, whom he is very afraid may have met the same fate as Teb.’
Josse asked swiftly, ‘Is this Fitzurse the man who was overheard talking to Teb Bell in the tavern?’
De Gifford turned to him. ‘Yes.’
‘And what do you know of him?’
‘Very little,’ de Gifford confessed. ‘Personally I have never met him and my man who saw him with Teb Bell will say only that Fitzurse looks “vaguely familiar” and that he “could have seen him once or twice afore”. Fitzurse is in middle age — perhaps in the mid-thirties — and dresses well. When seen in the tavern he wore a dark woollen tunic with good, bright trimmings and his boots were of supple and probably costly leather and when he-’
‘Your man keeps his eyes open,’ the Abbess interrupted.
‘He does, my lady,’ de Gifford agreed. ‘When Fitzurse came to see me, he was dressed in a different tunic and also a thick fur-trimmed cloak. As I said, he is a man who likes to dress well and has the means to do so.’
‘We were going to search for Walter Bell ourselves,’ Josse said. ‘When you left us two days ago, I was planning to organise the lay brothers into a hunt both among the people staying here in the Abbey and also out into the fringes of the forest.’
‘And did you find anything?’ There was a strange eagerness in de Gifford’s tone, Josse thought uneasily, as if it were very important that Josse gave him a positive answer.
Josse glanced at the Abbess. ‘Er — we were called away on another matter and, as you see, have only just returned. I will speak to Brother Saul presently and ask if he has news for us.’
‘I see.’ De Gifford frowned. Then, turning to the Abbess, he said, ‘My lady, I have been fervently hoping that Walter Bell would turn up alive and well, with no mischief done either by him or to him. But my own search party has found no trace of him. He is known to frequent the tavern in Tonbridge, just as his brother did — in fact they were regularly to be found there, heads together as they plotted their various schemes. Nobody has seen Walter for some weeks. The last positive sighting was reported by Goody Anne, who had an argument with him one market day at the start of the month.’ He paused. ‘She is a reliable woman, I have always found, and I am inclined to believe her.’
‘So am I,’ Josse agreed. Turning to the Abbess, he said, ‘I have met Goody Anne on several occasions, my lady, and she is both intelligent and shrewd.’ The Abbess nodded. To de Gifford he said, ‘What was the argument about?’
De Gifford smiled. ‘Walter Bell complained that his dish of pie was cold and Goody Anne said it was his own fault for drinking two mugs of ale on an empty stomach and getting so garrulous that he forgot to eat his dinner.’
‘Garrulous,’ murmured the Abbess. Both men turned to look at her. ‘If he was garrulous, he was talking to somebody, perhaps more than one person,’ she said. ‘Would she, do you think, Sheriff, remember who?’
Looking at her approvingly as if in appreciation of her astute remark, de Gifford said, ‘She does. He was talking with his brother and with Arthur Fitzurse and, according to Anne, they were very intent on whatever it was they were saying — plotting was her word — and they kept their heads close and their voices down as if they didn’t want to be overheard.’
Josse, picking up de Gifford’s urgency, said to the Abbess, ‘My lady, with your permission I will seek out Brother Saul and ask if the search party has come up with anything.’
She nodded. ‘Of course, Sir Josse. Send someone to find him.’
He bowed briefly and hurried to the door. Opening it, he saw a lay brother crossing the cloister towards the refectory and called out to him; once he had the young man’s attention, he asked him to find Brother Saul and send him up to the Abbess’s room.
Returning into the room, he found de Gifford answering some question of the Abbess’s about the Bell brothers: ‘… live in a hovel out on a track leading off the coast road,’ he was saying, ‘and neither had a wife, although for a time there was apparently some — er, a woman who lived with Teb and kept house for them both, although I understand that they’ve always lived in such squalor that her efforts can’t have amounted to much.’
‘They live by theft?’ she asked.
De Gifford shrugged. ‘So it appears, although nothing has been proved against them.’
‘And you told me yourself that one of them is a murderer,’ she murmured.
‘Yes.’ He lowered his eyes. ‘Walter is a dangerous man.’
There was a brief silence. We are all waiting for Saul, Josse thought, hoping against reason that he will come in with a big smile to tell us that Walter Bell has seen the error of his ways and has come to Hawkenlye to be shriven of his sins and is even now down in the Vale selflessly helping the monks tend the pilgrims …
There was a gentle tap on the door and, in answer to the Abbess’s ‘Come in’, Saul entered.
He bowed to the Abbess and to de Gifford. He was looking anxious and so, having glanced at the Abbess and received her nod of encouragement, Josse hastened to reassure him. ‘Saul, please excuse this abrupt summons but we need to ask you if anything came of the search for Walter Bell,’ he explained quickly.
Saul was already shaking his head. ‘No, Sir Josse. We have asked everyone presently within the Abbey whether they know of him or have seen him here and all yesterday afternoon me and Gussie and four of the other brothers hunted through the nearer stretches of the forest. We found no sign that anyone had been camping out there, no sign at all.’ He gave a reminiscent shiver. ‘It’s too cold for skulking out of doors,’ he remarked, ‘leastways, not without a very good reason.’
‘Aye,’ Josse said. But Walter Bell, he thought, may have a very good reason for skulking if he’s hunting for his brother’s killer and does not want anyone to know it.
De Gifford must have been thinking the same. ‘You are sure, Brother Saul?’ he asked. ‘You really do not think that anyone could have been hiding up there in the forest and spying on the comings and goings in the Abbey?’
Saul paused as if giving the question careful consideration. Then he said, ‘I can’t say as that we’d necessarily have spotted a man who was intent on hiding, sir, because that would be the purpose of his hiding, wouldn’t it? To make sure anyone who came looking didn’t find him?’
‘Yes, Saul.’ De Gifford smiled faintly.
‘But I’m as certain as I can be that there weren’t anybody about, nor had been since the heavy frosts began,’ Saul continued, sounding more confident now, ‘because the ground’s set hard up there under the trees and we didn’t find any sign in the frozen grass that anyone had been by. Animal tracks aplenty — boar and fox and maybe a wolf — but you’d expect to find them.’
‘Thank you, Brother Saul.’ The Abbess gave him a warm smile, to which he responded. ‘That will be all.’
Saul bowed to them and backed out of the door, closing it carefully behind him.
‘Walter Bell isn’t here,’ Josse said neutrally. ‘Nobody can find him.’
‘It appears that you are right on both counts,’ de Gifford agreed. He looked at the Abbess, then, as if he did not want to continue watching her, turned to Josse. ‘In which case it seems I have no option but to reveal to you both what else Arthur Fitzurse said.’